Mexico Border Infrastructure Affirmative - SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013
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US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff
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On-Case Debate
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Plan
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Plan
Plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement toward Mexico by providing all necessary funding for the expansion of the North American Development Bank.
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Advantage Modules
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Environment Advantage Module

The US-Mexico border biodiversity is key to survival Nabhan 2K - Gary Paul, writer, lecturer and world-renown conservation scientist
(Biodiversity: The Variety of Life that Sustains Our Own, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, January 2000, http://www.desertmuseum.org/books/nhsd_biodiversity.php)
An excerpt from A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert There
is a place in the Sonoran Desert borderlands which, more than any other I know, capsulizes what the term diversity has come to mean to both natural and social scientists alike. The place is a desert oasis known as Quitobaquito, centered on a spring-fed wetland at the base of some cactus-stippled hills that lie smack dab on the U.S.-Mexico border. Whenever I walk around there, I am astounded by the curious juxtapositions of waterloving and drought-tolerating plants, of micro-moths wedded to single senita cacti, and hummingbirds that have traveled hundreds of miles to visit ocotillos, of prehistoric potsherds of ancient Patayan and Hohokam cultures side by side with broken glass fragments left by O'odham, Anglo- and Hispanic-American cultures. Walk down from its ridges of granite, schist, and gneiss, and you will see organpipe cactus growing within a few yards of arrowweed, cattails, and bulrushes immersed in silty, saline sediments. The oasis has its own peculiar population of desert pupfish in artesian springs just a stone's throw from the spot where a native caper tree makes its only appearance in the United States. The tree itself is the only known food source for the pierid butterfly that is restricted in range to the Sonoran Desert proper. More than 270 plant species, over a hundred bird species, and innumerable insects find Quitobaquito to be a moist harbor on the edge of a sea of sand and cinder. Not far to the west of this oasis, there
are volcanic ridges that have frequently suffered consecutive years without measurable rainfall, and their impoverished plant and animal communities reflect that. Quitobaquito , but its diversity has also been enhanced rather than permanently harmed by centuries of human occupation. Prehistoric Hohokam and Patayan, historic Tohono O'odham, Hia c-ed O'odham, Apache, Cucupa, and Pai Pai visited Quitobaquito for food and drink long before European missionaries first arrived there in 1698. Since that time, a stream of residents from O'odham, exican, Jewish, and Mormon families have excavated ponds and irrigation ditches, transplanting shade and fruit trees alongside them. They intentionally introduced useful plants, and accidentally brought along weedy camp-followers, adding some fifty plant species to Quitobaquito over the centuries. Native birds and mammals have also been affected by human presence there, and some increased in number during the days of O'odham farming downstream from the springs. All in all, Quitobaquito's history demonstrates that the desert's cultural diversity has not necessarily been antithetical to its biological diversity; the two are historically intertwined. In fact, the Sonoran Desert is a showcase for understanding the curious interactions between cultural and biological diversity. There are at least seventeen extant indigenous cultures that each has its own brand of land management traditions, as well as the dominant Anglo- and Hispanic-American cultures which have brought other land ethics, technologies, and strategies for managing desert lands into the region. While some cultural communities such as the Seri were formerly considered passive recipients of whatever biodiversity occurred in their homeland, we now know that they actively dispersed and managed populations of chuckwallas, spiny-tailed iguanas, and columnar cacti. Floodwater farmers such as the Tohono O'odham and Opata dammed and diverted intermittent watercourses, planted Mesoamerican crops, and developed their own domesticated crops from devil's claw, tepary beans, and Sonoran panic grass. Anglo- and HispanicAmerican farmers and ranchers initiated other plant and animal introductions, and dammed rivers on a much larger scale. Each of these cultures has interacted with native and exotic species at different levels of intensity, including them in their economies, stories, and songs. From an O'odham rainmaking song that echoes the sound of spadefoots, to the Western ballad "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds" written in Tucson over a half century ago, native and invasive species have populated our oral and written traditions as curses, cures, and resources. Technically speaking, this stuff we call diversity eludes one single definition. For starters, however, biodiversity (short for biological diversity) can be generally thought of as the "variety of life on earth." Scientists use this term when discussing the richness of life forms and the heterogeneity of habitats found within or among particular regions.
is naturally diverse
riparian gallery forests of cottonwoods and willows along desert rivers typically support more avian biodiversity-a greater number of bird species-than do adjacent uplands covered with desertscrub vegetation. Similarly, there is greater biodiversity in flowering vines in the moist tropical forests of southern exico than there is in the Sonoran Desert of northern Mexico. It is worth noting, however, that ecologists such as E.O. Wilson first coined the term biodiversity to signify something far more complex
Biodiversity in this sense is often indicated by the relative richness of species in one habitat versus another. Thus it is fair to say that than the mere number of species (termed species richness) found in any given area. Usually ecologists also consider the number of individuals within each species when they assess diversity or heterogeneity. An area where one desert wildflower such as the California poppy dominates eight other species is considered to be less diverse than an area with the same eight species where the numbers of each are more evenly distributed. As Kent Redford of The Nature Conservancy has recently explained, "A species-focused approach to biodiversity has proved limiting for a number of
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reasons....[The] use of just species as a measure of biodiversity has resulted in conservation efforts focusing on relatively few ecosystems while other threatened ones are highly ignored. Species do not exist in a vacuum, and any definition of biodiversity must include the ecological complexes in which organisms naturally occur and the ways they interact with each other and with their surroundings." The integrity of biodiversity can be teased apart into the following components. Although each of them may be separated out by scientists for study, they do not truly exist "apart" from one another. ECOSYSTEM DIVERSITY: the variety of landscapes found together within any region, and the ways in which their biotic communities interact with a shared physical environment, such as a watershed or coastal plain. A landscape interspersed with native desert vegetation, oasis-like cienegas, riparian woodlands, and croplands is more diverse than one covered entirely by one crop such as cotton. The Colorado River Delta was once a stellar example of ecosystem diversity, displaying a breath-taking mixture of riparian gallery forests, closed-canopy mesquite bosques, saltgrass flats, backwater sloughs, rivers, ponds, and Indian fields. Much of it is now dead, except for the hypersaline wetlands known as the Cienega de Santa Clara. BIOTIC COMMUNITY DIVERSITY: the richness of plants, animals, and microbes found together within any single landscape mosaic; such a mosaic can range in scope from the regional to the watershed level. This richness can be shaped by a variety of factors, ranging from the age of the vegetation to land use to soil salinity and fertility. For example, the number of species on well-drained, ungrazed desert mountain slopes covered by columnar cacti, ancient desert ironwoods, and spring wildflowers is greater than that on an alkali flat grazed by goats, where only saltbush, saltgrass, and seepweed may grow. The Rincon ountains east of Tucson demonstrate a gradient of communities, each with its own diversity, as they rise from desertscrub to xeric woodlands, and coniferous forests. INTERACTION DIVERSITY: the complexity of interactions within any particular habitat, such as the relationships between plant and pollinator, seeds and their dispersers, and symbiotic bacteria and their legumes. A pine-oak woodland in Arizona's "sky islands"harbors more interspecific interactions than does an even-aged pine plantation. Ramsey Canyon in the Huachuca ountains showcases such interaction diversity, with over a dozen hummingbirds, as well as bats, bees, and butterflies visiting its myriad summer flowers. SPECIES DIVERSITY: the richness of living species found at local, ecosystem, or regional scales. A well-managed desert grassland hosts more species than can be found in a buffelgrass pasture intentionally planted to provide livestock forage without consideration of wildlife needs. Quitobaquito, discussed above, is as fine an example of localized species diversity as we have anywhere in the binational Southwest. GENETIC DIVERSITY: the heritable variation within and between closelyrelated species. A canyon with six species of wild out-crossing beans contains more genetic variation than does a field of a single highly-bred hybrid bean. Indian fields in southern Sonora demonstrate this concept, for their squashes hybridize with weedy fieldside gourds, and their cultivated chile peppers are inflamed by genetic exchange with wild chiltepines. All of these components of biodiversity ensure some form of environmental stability to the inhabitants of a particular place. A landscape with high ecosystem diversity is not as vulnerable to property-damaging floods as a bladed landscape is, for a mix of desert grassland and wetlands serves to buffer downstream inhabitants from rapid inundations. A diverse biotic community is less likely to be ravaged by chestnut blight or spruce budworm than a tree plantation can be. A cactus forest with diverse species of native, wild bees is less vulnerable to fruit crop failure than are orchards or croplands that are exclusively dependent upon the non-native honeybees. A desert grassland with multiple species of grasses and legumes cannot be as easily depleted of its fertility and then eroded as can one with a single kind of pasture grass sucking all available nutrients out of the ground. And finally, a Pima Indian garden intercropped with many different kinds of vegetable varieties will not succumb to white flies or other pests as easily as will an expansive, irrigated lettuce field in the Imperial Valley. In short, more of "nature's services" the economic contributions offered by intact ecosystems-are possible when we manage these ecosystems to safeguard or restore their biodiversity, and not allow it to be depleted. Recent estimates by environmental economists suggest that the dollar value of the services such as flood protection and air purification provided by the world's intact wild ecosystems averages thirty-three trillion dollars per year, compared to the eighteen trillion dollar Gross National Product of all nations' human-made products. The message is clear: when a mosaic of biotic communities is saved together and kept healthy within a larger landscape, few endangered species fall between the cracks and succumb to extinction processes. In contrast, a small wildlife sanctuary designed to save a single species often fails to achieve its goal, for the other organisms which that species ultimately needs in its presence have been ignored or eliminated. Not only do humans benefit from the conservation of large wildlands landscapes, but many other species do
How does this play out in our Sonoran Desert region? Ask most people to characterize life in the desert and few will think to mention the word "diversity" as part of
as well.
their thumbnail sketch of this place. Most of us keep in our heads those pictures of bleak, barren, blowing sandscapes when we hear the word "desert." The
Sonoran Desert does contain one major sea of sand, as well as a long corridor of coastal dunes along the Gulf of California, but even these are seasonally lush with unique and thriving life forms. As one spends more time in a range of Sonoran Desert habitats, one is constantly surprised by how many plants and animals are harbored here. Travel out of Sonoran Desert vegetation into the higher mountain ranges held within the region and even more astonishing levels of biodiversity can be found. In fact, the "sky islands" of southeastern Arizona and adjacent Sonora are now recognized by the Inter-national Union for the Conservation of Nature as one of the great centers of plant diversity north of the tropics. When we compare our desert with others, the contrast is striking. Overall, the Sonoran Desert has the greatest diversity of plant growth forms- architectural strategies for dealing with heat and drought-of any desert in the world. From giant cacti to sand-loving underground root parasites, some seventeen different growth forms coexist within the region. Often, as many as ten
complementary architectural strategies will be found together, allowing many life forms to coexist in the same patch of desert. Biodiversity in the desert is often measured on a scale that would not be used in the tropical rainforest. Desert ecologists have found twenty kinds of wildflowers growing together in a single square yard (.84 m2), while a single tropical tree might take up the same amount of space. On an acre (.4 ha) of cactus forest in the Tucson Basin, seventy-five to 100 species of native plants share the space that three mangrove shrubs might cover in swamp along a tropical coast. These levels of diversity are a far cry from the "bleak and barren" stereotype, and it may well be that the Sonoran Desert region is more diverse than other arid zones of comparable size.
Consider for example, the flora of the Tucson Mountains, which Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum research scientists recently inventoried with a number of their colleagues. In an area of less than forty square miles (100 km2), this botany team encountered over 630 plant species-as rich a local assortment of

plants as any desert flora we know. This
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small area contains roughly one-sixth of the Sonoran Desert's entire plant diversity. It is disproportionately rich relative to its size, its paucity of surface water, and its elevational range. Such a diversity of wildflowers and blossoming trees attracts a diversity of wildlife as well. In the Sonoran Desert area within a thirty mile radius of Tucson, you can find between 1000 and 1200 twig- and ground-nesting native bees (all of them virtually "stingless"). As the Desert Museum's research associate Stephen Buchmann wryly notes, "this may mean that the Sonoran Desert region is the richest bee real estate anywhere in the world -the entire North American continent has only 5000 native bee species." Desert wildflowers attract more than bees. Southern Arizona receives visits from more hummingbird species-seventeen in all-than anywhere else in the U.S. Other pollinator groups, such as butterflies and moths, are well-represented in the region as well. Single canyons near the Arizona-Sonora border may harbor as many as 100 to 120 butterfly species, and moth species may number five to ten times higher than that in the same habitats. When all pollinating organisms breeding or passing through here are counted, it may be that the greater Sonoran Desert has as large a pollinator fauna as any bioregion in the world. This region is also rich in small mammals and reptiles. Some eighty-six species of mammals have ranges centered within the San Pedro National Riparian Area alone, a record unsurpassed by any natural landscape of comparable size in the U.S.; the area contains half of all mammal species in the binational Sonoran Desert. At least ninety-six species of reptiles are endemic to the Sonoran Desert-found here and nowhere else in the world. Why is such diversity present in a land of little rain? For starters,
our bimodal rainfall pattern brings out completely different suites of wild-flowers and their attendant insects at different times of the year. In addition, we benefit from a more gradual transition between tropical nature and desert nature than does the Chihuahuan Desert on the other side of the Sierra Madre-many tropically-derived life forms reach their northernmost limits in the Sonoran Desert due to its relatively frost-free climes. Of course, tropic rainforests are much more diverse in the total number of species they have throughout their biome, in part because of their ages and their high energy budgets. However, there may be more turnover in species from place to place in the Sonoran Desert than in some tropical vegetation types. That is to say, many
desert plants and insects are "micro-areal" - occurring only within a 100 by 100 mile spots on the map. Particularly in Baja California, there are extremely high levels of endemism, including some 552 plants
unique to the peninsula. Nevertheless, it remains true that the highest levels of local diversity in this desert region occur where water accumulates. Some of the highest breeding bird densities recorded anywhere in the world come from riparian forests along the Verde and San Pedro river floodplains. More than 450 kinds of birds have historically nested or migrated along the Colorado, San Pedro, and Santa Cruz rivers. And yet, if riparian habitats were among our richest, what have we lost with the removal of cottonwoods from ninety percent of their former habitat in Arizona? Ornithologists
cannot name a single Sonoran Desert bird that has gone extinct with riparian habitat loss, but many of the eighty species of birds dependent on these riparian forests have locally declined in abundance. A single desert riparian mammal-Merriam's mesquite mouse-is now extinct due to the loss of riparian habitat at the hand of
groundwater pumping, arroyo cutting, and overgrazing. exican wolves and black bears that formerly frequented our river valleys are among those mammals no longer found in the Sonoran Desert proper. Conservation International has estimated that as much as sixty percent of the entire Sonoran Desert surface is no longer covered with native vegetation but is dominated by the 380-some alien species introduced to the region by humans and their livestock. Alien plants such as buffelgrass now cover more than 1,400,000 acres of the region, at the expense of both native plants and animals. Tamarisk trees choke out native willow and cottonwood seedlings. Invasive weeds such as Johnson grass and Sahara mustard have taken over much of certain wildlife sanctuaries and parks in the desert, outcompeting rare native species. Other invasive species such as Africanized bees and cowbirds also compete with the native fauna. Biological invasions are now rated among the top ten threats to the integrity of Sonoran Desert ecosystems, whereas a half century ago they hardly concerned ecologists working in the region. These invaders somehow reach even the most remote stretches of the desert, to the point of being ubiquitous. The wholesale replacement of natives by aliens is enough of a problem, but desert biodiversity has been even more profoundly affected by habitat fragmentation-the fracturing of large tracts of desert into pieces so small that they cannot sustain the interactions among plant, pollinator, and seed disperser. Such fragmentation does not necessarily lead to immediate extinctions, just declines-there is a time lag before a species' loss of interactions with others leads to complete reproductive failure. Fragmentation caused by urbanization is now considered the number-one threat to the biodiversity of the region and is not expected to diminish during our lifetimes. The population of Arizona's Maricopa County in the year 2025 is expected to be two and a half times what it was in 1995, and similar growth rates are anticipated along the entire desert coastline of the Sea of Cortez. In a sense, humans are making the Sonoran Desert much more like the old (and erroneous) stereotype of a barren wasteland. As more than forty dams were constructed along rivers in this century, old-timers witnessed hundreds of miles of riparian corridors dry up. Groundwater overdraft has also impoverished desert and riparian vegetation, as farms and cities pump millions more acre-feet out of the ground than rainfall in the region can naturally recharge. The roots of plants are left high and dry above the water table. Most of the Sonoran Desert was not at all naturally barren, but our misunderstandings have impoverished one of the richest arid landscapes on the planet. That is why the Desert Museum has endorsed a long-term Conservation Mission Statement which begins with these words from ecologist D.M. Bowman: "So what is biodiversity?...the variety of life
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on this planet is like an extra-ordinarily complex, unfinished, and incomplete manuscript with a hugely varied alphabet, an ever-expanding lexicon, and a poorly understood grammar....Ripping the manuscript to pieces because we want to use the paper makes little sense, especially if the manuscript says that 'to survive you shall not destroy what you do not understand'. Our mission as ecologists must be to interpret the meaning of biodiversity.
The urgent need for this mission, and our current ecological ignorance, must be forcefully communicated to the public." Instead of seeing future inhabitants rip out any more pages essential to the desert's story, the conservation organizations of the region have begun to work together to ensure that the most important corridors and secluded refugia for desert flora and fauna are identified and protected or restored. These critical areas - essential to the flow of diversity from source to sink, from headwaters to river mouth, and from tropical wintergrounds to summer nesting areas - must be kept from further fraying if the fabric of the Sonoran Desert is to remain intact. Scientists can prioritize such areas in terms of their value to biodiversity, but they will be safeguarded for
future generations only if a broad spectrum of society is involved in endorsing their protection.
Specifically, Mexico is a key it supports 12% of worlds species Geo Mexico 10 (This blog supports Geo-Mexico; the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico, the book by Dr. Richard
Rhoda and Tony Burton (Sombrero Books 2010). Geo-Mexico is the first book specifically about the geography of the entire country of Mexico, written in English and aimed at an adult audience, ever published, Mexicos mega-biodiversity, http://geomexico.com/?p=2765) People from elsewhere generally think of Mexico as an arid country with lots of cacti. The
general impression is that
Mexico has relatively little biodiversity in comparison with equator-hugging tropical countries such as Brazil and Indonesia. These impressions could not be farther from the truth. While northern Mexico is indeed arid,
many areas in southern Mexico receive over 2,000 mm (80 inches) of annual precipitation, almost entirely in the form of rainfall. The rainiest place in Mexico Tenango, Oaxacareceives 5,000 mm (16.4 feet) of rain annually. Mexico's
postage stamps regularly celebrate biodiveristy. Click to enlarge Straddling the Tropic of Cancer, Mexico is a world leader in terms of climate and ecosystem diversity. It is one of the only countries on earth with arid deserts, dry scrublands, temperate forests, high altitude alpine areas, subtropical forests, tropical rainforests and extensive coral reefs. The multitude of ecosystems in Mexico supports a very wide range of biodiversity. Mexicos vegetation zones. The link is to a pdf map (in color) of vegetation zones. The map (all rights reserved) is a color version of Figure 5.1 in Geo-Mexico. Mexicos Environmental Ministry (SEMARNAT) indicates that there are over 200,000 different species in Mexico. This is about 10% 12% of all the species on the planet. About half of all Mexicos species are endemic; they exist only in Mexico. An unknown number of endemic species were forced to extinction by
the intended and unintended importation of Old World species by the Spaniards. The U.N. Environment Programme has identified 17 megadiverse countries. The list includes Mexico, the USA, Australia, five South American countries, three African countries, and six Asian counties. Actually, Mexico is among the upper third of this group along with Brazil, Colombia, China, Indonesia and DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo). The other countries on the list are: the USA, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, South Africa, Malagasy Republic, India, Malaysia, The Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Australia.
And, every species matters biodiversity prevents extinction Raj 12 - Consultant ecologist [Prof. P. J. Sanjeeva Raj (Head of the Zoology dept of Madras Christian College), Beware the loss of
biodiversity, The Hindu, Published: September 23, 2012 00:32 IST | pg. http://tinyurl.com/8oate79
**We disagree with the authors use of gendered language
Biodiversity is so indispensable for human survival that the United Nations General Assembly has designated the
decade 2011- 2020 as the Biodiversity Decade with the chief objective of enabling humans to live peaceably or harmoniously with nature and its biodiversity. We should be happy that during October 1-19, 2012, XI Conference of Parties (CoP-11), a global mega event on biodiversity, is taking place in Hyderabad, when delegates from 193 party countries are expected to meet. They will review the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which was originally introduced at the Earth Summit or the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is the nodal agency for CoP-11. Today, India is one of the 17 mega-diverse (richest biodiversity) countries. Biodiversity
provides all basic needs for our healthy survival oxygen, food, medicines, fibre, fuel, energy, fertilizers, fodder and waste-disposal, etc. Fast vanishing honeybees, dragonflies, bats, frogs, house sparrows, filter (suspension)-feeder

oysters and all keystone
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species are causing great economic loss as well as posing an imminent threat to human peace and survival. The three-fold biodiversity mission before us is to inventorise the existing
biodiversity, conserve it, and, above all, equitably share the sustainable benefits out of it. Unique role Contrary to all such utilitarian objectives of biodiversity, the concept of Deep Ecology believes in the intrinsic value of every living being, wherein all life is to be respected for its own sake, not for any of its monetary values. There is no living being that is so abject and absolutely useless for its ecosystem, even if we have not yet understood its utility. Every
living being discharges its own unique ecosystem functions or services, and hence the loss of any single species destabilises the whole ecosystem. Keystone species render more obvious or even altruistic services to their ecosystems. Hot spots The tropics have the most luxurious biodiversity but, unfortunately, overpopulation by their poor ecosocieties, which are compelled to live at the expense of their own biodiversity, poses such great dilemmas and threats to conservationists that hot spots had to be identified to save their marginalised poor as well as their biodiversity simultaneously. The Assam Himalayas and the Western Ghats are two such little explored but richest biodiversity treasure banks in India. However, some lacunae in our knowledge base of our biodiversity still exist such as the precise ecosystem functions or services of each species, and also, the economic valuation of benefits from not only every species but also every type of ecosystem and, above all, from the more difficult gene-pools, all of which need to be studied all over the world. The slogan of the Hyderabad CBD CoP-11, inscribed on the logo, in Sanskrit, Prakruthi: Rakshathi Rakshitha, and the same in English, Nature Protects if She is Protected, truly underscores that humans
should realise the symbiotic relation between themselves and nature, so imperative for their mutual survival on planet Earth. (The writer is a consultant ecologist, His email is rajsanjeeva@gmail.com)
And, its a D-Rule

FJIL 94 (9 Fla. J. Int'l L. 189)
It is our responsibility, as tenants on the global commons, to prevent that which is within our power to prevent. As Senator Alan Cranston once said: The death of a species is profound, for it means nature has lost one of its components, which played a role in the interrelationship of life on earth. Here the cycle of birth and death ends. Here there is no life, no chance to begin again simply a void. To cause the extinction of a species, whether by commission or omission, is unqualifiedly evil. The prevention of this extinction ... must be a tenet among [hu]man's moral responsibilities. n86 show how we are all connected."
Cooperation is key to solve Van Schoik 4 - Rick, teaches international environmental security, science, and policy at San Diego State University,
California (Biodiversity on the U.S.-Mexican Border, World Watch Institute, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/567)
The U.S.-Mexican border region has the highest rate of species endangerment in the United States. Some 31 percent of the species listed as endangered by the U.S. Department of Interior are found in the region. On the Mexican side of the border, 85 species of plants and animals are endangered. Not surprisingly, the threats to these species are exacerbated by the fact that the ecosystems in this region are split by a political boundary that greatly complicates conservation efforts. The area along the U.S.-Mexican border has seen extraordinary population growth, and the resulting residential and industrial sprawl along the border can evoke a doomsday vision for the entire strip from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico. Already, habitat loss is
estimated at 2.5 hectares (more than 6 acres) per day within Tijuana alone. Last summer a coalition of U.S. and Mexican conservation biologists and other experts (the Southwest Consortium for Environmental Research and Policy) met to discuss possible ways of responding to this mounting border crisis. Well aware that the
most important principle of biodiversity conservation is the need to protect the largest possible intact landscapes, we focused on
identifying ways in which protections could be established that, in effect, crossed the border-regardless where the fences or guards might stand-to encompass whole ecosystems. Establishing effective cross-border policies is not easy. While nations can readily agree to conserve migrating species in their territories, as when Mexico signed on to the United States' Migratory Bird Treaty Act to protect migrating birds half a century ago, protecting adjacent prime natural areas proves much more

difficult. Designed to stop humans from freely crossing, borders also stop other species. Since 9/11, the
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U.S.-Mexican border has been further bolstered by both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS, which was formerly divided into the customs, border patrol, and immigration agencies) and the still somewhat-secret Joint Task Force Six (JTF-6, a multi-service command charged with providing counter-drug-trafficking support). These agencies' efforts and physical infrastructure have done significant damage to wildlife habitats. Their use of sensor fields, roads, and triple fences up to 50 meters deep create erosion and dust. The physical presence of vehicular patrols, all-night artificial lighting, noise, dragging of screens to clear a slate that makes footprints visible, and the clearing of brush also degrade sensitive habitat as homeland security forces seek view and access points. Along the San Diego segment, a proposal to install triple fencing
now pits the federal government's ambitions to secure borders against the state and local jurisdiction over environmental issues. "The project would cut a 150-foot swath across a habitat that is home to some of the state's rarest plants and at least three endangered wildlife species," writes California environmental journalist Terry Rodgers. While borders make environmental protection more difficult in many respects, they can also provide
unique opportunities for conservationprovided that the neighboring nations are amenable to cooperation. One such form of cooperation is through the designation of parks along borders as "peace parks." During the past year, Israel and Jordan's agreement to build an environmental studies center over their common border illustrated the ability of environmental concerns to serve as a sign that the link between biodiversity and security can be turned around so that it is not seen as an impediment or cost of security but as augmenting security. Conservation attitudes are hugely complicated by poverty and asymmetry at this border. "The [Mexican] green world is ravaged by people whose only path from starvation lies in slashing and burning the jungle to plant a patch of corn," observed New York Times reporter Tim Weiner in 2002. Even in the relatively affluent border region of Mexico, the economic asymmetry between the two countries is so sharp-and land-use so different-that the border is starkly visible to people flying over in airliners.
NADBanks key to environmental cooperation Taj 6 (Mitra, Possible shutdown of NADBank worries some U.S. lawmakers, Tucson Citizen, 3/16/06,
http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue2/2006/03/16/152961-possible-shutdown-of-nadbank-worries-some-u-s-lawmakers/)
I dont want to see the NADBank go away, she said. It needs to reform itself to be relevant to the communities it serves. Those communities, Bronson said, are some of the poorest in the country, and need more affordable lending, not less. Holub said the only other institution to which the
city could have turned would have been Congress, a historically unreliable funding source for projects along the border. Thats why the NADBank was created in the first place. Environmental
problems had become so enormous along the border, Holub said, and Congress was simply not meeting our needs. Bronson said because environmental problems span both sides of the border, border solutions should also. There has to be an international agency that works on making improvements on both sides of the border, Bronson said. Flores said that although the NADBank is doing more to help border communities tackle environmental problems, the binational approach to solving binational problems has been a success so far. Weve brought to the boards attention what we see to be current limitations and obstacles to further enhancing the quality of life in the border regions, Flores said. Weve done that. For officials in border regions, improving the bank to make it more responsive to the environmental needs of border citizens would be a welcome move.
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NADBank transportation infrastructure is key to creating a sustainable capital base absent that it cant promote sustainability Kaplan and Hammacher 2K - Gordan, attorney with the firm of Hillyer &. Irwin in San Diego and Linda K., attorney (A Bigger
Role for NAFTA's Development Bank?, San Diego Business Journal, 11/13/00, http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=74ef2ace-3feb-4b1f-80f5660cbb179c88%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=3826486&anchor=toc)
Narrowly Focused Mandate NADBank's
mandate is, however, narrowly drawn in terms of geographic scope as well as in terms of the types of projects the bank can undertake. The bank is limited by its
charter to providing financing and other forms of assistance for projects in the area within 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) north and south of the U.S.Mexican border. The charter further limits the bank's undertakings within this geographic area to "environmental infrastructure projects," which are defined as those "that will prevent, control or reduce environmental pollutants or contaminants, improve the drinking water supply, or protect flora an.d fauna so as to improve human health, promote sustainable development, or contribute to a higher quality of life." However, another charter provision directs that "preference" must be given to projects relating to water pollution, wastewater treatment, and municipal solid waste management. As a result of this charter directive, the bank's undertakings are confined as a practical matter to such "preferred" projects only. As of June, NADBank had authorized $265.4 million in loans and grants for 29 such projects on both sides of the border. These 29 projects, when completed, will involve a total cost and investment from private and public sources of $831.3 million. San Diego has received $17.2 million for the South Bay Water Reclamation Plant (total cost $99.6 million), while Tijuana has received $18.5 million for a sewage and wastewater treatment project to eliminate raw sewage flowing into the Tijuana River (total cost $19.5 million). Border Projects Other communities along the California/Mexico border have received $43.8 million for eight projects (total cost $127.1. million). Communities along the Texas/Mexico border have been the biggest beneficiaries of
NADBank has clearly demonstrated an ability to leverage the capital resources available to it into considerably greater total financing for projects. But the bank could do much more if it were not constrained by a mandate which imposes a limited geographic scope on its activities and requires it to focus narrowly on projects involving water pollution, wastewater treatment and municipal solid waste management. This restricted mandate results in under-utilization of NADBank's lending capacity, which severely limits the bank's ability to generate revenues and provide for future loans and grants, which translates overall into less funds being available for the infrastructure needs of the border-region communities NADBank is supposed to serve. At present, NADBank's total lending
NADBank programs, receiving some $138.15 million for .13 projects (total cost $518.86 million).
capacity of some $2 billion has been virtually untouched. The bank's own loans for the 29 projects mentioned above total only $11.12 million. Too Few Projects The bank has had to rely on grants for the balance of the $265.4 million authorized for these projects largely because most of the communities involved are poor, with little ability to repay debt. Moreover, the
bank's projections for the next decade indicate that viable projects in the water and municipal solid waste sectors will never use more than 10 percent of its lending capacity, also because most of the communities involved will be too poor to afford loan programs . If NADBank continues to be constrained by the narrow terms of its existing mandate, it appears destined to become a stagnant institution, of little relevance to the developmental needs of the border region, even as these needs grow and become more urgent. The population of the border region is projected to increase by 50 percent over the next 20 years. Sustainable development in the face of this kind of population growth cannot be had simply by concentrating on water and municipal solid waste projects . Expanded Mandate Proposed NADBank has, therefore, proposed an expanded mandate which would create a much larger and more economically viable lending market and enable the bank to address a wide variety of infrastructure needs in the region. A proposed geographic extension of the mandate to 300 kilometers on either side of the border would allow the inclusion of many additional communities that are naturally affected by growth along the border, and whose
economies are often directly tied to the border-region economy. It would increase the population covered by NADBank's mandate from the current 10.6 million to 41 million and include such major population centers as Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Antonio on .the U.S. side, and Hermosillo, Chihuahua, Saltillo and Monterrey on the Mexican side. NADBank
has also proposed changes to its mandate which would give the bank flexibility to undertake an assortment of infrastructure projects in order to diversify lending prospects and meet
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the broader developmental needs and environmental concerns of border-region communities.
Plan solves - expanding NADBank investments to border infrastructure allows for NADBank enhancement and avoids political backlash Balido 11 - Nelson, president of the Border Trade Alliance (Bill to expand NADBank projects holds potential to make big
impact for border, Border Trade Alliance, http://www.thebta.org/btanews/bill-to-expand-nadbank-projects-holds-potential-tomake-big-impact-for-border.html#top) But Congress
and the White House dont have to look far for inspiration for how to finance infrastructure. Theres already a bank making a positive difference in infrastructure
development that, with a legislative tweak here and there, can be even more impactful: the North American Development Bank. Over the past sixteen years of operation, the
NADBank has been vitally important to improving basic services in the border region by financing numerous water, wastewater, solid waste and street paving projects, among others. To date, NADBank has provided approximately $1.24 billion in loans and grants to support 149 infrastructure projects in the border region, which represents a total investment of $3.26 billion and will benefit more than 12.8 million residents of the region. One particularly notable accomplishment is the significant improvement in
wastewater treatment coverage on the Mexican side of the border. In 1995, it was estimated that 27 percent of wastewater generated in border communities was being treated. According to Mexicos National Water Commission (CONAGUA), wastewater treatment coverage has now reached approximately 85 percent. This dramatic improvement is in large part due to the work of NADBank. The
bank remains limited, however, in the projects it can finance. Its charter permits the bank only to get involved in projects deemed to have a significant positive environmental impact. There have been cases where the NADBank has taken interest in projects involving international ports of entry that would benefit an areas economy and create new jobs. Yet the bank has been unable to deliver financing to such projects, over the objections of its board of directors, for not demonstrating a sufficient environmental benefit to merit NADBank financing. Rep. Rubn Hinojosa (D-Texas) has introduced a bill, H.R. 2216, the NADBank Enhancement Act of 2011, which would broaden the scope of projects where the bank could provide financing. This would include projects that promote trade and commerce between the U.S. and Mexico, including port of entry modernization and construction projects. Perhaps the best thing about the bill is that it doesnt add a dime to the federal deficit or debt. Rather, the bill will help ensure NADBanks existing capital is more fully utilized for the benefit of the U.S.-Mexico border region, and ultimately for the benefit
of both the U.S. and Mexico.
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Relations Advantage Module

Investments in border infrastructure are key to revitalize US-Mexico relations Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center,
Christopher, associate with the Mexico Institute, A New Agenda with Mexico, Wilson Center, November 2012,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/a_new_agenda_with_mexico.pdf)
The depth of economic ties with Mexico, together with declines in illegal immigration and organized crime violence in Mexico, Open up an opportunity for U.S. policymakers to deepen the economic relationship with Mexico and to engage Mexico more on major global issues. Security cooperation,
especially strengthening institutions for rule of law and disrupting money laundering, will remain important to the relationship, and there are clear opportunities to reform the U.S. legal immigration system over the next few years, which would have important implications for the relationship with Mexico. The
strongest engagement, going forward, is likely to be on the economic issues that can help create jobs for people on both sides of the border, and on the shared global challenges that both countries face. Few countries will shape Americas future as much as Mexico. The two countries share a 2,000 mile border, and Mexico is the second largest destination for U.S. exports and third source of oil for the U.S. market. A quarter of all U.S. immigrants are from Mexico, and one in ten Americans are of Mexican descent. Joint security challenges, including both terrorist threats and the violent operations of drug cartels, have forced the two governments to work more closely than ever. Whats more, cooperation has now
extended to a range of other global issues, from climate change to economic stability. Nonetheless, the landscape of U.S.-Mexico relations is changing. Illegal immigration is at the lowest level in four decades, and organized crime violence, which has driven much of the recent cooperation, is finally declining. Violence will remain a critical issue, but economic globalhave
issuesbilateral and risen to the fore as both countries struggle to emerge from the global slowdown. Trade has increased dramatically, connecting the manufacturing base of the two countries as never before, so that gains in one country benefit the other. To keep pace with these changes, U.S. policymakers will need to deepen the agenda with Mexico to give greater emphasis to economic issues, including ways to spur job creation, and they will have opportunities to strengthen cooperation on global issues. Security cooperation will remain critical, and determined but nuanced followthrough to dismantle the operations of criminal groups on both sides of the border will be
needed to continue the drop in violence. With less illegal immigration, it will be easier to address legal migration in new ways. However, economic issues are likely to dominate the bilateral agenda for the first time in over a decade. Strengthening economic tieS and creating JobS In most trading relationships, the U.S. simply buys or sells finished goods to another country. However, with its neighbors, Mexico and Canada, the U.S. actually comanufactures products. Indeed, roughly 40 percent of all content in Mexican exports to the United States originates in the United States. The comparable figures with China, Brazil, and India are four, three, and two percent respectively. Only Canada, at 25 percent, is similar. With the economies of North America deeply linked, growth in one country benefits the others, and lowering the transaction costs of goods crossing the
Improving border ports of entry is critical to achieving this and will require moderate investments in infrastructure and staffing, as well as the use of new risk management techniques and the expansion of pre-inspection and trusted shipper programs to speed up border crossing times. Transportation costs could be further lowered and competitiveness further strengthened by pursuing an Open Skies agreement and making permanent
common borders among these three countries helps put money in the pockets of both workers and consumers.
the cross-border trucking pilot program. While these are generally seen as border issues, the benefits accrue to all U.S. states that depend on exports and joint manufacturing with Mexico, including Michigan, Ohio, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, New Hampshire, and Georgia, to name just a few.
Economic focus is uniquely key solves Mexican stability and leadership Wood and Wilson 13 - Duncan, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International
Scholars, and Christopher, associate with the Mexico Institute (New Ideas for a New Era: Policy Options for the Next Stage in U.S.Mexico Relations, Wilson Center, January 2013, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/new_ideas_us_mexico_relations.pdf) The new administrations begin working together at a time of considerable optimism in the relationship. Mexico
has developed a highly competitive democratic system, and its rising middle class, solid
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macroeconomic footing and positive outlook for economic growth make the country a pillar of strength in a complex and volatile global environment. As the United States faces a postGreat Recession, post-9/11 world, it is increasingly aware of the transnational dimensions of U.S. economic and national security. Mexico is a key partner on each of these fronts. Whether in the form of
joint efforts to protect the region from terrorist threats or to reduce the violence perpetrated by transnational organized crime, security cooperation has dominated the bilateral agenda since 2001. The Pea Nieto
administration now seeks a rebalancing of the agenda, giving greater weight to strengthening the economic competitiveness of the region, and there is reason to believe such an approach could achieve some success. U.S.Mexico trade is booming, growing faster than U.S. trade with China and faster than it did after NAFTA took effect in the 1990s. In a way that cannot be said for drugs, violence, or illegal immigration, focusing on the creation of jobs and improving the competitiveness of manufacturers on both sides of the border is a good-news story. Greater focus on this dimension of the relationship could potentially change the tone of the relationship in a way that makes the stickier issues of security and migration a little less
intractable. Progress on the economic agenda, including intraregional effortsto move goods and services across the border more efficiently as well as cooperation on global trade issues like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, could provide a significant boost to both the U.S. and Mexican economies. 15
And, its key to overcome negative perceptions, and solves your alt causes Selee and Wilson 12 [Andrew, vice president for programs at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars and a senior adviser for the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center and Christopher, associate for the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, Getting ready for a new era in U.S.-Mexico ties, 12/3/12, CNN.com, http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/03/getting-ready-for-a-new-era-inu-s-mexico-ties/]
U.S.-Mexico relations have been dominated for the past six years by efforts to address drug trafficking and organized crime-related violence. This was the right thing to do while violence spiked in Mexico, but with a new administration in office after the swearing in of President Enrique Pea Nieto over the weekend, the time has come to re-balance the bilateral relationship. Ties tend to have the same top three items on the agenda year after year and administration after administration: immigration; drugs and violence; and trade and economic relations. Drugs and violence have dominated in recent years, and cooperation in addressing the transnational flows of drugs, arms and illicit money, as well as support for Mexicos efforts to strengthen public security, must continue. Although the gains are still tenuous and the situation
fluid, violence in Mexico does appear to have begun to decline at a national level and major advances have been made in key border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. Immigration dominated the early 2000's as presidents Bush and Fox sought a bilateral deal on the topic, but it has since become clear that immigration reform is first and foremost a domestic political issue in the United States. The
rate of unauthorized immigration from Mexico has now dropped to historically low levels there are at least as many leaving as arriving which should allow for a more rational and reasoned debate on this
issue in the United States. More from GPS: Misconceptions about Mexico However, not since the negotiation and implementation of NAFTA in the 1990s have economic relations topped the bilateral agenda. Trade
and jobs should once again top the U.S. agenda with Mexico for three main reasons. First, the economy most likely will be the top issue in both the United States and Mexico for the next several years. Economic issues were clearly the top
issue for voters in the recent U.S. presidential elections, and in Mexico they matched public security as the top set of concerns. Second, by
focusing on the creation of jobs and improving the competitiveness of manufacturers on both sides of the border, we can improve the tone of the relationship. We may even find that the stickier issues of security and migration become a little less intractable. Finally, the economic agenda between the two countries has the potential to yield tangible results, creating jobs and improving the competitive position of North America vis-a-vis Asia. For years,
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Mexico has oriented its economy toward the U.S. in hopes of harnessing the growth of the worlds most dynamic economy. Now, at a time when Mexico is growing around four percent a year faster than the United States Mexico can return the favor and provide a boost to the U.S. economy . Meanwhile, Mexicos large and growing middle class has become an increasingly important market for U.S. products. More from CNN: New president measured against old corruption As it turns out, U.S. and Mexican companies do not simply sell products to one another, they build products together, with parts zigzagging back and forth across the border as goods are manufactured. As a result, a product imported from Mexico is, on average, made of 40 percent U.S. parts and materials, meaning forty cents of every dollar spent of Mexican imports stays right here in the United States. Chinese products, in contrast, contain just four percent U.S. content. This also means the competitiveness of our two countries is closely linked, and improvements in productivity in one nation make a comanufactured product cheaper and more competitive on the global market . That is to say, growth in Mexico or the United States will boost exports from both countries: when it comes to
manufacturing, we are in it together.
Perceptions uniquely key to access the strategic parts of the relationship Garza 12 [Antonio, Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, A first step is to get rid of
outdated perceptionson both sides, 12/3/12, Americas Society/Council of the Americas, http://www.as-coa.org/articles/viewpoints-what-should-top-priority-be-us-mexicanrelations]
The United States and Mexico have enjoyed a very healthy and respectful relationship . On issues of shared interestprimarily trade and securityweve cooperated, though mostly out of necessity. Yet neither country
has ever truly leveraged the bilateral relationship strategically. What will it take to bring about this kind of fundamental shift? A first step is to get rid of outdated perceptionson both sides. You
simply cant expect to have a strategic relationship that functions in real time if perceptions lag present realities. Theres been new research and insightful commentary recently highlighting the gap between Americans perceptions of Mexico and the countrys current reality. President Enrique Pea Nieto faces the daunting task of moving Main Street U.S. perceptions of Mexico closer to where the views of economists, investors, and discerning travelers are on the country. He will help this along by conveying his administrations absolute commitment to carrying through promised economic reforms, implementing anti-corruption and transparency initiatives, and reinforcing cooperation on security. For President Obama, its important to signal that his new team is completely schooled in the reality of todays Mexico and that they are prepared to take advantage of the moment to recast the relationship to the benefit of both countries. Delivering on immigration reform and the TransPacific Partnership trade agreement are rare opportunities for a U.S. administration to fundamentally alter Mexicans perceptions of their northern partner. As Mexicos place in the world rises and the U.S. continues to recalibrate its foreign alliances, theres a unique opportunity to move the bilateral relationship to a more strategic levelbut it will take some work.
Relations key to Central American stability Selee and Wilson 12 [Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson
Center, Christopher, associate with the Mexico Institute, A New Agenda with Mexico, Wilson Center, November 2012, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/a_new_agenda_with_mexico.pdf]
As Mexicos security crisis begins to recede, the two 3 A New Agenda with Mexico countries will also have to do far more to strengthen the governments of Central America, which now face a rising tide of violence as organized crime groups move southward. Mexico is also a U.S. ally in deterring terrorist threats and promoting robust democracy in the Western
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Hemisphere, and there will be numerous opportunities to strengthen the already active collaboration as growing economic opportunities reshape the regions political and social landscape.
Instability causes global war Rochlin 94 [James Francis, Professor of Political Science at Okanagan University
College. Discovering the Americas: the evolution of Canadian foreign policy towards Latin America, p. 130-131, 1994]
While there were economic motivations for Canadian policy in Central America, security considerations were perhaps more important. Canada possessed an interest in promoting stability in the face of a potential decline of U.S. hegemony in the Americas. Perceptions of declining U.S. influence in the region which had some credibility in 1979-1984 due to the wildly inequitable divisions of wealth in some U.S. client states in Latin America, in addition to political repression, under-development, mounting external debt, anti-American sentiment produced by decades of subjugation to U.S. strategic and economic interests, and so on were linked to the prospect of explosive events occurring in the hemisphere. Hence, the
Central American imbroglio was viewed as a fuse which could ignite a cataclysmic process throughout the region. Analysts at the time worried that in a worst-case scenario, instability created by a regional war, beginning in Central America and spreading elsewhere in Latin America, might preoccupy Washington to the extent that the United States would be unable to perform adequately its important hegemonic role in the international arena a concern expressed by the director of research for Canadas Standing Committee Report on Central America. It was feared that such a predicament could generate increased global instability and perhaps even a hegemonic war. This is one of
the motivations which led Canada to become involved in efforts at regional conflict resolution, such as Contadora, as will be discussed in the next chapter.
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Terrorism Advantage Module

Land POEs have not kept pace with screening traffic wait times lead to flushing traffic, undermining border enforcement Meissner et al 13 [Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director, MPI US Immigration Policy Program
Muzaffar Chishti, Director, MPI Office at NYU School of Law Donald M. Kerwin, Executive Director, Center for Migration Studies Claire Bergeron Research Assistant with the US Immigration Policy Program at MPI, Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery, Migration Policy Institute, 2013, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/enforcementpillars.pdf]
Meeting the
physical infrastructure needs at POEs has not kept pace with advances in documentation and screening developments. Communities such as Nogales, AZ, for example, have two ports that
typically handle 15,000 pedestrian and 20,000 vehicle crossings daily (3.5 million pedestrians and 4.7 million vehicles annually).
The POEs are equipped with technology that permits 100 percent license plate reading and document scanning. However, when traffic wait times exceed 60 minutes, inspectors typically flush traffic through, pulling aside only obvious high-risk crossers, in an effort to reconcile their facilitation and enforcement missions under trying conditions. Despite significant advances, land ports have not experienced improvements on par with those realized between ports. As a result, the potential for land POE inspections to be a weak link remains a critical enforcement challenge.
This makes the Southern Border a welcome mat for terrorists

