Mueller-Trump DA

The Mueller team is knee deep in information right now, but plea deals are key to
determining if the investigation will succeed, and for a peaceful transition of power – it’s
the most likely and best outcome for the investigation.
Kimberly Wehle 17 [professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law, former assistant United States attorney] in an
interview with KSRO [radio station in Santa Rosa], "Interview: A Presidential Plea Deal is Better than Impeachment," 12-11-2017,
transcribed by Vishan Chaudhary, http://www.ksro.com/2017/12/11/interview-a-presidential-plea-deal-is-better-than-
impeachment/

KRSO: You’ve written an article in the Hill about the Russian Investigation and how it regards the
President of the United States. Question for you first, Kimberly, what do you think is the order of importance in
terms of the players involved for Robert Mueller’s team, who are they going to talk to next? KW: Oh gosh it’s hard to know because
we don’t know who they’ve spoken to to date, we found out on Friday that they subpoenaed and
obtained over 400,000 documents , they’re probably knee deep in information at this
point, but certainly the plea deals , or the anticipated pleas, with Mr. Flynn and of course the
indictment of Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates, those are all critical witnesses and critical people for the Mueller team
to continue to talk to in order to determine if there are bigger fish in the pond for them to
go after. KRSO: And the latter 2 supposed to be in court today KW: Yep KRSO: We can talk about it all we want but whether the
president can be indicted or not, no one can know for sure if that can happen. Because he can’t be indicted, you’re wondering what
Mueller might do. Maybe he wants to avoid a lengthy legal battle over constitutionality . On
Trump’s end, as we’ve mentioned, he’s got sons and family members wrapped up in this . You
argue that the most likely outcome is some sort of plea deal between both sides . KW: I
would suggest it would be the most prudent outcome . Whether the president can be indicted, there
are legal minds on both sides of that. Both Ken Starr and Leon Jeonwarski, the former two special counsels who investigated
Presidents of the United States both concluded that a sitting president could be criminally indicted and prosecuted, but the Office of
Legal Counsel has suggested otherwise. My point is this, even it is legal, it’s unlikely because in this instance we
don’t know
what facts, if any, implicate the president and his son-in-law, and if they do,
impeachment doesn’t cover them . I would think that this president, or any president
with children, would like to have a resolution that protects his entire family . In my view,
the most likely outcome there would be to walk away from the presidency with some
kind of agreement with Robert Mueller . The two other options, an indictment of the
president and his children, or impeachment, don’t necessarily protect them , we’ve seen
this with Mike Flynn agreeing to a guilty plea, we don’t know what the implications were for his own son, but that was certainly in
the mix for Mr. Mueller. KRSO: And also, Kimberly, it seems like there’s
an overall feeling whenever, in the
few times that this has come up with past presidents, that no one really wants to get
that far because it doesn’t look good . It doesn’t look good for the American people,
and it doesn’t look good for the rest of the world. KW: Well, not only does it not look good, I think it
would be a crisis for the American people, both an indictment and prosecution, and
an impeachment . It takes the top executive off the dime in terms of what the focus
should be from the Oval Office, but also it’s just a huge emotional, financial, resource
laden process that creates a lot of trauma both domestically and internationally. So, the
Mueller team, they’re career prosecutors, they’re professionals, I would presume they have that in mind. This
notion of what not only is best from a legal standpoint, but what’s best for the country. This is all assuming there is something, there
might be nothing, and then the president just finishes out his term and runs for reelection, we’ll see. But if
there is
something, they have to have in mind what is the quietest resolution for everyone,
and a peaceful transfer or power , and I suggest that something on the side, a
resolution, would be in the best interest of the country and the whole world
community. KRSO: But, you know, the fun part is that we get to learn about the constitution and what we can and cannot do.
You argue that back in the Nixon days, when there was the indictment going on with Nixon, they actually invented a term:
unindicted co-conspirator. That’s what Nixon was in this whole thing. But it seems like there is a lot of grey area here, isn’t there a
lot of grey area here? KW: Yes, there is a lot of grey area, and I think its an excellent point to bring up and I’ve been speaking out on
a lot of these issues for exactly this issue. There’s constitutional illiteracy at this point is absolutely critical that everyone have some
understanding of how the constitution works, and there’s a lot of black-and-white thinking, and a lot of black-and-white punditry on
this, and most legal questions are grey, including what happens under the constitution. The answers aren’t in the plain language,
and a lot of this will come down to how courts are going to view this, and getting these questions before the Supreme Court takes a
lot of time and a lot of resources. So, strategy, political implication, and all of that come into play since we’re not dealing with black-
and-white legal questions, we’re not dealing with rules that have clear answers, for sure.

Pandemics become an existential risk uniquely under Trump – removal from office
solves.
Haydn Belfield 16, Haydn Belfield was until recently a Policy Associate at the Global Priorities Project, where he worked on policy research and outreach. The Global Priorities
Project is a collaboration between the Centre for Effective Altruism and the Future of Humanity Institute., 11-18-2016, "President Trump as a Global Catastrophic Risk," Centre
For Effective Altruism, http://effective-altruism.com/ea/146/president_trump_as_a_global_catastrophic_risk/ MG

A pandemic, whether natural or man-made, would be catastrophic. There are three main reasons
the risk is likely to increase under President Trump. First as argued above there is likely to be
less international cooperation. Monitoring and preparing for pandemics relies on
extensive international coordination and trust. Trump seems less willing than other
Presidents to participate meaningfully in cooperative systems like the World Health
Organisation. Additionally, the US is likely to give less international aid. This would mean
less help to build up developing world health systems and developing world disease
monitoring systems. Second Trump is seemingly inconsistent, volatile, and does not
respect scientific conclusions. He reacted poorly to the Ebola outbreak – exaggerating
fears and proposing populist solutions. He seems to not respect science, as is also
shown by his climate change position. He might, for example, react to reports of an
emerging disease in ways that raised the risk of global catastrophe , for example by mandating
that most vaccines produced for the disease be kept in the US, rather than used to prevent the early spread. Third is the risk
of man-made pandemic. There is a strong international norm against using biological
weapons, and developing them is also frowned upon . Indeed the use of biological weapons is illegal
under international law due to the Biological Weapons Convention. Trump may be less interested in
continued cooperation under the Convention - he may be even less interested in
cooperating with other nations to combat bioterrorism. I also think Trump would be less
hesitant to use or develop biological weapons. Were he to start developing them – let
alone use them – it would strongly undermine norms against them. It also might risk an
arms race with other countries as each sought to develop their biological weapons.
This increases the chance that a manmade pandemic more dangerous than a natural
one is developed. It then may then be released on purpose, by terrorists or by accident. Possibly Trump could
be restrained by the military, Republicans or the courts. Nevertheless were he even to consider it
openly that would harm the norm.

Bioterror causes extinction and outweighs nuclear war

Farmer 17 (Ben, Telegraph Defense Correspondent, Citing Bill Gates, head of the Gates Foundation which researches outbreak detection and
response, “Bioterrorism could kill more people than nuclear war, Bill Gates to warn world leaders”,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/biological-terrorism-could-kill-people-nuclear-attacks-bill/)

Bioterrorists could one day kill hundreds of millions of people in an attack more deadly than nuclear war,
Bill Gates will warn world leaders. Rapid advances in genetic engineering have opened the door for
small terrorism groups to tailor and easily turn biological viruses into weapons. A resulting
disease pandemic is currently one of the most deadly threats faced by the world, he believes,
yet governments are complacent about the scale of the risk. Speaking ahead of an address to the Munich
Security Conference, the richest man in the world said that while governments are concerned with the proliferation of nuclear and
chemical weapons, they are overlooking the threat of biological warfare. Mr Gates, whose charitable foundation is funding research
into quickly spotting outbreaks and speeding up vaccine production, said the defence and security establishment “have not been
following biology and I’m here to bring them a little bit of bad news”. Mr Gates will today (Saturday) tell an audience of international
leaders and senior officers that the world’s next deadly pandemic “could originate on the computer
screen of a terrorist”. He told the Telegraph: “Natural epidemics can be extremely large.
Intentionally caused epidemics, bioterrorism, would be the largest of all. “With nuclear
weapons, you’d think you would probably stop after killing 100million. Smallpox won’t stop.
Because the population is naïve, and there are no real preparations. That, if it got out and
spread, would be a larger number.” He said developments in genetic engineering were
proceeding at a “mind-blowing rate”. Biological warfare ambitions once limited to a handful of nation states are now
open to small groups with limited resources and skills. He said: “They make it much easier for a non-state
person. It doesn’t take much biology expertise nowadays to assemble a smallpox virus.
Biology is making it way easier to create these things.” The increasingly common use of gene
editing technology would make it difficult to spot any potential terrorist conspiracy. Technologies
which have made it easy to read DNA sequences and tinker with them to rewrite or tweak genes have many legitimate uses. He said:
“It’s not like when someone says, ‘Hey I’d like some Plutonium’ and you start saying ‘Hmmm.. I wonder why he wants Plutonium?’”
Mr Gates said the potential death toll from a disease outbreak could be higher than other threats
such as climate change or nuclear war. He said: “This is like earthquakes, you should think in order of
magnitudes. If you can kill 10 people that’s a one, 100 people that’s a two... Bioterrorism is
the thing that can give you not just sixes, but sevens, eights and nines. “With nuclear war, once
you have got a six, or a seven, or eight, you’d think it would probably stop. [With
bioterrorism] it’s just unbounded if you are not there to stop the spread of it .” By tailoring the genes
of a virus, it would be possible to manipulate its ability to spread and its ability to harm people. Mr Gates said one of the most
potentially deadly outbreaks could involve the humble flu virus. It would be relatively easy to
engineer a new flu strain combining qualities from varieties that spread like wildfire with
varieties that were deadly. The last time that happened naturally was the 1918 Spanish
Influenza pandemic, which went on to kill more than 50 million people – or nearly three times the death
toll from the First World War. By comparison, the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa which killed just over 11,000 was “a Richter
Scale three, it’s a nothing,” he said. But despite the potential, the founder of Microsoft said that world leaders and their militaries
could not see beyond the more recognised risks. He said: “Should the world be serious about this? It is somewhat serious about
normal classic warfare and nuclear warfare, but today it is not very serious about bio-defence or natural epidemics.” He went on:
“They do tend to say ‘How easy is it to get fissile material and how accurate are the plans out on the internet for dirty bombs,
plutonium bombs and hydrogen bombs?’ “They have some people that do that. What I am suggesting is that the number of people
that look at bio-defence is worth increasing.” Whether naturally occurring, or deliberately started, it is
almost certain that a highly lethal global pandemic will occur within our lifetimes , he believes.

Trump’s solution to epidemics is just to throw people in jail. Getting rid of him
turns case. Cohen 12/20
Andrew Cohen 17, 12-20-2017, "The Gathering Storm," Brennan Center For Justice., https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/gathering-storm MG

It has been easy for the White House to spin the Mueller probe as a partisan witch hunt despite all evidence to the
contrary. More
challenging has been the implementation of Trump administration
policies designed to quell the opioid epidemic. Around the country, in big cities
and small towns, people are petrified about the toll the epidemic is taking on
their families and communities. It's a problem with which they can identify in ways they cannot with the
Russia probe, or the struggle over emoluments, or many of the other Washington-centric fights that have dominated
news coverage this past year. The
Trump administration has talked a lot about solutions
but has failed or refused to do more to save lives (no, promising to put more
drug dealers in prison doesn't accomplish this goal). Here is a campaign promise Trump most
definitely failed to keep. How the administration deals with this crisis in 2018 will help determine who controls Congress
in 2019.
 Artic Militarization DA
Conflict not locked in – With proper management the arctic can
renew global trust and cooperation
Munich Security Conference 10-4-17
https://www.securityconference.de/en/news/article/cooperation-and-potential-conflict-in-the-arctic-msc-will-host-arctic-security-
roundtable-in-reykj/
The Arctic is in flux like literally no other region on earth, and many of its governance issues may
be in flux as well. Managed properly, Arctic issues could serve as a driver of renewed trust
between the West, Russia, and China, and of renewed confidence in the rule of law
and joint global governance. But, if handled poorly, they could easily exacerbate
existing tensions. Thus, it is vital to advance the understanding of potential areas of
cooperation and conflict in the region. For this purpose, Prime Minister of Iceland Bjarni Benediktsson, Swedish
Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist, and Finnish Minister for Nordic Cooperation Anne-Catherine Berner, along with 40
other high-ranking decision-makers and preeminent experts will meet at the MSC Arctic Security Roundtable. Focal points
of the discussions will include the state of Arctic governance with respect to security issues, the prospects of cooperation
across a number of fields, as well as differences in expectations and threat perceptions between countries.

US focused on Cooperation with Russia

Sputnik 10-11-17 https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201710111058116919-usa-army-
hodges-russia-cooperation/
There are a number of ways for likely cooperation between the United States and
Russia as Washington seeks to avoid conflict with Moscow, the US Army Europe
commanding general Ben Hodges said at a conference on Tuesday. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Ben
Hodges indicated on Tuesday at a conference hosted by the Association of the US Army the focal points of potential
cooperation between Moscow and Washington. "We absolutely want to keep the door open with Russia," Hodges said.
"Nobody wants to get in any type of kinetic conflict with them. It is entirely
possible to cooperate." Hodges said two areas of concern the United States and Russia
can cooperate are in joining efforts to tackle Islamic extremism as well as human
and drug trafficking. "Russia has bigger challenge with Islamic extremism than we do. They are a constant
threat; this is an area where we can clearly cooperate," Hodges said. Moreover, Hodges claimed the realities of
climate change and navigation make the Arctic region an area where the two
countries must cooperate. "The Arctic is an area where we will have to cooperate.
With climate change and increased navigation across the top of the world, we will have to cooperate," he added. The
conference dubbed "Achieving Deterrence in Europe Through Land Power Dominance" focused on enhanced cooperation
among partner states to combat foreign aggression, maintain regional strength and advance common interests. The
Association of the US Army is a non-profit organization that acts primarily as an advocacy group for the military branch.
The association was founded in 1950 and has 119 chapters worldwide.

