Adrien Hanley

Appeasement DA

Notes Neg
Hello!
Uniqueness there are a few different routes here.
a) The 1NC says that the US is shifting toward a hardline stance in the
SCS now mostly thanks to US generals and freedom of navigation
patrols (basically we drive boats near Chinese islands in an effort to
show we dont agree with them and that any further expansion risks
war. However, because the elections are coming up, and china knows
that either trump or Hillary are going to be more hardline, they are
looking for any signs of weakness from Obama, if they get those signs
they will expand as fast as possible before the next elections.
Obviously switch out the uniqueness come November
b) There are other uniqueness cards, as well as link specific uniqueness.
Most of them say Obama is shifting toward a hardline stance on china.
Its difficult to win that Obama isnt doing ANY engagement, but if you
win the general direction is towards containment that means the plan
reverses the direction and collapses our credibility

You should update the uniqueness come September, and then every couple
months.

Link
They are specific to affs, but basically its that when we engage with china it
makes china think that we arent willing to contest their SCS
expansion/aggressiveness. It collapses the credibility, which is basically the
idea that the US will follow through in the instance where China invades
part of the phillipines, or a japaneses island. This means china
miscalculates, and believes it can take these islands without military
retaliation. China needs to believe that the US will retaliate, and a strategy of
engagement and cooperation sends the opposite signal, because why would
you cooperate with an enemy? That brings me to the appeasement stuff.
When you do things that China has ASKED FOR, which their say yes
evidence proves, China perceives it as appeasing it, giving it concessions in
order to try and get it to change its behavior. This is bad because good
evidence says that appeasement doesnt change behavior, rather it signals
that other countries wont follow thorugh. Use an example from WW2 from
when the British prime minister Neville Chamberlin agreed with Hitler that
Hitler could have Czechoslovakia if he promised that he wont invade Europe.
Chamberlin said after the deal we have achieved peace in our timewhelp
that clearly didnt work out, Hitler just though that the British wouldnt
intervene in Europe. Hitler obviously miscalculated.

Impact
US china war. Also some other modules in the block, but the main focus of
the DA is us china war. If china miscalculates and invades the Otaku islands in
japan, or islands in the Philippines, or even thinks it can get away with flying
planes near us vessels, there will be a war. That leads to extinction.
Watch out what was tricky about writing this DA is that most of the authors
that say Obama is being hardline on China also say engagement is good.
Most of the authors that say we shouldnt engage with china also think that
Obama has been terrible and is appeasing. If the other team ever points out a
contradiction in your card, just say that that is an old example of Obama
appeasing, but your most recent uniqueness evidence says that Obama is
shifting through the Asia pivot, which began in about 2012.
If you want to see what the best args are against this DA, look at the Notes
Aff section.

Notes Af
If you want to beat the disad, there are three args u should be going for
1. No link uniqueness/non unique Im pretty sure you are on the side of
truth here that Obama is not decreasing his engagement with China
right now and is not taking a particularly hardline stance against china
right now. You are also on the side of truth that there is no reason your
aff is different from the climate agreement, nuclear agreements,
normal diplomacy, ect and that the impact should havae already
been triggered by all the engagement we are doing right now. Thats
the problem with a generic DA.
2. You arent appeasement most of the aff card says that the US
shoundt look weak in the context of the SCS, however your aff (unless
u are an SCS aff) probably isnt exactly what their cards are talking
about. Also, there are qualitative differences between appeasement
and engagement the Larson 12 evidence says that engagement
doesnt always try and change the behavior of the target state, but
rather is for the US own self interest. If the US does something in its
own self benefit,, China wont see it as appeasement because they
arent doing it for chinas sake
3. Turns!! there is great ev that more military in the SCS makes China
freak out even more, and that China is building defensively as a result
of things like US freedom of navigation patrols. If the plan were to pass
and the US looked like it was appeasing china, there is good ev that
that would mean risk of conflict would decrease, not the other way
around.

1NC
The US is shifting toward a hardline stance in the SCS now
but any sign of weakness means China will aggressively
expand before the next president is inaugurated
Kehoe 15
[John, May 18 2015, writes on the economy specializing in North America,
monetary policy, markets. Based in Washington, John began his career as an
Australian Treasury official before joining The Australian Financial Review in
2008, China tests Barack Obama's perceived weakness on South China Sea
http://www.afr.com/news/world/asia/china-tests-barack-obamas-perceivedweakness-on-south-china-sea-20150517-gh3hh8, Accessed June 28 2016,
A.H]
Eighteen months. That's the timeframe Beijing has to test how much territory
it can claim in disputed Asian waters, before a more uncompromising United States
commander in chief takes over from a perceived militarily-passive President Barack Obama. "

The

Chinese calculation is 'run hard now' ," says Ernest Bower, a senior adviser for southeast Asia at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The view from Washington is
that

US credibility in the Asia Pacific region, an area of major economic and strategic

importance to Australia,

is on the line as China pushes the boundaries. The

drumbeats for a more muscular US defence posture , combined with the ticking clock on
the Obama presidency, are an important explanation for the surprise public
revelation by a US Assistant Secretary of Defence last week . Under heated
questioning from Senators worried about Chinese territorial reclamations in the South China Sea, David
Shear let slip that the US will place extra air force assets including B-1
bombers and surveillance aircraft in Australia to deter "China's destabilising
effect" on the region. The remarks were the latest evidence of Australia being stranded in the
middle of an intensifying military rivalry between its most important economic and strategic partners;
China and the US. Within minutes, Chinese government officials were on the telephone to Canberra
demanding an explanation and publicly dressing down the Americans. The Pentagon now says Shear an
Asia policy expert but relatively new to the defence portfolio "misspoke". Yet

under new

Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, who is perceived to be taking a

harder line against Chinese aggression, the Pentagon was hardly
backing down. "We will be operating a mix of additional air force assets in
Australia on a rotational basis, including fighter, bomber, and tanker aircraft ,"
the Pentagon said in a clarifying statement. In nuanced defence speak, a B-1 bomber, as opposed to a
more general bomber, sparks alarm because "you're implying that you're expecting a pretty hot war," says
John Lee, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. "The B-1 is a very heavy, hot piece of war

"The Department of Defense

clarification statement [still] intends to signal the Americans are ready for all
contingencies." What surprised the Australians probably was not that the US was interested in
asset that you would use in a fairly major conflict."

possibly deploying B-1 assets. Rather, that Canberra should be caught off guard by such a public
declaration, even if it was later described as a misspeak at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

hearing.

As part of its "rebalance" to Asia, the US already has several

thousand marines stationed in Darwin and airforce and navy assets

in other parts of Australia and broader Asia.

China, Australia's largest trading

partner and major buyer of iron ore, coal and natural gas, is suspicious of the US-Australia security
alliance. The Chinese "are very worried that the marines based in Darwin 8000 miles from Beijing are
pointed like a dagger into the heart of China," former US assistant secretary of state, Kurt Campbell, said in
a speech in Washington in September 2014. Prime Minister Tony Abbott seemed caught on the back foot
on Friday, trying to placate Beijing by saying the US-Australia alliance "is not aimed at anyone". Yet
defence experts in Canberra and Washington say it is virtually certain the US and Australia have privately
broached the B-1 idea among a range of military options. Shear would undoubtedly have been aware of
such discussions, and in the heat of the moment perhaps strayed from his formal pre-briefing notes and
been more specific than intended. Yet such an ostensible gaffe is surprising to some. A person intimately
familiar with preparations for Congressional committee hearings, says "these guys are so well prepared
and briefed to the hilt and everything is so scripted". Shear, a career State Department diplomat who
most recently served as ambassador to Vietnam before crossing to the Pentagon last year, does not have
an experienced a military background. Like most newcomers to the Pentagon, he would have waded
through phone-book sized manuals to learn nuanced defence terminology. "It's like learning Chinese," one
observer says. Shear's apparent faux pas came as Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Beijing to discuss,
among other things, concern at China's land reclamation program at the Spratly Islands, in the middle of a

Republican chair, Senator

Bob Corker, is leaning on the Obama administration to be more strident
against China and goaded Shear to give a decisive response. Shear possibly wanted to project
high-pressured Senate committee hearing on the South China Sea.

strength, not only to the Senators, but also the Chinese. Until now, the Obama administration has
repeatedly aired its concerns about China's actions in the South China Sea and expressed a preference for
nations to follow international maritime rules. But those diplomatic pleas have largely been ignored by an
increasingly assertive Chinese government led by nationalist President Xi Jinping. China has constructed
artificial land masses, including runways, in the South China Sea. The tensions reached new heights last
July, when Chinese ships rammed Vietnamese vessels and sprayed sailors with water cannons in a clash

Obama
administration is "recognising that Beijing is looking at them and seeing some
weakness". "Beijing thinks it has 18 months remaining of Obama to move aggressively with its
over plans to drill for oil in disputed waters. Perhaps belatedly, CSIS's Bower says the

reclamation efforts," Bower says. "The Chinese are correctly assessing that whoever is the next president
of the United States, unless it is [anti-war Republican candidate] Rand Paul, they're going to have a much
stronger and decisive America to deal with."

"What's clear to the Americans is that

the Chinese are not going to stop until they find where the line is."
The Pentagon has signalled it is considering more assertive options ,
including via an auspiciously-timed leak to the Wall Street Journal a day before the Senate hearing last
week.

It was reported the US military may send naval and air patrols

near reefs and islands where China is reclaiming land.

This came ahead of

Secretary of State John Kerry's weekend visit to Beijing. After meeting foreign minister Wang Yi on
Saturday, Secretary Kerry said he urged China to "reduce tensions" and increase diplomatic solutions, "not
outposts and military airstrips". Mr Wang held firm on China's right to construct on waters claimed by
Vietnam and the Philippines, reportedly saying its sovereignty was "firm as a rock and unshakeable".
"China and the US do have differences on the South China Sea issue but we also both help to maintain
peace and stability in the region and are committed to international freedom of navigation," Mr Wang said,
according to the Financial Times. Also after John Kerry's meeting with Wang Yi, the official Xinhua
newsagency in Beijing quoted vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of China, Fan Changlong,
sayng "China's determination and will to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity is unswerving," In
Washington

recent personnel changes at the top of the Pentagon

appear to be already shifting the Asia equation.

While not a warmonger,

Carter, who was confirmed as defence secretary in February, is a "supporter of the Asia region" and has
lived and breathed defence his whole career, says Elbridge Colby, Robert M Gates fellow at the Centre for a

New American Security. "My sense is Carter is going to become a much more engaged driving force as
secretary than [Chuck] Hagel was," Colby says. Carter is due to deliver a highly anticipated speech at a
major defence conference in Singapore at the end of this month. Close observers says he is expected to
definitively and unapologetically outline a firmer stance on Chinese aggression, in support of US allies such
as Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Additionally, the appointment of the tough-minded Harry Harris as
head of the United States Pacific Command has increased perceptions that the Pentagon is becoming
bolder towards countering China. Harris, born in Japan, was formerly Pacific Fleet commander and has
firsthand experience of China's hard line behaviour in disputed waters. "I do think the Pentagon and
military is a little more attuned to the Asia Pacific than other parts of the executive system in the US,"
Colby says. The remarks are veiled reference to a perception among some US Asian allies and Asian
policy experts in Washington, that Kerry and national security adviser Susan Rice, do not exhibit a strong
enough interest in Asia. Echoing that sentiment, Bower says Carter will be the chief US Asian rebalance
leader in the absence of others stepping up. From the outside Kerry and Rice appear, perhaps
understandably, more devoted to dealing with various other hotspots, including Iran, Syria, Iraq and
Ukraine. Regardless,

judging from recent hawkish speeches b y Republican presidential

contenders such as Texas senator Ted Cruz, Florida senator and foreign policy devotee Marco Rubio
and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, the Chinese may believe the window to
test the limits of Washington's commitment on the issue is
gradually closing . Democrat favourite Hillary Clinton, who led the Asia rebalance charge as
Obama's secretary of state before handing the reins to Kerry ,

is also considered more

aggressive on foreign policy. As a Senator, she voted for the Iraq war, a decision she now
concedes was a mistake. Rubio, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, said last week
American global leadership needed to be restored by a US president who was "not a taxer or regulator in
chief" but a "commander in chief". He specifically named China as among the threats. "

American

strength is a means of preventing war, not promoting it,"

he said.

"Weakness on the other hand is the friend of danger and enemy of

peace."

For Australia, the stakes are only likely to rise in the twilight of the Obama presidency and

beyond, whoever is elected to the White House in November 2016.

[insert specific link]

Chinese expansionism leads to Sino Japanese War, which
draws in the US
Chang 15
[Gordon G, 12/31/15, lawyer and author, Cornell Law School Graduate, Now
China Wants Okinawa, Site of U.S. Bases in Japan
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/31/now-china-wants-okinawasite-of-u-s-bases-in-japan.html, Accessed June 23 2016, A.H]
Beijing

is pushing out in all directions , from the South China Sea to several Japanese islands,
with an eye on the eastern Pacific that laps American shores . On the day after
Christmas, three Chinese boats, one modified to carry four cannons, entered Japans territorial waters
surrounding the Senkaku Islands in the southern portion of the East China Sea. The move, a dangerous
escalation, is the first time the Peoples Republic of China sent an armed vessel into an area that Tokyo

The sending of the three Chinese vessels on Dec. 26 appears to

signal a new phase of incursions to grab not just the Senkaku Islands but the
nearbyand far more importantRyukyu Islands. Those include Okinawa,
which hosts more than half of the 54,000 American military personnel in
Japan, including those at Kadena Air Force Base, the Armys Fort Buckner and Torii Station, eight Marine
claims as its own.

Corps camps, as well as Air Station Futenma and Yontan Airfield, and the Navys Fleet Activities Okinawa.
Geopolitically, Okinawa is key to the American-Japanese alliance and the heart of Americas military

But if Beijing gets its way, U.S. military bases will be off
Okinawa soon. And Japan will be out of Okinawa, too. Chinese authorities in the spring
presence in Japan.

of 2013 brazenly challenged Japans sovereignty of the islands with a concerted campaign that included an
article in a magazine associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a widely publicized commentary in
Peoples Daily, the Communist Partys flagship newspaper and therefore Chinas most authoritative
publication; two pieces in the Global Times, the tabloid controlled by Peoples Daily; an interview of Maj.
Gen. Luo Yuan in the state-run China News Service; and a seminar held at prestigious Renmin University in
Beijing. At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to affirm that China recognized Okinawa
and the Ryukyus as Japanese. The close timing of events indicated these efforts had been directed from

Over the last decade, Beijing has been moving

in on Okinawa step by step, almost island by island. It has regularly dispatched its ships
the top of the Chinese political system.

and planes to the Senkaku Islands, often entering sovereign water and airspace, in a campaign to wrest
from the Japanese those small and uninhabited specks in the ocean. The provocations around the islets,
which China first claimed in 1971 and now calls the Diaoyus, spiked upward in 2012 and then noticeably
declined the following year. Whatever Beijings genuine intentions, Tokyo is not taking any chances.
Japanese authorities are now fortifying 200 islands strung across the 870-mile gap between Kyushu, the
most southern of Japans main islands, and the island of Taiwan. When completed, the line of anti-ship and
anti-aircraft missile batteries will dot the Ryukyu chain, blocking a critical passage linking the Chinese
coast to the Western Pacific. Reuters notes that for the first time Japanese officials are publicly admitting
that these fortifications are intended to keep China, in the words of the wire service, at bay. As a result
of the new barrier, the naval and air elements of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army will pay a dear price to
get from the west side of the Ryukyus to the east in wartime. Today, however, Chinese ships and planes
can transit this line of islands unimpeded. Eleven Chinese military aircrafteight H-6K bombers and three
surveillance and electronic intelligence planesdid just that on Nov. 27. The group split into two before
reaching the Ryukyus, with at least four bombers flying through a critical chokepoint, the Miyako Strait,
which cuts that island group in two. The Japanese were obviously concerned. After clearing the Miyako
Strait, the H-6Ks flew 620 miles into the Pacific. From their turnaround point, the Chinese aircraft could
have fired CJ-10K cruise missiles, which from there had the range to land conventional munitionsor
nuclear warheadson Guam, the American fortress in the Mariana Islands. The H-6Ks, Chinas most
modern bomber, could also have launched their devastating payloads toward Hawaiian targets if they had
proceeded deeper into the Pacific. And as Rick Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center
told The Daily Beast, Chinas next-generation bombers, the H-10s, will be able to hit West Coast cities from
locations over that body of water. The most immediate U.S. concern, however, is that during their lateNovember jaunt the H-6Ks brushed by Okinawa, which sits on the north side of the Miyako Strait and is the
biggest island in the Ryukyus. Beijings argument, like all its territorial claims, is rooted in long-ago history
1372 to be exact. By that year, as Gen. Luo pointed out to the China News Service, the Ryukyu kingdom
was paying tribute to the Chinese court, and Japan did not complete its annexation of the island chain until
1872. In their landmark May 2013 Peoples Daily commentary, Li Guoqiang and Zhang Haipeng of the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences maintained the annexation of the Ryukyus constituted an invasion.
Moreover, they wrote that Japans defeat in World War II nullified the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895, by
which the Qing court formally renounced its claims to the islands. For now, lets not discuss whether they
belong to Chinathey were certainly Chinas tributary state, said Luo to the China News Service. I am
not saying all former tributary states belong to China, but we can say with certainty that the Ryukyus do
not belong to Japan. The issues are not as clear cut as Luo, Li, and Zhang indicate, however. A Japanese
feudal lord conquered the islands in 1609 but permitted the Ryukyuans to also pay tribute to the court in
China. Another complication undermining Chinas position involves the identity of the Qing dynasty.
Although Beijing now considers that set of rulers to be Chinese, the Qings did not think of themselves that
way, especially during the early part of their rule, and the Chinese at the time certainly viewed them as
foreign invaders. Why, then, did Beijing question Japans sovereignty over the Ryukyu chain? It looks like it
wanted to gain an advantage in the Senkaku dispute, as a May 2013 Global Times editorial, titled Ryukyu
Issue Offers Leverage to China, makes explicit. Yet Beijings position is ultimately puzzling because, by

the Chinese have made themselves look

incurably aggressive, thereby reducing Japans incentive to agree to any
territorial concessions. Once Beijing disputed more than just the Senkakus in
raising the stakes with intimidation tactics,

other words, once Chinese leaders showed their real intention was to dismember JapanChina essentially
foreclosed further discussion. Using the Ryukyu sovereignty issue to resolve the Diaoyu dispute would
destroy the basis of China-Japan relations, Zhou Yongsheng of China Foreign Affairs University told the
Financial Times. If this was considered, it would basically be the prelude to military action. A fight of that
sort is something China cannot win. As Dennis

Blair, former commander in chief of the U.S.

Pacific Command, said to The Daily Beast, An attempt to take the Ryukyus
by China would mean war with the United States, as we are pledged
to defend Japan, and the Chinese would not succeed in capturing
them.

To win without fighting, the Chinese are doing their best to undermine Japanese rule. As June

Teufel Dreyer, a political science professor at the University of Miami, told The Daily Beast, Beijing has
been quietly stoking the issue from time to time, funneling cash to Chinese student associations in
Okinawa. Some funds may also find their way into support of Okinawans who are anti-U.S. bases, noted
Dreyer, who teaches courses on China and international relations. These tactics, although irritating, are
counterproductive, just enough to get Japanese policymakers angry but not enough to change the political

the Ryukyuans may be irritated at Tokyo from time to time, they

have no intention of becoming Chinese pawns, especially in light of Beijings
military moves off their shores. The issue going forward is whether Beijing will renew its
calculus in the Ryukyus. Although

Ryukyu campaign now that it is increasing the pressure on the Senkakus. One option for China is to go
beyond the open-ended position it took in 2013 and lay a formal claim to the Ryukyus. That would
constitute another strategic mistake. If the debate now includes Chinese extension of sovereignty over
the Ryukyus, then this is precisely the kind of overreach that will ultimately harm China, argues Toshi
Yoshihara of the Naval War College, in an e-mail message to The Daily Beast. This line of reasoning
parallels Chinas claims to historic rights over the South China Sea. As Yoshihara notes, Such a
worldview suggests that everything is potentially up for grabs. Chinese officials stopped talking about the
strategically important Ryukyus around the same time they began to decrease their intrusions around the
nearby Senkakus. After 2013, Beijing shifted its attention southward, to the South China Sea. Now,
Beijings ambitions are expanding in all directions. While making advances in the South China Sea, it is
renewing efforts to take the Senkakus.

Its next target looks like the Ryukyus, putting the

American bases on Okinawa in play. And China is unlikely to stop there.

Our navy wants to push through the island chains and reach the
eastern Pacific , said Zhang Haipeng, one of co-authors of the Peoples Daily commentary on the
Ryukyus, at the 2013 Renmin University seminar.

The eastern Pacific, lets

remember, washes onto American shores .

US China war goes nuclear extinction M.A.D doesnt

check
Wittner 11
[Lawrence, 11/30/11, Professor of History emeritus, SUNY Albany, Is a Nuclear War With China Possible?,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-wittner/nuclear-war-china_b_1116556.html, Accessed June 23
2016, A.H]

While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used .
After all, for centuries international conflicts have led to wars, with nations employing their deadliest
weapons. The current deterioration of U.S. relations with China might end up providing us with yet another
example of this phenomenon. The gathering tension between the United States and China is clear
enough. Disturbed by Chinas growing economic and military strength, the U.S. government recently
challenged Chinas claims in the South China Sea, increased the U.S. military presence in Australia, and
deepened U.S. military ties with other nations in the Pacific region. According to Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, the United States was asserting our own position as a Pacific power. But need this lead to
nuclear war? Not necessarily. And yet, there are signs that it could. After all, both the United States and

The U.S. government threatened to

attack China with nuclear weapons during the Korean War and, later, during
their conflict over the future of Chinas offshore islands , Quemoy and Matsu. In the
China possess large numbers of nuclear weapons.

midst of the latter confrontation, President Dwight Eisenhower declared publicly, and chillingly, that U.S.
nuclear weapons would be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else. Of course,
China didnt have nuclear weapons then. Now that it does, perhaps the behavior of national leaders will be
more temperate. But the loose nuclear threats of U.S. and Soviet government officials during the Cold War,
when both nations had vast nuclear arsenals, should convince us that, even as the military ante is raised,
nuclear saber-rattling persists. Some pundits argue that nuclear weapons prevent wars between nucleararmed nations; and, admittedly, there havent been very many at least not yet. But the Kargil War of
1999, between nuclear-armed India and nuclear-armed Pakistan, should convince us that such wars can
occur. Indeed, in that case, the conflict almost slipped into a nuclear war. Pakistans foreign secretary
threatened that, if the war escalated, his country felt free to use any weapon in its arsenal. During the
conflict, Pakistan did move nuclear weapons toward its border, while India, it is claimed, readied its own

dont nuclear weapons deter a

nuclear attack? Do they? Obviously, NATO leaders didnt feel deterred, for,
throughout the Cold War, NATOs strategy was to respond to a Soviet
conventional military attack on Western Europe by launching a Western
nuclear attack on the nuclear-armed Soviet Union. Furthermore, if U.S.
government officials really believed that nuclear deterrence worked, they
would not have resorted to championing Star Wars and its modern variant,
national missile defense. Why are these vastly expensive and probably unworkable military
nuclear missiles for an attack on Pakistan. At the least, though,

defense systems needed if other nuclear powers are deterred from attacking by U.S. nuclear might? Of
course, the bottom line for those Americans convinced that nuclear weapons safeguard them from a
Chinese nuclear attack might be that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is far greater than its Chinese counterpart.
Today, it is estimated that the U.S. government possesses over 5,000 nuclear warheads, while the Chinese
government has a total inventory of roughly 300. Moreover, only about 40 of these Chinese nuclear
weapons can reach the United States. Surely the United States would win any nuclear war with China.

An attack with these Chinese nuclear weapons

would immediately slaughter at least 10 million Americans in a great storm of
blast and fire, while leaving many more dying horribly of sickness and radiation poisoning. The
Chinese death toll in a nuclear war would be far higher . Both nations would be
reduced to smoldering, radioactive wasteland s. Also, radioactive debris sent
aloft by the nuclear explosions would blot out the sun and bring on a nuclear
winter around the globe destroying agriculture, creating worldwide
famine, and generating chaos and destruction. Moreover, in another decade the
extent of this catastrophe would be far worse. The Chinese government is
currently expanding its nuclear arsenal , and by the year 2020 it is expected to
more than double its number of nuclear weapons that can hit the United
States. The U.S. government, in turn, has plans to spend hundreds of billions
of dollars modernizing its nuclear weapons and nuclear production facilities
over the next decade.
But what would that victory entail?

Uniqueness

Hardline Econ Engage

US economic engagement with China is slowing now
allows Obama to take a hardline stance with Xi
Lee, 15
[Don, 9/24/15, LA Times writer, covers the U.S. and global economy,
Profound changes in China are straining its economic ties with the U.S.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-economy-20150924-story.html,
accessed June 30 2016, A.H]
After decades of ideologically based hostility, the United States and China found common ground on an
economic relationship that, while bumpy, served the larger interests of both countries. But now, China is
undergoing a rough transition, both economic and political. And that means difficult adjustments ahead for
Washington and Beijing, setting the scene for Chinese President Xi Jinping's first state visit to the nation's
capital Thursday. The recent crash in Chinese stocks and the government's abrupt currency devaluation,
which have sparked turmoil in global markets, are only the most dramatic signs of tectonic shifts that are
occurring beneath the surface in the world's second-largest economy and its most populous nation.

Beijing is in the midst of a major economic transition away from

manufacturing and into a service-based economy. That shift is necessary if China is to
become a stable middle-class nation, but the current financial market chaos shows it's not likely to be painfree. Moreover, Beijing's attempt to create a modern, Western-style, free-market economy while
maintaining an authoritarian and often corrupt and self-serving political system faces major
challenges. The consequences of that internal tension and upheaval are likely to be felt far beyond China's

the climate for American businesses has become more difficult.

U.S. and other Western businesses in China indicate they are finding it
increasingly difficult to access the country's large markets, hamstrung by
protectionist policies and even investigations of foreign firms. "The barriers
China is throwing up are becoming more serious ," particularly in areas of advanced
borders. Aready
Surveys of

technology, said Yukon Huang, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in

With U.S. exports down and the Chinese economy slowing, he said, "the
situation has gotten more complicate d and tenser." What made the economic
relationship work for the United States for so long was China's ability to
provide cheap manufactured goods and, later, its huge appetite for Americanmade products as varied as airliners and disposable diaper s. For its part, China got
American investments and technical know-how to build its own economic colossus. Now profound
changes in China are shaking the foundations of that relationship . China's move
Washington.

into a consumer-driven society presents potentially lucrative opportunities for the U.S. to use its strength
in sophisticated technology and services that include health, finances and entertainment but only if

China's growing wealth and strength

are leading naturally to seeking a more dominant role in the region, which has
manifested itself in increasing tensions over territorial island claims with
Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. U.S.-China relations have been strained
further by Washington's allegations of Chinese hacking , or cyberattacks, on
U.S. government and business systems . "This is going to be a very blunt
meeting between Xi and Obama," said David Bachman, a China expert at the University of
they're open to fair competition. At the same time,

Washington in Seattle. Xi began his U.S. visit this week in Seattle, where he sought to reassure American
businesses that Beijing would press on with economic reforms and protect the rights of foreign investors.
In deals signed during his visit this week, Chinese companies agreed to buy 300 Boeing jets and build the
airliner's first assembly plant in China. But those deals, similar to previous orders made during Chinese
presidential visits, do not address the broader concerns of American businesses. Xi last visited the White
House in 2012 as China's vice president. Then the Chinese economy seemed to be steaming ahead, albeit
a little more slowly, while the U.S. was struggling with sluggish growth. The tables have since turned.

U.S. exports to China account for less than 1% of the American economy , so it
isn't so vulnerable on trade. But for years China has been one of the biggest buyers of U.S. Treasury bonds,
and more recently Chinese investors have been gobbling up American houses and other real estate,
particularly on the West Coast. Although many think the concerns about Chinese growth are overblown,
the problems have unnerved global markets for weeks and were enough for the Federal Reserve last week
to put off making a long-anticipated decision to begin raising interest rates in the United States. "The
question is whether or not there might be a risk of a more abrupt slowdown than most analysts expect,"
Fed Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen said of the Chinese economy. With its opaque statistical reporting and
government-controlled media, nobody can be sure whether China is growing 7% this year, as Beijing has
stated. One thing is clear, however: Its days of double-digit growth are long gone. And as China shifts, so
must the world and that goes for the U.S., too. In his meeting with Xi, President Obama can be
expected to push for greater transparency and a level playing field for American companies. Some

with Xi on his heels after Beijing's questionable steering of the

economy, now is the time for Obama to press for more from China.
analysts argue that

Hardline Shift Now

Obama is shifting away from engagement to containment
strategy now
Browne 15
[Andrew, 6/12/15, Senior Correspondent and Columnist for The Wall Street
Journal, Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2007, and an Overseas
Press Club award in 2011, Can China Be Contained?,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-china-be-contained-1434118534, Accessed
June 28 2016, A.H]
Writing in 1967, at the height of the Cold War, Richard Nixon proclaimed a new American ambition: to
persuade China that it must change. Taking the long view, he wrote, we simply cannot afford to leave
China forever outside the family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its
neighbors. Four years later, having ascended to the White House, Nixon engineered an opening to China
that promised to turn the communist giant into a diplomatic partner, one that would adopt Americas
values and maybe even its system of democracy. For many Americans today, watching the administration
of President Xi Jinping crack down hard on internal dissent while challenging the U.S. for leadership in Asia,
that promise seems more remote than ever before. In his recently published book The Hundred-Year
Marathon, Michael Pillsburyan Asia specialist and Pentagon official under Presidents Ronald Reagan and
George H.W. Bushwrites that China has failed to meet nearly all of our rosy expectations.

U.S.

foreign policy has reached a turning point, as analysts from across the political
spectrum

have started to dust of Cold War-era arguments and to

speak of the need for a policy of containment against Chin a . The

once solid Washington consensus behind the benefits of constructive
engagement with Beijing has fallen apart. The conviction that engagement is the only
realistic way to encourage liberalization in China has persisted across eight U.S. administrations,
Republican and Democratic alike. Jimmy Carter bequeathed Nixons policy to Ronald Reagan; George W.
Bush to Barack Obama. The turmoil in U.S. policy has been especially evident in recent months. An
unprecedented stream of advisory reports from leading academic centers and think tanks has proposed
everything from military pushback against China to sweeping concessions. The prescriptions vary, but their

The mood
shift in Washington may end up being every bit as consequential as the one
that came over the U.S. immediately after World War II , when it dawned on America
that the Soviet Union wasnt going to continue to be an ally. That is when the legendary U.S.
diplomat and policy thinker George F. Kennan formulated his plan for
containment. In a 1947 article in Foreign Affairs, he wrote that the U.S. has it in its power to
starting point is the same: pessimism about the present course of U.S.-Chinese relations.

increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate, to force upon the Kremlin a far
greater degree of moderation and circumspection than it has had to observe in recent years, and in this
way to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the breakup or the gradual
mellowing of Soviet power. Kennans strategyto bleed the Soviet Union through nonprovocative
resistanceoffered comfort to Europeans who feared that they faced a stark choice between war and
capitulation. A similar anxiety about Chinas actions and intentions has now taken hold among many
Asians.

U.S. friends and allies in the region are flocking to Americas

side to seek protection as Mr. Xis China builds up its navy , pushes its
fleets farther into the blue ocean and presses its territorial claims. In what is just the latest assertive move
to alarm the region,

China is now dredging tiny coral reefs in the South

China Sea to create runways, apparently for military jets. The U.S.

is resisting . President Obamas

signature

pivot to Asiadesigned both to calm anxious

U.S. friends and to recognize the regions vast strategic importance in the 21st century

is bringing

advanced American combat ships to Singapore, Marines to

Australia and military advisers to the Philippines

. Japan, Americas key ally in

Asia, is rearming and has adjusted its pacifist postwar constitution to allow its forces to play a wider role in
the region. The purpose of much of this activity is to preserve the independence of smaller Asian nations
who fear they might otherwise have no choice but to fall into Chinas orbit and yield to its territorial

China is utterly convinced that the

U.S. is pursuing a policy of containment . Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister
ambitionsin other words, to capitulate. For its part,

(and himself a China expert), summarized Beijings perception of U.S. goals in five bullet points in a recent
Harvard study: to isolate China, contain it, diminish it, internally divide it and sabotage its political
leadership. To be sure, the new tension in U.S.-China relations is not anything like the Cold War staredown that preoccupied Europe for decades, when NATO and Warsaw Pact tanks faced each other across
lines that neither side dared to cross. But in one important respect,

history is repeating

itself: Both China and the U.S. have started to view each other not
as partners, competitors or rivals but as adversaries.

Chinas missile and

naval buildup, as well as its development of new cyber- and space-warfare capabilities, are aimed squarely
at deterring the U.S. military from intervening in any conflict in Asia. Meanwhile, many of the Pentagons
pet projectsStar Wars technologies such as lasers and advanced weapons systems such as a long-range
bomberare being developed with China in mind. So what, specifically, should America do? In one of the
most hawkish of the recent think-tank reports, Robert D. Blackwill, a former U.S. deputy national security
adviser and ambassador to India under President George W. Bush, and Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who also served on the National Security Council staff
under President Bush, write that

engagement with China has served to strengthen a

competitor. It is time, they declare, for a new grand strategy: less

engagement and more balancing to ensure the central
objective of continued U.S. global primacy . Among other things, America should
beef up its military in Asia, choke off Chinas access to military technology, accelerate missile-defense
deployments and increase U.S. offensive cyber capabilities. For Michael D. Swaine, also of the Carnegie
Endowment, this is a certain recipe for another Cold War, or worse. He outlines a sweeping settlement
under which America would concede its primacy in East Asia, turning much of the region into a buffer zone
policed by a balance of forces, including those from a strengthened Japan. All foreign forces would
withdraw from Korea. And China would offer assurances that it wouldnt launch hostilities against Taiwan,
which it regards as a renegade province. Such arrangements, even if possible, would take decades to sort

Lampton, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Universitys

School of Advanced International Studies, U.S.-China ties have reached a
out. Meanwhile, warns David M.

tipping point. Our respective fears are nearer to outweighing our

hopes than at any time since normalization, he said in a recent
speech.

The West has been in this position before. Optimism about the prospects of transforming an

ancient civilization through engagement, followed by deep disillusion, has been the pattern ever since
early Jesuit missionaries sought to convert the Chinese to Christianity. Those envoys adopted the gowns of
the Mandarin class, grew long beards and even couched their gospel message in Confucian terms to make
it more palatable. The 17th-century German priest Adam Schall got as far as becoming the chief
astronomer of the Qing dynasty. But he fell from favor, and the Jesuits were later expelled. The
disappointment in the U.S. today is heightened by the fact that engagement with China has promised so
much and progressed so far. Trade and technology have transformed China beyond anything that Nixon
could have imaged, and the two countries are each others second-largest trading partners. China is
Americas biggest creditor. More than a quarter million Chinese students study at U.S. universities. But the
ideological gap hasnt narrowed at alland now Mr. Xi has taken a sharp anti-Western turn. Mao Zedong

made the bold decision to cut a deal with Nixon, confident enough to embrace American capitalists even
while pressing the radical agenda of his Cultural Revolution. Later, Deng Xiaoping struck a pragmatic
balance between the opportunities of economic engagement with the West and the dangers posed by an
influx of Western ideas. When you open the window, flies and mosquitoes come in, he shrugged. Today,
Mr. Xi is furiously zapping the bugs. A newly proposed law would put the entire foreign nonprofit sector
under police administration, effectively treating such groups as potential enemies of the state. State
newspapers rail against hostile foreign forces and their local sympathizers. The Chinese Communist
Partys Document No. 9 prohibits discussion of Western democracy on college campuses. And as Mr. Xi
champions traditional Chinese culture, authorities in Wenzhou, a heavily Christian coastal city dubbed
Chinas New Jerusalem, tear down crosses atop churches as unwanted symbols of Western influence.
The backlash against the West extends well beyond Chinas borders. For decades, China accepted
Americas role as a regional policeman to maintain the peace and keep sea lanes open. But in Shanghai
last year, Mr. Xi declared that it is for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia, solve the problems of

Washington feels a certain sense of betrayal .