Murdock 13 [Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor, a nationally
syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service, and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University, The Southern Border: Our Welcome Mat for Terrorists, April 25, 2013, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346591/southern-border-our-welcome-mat-terrorists]
At a Capitol Hill hearing last July, Homeland
Security secretary Janet Napolitano conceded that terrorists enter the U.S. via the U.S./Mexican border from time to time. The House Homeland Security
Subcommittee on Oversight last November published A Line in the Sand: Countering Crime, Violence, and Terror at the Southwest Border. As this study explained: The Congressional Research Service reports that between September 2001 and September 2012, there have been 59 homegrown violent jihadist plots within the United States. Of
growing concern and potentially a more violent threat to American citizens is the enhanced ability of Middle East terrorist organizations, aided by their relationships and growing presence in the Western Hemisphere, to exploit the Southwest border to enter the United States undetected. A Line in the Sand offers chilling portraits of some who treat the southern border as Americas welcome mat. On January 11, 2011, U.S. agents discovered Said Jaziri in a car trunk trying to enter near San Diego. Said said that he had traveled from his native Tunisia to Tijuana and paid smugglers $5,000 to sneak him across the border. The French government previously
convicted and deported Jaziri for assaulting a Muslim whom he considered insufficiently devout. In 2006, Jaziri advocated killing Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard for creating what Jaziri called sacrilegious drawings of the Prophet Mohammed. Somalias Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane told authorities in 2011 that he earned up to $75,000 per day smuggling East Africans into America. His clients included three al-Shabaab terrorists. As the House report states: Dhakane cautioned that each of these individuals is ready to die for their cause and would fight against the United States if the jihad moved from overseas to the U.S. mainland. On
June 4, 2010, Anthony Joseph Tracy (a.k.a. Yusuf Noor) was convicted of conspiring to slip aliens into America. Tracy told federal investigators that Cuban diplomats used his travel agency in Kenya Noor Services Ltd. to
transfer 272 Somalis to Havana. They proceeded to Belize, through Mexico, and then trespassed into the U.S. Tracy, who converted to Islam in prison in the 1990s, claims he refused to assist al-Shabaab. But officials
discovered an e-mail in which
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he casually wrote: i helped a lot of Somalis and most are good but there are some who are bad and i leave them to ALLAH . . . And remember: These anecdotes and statistics involve individuals whom authorities intercepted. No details exist about aliens from these countries who successfully have infiltrated America.
Scenario One: Nuclear Terrorism Inefficient and ineffective POEs create an open door for a nuclear terrorist attack McCaul 12 [Michael Thomas McCaul, Sr., U.S. Representative for Texas's 10th congressional district, serving
since 2005. Since the beginning of the 113th Congress, he has been the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. A LINE IN THE SAND: COUNTERING CRIME, VIOLENCE AND TERROR AT THE SOUTHWEST BORDER A MAJORITY REPORT BY THE UNITED STATES HOUSE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, INVESTIGATIONS, AND MANAGEMENT REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL T. McCAUL, CHAIRMAN ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION NOVEMBER 2012 http://mccaul.house.gov/uploads/Final%20PDF%20Line%20in%20the%20Sand.pdf]
Terrorism remains a serious threat to the security of the United States. The Congressional Research Service reports that between September 2001 and September 2012, there have been 59 homegrown violent jihadist plots within the United States. Of growing concern and potentially a more violent threat to American citizens is the enhanced ability of Middle East terrorist organizations, aided by
their relationships and growing presence in the Western Hemisphere, to exploit the Southwest border to enter the United States undetected. This
Americas ever-present threat from Middle East terrorist networks, their increasing presence in Latin America, and the growing relationship with Mexican DTOs to exploit paths into the United States. During the period of May 2009 through July 2011, federal law enforcement made
second edition emphasizes 29 arrests for violent terrorist plots against the United States, most with ties to terror networks or Muslim extremist groups in the Middle East. The vast majority of the suspects had either connections to special interest countries, including those deemed as state sponsors of terrorism or were radicalized by terrorist groups such as al Qaeda. American-born al Qaeda Imam Anwar al Awlaki, killed in 2011, was personally responsible for radicalizing scores of Muslim extremists around the world. The list includes American-born U.S. Army Major Nidal Hassan, the accused Fort Hood gunman; underwear bomber Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab; and Barry Bujol of Hempstead, TX, convicted of providing material supp ort to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
These instances, combined with recent events involving the Qods Forces, the terrorist arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Hezbollah, serve as a stark reminder the United States remains in the crosshairs of terrorist organizations and their associates. n May of 2012, the Los Angeles Times reported that intelligence gleaned from the 2011 raid on Osama bin Ladens compound indicated the worlds most wanted terrorist sought to use operatives with valid Mexican passports who could illegally cross into the United States to conduct terror operations.3 The story elaborated that bin Laden recognized the importance of al Qaeda operatives blending in with American society but felt that those with U.S. citizenship who then attacked the United States would be violating Islamic law. Of equal concern is the possibility to smuggle materials, including uranium, which can be safely assembled on U.S. soil into a weapon of mass destruction. Further, the standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, and the uncertainty of whether Israel might attack Iran drawing the United States into a confrontation, only heightens concern that Iran or its agents would attempt to exploit the porous Southwest border for retaliation. Confronting the threat at the
In several documented cases, al Awlaki moved his followers to commit jihad against the United States. Southwest border has a broader meaning today than it did six years ago. As this report explains, the United States tightened security at airports and
the U.S.-Mexico border is an obvious weak link in the chain. Criminal elements could migrate down this path of least resistance, and with them the terrorists who continue to seek our destruction. The federal government must meet the challenge to secure Americas unlocked back door from the dual threat of drug cartels and terrorist organizations who are lined up, and working together, to enter.
land ports of entry in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but
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Nuclear terrorism leads to global nuclear war and extinction

Hellman 8 (Dr. Martin E. Hellman, New York Epsilon 66, is professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford University,
with research interests in http://nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf) cryptography and information theory, Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence,
The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the publics mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article focuses primarily on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a catastrophe of immense proportions: A 10-kiloton bomb
detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever. *Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The
likelihood of such an attack is also significant. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has estimated the chance of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a
former weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, We would never accept a situation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a lowprobability event, but we cant live in a world where its anything but extremely low-probability. *Hegland 2005+. In
a survey of 85 national security experts, Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20 percent for the probability of an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in the next 10 years, with 79 percent of the respondents believing it more likely to be carried out by terrorists than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanisms for a full-scale nuclear war, the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear
terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce which- ever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g., nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). his article would be incomplete if it only dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism and neglected the threat of full- scale nuclear war. If both risks are unacceptable, an effort to reduce only the terrorist component would leave humanity in great peril. In fact, societys
almost total neglect of the threat of full-scale nuclear war makes studying that risk all the more important. The cosT of World War iii The danger associated
with nuclear deterrence depends on both the cost of a failure and the failure rate.3 This section explores the cost of a failure of nuclear deterrence, and the next section is concerned with the failure rate. While other definitions are possible, this article defines a failure of deterrence to mean a full-scale exchange of all nuclear weapons available to the U.S. and Russia, an event that will be termed World War III. Approximately 20 million people died as a result of the first World War. World War IIs fatalities were double or triple that numberchaos prevented a more precise determination. In both cases humanity recovered, and the world today bears few scars that attest to the horror of those two wars. Many people therefore implicitly believe that a third World War would be horrible but survivable, an extrapola- tion of the effects of the first two global wars. In that view, World War III, while horrible, is something that humanity may just have to face and from which it will then have to recover. In contrast, some of those most qualified to assess the situation hold a very different view. In a 1961 speech to a joint session of the Philippine Con- gress, General Douglas MacArthur, stated, Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No
longer does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double suicide. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara expressed a similar view: If deterrence fails and conflict develops, the present U.S. and NATO strategy carries with it a high risk that Western civilization will be destroyed *McNamara 1986, page 6+. More recently, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger,
and Sam Nunn4 echoed those concerns when they quoted President Reagans belief that nuclear weapons were totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization. *Shultz 2007+ Official studies, while couched in less emotional terms, still convey the horrendous toll that World War III would exact: The
resulting deaths would be far beyond any precedent. Executive branch calculations show a range of U.S. deaths from 35 to 77 percent
(i.e., 79-160 million dead) a change in targeting could kill somewhere between 20 million and 30 million additional people on each side .... These calculations reflect only deaths during the first 30 days. Additional millions would be injured, and many would eventually die from lack of adequate medical care millions of people might starve or freeze during the following winter, but it is not possible to estimate how many. further millions might eventually die of latent radiation effects. *OTA 1979, page 8] This OTA report also noted the possibility of serious ecological damage [OTA 1979, page 9], a concern that assumed a new potentiality when the TTAPS report [TTAPS 1983] proposed that the ash and dust from so many nearly simultaneous nuclear and their resultant fire- storms could
explosions usher in a nuclear winter that might erase homo sapiens from the
face of the earth, much as many scientists now believe the K-T Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs resulted from an
impact winter caused by ash and dust from a large asteroid or comet striking Earth. The TTAPS report produced a heated debate, and there is still no scientific consensus on whether a nuclear winter would follow a full-scale nuclear war. Recent work [Robock 2007, Toon 2007] suggests that even
a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states, such as
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India and Pakistan, could have devastating long-lasting climatic consequences due to the large volumes of smoke that would be generated by fires in modern megacities. While it is uncertain how destructive World War III would be, prudence dictates that we apply the same engineering conservatism that saved the Golden Gate Bridge from collapsing on its 50th anniversary and assume that preventing
World War III is a necessitynot an option.
Scenario Two: Bioterrorism Al Qaedas planning a bioterrorist attack on the U.S. via the US-Mexico border 330,000 Americans will die within the first hour recent video proves
Washington Times 9 *EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico, June 3, 2009, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/3/al-qaeda-eyes-bio-attack-via-mexicoborder/?page=all]
U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist groups determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland. The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by The Washington Times. The officials,
who spoke only on the condition they not be named because of the sensitive nature of their work, stressed that there is no credible information that al Qaeda has acquired the capabilities to carry out a mass biological attack although its members have clearly sought the expertise. The
video first aired by the Arabic news network Al Jazeera in February and later posted to several Web sites shows Kuwaiti dissident Abdullah al-Nafisi telling a room full of supporters in Bahrain that al Qaeda is casing the U.S. border with Mexico to assess how to send terrorists and weapons into the U.S. Four pounds of anthrax in a suitcase this big carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S. are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there, the recruiter said. What a horrifying idea; 9/11 will be small change in comparison. Am I right? There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings and so on. One person, with the courage to carry 4 pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this confetti all over them, and then well do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real celebration. In the video, obtained and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, al-Nafisi also suggests that
al Qaeda might want to collaborate with members of native U.S. white supremacist militias who hate the federal government.
That causes extinction

Ochs 2 (Richard, Member Chemical Weapons Working Group, Biological Weapons Must be Abolished Immediately, 6-9,
http://www.freefromterror.net/other_articles/abolish.html) **We disagree with the authors use of gendered language Of all the weapons of mass destruction, the genetically
engineered biological weapons, many without a known cure or vaccine, are an extreme danger to the continued survival of life on earth. Any perceived
military value or deterrence pales in comparison to the great risk these weapons pose just sitting in vials in laboratories. While a "nuclear winter," resulting from a massive exchange of nuclear weapons, could also kill off most of life on earth and severely compromise the health of future generations, they are easier to control. Biological
weapons, on the other hand, can get out of control very easily, as the recent anthrax attacks has demonstrated. There is no way to guarantee
the security of these doomsday weapons because very tiny amounts can be stolen or accidentally released and then grow or be grown to horrendous proportions. The Black Death of the Middle Ages would be small in comparison to the potential damage bioweapons could cause. Abolition of chemical weapons is less of a priority because, while they can also kill millions of people outright, their persistence in the environment would be less than nuclear or biological agents or more localized. Hence, chemical weapons would have a lesser effect on future generations of innocent people and the natural environment. Like the
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Holocaust, once a localized chemical extermination is over, it is over. With nuclear and biological weapons, the killing will probably never end. Radioactive elements last tens of thousands of years and will keep causing cancers virtually forever. Potentially worse than that, bio-engineered agents by the hundreds with
no known cure could wreck even greater calamity on the human race than could persistent radiation. AIDS and ebola viruses are just a small example of recently emerging plagues with no known cure or vaccine. Can we imagine hundreds of such plagues? HUMAN EXTINCTION IS NOW POSSIBLE.
And, the timeframe for bioweapons to spread globally is six weeks

Levy 7 [Janet, a consultant for ESG Consulting, an organization that provides consulting services for project development and
management primarily related to national security and terrorism, The Threat of Bioweapons, The American Thinker, 6-8-2007, http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/the_threat_of_bioweapons.html]
Biological weapons are among the most dangerous in the world today and can be engineered and disseminated to achieve a more deadly result than a nuclear attack. Whereas the explosion of a nuclear bomb would cause massive death in a specific location, a biological attack with smallpox could infect multitudes of people across the globe. With incubation periods of up to 17 days,
human disseminators could unwittingly cause widespread exposure before diagnosable symptoms indicate an infection and appropriate quarantine procedures are in place. Unlike
any other type of weapon, bioweapons such as smallpox can replicate and infect a chain of people over an indeterminate amount of time from a single undetectable point of release. According to science writer and author of The Hot Zone, Richard Preston, "If you took a gram of smallpox, which is highly contagious and lethal, and for which there's no vaccine available globally now, and released it in the air and created about a hundred cases, the chances are excellent that the virus would go global in six weeks as people moved from city to city......the death toll could
easily hit the hundreds of millions.....in scale, that's like a nuclear war."[1] More so than chemical and nuclear research, bioweapons development programs lend themselves to stealth development. They are difficult to detect, can be conducted alongside legimate research on countermeasures, sheltered in animal research facilities within sophisticated pharmaceutical corporations, disguised as part of routine medical university studies, or be a component of dual use technology development. Detection is primarily through available intelligence information and location-specific biosensors that test for the presence of pathogens. Biological weapons
have many appealing qualities for warfare and their effects can be engineered and customized from a boutique of possibilities. Offensive pathogens are inexpensive compared to conventional weapons and small quantities can produce disproportionate damage. They have unlimited lethal potential as carriers and can continue to infect more people over time. Bioweapons are easy to dispense through a variety of delivery systems from a missile, an aerosol or a food product. They can be placed into a state of dormancy to be activated at a later stage allowing for ease of storage. Pathogens are
not immediately detectable or identifiable due to varying incubation periods and can be rapidly deployed, activated and impossible to trace. The
technology to develop biological agents is widely available for legitimate purposes and large quantities can be developed within days.
Increased security at land POEs solve illegally border crossings Meissner et al 13 [Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director, MPI US Immigration Policy Program
The POE mission is arguably the most difficult and complex element of border security. CIWs immigration inspectors question, under oath, persons seeking entry in order to determine their admissibility. POEs
are responsible for both
facilitation of legitimate trade and travel which are vital for the economies and social well-being of the United States and most countries around the world and for preventing the entry of a small but potentially deadly number of dangerous people as well as lethal goods, illicit drugs, and contraband. As border security
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improves and border enforcement makes illegal crossing between ports ever more difficult, the potential for misuse of legal crossing procedures builds and can be expected to steadily increase. CBP estimates that it processed more than 340 million travelers in FY 2011.172 With
such volumes, inspectors have very little time on average to determine whether a traveler is authorized to enter. Covert testing by GAO at land, sea, and airport entry points from 2003-07 found that inspectors routinely failed to detect counterfeit documents or did not request documents at all. A separate study
found that the probability of an unauthorized migrant being apprehended while passing illegally through a POE was about one-half as high as the probability of being apprehended while crossing between ports of entry. 4 Persons seeking to cross illegally have growing incentives to try to enter at a POE, rather than risk their lives crossing illegally between ports.
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Texas Advantage Module

Land POEs have not kept pace with screening traffic wait times lead to flushing traffic, undermining border enforcement Meissner et al 13 [Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director, MPI US Immigration Policy Program
Meeting the
physical infrastructure needs at POEs has not kept pace with advances in documentation and screening developments. Communities such as Nogales, AZ, for example, have two ports that
typically handle 15,000 pedestrian and 20,000 vehicle crossings daily (3.5 million pedestrians and 4.7 million vehicles annually).
The POEs are equipped with technology that permits 100 percent license plate reading and document scanning. However, when traffic wait times exceed 60 minutes, inspectors typically flush traffic through, pulling aside only obvious high-risk crossers, in an effort to reconcile their facilitation and enforcement missions under trying conditions. Despite significant advances, land ports have not experienced improvements on par with those realized between ports. As a result, the potential for land POE inspections to be a weak link remains a critical enforcement challenge.
The US-Mexico border makes terrorist and criminal activities within Texas easy
Perry 10 *Rick Perry, Governor, Texas Homeland Security Strategic Plan Rick Perry Governor 2010-2015, http://governor.state.tx.us/files/homeland/HmLndSecurity_StratPlan2015.pdf]
The convergence of terrorists and criminal enterprises constitutes a very dangerous threat to Texas and the United States. According to the U.S. Department of State, "Terrorist activities and support for terrorist infrastructure are (increasingly) funded by...illicit activities such as trafficking in persons, smuggling and narcotrafficking." Federal analysis and reporting confirm that the link between terrorists and criminals is a two-way street. Terrorists use criminal activities to accrue money needed to pay for recruiting and training, and to buy false documents, weapons, explosives, and munitions. Criminal enterprises increasingly use terrorist tactics to protect monopolies, intimidate communities and law enforcement, and combat competitors. Because terrorists and criminals increasingly use similar tactics
and operational methods, the ability to draw a clear boundary between the two activities in the United States is becoming more and more problematic. Both groups use drug trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling, document fraud, credit card fraud, kidnapping, extortion, and other crimes to generate funds to purchase weapons, pay recruits, underwrite training costs, and enable operations overall. Both
groups also use sophisticated technology to recruit operatives, train members, plan and oversee operations, manage finances, handle logistics, and perform other organizational tasks. The global trend of increasing crime and international terrorism convergence is likely to continue to grow as the lines between the activities of criminal enterprises and terror organizations become increasingly blurred. Terrorist-criminal alliances complicate efforts to identify and track terrorists operating on foreign soil and in Texas. The states diverse urban areas, border with Mexico, critical infrastructures, and key resources further complicate the unique counterterrorism challenges in Texas.
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Risks devastating use of WMEs by terrorists

- WMEs include nuclear biological, chemical, and high-yield explosives and radiological weapons Perry 10 *Rick Perry, Governor, Texas Homeland Security Strategic Plan Rick Perry Governor 2010-2015, http://governor.state.tx.us/files/homeland/HmLndSecurity_StratPlan2015.pdf]
Weapons of mass effect (WME) include nuclear, biological, chemical, high-yield explosive and radiological weapons. What unites these weapons is their ability to cause mass casualties and spread panic. Nuclear weapons are extraordinarily powerful bombs made from radioactive materials. Nuclear weapons can cause mass casualties and lingering environmental damage to a large area. The effects of a nuclear detonation in a U.S. city would be felt throughout the nation and around the world. Immediate
effects would be physically catastrophic, and the psychological, economic, and societal effects would be even greater.
Terrorists would likely detonate an improvised nuclear device with the goal of causing extraordinary, instantaneous worldwide changes. Biological weapons are those intended to introduce diseasecausing microorganisms, including viruses and infectious nucleic acids, into human and/or animal populations or crops.
Weaponized microorganisms are of particular concern because they can mutate as they multiply and spread. These weapons are not as visually spectacular as nuclear devices or IEDs, but are potentially even more dangerous. A biological weapon could develop undetected over the course of days or weeks. Biological attacks have the potential to create a major epidemic among humans and/or animals, or
cause widespread crop damage. Biological weapons have the ability to cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and temporarily incapacitate millions. The
range of a biological weapon could potentially be even greater than the range of a nuclear device. The economic and societal effects of such an attack could be catastrophic. Chemical weapons work principally through toxicity to cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent injury. In sufficient quantity, chemical weapons can initially be as devastating as
explosives and cause hundreds or thousands of casualties. Soft targets are particularly susceptible to chemical weapons, which normally require a high concentration of unprotected people to cause significant numbers of casualties. Chemical weapons generally do not impact physical structures; thus, to be effective against critical infrastructures, they would need to be targeted against the people who are occupying the sites. Radiological weapons, often referred to as dirty bombs, normally have a limited damage range and are less effective at accomplishing mass fatalities than other categories of WME. They
are principally designed to cause widespread fear and panic, and render specific sites or locations uninhabitable. Intelligence suggests that several terrorist organizations are aggressively seeking WME capabilities. If obtained, these capabilities would present a serious threat to Texas. Chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosive materials, or their component parts, are susceptible to theft and illegal purchase. Complete weapons and/or components can be easily concealed and transported. The our many seaports make
Texas-Mexico border 25 and the transport of WME an area of grave concern. Biological weapons are of particular concern, because they are known to be part of Islamic extremists' arsenals, and even a small amount smuggled into Texas could be used to devastating effect. The far-reaching consequences of any WME being successfully deployed in Texas are self-evident.
Bioweapons use causes extinction

Ochs 2 (Richard, Member Chemical Weapons Working Group, Biological Weapons Must be Abolished Immediately, 6-9,
http://www.freefromterror.net/other_articles/abolish.html) **We disagree with the authors use of gendered language Of all the weapons of mass destruction, the genetically
engineered biological weapons, many without a known
cure or vaccine, are an extreme danger to the continued survival of life on earth. Any perceived military value or deterrence pales in comparison to the great risk these weapons pose just sitting in vials in laboratories. While a "nuclear winter," resulting from a massive exchange of nuclear weapons, could also kill off most of life on earth and severely compromise the health of future generations, they are easier to control. Biological
weapons, on the other hand, can get out of control very easily, as the recent anthrax attacks has demonstrated. There is no way to guarantee

the security of these doomsday weapons because very tiny amounts can be stolen or accidentally released and then grow or be
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grown to horrendous proportions. The Black Death of the Middle Ages would be small in comparison to the potential damage bioweapons could cause. Abolition of chemical weapons is less of a priority because, while they can also kill millions of people outright, their persistence in the environment would be less than nuclear or biological agents or more localized. Hence, chemical weapons would have a lesser effect on future generations of innocent people and the natural environment. Like the Holocaust, once a localized chemical extermination is over, it is over. With nuclear and biological weapons, the killing will probably never end. Radioactive elements last tens of thousands of years and will keep causing cancers virtually forever. Potentially worse than that, bio-engineered agents by the hundreds with
no known cure could wreck even greater calamity on the human race than could persistent radiation. AIDS and ebola viruses are just a small example of recently emerging plagues with no known cure or vaccine. Can we imagine hundreds of such plagues? HUMAN EXTINCTION IS NOW POSSIBLE.
And, nuclear terrorism leads to global nuclear war and extinction

Hellman 8 (Dr. Martin E. Hellman, New York Epsilon 66, is professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford University,
with research interests in http://nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf) cryptography and information theory, Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence,
The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the publics mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article focuses primarily on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a catastrophe of immense proportions: A 10-kiloton bomb
detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever. *Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The
likelihood of such an attack is also significant. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has estimated the chance of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a
former weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, We would never accept a si tuation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a lowprobability event, but we cant live in a world where its anything but extremely low-probability. *Hegland 2005+. In
a survey of 85 national security experts, Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20 percent for the probability of an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in the next 10 years, with 79 percent of the respondents believing it more likely to be carried out by terrorists than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanisms for a full-scale nuclear war, the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear
terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce which- ever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g., nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). his article would be incomplete if it only dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism and neglected the threat of full- scale nuclear war. If both risks are unacceptable, an effort to reduce only the terrorist component would leave humanity in great peril. In fact, societys
almost total neglect of the threat of full-scale nuclear war makes studying that risk all the more important. The cosT of World War iii The danger associated
with nuclear deterrence depends on both the cost of a failure and the failure rate.3 This section explores the cost of a failure of nuclear deterrence, and the next section is concerned with the failure rate. While other definitions are possible, this article defines a failure of deterrence to mean a full-scale exchange of all nuclear weapons available to the U.S. and Russia, an event that will be termed World War III. Approximately 20 million people died as a result of the first World War. World War IIs fatalities were double or triple that numberchaos prevented a more precise determination. In both cases humanity recovered, and the world today bears few scars that attest to the horror of those two wars. Many people therefore implicitly believe that a third World War would be horrible but survivable, an extrapola- tion of the effects of the first two global wars. In that view, World War III, while horrible, is something that humanity may just have to face and from which it will then have to recover. In contrast, some of those most qualified to assess the situation hold a very different view. In a 1961 speech to a joint session of the Philippine Con- gress, General Douglas MacArthur, stated, Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No
longer does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double suicide. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara expressed a similar view: If deterrence fails and conflict develops, the present U.S. and NATO strategy carries with it a high risk that Western civilization will be destroyed *McNamara 1986, page 6+. More recently, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger,
and Sam Nunn4 echoed those concerns when they quoted President Reagans belief that nuclear weapons were totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization. *Shultz 2007+ Official studies, while couched in less emotional terms, still convey the horrendous toll that World War III would exact: The
resulting deaths
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would be far beyond any precedent. Executive branch calculations show a range of U.S. deaths from 35 to 77 percent
(i.e., 79-160 million dead) a change in targeting could kill somewhere between 20 million and 30 million additional people on each side .... These calculations reflect only deaths during the first 30 days. Additional millions would be injured, and many would eventually die from lack of adequate medical care millions of people might starve or freeze during the following winter, but it is not possible to estimate how many. further millions might eventually die of latent radiation effects. *OTA 1979, page 8+ This OTA report also noted the possibility of serious ecological damage [OTA 1979, page 9], a concern that assumed a new potentiality when the TTAPS report [TTAPS 1983] proposed that the ash and dust from so many nearly simultaneous nuclear and their resultant fire- storms could
explosions usher in a nuclear winter that might erase homo sapiens from the
face of the earth, much as many scientists now believe the K-T Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs resulted from an
impact winter caused by ash and dust from a large asteroid or comet striking Earth. The TTAPS report produced a heated debate, and there is still no scientific consensus on whether a nuclear winter would follow a full-scale nuclear war. Recent work [Robock 2007, Toon 2007] suggests that even
a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states, such as
India and Pakistan, could have devastating long-lasting climatic consequences due to the large volumes of smoke that would be generated by fires in modern megacities. While it is uncertain how destructive World War III would be, prudence dictates that we apply the same engineering conservatism that saved the Golden Gate Bridge from collapsing on its 50th anniversary and assume that preventing
World War III is a necessitynot an option.
Increased security at land POEs solve illegally border crossings Meissner et al 13 [Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director, MPI US Immigration Policy Program
The POE mission is arguably the most difficult and complex element of border security. CIWs immigration inspectors question, under oath, persons seeking entry in order to determine their admissibility. POEs
are responsible for both
facilitation of legitimate trade and travel which are vital for the economies and social well-being of the United States and most countries around the world and for preventing the entry of a small but potentially deadly number of dangerous people as well as lethal goods, illicit drugs, and contraband. As border security improves and border enforcement makes illegal crossing between ports ever more difficult, the potential for misuse of legal crossing procedures builds and can be expected to steadily increase. CBP estimates that it processed more than 340 million travelers in FY 2011.172 With
such volumes, inspectors have very little time on average to determine whether a traveler is authorized to enter. Covert testing by GAO at land, sea, and airport entry points from 2003-07 found that inspectors routinely failed to detect counterfeit documents or did not request documents at all. A separate study
found that the probability of an unauthorized migrant being apprehended while passing illegally through a POE was about one-half as high as the probability of being apprehended while crossing between ports of entry.4 Persons seeking to cross illegally have growing incentives to try to enter at a POE, rather than risk their lives crossing illegally between ports.
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Trade Advantage Module

North America is situated for strong economic growth the plan is key lock in growth and ensure competitiveness and manufacturing success Wilson 13 - Christopher, associate with the Mexico Institute (New Ideas for a New Era:
Policy Options for the Next Stage in U.S.-Mexico Relations, Wilson Center, January 2013, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/new_ideas_us_mexico_relations.pdf) At a time when Mexico is poised to experience robust economic growth, a manufacturing renaissance is underway in North America and bilateral trade is booming, the United States and Mexico have an important choice to make: sit back and reap the moderate and perhaps temporal benefits coming naturally from the evolving global context, or implement a robust agenda to improve the competitiveness of North America for the long term. Given that job creation and economic growth in both the United States and Mexico are at stake, the choice should be simple, but a limited understanding about the magnitude, nature and depth of the U.S.-Mexico economic relationship among the public and many policymakers has made serious action to support regional exporters more politically divisive than it ought to be. The United States and Mexico have become profoundly integrated, and the two countries are now partners, rather than competitors, in the global economy. The North American Free Trade Agreement, geographic proximity, and the complementary nature of the two economies have fostered an integrated manufacturing platform. The United States and Mexico do not only trade finished products; they build them together . Indeed, roughly 40 percent of all content in Mexican exports to the U nited States originates in the United States, much more than the comparable figures with China, Brazil, and India, at four, three, and two percent respectively. Only Canada, at 25 percent, is similar. As a result, improvements in productivity in either country , as well as advances that lower the costs of moving goods across the border(i.e.: long wait times, inefficient customs procedures), strengthen the competitiveness of manufacturers throughout the whole region. An Evolving Context The Advent of Advanced Manufacturing and the
Return of North American Competitiveness Driven by a series of global developments and technological advances, a manufacturing renaissance is taking hold in the United States and Mexico that is increasing the competitiveness ofregional industry and the volume of U.S.-Mexico trade. After many companies moved their factories to Asia in search of cheap wages over the past two decades, new trends are pulling production facilities back to North America. While manufacturing wages inChina were four times less than Mexico in 2000, they are now nearly equal and are expected to be 25 percent higher than Mexican labor costs by 2015.1 The simple math of wage differentials drove the past decades movement of factories from the U. S. and Mexico toChina, but companies are taking an increasingly holistic approach in deciding where to locate factories, considering transportation costs and shipping times; exchange rate and political risks; language, culture, and time zone differences; contract and intellectual property law enforcement; security; production flexibility; the supply and cost of materials and energy; and the availability of skilled and educated workers. In most of these
Mexico is gaining ground or maintains a distinct advantage over other regions of the world, particularly in terms of serving markets throughout the Americas. For example,
categories, between 2007 and December 2012, the value of the Mexican Peso fell by 17 percent compared to the U.S. Dollar and by a full 33 percent compared to the Chinese Yuan, improving the competitiveness of regional exports vis--vis Chinese goods.2 Crude oil pricesrose 231 percent between 2002 and 2012, thus raising shipping costs and incentivizing the use of shorter,regional rather than longer, transcontinental supply chains.3 New drilling techniques, however, are changing the outlook for oil and especially natural gas, opening access to new reserves, increasing production, and therefore lowering some energy costs. While this may eventually lower longrange shipping costs, the more immediate effect is proving to be a major decline in natural gas prices, which has already lowered electricity costs in some parts of the United States and has the potential to do so throughout both the
The United States is on the forefront of the technological advances in the energy industry and stands to gain the most from them, but Mexico could reap the benefits as well should it either reform its energy industry to take advantage of its significant shale gas reserves or develop the pipeline infrastructure to support increased gas imports from the United States. Technological advances and improvements in the manufacturing process and logistics are revolutionizing industrial production in ways that significantly change cost structures, further incentivizing those that had offshored to China to consider nearshoring in Mexico or reshoring their production back to the
region. Such a decline in prices provides a major boost to energy intensive industries, such as steel, and petrochemical producers.
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United Sates. Robots and the high-tech sensors that allow them to function with precision are allowing many of the simple, repetitive jobs that traditionally made up factory work obsolete. The need for large numbers of relatively unskilled laborers is on the decline, and the need for high skilled technicians who can program and maintain the complex machi nes and robots of todays factories is on the rise. As a result, labor costs are a shrinking portion of total production costs, as evidenced by a recent study that found only 5.3% of the price of an iPhone goes to offshore manufacturing wages.4 This shift opens an opportunity for advanced economies like the U.S. to recoup some of their share of global manufacturing, especially if the complementary nature of high-tech design and production in the U.S. is complemented with lower cost manufacturing in Mexico for the portions of production that still require a higher degree of manual labor. The widespread implementation of lean manufacturing principles hasimproved the efficiency and agility of factories around the world. One important area in which fat has been cut from the manufacturing process is in warehousing. Just-in-time supply chain management has minimized the costly storage of parts and products, thusfueling the trend of regionalization in manufacturing by increasing the importance of a robust network of nearby suppliers. It is also greatly increasing the need for short and predictable wait times at the U.S. land borders since an unexpected delay has the potential to shut down production until the needed parts arrive at their destination.
For years, Mexico oriented its economy toward the U.S. in hopes of harnessing the growth of the worlds largest market. Now, at a time when Mexico is growing around four percent a year faster than the United States Mexico can return the favor and provide a boost to the U.S. economy. Measures of the countrys manufacturing sector are showing
Mexico on the Move record-high growth, a clear sign of strengthening competitiveness, and the country is building ever more complex products like cars while leaving
Mexicos large and growing middle class has become an increasingly important market for U.S. products and a force for many of the economic and political reforms needed to unleash Mexicos full economic potential.5 Altogether, Mexicos
behind simpler industries like textiles and shoemaking. new government inherited a very solid economic outlook despite the complex global environment, and the recent passage of important labor and education reforms suggest that the political gridlock that blocked the passage of several key economic reforms in congress for years may have finally, if perhaps only temporarily, become unstuck. Recent optimism regarding the Mexican economy has attracted significant foreign investments, and the United Nations expects FDI in Mexico in 2013 to reach a record $38 billion dollars.6
The Pea Nieto administration currently looks
poised to manage a period of robust growth, and while global developments or a failure to measure up to high
expectations could create downward pressures on Mexicos growth, if Con gress passes key energy, fiscal and accountability reforms, the outlook could become even brighter. A Boom in Bilateral Trade After years of slow growth (4.5 percent average annual growth from 2000-2008) and then a 17 percent drop between 2008 and 2009 during the Great Recession, U.S.-Mexico trade is now booming as never before. It is growing faster than U.S. trade with China and faster than during any period during the post NAFTA spurt in the 1990s.7 In the uncertain context of a global economy in search of a new equilibriumEurope struggling, Chinas decelerating, a fiscal reckoning in the United Statesthe bilateral economic relationship stands out as a
U.S.-Mexico trade already supports more than six million U.S. jobs, and the return of manufacturing competitiveness to the region, as well as the robust growth of the Mexican economy, presents an opportunity to significantly increase export supported employment should steps be taken to support further advances in North American competitiveness.8 The amazing thing is that this recent boom in bilateral trade has occurred without a strategy. Imagine what could be achieved if the governments of the United States and Mexico ideally in conjunction with Canada designed and implemented a comprehensive plan to improve the competitiveness of our region in the global marketplace . A Regional
pillar of strength and perhaps a signpost on the path to a stronger economic region. Competitiveness Agenda To cash in on the trends bringing competitiveness back to North America in a way that significantly boosts economic growth and job creation, significant policy action is needed by both the United States and Mexico. At the domestic level, each country must work through its own complex political landscape to press through key reforms, including but not limited to education and fiscal reformin both nations; competition,
The opportunities for U.S.-Mexico collaboration outlined below go hand in hand with these domestic efforts, supporting regional manufacturers and service providers so they can successfully compete in domestic and international markets. Taken together, they have the potential to truly revitalize the regional economy. Strengthening Competitiveness through Integration The first step to improving regional competitiveness is freeing up the flow of trade within the region. As the central architecture of North American economic relations, NAFTA has spurred huge growth in regional trade and investment. Unfortunately, even as bilateral trade skyrocketed, the United States and Mexico did not make the infrastructure investments or policy advances needed to efficiently move what now amounts to more than a billion dollars worth of goods back and forth across the U.S. Mexico border each day. Since the U.S. and Mexico build products together,
rule of law and energy in Mexico; and a revamp of the U.S. immigration system so that it attracts and retains the worlds top talent. materials and parts that are used as inputs for production often zig-zag back and forth across the border several times as a product is being made. This
the bottom line of regional manufacturers is negatively impacted in a magnified way by any inefficiency in moving goods between the two countries. The section of this report on
means that border management describes the challenges and solutions in greater detail, but, in short, the advances in border security made after the terrorist

attacks of 9/11 came at a price.
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Long and unpredictable wait times now chip away at the competitiveness of the region. Thankfully, an innovative set of border management concepts, endorsed by the presidents of the
United States and Mexico in the 21st Century Border initiative in 2010, hasthe potential to simultaneously strengthen security and efficiency. Some important advances on the implementation of those concepts have been achieved, but the lines at the border remain long and there is much work to do.
Border delays are uniquely crippling our economy through a devastating multiplier effect the plans key Lee and Wilson 12 - Erik, Associate Director at the North American Center for
Transborder Studies at ASU, and Christopher E., Associate at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (The State of Trade, Competitiveness and Economic Well-being in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Mexico Institute, June 2012,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/State_of_Border_Trade_Economy_0.pdf)
The National Economic Impact of Bilateral Trade and Border Management Commerce between the United States and Mexico is one of the great yet highly underappreciated success stories of the global economy. The
United States is Mexicos top
trading partner, and Mexicowhich has made enormous strides in its macroeconomic picture in the last two decadesis the U.S. third-ranked partner in terms of total trade. The economic vitality of the U.S.-Mexico border regionwhich includes manufacturing, infrastructure, human capital and tourism, among other elementsis a key part of this overall economic success. With more than a billion dollars of commercial traffic crossing the border each day, it is literally at the U.S.Mexico border region where the rubber hits the road in terms of this expanded regional trade. This is because more than 70% of total binational commerce passes through the border region via trucks. This already massive truck traffic is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades (see Figure 1 below). Since the implementation of the North American Free Trade
Agreement in 1994, total trade between the two countries has more than quintupled, and goods and services trade is now at a 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 Billions of U.S. Dollars Merchandise Trade Services Trade5 half trillion dollars per year. An
estimated six million U.S. jobs and probably even more Mexican jobs depend on bilateraltrade.2 The six Mexican and four U.S. border states have especially close bilateral economic ties, but what is often unappreciated is that this economic value extends far beyond the border region. Mexico, for example, is the top buyer of exports from states as far away as
New Hampshire (mostly computers and electronics). In fact, Mexico is the first or second most important export market for twentyone states from Colorado to Ohio, and twenty U.S. states sell more than a billion dollars worth of goodsto Mexico each year. The United States in an even more important market for Mexican exports. Seventy-nine
percent of Mexican exports are sold to the United States, including products produced in the border region and throughout the country.3 Crude oil, for example, which is mostly produced in Mexicos Gulf Coast states, isthe top single
export to the United States, but automobiles and auto-parts, whichmake up an even greater share of exports when taken together, are mainly made in the center and north of the country.4 The quantity of U.S.-Mexico trade isimpressive, but its qualitymakes it unique. The
United States and Mexico do not just sell goods to one another, they actually work together to manufacture them. Through a process known as production sharing, materials and parts often
cross back and forth between factories on each side of the border as a final product is made and assembled. As a result, U.S. imports from Mexico contain, on average, 40 percent U.S. content, and Mexicos imports from the U.S. also have a high level of Mexican content. 5 This
system of joint production has two important consequences. First, it means that our economies are profoundly linked. We tend to experience growth and recession together, and productivity gains or losses on one side of the border generally cause a corresponding gain or loss in
competitiveness on the other side as well. In sum, we will largely succeed or fail together and must therefore join forces to increase the competitiveness of the region. Second,
the fact that goods often cross the border several times as they are being produced creates a multiplier effect for gains and losses in border
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efficiency. Whereas goods from China only go through customs and inspection once as they enter the U.S. or Mexico, products
built by regional manufacturers bear the costs of long and unpredictable border wait times and significant customs requirements each time they cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Leading
industrial sectors in U.S.-Mexico trade include automobiles, aerospace, and home appliances, and medical devices, to name but a few. We often find extremely high-skilled labor involved in complex aspects of U.S.-Mexico trade, including custom parts metal work, products requiring skilled labor. These processes often link designers, developers, raw materials producers and parts manufacturers in the United Statesto high skilled labor, engineers, and plant managers in Mexico. While in truth both countries participate in
all parts of the supply chain depending on the product, these are some broad characteristics that often hold true for which parts of the manufacturing process each country specializes in. In addition to manufactured goods, agricultural products also flow between the two countries. This includes U.S. exports of food products (grains and processed foods)fromstates such as South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa, as well as Mexican fruit and vegetable exports from key states such as Sinaloa and Michoacn. As a final point to introduce this macro view of U.S.-Mexico trade, it must be emphasized that this
trade relationship requires
major infrastructure to function effectively. The largest trade corridor, often referred to as the NASCO
corridor, links central and eastern Mexico to Texas, the American Midwest, Northeast, and Ontario, utilizing the key Laredo-Nuevo Laredo ports of entry (POEs). Other important trade arteries include the CANAMEX Corridor, which connects western Mexico to the intermountain United States and Canadian province of Alberta, as well as the shorter but high-volume I-5 corridor connecting California to Baja California. As
the economies of both the U.S. and Mexico grow, it is likely that this network of freight transportation infrastructureand the land ports of entry that serve as nodes in this network will experience added stress (see Figure 2 on the next page). Tourism is another key economic driver for the region. Mexico is the number one foreign destination for U.S. tourists, and Mexican tourists comprise the second largest group of foreign visits to the United States each year (see Table 1 below). Statistics on Mexican tourist
spending in the U.S. are incomplete because of the heavy usage of U.S. bank cards and cash by Mexican tourists, thereby making statistical analysis of this group of tourists particularly challenging. Yet even with this incomplete picture, Mexican tourist spending ranks fourth, according to U.S. Department of Commerce statistics from 2010. The large majority (85%) of Mexican arrivals to the U.S. occur at the land ports of entry along our shared border. These tourists have a significant economic impact upon the communities they visit and the states that receive sales and other taxes they pay. To take one example, according to a study by the University of Arizona on Mexican visitors to Arizona, in 2007-08 Mexican visitors spent $2.69 billion in the state of Arizona, generating 23,400 direct jobs and 7,000 indirect jobs in the state. It is the land ports of entry, then, that play the pivotal role in facilitating commercial exchange between the United States and Mexico. The
health of both the national economies and the more local border-specific economies rests upon the relative health or weakness of these gateways. Managing the Land Ports of Entry: Increasing Capacity to Ease Congestion Two major
events have transformed the dynamics of bilateral trade and border management over the past few decades, and an important third one may be underway. The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 eliminated most tariffs and caused bilateral trade to skyrocket. Merchandise trade has more than quintupled since NAFTA was put in place, but its growth has not been entirely steady. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the accession of China to the WTO in 2001, regional trade and manufacturing sputtered. The need for increased vigilance at the U.S. borders came at a cost for regional manufacturers and border communities.6 Longer
and unpredictable wait times at the border cut away at the competitiveness of regional industries and many U.S. and Mexican factories were offshored to Asia.7 Whereas bilateral trade had grown at a rate of 17 percent per year from 1993-2000, it only grew 4.5 percent from 2000-2008. The recent economic crisis has drawn attention to the serious need for efforts to increase the competiveness of regional industry that could lead to a renewed emphasis on the trade facilitation portion of the Customs and Border Protection mission. The integrated nature of the North American manufacturing sector makes eliminating border congestion an important way to enhance regional competitiveness. The global economic crisis forced manufacturers to look for ways to cut costs . After taking
into consideration factors such as rising fuel costs, increasing wages in China and the ability to automate an ever greater portion of the production process, many American companies decided to nearshore factories to Mexico or reshore them to the United States, taking advantage of strong human capital and shorter supply chains. Bilateral trade dropped significantly during the recession but has since rebounded strongly, growing significantly faster than trade with China.8 As demonstrated in the above map (Figure 2),
the growth of trade adds pressure (and has the potential to add additional pressure) on the already strained
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POEs and transportation corridors. Despite growing trade, the number of trucks crossing the border has remained
relatively stable since the year 2000. As shown in Figure 3 above, personal vehicle and pedestrian traffic shows an even starker contrast, with a clear inflection point around the turn ofthe century. Several studies have attempted to quantify the costs of border area congestion to the economies of the United States and Mexico. In what is perhaps a testimony to the fragmented and geographically disperse nature of the border region, most ofthese studies have focused on particular NorthSouth corridors of traffic and trade rather than taking a comprehensive, border-wide approach. The specific results of the studies (summarized in Table 2, on next page) are quite varied, and too much value should not be placed on any single number. Nonetheless, one message comes through quite clearlylong
and unpredictable wait times at the POEs are costing the United States and Mexican economies many billions of dollars each year.
The U.S. economy is key to the global economy Perry 12 [Mark, PhD, professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the
Flint campus of the University of Michigan, U.S. Emerges As A Main Engine of Global Growth, 2012, http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/04/us-emerging-as-main-engine-of-global.html]
"The U.S. once again may be emerging as a main engine for global growth -- and at an opportune time, as Europe slides into recession and Chinas economy decelerates. An improving job market, rising stock prices and easier credit are combining to lift U.S. consumer confidence and spending, with optimism measured by the Bloomberg Comfort Index near a four-year
high. Personal-consumption expenditures increased by the most in seven months in February, rising 0.8 percent, the Commerce Department said last week. Were
entering a sweet spot for the economy, said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc. in New York. Were in a self-reinforcing cycle, where faster employment growth leads to higher household income and increased consumer spending. The U.S. is taking the lead in global growth, thanks in part to a domestic glut of natural gas, Larry
Kantor, head of research at Barclays in New York, wrote in a March 22 report. Natural-gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell to 10-year lows last week, helping to blunt the impact of higher oil prices on the economy. U.S.
manufacturers are benefiting, with the Institute for Supply Managements factory index climbing to 53.4 (NAPMPMI) last month, beating the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey, from 52.4 in
February, the Tempe, Arizona-based group said yesterday. Readings greater than 50 signal growth. The recovery has been an emerging-market -- really a Chinese-led -- story, with the U.S. having lagged the cycle, Kantor said. Now, however, the
U.S. has reasserted its traditional role, and the current pickup in growth is clearly being led by the U.S.
Economic decline causes extinction Kemp 10 [Geoffrey, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center, served in the
White House under Ronald Reagan, special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council Staff, Former Director, Middle East Arms Control Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010, The East Moves West: India, China, and Asias Growing Presence in the Middle East, pgs. 233-4]
The second scenario, called Mayhem and Chaos, is the opposite of the first scenario; everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
The world economic situation weakens rather than strengthens, and India, China, and Japan suffer a major reduction in their growth rates, further weakening the global economy. As a result, energy demand falls and the price of fossil fuels plummets, leading to a financial crisis for the energy-producing states, which are forced to cut back dramatically on expansion programs and social welfare. That in turn leads to political unrest: and nurtures different radical groups, including, but not limited to, Islamic extremists. The internal stability of some countries is challenged, and there are more failed states. Most serious is the collapse of the democratic government in Pakistan and its takeover by Muslim extremists, who then take possession of a large
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number of nuclear weapons. The danger of war between India and Pakistan increases significantly. Iran, always worried about an extremist Pakistan, expands and weaponizes its nuclear program. That further enhances nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt joining Israel and Iran as nuclear states. Under these circumstances, the potential for nuclear terrorism increases, and the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack in either the Western world or in the oil-producing states may lead to a further devastating collapse of the world economic market, with a tsunami-like impact on stability. In this scenario, major disruptions can be expected, with dire consequences for two-thirds of the planets population.
And, declines in competitiveness facilitate multipolarity - results in global wars Khalilzad 11 United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations during the
presidency of George W. Bush and the director of policy planning at the Defense Department from 1990 to 1992 (Zalmay, 2/8, The Economy and National Security, 2-8, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259024/economy-and-national-security-zalmay-khalilzad)
We face this domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth. Even though countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and economic problems, their economies are growing faster than ours, and this could alter the global distribution of power. These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar world. If U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but when a new international order will emerge. The closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could intensify geopolitical competition among major powers, increase incentives for local powers to play major powers against one another, and undercut our will to preclude or respond to international crises because of the higher risk of escalation. The stakes are high. In modern history, the longest period of peace among the great powers has been the era of U.S. leadership. By contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their competitive dynamics resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international systems produced both world wars. American retrenchment could have devastating consequences. Without an American security blanket, regional powers could rearm in an attempt to balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there would be a heightened possibility of arms races, miscalculation, or other crises spiraling into all-out conflict. Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the stronger powers, weaker powers may shift their geopolitical posture away from the United States. Either way, hostile states would be emboldened to make aggressive moves in their regions. As rival powers rise, Asia in particular is likely to emerge as a zone of great-power competition. Beijings economic rise has enabled a dramatic military buildup focused on acquisitions of naval, cruise, and
ballistic missiles, long-range stealth aircraft, and anti-satellite capabilities. Chinas strategic modernization is aimed, ultimately, at denying the United States access to the seas around China. Even as cooperative economic ties in the region have grown, Chinas
expansive territorial claims and provocative statements and actions following crises in Korea and incidents at sea have roiled its relations with South Korea, Japan, India, and Southeast Asian states . Still, the United States is the most significant barrier facing Chinese hegemony and aggression. Given the risks, the United States must focus on restoring its economic and fiscal condition while checking and managing the rise of potential adversarial regional powers such as China. While we face significant challenges, the U.S. economy still accounts for over 20 percent of the worlds GDP.
American institutions particularly those providing enforceable rule of law set it apart from all the rising powers. Social cohesion
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underwrites political stability. U.S. demographic trends are healthier than those of any other developed country. A culture of innovation, excellent institutions of higher education, and a vital sector of small and medium-sized enterprises propel the U.S. economy in ways difficult to quantify. Historically, Americans have responded pragmatically, and sometimes through trial and error, to work our way through the kind of crisis that we face today.
U.S. hegemony de-escalates all conflicts - any alternative causes destabilizing crises that culminate in nuclear war Brooks, Ikenberry and Wohlforth 13 Stephen Brooks, Associate Professor of
Government at Dartmouth College, John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, John Wohlforth, Daniel Webster Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, Jan/Feb 2013, Foreign Affairs, Lean Forward, EBSCO
Of course, even if it is true that the costs of deep engagement fall far below what advocates of retrenchment claim, they would not be worth bearing unless they yielded greater benefits. In fact, they do. The most obvious
benefit of the current strategy is that it reduces the risk of a dangerous conflict. The United States' security commitments deter states with aspirations to regional hegemony from contemplating expansion and dissuade U.S. partners from trying to solve security problems on their own in ways that would end up threatening other states. Skeptics discount this benefit by arguing that U.S. security guarantees aren't necessary to prevent dangerous rivalries from erupting. They maintain that the
high costs of territorial conquest and the many tools countries can use to signal their benign intentions are enough to prevent conflict. In other words, major
powers could peacefully manage regional multipolarity without the American pacifier. But that outlook is too sanguine. If Washington got out of East Asia, Japan and South Korea would likely expand their military capabilities and go nuclear, which could provoke a destabilizing reaction from China. It's worth noting that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan tried to obtain nuclear weapons; the only thing that stopped them was the United States, which used its security commitments to restrain their nuclear temptations. Similarly, were the United States to leave the Middle East, the countries currently backed by Washington--notably, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia--might act in ways that would intensify the region's security dilemmas. There would even be reason to worry about Europe. Although it's hard to imagine the return of great-power military competition in a post-American Europe, it's
not difficult to foresee governments there refusing to pay the budgetary costs of higher military outlays and the political costs of increasing EU defense cooperation. The
result might be a continent incapable of securing itself from threats on its periphery, unable to join foreign interventions on which U.S. leaders might want European help, and vulnerable to the influence of outside rising powers . Given how easily a U.S. withdrawal from key regions could lead to dangerous competition, advocates of retrenchment tend to put forth another argument: that such rivalries wouldn't actually hurt the United States. To be sure, few doubt that the United States could survive the return of conflict among powers in Asia or the Middle East--but at what cost? Were states in one or both of these regions to start competing against one another, they would likely boost their military budgets, arm client states, and perhaps even start regional proxy wars, all of which should concern the United States, in part because its lead in military capabilities would narrow. Greater regional insecurity could also produce cascades of nuclear proliferation as powers such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan built nuclear forces of their own. Those countries' regional competitors might then also seek nuclear arsenals . Although
nuclear deterrence can promote stability between two states with the kinds of nuclear forces that the Soviet Union and the United States possessed, things get shakier when there are multiple nuclear rivals with less robust arsenals. As
the number of nuclear powers increases, the probability of illicit transfers, irrational decisions, accidents, and unforeseen crises goes up. The case for abandoning the United States' global role misses the