Attempts to militarize the arctic will be seen as an infringement

on Russian military bases and escalate conflict. Parker 17
Clifton B. Parker, 1-30-2017, "Russia's Arctic military build-up
explained," https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/news/russias-arctic-
military-build SP
The Arctic appears as one of the most stable Russian border regions, which
makes the rapid defense build-up by a Russian government with a slowing economy quite perplexing
to many observers, noted Zysk. Apart from the economy, she explains the military strategies involved: “Russia has
revived the Cold War ‘Bastion’ concept in the Barents Sea: In case of conflict, the Northern
Fleet’s task is to form maritime areas closed to penetration for enemy naval forces, where Russia would deploy
strategic submarines and maintain control. In the areas further south, Russia would seek
 to deny control for potential adversaries. It also gives Russia a possibility to
attack an enemy’s sea lines of communication,” she said. On top of this, Russia’s
modernization efforts are focused on modernizing its nuclear deterrent, including
building fourth-generation strategic submarines of the Borei class: three are completed, and five
are under different stages of construction, according to Zysk. Russia is also building new attack
submarines, as well as new frigates and corvettes, though the shipbuilding
industry is struggling with delivering these on time, she added. Also, the Artic provides
Russia a strategic gateway to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Zysk said, which is
important given that Russia’s naval forces are separated between four theaters of
operations – the Pacific, the Arctic-Atlantic, the Baltic and the Black Sea. As a result of climate change, Russia may
be able to more freely move its warships between its main bases along the Northern Sea Route, she added. “Importantly,
the forces in the Arctic are not going to stay only in the Arctic. With the increased mobility, the military units can be
transferred rapidly to support Russia military operations in other regions, as we have observed in eastern Ukraine, where
Russia has used a brigade deployed in the High North. The trend is likely to continue, also because Russia’s military
capabilities remain limited, despite the ongoing modernization,” she said. Perceived threats Russia
considers that if it engaged in conflict with other great powers, such as the United
States, the Arctic would be a major target, Zysk said. Russia has also rehearsed
scenarios when the biggest part of the Russian Navy based in the Arctic, the
Northern Fleet, would be activated during conflicts escalating in other regions.
That’s a reason for the strengthening of its defenses in the region. “In the Russian assessment, an aerial attack from the
Arctic region may pose military threats to the entire Russian territory. In particular, however, Russia is concerned about
the sea-based nuclear deterrent deployed in the Arctic. As a result, Russia
has devoted a strong focus to
increasing air defense and air control across the Arctic,” she said. Apart from threats from
state actors, environmental accidents, trafficking, terrorist attacks on industrial infrastructure or increased foreign
intelligence also make the Arctic, in Russia’s view, a vulnerable territory. Finally, the
issue of Russia’s vast
energy reserves and other rich natural resources in the Arctic are another factor.
The development of the Arctic is seen as one of the solutions to what ails the
Russian economy. Zysk said, “Since the early 2000s, the Russian political and military
leadership has systematically argued that there will be an acute shortage of
energy resources worldwide, which may lead to a conflict, and that the West, led
by the United States, may attempt to seize Russia’s oil and gas.” While this assessment is
controversial, Zysk points to statements by the top Russian political and military leadership, including Valery Gerasimov,
the chief of the Russian General Staff, that suggests the Russian leadership believes such scenario may occur by 2030. “It
may also explain some of the military investments in the region, such as reactivating 13 military airfields across the Arctic,
paratroopers’ exercises and amphibious landing operations along the Northern Sea Route,” she said. In addition ,
the
Arctic holds a symbolically important place in Russia’s history and national
identity, according to Zysk. “Displays of military strength, accompanied by rhetoric that
portrays Russia as the Arctic superpower, resonate well with the Russian public,
especially in communities where feelings of nationalism and isolationism run
deep,” she said. As a result of the military modernization, she added, Russia is today better prepared to
participate in complex military operations than a decade ago, especially in joint
operations, strategic mobility and rapid deployments. “Russia’s ability to limit or
deny access and control various parts of the Arctic has increased accordingly,” Zysk
said.

Any military expansion into the Arctic risks Russian military

retaliation
Atland, 3/25 - Dr. Kristian Atland, PhD in political science from the University of Tromsø and a
MA degree in Russian studies from the University of Oslo and Senior Research Fellow,
Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI); “Russian-Western Relations in the Arctic:
Perceptions, Policies, and Prospects,” http://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/russian-
western-relations-in-the-arctic-perceptions-policies-and-prospects_1280.html // MS
Six years ago, Russia adopted an ambitious national strategy for the Arctic region. The
strategy was aimed at turning the region into a strategic resource base for the Russian
Federation by 2020, and at preserving the country’s role as a leading Arctic power . The
implementation of the strategy has been accompanied by a gradual increase in Russia’s
military activity in the Arctic. Russia’s naval presence in the northern waters is higher
today than it was in the 1990s and early 2000s, on the surface as well as under water, and Russia
has since August 2007 conducted numerous long-range bomber flights in the international airspace over the Barents Sea,
the Greenland Sea, and other parts of the Arctic. In Russia, this activity is largely seen as a “response”
to measures taken by the other Arctic coastal states, all four of which happen to be NATO members.¶
The four other Arctic coastal states – Canada, the United States, Denmark, and Norway – are following
developments in the Russian Arctic with a heightened sense of awareness. Like Russia, the four attach
considerable importance to their economic and national security interests in the region,
as reflected in their Arctic/Northern/High North strategies, adopted in 2006–2011. Some are concerned that
the growing industrial and commercial activity in the Arctic (ship traffic, petroleum
activities, fisheries, cruise tourism etc.) may have adverse impacts on the environment,
particularly in the event of a large oil spill. Others are concerned that disagreements
over borders and jurisdiction may lead to a deterioration of interstate relationships in
the region. Still others are concerned that the renewed international interest in Arctic
affairs, among Arctic as well as non-Arctic states, will lead to an incremental
militarization of the region, and that this may eventually undermine the political and
military stability that currently characterizes the circumpolar Arctic.¶ As of today, Russia and
the other Arctic coastal states do not seem to have a proper forum where they can
discuss military security issues and concerns related to the Arctic. Russia is neither a NATO
member nor part of the Western security community. The NATO-Russia Council has so far not been able to serve as an
arena for NATO-Russia dialogue on Arctic security. The same goes for the Arctic Council, which is not seen by either party
as a forum in which “hard” (military) security issues can or should be discussed. Russian-Western relations in
the Arctic are still marked by a largely lacking sense of trust and confidence. On top of that,
recent developments in Ukraine’s Crimea region are likely to have a negative impact on
Russia’s relations with the EU and NATO, at least for some time.¶ Russian policymakers and
media have in recent years had a tendency to portray any foreign military activity in the
Arctic as hostile

and provocative, even when such activity takes place well outside the country’s
territorial waters or airspace and does not infringe on recognized Russian rights. The
Russians are concerned that foreign state or non-state actors may try to take control of
natural resources and/or shipping lanes rightfully belonging to the Russian Federation.
According to a recent statement by Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, the United States,
Norway, Denmark, and Canada are pursuing “a common and coordinated policy aimed at denying Russia access to the
riches of the Arctic continental shelf”. In a somewhat similar manner, Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has
stated on several occasions that his country faces “increasingly aggressive Russian actions”, necessitating adequate
defensive measures.¶ Obviously, statements such as the ones cited above are often intended for domestic audiences and
should not necessarily be taken at face value. At the same time, there are many indications that the security concerns are
genuine, and that fear
is a factor in Arctic politics also in 2014. Many Arctic states are
concerned that their neighbors or outside actors may attempt to infringe on their rights
and interests, including the access to natural resources or shipping lanes of considerable
value to their national economies. None of the states that surround the Arctic Ocean
exclude the possibility of interstate disputes in the region, and none of them are willing
to rely on anyone except themselves to protect their northern maritime borders,
 sovereignty, and sovereign rights.¶ For Russia as well as for other Arctic rim states, the stakes are
undoubtedly high. It is estimated that some 30 per cent of the world’s undiscovered reserves of natural gas, and 13 per
cent of the undiscovered reserves of oil, are located north of the Arctic Circle. Among the areas specified for future
development are Russia’s Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia and the continental shelf in the Barents and Kara Seas.
In a more distant future, petroleum operations in areas further north and east may become a reality. Russia will
soon claim ownership to a shelf area of 1.2 million square kilometers (460,000 square miles)
between the outer limits of the country’s current 200-nautical-mile economic zone and
the North Pole. Efforts are also taken to facilitate an increase in ship traffic along the northern coast of the Eurasian
continent. The annual number of passages along this northern waterway is still fairly modest (71 in 2013), but cargo
volumes are growing year by year.¶ The
Arctic coastal states’ security concerns on the northern
frontier are shaped not only by the region’s emerging role as an arena for economic and
industrial activity, but also by the region’s place in the nuclear deterrence strategies of
Russia and the United States. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States developed long-range
nuclear weapons that could be launched across the Arctic Ocean, either from locations on land, from the sea, or from the
air. The number of deployed warheads has been reduced significantly since then, but all elements of the nuclear triads
are still in operation and thus relevant to the security situation in the region. The weapons have also become
more sophisticated, most notably with the development of land- and sea-based anti-ballistic missile (ABM)
systems, particularly after the collapse of the ABM Treaty regime in the early 2000s. The latter development is
likely to remain a source of contention between the United States and Russia, which sees
sea-based ABM systems as a potential threat to its nuclear deterrent in the Arctic. ¶
When developing strategies to cope with future threats that might arise, security
analysts have a tendency to “ assume the worst”, that is, scenarios that do not necessarily
reflect the current state of affairs. Not knowing the (future) intentions of their neighbors
or outside actors, they are afraid to risk shortfalls in military capability, and may
therefore chose to “play it safe”. Based on their own interpretation of other actors’
intentions and military potential, they may advocate measures to strengthen domestic
military capabilities. Once implemented, these measures may be perceived by other states as
potentially threatening, and lead to military or other counter-measures. In the International
Relations literature, this phenomenon is often referred to as “the security dilemma”.
US-Russia war goes nuclear – causes extinction. Baum 14
Executive Director @ Global Catastrophic Risk Institute [Seth
Baum (Ph.D. in Geography @Pennsylvania State University and
a Post-Doctoral Fellowship @ Columbia University Center for
Research on Environmental Decisions), “Best And Worst Case
Scenarios for Ukraine Crisis: World Peace And Nuclear War,”
Huffington Post, May 7, 2014
Here's the short version: The best case scenario has the Ukraine crisis being resolved diplomatically through increased Russia-Europe cooperation, which would be
The worst case scenario has the crisis escalating into nuclear war
a big step towards world peace.

between the United States and Russia, causing human extinction.¶ Let's start with
the worst case scenario, nuclear war involving the American and Russian
arsenals. How bad would that be? Put it this way: Recent analysis finds that a "limited" India-Pakistan nuclear war could
kill two billion people via agricultural declines from nuclear winter. This "limited"
war involves just 100 nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Russia combine to possess
about 16,700 nuclear weapons. Humanity may not survive the aftermath of a
U.S.-Russia nuclear war.¶ It seems rather unlikely that the U.S. and Russia would end up in nuclear war over Ukraine. Sure, they have
opposing positions, but neither side has anywhere near enough at stake to justify such extraordinary measures. Instead, it seems a lot more likely that the whole
We cannot rule out the
crisis will get resolved with a minimum of deaths. However, the story has already taken some surprising plot twists.

possibility of it ending in direct nuclear war.¶ A nuclear war could also occur
inadvertently, i.e. when a false alarm is misinterpreted as real, and nuclear
weapons are launched in what is believed to be a counterattack. There have been
several alarmingly close calls of inadvertent U.S.-Russia nuclear war over the
years. Perhaps the most relevant is the 1995 Norwegian rocket incident. A rocket carrying
scientific equipment was launched off northern Norway. Russia detected the rocket on its radar and

interpreted it as a nuclear attack. Its own nuclear forces were put on alert and Boris Yeltsin
was presented the question of whether to launch Russia's nuclear weapons in response . Fortunately, Yeltsin and the Russian General Staff

apparently sensed it was a false alarm and declined to launch. Still, the disturbing lesson

from this incident is that nuclear war could begin even during periods of calm.
 Rights DA
Trump is aiming for data from websites, but securing civil rights
solves. Savage 8/15
Savage 8/15 - CHARLIE SAVAGE AUGUST 15, 2017 New York
Times national security & legal reporter http://goo.gl/hilJr ;
MSNBC contributor
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/justice-
department-trump-dreamhost-protests.html
Federal investigators last month persuaded a judge to issue a search warrant to
the company, Dreamhost, demanding that it turn over data identifying all the computers that visited its
customer’s website and what each visitor viewed or uploaded. The company says that would result
in the disclosure of a large volume of information about people who had nothing
to do with the protests. Over 1.3 million requests were made to view pages on the
website in the six days after inauguration alone, it said. Dreamhost is fighting the warrant as
unconstitutionally broad. “In essence, the search warrant not only aims to identify the
political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and
understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website,” two lawyers for
Dreamhost, Raymond Aghaian and Chris Ghazarian, wrote in a court motion opposing the demand. William
Miller, a spokesman for the United States attorney’s office in the District of Columbia, provided court filings in
the case but declined to comment. The government’s filing declared that Dreamhost “has no legal basis for
failing to produce materials in response to the court’s search warrant.” The fight, which came to light on
Monday when Dreamhost published a blog post entitled “We Fight For the Users,” centers on a search warrant
for information about a website, disruptj20.org, which served as a clearinghouse for activists seeking to mobilize
resistance to Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The website featured maps to organize blockades of
intersections arranged around various themes — like feminism, gay rights, racial justice, climate change,
immigrant rights, antiwar, and labor — and tips for legal observers. It offered printable protest signs, many
critical of Mr. Trump, and afterward it posted pictures of protests. Mr. Trump’s inauguration in
Washington was the scene of massive protests. The large majority of the
thousands of protesters engaged peacefully, some carrying signs and marching
and others in civil disobedience, such as participating in sit-ins to block
intersections. But a smaller group of anarchists — sometimes called the “black
bloc” of the so-called Antifa, or anti-fascist, movement — protested violently.
Rioting by a small group of anarchists has become common at broader left-wing
demonstrations for the past generation, such as during anti-free trade protests
outside World Trade Organization talks in Seattle in 1999. During the Trump
inauguration, such protesters broke the windows of shops and bus stop shelters, set a limousine on fire and
threw rocks at police in riot gear, who fired tear gas at crowds. One masked man sucker-punched Richard
Spencer, a prominent white nationalist, as he was being interviewed; a video of that assault was widely shared
on the internet. More than 200 people were indicted on felony rioting charges related to property damage and
assault during the inauguration. On July 12, Judge Robert P. Wertheim, who was appointed to the District of
Columbia’s superior court in 1981 and retired in 1992 but still occasionally hears matters and was on duty that
day, signed off on prosecutors’ request for the sweeping search warrant in pursuit of information about people
who organized or participated in rioting. Among other things it demanded that Dreamhost
turn over “all records or other information” pertaining to disruptj20.org, including log files
showing who visited the website, when, from where, and what they looked at, and
all emails related to the website. Dreamhost balked. And after inconclusive
negotiations over the search warrant, the assistant United States attorney
handling the matter, John W. Borchert, asked another superior court judge, Lynn Leibovitz, who is
overseeing the rioting cases, to order Dreamhost to show cause for why it was not complying. In court
filings, Dreamhost argued among other things, that the demand was
unreasonably broad, violating the Fourth Amendment, and could make innocent
people afraid to view or communicate with websites containing political content,
 violating the First Amendment. But the government maintains that those constitutional concerns
are inaccurate. Lacy MacAuley, an activist who said she helped update and provide content for disruptj20.org,
described herself as “very concerned” about the search warrant, portraying it as a tactic to scare opponents of
the Trump administration. “It’s legal to visit a website and it’s legal to attend a protest,” she wrote in an email,
adding: “This search warrant is yet another intimidation tactic, but activists and our
supporters should not be scared away from exercising their right to protest and
dissent.” Several civil rights groups criticized the Justice Department as going too
far. “People should be free to exercise their legitimate free-expression rights and explore new points of view
without worrying that any digital footprints they leave could land them in a government database later,” said
Sarah St. Vincent, a Human Rights Watch researcher and advocate who focuses on national security,
surveillance and domestic law enforcement. “That could have a real chilling effect on web-
based free speech.” Judge Leibovitz had set a hearing for Friday. But late Tuesday, Mr. Miller said the
court was rescheduling it to a later date, which was not yet set, and that it was instead expected to be heard by
Chief Judge Robert E. Morin of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