Americas open markets, after all, smoothed Chinas export-led rise to
become the worlds second-largest economy, and the two economies are now
thoroughly enmeshed. Still, it would be a mistake to assume that mutual
dependence will necessarily prevent conflict. Pre-World War I Europe was also
closely entwined through trade and investment. Even the U.S. business
community, once Beijings staunchest advocate in Washington, has lost some of its
enthusiasm for engagement. James McGregor, a former chairman of the American Chamber of
Asia and uphold the security of Asia.

Commerce in China and now the China chairman of APCO Worldwide, a business consultancy, recalls
helping to persuade U.S. trade associations to lobby for Chinas admission to the World Trade Organization,
which happened in 2001. That unity of purpose, he says has been splintering ever since .

they all believe that China is out to screw them .

Today,

Hardline Containment
US using a containment strategy towards China now
Powell, 15
[Bill, Senior Writer TIME Magazine and Newsweek, Newsweek, IN
WASHINGTON, A STRATEGIC SHIFT ON CHINATOWARD CONTAINMENT,
http://www.newsweek.com/washington-shift-china-toward-containment326591, Accessed June 23 2016, A.H]
The words are dispassionate: significant competitor; not "enemy. They are careful: "A more
coherent response." That suggests that heretofore the U.S. response to increasing Chinese power has been
at least somewhat coherent. But there should be no mistaking the significance of the above sentences.
They are the first of many in a lengthy new report issued by the Council on Foreign Relations. For decades,
the council, as the cognoscenti call it, has been the core of the American foreign policy establishment.
When it comes to foreign affairs, it doesn't just regurgitate the conventional wisdom, it creates it. Given

the just issued report on U.S.-China relations, co-authored by Robert Blackwill, one of
the most distinguished American diplomats of his generation, signifies a major shift in
establishment thinking about China. And the conclusion is, as these things go, astonishing:
The U.S. should place "less strategic emphasis on the goal of integrating
China into the international system, and more on balancing China's rise.
Which is to say, we should basically chuck what has been U.S. policy for the past three decades, and
try something that sounds almost (but not quite) like containment. Try Newsweek
for only $1.25 per week The report comes amidst whispers that senior foreign policy grandees
that,

of former administrationsboth Democratic and Republicanhave started to sour on hopes that Beijing

worry that
President Xi Jinping is more interested in becoming No. 1, as opposed to coexisting with the U.S. at the apex of the international pecking order. It also comes amidst the
could be brought without much rancor into the existing international order. They

Obama administrations so-called pivot to Asia, which it goes to great lengths to insist is not about
containing China. The only problem with that claim is that there isn't anybody among traditional U.S. allies
in the region who believes it. And the China as rival and not strategic partnerwhich is what the Obama
administration used to call itis increasingly evident. Pushing for support for the Trans Pacific Partnership
a broad free trade deal with 12 Pacific nationsObama

recently told The Wall Street

Journal that if we don't write the rules, China will write the rules out in that
region. As that kind of us-or-them rhetoric indicates, even the economic relationship between the
two countrieswhich is its fundamental coreis under some strain. In their recently released annual
survey of business conditions in China, the American chambers of commerce in both Shanghai and Beijing
recently reported an uptick in the number of their members concerned about increasing regulatory and
legal scrutiny from the government in Beijing. The conventional wisdom is that the current leadership in
Beijing watches all this and, unified, sets an ever more defiant course both abroad and at home. Beijing, it
is said, suspects the U.S. of trying to encircle Chinaof trying to blunt if not reverse its rise. So it flexes its
muscles in the east and south China seas, and moves to exert ever more influence to its west through
massive government-led investment plans to create a new silk road. (On April 21, Xi was in Islamabad
hawking an aid and investment deal with Pakistan with a headline number$46 billionthat drew
attention around the world.) There is, to be sure, an element of truth in all that. But it's also more
complicated. No one at any level of the Chinese leadership ever draws attention to himself by publicly
questioning the party line; but there remain people in the Beijing government who can safely be called proWestern, and who believe a strong relationship with the United States is in the countrys best interest. And
they are watching, with increasing (if still muted) concern, the tide go out on what has been an era of
bipartisan policy in Washington toward Beijing: one that accentuated the economic benefits to both sides
in the short run, with the hope that in longer run, increasing prosperity in China would bring about some

And the day may be drawing

near when a behind-the-scenes debate breaks out in Beijing that poses a
straightforward question: Who lost Washington? In the U.S., of course, "Who lost China?"
form of political liberalization. Those daysand hopesare gone.

was a rancorous Cold Warera debate in the wake of the 1949 Communist takeover in Beijing. The second-

guessing in China over current foreign policy will not, of course, be so public, but that doesn't mean it
won't come. A scholar at a government-affiliated think tank with close ties to several senior party officials
acknowledges that there are some questions in the wind now, certainly. No one quite says, Who lost
Washington?we're not there yetbut people I would call internationalists with a pro-Western bias
wonder where this is headed, and whether we've played our hand intelligently both in terms of relations
with Washington but also in our own backyard. Those questions have to do with the perception that
Beijing over the past few years has bullied small neighbors like the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as
whether it needed to pick a fight with Japan over the Senkaku Islands. (China refers to them as the Diaoyu
Islands and calls them disputed; Tokyo denies theres any doubt they belong to Japan.) Beijing points
outand diplomats in Tokyo concurthat the two countries worked hard over the last year to drain some
of the poison out of the islands dispute, which had alarmed Washington, and, as one former U.S. diplomat
says, put the pro-China crowd at the State Department very much on the defensive. For now, the issue
has receded, and foreign ministry officials in Beijing say the effort shows that the notion that nationalistic
hawks are running wild in the Chinese capital, as the government think tank scholar puts it, is overblown.
But theres little question that

any measure of trust between Beijing and Washington

has diminished;

a foreign ministry official late last year told Newsweek that there is "no question"
that relations between the two countries were better when George W. Bush was president than they are
today. The question is, to what extent does that matter to Beijing? Foreign diplomats there seem

Beijing is increasingly suspicious of

the U.S. as a rival in Asia and increasingly convinced that its own ascendancy
is irreversible. The quest for supremacy in the Pacific, therefore, is likely to
intensify. If true, those attitudes will have consequences. There is increasing talk in Washington that
increasingly to think its not that big a deal to Xi & Co.;

the U.S. needs to reverse the shrinkage in its Navy. Most of the leading Republican presidential candidates
support an increase in the number of aircraft carriers in the U.S. fleet, as well as a modernized version of
the so-called Ohio class of nuclear submarines, which are slated to go out of business in just over a
decade. Nor is it unthinkable that Hillary Clinton, should she be Barack Obamas successor in less than two
years, would add more military heft to the so-called pivot to Asiaparticularly if U.S. policy is to balance
Chinas rise. There is also growing anger over Beijings purported cyber offensive against both the U.S.
government and big U.S. corporations. (And lets face it, the Fortune 500 is the core of Beijings

If China, in fact, doesnt care that it's losing

Washington, that only makes it more likely that it will lose it. And at the
moment, that appears to be the road Beijing is on.
constituency in the United States.)

Hardline Trade/Exports
US shift toward hardline stance on trade policy now
French 4/28/16
[Erik, PhD candidate studying coercive diplomacy and reassurance in SinoAmerican relations at Maxwell School of Syracuse University and contributor
at Global Risk Insights, Global Risk Insights, The implications of Sino-US trade
tensions, http://globalriskinsights.com/2016/04/china-trade-steel-exports/,
Accessed June 23 2016, A.H]
Hostility is building up between the US and China over trade policy, particularly
with regards to Chinese steel exports. What are the political forces driving these tensions, and what are
the consequences for firms and investors? The last few months have experienced mounting trade frictions

April in particular saw China initiate a number of new

trade measures with mixed consequences for bilateral trade relations . Chinas
between the US and China.

changing trade policy presents potential risks and opportunities for investors and businesses with a stake

Bilateral tensions over trade between the US

and China began escalating in March when the US, following in the footsteps of the
European Union (EU), accused China of dumping subsidized, underpriced Chinese
steel on the American market. To counter this dumping, the US set a tariff of
265.79% on Chinese cold-rolled steel. By mid-April, however, trade relations seemed to be
in Sino-US trade. Tensions ebb and flow

looking up. On April 14th, the US and China resolved a long-standing dispute over Chinese export
subsidies. The US had filed a formal complaint (dispute DS489) at the World Trade Organization over
Chinas subsidization of key small firms in several industries including textiles, agriculture, and
aquaculture. The agreement also cut into Chinese government support for firms producing specialized
steel exports. China appears to have acquiesced to American demands, backing down in the face of US
pressure. US leaders heralded the agreement as a major win and a positive step forward for trade
relations. One week later, however, Beijing announced a host of new export-promotion measures. On April
20th, China released new policies pushing banks to give more credit to exporters and offering tax
incentives to firms exporting machinery and appliances. The next day, Beijing introduced new measures to
encourage banks to back steel exporters. These steps are likely to reverse the positive momentum

Recent trade data is

also likely to further strain Sino-American trade relations . The UN Conference on
generated by the April 14th MOU and spark renewed tensions over trade.

Trade and Employment announced that Chinas share of worldwide exports increased from 12.3% in 2014
to 13.8% in 2015. Despite Chinas economic difficulties, rising manufacturing costs, and a strengthening
currency,

Chinese exports seem to be increasingly competitive abroad. This will

lead to renewed US and European calls for China to address its steel
dumping. The political roots of the challenge The ongoing trade dispute is driven by several key
forces. First and foremost, China is struggling with excess capacity in its steel and manufacturing
industries, and is trying to jettison a burgeoning glut of steel onto the global market. Additionally, given
slowing economic growth and plans to introduce large, potentially socially-destabilizing cuts to its steel,
coal, and manufacturing sectors, China will be loath to voluntarily reduce the competitiveness of its
exports. Beijing has always been wary of social unrest, and given the growing number of labor protests

strategic and
political concerns are driving the US to challenge China more aggressively
over its trade practices. The Obama administration hopes to promote the
newly-formed Trans-Pacific Partnership the centerpiece of American economic leadership in Asia
at home and abroad by highlighting that the US will vigorously prosecute states
that violate the terms of trade agreements . The administration also hopes to
protect the Democratic Party against accusations from the progressive left
and populist right that it has been weak on trade policy particularly given the
throughout the mainland, it may be feeling increasingly vulnerable. At the same time,

difficulties facing steel manufacturers in the US. New Chinese export policies will create immediate

challenges for Western steel producers by increasing the competitiveness of Chinese exports and
contributing to continued global overcapacity. Meanwhile foreign companies in textiles and seafood
industries are likely to enjoy new opportunities generated by Chinas reversal of its incentive program.
Beyond these obvious immediate threats lie broader strategic concerns for investors and businesses
affected by Sino-US commercial ties. Most significantly, escalating trade frictions pose a longer-term

Beijings recalcitrance will

only feed into rising protectionist sentiments in the US during the 2016
presidential race. On the right, Trump touts protectionist measures that
deviate wildly from conservative, pro-business positions on free-trade. On the
left, the Clinton has been pulled away from her neo-liberal sympathies and
toward populist positions on trad e over the course of her primary competition
strategic risk to importers, exporters, and investors in both countries.

with Sanders. Either candidate could take a hardline stance on trade

with China early on in their administration

. Aggressive tariffs on Chinese goods

could spark a broader trade war that would result in significant losses for both economies, creating
significant concerns for investors.

Hardline - SCS
US shift toward hardline stance toward Chinese expansion
in the SCS now checks Chinese aggression
Luce and McLeary 15
[Dan is Foreign Policys chief national security correspondent, Paul is a
Pentagon reporter for Foreign Policy, In South China Sea, a Tougher U.S.
Stance, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/02/in-south-china-sea-a-tougher-us-stance/, Accessed June 23 2015, A.H]
The United States is poised to send naval ships and aircraft to the S outh China Sea
in a challenge to Beijings territorial claims to its rapidly-built artificial islands ,
U.S. officials told Foreign Policy. The move toward a somewhat more muscular stance
follows talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack
Obama in Washington last month, which fell far short of a breakthrough over how territorial disputes
should be settled in the strategic South China Sea. A final decision has not been made. But the Obama
administration is heavily leaning toward using a show of military might after Chinese opposition ended
diplomatic efforts to halt land reclamation and the construction of military outposts in the waterway. The
timing and details of the patrols which would be designed to uphold principles of freedom of navigation
in international waters are still being worked out, Obama administration and Pentagon officials said.

Its not a question of if, but when, said a Defense Department official. The
move is likely to raise tensions with China. But U.S. officials have
concluded that failing to sail and fly close to the man-made
outposts would send a mistaken signal that Washington tacitly
accepts Beijings far-reaching territorial claims.

As the unprecedented scale of

Beijings reclamation work came to light earlier this year, Defense Secretary Ash Carter asked commanders
to draw up possible options to counter Chinas actions in the South China Sea, which serves as a vital

Now, the administration is preparing to endorse what

the military calls enhanced freedom of navigation operations, which would have
transit route for global shipping.

American ships and aircraft venture within 12 nautical miles of at least some artificial islands built by
Beijing. China argues it has sovereign authority around each of its newly built islands within a 12-mile
boundary, a legal argument rejected by neighboring countries as well as by the United States. The U.N.
Convention on the Law of the Sea which Beijing has signed does not recognize artificially constructed
outposts as legitimate islands. The expanded patrols by the U.S. Navy could mean more close encounters
between American and Chinese vessels and aircraft, raising the risk of a potential collision or volatile
incident. Just days before Xis trip to Washington, a Chinese fighter jet flew in front of a U.S. RC-135
reconnaissance plane east of the Shandong Peninsula in the Yellow Sea. And in August 2014, a Chinese J11 fighter jet passed within 20 feet of a U.S. P-8 Poseidon aircraft, performing a barrel roll in a maneuver
the Pentagon condemned as reckless. To avoid misunderstandings and possible crises, U.S. and Chinese
defense officials have recently worked out protocols for encounters between ships at sea. And last month
during Xis visit, the two sides announced a memorandum on rules for action when aircraft from the two
nations fly in close proximity. Apart from Chinas assertive military stance in the western Pacific, American
ships also must contend with swarms of Chinese fishing boats, which Beijing has employed as maritime
militia to assert its territorial demands without taking explicit military action. The United States and its
partners in Southeast Asia have grown increasingly alarmed by Chinas massive reclamation effort in the
Spratly Islands. In less than two years, China has built outposts on top of seven reefs covering more than
3,000 acres, according to the Pentagon. Stepped-up U.S. naval patrols would be welcomed by Chinas
neighbors in the region, which have sought out American diplomatic and military assistance to try to
counter Beijings actions. The United States has stressed it does not take a position on rival territorial
claims among China and other states in the area. But it has voiced concern over tactics aimed at coercing
other countries and attempts to install military bases on disputed reefs or rocks.

Washington

believes that a crucial principle is at stake in the dispute over the South China
Sea the international laws and rules that serve as the foundation of the
global economy. If one country selectively ignores these rules for
its own benefit, others will undoubtedly follow, eroding the
international legal system and destabilizing regional security and
the prosperity of all Pacific states , Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific
Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in September. The admiral, who oversees U.S.
forces across the Asia-Pacific region, said he favored sending ships and planes within the 12-mile zone to
make clear the Chinese claims to territorial sea carried no legal weight. The patrols had been conducted
routinely until 2012, before Beijing launched its vast land reclamation work. His comments drew an angry
response from Chinas Foreign Ministry, which said Beijing opposes any countrys attempt to challenge
Chinas territorial sovereignty and security under the pretext of safeguarding navigation and urged the
United States to exercise caution in its words and deeds. About 30 percent of all maritime trade passes
through the South China Sea every year, including about $1.2 trillion worth of goods bound for American
ports. And the seabed is a potentially rich source for oil and natural gas. China has built three airstrips on
its outposts in the Spratlys, installed radar and communication gear, and dredged deep ports that could
accommodate large warships. U.S. officials say the construction work appears aimed at creating a military
network on the man-made islands, which they fear could be used to coerce smaller countries into bowing
to Beijings territorial ambitions. In such a scenario, China could declare an air defense identification zone,
or ADIZ, in the area, as it did two years ago in the East China Sea where Beijing is at loggerheads with
Japan over a group of uninhabited islands. All of the equipment and the airstrips that they are currently
laying down in the Spratly Islands are all consistent with creating a South China Sea ADIZ, said Mira RappHooper, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Securitys Asia-Pacific Security Program. Under
an ADIZ, Beijing could demand all aircraft entering the area provide their flight route and abide by
instructions from the Chinese military. Despite satellite imagery showing long runways and helipads under
construction, Chinas president said during his visit to the United States last month that his country does
not intend to pursue militarization of the South China Sea. Xi reiterated his governments view that
Beijing has had sovereign authority over the South China Sea islands since ancient times. China
repeatedly cites a nine-dashed line that lays claim to nearly all of the South China Sea, rejecting rival
claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and other countries. That controversial demarcation line
appeared in a map from the Nationalist government that was toppled in the Chinese civil war of the 1940s
and is now featured in Chinese passports. But the line is based on what China calls historical claims that
are not recognized under the law of the sea. On a range of issues, including the South China Sea and
trade disputes, the Obama administration has appealed to Beijing to abide by international law and rules
arguing that China has benefited and prospered under those rules. But Obama acknowledged before
Xis visit last month that China often has interpreted Washingtons policy as a bid to prevent its rise.

As

they have matured, what weve said to them is, With power comes
responsibility, so now youve got to step up, Obama said. In some cases,
they still feel that when we call them on issues like their behavior in the
South China Sea, or on intellectual property theft, that we are trying to
contain them. Despite a much touted strategic rebalance to Asia, attempts by the United States
have failed over the last several years to persuade China to adopt a more conciliatory stance in the South
China Sea. In July, China was able to defeat a diplomatic push by the United States at a regional forum of
Southeast Asian states that would have called for a halt to land reclamation and any militarization of the
area. Washington had held off pursuing patrols near the man-made islands to give diplomats time to broker
an agreement, but now there is a sense in the administration and among U.S. allies in the region that it is
time to take action to underscore Americas position. I think its clear that there is not a good set of
options for convincing, or even compelling, China not to dredge and build artificial islands in the South
China Sea, said Scott Harold, deputy director at Rand Corp.s Center for Asia Pacific Policy. But operating
ships and aircraft near the artificial outposts would underline Washingtons stance that it does not
recognize Chinas legal claims or its aggressive methods of asserting them, Harold said.

Theres a

concern that if you dont stand up for your positions, the Chinese

will take that as evidence that you are unwilling to defend what you
have claimed as your principles, he said.

The US is countering Chinese threat in the SCS now

Reuters 2/24/16
[South China Sea: US may consider sending more destroyers to patrol
islands https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/25/south-china-sea-usmay-consider-sending-more-destroyers-to-patrol-islands, Accessed June 26
2016, A.H]
The US, worried by Chinas military buildup to assert dominance in the S outh
China Sea, will increase freedom-of-navigation operations there, a senior
Pentagon official has said. We will be doing them more , and well be doing them with
greater complexity in the future and ... well fly, sail and operate wherever international
law allows, Admiral Harry Harris, the head of the US Navys Pacific Command, told a hearing of the
House of Representatives armed services committee. We must continue to operate in the
South China Sea to demonstrate that that water space and the air above it is
international, Harris said. On Tuesday, Harris said China was changing the operational landscape
in the South China Sea by deploying missiles and radar as part of an effort to militarily dominate east
Asia.

China is clearly militarising the South China Sea

... Youd have to

believe in a flat Earth to think otherwise, Harris said in comments that coincided with a visit to
Washington by the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi. China says its military facilities in the South China
Sea are legal and appropriate, and on Tuesday, in an apparent reference to US patrols, Wang said Beijing
hoped not to see more close-up reconnaissance, or the dispatch of missile destroyers or strategic

US national security adviser Susan Rice on Wednesday and they

said in a statement. Rice emphasised
strong US support for freedom of navigation and urged China to address
regional concerns, the statement said. Harris, asked what more could be
done to deter militarisation, said the US could deploy more naval assets ,
bombers. Wang met

candidly discussed maritime issues, the White House

although there were significant fiscal, diplomatic and political hurdles in the way of stationing a second

We could consider putting another [attack]

submarine out there, we could put additional destroyers forward ... there are a lot
aircraft carrier group in the region.

of things we could do, short of putting a full carrier strike group in the western Pacific, he said. China
claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5tn in global trade passes every year.
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. Harriss comments came a day
after he said China had deployed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island in the seas Paracel chain and
radars on Cuarteron Reef in the Spratly islands further to the south. On Tuesday, his command said
Chinas repeated deployment of advanced fighter aircraft to Woody Island was part of a disturbing trend
that was inconsistent with Beijings commitment to avoid actions that could escalate disputes. In January,
a US Navy destroyer carried out a patrol within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels, a move
China called provocative.

The US has also conducted sea and air patrols

near artificial islands China has built in the Spratlys, including by

two B-52 strategic bombers in December.

Hardline Asia Pivot

US is flexing its military muscle now deters Chinese
threat
Avni 15
[Benny, 10/27/15, Writer for the NY Post, President Obama finally stands up
to China
http://nypost.com/2015/10/27/president-obama-finally-stands-up-to-china/,
Accessed June 26 2016, A.H]
Is the Obama administration finally showing some spine? Thats the question reverberating
around Asia this week, after a US Navy guided-missile destroyer, USS Lassen, sailed
near a group of rocks and artificial islands in the S outh China Sea on Tuesday. May not
sound like much, but the move directly challenged Chinas claim to sovereignty
over that area, known as the Spratly Islands. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and
Taiwan also stake claims there, but China is throwing its weight around, erecting artificial islands, sending
its military there, building bases, deploying missiles and otherwise threatening its neighbors.President Xi
Jinping has transformed Beijings regional and global policies. His version of the Monroe Doctrine demands
other countries notify China in advance when their planes fly over airspace that Japan and South Korea
consider their own. His navy and civilian vessels have initiated collisions at sea in popular fishing areas
and near mineral-rich atolls. Yet while China takes over large swaths of the South and East China seas,
America keeps calling for ... mediation. Yes, we have defense treaties with Japan, South Korea and the
Philippines, and growing trade ties with other countries under the increasingly menacing Chinese boot. But

Asian officials frequently tell

me theyre worried. Obamas famous pivot to Asia aside, when push comes to shove, will
America be there if Chinas aggression turns into full-on confrontation with
them? They point to Egypt, where America failed to stand by President Hosni Mubarak, a longtime ally.
until now America has tread quietly to keep from provoking Beijing.

Or to Ukraine, where a European friend was attacked by Russia with nothing more than verbal protest from
Washington. Or to Obamas failure to enforce his own Syrian red line. Thats

why the Spratly

Islands move, while long overdue, was such an important signal. The timing days
before the annual gathering of the Chinese Communist Partys Central
Committee, where some of Xis top rivals may challenge his leadership was
also important. It showed that the US is willing to confront Xi even
when he needs to project power, possibly by flexing military
muscle.

But he wont. Xi knows that the US Navy remains superior to Chinas.

The Lassen

sailing (shadowed by Chinese vessels), then, may well begin to reassure Asian partners
that America will side with them against Beijings hijinks. Then again, as Michael
Auslin, the astute Asia watcher at the American Enterprise Institute, says, If its a one-off, it wont mean
much. He notes that when China asserted its authority in disputed airspace two years ago, the US flew
over it once or twice as a signal to Beijing, but that was it. Since then, Chinas neighbors had no choice but

American officials say the US Navy will soon conduct

additional maneuvers in the Spratly Islands. But as Auslin notes, we can send a stronger
to change their air routes.

statement by adding ships from neighboring countries. Then theres the long view. One reason no one
expects China to react much beyond huffing and puffing about Americas reckless action is that Beijing
can afford to be patient. Chinas military budget rose 12.2 percent last year, above the overall growth rate
of its economy (7.4 percent). So while Xi finally announced some budget cuts earlier this year, Chinas
clearly still expanding its military. And Washington is fast shrinking ours. Heres the military component of
Obamas much-ballyhooed pivot to Asia: By 2020, 60 percent of the US Navy would sail the Pacific,
rather than the current 50 percent. But overall the number of ships doing such sailing will be reduced, so

Obama may finally

be making the right noises, showing China that hes ready to stand by allies
even at the risk of angering Xi. And true, dispelling the wimp factor is important.
But ultimately, the next president must reassure our allies and our most
important trading partners that Americas military superiority will remain
incontestable for decades to come.
the US presence in the Pacific is expected to remain the same. At best. So yes,

Asia pivot is working now the US is militarizing chinas

opponents
Mcmanus 5/22/16
[Doyle, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Obama's pivot to
Asia is working, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcmanus-pivotasia-china-aggression-20160522-snap-story.html, June 26 2016, A.H]
When President Obama declared in 2011 that he wanted U.S. foreign policy to pivot to Asia, some derided

the pivot has

worked pretty well as will be evident when Obama travels to Asia this week. Almost
every country in the region is clamoring for a closer relationship with the
United States. The most striking case is Vietnam, most of whose leaders are old enough
the move as a clumsy attempt to flee the messy conflicts of the Middle East. But
actually

to have fought in their countrys war with the United States. The communist regime has been openly
courting a deeper military relationship, and has even invited the U.S. Navy to return to Cam Ranh Bay, its

During his visit, Obama is expected to announce an

expansion of American military sales. The United States does have one
asymmetric advantage of its own: its ability to forge stronger alliances with
Chinas worried neighbors. The impetus for this rapprochement is China, Asias increasingly
assertive great power. Beijings pursuit of sovereignty over the islands of the S outh
China Sea, most of which are also claimed by other countries, has flung Chinas neighbors
into the arms of the United States. Any time China tries to put its thumb on
any of its neighbors, that makes them enthusiastic about getting close to us,
base during much of the war.

noted Derek Chollet, a former Defense Department official. Only a few hundred miles from Vietnams

Chinese construction teams have been dredging the seafloor and using
landfill techniques to increase the size of China's territories, then building
infrastructure to support military facilities. The newly-built islands arent much use in a
military conflict with the United States; U.S. Navy officers dismiss them as sitting ducks. But as military
bases, they could still help Beijing intimidate weaker neighbors such as
Vietnam and the Philippines. Eventually, the islands could also enable China to assert economic
coast,

rights to the estimated 11 billion barrels of oil beneath the seabed. Even fishing rights are at stake; Chinas
fishing industry, the worlds largest, employs more than 14 million people. On a visit to Washington last

President Xi Jinping promised not to militarize the islands , but he never

Some Chinese officials later said Xis policy merely
banned major offensive weapons. That created alarm in the Pentagon and
year, Chinese

defined what the term meant.

prompted the Obama administration to sharpen its denunciations of

the construction projects.

This is an asymmetric struggle; there arent many practical

steps the United States can take to stop Chinas dredging. The Pentagon sends ships near the islands to
assert U.S. freedom of navigation, but that hasnt slowed the construction. Its not clear what else we
can do, a former official told me. Were not going to start a war, and were not going to occupy an island

The United States does have one asymmetric advantage of its own: its
ability to forge stronger alliances with Chinas worried neighbors not only
ourselves.

Vietnam, but the Philippines, Malaysia and others as well. A stronger

Vietnamese navy one that holds joint maneuvers with the U.S. Navy would
deny China some of the military advantage it hoped to gain from building all those
airstrips. The idea, in short, is to raise the long-term cost to Beijing . Of course, that
strategy works only if the United States is willing to invest in those stronger relationships through not
only a U.S. military presence, but expanded trade agreements, too. So Obama faces what Chollet calls a
reassurance challenge.

Obama is sustaining the pivot Vietnam proves

Global Times 5/24/16
[Global Times is a daily Chinese newspaper under the auspices of the
People's Daily newspaper, focusing on international issues at a communist
Chinese perspective Obama's Hanoi trip bolsters US China containment,
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/984769.shtml, Accessed June 28 2016,
A.H]
Source: Global Times Published: 2016-5-24
Obama announced the lifting of the 41-year-old arms embargo
against Vietnam Monday, withdrawing the last ban that had been left since the Vietnam War.
US President Barack

Obama claimed that this move is not aimed at China, yet this is only a very poor lie which reveals the truth

Trade in arms
between the US and Vietnam, two nations with completely different political
systems, is of great symbolic significance. Obviously, Obama is planning to create some
- exacerbating the strategic antagonism between Washington and Beijing.

diplomatic legacies before leaving office, as well as further promote the rebalance to the Asia-Pacific.
When the US has an urgent need to contain China in the South China Sea, the standards of its so-called

Vietnam is playing a particularly special role in the US

rebalance to the Asia-Pacific strategy. There are three focal points in the White House's
Vietnam policy. First of all, Washington is trying to keep disseminating American
values in the Southeast Asian region through underlining human rights and
democracy. Moreover, it is taking advantage of Vietnam to stir up more
troubles in the South China Sea. Apart from that, the US is promoting trade
ties with Hanoi and reconstructing the production chain based on the T ransPacific Partnership to help Washington benefit from the process of its
rebalance. The three strategic emphases embody the three nets that the US
is knitting around China - ideology, security, economy and trade, as well as
Washington's ultimate goal, which is cementing US dominance in the area.
human rights can be relaxed.

The lifting of the arms ban on Vietnam is related to the three nets. Its realistic significance is increasing
trust and collaboration between Washington and Hanoi. Although the US has removed the arms embargo,
it is still unlikely that Vietnam will import substantial quantities of weapons from the US for the moment.
Hanoi's current weapons systems are mainly Russia-made. Vietnam is hence incapable of achieving a
short-term transformation over either personnel training or logistics support. However, the possibility of
Vietnam purchasing a certain amount of arms from the US, especially lethal maritime weaponry, cannot be

Vietnam will thus be involved in the US-dominated regional security

system. Another realistic significance of the US lifting the arms embargo lies in the consideration that it
excluded.

may prompt Hanoi to buy more US products in the days to come. During Obama's tour, the two sides inked
deals worth $16 billion. Vietnam has already become the fastest-growing economy in ASEAN, and has
turned itself from a global shoe-manufacturing hub into an international main production nation of
cellphone parts.

Therefore,

when Beijing pays high attention to US military

involvement in the South China Sea, we should also cast our eyes to our
neighboring economic and trade circle. How to consolidate China's current status in the
global production chain, provide more driving forces to its own transformation through carrying out the
One Belt and One Road initiative matters to China's future position in Asia, and is our starting point to keep
playing strategic games with the US.

Links
*best cardz

Link Top Shelf

US shift from engagement to balancing strategy now
Plan reverses it and fuels aggressive expansion in the
East China Sea
Smith 15
[Jeff M, Director for Asian Security Programs at the American Foreign Policy
Council in Washington, DC, RIP: America's "Engagement" Strategy towards
China?, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-americas-china-strategyshould-be-13473?page=2, Accessed June 23 2016, A.H]

America has approached a rising

China with an engagement strategy guided by two key assumptions: first,
that political liberalization would ultimately follow economic growth; and
second, that supporting Chinas integration into the global order would
preempt Beijing from forcibly challenging that order . While confidence in those
Since its historic rapprochement with Beijing in the 1970s,

assumptions has waxed and waned,

never did a consensus emerge that they

were fundamentally flaweduntil now. Today, Washington is

confronting the dreadful realization that with each passing year, the goals of political
liberalization and peaceful integration appear to grow more distant, while the
prospect for conflict with China draws nearer . Even advocates of engagement, like Dr.
David Shambaugh, are warning that the strategy is unraveling while

domestic repression

in China is the worst it has been in the twenty-five years since

Tiananmen . So what went wrong? After a decade of reaping the benefits of a soft-power
offensive, Chinas peaceful rise took an abrupt turn in the late 2000s. The country that emerged from a
unique confluence of events beginning in 2008 has proven a more assertive, authoritarian and nationalistic

2008 global
financial crisis was (mis)interpreted by much of Chinas elite as symbolic of
long-term U.S. decline and retreat from the Western Pacific. For some in Beijing, the
rising power. While the precise causes for this shift are still being debated, we know the

crisisand

Chinas hosting of the Olympics that yearreinforced the

coalescing perception that Chinas long wait to reclaim its position

atop the Asian hierarchy had come to an end.

Second, in 2009, Vietnam and

Malaysia submitted proposals to a UN commission outlining expanded sovereignty claims in the disputed
South China Sea.

A surge in provocative Chinese posturing there followed,

culminating most recently in an unprecedented artificial island-building spree
that is inflaming regional tensions. In 2012, China assumed an equally
combative posture in the East China Sea after Japan nationalized the
disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, with Chinese naval and air forays into the
territorial waters of the disputed islands now a regular occurrence . As these
events unfolded, China witnessed the precipitous rise of a new strain of nationalism, cultivated and
magnified by a new media and technology landscape. Once confined to a handful of stodgy Communist
Party mouthpieces, Chinas public space has expanded rapidly in the digital age. While liberal commentary

has been heavily restricted, hawkish rhetoric and nationalist outlets like the Global Times have been
permitted to fill the void. This proliferation of nationalist discourse has partly served the Partys interests,
but its also created new pressures and incentives that reward hardline posturing and raise the political
cost of concessions and compromise. Finally, the early tenure of Chinas avowedly nationalist and
politically powerful president, Xi Jinping, has produced a material rise in domestic repression and tensions
with the United States and Chinas neighbors. Xi has expanded the definition of Chinas core interests,
militarized its maritime doctrine, and overseen devastating cyberattacks against the U.S. government. At

adopted a hard line on domestic dissent and launched repeated

broadsides against Western values, NGOs and civil-society groups . Depending
home hes

on whom you ask, these events either dislodged China from a more peaceful course, or accelerated its
path along a preordained, nationalist trajectory. Likewise,

Americas engagement

strategy was either flawed from the start, or is simply proving

insufficient to cope with the realities of a neonationalist China

Whatever the case, Xis China has brought the flaws in Americas China strategy into sharper focus.

Rapid economic growth has correlated with greater repression ,

while eforts at engagement and integration have been met with
more brazen challenges to the status quo.

Unsurprisingly,

a growing

chorus of U.S. experts is imploring Washington to abandon its

informed engagement strategy for a more muscular balancing
strategy . In a recent article for the National Interest, James Przystup and Robert Manning called for
taking a page from Americas Cold War playbook, substituting containment with counterbalancing, but
maintaining an adroit and vigilant application of counterforce. Meanwhile

, an expansive

2014 report for the Council on Foreign Relations, Balancing Without

Containment, advocates for balancing the rise of Chinese power
rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy by limiting
Chinas capacity to misuse its growing power. President Obama
himself appears increasingly exhausted with the limitations of
engagement. Hes recently touted the virtues of a firmer
approach with China because they will push as hard as they can
until they meet resistance.

Link - Inconsistencey
US is standing up to China now the plan makes the US
look inconsistent which sends the signal that the US wont
challenge its power in the SCS
Branigan 15
[Tania, China Correspondent for the Guardian, March 19 2015, China crisis:
west riven by age-old question - to appease or oppose?,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/19/china-bind-is-the-ukaccommodating-or-ceding-too-much-to-superpower, Accessed June 22 2016,
A.H]
You might call it one of the irregular verbs in international diplomacy: we engage, you accommodate, they

US irritation over Britains decision to sign up to a new Chinese

development bank has laid bare the deep international divisions over how to
deal with the worlds newest superpower. For the Americans, as for human rights
groups and Chinese dissidents, countries like Britain are too willing to cede power to
appease.

China as it grows wealthier and more powerful . One White House official
accused the UK last week of constant accommodation of Beijing.
The Foreign Office says its approach to China is consistent and it continues to raise sensitive issues, but
analysts see a marked change since Beijing punished London over David Camerons meeting with the Dalai
Lama in 2012. They note a string of bilateral deals, regular visits by government ministers to China,
emollient remarks on human rights and especially the muted response to the Chinese governments tight
restrictions on voting rights in Hong Kong, which has disappointed many in Britains former colony. All

countries have of course become more accommodating to China , says Katrin

Kinzelbach of the Global Public Policy Institute, who has researched the EU-China human rights dialogue.
Cameron

met the Dalai Lama, experienced a backlash and no one stood with
him It was the same when the Germans were in the same situation . Roderic
Wye, associate fellow at Chatham House and previously a China and east Asia specialist at the Foreign
Office, says

Europe has signally failed to produce any consistency in

policy towards China. That in itself encourages China to press hard

on issue s they feel are important they think sooner or later there
will be a crack . Many suggest the same is true of Asian countries alarmed by Chinas growing
military might and assertiveness, but attracted by trade with and investment from the worlds second

Norway is a good example. When the countrys Nobel committee

awarded Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo the peace prize in 2010, its salmon
exports plummeted. Government ministers took note. So when the Dalai
Lama visited Oslo last year, no government representatives met him. Guy de
largest economy.