underlying security logic of the current approach. By
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reassuring allies and actively managing regional relations, Washington dampens competition in the world s key areas, thereby preventing the emergence of a hothouse in which countries would grow new military capabilities. For proof that this strategy is working, one need look no further than the defense budgets of the current great powers: on average, since 1991 they have kept their military expenditures as A
percentage of GDP to historic lows, and they have not attempted to match the United States' top-end military capabilities. Moreover, all of the world's most modern militaries are U.S. allies, and the United States' military lead over its potential rivals .is by many measures growing. On top of all this, the
current grand strategy acts as a hedge against the emergence regional hegemons. Some supporters of retrenchment argue that the U.S. military should keep its forces over the horizon and pass the buck to local powers to do the dangerous work of counterbalancing rising regional powers. Washington, they contend, should deploy forces abroad only when a truly credible contender for regional hegemony arises, as in the cases of Germany and Japan during World War II and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Yet there is already a potential contender for regional hegemony--China--and to balance it, the United States will need to maintain its key alliances in Asia and the military capacity to intervene there. The implication is that the United States should get out of Afghanistan and Iraq, reduce its military presence in Europe, and pivot to Asia. Yet that is exactly what the Obama administration is doing . MILITARY DOMINANCE, ECONOMIC PREEMINENCE Preoccupied with security issues, critics of the current grand strategy miss one of its most important benefits: sustaining an open global economy and a
favorable place for the United States within it. To be sure, the sheer size of its output would guarantee the United States a major role in the global economy whatever grand strategy it adopted. Yet the
country's military dominance undergirds its economic leadership. In addition to protecting the world economy from instability, its military commitments and naval superiority help secure the sea-lanes and other shipping corridors that allow trade to flow freely and cheaply. Were the United States to pull back from the world, the task of securing the global commons would get much harder. Washington would have less leverage with which it could convince countries to cooperate on economic matters and less access to the military bases throughout the world needed to keep the seas open. A global role also lets the United States structure the world economy in
ways that serve its particular economic interests. During the Cold War, Washington used its overseas security commitments to get allies to embrace the economic policies it preferred--convincing West Germany in the 1960s, for example, to take costly steps to support the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. U.S. defense agreements work the same way today. For example, when negotiating the 2011 free-trade agreement with South Korea, U.S. officials took advantage of Seoul's desire to use the agreement as a means of tightening its security relations with Washington. As one diplomat explained to us privately, "We asked for changes in labor and environment clauses, in auto clauses, and the Koreans took it all." Why? Because they feared a failed agreement would be "a setback to the political and security relationship." More broadly, the
United States wields its security leverage to shape the overall structure of the global economy. Much of what the United States wants from the
economic order is more of the same: for instance, it likes the current structure of the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund and prefers that free trade continue. Washington wins when U.S. allies favor this status quo, and one reason they are inclined to support the existing system is because they value their military alliances. Japan, to name one example, has shown interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Obama administration's most important free-trade initiative in the region, less because its economic interests compel it to do so than because Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda believes that his support will strengthen Japan's security ties with the United States. The
United States' geopolitical dominance also helps keep the U.S. dollar in place as the world's reserve currency, which confers enormous benefits on the country, such as a greater ability to borrow money. This is perhaps clearest with Europe: the EU'S
dependence on the United States for its security precludes the EU from having the kind of political leverage to support the euro that the United States has with the dollar. As with other aspects of the global economy, the United States does not provide its leadership for free: it
extracts disproportionate gains. Shirking that responsibility would place those benefits at risk. CREATING COOPERATION What goes for the global economy goes for other forms of international cooperation. Here, too, American leadership benefits many countries but disproportionately

helps the United States. In
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order to counter transnational threats, such as terrorism, piracy, organized crime, climate change, and pandemics, states have to work together and take collective action. But cooperation does not come about effortlessly, especially when national interests diverge. The United States' military efforts to promote stability and its broader leadership make it easier for Washington to launch joint initiatives and shape them in ways that reflect U.S. interests. After all, cooperation is hard to come by in regions where chaos reigns, and it flourishes where leaders can anticipate lasting stability. U.S. alliances are about security first, but they also provide the political framework and channels of communication for cooperation on nonmilitary issues. NATO, for example, has spawned new institutions,
such as the Atlantic Council, a think tank, that make it easier for Americans and Europeans to talk to one another and do business. Likewise, consultations with allies in East Asia spill over into other policy issues; for example, when American diplomats travel to Seoul to manage the military alliance, they also end up discussing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Thanks
to conduits such as this, the United States can use bargaining chips in one issue area to make progress in others. The benefits of these communication channels are especially pronounced when it comes to fighting the kinds of threats that require new forms of cooperation, such as terrorism and pandemics. With its alliance system in place, the United States is in a stronger position than it would otherwise be to advance cooperation and share burdens . For example, the
intelligence-sharing network within NATO, which was originally designed to gather information on the Soviet Union, has been adapted to deal with terrorism. Similarly, after a tsunami in the Indian Ocean devastated surrounding countries in 2004, Washington had a much easier time orchestrating a fast humanitarian response with Australia, India, and Japan, since their militaries were already comfortable working with one another. The operation did wonders for the United States' image in the region. The United States' global role also has the more direct effect of facilitating the bargains among governments that get cooperation going in the first place. As the scholar Joseph Nye has written, "The American military role in deterring threats to allies, or of assuring access to a crucial resource such as oil in the Persian Gulf, means that the provision of protective force can be used in bargaining situations.
Sometimes the linkage may be direct; more often it is a factor not mentioned openly but present in the back of statesmen's minds." THE DEVIL WE KNOW Should America come home? For many
prominent scholars of international relations, the answer is yes--a view that seems even wiser in the wake of the disaster in Iraq and the Great Recession. Yet their
arguments simply don't hold up. There is little evidence that the United States would save much money switching to a smaller global posture. Nor is the current strategy self-defeating: it has not provoked the formation of counterbalancing coalitions or caused the country to spend itself into economic decline. Nor will it condemn the United States to foolhardy wars in the future. What the strategy does do is help prevent the outbreak of conflict in the world's most important regions, keep the global economy humming, and make international cooperation easier. Charting a different course would threaten all these benefits. This is not to say that the United States' current foreign policy can't be adapted to new circumstances and
challenges. Washington does not need to retain every commitment at all costs, and there is nothing wrong with rejiggering its strategy in response to new opportunities or setbacks. That is what the Nixon administration did by winding down the Vietnam War and increasing the United States' reliance on regional partners to contain Soviet power, and it is what the Obama administration has been doing after the Iraq war by pivoting to Asia. These episodes of rebalancing belie the argument that a powerful and internationally engaged America cannot tailor its policies to a changing world. A
grand strategy of actively managing global security and promoting the liberal economic order has served the United States exceptionally well for the past six decades, and there is no reason to give it up now. The country's globe-spanning posture is the devil we know, and a world with a disengaged America is the devil we don't know. Were American leaders to choose retrenchment, they would in essence be running a massive experiment to test how the world would work without an engaged and liberal leading power. The results could well be disastrous.
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And, decline causes lashout and collapses global trade and makes transnational problems inevitable Beckley 12 Michael, Assistant professor of political science at Tufts, research fellow in the International Security Program at
Harvard Kennedy School's. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, The Unipolar Era: Why American Power Persists and Chinas Rise Is Limited, PhD dissertation, AM One danger is that declinism
could prompt trade conflicts and immigration restrictions. The results of this study suggest that the United States benefits immensely from the free flow of goods, services, and people around the globe; this is what allows American corporations to specialize in high--value activities, exploit innovations created elsewhere, and lure the brightest minds to the United States, all while reducing the price of goods for U.S. consumers . Characterizing Chinas export expansion as a loss for the United States is not just bad economics; it blazes a trail for jingoistic and protectionist policies. It would be tragically ironic if Americans reacted to false prophecies of decline by cutting themselves off from a potentially vital source of American power. Another danger is that declinism may impair foreign policy decision--making. If top government officials come to believe that China is overtaking the United States, they are likely to react in one of two ways, both of which are potentially disastrous. The first is that policymakers may imagine the United States faces a closing window of opportunity and should take action while it still enjoys preponderance and not wait until the diffusion of power has already made international politics more competitive and unpredictable.315 This belief may spur positive action, but it also invites parochial thinking, reckless behavior, and preventive war.316 As Robert Gilpin and others have shown, hegemonic struggles have most frequently been triggered by fears of ultimate decline and the perceived erosion of power.317 By fanning such fears, declinists may inadvertently promote the type of violent overreaction that they seek to prevent. The other potential reaction is retrenchment the divestment of all foreign policy obligations save those linked to vital interests, defined in a narrow and national manner. Advocates of retrenchment assume, or hope, that the world will sort itself out on its own; that whatever replaces American hegemony, whether it be a return to balance--of--power politics or a transition to a post--power paradise, will naturally maintain international order and prosperity. But order and prosperity are unnatural. They can never be presumed. When achieved, they are the result of determined action by powerful actors and, in particular, by the most powerful actor, which is, and will be for some time, the United States. Arms buildups, insecure sea--lanes, and closed markets are only the most obvious risks of U.S. retrenchment. Less obvious are transnational problems, such as global warming, water scarcity, and disease, which may fester without a leader to rally collective action.
Trade solves war Griswold 11 - is director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute and author
of Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization (Daniel, Free Trade and the Global Middle Class, Hayek Society Journal Vol. 9 http://www.cato.org/pubs/articles/Hayek-Society-Journal-Griswold.pdf)
Our more globalized world has also yielded a peace dividend. It may not be obvious when our daily news cycles are dominated by horrific images from the Gaza Strip, Afghanistan and Libya, but our more globalized world has somehow become a more peaceful world. The number of civil and international wars has dropped sharply in the past 15 years, along with battle deaths. The reasons behind the retreat of war are complex, but again the spread of trade and globalization have played a key role. Trade has been seen as a friend of peace for centuries. In the 19th century, British statesman Richard Cobden pursued free trade as a way
not only to bring more affordable bread to English workers but also to promote pe ace with Britains neighbors. He negotiated the Cobden-Chevalier free trade agreement with France in 1860 that helped to cement an enduring alliance between two countries that had been bitter enemies for centuries. In the 20th century, President Franklin Roosevelts

economic nationalism and retribution after World War I. Hull believed that
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secretary of state, Cordell Hull, championed lower trade barriers as a way to promote peaceful commerce and reduce international tensions. Hull had witnessed first-hand the
unhampered trade dovetail*s+ with peace; high tariffs, trade barriers and unfair economic competition, with war. Hull was awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize for Peace, in part because of his work to promote global trade. Free trade and globalization have promoted peace in three main ways. First, trade and globalization have reinforced the trend towards democracy, and democracies tend not to pick fights with each other. A second and even more potent way that trade has promoted peace is by raising the cost of war. As national economies become more intertwined, those nations have more to lose should war break out. War in a globalized world not only means the loss of human lives and tax dollars, but also ruptured trade and investment ties that impose lasting damage on the economy. Trade and economic integration has helped to keep the peace in Europe for more than 60 years. More recently, deepening economic ties between Mainland China and Taiwan are drawing those two governments closer together and helping to keep the peace. Leaders on both sides of the Taiwan Straight seem to understand that reckless nationalism would jeopardize the dramatic economic progress that region has enjoyed. A third reason why free trade promotes peace is because it has reduced the spoils of war. Trade allows nations to acquire wealth through production and exchange rather than conquest of territory and resources. As economies develop, wealth is increasingly measured in terms of intellectual property, financial assets, and human capital. Such assets cannot be easily seized by armies. In contrast, hard assets such as minerals and farmland are becoming relatively less important in high-tech, service economies. If people need resources outside their national borders, say oil or timber or farm products, they can acquire them peacefully by freely trading what they can produce best at home. The world today is harvesting the peaceful fruit of expanding trade. The first half of
the 20th century was marred by two devastating wars among the great powers of Europe. In the ashes of World War II, the United States helped found the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947, the precursor to the WTO that helped to spur trade between the United States and its major trading partners. As a condition to Marshall Plan aid, the U.S. government also insisted that the continental European powers, France, Germany, and Italy, eliminate trade barriers between themselves in what was to become the European Common Market. One purpose of the common market was to spur economic development, of course, but just as importantly, it was meant to tie the Europeans
. The notion of another major war between France, Germany and another Western European powers is unimaginable. Compared to past eras, our time is one of relative world peace. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the number of armed conflicts around the world has dropped sharply in the past two decades. Virtually all the conflicts today are civil and guerilla wars. The spectacle of two governments sending armies off to fight in the battlefield has become rare. In the decade from 1998 through 2007, only three actual wars were fought between states: Eritrea-Ethopia in 1998-2000, India-Pakistan in 1998-2003, and the United States-Iraq in 2003. From 2004 through 2007, no two nations were at war with one another . Civil wars have ended or at least ebbed in Aceh (in Indonesia), Angola, Burundi, Congo, Liberia, Nepal, Timor-Leste and Sierra Leone. Coming to the same conclusion is the Human Security Centre at the University of British Colombia in Canada. In a 2005 report, it documented a sharp decline in the number of armed conflicts, genocides and refugee numbers in the past 20 years. The average number of deaths per conflict has fallen from 38,000 in 1950 to 600 in 2002. Most armed conflicts in the world now take place in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the only form of political violence that has worsened in recent years is international terrorism. Many causes lie behind the good news the end of the Cold War, the spread of democracy, and peacekeeping efforts by major powers among them but expanding trade and globalization appear to be playing a major role in promoting world peace. In a chapter from the 2005 Economic Freedom of the World Report, Dr. Erik Gartzke of Columbia University compared the propensity of countries to engage in wars to their level of economic freedom. He came to the conclusion that economic freedom, including the freedom to trade, significantly decreases the probability that a country will experience a military dispute with another country. Through econometric analysis, he found that, Making economies freer translates into making countries more peaceful. At the extremes, the least free states are about 14 times as conflict prone as the most free. A 2006 study for the institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany, found the same pacific effect of
together economically. With six decades of hindsight, the plan must be considered a spectacular success trade and globalization. Authors Solomon Polachek and Carlos Seiglie found that trading nations cooperate more and fight less. In fact, a doubling of trade reduces the
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probability that a country will be involved in a conflict by 20 percent. Trade was the most important channel for peace, they found, but investment flows also had a positive effect. A democratic form of government also proved to be a force for peace, but primarily because democracies trade more. All this helps explain why the worlds two most conflict-prone regions the Arab Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa are also the worlds two least globally and economically integrated regions. Terrorism does not spring from poverty, but from ideological fervor and political and economic frustration. If we want to blunt the appeal of radical ideology to the next generation of Muslim children coming of age, we can help create more economic opportunity in those societies by encouraging more trade and investment ties with the West. The U.S. initiative to enact free trade agreements with certain Muslim countries, such as Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain and Oman, represent small steps in the right direction. An even more effective policy would be to unilaterally open Western markets to products made and grown in Muslim countries. A young man or woman with a real job at an export-oriented factory making overcoats in Jordan or shorts in Egypt is less vulnerable to the appeal of an Al-Qaida recruiter. Of course, free trade and globalization do not guarantee peace or inoculation against terrorism, anymore than they guarantee democracy and civil liberty. Hot-blooded nationalism and ideological fervor can overwhelm cold economic calculations. Any relationship involving human beings will be messy and non-linear. There will always be exceptions and outliers in such complex relationships involving economies and governments. But deeper trade and investment ties among nations have made it more likely that democracy and civil liberties will take root, and less likely those gains will be destroyed by civil conflict and war.
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Solvency Contention
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Solvency
NADBANK solves best format for the aff Negroponte 12 Diana, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution (*F+acilitate the anticipated
tripling of cross-border trade, Americas Society/Council of the Americas, 12/3/12, http://www.as-coa.org/articles/viewpoints-what-should-top-priority-be-us-mexicanrelations)
In order to
construct these roads, private-public partnerships are needed. The NADBANK, established 20 years ago to support environmental projects, is the best placed to mobilize these partnerships. The bank's bylaws permit this. However, the environmental impact needs to be interpreted broadly. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could recognize that new roads relieve the congestion and high levels of air pollutants at the border crossing itself.
Use of access roads may spread pollution further inland, but the levels of pollutants will be significantly lower than those currently suffered each side of the Rio Grande. NADBANKs
initiative and the White House leadership to facilitate EPA approval could lead to the development of access roads and decongestion at the actual border. Mexican presidential encouragement to NADBANK's directors to seek PPPs and U.S. presidential urging to the EPA for a broad interpretation of its mandate could result in a decade's work of new infrastructure projects. This will facilitate the anticipated tripling of cross-border trade as both countries negotiate a Trans-Pacific Partnership and Mexico negotiates a Pacific Trade Alliance with its South American partners. Presidential decisions to advance on instructing NADBANK to move forward with PPPs for these infrastructure projects are relatively easy. Their consequences will enhance the trade and prosperity of both nations.
Expansion of funding is key otherwise huge funding cuts are inevitable. Its reverse causal U.S. actions causes Mexico to match our commitment Hendricks 7 [David Hendricks, writer for the San Antonio Express-News, June 2007 NADBank faces funding woes Lexis+
NADBANK FACES FUNDING WOES: Now that the North American Development Bank is back in the business of financing loans for badly needed U.S.-Mexico border projects, it would be a shame if funding cuts led to new calls to close the bank. The bank could face trouble as quickly as two years down the road because of a situation materializing now. Congress and the federal agencies need to understand this situation to avoid problems later. Unlike other international development banks, the San Antonio- based NADBank has learned that mixing grants with loans makes utility projects successful. Impoverished communities cannot afford loans , even at zero interest rates, if residents can't pay high monthly utility bills. The recipe for NADBank's success is blending grants into loans from its own capital. The grants come from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's U.S.-Mexico Border Program; the loans come from money provided equally by the U.S. and Mexican governments. On top of that, local Mexican governments often match the EPA grants. The grant-loan mix reduces loan repayment schedules to affordable levels. EPA money now is drying up to almost nothing. In a few years, that could prevent NADBank from writing enough loans to justify its existence. NADBank faced closure in 2006 when government interference prevented its newly reorganized board from meeting for more than two years to approve loans. Rather than see the environmental bank disappear, members of Congress rescued it last
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year. The new board now meets regularly, and a large number of loans and projects are under way. Now, though, the NADBank can only hope that members of Congress ride to the rescue again. The NADBank's
grant funding started in 1998 with a $170 million lump sum from the EPA. Those grant amounts later settled at $50 million a year. The current version of Congress' budget allocates a measly $10 million. The EPA itself is to blame. It proposed the small amount because the NADBank hasn't spent $203 million in grant funds. That money, though, already is committed to projects under construction, a fact that EPA leaders and many members of Congress simply do not understand or are choosing to exploit. Border communities do not get the grant funds until the projects are completed. Water treatment and sewage plants, along with pipe systems, take years to build, so a lag in dispersing the grant funds always will exist. Border-state
members of Congress understand this situation. But other lawmakers and some EPA administrators don't or won't. Their opposition is threatening the NADBank's future. NADBank somehow must overcome this perception problem to keep the grant pipeline flowing . At
the same time, future water and sewage plant proposals are stacking up themselves.
Expanding NADBank to transportation infrastructure solves cross-border trade, growth, and relations HS News 11 (Hispanically Speaking News, Latin American News Organization), Creating North American Development Bank
Seen as Good Economic Opportunity for Border Economy, July 2011 http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/hispanic-businessnews/details/creating-north-american-development-bank-seen-as-good-economic-opportunity-/8994/)
Action to bring economic development to the US Mexico border is making its way through Congress by the expansion and enhancement of the NADBank. The North American
Development Bank (NADBank) was created out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 to address environmental concerns that the members of Congress had and ensure precautions and measures were taken to have environmentally sound region in the U.S.-Mexico border. The
introduction of the NADBank Enhancement Act of 2011, allows the two governments to work together to add more benefits along the border region such as infrastructure, transportation and Ports of Entry improvements. The proposed legislation would inject new criteria into the mandate and open the NADBank to finance new infrastructure projects. According to the text of the bill (3) change the purposes and functions of the Bank, including changes that would allow the Bank to finance infrastructure projects in the border region that promote growth in trade and commerce between the United States and Mexico, support sustainable economic development, reduce poverty, foster job creation, and promote social development in the region. We must continue our efforts to improve economic development and safety in the border areas of both the United States and Mexico, said Congressman Ruben Hinojosa
from Texas. This bill, which Congressman Rubn Hinojosa and 19 co-sponsors introduced, is a bi-partisan and bi-national piece of legislation that speaks to the healthy development along the U.S and Mexico border. Allowing
the NADBank to develop and finance a broader range of infrastructure projects in the Mexico-US border region would further promote growth in trade between the United States and Mexico, and to foster greater prosperity in the border region, wrote Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan in a letter to Chairman Spencer Bachus. The NADBank is funded by both the Mexican and US government and the proposed legislation would not increase the deficit or add to the national debt.
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Environment Advantage Extensions
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Border Region Home to Natural Hotspots

The border region is home to many natural hotspots
Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, Christopher, associate with the Mexico Institute, A New Agenda with Mexico, Wilson Center, November 2012, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/a_new_agenda_with_mexico.pdf) The border region is home to a number of unique biomes known as natural hotspots such as the
California Floristic Province; the Chihuahua and Sonoran Deserts; the Madrean Archipelago (a series of mountain ranges and basins rising from the desert floor); southern Texas plains hills and dry forests; and the Western gulf coastal plain. This
biological richness and diversity provides resilience and resistance to the border region as well as an immense range and depth of ecological services. These natural hotspots contain great diversity 139 The State of the Border Report of species of flora and fauna. For example, the Madrean Archipelago contains 40% of the pine tree species of the world, about 30% of all the oak species known to date, and about 525 species of birds.15 These transborder ecosystems are also important because they allow migrant species to traverse along a natural corridor that extends beyond the border between the two countries, which is necessary for hunting, mating and exchanging of genetic material for the well-being of their species. Ecosystems and species in the region are threatened by more common forms of pollution and destructive activities, but also by the fragmentation and destruction of the physical environment caused by the border wall.
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Relations Advantage Extensions
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AT: Snowden/Alt Causes

(Read the first argument only if they read Snowden)
1. Their evidence just creates uniqueness for our advantage, because relations with Mexico are shaky now, making the plan vital to prevent collapse 2. Plan solves a better internal link our Selee and Wilson 12 evidence indicates that border infrastructure investment is key to revitalize US-Mexico relations the strongest engagement occurs with regard to economic issues, job creation, and solving global challenges policymakers must focus on trade. 3. Our Wood and Wilson 13 evidence indicates that a focus on economics in particular is key to solve Mexican stability and leadership focusing on economic competitiveness, jobs, and trade can change the very nature of the relationship. 4. Extend Selee and Wilson 12 the plan is key to overcome negative perceptions and solves the negs alt causes - And, its key to overcome negative perceptions, and solves your alt causes 5. Extend Garza 12 - perceptions uniquely key to access the strategic parts of the relationship Obamas actions are an important signal to relations if he fails to act now, collapse is inevitable
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Terrorism Advantage Extensions
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Nuclear Terrorism Impact Dark Age

A nuclear terrorist attack triggers a new dark age
Zedillo 6 [Ernesto, director, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and former president of
Mexico, Nuclear Attack--the Worst Threat, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0109/029.html]
Even if you agree with what's being done in the war on terror, you still could be upset about what's not happening: doing the utmost to prevent a terrorist nuclear attack. We all should have a pretty clear idea of what would follow a nuclear weapon's detonation in any of the world's major cities. Depending on the potency of the device the loss of life could be in the hundreds of thousands (if not millions), the destruction of property in the trillions of dollars, the escalation in conflicts and violence uncontrollable, the erosion of authority and government unstoppable and the disruption of global trade and finance unprecedented. In short, we couldpractically count on the beginning of another dark age.
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Nuclear Terrorism Impact Global Nuclear War

Nuclear terrorism will trigger a global nuclear war
Beres 87 (Louis Ren, Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University Terrorism and Global Security:
The Nuclear Threat, p. 42-43)
Nuclear terrorism could even spark full-scale war between states. Such war could involve the entire spectrum of nuclear-conflict possibilities, ranging from a nuclear attack upon a non-nuclear state to systemwide nuclear war. How might such far-reaching consequences of nuclear terrorism come about? Perhaps
the most likely way would involve a terrorist nuclear assault against a state by terrorists hosted in another state. For example, consider the following scenario: Early in the 1990s, Israel and its Arab-state neighbors finally stand ready to conclude a comprehensive, multilateral peace settlement. With a bilateral treaty between Israel and Egypt already many years old, only the interests of the Palestiniansas defined by the PLOseem to have been left out. On the eve of the proposed signing of the peace agreement, half a dozen crude nuclear explosives in the one-kiloton range detonate in as many Israeli cities. Public grief in Israel over the many thousands dead ands maimed is matched only by the outcry for revenge. In response to the public mood, the government of Israel initiates selected strikes against terrorist strongholds in Lebanon, whereupon Lebanese Shiite forces and Syria retaliate against Israel. Before long, the entire region is ablaze, conflict has escalated to nuclear forms, and all countries in the area have suffered unprecedented destruction. Of course, such a scenario is fraught with the makings of even wider destruction. How would the United States react to the situation in the Middle East? What would be the Soviet response? It is certainly conceivable that a
chain reaction of interstate nuclear conflict could ensure, one that would ultimately involve the superpowers or even every nuclear-weapons state on the planet. What, exactly, would this mean? Whether the terms of assessment be statistical or human, the consequences of nuclear war require an entirely new paradigm of death. Only such a paradigm would allow us a proper framework for absorbing the vision of near-total obliteration and the outer limits of human destructiveness. Any nuclear war would have effectively permanent and irreversible consequences. Whatever the actual extent of injuries and fatalities, such a war would entomb the spirit of the entire species in a planetary casket strewn with shorn bodies and imbecile imaginations.
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Terrorists Come Across the US-Mexico Border/Border Not Secure

Illegal immigrants who support terrorism sneak across the border
Shilling '10 [Chelsea Schilling is a commentary editor and staff writer for WND, an editor of Jerome
Corsi's Red Alert and a proud U.S. Army veteran. She has also worked as a news producer at USA Radio Network and as a news reporter for the Sacramento Union. FOREIGN 'TERRORISTS' BREACH U.S. BORDER 5-20-10, http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/156441/ ]
Almost nine years after terrorists murdered 2,751 people on Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. is still facing a major threat as hundreds of illegal aliens from countries known to support and sponsor terrorism sneak across the U.S.-Mexico border.A 2006 congressional report on border
threats, titled A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border and prepared by the House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, indicated that 1.2 million illegal aliens were apprehended in 2005 alone, and 165,000 of those were from countries other than Mexico. Approximately
650 were from special interest countries, or nations the Border Patrol defines as designated by the intelligence community as countries that could export individuals that could bring harm to our country in the way of terrorism. Atlantas WSB-TV2 aired a segment on U.S. border security after it obtained records
from a federal detention center near Phoenix, Ariz., and found current listings for illegal aliens from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen.
The US-Mexico border is a huge threat thousands come into the U.S., whose governments are designated as state sponsors of terrorism Murdock 13(Deroy Murdock is a Scripps Howard News Service columnist, a Fox News contributor and a
media fellow with Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.U.S. -Mexican Borders Welcome Terrorist)
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20130502/OPINION02/130509896 There are at least 7,518 reasons to get the U.S.-Mexican border under control. That equals the
number of aliens apprehended in fiscal year 2011 from the four nations that federal officials label "state sponsors of terrorism" plus 10 "countries of interest." Since January 2010, those flying into the United States via these 14 nations face enhanced screening. As the Transportation Security Administration announced at the time: "Effective aviation security must begin beyond our borders." U.S. national security merits at least that much vigilance on our borders. The roaring immigration-reform debate largely addresses Hispanic aliens who illegally cross the border.
Far more worrisome, however, are the thousands who break into the United States from countries "where we have concerns, particularly about al-Qaida affiliates," a top State Department official told CNN. These include Cubans, Iranians, Sudanese and Syrians, whose governments are federally designated "state sponsors of terrorism."
As Customs and Border Protection's "2011 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics" reports, 198 Sudanese were nabbed while penetrating the USA. Between fiscal years 2002 and 2011, such arrests totaled 1,207. (These figures cover all U.S. borders, although 96.3 percent of detainees crossed from Mexico.) Like other immigrants, most Sudanese seek better lives here. But some may be vectors for the same militant Islam that tore Sudan in two - literally.
In FY 2011, 108 Syrians were stopped; over the previous 10 years, 1,353 were. Syria supports Hezbollah, and Bashar al-Assad's unstable regime reportedly
has attacked its domestic opponents with chemical weapons. Among Iranians, 276 were caught in FY 2011, while 2,310 were captured over the previous 10 years. Iran also backs Hezbollah, hates "The Great Satan" - its name for the United States - and craves atomic weapons. The other 10 "countries of interest" are Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen and: . Afghanistan, the Taliban's stronghold and current theater of America's longest war. (Afghans halted in FY 2011: 106; prior 10 years: 681.) . Nigeria. The land of underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab suffers under Sharia law in its northern provinces. (Respective data: 591 and 4,525.) . Pakistan, hideaway of the Pakistani Taliban and the late Osama bin Laden (525 and 10,682). . Saudi Arabia, generous benefactor of radical imams and militant mosques worldwide; birthplace of 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers (123 and 986). . Somalia. Home of Indian Ocean pirates and al-Qaida's al-Shabaab franchise. In
October 1993, Islamic terrorists there shot down two Black Hawk helicopters, killed 18 U.S. soldiers and dragged several of their bodies through Mogadishu's streets (323 and 1,524). The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight last November
published "A Line in the Sand: Countering Crime, Violence, and Terror at the Southwest Border." This study offers chilling portraits of

some who consider the southern border America's welcome mat. . On
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Jan. 11, 2011, U.S. agents discovered Said Jaziri in a car trunk trying to enter near San Diego. Jaziri traveled from his native Tunisia to Tijuana, he said, and paid smugglers $5,000 to sneak him across the border. France previously convicted and deported him for assaulting a Muslim whom he considered insufficiently devout. In 2006, Jaziri advocated killing Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard for creating what Jaziri called sacrilegious drawings of the Prophet Mohammed.
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Terrorist Come Across the Border/Cartels Help Jihadist Groups

Terrorists come across the US-Mexico border they get assistance from drug cartels
Winters '10 [Jana Winter is a reporter for Fox News Channel. She joined Fox News in 2008.
Previously she was a reporter from 2006-2008 for theNew York Post. She grew up in New Jersey and attended Montclair High School, obtained an undergraduate degree from Emory University in 2002, and a masters in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2006, may 26,2010 " Feds issue terror watch for the Texas/Mexico border" http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/26/terror-alert-mexican-border/]
The Department of Homeland Security is alerting Texas authorities to be on the lookout for a suspected member of the Somaliabased Al Shabaab terrorist group who might be attempting to travel to the U.S. through Mexico, a security expert who has seen the memo tells FOXNews.com. The warning follows an indictment unsealed this month in Texas federal court that accuses a
Somali man in Texas of running a large-scale smuggling enterprise responsible for bringing hundreds of Somalis from Brazil through South America and eventually across the Mexican border. Many of the illegal immigrants, who court records say were given fake IDs, are alleged to have ties to
other now-defunct Somalian terror organizations that have merged with active organizations like Al Shabaab, al-Barakat and AlIttihad Al-Islami. In
2008, the U.S. government designated Al Shabaab a terrorist organization. Al Shabaab has said its priority is to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, on Somalia; the group has aligned itself with Al Qaeda and has made statements about its intent to harm the United States. In recent years, American Somalis have been recruited by Al Shabaab to travel to Somalia, where they are
often radicalized by more extremist or operational anti-American terror groups, which Al Shabaab supports. The recruiters coming through the Mexican border are the ones who could be the most dangerous, according to law enforcement officials. Security experts tell FOXNews.com that the influx of hundreds of Somalis over the U.S. border who allegedly have ties to suspected terror
cells is evidence of a porous and unsecured border being exploited by groups intent on wrecking deadly havoc on American soil. The DHS alert was issued to police and sheriffs deputies in Houston,
asking them to keep their eyes open for a Somali man named Mohamed Ali who is believed to be in Mexico preparing to make the illegal crossing into Texas. Officials
believe Ali has ties to Al Shabaab, a Somali terrorist organization aligned with Al Qaeda, said Joan Neuhaus Schaan, the homeland security and terrorism fellow at Rice Universitys Baker Institute, who has seen the alert. An indictment was unsealed in Texas federal court earlier this month that revealed that a Somali man, Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane, led a human smuggling ring that brought East Africans, including Somalis with ties to terror groups, from Brazil and across the Mexican border and into Texas. In a separate case, Anthony Joseph Tracy, of Virginia, who admitted to having ties to
Al Shabaab, is currently being prosecuted for his alleged role in an international ring that illegally brought more than 200 Somalis across the Mexican border. Prosecutors say Tracy used his Kenya-based travel business as a cover to fraudulently obtain Cuban travel documents for the Somalis. The smuggled Somalis are believed to have spread out across the United States and remain mostly at large, court records show. Somalis are classified by border and immigration officials as special interest illegal immigrants who get caught trying to cross the Mexican border into the U.S. who come from countries that are considered a high threat to the U.S., Neuhaus Schaan explained. DHS did not respond to multiple e-mail and phone requests for comment. In addition to the Somali immigration issue, Mexican smugglers are coaching some Middle Eastern immigrants before they cross the border schooling them on how to dress and giving them phrases to help them look and sound like Latinos, law enforcement sources told
FoxNews.com. There have been a number of certain communities that have noticed this, villages in northern Mexico where Middle Easterners try to move into town and learn Spanish, Neuhaus Schaan said. People were changing there names from Middle Eastern names to Hispanic names. Security experts say the push by illegal immigrants to try to fit in also could be the realization of what officials have feared for years: Latin American drug cartels are helping jihadist groups bring terrorists across the Mexican
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border. J. Peter Pham, senior fellow and director of the Africa Project at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy,
said that for the past ten years theres been suspicion by U.S. law enforcement that drug cartels could align with international terrorist organizations to bring would-be-jihadists into the U.S. That kind of collaboration is already being seen in Africa, said Dr. Walid Phares, director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Al Qaeda could easily say, Ok, now we want your help getting these guys into the United States, Phares said. Eventually the federal government will pay more attention, but there is a window of time now where they can get anyone they want to get in already. Experts also say the DHS alert and recent court case highlights the threat of terrorists penetrating the Mexican/Texas border and the growing threat of Somali recruitment efforts to bring Americans of Somali descent back to Somalia for jihadist training, creating homegrown terrorists. Pham says the DHS alert comes too late. Theyre just covering themselves for the fact that DHS has been failing to date to deal effectively with this, he said. Theyre already here. Michael Weinstein, a political science professor at Purdue University and an expert on Somalia, said, In the past year, its become obvious that theres a spillover into the United States of the transnational revolutionaries in Somalia. Its something that certainly has to be watched, but I dont think its an imminent threat, he said.
This has to be put in context with people smuggling everybody and their brother is getting into the United States through Mexico; I read last week that some Chinese were crossing, its just a big market. Pham disagrees. The real danger is something along the lines of jihadist version of find a classmate, he said, referring to Al Shabaabs potential to set up sleeper cells in the U.S. Most of them rely on personal referral and association. That type of social networking is not beyond their capabilities. Pham says the DHS alert is too little, too late. This is like shutting the barn door after the horses got
away, he said.
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Terrorists Will Use the Border Hezbollah

Islamic terrorist activity on the rise in Mexico Ibrahim 12 (Raymond, a Middle East and Islam specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. The Clarion Project, U.S. Mexican Border Porous to Jihadists http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/us-mexican-border-porous-jihadists)
As the United States considers the Islamic jihadi threats confronting it from all sides, it might do well to focus on its southern neighbor, Mexico, which has been targeted by Islamists and jihadists, who, through a number of tacticsfrom engaging in da'wa, converting Mexicans to Islam, to smuggling and the drug cartel, to simple extortion, kidnappings and enslavementhave been subverting Mexico in order to empower Islam and sabotage the U.S. According to a 2010 report, "Close to home: Hezbollah terrorists are plotting right on the U.S. border," which appeared in the NY Daily News: Mexican authorities have rolled up a Hezbollah network being built in Tijuana, right across the border from Texas and closer to American homes than the terrorist hideouts in the Bekaa Valley are to Israel. Its goal, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported on the investigation: to strike targets in Israel and the West. Over the years, Hezbollahrich with Iranian oil money and narcocashhas generated revenue by cozying up with Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs and people into the U.S. In this, it has shadowed the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran,
which has been forging close ties with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who in turn supports the narcoterrorist organization FARC, which wreaks all kinds of havoc throughout the region. Another
2010 article appearing in the Washington Times asserts "with fresh evidence of Hezbollah activity just south of the border [in Mexico], and numerous reports of Muslims from various countries posing as Mexicans and crossing into the United States from Mexico, our porous southern border is a national security nightmare waiting to happen." This is in keeping with a recent study done by Georgetown University, which revealed that the number of immigrants from Lebanon and Syria living in Mexico exceeds 200,000. Syria, along with Iran, is one of Hezbollah's
strongest financial and political supporters, and Lebanon is the immigrants' country of origin.
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Terrorists Use the Border to Fund Operations - Hezbollah

Terrorist organizations use the border to finance operations Hezbollah proves
Washington Times 9 *EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico, June 3, 2009, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/3/al-qaeda-eyes-bio-attack-via-mexicoborder/?page=all] It shouldnt be a surprise to anyone that terrorist organizations would utilize the border to enter the U.S., said a DEA official who also asked not to be named because of his involvement in ongoing intelligence operations. We cant ignore any threat or detail when it comes to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations bent on attacking the U.S. The Times first reported in March that Hezbollah an Iran-backed group based in Lebanon is using routes that Mexican drug lords control to smuggle contraband and people into the United States to finance operations.
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AT: Terrorists Cant Get Bioweapons

Bioterror likely easy to acquire agents, knowledge, and tech terrorists can overcome barriers
Allison 9-7 (Graham, director of the Harvard Kennedy Schools Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Living in the Era of Megaterror 9-7-2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/opinion/living-in-the-era-of-megaterror.html) Capabilities for producing bioterrorist agents are not so easily secured or policed. While more has been done, and much more could be done to further raise the technological barrier, as knowledge advances and technological capabilities to make pathogens become more accessible, the means for bioterrorism will come within the reach of terrorists.One of the hardest truths about modern life is that the same advances in science and technology that enrich our lives also empower potential killers to achieve their deadliest ambitions. To imagine that we can escape this reality and return to a world in which we are invulnerable to future 9/11s or worse is an illusion. For as far as the eye can see, we will live in an era of megaterror.
Terrorists can obtain bio-weapons and will use them Syria demise
Blair 12 (Charles P. Blair joined FAS in June 2010. He is the Senior Fellow on State and Non-State Threats.
Born and raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Mr. Blair was an exchange student in Moscow in the mid1980s, witnessing firsthand the closing salvos of the Cold War. Since the end of that era, Mr. Blair has worked on issues relating to the diffusion and diversification of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the context of proliferation amid the rise of mass casualty terrorism incidents and the centripetal and centrifugal elements of globalization. Mr. Blair~s work focuses on state and violent non -state actors (VNSA) amid a dystopic and increasingly tribal world. "Fearful of a nuclear Iran? The real WMD nightmare is Syria" 1 MARCH 2012 accessed online August 22, 2012, http://www.thebulletin.org/webedition/op-eds/fearful-of-nuclear-iran-the-real-wmd-nightmare-syria)
As possible military action against Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program looms large in the public arena, far
more international concern should be directed toward Syria and its weapons of mass destruction. When the Syrian uprising began more than a year ago, few predicted the regime of President Bashar al-Assad would ever teeter toward collapse. Now, though, the demise of Damascus's current leadership appears inevitable, and Syria's revolution will likely be an unpredictable, protracted, and grim affair. Some see similarities with Libya's civil war, during which persistent fears revolved around terrorist seizure of Libyan chemical weapons, or the Qaddafi regime's use of them against insurgents. Those fears turned out to be unfounded. But the Libyan chemical stockpile consisted of several tons of aging mustard gas leaking from a halfdozen canisters that would have been impossible to utilize as weapons. Syria likely has one of the largest and most sophisticated chemical weapon programs in the world. Moreover, Syria may also possess an offensive biological weapons capability that Libya did not. While it is uncertain whether the Syrian regime would consider using WMD against its domestic opponents, Syrian insurgents, unlike many of their Libyan counterparts, are increasingly sectarian and radicalized; indeed, many observers fear the uprising is being "hijacked" by jihadists. Terrorist groups active in the Syrian uprising have already demonstrated little compunction about the acquisition and use of WMD. In short, should Syria devolve into full-blown civil-war, the security of its WMD should be of profound concern, as sectarian insurgents and Islamist terrorist groups may stand poised to seize chemical and perhaps even biological weapons. An enormous unconventional arsenal. Syria's chemical weapons stockpile is thought to be massive PDF. One of only eight nations that is not a member of the Chemical Weapons Convention -- an arms control agreement that outlaws the production, possession, and use of chemical weapons -- Syria has a chemical arsenal that includes several hundred tons of blistering agents along with likely large
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stockpiles of deadly nerve agents, including VX, the most toxic of all chemical weapons. At least four large chemical weapon production facilities exist. Additionally, Syria likely stores its deadly chemical weapons at dozens of facilities throughout the fractious country. In contrast to Libya's unusable chemical stockpile, analysts emphasize that Syrian chemical agents are weaponized and deliverable. Insurgents and terrorists with past or present connections to the military might feasibly be able to effectively disseminate chemical agents over large populations. (The Global Security Newswire recently asserted that "[t]he Assad regime is thought to possess between 100 and 200 Scud missiles carrying warheads loaded with sarin nerve agent. The government is also believed to have several hundred tons of sarin agent and mustard gas stockpiled that could be used in air-dropped bombs and artillery shells, according to information compiled by the James Martin Center.") Given its robust chemical weapons arsenal and its perceived need to deter Israel, Syria has long been suspected of having an active biological weapons program. Despite signing the Biological Weapons and Toxins Convention in
1972 (the treaty prohibits the development, production, and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons), Syria never ratified the treaty. Some experts contend that any Syrian biological weapons program has not moved beyond the research and development phase. Still, Syria's
biotechnical infrastructure undoubtedly has the capability PDF to develop numerous biological weapon agents. After Israel destroyed a clandestine Syrian nuclear reactor in September 2007,
Damascus may have accelerated its chemical and biological weapons programs. It's hard to guard WMD when a government collapses. Although
the United States and its allies are reportedly monitoring Syria's chemical weapons, recent history warns that securing them from theft or transfer is an extraordinary challenge. For example, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than 330 metric tons of military-grade high explosives vanished
from Iraq's Al-Qaqaa military installation. Almost 200 tons of the most powerful of Iraq's high-explosives, HMX -- used by some states to detonate nuclear weapons -- was under International Atomic Energy Agency seal. Many tons of Al-Qaqaa's sealed HMX reportedly went missing in the early days of the war in Iraq. Forensic tests later revealed that some of these military-grade explosives were subsequently employed against US and coalition forces. Even with a nationwide presence of 200,000 coalition troops, several other sensitive military sites were also looted, including Iraq's main nuclear complex, Tuwaitha. Should
centralized authority crumble in Syria, it seems highly unlikely that the country's 50 chemical storage and manufacturing facilities -- and, possibly, biological weapon repositories -- can be secured. The US Defense Department recently estimated that it would take more than 75,000 US military personnel to guard
Syria's chemical weapons. This is, of course, if they could arrive before any WMD were transferred or looted -- a highly unlikely prospect. Complicating any efforts to secure Syria's WMD, post-Assad, are its porous borders PDF. With
Syria's government distracted by internal revolt and US forces now fully out of Iraq, it is plausible that stolen chemical or biological weapons could find their way across the Syrian border into Iraq. Similarly, Syrian WMD could be smuggled into southern Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank, Israel, and, potentially, the United States and Europe. At least six formal terrorist organizations have long maintained personnel within Syria. Three of these groups PDF -- Hamas, Hizbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- have already attempted to acquire or use chemical or biological agents, or both. Perhaps more troubling, Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters from Iraq have streamed into Syria, acting, in part, on orders from Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. In the past, Al Qaeda-in-Iraq fighters attempted to use chemical weapons, most notably attacks that sought to release large clouds of chlorine gas. The entry of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups into the Syrian crisis underscores its increasingly sectarian manifestation. Nearly 40 percent of Syria's population consists of members
of minority communities. Syria's ruling Alawite regime, a branch of Shia Islam, is considered heretical by many of Syria's majority Sunni Muslims -- even those who are not jihadists. Alawites, Druze, Kurds, and Christians could all become targets for WMD-armed Sunni jihadists. Similarly, Shiite radicals could conceivably employ WMD agents against Syria's Sunnis. Religious fanaticism and WMD. Evidence of growing religious fanaticism is also reflected in recent Syrian suicide attacks. Since last December, at least five suicide attacks occurred in Syria. In the 40 years preceding, only two suicide attacks were recorded. Al Qaeda-linked mujahidin are believed to be responsible for all of these recent attacks. Civil
wars are often the most violent and unpredictable manifestations of war. With expanding sectarian divisions, the use of seized WMD in Syria's uprising is plausible. To the extent that religious extremists believe that they are doing God's bidding, fundamentally any action they undertake is justified, no matter how abhorrent, since the "divine" ends are believed to legitimize PDF the means. The situation in Syria is unprecedented. Never before has a WMD-armed country fallen into civil
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war. All states in the region stand poised to lose if these weapons find their way outside of Syria. The best possible outcome, in terms of controlling Syria's enormous WMD arsenal, would be for Assad to maintain power, but such an outcome seems increasingly implausible. And there is painfully little evidence
that democratic forces are likely to take over in Syria. Even if they do eventually triumph, it will take months or years to consolidate control over the entire country. If
chaos ensues in Syria, the United States cannot go it alone in securing hundreds of tons of Syrian WMD. Regional leaders -- including some, such as Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, that are
now backing the insurgency and the regime, respectively -- must come together and begin planning to avert a dispersion of Syrian chemical or biological weapons that would threaten everyone, of any political or religious persuasion, in the Middle East and around the world.
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AT: Terrorists Wont Get Nukes