The plan massively expands government power and sets an

unconstitutional precedent that gives trump power for take
over. It allows the government to control private data
companies. Brenner and Clarke 10
Brenner and Clarke 10 - Susan W. Brenner* NCR Distinguished
Professor of Law and Technology, University of Dayton School
of Law. with Leo L. Clarke** Associate, Drew, Cooper & Anding,
P.C., Grand Rapids, Michigan. Brenner, Susan W., and Leo L.
Clarke. "Civilians in Cyberwarfare: Conscripts." Vand. J.
Transnat'l L. 43 (2010): 1011.
The traditional model of induction would be counterproductive in a cyberwar conscription effort. Historically,
conscription did not discriminate according to ability because its goal was to
induct masses of men into the military, where they became the primary “engine of war.”256
Cyberwar conscription must be selective because its goal would be to compel
civilians who have particular technical expertise and work for telecommunications and other
Internet-related companies to participate in defensive or offensive cyberwar initiatives. The goal of
cyberwar conscription is to exploit the status of civilians, not do away with their
status altogether. Consequently, cyberwar conscription would resemble a kind of
semi-conscription in which conscripts continue to perform their civilian duties but are also required to
perform additional tasks when and as needed; the system would maintain the status quo of the conscripts’
professional lives.257 These additional tasks would probably be cyberwar-specific, but the conscripts’ routine
tasks might also be cyberwar related, at least in part.258 This type of semi-conscription generates
a host of legal issues. The first is constitutionality, and constitutionality would
likely depend on the legal status of the semi-conscripts. If they are formally
inducted into a branch of the military, their status would resemble that of
traditional conscripts, and the conscription could be justified as a variation of a type of conscription that
the Supreme Court has already ruled constitutional.259 If the semi-conscripts are not formally
inducted into the military and are merely put under military control for certain
purposes, their status would not be at all analogous to that of traditional
inductees and could raise difficult questions about the propriety of infringing on
the liberty of civilians.260 This raises the issue of whether Congress can conscript
civilians for purposes other than directly serving in the armed forces.261 During the
Revolutionary War, Congress authorized the Continental Army to conscript services from civilians.262 This
seems to have been the only time in U.S. history that civilians as civilians were subject to a type of military
conscription.263 In the early 1920s, bills were introduced into Congress that would have authorized “a draft of
labor.”264 Later, other bills were introduced that would have authorized a “draft of ‘services’” or a “draft of
persons in the management or control of industry,” but the proposed legislation was never adopted.265 Since
this seems to have been the only attempt to authorize the conscription of civilian services, there is apparently no
authority that directly addresses Congress’s power to conscript civilians for purposes other than serving in the
armed forces.266 The
obvious alternative is to induct employees of the companies
whose support is deemed essential to a cyberwar effort into a branch of the U.S.
armed forces.267 This would not only resolve the conscription issue, but would also resolve issues
that might arise as to whether civilians (or semi-civilians) can be compelled to take
orders from military officers.268 If the employees are inducted into the military,
they become members of the armed forces and are clearly obligated to obey the
commands of superior officers.269 Although this option has an appealing simplicity, it raises other
issues. One issue is whether those who have become members of the U.S. military can continue to work for a
civilian-owned company. If civilians are inducted into the military whose talents and assistance are needed in a
cyberwar effort, are they still employees of the companies that control the telecommunications networks and
other strategically relevant Internet businesses, or are their civilian and military responsibilities mutually
exclusive? As discussed earlier, induction has always been total, as an inductee’s status
shifts from being a civilian to being a member of the armed forces.270 A version of this
change in status could be incorporated by inducting these employees into a branch of the armed forces and
having them continue to perform their old job but be paid by the military.271 That solution, however,
creates other problems because an employer might resist having its workforce, or
a substantial part of its workforce, operating under the aegis of the military. This
solution might also create conflicting chains of command if the civilian
management of a company and the military officers assigned to the company vie
for control over the workforce.272 That raises a related issue: precisely who or what would need to
be conscripted in a cyberwar effort? As the scenario outlined above illustrates, cyberwar conscription would
involve conscripting a company as well as the individuals who work for that company. The corporation
that owns the telecommunication or other Internetrelated business whose employees become
cyberwar conscripts would still own the business, but conscription would limit its
ability to control the company’s day-to-day operations. Furthermore, the corporation
could not prevent the company’s employees and assets from being used in
cybercombat. The above analysis assumes that conscription would only target employees. In practice,
however, conscription would necessarily encompass the equipment and other
assets the employees would need to launch and repel cyberattacks. In sum, the
actual scope of conscription would be much broader because entire companies
would have to be conscripted. The telecommunications networks and other Internet-related
businesses whose staff and assets will be essential in a cyberwarfare effort are generally owned by
corporations.273 The law treats corporations as persons.274 Consequently, corporations have been encouraged
to “assume the modern obligations of good citizenship,”275 such as paying taxes and abiding by all applicable
laws. The doctrine of conscription can be extrapolated to encompass corporate
entities because the law recognizes corporations as citizens that share many of
the duties and obligations of citizenship.276 The possibility of such an extrapolation raises the
question of what corporate conscription would encompass and how it would differ from nationalization. In
other words, if corporate conscription can be implemented, then one must consider how and why it might be
implemented. Although a corporation is a “person,” it would not be sufficient to simply conscript the corporate
entity itself. Conscripting the corporate entity would give the military control of the
company’s assets and capabilities. In that regard, it would be analogous to
conscripting individuals, each of whom has expertise that is essential to a
cyberwar effort. Conscripting the corporation’s assets and capabilities would not
suffice because the government would still need to compel the participation of the
employees who have the expertise to carry out cyberwar activities. Therefore, the
government would need to conscript the corporation and the corporation’s
employees.277 The corporation would continue to carry out its civilian functions but would on occasion be
obliged to participate in cyberwar operations.
*Surveillance auto outweighs - constitutional privacy
protections are the foundation of freedom. Mass surveillance is
inherently repressive because it exposes individuals to
inescapable, oppressive scrutiny. Greenwald 14
Greenwald 14 — Glenn Greenwald, journalist who received the
2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for his work with Edward
Snowden to report on NSA surveillance, Founding Editor of The
Intercept, former Columnist for the Guardian and Salon,
recipient of the Park Center I.F. Stone Award for Independent
Journalism, the Online Journalism Award for investigative work
on the abusive detention conditions of Chelsea Manning, the
George Polk Award for National Security Reporting, the Gannett
Foundation Award for investigative journalism, the Gannett
Foundation Watchdog Journalism Award, the Esso Premio for
Excellence in Investigative Reporting in Brazil, and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award, holds a J.D.
from New York University School of Law, 2014 (“The Harm of
Surveillance,” No Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA,
and the U.S. Surveillance State, Published by Metropolitan
Books, ISBN 9781627790734, p. 173-174)
Privacy is essential to human freedom and happiness for reasons that are rarely
discussed but instinctively understood by most people, as evidenced by the lengths to which they go to
protect their own. To begin with, people radically change their behavior when they know
they are being watched. They will strive to do that which is expected of them.
They want to avoid shame and condemnation. They do so by adhering tightly to
accepted social practices, by staying within imposed boundaries, avoiding action
that might be seen as deviant or abnormal. The range of choices people consider
when they believe that others are watching is therefore far more limited than
what they might do when acting in a private realm. A denial of privacy operates to
severely restrict one’s freedom of choice. Several years ago, I attended the bat mitzvah of my best
friend’s daughter. During the ceremony, the rabbi emphasized that “the central lesson” for the girl to learn was
that she was “always being watched and judged.” He told her that God always knew what she was doing, every
choice, every action, and even every thought, no matter how private. “You are never alone,” he said, which
meant that she should always adhere to God’s will. The rabbi’s point was clear: if you can never evade
the watchful eyes of a supreme authority, there is no choice but to follow the
dictates that authority imposes. You cannot even consider forging your own path
beyond those rules: if you believe you are always being watched and judged, you
are not really a free individual. All oppressive authorities — political, religious, societal,
parental — rely on this vital truth, using it as a principal tool to enforce orthodoxies,
compel adherence, and quash dissent. It is in their interest to convey that nothing
their subjects do will escape the knowledge of the authorities. Far more effectively
than a police force, the deprivation of privacy will crush any temptation to deviate
from rules and norms. What is lost when the private realm is abolished are many
of the [end page 173] attributes typically associated with quality of life. Most people
have experienced how privacy enables liberation from constraint. And we’ve all,
conversely, had the experience of engaging in private behavior when we thought we
were alone — dancing, confessing, exploring sexual expression, sharing untested ideas — only to feel
shame at having been seen by others. Only when we believe that nobody else is
 watching us do we feel free — safe — to truly experiment, to test boundaries, to
explore new ways of thinking and being, to explore what it means to be ourselves.
What made the Internet so appealing was precisely that it afforded the ability to speak and act anonymously,
which is so vital to individual exploration. For that reason, it is in the realm of privacy where
creativity, dissent, and challenges to orthodoxy germinate. A society in which
everyone knows they can be watched by the state — where the private realm is
effectively eliminated — is one in which those attributes are lost, at both the
societal and the individual level. Mass surveillance by the state is therefore
inherently repressive, even in the unlikely case that it is not abused by vindictive
officials to do things like gain private information about political opponents. Regardless of how
surveillance is used or abused, the limits it imposes on freedom are intrinsic to its
existence.
The risk is high because of impending social disruptions caused
by economic inequality and climate change. Empowered with
tools of mass surveillance, the U.S. government will respond
with “turnkey tyranny.” This does pose an existential risk;
terrorism doesn’t. Paglen 13
Paglen 13 — Trevor Paglen, artist, writer, and experimental
geographer working out of the Department of Geography at the
University of California-Berkeley, author of Torture Taxi: On the
Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights—the first book to
systematically describe the CIA's extraordinary rendition
program, has received grants and awards from the Smithsonian,
Art Matters, Artadia, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
the LUMA foundation, the Eyebeam Center for Art and
Technology and the Aperture Foundation, holds a Ph.D. in
Geography from the University of California-Berkeley, 2013
(“Turnkey Tyranny: Surveillance and the Terror State,” Creative
Time Reports, June 25th, Available Online at
http://creativetimereports.org/2013/06/25/surveillance-and-
the-construction-of-a-terror-state/, Accessed 06-16-2015)
Politicians claim that the Terror State is necessary to defend democratic institutions from
the threat of terrorism. But there is a deep irony to this rhetoric. Terrorism does not pose, has
never posed and never will pose an existential threat to the United States. Terrorists
will never have the capacity to “take away our freedom.” Terrorist outfits have no
armies with which to invade, and no means to impose martial law. They do not have
their hands on supra-national power levers like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They
cannot force nations into brutal austerity programs and other forms of economic subjugation. But while
terrorism cannot pose an existential threat to the United States, the institutions of a
Terror State absolutely can. Indeed, their continued expansion poses a serious
threat to principles of democracy and equality. At its most spectacular, terrorism works
by instilling so much fear in a society that the society begins to collapse on itself.
The effects of persistent mass surveillance provide one example of such
disintegration. Most obviously, surveillance represents a searing breach of personal
privacy, as became clear when NSA analysts passed around phone-sex recordings of overseas troops and their
stateside spouses. And while surveillance inhibits the exercise of civil liberties for all, it
inevitably targets racial, religious and political minorities. Witness the Department of
Homeland Security’s surveillance of Occupy activists, the NYPD’s monitoring of Muslim Americans, the FBI’s
ruthless entrapment of young Muslim men and the use of anti-terror statutes against environmental activists.
Moreover, mass surveillance also has a deep effect on culture, encouraging
conformity to a narrow range of “acceptable” ideas by frightening people away
from non-mainstream thought. If the government keeps a record of every library book you read, you
might be disinclined to check out The Anarchist Cookbook today; tomorrow you might think twice before
borrowing Lenin’s Imperialism. Looking past whatever threats may or may not exist from overseas
terrorists, the next few decades will be decades of crisis. Left unchecked, systemic
instability caused by growing economic inequality and impending environmental
disaster will produce widespread insecurity. On the economic side, we are facing an
increasingly acute crisis of capitalism and a growing disparity between the
“haves” and “have-nots,” both nationally and globally. For several decades, the vast majority
of economic gains have gone to the wealthiest segments of society, while the middle and working classes have
seen incomes stagnate and decline. Paul Krugman has dubbed this phenomenon the “Great Divergence.” A few
statistics are telling: between 1992 and 2007, the income of the 400 wealthiest people in the United States rose
by 392 percent. Their tax rate fell by 37 percent. Since 1979, productivity has risen by more than 80 percent, but
the median worker’s wage has only gone up by 10 percent. This is not an accident. The evisceration of the
American middle and working class has everything to do with an all-out assault on unions; the rewriting of the
laws governing bankruptcy, student loans, credit card debt, predatory lending and financial trading; and the
transfer of public wealth to private hands through deregulation, privatization and reduced taxes on the wealthy.
The Great Divergence is, to put it bluntly, the effect of a class war waged by the rich against the rest of society,
and there are no signs of it letting up. All the while, we are on a collision course with nature.
Mega-storms, tornadoes, wildfires, floods and erratic weather patterns are
gradually becoming the rule rather than the exception. There are no signs of any
serious efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions at levels anywhere near those required
to avert the worst climate-change scenarios. According to the most robust climate models,
global carbon emissions between now and mid-century must be kept below 565 gigatons to meet the
Copenhagen Accord’s target of limiting global warming to a two-degree Celsius increase. Meanwhile, as Bill
McKibben has noted, the world’s energy companies currently hold in reserve 2,795 gigatons of carbon, which
they plan to release in the coming decades. Clearly, they have bet that world governments will fail to
significantly regulate greenhouse emissions. The plan is to keep burning fossil fuels, no matter the
environmental consequences. While right-wing politicians write off climate change as a global conspiracy
among scientists, the Pentagon has identified it as a significant threat to national security. After a decade of
studies and war games involving climate-change scenarios, the Department of Defense’s 2010 Quadrennial
Review (the main public document outlining American military doctrine) explains that “climate-related changes
are already being observed in every region of the world,” and that they “could have significant geopolitical
impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of
fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of
disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.” Nationally and internationally, the effects of climate
change will be felt unevenly. Whether it’s rising water levels or skyrocketing prices for foods due to irregular
weather, the effects of a tumultuous climate will disproportionately impact society’s most precarious
populations. Thus, the
effects of climate change will exacerbate already existing trends
toward greater economic inequality, leading to widespread humanitarian crises and
social unrest. The coming decades will bring Occupy-like protests on ever-larger
scales as high unemployment and economic strife, particularly among youth,
becomes a “new normal.” Moreover, the effects of climate change will produce new populations of
displaced people and refugees. Economic and environmental insecurity represent the future for vast swaths of
the world’s population. One
way or another, governments will be forced to respond. As
future governments face these intensifying crises, the decline of the state’s civic
capacities virtually guarantees that they will meet any unrest with the authoritarian
levers of the Terror State. It won’t matter whether a “liberal” or “conservative”
government is in place; faced with an immediate crisis, the state will use whatever
means are available to end said crisis. When the most robust levers available are
tools of mass surveillance and coercion, then those tools will be used. What’s more, laws
like the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides for the indefinite detention of American citizens,
indicate that military and intelligence programs originally crafted for combating
overseas terrorists will be applied domestically. The larger, longer-term scandal of
Snowden’s revelations is that, together with other political trends, the NSA’s programs do
not merely provide the capacity for “turnkey tyranny”—they render any other future
all but impossible.
 Wage Inflation DA
The labor market is strong and steady due to strong
participation, which is holding back inflation. Davidson 8/13
Paul Davidson, “an American macroeconomist who has been
one of the leading spokesmen of the American branch of the
Post Keynesian school in economics”, 8-13-2017, "Participation
boost: Americans are still rushing back into the job market,"
USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/08/13/participation-boost-americans-still-
rushing-back-into-job-market/559510001/ //LP
“It’s a good job market,” says the Hampton, Ga., resident, noting that helped encourage her to revive her career. “I
love being employed. I didn’t get my masters (in human resources) to sit around the house.” A vibrant labor market
in which employers are struggling to find workers continues to draw hundreds of
thousands of Americans back into the labor force, which includes people working
and looking for jobs. The shift is especially lifting less-educated workers in their
prime working years -- many of whom had grown discouraged and stopped job-hunting -- teens, older
workers and the disabled, Labor Department and UBS figures show. Many economists
expected the labor force participation rate -- the share of Americans in the labor force -- to resume its long-term decline after
recording a sharp run up, from 62.4% to 63%, in late 2015 and early 2016. The belief was that most Americans on the sidelines
already had been enticed back into the favorable job market and any others straggling back in would be overwhelmed by the
retirement of an average 10,000 Baby Boomers a day. But the participation rate has held steady since
then as the return of idled workers has offset the Boomer retirements. The labor
force swelled by about 700,000 in June and July, pushing the participation rate to
62.9% from 62.7%. “The strong economy and labor market are bringing more
people back to the labor force,” says UBS economist Robert Sockin. The trend could have significant
implications for wage growth and interest rates. The workers returning from the sidelines are
keeping the low 4.3% unemployment rate from falling even more rapidly and
supplying employers a shadow labor force that may be preventing average pay
increases from accelerating more sharply. That’s helping temper inflation, which
could prompt the Federal Reserve to put off an anticipated third interest rate hike
in 2017.