Jonquires of the European Centre for International Political Economy suggests the costs are not terribly
severe for a reasonably sized and influential country, particularly as the Chinese economy slows and
appears more precarious. China-UK trade increased by 11% in 2013, during the Dalai Lama row, and
China continued to seek cooperation at non-ministerial levels. The Chinese are intensely pragmatic and
have an awful lot of stuff they want from us, he said. He suggests the chancellor has been too quick to
offer Beijing advantages such as making it easier for Chinese banks to set up in London, loosening
oversight. If all we want is to be a glorified Singapore, where making money and exports are all that
matters in foreign policy, thats fine but lets not kid ourselves if we want to be taken seriously by anyone
else, he said.

The more common accusation is that European countries are not simply selling

themselves too cheaply, but

trading human rights concerns for commercial interests .

China assumes any accommodation from a foreign country comes

from weakness and they do not respect weakness. They will bully
those who let themselves be bullied , says Jorge Guajardo, formerly the Mexican
ambassador to Beijing and now senior director at McLarty Associates in Washington.

You

acquiesce on human rights and China assumes you do it for

economic reasons; they make more demands and you start
acquiescing in other areas.

India is probably one of the last countries to accommodate

China on anything and at the end of the day, they work very well together. Some go further, suggesting
complaints about meetings with the Dalai Lama are strategic attempts to exert power through a symbolic
issue in the first place. It is easier for some countries to take a tough stance than others. While Angela
Merkel has in some ways been firmer than her predecessors, that is also possible because of the strength
of the German economy, Kinzelbach points out. If

you accept only sticks and carrots work

on human rights, what sticks and carrots can we use? We dont have any left
that are attractive or impressive enough for China any more, unfortunately,
she said. She argues that the US itself has given ground on human rights issues, particularly at the
beginning of the Obama administration. There was a real desire for partnership and China didnt step up
and deliver; it took advantage, said Bonnie Glaser, an expert on Sino-US relations at the Centre for
Strategic and International Studies, in a more generous assessment. It was the time of the financial crisis
and China saw the US as weak. Then came the pivot, now portrayed as the strategic rebalance to

While many China

watchers in the US question whether the policy has been effective or even
coherent, Glaser sees progress: in the joint declaration of action on climate
change and in better negotiations over issues such as North Korea and Iran .
Asia welcomed by US allies but viewed by Beijing as an attempt to contain it.

That reflected attempts to build cooperation where the countries have common ground, while managing

cyber, South China Sea, trade policy we have been

very clear to the Chinese where we see our interests in jeopardy , she added.
differences, she said.

On

The US is more able than other countries to challenge China

keener to do so; Japan is in a similar, albeit weaker, position. The

, but also

US consider they are

the power in Asia-Pacific and, more than anyone in Europe, considers

Chinas rise as a losing game for them , said Feng Zhongping, an expert on Sino-European
relations at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

Link Engagement
Engagement acts as appeasement decades of empirical
evidence proves it increases Chinese aggressiveness and
increases the likelihood of conflict
Newsham 14
[Grant, Senior Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies,
China, America and the "Appeasement" Question,
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/china-america-the-appeasementquestion-11226, Accessed June 25 2016, A.H]
In February 2014, Philippine President Benigno Aquino warned that failure to
challenge the Peoples Republic of Chinas (PRC) territorial seizures in the
South China Sea would be repeating the 1930s era appeasement of Hitlers
Germany. The Chinese were predictably outraged while the rest of the world mostly ignored President
Aquino. Appeasement is still a dirty word. But in the 1930s, until the Nazis invaded Poland in
September, 1939, European and American elites considered appeasement to be a sophisticated, nuanced
approach to dealing with increasingly powerful authoritarian regimes. To these elites, appeasement was
more than simply disarming and letting unpleasant people have their way. Appeasement actually had a

elites believed that aggressive, authoritarian regimes act the

way they do out of fear, insecurity, and at least partly legitimate grievances
coherent logic. The

such as German resentment of the harsh Treaty of Versailles. Understand and address these issue, remove
their fears, and the regimes will become less aggressive and transform into responsible members of the
international community and operate under international norms. Or so the elites argued. Challenging
these regimes could dangerously isolate them and even needlessly provoke them into miscalculations.
The elites thought engagement and transparency were beneficial in their own right, as only good
things could come from familiarity with one another. In the 1930s, the major Western powers all attended
each others war games. The US Marine Corps even took the German World War I fighter ace, Ernst Udet on
a ride in a USMC dive bomber. This engagement and transparency did not make the Nazis nicer, but
perhaps gave them some ideas about dive bombing and Blitzkreig. Even the Soviets and Germans had
close ties with joint training, military technology development, and raw material shipments to Germany.
There was also extensive political and diplomatic interaction. Close economic ties were believed to be a
further hedge against conflict breaking out, and companies such as Ford, IBM, and many others did

The elites believed anything was better than war.

Preserving peace, even if sacrificing principles and certain small nations
was considered wise and statesmanlike. People who criticized appeasement policy in the
1930s, most notably Winston Churchill, were ridiculed as dolts and war mongers. We know how
this turned out. Curiously, appeasement (by another name) reappeared even before the end of the
profitable business in Germany.

war in calls to address Stalins fears and allow him to dominate Eastern Europe. And throughout the Cold
War, in Western academic and government circles it was argued that Soviet behavior was simply a reaction
to fears of Western containment. The appeasers protested the peacetime draft as threatening the
Russians. They also pushed for unilateral nuclear disarmament, and opposed the Pershing missile

Even President Jimmy Carter, once

he overcame his inordinate fear of communism, tried something akin to
appeasement as national policy. It was not until the Soviets invaded
Afghanistan that Carter learned his lesson . It perhaps will take another case of an
authoritarian regime rearranging its neighborhood to understand the cost of modern appeasement. US
policy towards China over the last 30 years, and particularly in recent times,
seems familiar. The United States does its best to understand the PRCs concerns and its resentments
deployment and the neutron bomb well into the 1980s.

going back to the Opium Wars and the century of humiliation, to accommodate these resentments, and to
ensure China does not feel threatened. Defense and State Department officials enthusiastically seek
greater transparency and openness especially in the military realm as such openness is perceived as

inherently good. In return, the PRC is expected to change, to show more respect for human rights and

We now
have several decades of empirical evidence to assess this concessionary
approach. It has not resulted in improved, less aggressive PRC behavior in the
South China Sea or the East China Sea, or even in outer space. Indeed, it
seems to have encouraged Chinese assertiveness as manifest in threatening
language and behavior towards its neighbors. Nor has the PRC regime shown more
international law and to become a responsible stakeholder in the international community.

respect for human rights, rule of law, consensual government or freedom of expression for its citizens.
Serial intellectual property theft continues unabated, as does support for unsavory dictators.

Nonetheless, we invite the PRC to military exercises and repeat the

engagement mantra expecting that one day things will magically improv e.
Some argue that letting the PRC see US military power will dissuade it from challenging us. Perhaps, but
we are just as likely to be seen as nave or weak. From the Chinese perspective, there is no reason to
change since they have done very well without transforming and the PRC has never been stronger. Indeed,
the PRC frequently claims that human rights, democracy, and the like are outmoded Western values having
nothing to do with China. This is also demoralizing our allies, who at some point may wonder if they
should cut their own deals with the PRC. Some revisionist historians argue that Neville Chamberlains
1930s era appeasement was in fact a wise stratagem to buy time to rearm. This overlooks that even as
late as 1939 when Hitler seized all of Czechoslovakia, the Western democracies still had the military

One can appease oneself into a corner. And the beneficiary of the
appeasement usually strengthens to the point it is too hard to restrain
without great sacrifice.
advantage.

Link Cooperation *
Obama is standing up to China now but china interprets
cooperative diplomacy as US deference to Chinese
superiority in the SCS
Heydarian 2/21/16
[Richard Javad Heydarian is a specialist in Asian geopolitical/economic affairs
and author of Asia's New Battlefield: US, China, and the Struggle for Western
Pacific, Aljezeera, China's aggressive posture in South China Sea,
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/02/china-aggressive-posturesouth-china-sea-160221074036883.html, Accessed June 25 2016, A.H]
The South China Sea disputes are rapidly descending into a quagmire, with
potentially explosive ramifications. Shortly after United States President Barack Obama
concluded a high-profile summit with Southeast Asian leaders, China reportedly deployed an advanced
surface-to-air missile system to the Paracel chain of islands, which is also claimed by Vietnam. In
response, Hanoi immediately lodged a formal complaint at the United Nations, accusing its giant neighbour
of "serious infringements of Vietnam's sovereignty over the Paracels, threatening peace and stability in the
region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and flight". US

Secretary of State
John Kerry was emphatic, declaring that there "is every evidence, every day
that there has been an increase of militarisation [by China] of one kind or
another." He vowed to hold a "very serious conversation" with his Chinese
counterparts. The US also accused China of reneging on its earlier promise, delivered by Chinese
President Xi Jinping during his visit to the White House last year, to not militarise the disputes. Regional
powers such as Japan, which heavily relies on the South China Sea for the shipment of its energy imports,
have also pitched in. Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani condemned the alleged "unilateral move by
China to change the status quo," adding that it "cannot be overlooked". Chinese officials, however,
downplayed the whole affair. Foreign Minister Wang Yi tried to justify the deployment of the advanced
military platforms as "limited and necessary self-defence facilities", while the Chinese defence ministry

there is growing fear that Beijing

is determined to fully dominate its adjacent waters at the expense of freedom
of navigation and overflight in arguably the world's most important
dismissed criticisms over the issue as a Western "hype". Yet,

waterway. Failure of engagement

Back

in 2013, Obama invited his

Chinese counterpart Xi for an intimate, informal summit in Sunnylands resort

in California. It was a controversial decision since such "short sleeve" meetings were
usually reserved for leaders of the US' dearest allies, such as Japan (as in former
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi)

and the UK (as in Prime Minister David Cameron). US eforts

at constraining China's behaviour has prompted the latter to

become even more determined to dominate adjacent waters ,
undermining freedom of overflight and navigation in a waterway
that is pivotal to global commerce and energy transport.
much-touted Pivot to Asia doctrine,

Under his

the Obama administration was determined

to explore a more cooperative relationship with China. In fact,

Washington explicitly framed its ties with Beijing as "the most important
bilateral relationship in the world," reiterating the necessity for robust

engagement with the rising superpower. Xi, however, had other ideas .
He interpreted the whole event as an implicit US recognition of
China as its new peer in the Asia-Pacific theatre , calling for a "new type of
great power relations". In light of China's insistence that the US should respect its "core interests" (PDF),

the statement was interpreted as a thinlyveiled demand for US non-interference in the South China Sea disputes. In the
following months, China pressed ahead with massive reclamation activities across
disputed waters, transforming rocks and atolls into artificial islands and
building a sprawling network of dual-purpose facilities and airstrips in both
the Paracel and the Spratly island chains. It made Obama's engagement
policy seem like an unequivocal failure . Tit-for-tat showdown Astounded by the sheer scale
and speed of China's "revanchist" activities in disputed waters, the Obama administration
switched to a more muscular approach. On one hand, it began conducting Freedom of
including its territorial claims in adjacent waters,

Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in the vicinity of Chinese-occupied land features in the South China Sea.

The US began to deploy destroyers and advanced aircraft to challenge

China's sovereignty claims. INTERACTIVE: Islands row around China Admiral Harry B Harris Jr,
the commander of the US Pacific Command, effectively warned China by stating that "you will see more of
them [FONOPs], and you will see them increasing in complexity and scope in areas of challenge". The
latest operation was conducted in the Paracel chain of islands, which most likely prompted China to (once
again) deploy the surface-to-air missile platform to the area. The Obama administration, however, is
primarily interested in mobilising a multilateral coalition against China. It has called upon major allies and
partners such as Japan, Australia and India to contribute to freedom of navigation patrols in the South
China Sea, with Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force contemplating the prospects of joint-patrols close to
Chinese-occupied land features. OPINION: A Sino-American naval showdown in the South China Sea To
underscore the comprehensive nature of his engagement with Asia, Obama recently also hosted leaders of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at Sunnylands, where he managed to garner the
support of regional states, including staunch Chinese allies like Cambodia and Laos, to sign a joint
statement that implicitly criticised China's activities in disputed waters. Together with the European
Union, the US has also called on China to respect the (likely unfavourable) outcome of the Philippines'
arbitration case against China vis-a-vis the maritime disputes. The US and its allies are optimistic that the
Arbitral Tribunal at The Hague will rule against China's sweeping claims as well as increasingly aggressive

The real fear, however, is that China will slowly move

towards establishing an Air Defense Identification Zone across the whole
South China Sea by deploying surface-to-air missiles and advanced military
platforms to airstrips and facilities in the Paracels and the Spratlys. Ironically,
posturing in the area.

though, US efforts at constraining China's behaviour has prompted the latter to become even more
determined to dominate adjacent waters, undermining freedom of overflight and navigation in a waterway
that is pivotal to global commerce and energy transport. Asia, the new centre of global economic gravity,
seems to be sleepwalking into an all-out conflict.

Link Cooperation/Diplomacy *
Diplomacy and cooperation leads to Chinese military
aggression
Chang 11
[Gordon G Chang, lawyer and author, Cornell Law School Graduate, Biden's
Trip to China Makes U.S. Look Weak, Not Strong,
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/18/bidens-trip-to-china-makes-uslook-weak-not-strong.html, Accessed June 30 2016, A.H]
Fifty years from now, 100 years from now, historians and scholars will judge us based upon whether or not
were able to establish a strong, permanent and friendly working relationship, Vice President Joe Biden
said today in Beijing, speaking to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Theres no more important
relationship that we need to establish on the part of the United States than a close relationship with
China. Wrong on all accounts, Mr. Vice President. Historians and scholars will judge the United States on
whether it was able to maintain the post-war liberal, international system that led to global prosperity and
general peace. This means the most important relationships we need to establishat this moment and all
othersare those with countries that share our goals. And, in any event ,

telling the Chinese how

important they are is just feeding their already-too-big sense of selfimportance. The history of the Obama administrations relationships with China demonstrates its wellmeaning

diplomacy has been counterproductive . The president, like most

Americans, has assumed the Chinese reciprocate gestures of friendship, but throughout his administration

Washingtons efforts to
establish cooperative ties have directly led to Beijings belligerent acts. Lets
replay the videotape. The Obama administration came into office wanting to put
relations on a better basis by placating Beijing. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton started
they have generally refused to do so. In fact, in the last two years

off the effort in February 2009 by stating that the United States would not let human rights get in the way
of more important matters. Chinese leaders were reportedly overjoyed with her remarks. As one Beijing-

comments confirmed in
their minds that America had finally succumbed to a full kowtow to China.
We didnt have to wait long to see the fundamental error of Secretary Clintons approach. In the
following month, Chinese military planes and naval and civilian craft
interfered with two unarmed U.S. Navy reconnaissance vessel sthe Impeccable
based analyst reported, Beijing officials were ecstatic because her

and the Victoriousin international waters in the South China and Yellow Seas. In one of those incidents

the harassment was so serious that it constituted an attack on the

United Statesin other words, an act of war.

Despite the provocation, all

President Obama and Secretary Clinton did was to issue mild statements when Chinese Foreign Minister
Yang Jiechi visited Washington. Incredibly, in the following month they sent our top naval officer and a
destroyer to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese navy. That show of friendship
was another mistake. In May, the Chinese again harassed the Victorious in the Yellow Sea. The Obama
administration, unfortunately, did not learn. Just days before the presidents November 2009 trip to

Jeffrey Bader, then the top Asia official on the National Security Council,
publicly said the United States could not solve any of the worlds great
problems without Chinas cooperation. Obamas trip to China turned out to
be a debacle because the Chinese evidently thought that, after Baders
comments, they had a veto over American foreign policy . Not surprisingly, the
summit marked the beginning of a period of Beijings belligerence and hostility. During this period,
not only did Chinas civilian leaders openly work to undermine American
Beijing,

interestssomething they are continuing to doits flag officers and senior

colonels publicly talked about fighting a war against the United States in the
near future. The ruthlessly pragmatic Chinese respect strength and
despise weakness . Biden, by going to Beijing before Xi Jinping came here, looks like a
supplicant, something state media is already playing up. Who travels first is significant in Chinese eyes.
President Obama went to Beijing before President Hu Jintao visited Washington, by the way. Although we
dont realize it, the Chinese need us much more than we need them. Last year, 149.2% of Chinas overall
trade surplus related to sales to the United States. Moreover, we dont require Chinese money to finance
our debt because there are already too many lenders around the world willing to buy Treasury securities.
We saw that even on the first trading day after Standard & Poors downgrade of federal government debt,
when global investors snapped up Treasuries along with gold and Swiss Francs.

So instead of

going to Beijing, we should insist on Chinese leaders coming to

Washington to explain their predatory trade tactics, their attempts to deny
freedom of navigation, their proliferation of nuclear weapons technology to
Iran and North Korea, and their unprecedented cyber-attacks on our
networks, among other irresponsible acts. The Chinese just laugh at us
when we talk about good relations while they engage in
unacceptable behavior . We need to think like they do and realize that less
diplomacy would work better than more diplomacy at this time.

Diplomacy sends the signal we are not willing to stand up

to China
Gafney 15
[Frank, 9/30/15, Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.
formerly Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during the Reagan
Administration, following four years of service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the
Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator John Tower, and
a national security legislative aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson, The message Obama
must send to Xi and China http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/09/30/the-messageobama-must-send-to-xi-and-china/, Accessed June 28 2016, A.H]
Xi Jinping, the dictator of Communist China in his role as leader of its party and its military wing, the
Peoples Liberation Army, is being rewarded by President Obama this week for his escalating aggression
with a state visit. Chinas state media have been full of articles, some written by pro-Beijing American
China hands, admonishing America that nothing is more important than maintaining stable bilateral
relations. In other words, we should continue to ignore the fact that Chinese goals increasingly threaten

This business uber alles approach has governed

US-China relations for the last 25 years. It must stop, unless American leaders
today wish to condemn our children to future wars with China . Lets be clear:
Americas interests and security.

Chinas highest priority goal is to end American political/strategic

leadership in Asia and to force Asian democracies and U.S. allies to
subordinate their security to Chinese hegemony and dictates . Its
specific objectives include the termination in the near-term of democracy on Taiwan and the end of U.S.
defense treaties with and presence in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia.

It is

absolutely imperative that Xi comes away from his time here convinced that
the United States is not going to cede Asia, outer space or cyberspace to
Chinese dominance and will never abandon its democratic or military allies.
To be sure, Communist China regularly inveighs that it abjures hegemony . But it is unmistakably
building today the forces it needs to invade Taiwan and to prevent the United
States from rendering military assistance. The Chinese are also building the politicaleconomic basis for extending their influence in Central Asia, Africa and Latin America. This will soon
be accompanied by a global power-projection military, allowing Beijing to
advance its ambitions for domination beyond its own region, ambitions that
may be further catalyzed by the need to seize on external threats to justify
continued, and intensifying, internal repression. That is especially true insofar as the
Chinese Communist Party is facing the combined challenges of serious economic setbacks, a demographic

China is building space weapons to control Low Earth

it seeks to
dominate cyberspace in order to threaten Americas electronic
time-bomb and growing political unrest.

Orbit and notwithstanding any accord it may sign with President Obama this week

infrastructure. These are the sorts of conduct that hostile powers

engage in, not friends or even business partners worthy of the
honor and legitimization associated with a state visit to
Washington . It is a serious strategic mistake to extend such a privilege to Xi Jinping under present
circumstances. It is, therefore, absolutely imperative that Xi comes away from his time here convinced
that the United States is not going to cede Asia, outer space or cyberspace to Chinese dominance and will
never abandon its democratic or military allies. This must start with continued support for Taiwans ability
to defend itself from a growing Chinese threat, as it must expand military cooperation with Japan and the

We have to counter
the impression of American military and geopolitical decline that is
contributing to Chinas increasingly aggressive conduct in various terrestrial,
extraterrestrial and virtual domains. Furthermore, it is time for Washington to insist that
Philippines to deter Beijing from imposing control over disputed maritime areas.

China must cease its longstanding technical and political support that has enabled Pakistan, North Korea
and soon, Iran, to become nuclear missile states. Not least,

we should be exploiting

Chinas internal difficulties to weaken the Partys hold on power

and not be legitimating it, propping it up or otherwise appeasing
it. A failure to resist Chinas ambitions in Asia and beyond and its nuclear missile
only serves to encourage the Communists to redouble their bid for
eventual global strategic dominance at the expense of the United States and
proliferation

many other democracies. We must respond to Chinese provocations,

rebuild our military to deter Beijings aggression and counter its
eforts to use our corporations understandable desire for trade
with China to undermine their own proprietary interests and the
nations security and/or economic ones.

So the stakes for Americans in Xi Jinpings

Xis interlocutors must demonstrate that we will resist Chinas

ambitions, not accede to them. The message should be: America is committed to: free passage
visit are enormous.

in the East and South China Seas; its allies, partners and strategic interests in that region and elsewhere;

and opposing the efforts of any nation to restrict or otherwise endanger those vital interests.

Our

failure to do so now will only compound the difficulty and expense

entailed in dealing with China down the road for future presidents
and for our country.

Diplomacy is appeasement only encourages Chinese

aggression
Goldfarb 09
[Michael, Contributing editor at the Weekly Standard with a B.A. in history
from Princeton University, 10/5/9, China Appeasement Now Officially Under
Way, http://www.weeklystandard.com/china-appeasement-now-officiallyunder-way/article/270842, Accessed June 28 2016, A.H]

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Blog reported this three weeks ago, but today we read in the Washington Post that
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been unceremoniously barred from the White House until President
Obama travels to China in November .

Sinophiles in the White House are in Nirvana

having successfully tossed overboard criticial bilateral concerns such as
forced abortions, human rights, the treatment of political prisoners, and
Chinese aggression against unarmed U.S. naval vessels in the Western Pacific
-- all this under the definition of "Strategic Reassurance," the new euphemism
for the United States doing a diplomatic bend-over and ankle grab (BOAAG ).
The Post's John Pomfret writes: "The U.S. decision to postpone the meeting appears to
be part of a strategy to improve ties with China that also includes softpedaling criticism of China's human rights and financial policies as well as
backing efforts to elevate China's position in international institutions , such as
the International Monetary Fund. Obama administration officials have termed the new policy 'strategic
reassurance,' which entails the U.S. government taking steps to convince China that it is not out to contain

" So...what has this appeasement and "strategic

reassurance" earned the United States in the way of Chinese cooperation on
critical issues? A bellwether can be found at the U.N. where, last Friday, China killed any
attempt by the U.S. and France to put Burma's military junta on the UNSC
schedule by demanding that deaths in Afghanistan by U.S. and NATO forces
also be discussed. You might recall Burma's military junta is one of the most brutal in the world and
the emerging Asian power.

a source for regional problems such as refugees, drugs, and the spread of infectious diseases among
others. "We are not focused on that," China's Deputy Ambassador Liu Zhenmin said according to a
Bloomberg report, but civilian casualties in Afghanistan was a "good subject" for the UN's top body to
discuss. It's bad enough that the Chinese would draw a moral equivalency between civilian deaths in
Afghanistan -- where U.S. and NATO forces are fighting a war and taking unprecedented precautions to
protect civilians and build a democratic society -- and civilian deaths in Burma, where the junta targets
civilians for murder and worse on a massive scale. That the White House, State, or Ambassador Rice issued
nary a tweet of protest at this outrage is a good gauge at just how far we will go to avoid provoking Red

Nobody believes the Chinese will consent to serious sanctions

on Iran, or will bring the North Koreans to heel (Chinese premier Wen Jiabao is right now
China. And for what?

wrapping up a three day visit to North Korea where he is celebrating "good-neighborliness and generationafter-generation friendship between the two countries"). No one believes that the Chinese will cooperate

Is
Valerie Jarrett telling the administration that, just like the IOC, the Chinese are
ready to see the light with just a few more concessions and a little more
direct, presidential diplomacy?
on global warming. Or is the administration so deluded that they think such cooperation is possible?

Link INF
Note this card is not as good as the cooperation/diplomacy cards, I might
read that before this card.

Nuclear deals function as appeasement China will just

cheat Iran proves
Krauthammer 16
[Charles, 1/7/16, American Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist,
author, political commentator, and physician, McGill University, majoring in
political science and economics, Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in
Politics) and Harvard (M.D. in 1975), Column: Obama's serial appeasement
has backfired, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ctiran-missile-krauthammer-putin-obama-perspec-0108-jm-20160107story.html, Accessed July 5 2016, A.H]
If you're going to engage in a foreign policy capitulation, might as well do it when everyone is getting

Iran test-fires a
nuclear-capable ballistic missile in brazen violation of unanimous United Nations
Security Council resolutions. President Barack Obama does nothing. One month later,
Iran does it again. The administration makes a few gestures at the U.N. Then nothing. Then finally, on
Dec. 30, the White House announces a few sanctions . They are weak, aimed mostly
at individuals and designed essentially for show. Amazingly, even that proves too much. By
10 p.m. that night, the administration caves. The White House sends out an
email saying that sanctions are off and the Iranian president orders the
tanked and otherwise occupied. Say, New Year's Eve. Here's the story. In October,

military to expedite the missile program . Is there any red line left?

First,

the Syrian chemical weapons. Then the administration insistence that there would be no nuclear deal
unless Iran accounted for its past nuclear activities. (It didn't.) And unless Iran permitted inspection of its
Parchin nuclear testing facility. (It was allowed self-inspection and declared itself clean.) And now, illegal

The premise of the nuclear deal was that it would constrain

Iranian actions. It's had precisely the opposite effect . It has deterred us from offering
ballistic missiles.

even the mildest pushback to any Iranian violations lest Iran walk away and leave Obama legacy-less. Just
two weeks ago, Iran's Revolutionary Guards conducted live-fire exercises near the Strait of Hormuz. It gave
nearby U.S. vessels exactly 23 seconds of warning. One rocket was launched 1,500 yards from the USS
Harry S. Truman. Obama's response? None. The Gulf Arabs rich, weak and, since FDR, dependent on
America for security are bewildered. They're still reeling from the nuclear deal, which Obama declared
would be unaffected by Iranian misbehavior elsewhere. The result was to assure Tehran that it would pay
no price for its aggression in Syria and Yemen, subversion in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and support for
terrorism. Obama seems not to understand that disconnecting the nuclear issue gave the mullahs license
to hunt in the region. For the Saudis, however, it's not just blundering but betrayal. From the very
beginning, they've seen President Obama tilting toward Tehran as he fancies himself Nixon in China,
turning Iran into a strategic partner in managing the Middle East. This is even scarier because it is
delusional

. If anything, Obama's openhanded appeasement has

encouraged Iran's regional adventurism and intense antiAmericanism.

The Saudis, sensing abandonment, are near panic. Hence the reckless execution of

the firebrand Shiite insurrectionist, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, that has brought the region to a boil. Iranians
torched the Saudi Embassy. The Saudis led other Sunni states in breaking relations with Tehran. The
Saudis feel surrounded, and it's not paranoia. To their north, Iran dominates a Shiite crescent stretching
from Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean. To the Saudi south, Iran has been arming Yemen's
Houthi rebels since at least 2009.

The danger is rising. For years, Iran has been

supporting anti-regime agitation among Saudi Arabia's minority Shiites. The

Persian Gulf is Iran's ultimate prize. The fall of the House of Saud would make
Iran the undisputed regional hegemon and an emerging global power . For the
United States, that would be the greatest geopolitical setback since China fell to
communism in 1949. Yet Obama seems oblivious. Worse, he appears inert in the face of the three
great challenges to the post-Cold War American order.

Iran is only the most glaring

China is challenging the status quo in the S outh China Sea, just last week landing its first
aircraft on an artificial island hundreds of miles beyond the Chinese coast. We deny China's claim
and declare these to be international waters , yet last month we meekly
apologized when a B-52 overflew one of the island s. We said it was
inadvertent. The world sees and takes note. As it does our response to the other great
U.S. adversary Russia. What's happened to Obama's vaunted "isolation" of Russia for its annexation of
Crimea and assault on the post-Cold War European settlement? Gone. Evaporated. Secretary of State John
Kerry plays lap dog to Sergei Lavrov. Obama meets openly with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Turkey,

There is no price for

defying Pax Americana not even trivial sanctions on Iranian missileenablers. Our enemies know it. Our allies see it and sense they're on their
own, and may not survive.
then in Paris. And is now practically begging him to join our side in Syria.

Link Export Controls

Removing export controls is a sign of weakness and
directly contributes the Chinese military buildup
Gertz 13
Bill, 9/18/13, senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon, China Seeks
Weaker Export Controls on Military Equipment,
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-seeks-weaker-export-controlson-military-equipment/, Accessed June 26 2016, A.H
Beijing also wants the State Departments arms export control list, known as the U.S. Munitions List,
downgraded and administered by the trade-oriented Commerce Department as part of its Commerce
Control List. The change would ease the export of sensitive defense technology to China. The
administration has asked agencies to discuss what to give the Chinese from the list, said one official close
to the discussions. Additionally, the Chinese list includes a request that the administration block a
provision of the fiscal 2014 House appropriations bill that would restrict exports of U.S. information
technology to China. Im surprised the administration would allow the Chinese government to interfere
with the operation of the American government, said Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) in an interview. He added
that Chinas demand for the administration to change the appropriations bill was very troubling. Wolf is
chairman of the appropriations subcommittee for the Commerce Department that drafted the legislation. It
was approved by the committee following concerns that state-owned Chinese telecommunications
companies, like Huawei Technologies and ZTE, are engaged in illicit cyber espionage against the United

The Chinese also asked the administration to allow the Commercial

Aircraft Corp. of China (COMAC) to be named a validated end-user, status
that would permit easy exports of sensitive defense-related aircraft
technology. COMAC is linked to Chinas main military manufacture r, Aviation
Industries Corp. of China (AVIC) that produces fighters, nuclear-capable bombers, and
90 percent of the aviation weapon systems used by the Chinese military . An
States.

AVIC subsidiary, China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corp., was sanctioned by the U.S.

A U.S. official said granting

COMAC the validated end-user status would increase the risk that militarily
significant U.S. aircraft technology will boost Chinas military buildup . The list
of export control concessions sought by Beijing was produced by Chinas
Ministry of Commerce. It will be presented formally during an upcoming meeting of the Joint
government in 2008 for illicit arms sales to Iran and Syria.

Commission, to be held in Beijing in November or December. A spokeswoman for the office of the U.S.
Trade Representative, the agency that along with the Commerce Department is in charge of the U.S. side
of the joint commission, had no comment. Carol Guthrie, the spokeswoman, said no date has been set for

John Bolton,
former undersecretary of state for international security, said he opposes
making concessions on export controls of high-technology trade with China. He
the next commission meeting. The last joint commission session was in December.

noted Chinas failure to cooperate with the U.S. government request to return fugitive former National
Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who sought refuge first in Hong Kong before being granted
asylum in Russia. I would make no concessions to China, and I would make it clear that this is a partial
repayment for their refusal to hand over Snowden to us, Bolton said in an email. Neither China nor
Russia have felt any pain for their lack of cooperation, but its never too late to start. William C. Triplett,

giving in to Chinese
demands to ease export controls would compound the administrations
former Republican counsel for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said

recent mishandling of Syria policy and assist Chinas military buildup.

Granting anything on this list would cause total consternation in Tokyo,
Manila, and Delhi, Triplett said. And after the events of the past

week, why would President Obama want to look weak to a Chinese

communist leader who is a throw-back to the Mao era?

he asked. Chinas

list asked that the administration remove sanctions on five Chinese entities that were involved in
proliferation violations. They include Poly Technologies, China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp.,
Kunlun Bank, and Zhuhai Zhenrong. China also sought to gain access to robotic fiber placement machines
technology restricted for export because they can be used to manufacture composite material used in
radar-evading stealth weapons. Commerce Department and USTR officials met last week in Beijing with
Chinese counterparts for a mid-year review of the joint commission. The U.S. delegation was led by
Wendy Cutler, acting deputy U.S. Trade Representative, and Francisco Sanchez, undersecretary of
commerce for international trade. The officials discussed strengthening the increasingly productive trade
relationship with China at the talks, according to a Commerce Department press release. The JCCT
remains an important venue for us to address concrete trade and investment issues, and we look forward
to working on these issues with our Chinese counterparts in the weeks and months ahead, Cutler said.
Topics discussed in Beijing included intellectual property rights, pharmaceuticals, government
procurement, investment, services, industrial policies, regulatory obstacles, and agriculture. The
statement made no mention of Chinas request to loosen U.S. export controls on defense and dual-use

The Chinese government has been pressing the Obama

administration to loosen its export control policies on high-technology defense and
technology.

space goods, claiming China is unfairly treated by the trade restrictions. Sanctions imposed after the
Tiananmen massacre, when Chinese military forces were called in to disperse unarmed pro-democracy
protesters from Beijings main square, cannot be lifted by the administration and would require
congressional action. However, the administration has sought to carry out a large-scale loosening of
export controls as part of a reform initiative launched two years ago. Last year, the administration notified
Congress that it was granting a high-technology arms export license to a Hong Kong satellite company with
Chinese ties. The license was opposed by congressional Republicans who said it violated sanctions on
Beijing. U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke announced earlier this year that the administration planned
to loosen export controls on nearly one-third of the 141 high-technology items sought by China that now
require stringent national-security export licensing. Critics of the administrations export control reform

say the new policy will boost Chinas large-scale military buildup.
There is no diference between civilian and military manufacturers
in China.

joint State Department-Pentagon report to Congress published

in April warned that easing controls on U.S. satellite exports could

significantly improve the military potential of another country, believed to
be a reference to China. Space assets provide important military and intelligence capabilities
ranging from strategic intelligence collection to improved tactical communications, the report said. If
they can succeed in acquiring the necessary and sufficient technology and
expertise, it could translate into a significant enhancement of that nations
military.

Link Korea
Removing troops signals to China we arent willing to
contest their expansionism
Nichols 14
[Tom, Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College and an
adjunct at the Harvard Extension School, Why a Korean Pullout is a Really
Bad Idea, http://warontherocks.com/2014/07/why-a-korean-pullout-is-areally-bad-idea/, Accessed June 28 2016, A.H]
The North Koreans, particularly the old marshals of the Korean military for whom the Korean War is still a
sacred memory, would no doubt love to see a replay of 1949, and would consider it a great victory. They
would be able to gloat that they had achieved what even their big brothers in China had been unable to do
for over 60 years: a Korea whose soil is completely untainted by American boots. Moreover

removing American troops from Korea will signal to the Chinese

that we want no further U.S. presence in their region, and remove
one more complication in any Chinese strategy of expansion or
intimidation . In sum, a pullout would raise North Koreas stature,
reduce Chinas dwindling influence over its client, and leave
Pyongyang

in its own eyes

a peer to Beijing , Seoul, and Tokyo. How is any of this a

good idea? Lees proposal also takes place in a vacuum, as though nothing else is happening in the world.
By focusing on costs and planning in one part of the map, Lee treats foreign policy as a menu from which
one may pick and choose options at will, rather than as a coherent whole. American credibility is under
attack on all fronts: Russia, Syria, and Iran are but three places where perceptions of resolve matter. (Or
would have mattered, had we cared enough to insist on being more proactive two or three years ago.)
What message would it send, as Ukraine is being dismembered and NATO struggles with its responses, if
the United States leaves behind an ally still in a state of war? If the only goal is to move 28,000 U.S.
troops around a map and save some money, Major Lees withdrawal looks like a terrific idea. Again,
however, this is operational myopia: it may well be that on the gaming table, the South can defeat the
North without U.S. help, but this is not about operations, it is about strategy. Specifically, it is about

The
regime in Pyongyang is the same one that attacked in 1950, and is still at war
with one of our closest allies. The consequences of yet one more American
disengagement, after a string of foreign policy disasters, might well end up
costing far more than any budget-conscious planner could envision.
politics, including trying to shape the enemys perceptions and willingness to engage in risk.