Terrorists are working towards nukes now recent video proves
Washington Times 9 *EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico, June 3, 2009, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/3/al-qaeda-eyes-bio-attack-via-mexicoborder/?page=all] In the video, al-Nafisi emphasized that al Qaeda had chemical laboratories in Afghanistan prior to the U.S. invasion. He described his admiration for Hezbollah and said that al Qaeda continues to have scientists and resources at its disposal. The Americans are afraid that the *weapons of mass destruction] might fall into the hands of terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and others, he told followers. There is good reason for the Americans fears. *Al Qaeda+ had laboratories in north Afghanistan. They have scientists, chemists and nuclear physicists. They are nothing like they are portrayed by these
mercenary journalists - backward Bedouins living in caves. No, no, by no means. This kind of talk can fool only naive people. People who follow such things know that al
Qaeda has laboratories, just like Hezbollah.
Al Qaeda and their partners are working to acquire an atomic weapon now criminals have been attempting to smuggle fissile material
Hosenball 10 *Mark, Newsweek, When Will Terrorists Get Nukes?, Apr 13, 2010, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/blogs/declassified/2010/04/13/when-will-terroristsget-nukes.html] There's no question that Al Qaeda and its partners have shown interest in atomic weapons. There's also little doubt that they've tried to get one, and even consulted with experts on how to design and build them. And based on the public statements and private expressions of interest of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts, there's no question at all that if they had a nuclear device, they'd use it. But even
as this week's nuclear summit in Washington underscores the need for tighter safeguards, current and former U.S. intelligence and nuclear-security officials believe terrorists remain years away from acquiring or building an atomic bomb. While there
have been documented cases as recently as last month of criminal elements acquiring and attempting to smuggle the kind of fissile material that could be used to make a nuclear weapon, current and former
officials say there's no evidence that any terrorist entity has come close to getting their hands on enough plutonium or highly
experts also say intelligence on the nuclear underground is so fragmentary that a nuclear-terrorism threat could materialize almost without warning.
enriched uranium to actually build one. And yet those
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AT: Nuclear Terrorism Impact is Exaggerated for Political Reasons

Claims of nuclear terrorism are not made for political reasons the threat is real and the impact would be catastrophic
Hosenball 10 *Mark, Newsweek, When Will Terrorists Get Nukes?, Apr 13, 2010, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/blogs/declassified/2010/04/13/when-will-terroristsget-nukes.html] Nevertheless, the likely consequences of terrorists obtaining a nuclear bombor even the makings of a "dirty bomb"are so dire that officials are making an all-out push to lock down all inadequately secured stockpiles of weapons-grade nuclear material. "The threat is not being hyped for political purposes, I can assure you," writes Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, one of the most esteemed U.S. experts on nuclear terrorism, in an e-mail exchange with Declassified. A veteran CIA specialist on weapons of mass destruction and
former director of intelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy, which controls the country's nuclear-arms facilities and research labs, he's now a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He cites four leading Americans in the push for nuclear disarmament: "When you can get [former secretary of state George] Shultz, [former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sam] Nunn, [former secretary of state Henry] Kissinger, and [former defense secretary William] Perry to sign onto something like "global zero" [nuclear weapons], that ought to make people stand up and take noticecouldn't pack more wisdom and nonpartisanship than that illustrious group into one cause." "Why
do the four horsemen think we have to lock up the nuclear genie?" Mowatt-Larssen asks. "Because if we don't, the odds are we won't get through this century without nuclear catastrophe. The world is too interconnected and too vulnerable. Individuals and groups aspire to wield the power of states. There's more nuclear stuff everywherea nuclear [power] renaissance driven by acute energy demands and a future of global warming. Nuclear weapons aspirants in all the wrong places (Iran, Syria, North Korea). A rising tide of extremism and radicalized 'have nots.' Failed states affording safe haven and sanctuary for the small footprints of future 9/11s."
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Texas Advantage Extensions

**Make sure to look in the Terrorism Advantage Extensions Section, too!**
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Hezbollah and Hamas = Threat

Hezbollah and Hamas pose a particular threat
Perry 10 *Rick Perry, Governor, Texas Homeland Security Strategic Plan Rick Perry Governor 2010-2015, http://governor.state.tx.us/files/homeland/HmLndSecurity_StratPlan2015.pdf+ **We disagree with the authors use of gendered language Hezbollah and Hamas are two other Islamic terrorist groups of particular concern, due to their presence and extended network of sympathizers in the United States, specifically in Texas. Hezbollah
is a radical Shiite Muslim group supported by Iran and largely based in Lebanon. Until the attacks of September 11, 2001, Hezbollah had murdered more Americans than any other terrorist group, including 241 Marines in a 1983 bombing in Beirut. Indications are that Hezbollah
has an operational presence in multiple cities across the United States, including Texas' major metropolitan areas. There are also numerous reports that Hezbollah has a growing relationship with Mexican cartels and uses drug and human smuggling routes into and through Texas to facilitate the full range of its activities. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood, which uses political and violent means to advance the goal of destroying Israel and achieving an Islamic Palestinian State. Hamas
has sponsored hundreds of bomb attacks in Israel and demonstrated a willingness to attack Israeli and Jewish targets outside Israel. Hamas and Hezbollah regard the United States as a blind supporter of Israeli policies and action, and therefore worthy of attack. They specifically regard the United States
Jewish community as extensions of Israel, and consider everything affiliated with this community as legitimate targets. There are many Hezbollah 6222 Crime and Terror Converge "Funding sources from the Persian Gulf, charities and other non-governmental fronts are receiving intense scrutiny. This development, coupled with the arrests of several high-ranking coordinators and financiers of terrorist operations in Europe and North America, are forcing jihadi networks to adapt and diversify their funding streams. 'Traditional criminal' activities like drug trafficking, robbery, extortion, and smuggling are rapidly becoming the main source of revenues for both terrorist groups and gangs." H. Mili. Tangled webs: Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups. Terrorism Monitor, Volume 4, Issue 1. 2006 sympathizers in the United States who may be willing to support attacks inside Texas, or even attempt such attacks themselves.
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AT: Hezbollah Doesnt Have Nukes/No Impact

Extinction
Stirling 11 Governor & Lord Lieutenant of Canada, Lord High Admiral of Nova Scotia, & B.Sc. in Pol. Sc. & History; M.A. in European Studies (The Earl of Stirling, General Middle East War Nears - Syrian events more dangerous than even nuclear nightmare in Japan, http://europebusines.blogspot.com/2011/03/general-middle-east-war-nears-syrian.html) **We disagree with the authors use of gendered language Saddam Hussein's military had prepared what it called the "great equalizer", an arsenal of 25 Scud warheads carrying over 11,000lb of biological agents, including deadly botulism poison and anthrax germs (an additional 33,000lb of germ agents were placed in artillery shells and bombs). It was only after he was
forced into denuding himself of his advanced weaponry that the neo-cons were able to begin the Second Gulf War commonly called the Iraq War. After Iraq, the Likud/neo-con war strategy calls for the neutralizing of Iran and Syria. The Iranians response, to this strategy, was to train and equip Hezbollah in Lebanon and to deepen their strategic alliance with Syria. During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the Iranian trained and equipped
They delivered a very large number of rockets with dumb high explosive warheads on Israel. The Hezbollah Special Forces
Hezbollah forces repeated the efforts of Saddam during the First Gulf War. are in-effect a highly trained and
well-equipped Iranian commando force of at least a Brigade in size. They man and protect a large number of mostly unguided and rather crude
rockets, generally Katyusha 122mm artillery rockets with a 19 mile/30km range and capable of delivering approximately 66 pounds/30kg of warheads. Additionally, Hezbollah are known to possess a considerable number of more advanced and longer range guided missiles. During the 2006 war Hezbollah fired approximately 4,000 rockets (95% of which were Katyshas) all utilizing only "dumb" high explosive warheads. Some Iranian build and supplied Fajr-3 and Ra'ad 1 liquid-fueled missiles were also fired. At the time of the 2006 war Hezbollah was reported to have in the range of 13,000 rockets. There are creditable reports that this number has been rebuilt and expanded upon since the end of that war and that and perhaps 60,000 or more. the world watched as Israeli towns were hit time and time again by the Katyushas. What was not discussed by the main stream news media was the fact that the ordinance
the number of rockets is now at least 50,000
During the 2006 war
Hezhollah commandos were holding back their "heavy stuff" both in terms of their longer range guided missiles capable of hitting southern Israel and most importantly warheads of strategic military importance. That is NBC (nuclear [in this case radiological] chemical and biological) and advancedconventional warheads. They were demonstrating their ability to deliver "ordinance on target" and their ability to survive a heavy Israeli ground and air combined arms attack. Hezbollah has the capability of loading truly strategic warheads on the large number of mostly crude
delivered by the Katyushas was mainly harassment fire with very limited effect. The Iranian/Syrian trained and supplied older technology unguided rockets that it has. The use of advanced-conventional fuel-air explosive (FAE) warheads on the Katyushas would have had a much more profound effect in Israeli cities. The use of FAE submunitions on the larger missiles capable of hitting any target in Israel would have given Hezbollah the firepower of low-yield nuclear weapons without crossing the nuclear threshold. Coupled with the large number of missiles in Syria and those in Iran, the Hezbollah rockets posed, and continue to pose, a truly grave strategic threat to Israel if FAE warheads are used. This threat is dramatically increased if radiological ("dirty bombs"), chemical, and/or advanced biological warheads are
Hezbollah rockets could also be outfitted with chemical warheads. It is worth noting that the joint Syrian-Iranian chemical warfare R&D and production program is perhaps the largest and most complicated on earth. Generally the Israelis
used. The massive number of have shown themselves to be prepared for chemical warfare, however a chemical war attack following closely behind a FAE attack (to open up bunkers and apartment buildings)
a rocket to deliver a biological war attack, it could be done and there is some benefit militarily to a rapid dispersal of biowar agents under the cover of conventional attacks. Radiological weapons deliver the long term (which can be hundreds of thousands of years) lethal effects of radiation without the blast effect of a nuclear bomb. The combined military strategic capability of NBC/Advanced Conventional warheads and very large numbers of rockets operated and protected by Hezbollah, coupled with the arsenal of Syria and Iran (and Hamas) acts as a MAD (mutually assured destruction) between Israel and Iran/Syria. Yes the Israelis can nuke the hell out of both Iran and Syria; however, they possess a fatal return punch. Only a madman would consider starting a war in a MAD environment. The response from the Israeli and neo-con hardliners to the new MAD strategic environment has been
would have greater effect. While it is not necessary to utilize frightening. Instead of recognizing the danger to Israel and to the entire world from the Iranian/Syrian checkmate on the aggressive Israeli/neo -con strategy, and making major changes to their strategy, they The issue of danger from the Iranian nuclear program is a smokescreen to facilitate the coming war on Iran and her allies (Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas) and to continue with the next stage of the neo-con strategy. The response from the hardliners is more war
are attempting to tough it out.
and damn their WMD (weapons of mass destruction). This is most unwise and most dangerous to the entire world. When the USSR was falling apart, and in the aftermath of the USSR breakup, Iran spend a lot of money to hire some of the best Soviet biological war experts. The advanced biowar weapons that Iran has developed gives Iran a Global Strategic Weapon of Mass Destruction that can unleash levels of death among the populations of the major neo-con nations (USA, UK, France,
German, Italy, etc.) very similar to that from a global strategic nuclear strike. This means that Iran and her allies have a MAD with America, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, German, Italy, etc. Most people think of biological warfare as anthrax and smallpox; they do not understand that there has been a major shift in technology. The difference
advanced biowar (with its recombination DNA designer super killer viruses) is like the difference between an old Model T Ford and a 2011 Rolls Royce Phantom. Both are cars, or biological weapons, but there is a difference of several orders of magnitude. Regardless of how a war against Iran breaks out, it is likely to very quickly escalate to the usage of WMD. There has been talk among USAF war planners of a 1,200 (some say 2,000 to 3,000 or more) target attack on Irans nuclear, industrial, military,
between the old biowar (that most people think of) and political and religious infrastructure. If a foreign enemy were to bomb 1,200 or more targets in the United States what would be the response of the American government and its military? Actually the answer to this question is well known. The stated doctrine of the United States of America is to rain hundreds of hydrogen bombs (WMD) on the

either an Israeli and/or an American air attack, it is certain that Iran will respond. This response, even if is non-WMD at first, will certainly result in
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territory and people of such an aggressor; this has been our policy for approximately 60 years. Why do we presuppose that the Iranians would not do the same? If Iran is hit by
more escalation and counter-escalation. The chances of a regional Middle East war between Iran/Syria/Hezbollah/Hamas and Israel/USA not becoming a nuclear and advanced biological war nightmare are very low. In fact, since both sides know this, there is a strong military incentive to move to all out usage of WMD when the first bombs
begin to fall (in order to utilize more of ones weaponry before its destruction). This could include Iranian/Syrian fire -on-warning system using a fiber-optic CCC link between all
a truly massive barrage of rockets and guided missiles, with WMD warheads, upon Israel within the first five-minutes of a launch warning. A similar fire-on-warning system for Israel, only involving nuclear-armed IRBMs, and submarine launched cruise missiles (SLCMs), and rapid launch of aircraft carried air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs). could also launch within five minutes of warning. This is the "hair-triggering" of WMD in the single most dangerous place on the planet Earth. The end result will be a brief battle of unbelievable intensity that will leave half or more of all Israelis dead and large parts of the Israeli nation poisoned for hundreds of thousands of years by radiological warheads. Syria, Iran, and large parts of Lebanon and Palestine will cease to exists and will be little more than a green radioactive debris field poisonous to all forms of life higher than a cockroach for hundreds of thousands of years (longer than modern man has
the launch bunkers in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Palestine to co-ordinate fire existed). The Iranian oilfields and most likely the oilfields of a large part of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other areas of the Middle East are also apt to be so poisoned by Iranian
The destruction of the Middle Eastern oilfields and the blocking of the Gulf will cause the world to suffer its most complete economic collapse in history. All of this will take less than one week from the beginning of the General Middle East War. At about two weeks, after the beginning of the war on Iran,
radiological warheads or Israeli/American nuclear fallout, that production will effectively cease. emergency rooms and doctors offices will begin to see a sudden spike in a number of new diseases with numerous very ill people being admitted to hospitals in North America, and Western Europe and what is left of Israel. By that time the Iranian and Syrian states will have effectively ceased to exist with insufficient manpower and organization to even
new genetically engineered viruses causing the strange diseases showing up will have been spread by sleeper agents supplied with a number of new viruses and distributed in public places (movie theaters, shopping malls, churches, etc.) quietly without anyone
bury their dead. The many knowing. Humans themselves will become the vectors of the diseases/biowar agents. Although the Bush/Obama Administrations have spent well over $40 billion on biowar
little that can realistically be done against a global strategic advanced biowar attack. The tactic of necessity will be to lock down everyone, with only key persons being allowed to leave their homes, in order to let the multiple genetically engineered diseases burn themselves out (a nice way of saying letting everyone who has the illnesses die off). Expect to see sub dermal RFID chips implanted
defense in the last few years, there is under the skin of the population left in the major neo-con states to prove your disease free status and necessary to buy, sell, or work. Expect to see military ch eckpoints everywhere and total control by the neo-con national governments over all aspects of life. Expect to see concentration camps for persons suspected of disloyalty to the state
levels of death, fear, repression that are almost incomprehensible. Expect to see the various biological warfare diseases spread throughout the world, even with a total shutdown of international travel. Many many millions will die in Russia and China. Expect to see those national governments not controlled by the neo-con masters to go ape shit when
(this will include many viewers of sites like this one). Expect to see their populations face the nightmare of advanced biowar. Expect the regional war in the Middle East to trigger an all out global battle utilizing all forms of weapons of mass destruction within a few weeks to a few months of the initial attacks on Iran. Before we allow hardliners in Israel take us into yet another war, we need to take a very hard and realistic look at just what a war involving MAD on all sides would mean to Israel, to Europe, to North America and the entire world. The strategy of using war to effect change in the Middle East is no longer realistic, as we are in a mutually assured destruction (MAD) environment. It is also imperative, that the United States and Israel stop insisting on maintaining the Mubarak regime (perhaps minus Mubarak himself). With each passing day, week and month that the people of Egypt are prevented from successful revolution, the forces of the Muslim Brotherhood will grow. While not all in the Muslim Brotherhood are extremist, the danger is that a radicalized Egyptian population and a future government will not continue to support regional peace with Israel and that itself will dramatically raise regional danger levels. It is imperative, given the highly lethal nature of 21st Century warfare, that we stop the drive to war against Iran and stop the neocon strategy of using military force to reshape the Middle East. We (
the Human
Race) simply cannot survive the global use of Advanced Biological Warfare.
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Terrorists Threaten National/Texas Security

Terrorists threaten national and Texas security
Perry 10 *Rick Perry, Governor, Texas Homeland Security Strategic Plan Rick Perry Governor 2010-2015, http://governor.state.tx.us/files/homeland/HmLndSecurity_StratPlan2015.pdf] International terrorism remains one of the greatest threats to our national security and the security of Texas. Global trends suggest that the number of international terrorist groups is likely to continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Terrorist groups will continue to become more networked and increasingly share resourcesincluding funds, intelligence, training, and logistical support.
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Trade Advantage Module Extensions
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Border Infrastructures Lagging/Costs Billions in Trade

Initiatives to modernize the border and bolster infrastructure investment are lagging causing traffic jams and billions in trade losses ONeil 12 [Shannon K. O'Neil, Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies, Refocusing U.S.-Mexico
Security Cooperation, Dec. 2012, http://www.cfr.org/mexico/refocusing-us-mexico-securitycooperation/p29595]
Initiatives to modernize the border and build resilient communities (pillars three and four of the Merida Initiative) are even further behind. Though some innovative border management programs, such as the Customs Trade
Partnership Against Terrorismwhich helps trusted businesses avoid extensive border checkshave improved efficiency, the overall tenor of U.S. policy has been to increase barriers, slowing flows of legal commerce. Financially,
investment in border crossings and infrastructure has not matched the exponential increase in trade crossing the border each year. Investment has lagged not only for new construction, but also for basic maintenance on existing infrastructure, leading to overwhelmed and at times downright dangerous facilities (a border crossing roof collapsed in 2011, injuring seventeen people). Stressed infrastructure has also led to traffic jams lasting up to eight hours, and has cost billions of dollars in trade losses, without drastically discouraging or disrupting illegal flows.
More ev - border delays cost billions Lee et al 13 [Erik Lee, Associate Director, NACTS, Authors: Erik Lee, Christopher E. Wilson,
Francisco Lara-Valencia, Carlos A. de la Parra, Rick Van Schoik, Kristofer Patron-Soberano, Eric L. Olson, Andrew Selee, The State of The Border Report A Comprehensive Analysis of the U.S.-Mexico Border, May, 2013, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/mexico_state_of_border.pdf] Well over a billion dollars worth of goods cross the border each day. Long and unpredictable wait times at the border ports of entry are costing the United States and
Mexican economies many billions of dollars each year.
Long and unpredictable wait times costs the US and Mexico billions each year
Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson
Center, Christopher, associate with the Mexico Institute, A New Agenda with Mexico, Wilson Center, November 2012, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/a_new_agenda_with_mexico.pdf)
Despite growing trade, the number of trucks crossing the border has remained relatively stable since the year 2000. As shown in Figure 3 above, personal vehicle and pedestrian traffic shows an even starker contrast, with a clear inflection point around the turn of the century. Several studies have attempted to quantify the costs of border area congestion to the economies of the United States and Mexico. In what is perhaps a testimony to the fragmented and geographically disperse nature of the border region, most of these studies have focused on particular North-South corridors of traffic and trade rather than taking a comprehensive, border-wide approach.
The specific results of the studies (summarized in Table 2, on next page) are quite varied, and too much value should not be placed on any single number. Nonetheless, one
message comes through quite clearlylong and unpredictable wait times at the POEs are costing the United States and Mexican economies many billions of dollars each year.67
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Border Congestion Destroying Trade

US-Mexico border congestion is killing trade infrastructure investments are key Wilson 11 - Christopher E., Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Working Together, Wilson
Center, November 2011, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Working%20Together%20Full%20Document.pdf)
More than a line dividing the two countries, the nearly 2,000 mile Southwest Border connects the United States and Mexico. More than half a million people and a little less than a billion dollars in goods cross the border each day.80 The border region is made up of four U.S. and six Mexican states with tightly integrated economies that , in total, have a GDP of greater than $3.5 trillion.81 But as important as the regions local economy is the role it plays as the gateway for the vast majority of U.S.-Mexico economic transactions. Nearly 80% of the goods traded with Mexico by all fifty states cross the border by land, making the efficient operation of the border by officials in both countries key to keeping U.S. exports competitive and imports cheap.82 Well-managed borders are vital to a healthy North American economy. The intensity of commerce, and especially the widespread nature of production sharing (with products crisscrossing the border several times as they are produced) mean that seemingly minor inefficiencies in border management can have profound effects on the national economies of the U.S. and Mexico. The complex set of security challenges faced by the United States complicates
border management, but maintaining a safe border does not necessarily imply sacrifices in commercial and social cross-border links. Unfortunately, in the past decade increased attention to border security appears to have come at a cost. Analysts have identified what they describe as a thickening of the border since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.83 After experiencing a significant increase in the 1990s, the number of individuals crossing the Southwest Border has plummeted.84 Legal crossings reached a record-setting 295 million entries from Mexico in 2000, but since then they have steadily declined to only 190 million entries in 2009. While the complete causes and effects of this change are unclear, it seems that Mexicans living in border cities, who make up the vast majority of the daily cross-border traffic, have reduced the number of trips they make into the U.S. for shopping, education, business and recreation. Thankfully, the number of trucks crossing the border to deliver goods has not experienced the same level of decline, although many of the same pressures that deter and disrupt the crossing of individuals also apply to commercial flows. Cross-border known as just-in-time
production sharing operations have come to depend on what is delivery, a technique that allows nimble production and minimizes the amount of capital invested in inventory. If the delivery of a part from a Mexican subsidiary or partner is unexpectedly delayed, a U.S. manufacturer may be forced to temporarily shut down production to wait for parts. Or, if such delays are common, manufacturers may simply be forced to maintain more inventory than would otherwise be necessary. The benefits of just-in-time supply chain
management, production sharing, and even U.S. Mexico trade more generally, are therefore put at risk by unpredictable and long wait times at the border. But increased security measures are hardly the only cause of thickening U.S. borders, and certainly no one wants his or her personal safety sacrificed in the name of trade facilitation. Both
the growth in U.S.-Mexico trade and the increasingly complex security situation instead demand investment and creative problem solving to simultaneously improve security and promote economic growth. While significant investments in border infrastructure have been made in recent years, including the opening of three new border crossings in 2010, still more are demanded. The San Diego
Association of Governments estimated that in 2007, inadequate border infrastructure caused congestion and delays that cost the California-Baja California region $7.2 billion and more than 62,000 jobs.85 El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a Tijuana-based university, performed a similar study that focused specifically on the costs of extended border wait times to Mexican border cities. While the economic impact on the United States in not calculated, one must assume that a portion of the costs are passed on to U.S. buyers. The results, shown in the table on page 31, make clear that transportation
bottlenecks at the border
are a drag on regional production.
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Border Improvements Key to Mexican Security I/L

Border improvements solve Mexican security ONeil 12 [Shannon K. O'Neil, Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies, Refocusing U.S.-Mexico
Security Cooperation, Dec. 2012, http://www.cfr.org/mexico/refocusing-us-mexico-securitycooperation/p29595]
Though some will prefer to continue an eradication and interdiction focused international drug
control regime, the tens of billions of dollars spent during the now over forty-year war on drugs in Mexico and Latin America suggest the need for a revised policy approach. The outlined initiatives have a greater chance of reducing violence (if not drug flows) in Mexico by strengthening police forces, court systems, and communities. The border
improvements, moreover, will likely benefit both the U.S. and Mexican economies, which can have indirect positive effects by providing greater legal opportunities to young people. In the end, Mexico's security will depend on the actions and decisions of Mexico. But there is much the United States can do to help or hinder the process. A transition to a demilitarized justice and a communityfocused approach to U.S. security assistance will help Mexico establish more effective and long-lasting tools for combating crime and violence.
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Economic Decline Causes War Auslin and Lachman 9

Economic collapse causes global nuclear war.
Auslin and Lachman 9 [Michael Auslin is a resident scholar and Desmond Lachman is a resident fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute, The Global Economy Unravels, 3/6/2009, http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/06/global-economy-unravelsopinions-contributors-g20.html] What do these trends mean in the short and medium term? The
Great Depression showed how social and global chaos followed hard on economic collapse. The mere fact that parliaments across the globe, from
America to Japan, are unable to make responsible, economically sound recovery plans suggests that they do not know what to do and are simply hoping for the least disruption. Equally worrisome is the adoption of more statist economic programs around the globe, and the concurrent decline of trust in free-market systems. The
threat of instability is a pressing
concern. China, until last year the world's fastest growing economy, just reported that 20 million migrant laborers lost their jobs. Even in the flush times of recent years, China faced upward of 70,000 labor uprisings a year. A sustained downturn poses grave and possibly immediate threats to Chinese internal stability. The regime in Beijing may be faced with a choice of repressing its own people or diverting their energies outward, leading to conflict with China's neighbors. Russia, an oil state completely dependent on energy sales, has had to put down riots in its Far East as well as in downtown Moscow. Vladimir Putin's rule has been predicated on squeezing civil liberties while providing economic largesse. If that devil's bargain falls apart, then wide-scale repression inside Russia, along with a continuing threatening posture toward Russia's neighbors, is likely. Even apparently stable societies face increasing risk and the threat of internal or possibly external conflict. As Japan's
exports have plummeted by nearly 50%, one-third of the country's prefectures have passed emergency economic stabilization plans. Hundreds of thousands of temporary employees hired during the first part of this decade are being laid off. Spain's unemployment rate is expected to climb to nearly 20% by the end of 2010; Spanish
unions are already protesting the lack of jobs, and the specter of violence, as occurred in the 1980s, is haunting the country. Meanwhile, in Greece, workers have already taken to the streets. Europe as a whole will face dangerously increasing tensions between native citizens and immigrants, largely from poorer Muslim nations, who have increased
the labor pool in the past several decades. Spain has absorbed five million immigrants since 1999, while nearly 9% of Germany's residents have foreign citizenship, including almost 2 million Turks. The
xenophobic labor strikes in the U.K. do not bode well for the rest of Europe. A prolonged global downturn, let alone a collapse, would dramatically raise tensions inside these countries. Couple that with possible protectionist legislation in the United States, unresolved ethnic and territorial disputes in all regions of the globe and a loss of confidence that world leaders actually know what they are doing. The result may be a series of small explosions that coalesce into a big bang.
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Economic Decline Causes War Royal 10

Economic decline causes war - multiple reasons
Royal 10 Jedidiah Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, M.Phil. Candidate at the University of
New South Wales, 2010 (Economic Integration, Economic Signalling and the Problem of Economic Crises, Economics of War and P eace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, Edited by Ben Goldsmith and Jurgen Brauer, Published by Emerald Group Publishing, ISBN 0857240048, p. 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on
the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he
leadership cycle theory, finding suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second,
on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult [end page 213] to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker
(2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the
tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic,
dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economicsecurity debate and deserves more attention. This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. [end page 214] Those studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.
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Econ Impact War/Cant Solve World Problems

Preventing economic collapse and promoting growth is a prerequisite to solving the worlds issues the mere perception of decline causes war Lieberthal and OHanlon 12 - Ken Dir of the China Center and Senior Fellow in Foreign
Policy at Brookings. And Michael Dir of Research and Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy at Brookings.( The Real National Security Threat: Americas Debt The LA Times, 7/10/12)
Lastly, American
economic weakness undercuts U.S. leadership abroad. Other countries sense our weakness and wonder about our purported decline. If this perception becomes more widespread, and the case that we are in decline becomes more persuasive, countries will begin to take actions that reflect their skepticism about America's future. Allies and friends will doubt our commitment and may pursue nuclear weapons for their own security, for example; adversaries will sense opportunity and be less restrained in throwing around their weight in their own neighborhoods. The crucial Persian Gulf and Western Pacific regions will likely become less stable. Major war will become more likely. When running for president last time, Obama eloquently articulated big foreign policy visions: healing America's breach with the Muslim world, controlling global climate change, dramatically curbing global poverty through development aid, moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. These were, and remain, worthy if elusive goals. However, for Obama or his successor, there is now a much more urgent big-picture issue: restoring U.S. economic strength. Nothing else is really possible if that fundamental prerequisite to effective foreign policy is not reestablished.
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Heg Good Kagan 12