Service reduces the amount of people in the workforce;

increasing the price of labor. Robinson 04
Braden Robinson, [Has a JD from University of Michigan Law
School and a BS/BSME from Grove City College in Mechanical
Engineering, Math, and Econ], 10-01-2004, “An Analysis of
Conscription”, http://www2.gcc.edu/dept/econ/ASSC/Papers2004/Conscription_Robinson.pdf //LP
While the natural rights argument may be sufficient grounds on its own to oppose conscription, it will hardly
convince those who only advocate utilitarian approach to ethics. For them, we must show that conscription itself
has actual negative side effects. Which would be sufficient on their own to stop the practice. For conscription
these effects are obvious. The use of conscription forces society to undergo a variety of
negative economic and cultural changes, not only during the time of conscription
but after the war has long ended. When a country conscripts soldiers it artificially
reduces the workforce in society. This artificial reduction in the supply of labor
increases the price of labor and in turn reduces the quantity demanded, thus
reducing the overall number of goods and services a society produces.4 Since these
parties do not stop consuming goods, food and supplies are still shipped to them overseas, this causes a
lower standard of living than a society would normally experience.5 For a nation using
 temporary conscription this means that the limited number of goods not allocated for government use during a
crisis will be reduced.6 However, in nations that have continual conscription (such as
Spain or South Korea), this acts as a forced emigration, intentionally reducing the
supply of labor in impoverished countries to artificially increase the price of labor.
While this does not improve the overall welfare of society, it does allow the government to keep wage levels
constant even while the demand of labor falls without causing mass unemployment.7

Increases in services leads to an overall increase of inflation.

Brauer 97
David A. Brauer, [an economist in the Domestic Research
Function of the Research and Market Analysis Group], 09-1997,
“Do Rising Labor Costs Trigger Higher Inflation?”, Federal
Reserve Bank of New York,
https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/cur
rent_issues/ci3-11.pdf //LP
The results presented here confirm a link from services sector wages and prices to
overall inflation. We find that if compensation growth accelerates in the service
producing sector, that growth is likely to show up directly as more rapid inflation
in service prices. Moreover, higher hourly labor costs in services can, through their
contribution to the production and distribution of goods, indirectly affect goods
prices. Given earlier researchers’ findings showing a link from prices to wages, even these modest
initial effects may therefore be enough to set off an inflationary spiral. Since no such
effects are found to arise from an acceleration of labor cost increases in the goods-producing sector,
policymakers seeking to prevent a resurgence of inflation may wish to pay
particular attention to hourly labor costs in the service-producing private sector.

Inflation would be terrible. Multiple impacts. Moreira 2/14

Fabrizio Moreira, Contributor, 2-14-2017, "Hyperinflation In
The US," HuffPost, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hyperinflation-in-the-us-a-real-or-imagined-
threat_us_58a31b10e4b0e172783aa0d7 //LP
Hyperinflation is simply inflation that has grown out of control. The
phenomenon is brought about by several factors although increased money
supply is often the most likely culprit. Indeed, when monetary supply goes
unchecked, the price of basic goods goes up, and the currency loses its value. So, in
a nutshell, if the conditions are right out of control inflation really can happen. Interestingly, there are
many roads to rapid increases in prices. Let’s take a look. Other Causes of Rapid Inflation War is
one of the most common causes of hyperinflation. Investors have little confidence in a currency whose country
is at war whether the war is political or economic. A loss of investor confidence can cause a rapid drop in
currency values. When a currency falls quickly enough, other problems soon arise. Not the least of which is mass
bank withdrawals. Run on Bank Funds. If residents lose confidence in their nation’s paper notes, they often
withdraw bank funds en masse. However, this doesn’t just impact the banks, it can tank an economy in a hurry.
Furthermore, given that most banks only keep 5% of their total deposits on-hand, if enough depositors request
their funds at the same time it wouldn’t take long before banks run out of cash. As banks rush to sell assets and
call in loans held by members, panic would ensue triggering more waves of bank withdrawals. The only way for
banks to fulfil requests in such an event is to sell assets, but far below market rates, and this affects both cash
and asset values. Bank Closures. Mass withdrawals eventually lead to bank closures. In the past, this has led to
losses so large that anyone who wasn’t quick enough to withdrawal their savings lost everything. Indeed, a
similar scenario played out during the Great Depression. And as we know from that bit of history when banks
suffer the population experiences even greater turmoil. Travel throughout the US Grinds to a Halt. Interstate
travel is crucial for business. When travel stops for any reason, the business community is significantly affected.
Firms that operate in different states may be forced to shut down, and since business is a key economic driver,
the effects will be felt immediately. If we were to experience an economic collapse it would happen
quickly. Indeed, financial meltdowns happen so quickly that most businesses,
investors, and households scarcely have time to act. If ever the US economy
becomes so fragile that consumers decide their money is safer under the mattress
than in the banks, get ready. It could happen in this manner. Rapid Increase in
Gold Prices. As the dollar loses value, gold prices will inevitably skyrocket. Since the
purchasing power of gold rarely goes down, gold and other precious metals perform well in
most any type of economic contraction. And as more people rush to buy gold, it
will only rise in value. Rise in the Price of Other Precious Metals. As pandemonium
spreads and gold prices go up, the value of other precious metals will increase as
well. Many investors will be in a hurry to invest in metals that do not lose value before the dollar value can get
any worse. Just like in the case of gold, the rise in demand will result in an increase in precious metal prices.
Food Shortages. Another aspect of depressions is they often lead to food shortages.
As panic sets in, households attempt to stock up on food and other products
needed for day to day survival. But instead of purchasing a week’s worth of groceries, when under
duress many shoppers purchase an entire month worth of groceries, if not more. Violent Outbreaks. It’s
well documented that deep recessions fuel crime. Namely, depressed economies
lead to mass youth unemployment. And the number of idol youth grows large enough they may
take out their frustrations on those around them. And as basic necessities become
harder to find large numbers of young adults organize themselves into groups
and begin riots and looting, which almost always ends in violence. Worldwide
Panic. Were a scenario such as this one to play out in the States, the situation
could quickly lead to recessions in other economies that do business with the US.
Any sign of domestic recession can, therefore, cause panic elsewhere in the world.
 Noko DA
Deterrence is holding – don’t buy the media hype. Military
power is tried and tested on the peninsula.
Kang 8/11 – David, director of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/11/are-we-on-the-brink-of-nuclear-war-with-north-korea-the-consensus-is-probably-
not/?utm_term=.a5908d388f87
“This time isn’t any different from the North Korean side — they haven’t done
that much different than in the past. Kim Jong Un may be testing more missiles, but essentially
their behavior is not any different. The big thing we keep missing about North Korea is that their threats are
always the second half of a sentence, and we ignore the first half. North Korea consistently says, 'If
the United States attacks us first, we will fight back.' The only thing that gets
reported in the U.S. media is the second clause, not the first. So their comments are
clearly deterrent in nature, and the Guam 'threat' was exactly along those lines. So
we always overhype the North Korean threat, because it is absolutely not a threat of preemptive or first strike.
For the U.S., the current administration might be speaking perhaps a little more
flamboyantly than previous administrations, for sure. But essentially what they
are saying is no different than any previous administration has said: 'If the
United States is attacked first, we will fight back, as well.' The message is one of deterrence,
not first strike. Both sides are reiterating that they will fight back if attacked. Deterrence works, because both
sides believe the other. It is widely accepted that North Korea will strike at American targets somewhere in the
Pacific if we attack them first, almost nobody doubts that. For their part, the North Koreans fully expect a
massive American attack at some point, they believe us. So deterrence holds, because of the costs
involved. It’s not pretty, but it works.”

Letting up on North Korea gives them permission to continue

violence and makes a strike more likely – only strong military
deterrence can keep them at bay.
Geraghty 8/11 – Jim, Author of two books Voting to Kill: How 9/11 Launched the Era of Republican Leadership and The Weed Agency: A Comic
Tale of Federal Bureaucracy Without Limits. http://www.nationalreview.com/morning-jolt/450403/north-korea-nuclear-attack-how-to-prevent-it
Begin with the assumption that we do not want to fight a war on the Korean
peninsula. If we want to avoid that, we need to deter North Korea from taking any
other actions that will be so provocative, they will require retaliation. If North Korea were
to hit Guam, sink a U.S. naval vessel, or fire artillery at American troops in South
Korea, failure to retaliate would be to declare a form of surrender; it would demonstrate
we and our allies fear war so intensely that we are willing to accept loss of life to avoid it. Of course, this
effectively gives the green light to more acts of military aggression. As mentioned
yesterday, North Korea’s recent history is littered with aggressive acts that have
killed and injured South Korean soldiers and civilians. The regime announced this week it
was considering launching long-range missiles toward, but not directly at, Guam. And our intelligence agencies
now think they have successfully miniaturized devices. Each of those individual risks – North Korea’s habitual
unpredictable aggression, their possession of nuclear weapons (that may or may not work), their missiles that
can hit the United States – is separately a tolerable problem but collectively, they represent a risk
that the American people cannot accept. The only way deterrence works is if the
other guy gets convinced that you’re willing to actually fight. In a game of
chicken, the only way the other guy swerves is if he’s convinced you’re not afraid
to have a head-on collision. In other words, to preserve peace, North Korea has to
believe that the United States is completely willing and able to fight a war, and fight
it until the regime in Pyongyang is destroyed. It is worth noting at this point that neither side is declaring an
intention for a first strike. Neither side is likely to do this, because that would cost the element of surprise to
announce it in advance. All of the heated rhetoric about “fire and fury” and “final doom” is basically an exchange
of pledges for a devastating counterattack if the other side strikes first. While both sides are capable
of launching a devastating counterattack, it is worth noting that there is in
imbalance in that devastation. If North Korea did their worst, it would be terrible
 for South Korea, very bad for Japan, and bad for the United States. But if
America and its allies inflicted their worst, North Korea would cease to exist. For
what it’s worth, none of the Korea policy experts quoted by the Washington Post
think war is imminent.

A commitment to deterrence and militarism can work and it’s

the best option. Diplomacy is ineffective.
Henriksen 7/7 - Thomas H. Henriksen Emeritus senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he focuses on American foreign policy,
international political affairs, and insurgencies. 7/7/17 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/07/07/holding-north-korea-at-bay-what-trump-needs-to-do.html
What must Donald Trump do to deal with a nuclear-arming and missile-
perfecting North Korean menace? First, President Trump, who has acted prudently (much to the
chagrin of his shrill critics in the media), must avoid stumbling into a Peninsula war that some voices are calling
for. Make no mistake: the United States and its South Korean allies could smash to smithereens the North
Korean antiquated armed forces. But despite its general unpreparedness for 21st -century warfare, it would kill
many thousands of people in greater Seoul with its 20 million inhabitants before being brought to heel by U.S.
and ROK forces. Plus, another Korean War would likely see a repeat of China’s intervention so as to block an
expansion of American influence in a defeated North, risking a major power collision. A new Korean War would
net the United States nothing except many American combat casualties and huge financial expenditures to
rebuild the North and parts of the South. In short, the U.S. victory would be a Pyrrhic one. Ruling out war or
preemptive military strikes against DPRK, what can the Trump White House do? Soon after taking office, the
Trump administration tried to induce China to rein in its wayward ward by curtailing it trade, financing, and
diplomatic cover with the DPRK. It was the right thing to attempt, if for no other reason than to silence critics
who said it should be tried. But it is now clear that Beijing is unwilling to exert pressure on
its fraternal communist ally. North Korea could never have achieved its current
nuclear and missile development without Chinese assistance. Accordingly, Trump’s
Department of Treasury has leveled sanctions against one Chinese bank, a business, and two individuals for
their support of the North’s escalating threat. Washington also showed its displeasure with China by recently
sending two U.S. Navy warships into the South China Sea, which Beijing claims as its own lake. A response to
China’s creating and militarizing islands in the Spratly Island chain is worthy in its own right to offset Chinese
hegemonic South China Sea claims. But coupled with U.S. sanctions on Chinese entities it signals an end to the
Obama administration’s weakness. It behooves the Trump administration to double-down
on comprehensive secondary-sanctions on China’s financial and industrial
institutions that enable North Korea to stay economically afloat and to test-fire
missiles and atomic weapons by supplying technical components. Next, the
United States must strengthen its anti-missile defenses in the Western Pacific, particularly
military bases on Hawaii, Guam, and Japan as well as South Korea. Opening talks with Pyongyang to achieve
North Korean de-nuclearization will not succeed. The DPRK hungers for a nuclear armory; it will not surrender
its gains for promises of aid, peace, or international acceptance any more than the Soviet Union would have
abandoned its beginning nuclear buildup during the 1950s. Powerful defensive and offensive
weapons aimed at North Korea afford the United States the strongest deterrent
against an adventurist regime. During the Cold War and after, Washington stared
down the Soviet Union, China, and then Russia, which possessed many more
lethal nuclear arms than North Korea. In sum, mounting sanctions on China and
North Korea and boosting deterrence offer a realistic means to contain the
nuclear dangers arising from Pyongyang.