Removing troops makes China push hard in Asia

Kelly 09
[Robert, 12/18/09, associate professor of international relations in the Political
Science and Diplomacy Department of Pusan National University in Busan,
Korea, Should the US Pull Out of South Korea (2): No,
https://asiansecurityblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/should-the-us-pull-outof-south-korea-2-no/, Accessed June 28 2016, A.H]

US Sec Def Gates recently reaffirmed in very strong language the US commitment to Korean security. This
served as a catalyst to extensive discussions among my colleagues about the value of the US commitment

here is
why we should stay: 1. If we leave, everyone in Asia will read it as a sign that
we are weak and that we are leaving Asia generally . Yes, this is the credibility argument
straight out of the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan debates. But the world sees US power today
as wavering; we are the tottering giant , especially in Asia. If we leave during the
to SK. This is part 2 of the debate. My own thinking tilts toward the opinions in this post. So

GWoT,

that image will be confirmed, and the Chinese will push hard in

Asia . A US departure will touch off an arms race as regional uncertainty

rises. Asia is not where Europe or Latin America are in terms of regional amity. The US presence
is more needed in this region, and it earns the US the friendship of the local
democracies. It is hard to see how a spiraling arms race, as Japan and
China openly start competing for regional leadership, plus perhaps
India and China, would help the US. The US could very well be
pulled back in later . A US departure from Korea (and Japan next?) will be
read as a clear victory for China in the Sino-US regional
competition.

Link Accommodation/Bilateralism
The AFFs accommodation of china furthers their military
expansion
Jackson 15
[Van, 8/6/15, Associate Professor in the College of Security Studies at the
Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI-APCSS) in
Honolulu and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American
Security (CNAS) in Washington, The Myth of a US-China Grand Bargain,
Accessed June 27 2016, A.H]
A number of scholars have tried to advance the well-intentioned proposal that U.S. concessions to Chinas
many concerns will somehow facilitate a peaceful order in Asia. While I agree with the sentiment and

the idea
that U.S. accommodation of China will produce a peaceful and stable order in
Asia isnt just unrealistic; its irresponsible . Though it wasnt the first, Hugh Whites China
recognize that there are areas of international life where Sino-U.S. cooperation is essential,

Choice was an early and pointed call for the United States to form a G-2 with China in which the two
countries would work together to set the terms of the regional order, requiring that the United States
accommodate the demands of a rising China. Jim Steinbergs and Michael OHanlons Strategic
Reassurance and Resolve reiterates many of Whites points, but with better theoretical grounding. Lyle
Goldsteins Meeting China Halfway argues far more persuasively than many in this lineage, and some of
his specific recommendations merit serious considerationnot least because they would incur no great
cost to try. But there are equally serious reasons to doubt the transformative ambitions attached to U.S.
concessions. The latest salvo in this America must accommodate China literature hails from an
accomplished political scientist at George Washington University, Charles Glaser, writing in the most recent
issue of International Security. Glaser makes the sweeping and somewhat unhelpful claim that military
competition is risky and therefore undesirable. As an alternative he suggests that if only the United States
would abandon commitments to Taiwan, China would be willing to resolve its territorial disputes in the East

Prior to around 2008,

proposals for U.S. accommodation of a rising China made much more sense,
or at least could be taken more seriously. But times have changed. Chinas ambitions
have changed. And so has its foreign policy behavior . These contextual changes matter
and South China Sea, thereby sidestepping military competition.

for whether and when accommodation can have the desired effect. More to the point though, there are a
number of problems with the grand bargain line of argumentation. First,

any proposal for a

Sino-U.S. solution to regional problems is by definition taking a

great power view of Asia that marginalizes the agency and
strategic relevance of U.S. allies and the regions middle powers . In
the brief period (five to ten years ago) when a G-2 concept was taken semi-seriously
in Washington, alliesespecially South Korea and Japanchafed . The regions
middle powers would be unlikely to simply follow the joint dictates of China and the United States without

attempting a G-2 could ironically create a more fragmented

order as a result. Including others, at any rate, is antithetical to the concept of a Sino-U.S. G-2
being part of it, and

arrangement. As early as the 1960s U.S. officials tried to rely on China to deal with regional issues
spanning from North Korea to Vietnam. It was almost always to no avail. Second, and as Ive written about
extensively elsewhere, Asia is rife with security concerns that have nothing to do with China directly, so
any understanding reached with China would leave unresolved many of the regions latent sources of
potential conflict. Sino-U.S. grand bargain proponents forget that China and the United States only have
real conflicts of interest by proxy. Every conceivable conflict scenario involves China and some other Asian
stateTaiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Korea. The United States only becomes part of the picture because of
a commitment to regional order, including its alliance network. Third, as its recent stock market crash
makes all too obvious,

China remains a fragile superpower, to quote Susan Shirk. Many

factors in its domestic political situationcorruption, growing wealth

disparities, and many forms of civil challenges to government legitimacy
make it an unpredictable player. Nor is China showing meaningful signs of political
liberalization. Theres so much brewing underneath the surface in China that dealing with China today as if
it were a hegemon tomorrow assumes too much, and grants China too much credit too soon. Fourth,

theres a defunct theory thats been smuggled into arguments about

changing Chinese behavior through U.S. accommodation . Political scientists
call it neofunctionalism, a term rarely used these days, even though its spirit is pervasive in
grand bargain arguments. Neofunctionalism came about in the 1950s as a failed way to account for and
push for European integration.The

basic idea involved an assumption that low level

and innocuous types of cooperation would spillover into still more and
better quality cooperation. Comity among nations, it was thought, would be the eventual
outcome of mundane socioeconomic interactions. But by the 1970s, the theory had become
largely discredited. Nevertheless, echoes of neofunctionalism remain in
contemporary claims that properly calibrated restraint,
accommodation, or appeasement can have a transformative efect
on a relationship . Ironically, these arguments tend to come from scholars, not policymakers.
The idea that the United States can induce China into resolving its
East and South China Sea disputes by giving it Taiwan reflects
precisely this type of expectation, as do calls for the United States
to make small concessions to China in hopes that it will enable a
more stable situation. None of this means that accommodative gestures or strategies
should be outright dismissed. There were numerous periods of detente with the Soviet Union during the
Cold War, and that rivalry was much more confrontational. China and the United States, moreover, have a
number of overlappingnot just conflictinginterests. I might even go as far as saying that
neofunctionalism has a bit of a bad rap; there are times when trivial or non-costly forms of cooperation can
lead to greater and deeper cooperation, but political scientists havent convincingly figured out what those
conditions are. But grand bargains rarely work. Theres a dangerous naivete in abandoning U.S.
commitments on the hope that China will then be more willing to resolve its other disputes. And

policies of accommodation will not suspend military competition

because that involves more than present day concerns with
surveillance overflight missions, territorial disputes, and current
political commitments . Regardless of the policy and crisis management decisions we make
today, military competition plays out over years and decades; it relates to force structure investment and
doctrinal decisions that cant be sacrificed for political promises. Chinas concerns will only be assuaged
when the United States divests of the military force structure that makes it possible to project power
globally, uphold its commitments, and bolster the regional order. The U.S. military will be unable to pursue
such a course as long as China maintains openly expansionist geopolitical ambitions and a force structure
designed to achieve it. Competition, it seems, is the logic of the situation. We ignore that at our own peril.

Link Relations
Good relations bolster Chinese aggressiveness which
makes war inevitable
Gafney 01
[Frank J. Gaffney Jr, Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy in
Washington, D.C. formerly Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Policy during the Reagan Administration, following four years of
service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and
Arms Control Policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the
Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late
Senator John Tower, and a national security legislative aide to the late
Senator Henry M. Jackson, A Deal on Chinas Hostages Then What?,
http://www.wnd.com/2001/04/8788/, Accessed June 28 2016, A.H]
Normal relations cannot and must not be maintained with a
government that is as abnormal as that of the PRC . In the years since 1972,
Americans have been encouraged to avert their collective gaze from its true character and conduct. We
have increasingly ignored the systematic abuse of human rights, even though it is absurd to think the
communist Chinese would care more about other nations citizens or treat them better than they do their

We have not allowed the PRCs aggressive pursuit of offensive military

arms, its forcible occupation of foreign territory in the Spratly Islands or its
transfer of weapons of mass destruction to our potential adversaries around
the world to trouble us, let alone to interfere with our bilateral relations. The fact that China has
own.

the worlds most active ICBM modernization program involving weapons only needed to attack the
United States is seemingly a matter of no consequence to that nations many friends in this

Chinas apologists and boosters encourage Americans to

believe that, as long as we trade with the communist regime and its entities,
these myriad problems are irritants to be managed, rather than indicators of
fundamental and irreconcilable difference s not between our two peoples but
between the United States and the odious government of China. Such
country. Instead,

shortsightedness would be troublesome even if our balance of payments with the PRC were not running a
deficit estimated to be roughly $80 billion this year.

trading partners

Countries do go to war with their

England and Nazi Germany were each others

largest markets before World War I I and we ignore at our peril

Chinas repeated description of the U.S. as its main enemy and
declarations that war between the two is inevitable. In the place of
further appeasement of the Chinese government, the United States must
adopt a determined, long-term strategy towards it akin to that employed by
President Ronald Reagan to destroy another monstrous communist regime
that of the Soviet Union. This requires, among other things, calling
such criminal enterprises what they are: evil empires

. Once we are clear

about who we are dealing with, the rest of the steps aimed at countering Chinas regional ambitions,
growing economic power and international trouble-making become relatively straightforward, if still very

challenging, propositions. For example, a concerted effort should be made to help our countrymen
understand the connection between the myriad Chinese goods they buy and the financial wherewithal
Beijing is using to purchase Russian arms designed to kill Americans.

The U.S. government

must help expose attempts by the PRC and its state-owned

companies to underwrite on our capital markets activities
incompatible with our values and vital national security interests.
(These include China National Petroleum Companys enabling of genocide and slave-trading in Sudan,
PetroChinas participation in the despoiling of Tibet and Great Wall Industries threatening ballistic missile
programs.) And the dangerous strategic implications of sales of U.S. supercomputers, missile-related
technologies and even commercial airliners to the Peoples Liberation Army must be explained to U.S.
companies and shareholders and discouraged.

will not be easy

Putting into place such a strategy

after the better part of a decade of American appeasement of the Chinese

communists and their political and economic inroads internationally

. It will require

patience, courage, tenacity and, above all, a commitment

Bush put it at the christening of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan

as President

to stand by those nations

moving toward freedom [and] stand up to those nations who deny

freedom and threaten [their] neighbors or our vital interests.

The

good news is that today we can include among those who are seeking freedom millions and millions
among the Chinese people. Indeed, the threat this aspiration represents to their government is one of the
reasons the communist regime is engaged in ever more provocative behavior abroad; by so doing, it
appeals to nationalistic impulses and provides a pretext for intensified repression of those who dont hew
to the party line. By exposing such social engineering for what it is and by helping to empower the
people of China, however, the United States has a chance of promoting a regime change that is both in
their interest and ours and the best chance of avoiding a conflict that would be hugely detrimental to
the citizens of both countries.

Link Economics
The afs economic integration is appeasement and leads
to Chinese aggression
Marston 6/30/16
Hunter, The National Interest, works in a major Washington, DC think tank
and writes on Southeast Asia and U.S. foreign policy, A wealthier Beijing can
afford to take more risks [http://nationalinterest.org/feature/more-tradewont-stop-chinas-aggression-16587, Accessed June 30 2016, A.H]
Chinas brazen and improper airmanship, buzzing an American surveillance plane in the skies above the
East China Sea last week, is but the latest signal of Beijings proclivity for risk and willingness to undermine
both its regional reputation and economic stability in order to stake expanding claims in Asia. Western
observers have not relinquished the perennial hope that Chinas global economic interconnectedness will
constrain its proclivity to military conflict. But this belief is misguided and not borne out by history. In fact,

as Chinas economic and military power rise, it has shown an increased

tolerance for risk and raised the likelihood of future war. China has repeatedly
harassed Indonesian, Vietnamese and Philippine ships in the latters territorial waters, claiming that
Chinese citizens have been fishing there since ancient times, entitling them to vast maritime
sovereignty. Its island construction on top of shallow reefs is another component in Beijings strategy to
assert dominance over the South China Sea. The near-collision of the Chinese fighter jet with the U.S. spy
plane last week follows a string of gutsy, high-risk encounters. Only last month, two Chinese jets flew
within fifty feet of an American EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea. Gregory Poling,
director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic & International Studies,
commented, Its clear that Chinas tolerance for risk has risen in the last several years and remains high,
though luckily below the level at which deadly force is likely. Despite high-level progress from Beijing and
Washington on a Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) in recent years, the Chinese Peoples
Liberation Army (PLA) may be testing the strategic limits of the outgoing Obama administrations
patience. Poling added, What is most worrying to me is that it took less than six months for Beijing to
violate the air-to-air annex to CUES that Presidents Obama and Xi inked during the latters visit to DC. That

no matter how hard we might try, China is not willing to have its
behavior in disputed waters bound in any way, including by bilaterally
agreed-upon rules and norms. Do Chinese military forays in the East and South China Sea
suggests that

signal Beijings clear quest for regional domination and the inevitable ratcheting up of tensions with other
Pacific powers? Will increasingly risky provocations lead to military conflict as China stakes its claims? Or
does Chinas dependence on global trade for continued economic growth at home preclude war in the

The past has repeatedly proved wrong those who assume that
a rising powers economic connectivity obviates the inevitability of great
power military conflict. Peacenik theorists of the preWorld War I era opined that the level of
foreseeable future?

interconnectivity in global markets had rendered obsolete the great-power warfare of the eighteenth and

before the breakout of World War II,

advocates of appeasement wagered that a militarizing Germany would not
threaten continental peace due to its deep economic ties with the rest of
Europe. Obviously, both schools of thought overestimated the ability of global economic connectivity to
nineteenth centuries. Likewise, in the interbellum period

deter military aggression. What makes scholars think China is different today? Of course, the scale of
interpenetration of global markets has risen and bound major powers such as China and the United States,
as well as regional groupings like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), ever more tightly

just as proponents of peace were proven wrong in the twentieth

century, echoes of the past are perceivable in Asia and Europe today. Despite
its dependence on the EU for revenue from gas exports, Russia invaded
Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014. Likewise, European dependence on Russian gas has not
together. But

prevented the EU from leveling heavy sanctions against Russia for its bellicosity.

Nationalist

impulses often trump economic considerations that would

otherwise impel autocrats toward moderation.

Just as the Communist Party in

Beijing is beholden to a public whose education hammered home the lessons of a century of humiliation
at the hands of Western imperialists, Russias Vladimir Putins legitimacyand mythosflows from a
narrative of western domination that has prevented Russia from attaining the greater world power that

though Beijing is investing in massive

infrastructure projects across Southeast Asia and pursuant to the sixteen-member Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership free-trade agreement, Beijings behavior indicates
that it will prioritize security interests over regional economic integration,
peace and stability. Material facts dictate that Chinas increasing economic wealth
and concordant military might will allow Beijing to exercise greater power in
its backyard and on the world stage. These factors afford the CCP a greater ability to risk
Russians feel their nation deserves. Similarly,

reputational and economic costs to achieve its national security goals.

Impacts

US China War R/C

Root Cause - Even if they solve a short term proximate
cause of war, appeasement makes major conflict
inevitable
Jacobs 15
[Bruce, Nov 1 2015, emeritus professor of Asian Languages and Studies at
Monash University, Sydney Morning Herald, Appeasement will only
encourage China, Accessed June 22 2016, A.H] Let's be clear: there is only country
threatening anyone else in Asia. World attention has again focused on our region of the globe, with the
American navy asserting its "freedom of navigation" near Chinese-constructed artificial islands in the socalled South China Sea. In less than 80 days, in the midst of threats from China, Taiwan's voters will vote
for their president and legislature. Polls suggest the opposition will win, thus giving Taiwan its third
transition of power from opposition to government in the six presidential elections since democratisation.

The tensions in Asia today have only one cause: China. On the basis of false
"history", China claims the South China Sea, the East China Sea and Taiwan. Yet
China has no historical claims to the South and East China seas. Historically, south-east Asian
states conducted the great trade in the South China Sea. China had almost no role. Furthermore,
geographically, the contested areas are close to Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines,

China's claims for sovereignty in

these areas have no historical basis and its constructing of "islands" on submerged reefs
only demonstrates China's expansionism. Similarly, in the East China Sea, China's
claims to the Senkaku Islands (which China calls the Diaoyutai) have no historical
foundation. The People's Daily of January 8, 1953, stated that the "Senkaku" Islands belonged to the
while they are more than 1000 kilometres south of China.

Ryukyu Archipelago, and a World Atlas published in China in 1958 showed that these islands belong to
Japan. China's claims that Taiwan belongs to it also have no historical basis. Mao Zedong, in his famous
1936 interview with Edgar Snow, stated that Taiwan should be independent. Only in 1942 did the Chinese
Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communist Party separately claim that Taiwan was
Chinese. In Taiwan's history, a Han Chinese regime based in China has only controlled Taiwan for four
years, from 1945 to 1949. These four years were perhaps the saddest in all of Taiwan's history because
Chiang Kai-shek's government killed tens of thousands of Taiwanese in the infamous 2.28 (February 28,
1947) massacres. The dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek and his son and successor, Chiang Ching-kuo, ruled
Taiwan from 1945 until the latter's death in early 1988. Their rule was a Chinese colonial project that
privileged Chinese who had come with Chiang Kai-shek and systematically discriminated against native
Taiwanese. Only with the accession of Lee Teng-hui to the presidency after the death of Chiang Ching-kuo
in 1988 could Taiwan begin its democratisation process. Now Taiwan, a country with a population the size
of Australia, has become a democratic middle power. The so-called "one China" policy of many countries
including the United States and Australia is a relic of the old Chiang Kai-shek/Chiang Ching-kuo
dictatorship, which pushed a "one China" policy without consulting Taiwan's population. All the major
Western democracies, as well as Japan and India, now have substantial if unofficial diplomatic offices in
Taiwan. And, although these nations do not publicise the point, all have de facto "One China, one Taiwan"

arguments of people such as Age columnist Hugh White are dangerous. They ignore
the cause of tension in Asia and say we have to be careful about becoming
policies. The

involved in a war. History has taught us that "appeasement" of such

expansionist powers as China does not stop war. Rather, it only
temporarily postpones armed conflict and ultimately leads to a
much larger war later. Appeasement of China only enhances Chinese
perceptions that the US is a toothless paper tiger . It creates a sense among
China's generals and political leaders that they can pursue expansionist
policies without international protest. The South China Sea has become one of

the most dangerous flashpoints in the world as China continues to

aggressively expand its influence and capabilities there. One year ago, we proposed
several ways in which the United States could try to deter further Chinese encroachments. But, as the
recent Shangri-La Dialogue demonstrated, tensions in the region have only risen since then. The Chinese

nothing the United States has done has

seemed to have any effect. The United States and its partners now have no
choice but to consider a wider range of more assertive response s.
have only accelerated their bellicose behavior, and

Philippines War
Appeasement furthers Chinese expansionism into
Philippine territory makes conflict inevitable
Bradsherfeb 14
[Keith, Feb 4 2014, Philippine Leader Sounds Alarm on China
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/world/asia/philippine-leader-urgesinternational-help-in-resisting-chinas-sea-claims.html, Accessed June 23 2016,
A.H]

President Benigno S. Aquino III called on Tuesday for nations around the
world to do more to support the Philippines in resisting Chinas assertive
claims to the seas near his country, drawing a comparison to the Wests
failure to support Czechoslovakia against Hitlers demands for Czech land in
1938. Like Czechoslovakia, the Philippines faces demands to surrender territory
piecemeal to a much stronger foreign power and needs more robust foreign support for
MANILA

the rule of international law if it is to resist, President Aquino said in a 90-minute interview in the woodpaneled music room of the presidential palace.

If we say yes to something we

believe is wrong now, what guarantee is there that the wrong will
not be further exacerbated down the line?

he said. He later added,

At what

point do you say, Enough is enough? Well, the world has to say it
remember that the Sudetenland was given in an attempt to appease Hitler to
prevent World War II. Mr. Aquinos remarks are among the strongest
indications yet of alarm among Asian heads of state about Chinas
military buildup and territorial ambitions , and the second time in recent
weeks that an Asian leader has volunteered a comparison to the prelude to
world wars. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan caused a stir in Davos, Switzerland, when he
much as China and Japan have now. noted last month that Britain and Germany went
to war in 1914 even though they had close economic ties Japan has been
locked in an increasingly tense standoff with China over uninhabited islands in the East
China Sea, and even South Korea , which has been quieter about Chinese claims, expressed
alarm last year when Beijing announced that it had the right to police the
skies above a vast area of ocean, including areas claimed by Japan and South
Korea. While Chinas efforts to claim rocks, shoals and fishing grounds off the coast of the Philippines in
the South China Sea have been less high-profile, the Chinese have moved faster there. The
Philippines already appears to have lost effective control of one of the bestknown places of contention, a reef called Scarborough Shoal , after Philippine forces
withdrew during a standoff with China in 2012. The Philippine forces left as part of an American-mediated
deal in which both sides were to pull back while the dispute was negotiated. Chinese forces remained,
however, and gained control. In his nearly four years as president, Mr. Aquino, 53, has exceeded
expectations in his country and the region for what he would be able to accomplish in a nation once known
as the sick man of Asia. He was a fairly low-key senator when he was propelled into the presidency in
2010 by a wave of national sympathy after his mother, former President Corazon C. Aquino, died the year
before. Political analysts say that his administration has fought and reduced the corruption that played a

role in holding the Philippines back. In one practical measure of that change, the country has been able to
pave more roads per 100 million pesos in spending (about $2.2 million) than before when funds were
lost to corrupt officials and incompetence finally addressing an impediment to commerce. All of the
major credit rating agencies now give the Philippines an investment grade rating, though the recent
downturn in share prices and currencies here and in other emerging markets, on fears of further slowing of
the Chinese economy, poses an immediate challenge. In another accomplishment, Mr. Aquinos
negotiators concluded a major peace agreement last month with the main resistance group on Mindanao,
the heavily Muslim southern island. Still, the deal remains something of a gamble; it is based in good part
on the Muslim groups ability to hold in check smaller resistance groups, which criticized the pact almost
immediately. Despite those successes, Mr. Aquino was criticized for the countrys slow initial response to
last years devastating typhoon. He said the storm was so powerful that it overwhelmed the Philippines
many preparations. He has also been less aggressive on land reform the Aquinos are among the
countrys biggest landowning families and he has preferred to shift more of the governments social
spending to poor villages instead. Walden Bello, although a congressman in the presidents governing
coalition, said he was one of many who believe that the lack of real progress on land reform is a real
reason why poverty rates have remained at high levels. Analysts say the almost feudal power of some
entrenched families, including some with militias, is a further obstacle to growth. But Mr. Aquino said he
was trying to convince the families that becoming less insular would foster greater prosperity. Mr. Aquino
is prevented by law from seeking re-election when his six-year term expires in 2016, raising uncertainty
about whether his changes will continue. In the wide-ranging interview on Tuesday, Mr. Aquino said he
thought the Philippines and the United States were close to a long-delayed deal that would allow more
American troops to rotate through the Philippines, enhancing his countrys security. But the subject
remains controversial among the political elite in the Philippines, with memories of the countrys past as an

The United States is pushing

for the deal to aid in its rebalance to Asia, where it hopes to retain a strong
influence despite Chinas rise. Speaking of the Philippines own tensions with the Chinese,
American possession making them wary of closer military ties.

Mr. Aquino said his country would not renounce any of its
possessions in the sea between it and China.

China contends that centuries-old

maps show that it had an early claim to the South China Sea almost to Borneo. It is trying to use its large
and growing fleet to exercise effective control over reefs and islands in the sea, a strategy that could
strengthen its legal position. At the same time, China has strongly resisted applying the procedures and
numerical formulas of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to the many reefs and islands
that lie much closer to countries like the Philippines than to China. Officials in Beijing also oppose
multilateral discussions, preferring bilateral talks with individual countries in Southeast Asia, an approach
that allows Chinese leaders to apply greater pressure. While China has been improving its military, Mr.
Aquino noted that the last flight by a Philippine fighter jet was in 2005 and that the plane dated from
before the Vietnam War. Most of the countrys tiny naval and coast guard fleet dates from World War II.
The difficulties with China extend beyond the arguments over the South China Sea. The Hong Kong
government, with enthusiastic backing from the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing, plans to stop allowing
14-day visa-free visits by Filipino diplomats and officials starting Wednesday. The sanctions are part of a
long-running demand by Hong Kong that the national government of the Philippines apologize over a
violent episode in 2010 in which a hostage rescue attempt in Manila failed, leaving eight Hong Kong
citizens dead. In his first public response to the sanctions, Mr. Aquino said he had no plans to apologize,
saying that doing so could create a legal liability and noting that China had not paid compensation to the
families of Filipinos who have died in episodes there. Mr. Aquino, who is not married, lives in a small
cottage behind the presidential palace instead of in the luxurious palace itself. He said he tries to relax
before going to sleep each night either by listening to music often jazz or pursuing his passion as an
amateur historian, reading military journals, some about World War II. While recently reading about the
predicament of Czechoslovakias leaders in the late 1930s, he said, he saw a parallel in a sense to his
own problems now in facing challenges from China.

Appeasement did not work in

1938, he noted; within six months of the surrender of the Sudetenland,

Germany occupied most of the rest of Czechoslovakia. The Philippines, he
said, is determined not to make similar concessions. You may have
the might, he said of China, but that does not necessarily make
you right.

China Philippines war draws in the US

Glaser 12
[Bonnie S. Glaser, Senior Advisor for Asia, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, Armed Clash in the South China Sea, Contingency
Planning Memorandum No. 14, http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/armedclash-south-china-sea/p27883, Accessed June 25 2016, A.H]
A second contingency involves conflict between China and the Philippines
over natural gas deposits, especially in the disputed area of Reed Bank, located
eighty nautical miles from Palawan. Oil survey ships operating in Reed Bank under contract
have increasingly been harassed by Chinese vessels. Reportedly, the United Kingdom-based Forum Energy
plans to start drilling for gas in Reed Bank this year, which could provoke an aggressive Chinese response.
Forum Energy is only one of fifteen exploration contracts that Manila intends to offer over the next few

this
contingency could quickly escalate to violence if China intervened to halt the
years for offshore exploration near Palawan Island. Reed Bank is a red line for the Philippines, so

drilling. The United States could be drawn into a China-Philippines

conflict because of its 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the
Philippines . The treaty states, "Each Party recognizes that an armed attack
in the Pacific Area on either of the Parties would be dangerous to its own
peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger s
in accordance with its constitutional processes." American officials insist that Washington
does not take sides in the territorial dispute in the South China Sea and refuse to comment on how the
United States might respond to Chinese aggression in contested waters. Nevertheless, an apparent gap
exists between American views of U.S. obligations and Manila's expectations .

In mid-June 2011, a
Filipino presidential spokesperson stated that in the event of armed conflict
with China, Manila expected the United States would come to its aid. Statements
by senior U.S. officials may have inadvertently led Manila to conclude that the United States would provide

With improving
political and military ties between Manila and Washington, including a
pending agreement to expand U.S. access to Filipino ports and airfields to
refuel and service its warships and planes, the United States would have a
military assistance if China attacked Filipino forces in the disputed Spratly Islands.

great deal at stake in a China-Philippines contingency . Failure to respond

would not only set back U.S. relations with the Philippines but would also potentially

undermine

U.S. credibility in the region with its allies and partners more
broadly. A U.S. decision to dispatch naval ships to the area , however, would
risk a U.S.-China naval confrontation.

I-Law and FON

Failure to deter Chinese undermines US free naval access
Glaser 12
Bonnie S. Glaser, Senior Advisor for Asia, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, Armed Clash in the South China Sea, Contingency
Planning Memorandum No. 14, http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/armedclash-south-china-sea/p27883
Global rules and norms. The United States has important interests in the
peaceful resolution of South China Sea disputes according to international
law. With the exception of China, all the claimants of the South China Sea
have attempted to justify their claims based on their coastlines and the
provisions of UNCLOS. China, however, relies on a mix of historic rights and
legal claims, while remaining deliberately ambiguous about the meaning of
the "nine-dashed line" around the sea that is drawn on Chinese maps. Failure
to uphold international law and norms could harm U.S. interests elsewhere in
the region and beyond. Ensuring freedom of navigation is another critical
interest of the United States and other regional states. Although China claims
that it supports freedom of navigation, its insistence that foreign militaries
seek advance permission to sail in its two-hundred-mile EEZ casts doubt on
its stance. China's development of capabilities to deny American naval access
to those waters in a conflict provides evidence of possible Chinese intentions
to block freedom of navigation in specific contingencies .

Naval power deters great power war and prevents

multiple extinction scenarios
Conway, Roughead, and Allen, 07- *General of U.S. Marine Corps and
Commandant of the Marine Corps, **Admiral of U.S. Navy and Chief of Naval Operations, ***Admiral of U.S.
Coast Guard and Commandant of the Coast Guard (*James Conway, **Gary Roughead, ***Thad Allen, "A
Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower", Department of the Navy, United States Marine Corps,
United States Coast Guard, http://www.navy.mil/maritime/MaritimeStrategy.pdf,)
This strategy reaffirms the use of seapower to influence actions and activities at sea and ashore. The
expeditionary character and versatility of maritime forces provide the U.S. the asymmetric advantage of
enlarging or contracting its military footprint in areas where access is denied or limited. Permanent or
prolonged basing of our military forces overseas often has unintended economic, social or political

The sea is a vast maneuver space, where the presence of maritime

forces can be adjusted as conditions dictate to enable flexible approaches to
escalation, de-escalation and deterrence of conflicts. The speed, flexibility,
agility and scalability of maritime forces provide 6755 joint or combined force
commanders a range of options for responding to crises . Additionally, integrated
repercussions.

maritime operations, either within formal alliance structures (such as the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) or more informal arrangements (such as the Global Maritime Partnership initiative), send
powerful messages to would-be aggressors that we will act with others to ensure collective security and

United States seapower will be globally postured to secure our

homeland and citizens from direct attack and to advance our interests around
the world. As our security and prosperity are inextricably linked with those of
others, U.S. maritime forces will be deployed to protect and sustain the
peaceful global system comprised of interdependent networks of trade,
prosperity.

finance, information, law, people and governance . We will employ the global reach,
persistent presence, and operational flexibility inherent in U.S. seapower to accomplish six key tasks, or
strategic imperatives. Where tensions are high or where we wish to demonstrate to our friends and allies

U.S. maritime forces will be characterized by

regionally concentrated, forward-deployed task forces with the combat power
to limit regional conflict, deter major power war, and should deterrence fail, win our
our commitment to security and stability,

Nations wars as part of a joint or combined campaign. In addition, persistent, mission-tailored maritime
forces will be globally distributed in order to contribute to homeland defense-in-depth, foster and sustain
cooperative relationships with an expanding set of international partners, and prevent or mitigate
disruptions and crises.

Credible combat power will be continuously postured in the

Western Pacific and the Arabian Gulf/Indian Ocean to protect our vital
interests, assure our friends and allies of our continuing commitment to regional security, and deter
and dissuade potential adversaries and peer competitors. This combat power can be selectively and
rapidly repositioned to meet contingencies that may arise elsewhere. These forces will be sized and
postured to fulfill the following strategic imperatives: Limit regional conflict with forward deployed, decisive
maritime power. Today regional conflict has ramifications far beyond the area of conflict.

Humanitarian crises, violence spreading across borders, pandemics , and the

interruption of vital resources are all possible when regional crises erupt.
While this strategy advocates a wide dispersal of networked maritime forces,
we cannot be everywhere, and we cannot act to mitigate all regional conflict.
Where conflict threatens the global system and our national interests,
maritime forces will be ready to respond alongside other elements of national
and multi-national power, to give political leaders a range of options for
deterrence, escalation and de-escalation. Maritime forces that are
persistently present and combat-ready provide the Nations primary forcible
entry option in an era of declining access, even as they provide the means for
this Nation to respond quickly to other crises. Whether over the horizon or
powerfully arrayed in plain sight, maritime forces can deter the ambitions of
regional aggressors, assure friends and allies, gain and maintain access, and
protect our citizens while working to sustain the global order. Critical to this notion
is the maintenance of a powerful fleetships, aircraft, Marine forces, and shore-based fleet activities
capable of selectively controlling the seas, projecting power ashore, and protecting friendly forces and
civilian populations from attack.Deter major power war. No other disruption is as potentially disastrous to

Maintenance and extension of this Nations

comparative seapower advantage is a key component of deterring major
power war. While war with another great power strikes many as improbable, the near-certainty of its
ruinous effects demands that it be actively deterred using all elements of national power. The
expeditionary character of maritime forcesour lethality, global reach,
speed, endurance, ability to overcome barriers to access, and operational
agilityprovide the joint commander with a range of deterrent options. We
will pursue an approach to deterrence that includes a credible and scalable
ability to retaliate against aggressors conventionally, unconventionally, and
with nuclear forces.
global stability as war among major powers.

Asia Prolif
Appeasement leads to Asian arms race
Glaser 12
Bonnie S. Glaser, Senior Advisor for Asia, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, Armed Clash in the South China Sea, Contingency
Planning Memorandum No. 14, http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/armedclash-south-china-sea/p27883
Alliance security and regional stability. U.S. allies and friends around the
South China Sea look to the United States to maintain free trade, safe and
secure sea lines of communication (SLOCs), and overall peace and stability in
the region. Claimants and nonclaimants to land features and maritime waters
in the South China Sea view the U.S. military presence as necessary to allow
decision-making free of intimidation. If nations in the South China Sea lose
confidence in the United States to serve as the principal regional security
guarantor, they could embark on costly and potentially destabilizing arms
buildups to compensate or, alternatively, become more accommodating to
the demands of a powerful China. Neither would be in the U.S. interest.
Failure to reassure allies of U.S. commitments in the region could also
undermine U.S. security guarantees in the broader Asia-Pacific region,
especially with Japan and South Korea. At the same time, however, the United
States must avoid getting drawn into the territorial disputeand possibly into
a conflictby regional nations who seek U.S. backing to legitimize their
claims.

Arms race in Asia causes global nuclear war --- strategic,

cultural and political factors make escalation likely.
Stephen Cimbala, March 2008. Professor of Political Science at Penn State University.
Anticipatory Attacks: Nuclear Crisis Stability in Future Asia, Comparative Strategy 27.2, p
113-132.

The spread of nuclear weapons in Asia presents a complicated mosaic of

possibilities in this regard. States with nuclear forces of variable force
structure, operational experience, and command-control systems will be
thrown into a matrix of complex political, social, and cultural crosscurrents
contributory to the possibility of war. In addition to the existing nuclear powers in Asia,
others may seek nuclear weapons if they feel threatened by regional rivals or hostile alliances.
Containment of nuclear proliferation in Asia is a desirable political objective for all of the
obvious reasons. Nevertheless, the present century is unlikely to see the nuclear

hesitancy or risk aversion that marked the Cold War , in part, because the
military and political discipline imposed by the Cold War superpowers no
longer exists, but also because states in Asia have new aspirations for
regional or global respect.12

Marked

The spread of ballistic missiles and other

nuclear-capable delivery systems in Asia, or in the Middle East with reach into Asia, is

especially dangerous because plausible adversaries live close together and are already
engaged in ongoing disputes about territory or other issues.13 The Cold War Americans and
Soviets required missiles and airborne delivery systems of intercontinental range to strike at
one another's vitals. But short-range ballistic missiles or fighter-bombers suffice for India and
Pakistan to launch attacks at one another with potentially strategic effects. China shares
borders with Russia, North Korea, India, and Pakistan; Russia, with China and North Korea;
India, with Pakistan and China; Pakistan, with India and China; and so on. The short flight

times of ballistic missiles between the cities or military forces of contiguous

states means that very little time will be available for warning and attack
assessment by the defender. Conventionally armed missiles could easily be mistaken for
a tactical nuclear first use. Fighter-bombers appearing over the horizon could just as easily be
carrying nuclear weapons as conventional ordnance. In addition to the challenges

posed by shorter flight times and uncertain weapons loads, potential victims
of nuclear attack in Asia may also have first strike-vulnerable forces and
command-control systems that increase decision pressures for rapid, and
possibly mistaken, retaliation. This potpourri of possibilities challenges conventional
wisdom about nuclear deterrence and proliferation on the part of policymakers and academic
theorists. For policymakers in the United States and NATO, spreading nuclear and other
weapons of mass destruction in Asia could profoundly shift the geopolitics of mass destruction
from a European center of gravity (in the twentieth century) to an Asian and/or Middle Eastern
center of gravity (in the present century).14 This would profoundly shake up prognostications
to the effect that wars of mass destruction are now passe, on account of the emergence of the
Revolution in Military Affairs and its encouragement of information-based warfare.15

Together with this, there has emerged the argument that large-scale war
between states or coalitions of states, as opposed to varieties of
unconventional warfare and failed states, are exceptional and potentially
obsolete.16 The spread of WMD and ballistic missiles in Asia could overturn
these expectations for the obsolescence or marginalization of major
interstate warfare.