U.S. hegemony is sustainable, but on the brink of decline collapse destroys the international economy, trade, fuel regional wars, and culminates in a great power war, destroying global order. Kagan 12 (Robert, 1/17/2012, Not Fade Away: Against the Myth of American Decline, thug, MPP from the John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University and a PhD in US history from American University in Washington, D.C., senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an adjunct professor of history at Georgetown University, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe,http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2012/0117_us_power_kagan.aspx)
Is the United States in decline, as so many seem to believe these days? Or are Americans in danger of committing pre-emptive superpower suicide out of a misplaced fear of their own declining power? A great deal depends on the answer to these questions. The present world order
characterized by an unprecedented number of democratic nations; a greater global prosperity, even with the current crisis, than the world has ever known; and a long peace among great powersreflects
American principles and preferences, and was built and preserved by American power in all its political, economic, and military dimensions. If American power declines, this world order will decline with it. It will be
replaced by some other kind of order, reflecting the desires and the qualities of other world powers. Or perhaps it will simply collapse, as the European world order collapsed in the first half of the twentieth century . The belief, held by many, that even with diminished American power the underlying foundations of the liberal international order will survive and thrive, as the political scientist G. John Ikenberry has argued, is a pleasant illusion. American
decline, if it is real,
will mean a different world for everyone. But how real is it? Much of the commentary on American decline
these days rests on rather loose analysis, on impressions that the United States has lost its way, that it has abandoned the virtues that made it successful in the past, that it lacks the will to address the problems it faces. Americans
look at other nations whose economies are now in better shape than their own, and seem to have the dynamism that America once had, and they lament, as in the title of Thomas Friedmans latest book, that that used to be us. The perception of decline today is certainly understandable, given the dismal economic situation since 2008 and the nations large fiscal deficits, which, combined with the continuing growth of the Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, Turkish, and other economies, seem to portend a significant and irreversible shift in global economic power. Some of the pessimism is also due to the belief that the United States has lost favor, and therefore influence, in much of the world, because of its various responses to the attacks of September 11. The detainment facilities at Guantnamo, the use of torture against suspected terrorists, and the widely condemned invasion of Iraq in 2003 have all tarnished the American
brand and put a dent in Americas soft powerits ability to attract others to its point of view. There have been the difficult wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which many argue proved the limits of military power, stretched the United States beyond its capacities, and weakened the nation at its core. Some compare the United States to the British Empire at the end of the nineteenth century, with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars serving as the equivalent of Britains difficult and demoralizing Boer War. With this broad perception of decline as the backdrop, every
failure of the United States to get its way in the world tends to reinforce the impression. Arabs and Israelis refuse to make peace, despite American entreaties. Iran and North Korea defy American demands that they cease their nuclear weapons programs. China refuses to let its currency rise. Ferment in the Arab world spins out of Americas control. Every day, it seems, brings more evidence that the time has passed when the United States could lead the world and get others to do its bidding. Powerful as this sense of decline may be, however, it deserves a more rigorous examination. Measuring changes in a nations relative power is a tricky business, but there are some basic indicators: the size and the influence of its economy relative to that of other powers; the magnitude of military power
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compared with that of potential adversaries; the degree of political influence it wields in the international systemall of which make up what the Chinese call comprehensive national power. And there is the matter of time. Judgments based on only a few years evidence are problematic . A great powers decline is the product of fundamental changes in the international distribution of various forms of power that usually occur over longer stretches of time. Great
powers rarely decline suddenly. A war may bring them down, but even that is usually a symptom, and a culmination, of a longer process. The decline of the British Empire, for instance, occurred over several decades. In 1870, the British share of global manufacturing was over 30 percent. In 1900, it was 20 percent. By 1910, it was under 15 percentwell below the rising United States, which had climbed over the same period from more than 20 percent to more than 25 percent; and also less than Germany, which had lagged far behind Britain throughout the nineteenth century but had caught and surpassed it in the first decade of the twentieth century. Over the course of that period, the British navy went from unchallenged master of the seas to sharing control of the oceans with rising naval powers. In 1883, Britain possessed more battleships than all the other powers combined. By 1897, its dominance had been eclipsed. British officials considered their navy completely outclassed in the Western hemisphere by the United States, in East Asia by Japan, and even close to home by the combined navies of Russia and Franceand that was before the threatening growth of the German navy. These were clear-cut, measurable, steady declines in two of the most important measures of power over the course of a half-century. Some of the arguments
for Americas relative decline these days would be more potent if they had not appeared only in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. Just as one swallow does not make a spring, one recession, or even a severe economic crisis, need not mean the beginning of the end of a great power. The United States suffered deep and prolonged economic crises in the 1890s, the 1930s, and the 1970s. In each case, it rebounded in the following decade and actually ended up in a stronger position relative to other powers than before the crisis . The 1910s, the 1940s, and the 1980s were all high points of American global power and influence. Less than a decade ago, most observers spoke not of Americas decline but of its enduring primacy. In 2002, the historian Paul
Kennedy, who in the late 1980s had written a much-discussed book on the rise and fall of the great powers, America included, declared that never
in history had there been such a great disparity of power as between the United States and the rest of the world. Ikenberry agreed that no other great power had held such formidable advantages in military, economic, technological, cultural, or political capabilities.... The preeminence of American power was unprecedented. In 2004, the pundit Fareed Zakaria described the United States as enjoying a comprehensive uni-polarity unlike anything seen since Rome. But a mere four years later Zakaria was writing about the post-American world and the rise of the rest, and Kennedy was discoursing again upon the inevitability of American decline. Did the fundamentals of Americas relative power shift so dramatically in just a few short years? The answer is no. Lets start with the basic indicators. In economic terms, and even despite the current years of recession and slow growth, Americas position in the world has not changed. Its share of the worlds GDP has held remarkably steady, not only over the past decade but over the past four decades.
In 1969, the United States produced roughly a quarter of the worlds economic output. Today it still produces roughly a quarter, and it remains not only the largest but also the richest economy in the world. People
are rightly mesmerized by the rise of China, India, and other Asian nations whose share of the global economy has been climbing steadily, but this has so far come almost entirely at the expense of Europe and Japan, which have had a declining share of the global economy. Optimists about Chinas
development predict that it will overtake the United States as the largest economy in the world sometime in the next two decades. This could mean that the United States will face an increasing challenge to its economic position in the future. But the
sheer size of an economy is not by itself a good measure of overall power within the international system. If it were, then early nineteenth-century China, with what was then the worlds largest economy, would have been the predominant power instead of the prostrate victim of smaller European nations. Even if China does reach this pinnacle againand Chinese leaders face significant obstacles to sustaining the countrys growth indefinitelyit will still remain
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far behind both the United States and Europe in terms of per capita GDP. Military capacity matters, too, as early nineteenth-century China learned and Chinese leaders know today. As Yan Xuetong recently noted, military strength underpins hegemony. Here the United States remains unmatched. It is far and away the most powerful nation the world has ever known, and there has been no decline in Americas relative military capacityat least not yet. Americans currently spend less than $600 billion a year on defense, more than the rest of the other great powers combined. (This figure does not include the deployment in Iraq, which is ending, or the combat forces in Afghanistan, which are likely to diminish steadily over the next couple of years.) They do so, moreover, while consuming a little less than 4 percent of GDP annuallya higher percentage than the other great powers, but in historical terms lower than the 10 percent of GDP that the United States spent on defense in the mid-1950s and the 7 percent it spent in the late 1980s. The superior expenditures underestimate Americas actual superiority in military capability. American land and air forces are equipped with the most advanced weaponry, and are the most experienced in actual combat. They would defeat any competitor in a head-to-head battle. American naval power remains predominant in every region of the world . By these military
and economic measures, at least, the United States today is not remotely like Britain circa 1900, when that empires relative decline began to become apparent. It is more like Britain circa 1870, when the empire was at the height of its power. It is possible to imagine a time when this might no longer be the case, but that moment has not yet arrived. But what about the rise of the rest the increasing economic clout of nations like China, India, Brazil, and Turkey? Doesnt that cut into American power and influence? The answer is, it depends. The fact that other nations in the world are enjoying periods of high growth does not mean that Am ericas position as the predominant power is declining, or even that the rest are catching up in terms of overall power and influence. Brazils share of global GDP was a little over 2 percent in 1990 and remains a little over 2 percent today. Turkeys share was under 1 percent in 1990 and is still under 1 percent today. People, and especially businesspeople, are naturally excited about these emerging markets, but just because a nation is an attractive investment opportunity does not mean it is a rising great power. Wealth matters in international politics, but there is no simple correlation between economic growth and international influence. It is not clear that a richer India today wields greater influence on the global stage than a poorer India did in the 1950s under Nehru, when it was the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, or that Turkey, for all the independence and flash of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan, really wields more influence than it did a decade ago. As for the effect of these growing economies on the position of the United States, it all depends on who is doing the growing. The problem for the British Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century was not its substantial decline relative to the United States, a generally friendly power whose interests did not fundamentally conflict with Britains. Even in the Western hemisphere, British trade increased as it ceded dominance to the United States. The problem was Britains decline relative to Germany, which aimed for supremacy on the European continent, and sought to compete with Britain on the high seas, and in both respects posed a threat to Britains core security. In the case of the United States, the dramatic and rapid rise of the German and Japanese economies during the Cold War reduced American primacy in the world much more than the more recent rise of the rest. Americas share of the worlds GDP, nearly 50 percent after
World War II, fell to roughly 25 percent by the early 1970s, where it has remained ever since. But that rise of the rest did not weaken the United States. If anything, it strengthened it. Germany and Japan were and are close democratic allies, key pillars of the
American world order. The growth of their economies actually shifted the balance irretrievably against the Soviet bloc and helped bring about its demise. When gauging the impact of the growing economies of other countries today, one has to make the same kinds of calculations. Does the growth of the Brazilian economy, or of the Indian economy, diminish American global power? Both nations are friendly, and India is increasingly a strategic partner of the United States. If
Americas future competitor in the world is likely to be China, then a richer and more powerful India will be an asset, not a liability, to the United States. Overall, the fact that Brazil, India, Turkey, and South Africa are enjoying a period of economic growthwhich may or may not last indefinitelyis either irrelevant to Americas strategic position or of benefit to it. At present, only the growth of Chinas economy can be said
to have implications for American power in the future, and only insofar as the Chinese translate enough of their growing economic strength into military strength. II. If the United States is not suffering decline in these basic measures of power, isnt it true that its influence has diminished, that it is having a harder time getting its way in the world? The almost universal assumption is that the United States has indeed lost influence. Whatever the explanation may beAmerican decline, the rise of the rest, the apparent failure of the American capitalist model, the dysfunctional nature of American politics, the increasing complexity of the international systemit is broadly accepted that the United States can no longer shape the world to suit its interests and ideals as it once did. Every day seems to bring more proof, as things happen in the world that seem both contrary to American interests and beyond American control. And of course it is true that the United States is not able to get what it wants much of the time. But then it never could. Much
of todays impressions about declining American influence are based on a nostalgic fallacy: that there was once a time when the United States could shape the whole
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world to suit its desires, and could get other nations to do what it wanted them to do, and, as the political scientist Stephen M. Walt put it, manage the politics, economics and security arrangements for nearly the entire globe. If we are to gauge Americas relative position today, it is important to recognize that this image of the past is an illusion. There never was such a time. We tend to think back on the early years of the Cold War as a moment of
complete American global dominance. They were nothing of the sort. The United States did accomplish extraordinary things in that era: the Marshall Plan, the NATO alliance, the United Nations, and the Bretton Woods economic system all shaped the world we know today. Yet for every great achievement in the early Cold War, there was at least one equally monumental setback. During the Truman years, there was the triumph of the Communist Revolution in China in 1949, which American officials regarded as a disaster for American interests in the region and which did indeed prove costly; if nothing else, it was a major factor in spurring North Korea to attack the South in 1950. But as Dean Acheson concluded, the ominous result of the civil war in China had proved beyond the control of the ... United States, the product of forces which this country tried to influence but could not. A year later came the unanticipated and unprepared -for North Korean attack on South Korea, and Americas intervention, which, after more than 35,000 American dead and almost 100,000 wounded, left the situation almost exactly as it had been before the war. In 1949, there came perhaps the worst news of all: the Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb and the end of the nuclear monopoly on which American military strategy and defense budgeting had been predicated. A year later, NSC68, the famous strategy document, warned of the growing gap between Americas military strength and its global strategic comm itments. If current trends continued, it declared, the result would be a serious decline in the strength of the free world relative to the Soviet Union and its satellites. The integrity and vitality of our system, the document stated, was in greater jeopardy than ever before in our history. Douglas MacArthur, giving the keynote address at the Republican National Convention in 1952, lamented the alarming change in the balance of world power, the rising burden of our fiscal commitments, the ascendant power of the Soviet Union, and our own relative decline. In 1957, the Gaither Commission reported that the Russian economy was growing at a much faster pace than that of the United States and that by 1959 Russia would be able to hit American soil with one hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles, prompting Sam Rayburn, the speaker of the House, to ask, What good are a sound economy and a balanced budget if we lose our national lives and Russian rubles become the coin of the land? Nor was the United State s always able to persuade others, even its closest allies, to do what it wanted, or to refrain from doing what it did not want. In 1949, Acheson tried and failed to prevent European allies, including the British, from recognizing Communist China. In 1954, the Eisenhower administration failed to get its way at the Geneva Conference on Vietnam and refused to sign the final accords. Two years later it tried to prevent the British, the French, and the Israelis from invading Egypt over the closure of the Suez Canal, only to see them launch an invasion without so much as a headsup to Washington. When the United States confronted China over the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, the Eisenhower administration tried and failed to get a show of support from European allies, prompting John Foster Dulles to fear that NATO was beginning to fall apart. By the late 1950s, Mao be lieved the United States was a superpower in decline, afraid of taking on new involvements in the Third World and increasingly incapable of maintaining its hegemony over the capitalist countries. But what about soft power? Wasnt it true, as the political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. has argued, that the United States used to be able to get what it wanted in the world because of the values expressed by American culture as reflected through television, movies, and music, and because of the attractiveness of Americas domestic and foreign policies? These elements of soft power made other peoples around the world want to follow the United States, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. Again, the historical truth is more complicated. During the first three decades after World War II, great portions of the world neither admired the United States nor sought to emulate it, and were not especially pleased at the way it conducted itself in international affairs. Yes, American media were spreading American culture, but they were spreading images that were not always flattering. In the 1950s the world could watch televised images of Joseph McCarthy and the hunt for Communists in the State Department and Hollywood. American movies depicted the suffocating capitalist conformism of the new American corporate culture. Best-selling novels such as The Ugly American painted a picture of American bullying and boorishness. There were the battles over segregation in the 1950s and 1960s, the globally transmitted images of whites spitting at black schoolchildren and police setting their dogs on black demonstrators. (That used to be us, too.) The racism of America was practically ruining the American global image, Dulles feared, especially in the so-called Third World. In the late 1960s and early 1970s came the Watts riots, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the shootings at Kent State, and then the government-shaking scandal of Watergate. These were not the kinds of images likely to endear the United States to the world, no matter how many Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen movies were playing in Parisian cinemas. Nor did much of the world find American foreign policy especially attractive during these years. Eisenhower yearned to get some of the people in these down-trodden countries to like us instead of hating us, but the CIA -orchestrated overthrows of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala did not help. In 1957, demonstrators at tacked the vice presidents motorcade in Venezuela, shouting, Go away, Nixon! Out, dog! We wont forget Guatemala! In 1960, Khrushchev humiliated Eisenhower by canceling a summit when an American spy plane was shot down over Russia. Later that year, on his way to a goodwill visit in Tokyo, Eisenhower had to turn back in mid -flight when the Japanese government warned it could not guarantee his security against students protesting American imperialism. Eisenhowers Democratic successors fared little better. John F. Kennedy and his wife were beloved for a time, but Americas glow faded after his assassination. Lyndon Johnsons invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 was widely condemned not only in Latin America but also by European allies. De Gaulle warned American officials that the United States, like all countries that had overwhelming power, had come to believe t hat force would solve everything and would soon learn this was not the case. And then, of course, came Vietnamthe destruction, the scenes of napalm, the My Lai massacre, the secret incursion into Cambodia, the bombing of Hanoi, and the general perception of a Western colonialist superpower pounding a small but defiant Third World country into submission. When Johnsons vice president, Hubert Humphrey, visited West Berlin in 1967, the American cultural center was attacked, thousands of students protested American policies, and rumors swirled of assassination attempts. In 1968, when millions of Europes youth took to the streets , they were not expressing their admiration for American culture. Nor were the great majority of nations around the world trying to emulate the American system. In the first decades of the Cold War, many were attracted to the state-controlled economies of the Soviet Union and China, which seemed to promise growth without the messy problems of democracy. The economies of the Soviet bloc had growth rates as high as those in the West throughout much of this period, largely due to a state-directed surge in heavy industry. According to Allen Dulles, the CIA director, many leaders in the Third World believed that the Soviet system might have more to offer in the way of quick results than the U.S. system. Dictators such as Egypts Nasser and Indonesias Sukarno found the state-dominated model especially attractive, but so did Indias Nehru. Leaders of the emerging Non -Aligned MovementNehru, Nasser, Tito, Sukarno, Nkrumahexpressed little admiration for American ways. After the death of Stalin, moreover, both the Soviet Union and China engaged in hot competition to win over the Third World, taking goodwill tours and providing aid programs of their own. Eisenhower reflected that the new Communis t line of sweetness and light was perhaps more dangerous than their propaganda in Stalins time. The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations worried constantly about the leftward tilt of al l these nations, and lavished development aid on them in the hope of winning hearts and minds. They found that the aid, while eagerly accepted, guaranteed neither allegiance nor appreciation. One result of Third World animosity was that the United States steadily lost influence at the United Nations after 1960. Once the place where the American war in Korea was legitimized, from the 1960s until the end of the Cold War the U.N. General Assembly became a forum for constant expressions of anti-Americanism. In the late 1960s, Henry Kissinger despaired of the future. The increased fragmentation of power, the greater diffusion of political activity, and the more complicated patterns of international conflict and alignment, he wrote to Nixon, had sharply reduced the capacity of both superpowers to influence the actions of other governments. And things only seemed to get more difficult as the 1970s unfolded. The United States withdrew from Vietnam in defeat, and the world watched the first-ever resignation of an American president mired in scandal. And then, perhaps as significant as all the rest, world oil prices went through the roof. The last problem pointed to a significant new difficulty: the inability of the United States to wield influence effectively in the Middle East. Today people point to Americas failure to bring Israelis and Palestinians to a negotiated settlement, or to manage the tumultuous Arab Awakening, as a sign of weakness and decline. But in 1973 the United States could not even prevent the major powers in the Middle East from engaging in all-out war. When Egypt and Syria launched their surprise attack on Israel, it was a surprise to Washington as well. The United States eventually had to go on nuclear alert to deter Soviet intervention in the conflict. The war led to the oil embargo, the establishment of OPEC as a major force in world affairs, and the sudden revelation that, as historian Daniel Yergin put it, the United States itself was now, finally, vulnerable. The worlds foremost superpower had been thrown on the defensive, humiliated, by a handful of small nations. Many Americans feared that the end of an era was at hand. In the 1970s, the dramatic rise in oil prices, coupled with American economic policies during the Vietnam War, l ed the American economy into a severe crisis. Gross national product fell by 6 percent between 1973 and 1975. Unemployment doubled from 4.5 percent to 9 percent. The American people suffered through gas lines and the new economic phenomenon of stagflation, combining a stagnant economy with high inflation. The American economy went through three recessions between 1973 and 1982. The energy crisis was to Americans then what the fiscal crisis is today. In his first televised address to the nation, Jimmy Carter called it the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. It was especially humiliating that the crisis was driven in part by two close American allies, the Saudi royal family and the Shah of Iran. As Carter recalled in his memoirs, the American people deeply resented that the gre atest nation on earth was being jerked around by a few desert states. The low point came in 1979, when the Shah was overthrown, the radical Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, and fifty-two Americans were taken hostage and held for more than a year. The hostage crisis, as Yergin has observed, transmitted a p owerful message: that the shift of power in the world oil market in the 1970s was only part of a larger drama that was taking place in global politics. The United States and the West, it seemed to say, were truly in decline, on the defensive, and, it appeared, unable to do anything to protect their interests, whether economic or political. If one wanted to make a case for Ameri can decline, the 1970s would have been the time to do it; and many did. The United States, Kissinger believed, had evidently passe d its historic high point like so many earlier civilizations.... Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed. It was in the 1970s t hat the American economy lost its overwhelming primacy, when the American trade surplus began to turn into a trade deficit, when spending on entitlements and social welfare programs ballooned, when American gold and monetary reserves were depleted. With economic difficulties came political and strategic insecurity. First came the belief that the tide of history was with the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders themselves believed the correlation of forces favored communism; the American defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam led Soviet officials, for the first time, to believe they might actually win in the long Cold War struggle. A decade later, in 1987, Paul Kennedy depicted both superpowers as suffering from imperial overstretch, but suggested
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that it was entirely possible that the United States would be the first to collapse, following a long historical tradition of exhausted and bankrupt empires. It had crippled itself by spending too much on defense and taking on too many far-flung global responsibilities. But within two years the Berlin Wall fell, and two years after that the Soviet Union collapsed. The decline turned out to be taking place elsewhere. Then there was the miracle economy of Japan. A rise of the rest began in the late 1970s and continued over the next decade and a half, as Japan, along with the other Asian tigers, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, seemed about to eclipse the United States economically. In 1989, the journalist James Fallows argued that the Japanese state-directed economy was plainly superior to the more laissez-faire capitalism of the United States and was destined to surpass it. Japan was to be the next superpower. While the United States had bankrupted itself fighting the Cold War, the Japanese had been busy taking all the marbles. As the analyst Chalmers Johnson put it in 1995, The Cold War is over, and Japan won. Even as Johnson typed those words, the Japanese economy was spiraling downward into a period of stagnation from which it has still not recovered. With the Soviet Union gone and China yet to demonstrate the staying power of its economic boom, the United States suddenly appeared to be the worlds sole superpower. Yet even then it was remarkable how unsuccessful the United States was in dealing with many serious global problems. The Americans won the Gulf War, expanded NATO eastward, eventually brought peace to the Balkans, after much bloodshed, and, through most of the 1990s, led much of the world to embrace the Washington consensus on economicsbut some of these successes began to unravel, and were matched by equally significant failures. The Washington consensus began to collapse with the Asian financial crisis of 1997, where American prescriptions were widely regarded as mistaken and damaging. The United States failed to stop or even significantly to retard the nuclear weapons programs of North Korea and Iran, despite repeatedly declaring its intention to do so. The sanctions regime imposed against Saddam Husseins Iraq was both futile and, by the end of the decade, collapsing. The United States, and the world, di d nothing to prevent the genocide in Rwanda, partly because a year earlier the United States had been driven out of Somalia after a failed military intervention. One of the most important endeavors of the United States in the 1990s was the effort to support a transition in post-Soviet Russia to democracy and free-market capitalism. But despite providing billions of dollars and endless amounts of advice and expertise, the United States found events in Russia once again to be beyond its control. Nor were American leaders, even in the supposed heyday of global predominance, any more successful in solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem than they are today. Even with a booming economy and a well-liked president earnestly working to achieve a settlement, the Clinton administration came up empty-handed. As the former Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller recounts, Bill Clinton cared more about and invested more time and energy in Arab-Israeli peace over a longer period of time than any of his predecessors, and was admired and appreciated by both Israelis and Palestiniansand yet he held three summits within six months and fail*ed+ at every one. Clintons term ended with the collapse of peace talks and the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada. Even popularity was elusive in the 1990s. In 1999, Samuel P. Huntington labeled America the lonely superpower, widely hated across the globe for its intrusive, interventionist, exploitative, unilateralist, hegemonic, hypocritical behavior. The French foreign minister decried the hyperpower and openly yearned for a multipolar world in which the United States would no longer be dominant. A British diplomat told Huntington: One reads about the worlds desire for American leadership only in the United States. Everywhere else one reads about American arrogance and unilateralism. This was nonsense, of course. Contrary to the British diplomats claim, many other countries did look to the United States for leadership, and for protection and support, in the 1990s and throughout the Cold War. The point is not that America always
From World War II onward, the United States was indeed the predominant power in the world. It wielded enormous influence, more than any great power since Rome, and
lacked global influence.
it accomplished much. But it was not omnipotentfar from it. If we are to gauge accurately whether the United States is currently in decline, we need to have a reasonable baseline from which to measure. To
compare American influence today with a mythical past of overwhelming dominance can only mislead us. Today the United States lacks the ability to have its way on many issues, but this has not prevented it from enjoying just as much success, and suffering just as much failure, as in the past. For all the controversy, the United
States has been more successful in Iraq than it was in Vietnam. It has been just as incapable of containing Iranian nuclear ambitions as it was in the 1990s, but it has, through the efforts of two administrations, established a more effective global counterproliferation network. Its efforts to root out and destroy Al Qaeda have been remarkably successful, especially when compared with the failures to destroy terrorist networks and stop terrorist attacks in the 1990sfailures that culminated in the attacks of September 11. The
ability to employ drones is an advance over the types of weaponry cruise missiles and air strikesthat were used to target terrorists and facilities in previous decades. Meanwhile Americas alliances in Europe remain healthy; it is certainly not Americas fault that Europe itself seems weaker than it once was. American alliances in Asia have arguably grown stronger over the past few years, and the United States has been able to strengthen relations with India that had previously been strained. So the record is mixed, but it has always been mixed. There have
been moments when the United States was more influential than today and moments when it was less influential. The exertion of influence has always been a struggle, which may explain why, in every single decade since the end of World War II, Americans have worried about their declining influence and looked nervously as other powers seemed to be rising at their expense. The
difficulties in shaping the international environment in any era are immense. Few powers even attempt it, and even the strongest rarely achieve all or even most of their goals. Foreign policy is like hitting a baseball: if you fail 70 percent of the time, you go to the Hall of Fame. Today, in the case of China, the situation is reversed. Although China is and will be much richer, and will wield greater economic influence in the world than the Soviet Union ever did, its geostrategic position is more difficult. World War II left China in a comparatively weak position from which it has been working hard to recover ever since. Several of its neighbors are strong nations with close ties to the United States. It will have a hard time becoming a regional hegemon so long as Taiwan remains independent and strategically tied to the United States, and so long as strong regional powers such as Japan, Korea, and Australia continue to host American troops and bases . China would need at least a few allies to have any chance of pushing the United States out of its strongholds in the western Pacific, but right now it is the United States that has the allies. It is the United
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States that has its troops deployed in forward bases. It is the United States that currently enjoys naval predominance in the key waters and waterways through which China must trade. Altogether, Chinas task as a rising great power, which is to push the United States out of its present position, is much
harder than Americas task, which is only to hold on to what it has. Can the United States do that? In their pessimistic mood today, some Americans doubt that it can. Indeed, they doubt whether the United States can afford to continue playing in any part of the world the predominant role that it has played in the past. Some argue that while Paul Kennedys warning of imperial overstretch may not have been correct in 1987, it accurately describes Americas current predicament. The fiscal crisis, the deadlocked p olitical system, the various maladies of American society (including wage stagnation and income inequality), the weaknesses of the educational system, the deteriorating infrastructureall of these are cited these days as reasons why the United States needs to retrench internationally, to pull back from some overseas commitments, to focus on nation building at home rather than try to keep shaping the world as it has in the past. Again, these common assumptions require some examination. For one thing, how
overstretched is the United States? The answer, in historical terms, is not nearly as much as people imagine. Consider the straightforward matter of the number of troops that the United States deploys overseas. To listen to the debate today, one might imagine there were more American troops committed abroad than ever before. But that is not remotely the case. In 1953, the United States had almost one million troops deployed overseas325,000 in combat in Korea and more than 600,000 stationed in Europe, Asia,
and elsewhere. In 1968, it had over one million troops on foreign soil537,000 in Vietnam and another half million stationed elsewhere. By
contrast, in the summer of 2011, at the height of Americas deployments in its two wars, there were about 200,000 troops deployed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, and another roughly 160,000 troops stationed in Europe and East Asia. Altogether, and including other forces stationed around the world, there were about 500,000 troops deployed overseas. This was lower even than the peacetime deployments of the Cold War. In 1957, for instance, there were over 750,000 troops deployed overseas. Only in the decade between the breakup of the Soviet empire and the attacks of September 11 was the number of deployed forces overseas lower than it is today. The comparison is even more striking if one takes into account the growth of the American population. When the United States had one
million troops deployed overseas in 1953, the total American population was only 160 million. Today, when there are half a million troops deployed overseas, the American population is 313 million. The
country is twice as large, with half as many troops deployed as fifty years ago. What about the financial expense? Many seem to believe that the cost of these deployments, and of the armed forces generally, is a major contributor to the soaring fiscal deficits that threaten the solvency of the national economy. But this is not the case, either. As the former budget czar Alice Rivlin has observed, the scary projections of future deficits are not caused by rising defense spending, much l ess by spending on foreign assistance. The runaway deficits projected for the coming years are mostly the result of
ballooning entitlement spending. Even the most draconian cuts in the defense budget would produce annual savings of only $50 billion to $100 billion, a small fractionbetween 4 and 8 percentof the $1.5 trillion in annual deficits the United States is facing. In 2002, when Paul Kennedy was marveling at Americas ability to remain the worlds single superpower on the cheap, the United States was spending about 3.4 percent of GDP on defense. Today it is spending a little under 4 percent, and in years to come, that is likely to head lower againstill cheap by historical standards. The
cost of remaining the worlds predominant power is not prohibitive. If we are serious about this exercise in accounting, moreover, the costs of maintaining this position cannot be measured without considering the costs of losing it. Some of the costs of reducing the American role in the world are, of course, unquantifiable. What is it worth to Americans to live in a world dominated by democracies rather than by autocracies? But some of the potential costs could be measured, if anyone cared to try. If the decline of American military power produced an unraveling of the international economic order that American power has helped sustain; if trade routes and waterways ceased to be as secure, because the U.S. Navy was no longer able to defend them; if regional wars broke out among great
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powers because they were no longer constrained by the American superpower; if American allies were attacked because the United States appeared unable to come to their defense; if the generally free and open nature of the international system became less soif all this came to pass, there would be measurable costs. And it is not too far-fetched to imagine that these costs would be far greater than the savings gained by cutting the defense and foreign aid budgets by $100 billion a year. You can save money by buying a used car without a warranty and without certain safety features, but what happens when you get into an accident? American military strength reduces the risk of accidents by deterring conflict, and lowers the price of the accidents that occur by reducing the chance of losing. These savings need to be part of the calculation, too. As a simple matter of dollars and cents, it may be a lot cheaper to preserve the current level of American involvement in the world than to reduce it. Perhaps the greatest concern underlying the declinist mood at large in the country today is not really whether the United States can afford to continue playing its role in the world. It is whether the Americans are capable of solving any of their most pressing economic and social problems. As many statesmen and commentators have asked, can Americans do what needs to be done to compete effectively in the twenty-first-century world? The only honest answer is, who knows? If American history is any guide, however, there is at least some reason to be hopeful. Americans have experienced this unease before, and many previous
generations have also felt this sense of lost vigor and lost virtue: as long ago as 1788, Patrick Henry lamented the nations fall from past glory, when the American spirit was in its youth. There
have been many times over the past two centuries when the political system was dysfunctional, hopelessly gridlocked, and seemingly unable to find solutions to crushing national problemsfrom slavery and then
Reconstruction, to the dislocations of industrialization at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of social welfare during the Great Depression, to the confusions and paranoia of the early Cold War years. Anyone who honestly recalls the 1970s, with Watergate, Vietnam, stagflation, and the energy crisis, cannot really believe that our present difficulties are unrivaled. Success in the past does not guarantee success in the future. But
one thing does seem clear from the historical evidence: the American system, for all its often stultifying qualities, has also shown a greater capacity to adapt and recover from difficulties than many other nations, including its geopolitical competitors. This undoubtedly has something to do with the relative freedom of
American society, which rewards innovators, often outside the existing power structure, for producing new ways of doing things; and with the relatively open political system of America, which allows movements to gain steam and to influence the behavior of the political establishment. The American system is slow and clunky in part because the Founders designed it that way, with a federal structure, checks and balances, and a written Constitution and Bill of Rightsbut the system also possesses a remarkable ability to undertake changes just when the steam kettle looks about to blow its lid. There are occasional critical elections that allow transformations to occur, providing new political solutions to old and apparently insoluble problems. Of course, there are no guarantees: the political system could not resolve the problem of slavery without war. But on many big issues throughout their history, Americans have found a way of achieving and implementing a national consensus. When Paul Kennedy was marveling at the continuing success of the American superpower back in 2002, he noted that one of the main reasons had been the ability of Americans to overcome what had appeared to him in 1987 as an insoluble long-term economic crisis. American businessmen and politicians reacted strongly to the debate about decline by taking action: cutting costs, making companies leaner and meaner, investing in newer technologies, promoting a communications revolution, trimming government deficits, all of which helped to produce significant year-on-year advances in productivity. It is possible to imagine that Americans may rise to this latest economic challenge as well. It is also reasonable to expect that other nations will, as in the past, run into difficulties of their own. None
of the nations currently enjoying economic miracles is without problems. Brazil, India, Turkey, and Russia all have bumpy histories that suggest the route ahead will not be one of simple and smooth ascent. There is a real question whether the autocratic model of China, which can be so effective in making some strategic decisions about the economy in the short term, can over the long run be flexible enough to permit adaptation to a changing international economic, political, and strategic environment. In sum: it may be more than good fortune that has allowed the United States in the past to come through crises and emerge stronger and
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healthier than other nations while its various competitors have faltered. And it may be more than just wishful thinking to believe that it may do so again . But there is a danger. It is that in the meantime, while the nation continues to struggle, Americans may convince themselves that decline is indeed inevitable, or that the United States can take a time-out from its global responsibilities while it gets its own house in
order. To many Americans, accepting decline may provide a welcome escape from the moral and material burdens that have weighed on them since World War II. Many may unconsciously yearn to return to the way things were in 1900, when the United States was rich, powerful, and not responsible for world order. The underlying assumption of such a course is that the present world order will more or less persist without American power, or at least with much less of it; or that others can pick up the slack; or simply that the benefits of the world order are permanent and require no special exertion by anyone. Unfortunately, the
present world orderwith its widespread freedoms, its general prosperity, and its absence of great power conflictis as fragile as it is unique. Preserving it has been a struggle in every decade, and will remain a struggle in the decades to come. Preserving the present world order requires constant American leadership and constant American commitment. In the end, the decision is in the hands of Americans. Decline, as Charles Krauthammer has observed, is a choice. It is not an inevitable fateat least
not yet. Empires and great powers rise and fall, and the only question is when. But the when does matter. Whether the United States begins to decline over the next two decades or not for another two centuries will matter a great deal, both to Americans and to the nature of the world they live in.
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Heg Good Kagan 12

U.S. heg is good multipolarity empirically sets the stage for instability, conflict, global power wars, and miscalculation. A world absent U.S. hegemony will shift from democracies to autocracies and usher in a world of global catastrophe. Finally, countries like China would not bring about peace, but rather war and chaos. Kagan 12 [Robert, PhD, Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, Former Senior Associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, Cofounder of the Foreign Policy Initiative, adjunct professor of history at Georgetown University, Why the World Needs America, Wall Street Journal, 2/11/12, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213262856669448.html]
History shows that world orders, including our own, are transient. They rise and fall, and the institutions they erect, the beliefs and "norms" that guide them, the economic systems they supportthey rise and fall, too. The downfall of the Roman Empire brought an end not just to
Roman rule but to Roman government and law and to an entire economic system stretching from Northern Europe to North Africa. Culture, the arts, even progress in science and technology, were set back for centuries. Modern similar pattern. After
history has followed a the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, British control of the seas and the balance of great powers on the European continent provided relative security and stability. Prosperity grew, personal freedoms expanded, and the world was knit more closely together by revolutions in commerce and communication . With the outbreak
of World War I, the age of settled peace and advancing liberalismof European civilization approaching its pinnaclecollapsed into an age of hyper-nationalism, despotism and economic calamity. The once-promising spread of democracy and liberalism halted and then reversed course, leaving a handful of outnumbered and besieged democracies living nervously in the shadow of fascist and totalitarian neighbors. The
collapse of the British and European orders in the 20th century did not produce a new dark agethough if Nazi Germany and imperial Japan had prevailed, it might havebut the
horrific conflict that it produced was, in its own way, just as devastating. Would the end of the present American-dominated order have less dire consequences? A surprising number of American intellectuals, politicians and policy makers greet the prospect with equanimity. There is a general sense that the end of the era of American pre-eminence, if and when it comes, need not mean the end of the present international order, with its widespread freedom, unprecedented global prosperity (even amid the current economic crisis) and absence of war among the great powers. American John Ikenberry argues, but
power may diminish, the political scientist G. "the underlying foundations of the liberal international order will survive and thrive." The commentator Fareed Zakaria believes that even as the balance shifts against the U.S., rising powers like China "will continue to live within the framework of the current international system." And there are elements across the political spectrum Republicans who call for retrenchment, Democrats who put their faith in international law and institutionswho don't imagine that a "post-American world" would look very different from the American world. If all of this sounds too good to be true, it is. The present world order was largely shaped by American power and reflects American interests and preferences. If the balance of power shifts in the direction of other nations, the world order will change to suit their interests and preferences. Nor can we assume that all the great powers in a post-American world would agree on the benefits of preserving the present order, or have the capacity to preserve it, even if they wanted to. Take the issue of democracy. For several decades, the balance of power in the world has favored democratic governments. In a genuinely post-American world, the balance would shift toward the great-power autocracies. Both Beijing and Moscow already protect dictators like Syria's Bashar al-Assad. If they gain greater relative influence in the future, we will see fewer democratic transitions and more autocrats

hanging on to power. The
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balance in a new, multipolar world might be more favorable to democracy if some of the rising democraciesBrazil, India, Turkey, South Africapicked up the slack from a declining U.S. Yet not all of them have the desire or the capacity to do it. What about the economic order of free markets and free trade? People assume that China and other rising powers that have benefited so much from the present system would have a stake in preserving it. They wouldn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Unfortunately, they might not be able to help themselves. The creation and survival of a liberal economic order has depended, historically, on great powers that are both willing and able to support open trade and free markets, often with naval power. If a declining America is unable to maintain its longstanding hegemony on the high seas, would other nations take on the burdens and the expense of sustaining navies to fill in the gaps? Even if they did, would this produce an open global commonsor rising tension? China and India are building bigger navies, but the result so far has been greater competition, not greater security. As Mohan Malik has noted in this newspaper, their
"maritime rivalry could spill into the open in a decade or two," when India deploys an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean and China deploys one in the Indian Ocean. The
move from American-dominated oceans to collective policing by several great powers could be a recipe for competition and conflict rather than for a liberal economic order. And do the Chinese really value an open economic system? The Chinese economy soon may
become the largest in the world, but it will be far from the richest. Its size is a product of the country's enormous population, but in per capita terms, China remains relatively poor. The U.S., Germany and Japan have a per capita GDP of over $40,000. China's is a little over $4,000, putting it at the same level as Angola, Algeria and Belize. Even
if optimistic forecasts are correct, China's per capita GDP by 2030 would still only be half that of the U.S., putting it
roughly where Slovenia and Greece are today. As Arvind Subramanian and other economists have pointed out, this will make for a historically unique situation. In
the past, the largest and most dominant economies in the world have also been the richest. Nations whose peoples are such obvious winners in a relatively unfettered economic system have less temptation to pursue protectionist measures and have more of an incentive to keep the system open. China's leaders, presiding over a poorer and still developing country, may prove less willing to open their economy. They have already begun closing some sectors to foreign competition and are likely to close others in the future. Even optimists like Mr. Subramanian believe that the liberal economic order will
require "some insurance" against a scenario in which "China exercises its dominance by either reversing its previous policies or failing to open areas of the economy that are now highly protected." American
economic dominance has been welcomed by much of the world because, like the mobster Hyman Roth in "The Godfather," the U.S. has always made money for its partners. Chinese economic dominance may get a different reception. Another problem is that China's form of capitalism is heavily dominated by the state, with the ultimate goal of preserving the rule of the Communist Party. Unlike the eras of British and American pre-eminence, when the leading economic powers were dominated largely by private individuals or companies, China's system is more like the mercantilist arrangements of previous centuries. The government amasses wealth in order to secure its continued rule and to pay for armies and navies to compete with other great powers. Although the Chinese have been beneficiaries of an open international economic order, they
could end up undermining it simply because, as an autocratic society, their priority is to preserve the state's control of wealth and the power that it brings. They might
kill the goose that lays the golden eggs because they can't figure out how to keep both it and themselves alive. Finally, what about the long peace that has held among the great powers for the better part of six decades? Would it survive in a post-American world? Most commentators who welcome this scenario imagine that American predominance would be replaced by some kind of multipolar harmony. But multipolar systems have historically
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been neither particularly stable nor particularly peaceful. Rough parity among powerful nations is a source of uncertainty that leads to miscalculation . Conflicts erupt as a result of fluctuations in the delicate power equation. War among the great powers was a common, if not constant, occurrence in the long periods of multipolarity from the 16th to the 18th centuries, culminating in the series of enormously destructive Europe-wide wars that followed the French Revolution and ended with Napoleon's defeat in 1815. The 19th century was notable for two stretches of great-power peace of roughly four decades each, punctuated by major conflicts. The Crimean War (1853-1856) was a mini-world war involving
well over a million Russian, French, British and Turkish troops, as well as forces from nine other nations; it produced almost a halfmillion dead combatants and many more wounded. In the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the two nations together fielded close to two million troops, of whom nearly a half-million were killed or wounded. The
peace that followed these conflicts was characterized by increasing tension and competition, numerous war scares and massive increases in armaments on both land and sea. Its climax was World War I, the most destructive and deadly conflict that mankind had known up to that point. As the political scientist Robert W. Tucker has observed, "Such stability and moderation as the balance brought rested ultimately on the threat or use of force. War remained the essential means for maintaining the balance of power." There is little reason to believe that a return to multipolarity in the 21st century would bring greater peace and stability than it has in the past. The era of American predominance has shown that there is no better recipe for great-power peace than certainty about who holds the upper hand. President Bill Clinton left
office believing that the key task for America was to "create the world we would like to live in when we are no longer the world's only superpower," to prepare for "a time when we would have to share the stage." It is an eminently sensible-sounding proposal. But can it be done? For particularly in matters of security, the rules and institutions of international order rarely survive the decline of the nations that erected them. They are like scaffolding around a building: They don't hold the building up; the building holds them up. Many
foreign-policy experts see the present international order as the inevitable result of human progress, a combination of advancing science and technology, an increasingly global economy, strengthening international institutions, evolving "norms" of international behavior and the gradual but inevitable triumph of liberal democracy over other forms of governmentforces of change that transcend the actions of men and nations. Americans certainly like to believe that our preferred order survives because it is right and justnot only for us
but for everyone. We assume that the triumph of democracy is the triumph of a better idea, and the victory of market capitalism is the victory of a better system, and that both are irreversible. That is why Francis Fukuyama's thesis about "the end of history" was so attractive at the end of the Cold War and retains its appeal even now, after it has been discredited by events. The
idea of inevitable evolution means that there is no requirement to impose a decent order. It will merely happen. But international order is not an evolution; it is an imposition. It is the
domination of one vision over othersin America's case, the domination of free-market and democratic principles, together with an international system that supports them. The
present order will last only as long as those who favor it and benefit from it retain the will and capacity to defend it. There was nothing inevitable about the world that was created after World War II. No divine providence or unfolding
Hegelian dialectic required the triumph of democracy and capitalism, and there is no guarantee that their success will outlast the powerful nations that have fought for them. Democratic progress and liberal economics have been and can be reversed and undone. The ancient democracies of Greece and the republics of Rome and Venice all fell to more powerful forces or through their own failings. The evolving liberal economic order of Europe collapsed in the 1920s and 1930s. The
better idea doesn't have to win just because it is a better idea. It requires great powers to champion it. If and when American power declines, the institutions and norms that American power has supported will decline, too. Or more likely, if history is a guide, they may collapse altogether as we make a transition to another kind of world order, or to disorder . We may discover then that the U.S. was essential to keeping the present world order together and that
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the alternative to American power was not peace and harmony but chaos and catastrophewhich is what the world looked like right before the American order came into being.
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Hegemony Liberal Order

Hegemony created a world-wide framework for peace. The impact is nuclear war and the escalation of every major conflict.
Kromah 2009 (Lamii Moivi Kromah, Department of International Relations University of the
Witwatersrand, February 2009, The Institutional Nature of U.S. Hegemony: Post 9/11, http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/7301/MARR%2009.pdf)CD)
Perhaps the most important way in which the United States used its overwhelming power capabilities after World War II was in its occupation and reconstruction policies in Germany and Japan. It was acting on a lesson learned from the disastrous 1919 postwar settlement within Germany-that it was dangerous to leave in place the defeated and humiliated military and political elites that had
United States was also acting on an argument made by Woodrow Wilson and other liberals during the earlier world war- that democratic and liberal capitalist states pose fewer threats to each other, and that they are more likely to cooperate together in a peaceful political order. In effect, the most consequential act of American hegemony
fought and lost the war. In a less direct way, the after 1945 was to reorient the "social purpose" of the other major states. From the perspective of fifty years later, it was the political reorientation of Germany and Japan (and to a lesser extent the other Western industrial states) that mattered most.
The transformation of the social purpose of these states -how these states define and express the purpose and goals of politics and society -seems to have most altered the course of Western history. It was the transformation of "aims" more than the management of "arms" that most shaped our recent past. But this brings us to the last issue. If the
social purpose of the leading states has been transformed, perhaps the world does not need hegemonic leadership in the way it did in the past. In the 1940s, the great powers of the world were a heterogeneous complex of authoritarian, socialist, autocratic, and liberal democratic states. Today, there is still a mix, but it is ultimately a much more homogeneous complex of states. Perhaps America's liberal hegemonic work has largely been accomplished at least the work that requires the most concentrated use of material capabilities and military 31 Rather, we should ask whether,
when predominance in the power base declines, the basic regime (the network of rules, norms, etc.) weakens or the ability of the
preponderant state to determine rules lessens.32 The United States was the world's foremost military power, and only it had the nuclear "winning weapon." While U.S. preponderance was not so overwhelming as to enable it to set all the rules for the entire world system, it did permit it to establish the basic principles for the new economic order in the over 80 percent of the world economy controlled by capitalist states and to organize a system of collective security to maintain political and economic control over that 80 percent.33 A final major gain to the United States from the Pax Americana has perhaps been less widely appreciated. It nevertheless proved of great significance in the short as well as in the long term: the pervasive cultural influence of the United States. This dimension of power base is often neglected. After World War II the authoritarian political cultures of Europe and Japan were utterly discredited, and the liberal democratic elements of those cultures revivified. The revival was most extensive and deliberate
in the occupied powers of the Axis, where it was nurtured by drafting democratic constitutions, building democratic institutions, curbing the power of industrial trusts by decartelization and the rebuilding of trade unions, and imprisoning or discrediting much of the wartime leadership; post war reconstruction of Germany and Japan exhibit all these features. Moderates were giving a great
Constitutions in these countries were changed and amended to ensure democratic practices and martial elites were prosecuted. American liberal ideas largely filled the cultural void. The effect was not so dramatic in the "victor" states whose regimes
voice in the way government business was done. were reaffirmed (Britain, the Low and Scandinavian countries), but even there the United States and its culture was widely admired. The upper classes may often have thought it too "commercial," but in many respects American mass consumption culture was the most pervasive part of America's impact. American styles, tastes, and middle-class consumption patterns were widely imitated, in a process that' has come to bear the label "coca-colonization."34
After WWII the U.S. established
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organizations such as the United Nations, NATO and others. In each these new regimes it make Germany a member and eventual an integral partner. Germany's freedom of movement has been limited by domestic institutional constraints overlain by a dense
network of external institutional constraints on autonomous decision making in the domains of security and economy. Thus a powerful combination of constitutional design, membership in integrative international institutions and the continued division of Germany achieved the post-war American objective of 'security for Germany and security from Germany'.35 Others are even more sanguine about the prospect of an active German hegemony. One body of
literature, such as Simon Bulmer and William E. Paterson, 'Germany in the European Union: Gentle Giant or Emergent Leader?' International Affairs, 72 (1996), 9-32., focuses upon the constraining effects of Germany's 'exaggerated multilateralism' or a reliance upon 'indirect institutional power'."
The institutionalization of German power has produced an empowered but non-threatening Germany that sets the European agenda and dominates the institutional evolution of the European Union (EU) and its governance structures.36 The
cornerstone of German security policy is the perpetuation of NATO, including the maintenance of U.S. forces in Europe and the U.S. nuclear guarantee. In 1994 German Chancellor Helmut Kohl described the U.S. presence as an "irreplaceable basis for keeping Europe on a stable footing," and that sentiment is echoed routinely by high German officials. German participation in the Western European Union and the Eurocorps has been based on the presumption that European military forces must be integrated into NATO rather than standing as autonomous units. industrial societies, the Second World War destroyed
more wealth than it created because it disrupted the global trade on which wealth had come to depend. No longer could states gain in wealth by seizing territory and resources from each other as they had done during the mercantilist period in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. WWII broke the world power of the Western European states. Even without the advent of nuclear weapons, it drove home the lesson of the First World War that the major European states could no longer wage war amongst themselves without bringing about the political and physical impoverishment of their societies, and perhaps destroying them completely. By 1945 it was clear that all out war had become an irrational instrument in relations among major powers. Almost no conceivable national objective short of lastditch survival justified the costs of undertaking it. This lesson was as manifestly true for revolutionary workers states like the Soviet Union as it was for conservative, bourgeois, capitalist states like Britain and France.38 A final major gain to the United States from the benevolent hegemony has perhaps been less widely appreciated. It nevertheless proved of great significance in the short as well as in the long term: the pervasive cultural influence of the United States.39 This dimension of power base is often neglected. After World War II the authoritarian political cultures of Europe and Japan were utterly discredited, and the liberal democratic37 elements of those cultures revivified. The revival was most extensive and deliberate in the occupied powers of the Axis, where it was nurtured by drafting democratic constitutions, building democratic institutions, curbing the power of industrial trusts by decartelization and the rebuilding of trade unions, and imprisoning or discrediting much of the wartime leadership. American liberal ideas largely filled the cultural void. The effect was not so dramatic in the "victor" states whose regimes were reaffirmed (Britain, the Low and Scandinavian countries), but even there the United States and its culture was widely admired. The upper classes may often have thought it too "commercial," but in many respects American mass consumption culture was the most pervasive part of America's impact. American styles, tastes, and middle-class consumption patterns were widely imitated, in a process that' has come to bear the label "coca-colonization."40
After WWII policy makers in the USA set about remaking a world to facilitate peace. The hegemonic project involves using political and economic advantages gained in world war to restructure the operation of the world market and interstate system in the hegemon's own
image. The interests of the leader are projected on a universal plane: What is good for the hegemon is good for the world. The hegemonic state is successful to the degree that other states emulate it. Emulation is the basis of the consent that lies at the heart of the hegemonic project.41 Since wealth depended on peace the U.S set about creating
institutions and regimes that promoted free trade, and peaceful conflict resolution. U.S. benevolent hegemony is what has kept the peace since the end of WWII. The upshot is that
U.S. hegemony and liberalism have produced the most stable and durable political order that the world has seen since the fall of the Roman Empire. It is not as formally or highly integrated as the European Union, but it is just as profound and robust as a
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political order, Kants Perpetual Peace requires that the system be diverse and not monolithic because then tyranny will be the outcome. As long as the system allows for
democratic states to press claims and resolve conflicts, the system will perpetuate itself peacefully. A state such as the United States that has achieved international primacy has every reason to attempt to maintain
that primacy through peaceful means so as to preclude the need of having to fight a war to maintain it.42 This view of the post-
leadership takes the form of providing the venues and mechanisms for articulating demands and resolving disputes not unlike the character of politics within domestic pluralistic systems
hegemonic Western world does not put a great deal of emphasis on U.S. leadership in the traditional sense. U.S.
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Heg Good Transition Risk Extinction

Transition alone causes extinction Brzezinski 12 (Zbigniew, Professor of American Foreign Policy at the School of Advanced
International Studies Johns Hopkins University, Counselor CSIS and Trustee and Co-Chair CSIS Advisory Board, Former National Security Advisor Carter, After America, Foreign Policy, January / February, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/artic les/2012/01/03/after_america?page=full)
For if
America falters, the world is unlikely to be dominated by a single preeminent successor not even China. International uncertainty, increased tension among global competitors, and even outright chaos would be far more likely outcomes. While a sudden, massive crisis of the American system for instance, another financial crisis would produce a fastmoving chain reaction leading to global political and economic disorder , a steady drift by
America into increasingly pervasive decay or endlessly widening warfare with Islam would be unlikely to produce, even by 2025, an effective global successor. No
single power will be ready by then to exercise the role that the world, upon the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, expected the US to play: the leader of a new, globally cooperative world order. The leaders of the world's second-rank powers, among them India, Japan, Russia, and some European countries, are already assessing the potential impact of a US decline on their respective national interests. The Japanese, fearful of an assertive China dominating the Asian mainland, may be thinking of closer links with Europe. Leaders in India and Japan may be considering closer political and even military cooperation in case America falters and China rises. Russia, while perhaps engaging in wishful thinking (even schadenfreude) about America's uncertain prospects, will almost certainly have its eye on the independent states of the former Soviet Union. Europe, not yet cohesive, would likely be pulled in several directions: Germany and Italy toward Russia
because of commercial interests, France and insecure Central Europe in favour of a politically tighter European Union, and Britain toward manipulating a balance within the EU while preserving its special relationship with a declining US. Others may move more rapidly to carve out their own regional spheres: Turkey in the area of the old Ottoman Empire, Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere, and so forth. None
of these countries, however, will have the requisite combination of economic, financial, technological, and military power even to consider inheriting America's leading role. China, invariably mentioned as America's prospective successor, has an impressive imperial
lineage and a strategic tradition of carefully calibrated patience. China prudently accepts the existing international system, even if it does not view the prevailing hierarchy as permanent. It recognises
that success depends not on the system's dramatic collapse but on its evolution toward a gradual redistribution of power. Moreover, the basic reality is that China is not yet ready to assume in full America's role in the world. At the same time, the security of a number of weaker states located geographically next to major regional powers also depends on the international status quo reinforced by America's global pre-eminence and would be made significantly more vulnerable in proportion to America's decline. A faltering US could also find its strategic partnership with Mexico in jeopardy. America's economic resilience and political stability have so far mitigated many of the challenges posed by such sensitive neighbourhood issues as economic dependence, immigration, and the narcotics trade. A waning US would likely be more nationalistic. The worsening of relations between a declining America and an internally troubled Mexico could even give rise to a particularly ominous phenomenon: the emergence, as a major issue in nationalistically aroused Mexican politics, of territorial claims justified by history and ignited by cross-border incidents. Another consequence of American decline could be a corrosion of the generally
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cooperative management of the global commons shared interests such as sea lanes, space, cyberspace, and the environment, whose protection is imperative to the longterm growth of the global economy and the continuation o f basic geopolitical stability. In almost every case, the potential absence of a constructive and influential US role would fatally undermine the essential communality of the global commons because the superiority and ubiquity of American power creates order where there would normally be conflict. Nor is the concern that America's decline would generate global insecurity, endanger some vulnerable states, and produce a more troubled North American neighbourhood an argument for US global supremacy. In fact, the strategic complexities of the world in the 21st century make such supremacy unattainable. But those dreaming today of America's collapse would probably come to regret it. And as the world after America would be increasingly complicated and chaotic, it is imperative that the US pursue a new, timely strategic vision for its foreign policy or start bracing itself for a dangerous slide into global turmoil.
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Huge Delays
Lack of infrastructure funding and upgrades have led to huge delays plans key
Cronkite News 12 *Panel says U.S.-Mexico border issues hinder huge economic opportunities, June 1, 2012,
http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2012/06/panel-says-u-s-mexico-border-issues-hinder-huge-economic-opportunities/]
On top of stepped-up security efforts, Wilson said, deteriorating
roads, bridges and ports of entry have added hours to the time it takes businesses and tourists to cross. Those delays have caused some business to move operations to Asia, according to their report. We are way behind in constructing infrastructure to facilitate trade along the U.S.-Mexico border, said Lee, adding that there is as much as $6 billion in backlogged maintenance to that infrastructure. He said U.S. manufacturing, tourism and retail businesses would feel a significant boost if the infrastructure were brought up to par.
The US-Mexico border, despite being the busiest border in the world, is also one of the most inefficient
Puig 13 [Carlos, a columnist for the Mexican newspaper Milenio and the anchor of the television show En 15, Toeing the Line, June 5, 2013, http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/toeing-the-line/#h[]] TIJUANA, Baja California On most radio stations in this city you get a traffic report every 15 minutes. Its not the typical kind. It doesnt refer to whats going on in the streets; its all about la Lnea, the Line. Here, an average of 50,000 cars and 25,000 pedestrians move between the United States and Mexico every day.The wait is described not in minutes or hours but in cars or pedestrians. The line is not a line; its four different lines. And so
the reports go something like this: San Ysidro, doors: 16. (Referring to one of the two border crossings between Tijuana and San Diego, and the number of gates open there.) Left: 220. (Meaning, there are 220 cars lined up in the lanes to the left.) Sentri: 70. (Thats the count for pre-screened frequent crossers.) Pedestrians: 1,600. (According to the 9 a.m. report from June 3). You
have to live on the border to know that 220 cars means waiting about two hours and 1,600 pedestrians about 90 minutes.Another way of putting this is to say that the busiest border in the world has become one of the more inefficient. A 2010 study by the San Diego Association of Governments and the California Department of Transportation estimated that the delays cost the state of California around $4 billion and more than 25,000 jobs a year.
Infrastructure and ports of entry havent kept pace with growth leads to inefficiency and long wait times Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson
Center, Christopher, associate with the Mexico Institute, A New Agenda with Mexico, Wilson Center, November 2012, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/a_new_agenda_with_mexico.pdf) Unfortunately, the
infrastructure and capacity of the ports of entry to process goods and individuals entering the United States has not kept pace with the expansion of bilateral trade or the population growth of the border region. Instead, the need for greater border security following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 led to a thickening of the border, dividing the twin cities that characterize the region and adding costly, long and unpredictable wait times for commercial and personal crossers alike. Congestion acts as a drag on the competitiveness of the region and of the United States and Mexico in their entirety. Solutions are needed that strengthen both border security and efficiency at the same time.
The development of the 21st Century Border initiative by the Obama and Caldern administrations has yielded some advances in this direction, but the efforts need to be redoubled. 9090
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Mexico = Number Two Trading Partner

Mexico is the U.S. number two trading partner
GPO 4 *CONGRESSIONAL RECORDHOUSE, March 24, 2004, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2004-03-24/pdf/CREC-2004-03-24-pt1PgH1388.pdf#page=5]
It is with great regularity that some of my colleagues will come down and talk about the ills of trade between Mexico and the United States, and it is very rare that we focus on the important benefits. It
would come as a shock to many people to realize that we have a quarter of a trillion dollars in crossborder trade between the United States and Mexico. In fact, Mexico has emerged beyond Japan to become the United States of Americas number two trading partner. Doing whatever we can to facilitate an expansion of that will benefit both sides of the border
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POEs Key to US-Mexico Commerce

POEs key to US-Mexico commerce Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson
It is the land ports of entry, then, that play the pivotal role in facilitating commercial exchange between the United States and Mexico. The health of both the national economies and the more local border-specific economies rests upon the relative health or weakness of these gateways.
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U.S. Econ Key to World Econ

Extend Perry 12 - the U.S. economy is key to the global economy faster employment is fueling higher incomes and increased consumer spending And, the U.S. is engine of the global economy
Caploe 9 [David, the Chief Political Economist at Economy Watch and holds a PhD in International Political Economy from Princeton. April 7, 2009, The Straits Times, "Focus still on America to lead global recovery," http://acalaha.com/STarticle07Apr09.pdf]
IN THE aftermath of the G-20 summit, most observers seem to have missed perhaps the most crucial statement of the entire event, made by the United States President Barack Obama at his pre-conference meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown: 'The
world has become accustomed to the US being a voracious consumer market, the engine that drives a lot of economic growth worldwide,' he said. 'If there is going to be renewed growth, it just can't be the US as the engine.' While superficially sensible, this view is deeply problematic. To begin with, it ignores the fact that the global economy has in fact been 'America-centred' for more than 60 years. Countries - China, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and so on - either sell to the US or they sell to countries that sell to the US. To put it simply, Mr Obama doesn't seem to understand that there is no other engine for the world economy and hasn't been for the last six decades. If the US does not drive global economic growth, growth is not going to happen. Thus, US policies to deal with the current crisis are critical not just domestically, but also to the entire world. This system has generally been advantageous for all concerned. America gained certain
historically unprecedented benefits, but the system also enabled participating countries - first in Western Europe and Japan, and later, many in the Third World - to achieve undreamt-of prosperity. At the same time, this
deep inter-connection between the US and the rest of the world also explains how the collapse of a relatively small sector of the US economy - 'sub-prime' housing, logarithmically exponentialised by Wall Street's ingenious chicanery - has cascaded into the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression.
More ev
Bisseker 7 (Claire, staff writer for the Financial Mail, May 18, 2007, GLOBAL ECONOMY. When the US sneezes ...,Financial Mail, 2007, ln ) Investors are watchful, aware that growth slowdowns are often precursors to turning points in economic activity. The big question is whether the US weakness is a temporary slowdown - a midcycle pause as occurred in 1986 and 1995 - or the early stage of a recession. The IMF's latest World Economic Outlook seeks to answer this question and to probe whether the rest of the world can decouple from a US slowdown or whether the tighter integration of the global economy has increased the scope for spillover effects. US recessions have in the past usually coincided with significant reductions in global growth, hence the expression: "If the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold."
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US-Mexico Commerce Key to Global Econ

US-Mexico commerce is key to the global economy Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson
Commerce between the United States and Mexico is one of the greatyet underappreciated success stories of the global economy. In fact, in 2011 U.S.-Mexico goods and services trade reached the major milestone of one-half trillion dollars with virtually no recognition.1 The United States is Mexicos top trading partner, and Mexicowhich has gained macroeconomic stability and expanded its middle class over the last two decadesis the United States second largest export market and third largest trading partner. Seventy percent of bilateral commerce crosses the border via trucks, meaning the border region is literally where the rubber hits the road for bilateral relations. This also means that
not only California and Baja California, but also Michigan and Michoacn, all have a major stake in efficient and secure border management.94
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US-Mexico Competitiveness/Economics = Interconnected

US and Mexicos competitiveness and economies are very interconnected
Wilson said that Mexico
and the U.S. do not just trade goods, we build products together. A Ford car, for gain and lose competitiveness together *and+ we need a border that functions well . . . the way that economy is now structured, he said. Lee said another reason to focus on improving cross-border trade efficiencies is Mexicos currently strong economy. It grew at 4 percent last quarter alone, he said. Mexicos economy for the foreseeable future will most likely be growing faster than the U.S. economy, Lee said. He said Texas currently dominates U.S.-Mexico trade, and two of the seven border sites the group plans to visit next week will be in Texas. For 2011, Texas had $179 billion of two-way trade with Mexico, which is a record, Lee
example, crosses the border seven times during manufacture before it is finished, Wilson said. We said.
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Solvency Contention Extensions
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Border Management Key Solves Econ, Trade, Competitiveness