A single strike will trigger over a million deaths and economic

pitfalls. Gaydos 4/26
Ryan Gaydos [reporter] 4/26/17 http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/04/26/north-korea-threat-experts-paint-dark-picture-what-fallout-pre-emptive-strike-
may-look-like.html
Foreign policy experts theorized Tuesday about what a pre-emptive military strike
against North Korea may look like in the event that pressure from China and deepening isolation does little to stop Pyongyang's
rogue regime. ¶ The Trump administration--which is holding an emergency meeting Wednesday at the White House-- has said

“all options” are on the table, but the White House appears to be losing patience with Pyongyang.¶ Former CIA analyst Bruce
Klingner told Newsweek that Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, waould likely hit back with an artillery barrage in the event of a pre-emptive
Without moving a single soldier in its million-man army,” Klingner
strike by the U.S. or an ally.¶ “

said. “ The North could launch a devastating attack on Seoul.”¶ From there, a second
Korean War could escalate.¶ Victor Cha, a former National Security Council staffer, theorized in his 2012 book “The
Impossible State,” that North Korea could start an invasion by debilitating South
Koreans with chemical weapons and cutting off options to flee the country.¶ “An
arsenal of 600 chemically armed Scud missiles would be fired on all South
Korean airports, train stations and marine ports, making it impossible for civilians to escape,” Cha wrote.¶ North Korea
may be able to equip medium-range missiles with chemical weapons and launch
them at Japan and U.S. bases, stemming the immediate flow of reinforcements. U.S. war experts
believe Pyongyang would look to overrun Seoul before the allies could prop up South Korea's armies. Cha said
a possible war on the Korean Peninsula in 2017 “would be the most unforgiving battle conditions that can be imagined .”¶ Cha theorized

the U.S. would dispatch about 20,000 troops per combat division, 10 Air Force
wings of about 20 fighters per unit and up to five air craft carriers. Cha added that “U.S.
and South Korean “soldiers would be fighting with little defense against DPRK artillery, aerial
bombardments, and in an urban warfare environment polluted by 5,000 metric tons of DPRK chemical agents.”¶ Even with North Korea’s first wave
war planners still believe the U.S. and South Korea would come out on top,
of attacks,

but the casualties could be catastrophic.¶ Gary Luck, the commander of the U.S.-
Republic of Korea forces in 1994 under President Bill Clinton, estimated that a new Korean
War could result in one million deaths and $1 trillion of economic damage.
 China DA
US and China are on the brink of nuclear war – only US military
supremacy is keeping China at bay.
Tikhonova 7/26 MA – Polina, July 27, 2017 http://www.valuewalk.com/2017/07/trump-orders-nuclear-strike-china/
The mere thought of a nuclear war between the U.S. and China – the world’s two biggest
militaries – sounds intimidating. Amid strained relations between Washington and
Beijing, and with Trump recently giving U.S. Navy more freedom in South China
Sea, the territory that China considers vital to its national and security interests, the possibility of the
two nations going to a nuclear war cannot be ruled out anymore. With Trump pledging
to rein in China’s aggressive territorial expansion in the South China Sea during his presidential campaign, the
Trump administration has made quite a few moves that could be pushing the two
nations to the point of no return. In May, Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to conduct
a freedom-of-navigation operation in the disputed area, which Beijing claims in its entirety
despite the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Taiwan also claiming parts of the disputed region.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration sent an even scarier war message to Beijing to challenge its
military buildup on the artificial islands in the South China Sea. A U.S. destroyer passed through
the international flashpoint in the South China Sea, a move that prompted a furious
response from Chinese President Xi Jinping, who warned his American counterpart of “negative
factors” in U.S.-China relations. The Chinese Foreign Ministry lambasted the incident as a “serious political and
military provocation.” US vs China War Would Be ‘Disastrous For Both’ Just last week, Trump approved the
Pentagon’s plan to challenge Chinese claims in the South China Sea, where Beijing has been actively building
reefs into artificial islands capable of hosting military planes. Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong exclusively
reported that the President approved the plan to check China over its ongoing militarization of and actions in
the South China Sea, a move that will most likely further stain U.S.-China relations. The latest heated exchange
of hostile gestures between Beijing and Washington cannot but make experts wonder: what would
happen if the U.S. and China went to war? That would be “disastrous for both
sides – politically, economically, and militarily,” according to VICE citing senior vice president
for political and security affairs at the National Bureau of Asian Research, Abraham Denmark. While the
two nations continue working together to prevent a potential nuclear threat from
China’s neighbor – North Korea – it seems like an even bigger nuclear conflict is
brewing between Washington and Beijing. ‘Increased’ Possibility of Nuclear War In ValueWalk’s
recent comparison of the U.S., Chinese and Russian militaries, it was concluded that the outcome of any war
involving the U.S. and China is quite impossible to predict, as there’s no telling what would be the scope and
duration of the military confrontation and if nuclear weapons would be used. It’s also unclear if Russia would
join forces with its arguably one of the biggest allies – China. If it did, China’s chances of winning a war against
Washington would considerably soar. After all, there are plenty of potential flashpoints in the relations between
Washington and Beijing, notably Taiwan and the South China Sea. The U.S. has in its possession
about 6,800 nuclear warheads – the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal after Russia – while
China has only 270 nukes, according to recent estimations by the Arms Control Association. According
to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, published last year, the U.S. going to “nuclear war
with China is not inevitable – but the possibility that it could occur has
increased.” However, with Washington and Beijing not being able to find common ground on such a vital
issue for China’s national and security interests as the South China Sea, and with Trump ordering more actions
that further strain U.S.-China relations, the risk of nuclear war between the world’s two biggest militaries could
skyrocket.

Trump’s approach is the right one – only increased military

aggression can keep China at bay.
Rogan 7/27 - Tom Rogan Staff Writer 7/27/17 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/china-is-threatening-us-military-aircraft-heres-how-
trump-should-respond/article/2629506
Let's be clear, this is a warning shot from the Chinese military. The Chinese remember full
well what happened in April 2001, when a U.S. EP-3 was forced to land on Chinese-held Hainan island after a
Chinese jet crashed into it. That incident sparked a major diplomatic crisis. And China knows that we know that
 this history is their thought process. Correspondingly, it's
abundantly clear that China has
decided to pushback against growing U.S. pressure in the South and East China
Seas. President Trump is deploying additional U.S. forces to send China a message:
fail to pressure North Korea to abandon its ballistic missile program, and we will
increase the U.S. Military's forward deployed presence in the region (China hates the
presence of the U.S. Military for many reasons). This weekend's incident is China's response. In order to
protect our personnel, and our diplomatic agenda, we must counter this new
Chinese escalation. As a first step, the U.S. should attach U.S. Navy and Air Force
fighter jets as reconnaissance flight escorts. In the military, such escorts are known as
HAVCAPs (High Asset Value Combat Air Patrols) and entail the protection of vulnerable, VIP, or unarmed
military aircraft such as the EP-3. Sending up escorts would entail a change to the military's deployment
posture, but it is necessary. And it would temper future Chinese aggression. The J-10 is no
match for U.S. Air Force F-15s or F-16s, and U.S. Navy F-18s. Nor are Chinese pilots a match for U.S. air crews.
Additionally, the U.S. could deploy the 19th Fighter Squadron (F-22s) from Hawaii to Japan or Okinawa. That
would really get the Chinese upset. Still, as I've written before, the U.S. must also significantly increase its
presence of combat-capable forces in proximity to China. Doing so will show the Chinese regime
that we are not blinking -- that we are serious. Fortunately, as I explained last week, U.S.
carrier strike groups offer prime potential in this regard. Those carriers could provide quick
alert HAVCAPs capabilities as well as reminding the Chinese leadership of our power. Some might say
that to escalate is to risk fueling the tensions in the region. This is exactly the
wrong idea. The tensions are already there, and are rooted in much more than the
presence of U.S. military force. This is about a struggle for international order in
the Asia-Pacific. Specifically, whether international order will be subjugated to Chinese imperialism, or
whether free commerce and stability will triumph. If we practice American power in the
defense of stability, conflict will be less, not more likely. China, after all, has no
desire to go to war with the world's preeminent military force. We should never
be arrogant, but nor should we forget our own power.