Human Rights
Engagement acts as appeasement which justifies human
rights violations Olympics prove
Coca 15
[Nithin, July 20 2015, Freelance Writer and Activist with a Bachelor of Arts in
Communication at Columbia University, The failed politics of appeasing
China, https://newint.org/blog/2015/07/20/appeasing-china/, Accessed June
22 2016, A.H]
one of Tibets most revered Buddhist monks and fierce
activists had died, following 13 years of ill-treatment and torture in a Chinese
prison. He had been refused medical care despite calls from his family and international NGOs. This
is the reality in modern China today . The tragic death of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche shows very

Last week, news broke that

clearly the choice at stake when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meets in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia at the end of this month to choose the host of the 2022 Games. Amazingly, despite everything
that has happened since they last hosted the Olympics in 2008, Beijing is the leading candidate.

Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was jailed for life in 2002 on what were almost
certainly trumped-up, falsified charges, ironically just one year after the IOC
awarded the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing. The reasoning then was simple
awarding the games would push China to further open up and respect human
rights and freedoms. The country had been making remarkable progress, albeit measured
against the horrific atrocities of the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s and the Great Leap Forward of the
1960s. Against that backdrop, was there really any way to go but up? This, of course, is a theory
favoured by many in international affairs, and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Liberalized economies lead to liberalized governments. The
short-term suffering of people like Tenzin Delek Rinpoche and countless other Tibetans is just a necessary
cost of the vast equation of liberalism, in which, somehow, all of us will be better off.

It was the

same logic that led to Chinas entry to the WTO in 2001, alongside the granting of mostfavoured nation trade status from the United States that same year and, more recently, the easing
of visa restrictions for Chinese travellers and their big wallets into Europe. Of
course, you wont find any Tibetans or Uighurs among those travellers, as Chinas two-tiered system
makes it nearly impossible for unsavoury minorities to get a passport to leave the country. Another cost
of liberalism.

Still, it hasnt really worked, this liberalization. China hasnt become

more open. What is happening is the opposite: the countrys growing

economic power has enabled it to continue exploiting the Tibetan
people and pursue its other geopolitical ambitions

(South China Sea,

anyone?). While the economists and academics were waiting for Chinas booming economy to result in
more political freedoms, those paying attention to Tibet, East Turkistan or Inner Mongolia saw an increased
migration of Han Chinese into those areas, where they have quickly become the majority; growing
restrictions on local language and culture; more surveillance in monasteries and local institutions; and less
willingness by the Communist government to engage with activists or leaders (including the increasingly
shunned Dalai Lama, who is finding fewer and fewer allies willing to offer the Nobel Peace Laureate a visa,
for fear of upsetting China). Then came the 2008 Olympic Games. Before them, ignorance may have

In early 2008, months before the

Games were to begin, Tibetans, knowing that the world was watching, began
protesting against the Chinese occupation in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, protests which
been an acceptable excuse but afterwards, certainly not.

then spread across the country. These made headlines around the world, followed by thousands gathering
to protest against the Olympic Torch rallies in Argentina, Britain, France, the US, India and South Korea.

What came next was the clearest example of the reality in China, and the

failure of global institutions to address it: Tibet saw a massive state

crackdown, followed by the region being closed off to the outside world. Here it was. The proof
that China wouldnt respect human rights, even with the Olympics around the
corner. That summer, despite the protests, the world turned a blind eye to Tibet, as not a single
country boycotted the games. This only made things worse, as China took global inaction as
a green light that it wouldnt be held responsible for its actions. Today, 7 years after the Games, Tibet
remains closed to foreigners. According to research undertaken at the University of Colorado,
there are now fewer foreign journalists in Tibet than there are in North Korea. Surveillance at
monasteries has increased, roadblocks make travel for Tibetans nearly impossible and many of those jailed
in 2008 have remained in prison, ignored, like Tenzin Delek Rinpoche. Tibetans have now taken to selfimmolations as a form of resistance, with an estimated 165 having burned themselves in protest since

Chinas response, according to Free Tibet, is a deeper level of surveillance and

control, including the use of collective punishment , in which an entire village or family is
punished for the actions of a single individual, including self-immolators. Do we really need any
more evidence that economic liberalization is not working in China? Just imagine
2008.

what awarding Beijing the 2022 Olympic Games to the country will mean. It is not only Tibetans who are
suffering under Chinese control. Last year, Uighur academic Ilham Tohti was arrested and remains in
custody. Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has not been seen in public since receiving his
award. Just this past week, a round-up of human rights lawyers and activists left over 80 imprisoned.
The trend is clear Premier Xi Jingping is reigning over what many see as the most repressive period in
China since Mae Zedongs death in 1976. It is time for another method. One where it is not trade that
comes first, but the rights of people like Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, Ilham Tohti, Lui Xiabo and countless
others, human beings suffering under a regime that cares more about money than its own citizens rights.

Lets be willing to revoke favoured trade status and WTO membership, and
implement visa restrictions based on how a country treats its minorities . And

finally, lets not award the Olympics to a country that has shown itself incapable of keepings its promises.
Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was in jail for 13 years. Was his suffering, and that of his people, a necessary cost
towards global development? I refuse to believe so, especially as the situation in many parts of China is
The first step will be the IOC showing at the end of this
month that it has learned its lesson, by denying China the 2022 Games , for the
explicit reason of its inadequate human rights record. Lets put people before money. That

getting worse and worse.

would be the best way for us to honour Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, because, sadly, the world has failed him
and his people for long enough.

Israel
Appeasement of China is zero sum it creates a
perception the US is no longer willing to be a presence in
the Middle East
Pollack and Sachs 14
[Feb 2014, Jonathan D. Pollack is a senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China
Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution,
Natan Sachs is a fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy, CHINA, ISRAEL
AND THE UNITED STATES,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2014/us-chinaisrael-proceedings-sachs-pollack/china_israel_us_proceedings_2014.pdf,
Accessed July 4 2016, A.H]
A widely discussed, if often misunderstood, policy of the Obama administration has been the rebalance
of U.S. strategy toward Asia and the Pacific. The approach, first formulated at the start of the Obama
presidency, reflected the pronounced shift eastward of the global economic center of gravity toward

Chinas rapid political, economic, and

military emergence has made many Asian countries uneasy about a
longterm shift in the balance of power across a region where the United States has served
Asia, and in particular, toward China and India.

as the primary security guarantor for nearly seven decades. Strategic recalculation followed, with

The administration had concluded

that the United States was underinvested in Asia and the Pacific and needed to
refocus time, effort and resources toward this emerging center of world
affairs. This included appreciably heightened U.S. engagement in multilateral diplomacy and security
preponderant emphasis on the rise of Chinese power.

in Southeast Asia, where U.S. involvement (compared to American power and policy in Northeast Asia)
had long been far more modest. More than five years later, the basic assumptions that led to the
rebalance remain largely undiminished. U.S.-Chinese relations, by many accounts, will be the single most
important factor in shaping the long term course of world affairs. Not only are countries in Northeast and

Other
regions of the world are affected, moreover, not only by the rise of China but
by shiftsreal and perceivedin U.S. policy; none more so than the Middle
Southeast Asia calibrating their policies accordingly, but so too are countries farther afield.

East, and Israel within it . If the United States is under-invested in

Asia and the Pacific, many assume, it must mean it is
overinvested elsewhere . Indeed, the pull of Asia coincides with American
weariness in the Middle East. Riddled with political disorder, horrific civil
conflict and deep economic challenges, the Middle East appears to be a
poor investment of time, effort and political capital . After a decade of wars in Muslimmajority countries and despite continued threats to U.S. interests, the attention of the American public
on those conflicts that consumed U.S. attention has diminished appreciably, reducing the incentives of
leaders to focus their efforts on this deeply troubled region. At the same time, the shale oil revolution in
oil and gas production has altered one of the principal pillars of U.S. interest in the Middle East. The
United States is now positioned to be a top world energy producer, thereby redefining the long-standing
core U.S. interest in securing the free flow of energy across the Middle East. Some have questioned
whether a United States that becomes energy independenta generally ill-defined term might lose

there is a widespread view in Israel and

across the Middle East that the Obama administration even with the start of the campaign
against Daesh, as the Islamic State or ISIS is known in the regionis in the process of
withdrawing from Middle Eastern affairs. Allies throughout the region viewedand many
interest in the Middle East altogether. Indeed,

viewthe administrations policy as an attempt to step back and commit

as few resources in the region as possible. The Obama administration, Middle Eastern
still

critics have claimed, would prefer to manage this withdrawal rather than halt it. 3 China, by contrast,
appears to many Israelis and others in the Middle East as a new partner of major promise. Though
generally little understood in the region, Chinas potential as a commercial actor is self-evident. Unlike
the United Statesor Russia China is heavily dependent on energy imports, including Middle Eastern
supplies. Its economic footprint is rapidly growing in many parts of the world, its diplomatic imprint is
ascendant and its interest in the global economic order is only expected to increase. Chinas military
expenditure too, has grown commensurate with its economic rise. This has included substantial attention
to naval capabilities, which some believe, will ultimately enable China to police maritime routes for
energy resources. As Chinas economic, military and diplomatic profile more closely reflects its potential
and its historic role, other countries are eager to position themselves in order to benefit from Chinas
rise. For Israel in particular, this may appear to complicate their relations with the United States, Chinas
putative competitor. Might China fill a vacuum in the Middle East leftsupposedlyby the United
States? Would Chinas diplomatic, or, one day, military presence follow its commercial interest in the
region? Like other countries in the world, Israel, a close and smallally of the United States, looks at
the dynamics of world power to chart its course. Situated in the heart of the Middle East-North Africa
region, it finds itself in a delicate position. While seeking to expand relations with China, and tap into the
vast and growing Chinese market,

Israel continues to view its relations with

the United States as a core pillar of its national security. A zerosum competition between the United States and China, therefore,
would complicate greatly the Israeli position

. Israel is eager to engage China

about its future role in the Middle East while hoping for continued and robust U.S. involvement in the
region. Israel hopes to affect Chinese policy on issues of non-proliferation, and especially Chinas position
on Irans nuclear program, while simultaneously counting on the United States to continue to vigorously
defend Israeli interests in the international arena. Despite the taxing security challenges and the fast
evolving region around it, the Israeli government has spent a great deal of time promoting Israels
relations with China. Israels prime minister has made developing Israeli-China relations a strategic goal.
Ministers and officials have been tasked with promoting all dimensions of the countrys relations with
China, to benefit both from the enormous commercial opportunity presented by China, and to lay the
groundwork for further diplomatic cooperation.

A keen Israeli eye is focused,

meanwhile, on the trajectory of U.S.- China relations and its

potential efects on Israe l. Much of the history of the Middle East in the latter half of the
20th century was shaped by great power competition between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Necessarily, great power relations affect smaller countries in dramatic and often unexpected ways.

How will U.S.-China relations evolve? How will they shape the two
powers interests and involvement in the Middle East? How can
Israel and other countries adjust to meet the rise of China without
risking relations with the United States ? Could these countries even benefit from
trilateral cooperation, with both China and the United States?

Israel is uniquely sensitive to perception of US support

risks Iran strikes
Koppel 11
[Ted, April 29 2011, anchor and managing editor of "Nightline" from 1980 to
2005. He is currently a contributing analyst for BBC and a commentator for
NPR, The Arab Spring and U.S. Policy: The View From Jerusalem,

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405274870433040457629106367948
8964, Accessed July 17 2016, A.H]
that U.S. foreign policy these past few
has been sufficiently erratic to make America's allies reconsider the
degree to which we can be trusted and our adversaries re-evaluate the degree to which we
It is provocative, but not entirely inaccurate, to suggest
months

must be feared.

The canary in the coal mine on such matters is Israel . None of

America's allies is more sensitive to even the most subtle changes in the international
environment, or more conscious of

Washington.

the slightest hint of diminished support from

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been so concerned that a member of

his fractious coalition might give vent to some damaging public observation on this issue that he has
imposed a strict "nobody talks on the subject but me" rule. That the gag has been even partially effective,
given the wide-open nature of the Israeli political process, is astonishing. It is also a measure of how
worried the Israelis are. My own reporting on the Middle East in general and Israel in particular goes back
almost 40 yearsto the days of Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy in the region. On a recent visit to
Jerusalem, I met with a number of very senior current and former government officials who spoke on a notfor-attribution basis. They were anything but restrained in voicing their concerns, and some of the views
expressed in this article reflect the outlook of the prime minister himself. Overshadowing

all other
concerns is the fear that Iran is poised to reap enormous benefits from the socalled Arab Spring. "Even without nukes," one top official told me, "Iran picks
up the pieces. With nukes, it takes the house." Hearing Israeli leaders express grave
concerns about Iran and its nuclear potential is nothing new. What is new is a growing worry that America's
adversaries will be less inclined to take warnings from Washington seriously. Each week that passes
without the overthrow or elimination of Moammar Gadhafi is perceived in Jerusalem as emboldening the
leadership of Iran and North Korea."Imagine," one source told me, "how Gadhafi must be kicking himself
for giving up the development of Libya's nuclear program."

The Israeli government is so

concerned that America's adversaries may miscalculate U.S.

intentions that it is privately urging Washington to make it clear
that the U.S. would intervene in Saudi Arabia

should the survival of that

government be threatened. That is, after all, what President George H.W. Bush did more than 20 years ago
when Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqi forces into Kuwait and moved forces in the direction of Saudi Arabia.
"This," President Bush said on more than one occasion, "will not stand." And it didn't. Given the current

the
Israelis are convinced that the principle needs to be unambiguously restated ,
wide range of U.S. responses to public upheavals throughout North Africa and the Persian Gulf,

if only as a reminder that Washington knows where its critical national interests lie. Absent such a public
recommitment, they worry that Iran will be encouraged to even greater mischief. Wherever there is a
restive and newly active Shiite minority, as for example in Bahrain, a mere causeway from the coast of
Saudi Arabia, Tehran can be expected to provide assistance and stir the pot. Just as enemies such as Iran
need to be cautioned,

America's traditional allies need to be reassured . That's

why Israeli officials are recommending a Marshall Plan for Egypt. The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak may
have been no loss in the annals of democracy, but under Mr. Mubarak Egypt was a pillar of stability and a
reliable if not always warm partner for Israel. Egypt's political future at this time is uncertain enough; the
Israelis believe it is essential to prevent its economic collapse. The U.S. has poured billions of dollars into
Egypt since Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel, and senior Israeli officials believe the economic spigot
should remain wide open. With almost no margin for error, the Israelis have long been among the world's
foremost pragmatists. While I was in Jerusalem, events in Syria were coming to a boil. Since the Syrians
are closely allied with Israel's bitterest enemiesHezbollah in Lebanon and Hezbollah's main sponsor, Iran
one might expect Israeli leaders to take some comfort in seeing the regime of Bashar Assad in trouble.
But here, too, the Israelis are far more comfortable with stability on their borders. Assad, like his father
before him, has maintained an uneasy truce along Syria's border with Israel, despite Israel's continued
occupation of the Golan Heights. Little, if anything, that has happened during the past few months has
improved Israel's standing in the region. One of the most telling blows to Israel's security has gone all but

unnoticed in the swirl of uprisings. For years, the most stable relationship that Israel enjoyed with any
Muslim nation was with Turkey. Even under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has
specialized in publicly baiting the Israelis, the relationship between the two countries' intelligence agencies
remained strictly professional. "That," a high-ranking Israeli official told me, "is no longer the case." The
outlook from Jerusalem these days is not encouraging .

Iranian influence is growing

throughout the Persian Gulf and beyond. Egypt's commitment to its peace treaty with Israel
is uncertain. Syria could explode into total chaos at any moment. Jordan's stability is in question. Pakistan,
a Muslim country with more than a 100 nuclear warheads, is confronting an uncertain futuremade all the
more unpredictable by the commencement of a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer.

Whether any U.S. troops will remain in Iraq after the end of this year remains
an open question. America is war-weary and facing a crushing deficit. The only
glimmer of good news for the Israelis may be that, when it comes to reliable allies in the
region, Washington's list also keeps getting shorter.

Escalates to nuclear war - extinction

Avery 13
[John Scales, Nov 6 20143, John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an M.Sc. from
the University of Chicago. He later studied theoretical chemistry at the University of London, and was
awarded a Ph.D. there in 1965. He is now Lektor Emeritus, Associate Professor, at the Department of
Chemistry, University of Copenhagen. Fellowships, memberships in societies: Since 1990 he has been the
Contact Person in Denmark for Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995, this group
received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. He was the Member of the Danish Peace Commission of
1998. Technical Advisor, World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe (1988- 1997). Chairman of
the Danish Peace Academy, An Attack On Iran Could Escalate Into Global Nuclear War,
http://www.countercurrents.org/avery061113.htm, Accessed July 17 2016, A.H]
Despite the willingness of Iran's new President, Hassan Rouhani to make all reasonable concessions to US

Israeli pressure groups in Washington continue to demand an attack

on Iran. But such an attack might escalate into a global nuclear war , with
catastrophic consequences. As we approach the 100th anniversary World War I, we should
remember that this colossal disaster escalated uncontrollably from what was
intended to be a minor conflict. There is a danger that an attack on Iran would
escalate into a large-scale war in the Middle East , entirely destabilizing a region that is
demands,

already deep in problems. The unstable government of Pakistan might be overthrown, and the
revolutionary Pakistani government might enter the war on the side of Iran, thus introducing nuclear
weapons into the conflict. Russia and China, firm allies of Iran, might also be drawn into a general war in

Since much of the world's oil comes from the region, such a war
would certainly cause the price of oil to reach unheard-of heights, with
catastrophic effects on the global economy. In the dangerous situation that could
potentially result from an attack on Iran, there is a risk that nuclear weapons would be
used, either intentionally, or by accident or miscalculation . Recent research has
shown that besides making large areas of the world uninhabitable through longlasting radioactive contamination, a nuclear war would damage global
agriculture to such a extent that a global famine of previously unknown
proportions would result. Thus, nuclear war is the ultimate ecological
catastrophe. It could destroy human civilization and much of the biosphere . To
the Middle East.

risk such a war would be an unforgivable offense against the lives and future of all the peoples of the
world, US citizens included.

Israeal XT:
That leads to prolif and Israel first strike
Pollack and Sachs 14
In the short-and-medium term, the most pressing issue involving the United States, Israel, and China is

The Israeli
government considers halting the Iranian program as its primary strategic
goal. As well for the United States, the P5+1 negotiations with Iran are among the highest orders of
the international campaign to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities.

business. China, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, is a party to the international
negotiations; as a major energy importer it plays a vital role in the U.S.-led sanctions regime which
brought Iran to the negotiating table. Overall, the Chinese appear to view the diplomatic process as,
primarily, one between the United States and Iran, with the other five parties to the talks supporting the
process. Nonetheless, the decrease in Chinese oil imports from Iran reflects the notable cooperation
among outside powers with regard to the Iranian nuclear program. Israelis and Americans note the
Chinese goodwill and the common stand among the P5+1. This is especially significant because of the
price China has to pay for implementing the sanctions. While Chinas pace of reduction of Iranian oil
imports was gradual, it was crucial to the success of the sanctions regime. However, the underlying
interests and priorities of Israel and China with regard to the Iranian program are different. While Israelis
stress what they see as an existential threat from a potentially nuclear Iran, China is clearly not
threatened in the same way. Rather, for China, the main interest is regional stability in the Middle East;
stopping Iran from acquiring military nuclear capabilities is a means in service of that interest.

Israel
has made clear that unless a satisfactory diplomatic resolution is found, it
would not hesitate to use all means to stop the Iranian programcode for a
unilateral military strike on Iran. This message, conveyed by Israeli emissaries in Beijing, may
have helped convince the Chinese of the need for tough sanctions and diplomacy. Aside from the
potential for overt hostilities between Israelor even the United Statesand Iran, in the event that the
talks fail,

China also shares the Israeli and American fear of a nuclear

proliferation cascade in the Middle East, in which other countries such as
Saudi Arabia or Turkey might respond to the development of Iranian military
nuclear capabilities and buy, or try to develop, nuclear weapons potential.
While estimates of the probability that such proliferation will occur differ among the Chinese, the Israelis,
and Americans,

the destabilizing nature of such a possibility is clear to all . It is

important to note, as well, that

the possibility of regional nuclear proliferation

cascade depends in no small part on perceptions of U.S.

leadership within the region. All the main potential proliferators
against Iran are U.S. allies ; a sense of U.S. leadership would be
crucial to stave of such an eventuality, should the need arise . When
considering Irans nuclear program and Chinas role in confronting it, an interesting comparison arises
with North Korea. Israelis often refer to the North Korean example as an ominous precedent: A rogue
state with nuclear ambitions that continuously evades international non-proliferation, breaks its
commitments to the United States, and eventually tests a nuclear device. North Korea also played a role
in proliferation in the Middle East, though their expertise is no longer essential for Iranian nuclear
development. China voices growing disquiet over North Korean weapons development, which impinges
directly on Chinese vital interests. But China also fears the possibility of growing instability on its
doorstep. It has therefore remained unwilling to greatly increase pressure on its recalcitrant neighbor.
China clearly does not welcome the emergence of another nuclear-armed state on its border, but its
reluctance to act in a more overt manner against North Korea suggests potential limits to its opposition
to Irans pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities.

Goes Nuclear - extinction

Steinbach 2
[John, DC Iraq Coalition, Centre for Research on Globalisation, Israeli Weapons of Mass Destruction: a
Threat to Peace by John Steinbach, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/STE203A.html, Accessed July 4
2016, A.H]
Today, estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal range from a minimum of 200 to a maximum of about 500. Whatever the

there is little doubt that Israeli nukes are among the world's most
sophisticated, largely designed for "war fighting" in the Middle East . A staple of the
number,

Israeli nuclear arsenal are "neutron bombs," miniaturized thermonuclear bombs designed to maximize deadly gamma
radiation while minimizing blast effects and long term radiation- in essence designed to kill people while leaving property

Weapons include ballistic missiles and bombers capable of reaching

Moscow, cruise missiles, land mines(In the 1980s Israel planted nuclear land mines along the Golan
intact.(16)

Heights(17)), and artillery shells with a range of 45 miles(18). In June, 2000 an Israeli submarine launched a cruise missile
which hit a target 950 miles away, making Israel only the third nation after the U.S. and Russia with that capability. Israel

The bombs
themselves range in size from "city busters" larger than the Hiroshima Bomb
to tactical mini nukes. The Israeli arsenal of weapons of mass destruction clearly dwarfs the actual or
will deploy 3 of these virtually impregnable submarines, each carrying 4 cruise missiles.(19)

potential arsenals of all other Middle Eastern states combined, and is vastly greater than any conceivable need for
"deterrence." Israel also possesses a comprehensive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. According to the
Sunday Times, Israel has produced both chemical and biological weapons with a sophisticated delivery system, quoting a
senior Israeli intelligence official, "There is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weapon . .
.which is not manufactured at the Nes Tziyona Biological Institute.")(20) The same report described F-16 fighter jets
specially designed for chemical and biological payloads, with crews trained to load the weapons on a moments notice. In
1998,

the Sunday Times reported that Israel, using research obtained from
South Africa, was developing an "ethno bomb; "In developing their "ethnobomb", Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying
distinctive a gene carried by some Arabs, then create a genetically modified
bacterium or virus... The scientists are trying to engineer deadly microorganisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes. " Dedi Zucker, a leftist
Member of Knesset, the Israeli parliament, denounced the research saying, "Morally, based on our history, and our
tradition and our experience, such a weapon is monstrous and should be denied."(21) Israeli Nuclear Strategy In popular
imagination, the Israeli bomb is a "weapon of last resort," to be used only at the last minute to avoid annihilation, and
many well intentioned but misled supporters of Israel still believe that to be the case. Whatever truth this formulation may
have had in the minds of the early Israeli nuclear strategists, today the Israeli nuclear arsenal is inextricably linked to and
integrated with overall Israeli military and political strategy. As Seymour Hersh says in classic understatement ; "The
Samson Option is no longer the only nuclear option available to Israel."(22) Israel has made countless veiled nuclear
threats against the Arab nations and against the Soviet Union(and by extension Russia since the end of the Cold War) One
chilling example comes from Ariel Sharon, the current Israeli Prime Minister "Arabs may have the oil, but we have the
matches."(23) (In 1983 Sharon proposed to India that it join with Israel to attack Pakistani nuclear facilities; in the late 70s
he proposed sending Israeli paratroopers to Tehran to prop up the Shah; and in 1982 he called for expanding Israel's
security influence to stretch from "Mauritania to Afghanistan.") In another example, Israeli nuclear expert Oded Brosh said
in 1992, "...we need not be ashamed that the nuclear option is a major instrumentality of our defense as a deterrent
against those who attack us."(24) According to Israel Shahak, "The wish for peace, so often assumed as the Israeli aim, is
not in my view a principle of Israeli policy, while the wish to extend Israeli domination and influence is." and " Israel

is
preparing for a war, nuclear if need be, for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if
it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states.... Israel clearly prepares itself to seek overtly a hegemony over the entire
Middle East..., without hesitating to use for the purpose all means available, including nuclear ones."(25) Israel uses its
nuclear arsenal not just in the context of deterrence" or of direct war fighting, but in other more subtle but no less
important ways. For example, the possession of weapons of mass destruction can be a powerful lever to maintain the
status quo, or to influence events to Israel's perceived advantage, such as to protect the so called moderate Arab states
from internal insurrection, or to intervene in inter-Arab warfare.(26) In Israeli strategic jargon this concept is called
"nonconventional compellence" and is exemplified by a quote from Shimon Peres; "acquiring a superior weapons
system(read nuclear) would mean the possibility of using it for compellent purposes- that is forcing the other side to
accept Israeli political demands, which presumably include a demand that the traditional status quo be accepted and a
peace treaty signed."(27) From a slightly different perspective, Robert Tuckerr asked in a Commentary magazine article in
defense of Israeli nukes, "What would prevent Israel... from pursuing a hawkish policy employing a nuclear deterrent to
freeze the status quo?"(28) Possessing an overwhelming nuclear superiority allows Israel to act with impunity even in the
face world wide opposition. A case in point might be the invasion of Lebanon and destruction of Beirut in 1982, led by
Ariel Sharon, which resulted in 20,000 deaths, most civilian. Despite the annihilation of a neighboring Arab state, not to
mention the utter destruction of the Syrian Air Force, Israel was able to carry out the war for months at least partially due

Another major use of the Israeli bomb is to compel the U.S. to

act in Israel's favor, even when it runs counter to its own strategic interests. As early as 1956 Francis Perrin,
to its nuclear threat.

head of the French A-bomb project wrote "We thought the Israeli Bomb was aimed at the Americans, not to launch it at the
Americans, but to say, 'If you don't want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will
use our nuclear bombs.'"(29) During the 1973 war, Israel used nuclear blackmail to force Kissinger and Nixon to airlift
massive amounts of military hardware to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador, Simha Dinitz, is quoted as saying, at the time, "If
a massive airlift to Israel does not start immediately, then I will know that the U.S. is reneging on its promises and...we will
have to draw very serious conclusions..."(30) Just one example of this strategy was spelled out in 1987 by Amos Rubin,
economic adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who said "If left to its own Israel will have no choice but to fall back on
a riskier defense which will endanger itself and the world at large... To enable Israel to abstain from dependence on
nuclear arms calls for $2 to 3 billion per year in U.S. aid."(31) Since then Israel's nuclear arsenal has expanded
exponentially, both quantitatively and qualitatively, while the U.S. money spigots remain wide open. Regional and
International Implications Largely unknown to the world,

the Middle East nearly exploded in all

out war on February 22, 2001. According to the London Sunday Times and DEBKAfile, Israel went
on high missile alert after receiving news from the U.S. of movement by 6
Iraqi armored divisions stationed along the Syrian border , and of launch preparations of
surface to surface missiles. DEBKAfile, an Israeli based "counter-terrorism" information service, claims that the Iraqi
missiles were deliberately taken to the highest alert level in order to test the U.S. and Israeli response. Despite an

The Israelis
have warned Iraq that they are prepared to use neutron bombs in a
preemptive attack against Iraqi missiles . The Israeli nuclear arsenal has profound implications for
immediate attack by 42 U.S. and British war planes, the Iraqis suffered little apparent damage.(32)

the future of peace in the Middle East, and indeed, for the entire planet. It is clear from Israel Shahak that Israel has no
interest in peace except that which is dictated on its own terms, and has absolutely no intention of negotiating in good
faith to curtail its nuclear program or discuss seriously a nuclear-free Middle East,"Israel's insistence on the independent
use of its nuclear weapons can be seen as the foundation on which Israeli grand strategy rests."(34) According to Seymour
Hersh, "the

size and sophistication of Israel's nuclear arsenal allows men such as

Ariel Sharon to dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East aided by the
implicit threat of nuclear force."(35) General Amnon Shahak-Lipkin, former Israeli Chief of Staff is quoted
"It is never possible to talk to Iraq about no matter what; It is never possible to talk to Iran about no matter what.
Certainly about nuclearization. With Syria we cannot really talk either."(36) Ze'ev Shiff, an Israeli military expert writing in
Haaretz said, "Whoever believes that Israel will ever sign the UN Convention prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear
weapons... is day dreaming,"(37) and Munya Mardoch, Director of the Israeli Institute for the Development of Weaponry,
said in 1994, "The moral and political meaning of nuclear weapons is that states which renounce their use are acquiescing
to the status of Vassal states. All those states which feel satisfied with possessing conventional weapons alone are fated
to become vassal states."(38) As Israeli society becomes more and more polarized, the influence of the radical right
becomes stronger. According to Shahak, "The prospect of Gush Emunim, or some secular right-wing Israeli fanatics, or
some some of the delerious Israeli Army generals, seizing control of Israeli nuclear weapons...cannot be precluded. ...while
israeli jewish society undergoes a steady polarization, the Israeli security system increasingly relies on the recruitment of
cohorts from the ranks of the extreme right."(39) The Arab states, long aware of Israel's nuclear program, bitterly resent
its coercive intent, and perceive its existence as the paramount threat to peace in the region, requiring their own weapons
of mass destruction. During a future Middle Eastern wa r (a distinct possibility given the ascension of
Ariel Sharon, an unindicted war criminal with a bloody record stretching from the massacre of Palestinian civilians at

the possible
Israeli use of nuclear weapons should not be discounted. According to Shahak, "In Israeli
Quibya in 1953, to the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and beyond)

terminology, the launching of missiles on to Israeli territory is regarded as 'nonconventional' regardless of whether they
are equipped with explosives or poison gas."(40) (Which requires a "nonconventional" response, a perhaps unique
exception being the Iraqi SCUD attacks during the Gulf War.) Meanwhile, the existence of an arsenal of mass destruction
in such an unstable region in turn has serious implications for future arms control and disarmament negotiations, and
even the threat of nuclear war. Seymour Hersh warns, "Should

war break out in the Middle East

again,... or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis
did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now
be a strong probability."(41) and Ezar Weissman, Israel's current President said "The nuclear issue is gaining
momentum(and the) next war will not be conventional."(42) Russia and before it the Soviet Union
has long been a major(if not the major) target of Israeli nukes. It is widely reported
that the principal purpose of Jonathan Pollard's spying for Israel was to furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other
super sensitive data relating to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy. (43) (Since launching its own satellite in 1988, Israel no

Israeli nukes aimed at the Russian heartland seriously

complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and, at the very least, the
longer needs U.S. spy secrets.)

unilateral possession of nuclear weapons by Israel is enormously destabilizing, and dramatically lowers the threshold for
their actual use, if not for all out nuclear war. In the words of Mark Gaffney, "...

if the familar pattern(Israel

refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not reversed
soon- for whatever reason- the deepening Middle East conflict could
trigger a world conflagration ." (44)

AT

AT: Appeasement Good

Any appeasement will result in Chinese miscalculation
Chang 6/24/16
[Gordon G, National Interest, lawyer and author, Cornell Law School
Graduate, America Will Decide If There Is War in Asia,
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/america-will-decide-if-there-war-asia16720?page=show, Accessed July 2 2016, A.H]
Aggressors, like China, start wars. Yet whether historys next great conflict begins in East
Asia will not be determined in the councils of a belligerent Beijing. If youre trying to set your
watch to the sound of gunfire, you must, most of all, observe Washington. The region
is in seemingly never-ending crisis because Chinese leaders believe their country should be bigger than it
is today. As a result, China is pushing on boundaries to the south and east, using forceful tactics to both

The dynamic
of aggression has started, and at this point China will not stop until it is
stopped. Unfortunately, Washington is in many ways responsible, or at least paved the
way, for the latest round of Chinese provocation. That round began in the spring of 2012.
Then, Chinese and Philippine vessels sailed in close proximity around
Scarborough Shoal, in the northern portion of the South China Sea. To avoid
conflict in that critical body of water, Washington brokered an agreement between
Beijing and Manila. Both agreed to withdraw their craft, but only the
Philippines honored the deal. That left China in control of the shoal . Beijings
take territory under the control of others and close off international water and airspace.

grab was particularly audacious. Scarborough lies just 124 nautical miles from the main Philippine island of
Luzon, guarding the strategic Manila and Subic Bays. It was long thought to be part of the Philippines. The

Obama administration did not enforce the agreement it had brokered , perhaps
under the belief it could thereby avoid a confrontation with Beijing . The White
Houses inaction just made the problem bigger, however. Emboldened
Chinese officials and flag officers then ramped up pressure on
another Philippine feature Second Thomas Shoal, where Chinese vessels have regularly
operatedand the Senkakus, eight specks under Japanese administration in the East China Sea.

You

would have thought that Washington policymakers had learned the

costly lessons of earlier eras when Western timidity opened the
door to large-scale conflicts

that could have been avoided.

Britain and France, for

instance, allowed the Third Reich to remilitarize the Rhineland in March 1936 .
That gambit secured one of Germanys frontiers and eventually led
to Hitlers annexation of Austria in March 1938 and his bold grab of
the Sudetenland the following September.

Germany, after the infamous Munich

pact, took the rest of Czechoslovakia by the spring of the following year. In the first half of August 1939

Hitler did not think Britain or France would go to war over Poland,

and its not hard

Then they
meekly stood by while he marched into large parts of Europe. By the latter part of
to see why. After all, they did nothing to stop him when they could have, in the Rhineland.

that August the declarations of London and Paris that they would defend Polish borders sounded hollow

and in any event were too late. German forces crossed the Polish border on September 1, and London and

America
looks like it is following in the footsteps of Britain and France . The Peoples Republic
Paris, likely to Hitlers surprise, declared war on Germany two days later. Unfortunately,

of China is not the Third Reich, but the dynamic in the second half of the 1930s and our era looks eerily
similar. Then and now,

an aggressive power seized what it wanted.

Chinese leaders today, like Germanys before, believe further

advances will not meet efective resistance . Moreover, there is at this
time, like there was in that decade, a momentum toward war . Hostile elements
many but not all of them in uniformare in control of the levels of power in Beijing, as they were in Berlin.
This month has seen those elements hit out toward their countrys south and east. To the continental
south, in the Himalayas, Chinese troops intruded into Indian-controlled territory at four separate spots in
the state of Arunachal Pradesh on the ninth. To the maritime southeast, a Chinese vessel deliberately
rammed a Vietnamese fishing boat on June 16. And last week about a dozen of Chinas trawlers fished in
Indonesias Exclusive Economic Zone and confronted local patrol vessels, creating the third such incident
in as many months. Moreover, to Chinas east there was a series of incidents in the East China Sea. On
June 15, a Chinese intelligence ship entered Japans territorial waters in the dark of early morning, loitering
close to two islands off the main Japanese island of Kyushu. The intrusion was the first since 2004, when a
submerged Chinese submarine transited a strait between two of Japans islands, and only the second by
China since the end of the Second World War. The incursion followed an incident on June 9 when, for the
first time ever, a Chinese warship, a frigate, entered the contiguous zone off the Senkakus. This, in turn,
followed the June 7 intercept of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane over the East China Sea by
two Chinese jets. U.S. Pacific Command called the Chinese action unsafe.

And this brings us

back to Scarborough, which could be as important a turning point

to our

era as Sudetenland was to last century. We see some surface ship activity and those sorts of things,
survey type of activity, going on, said Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson to Reuters in the
middle of March. As a result, the shoal could end up a next possible area of reclamation.