Successful border management is invaluable key to economic growth, trade, and competitiveness creates a massive ripple effect Lee et al 13 [Erik Lee, Associate Director, NACTS, Authors: Erik Lee, Christopher E. Wilson,
Francisco Lara-Valencia, Carlos A. de la Parra, Rick Van Schoik, Kristofer Patron-Soberano, Eric L. Olson, Andrew Selee, The State of The Border Report A Comprehensive Analysis of the U.S.-Mexico Border, May, 2013, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/mexico_state_of_border.pdf]
Though far from easy to achieve, success
in managing the intense interaction and incredible diversity that make up the border is invaluable. It ripples outward. Of course, the 15 million people that live in the counties and municipalities along the border benefit enormously when the border is working. So do the 91 million residents of the border states who depend on the air, water and commerce that flow across the border. But far beyond the border, the six million people throughout the United States and many millions more in Mexico with jobs supported by bilateral trade depend in a very real way on the borders ability to safely facilitate binational flows of people a nd goods. For them, an efficient border means a steady job, and an even more efficient border can lead to greater employment opportunities. Indeed, the competitiveness of the entire North American economy depends on the border. Should major advances in border management take root, the benefits of a better border have the potential to ripple out even further. Cross-border cooperation could send a signal that the complex transnational challenges that characterize the 21st century are better met in a context of mutual respect and shared responsibility than one of conflict and nationalism. Border
management is difficult, but it is worth the effort.
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Current Border Security Fails

Current border security fails - terrorists can still cross through the border, and smuggle bomb materials Freedberg and Gorman 5 (Sydney and Siobhan, Defense Reporters, Government Executive,
Efforts to combat nuclear terrorism hindered by porous borders http://www.govexec.com/defense/2005/06/efforts-to-combat-nuclear-terrorism-hindered-byporous-borders/19466/)
The main thing these monitors have brought Fasano is peace of mind. "Now I know when a truck comes through, it's being screened," she says. "We'll move on to other [threat] areas." Asked to name the greatest threat to her many border crossings, she quickly replies, "Narcotics." But
security expert Stephen Flynn of the Council on Foreign Relations, a that Fasano's confidence is unwarranted because the radiation monitors and the gamma-ray density-detection machines "don't talk to each other at all." So a truck full of lightly shielded highly enriched uranium can clear the radiation portal monitor and face just a 50 percent chance of being sent to the gamma-ray machine, which might detect the shielding but not the radiation.
former Coast Guard commander, says Still, terrorists might consider a 50 percent chance of getting caught too risky if they can cross the border at some other spot that has no detection equipment at all. Harvard's Bunn frets about hikers carrying pieces of a nuclear weapon across the woodland border between Canada and the United States. The
Homeland Security Department, in its classified National Planning Scenarios, conjures up a situation in which "different groups of illegal immigrants" smuggle in materials and parts for a bomb. Or they might drive a fully assembled bomb across the border in a rental truck or a large SUV. It's actually pretty easy to cross the border undetected, says T.J. Bonner, president of the Border Patrol officers union. There are plenty of small, unmonitored roads, especially along the northern border. "Drive-throughs are still an easy way to move material that happens to be heavy," he says. And as for people and vehicles that the Border Patrol does encounter on these roads, he says, "we just don't screen people to see if they're carrying any nuclear materials with them, nor do we screen vehicles we happen to catch that drive between the ports of entry." Smugglers have gotten contraband across the border undetected through tunnels, in planes, even hidden inside a tank full of propane. The possibilities are "only limited by your imagination," Bonner says.
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NADBank Close to Elimination

NADBank came very close to elimination Vanderpool 6 (Tim, NADBank Blues Will border cleanup efforts be abandoned?, Tucson Weekly, 4/16/06,
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/nadbank-blues/Content?oid=1083801) "It looks as if the NADBank has been saved for now," he says. "But it came very close to being eliminated." So what's behind the near-demise of a vital institution you've mostly likely never heard of? Some point to Mexican nationalism. But others blame the Bush administration's anti-environmental impulses. "Administration
officials don't see it as a priority," says one border watcher, who requested a name not be used. "And they don't figure there are many votes along the border to worry about." To many others, however, this obscure bank is key to improving the lives of some 8 million residents along the impoverished U.S.-Mexico border. The
NADBank was an outgrowth of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, enacted by Canada, the United States and Mexico in 1993. Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, it was essentially created to quiet environmentalists and Latino activists, who feared the free-trade compact would further industrialize an already heavily polluted borderland. With
$3 billion in lending capital--provided in equal shares by the United States and Mexico--the bank has since helped finance 90 projects, and another 59 are in the pipeline. At the same time, NADBank funding also triggers U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grants. In total, it is responsible for $2.35 billion in regional improvements, ranging from clean-water systems and dust-reducing pavement projects to crucial waste
facilities in Arizona communities such as Bisbee, Yuma and Nogales.
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NADBank Key to X Project

NADBank key to a wide array of projects Kaplan and Hammacher 2K - Gordan, attorney with the firm of Hillyer &. Irwin in San Diego and Linda K., attorney
(A Bigger Role for NAFTA's Development Bank?, San Diego Business Journal, 11/13/00, http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=74ef2ace-3feb-4b1f-80f5660cbb179c88%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=3826486&anchor=toc )
Under this more flexible mandate, NADBank would be able to engage in a range of projects extending well beyond the narrow focus of its existing mandate. This new range of projects could include, for example: * Industrial and hazardous waste treatment projects for maquiladoras and other industries; * Urban transportation and mass transit projects; * Affordable housing and housing improvement programs; * Air quality projects; * Agricultural and municipal water conservation projects; * Home water and wastewater installation programs; * Energy projects from biomass and wind, geothermal, and solar power. An expanded mandate for NADBank makes good sense for the future prosperity and growth of the San Diego/Tijuana region. NADBank projects promote sustainable development and enhance the quality of life of people in our region.
Greater Range Of Projects
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NADBank Key to Infrastructure Projects Solves Trade

NADBank is key to infrastructure projects - promotes trade and prosperity HS News 11 *Creating North American Development Bank Seen as Good Economic
Opportunity for Border Economy, July 18, 2011, http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/hispanic-business-news/details/creating-northamerican-development-bank-seen-as-good-economic-opportunity-/8994/]
Allowing the NADBank to develop and finance a broader range of infrastructure projects in the Mexico-US border region would further promote growth in trade between the United States and Mexico, and to foster greater prosperity in the border region, wrote Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan in a letter to Chairman Spencer Bachus.
NADBank key to fund infrastructure projects

Ireta 10 [Edgar Guillaumin 2010. Assistant Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Right of Way Protection for Kansas City Southern de Mxico (KCSM) Ireta negotiates with the Mexican government and business organizations, and is a key participant in strategic projects on behalf of KCSM. He is president of the American Chamber's Logistics Commission. "Ask the (M)experts." Inbound logistics. Thomas Publishing Corporation, January 2010. Web. 17 July 2013. < http://www.inboundlogistics.com/cms/article/askthe-mexperts/ >.] The main difficulty in improving Mexico's infrastructure is the financial planning and engineering required to attract investors to viable projects, and the U.S. Embassy can be very helpful in that regard. One improvement is creating a North American Infrastructure Bank to promote and guarantee funds to finance infrastructure projects in both countries, but specifically in Mexico. Another effort is channeling U.S. stimulus funding into important infrastructure projects, such as highways, bridges, and water and power generation facilities, along the U.S.-Mexico border. Before investing scarce public funds in new infrastructure projects, it is imperative to use existing border infrastructure to its fullest
potential by making process reforms that streamline border crossing.
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NADBank Key to Environmental Project Financing

NADBank key to environmental related projects
GPO 5 *CONGRESSIONAL RECORDSENATE, March 4, 2005, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2005-03-04/pdf/CREC-2005-03-04-senate.pdf] The NADBank was created with a mandate to improve the quality of life along the border by financing environmental related projects, such as wastewater treatment. The tools it was given have been limited, and as a result has restricted its effectiveness. To address this issue, the NADBank has evolved over the years with a wider array of products to offer. Legislation I sponsored in the Senate during the last Congress and which became law, for example, allows the NADBank to offer a new combination of grants and loans.102102102
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NADBank Key to Water Conservation/Water Infrastructure

NADBank funds water conservation projects
GPO 4 *CONGRESSIONAL RECORDHOUSE, March 24, 2004, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2004-03-24/pdf/CREC-2004-03-24-pt1PgH1388.pdf#page=5] (1) water conservation projects are eligible for funding from the North American Development Bank under the Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Mexican States Concerning the Establishment of a Border Environment Cooperation Commission and a North American Development Bank;103103 (2) the Board of the North American Development Bank should support qualified water conservation projects that can assist irrigators and agricultural producers; and (3) the Board of the North American Development Bank should take into consideration the needs of all of the border states before approving funding for water projects, and strive to fund water conservation projects in each of the border states.
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NADBank Key to Water/Wastewater Infrastructure

NADBank has empirically been able to solve water and wastewater infrastructure
Rodriguez 5 [Raul, Managing Director & CEO; North American Development Bank, Jan 2005,
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CFMQFjAF&url=http%3 A%2F%2Fwww.wilsoncenter.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FInfrastructure.Rodriguez.doc&ei=IfLmUYDjBbD LyAGlwYGoBw&usg=AFQjCNFnxqb4ct6mEJJXn5KuSb74GZWGZw&sig2=MVHoJeYMog1NrZ6ceiEXOw]
The Border Environment Infrastructure Fund, appropriated through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and managed by the North American Development Bank (NADBank), is a precedent that should be preserved and increased. It is
funding over $500 million in water and wastewater infrastructure relevant for both sides of the border, making projects affordable for communities by combining tailored grant funds with loans.
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NADBank Key to Solve Truck Delays P3s

The NADBank is best situated to mobilize P3s solves truck delays Negroponte 12 [Diana Negroponte, formerly a trade lawyer and professor of history, Diana
Negroponte is a nonresident senior fellow with the Latin America Initiative under Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, Viewpoints: What Should the Top Priority Be for U.S.-Mexican Relations?, December 03, 2012, http://www.as-coa.org/articles/viewpoints-what-should-toppriority-be-us-mexican-relations]
Deepening the trade relationship and facilitating the shipment of component parts between Mexico and the United States requires the creation of access roads some eight miles ahead of the principal border crossings. With electronic submission of customs/immigration documentation and
with electronic seals on transnational containers, trucks filled with bilaterally manufactured products can more rapidly pass across the border. Currently, the trucks
are delayed principally for lack of access roads leading up to the border, especially on the Mexican side. In order to construct these roads, private-public partnerships are needed. The NADBANK, established 20 years ago to support environmental projects, is the best placed to mobilize these partnerships. The bank's bylaws permit this. However, the environmental impact
needs to be interpreted broadly. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could recognize that new roads relieve the congestion and high levels of air pollutants at the border crossing itself. Use of access roads may spread pollution further inland, but the levels of pollutants will be significantly lower than those currently suffered each side of the Rio Grande. NADBANKs
initiative and the White House leadership to facilitate EPA approval could lead to the development of access roads and decongestion at the actual border. Mexican presidential encouragement to NADBANK's directors to seek PPPs and U.S. presidential urging to the EPA for a broad interpretation of its mandate could result in a decade's work of new infrastructure projects. This will facilitate the anticipated tripling of crossborder trade as both countries negotiate a Trans-Pacific Partnership and Mexico negotiates a Pacific Trade Alliance with its South American partners. Presidential decisions to advance on instructing NADBANK to move forward with PPPs for these infrastructure projects are relatively easy. Their consequences will enhance the trade and prosperity of both nations.
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Now is key Joint Economic Agenda

Now is key joint economic agenda Farnsworth 12 [Eric Farnsworth is vice president of Americas Society/Council of the Americas
in Washington DC. From 1995 to 1998, he was senior adviser to the White House special envoy for the Americas. Viewpoints: What Should the Top Priority Be for U.S.-Mexican Relations?, December 03, 2012, http://www.as-coa.org/articles/viewpoints-what-should-top-priority-be-usmexican-relations]
A joint economic agenda is now more achievable than before. The Hispanic community in the United States has found its voice politically, manufacturing is returning to the United States due to lower prices for natural gas, and, despite ongoing concerns about violence and the drugs trade, Mexico is doing well enough economically to entice investors back from China. Now is perhaps the best opportunity in recent memory to intensify economic collaboration. It should be the top bilateral priority.
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Now is Key Mexico Demographics

Now is the key time Mexico is entering the perfect demographic storm Montealegre 13 Diplomatic Courier Contributor and a freelancer specializing in Latin American markets, finance,
economics, and geopolitics [Oscar Montealegre (MA in International Relations from the University of Westminster-London and a Certificate in International Trade and Commerce from UCLA), U.S.-Mexico Relations: Love Thy Neighbor, The Diplomatic Courier, | 24 January 2013, pg. http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/regions/latin-america/1331
**We disagree with the authors use of gendered language

However if the U.S. administration continues to close the borders, the exchange of commerce between Mexico and the U.S. will suffer due to setbacks of just getting goods to cross the border. Luckily, NAFTA is already in place, but both parties (and Canada) can do more to cut red tape and streamline the movement of trade and commerce.
Mexico is entering a perfect demographic storm. It has a young and growing population, Mexico is no longer only looking north for economic advancement, as many of their multinational companies, such as Bimbo and Cemex, are currently doing business in Latin America and Spain. Mexicos stock market is currently in talks to integrate their stock exchange with the MILA groupthe established stock exchanges between Colombia, Peru, and Chile. The U.S. must act soon before it arrives at the party too late. It is in the U.S.s interests to have Mexico think northward first, and then the other regions second, but the opposite is developing. The interconnectedness between both countries strongly conveys why the dialogue should revolve around bilateral trade and commerce agendas. For Mexico, 30 percent of GDP is dependent on exports, and 80 percent of exports are tagged to the U.S. Most importantly, one of ten Mexicans lives in the U.S., accounting for nearly 12 million Mexicans that consider the U.S. their current residence. Add in their descendants, and approximately 33 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans reside in the U.S. Lets put this figure in perspective: Venezuela has a population of 29 million; Greece, 11 million; and Canada, 34 million. Essentially we have a country within a countrythe beauty of Americabut it must be embraced instead of shunned or ignored. Economically, it is a plus for Mexico, because there is a market for Mexican products; it is also a plus for the U.S. in many areas, including soft power, diversity, direct linkages to Mexico and Latin America. A cadre of American-born and educated human capital are able to cross cultures into Mexico and Latin America to conduct business and politics.
Currently, which is expected to last for several decades.
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Plan Key to Nietos Agenda

The plan provides momentum for Nietos reform agenda US action is key Farnsworth and Werz 12 - Eric, vice president of the Council of the Americas and Americas Society, and Michael,
Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress (The United States and Mexico: The Path Forward, Center For American Progress, 11/30/12, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2012/11/30/46430/the-united-states-and-mexico-the-path-forward/)
Mexico inaugurates a new president on SaturdayEnrique Pea Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Given
the early lead he enjoyed during the campaign and the public fatigue with the ruling National Action Party, Pea Nieto, the former governor of the state of Mexico, ran on generalities and never clearly defined his political philosophy or presidential agenda. Much of what he campaigned on could be boiled down to two statements: Im not the National Action Party, and Im not the old Institutional Revolutionary Party. Good enough, as far as the election result goes: Pea Nieto was elected with close to 40 percent of the vote, a plurality but not a majorityin part because many voters retain a strong distrust of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and its autocratic past. It is now up to the president-elect to fill in the blanks as to what kind of president he will be. If
all goes well, he could be transformational. But obstacles loom and initial expectations must be held in check. The country has solid standing. Economic growth is strong and projections show continued expansion, surpassing even Latin American darling Brazil. The middle class is growing, with greater access to goods and services and the ability to purchase them. Manufacturing is moving back to Mexico from China, with Mexico becoming a platform both for production in North America and also in Latin America. The country has also become a leading voice in global trade, as well as economic and environmental initiatives. Mexico is becoming economically what it has always been geographically: the crucial link between North and South America. The outgoing government has effectively used its final days in office to
promote a reform agenda consistent with Pea Nietos stated views. Mexico has one of the longest transition periods of any democracyfive months. While outgoing governments have traditionally done little during this period, this particular transition period has proven different, particularly with regard to the charged issue of strong protections for labor that have been loosened through new legislation in recent weeks. Working together, the National Action Party executive and the Institutional Revolutionary Party-controlled legislature have joined to give the incoming Pea Nieto government a strong tailwind toward economic opening and greater competition, without having to pay the political cost that labor reform might otherwise have entailed. At the same time, north of the border, President Barack Obama has spoken clearly of his desire for meaningful immigration reform this year, which would provide another significant political and economic boost to the new Mexican president. With labor reform out of the way, attention turns to the three policy fields that Pea Nieto
has promised to address, perhaps all at once: energy
reform, tax reform, and Social Security reform. Should he succeed in addressing these issues effectively, he will have restructured a significant part of Mexicos economy, preparing Mexico for an economic takeoff that could rival Asian economies. This effort brings risk as well as promise, since failing with these fundamental reforms could throw Pea Nietos presidency into turmoil at its inception. Each of these reforms individually would be enough to occupy the Presidential Palace Los Pinos for months and to soak up the political capital of any president. Doing all of them together would be a political project more involved than any other since the Institutional Revolutionary Party first restructured Mexicos economy in the 1930s. Clearly, the political stakes are huge. A major obstacle to reform could be the Institutional Revolutionary Party itself. Party discipline will largely ensure a supportive if not compliant congressional delegation, but party bosses, governors, and individual congressional representatives, among others, will likely seek to ensure that their political equities are protected in any reform process. Pea Nietos challenge will be to keep them in line, using traditional tools of political coalition building without stepping over the line into corruption. A number of younger, newly elected members of the Mexican Congress in the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution have indicated that the deepening of democratic reform is their main priority and that there might be room for cooperation with President-Elect Pea Nieto should he push this agenda. The fate of the reform agenda will arguably be the new presidents greatest and most immediate test. He faces a Mexican public that no longer tolerates the old ways of doing politics in Mexico and is skeptical that the Institutional Revolutionary Party has truly changed. But equally importantly, the party has been out of power for 12 years and its leaders now want and expect to receive the rewards that national power bestows. It will be a delicate balancing act for Pea Nieto. But his inauguration also has implications for U.S.-Mexico relations, which will play out on both sides of the border. The path forward Given this backdrop, the
new Mexican president needs major political and policy successes in 2013 to consolidate power within his own party and secure congressional majorities for an ongoing economic reform process. Here, the United States has an important role to play: The two countries are intertwined in a unique way and thus the political success of Enrique Pea
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Nieto will, at least in part, be impacted by what happens north of the border. And the to-do list for the
United States is extensive, but it is largely focused on economic policy and immigration reform. Immigration reform is increasingly likely to dominate the domestic debate once the fiscal cliff is resolved. President-Elect Pea Nieto made a strong endorsement of immigration reform at his Washington press conference with President Obama this week, stating that he fully supports President Obamas proposal. Even though a strong majority of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country, it will remain a difficult legislative battle. And while aligning with a popular U.S. president who will be viewed as fighting to legalize Mexican nationals makes obvious sense, there is some risk that a failed legislative effort will trigger collateral damage to Pea Nietos image in Mexico. On
the economic front, the success of the new Mexican administrations economic reform and growth agenda is a core interest of the United States. A number of policy fields will be crucial to create a successful North American growth model and will elevate
the transactional partnership with Mexico to a strategic relationship much like the United States enjoys with Canada. To achieve this goal, both countries must address a number of issues simultaneously. The
creation of jobs will play a central
role in domestic politics in both countries. U.S-Mexican trade needs to be encouraged in the border region and beyond. To achieve this, the U.S.-Mexican border needs to be more permeable and allow more crossings at lower cost. To secure energy independence, both countries need to prioritize research and development
investments to ensure that technologies that facilitate access to shale gassuch as horizontal drilling combined with hydraulic frackingdo not adversely affect the environment. This is a necessary step to move forward with the development of massive North American shale gas resourcesa potential strategic game-changer. Mexican
states along the U.S. border are official observers in the Western Climate Initiative, joining California and four Canadian provinces. The federal governments in both the United States and Mexico should take aggressive steps to make it more feasible for these Mexican states to become full partners in the initiative to achieve meaningful reductions in carbon pollution and move toward greater U.S.-Mexican cooperation on future North American pollution cuts . Both countries need to expand
their economic relations with Asia and Europe. President-Elect Pea Nieto sees China as an important future partner for economic growth. Both Mexico and Canada were invited in June to join the negotiations toward the Trans-Pacific Partnershipan important if belated step. Both should also be included at the very beginning of discussions with Europeshould they occur as has been rumoredtoward the creation of a free trade zone in the Atlantic. Such trade negotiations would provide an added means for the three North American economies to build cooperation. The war against cartels and gangs involved in the illegal drugs trade continues to rage on both sides of the border, although indications of progress include a reduction in violence, cleaned-up cities, and increasing professionalization of the Mexican security forces. Achieving a reduction of violence will be a key challenge for PresidentElect Pea Nieto, with street protests demanding as much. Judicial reform is moving forward, albeit slowly, but Mexican authorities still rely too greatly on confession by apprehended suspects and have deficits in the acquisition and use of intelligence. This fight needs to be framed as a joint challenge, emphasizing the co-responsibility of the United States, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed several times. The re-launch of a U.S.-Mexican bilateral commission would be an important vehicle to institutionalize cabinet-level discussions across the broad range of issues that affect our countries and maybe trilateralize along with Canada from time to time. Tone and perception count a lot in the bilateral relationship. In addition, both sides should establish permanent working groups to help change the image and perception of Mexico in the United States and vice versa. Such an engagement in public diplomacy could include messaging and outreach to counter the often-distorted perception of Mexican society in the United States. The election of Enrique Pea Nieto and the re-election of President Obama mean that the
U.S.-Mexican relationship has a unique opportunity to grow closer and bring numerous benefits to both sides of the border. To fully appreciate this unique opportunity, both sides must invest political capital and be
prepared to engage domestic public opinion when it comes to explaining why our countries are united by much more than a fence.
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Previous Projects Failed Due to Lack of Funding

Previous infrastructure projects have fallen due to lack of funding
Puig 13 [Carlos, a columnist for the Mexican newspaper Milenio and the anchor of the television show En 15, Toeing the Line, June 5, 2013, http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/toeing-the-line/#h[]] In 2011, the U.S. and Mexican governments agreed to revamp border infrastructure in the Tijuana/San Diego area to reduce waiting times to a maximum of 30 minutes. In October last year
Mexico opened its new border station with 22 inspection lanes, an additional 16 from before. On the U.S. side, the plan was to roughly triple the number of car lanes and double the number of inspection posts for pedestrians. But
the project has fallen prey to the economic crisis and the U.S. budget sequester, and Customs and Border Protection a subset of the Department of Homeland Security has delayed any construction.
Although President Barack Obama included in his budget proposal for FY 2014 some $226 million dollars for the border crossings, the allocation is still under discussion in Congress.
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U.S. Use of P3s Key

The U.S. needs to continue to modernize the southwest border via P3s and tech advances
Walser and Zuckerman 13 [Ray, PhD, Senior Policy Analyst, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for
Foreign Policy Studies, and Jessica, Policy Analyst, Western Hemisphere, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, U.S.Mexico Border: Tighter Border Security Requires Mexicos Cooperation, Feb 20, 2013, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/us-mexico-border-tighter-bordersecurity-requires-mexico-s-cooperation]
Continue modernization of the southwest border. The Administration and Congress should increase publicprivate partnerships to build smarter border infrastructure that speeds legal movements while preventing illicit movements. They should also work to enhance the deployment of key technologies, such as cameras and sensors, to aid the Border Patrol in identifying and halting illegal crossing and potential threats.
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U.S. and Mexico Would Say Yes

US and Mexican policymakers support NADBank expansion Clare Ribando Seelke 13 (Clare Ribando Seelke, Specialist in Latin American Affairs, Mexico
and the 112th Congress, January 29, 2013, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32724.pdf)
Several NAFTA institutions mandated by the agreements have been functioning since 1994. The tripartite Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC) was established in Montreal, Canada; and the Commission for Labor Cooperation (CLC) was established in Dallas, TX. In addition, the bilateral Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC), located in Ciudad Jurez, Mexico, and the North American Development Bank (NADBank), headquartered in San Antonio, TX, were created to promote and finance environment projects along the U.S.-Mexico border. The NAFTA
institutions have operated to encourage cooperation on trade, environmental and labor issues, and to consider nongovernmental petitions under the labor and environmental side agreements. Following up on a March 2002 agreement by Presidents Bush and Fox in Monterrey, Mexico, to broaden the mandate of the NADBank, Congress agreed in March 2004 to permit the NADBank to make grants and nonmarket rate loans for environmental infrastructure along the border. In the fall of 2011, the NADBanks mandate was broadened to include projects aimed at developing clean energy. Some U.S. and Mexican policymakers have supported broadening the functions of NADBank further to include other types of infrastructure development; this would likely require approval by both Congresses.
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U.S. Investment Key

Investment from the U.S. is key Mexicos economy is highly interconnected with the U.S. and shares a comparative advantage over other countries Montealegre 13 Diplomatic Courier Contributor and a freelancer specializing in Latin American markets, finance,
Fortifying borders, beefing up security, creating walls that divide the two countries that mimic uncomfortable parallels between Israel and Palestine should not be the main
With the world becoming more flat, the emphasis in tackling the immigration quagmire should be trade and commerce. Engagement, interaction, and the exchange of ideas should be the picture we want to paint. We should not foster the argument that an open border policy and a global business paradigm will compromise American jobs and bite into our distinctive American competitiveness. The reason Mexicans cross the border illegally into the U.S. is because of one desire: opportunity. If Mexico develops a lasting robust economy, Mexicans will no longer desire to come to the U.S. in such droves. According to Nelson Balido, President of the Border Trade Alliance, this already occurring: Mexicos economy has, for the most part, weathered the worst of the economic downturn, meaning that more young Mexicans can reasonably seek and find work in their patria rather than heading north. A strong American economy is extremely favorable for Mexico. Turn the tables a bit, and ponder what it means for the U.S. when a Mexican economy is robust and stablemore export possibilities for the U.S.; more investment from the U.S. to Mexico, and vice versa, creating a win-win situation. Less need for Mexicans to leave their homeland and look for jobs in the U.S. Sounds familiar? The characteristics of many vibrant
focus. emerging markets such as China, Indonesia, Brazil, and India, are occurring right next door. Why go East when we can venture South? Or perhaps, approach both simultaneously.
Mexico in the next decade will surpass Brazil in being Latin Americas largest economy. When comparing Mexico on a GDP per capita basis, Mexico happens to be less developed than Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. This might sound negative, but in actuality it should be music to investors ears: more catching up for Mexico, meaning more investment and business activity. Moreover, Mexicos economy is highly interconnected with the U.S. economy. Currently, Mexico sends almost 80 percent of its exports to the U.S., and roughly 50 percent of its imports are from the U.S. Manufacturing costs in Mexico are once again competitive compared to China. Ten years ago, Chinas labor costs were four times cheaper than Mexico, but with labor wages in China inflating, Mexico now has a comparative advantage because its proximity to the U.S. Shipping cargo across the Pacific can be more expensive and arduous, versus trucking cargo from northern Mexico and delivering to Wisconsin in a matter of days.
According to a Nomura Equity Research report,
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AT: Causes Air Pollution

NADBank can be used to fund air pollution projects
GPO 4 [CONGRESSIONAL RECORDHOUSE, March 24, 2004, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2004-03-24/pdf/CREC-2004-03-24-pt1PgH1388.pdf#page=5] AIR POLLUTION.It is the sense of the Congress that the Board of the North American Development Bank should support the financing of projects, on both sides of the international boundary between the United States and Mexico, which address air pollution
Fewer idling vehicles at the border key to competitiveness and reducing emissions TTI 8 (The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), is a member of The Texas A&M University System, and seeks
solutions to transportation problems. TTI works on over 600 research projects with over 200 sponsors annually at all levels of government and the private sector. TTIs representative research areas include design, construction, and maintenance; environment; international border operations; passenger and freight movement; pavements and materials; policy, planning and economics; safety and human factors; security; structures and roadside safety; technology transfer; and traffic management. MARCH 19, 2008 TTI Research Helps Save Time, Decrease Pollution at the U.S.-Mexico Border http://tti.tamu.edu/2008/03/19/tti-research-helps-save-time-decrease-pollution-at-the-u-s-mexico-border/)
Crossing times vary widely and can range from thirty minutes to more than two hours before the vehicles clear U.S. Customs. Long and uncertain crossing times negatively impact local commuters and businesses by requiring them to add a travel time buffer in order to assure on-time arrival at a cross-border destination. Such unnecessary added time can result in considerable productivity losses. The national and regional economies are also affected by the loss of competitiveness in the global marketplace. Researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) are proposing a
The 35 million passenger cars and trucks heading into Texas from Mexico every year are bringing a big dose of frustration with them. solution. We are working on developing a web site and other delivery mechanisms where people can check the current crossing times at a particular border crossing and, depending on the results, change their departure time or crossing location, explains TTI Research Engineer Rafael Aldrete, d irector of the Center for International Intelligent Transportation Research (CIITR), located in El Paso. In addition to developing real-time information accessible through the internet, TTI engineers are developing an innovative concept called the North American Border Crossing Mobility Index which, when completed, would allow comparison of crossing times with ideal, non-congested situations across the nations southern and northern land border crossings. The information will pinpoint which border crossings have a backlog and which ones dont, giving users average wait times, and providing government agencies with information necessary to allocate resources more efficiently, Aldrete explains. In many ways, this index build s on TTIs unparalleled experience in measuring and reporting urban congestion. The crossing times would be calculated with the he lp of technology, such as special Radio Frequency Identification technology (RFID) readers and vehicle-mounted tags, which would measure the actual time it takes to cross the border. TTI Associate Agency Director Bill Stockton says the estimated cost of the RFID-based crossing time project for the Bridge of the Americas non-commercial crossing would be about $1.2 million. We have support for the project from public and private sector organizations in the region, including the City of El Paso, the El Paso M etropolitan Planning Organization, and the Border Trade Alliance, says Stockton. We are hoping to get support from U.S. legislators to assist in obtaining funding needed to install the technology and develop the needed methodology. Experts believe an additional benefit of the project would be the potential for less pollution since
fewer idling vehicles would create less
exhaust emissions at the border.
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AT: Mexicos a Liability

Mexico isnt a liability it is fertile ground for investment and economic growth Montealegre 13 Diplomatic Courier Contributor and a freelancer specializing in Latin American markets, finance,
United States third largest trading partner, behind Canada and China. Every day, at least a billion dollars of goods flows across the border. Yet, Mexico is frequently negatively caricaturized, primarily with images of migrants illegally crossing the border into the U.S. and stealing U.S. jobs. Instead of viewing Mexico as a valuable partner that can benefit the U.S. in many facets, it is perceived as a liability, a region that cultivates corruption and violence and is
It is not common knowledge that Mexico is the the root of the current U.S. immigration problem that has spurred controversial rogue measures like Arizonas SB 1070. In matters of foreign policy,
Mexico is an afterthoughtour attention and resources are diverted to the Middle East or to grand strategies based on pivoting our geopolitical and economical capacity towards Asia. With the U.S. economy performing at a snail-like pace, an emphasis on exports has re-emerged, but the bulk of the exporting narrative revolves around Asia. This is unfortunate, because our neighbor to the south has quietly positioned itself to be the next jewel in the emerging markets portfolio. For example, Market Watch (a Wall Street Journal subsidiary) recently published a
bullish article on Mexico with the following headline: Mexico: Investors New China. The Economist published an opinion piece titled The Global Mexican: Mexico is open for business, highlighting Mexican companies that are investing locally and in the U.S. and arguing that Mexico
is fertile ground for more investment, especially in the manufacturing sector. And according to The Financial Times, BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are no longer the flavor of the month; Mexico is now taking over that distinction. In essence, immigration and the drug trade will no longer anchor the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico; instead, economics, finance, trade, and commerce will dictate the terms between the neighboring countries. However, in order to move forward, undoubtedly the elephant in the room
must be addressed promptly. Immigrationalthough the topic is polarizing, it is imperative that President Obama tackles this issue steadfastly and in the most bi-partisan manner possible. It can be seen as one-sided that the onus is on the U.S., while Mexico gets carte blanche in its contradictory policy with their border patrol methods towards Central American migrants entering through Guatemala. True, but when you are worlds super power, not all is fair in love and war.
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AT: Plan Happened 2011 Legislation

The 2011 bill was never passed Grabinsky 13 [Johnathan Grabinsky, staff writer for The Review and MPP student at the Harris School of Public Policy, 2.14.13, Chicagopolicyreview.org, Open Borders: Collaboration Between Mexico and the U.S., http://chicagopolicyreview.org/2013/02/14/5011/]
I sympathize with those in the United States that support Mexicos ongoing judicial reform, training police officers at the b order, and the modernization of the US-Mexico border. Back in 2006, I carried out the first study ever done examining the causes behind the North American Development Banks (NADBANK) failure to boost bilateral
, in 2011, a bill was introduced in the US Congress promoting projects financed by NADBANK. Unfortunately, the bill has not yet been enacted and
cooperation on infrastructure development. I was glad to see that the potential benefits of greater trade between both countries are being hampered by a lack of investment in infrastructure development. For example, we are using ports of entry that were built more than 40 years ago to transport goods across the border.
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2AC Add-Ons
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Air Pollution Add-On

A. Congestion at POEs leads to massive air contamination Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson
Congestion at ports of entry continues to be a source of air contamination as the average queue time has increased in the last 10 years. Some trucks wait in line for several hours.
B. Air pollution causes extinction

Driesen 3 (David, Environmental Scholar and Law Prof @ Syracuse, Fall/Spring 2003, Buffalo Environmental Law Journal, p. Lexis) Air pollution can make life unsustainable by harming the ecosystem upon which all life depends and harming the health of both future and present generations. The Rio Declaration articulates six key principles that are relevant
to air pollution. These principles can also be understood as goals, because they describe a state of affairs [*27] that is worth achieving. Agenda 21, in turn, states a program of action for realizing those goals. Between them, they aid understanding of sustainable development's meaning for air quality.The first principle is that "human beings. . . are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature", because they are "at the center of concerns for sustainable development." 3 While the Rio Declaration refers to human health, its reference to life "in harmony with nature" also reflects a concern about the natural environment. 4 Since air
pollution damages both human health and the environment, air quality implicates both of these concerns. 5
C. Cross-apply Lee and Wilson 12 the plan is key to solve border delays
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Air Pollution Add-On Linear Impact

Air pollution kills 70,000 people in the U.S. every year - the impacts linear.
Roberts 2 Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts, Analyst at the Earth Policy Institute, 2002 (Air
Pollution Fatalities Now Exceed Traffic Fatalities by 3 to 1, Earth Policy Institute, September 17th, Available Online at http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2002/update17, Accessed 06-10-2012) The World Health Organization reports that 3 million people now die each year from the effects of air pollution. This is three times the 1 million who die each year in automobile accidents. A study published in The Lancet in
2000 concluded that air pollution in France, Austria, and Switzerland is responsible for more than 40,000 deaths annually in those three countries. About half of these deaths can be traced to air pollution from vehicle emissions. In
the United States, traffic fatalities total just over 40,000 per year, while air pollution claims 70,000 lives annually . U.S. air pollution deaths are equal to deaths from breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. This scourge of cities in industrial and developing countries alike threatens the health of billions of people. Governments go to
great lengths to reduce traffic accidents by fining those who drive at dangerous speeds, arresting those who drive under the influence of alcohol, and even sometimes revoking drivers' licenses. But they pay much less attention to the deaths people cause by simply driving the cars. While
deaths from heart disease and respiratory illness from breathing polluted air may lack the drama of deaths from an automobile crash, with flashing lights and sirens, they are no less real. Air pollutants include carbon monoxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulates. These pollutants come primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels , principally coal-fired power
plants and gasoline-powered automobiles. Nitrogen oxides can lead to the formation of ground-level ozone. Particulates are emitted from a variety of sources, primarily diesel engines. "Smog"-a hybrid word used to describe the mixture of smoke and fog that blankets some cities-is primarily composed of ozone and particulates.
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Cancer Add-On
A. Traffic wait times at the US-Mexico border increase cancer-causing diesel emissions Washington 13 (Diana Washington is an author, journalist and educator based in El Paso, Texas. She has reported for
more than 25 years on such topics as U.S.-Mexico relations, NAFTA, the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration, security, the economy, U.S. military issues, U.S. wars, drug-trafficking and transnational crime. She has received more than 30 international, national and regional awards and recognitions for her journalism and defense of human rights. She has a masters degree in political science and a bachelors degree in journalism, both from the University of Texas at El Paso. She has taught political science for 10 years, and has collaborated with other academics, journalists and advocates on projects in the United States, Mexico and other countries. She has presented at conferences coast to coast and in other countries. She is retired from the Army National Guard, where she served as an NCO and held a top secret clearance. UTEP study: Powerful particulates double in international bridge traffic, February 1, El Paso Times Article. http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_22495225/utep-study-powerful-particulates-double-international-bridge-traffic) The amounts
of tiny -- but potentially harmful -- air particles from diesel emissions tend to double at the Bridge of Americas during peak traffic hours, according to a study by experts at the University of Texas
at El Paso. The nationally known Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology in January published the UTEP study, titled "Ultrafine particle levels at an international port of entry between the US and Mexico: Exposure implications for users, workers, and neighbors." "Normally, our lungs act as filters for airborne particles, but these smaller particles travel deeper within our lungs," said Hector Olvera, a research assistant professor at UTEP who conducted the study. "Nanoparticles like UFPs are so small they can reach our bloodstream. Other studies have shown that after entering the bloodstream, they end
up in our
brain, liver, bone marrow and kidneys." The emissions may be most harmful to border agents working near and
around the port, to workers on both sides of the bridge, to people who live near it and to students who attend schools nearby. Olvera said that above-normal levels of emissions may be found at the Chamizal National Memorial and Bowie High School. Every day people can be seen jogging or walking through the Chamizal park next to Bowie High. Chamizal National Memorial's acting superintendent, Jerome Flood, said he could not comment now because his office is not familiar with the study. Last year, the
World Health Organization established that diesel emissions are cancer-causing pollutants. Currently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency characterizes diesel emissions as "likely" cancer-causing
pollutants. The EPA has set standards for safe levels of particulates PM-10 and PM-2.5, which are larger than ultrafine particles. For example, PMs are measured in micrometers, so a PM-10 is the size of 10 micrometers (1 micrometer equals 1 millionth of a meter). Ultrafine particles are smaller than 100 nanometers -- 1 nanometer being equal to 1 billionth of a meter. U.S. standards for unhealthful levels of ultrafine particles do not exist. "Diesel emissions contain UFPs (ultrafine particles), and that's part of why the scientific community considers them to be harmful," Olvera said. "Neither the EPA or TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) have set thresholds for what constitutes safe levels of ultrafine particles. Countries in Europe and Australia are moving ahead of us to establish healthful level standards of UFPs. "Even without knowing what the unhealthful levels are, because they haven't been set yet," Olvera said, "we know that the most
affected populations are the customs officers who work on both sides of the international bridge, daily commuters, street vendors, neighbors and students near the source of the pollution." In response to the study results, U.S. Rep. Robert "Beto" O'Rourke, D-El Paso, said, "When we keep bridge-crossers in line for hours at a time, it's bad for our economy, it's harmful to our regional competitiveness and it's inhumane to those affected -- including those crossing the bridges, the officers who process them and the people living in the surrounding neighborhoods. "These findings demonstrate that there is a clear public health danger associated with the current bridge wait times at our ports of entry. I will use my position in Congress and on the Committee for Homeland Security to press for the resources to securely and quickly cross pedestrians, cars and cargo at our bridges," O'Rourke said.(?) A 2012 article by
the EPA, "An Overview of Ultrafine Particles in Ambient Air" by Paul A. Solomon, states, "The strong association between ultrafine particles (UFPs) and adverse health effects -- cardiovascular and pulmonary -- are becoming widely recognized yet considerable uncertainty remains as to the metric(s) and the mechanisms that result in the adverse effects." The EPA has also commissioned research into ultrafine particles and their potential effects on human health. Experts said that UFPs come from numerous manmade and naturally occurring sources, including printer cartridges, the friction of ocean waves, vacuum cleaners, volcanoes, and vehicle emissions. In urban settings, vehicle emissions are the most common source of UFPs. Olvera, 37, a research assistant professor at UTEP's Center for Environmental Resource Management and the Hispanic Health Disparities Research Center, and a native of Jurez, said he had wondered about pollution at the border crossing "When I was a student at UTEP, I crossed the bridge
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on a daily basis," Olvera said. "For me, an environmental engineer, the concern was obvious. I wanted to know how harmful the pollution at the international bridge could be." Olvera and a team of researchers conducted the study at the Bridge of Americas for an entire year in 2009. The team set up a TSI Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS), at the El Paso Water Utilities stormwaterpumping station, between the Chamizal Memorial and the bridge, to record continuous daily readings. This was done for two-week periods during each of the year's four seasons. In 2009, the study said, 4.7 million vehicles crossed to El Paso on the Bridge of the Americas, of which 7.3 percent were commercial vehicles. In 1999, a total of 8.5 million northbound vehicles crossed the bridge, of which 4.2 percent were commercial vehicles. The study speculates that stricter rules for crossings after Sept. 11, 2001, contributed to the decrease in vehicles. The UTEP study team spent the rest of the time analyzing the data that it collected from the readings. New technologies like the SMPS instruments are making it easier to study and measure ultrafine particles, Olvera said. The results showed that particle concentrations doubled from estimated normal amounts during peak hours of traffic and remained at least
Peak exposure levels in the area were comparable to the severest occupational exposure settings, such as where soldering and welding occur, he said.
above local background levels at all other times, Olvera said.
B. Cancer causes extinction

Sarkar 11 *The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddarth Mukherjee, Reviewed by Elisha Sarkar. Physician,
scientist and writer. Professor of Medicine at Columbia University. Heratologist, oncologist. Cancer Leadership award, Pulitzer Prize, Time 100 most influential people. May 6th 2011. http://www.timeswellness.com/article/54/2011050620110505164707953c16bad3d/The-Emperor-of-AllMaladies--A-Biography-of-Cancer.html]
**We disagree with the authors use of gendered language In many ways, Siddhartha Mukherjees The
Emperor of All Maladies is a celebration of its existence much like in the case of the biography of a human being. Its polymorphism, its immortality even after it kills its patients and threatens humanity its unchanging ability to grow in a way that no other disease has ever. It has perplexed some of the greatest minds. It has broken its sufferers spirits and has forced doctors to think of out-of-the-box therapies. Mukherjee depicts cancer not only as an illness but as a character that grows on you (literally!)
He digs into medical journals, library archives, Susan Sontag's books and works by literary greats to come up with a Pulitzer-winning masterpiece - a historical novel, a popular science book and a beautiful piece of literature, all rolled into one. Mukherjee writes, "We tend to think of cancer as a 'modern' illness because its metaphors are so modern. It
is a disease of overproduction, of fulminant growth - growth unstoppable, growth tipped into the abyss of no control. Modern biology encourages us to imagine the cell as a molecular machine. Cancer is that machine unable to quench its initial command (to grow) and thus transformed into an indestructible, self-propelled automation."
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Economy Add-On
A. US-Mexico relations are key to trade and boosts the economy Diplomatic Courier 13 *U.S.-Mexico Relations: Love Thy Neighbor, written by Oscar
Montealegre, Contributor, 2013, http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/regions/latinamerica/1331-us-mexico-relations-love-thy-neighbor] It is not common knowledge that Mexico is the United States third largest trading partner, behind Canada and China. Every day, at least a billion dollars of goods flows across the border . Yet, Mexico is frequently negatively caricaturized, primarily with images of migrants illegally crossing the border into the U.S. and stealing U.S. jobs. Instead of viewing Mexico as a valuable partner that can benefit the U.S. in many facets, it is perceived as a liability, a region that cultivates corruption and violence and is the root of the current U.S. immigration problem that has spurred controversial rogue measures like Arizonas SB 1070. In matters of foreign policy, Mexico is an afterthoughtour attention and resources are diverted to the Middle East or to grand strategies based on pivoting our geopolitical and economical capacity towards Asia. With the U.S. economy performing at a snail-like pace, an emphasis on exports has re-emerged, but the bulk of the exporting narrative revolves around Asia. This is unfortunate, because our neighbor to the south has quietly positioned itself to be the next jewel in the emerging markets portfolio. For example,
Market Watch (a Wall Street Journal subsidiary) recently published a bullish article on Mexico with the following headline: Mexico: Investors New China. The Economist published an opinion piece titled The Global Mexican: Mexico is open for business, highlighting Mexican companies that are investing locally and in the U.S. and arguing that Mexico is fertile ground for more investment, especially in the manufacturing sector. And according Russia, India, and China) are
to The Financial Times, BRIC countries (Brazil, no longer the flavor of the month; Mexico is now taking over that
distinction.
B. US-Mexico commerce is key to the global economy Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson
Commerce between the United States and Mexico is one of the greatyet underappreciated success stories of the global economy. In fact, in 2011 U.S.-Mexico goods and services trade reached the major milestone of one-half trillion dollars with virtually no recognition.1 The United States is Mexicos top trading partner, and Mexicowhich has gained macroeconomic stability and expanded its middle class over the last two decadesis the United States second largest export market and third largest trading partner. Seventy percent of bilateral commerce crosses the border via trucks, meaning the border region is literally where the rubber hits the road for bilateral relations. This also
means that not only California and Baja California, but also Michigan and Michoacn, all have a major stake in efficient and secure border management.122
C. Economic decline causes extinction Kemp 10 [Geoffrey, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center, served in the
The world economic situation weakens rather than strengthens, and India, China, and Japan suffer a major reduction in their growth rates, further weakening the global economy. As a result,
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energy demand falls and the price of fossil fuels plummets, leading to a financial crisis for the energy-producing states, which are forced to cut back dramatically on expansion programs and social welfare. That in turn leads to political unrest: and nurtures different radical groups, including, but not limited to, Islamic extremists. The internal stability of some countries is challenged, and there are more failed states. Most serious is the collapse of the democratic government in Pakistan and its takeover by Muslim extremists, who then take possession of a large number of nuclear weapons. The danger of war between India and Pakistan increases significantly. Iran, always worried about an extremist Pakistan, expands and weaponizes its nuclear program. That further enhances nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt joining Israel and Iran as nuclear states. Under these circumstances, the potential for nuclear terrorism increases, and the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack in either the Western world or in the oil-producing states may lead to a further devastating collapse of the world economic market, with a tsunami-like impact on stability. In this scenario, major disruptions can be expected, with dire consequences for two-thirds of the planets population.
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Power Plants Add-On Meltdown Scenario

A. Al Qaeda supports white supremacist and militia activities to bomb nuclear power plants in the U.S.
Washington Times 9 *EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico, June 3, 2009,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/3/al-qaeda-eyes-bio-attack-via-mexicoborder/?page=all]
In the 10-minute clip, al-Nafisi
suggested that al Qaeda might want to make common cause with what he claimed are 300,000 members of white supremacist and other militias in the U.S. These militias even think about bombing nuclear plants within the U.S., he said. May God grant them success, even though we are not white, or even close to it, right? They have plans to bomb the nuclear plant at Lake Michigan . This plant is very important. May God
grant success to one of these militia leaders, who is thinking about bombing this plant. I believe that we should devote part of our prayers to him.
B. Attack causes a meltdown