Only direct military engagement can keep china at bay –

otherwise conflict is inevitable.
Tellis 4/25 - ASHLEY J. TELLIS Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and is a senior fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, specializing in international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy with a
special focus on Asia and the Indian subcontinent. 4/25/17 http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/04/25/protecting-
american-primacy-in-indo-pacific-pub-68754/
Even a cursory glance at the weapon systems China now has in service or in development confirms the
proposition that Beijing’s interests range far beyond the Asian rimlands: these include new advanced surface
and subsurface platforms (such as aircraft carriers, large amphibious vessels, destroyers for long-range anti-
surface and anti-air warfare, and nuclear submarines), large transport aircraft, exotic and advanced missilery,
space-based communications, intelligence, navigation, and meteorological systems, and rapidly expanding
information and electronic warfare capabilities. Taken together, these suggest that the Chinese
leadership now views the future of its military operating environment in global
terms. Even if the Chinese economy slows from its historically high growth rates,
China will still have the financial resources to deploy significant military
capabilities, primarily naval, around the Afro-Asian periphery to begin with, while maintaining a capability
for presence and sea denial in the Western Hemisphere by the middle of this century. The international
financial crisis turned out to be the key moment of transition for China’s strategic evolution as its decision
makers seemed to judge that episode as signaling the conclusive end of American hegemony. This
perception propelled China’s own shift from the previous “hide and bide” strategy
to a more ostentatious display of its expanding ambitions. Although these aims initially
encompassed mainly the Indo-Pacific rimlands, China soon began looking farther afield. Having already
undertaken significant economic initiatives in Africa and Latin America in the first decade of this century, China
unveiled an ambitious effort in 2013, using its economic power, to reach across the entire Eurasian landmass
through its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) plan. Even as this scheme is being feverishly implemented, Chinese
military power has gradually acquired the capacity to operate at greater distances
from home—a presence now witnessed in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, which in a few
decades will extend to the Atlantic and the Arctic oceans as well. This evolution suggests that China is steadily
moving from being merely a regional power to an increasingly global one, though the intensity of its military
objectives diminishes as a function of distance from home. For the moment at least, Chinese military power
seems oriented toward servicing three related objectives: first, Beijing seeks to amass sufficient military power
to rapidly defeat any troublesome neighbors who might either challenge Chinese interests or contest its
territorial claims before any extra-regional entity could come to their assistance; second, China seeks to develop
the requisite “counter-intervention” capabilities that would either deter the United States from being able to
come to the defense of any rimland states threatened by Chinese military power or to defeat such an
intervention if it were undertaken despite the prospect of suffering high costs; and, third, China seeks to
gradually assemble the capabilities for projecting power throughout the Eastern Hemisphere as a prelude to
operations even beyond both in order to signal its arrival as a true great power in world politics and to influence
political outcomes on diverse issues important to China. Even as China continues to invest in the military
capabilities necessary to satisfy these goals, it will continue to use its deep economic and increasingly
institutional ties to its Asian neighbors to diminish their incentive to challenge Beijing while simultaneously
exploiting the economic interdependence between China and the United States to deter American assistance for
its Asian partners in various disputes. To advance this goal, China has created new international economic
institutions that serve as alternatives to their Western counterparts. China also remains committed to its efforts
to delegitimize the U.S. alliance system in Asia based on its judgment that Washington remains the most critical
obstacle to Beijing’s quest for a neutralized and recumbent periphery. Accordingly, it contends that America’s
Asian alliances are anachronisms, argues that Asian security should be managed by Asians alone, and promises
its neighbors a policy of “non-interference” as an assurance of China’s good intentions. If this strategy
writ large were to succeed, it would result in the successful decoupling of the
United States from Asia, it would entrench Chinese dominance on the continent, and it would
ultimately defeat the one grand strategic goal singularly pursued by the United
States since the beginning of the twentieth century: preventing the dominance of the
Eurasian landmass by any hegemonic power. Yet, it is precisely this outcome that will obtain if
the United States weakens in economic and technological achievement; if it fails
to maintain superior military capabilities overall; and if it diminishes in capacity
and resolve to protect its alliances located at both the western and eastern
extremities of the Eurasian heartland. Such outcomes will not only accelerate
China’s rise in relative power but they will ease China’s ability to operate
militarily in more distant global spaces where the United States has long enjoyed
unquestioned dominance. An effective response to this evolving Chinese challenge must be
grounded in a clear recognition of the fact—and a willingness to admit first and foremost to
ourselves—that China is already a long-term military competitor of the United States despite
the presence of strong bilateral economic ties; that it will be our most significant geopolitical rival in an
increasingly, yet asymmetrically, bipolar international system; and that it will be a challenger
not
merely along the Indo-Pacific rimlands but eventually also in Eurasia, Africa,
Latin America, and their adjoining waters. To offer just one probative illustration, the Chinese
navy is likely to surpass the U.S. navy in the number of major combatants sometime in the second quarter of
this century. With a fleet of such size and arguably comparable capabilities, it would be myopic to believe that
Chinese military interests would be restricted merely to the western Pacific and the Indian Oceans. The time
has come, therefore, to think more seriously about China as an emerging global
competitor with widely ranging, and often legitimate, economic and institutional
interests, rather than merely as a local Asian power that will forever be content to
subsist under the umbrella of unchallenged American global hegemony. There are
three elements that are essential to coping with this emerging Chinese challenge. PRESERVING U.S. GLOBAL
PRIMACY AND REGIONAL PREEMINENCE IN THE INDO-PACIFIC The first and perhaps most
important task facing the United States today—a task rendered more urgent because of the
recent election of President Donald J. Trump—is the need for a clear and public commitment
to the preservation of U.S. global primacy and its regional preeminence in the Indo-Pacific. The
distractions accompanying the slogan “America First” have created uncertainty in the minds of both U.S. allies
and competitors about whether Washington still remains committed to protecting its position in the
international system and preserving the international institutions that legitimize its leadership worldwide. Since
the election, the president has taken important and welcome steps to reaffirm the value of key alliances such as
NATO and those with Japan and South Korea, but there still persist lingering doubts in key capitals around the
world and especially in the Indo-Pacific region about whether the administration will remain consistently
committed to protecting the core elements of its international influence. This is not an abstract concern about
“international order” or about some other rarified concept that has little bearing on palpable American interests.
Instead, it is fundamentally about preserving an advantageous balance of power—a meaningful superiority over
our competitors—so that the United States can successfully parry threats to the homeland at distance and
simultaneously uphold international norms, rules, and institutions that both legitimize American preeminence
and economize on the necessity of repeatedly using “hard power” to attain American objectives. As Senator John
McCain has stated succinctly, preserving such a favorable balance of power requires “all
elements of our national influence—diplomacy, alliances, trade, values, and most
importantly, a strong U.S. military that can project power globally to deter war
and, when necessary, defeat America’s adversaries.” These resources, in turn, are
fielded entirely “for a simple reason: It benefits America most of all. It is in our
national interest” (Senator John McCain, Restoring American Power, Senate Armed Services Committee,
Washington, D.C., January 16, 2017, 2).
 Heg DA
Hegemony is good --- key to check Russia, Chinese, and Iran
revisionism – empirics prove net stability under heg
Brands and Edelman 17 --- Brands is senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) and
Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies . Eric Edelman is counselor at CSBA and the Practitioner in Residence at
SAIS. (Hal Brands and Eric Edleman, June 21, 2017, “America and the Geopolitics of Upheaval”, The National Interest.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/america-the-geopolitics-upheaval-21258)//from file
During Donald Trump’s presidency and after, U.S. foreign policy is likely to be wracked
by crises. The instability and violence along a resurgent Russia’s periphery, the
growing frictions with an increasingly assertive China, the provocations of a rapidly
nuclearizing North Korea and the profound chaos at work throughout the Middle
East: these and other challenges have recently tested U.S. officials and are likely to do so for the foreseeable
future. The world now seems less stable and more dangerous than at any time since the Cold War; the number and severity of
global crises are increasing. Yet crises do not occur in a vacuum; they are symptomatic of
deeper changes in the international order. Accordingly, America’s responses will be ill-informed and
astrategic unless Washington first forms a deeper conception of the current moment. The geopolitical changes
underway are often framed in terms of “polarity”—the debate on whether
America’s “unipolar moment” is over and a multipolar world has emerged. But this debate is misleading.
On the one hand, discussions of polarity frequently exaggerate American decline,
obscuring the fact that even though Washington’s international superiority has
diminished, its global lead over any single challenger remains quite impressive. On the
other hand, the polarity debate actually obscures both the degree and breadth of the ongoing changes in the international
system, and of the challenges facing American officials. The fundamental fact of international politics today is that the post–
Cold War era has ended. The defining
features of that period were uncontested U.S. and Western
primacy, marked declines in ideological struggle and great-power conflict, and
remarkable global cooperation in addressing key international-security
challenges. Now, however, the world has returned to a more normal—which is to say, more dangerous and unsettled—
state. The core characteristics of the emerging era are the gradual erosion of U.S. and Western primacy, revived great-power
competition across all three key regions of Eurasia, renewed global ideological struggle, and empowerment of the agents of
international strife and disorder. What makes the present period so tumultuous is that these forces often compound one
another’s destabilizing effects; moreover, their collective impact is magnified by a growing uncertainty about whether America
and other traditional defenders of the international system will continue playing that role in the future. American
primacy is not dead, in other words, and true multipolarity is still a long ways off. But
U.S. primacy is far more contested than at any time in a quarter-century, and the friendly contours of the post–
Cold War system have given way to a darker and more challenging environment. THE BEST way to understand the present era
is to compare it to the previous one. The
post–Cold War era was defined by four phenomena
that made it historically favorable to American interests. The first was
uncontested U.S. primacy. America emerged from the Cold War with clear
economic dominance, possessing nearly 25 percent of global GDP in 1994. It
controlled nearly 40 percent of world defense outlays, along with utterly
unrivaled advantages in global power-projection capabilities. Crucially, these capabilities not
only gave Washington an enormous lead over any geopolitical competitor; they also provided the ability—as Saddam Hussein
discovered in 1991—to marshal decisive military might in virtually all the key strategic regions around the world. In the
nineteenth century, the British ship of the line symbolized London’s global primacy; in the late twentieth century, the American
carrier strike group symbolized an even more imposing preeminence. Nor was American dominance purely unilateral, because it
was powerfully accentuated by the strengths of the broader Western coalition. In 1994, America’s treaty allies in Europe and the
Asia-Pacific accounted for 47 percent of global GDP and 35 percent of global military spending, giving Washington and its
closest friends upward of 70 percent of global economic power and military spending. Throughout the post–Cold War era, allied
involvement thus lent added force to U.S. diplomacy on key issues of international order; from the Gulf War to the war in
Afghanistan, allied contributions reinforced America’s ability to project military power overseas. This was no balance of power;
it was one of the most pronounced imbalances the world had ever seen. U.S.
dominance was also evident in
a second phenomenon—the decline of international ideological competition. Francis
Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis has been much derided, but it captured three indisputable facts about the post–Cold War
era: that democracy
and markets were spreading more widely than ever before; that
there was no credible global competitor to the liberal-capitalist model; and that even
former U.S. enemies, such as Russia, and authoritarian states, such as China,
were making unprecedented efforts to integrate into the liberal order either
economically, politically or both. To be clear, Western concepts of human rights and political democracy were far
from fully accepted in these countries, and Russian and Chinese leaders—among others—sooner or later came to see liberal
proselytism as a grave threat. But the intense ideological struggles of the twentieth century were clearly
over, and the liberal model seemed incontestably ascendant. These first two phenomena related to a third—the remarkable
great-power comity of the post–Cold War era. The end of the Cold War did not, as was widely expected, see a
fragmenting of America’s alliances, or a resurgence of Japanese and German revisionism. Rather, the major Western
powers remained tied to America, largely because Washington continued to
provide crucial global public goods such as security and leadership of an open
global economy. Moreover, the sheer geopolitical dominance of the Western coalition meant that it was dangerous if
not impossible for countries like Russia and China to mount serious great-power challenges of their own. Admittedly, there
remained sometimes-serious disagreements between the United States and these countries, over issues
from NATO enlargement to Taiwan, and those disagreements would grow more pronounced with time. But the danger
of great-power war was nonetheless historically low during the 1990s, and great-
power rivalries were more muted than at any time since the Concert of Europe.
All of these characteristics fed into a final post–Cold War phenomenon: remarkable
multilateral cooperation in addressing the relatively mild international disorder
of the day. With great-power conflict dormant, U.S. foreign policy and the
international community focused largely on combating lesser geopolitical
“spoilers,” from ethnic cleansing to mass-casualty terrorism to the actions of
aggressive regional powers such as Iraq or North Korea. These efforts, in turn, were greatly
aided by the relatively tranquil state of international politics. The absence of great-power conflict made it far easier to organize
broad coalitions to confront malevolent actors, whether Saddam Hussein in 1990–91 or Al Qaeda after 9/11. In the same vein,
great-power peace allowed America and its allies to devote increasing attention to other forms of post–Cold War disorder. The
fact that NATO could focus on “out of area” interventions for roughly two decades after the Soviet collapse, for instance, was
directly related to the paucity of more traditional geopolitical threats. It
would be a mistake, of course, to
exaggerate how benign or pliable the post–Cold War environment really was. The “global
disorder” of the period hardly seemed mild for the victims of catastrophic terrorism or ethnic cleansing; U.S. primacy
was not omnipotence, as Washington’s travails in places from Mogadishu to Srebrenica to Helmand amply
demonstrated. But by any meaningful historical comparison, the structure of international
politics was uniquely conducive to the promotion of U.S. interests and ideals—a
fact that is now the source of some nostalgia as the global system changes in five
significant ways. THE FIRST key structural shift underway is the erosion of U.S.
and Western primacy. It is incorrect to see this change as a transition from unipolarity to multipolarity, for true
multipolarity will not arrive anytime soon. The United States still possesses substantial economic
advantages over its closest competitor, China, namely an $18 trillion GDP that (as of
2015) was more than $7 trillion larger than China’s, and a per-capita GDP roughly four times that of China. U.S. defense
spending also remains around three times that of China, and Washington
maintains enormous advantages in the power-projection capabilities—aircraft carriers,
advanced tactical aircraft, nuclear-powered submarines and others—that allow it to command the global
commons and exert disproportionate influence around the world. What has
happened over the past fifteen years, however, is that the extent of U.S. and Western primacy
has diminished. The U.S. shares of global wealth and military spending have
declined from 25 percent and 42 percent, respectively, in 2004, to around 22 and 34
percent in 2015. The drop-off among America’s allies has been more severe. U.S. allies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific
commanded 47 percent of global GDP and 35 percent of global military spending in 1994; those shares had fallen to 39 and 25
percent, respectively, by 2015. Moreover, many of America’s most powerful allies—particularly in Europe—have undergone
severe military decline. The British Royal Navy once ruled the waves, but now struggles to rule even the waters around the home
islands; the German army faces equipment shortfalls so severe that its troops have had to exercise with broomsticks in place of
machine guns. Western overmatch remains impressive by historical standards, but the global playing field is slanted much less
dramatically than before. Meanwhile, the
relative positions of America’s principal competitors
have improved significantly. Russian economic power remains unimpressive, but an
aggressive military modernization program has roughly doubled defense spending over a decade while also developing the
capabilities needed to compete with the West—airborne assault units, special-operations forces, ballistic and other missile
systems, and anti-access/area-denial capabilities, among others. China, meanwhile, has
expanded its share of
global wealth more than threefold, from 3.3 to 11.8 percent, between 1994 and 2015, and its share of world
military spending more than fivefold, from 2.2 to 12.2 percent. As in Russia’s case, China’s military buildup has featured the
tools—ballistic and cruise missiles, diesel-electric and nuclear submarines, advanced air defenses, and fourth-generation
fighters—needed to offset longstanding U.S. advantages in the Asia-Pacific, as well as capabilities, such as aircraft carriers,
needed to project Chinese power even further afield. The uncontested U.S. primacy of the 1990s has become the highly
contested primacy of today. This
is no academic distinction; the pernicious effects of this
shift are already being seen. The decline of allied military power has made it
harder for those allies to defend themselves against growing security threats, and
to make more than token military contributions to addressing global challenges
such as the rise of the Islamic State. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates famously warned in 2011 that NATO
faced a “dim if not dismal future” if European capabilities continued to erode; American frustration has only become more
pronounced since then. More fundamentally still, the changing power balance means that U.S. rivals and adversaries now have
greater ability to shift the international order to suit their own preferences, a factor driving a second key shift in global politics
today. IF GREAT-POWER comity was the post–Cold War norm, great-power competition is the standard
today. Authoritarian rivals that were never fully reconciled to the post–Cold War order, and accepted it only to the degree
compelled by U.S. and Western primacy, are now using their greater relative power to push back against that order in key
geopolitical regions from East Asia to the Middle East to eastern Europe. Because Washington’s principal adversaries can
concentrate their resources regionally, rather than having to distribute them globally, the power shifts that have occurred in
recent years are having outsized effects at the regional level. And because the regional orders now being challenged have been
the foundation of the broader post–Cold War system, these countries are effectively subverting the system “from the bottom
up.” Consider Chinese
behavior in East Asia. Chinese leaders always saw America’s post–Cold War dominance
as a transitory condition to be suffered for a time, not something to be welcomed forever. And so as
China’s
geopolitical potential has soared, Beijing has taken bolder steps to erect a Sino-
centric regional order. It has asserted expansive maritime claims and used
techniques such as island building to shift facts on the ground without risking a
premature military clash with America. It has challenged longstanding norms such as
freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and steadily increased efforts to coerce its neighbors. It has
probed and worked to weaken U.S. alliances and partnerships, by simultaneously
wooing and intimidating America’s regional friends. Finally, Beijing has conducted a major
military buildup focused precisely on capabilities that will give it dominance over its neighbors and prevent the United States
from intervening in their defense. These efforts are now having an accumulating effect. Chinese
coercion has
dramatically altered perceptions of momentum and power in the region, while
the Chinese buildup has made the outcome of a Sino-American war over Taiwan
or other regional hotspots far more doubtful. Chinese economic diplomacy has drawn many countries
in the region closer into Beijing’s economic orbit. “America has lost” the struggle for regional supremacy, President Rodrigo
Duterte of the Philippines announced in 2016—an exaggeration, surely, but a marker of how contested the region has become.
Great-power competition is even more unvarnished in Europe, where a militarily
resurgent Russia is reasserting lost influence and undoing key aspects of the post–
Cold War settlement. Moscow has waged wars of conquest against Georgia and Ukraine; it has worked to undermine
NATO and the European Union through efforts ranging from paramilitary subversion, to military intimidation, to financial
support for anti-EU and anti-NATO politicians and other intervention in Western political processes. In doing all of this,
Russia has fundamentally contested the notion of a post–Cold War Europe
whole, free and at peace; it has challenged—with some success—the institutions
that have long maintained security and prosperity in the region. And as with China, these
actions have been underwritten by a military buildup that has restored Russian
overmatch along NATO’s exposed eastern flank and enhanced Moscow’s ability to project power as
far afield as the Middle East. Russia has become an ambitious great power again: it is asserting its prerogatives in ways that only
seem anomalous in contrast to the remarkable cooperation of the post–Cold War era. Finally, geopolitical
revisionism is alive and well in the Middle East. Iran is not in the same power-political class as Russia
or China, but it is a regional power seeking to assert regional mastery. It is doing so via
the use of proxies and its own forces in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, via the
weaponization of sectarianism in countries across the region, and via investments in
asymmetric capabilities such as ballistic missiles and special-operations forces. This agenda has led Tehran into
conflict with U.S. security partners such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; it has contributed significantly to
the instability that plagues the region. Each of these geopolitical challenges is different, of course. But taken collectively, they
represent a geopolitical sea change from the post–Cold War era. The revival
of great-power competition
entails sharper international tensions than have been known for decades, and the
return of Cold War phenomena such as arms races and security dilemmas. It entails intensifying conflicts over the global rules
of the road, on issues from freedom of navigation in the South China Sea to the illegitimacy of altering borders by force. It
entails starker struggles over states that reside at the intersection of rival great powers’ spheres of influence, such as the
Philippines, Ukraine and Iraq. Finally, it raises the prospect that great-power rivalry could lead to
great-power war—a phenomenon that seemed to have followed the Soviet Union
onto the ash heap of history with the end of the Cold War. The world has not yet returned to the
titanic geopolitical struggles of the twentieth century, but it is returning to the historical norm of
great-power strife—with all the dangers that entails. AS GREAT-POWER competition has
returned, so has global ideological struggle. If the post–Cold War era featured a widespread assumption that the dominance of
the liberal political-economic model was incontestable, the current era is seeing the revival of authoritarian challenges and the
reemergence of ideological differences as a driver of geopolitical conflict. Today’s world is rife not just with geopolitical
revisionism, but with ideological revisionism as well. To begin with, the spread of democracy has stalled. Between 1974 and
2000, the number of electoral democracies tripled, from thirty-nine to 120. Yet the number of electoral democracies has
remained roughly stagnant since then, and in every year since 2006 more countries have experienced declines in freedom than
increases. From the rise of antidemocratic leaders in Venezuela and Turkey, to the erosion of democratic norms within NATO
countries such as Poland and Hungary, democracy’s travails are an increasingly global phenomenon. Authoritarian
models, meanwhile, are making a comeback. Tenacious dictators have mobilized the power of technology to
better monitor and repress dissent. Moreover, the economic and social difficulties many democracies have encountered in
recent years have created an opening for unabashedly authoritarian leaders. Hungary’s Viktor Orban made global headlines in
2014 when he castigated the debilities of liberal society and declared the ascendancy of the “illiberal state.” Likewise, powerful
authoritarian states are assiduously working not just to repress internal challenges, but to thwart and reverse democracy’s
advance overseas. Russia and China are supporting besieged authoritarian regimes, while also resisting efforts to punish gross
human-rights violations through the United Nations. In recent years, in fact, all three of America’s major geopolitical
competitors—Russia, Iran and China—have joined forces to support Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime in Syria, through
measures ranging from intelligence and economic support to full-on military intervention. The end of history has ended; the
global ideological battle has been joined once more. That ideological
battle, in turn, has reemerged as a
marker and cause of great-power rivalry. The United States and its largely
democratic allies increasingly find themselves in conflict with revisionist
authoritarian governments in Russia and China. This is no coincidence. Opposing
domestic political structures fuel mutual mistrust; they create differing visions of
what type of international order is legitimate and desirable. Washington has long sought a
world full of democracies, and it has viewed the persistence of powerful authoritarian states as an affront to that project.
Russian and Chinese leaders are desperate to make the world safe for authoritarians, and view U.S. foreign policy as a menace to
that project. A
great hope of the post–Cold War world was that ideological
convergence would lead to greater geopolitical harmony. Alas, today ideological struggle and
great-power conflict increasingly go hand in hand. THESE FIRST three characteristics relate to a fourth marker of the evolving
international system: an intensification of global disorder. Throughout the post–Cold War era, U.S. policymakers feared that
bipolarity’s end would unleash new or previously repressed forms of upheaval. And although that era has ended, we now see not
an abatement, but an exacerbation of upheaval. As Hedley Bull wrote in The Anarchical Society, international politics features
the continual clash between the forces of order and disorder. Today, due to factors ranging from rapid technological change to
the disruptions caused by globalization, the agents of disorder seem more empowered than at any time in decades. That
empowerment is evident in phenomena that might otherwise seem unconnected. Take the emergence of super-spoilers—actors
that cannot remake the international order, but can disrupt it fundamentally. North Korea now boasts an increasingly robust
nuclear arsenal and is doggedly building an intercontinental delivery capability, controlled by an alarmingly bellicose
leadership. Pyongyang is thus developing continually greater ability to underwrite its perpetually provocative behavior, and to
threaten its opponents in the region and beyond with greater damage than ever before. Then there is the Islamic State. Although
its military fortunes are in decline, the Islamic State has shown unprecedented ability, among nonstate actors, to foster chaos in
a crucial geopolitical region, to master the use of technology for propaganda and recruiting purposes and to command or inspire
acts of violence around the globe. Concern with rogue actors is nothing new, but not since Saddam Hussein’s defeat in 1991 have
the rogues been so capable of profound geopolitical disruption as they are today. The rise of the Islamic State also illuminates
another aspect of intensifying disorder, which is that contemporary instability is now manifesting itself on a scale not seen for
many years. To say that today’s Middle East is in crisis is a laughable understatement; the region is suffering a generalized
breakdown of order comparable to what befell Europe during the Thirty Years’ War. Military conflicts are raging in the Arabian
Peninsula, Iraq, the Levant and Libya; violent instability flourishes nearly from one end of the region to the other. The
traditional authoritarian Arab state model has been undermined in some countries and collapsed in others; international
borders have been rendered irrelevant. Whether—let alone when—the Middle East will be put back together is anyone’s guess;
in the meantime, Middle Eastern instability has spread to neighboring areas such as Europe, with refugee flows and terrorist
attacks having profound political and security effects. A final manifestation of intensified global disorder is the proliferation of
issues that are increasingly difficult to address through existing international fora. In recent years, global governance has
worked fairly well on some issues—addressing the 2007–8 financial crisis, or suppressing piracy off the Horn of Africa. But on
other issues, from the threats posed by cyberespionage and cyberwarfare, to the dilemmas of reconciling state sovereignty to the
protection of human rights, to the challenges of making globalization work for communities that often feel themselves battered
by impersonal economic and technological forces, the complexity of transnational problems seems to be outpacing the capacity
of extant institutions. All of these issues contribute to an international environment in which instability has taken on alarming
dimensions. And if it was hard enough for the international community to address such issues amid great-power comity, it is
now harder still amid surging great-power competition. Compare the painfully slow, but ultimately effective, international
response to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia during the 1990s with the utterly ineffective efforts to address a greater catastrophe in
Syria today. In the former case, U.S. dominance and decent relations with Russia made possible international consensus on the
need to use force in Bosnia, and Moscow even participated in the subsequent NATO-led peacekeeping mission. In the latter
case, resurgent Russian rivalry with Washington has consistently frustrated efforts to bring the Syrian Civil War to an end.
Great-power conflict has also complicated efforts to develop international norms
regarding cyberspace. In fact, as demonstrated by aggressive Russian and Chinese
hacking of U.S. systems—including Moscow’s effort to influence the 2016 presidential election—cyberspace
 has become an arena for geopolitical rivalry. The contested nature of the new
global politics is exacerbated by the fact that the sources of today’s international
upheaval often exacerbate one another.