Reclamation would make permanent Chinas seizure and therefore

constitute a game-changer if not immediately reversed. So far, the United
States has sent warnings. On April 21, four ground-attack A-10s flew what the U.S.
Air Force termed an air and maritime domain awareness mission in the
vicinity of Scarborough Shoal. Then this month in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, in response to a question about Beijings possible reclamation of the
shoal, spoke of actions being taken both by the United States and by actions taken by others in the region
which will have the effect of not only increasing tensions but also isolating China. What actions? In late
March, the New York Times reported that General Joseph Dunford was overhead at the Pentagon asking
Admiral Harry Harris, the chief of U.S. Pacific Command, the ultimate question. Would you go to war over
Scarborough Shoals? the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to know. So far, very few Americans
think Scarborough is worth a fight with the Chinese, and the White House seems reluctant to start a war
anywhere. Therefore, the risk of conflict over those rocks appears to be extremely low. Yet, despite
appearances, the situation could be dangerous. For one thing, the Chinese seem determined to do
something provocative when the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague hands down its ruling in
Republic of Philippines v. Peoples Republic of China. Beijing has refused to participate in the case that will
apply the rules of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to South China Sea issues, and most

Chinese leaders could

simply decide to show the Philippines whos boss by ignoring the decision,
defying U.S. warnings, and building an artificial island over the contested
Scarborough. Beijing might think it can get away with such an act, but
authoritarian leaders do not have a good track record in reading American
observers expect a decision favoring Manila in the next month or so.

intentions. Kim Il Sung was sure Washington would not come to the
aid of beleaguered South Korea in June 1950

. And at the time it looked like he

had correctly read the Truman administration. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, in his January 1950
speech at the National Press Club in Washington, left South Korea outside Americas announced defensive

perimeter. His language, whatever he intended, appears to have convinced Mao Zedong and Josef Stalin,
Kims backers, that the North Korean was correct in his assessment that the United States would not fight.
In June, Kim attacked in full force, and, despite everything, an unprepared, outgunned America went to

Saddam Hussein made a similar error. In July 1990, April Glaspie, the American
ambassador to Iraq, indicated to him that Washington had little interest in
Arab-Arab conflicts, words he interpreted to mean the U.S. would not stop
him from taking over neighboring Kuwait. The Bush administration could have prevented a
war.

generation of tragedy by making a firm declaration of resolve during that pivotal conversation. Instead,
Saddam invaded and America had to create a multi-nation coalition and lead a full-scale invasion to free
the oil-rich emirate. Today,

it would be hard for China to predict what would happen

if it started to reclaim Scarborough, in large part because it is not clear that Washington
policymakers themselves know what they would do.

America is now showing resolve

in the South China Sea , but its unlikely that, after the feeble response in the first half
of 2012,

U.S. officials have impressed their Chinese counterparts with

the depth of their concern. That makes the situation at this moment
extraordinarily dangerous

AT: Strength Bad

Strength is key to reassuring regional allies and
preventing an arms race
Moriarty 14
[Thomas, Writer living in NYU, China's Rise is America's Opportunity,
http://www.hudson.org/research/10753-china-s-rise-is-america-s-opportunity,
Accessed July 4 2016, A.H]
Since ISIL has captured Americas attention by its rapid conquest of much of Iraq and Syria, it has been the
focus of American diplomacy, if American diplomacy can be said to have a focus. But given Americas ties

America
should build up naval strength so as to retain its position as the key diplomatic player in the
with East Asia, events in East Asia pose a greater threat, and provide a greater opportunity.

region.

A recent poll of Chinese and Japanese citizens by Genron/China Daily finds

that 53% of the Chinese respondents and 29% of Japanese

respondents expect a war between China and Japan . . The poll also
finds that 93% of Japanese respondents have a negative view of
China and that 87% of Chinese respondents have a negative view of
Japan Tensions in the region are high , and a war would have severe economic
ramifications around the world.

This tension arises from Chinas economic,

military and diplomatic rise, and the aggressive way the Chinese
have exercised this newfound clout.

The Chinese are well aware that their economy is

growing much faster than Americas and that America has chosen to decrease its defense, particularly

naval, spending is rapidly

increasing. As a result of this confidence, China is asserting its territorial and
geopolitical ambitions, including in many cases through the unapologetic
display of naval power. Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and even Indonesia have faced Chinese
naval, spending, at the same time as Chinese military, particularly

escalation of nautical territorial disputes; India and China continue to dispute the ownership of Arunchal
Pradesh/South Tibet; and China continues to claim the entire nation of Taiwan as Chinese territory.
Increasing Chinese naval power and geopolitical ambition present a major and destabilizing threat. As is

neighboring states
have moved to resist. Unsurprisingly, a regional naval arms race is underway.
China and India are both developing aircraft carrier fleets ; Vietnam is
upgrading its navy and other states in the region are purchasing boats and
modernizing their fleets. Most states concerned by Chinese aggression have moved to increase
wont to happen when a country accrues power and uses it against its neighbors,

their naval strength. Australia has built a new type of LHD (Landing Helicopter Dock) ship, and Japan has
built a flat-topped destroyer that some speculate could be used to launch aircraft. Japan, Australia and
India have also increased their military cooperation with each other and their naval aid to less powerful
states such as Vietnam and the Philippines. Especially notable are the recent Japanese agreements with

All the
regional powers know that America has significant economic and diplomatic
interests in the region which are best served by regional peace and stability. The countries
under Chinese threat would be reassured by an increased American military
presence in the region. This would represent a credible commitment by
America to the safety and security of countries under Chinese threat . The Obama
India regarding economic, diplomatic and nuclear cooperation. We now come to the opportunity.

administrations rebalance to Asia might have had this effect but deep defense budget cuts have

together, America and those countries under American

protection from China would be vastly more powerful than China. Without
neutralized it. Taken

American protection, however, states in the region would be less powerful than China. They thus need
American diplomatic and military support. Critically, though, America would not be entering into an antiChina coalition analogous to the Cold War containment of the Soviet Union. America has deep, longstanding and extremely important interests in its relationship with China as well. Rather, America would reestablish itself as an influential arbiter of regional disputes. Since American strength would be necessary to
prevent China from attaining its goals in regional disputes, America, by either supporting or not supporting
Chinas adversary in the dispute, could choose whether China would or would not attain its ends. Thus,
China would also come to depend on America in securing its interests in the region. Such a solution would
not be new. When Egypt attacked Israel in 1973, America made itself necessary to the security and
interests of both Egypt and Israel, first by resupplying Israel, thus preventing an Egyptian victory, and then
by using Israels resultant position of dependence on the United States to make Israel cease its
counteroffensive, which threatened the survival of the Egyptian military. America thereby became the

America can strengthen its

position as the arbiter of disputes in East Asia with naval power . Aside from the
territorial conflict with India, all the potential disputes are on the water and a naval
arms race is underway. America has the most skilled and powerful navy in the
world, with unparalleled experience dealing with operations involving
multiple militaries, including those of some nations potentially in conflict with
China. America thus has the capability to create the necessary balance of power to become the arbiter
arbiter of disputes in the region, sidelining the Soviet Union.

of disputes. For America to regain this position,

credible.

the American commitment must be

While the United States Navy is currently much more powerful in the Pacific than the

Chinese Navy, China is rapidly arming to close the gap, while the United States is allowing its navy to
wither away at an alarming rate, from 594 ships in 1987 to 289 today, reducing our ability to dispatch
forces where they are needed around the globe. Until America reverses that erosion, our naval power will
be unreliable, and insufficient to enable America to settle regional disputes.

In the absence of

credible American naval force, American statements about events

in East Asia have as much credibility as the bark of a toothless dog.
To be relevant, we must have teeth.

AT Not Aggressive
Recent evidence proves China is aggressive and wants to
undermine US superiority
Gafney 6/22/16
[Frank J, Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. formerly
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during the Reagan
Administration, following four years of service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the
Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator John Tower, and
a national security legislative aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson, China Is Preparing for
Conflictand Why We Must Do the Same, http://www.aim.org/guest-column/china-ispreparing-for-conflict-and-why-we-must-do-the-same/, Accessed July 2 2016, A.H]
Ever since Richard Nixon opened relations with Communist China in 1972, Chinese intentions have been a
matter of incessant and often fevered speculation in this country. In particular, national security and
regional experts, non-governmental organizations and office-holders alike, have endlessly debated
whether the Peoples Republic of China could be brought into a U.S.-dominated international order and
world economy in a manner consistent with American interests and, better yet, as a partner in opposition
to mutual adversaries (e.g., the Soviet Union, North Korea, and the global jihad movement). Regrettably,

controversy over Chinas intentions has now been largely settled by

actions of the Chinese government and a rapid militarization . Under successive
this

regimes and most especially that of the incumbent Chinese ruler, Xi Jinping

the Chinese have

relentlessly and unmistakably striven to put themselves in a

position to challenge , and ultimately to displace, the post-World War II Pax
Americana with a new order . This position would return China to what its leaders consider
to be Chinas rightful place as the Middle Kingdom, the preeminent global power strategically and
economically. At this critical juncture,

it is both foolhardy and irresponsible for

America and its allies to continue to construe China s conduct as

non-threatening . That conclusion is powerfully articulated by eight essays featured in a book
just released by the Center for Security Policy, entitled Warning Order: China Prepares for Conflict and Why
We Must Do the Same. (A video introduction is here.) A Warning Order is a technique long used by the
U.S. military to put its units on notice of an impending danger that requires countervailing action. The draft
Secretary of Defense directive that briefly summarizes and suggests how to operationalize the findings of
the contributors to this new volume former U.S. Senator Jim Talent, former Commander-in-Chief, U.S.
Pacific Fleet Admiral James Ace Lyons, China and national security experts Dr. Peter Navarro, Gordon
Chang, Dean Cheng, Kevin Freeman and Lindsey Neas and journalist Bill Gertz reads as follows:

The Peoples Republic of

China is incrementally, but relentlessly, putting into place in its own region
(notably, the East and South China Seas) and elsewhere around the world the
capabilities required to engage decisively in military conflict with the U nited
States and its allies. Chinas preparations include: The acquisition and
deployment both at home and increasingly in global choke points of advanced air, sea,
land and space systems and asymmetric capabilities that appear designed to: 1)
WARNING ORDER: Required Preparations for Conflict with China Situation.

interdict allied forces, 2) deny them access to and the ability to operate in strategically important areas
and 3) otherwise achieve the destruction and defeat of the U.S. and/or its allies; The fielding of sufficient
numbers of modern aircraft, ships, missiles, space weapons and nuclear forces to secure for China
quantitative and, in some areas, qualitative superiority, at least regionally;

Peoples Liberation Army

cyber warfare operations that are intensifying in sophistication, aggressiveness and effectiveness

A variety of means of challenging and

undermining the United States economic security, including by threatening: the dollars
against both official and private sector targets;

reserve currency status, Wall Street and other financial operations, and U.S. access to and relations with
key trading partners; High-intensity intelligence, information and influence operations against the United
States and its allies; and Amassing the dedicated military and dual-use industrial capabilities necessary
rapidly and substantially to expand, and/or recover from battle-damage to, the PRCs current conventional
and nuclear arsenals. It is not possible at this time to ascertain Chinese intentions or whether, if they do
seek to precipitate a conflict, when and where it might begin. Our posture must not be based on
assessments of such intentions, however, but be rooted in a clear-eyed, capabilities-driven threat
analysis. Tasking. All DOD agencies, military services and combatant commands are hereby ordered to
take such steps as are required to achieve at the earliest possible moment levels of readiness and powerprojection needed to deter and, if necessary, to defeat any Chinese aggression. U .S.

capabilities
required to perform such missions over the longer term are to be identified
and acquired at the earliest possible time. Wherever practical, useful and
consistent with operational security considerations, the support and
assistance of allied militaries should be obtained for this purpose. Warning
Order is intended to move our nation past a now-irrelevant debate about Chinese intentions
and onto a far firmer footing, rooted in a focus on Chinas capabilities one
that enables us to deter the PRCs future use of existing, and anticipated,
threats to our security and vital interests. It should be required reading for both prospective
Commanders-in-Chief and those whose safety they will be responsible for safeguarding. .

AT: US deterrence Solves

Even if we maintain deterrence, the plan tanks credibility,
which results in Chinese miscalc
Chen 14
[John, Dec 01 2014, M.A. candidate at Georgetown University, studying
international security with an emphasis on East Asian security issues. His
research is currently focused on weapons technology proliferation in East
Asia. Prior to graduate school, he studied government at Dartmouth College,
Deterrence in the Taiwan Strait: Is Dispersal Enough?,
http://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2014/12/01/deterrence-in-thetaiwan-strait-is-dispersal-enough/, Accessed July 7 2016, A.H]
While US dispersal strategy might preserve warfighting capability (at least until the PLA develops and fields more
MRBMs), the dispersal component of AirSea Battle does little to enhance US deterrence in the Taiwan Strait, and may in

Deterrence theory dictates that deterrence is strongest when

nations demonstrate both the capability and the resolve to carry out the
deterrent threat that is, a nation must be able to carry out a threat and
fact weaken it.

credibly demonstrate that it will do so if the status quo is violate d.[5 ] All
deterring powers have trouble convincing the opponent that they
have the will to act a credible commitment proble m

but Thomas Schelling

presents several possible methods to increase credibility. Schelling writes that incurring commitment either by inducing a
nations political involvement, honor, obligation, and diplomatic reputation in the response, or by laying a trip-wire
that is manifestly connected up with the machinery of war can help increase credibility of the threat.[6] Dispersal alone
checks none of these boxes. It does not commit US reputation to the defense of Taiwan, and does not guarantee an
automatic US response if Taiwan is attacked. Worse, the redeployment of US aircraft to bases outside the range of Chinese
forces could signal to China a manifest unwillingness to bear the cost of defending Taiwan. Dispersal may increase the US

Even the perception of a

weakened US commitment could have serious consequences for security in
the Western Pacific. Taiwan could be forced to adopt riskier defense methods ,
including developing offensive missiles[7] and investing in base hardening
that forces China to initiate hostilities at a high level of violence [8], thereby
increasing the chances of US intervention in a wa r. Taiwan could seek even
closer ties to China if an effective defense of the island appears infeasible
and US support appears unlikely, which could signal to other states that
bandwagoning with China might be safer than relying on a distant U.S
military for security. A weakened US deterrent not only risks letting Taiwan slip
away, but also weakens US interests in the Western Pacific at large . In light of the
ability to defend Taiwan, but there is a chance it could weaken deterrence.

importance of maintaining a credible deterrent, the United States should carefully examine dispersal and explore other
methods that both increase warfighting capability and strengthen deterrence. Alternative methods could allow US forces
to better withstand an initial Chinese blow while still demonstrating US commitment to a military presence in the Western
Pacific. For instance, base hardening, though expensive, would signal that the US is willing to continue to bear the costs of
maintaining a military presence in the region. The use of decoys and deception could greatly complicate Chinese military
planning by forcing Chinese targeters to account for more US military assets[9], while dispersal of military assets to a
number of different countries still in range of Chinese SRBMs would show US commitment and raise the costs of war for
Chinese leaders by horizontal escalation. All measures should achieve the dual goals of enhancing or preserving both
deterrence and US warfighting capability. There are points of nuance in this discussion. The United States may be
reluctant to fully commit to defending Taiwan for fear of getting drawn into an unwanted war in the Taiwan Strait, and
dispersal reduces the temptation for a Chinese first strike on US military assets, thereby reducing the possibility of an
outright war. But if US strategy in the Western Pacific continues to include deterrence against the Chinese use of force in
the Taiwan Strait,

US planners must account not only for US capability to deter, but

also the US willingness to deter. The dispersal component of AirSea Battle will not suffice if implemented
on its own.

AFF Answers

Uniqueness

Retreating Now
The US is retreating in the SCS now even the Freedom of
Navigation patrols sent the wrong signals
Cheng 15
[Dean, 11/29/15, one of the top US experts on the Chinese military and the
PRCs space program, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
US Steadily Retreating In South China Sea Dispute,
http://breakingdefense.com/2015/11/us-steadily-retreating-in-south-chinasea-dispute/, Accessed July 1 2016, A.H]
Ostensibly as a show of commitment to the principle of freedom of the seas, the USS Theodore Roosevelt
operated in the South China Sea, providing a perfect venue for Secretary of Defense Carter to make a
speech on this issue. This comes a fortnight after the Administration finally authorized a US ship to transit
waters near Chinas artificial islands, five months after it stated that American ships would sail where they
wished, and three years after the last freedom of navigation operation (FONOP). Unfortunately, if several

American ship transits are demonstrating not

strength, but weakness. As it turns out, the USS Lassen reportedly did not
engage in a FONOPS to demonstrate that the islands China has built exert no
right to territorial waters reaching out 12 nautical miles. Instead, the U.S. ship
reportedly conducted innocent passage , turning off its radars and
grounding its helicopters as it transited within 12 nautical miles of the
islands. Undertaking innocent passage is done only in another nations
territorial waters. In short, the United States, by its actions, may have actually
recognized Chinas claims. If the reports are correct, the United States treated the artificial island
recent reports are to be believed, these

atop Subi Reef as though it were a naturally occurring feature, and therefore entitled to a 12 nautical mile
band of territorial water. This is precisely the opposite of what had been announced. Further obscuring the
message, Administration sources are now claiming that it was both a FONOP and innocent passage,
because the American ship was transiting waters near other islands occupied by various other claimants as
well as going near Subi Reef. It would appear that the Administration was more intent on placating
domestic concerns (e.g., the Senate Armed Services Committee) than in sending a clear signal. Now,

the USS Theodore Roosevelt did not even sail within 200
nautical miles of the Chinese islands, instead avoiding the waters around
them entirely. Similarly, the American B-52s underscoring freedom of
navigation in the South China Sea took care to never approach more than 15
according to reports,

nautical miles from the artificial Chinese islands . It is the final step in a
pivot of American statements and actions that have charted a
steadily retreating course . It has proceeded like this: from Secretary of Defense Carters
declaration at Shangri-La this May that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international
law allows, as U.S. forces do all over the world; to the revelation to the Senate Armed Services

the United States, in fact, has not sailed or operated near

Chinas artificial islands for three years ; to the apparent concession on
international law, five months later, by the Lassens innocent passage transit,
effectively acceding to the Chinese version on the key principle of freedom of
the seas; to the apparent decision to have the USS Theodore Roosevelt and American B-52s avoid
Committee this summer that

those waters and airspace altogether, a message that is being sent less than a month after the Lassen

Like it or not, the message that the White House is now repeatedly

sending is that the United States, in fact, accepts that the Chinese
artificial islands should be treated as national territor y , like a natural
feature. In short, the United States is acceding to Chinas efforts to close off portions of the open ocean.
Teddy Roosevelts catch-phrase, of course, was Speak softly, but carry a big stick. To deliver this craven
message via the routing of a ship named for him adds a grotesquely ironic twist to the decision.

Obama stopping hardline

Obama is retreating in the SCS and is putting a gag order
on the pentagon
Larter 4/6/16
[David, Reporter at the Navy Times, 4-star admiral wants to confront China.
White House says not so fast,
http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/2016/04/06/4-star-admiral-wantsconfront-china-white-house-says-not-so-fast/82472290/, Accessed July 1
2016, A.H]
The U.S. militarys top commander in the Pacific is arguing behind closed
doors for a more confrontational approach to counter and reverse Chinas strategic gains in
the South China Sea,

appeals that have met resistance from the White

House at nearly every turn.

Adm. Harry Harris is proposing a muscular U.S. response to

China's island-building that may include launching aircraft and conducting military operations within 12
miles of these man-made islands, as part of an effort to stop what he has called the "Great Wall of Sand"
before it extends within 140 miles from the Philippines' capital, sources say. Harris and his U.S. Pacific
Command have been waging a persistent campaign in public and in private over the past several months
to raise the profile of China's land grab, accusing China outright in February of militarizing the South China

Obama administration, with just nine months left in office, is looking to work with
China on a host of other issues from nuclear non-proliferation to an ambitious
trade agenda, experts and would prefer not to rock the Ssay, outh China Sea boat,
Sea. But the

even going so far as to muzzle Harris and other military leaders in

the run-up to a security summit. They want to get out of office with a
minimum of fuss and a maximum of cooperation with China, said Jerry Hendrix, a
retired Navy captain and defense strategy analyst with the Center for a New American Security. The
White House has sought to tamp down on rhetoric from Harris and other
military leaders, who are warning that China is consolidating its gains to
solidify sovereignty claims to most of the South China Sea. National
Security Adviser Susan Rice imposed a gag order on military
leaders over the disputed South China Sea in the weeks running up to the last
week's high-level nuclear summit, according to two defense officials who asked for anonymity
to discuss policy deliberations. China's president, Xi Jinping, attended the summit, held in Washington, and
met privately with President Obama. The order was part of the notes from a March 18 National Security
Council meeting and included a request from Rice to avoid public comments on China's recent actions in

In issuing the gag

order, Rice intended to give Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping "maximum
political maneuvering space" during their one-on-one meeting during the global Nuclear Summit
the South China Sea, said a defense official familiar with the meeting readout.

held March 31 through April 1, the official said. Sometimes its OK to talk about the facts and point out
what China is doing, and other times it's not, the official familiar with the memo said. Meanwhile, the

The NSC dictum has had a

chilling effect within the Pentagon that discouraged leaders from talking
publicly about the South China Sea at all, even beyond the presidential summit,
Chinese have been absolutely consistent in their messaging.

according to a second defense official familiar with operational planning. Push-back from the NSC has
become normal in cases where it thinks leaders have crossed the line into baiting the Chinese into hard-

Military leaders interpreted this as an order to stay silent

on China's assertive moves to control most of the S outh China Sea, said both defense
line positions, sources said.

officials, prompting concern that the paltry U.S. response may embolden the Chinese and worry U.S. allies
in the region, like Japan and the Philippines, who feel bullied. China, which has been constructing islands
and airstrips atop reefs and rocky outcroppings in the Spratly Islands, sees the South China Sea as Chinese
territory. President Xi told Obama during their meeting at the nuclear summit that China would not accept
any behavior in the disguise of freedom of navigation that violates its sovereignty, according to a Reuters
report. The two world leaders did agree to work together on nuclear and cyber security issues. Experts
say administrations often direct military leaders to tone down their rhetoric ahead of major talks, but the
current directive comes at a difficult juncture. U.S. leaders are struggling to find an effective approach to
stopping the island-building without triggering a confrontation. The NSC frequently takes top-down control
to send a coherent message, said Bryan Clark a former senior aide to Adm. Jon Greenert, the recently
retired chief of naval operations. While serving as Greenerts aide, Clark said the NSC regularly vetted the
former CNOs statements on China and the South China Sea. Critics say the administration's wait-and-see

The
White Houses aversion to risk has resulted in an indecisive policy that has
failed to deter Chinas pursuit of maritime hegemony while confusing and alarming our
approach to the South China Sea has failed, with the island-dredging continuing in full force.

regional allies and partners, said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, in a statement to Navy Times. Chinas increasingly coercive challenge to the rules-based
international order must be met with a determined response that demonstrates Americas resolve and
reassures the region of our commitment. When presented with the findings of this article, Harris declined
to comment through a spokesperson. A spokesman for the chief of naval operations had no comment when
asked about Harris' proposals and whether the CNO was supporting them. An administration official said
the Navys operations in the South China Sea are routine and that the administration often seeks to
coordinate its message. "While we're not going to characterize the results of deliberative meetings, it's no
secret that we coordinate messaging across the inter-agency-on issues related to China as well as every
other priority under the sun, the official said. The gag order has had at least one intended effect. The
amphibious assault ship Boxer and the dock landing ship Harpers Ferry, both carrying the 13th Marine
Expeditionary Unit, steamed through the South China Sea in late March to little fanfare. 'The status quo
has changed Meanwhile evidence is mounting that China aims to build another island atop the
Scarborough Shoal, an atoll just 140 miles off the coast of the Philippines capital of Manila and well within
the Philippines' 200-mile economic exclusion zone, that would extend China's claims. Chinese missile
batteries and air-search radars there would put U.S. forces in the Philippines at risk in a crisis. Harris and
PACOM officials have been lobbying the National Security Council, Capitol Hill and Pentagon leaders to
send a clear message that they wont tolerate continued bullying of neighbors. Part of the approach
includes more aggressive, frequent and close patrols of China's artificial islands, Navy Times has learned.
"When it comes to the South China Sea, I think the largest military concern for [U.S.] Pacific Command is
what operational situation will be left to the next commander or the commander after that," said a Senate
staffer familiar with the issues in the South China Sea. "The status quo is clearly being changed.
Militarization at Scarborough Shoal would give [China's People's Liberation Army-Navy] the ability to hold
Subic Bay, Manila Bay, and the Luzon Strait at risk with coastal defense cruise missiles or track aviation
assets moving in or out of the northern Philippines." The administration is negotiating rotational force
presence in the Philippines that would put the U.S. in a position to counter China's moves in the region but
the focus on the big picture isn't changing the China's gains in the here and now, the staffer said. "Force
posture agreements and presence operations are important, but the administration has yet to develop a
deterrence package that actually convinced Beijing that going further on some of these strategic-level
issues like Scarborough ... is not worth the costs." Stepped-up patrols and of the South China Sea like the
one conducted by the carrier John C. Stennis and her escorts in early March are part of the PACOM
response to China, but actual freedom of navigation patrols in close proximity to China's islands must be
authorized by the White House. The patrols to date have been confusing, critics argue, because they have
been conducted under the right of innocent passage. For example, the destroyer Lassen's October transit
within 12 nautical miles of Chinese man-made islands in the disputed Spratly Islands chain, was conducted
in accordance with innocent passage rights. Some officials saw that as tacit acknowledgment that China
did in fact own the islands and were entitled to a 12-mile territorial sea around them. During innocent
passage, warships are not supposed to fly aircraft, light off anti-air systems or shoot guns just proceed
expeditiously from point A to point B. All those activities are fair game in international waters. The lack
of a more aggressive response has only encouraged continued expansion, critics say, including the new
Scarborough Shoal project, which China seized from the Philippines in 2012. The Lassen was the first U.S.
warship to pass within 12 miles of China's man-made islands in three years and was followed by the
destroyer Curtis Wilburs patrol of the disputed Paracel Islands in January. But if the goal of those patrols
was to stop China from constructing man-made islands, it has clearly failed, which was noted last month
by the U.S. militarys top officer. In the South China Sea, Chinese activity is destabilizing and could pose

a threat to commercial trade routes, Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said at a
March 29 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And while our exercise of freedom
of navigation provides some assurance to our allies and partners, it hasn't stopped the Chinese from
developing military capabilities in the South China Sea, to include on territories where there is a contested
claim of sovereignty. Administration officials say they've been tough on Chinas claims, supporting
military patrols by U.S. Air Force bombers and Navy ships, as well as sending high-tech military assets to
the region, including two more destroyers and the sophisticated X-band AN/TPY-2 missile defense radar
system. The U.S. is also negotiating rotational presence for U.S. troops on bases in the Philippines, right on
Chinas doorstep. The idea that we are somehow inconsistent or that we are giving China a free pass just
isnt supported by the facts, said a U.S. official who spoke on background to discuss internal
deliberations. Irreversible gains Harris wants to double down on the close island patrols but conduct
them on the assertion they are in international water, sources who spoke to Navy Times said. Clark, now
an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who has followed Harriss strategy,
said he thinks Harris is lobbying for more assertive freedom of navigation patrols that include military
operations such as helicopter flights and signals intelligence within 12 miles of Chinese-claimed features.
Such patrols, Clark said, would make clear the Navy does not acknowledge Chinese claims and that the
surrounding waters are international. He wants to do real [freedom of navigation operations], Clark said.
He wants to drive through an area and do military operations. Harris is not the only Navy expert raising
alarms. Capt. Sean Liedman, a naval flight officer serving as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
called for the U.S. to take a hard line. Failing to prevent the destruction and Chinese occupation of
Scarborough Shoal would generate further irreversible environmental damage in the South China Sea
and more importantly, further irreversible damage to the principles of international law, Liedman wrote in
a late March blog post. It would further consolidate the Chinese annexation and occupation of the
maritime features in the South China Sea, which would be essentially irreversible in any scenario short of a
major regional conflict. Liedman said the Navy should consider taking military actions like disabling
Chinese dredging boats to steps to impair the land-reclamation effort. Failing to stop Chinas expansion in
the South China Sea into territory also claimed by its neighbors is only heightening the chance of getting

The Obama administration has

tended to take the least confrontational path but in doing so they created an environment
into an armed confrontation, said Hendrix, the retired captain.

where its going to take a major shock to reestablish the international norms in the South China Sea, he
said. Ironically, theyve made a situation where conflict is more instead of less likely.

Non-unique - The white house is consistently appeasing

China now
Leaf, 15
[Paul J. Leaf, 10/13/15, The Daily Caller, regular commentator on U.S. foreign
policy. He worked on defense issues for a think tank and is now an attorney at
an international law firm, The US Must Call Out China For Its Aggression,
http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/13/the-u-s-must-call-out-china-for-itsagression/, Accessed July 4 2016, A.H]
the U.S. has downplayed Chinas increasingly aggressive intentions
and actions, hoping to moderate Chinas rise. But this approach makes it appear as though the U.S. does not see
For too long,

China as a growing threat, or if America does, it is unwilling or unable to meet that challenge. These impressions have
emboldened Beijing and dispirited Washingtons Asian partners. The U.S. must begin accurately and firmly describing the
China threat and backing up its tough talk if it wants to deter Chinese adventurism and to convince hedging countries in
Asia that it will stand up to Beijing if necessary.

Consider examples of Washingtons weak

rhetoric. In March 2013, shortly after China had increased its defense spending nearly 11 percent (further cementing
it as the worlds second largest military budget), developed its first aircraft carrier, stealth fighter jet, and anti-aircraft
carrier missile, and ramped up its combative military rhetoric, the Commander of U.S. Pacific Forces (Admiral Samuel
Locklear) stated that Asian-Pacific security was most threatened by climate change. In January 2014, two months after
China had created an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) overlapping with those of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan,

Americas then Pacific Fleet Commander said that Beijings unilateral move
highlighted coercion by China and other countries as well, and that the U.S.
welcome[s] the growth of China as a military power in the Pacific. There is

nothing wrong with that. In November 2014, Captain James Fanell, a senior naval intelligence officer, was
fired for warning, based on his analysis of a large Chinese amphibious military exercise, that Beijing was preparing for a
short, sharp war with Tokyo. Although a senior Chinese military officer had already used that exact phrase when

top-ranking U.S. military

officials quickly repudiated Captain Fanells unnecessarily antagoni[stic] comment and reassured Beijing
that Washington views its rise as a good thing for the region . The Obama
administration consistently denies that the Asia pivot is about China , frequently
proposing how China should reclaim disputed territory administered by Japan,

fails to name China as the impetus behind its military exercises with that countrys rivals, and refuses to publicly identify
China as the culprit of the recent cyber theft of over 21 million U.S. government employees sensitive data from the Office
of Personnel Management (OPM). Although Beijing claims 90 percent of the 1.35-million-square-mile South China Sea
(contrary to the declared stakes of Washingtons regional partners), it has reclaimed 17 times more land there in less than
two years than all other claimants together since 1975, and it is rapidly militarizing its man-made islands in those waters,

Washington regularly reiterates that it does not take sides in the South China
Sea disputes and recognizes Chinas legitimate claims there . Indeed, last month, a
U.S. naval officer said [t]here is room in the [S outh China Sea] for multiple
powers, really all powers, while a Chinese admiral declared at the same
conference that the entire area belongs to China . When a confrontation occurs in the South
China Sea, such as when Beijing ejected Manila from the Scarborough Shoal and snatched control of it in violation of a
U.S.-brokered withdrawal agreement, or when China unilaterally parked an oil drilling rig (protected by fighter jets and
over 100 naval and civilian vessels) in Vietnams waters and then rammed Vietnamese boats and sank one, the U.S.
frequently goes no further than calling on all sides to exercise restraint. But China initiated and escalated many of these
flareups, and it always overwhelms its rivals with superior naval and aerial assets. When dealing with China, its weaker
adversaries are forced to exercise restraint Washingtons scattershot admonishment thus suggests a lack of
understanding of Asias lopsided power distribution. Unfortunately, Washingtons language also signals that it does not
comprehend how Beijing intends to use its growing might. In July 2014, Beijing asked Admiral Jonathan Greenert, chief of
U.S. naval operations, to inspect a U.S. aircraft carrier to learn how to maintain and to operate its own such vessel.
Although China regularly steals U.S. military secrets, Beijings aircraft carrier is meant to project power against Americas
partners, and China had recently tested a missile promised to sink U.S. aircraft carriers, Admiral Greenert said he was
receptive to Beijings request. Washington rejected it, but the fact that Beijing felt comfortable asking and the U.S.
military considered it is troubling. To improve their military ties, the U.S. asked China to participate (for its first time) in
the July 2014 RIMPAC the worlds largest multinational naval exercise. China did so, but placed an uninvited spy ship in
Americas exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to monitor the event. Admiral Locklear hailed the move as indicating Chinese
acceptance of other countries surveillance rights within its EEZ, which is permitted by international law. But that
interpretation conflicted with Beijings persistent history of forcefully opposing foreign surveillance ships and planes
operating in and above its claimed EEZ, including its establishment of an ADIZ over contested parts of the East China Sea
(reinforced by threatened defensive emergency measures) and its repeated confrontations with American, Filipino, and
Vietnamese ships and American and Japanese military planes. Indeed, Beijings actions since RIMPAC show that it ignores
international law and practices a double standard that Washington apparently fails to perceive: China believes that it may
operate anywhere, but no other country may do the same within its self-defined and oversized protected waters and skies.
Compare the following incidents. In August 2014, a Chinese fighter jet flashed its weapons at and flew within 20 feet of a
U.S. military aircraft legally surveilling from international airspace over the South China Sea. And last month, just days
before Chinese President Xi Jinping visited President Obama, two Chinese fighter jets intercepted (within 500 feet) a U.S.
spy plane legally operating in international skies near China. U.S. military officials said the unsafe encounter was not

China
operated for its first time warships in American territorial waters within 12
miles of Alaskas coast and while President Obama was in that state.
Washington responded that it would not characterize anything [those ships
are] doing as threatening, and spun the incident as another indication of
Beijing accepting foreign military vessels in its protected waters.
alarming since it appeared to be more of an exception than a trend. On the other hand, that same month,

Containment Fails
Containment isnt possible economic ties and ally
resistance
Carpenter 5/26/16
[Ted Galen, senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest. He is the author of
ten books and more than six hundred articles on international affairs,
America's Doomed China Strategy, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/theskeptics/americas-doomed-china-strategy-16365, Accessed June 5 2016, A.H]
The containment side of U.S. policy has gone from merely assembling some of the necessary components,
to be activated at a later date if necessary (first gear), to the initial phase of activation (second gear). More
emphasis is likely to be placed on China as a serious strategic competitor, if not an outright adversary. But

developing any kind of a containment policy against China is almost certain

to prove hopelessly difficult. Despite the sometimes inflammatory rhetoric coming from Donald
Trump and some other China bashers, the bilateral economic relationship remains quite
extensive and crucial. China is Americas second largest trading partner. In 2015, the United States
exported $116 billion in goods to China while importing $482 billion. Disrupting that relationship
would be extremely costly and painful for both countries . That point underscores one
key reason why reviving anything even faintly resembling the Cold Warera
containment policy that worked against the Soviet Union is a hopeless quest.
Americas economic relations with the USSR were minuscule, so there was little sacrifice on that front in
taking a hardline stance against Moscow. That is clearly not the case today regarding Americas economic

There is also the matter of assembling a reliable alliance

against Beijing. Conducting a containment policy against the Soviet Union during the Cold War was
connections to China.

feasible because (at least during the crucial formative stages) neither the United States nor its key allies
had much of a political or economic relationship to lose with Moscow. The costs, therefore, of shunning

Most of the East Asian

countries, including close U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, already have
extensive economic links with Beijing. Indeed, China is Japans largest trading partner,
accounting for one-fifth of that countrys total trade. It would not be easy for those countries
to jeopardize such stakes to support a confrontational, U.S.-led containment
policy aimed at Beijing. Tokyo undoubtedly has concerns about Chinas behavior in the East China
Moscow were minimal. That is clearly not the case with China.