Council on Foreign Relations 6 *Targets for Terrorism: Nuclear Facilities, January 2006, http://www.cfr.org/homeland-security/targets-terrorism-nuclear-facilities/p10213]
Experts say that an attack on a nuclear power plant, all of which are guarded by private security forces hired by the plants and supervised by the NRC, couldnt lead to a nuclear explosion. The danger, they say, is that attackers could cause a meltdown or a fire or set off a major conventional explosion , all of which could spew radiation into nearby cities and towns.
C. Extinction
Daley 11 *Peter Daley, Sunshine Coast Computer Club, Inc., NUCLEAR POWER TECHNOLOGY, AN EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT! 2011, http://sccc.org.au/archives/2186+ **We disagree with the authors use of gendered language
Its not a meteor impact, large solar flare, or nuclear war that could cause an Extinction Level Event to humanity, but nuclear reactor meltdowns through, war, sabotage, human error, or natural disaster. In my opinion at the present time, nuclear power technology has become the greatest danger to the survival of the human race. There are around 1,000 nuclear reactors in the world, 442 for
generating electricity, 250 research reactors, and the rest are military. Fifty two are in Japan, a very earthquake active zone. There are plans to build another 50+ nuclear power reactors for generating electricity in India and China, in the next decade alone.
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Power Plants Add-On Great Lakes Scenario

A. Al Qaeda supports white supremacist and militia activities to bomb nuclear power plants in the U.S.
Washington Times 9 *EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda eyes bio attack from Mexico, June 3, 2009,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/3/al-qaeda-eyes-bio-attack-via-mexicoborder/?page=all]
In the 10-minute clip, al-Nafisi
suggested that al Qaeda might want to make common cause with what he claimed are 300,000 members of white supremacist and other militias in the U.S. These militias even think about bombing nuclear plants within the U.S., he said. May God grant them success, even though we are not white, or even close to it, right? They have plans to bomb the nuclear plant at Lake Michigan . This plant is very important. May God
grant success to one of these militia leaders, who is thinking about bombing this plant. I believe that we should devote part of our prayers to him.
B terrorist attack on the nuclear power plant in Michigan would contaminate Lake Michigan
Esquire 7 *Mercenary, June 26, 2007, http://www.esquire.com/features/mercenary0607] The Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert, Michigan, is real. It produces 778 megawatts of electricity, and the
electricity keeps the lights burning for about half a million residents. The nuclear reactor inside the nuclear plant is also real. It gets really hot, and anyone driving on Interstate 196 on his way to Grand Rapids or St. Joe can see thin clouds of steam rising from its cooling towers, as constant a presence as the weather. The steam is real; its water from Lake Michigan, pumped in to keep the reactor cool. The nuclear power plant is on the shore of Lake Michigan, right next to the tourist town of South Haven and about eighty miles from Chicago as the crow flies. Lake Michigan is real, definitely, though it comes off as an illusory ocean, offering the horizon as its only boundary. South Haven is real, too, although it empties out in the cold of winter. And Chicago? As real as the millions of people who live there, and the strange American fervor they generate. Chicago is so damned real, and so damned American, that its hard to imagine an American reality without it -- its
hard to imagine an American reality if, say, a terrorist attack on Palisades Nuclear contaminated the big lake for the next thousand years or so and emptied out Chicago, not to mention St. Joe and South Haven and Covert.
C. The Great Lakes are a crucial biodiversity hotspot GLIN 13 Great Lakes Information Network. Environment of the Great Lakes Region, Feb 27,
http://www.great-lakes.net/envt/ The environment of the Great Lakes region is blessed with huge forests and wilderness areas, rich agricultural land, hundreds of tributaries and thousands of smaller lakes, and extensive mineral deposits. The region's glacial history and the tremendous influence of the lakes themselves create unique conditions that support a wealth of biological diversity, including more than 130 rare species and ecosystems. The environment supports a world-class fishery and a variety of wildlife, such as white-tailed deer, beaver, muskrat, weasel, fox, black bear, bobcat, moose and other furbearing animals. Bird populations thrive on the various terrains, some migrating south in the winter, others making permanent homes. An estimated 180 species of fish are native to the Great Lakes, including small- and largemouth bass, muskellunge, northern pike, lake herring, whitefish, walleye and lake trout. Rare species making their home in the Great Lakes region include the world's last known population of the white catspaw pearly mussel, the copper redhorse fish and the Kirtland's warbler.
D. Extinction
Science Daily 11 (Citing Prof Michel Loreau, PhD Ecologist, and Prof Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, PhD and Professor @
University of Freiburg, " Biodiversity Key to Earth's Life-Support Functions in a Changing World," Aug 11, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110811084513.htm) ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2011) The biological
diversity of organisms on Earth is not just something we enjoy when taking a walk through a blossoming meadow in spring; it is also the basis for countless products and services
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provided by nature, including food, building materials, and medicines as well as the selfpurifying qualities of water and protection against erosion. These so-called ecosystem services are what makes Earth inhabitable for humans . They are based on ecological processes, such as photosynthesis,
the production of biomass, or nutrient cycles. Since biodiversity is on the decline, both on a global and a local scale, researchers are asking the question as to what role the diversity of organisms plays in maintaining these ecological processes and thus in providing the ecosystem's vital products and services. In
an international research group led by Prof. Dr. Michel Loreau from Canada, ecologists from ten different universities and research institutes, including Prof. Dr. Michael Scherer-Lorenzen from the University of Freiburg, compiled findings from numerous biodiversity experiments and reanalyzed them. These experiments simulated the loss of plant species and attempted to determine the consequences for the functioning of ecosystems, most of them coming
to the conclusion that a higher level of biodiversity is accompanied by an increase in ecosystem processes. However, the findings were always only valid for a certain combination of environmental conditions present at the locations at which the experiments were conducted and for a limited range of ecosystem processes. In a study published in the current issue of the journal Nature, the research group investigated the extent to which the positive effects of diversity still apply under changing environmental conditions and when a multitude of processes are taken into account. They found that 84 percent of the 147 plant species included in the experiments promoted ecological processes in at least one case. The more years, locations, ecosystem processes, and scenarios of global change -- such as global warming or land use intensity -- the experiments took into account, the more plant species were necessary to guarantee the functioning of the ecosystems. Moreover, other species
were always necessary to keep the ecosystem processes running under the different combinations of influencing factors. These findings indicate that much more biodiversity is necessary to keep ecosystems functioning in a world that is changing ever faster. The protection of diversity is thus a crucial factor in maintaining Earth's life-support functions.
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Power Plants Add-On Attack Contaminates Lake Michigan Prefer Our Ev

Prefer evidence thats specific to the Great Lakes Musial and Ram 10 Walt Musial has worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) since August 1988 serving in many roles over the years. Bonnie Ram is an accomplished executive and senior analyst with 30 years experience in planning and directing multidisciplinary technical projects relating to environmental analyses and national energy use for a variety of research organizations, including federal, state, local, and international government agencies. Large-Scale Offshore Wind Power in the United States, September, Online PDF
Sector risks (e.g., wildlife, habitats, oceans and land use) will, of course, vary depending on the specific technology deployed, the specific site considered, the scale of the deployment, and the stakeholder concerns at particular locations. The essential difference with the previous analytical approaches in Figure 8-1 and Table
8-1 is that the integrated risk framework summarizes for each sector risk quantitative data on the probability of occurrence, the magnitude of the consequences by sector, and major uncertainties. As
demonstrated by European offshore projects, risk challenges are very site specific , and this makes it difficult to determine where and when potential problems may arise. A broader overview may ensure that significant risks or
public perceptions will not be missed. Specific tools or metrics are applied to each sector risk (e.g., radar for avian risks and tracking migration patterns for habitat risks). The next step is risk characterization and uncertainty analysis. The sector risk characterization and uncertainty summary provides an overview of the risks and compares them across sectors to evaluate what might be the least or the most significant. Details about the current knowledge base of sectoral risks have been gained mostly in Europe and, accordingly, the evidence is presented in Section 8.5.
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Power Plants Add-On - Nuclear Power Plants = Terrorist Targets

Terrorists target nuclear power plants
NIRS 1 *Mandate for Securing America's Electricity Supply, 2001, http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/security/mandateforsecuringamerica.htm] Specifically, we recognize that nuclear power reactors pose an unacceptable threat to the security of the United States. Commercial reactors are extremely vulnerable to attack from both foreign and domestic terrorists. The sobering reality is that security of nuclear power facilities can be neither
completely guaranteed nor perfectly realized..
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Power Plants Add-On - AT: Terrorists Dont Target Nuclear Power Plants
Nuclear reactors are vulnerable terrorist targets
PSR 9 *Physicians For Social Responsibility, Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive: The Truth About Nuclear Power 2009, http://www.psr.org/resources/nuclear-power-factsheet.html] **We disagree with the authors use of gendered language In addition to the threat of nuclear materials, nuclear reactors are themselves potential terrorist targets. Nuclear reactors are not designed to withstand attacks using large aircraft, such as those used on the September 11, 2001.(7) A well-coordinated attack could have severe consequences for human health and the environment. A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that a major attack on the Indian
Point Reactor in Westchester County, New York, could result in 44,000 near-term deaths from acute radiation sickness and more than 500,000 long-term deaths from cancer among individuals within 50 miles of the reactor.(8)
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Texas Economy Add-On - Short

A. US-Mexico trade key to Texas economy
and the U.S. do not just trade goods, we build products together. A Ford car, for gain and lose competitiveness together [and] we need a border that functions well . . . the way that economy is now structured, he said. Lee said another reason to focus on improving cross-border trade efficiencies is Mexicos currently strong economy. It grew at 4 percent last quarter alone, he said. Mexicos economy for the foreseeable future will most likely be growing faster than the U.S. economy, Lee said. He said Texas currently dominates U.S.-Mexico trade, and two of the seven border sites the group plans to visit next week will be in Texas. For 2011, Texas had $179 billion of two-way trade with Mexico, which is a record, Lee
B. Texas engine of the American economy

Houston Chronicle 4 [June 22, 2004, Lexis]
Secretary of State Geoffrey Conner said the new terminal is positive for Texas,
a state he noted that is vitally important to trade in the United States." Texas is the engine that drives the American economy, " Conner said.
C. Economic decline causes extinction Kemp 10 [Geoffrey, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center, served in the
The world economic situation weakens rather than strengthens, and India, China, and Japan suffer a major reduction in their growth rates, further weakening the global economy. As a result, energy demand falls and the price of fossil fuels plummets, leading to a financial crisis for the energy-producing states, which are forced to cut back dramatically on expansion programs and social welfare. That in turn leads to political unrest: and nurtures different radical groups, including, but not limited to, Islamic extremists. The internal stability of some countries is challenged, and there are more failed states. Most serious is the collapse of the democratic government in Pakistan and its takeover by Muslim extremists, who then take possession of a large number of nuclear weapons. The danger of war between India and Pakistan increases significantly. Iran, always worried about an extremist Pakistan, expands and weaponizes its nuclear program. That further enhances nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt joining Israel and Iran as nuclear states. Under these circumstances, the potential for nuclear terrorism increases, and the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack in either the Western world or in the oil-producing states may lead to a further devastating collapse of the world economic market, with a tsunami-like impact on stability. In this scenario, major disruptions can be expected, with dire consequences for two-thirds of the planets population.
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Texas Economy Add-On - Long

A. US-Mexico trade key to Texas economy
and the U.S. do not just trade goods, we build products together. A Ford car, for gain and lose competitiveness together *and+ we need a border that functions well . . . the way that economy is now structured, he said. Lee said another reason to focus on improving cross-border trade efficiencies is Mexicos currently strong economy. It grew at 4 percent last quarter alone, he said. Mexicos economy for the foreseeable future will most likely be growing faster than the U.S. economy, Lee said. He said Texas currently dominates U.S.-Mexico trade, and two of the seven border sites the group plans to visit next week will be in Texas. For 2011, Texas had $179 billion of two-way trade with Mexico, which is a record, Lee
B. Texas engine of the American economy

Houston Chronicle 4 [June 22, 2004, Lexis]
Secretary of State Geoffrey Conner said the new terminal is positive for Texas,
a state he noted that is vitally important to trade in the United States." Texas is the engine that drives the American economy, " Conner said.
C. The U.S. is key to the global economy Perry 12 [Mark, PhD, professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the
Flint campus of the University of Michigan, U.S. Emerges As A Main Engine of Global Growth, 2012, http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/04/us-emerging-as-main-engine-of-global.html]
"The U.S. once again may be emerging as a main engine for global growth -- and at an opportune time, as Europe slides into recession and Chinas economy decelerates. An improving job market, rising stock prices and easier credit are combining to lift U.S. consumer confidence and spending, with optimism measured by the Bloomberg Comfort Index near a four-year
high. Personal-consumption expenditures increased by the most in seven months in February, rising 0.8 percent, the Commerce Department said last week. Were
entering a sweet spot for the economy, said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc. in New York. Were in a self-reinforcing cycle, where faster employment growth leads to higher household income and increased consumer spending. The U.S. is taking the lead in global growth, thanks in part to a domestic glut of natural gas, Larry
Kantor, head of research at Barclays in New York, wrote in a March 22 report. Natural-gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell to 10-year lows last week, helping to blunt the impact of higher oil prices on the economy. U.S.
manufacturers are benefiting, with the Institute for Supply Managements factory index climbing to 53.4 (NAPMPMI) last month, beating the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey, from 52.4 in
February, the Tempe, Arizona-based group said yesterday. Readings greater than 50 signal growth. The recovery has been an emerging-market -- really a Chinese-led -- story, with the U.S. having lagged the cycle, Kantor said. Now, however, the
U.S. has reasserted its traditional role, and the current pickup in growth is clearly being led by the U.S.
D. Economic decline causes extinction Kemp 10 [Geoffrey, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center, served in the
White House under Ronald Reagan, special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council Staff,
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Former Director, Middle East Arms Control Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010, The East Moves West: India, China, and Asias Growing Presence in the Middle East, pgs. 233-4]
The world economic situation weakens rather than strengthens, and India, China, and Japan suffer a major reduction in their growth rates, further weakening the global economy. As a result, energy demand falls and the price of fossil fuels plummets, leading to a financial crisis for the energy-producing states, which are forced to cut back dramatically on expansion programs and social welfare. That in turn leads to political unrest: and nurtures different radical groups, including, but not limited to, Islamic extremists. The internal stability of some countries is challenged, and there are more failed states. Most serious is the collapse of the democratic government in Pakistan and its takeover by Muslim extremists, who then take possession of a large number of nuclear weapons. The danger of war between India and Pakistan increases significantly. Iran, always worried about an extremist Pakistan, expands and weaponizes its nuclear program. That further enhances nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt joining Israel and Iran as nuclear states. Under these circumstances, the potential for nuclear terrorism increases, and the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack in either the Western world or in the oil-producing states may lead to a further devastating collapse of the world economic market, with a tsunami-like impact on stability. In this scenario, major disruptions can be expected, with dire consequences for two-thirds of the planets population.
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AT: Off-Case Debate
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Topicality/Spec Blocks
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AT: ASPEC (Short)

1. W/M the USFG is our actor 2. Prefer this interpretation: a. Remedies all of their offense claims they still get agent cp ground, which is their only offensive warrant b. Increases negative ground they can read disads based on all three branches this increases their strategic offense c. Refocuses the debate on the plan text we will defend the exact wording of the plan, which checks all abuse claims and allows for better cp debating 3. Cross-x checks we should have the right to clarify 4. No rez basis the rez specifies the USFG 5. ASPEC is not a voter dont vote on potential abuse its infinitely regressive and leads to judge intervention
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AT: ASPEC (Long)

1. W/M the USFG is our actor 2. Prefer this interpretation: a. Remedies all of their offense claims they still get agent cp ground, which is their only offensive warrant b. Increases negative ground they can read disads based on all three branches this increases their strategic offense c. Refocuses the debate on the plan text we will defend the exact wording of the plan, which checks all abuse claims and allows for better cp debating 3. No brightline and infinitely regressive they justify things like the SenatorSpec and writing 8 min long plantexts 4. OSPEC is worse the aff would always choose the best lit that offers the neg the worst ground. 5. Cross-x checks we should have the right to clarify 6. No rez basis the rez specifies the USFG 7. Competitive skew is inevitable people will always be able to read faster than others 8. ASPEC is not a voter dont vote on potential abuse its infinitely regressive and leads to judge intervention
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AT: Topicality - Economic Engagement = Contact (Effects Violation)

1. We meet funding NADBank is economic engagement with Mexico 2. We meet - NADBank enhancement expands economic ties and the financing of new infrastructure projects HSN 11 *Hispanically Speaking News, Creating North American Development Bank Seen as Good Economic Opportunity for Border
Economy, Published at 8:35 pm EST, July 13, 2011, pg. http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/creating-northamerican-development-bank-seen-as-good-economic-opportu/8910/]
Action to bring economic development to the US Mexico border is making its way through Congress by the expansion and enhancement of the NADBank. The North American Development Bank
(NADBank) was created out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 to address environmental concerns that the members of Congress had and ensure precautions and measures were taken to have environmentally sound region in the U.S.Mexico border. The introduction of the NADBank
Enhancement Act of 2011, allows the two governments to work together to add more benefits along the border region such as infrastructure, transportation and Ports of Entry improvements. The proposed legislation would inject new criteria into the mandate and open the NADBank to finance new infrastructure projects. According to the text of the
bill (3) change the purposes and functions of the Bank, including changes that would allow the Bank to finance infrastructur e projects in the border region that promote growth in trade and commerce between the United States and Mexico, support sustainable economic development, reduce poverty, foster job creation, and promote social development in the region.
3. Counter-interpretation: economic engagement includes a variety of incentive strategies the goal is to increase economic relations. Haass 00 Richard Haass & Meghan OSullivan, Senior Fellows in the Brookings Institution
Foreign Policy Studies Program, Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy, p. 5-6 Architects of engagement strategies have a wide variety of incentives from which to choose. Economic engagement might offer tangible incentives such as export credits, investment insurance or promotion, access to technology, loans, and economic aid.2 Other equally useful economic incentives involve the removal of penalties, whether they be trade embargoes, investment bans, or high tariffs that have impeded economic relations between the United States and the target country. In addition, facilitated entry into the global economic arena and the institutions that govern it rank among the most potent incentives in todays global market.
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4. Prefer our interpretation: a. Brightline only our definition provides a list of topical engagement. This is key to predictability. b. Their interpretation is bad for the topic it focuses the debate on the minutia of implementation instead of the intent of the plan. c. Effects topicality is good. a. Resolution mandates. The resolution says that we have to increase our economic engagement toward Mexico our funding mechanism is our economic engagement. b. Political education all legislation requires steps to be passed and implemented, our aff is real world. c. Neg link ground extra steps generate extra ground for offense. d. No abuse funding the bank results in a direct and immediate increase in economic engagement, theres no additional action necessary. e. Prefer our contextual evidence it indicates that economic engagement is determined by its effect. 4. Not a voter: a. Competing interpretations are bad- it creates a race to the bottom, is infinitely regressive and justifies Counter interpretation: only our case is topical b. Prefer reasonability- its key to check unpredictable neg definitions and the neg block bias. The clear intent of the aff is to increase economic engagement with Mexico. c. Potential abuse is not a voter- its infinitely regressive and leads to judge intervention. Make them prove in round abuse. d. Mixing burdens is inevitable you dont make us prove that our plan is passed or implemented fiat takes care of that. The steps our plan requires should be included in this, too they have no brightline or reasons why it shouldnt.
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AT: Topicality - Economic Engagement = Categories, Includes Trade

1. We meet NADBank promotes US-Mexico trade HSN 11 *Hispanically Speaking News, Creating North American Development Bank Seen as Good Economic Opportunity for
Border Economy, Published at 8:35 pm EST, July 13, 2011, pg. http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-dailynews/details/creating-north-american-development-bank-seen-as-good-economic-opportu/8910/ This bill, which Congressman Rubn Hinojosa and 19 co-sponsors introduced, is a bi-partisan and bi-national piece of legislation that speaks to the healthy development along the U.S and Mexico border. Allowing
the NADBank to develop and finance a broader range of infrastructure projects in the Mexico-US border region would further promote growth in trade between the United States and Mexico, and to foster greater prosperity in the border region, wrote Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan in a letter to
Chairman Spencer Bachus.
2. Counter-interpretation: economic engagement is a strategy of increasing economic ties Kahler 4 Miles Kahler, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the
University of California, San Diego, and Scott L. Kastner Department of Government and Politics University of Maryland, Strategic Uses of Economic Interdependence: Engagement Policies in South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, November, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/kastner/KahlerKastner.doc Economic engagementa policy of deliberately expanding economic ties with an adversary in order to change the behavior of the target state and effect an improvement in bilateral political relationsis the subject of growing, but still limited, interest in the i nternational r elations literature. The bulk of the work on economic statecraft continues to focus on coercive policies such as economic sanctions. The emphasis on negative forms of economic statecraft is not without justification: the use of
economic sanctions is widespread and well-documented, and several quantitative studies have shown that adversarial relations between countries tend to correspond to reduced, rather than enhanced, levels of trade (Gowa 1994; Pollins 1989). At the same time, however, relatively little is known about how widespread strategies of economic engagement actually are: scholars disagree on this point, in part because no database cataloging instances of positive economic statecraft exists (Mastanduno 2003). Furthermore, beginning with the classic work of Hirschman (1945), most studies in this regard have focused on policies adopted by great powers. But engagement policies adopted by South Korea and the other two states examined in this study, Singapore and Taiwan, demonstrate that engagement is not a strategy limited to the domain of great power politics; instead, it may be more widespread than previously recognized.
3. Prefer our interpretation: a. Their interpretation is limiting prevents creative affs that engage with a country in new or different way. b. Our interpretation provides more predictable ground their interpretation allows for the trade good/bad debate, but our interpretation allows for additional negative arguments premised on engagement strategy. c. Economic statecraft is broad and complicated --- rigid definitions should be rejected Dobson 1 Alan, Professor of International Relations at the University of Wales, US Economic
Statecraft for Survival 1933-1991, p. 7-8

Thus economic
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statecraft emerges as a focus of concern for scholars within the broader field of foreign policy. In this study, activity falls within the scope of economic statecraft not only when economic instruments are used as means for conducting statecraft, but also when non-economic instruments are used against specific economic targets in wartime. In examining the different categories of economic instruments of statecraft, it is clear that sharp theoretical distinctions drawn between sanctions, strategic embargoes, cold economic warfare and economic warfare cannot be sustained when trying to explain practice. We come to understand things by experiencing change and rendering it
into an explanatory form via an appropriate theoretical framework. Practice is
too complicated to be captured by
preconceived rigid definitions that make no allowance for change. In simple terms, trying to define sanctions in the abstract has severe limitations . However, using the term sanction in a particular context can
make sense, even when it overlaps with other tactics or strategies of economic statecraft, and when it has both instrumental and expressive effects. Actors
often have several motives and several objectives in mind when they impose trade controls. Both intent and effect might simultaneously involve restricting and weakening the military and
economic strength of a target state, economically strengthening satellites of the main target state in order to create tensions and jealousies, enhancing a bargaining position, allowing trade with the specific aim of trying to seduce mass opinion in the opponent state, attempting to persuade it to change policy, making a moral statement, and sending complicated and different messages to the target, neutral states, allies and the senders own domestic constituency. In these kinds of situations a single action is a sanction, a strategic embargo, a message-sender, and an instance of cold economic warfare or economic warfare. In situations where trade is allowed or promoted and looks like normal trade from the outside, it is only by addressing intention that we can see that more is at stake than just profit and loss. If the intent is to change attitudes in the target state, then this distinguishes the trade from normal commercial transactions. However it is not just in cases where trade is allowed or promoted that we need to be sensitive to the expressive as well as the instrumental effects of trade controls. They all make statements. Sometimes they speak to a target state in a way that was not intended by the sender, but they always say something. Particularly in times of heightened tension short of war, and especially in the Cold War, the ability of economic instruments of statecraft to send messages was of great significance to American policy-makers. For much of the Cold War it was more important than the instrumental effects of trade controls.
4. We meet infrastructure funding is economic engagement prefer our contextual evidence, key to predictability.
IDB, 11. The IDB supports efforts by Latin America and the Caribbean countries to reduce poverty and inequality. It aims to bring about development in a sustainable, climate-friendly way. Established in 1959, the IDB is the leading source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean, with a strong commitment to achieve measurable results, increased integrity, transparency and accountability. The IDB has an evolving reform agenda that seeks to increase its development impact in the region. While it is a regular bank in many ways, it is also unique in some key respects. Besides loans, the IDB also provides grants, technical assistance and do research. Its shareholders are 48 member countries, including 26 Latin American and Caribbean borrowing members, who have a majority ownership of the IDB.. "Canada, Mexico and the United States announce contributions of $13 million to an IDB-managed regional infrastructure integration fund." News Releases. Inter-American Development Bank, 28 March 201. Web. Day 22 July 2013. <http://www.iadb.org/en/annual-meeting/2011/annual-meetingarticle,2836.html?amArticleID=9322>. Canada, Mexico and the United States announce contributions of $13 million to an IDB-managed regional infrastructure integration fund. Resources to support projects to reduce transport and logistics costs in Latin America
and the Caribbean CALGARY, Canada The Canadian, Mexican and U.S. governments will contribute $13 million to a regional infrastructure integration fund to be managed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), supporting cross-border
projects designed to reduce transport and logistics costs to expand trade. In a recent study, the IDB estimated that
Latin America and the Caribbean is at 50 percent of its intra-regional trade potential due to insufficient regional infrastructure and a
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still imperfect trade and regulatory architecture, suggesting that countries should prioritize integration projects to reduce trade costs, boost the regions export capacity and promote a better distribution of the benefits of deeper integration. The contributions were announced on the margins of a meeting of finance ministers of the Americas, which took place here during the annual meeting of the IDBs Board of Governors. The fund is expected to reach $20 million, with additional contributions from other donors. Expanding
economic engagement in the Americas and building resilient and sustainable economies through increased trade and investment makes us all stronger, said Canadian Finance
Minister Jim Flaherty, whose country is contributing $5 million to the fund, in a statement made on March 25.
5. Topicality is not a voter. a. Competing interpretations are bad- it creates a race to the bottom, is infinitely regressive and justifies Counter interpretation: only our case is topical b. Prefer reasonability- its key to check unpredictable neg definitions and the neg block bias. The clear intent of the aff is to increase economic engagement with Mexico. c. Potential abuse is not a voter- its infinitely regressive and leads to judge intervention. Make them prove in round abuse.
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AT: Topicality Economic Engagement = Categories Must Be Economic Assistance (We Meet)
The plan is inherently tied to economic assistance
TCEQ 11 *Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, NADBank Looks to Expand Financial Clout, Last Modified Mon, 18 Jul
2011, pg. http://www.tceq.texas.gov/assets/public/comm_exec/pubs/pd/020/04-03/nadbank-x.pdf Observing an important anniversary this year, the North American Development Bank looks back on its first decade as a lender for environmental infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border. Since 1994, the institution has pumped $660 million into 79 public works projects; of those, 53 were in the U.S., including 30 in Texas.
NADBank was created by the United States and Mexico as a side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement, in recognition that international assistance would be needed to address environmental problems in impoverished border areas.
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AT: Topicality = Direct Contact

1. We meet funding the NADBank involves contact with the Mexican government its a joint bank 2. Counter-interpretation: economic engagement is a strategy of increasing economic ties Kahler 4 Miles Kahler, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the
University of California, San Diego, and Scott L. Kastner Department of Government and Politics University of Maryland, Strategic Uses of Economic Interdependence: Engagement Policies in South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, November, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/kastner/KahlerKastner.doc Economic engagementa policy of deliberately expanding economic ties with an adversary in order to change the behavior of the target state and effect an improvement in bilateral political relationsis the subject of growing, but still limited, interest in the i nternational r elations literature. The bulk of the work on economic statecraft continues to focus on coercive policies such as economic sanctions. The emphasis on negative forms of economic statecraft is not without justification: the use of
economic sanctions is widespread and well-documented, and several quantitative studies have shown that adversarial relations between countries tend to correspond to reduced, rather than enhanced, levels of trade (Gowa 1994; Pollins 1989). At the same time, however, relatively little is known about how widespread strategies of economic engagement actually are: scholars disagree on this point, in part because no database cataloging instances of positive economic statecraft exists (Mastanduno 2003). Furthermore, beginning with the classic work of Hirschman (1945), most studies in this regard have focused on policies adopted by great powers. But engagement policies adopted by South Korea and the other two states examined in this study, Singapore and Taiwan, demonstrate that engagement is not a strategy limited to the domain of great power politics; instead, it may be more widespread than previously recognized.
a. Their interpretation is limiting prevents creative affs that engage with a country in new or different way. b. Our interpretation provides more predictable ground their interpretation allows for the trade good/bad debate, but our interpretation allows for additional negative arguments premised on engagement strategy. c. Economic statecraft is broad and complicated --- rigid definitions should be rejected Dobson 1 Alan, Professor of International Relations at the University of Wales, US Economic
Statecraft for Survival 1933-1991, p. 7-8
Thus economic
statecraft emerges as a focus of concern for scholars within the broader field of foreign policy. In this study, activity falls within the scope of economic statecraft not only when economic instruments are used as means for conducting statecraft, but also when non-economic instruments are used against specific economic targets in wartime. In examining the different categories of economic instruments of statecraft, it is clear that sharp theoretical distinctions drawn between sanctions, strategic embargoes, cold economic warfare and economic warfare cannot be sustained when trying to explain practice. We come to understand things by experiencing change and rendering it

into an explanatory form via an appropriate theoretical framework. Practice is
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preconceived rigid definitions that make no allowance for change. In simple terms, trying to define sanctions in the abstract has severe limitations . However, using the term sanction in a particular context can
make sense, even when it overlaps with other tactics or strategies of economic statecraft, and when it has both instrumental and expressive effects. Actors
often have several motives and several objectives in mind when they impose trade controls. Both intent and effect might simultaneously involve restricting and weakening the military and
economic strength of a target state, economically strengthening satellites of the main target state in order to create tensions and jealousies, enhancing a bargaining position, allowing trade with the specific aim of trying to seduce mass opinion in the opponent state, attempting to persuade it to change policy, making a moral statement, and sending complicated and different messages to the target, neutral states, allies and the senders own domestic constituency. In these kinds of situations a single action is a sanction, a strategic embargo, a message-sender, and an instance of cold economic warfare or economic warfare. In situations where trade is allowed or promoted and looks like normal trade from the outside, it is only by addressing intention that we can see that more is at stake than just profit and loss. If the intent is to change attitudes in the target state, then this distinguishes the trade from normal commercial transactions. However it is not just in cases where trade is allowed or promoted that we need to be sensitive to the expressive as well as the instrumental effects of trade controls. They all make statements. Sometimes they speak to a target state in a way that was not intended by the sender, but they always say something. Particularly in times of heightened tension short of war, and especially in the Cold War, the ability of economic instruments of statecraft to send messages was of great significance to American policy-makers. For much of the Cold War it was more important than the instrumental effects of trade controls.
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AT: Topicality Engagement = Quid Pro Quo (QPQ)

1. We meet funding of the NADBank is reciprocal the Mexican government would also agree to contribute funding to the bank. 2. Counter-interpretation - Economic engagement can be either conditional or unconditional Haass 00 Richard N. Haass, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the
Brookings Institution, and Meghan L. OSullivan, Fellow with the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, Terms of Engagement: Alternatives to Punitive Policies, Survival, 42(2), Summer, p. 2-3 Many different types of engagement strategies exist, depending on who is engaged, the kind of incentives employed and the sorts of objectives pursued. Engagement may be conditional when it entails a negotiated series of exchanges, such as where the US extends positive inducements for changes undertaken by the target country. Or engagement may be unconditional if it offers modifications in US policy towards a country without the explicit expectation that a reciprocal act will follow. Generally, conditional engagement is geared towards a government;
unconditional engagement works with a countrys civil society or private sector in the hopes of promoting forces that will ev entually facilitate cooperation. Architects of engagement strategies can choose from a wide variety of incentives. Economic
engagement might offer tangible incentives such as export credits, investment insurance or promotion, access to technology, loans and economic aid.3 Other equally useful economic incentives involve the removal of penalties such as trade
embargoes, investment bans or high tariffs, which have impeded economic relations between the United States and the target country. Facilitated entry into the economic global arena and the institutions that govern it rank among the most potent incentives in todays global market. Similarly, political engagement can involve the lure of diplomatic recognition, access to regional or international institutions, the scheduling of summits between leaders or the termination of these benefits. Military engagement could involve the extension of international military educational training in order both to strengthen respect for civilian authority and human rights among a countrys armed forces and, more feasibly, to esta blish relationships between Americans and young foreign military officers. While these areas of engagement are likely to involve working with state institutions, cultural or civil-society engagement entails building people-to-people contacts. Funding nongovernmental organisations, facilitating the flow of remittances and promoting the exchange of students, tourists and other non-governmental people between countries are just some of the possible incentives used in the form of engagement.
3. Prefer our interpretation: a. Limits conditional engagement overlimits the topic core affs like lifting the embargo are key to topic education. b. Ground conditional engagement is counterplan ground our interpretation still allows for this type of education while also allowing for a broader range of affirmatives. c. Precision only our definition defines the term economic engagement their interpretation only defines engagement. Prefer the precise definition its more exact, which is key to predictability.
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AT: Topicality Engagement = Positive

1. We meet we are positive incentives we give money for border infrastructure improvement. Theres no penalty toward Mexico. 2. Counter-interpretation: economic engagement includes a variety of incentive strategies the goal is to increase economic relations. Haass 00 Richard Haass & Meghan OSullivan, Senior Fellows in the Brookings Institution
Foreign Policy Studies Program, Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy, p. 5-6 Architects of engagement strategies have a wide variety of incentives from which to choose. Economic engagement might offer tangible incentives such as export credits, investment insurance or promotion, access to technology, loans, and economic aid.2 Other equally useful economic incentives involve the removal of penalties, whether they be trade embargoes, investment bans, or high tariffs that have impeded economic relations between the United States and the target country. In addition, facilitated entry into the global economic arena and the institutions that govern it rank among the most potent incentives in todays global market.
3. Prefer our interpretation: a. Limits the list of topical actions included in our definition provides the best limits it includes a variety of incentives which provide comprehensive education. b. Precision only our definition defines the term economic engagement their interpretation only defines engagement. Prefer the precise definition its more exact, which is key to predictability. c. No brightline the distinction between positive and negative incentives is arbitrary and subjective. Baldwin 71 David A., Professor of World Order Studies and Political Science at Columbia University, The Power of Positive Sanctions, World
Politics, 24(1), http://www.princeton.edu/~dbaldwin/selected%20articles/Baldwin%20(1971)%20The%20Power%20of%20Positive%20Sanctions.pdf
Positive sanctions are defined as actual or promised rewards to B; negative sanctions are defined as actual or threatened punishments to B. Although these definitions appear simple enough, there are both conceptual and empirical difficulties in distinguishing between positive and negative sanctions. Some things take the form of positive sanctions, but actually are not: e.g., giving a bonus of $100 to a man who expected a bonus of $200, or promising not to kill a man who never expected to be killed in the first place. Likewise, some things take the form of negative sanctions, but actually are not: e.g., a threat to cut by $100 the salary of a man who expected his salary to be cut by $200, a threat to punch in the nose, next week, a man who knows he will be hanged at sunrise, or the beating of a masochist. Is withII. THE CONCEPT OF POSITIVE SANCTIONS holding a reward ever a punishment? Always a punishment? Is withholding a punishment ever a reward? Always a reward? The answers depend on B's perceptions of the situation.20 In
order to distinguish rewards from punishments one must establish B's baseline of expectations at the moment A's influence attempt begins.2' This

he values. Positive sanctions, then, are actual or promised improvements his baseline of expectations. Negative sanctions
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baseline is defined in terms of B's expected future value position, i.e., his expectations about his future position relative to the things
in B's value position relative to are actual or threatened deprivations relative to the same baseline. Whereas conceptual establishment of B's baseline is vital but not difficult, empirical establishment of the baseline is both vital and difficult . Three pitfalls await those who would distinguish the concept of positive from that of negative sanctions. The pitfalls concern B's perceptions , time , and conditional influence attempts. As Bachrach and Baratz have reminded us, explanations of power relations should specify from whose point of view the situation is being viewed.22 In any given power relationship, A may perceive himself as employing carrots, while B may perceive A as using sticks. Although many Americans perceive their foreign aid program in terms of positive sanctions, many recipients perceive it differently. There is also a danger that the outside observer, i.e., the political scientist, will substitute his own baseline for that of B, e.g., "if someone gave me a million dollars, I would regard it as a reward. The second pitfall concerns time and is illustrated by Dahl's discussion of positive coercion. After defining power in terms of negative sanctions, he observes that substantial rewards can be made to operate in the same way: "For if . . . [B] is offered a very large reward for compliance, then once his expectations are adjusted to this large reward, [they] he suffers a prospective loss if [they] he does not comply."23 The italicized words indicate that time is not being held constant. Only after B's expectations are adjusted, does he perceive withholding the reward as coercive. What Dahl
has done here is to use two different baselines. In referring to negative sanctions, he uses the baseline existing at the moment of A's influence attempt, while his references to positive sanctions use the new baseline after B has taken account of A's influence attempt. Since the purpose of A's influence attempt is to shift B's baseline, i.e., to cause B to change the expected values associated with doing X, Dahl's treatment tends to conceal the dynamics of the influence process. In
distinguishing carrots from sticks one must be careful to specify not only B's baseline of expectations, but also the point in time at which that baseline was established. It is important, however, to recognize that the baseline changes over time. Today's reward may lay the groundwork for tomorrow's threat, and tomorrow's threat may
lay the groundwork for a promise on the day after tomorrow. Thomas Schelling's24 discussions of "compellent threats" could be improved by recognition of this fact. The threat that compels, he says, often takes the form of administering the punishment until B acts, rather than if he acts.25 To call such a conditional commitment to withdraw punishment a "threat" is counter to both common usage and the analysis presented above. Such situations could be more usefully described as ones in which A uses a negative sanction (the punishment) to lay the groundwork for the subsequent use of positive sanctions (the promise to withdraw the punishment if B complies). What A is doing in such situations is using the stick to shift B's baseline so as to make the subsequent promise of a carrot more attractive. A's offer to stop tipping the boat if B will row is unlikely to be perceived by B as a carrot unless A is actually tipping the boat at the time the offer is made. A tips the boat in order to shift B's expectation baseline, so that B will perceive the offer to stop tipping the boat as a reward. In his discussions of compellent threats Schelling
blurs the
distinction between positive and negative sanctions. Indeed, he turns the time sequence usually associated with threats around, so that a conditional commitment to punish and a conditional commitment to stop punishing are both called threats. Common usage, however, suggests a difference between offering to pull a thorn out of B's foot and a threat to stick a thorn in. The third pitfall is associated with conditional influence attempts, i.e., those in which A conditionally commits himself to reward or punish B for compliance or noncompliance.26 The problem is that it seems to be easier to distinguish rewards from punishments than to distinguish promises from threats. The possibility that withholding a reward may be regarded by B as a punishment tempts one to regard threats and promises as two sides of one coin. The argument runs as follows: "An unconditional
commitment by A to reward (or punish) B regardless of whether he does X or not is not a promise (or threat). Thus, a promise to reward if B complies must imply a threat not to reward if B fails to comply. Likewise, a threat to punish B for noncompliance must imply a promise not to punish for compliance. Thus, all threats imply promises and all promises imply threats; they are simply different ways of describing the same conditional influence attempt." An implicit assumption along these lines may explain why so few political scientists bother to distinguish between threats and promises. An explicit example of such reasoning is found in Schelling's Strategy of Conflict.27 After considering several definitions and after admitting that the distinction between a threat and a promise is not obvious, he finally concludes that threats
and promises are merely "names for
different aspects of the same tactic of selective and conditional self-commitment."
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AT: Topicality Economic (Def Only)

W/M - Economic includes providing funds to create economic benefit The Virginia Department of Business Assistance, 10. VirginiaDBA, created by the
Virginia General Assembly in 1996, provides a one-stop-service for technical assistance related to business formation, access to capital, and workforce development. VDBA works with existing businesses as they grow their workforce and mentors entrepreneurs from ideas to launching their first business venture. To accomplish the objectives set forth in Governor McDonnell's Economic Development and Jobs Creation agenda, VDBA has facilitated financing for Virginia businesses through micro-lending, loan guarantees, capital access, and various other programs. It has provided technical assistance to over 36,000 businesses and will host over 80 Entrepreneurial Workshops statewide this year.. "Economic Development Loan Fund (EDLF)." Virginia.gov. The Virginia Department of Business Assistance, 2010. Web. 22 July 2013. <http://vdba.virginia.gov//vsbfa_EcoDevLoanFund.shtml>. The Virginia Small Business Financing Authority's Economic Development Loan Fund is designed to fill the financing gap between private debt financing and private equity. Funds are provided to create economic benefit
through increased revenues and the creation of new jobs and the retention of at risk jobs in Virginia. Businesses should meet one of the following criteria within the Commonwealth of Virginia: have $10 million or less in annual revenues over each of the last three years; or a net worth of $2 million or less; or have fewer than 250 employees; or be a 501 (c) 3 entity.
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AT: Topicality Substantial = %

1. We meet- we increase economic engagement by ___ % 2. We meet- our plan text ensures their links because we defend a substantial increase 3. Counter interpretation: substantial CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN ENGLISH 08 (Carol-June Cassidy, (Editor),
2nd Ed., 08, 873.) Substantial: Large in size, value, or importance
4. We meet the counter interpretation- we increase loan guarantees to a great extent as per our inherency evidence. 5. Prefer our interpretation: a. Limits- their definition arbitrarily overlimits, which excludes core of the topic affs like loan guarantees, which are key to topic specific education b. Ground- our definition guarantees their link ground because it ensures the increase will be to a great extent. c. Predictability- our definition is from the Cambridge dictionary, which means it was written with the intent to define the word, meaning it is more concise and predictable. 6. Their definition is flawed- none of their standards are predicated off of an increase of exactly ____%, only a great increase, which means that our interpretation captures all of their standards as well. 7. Topicality is not a voter a. Competing interpretations are bad- it creates a race to the bottom, is infinitely regressive and justifies Counter interpretation: only our case is topical b. Prefer reasonability- its key to check unpredictable neg definitions and checks the neg block bias. c. Potential abuse is not a voter- its infinitely regressive and leads to judge intervention. Make them prove in round abuse.
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Counterplan Blocks
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AT: BEIF CP
1. Perm do both. This ensures double solvency and shields the link to the net benefit 2. Perm do the counterplan. Its normal means BEIF grants are administered by the NADBank. Erickson, Molina, and Ghosh 4 [Christopher A. Erickson, David J. Molina, Soumen N.
Ghosh, Southwest Center for Environmental Research & Policy Staff The U.S.-Mexican Border Environment: Improving Transboundary Air Quality with Binational Emission Reduction Credit Trading, 1-1-2004]
The banks lending program has faced difficulties. Under its character, the bank is required to make loans at a rate sufficient to compensate for the cost of funds. These rate restrictions often result in NADBank being priced out of the market. Larger communities on the U.S. side generally have access to lower-cost loans. Smaller communities, many of which are located in Mexico, cant afford NADBanks interest rate. Recognizing these problems, EPA
as established a program called the Border Environmental Infrastructure Fund (BEIF). BEIF grants are administered by NADBank and can be used to reduce the total cost of funds to low income communities (Erickson and Eaton 2002).
3. CP links to the net benefit - action will be perceived as the same as the plan. 4. No solvency BEIF grants are limited to water and wastewater infrastructure cant solve the entirety of the aff. NADBank 2012. Border Environment Infrastructure Fund
http://www.nadbank.org/programs/beif.asp Only water and wastewater infrastructure projects located within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the U.S.-Mexico border will be considered for funding. BEIF funds may be used to support projects that serve a single community or regional approaches that serve multiple communities and/or outlying areas. Eligibility is based on a set of general project criteria
5. [if applicable] Conditionality is bad

A. Constructs abusive double-binds. They could run a disad that linked harder to the counterplan than to the plan, and then if we concede the disad, they kick the counterplan, and if we turn the disad, they use the counterplan to capture the turns. B. Contradictory worlds. Wed be forced to answer the status quo and the counterplan even if they rest on opposing assumptions about what should be done. C. Strategic Thinking. We force the neg to consider how their arguments interact to avoid easy straight turns. Conditionality is intellectual laziness. D. Time skew. Its no-risk negative offense. E. Infinitely regressive. They could read any number of conditional advocacies without worrying about contradiction. Dispo solves their offense
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AT: CBP CP
1. Perm do both. This ensures double solvency and shields the link to the net benefit 2. Doesnt solve our environment advantages CBP is the status quo. [insert impact calc] 3. No solvency CBP fails it lacks direction and wastes money
Barry 12 (Tom, senior policy analyst at the Center for International Policy, where he directs the TransBorder
project. Barry specializes in immigration policy, homeland security, border security and the outsourcing of national security. Barry's latest book is "Border Wars," from MIT Press in September 2011, http://truthout.org/news/item/13603-border-patrols-new-strategy-highlights-agencys-lack-of-clear-direction, December 29 2012)
Increasing segments of the public are more frequently condemning anti-immigrant policies and practices, and states and communities are rejecting harsh federal drug laws. Yet the border security buildup - which is almost exclusively focused on stemming immigration and on drug enforcement - continues. The US Border Patrol is one of the few US agencies that is rushing ahead with vast new spending programs, including a $1.5 billion revived virtual fence project and a new half-billion project to more than double its drone fleet. Pressed by politicians and border security hawks to demonstrate how it intends to "secure the border," the Border Patrol recently released its 2012-2016 Strategic Plan for border security. The document, only the third such plan in the agency's history, stresses that border security operations will be "risk-based, intelligence-driven." In its new strategy, the Border Patrol appears to be out of step with political and social trends in the homeland, where society and the political community are adopting less one-dimensional, less restrictive and less fearbased policies regarding immigrants and marijuana - the two main targets of the agency's border security programs. Rather than signaling a new commitment to more cost-effective and strategic operational directions, the new strategy statement serves to highlight the agency's stunning lack of strategic direction.
4. Increased funding doesnt solve border security empirics prove

Desautels 13 (Bruce, Deputy Director J3/7, Operations, Readiness and Exercises at Defense Threat
Reduction Agency, http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1985638.html, july 18 2013)
The Senate version of the bill is unlikely to get very far in the House because of concerns about border security along with other potential problems. This does not mean the House will not act. We intend to take a piece-by-piece approach to immigration reform based on freedom, opportunity, and the rule of law. There is no question our
immigration system is broken. Under our current structure, legally immigrating to the U.S. is a burdensome, complex, expensive, and bureaucratic process. We are a nation of immigrants, we should welcome those who want to
contribute to our economy and society and obey our laws. The current policies force many to hire a lawyer, pay thousands of dollars, and wait years for the chance to provide a better life for their families. By
improving our immigration system, more workers will have the opportunity to legally pursue the American dream. Immigrants would pay taxes and become more integrated in our communities rather than live in the shadows. We also would better know who is in our country, which will help improve our national
security. This solution also would allow us to better focus our resources on stopping drug traffickers, human smugglers, terrorists, and other criminals from illegally entering the country. Despite
repeatedly increasing funding for border
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security, the Border Patrol is still unable to adequately do its job because it is overwhelmed
apprehending migrants who are seeking work and opportunity in our country.
5. No Solvency CBPs ineffective - personnel
Aguilar 13 (Julian, a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Texas and a master's degree in
journalism from the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas, http://www.texastribune.org/2013/07/03/chc-we-do-not-endorse-border-surge-amendment/, july 3 2013)
After the sudden resignation of one of its members, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Wednesday reiterated that it has not endorsed a controversial provision of the U.S. Senatebacked immigration bill that calls for more fencing and boots on the border. U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela,
D-Brownsville, tendered his resignation from the caucus on Tuesday in response to what he said was the groups support for S. 744, the upper chambers comprehensive immigration reform bill. The measure passed last week after the Senate adopted
the Corker-Hoeven amendment, by Republican Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee, which calls for 700 miles of fencing on the Southwest border and an additional 20,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents before the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country can obtain legal and permanent residency status. Also known as obtaining a green card,
permanent residency is an essential step for immigrants seeking naturalized citizenship.
6. [if applicable] Conditionality is bad

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AT: Environment CP
1. Perm do both. 2. Perm do the CP its just plan plus. The plan doesnt specify any environmental regulations, however NADBank contains several funds used exclusively for environmental projects. 3. Long timeframe to solvency environmental consultations are notoriously slow. 4. [if applicable] Conditionality is bad
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AT: Mexico CP
1. Perm do both. This ensures double solvency and shields the link to the net benefit. Heres contextual evidence that cooperation is key.
Walser and Zuckerman 13 [Ray, PhD, Senior Policy Analyst, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for
Foreign Policy Studies, and Jessica, Policy Analyst, Western Hemisphere, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, U.S.Mexico Border: Tighter Border Security Requires Mexicos Cooperation, Feb 20, 2013, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/us-mexico-border-tighter-bordersecurity-requires-mexico-s-cooperation]
Foster U.S.Mexico bilateral border security and immigration accords. The U.S. should explore with Mexico specific agreements, protocols, and parallel laws that draw the two governments closer together in order to regularize and expedite legal movements of people and goods while increasing cross-border disincentives and obstacles to illegal activities, especially illegal migration.
And, perm solves best - it fosters necessary cooperation

ONeil 13 *Shannon K. O'Neil, Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies, Mexico Makes It A Transformed Society, Economy, and Government Foreign Affairs, March/April 2013+ Nevertheless, the United States and Mexico urgently need to invest in border infrastructure, standardize their customs forms, and work to better facilitate legal trade between them.
Furthermore, getting Americans to recognize the benefits of cross-border production will be an uphill battle, but it is one worth fighting in order to boost the United States' exports, jobs, and overall economic growth.
2. Perm do the CP Mexico and the US match funding thats how NADBank works means the CPis not meaningfully different than the affirmative. 3. No solvency US action key to solve our relations advantage 4. [if applicable] Conditionality is bad
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AT: Privates CP
1. Perm do both 2. Perm do the CP - Cross-apply Negroponte 12 - NADBANK solves via privatepublic partnerships proves the CP is normal means 3. Federal government is key NADBank is a government bank, established under NAFTA at the federal level 4. Only the federal government can effective work with the Mexican government to solve 5. [if applicable] Conditionality is bad
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AT: States/Local Communities CP

1. Perm solves - combination of federal, state, and community action is key
Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson
As the economies, cultures, and destinies of both nations become increasingly intertwined, both federal governments, the border states and communities will have to find new, creative and robust ways to increase public safety in the U.S.-Mexico border region. The U.S. and Mexico have only recently begun to make real progress on a bi-national security regime that is sustainable and built to last. Lasting progress in U.S.-Mexico border security can only come from increased bilateral collaboration and independent domestic progress on key issues affecting security in the United States and Mexico. While it is important to continue strong federal coordination, encouraging local collaboration can also yield significant and important dividends in fighting crime affecting cross-border cities. 159
2. States fail the nation as a whole is key to solve Texas proves Cox 1 (Wendell, Public Policy Analyst, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Study Says Border Transportation Crisis In Texas Largely Ignored by Feds http://www.texaspolicy.com/press/study-says-border-transportation-crisis-texaslargely-ignored-feds)
San Antonio - A
study released by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) shows Texas has received a disproportionately small amount of federal funding for border infrastructure needs while NAFTA fueled traffic congestion and air pollution has skyrocketed along Texas border cities. In relation to traffic volume, Texas has received 1/34th what New Mexico has received for border infrastructure improvements. Additionally, Texas has spent much more of its own money on border infrastructure than other states. The study entitled, The Road Ahead: Innovations for Better Transportation in Texas (available at http://www.texaspolicy.com) points to under-staffing by federal agencies on border crossings, lack of automation, redundant inspection practices and poor cooperation with border authorities in Mexico. According to these findings, the current rate of border transportation infrastructure development will not meet the needs of future trade expansion and population growth. According to study co-author Wendell Cox, "expecting border states or communities to finance border infrastructure is akin to requiring border states to finance the border patrol and immigration service, or making Alaska finance defense activities within the state during the Cold War. The incremental costs of border activities should be paid for by the nation as a whole."
3. Perm do the CP no functional difference between the plan and the CP NADBank funds are administered by the states. 4. Doesnt solve federal action is key to the relations advantage. The impact is [insert analysis]. 5. [if applicable] Conditionality is bad
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AT: States/Local Communities CP Perm Solves 1AR Ext.