U.S. militarization is vital to global stability---decline causes

nuclear great power war---this card is more warranted than
theirs
Brooks et al, Ikenberry, and Wohlforth 13 Stephen, Associate
Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, John Ikenberry
is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International
Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and
the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs,
William C. Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor in the
Department of Government at Dartmouth College “Don’t Come
Home America: The Case Against Retrenchment,” International
Security, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Winter 2012/13), pp. 7–51
A core premise of deep engagement is that it prevents the emergence of a far more
dangerous global security environment. For one thing, as noted above, the United States’ overseas
presence gives it the leverage to restrain partners from taking
provocative action. Perhaps more important, its core alliance commitments also deter states with
aspirations to regional hegemony from contemplating expansion and make its partners more secure,

reducing their incentive to adopt solutions to their security problems that threaten
others and thus stoke security dilemmas. The contention that engaged U.S. power dampens the baleful effects of
anarchy is consistent with influential variants of realist theory. Indeed, arguably the scariest portrayal of the war-prone world that would emerge
absent the “American Pacifier” is provided in the works of John Mearsheimer, who
forecasts dangerous multipolar regions replete with security competition, arms
races, nuclear proliferation and associated preventive war temptations,
regional rivalries, and even runs at regional hegemony and full-scale great
power war. 72 How do retrenchment advocates, the bulk of whom are realists, discount this benefit? Their arguments are complicated, but
two capture most of the variation: (1) U.S. security guarantees are not necessary to prevent dangerous rivalries and conflict in Eurasia; or (2)
prevention of rivalry and conflict in Eurasia is not a U.S. interest. Each response is connected to a different theory or set of theories, which makes
sense given that the whole debate hinges on a complex future counterfactual (what would happen to Eurasia’s security setting if the United States
truly disengaged?). Although a certain answer is impossible, each of these responses is nonetheless a weaker argument for retrenchment than
advocates acknowledge. The first response flows from defensive realism as well as other international relations theories that discount the conflict-
generating potential of anarchy under contemporary conditions. 73 Defensive realists maintain that the high expected costs of territorial conquest,
defense dominance, and an array of policies and practices that can be used credibly to signal benign intent, mean that Eurasia’s major states could
manage regional multipolarity peacefully without the American pacifier. Retrenchment would be a bet on this scholarship, particularly in regions
where the kinds of stabilizers that nonrealist theories point to—such as democratic governance or dense institutional linkages—are either absent or
weakly present. There are three other major bodies of scholarship, however, that might give decisionmakers pause before making this bet. First is
regional expertise. Needless to say, there is no consensus on the net security effects of U.S. withdrawal. Regarding each region, there are optimists
and pessimists. Few experts expect a return of intense great power competition in a post-American Europe, but many doubt European governments
The result
will pay the political costs of increased EU defense cooperation and the budgetary costs of increasing military outlays. 74

might be a Europe that is incapable of securing itself from various

threats that could be destabilizing within the region and beyond (e.g., a
regional conflict akin to the 1990s Balkan wars), lacks capacity for global security missions in

which U.S. leaders might want European participation, and is

vulnerable to the influence of outside rising powers. What about the other parts of Eurasia
where the United States has a substantial military presence? Regarding the Middle East, the balance begins to swing

toward pessimists concerned that states currently backed by Washington— notably Israel, Egypt, and Saudi

Arabia—might take actions upon U.S. retrenchment that would

intensify security dilemmas. And concerning East Asia, pessimism
regarding the region’s prospects without the American pacifier is
pronounced. Arguably the principal concern expressed by area experts is that Japan and South Korea
are likely to obtain a nuclear capacity and increase their military
commitments, which could stoke a destabilizing reaction from China. It is
notable that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan moved to obtain a nuclear weapons capacity and were only constrained from doing
so by a still-engaged United States. 75 The second body of scholarship casting doubt on the bet on defensive realism’s sanguine portrayal is all of the
Defensive realism’s optimism about what would
research that undermines its conception of state preferences.

happen if the United States retrenched is very much dependent on its particular—
and highly restrictive—assumption about state preferences; once we relax this
assumption, then much of its basis for optimism vanishes. Specifically, the prediction of post-
American tranquility throughout Eurasia rests on the assumption that security is the only relevant state preference, with security defined narrowly in
terms of protection from violent external attacks on the homeland. Under that assumption, the security problem is largely solved as soon as offense
and defense are clearly distinguishable, and offense is extremely expensive relative to defense. Burgeoning research across
the social and other sciences, however, undermines that core assumption:
states have preferences not only for security but also for prestige, status,
and other aims, and they engage in trade-offs among the various objectives. 76 In addition, they define
security not just in terms of territorial protection but in view of many and varied milieu goals. It follows that even states that are

relatively secure may nevertheless engage in highly competitive

behavior. Empirical studies show that this is indeed sometimes the case. 77 In sum, a bet
on a benign postretrenchment Eurasia is a bet that leaders of major countries will never allow these nonsecurity preferences to influence their
U.S. retrenchment
strategic choices. To the degree that these bodies of scholarly knowledge have predictive leverage,

would result in a significant deterioration in the security environment in at least

some of the world’s key regions. We have already mentioned the third, even more alarming body of scholarship.
Offensive realism predicts that the withdrawal of the American
pacifier will yield either a competitive regional multipolarity
complete with associated insecurity, arms racing, crisis instability, nuclear
proliferation, and the like, or bids for regional hegemony, which may be beyond the
capacity of local great powers to contain (and which in any case would
generate intensely competitive behavior, possibly including regional great
power war). Hence it is unsurprising that retrenchment advocates are prone to focus on the second argument noted above: that
avoiding wars and security dilemmas in the world’s core regions is not a U.S. national interest. Few doubt that the United States could survive the
return of insecurity and conflict among Eurasian powers, but at what cost? Much of the work in this area has focused on the economic externalities of
a renewed threat of insecurity and war, which we discuss below. Focusing on the pure security ramifications, there are two main reasons why
overall higher levels of
decisionmakers may be rationally reluctant to run the retrenchment experiment. First,

conflict make the world a more dangerous place. Were Eurasia to return to higher levels of
interstate military competition, one would see overall higher levels of military

spending and innovation and a higher likelihood of competitive

regional proxy wars and arming of client states—all of which would be concerning, in part because it
would promote a faster diffusion of military power away from the United
States. Greater regional insecurity could well feed proliferation cascades, as
states such as Egypt, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia
all might choose to create nuclear forces. 78 It is unlikely that proliferation decisions by any of these
actors would be the end of the game: they would likely generate pressure locally for more proliferation. Following Kenneth Waltz, many retrenchment
advocates are proliferation optimists, assuming that nuclear deterrence solves the security problem. 79 Usually carried out in dyadic terms, the
Proliferation optimism rests on
debate over the stability of proliferation changes as the numbers go up.

assumptions of rationality and narrow security preferences. In social science,

however, such assumptions are inevitably probabilistic. Optimists assume that most states are
led by rational leaders, most will overcome organizational problems and resist the temptation to preempt before feared neighbors nuclearize, and
most pursue only security and are risk averse. Confidence in such probabilistic assumptions
declines if the world were to move from nine to twenty, thirty, or forty nuclear states.
In addition, many of the other dangers noted by analysts who are concerned about the destabilizing

effects of nuclear proliferation—including the risk of accidents and the prospects

that some new nuclear powers will not have truly survivable forces—seem prone to go up as the number of nuclear

powers grows. 80 Moreover, the risk of “unforeseen crisis dynamics” that could spin out of
control is also higher as the number of nuclear powers increases. Finally, add to these concerns the enhanced danger of nuclear leakage, and a
world with overall higher levels of security competition becomes yet more worrisome. The argument that maintaining Eurasian peace is not a U.S.
interest faces a second problem. On widely accepted realist assumptions, acknowledging that U.S. engagement preserves
peace dramatically narrows the difference between retrenchment and deep engagement. For many supporters of retrenchment, the optimal
strategy for a power such as the United States, which has attained regional hegemony and is separated from other great powers by oceans, is offshore
balancing: stay over the horizon and “pass the buck” to local powers to do the dangerous work of counterbalancing any local rising power. The United
States should commit to onshore balancing only when local balancing is likely to fail and a great power appears to be a credible contender for regional
China’s rise puts
hegemony, as in the cases of Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the midtwentieth century. The problem is that

the possibility of its attaining regional hegemony on the table, at least in the medium to long term. As
Mearsheimer notes, “The United States will have to play a key role in countering China ,

because its Asian neighbors are not strong enough to do it by themselves.” 81 Therefore, unless China’s rise stalls,
“the United States is likely to act toward China similar to the way it behaved toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War.” 82 It follows that the
United States should take no action that would compromise its capacity to move to onshore balancing in the future. It will need to maintain key
alliance relationships in Asia as well as the formidably expensive military capacity to intervene there. The implication is to get out of Iraq and
the argument
Afghanistan, reduce the presence in Europe, and pivot to Asia— just what the United States is doing. 83 In sum,

that U.S. security commitments are unnecessary for peace is

countered by a lot of scholarship, including highly influential realist scholarship. In addition, the argument that
Eurasian peace is unnecessary for U.S. security is weakened by the potential for a large number of nasty security consequences as well as the need to
retain a latent onshore balancing capacity that dramatically reduces the savings retrenchment might bring. Moreover, switching between offshore and
onshore balancing could well be difªcult. Bringing together the thrust of many of the arguments discussed so far underlines the degree to which the
case for retrenchment misses the underlying logic of the deep engagement strategy. By supplying reassurance, deterrence, and active management,
the United States lowers security competition in the world’s key regions, thereby
preventing the emergence of a hothouse atmosphere for growing new
military capabilities. Alliance ties dissuade partners from ramping up and also provide leverage to prevent military transfers
to potential rivals. On top of all this, the United States’ formidable military machine may deter

entry by potential rivals. Current great power military expenditures as a percentage of GDP are at historical lows, and
thus far other major powers have shied away from seeking to match top-end U.S. military capabilities. In addition, they have so far been careful to
avoid attracting the “focused enmity” of the United States. 84 All of the world’s most modern militaries are U.S. allies (America’s alliance system of
more than sixty countries now accounts for some 80 percent of global military spending), and the gap between the U.S. military capability and that of
potential rivals is by many measures growing rather than shrinking. 85
 Oil Research DA
Conflict not locked in – With proper management the arctic can
renew global trust and cooperation
Munich Security Conference 10-4-17
https://www.securityconference.de/en/news/article/cooperation-and-potential-conflict-in-the-arctic-msc-will-host-arctic-security-
roundtable-in-reykj/
The Arctic is in flux like literally no other region on earth, and many of its governance issues may
be in flux as well. Managed properly, Arctic issues could serve as a driver of renewed trust
between the West, Russia, and China, and of renewed confidence in the rule of law
and joint global governance. But, if handled poorly, they could easily exacerbate
existing tensions. Thus, it is vital to advance the understanding of potential areas of
cooperation and conflict in the region. For this purpose, Prime Minister of Iceland Bjarni Benediktsson, Swedish
Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist, and Finnish Minister for Nordic Cooperation Anne-Catherine Berner, along with 40
other high-ranking decision-makers and preeminent experts will meet at the MSC Arctic Security Roundtable. Focal points
of the discussions will include the state of Arctic governance with respect to security issues, the prospects of cooperation
across a number of fields, as well as differences in expectations and threat perceptions between countries.