Sea (and about overall Chinese ambitions), but it would still be a reluctant recruit in a hostile containment
strategy. Indeed, as time passed during the Cold War, even the containment strategy directed against the
Soviet Union proved increasingly difficult for U.S. leaders. That was especially true after the early 1970s,
when West Germanys policy of Ostpolitik sought better relations with communist East Germany, and
indirectly with Moscow and the rest of the Soviet bloc. As connections deepened between democratic
Europe and the USSR, support for hard-line U.S. policies began to fade. That point became evident in the
1980s, when U.S. leaders attempted to persuade their European allies to reject the proposal for a natural
gas pipeline from the Soviet Union to Western Europe, fearing that it would give Moscow an unhealthy
degree of policy leverage. Much to Washingtons frustration, key European allies rejected the advice. If
the United States attempts to mobilize regional support for a containment policy against China, it will start
out operating in an environment even less conducive than the policy environment regarding the Soviet
Union in the 1980s. Washingtons courtship might be welcomed by very small countries, such as the
Philippines, that are already on extremely bad terms with Beijing. Larger powers, though, are more likely to
see what benefits they can entice and extract from Washington, without making firm commitments that
would antagonize China and jeopardize their own important ties to that county. There is a final reason why

Several
troublesome global or regional issues will be difficult to address without
substantial input and cooperation from China. It is nearly impossible, for
an overt containment policy against China would be a poor option for the United States.

example, to imagine progress being made on the difficult and complex issue
of North Koreas nuclear and ballistic missile programs without Chinas
extensive involvement. The United States needs to lower, not
increase, its level of confrontation toward China . That also means
restoring respect for the concept of spheres of influence . In attempting to preserve
U.S. primacy in East Asia and the western Pacific, U.S. leaders are intruding into the S outh
China Sea and other areas that logically matter far more to China than to
America. Such a strategy is likely to result either in a humiliating U.S. retreat
under pressure or a disastrous military collision. A containment strategy is a
feeble attempt to evade that reality.

Link

No Link - General
Engagement isnt appeasement and lack of engagement
makes authoritarian states worse
Larison 12
[Daniel, 12/17/12, senior editor at The American Conservative, PhD in history
from the University of Chicago, Engagement Is Not Appeasement,
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/engagement-is-notappeasement/, Accessed July 5 2016, A.H]
Michael Rubin continues the assault on Hagel, saying that he lacks a moral compass in international
affairs: Hagels gut instincts are even worse: He is not nave like Kerry, but rather cold and callous when
it comes to human rights. His instincts are to dismiss his opponents worst excesses as a domestic affair.
Hagel embraces traditional appeasement, unaware that rather than satiate dictators, it only emboldens
them. It wont take long for dictators to understand that, with both Kerry and Hagel at the helm, they will
have carte blanche to repress and murder their own people in a manner unseen for decades. Hagels
views are being grossly misrepresented here. That isnt surprising, but it still deserves a response .

Hagel
has rejected the lazy, common conflation of diplomatic engagement with
appeasement. He repudiates the latter. What does Hagel mean by engagement? James Joyner
reported on his recent speech at the Atlantic Council: The former Republican Senator from Nebraska could
have been speaking to his former colleagues when he insisted, Engagement

wont fix all

problems, but engagement isnt appeasement or surrender or even
negotiationits a bridge-building process , an opportunity to better
understand others on the basis of mutual self respect. The most important error
Rubin makes is the assumption that engagement mainly benefits the regime being engaged over the long
term.

Cutting off contacts with other regimes doesnt hasten their downfall or

weaken their hold on power. On the contrary, such regimes can take
advantage of attempts at isolation to suppress dissent, consolidate
power, and rally their nations behind them . It is not the purpose of engagement to
undermine other regimes. The purpose is and should be to advance the interests of the United States

It is more likely that authoritarian regimes will gradually lose their

grip on power if the people in their countries are exposed more regularly
to contacts with other nations than if they are shut off from them. Repressive
regimes will engage in brutal crackdowns and will violently suppress challenges to their control. That isnt
going to change, and it will happen no matter who occupies different Cabinet posts or the White House.
That isnt something that the U.S. can normally prevent, nor does the U.S. have the resources to police
how all these regimes act in their own countries, but it is something that the U.S. might be able to limit to
some degree if it were in a position to influence these regimes.

Refusing to engage with

these regimes deprives the U.S. of influence. It deprives these

regimes of nothing. Obviously, its false to say that Hagel lacks a moral compass in
international affairs. Hagel is reportedly wary of using force against Iran, which suggests a more serious
understanding of the moral and practical implications of war than advocates of moral clarity possess .

The sort of engagement Hagel appears to be endorsing is one that defuses

tensions and reduces the chances of conflict.

No Link - Diplomacy
Diplomacy isnt appeasement its a international
relations strategy that is more successful than hardline
approaches
Takeyh 09
[Ray, Oct 7 2009, The Essence of Diplomatic Engagement, Senior Fellow
for Middle Eastern Studies, http://www.cfr.org/diplomacy-andstatecraft/essence-diplomatic-engagement/p20362, Accessed July 5 2016,
A.H]
As the Obama administration charts its foreign policy, there is increasing unease about its lack of
achievements. The Iraq war lingers, Afghanistan continues to be mired in its endless cycle of tribal disarray

Obama has introduced important

changes in both the style and substance of US diplomacy . An honest dialogue with
and Islamist resurgence, Guantanamo remains open. Still,

the international community has at times led the president to acknowledge our own culpabilities and

Even more dramatic has been Obama's willingness to reach out to

America's adversaries and seek negotiated solutions to some of the world's
thorniest problems. It is Obama's declared engagement policy that has
raised the ire of critics and led them to once more take refuge in the spurious
yet incendiary charge of appeasement. Columnist Charles Krauthammer recently exclaimed,
shortcomings.

"When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom." Acknowledgement of
America's misjudgments is derided as an unseemly apologia while diplomacy is denigrated as a misguided
exercise in self-delusion. After all, North Korea continues to test its nuclear weapons and missiles, Cuba
spurns America's offers of a greater opening, and the Iranian mullahs contrive conspiracy theories about
how George Soros and the CIA are instigating a velvet revolution in their country. Tough-minded
conservatives are urging a course correction and a resolute approach to the gallery of rogues that the

Such views miscast the essence of diplomatic

engagement. Diplomacy is likely to be a painstaking process and it may not
work with every targeted nation. However, the purpose of such a policy is not to
transform adversaries into allies, but to seek adjustments in their behavior and
ambitions. North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and Iran would be offered a path toward realizing their essential
president pledges to embrace.

national interests should they conform to global conventions on issues such as terrorism and proliferation.
Should these regimes fail to grasp the opportunities before them, then Washington has a better chance of

One of the problems

with a unilateralist Bush administration that prided itself on disparaging
diplomatic outreach was that it often made America the issue and gave many
states an excuse for passivity. The Obama administration's expansive diplomatic
vision has deprived fence-sitters of such justifications . An administration that has
assembling a durable international coalition to isolate and pressure them.

reached out to North Korea, communicated its sincere desire for better ties to Iran, and dispatched highlevel emissaries to Syria cannot be accused of diplomatic indifference.

The administration's

approach has already yielded results in one of the most intractable

global problems: Iran's nuclear imbroglio . The Bush team's years of
harsh rhetoric and threats of military retribution failed to adjust
Iran's nuclear ambitions in any tangible m anner. A country that had no
measurable nuclear infrastructure before Bush's inaugural made tremendous strides during his tenure.
Unable to gain Iranian capitulation or international cooperation,

the Bush administration was

left plaintively witnessing Iran's accelerating nuclear time clock . In a dramatic twist
of events, the

Obama administration's ofer of direct diplomacy has altered the

landscape and yielded an unprecedented international consensus

that has put the recalcitrant theocracy on the defensive

. Iran's mounting

nuclear infractions and its enveloping isolation caused it to recalibrate its position and open its latest
nuclear facility to inspection and potentially ship out its stock of low-enriched uranium for processing in
Russia. Deprived of such fuel, Iran would not have the necessary resources to quickly assemble a bomb. In
a short amount of time, the administration has succeeded in putting important barriers to Iran's nuclear
weapons aspirations. The United States will persistently confront crises that require the totality of its
national power.

The tumultuous Bush years have demonstrated the

limitations of military force. Diplomatic interaction requires mutual

concessions and acceptance of less than ideal outcomes

. Moreover, as the

United States charts its course, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging past errors. Instead of clinging
to its self-proclaimed exceptionalism, America would be wise to take into account the judgment of other
nations that are increasingly central to its economy and security.

Nixon and Reagan prove diplomacy isnt appeasement

Boyer, 08
[Spencer P, May 28 2008, National Intelligence Council, Office of the Director
of National Intelligence, Georgetown University, BMW Center for German and
European Studies, School of Foreign Service, Diplomacy Isnt Appeasement,
http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2008/05/diplomacy_isnt_appeasemen
t/, Diplomacy Isnt Appeasement, Accessed July 13 2016, A.H]
Its always sad to see those who have blundered egregiously defending their mistakes to the bitter end
hoping that forceful repetition of erroneous arguments will somehow make up for what they lack in
wisdom. We have seen this tactic throughout the failed presidency of George W. Bush, especially regarding

Bushs most recent defense of the indefensible was

his outrageous comparison of those who would talk with the government of
Iran and radical groups to Nazi appeasers. Despite White House denials, everyone
recognized Bushs remarks as a swipe at Senator Barack Obama, who says that
the United States should be willing to talk to its adversarie s. Regardless of how often
and inelegantly Bush presses this argument, neither recent nor distant history supports
his position. During a speech in Israel to mark the countrys 60th anniversary of independence, Bush
his disastrous choice to invade Iraq.

said the following, which (because of John McCains quick and complete agreement with it) has already
helped define a philosophical battleground of the presidential race: Some seem to believe we should
negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have
been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in
1939, an American senator declared, Lord, if I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been
avoided. We have an obligation to call this what it is the false comfort of appeasement, which has been
repeatedly discredited by history. There are so many problems with this statement not least of which is
that it violates longstanding presidential custom of avoiding partisan attacks while abroad that its hard
to know where to begin. But lets start with Bushs perversion of the historical record. To the charge of
being nave and/or delusional,

American history demonstrates that our

strongest and most successful leaders both Republican and

Democratic were willing to meet with some of our countrys most
brutal adversaries . During the Cold War, President Nixon was

willing to go to Communist China for direct negotiations with

Chairman Mao Zedong, even though China supported Americas
foes in Vietnam. President Reagan was willing to meet with

Soviet President

Gorbachev, despite the fact that the USSR had thousands of nuclear
weapons aimed at our cities and had a history of training and financing the Palestinian
Mikhail

Liberation Organization to carry out attacks against our ally Israel.

Were Nixon and Reagan

appeasers? Of course not. In fact, most historians credit the

willingness of these presidents to engage in aggressive diplomacy
as important turning points that helped end the Cold War in the
Wests favor.

In addition, while Bush criticizes Obama for suggesting that the United States should

be willing to talk with Iran without preconditions, presidents have been willing to negotiate with Americas

Nixon and Reagan understood

that it would have been self-defeating to require China and the Soviet Union
to change their objectionable behavior before engagement . And Bush himself
authorized talks with rogue regimes in North Korea and Libya while they were
still pursuing nuclear weapons.
adversaries without conditions throughout the countrys history.

No Link - Economic
Economic engagement isnt appeasement china doesnt
care
Bandow, 15
[Doug, March 19 2015, Senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in
foreign policy and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President
Ronald Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry, We Must Persist
In Trade With China, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/we-mustpersist-trade-china, Accessed July 15 2016, A.H]
The death of the supremely pragmatic Chinese strongman Deng Xiaoping has introduced new jitters into
the U.S.-Chinese relationship. Tensions over human rights, security and trade all remain high. And with
Hong Kong set to return to Beijings authority in a few weeks, we seem destined to live in, as the old
Chinese curse terms it interesting times. That China, a likely superpower in the next century, presents
a potentially serious challenge to U.S. interests is reason for caution, not coercion, in Washingtons
treatment of Beijing. Critics of appeasement include many congressional Republicans and conservative
pundits. Yet the weapons they usually favor wielding Most Favored Nation trade status and World Trade
Organization membership are ill-suited to turn a communist gerontocracy into a democratic republic.
Even attempting to do so risks harming not only American businesses and consumers, but average
Chinese citizens who have the most at stake in Chinas future development. Of course, theres no
denying that Beijing has an ugly human rights record, but then, thats no surprise for a totalitarian state.

theres no reason to believe that trade sanctions would change

Chinese policy. (Denying China MFN and WTO benefits is imposing a punishment, not withholding a
Unfortunately,

privilege, since both are available to most other nations, irrespective of democratic behavior.)

If nothing

unilateral action would be ineffective. Its not that the regime in Beijing
doesnt value the American market, but it d oesnt value the American market
enough to relax its grip on power, especially when alternative markets abound in Japan,
Europe and elsewhere. Despite the moral fervor of sanction proponents, economic selfflagellation wont increase the freedom of the Chinese people. To the contrary,
else,

cutting trade ties would likely most hurt the Chinese who
Washington should want to most help . While international subsidies, such as World
Bank loans, directly aid the Chinese government, and, therefore, should be terminated,

trade

advances the growing private sector, especially in Chinas increasingly autonomous coastal
provinces. While a larger business elite and wealthier urban population arent
sufficient to guarantee Chinas evolution into a more capitalist and
democratic system, they are probably a necessary condition . Of course,
critics of cooperation point to political and security concerns Chinas military
buildup, disputed claims over such territories as the Spratly and Paracel Islands,
saber-rattling against potential Taiwanese independence and weapons sales to renegade states. All of
these warrant wary watchfulness, but

restricting trade wont help.

For instance, China

has been modernizing her military, but its defense budget remains low and, adjusted for inflation, has
been growing only slowly. Beijing has territorial disputes with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, but so far
seems committed to resolving such quarrels peacefully. China appears loath to go to war even over Taiwan;
anyway, Washington should sell more arms, especially submarines, to Taipei, rather than either provide
Beijings weapons transfers are
are more likely to be resolved through united allied diplomatic

military guarantees to Taiwan or impose sanctions on China.

worrisome, but

pressure. We should expect China to respect international norms only if it believes it has something
significant at stake in a stable global order. Severing economic ties between America and China would

reduce that stake.

Not surprisingly,

other nations in the region favor engagement

over ostracism. It is easy for pundits in Washington to counsel confrontation; they are thousands of
miles away if the policy backfires. But without exception allied governments, ranging from Japan to South
Korea to Taiwan, oppose sanctions. Its not that they trust China; rather, they understand that purposeless
Finally, Washington
should eschew the trade weapon because it politicizes American as well as
Chinese economic activities. The U.S. government already intrudes in almost every area of

punishment would provoke without yielding any countervailing benefit.

private life, interfering with trade would be yet another public infringement of private rights. Washington
should leave trade alone absent a compelling national interest, one that isnt present here.

Allowing trade to continue is common sense, not appeasement, and

will benefit the Chinese as well as American people.

Impacts

No SCS War
No SCS war collaboration is far more likely
Thayer 13
[Carlyle A., 5/13/13, Emeritus Professor at the University of New South Wales,
Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Why China and the US wont
go to war over the South China Sea,
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/05/13/why-china-and-the-us-wont-go-towar-over-the-south-china-sea/, Accessed July 5 2016, A.H]
Chinas increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea is challenging US primacy in the Asia Pacific.
Even before Washington announced its official policy of rebalancing its force posture to the Asia Pacific, the
United States had undertaken steps to strengthen its military posture by deploying more nuclear attack
submarines to the region and negotiating arrangements with Australia to rotate Marines through
Darwin.Since then, the United States has deployed Combat Littoral Ships to Singapore and is negotiating
new arrangements for greater military access to the Philippines. But these

developments do

not presage armed conflict between China and the United States .
The Peoples Liberation Army Navy has been circumspect in its involvement in S outh
China Sea territorial disputes, and the United States has been careful to avoid being
entrapped by regional allies in their territorial disputes with China. Armed conflict
between China and the United States in the South China S ea appears unlikely.
Another, more probable, scenario is that both countries will find a modus vivendi
enabling them to collaborate to maintain security in the S outh China Sea. The
Obama administration has repeatedly emphasised that its policy of rebalancing to
Asia

is not directed at containing China . For example, Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III,

Commander of the US Pacific Command, recently stated, there has also been criticism that the Rebalance
is a strategy of containment. This is not the case

and cooperation.

it is a strategy of collaboration

However, a review of past USChina military-to-military interaction indicates

that an agreement to jointly manage security in the South China Sea is unlikely because of continuing
strategic mistrust between the two countries. This is also because the currents of regionalism are growing

China and the United

States will maintain a relationship of cooperation and friction . In this scenario, both
stronger. As such, a third scenario is more likely than the previous two: that

countries work separately to secure their interests through multilateral institutions such as the East Asia
Summit, the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus and the Enlarged ASEAN Maritime Forum. But
also

they

continue to engage each other on points of mutual interest . The

Pentagon has consistently sought to keep channels of

communication open with China through three established bilateral
mechanisms : Defense Consultative Talks, the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA),
and the Defense Policy Coordination Talks. On the one hand, these multilateral mechanisms reveal very
little about USChina military relations. Military-to-military contacts between the two countries have gone
through repeated cycles of cooperation and suspension, meaning that it has not been possible to isolate
purely military-to-military contacts from their political and strategic settings. On the other hand, the
channels have accomplished the following: continuing exchange visits by high-level defence officials;
regular Defense Consultation Talks; continuing working-level discussions under the MMCA; agreement on
the 7-point consensus; and no serious naval incidents since the 2009 USNS Impeccable affair. They have
also helped to ensure continuing exchange visits by senior military officers; the initiation of a Strategic

Security Dialogue as part of the ministerial-level Strategic & Economic Dialogue process; agreement to
hold meetings between coast guards; and agreement on a new working group to draft principles to
establish a framework for military-to-military cooperation. So the bottom line is that,

despite
ongoing frictions in their relationship, the United States and China will
continue engaging with each other. Both sides understand that militaryto-military contacts are a critical component of bilateral
engagement . Without such interaction there is a risk that mistrust between the two militaries
could spill over and have a major negative impact on bilateral relations in general. But strategic mistrust
will probably persist in the absence of greater transparency in military-to-military relations .

In sum,
Sino-American relations in the South China Sea are more likely to be
characterised by cooperation and friction than a modus vivendi of collaboration or, a
worst-case scenario, armed conflict.

No Israel First Strike

Israel wont attack Iran 5 reasons
Keck 15
[Zachary, managing editor of The National Interest. He was previously
managing editor of The Diplomat, 5 Reasons Israel Won't Attack Iran,
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/five-reasons-israel-wont-attack-iran9469, Accessed July 5 2016, A.H]
Although not a member of the P5+1 itself, Israel has always loomed large over the negotiations concerning
Irans nuclear program. For example, in explaining French opposition to a possible nuclear deal earlier this
month, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius stated: The security concerns of Israel and all the countries

concern derives from the longheld fear that Israel will launch a preventive strike against Iran to prevent it
from obtaining nuclear weapons. For some, this possibility remains all too real despite the
of the region have to be taken into account. Part of Fabius

important interim agreement the P5+1 and Iran reached this weekend. For example, when asked on ABCs
This Week whether Israel would attack Iran while the interim deal is in place, William Kristol responded: I
don't think the prime minister will think he is constrained by the U.S. deciding to have a six-month deal.
[] six months, one year, I mean, if they're going to break out, they're going to break out. Israeli prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done little to dispel this notion. Besides blasting the deal as a historic
mistake, Netanyahu said Israel is not obliged to the agreement and warned the regime in Iran is
dedicated to destroying Israel and Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself with its own forces
against every threat. Many dismiss this talk as bluster, however. Over at Bloomberg View, for instance,

that the nuclear deal has boxed-in Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu so comprehensively that it's unimaginable Israel will
strike Iran in the foreseeable future. Eurasia Group's Cliff Kupchan similarly argued: The
chance of Israeli strikes during the period of the interim agreement drops to virtually zero. Although
the interim deal does further reduce Israels propensity to attack, the truth is
that the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Irans nuclear facilities has always
been greatly exaggerated. There are at least five reasons why Israel isnt
likely to attack Iran. 1. You Snooze, You Lose First, if Israel was going to strike Irans
nuclear facilities, it would have done so a long time a go. Since getting caught off-guard
Jeffrey Goldberg argues

at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israel has generally acted proactively to thwart security
threats. On no issue has this been truer than with nuclear-weapon programs. For example, Israel bombed
Saddam Husseins program when it consisted of just a single nuclear reactor. According to ABC News,
Israel struck Syrias lone nuclear reactor just months after discovering it. The IAEA had been completely in
the dark about the reactor, and took years to confirm the building was in fact housing one. Contrast this
with Israels policy toward Irans nuclear program. The uranium-enrichment facility in Natanz and the

For more than a decade

now, Tel Aviv has watched as the program has expanded into two fully
operational nuclear facilities, a budding nuclear-research reactor, and
countless other well-protected and -dispersed site s. Furthermore, Americas extreme
heavy-water reactor at Arak first became public knowledge in 2002.

reluctance to initiate strikes on Iran was made clear to Israel at least as far back as 2008. It would be
completely at odds with how Israel operates for it to standby until the last minute when faced with what it
views as an existential threat.

2. Bombing Iran Makes an Iranian Bomb More Likely Much like a U.S. strike,
only with much less tactical impact, an Israeli air strike against Irans nuclear facilities
would only increase the likelihood that Iran would build the bomb . At home,
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei could use the attack to justify rescinding his fatwa against possessing a
nuclear-weapons program, while using the greater domestic support for the regime and the nuclear

Israels attack would also

give the Iranian regime a legitimate (in much of the worlds eyes) reason to withdraw
from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and kick out international inspectors. If Tehrans
program to mobilize greater resources for the countrys nuclear efforts.

membership didnt even prevent it from being attacked, how could it justify staying in the regime? Finally,
support for international sanctions will crumble in the aftermath of an Israeli attack, giving Iran more

3. Helps Iran, Hurts Israel Relatedly, an Israeli

strike on Irans nuclear program would be a net gain for Iran and a huge loss
for Tel Aviv. Iran could use the strike to regain its popularity with the Arab street and increase the
resources with which to rebuild its nuclear facilities.

pressure against Arab rulers. As noted above, it would also lead to international sanctions collapsing, and
an outpouring of sympathy for Iran in many countries around the world. Meanwhile, a strike on Irans

Were Iran to respond by

attacking U.S. regional assets, this could greatly hurt Israels ties with the
United States at both the elite and mass levels. Indeed, a war-weary American public is
nuclear facilities would leave Israel in a far worse-off position.

adamantly opposed to its own leaders dragging it into another conflict in the Middle East. Americans would
be even more hostile to an ally taking actions that they fully understood would put the U.S. in danger.
Furthermore, the quiet but growing cooperation Israel is enjoying with Sunni Arab nations against Iran
would evaporate overnight. Even though many of the political elites in these countries would secretly
support Israels action, their explosive domestic situations would force them to distance themselves from
Tel Aviv for an extended period of time. Israels reputation would also take a further blow in Europe and
Asia, neither of which would soon forgive Tel Aviv. 4.

Israels Veto Players Although Netanyahu

operates within a democracy with a
strong elite structure, particularly in the field of national security . It seems
unlikely that he would have enough elite support for him to seriously consider
such a daring and risky operation. For one thing, Israel has strong institutional checks on using
may be ready to attack Irans nuclear facilities, he

military force. As then vice prime minister and current defense minister Moshe Yaalon explained last year:
In the State of Israel, any process of a military operation, and any military move, undergoes the approval
of the security cabinet and in certain cases, the full cabinet the decision is not made by two people, nor
three, nor eight. Its far from clear Netanyahu, a fairly divisive figure in Israeli politics, could gain this
support. In fact, Menachem Begin struggled to gain sufficient support for the 1981 attack on Iraq even
though Baghdad presented a more clear and present danger to Israel than Iran does today. What is clearer

that Netanyahu lacks the support of much of Israels highly respected

national security establishment. Many former top intelligence and military officials have spoken
is

out publicly against Netanyahus hardline Iran policy, with at least one of them questioning whether Iran is
actually seeking a nuclear weapon. Another former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces told The
Independent that, It is quite clear that much if not all of the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] leadership do not
support military action at this point. In the past the advice of the head of the IDF and the head of Mossad

5. A Deal is Better Than No Deal Finally, Israel wont

attack Iran because it is ultimately in its interests for the US and Iran to reach
an agreement, even if it is a less than an ideal one. To begin with, an agreement is the only way to
prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons short of an invasion and occupation of the country. Moreover ,
Israel would benefit both directly and indirectly from a U.S.-Iranian nuclear
deal and especially larger rapprochement. Israel would gain a number of direct benefits
had led to military action being stopped.

from a larger warming of U.S.-Iranian relations, which a nuclear deal could help facilitate. Iran currently

A rapprochement
with the U.S. would force Iranian leaders to constrain their anti-Israeli rhetoric
and actions, or risk losing their new partn er. While Israel and Iran might not enjoy the same
pays no costs while benefiting significantly from its anti-Israeli tirades and actions.

relationship they did under the Shah or the first decade of the Islamic Republic, a U.S.-allied Iran would be
much less of a burden for Israel. History is quite clear on this point: U.S. Middle Eastern alliesnotable
Egypt under Sadathave been much less hostile to the Jewish state than countries that have been U.S.
adversaries. Tel Aviv would also benefit indirectly from a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal and possible
rapprochement. Thats because either of these agreements would spark panic in Sunni Arab capitals. For

Israel would enjoy some breathing room, which would

obtain as these governments would be preoccupied with Iran for the
foreseeable future. Indeed, just the possibility of an interim nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran
the foreseeable future, then,

has created rumors of Saudi Arabia seeking tighter cooperation with Israel. For these reasons, the interim
nuclear deal has made it less likely that Israel will attack Iran.

That being said, the

possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran was already remote long

before Iran and the P5+1 held their talks in Geneva last month.

Middle East Turn

Western presence is the reason for Middle East instability
Kiley, 7/5/16
[Sam, Foreign Affairs editor for Sky News, Iraq War Fallout Still Plagues The
Middle East, http://news.sky.com/story/1721980/iraq-war-fallout-still-plaguesthe-middle-east, Accessed July 5 2016, A.H]
British and Americans have been plotting against the Sunni for
decades. Daesh is your creation. "This is a war to destroy the Sunnis organised by your people." "Oh,"
He told me: "You

I said, "I truly wish there had been some intelligent design behind what we have done to this region. I
really do. "But I have been working here since before Saddam fell. There was no intelligence. No design.
There was just stupidity. "Imagine children playing the piano with a hammer. That's what they were doing
in Washington and London." The Tigris River has literally been flowing with the blood of murdered Iraqis.

All an accident - the result of crass, uncomprehending stupidity which began

with a misleading use of poor intelligence on Iraq's "weapons of mass
destruction" in the run-up to the start of the war in 2003. Sir John Chilcot's report into the events will
no doubt shed some new light onto the details of how it was possible to have made such an almighty

the toxic fallout of the war effort, led by Tony Blair and George Bush,
continues to poison and spread horror into almost every corner of the Middle
East and has driven terrorism around the world. For the Iraqis, life is immeasurably
worse now that it was under the brutal and malicious dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. This week, at
least 175 people were killed in a bombing of a Shia area in Baghdad by
Islamic State, just the latest victims of the apocalyptic death cult which was
spawned in the resistance against the US-led occupation of Iraq. That occupation
mess. But

itself was so vividly incompetent that the conduct of its leaders would have been edited out of a political
satire. Of course it is absurd to sack 400,000 battle-hardened soldiers and toss them onto the street
without their pensions! Of course it would be quite mad to give post-war reconstruction contracts to
foreign companies when the Iraqis have one of the biggest, best, and unused domestic building industries
in the world! Of course it is unwise to privatise show factories, pharmaceutical operations and create
unemployment, but not rebuild the oil-rich nation's ability to generate electrical power to provide clean
water! No one could be that stupid, surely? But there were American officials who were every bit as

they were ably assisted by

British officials who, if they saw what was going wrong, did nothing at all to
alert the outside world to the wanton catastrophe that was being visited on
Mesopotamia. What happened to Iraq, because it was so violent and so
pointless, has looked ever since like a conspiracy against Arabs and Muslims,
dangerously stupid as any fiction writer could have conjured. And

and especially against Sunnis. It has empowered Iran, a Shia

theocracy; it has shattered Syria; it fuelled the Doomsday End
Times cult of Daesh

(Islamic State); it

has caused a mass movement of

refugees to Europe and destabilised the European Union, and it has

been a driving energy behind al Qaeda and IS terro r. And it has
confirmed the view among the peoples of the East that Western
governments are maliciously intent on destroying their way of life,

religion and culture. Sadly, they're wrong about that. The West is
doing all that, yes, but as a result of cock-ups - not conspiracies.

No Asia Prolif

No impact to regional prolif

Sapolsky and Leah 14 [Harvey M. Sapolsky is Professor Emeritus and
the Former Director of The MIT Security Studies Program. Christine M. Leah is
a Stanton Fellow at the MIT Security Studies Program. 4-14-2014
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/let-asia-go-nuclear-10259]
Tailored proliferation would not likely be destabilizing . Asia is not the
Middle East. Japan , South Korea , Australia , and even Taiwan are strong
democracies. They have stable political regimes. Government leaders are
accountable to democratic institutions . Civilian control of the military is
strong. And they dont have a history of lobbing missiles at each other they
are much more risk-averse

than Egypt, Syria or Iran.

Americas allies would be

responsible nuclear weapon states. A number of Asian nations have at one time or
another considered going nuclear, Australia for example, with tacit U.S. Defense Department
encouragement in the 1960s. They chose what for them was the cheaper alternative of living under the US
nuclear umbrella. Free nuclear guarantees provided by the United States, coupled with the US Navy
patrolling offshore, have allowed our allies to grow prosperous without having to invest much in their own

defense. Confident that the United States protects them, our allies have even
begun to squabble with China over strings of uninhabited islands in the hope
that there is oil out there. It is time to give them a dose of fiscal and military
reality. And the way to do that is to stop standing between them and their
nuclear-armed neighbors. It will not be long before they realize the value of
having their own nuclear weapons. The waters of the Pacific under those
arrangements will stay calm, and we will save a fortune.

No Naval Power
No impact to China win in South China Sea China will
preserve freedom of navigation
Bate 5-23 (Sam Bateman is a professorial research fellow at the Australian
National Center for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), University of
Wollongong, and also an adviser to the Maritime Security Program at the S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore. "America's Dangerous South China Sea Gamble", the
Diplomat, http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/americas-dangerous-south-chinasea-gamble/, 5-23-15)
The second issue is the oft-stated line from Washington that China threatens the freedom of navigation in

what freedoms of navigation are being threatened? China

has always said that with freedoms of navigation and overflight, it only
disputes the right of the United States to conduct military activities ,
particularly certain types of intelligence collection and military data gathering
(so-called military surveys) in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Chinas
the South China Sea. But

disputation of the right of the United States to undertake these activities isnt without merit, particularly
when the military surveys constitute marine scientific research which is under the jurisdiction of the

its significant that several other regional countries,

India, Malaysia and Thailand, share Chinas position on military activities in
the EEZ.
coastal State in its EEZ. Also,

Naval power irrelevant-no statistical correlation

Crisher and Souva 12
Brian and Mark, Power At Sea: A Naval Power Dataset, 1865-2011. PhD
candidate and PhD, Political Science Department, Florida State University
http://myweb.fsu.edu/bbc09/Crisher-Souva%20-%20Power%20At%20Sea
%20v2.0%20full.pdf

Figure 4: Non-Directed Dyad Model Results Figure 7 also displays estimates

and confidence intervals for this relationship in the post-World War II period.
Here we also find an interesting result. We see that in the post-WWII period,
there is no statistical relationship between the CINC power ratio variable and
the onset of a MID. However, our variable, Navy Power Ratio is statistically
and positively associated with a MID. As this ratio increases, meaning the
balance of power in the dyad becomes more uneven, the likelihood of a MID
increases. The positive relationship between the Naval Power Ratio and the
onset of a MID is particularly noteworthy as the standard finding in empirical
research on interstate conflict is that conflict is more likely under the
condition of power parity than power preponderance. At least when it comes
to naval power and non-contiguous conflict, we find the opposite.11

Turns

Accommodation good
Chinas only goal is deterrence preemptive military only
increases the chance of war
Bandow 5/26/16
Doug, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, Foreign Policy Fellow and Scholar with Defense
Priorities, http://www.defensepriorities.org/news/us-should-accommodaterather-than-fight-china-when-security-not-at-risk
The U.S. dominates the globe militarily. Washington possesses the most powerful armed
forces, accounts for roughly 40 percent of the globes military outlays, and is allied with every major

Yet the bipartisan hawks who dominate U.S.

foreign policy see threats at every turn. For some, replacing the Soviet Union as Americas
industrialized state save China and Russia.

chief adversary is the Peoples Republic of China. They view another military build-up as the only answer.
The PRCs rise is reshaping the globe. Today the PRC ranks second only to the U.S. economically. Increased
financial resources have enabled Beijing to take on a much greater international role. Of greatest concern
in Washington is Chinas military build-up. Indeed, a novel reportedly making the rounds at the Pentagon is
Ghost Fleet, which posits a Chinese attack on Hawaii. The Department of Defense publishes an annual
review of Chinas military. The latest report warns that the PRC continued to improve key capabilities,
including ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft and air defense, information capabilities, submarines, and
amphibious and airborne assault units. The Chinese military is also focusing on counterspace, offensive
cyber operations, and electronic warfare. Further, Beijing continued to modernize and to restructure its

Beijings
ambitions are bounded. Observes DOD, Chinas leaders portray a strong military
as critical to advancing Chinese interests, preventing other countries from taking
steps that would damage those interests, and ensuring that China can defend
itself and its sovereignty claims. Which is precisely what U.S. policymakers do. In the
short-term Beijings principle objective is to advance its territorial claims in
the Asia-Pacific without provoking conflict . In the longer-term the objective,
says DOD, is to deter or defeat adversary power projection and counter
third-partyincluding U.S.intervention during a crisis or conflict. That is,
deterrence. Most important is planning for contingencies in the Taiwan Strait, East and South China
ground forces to create a fully modern army. This program may sound menacing, but

Sea, and Korean peninsula. They all concern Beijing far more than America, and involve other, potentially
well-armed states, including Japan, South Korea, and the Southeast Asian nations, which are able to

China also is developing a capability for such missions

as sea lane security, counterpiracy, peacekeeping, and humanitarian
assistance/disaster relief. These tasks actually mirror U.S. interests. Washington
officials might feel uncomfortable sharing leadership with the PRC, but that cannot justify a
military response. Most important, even the Pentagon does not believe Beijing is
planning an aggressive war. America enjoys a vast military lead, possessing a significantly larger
nuclear force, 10 carriergroups compared to Chinas one carrier, and much more. With Washington
spending roughly $600 billion annually on the military, compared to an
estimated $180 billion by Beijing, China is not overtaking America. Moreover, the
advance their own interests.

PRCs economic predominance is not guaranteed. Chinas challenges are huge: white elephant
investments, shrinking labor force, inefficient state enterprises, ubiquitous bank bad debts, pervasive
corruption, regional disparities. Because of Beijings one-child policy the country may grow old before it
grows rich. Chinas military modernization program also faces serious challenges, including a slowing

Even a more
powerful PRC would not easily threaten the U.S. Projecting force across
economy and pervasive corruption which afflicts the Peoples Liberation Army.

oceans and continents is extraordinarily expensive. Deterring use of such force is

relatively cheap. America is uniquely secure, enjoying relative geographic
isolationin contrast to China, which is surrounded by nations with which it has been at war over the
last century: Russia, Japan, Korea, India, and Vietnam. In fact, only Washingtons attempt to
dominate China along the latters border (imagine the Chinese navy patrolling Americas
East Coast) might trigger war. The U.S. understandably favors its friends in their
disputes with the PRC. However, they should be responsible for defending their own interests.
None of the ongoing territorial controversies is worth conflict with nucleararmed China. Unfortunately, deterrence often fails. If Beijing ignores U.S. threats,
Washington could find itself in a real war with a real power. Are Americans
prepared to sacrifice Los Angeles or San Francisco for Tokyo or Taipei ? Doing so
would be madness. Despite the tendency to treat the PRC as the next superpower, Chinese officials are
aware of their limitations, tempering any danger to America. Concludes DOD: China continues to regard
stable relations with the United States and Chinas neighbors as key to its development. The U.S. should

the best way for the U.S. to prepare for the

future is to husband its economic strength and respond militarily only if a
be watchful and wary of Chinas rise. But

serious threat develops. Otherwise Washington should seek to

accommodate rather than combat such an important rising power.

Accommodation is good containing China leads to a selffulfilling prophecy

Pilling, 15
David, 3/18/15, Writer for the Financial Times, Accommodating Beijing may
be no bad thing, https://next.ft.com/content/7480fe80-cbcf-11e4-aeb500144feab7de, Accessed July 2 2016, A.H
In the 50 shades of diplomatic speak, the word accommodation is only slightly less stinging than that
other A-word: appeasement. Last week, a senior US official rebuked the UK for its constant
accommodation of China. London had agreed to be a member of a Beijing-led infrastructure bank that
some fear could one day challenge a US-led World Bank. The implication is that other concessions have
been made. A deal not to meet the Dalai Lama here. A soft-pedalling on Hong Kong democracy there. We
are wary about a trend toward constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage a

what is the best way to engage a

rising power? If constant accommodation is not the answer, what is? The US
would doubtless deny that the alternative is constant containmen t. Rather, it
rising power, the official said. That raises the question:

would say, China must be coaxed into the existing international order, whose rules and norms have served
the region well for 70 years. The problem is that, from Beijings perspective, those rules and norms have
been made in Washingtons image. That applies to multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, where
China has a 3.8 per cent share of voting rights despite having 16 per cent of global output. It also applies
to norms covering maritime affairs that, again from Beijings viewpoint, allow the US to police Asian waters
vital to Chinas interest or to preserve postwar territorial delineations in contravention of Chinas historic
claims. If Beijing must abide by international norms created by the west when China was down on its
knees, who, it might reasonably ask, needs containment anyway. When it comes to the bank, now that
Britain has broken ranks, others are likely to follow. Indeed, there are good arguments for doing so. If
Washingtons concern really is that the new bank will override environmental and social norms then it
would be better to try to influence it from the inside than to stand aloof. The split over the bank is part of

Hugh White, an Australian

academic and former defence official, argues persuasively that China needs
to be accommodated. Thats right: he uses the very word wielded by the US as an insult .
a much broader question of how to deal with a rising China generally.

China simply will not accept a secondary role in its own backyard . He advocates a
political deal that would give Beijing and Washington equal clout in the region, and allow India and Japan a
stake in the new set-up. There are many objections to such thinking. For one, it sounds so 19th century.
Surely the world is beyond spheres of influence and great power carve-ups? Such a solution would
relegate other nations, such as Indonesia and South Korea, to second-tier status. And once the US cedes
some power to China, what is to stop it pressing for more say, by seeking to reclaim Taiwan or
threatening its old adversary, Japan?

To the sceptics, accommodation is just another

word for appeasement. Give Beijing an inch and it will grab a mile (preferably with an exclusive
economic zone attached). Since 1938, when Britain and France allowed Germany to annex parts of
Czechoslovakia, appeasement has had a terrible rap, associated with cowardice and disastrous
miscalculation. Instead of bringing peace in our time, the Allies merely emboldened an aggressive
Germany. Appeasers, said Winston Churchill, fed others to the crocodile in the hope that they would be
eaten last. Professor White responds that, while the lessons of 1938 must be learnt, they should not be

Today, the question must be: is President Xi Jinpings China like Adolf
Hitlers Germany, an evil regime bent on war? If so, then containment makes perfect
over-learnt.

sense.

If not, then it may be containment that is the disastrous

miscalculation . China may come to believe it can only gain

influence in the world through conflict . If we treat China like Nazi
Germany, concludes Prof White, then we will indeed end up
going to war with it.

Thankfully, deciding whether to join a bank is a long way from world

war three. Yet the question still boils down to this: must China be expected to play entirely by rules it had

When it
comes to the infrastructure bank, there is a strong argument for engagement.
And if that looks like accommodation well, so be it.
no part in establishing? Or will a risen China inevitably seek to influence international norms?

Retreat Good
Retreating from the SCS is good its the only way to
avoid an inevitable conlfict
Glaser 15
[John Glaser is studying International Security at George Mason University. He
has been published in CNN, Newsweek, the Guardian and the Washington
Times, The Ugly Truth About Avoiding War With China,
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-ugly-truth-about-avoiding-war-china14740?page=3, Accessed July 5 2016, A.H]
While ISIS is the threat that keeps Washington policymakers up at night, its the rise of China that has
international relations theorists in a panic.

Graham Allison argues persuasively that

Chinas rise portends a classic Thucydides Tra p. His research shows that in twelve of
the last sixteen cases over the past five hundred years, when a rising power
challenged an established one, the result was war . John Mearsheimer, somewhat more
bluntly, warns that China cannot rise peacefully. Its an impending great power clash that makes the

China threatens the United States only insofar as

America insists on being the dominant power in Chinas backyard , a policy
threat from ISIS look like childs play. But

that actually contributes very little to U.S. security. If we abandon our

strategy of primacy, the risk of a clash will shrink away. If we try to
contain Chinas rise, on the other hand, these predictions of doom
may prove right . The current approach to China boils down to a kind of measured containment.
It manifests in essentially in three ways: 1) maintaining and strengthening U.S. treaty alliances with
Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand, which are the fulcrum for our strategic turn
to the Asia-Pacific; 2) increasing overall U.S. military presence in the region to develop a geographically
dispersed, politically sustainable force posture in the region; and 3) further integrating U.S. economic
engagement in the region in a way that marginalizes, and in some cases excludes, China. But

containment is problematic: it carries the dubious presumption that Chinas

most likely reaction to U.S. expansion in the region is to become a docile
power, eager to give up its regional ambitions. In reality, Washingtons determination to
maintain dominance in East Asia is much more likely to generate an
intense security dilemma.

To understand why, we have to try to see the world through

Chinas strategic lens. According to Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell,

China sees America

as the most intrusive outside actor in Chinas internal afairs,

the

guarantor of the status quo in Taiwan, the largest naval presence in the East China and South China seas,
[and] the formal or informal military ally of many of Chinas neighbors

. The Chinese view

the United States as a revisionist power that seeks to curtail

China's political influence and harm China's interests.

Chinas feelings of

Americas presence along Chinas maritime

periphery is highly militarized and provocative, with the U.S. Pacific Fleet conducting
encirclement are not unwarranted.

countless exercises and training events with dozens of countries in the region. Washingtons massive
military presence on the Korean Peninsula, and just across the East China Sea on the southern tip of the
Japanese archipelago, are perceived as substantive threats to Chinese security.

Americas position

as the largest naval presence in the East and South China Seas also stokes
fear in China, particularly because roughly 40 percent of Chinese oil imports
come by sea and pass through sea-lanes that are subject to interdiction by
the United States. Currently, Chinas obvious orientation, writes Lyle Goldstein is
defensive, although those tendencies could change if Beijing perceives that its strategic environment
has substantially worsened. So, what today might constitute a defensive Chinese
foreign policy could in the future transform into a more aggressive stance if
increased U.S. military presence in the region convinces Beijing that it is
under threat. Fortunately, the United States can relinquish its outsized hegemonic
role in East Asia without damaging its core interests . Nothing in Chinas
foreign policy indicates any intention to preemptively or
preventively use force against Americas or its allies sovereign
territory . Despite its naval buildup, China has not credibly threatened to cut off sea lines of
communication or disrupt trade routes.

The United States is arguably the most

secure great power in histor y. With weak and pliant neighbors to its north and south, vast
oceans to its east and west and a superior nuclear deterrent, it is remarkably insulated from external
threats. Maintaining military predominance in East Asia simply doesnt add much to our unusually secure
position. But

primacy does impose real costs. Promising to defend a

host of Chinas neighboring rivals, and maintaining tens of

thousands of forward deployed troops and more than half of U.S.
naval power in Asia entail enormous budgetary expenditures

that could

be kept in productive sectors of the economy. There are also the latent costs of being entrapped into
unnecessary wars.

Conflict over the sovereignty of Taiwan or uninhabited

islands in the South China Sea risks entangling the United States in
a regional war

that serves the interests of other countries, not its own. Primacy could

conceivably be justified if the United States derived commensurate benefits. That does not appear to be
the case. As Robert Jervis has written, the pursuit of primacy was what great power politics was all about
in the past, but in a world of nuclear weapons, with low security threats and great common interests
among the developed countries, the game is not worth the candle. Charles Glaser similarly argues,
Unipolarity is much overrated. It is not necessary to protect core national interests and in fact causes the
U.S. to lose track of how secure it is and consequently pursue policies that are designed to increase its
security but turn out to be too costly and/or to have a high probability of backfiring. Nor does U.S.
dominance reap much in the way of tangible economic rewards. Daniel Drezner contends, The economic
benefits from military predominance alone seem, at a minimum, to have been exaggerated. . . . There is
little evidence that military primacy yields appreciable geoeconomic gains and therefore an overreliance
on military preponderance is badly misguided. The struggle for primacy in East Asia is not fundamentally
one for security or tangible economic benefits. What is at stake is largely status and prestige. As the
scholar William Wohlforth explains, hegemonic power transitions throughout history actually see the rising
power seeking recognition and standing rather than specific alterations in the existing rules and practices
that constituted the order of the day. In Thucydides account of the Peloponnesian War, for example, the
rise of Athens posed unacceptable threats not to the security or welfare of Sparta but rather to its identity
as leader of the Greek world. Similarly, the power transition between a rising Germany and a dominant
Great Britain in the lead up to World War I was characterized by an absence of tangible conflicts of
interests. U.S. paranoia over the rise of China is less about protecting significant strategic and economic
returns, which are marginal if not actually negative, and more about a threat to its status, prestige and
reputation as the worlds sole superpower. In no way is that a just cause for war. In contrast to todays
foreign policy, in which the United States maintains a global military presence and routinely acts on behalf

of peripheral interests, a more prudent approach would define U.S. interests more narrowly and reserve
U.S. intervention for truly vital national interests. Joseph M. Parent and Paul K. MacDonald advocate
retrenchment, which includes deep cuts to the defense budget and a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops
from Europe and Asia. Faith in forward defenses is a holdover from the Cold War, they argue, rooted in
visions of implacable adversaries and falling dominoes [that] is ill suited to contemporary world politics.
Barry Posen similarly argues the United States should reduce, not increase, its military presence in
response to Chinas rise. By narrowing U.S. commitments in the region, wealthy and capable allies can take
responsibility for their own defense and balance against China. Meanwhile, the United States can extricate
itself from potentially perilous entangling alliances. The United States pursued dominance in East Asia
long before any concerns about a Chinese superpower, so continuing to justify primacy on those grounds is
somewhat fishy. But even assuming Chinas continued economic growth, the prospect of China achieving
regional hegemony is no sure thing, an insight that should temper the inflated level of threat supposed by
primacists. Regional hegemony requires China to develop uncontested dominance in its sphere, but China
is surrounded by major powers that would resist such a gambit. India, which harbors great power
ambitions of its own, is protected by the Himalayas and possesses nuclear weapons. Japan is protected by
the stopping power of water and is wealthy enough to quickly build up its military and develop nuclear
weapons if it feels threatened by China. Russia can check Chinese power in Central Asia and draw Beijings
focus away from maritime dominance in the Pacific inward toward the Eurasian heartland. Chinas serious
demographic problems as well as its restive provinces like Xinjiang and Tibet remain top level concerns for
Beijing and add to the difficulty of obtaining true regional hegemony. The United States can withdraw from
East Asia and still have ample warning and time to form alliances or regenerate forces before China
realizes such vast ambitions. There are several cogent reasonseconomic interdependence, nuclear
deterrence and the general obsolescence of great power war, among othersto be skeptical of warnings
that conflict between the United States and China is inevitable, or even likely. Nevertheless, history shows
that great power transitions are dangerous. If outright war is not in the cards, a long, drawn-out,
burdensome cold war is quite plausible.

If Washington is tempted to maintain or expand

its reach in East Asia to contain Chinas rise, the chances of conflict increase ,
as do the associated costs short of war, such as bigger defense budgets,
strengthened security guarantees to allies and increased deployments .

Diplomacy Key
Diplomacy will prevent SCS conflict, not cause it
Global Times 6/2/16
[Global Times is a daily Chinese newspaper under the auspices of the
People's Daily newspaper, focusing on international issues at a communist
Chinese perspective, China-US relations shouldn't be hijacked by South
China Sea issue: Chinese ambassador,
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/986505.shtml, Accessed July 2 2016, A.H]
China-US relations are too important that they should not be allowed to be
hijacked by the South China Sea issue, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui
Tiankai said Wednesday. In an opinion piece published on bloomberg.com, Cui pointed out that
China and the US share important interests, and they "have significant potential for
cooperation." "We may have major differences, but we also share important interests,
including maintaining regional peace and stability, supporting freedom of
navigation and overflight in accordance with international law, and resolving
disputes through peaceful negotiations and diplomatic dialogue," Cui wrote.
"The region should not become a competing ground for China and the US ," he
added. Cui mentioned that some of the perceptions in the United States and elsewhere about
China's policy and intentions in the area "are misplaced." "A pressing task is
to understand the facts and China's intentions correctly so as to avoid real
danger and consequences as a result of misinterpretation and
miscalculation," Cui emphasized. China believes it is doing nothing more than
maintaining and defending legitimate territorial claims and maritime rights in
the South China Sea, and its reclamation and construction activities are mainly for
civilian purposes and public good, the ambassador said. He refuted the US accusations
against China of the so-called "militarization" of the area, saying that there are only "limited
defense facilities" on the islands and reefs that have long been under China's control.
The

"

We believe that recent statements and military deployments by

the US have had the efect of escalating tension in the region and,
if not curbed, risk the very militarization we all wish to avoid , " Cui
warned. On the arbitration case initiated unilaterally by the Philippines, Cui criticized the US for seeking to
use the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) against China while itself refuses to

The concept of "freedom of navigation" is frequently used to

justify actions by the US in the South China Sea, Cui said, calling it "an additional irony." The
ratify the treaty.

US has used "freedom of navigation" operations to challenge the very concept as it was defined by the
UNCLOS, believing treaty provisions would restrict its navy's ability to move freely around the world, he
said. Cui expressed his biggest worry that China's policy on the South China Sea has been grossly
misperceived as a strategic move to challenge US dominance in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.
"China

consistently strives for regional cooperation, and we respect America's

traditional presence and legitimate interests in the Asia-Pacific region. The
reality is not that China is trying to drive anyone out, but that there are
attempts to deny China's legitimate and expanding interests in its own
region," Cui said. He said China has long called for peaceful and direct
negotiations with relevant claimant states to manage and eventually resolve

the South China Sea disputes, adding that this stance has not changed. The Chinese envoy
remains optimistic about the China-US relations, because the "good news is that leaders in China
and the United States have demonstrated the political will to manage our
differences and keep them under control ." " We continue to talk. We on
the Chinese side are ready to work in a constructive manner -- and
we are hopeful that the US will demonstrate the same spirit ,"
added.

Cui

Hardline Bad
Muscle flexing in the SCS doesnt deter conflict and makes
it more likely
Straight Times 4/17/16
[The Straits Times is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based
in Singapore currently owned by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), US
gambles by flexing military muscle in South China Sea
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/us-gambles-by-flexing-militarymuscle-in-south-china-sea, Accessed July 5 2016]

ABOARD THE USS JOHN C. STENNIS (In the South China Sea) Over the last week in Asia, US Defence
Secretary Ashton Carter has visited two aircraft carriers, revealed new military agreements with India and
the Philippines, and generally signalled that the Obama administration has decided to lean more heavily

the new, muscular

approach on display during Mr Carter's tour represents a gamble. While it sends a message
on military power to counter China's territorial ambitions in the region. But

that the United States will work with its allies to challenge Beijing's expanding presence in the disputed
South China Sea,

it

also

plays into fears within the Chinese leadership about US

efforts to halt China's rise. That may mean that the more the Pentagon steps
up in the region, the more China may feel it needs to accelerate its
military build-up,

including the construction of new islands equipped with radar and airstrips in

contested waters. With a mix of showmanship and concrete initiatives during a six-day visit to India and
the Philippines, Mr Carter left little doubt that the US intends both to strengthen alliances and move more
hardware and troops here to counter China's growing military reach. On Friday, he rode a helicopter to a
symbol of American power projection in the Pacific, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, as it
cruised through the South China Sea near waters claimed by the Chinese. Before visiting the carrier John
C. Stennis, he marked the end of 11 days of military exercises between the US and the Philippines and said
some US troops would stay behind "to contribute to regional security and stability". He also said the US
had begun joint patrols of the South China Sea with the Philippine navy and would soon do the same with
the country's air force. Earlier in the week, Mr Carter toured an Indian aircraft carrier, the first time a US
defence secretary had boarded such a ship, and said the US would help India upgrade its carriers. He also
revealed a new logistics agreement and said the two nations would work together on other military
technologies. Together, the measures announced by Mr Carter hint at a potential US military resurgence
in a part of the world where China believes it is destined to surpass the US in influence. The Obama
administration seems to be betting that China will back off rather than continue making moves that lead
its neighbours to embrace the US military. But some

analysts warn that China could

react to the Pentagon's moves by taking more aggressive action,

challenging America's commitment to the region in a high-profile
game of chicken and raising the risk of a military conflict.

The Chinese

have been closely watching Mr Carter's tour, which had included a stop in Beijing before it was abruptly
scrubbed from the schedule a few weeks ago. In a late-night statement on Thursday,

the Chinese

Defence Ministry accused the US of reverting to a "Cold War mentality " and
said the Chinese military would "pay close attention to the situation
and resolutely defend China's territorial sovereignty and maritime

interests".

On Friday, China also disclosed that its most senior uniformed military commander had

visited the disputed Spratly Islands, which appeared intended to signal Beijing's resolve in the South China

Dr Su Hao, a professor of international

relations at China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, said : "China sees its
actions in the South China Sea as legitimate in protecting its own sovereignty
Sea, most of which it considers Chinese territory.

and integrity . China will not just change its behaviours or

deployment plan simply because of the Americans."

Appeasement Good
Hardline strategies are incredibly dangerous foreign
policy Kennedys appeasement during the Cuban Missile
Crisis prevented a nuclear holocaust
Matthews 12
[Chris, Oct 14 2012, American political commentator, talk show host, and
author. Was a visiting fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, Has
Pennsylvania Society's Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement in 2005,
the Abraham Lincoln Award from the Union League of Philadelphia, the David
Brinkley Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism, and the John F.
Kennedy Memorial Award, How John F. Kennedy's Appeasement Strategy
Averted a Nuclear Holocaust, https://newrepublic.com/article/108575/howjohn-f-kennedys-appeasement-strategy-averted-nuclear-holocaust, Accessed
July 17 2016, A.H]
Fifty Octobers ago, the world faced a nuclear war that would have left this planet a very different place. The
danger was every bit as it appeared. Nikita Krushchev, the Soviet leader who had secretly deployed 90 nuclear
missiles in Cuba, had a back-up plan should the United States attack the
weapon sites. I knew the United States could knock out some of our installations, but not all of them, he wrote in his memoirs. If a quarter or even
a tenth of our missiles survivedeven if only one or two big ones were leftwe could still hit New York, and there wouldnt be much of New York left. The
U.S. never tested Khrushchevs dire resolve. We never attacked his missiles. Instead, President Kennedy
improvised a jerry-built policy that included an embargo on further shipment of Soviet missiles and a demand that all such weapons in

Cuba be removed. Khrushchev turned back his cargo ships and removed his missiles. In this eyeball-to-eyeball conflict, he appeared to blink while his counterpart,

the American president,

dreading nuclear war and fearing a miscalculation that would trigger it,
President John F. Kennedy stood firm.

The full truth, which would only get out years later, is that

made an under-the-table deal . He gave Khrushchev precisely what he

needed : something to get the hawks of his back . He agreed to
remove the nuclear missiles we had deployed in Turkey , to do so in a short period of time but quietly, out
of the glare of mediaand Republicanattention.

He did what was necessary, profering a deal he

knew he couldn't sell to his fellow countrymen

This is the lesson of

the Cuban Missile Crisis that gets overlooked but should be the key to all
future confrontations with a dangerous enemy: Always leave the other side a
way out. Otherwise, they will only have a way in. TAKING OFFICE IN 1961 as the countrys youngest elected
president, John F. Kennedy inherited two potent legacies, each in conflict with the other. One was the real prospect of a catastrophic World War III. The other was the wellcultivated memory of what had triggered WW II: appeasement at Munich. To many of us growing up in the early Cold War, a nuclear war was taught as a real possibility.
On a regular basis, the Sisters of Mercy at St. Christophers drilled us on it, ordering us to squeeze ourselves under our desks. Fifteen minutes, we were told. That would be
the time it took for the missiles to drop, the warning wed each get to say our prayers. Next would come the flash of light that would mark the greatest and no doubt final
conflagration in the history of mankind: the end of the world. Americans of all ages shared a presumption that sooner or later the two nuclear powers would go head to
head and that one first, then the other, would use the best weapon they had. World War II had taught that the most unthinkable catastrophes could easily become reality if
one wasn't careful. But World War II in Europe also taught another lesson: that shows of weakness could be responsible for starting such conflagrations. If the British
and French had possessed the fiber to confront Adolf Hitlers grab for German-speaking territory of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, he would never have gotten out of

all Kennedy had to do in the

Cuban Missile Crisis was (a) avoid a nuclear war and (b) avoid a second
Munich, another concession that would delay war but also make it
inevitable. Fortunately, Kennedy had the temperament needed to thread the needle. He understood the limits of what he could afford to do, but also the extent
hand. What Winston Churchill would christen the most unnecessary war would have been averted.

So

of what he might be able to get away with doing and not get caught. One reason for this strategic clarity was his cold indifference to the emotions and passions of
those close by, a detachment that could send a chill through those who happened across it. Chuck Spalding, one of his lifetime girl-chasing pals, noticed it at Jacks
wedding in 1953. Watching his friend that glorious Newport day, he saw two personalities at work: one was Jack as groom, the other was this figure he also recognized
observing everyone in the large gathering studying what everyone was up to. That, too, was Jack. This is the coldly-calculating American president who sat in the Oval
Office in those 13 days of October 1962. Kennedy had no problem assessing the positions of those surrounding him. Air Force chief of staff Curtis LeMay was joined by his
own national security advisor McGeorge Bundy and Cold War veteran Dean Acheson in pushing for an immediate air attack on the Cuban missiles. All around Kennedy were

men arguing that the only safe action by the United States once the nuclear missile sites were discovered was to destroy them. Gradually, Kennedy, his brother Robert
and others were able to see the necessity for an alternative response. But cold calculation was not enough. He also needed to isolate in his mind the precise pressures on
his opposite number in the Kremlin. What was it that pushed Khrushchev to make such a dangerous gambit in the first place? Why did the Russians feel the need to place

Kennedy knew that he

needed, in addition to a promise not to invade Cuba, to approve some sort of
missiles in Cuba when they had all those ICBMs pointed at us? And what did he need to take those missiles back?

concession. He needed to add a dash of Neville Chamberlain to the

Churchillian courage he was displaying. He needed to appease, to
give the other side something it wanted.

Because

the alternative was a

nuclear holocaust. Kennedy believed and said so to those he trusted that nuclear weapons, if contained in a countrys arsenal, would eventually be
used. And he had first-hand reason to believe that Khrushchev was just the man to pull the trigger. At their meeting in Vienna the prior year this has been made stunningly
clear. I talked about how a nuclear exchange would kill seventy million people in ten minutes, he later told Times Hugh Sidey, and he just looked at me as if to say, So

And thats why he was willing to offer

Krushchev a trade. If the Russians removed their missiles from Cuba, Kennedy told Krushchev that he would remove American missiles stationed in
Turkey. Kennedys calculation paid off. Khrushchev accepted the trade . Yet Kennedy still had
what? My impression was that he just didnt give a damn if it came to that.

a huge hurdle to overcome. How could he sell a policy involving a give-away of missiles, a quid-pro-quo, an admission of moral equivalency of this historic caliber, an
appeasement? It was a step that he knew threatened to render him finished politically. He did it anywayhe just insisted on keeping the deal a secret. He was ruthless
enough to do what was necessary, even if it meant fooling the American people big-time, and risking a PR fiasco if the news ever leaked. If he hadnt done this all the other
gutsy steps of those valiant 13 days wouldnt have avoided war. It was not enough that JFK didn't blink when the Soviet ships neared the quarantine line patrolled by
the U.S. Navy;

it was Kennedy's willingness to cut a deal, under the table,

with the enemy that saved the day and, really, the planet.

Fortunately, we did not have a Dick Nixonor a Dick Cheneycalling the

shots, men who for all their mental capability saw such conflicts as that in October of 1962 as tests of toughness, opportunities to act on an existing grievance, or,
worse yet, a metaphor for some moral test of whos right. Kennedy didnt see the Cuban crisis as a test of his manhood. He'd already passed such a test back in the
Solomons as a sailor in World War II when he swam for four hours with a badly-burnt engineer on his back, when hed kept his crew alive after his PT boat had been
rammed by a Japanese destroyer.

Kennedy's policy in the Cuban Missile Crisis may

have involved appeasement, but the outcome would not ever be

mistaken for Munich . Chamberlains acquiescence to Hitler led to his grabbing the rest of Czechoslovakia. Kennedys
deal with Khrushchev would lead to the first treaty of the Cold War: the 1963
limited nuclear test ban treaty. Kennedy had seen something in Krushchev's eyes when they met in Vienna in 1961. What he saw
was a hardness that would not be budged by the prospect of mass death. His surmise was borne out in Khrushchev's memoirs, where he coldly contemplated hitting New
York with nuclear weapons. I dont mean to say everyone in New York would be killednot everyone, of course, but an awful lot of people would be wiped out , Krushchev
wrote. And it was high time that America learned what it feels like to have her own land and own people threatened. The real lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis

that both sides were

able to get their eyes wide open to the consequences of what was being
risked and both sides were able to deliver us from the worst human-made
disaster in history
wasnt at all that the two nuclear powers had gone eyeball to eyeball and one side had knuckled under to the other. It was

AT

AT: WW2/Chamberlin
Their example is historically inaccurate
Munger 15
[Sean, 7/19/15, B.A in History, University of New Mexico enrolled in the M.A.
program at University of Oregon Department of History, Untangling
Appeasement: The most tragically misunderstood word in history,
https://seanmunger.com/2015/07/19/untangling-appeasement-the-mosttragically-misunderstood-word-in-history/, Accessed July 5 2016, A.H]
As most of you know, Im a historian. As such I tend to get annoyed when people who should know better
misunderstandor worse, deliberately misapplythe supposed lessons of history. Over the last two weeks or
so, since the announcement of the diplomatic agreement between various western powers and Iran over
that countrys nuclear program, Ive had occasion to get annoyed several times by statements Ive read,
all from politicians, flinging around a word called appeasement.

When politicians use this

word of course theyre referring to British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlains policy of diplomatic engagement with Hitler shortly before
World War II which preceded Hitlers invasion of Poland. The word appeasement,
which is universally a bad one when used by politicians , generally
means a foolish policy of trying to buy off or placate a potential enemy who
will never be satisfied with what you give them, and in which the process of
negotiating with them makes yourself weaker. I am annoyed when politicians use this
word as if they know what it means, because in fact they dont

. Not only do they grossly

misunderstand the circumstances of the present, but they draw

totally the wrong lessons from what happened in 1938 and 1939.
The truth about appeasement is, as are most things in history, a lot more complicated than some people
(the aforementioned politicians) would have you believe. There were several interlocking issues going on in
the 1930s surrounding Adolf Hitler and the rearmament of Germany, which he accomplished by unilaterally
abrogating the Treaty of Versailles. In late 1937 Hitler began an expansionist policy of trying to expand
Nazi control to other parts of Europe, mostthough not allpopulated by German-speaking peoples of
whom he saw himself as the benefactor. He did this without reference to the will of the majority
populations of these countries. Germany first absorbed Austria in a bloodless coup in March 1938. Then
later in the same year Hitler demanded that Germany be given the Sudetenland, a part of the new (since
1918) nation of Czechoslovakia which was populated with ethnic Germans. This made Britain and France
very, very nervous because they now had a remilitarized Germany near their borders. In September 1938
Chamberlain met Hitler at Munich, and emerged with a diplomatic deal he famously called peace in our
time. It handed over the Sudetenland in exchange for Hitlers promise that he was done absorbing
territory. As German troops rolled into the Sudetenland in fall 1938, some pro-Nazi Czechs applauded their
arrival. Not everyone was happy. Of course, he wasnt. Six months later in March 1939 Hitler sent troops
into the rest of Czechoslovakia, essentially spitting on the treaty. Then he started grumbling that he
wanted a piece of Poland called the Danzig Corridor. This time, however, Chamberlain wasnt going to play
ball. On March 31, 1939, he issued a guarantee that if Germany tried to take any piece of Poland, Britain
would defend Polands neutrality by force. Hitler sneered at this and tried it anyway. Chamberlain had to
make good on the guarantee, and on September 3, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. World War II
was on. The criticism of the Munich Agreementand Chamberlains policy to pursue itcomes from two
unpleasant facts. The first is that in making this agreement with Hitler, Chamberlain didnt bother to
consult the Czechs at all, who obviously didnt want Germany occupying any part of their country.
Essentially he fed Czechoslovakia to Hitler hoping it would satisfy his hunger. The second fact is that
Germany, in the fall of 1938, was not quite ready for all-out war. Some military experts argue that if
Chamberlain called Hitlers bluff and declared war, Germany would have lost pretty quickly. Supposedly it
was easier to stop Hitler in fall 1938 than it was a year later. Ergo, from this comes the argument that
Chamberlain was a duplicitous fool and his policy simply confirmed Hitlers certainty that he was a paper
tiger who would never put up a serious fight, and he also frittered away the chance to stop Nazi Germany

at much lesser cost. Some, usually politicians, even claim that 1938 was way too late to still be making
deals with Hitler; if the British and French tried to stop Germany in 1936, when Hitler remilitarized the
Rhineland, it would have been a cakewalk. Neville Chamberlains mistake was the betrayal of
Czechoslovakianot the decision to try to negotiate with Hitler in the first place. As a historian I dont find
these arguments persuasive, and heres why. First, the military argument is counterintuitive. Yes, a few
people, notably Winston Churchill, were out there in 1937 and 1938 claiming that Hitler could be stopped
militarily at a relatively small costbut theres little evidence to prove them right. Stopping

Hitler

would have essentially meant a full-scale invasion of Germany and

decapitation of the Nazi regime, which would have taken millions of troops
and an absolutely immense commitment of national resources . Britain and France
didnt have those resources in 1938, much less 1936. It was not British or French troops that ultimately
conquered Germany in 1945we can thank the United States and especially the USSR, who did have
millions of troops at their disposal, for that. I dont see how the gains in military preparedness Hitler made
between October 1938 and September 1939 change this analysis very much .

Even after Britain

did decide to stop Hitler in 1939, it still could field only a token ground
force, relying mostly on naval actions and bombing until the USSR and USA got into the conflict in 1941.
Wars always kill more, cost more and take much longer than planners think they will. I just dont buy
the it would have been easy to stop Hitler argument. It would have been
very hard and very, very bloody regardless of when it happened. Secondly,
denouncing appeasement as folly ignores the serious political
realities of the time.

The Munich deal was initially popular with the British people.

Politically, Chamberlains strategy made sense . He was the leader of state of a

democracy. Imagine what would have happened if hed gone to his people and
said, You know, Britons, I think Hitler is a menace and he must be stopped .
Lets attack him right now with everything we have, and perhaps in 5 years
after hundreds of thousands of our people have been killed, maybe well
defeat him. Whos with me? Simply no one would have been in favor of this. In hindsight, of course,
its easy to see how Hitler was a menace to the whole world. But could that case have been made
convincingly to the British and French public in 1938, or 1936? Its just not possible. John F. Kennedy,
shown here in 1939, wrote a book called Why England Slept, analyzing the failure of Britain to stop Hitler
earlier. He thought appeasement was a reasonable policy at the time.

What Chamberlain

could do and in fact had a duty to dowas exhaust all possible

diplomatic avenues before choosing force as a last resor t. This he did.
Certainly the way he did it was not very good, but can we really criticize the very idea of trying to come to
some rational accord with Hitler? Appeasement junkies portray Chamberlain as a feckless twit who was
outwitted by Hitler again and again. In fact, Chamberlain was fooledif he was fooled at allonly once. He
made the bad deal to sacrifice Czechoslovakia, which clearly was a betrayal, and Hitler broke his word. But
after that, Chamberlain was firm: no more deals, Mr. Hitler. Next time you move, were at war. Hitler called
his bluff and lost. Neville Chamberlain was naive, but he was hardly the fool that his undeserved
reputation suggests. He was a shrewd and gifted politician. He knew trusting Hitler was a risky gamble, but
given the political realities of the time he simply had no choice.

If theres moral fault to be

found in the appeasement story (besides the obvious conclusion that Hitler was an immoral,
evil monster), let it be found in Chamberlains betrayal of Czechoslovakia . Thats
certainly worth criticizing

. But to frame the very idea of trying to find a

diplomatic solution to an international problem before resorting to

a cataclysmic war that would cost millions of livesas a mistake in
and of itself, is in my opinion extremely unwise. I cringe when I

hear politicians abuse the word appeasement. I wish I could lock

them in a room and give them a history lecture. People should not
draw conclusions about historical precedents by listening to
politicians talk about them. Maybe they should consult a historian
first.

AT: Gafney
Gafney is a hack and a conspiracy theorist reject their
epistemology
Duss 12
[Matt, 7/19/12, national security reporter for ThinkProgress.org at the Center
for American Progress Action Fund. Matthew holds a masters degree in
Middle East Studies from the University of Washington. Previously a research
intern for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Frank Gaffneys
Latest Boogeyman Inspired Bachmanns Witch Hunt,
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/07/19/545991/gaffney-latestboogeyman-bachmann/, Accessed July 5 2016, A.H]
John McCain deserves congratulations for his remarks on the Senate floor yesterday defending Huma
Abedin top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton against charges that
she is part of a Muslim brotherhood conspiracy, as claimed by
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. But even as McCain condemned the attacks on Abedin, he
defended the think tank the Center for Security Policy whose tinfoil-hatted
research forms the basis of those attacks, and CSPs president, Frank Gaffney ,
whom McCain described as a longtime friend. As Adam Serwer noted yesterday, Its Gaffneys scurrilous
reasoning masquerading as policy expertise that lead to Bachmanns
Senator

smearing of Abedin in the first place. This sort of thing, mongering

crazy, American-way-of-life threatening conspiracies, is what
Gafney does. Theres always a Boogeyman out there . Back in 2002,
Gaffney was concerned about the influence of the Wahhabi Lobby a far-flung
network of organizations associated with the agenda of the radical Wahhabist sect of Islam and largely financed, directly

which he claimed was financing the

campaigns of a number of U.S. politicians. In 2009, Gaffneys CSP issued a report asserting the
or indirectly, by the Saudi Arabian government and its proxies

existence of an Iran Lobby in Washington: A complex network of individuals and organizations with ties to the clerical
regime in Tehran is pressing forward in seeming synchrony to influence the new U.S. administrations policy towards the
Islamic Republic of Iran. Spearheaded by a de facto partnership between the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), the
Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other organizations serving as mouthpieces for the mullahs party line,
the network includes well-known American diplomats, congressional representatives, figures from academia and the think
tank world. Among those the CSP report named as hav[ing] been associated in one way or another with this supposed
Iran Lobby were Ambassador Dennis Ross; Susan Rice, the Obama administrations new Ambassador to the U.N.; Fletcher
School professor and Middle East scholar, Vali Nasr; and Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass. The Center
for A New American Security (CNAS) was also named as an Iran Lobby affiliate for having promoted diplomacy with Iran,
which the report simply interprets as appeasement.

Back in the 90s, like many other

neocons, Gafney was far more focused on the growing threat from
China and the need for missile defense. Shortly after the attacks of
September 11, he would be spinning elaborate stories about Muslim
conspiracies to infiltrate the U.S. that went back decades. As for
what drives the fear-mongering of people like Gaffney , its worth reading this Christopher
Hitchens article from 1990, in which he documented the neoconservatives frustration as
the glasnost-era Soviet Union increasingly ceased to function as an
appropriate bete noir. And guess who makes a cameo? At last Novembers gathering of the Committee for the

Free World, when things were already beginning to look a bit too bright for holders of the neocon worldview, Hitchens
wrote, Frank Gaffney, a Richard Perle acolyte, announced that he and a few hard-liners were setting up the Center for
Security Policy to resist appeasement tendencies in the weapons business.

Constantly hyping

threats, which in turn creates a more conducive political

atmosphere for the hawkish policies that they favor, is what Frank
Gafney is all about . The reputations of people like Huma Abedin,
and the many other Americans smeared by Gafney and companys
wild and irresponsible claims, are apparently just seen as
acceptable collateral damage.