US focused on Cooperation with Russia

Sputnik 10-11-17 https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201710111058116919-usa-army-
hodges-russia-cooperation/
There are a number of ways for likely cooperation between the United States and
Russia as Washington seeks to avoid conflict with Moscow, the US Army Europe
commanding general Ben Hodges said at a conference on Tuesday. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Ben
Hodges indicated on Tuesday at a conference hosted by the Association of the US Army the focal points of potential
cooperation between Moscow and Washington. "We absolutely want to keep the door open with Russia," Hodges said.
"Nobody wants to get in any type of kinetic conflict with them. It is entirely
possible to cooperate." Hodges said two areas of concern the United States and Russia
can cooperate are in joining efforts to tackle Islamic extremism as well as human
and drug trafficking. "Russia has bigger challenge with Islamic extremism than we do. They are a constant
threat; this is an area where we can clearly cooperate," Hodges said. Moreover, Hodges claimed the realities of
climate change and navigation make the Arctic region an area where the two
countries must cooperate. "The Arctic is an area where we will have to cooperate.
With climate change and increased navigation across the top of the world, we will have to cooperate," he added. The
conference dubbed "Achieving Deterrence in Europe Through Land Power Dominance" focused on enhanced cooperation
among partner states to combat foreign aggression, maintain regional strength and advance common interests. The
Association of the US Army is a non-profit organization that acts primarily as an advocacy group for the military branch.
The association was founded in 1950 and has 119 chapters worldwide.

Attempts to militarize the arctic will be seen as an infringement

on Russian military bases and escalate conflict. Parker 17
Clifton B. Parker, 1-30-2017, "Russia's Arctic military build-up
explained," https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/news/russias-arctic-
military-build SP
The Arctic appears as one of the most stable Russian border regions, which
makes the rapid defense build-up by a Russian government with a slowing economy quite perplexing
to many observers, noted Zysk. Apart from the economy, she explains the military strategies involved: “Russia has
revived the Cold War ‘Bastion’ concept in the Barents Sea: In case of conflict, the Northern
Fleet’s task is to form maritime areas closed to penetration for enemy naval forces, where Russia would deploy
strategic submarines and maintain control. In the areas further south, Russia would seek
 to deny control for potential adversaries. It also gives Russia a possibility to
attack an enemy’s sea lines of communication,” she said. On top of this, Russia’s
modernization efforts are focused on modernizing its nuclear deterrent, including
building fourth-generation strategic submarines of the Borei class: three are completed, and five
are under different stages of construction, according to Zysk. Russia is also building new attack
submarines, as well as new frigates and corvettes, though the shipbuilding
industry is struggling with delivering these on time, she added. Also, the Artic provides
Russia a strategic gateway to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Zysk said, which is
important given that Russia’s naval forces are separated between four theaters of
operations – the Pacific, the Arctic-Atlantic, the Baltic and the Black Sea. As a result of climate change, Russia may
be able to more freely move its warships between its main bases along the Northern Sea Route, she added. “Importantly,
the forces in the Arctic are not going to stay only in the Arctic. With the increased mobility, the military units can be
transferred rapidly to support Russia military operations in other regions, as we have observed in eastern Ukraine, where
Russia has used a brigade deployed in the High North. The trend is likely to continue, also because Russia’s military
capabilities remain limited, despite the ongoing modernization,” she said. Perceived threats Russia
considers that if it engaged in conflict with other great powers, such as the United
States, the Arctic would be a major target, Zysk said. Russia has also rehearsed
scenarios when the biggest part of the Russian Navy based in the Arctic, the
Northern Fleet, would be activated during conflicts escalating in other regions.
That’s a reason for the strengthening of its defenses in the region. “In the Russian assessment, an aerial attack from the
Arctic region may pose military threats to the entire Russian territory. In particular, however, Russia is concerned about
the sea-based nuclear deterrent deployed in the Arctic. As a result, Russia
has devoted a strong focus to
increasing air defense and air control across the Arctic,” she said. Apart from threats from
state actors, environmental accidents, trafficking, terrorist attacks on industrial infrastructure or increased foreign
intelligence also make the Arctic, in Russia’s view, a vulnerable territory. Finally, the
issue of Russia’s vast
energy reserves and other rich natural resources in the Arctic are another factor.
The development of the Arctic is seen as one of the solutions to what ails the
Russian economy. Zysk said, “Since the early 2000s, the Russian political and military
leadership has systematically argued that there will be an acute shortage of
energy resources worldwide, which may lead to a conflict, and that the West, led
by the United States, may attempt to seize Russia’s oil and gas.” While this assessment is
controversial, Zysk points to statements by the top Russian political and military leadership, including Valery Gerasimov,
the chief of the Russian General Staff, that suggests the Russian leadership believes such scenario may occur by 2030. “It
may also explain some of the military investments in the region, such as reactivating 13 military airfields across the Arctic,
paratroopers’ exercises and amphibious landing operations along the Northern Sea Route,” she said. In addition ,
the
Arctic holds a symbolically important place in Russia’s history and national
identity, according to Zysk. “Displays of military strength, accompanied by rhetoric that
portrays Russia as the Arctic superpower, resonate well with the Russian public,
especially in communities where feelings of nationalism and isolationism run
deep,” she said. As a result of the military modernization, she added, Russia is today better prepared to
participate in complex military operations than a decade ago, especially in joint
operations, strategic mobility and rapid deployments. “Russia’s ability to limit or
deny access and control various parts of the Arctic has increased accordingly,” Zysk
said.

Any military expansion into the Arctic risks Russian military

retaliation
Atland, 3/25 - Dr. Kristian Atland, PhD in political science from the University of Tromsø and a
MA degree in Russian studies from the University of Oslo and Senior Research Fellow,
Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI); “Russian-Western Relations in the Arctic:
Perceptions, Policies, and Prospects,” http://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/russian-
western-relations-in-the-arctic-perceptions-policies-and-prospects_1280.html // MS
Six years ago, Russia adopted an ambitious national strategy for the Arctic region. The
strategy was aimed at turning the region into a strategic resource base for the Russian
Federation by 2020, and at preserving the country’s role as a leading Arctic power . The
implementation of the strategy has been accompanied by a gradual increase in Russia’s
military activity in the Arctic. Russia’s naval presence in the northern waters is higher
today than it was in the 1990s and early 2000s, on the surface as well as under water, and Russia
has since August 2007 conducted numerous long-range bomber flights in the international airspace over the Barents Sea,
the Greenland Sea, and other parts of the Arctic. In Russia, this activity is largely seen as a “response”
to measures taken by the other Arctic coastal states, all four of which happen to be NATO members.¶
The four other Arctic coastal states – Canada, the United States, Denmark, and Norway – are following
developments in the Russian Arctic with a heightened sense of awareness. Like Russia, the four attach
considerable importance to their economic and national security interests in the region,
as reflected in their Arctic/Northern/High North strategies, adopted in 2006–2011. Some are concerned that
the growing industrial and commercial activity in the Arctic (ship traffic, petroleum
activities, fisheries, cruise tourism etc.) may have adverse impacts on the environment,
particularly in the event of a large oil spill. Others are concerned that disagreements
over borders and jurisdiction may lead to a deterioration of interstate relationships in
the region. Still others are concerned that the renewed international interest in Arctic
affairs, among Arctic as well as non-Arctic states, will lead to an incremental
militarization of the region, and that this may eventually undermine the political and
military stability that currently characterizes the circumpolar Arctic.¶ As of today, Russia and
the other Arctic coastal states do not seem to have a proper forum where they can
discuss military security issues and concerns related to the Arctic. Russia is neither a NATO
member nor part of the Western security community. The NATO-Russia Council has so far not been able to serve as an
arena for NATO-Russia dialogue on Arctic security. The same goes for the Arctic Council, which is not seen by either party
as a forum in which “hard” (military) security issues can or should be discussed. Russian-Western relations in
the Arctic are still marked by a largely lacking sense of trust and confidence. On top of that,
recent developments in Ukraine’s Crimea region are likely to have a negative impact on
Russia’s relations with the EU and NATO, at least for some time.¶ Russian policymakers and
media have in recent years had a tendency to portray any foreign military activity in the
Arctic as hostile

and provocative, even when such activity takes place well outside the country’s
territorial waters or airspace and does not infringe on recognized Russian rights. The
Russians are concerned that foreign state or non-state actors may try to take control of
natural resources and/or shipping lanes rightfully belonging to the Russian Federation.
According to a recent statement by Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, the United States,
Norway, Denmark, and Canada are pursuing “a common and coordinated policy aimed at denying Russia access to the
riches of the Arctic continental shelf”. In a somewhat similar manner, Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has
stated on several occasions that his country faces “increasingly aggressive Russian actions”, necessitating adequate
defensive measures.¶ Obviously, statements such as the ones cited above are often intended for domestic audiences and
should not necessarily be taken at face value. At the same time, there are many indications that the security concerns are
genuine, and that fear
is a factor in Arctic politics also in 2014. Many Arctic states are
concerned that their neighbors or outside actors may attempt to infringe on their rights
and interests, including the access to natural resources or shipping lanes of considerable
value to their national economies. None of the states that surround the Arctic Ocean
exclude the possibility of interstate disputes in the region, and none of them are willing
to rely on anyone except themselves to protect their northern maritime borders,
 sovereignty, and sovereign rights.¶ For Russia as well as for other Arctic rim states, the stakes are
undoubtedly high. It is estimated that some 30 per cent of the world’s undiscovered reserves of natural gas, and 13 per
cent of the undiscovered reserves of oil, are located north of the Arctic Circle. Among the areas specified for future
development are Russia’s Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia and the continental shelf in the Barents and Kara Seas.
In a more distant future, petroleum operations in areas further north and east may become a reality. Russia will
soon claim ownership to a shelf area of 1.2 million square kilometers (460,000 square miles)
between the outer limits of the country’s current 200-nautical-mile economic zone and
the North Pole. Efforts are also taken to facilitate an increase in ship traffic along the northern coast of the Eurasian
continent. The annual number of passages along this northern waterway is still fairly modest (71 in 2013), but cargo
volumes are growing year by year.¶ The
Arctic coastal states’ security concerns on the northern
frontier are shaped not only by the region’s emerging role as an arena for economic and
industrial activity, but also by the region’s place in the nuclear deterrence strategies of
Russia and the United States. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States developed long-range
nuclear weapons that could be launched across the Arctic Ocean, either from locations on land, from the sea, or from the
air. The number of deployed warheads has been reduced significantly since then, but all elements of the nuclear triads
are still in operation and thus relevant to the security situation in the region. The weapons have also become
more sophisticated, most notably with the development of land- and sea-based anti-ballistic missile (ABM)
systems, particularly after the collapse of the ABM Treaty regime in the early 2000s. The latter development is
likely to remain a source of contention between the United States and Russia, which sees
sea-based ABM systems as a potential threat to its nuclear deterrent in the Arctic. ¶
When developing strategies to cope with future threats that might arise, security
analysts have a tendency to “ assume the worst”, that is, scenarios that do not necessarily
reflect the current state of affairs. Not knowing the (future) intentions of their neighbors
or outside actors, they are afraid to risk shortfalls in military capability, and may
therefore chose to “play it safe”. Based on their own interpretation of other actors’
intentions and military potential, they may advocate measures to strengthen domestic
military capabilities. Once implemented, these measures may be perceived by other states as
potentially threatening, and lead to military or other counter-measures. In the International
Relations literature, this phenomenon is often referred to as “the security dilemma”.
US-Russia war goes nuclear – causes extinction. Baum 14
Executive Director @ Global Catastrophic Risk Institute [Seth
Baum (Ph.D. in Geography @Pennsylvania State University and
a Post-Doctoral Fellowship @ Columbia University Center for
Research on Environmental Decisions), “Best And Worst Case
Scenarios for Ukraine Crisis: World Peace And Nuclear War,”
Huffington Post, May 7, 2014
Here's the short version: The best case scenario has the Ukraine crisis being resolved diplomatically through increased Russia-Europe cooperation, which would be
The worst case scenario has the crisis escalating into nuclear war
a big step towards world peace.

between the United States and Russia, causing human extinction.¶ Let's start with
the worst case scenario, nuclear war involving the American and Russian
arsenals. How bad would that be? Put it this way: Recent analysis finds that a "limited" India-Pakistan nuclear war could
kill two billion people via agricultural declines from nuclear winter. This "limited"
war involves just 100 nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Russia combine to possess
about 16,700 nuclear weapons. Humanity may not survive the aftermath of a
U.S.-Russia nuclear war.¶ It seems rather unlikely that the U.S. and Russia would end up in nuclear war over Ukraine. Sure, they have
opposing positions, but neither side has anywhere near enough at stake to justify such extraordinary measures. Instead, it seems a lot more likely that the whole
We cannot rule out the
crisis will get resolved with a minimum of deaths. However, the story has already taken some surprising plot twists.

possibility of it ending in direct nuclear war.¶ A nuclear war could also occur
inadvertently, i.e. when a false alarm is misinterpreted as real, and nuclear
weapons are launched in what is believed to be a counterattack. There have been
several alarmingly close calls of inadvertent U.S.-Russia nuclear war over the
years. Perhaps the most relevant is the 1995 Norwegian rocket incident. A rocket carrying
scientific equipment was launched off northern Norway. Russia detected the rocket on its radar and

interpreted it as a nuclear attack. Its own nuclear forces were put on alert and Boris Yeltsin
was presented the question of whether to launch Russia's nuclear weapons in response . Fortunately, Yeltsin and the Russian General Staff

apparently sensed it was a false alarm and declined to launch. Still, the disturbing lesson

from this incident is that nuclear war could begin even during periods of calm.