Extend Selee and Wilson 12 the perm solves - combination of federal, state, and community action is key
And, the combination of state, local, and federal action key to solve
Selee and Wilson 12 (Andrew, Vice President for Programs and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center,
Christopher, associate with the Mexico Institute, A New Agenda with Mexico, Wilson Center, November 2012, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/a_new_agenda_with_mexico.pdf)
As the two nations become more intertwined economically and people-to-people ties become more intense, the federal governments, the border states and communities will have to find new, creative and robust ways to increase public safety in the U.S.-Mexico border region. This will require both greater capacity at the state and local level as well as greater creativity, a more realistic, longer timeframe for policy implementation and leadership at the federal level.
Although both countries have recently achieved new levels of collaborationcodified into official policy with the remarkable May 19, 2010 Joint Declaration on Twenty First Century Border Management by President Barack Obama and President Felipe Caldern the U.S. and Mexico have only recently begun to make real progress on a binational security regime that would be built to last.
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AT: World Bank CP

1. Multi-actor fiat is abusive. Their CP fiats that representatives from the US, Canada, and Mexico ask the World Bank for help in financing a large-scale border infrastructure project. This is unfair and a voter for the following:
A. Its Infinitely Regressive. They could fiat more actors, up to all the governments and agencies in the world, for abusive social change. There could also be infinite combinations of actors. Leads to unfair, unpredictable ground distribution and an impossible research burden. B. Theres far less comparative lit between three or more actors than between the plans agent and one counterplan agent. This type of lit is key to depth of clash and aff answer ground. C. Real-world education. Multiple actors simultaneously deciding to cooperate is unlikely. The counterplan provides inapplicable and unrealistic education, is entirely unpredictable, and has no literature which is unfair. D. Not reciprocal. Were limited to the USFG. Their use of multiple actors is unpredictable because it does not mirror the aff.
2. Doesnt solve relations US action is key. 3. CP Fails U.S. doesnt have sufficient leverage.
Ascher 92 [William, Karen A. Claremont McKenna College, Government and Economics Professor. "The
United States and Multilateral Institutions: Patterns of Changing Instrumentality and Influence", edited by Karen A. Mingst, p. 86, 1992]
The World Banks Devices in Pursuit of Autonomy From
the beginning the leadership of the World Bank has frequently expressed its desire for autonomy from the United States. For example, its first president, John J. McCoy, insisted that executive directors desist from interfering with daily Bank operations. The leaders anticipated that autonomy from the United States might make it easier to get the Banks recommendations accepted by other national governments. Even if the World Bank were a U.S. government agency, organizational theorists would predict that the Bank would seek some degree of autonomy (Ascher 1983). There is more prestige in being international civil servants. And Bank leadership and staff, many of whom were not Americans, had little desire to be subservient to the U nited States. It should not be surprising, then, that the Banks leadership and staff have developed countermeasures to the U.S. governments own devices of control. The Banks devices include perfectionism in its projects, a
rigorous apoliticism, and a high volume of lending.
4. Links to Politics - Going through Bank ensures Congress gets dragged in.
Woods 3 *Ngaire Woods, "The united states and international organizations. Oxford University Press
2003]
although the United States enjoys significant influence in both the IMF and the World Bank, this does not mean that the US Executive agencies control the mandate. The political pressures emanating from the United States do not all
Finally,
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converge . . . The result is that US influence is almost always effective in securing a hearing and some action within the IMF and the World Bank, but it does not always reflect a coherent set of interests. (Woods 2003: 21, online version). 5. [if applicable] Conditionality is bad
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Disad Blocks
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AT: Credit Rating DA

NADBank received an AA credit rating James Aldridge 13 (Aldridge, Web Editor of San Antonio Business Journal and a reporter,
North American Development Bank earns AA rating from Fitch, San Antonio Business Journal, May 3, 2013, http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/blog/morning-edition/2013/05/northamerican-development-bank-earns.html) Fitch Ratings has assigned a AA credit rating to the North American Development Bank (NADB) in San Antonio. Credit analysts cited the banks strong financial profile at the end of 2013, specifically its high equity-to-asset ratio, which is among the highest of multilateral development banks. Fitch also highlighted NADBs low-leverage ratio and strong support from the U.S. and Mexican governments in its ratings report. The U.S. and Mexican governments chartered NADB in 1994 for the purpose of financing environmental infrastructure projects along the U.S.-Mexico border region. NADB has a total capitalization of $2.7 billion, of which $405 million is paid-in capital and the balance is callable capital from the U.S. and Mexican governments. As of March 31, NADB had $1.96 billion in loans and grants under contract. These projects have a total cost of $5.2 billion and will benefit some 17.2 million border residents once fully constructed. Some of the projects NADB is financing include streets; drainage; solar; and water and wastewater systems.
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AT: Dip Cap DA

1. Engagement with Mexico now were funding the NADBank at a lower capacity, tons of cooperation over the military, drug war, education, etc. 2. Multiple more important issues thump a. Egypt Landler, 13 -- NY Times White House correspondent
[Mark, and Jodi Rudoren, Jerusalem bureau chief of NYT, "Chaos in Middle East Grows as the U.S. Focuses on Israel," NY Times, 7-1-13, www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/middleeast/mideast-chaos-grows-as-us-focuses-onisrael.html?hp&_r=0, accessed 7-18-13, mss] Mr. Kerry has made it clear that he will not give up his peacemaking quest. But analysts said that the gravity of the crisis in Egypt would force him and other senior officials to shift their attention to Cairo, where American policy, some say, has failed to keep up with events.
b. Snowden, ASEAN talks Tandon 13 (Shaun, Reporter for Fox News, July 01, 2013, Fox News.com)
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/01/kerry-joins-asia-talks-with-focus-on-securitysnowden/
US Secretary of State John
Kerry flew from tough Middle East peace talks into international meetings in Asia on Monday devoted to a full plate of sensitive issues including North Korea's nuclear programme and fugitive leaker Edward Snowden. Kerry landed in Brunei to join foreign ministers from China, Japan, Russia, the European Union and across the Asia-Pacific for an annual security forum in which the focus has so far largely been on Chinese
territorial claims. One of Kerry's most closely watched meetings will take place Tuesday, when he holds one-on-one talks with
Washington is angry that Snowden, the former government contractor who is flew into Moscow from Hong Kong as he seeks asylum, possibly in Ecuador. Russia has refused to hand Snowden over. Moscow also is a key supporter of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Kerry has been working
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
wanted by the United States after divulging details of widespread surveillance on communications,
with Gulf Arab states to step up assistance to the opposition. Kerry also is expected to meet Monday with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton following a report by German weekly Der Spiegel that Washington targeted EU offices in the spying programme revealed by Snowden. En route to the small petro-sultanate of Brunei, this year's host of the annual diplomatic scrum, Kerry spoke again to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on reviving peace talks, a US official said. Kerry had delayed his departure for the Asian meetings by a day as he shuttled between Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, hoping to restart talks after a nearly three-year hiatus. Away from Kerry's sideline encounters, the official meetings in Brunei are likely to

During kick-off talks on Sunday among the 10member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Philippines accused China of a "massive" military buildup in the disputed South China Sea, which it said threatened peace.
revolve in large part around regional concerns over China's rise.
China, which claims virtually all of the strategic waterway, has been at odds with rival claimants, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, leading to tense confrontations at sea and allegations of Chinese bullying. "The
Philippines views with serious concern the militarisation of the South China Sea," Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario told his ASEAN counterparts. "The overwhelming presence of Chinese ships, including military and paramilitary ships, and the issuance of threats pose serious challenges for the region as a whole." Temperatures have also risen in the East China Sea amid rival claims by Beijing and Tokyo to remote, uninhabited islands. North Korea's nuclear programme has been one of the top global security concerns this year after Pyongyang carried out its third underground atomic test in February, while launching a series of dire warnings of war. All foreign ministers from the long-running but currently stalled six-nation talks
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aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programme are in Brunei. North Korea was expected to be a top focus for Kerry in talks with his counterparts from Japan, South Korea, China and
Russia -- other members of the six-nation diplomatic effort. But a direct meeting between Kerry and North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-Chun was not expected. Kerry was scheduled on Monday to meet with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts , as well as with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The Snowden affair has also put stress on US relations with Beijing, which Washington accuses of letting the American slip out of Hong Kong en route to Moscow. And Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida was set to hold direct talks with South Korea's Yun Byung-Se on Monday for the first time since each country voted in new governments. The ASEAN Regional Forum will wrap up the Brunei talks on Tuesday, gathering foreign ministers from 26 countries and the European Union.

3. No internal link - Diplomatic capital is not being invested in the peace process now The Japan Times 13 (4-3-13, Symbols, substance in the Mideast Editorial)
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/04/03/editorials/symbols-substance-in-themideast/#.UcswTPmsiSo In truth, Mr. Obamas commitment to the defense of Israel has not wavered. His overtures to the Islamic world reflected a desire to undo the damage done by the Bush administrations global war on terror. He kept a distance from the Middle East peace process although he created a special envoy to the negotiations because neither Israelis nor Palestinians were ready to take hard steps needed for a durable peace. Cognizant that the region has long been a graveyard of U.S. diplomats dreams, Mr. Obama decided to preserve his diplomatic capital until circumstances indicated that there was a real chance of success. That moment is not yet here.
But dynamics in the region, along with his re-election, demanded that he refocus on the Middle East, and a visit was overdue. The trip had several objectives. Mr. Obama had to win the confidence of the Israeli people, and assure them and others of the strength of their relationship with the U.S. At the same time, he had to make the case for the Palestinians without suggesting that there is a zero-sum relationship between the two.
4. Peace process fails AND isnt key- other events driving Mid-east politics Landler, 13 -- NY Times White House correspondent
[Mark, and Jodi Rudoren, Jerusalem bureau chief of NYT, "Chaos in Middle East Grows as the U.S. Focuses on Israel," NY Times, 7-1-13, www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/middleeast/mideast-chaos-grows-as-us-focuses-onisrael.html?hp&_r=0, accessed 7-18-13, mss] In Damascus, the Syrian governments forces are digging in against rebels in a bloody civil war that is swiftly approaching the grim milestone of 100,000 dead. In Cairo, an angry tide of protesters again threatens an Egyptian president. At the same time, in tranquil Tel Aviv, Secretary of State John Kerry wrapped up a busy round of shuttle
diplomacy, laboring to revive a three-decade-old attempt at peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. He insisted on Sunday that he had made real progress. The new secretary of states exertions reminiscent of predecessors like Henry A. Kissinger and James A. Baker III have been met with the usual mix of hope and skepticism. But with
so much of the Middle East still convulsing from the effects of the Arab Spring, Mr. Kerrys efforts raise questions about the Obama administrations priorities at a time of renewed regional unrest. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, once a stark symbol and source of grievance in the Arab world, is now almost a sideshow in a Middle East consumed by sectarian strife, economic misery and, in Egypt, a democratically elected leader fighting for legitimacy with many of his people. The moment for this kind of diplomacy has passed , said Robert Blecher, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program of the International Crisis Group. Hes working with actors who have acted in this movie before, and the script is built around the same elements. But the theater is new; the region is a completely different place today. Administration officials no
longer argue, as they did early in President Obamas first term, that ending the Israeli occupation and creating a Palestinian state is the key to improving the standing of the United States in the Middle East. The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now
just one headache among a multitude.
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5. No impact Mid-East war especially unlikely Fettweis 7

(Christopher Fettweis, Asst Prof Poli Sci Tulane, Asst Prof National Security Affairs US Naval War College, On the Consequences of Failure in Iraq, Survival, Vol. 49, Iss. 4, December, p. 83 98) Without the US presence, a second argument goes, nothing would prevent Sunni-Shia violence from sweeping into every country where the religious divide exists. A
Sunni bloc with centres in Riyadh and Cairo might face a Shia bloc headquartered in Tehran, both of which would face enormous pressure from their own people to fight proxy wars across the region. In addition to intra-Muslim civil war, cross-border warfare could not be ruled out. Jordan might be the first to send troops into Iraq to secure its own border; once the dam breaks, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia might follow suit. The Middle East has no shortage of rivalries, any of which might descend into direct conflict after a destabilising US
withdrawal. In the worst case, Iran might emerge as the regional hegemon, able to bully and blackmail its neighbours with its new nuclear arsenal. Saudi Arabia and Egypt would soon demand suitable deterrents of their own, and a
nuclear arms race would envelop the region. Once again, however, none of these outcomes is particularly likely. Wider war No matter what the outcome in Iraq, the region is not likely to devolve into chaos. Although it might seem counter-intuitive, by most traditional measures the Middle East is very stable. Continuous, uninterrupted governance is the norm, not the exception; most Middle East regimes have been in power for decades. Its monarchies, from Morocco to Jordan to every Gulf state, have generally been in power since these countries gained independence. In Egypt Hosni Mubarak has ruled for almost three decades, and Muammar Gadhafi in Libya for almost four. The region's autocrats have been more likely to die quiet, natural deaths than meet the hangman or post-coup firing squads. Saddam's rather unpredictable regime, which attacked its neighbours twice, was one of the few exceptions to this pattern of stability, and he met an end unusual for the modern Middle East. Its regimes have survived potentially destabilising shocks before, and they would be likely to do so again. The region actually experiences very little cross-border warfare, and
even less since the end of the Cold War. Saddam again provided an exception, as did the Israelis, with their adventures in Lebanon.
Israel fought four wars with neighbouring states in the first 25 years of its existence, but none in the 34 years since. Vicious civil wars that once engulfed Lebanon and Algeria have gone quiet, and its ethnic
conflicts do not make the region particularly unique. The biggest risk of an American withdrawal is intensified civil war in Iraq rather than regional conflagration. Iraq's neighbours
will likely not prove eager to fight each other to determine who gets to be the next country to spend itself into penury propping up an unpopular puppet regime next door. As much as the Saudis and Iranians may threaten to intervene on behalf of their co-religionists, they have shown no eagerness to replace the counter-insurgency role that American troops play today. If the United States, with its
remarkable military and unlimited resources, could not bring about its desired solutions in Iraq, why would any other country think it could do so?17 Common
interest, not the presence of the US military, provides the ultimate foundation for stability. All ruling regimes in the Middle East share a common (and understandable) fear of instability. It is the interest of every actor - the Iraqis, their neighbours and the rest of the world - to see a stable, functioning government emerge in Iraq. If the United States were to withdraw, increased regional cooperation to address that common interest is far more likely than outright warfare.
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AT: Politics CIR - Obama Bad

1. Immigration will pass negative arguments are just noise Salter 6/14 *Mark, former chief of staff (McCain), Amid Immigration Reform Cacophony,
Passage Looms, Real Clear Politics, 6/14/13, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/14/amid_immigration_reform_cacophony_p assage_looms_118816.html#ixzz2WR8FIYDP] Losing sight of the forest for the trees is a paradox of the 24/7 news cycle, which often pays equal attention to important and insignificant political developments, and important and insignificant players. The kind of granular and excited press scrutiny applied to the debate on immigration reform legislation, for example, where it seems almost anything uttered on the subject by almost anyone can get a quick headline in Politico, makes it harder to judge the bills prospects. Who whispered what to whom in the cloakroom or
which senators offhand comment as he stepped into an elevator signaled progress, or which senators peevishness in a caucus meeting pointed to trouble for the bill arent likely to tell us anything other than the obvious. One
hundred members of the Senate are presently engaged in debating a sweeping and complex measure on an issue of considerable political importance to both parties. They have different views on the subject and various motives for their actions, and they will all have something to say about it before the debate is over. But, as with any institution, some of its members will have a greater say over the ultimate fate of the legislation than will others. So, who matters and who doesnt? Well, for starters, you can put most members of both parties in the they dont really matter very much category. Thats a bit of an exaggeration and not entirely fair. They all have a vote, and anyone who votes in the majority will
have played a small but limited role in the bills success or failure. So, lets refine the category to those members of Congress whose minds on the subject are firmly made up, who wont change their position no matter how much the bill is amended during the debate, but who wont take a leadership position in efforts to support or defeat it. At it happens, that category includes most members in both parties. Theyll
make statements during the debate to explain their position and try to inoculate themselves from whatever political risks theyre taking, if any. Supporters will insist they dont back amnesty and opponents will insist they arent anti-immigrant. (For the purposes of this debate, that mostly translates into saying they arent anti-Hispanic; some of their best friends are Hispanic, and, in a couple of cases, even their parents.) But you could write the platitudes for them and what they say and do wont affect the bills prospects one way or another. Ted Cruz belongs in this category . He wont support the bill no matter how it is amended. And he wont play much of a role in convincing others to oppose it because those members who value his opinion on the matter have already made their minds up to oppose it as well. Given the amount of
press attention hes received since arriving in the Senate, it seems obvious that Cruz sees this issue as he sees every other major issue -- as an opportunity to preen about how hes standing up for his principles against the sell -out Republican squishes in Washington. Never mind that his principles arent always as inviolate as he likes to make them out to be, and they rarely include the principle of dischargin g the responsibility to govern that he asked the voters of Texas to grant him. The only thing that seems to matter to Mr. Cruz Goes to Washington is what his country can do for him. Rand Paul might matter -- if he is, as he insists is the case, genuinely interested in shaping a comprehensive bill he can support. He could influence other libertarian-leaning Republicans. But hes not serious if he continues to demand an amendment that effectively sunsets the bill pending a future Congress judgment about whether the border security provisions worked as advertised. Future Congresses arent bound by the actions of past Congresses. If five or 10 years from now Congress decides the bill didnt achieve its objectives, it can pass new legisl ation. But it ought to do it by regular order, facing the same difficulties and political risks this Congress faces as it tries to pass this one. The
Gang of Eight matters. Any member whos working to address the concerns of colleagues who are persuadable for or against the bill matters. Persuadable members matter. Who else matters? John Boehner, who recently suggested to ABCs George Stephanopoulos that he will allow the House to vote on immigration reform even if a majority of Republican members havent agreed support it. If the House speaker means that, its probably the only real news on the immigration debate this week. Because -- and heres a fact that really matters -- majorities in both chambers already support comprehensive immigration reform, and it will probably have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. To the feigned horror of Ted Cruz, the leadership of both parties
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wants it to pass (although some Republican leaders arent always eager to publicly admit it). The GOPs most recent vice presidential nominee wants it to pass, as do most Republican leaders who care about the GOPs future as a national party. Which means, no matter how many Perils of Pauline stories you read in the press, immigration reform is probably going to be enacted. And thats the forest lurking behind the trees of Washingtons indiscriminate hyperbole.
2. Yes passage Graham claims GOP support Wasson 6/16

*Eric, political staff writer, Graham predicts 'breakthrough' passage of immigration bill with over '70 votes' The Hill, 6/16/13, http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/305827graham-predicts-breakthrough-passage-of-immigration-bill-with-over-70-votes#ixzz2WR4g4fib] Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday predicted overwhelming congressional passage of an immigration reform bill. I think we are going to have a political breakthrough, that Congress is going to pass immigration reform, Graham said on NBC's Meet the Press. He said the Senate will give the reform bill which currently has a path to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants overwhelming support . I think we are going to get plus 70 votes , he said. I've never been more optimistic about it. Graham said passing the bill is a political necessity for the GOP. If we don't pass immigration reform, if we don't get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn't matter who we run in 2016, he said. We're in a demographic death spiral as a party. The only way we can get back in the
good graces of the Hispanic community, in my view is pass comprehensive immigration reform.
3. Infrastructure spending drains capital - escalates fights with GOP Tomasky 11 (Newsweek/Daily Beast special correspondent Michael Tomasky is also editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas
Newsweek September 19, 2011 lexis)
Finally, Barack Obama found the passion. "Building a world-class transportation system is part of what made us an economic superpower," he thundered in his jobs speech on the evening of Sept. 8. "And now we're going to sit back and watch China build newer airports and faster railroads? At a time when millions of unemployed construction workers could build them right here in America?" Obama's urgency was rightly about jobs first and foremost. But he wasn't talking only about jobs when he mentioned investing in America--he was talking about our competitiveness, and our edge in the world. And it's a point he must keep pressing. In a quickly reordering global world, infrastructure and
are key measures of a society's seriousness about its competitive drive. And we're just not serious. The most recent infrastructure report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the United States a D overall, including
innovation bleak marks in 15 categories ranging from roads (D-minus) to schools and transit (both D's) to bridges (C). The society calls for $2.2 trillion in infrastructure investments over the next five years. On the innovation front, the country that's home to Google and the iPhone still ranks fourth worldwide in overall innovation, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank on such questions, which conducts a biannual ranking. But we might not be there for long. In terms of keeping pace with other nations' innovation investments--"progress over the last decade," as ITIF labels it--we rank 43rd out of 44 countries. What's the problem? It isn't know-how; this is still America. It isn't identifying the needs; they've been identified to death. Nor is it even really money. There are billions sitting around in pension funds, equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, just waiting to be spent. The problem--of course--is politics. The
idea that the two parties could get together and develop bold bipartisan plans for massive investments in our freight-rail system--on which the
pro-business multiplier effects would be obvious--or in expanding and speeding up broadband (it's eight times faster in South Korea than here, by the way)
is a joke . Says New York University's Michael Likosky: "We're the only country in the world that is imposing austerity on itself. No one is mindset developed in the 1990s, that era in which the besotting buzzwords
asking us to do it." There are some historical reasons why. Sherle Schwenninger, an infrastructure expert at the New America Foundation, a leading Washington think tank, says that a kind of anti-bigness were "Silicon Valley" and "West Coast venture capital." Wall Street began moving away from grand projects . "In that '90s paradigm, the New Economy-Silicon Valley approach to things eschewed the public and private sectors' working together to do big things," Schwenninger says. "That model worked for software, social media, and some biotech. But the needs are different today." That's true, but so is the simple point that the
Republican Party in Washington will oppose virtually all public investment. The
party believes in something like Friedrich von Hayek's "spontaneous order"--that is, get government off people's backs and they (and the markets they create) will spontaneously address any and all problems. But looking around America today, can anyone seriously
conclude that this is working?
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4. GOP Key numbers and signal Dann 6/12 *Carrie, syndicated political writer, Senate Votes to Begin Historic Immigration
Reform Debate, NBC First Read, 6/12/13, http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/11/18902366-senate-votes-to-begin-historicimmigration-reform-debate?lite]
A final vote on the legislation is not expected until before the chambers July 4 recess. Obama said Tuesday that he wants the bill to his desk by the end of the summer. President Barack Obama delivers remarks Tuesday at the White House regarding proposed immigration reform legislation. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, an outspoken opponent of the bill, acknowledged
after the vote that the bill likely has sufficient support in the upper chamber but warned that -without changes -- it wont survive to a White House signing ceremony. This bill is going to pass the Senate, but as written, this bill will not pass the House , Cruz said. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Gang of Eight member and key GOP backer of the legislation, told reporters earlier Tuesday he believes the bill will pass out of the Senate but that it will need substantial Republican momentum to beat back opponents in the GOP-led House. If we get just a handful of Republicans I think it probably dies in the House, so I think its imperative we get close to half our conference for a final vote, he said.
5. NADBank would cost a lot of political capital empirics prove Leising 7 [Matt - reporter at Bloomberg News - http://journalism.berkeley.edu/ - EL PASO: NADBANK http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/border/elpasonadbank.html - KB]
That bank is the North American Development Bank (NADBank). Along with its sister institution, the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC), headquartered in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, NADBank was
created under intense political pressure and maneuvering in 1993 when the Clinton Administration was pushing through its plan for NAFTA. To muster enough votes to pass the treaty, which was originally negotiated under the Bush Administration, President Clinton had to not only convince Republicans to side with a president they clearly did not trust, but also had to persuade the historically pro-labor and environmenally conscious Democrats in Congress that the treaty wouldn't drain American manufacturing jobs and ruin the environment in the process . In the end, Clinton succeeded, even surpassing the number of votes needed by 34, when NAFTA - along with an environmental and labor side agreement - was passed on November 17, 1993 . To date, NADBank has loaned only $11.2 million , or not even three percent of its total, to finance water, wastewater and municipal solid waste projects along the
border. While the bank is considered by many of its creators and critics alike as a groundbreaking and important institution because of its joint US/Mexican structure, its focus on sustainable development and its dedication to a 2,000-mile-long international border,
there are many problems - chief among them the way its interest rates are structured - that have rendered it functionally incapable of loaning money to help communities like Anapra. Despite its problems, bank
officials say that NADBank is doing a good job in the face of huge economic and cultural obstacles along the border. Recent actions by the bank's board of directors to revise how some of its interest rates are managed and to expand into funding other environmental needs besides water, waste water and solid waste have many people along the border hopeful that more loans will be allocated. Yet with
mounting problems and a population that is expected to double within 25 years, hope might not be enough for those currently without water and sewage. At the heart of the fight to put environmental teeth into a controversial trade agreement
was a former Congressman from California named Esteban Torres. Torres, who represented the 34th Congressional district in Los Angeles, was a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in 1993 when President Clinton went on a massive bi-partisan campaign to secure votes for NAFTA . Torres, who came out of the labor movement as an international representative for the United Auto Workers, says he was "vociferously opposed to NAFTA" based on concerns that the trade agreement would send thousands of American manufacturing jobs to Mexico's low-wage market. Yet at the same time, Torres said, Latino politicians began to see NAFTA as a way to address the economic disparity between the US and Mexico. They particularly
When Clinton came calling for votes, Torres realized he was in a position to get official backing behind an idea that had been circulating for five years: a development bank that would be dedicated to erasing the economic inequality between the two nations. "The only way I was able to push that through was to get the Clinton Administration to agree that they would take this North American Development Bank concept as a part of the
wanted to help the border region, which had suffered through decades of environmental, social and economic neglect.
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negotiation," Torres said. Clinton agreed to the idea, and incorporated NADBank into the environmental side-agreement to NAFTA. "They saw it as a trade-off for my vote," Torres recalled. In a political portent of things to come, the commitment of $225 million of US taxpayer money for a single Congressman's vote on NAFTA drew a lot of criticism. In what the Washington Post called the Clinton Administration's "orgy of deal-making" surrounding the not-very-subtle vote buying to pass the treaty, Torres' NADBank deal was singled out in editorials and news items across the country . Soon, cries of "nada bank" would surface as the bank got to a slow start and disappointed many in the region that saw the institution as a panacea - or simply as a way to bring potable water and infrastructure
to places in need . The original idea for NADBank was to have it cover the entire North American continent and fund broad economic programs to help equal the income gap between Mexican workers and their American and Canadian counterparts. But during the NAFTA negotiations, NADBank and BECC were scaled down to deal solely with the border region, funding only environmental projects involving water, waste water or solid waste management . The bank was financed jointly by the US and Mexico, with up to $450 million promised and another $2.55 billion available if and when the $450 million was committed to projects . In a two-tiered structure, BECC serves to certify projects seeking NADBank assistance - it is the screening room and the front door through which any project wanting to deal with NADBank must come. BECC provides technical assistance and design implementation to poor communities to ensure that projects are environmentally sustainable and financially viable. As well, any community seeking BECC approval must be able to absorb the cost of maintenance and operation of its project . Yet
the vagaries of the institutional process were well beyond the thinking of the Clinton Administration in 1993, which was interested in using BECC and NADBank to get the crucial support of Latino politicians and environmentalists in order to pass NAFTA. This political move, many critics say, shows that the administration was never serious about helping the border and also doomed the bank's effectiveness from the start. "[President Clinton] really didn't care about Mexico," said Raul Hinojosa, a
Clinton advisor on NAFTA during the 1992 presidential campaign and the first person to develop and propose the idea of a North American Development Bank in 1988. Hinojosa says that while Clinton understood the policy behind NAFTA and its environmental and labor side agreements, and supported it, to get it past both Democrats and Republicans he had to present a very stripped down version of the environmental parts of the trade bill.
6. [insert impact defense]
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AT: Politics CIR - Obama Good

1. Not unique Border security, citizenship and Obama strategy PC cant trump Barrett 6/12
[Ted, CNN Senior Congressional producer, Senate Immigration Bill Clears First Hurdle; Debate Begins, CNN, 6/12/13, http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/11/politics/immigrationsenate/index.html] I think it's going to pass the U.S. Senate with a substantial margin," Cruz said. But "absent major revisions ... this bill will crash and burn in the House. And it is designed to do so ." Polls show many Americans favor some
form of immigration policy overhaul, depending on the details of legislation. The bipartisan proposal before Senate was hammered out this spring by the so-called "Gang of Eight" senators -- four Democrats and four Republicans. Some congressional
conservatives call opposing the "Gang of Eight" plan a matter of principle and say they won't bend. Many consider any measure offering a path to citizenship tantamount to amnesty for those who entered the country illegally. In addition, concerns about whether the bill will tighten security along the nation's porous borders, as asserted by backers of the plan, may make it difficult for conservatives to support it -- especially those up for re-election next year. "The bill grants permanent legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants, as currently written, without really any guarantee of securing the border. Now, how would that possibly be a good idea?" asked Sen. John Cornyn of
Texas, the chamber's No. 2 Republican, who voted Tuesday for opening debate. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" who is considered a possible GOP presidential contender in 2016, argued that doing nothing amounts to what he called a "de facto amnesty" for immigrants currently living illegally in America. House working on its own plan At the same time, Rubio
-- a popular conservative of Hispanic descent -- has made it clear that border security requirements must be toughened if he and other GOP skeptics will support it.
2. No link - Border infrastructure projects dont cost pol cap

Anderson 10 (Greg, Department of Political Science, University of Alberta, and Alberta Institute for American Studies, University of Alberta http://www.esteyjournal.com/j_html/viewer.php?FILE=anderson111&ABSTRACT=NO&ARCHIVE=NO ) Infrastructure can be built, information shared, and borders managed out of existing funding; such an approach need not generate disputes since local needs will be met; and it will not require scarce political capital for a large legislative initiative. Progress could be made on a range of pressing issues without requiring significant political capital expenditures on a major new integration project in the midst of an unusually full U.S. agenda.
3. Plan popular policymakers support NADBank expansion Clare Ribando Seelke 13 (Clare Ribando Seelke, Specialist in Latin American Affairs, Mexico
institutions have operated to encourage cooperation on trade, environmental and labor issues, and to consider nongovernmental petitions under the labor and environmental side agreements. Following up on a March 2002 agreement by

Presidents Bush and Fox in Monterrey, Mexico, to broaden the mandate of the NADBank, Congress
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agreed in March 2004 to permit the NADBank to make grants and nonmarket rate loans for environmental infrastructure along the border. In the fall of 2011, the NADBanks mandate was broadened to include projects aimed at developing clean energy. Some U.S. and Mexican policymakers have supported broadening the functions of NADBank further to include other types of infrastructure development; this would likely require approval by both Congresses
4. Link is not unique recent spending in the status quo should have triggered the link 5. Political capital doesnt exist and isnt key to their DA- more likely winners win Hirsch 13 [Michael, chief correspondent for National Journal. He also contributes to 2012 Decoded. Hirsh
previously served as the senior editor and national economics correspondent for Newsweek, based in its Washington bureau. He was also Newsweeks Washington web editor and authored a weekly column for Newsweek.com, The World from Washington. Earlier on, he was Newsweeks foreign editor, guiding its award-winning coverage of the September 11 attacks and the war on terror. He has done on-the-ground reporting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places around the world, and served as the Tokyo-based Asia Bureau Chief for Institutional Investor from 1992 to 1994. 2-7-2013, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207]
On Tuesday, in his State of the Union address, President Obama will do what every president does this time of year. For about 60 minutes, he will lay out a sprawling and ambitious wish list highlighted by gun control and immigration reform, climate change and debt reduction. In response, the pundits
will do what they always do this time of year: They will talk about much political capital Obama possesses to push his program through. Most of this talk will have no
how unrealistic most of the proposals are, discussions often informed by sagacious reckonings of how
bearing on what actually happens over the next four years. Consider this: Three months ago, just before the November election, if someone had talked seriously about Obama having enough political capital to oversee passage of both immigration reform and gun-control legislation at the beginning of his second term even after winning the election by 4 percentage points and 5 million votes (the actual final tally)this person would have been called crazy and stripped of his pundits license. (It doesnt exist, but it ought to.) In his first term, in a
starkly polarized country, the president had been so frustrated by GOP resistance that he finally issued a limited executive order last August permitting immigrants who entered the country illegally as children to work without fear of deportation for at least two years. Obama
didnt dare to even bring up gun control, a Democratic third rail that has cost the party elections and that actually might have been even less popular on the right than the presidents health care law. And yet, for reasons that have very little to do with Obamas personal prestige or popularityvariously put in terms of a mandate or political capitalchances are fair that both will now happen. What changed? In the case of gun control, of course, it wasnt the election. It was the horror of the 20 first-graders who were slaughtered in Newtown, Conn., in mid-December. The sickening reality of little girls and boys riddled with bullets from a high-capacity
assault weapon seemed to precipitate a sudden tipping point in the national conscience. One thing changed after another. Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association marginalized himself with poorly chosen comments soon after the massacre. The pro-gun lobby, once a phalanx of opposition, began to fissure into reasonables and crazies. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot in the head two years ago and is still struggling to speak and walk, started a PAC with her husband to appeal to the moderate middle of gun owners. Then she gave riveting and poignant testimony to the Senate, challenging lawmakers: Be bold. As a result, momentum has appeared to build around some kind of a plan to curtai l sales of the most dangerous weapons and ammunition and the way people are permitted to buy them. Its impossible to say now wheth er such a bill will pass and, if it does, whether it will make anything more than cosmetic changes to gun laws. But one thing is clear: The political tectonics have shifted
Meanwhile, the Republican members of the Senates so-called Gang of Eight are pushing hard for a new spirit of compromise on immigration reform, a sharp change after
dramatically in very little time. Whole new possibilities exist now that didnt a f ew weeks ago.
an election year in which the GOP standard-bearer declared he would make life so miserable for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. that they would self-deport. But this turnaround has
very little to do with Obamas personal influencehis political mandate, as it were. It has almost entirely to do with just two numbers: 71 and 27. Thats 71 percent for Obama, 27 percent for Mitt Romney, the breakdown of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 presidential

election. Obama drove home his advantage by giving a speech on immigration reform on Jan. 29 at a Hispanic-dominated high school in Nevada, a swing state he won by a surprising 8 percentage points in November. But the movement
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on immigration has mainly come out of the Republican Partys recent introspection, and the realization
by its more thoughtful members, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, that without such a shift the party may be facing demographic death in a country where the 2010 census showed, for the first time, that white births have fallen into the minority. Its got nothing to do with Obamas political capital or, indeed, Obama at all. The point is not that political capital is a meaningless ter m. Often it is a synonym for mandate or momentum in the aftermath of a decisive electionand just about every politician ever elected has tried to claim more of a mandate than he actually has. Certainly, Obama can say that because he was elected and Romney wasnt, he has a better claim on the countrys mood and direction. Many pundits still defend political capital as a useful metaphor at least. Its an unquantifiable but meaningful concept, says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. You cant really look at a president and say hes got 37 ounces of political capital. But the fact is, its a
the idea of political capitalor mandates, or momentumis so poorly defined that presidents and pundits often get it wrong. Presidents usually over-estimate it, says George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. The best
concept that matters, if you have popularity and some momentum on your side. The real problem is that
kind of political capitalsome sense of an electoral mandate to do somethingis very rare. It almost never happens. In 1964, maybe. And to some degree in 1980. For that reason, political capital is a concept that misleads far more than it enlightens. It is distortionary. It conveys the idea that
we know more than we really do about the ever-elusive concept of political power, and it discounts the way unforeseen events can suddenly change everything . Instead, it suggests, erroneously, that a political figure has a concrete amount of political capital to invest, just as someone might
have real investment capitalthat a particular leader can bank his gains, and the size of his account determines what he can do at any given moment in history. Naturally, any president has practical and electoral limits. Does he have a majority in both chambers of Congress and a cohesive coalition behind him? Obama has neither at present. And unless a surge in the economy at the moment, still stuckor some other great victory gives him more momentum, it is inevitable that the closer Obama gets to the 2014 election, the less he will be able to get done. Going into the midterms, Republicans will increasingly avoid any concessions that make him (and the Democrats) stronger. But the abrupt emergence of the immigration and gun-control issues illustrates how suddenly shifts in mood can occur and how political interests can align in new ways just as suddenly. Indeed, the pseudo-concept of political capital masks a larger truth about Washington that is kindergarten simple: You just dont know what you can do until you
depending on Obamas handling of any particular issue, even in a polarized time, he could still deliver on a lot of his secondterm goals, depending on his skill and the breaks. Unforeseen catalysts can appear, like Newtown. Epiphanies can
try. Or as Ornstein himself once wrote years ago, Winning wins. In theory, and in practice,
dawn, such as when many Republican Party leaders suddenly woke up in panic to the huge disparity in the Hispanic vote. Some political scientists who study the elusive calculus of how to pass legislation and run successful presidencies say that political
capital is, at best, an empty concept, and that almost nothing in the academic literature successfully quantifies or even defines it. It can refer to a very abstract thing, like a presidents popularity, but
theres no mechanism there. That makes it kind of useless, says Richard Bensel, a government professor at Cornell University. Even Ornstein concedes that the calculus is far more complex than the term suggests.
Winning on one issue often
changes the calculation for the next issue; there is never any known amount of capital. The idea here is, if an issue comes up where the conventional wisdom is that president is not going to get what he wants, and he gets it, then each time that happens, it changes the calculus of the other actors Ornstein says. If they think hes going to win, they may change positions to get on the winning side. Its a bandwagon effect. ALL THE WAY WITH LBJ Sometimes, a clever practitioner of power can get more done just because hes aggressive and knows the
hallways of Congress well. Texas A&Ms Edwards is right to say that the outcome of the 1964 election, Lyndon Johnsons landsl ide victory over Barry Goldwater, was one of the few that conveyed a mandate. But one of the main reasons for that mandate (in addition to Goldwaters ineptitude as a candidate) was President Johnsons master ful use of power leading up to that election, and his ability to get far more done than anyone thought possible, given his limited political capital. In the newest volume in his exhaustive study of LBJ, The Passage of Power, historian Robert Caro recalls Johnson getting cautionary advice after he assumed the presidency from the assassinated John F. Kennedy in late 1963. Dont focus on a long-stalled civil-rights bill, advisers told him, because it might jeopardize Southern lawmakers support for a tax cut and appropriations bill s the president needed. One of the wise, practical people around the table *said that+ the presidency has only a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtnt to expend it on this, Caro writes. (Coinage, of course, was what political capital was called in those days.) Johnson replied, Well, what the hells the presidency for? Johnson didnt worry about coinage, and he got the Civil Rights Act enacted, along with much else: Medicare, a tax cut, antipoverty programs. He appeared to understand not just the ways of Congress but also the way to maximize the momentum he possessed in the lingering mood of national grief and determination by picking the right issues, as Caro records. Momentum is not a mysterious mistress, LBJ said. It is a controllable fact of political life. Johnson had the skill and w herewithal to realize that, at that moment of history, he could have unlimited coinage if he handled the politics right. He did. (At least until Vietnam, that is.) And then there are the presidents who get the politics, and the issues, wrong. It was the last president before Obama who was just starting a second term, George W. Bush, who really revived the claim of political capital, which he was very fond of wielding. Then Bush promptly demonstrated that he didnt fully understand the concept either. At his first news conference af ter his 2004 victory, a confident-sounding Bush declared, I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. Thats my style. The 43rd pres ident threw all of his political capital at an overriding passion: the partial privatization of Social Security. He mounted a full-bore public-relations campaign that included town-hall meetings across the country. Bush failed utterly, of course. But the problem was not that he didnt have enough political capital. Yes, he may have overestimated his standing. Bushs margin over John Kerry was thinhelped along by a bumbling Kerry campaign that was almost the mirror image of Romneys gaffe -filled failure this timebut that was not the real mistake. The problem was that whatever credibility or stature Bush thought he had earned as a newly reelected president did nothing to make Social Security privatization a better idea in most peoples eyes . Voters didnt trust the plan, and four years later, at the end of Bushs term, the stock -market collapse bore out the publics skepticism. Privatization just didnt have any momentum behind it, no matter who was pushing it or how much capital Bush spent to sell it. The mistake that Bush made with Social Security, says John Sides, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University and a well-followed political blogger, was that just because he won an election, he thought he had a green light. But there was no sense of any kind of public urgency on Social Security reform. Its like he went into the garage wher e various Republican policy ideas were hanging up and

more momentum on his side because of the Republican Partys concerns about the Latino vote and the shooting at Newtown.
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picked one. I dont think Obamas going to make that mistake. Bush decided he wanted to push a rock up a hill. He didnt und erstand how steep the hill was. I think Obama has
Obama may also get his way on the debt ceiling, not because of his reelection, Sides says, but because Republicans are beginning to doubt whether taking a hard line on fiscal policy is a good idea, as the party suffers
in the polls. THE REAL LIMITS ON POWER Presidents are limited in what they can do by time and attention span, of course, just as much as they are by electoral balances in the House and Senate. But this, too, has nothing to do with political capital. Another well-worn meme of recent years was that Obama used up too much political capital passing the health care law in his first term. But the real problem was that the plan was unpopular, the economy was bad, and the president didnt realize that the national mood (yes, again, the national mood) was at a tipping point against big-government intervention, with the tea-party revolt about to burst on the scene. For Americans in 2009 and 2010 haunted by too many rounds of layoffs, appalled by the Wall Street bailout, aghast at the amount of federal spending that never seemed to find its way into their pockets government-imposed health care coverage was simply an intervention too far. So was the idea of another economic stimulus. Cue the tea party and what ensued: two titanic fights over the debt ceiling. Obama, like Bush, had settled on pushing an issue that was out of sync with the countrys mood. Unlike Bush, Obama did ultimately get his idea passed. But the bigger political problem with health care reform was that it distracted the governments attention from other issues that people cared about more urgently, such as the need to jump-start the economy and financial reform. Various congressional staffers told me at the time that their bosses didnt really have the time to understand how the Wall Street lobby was riddling the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation with loopholes. Health care was sucking all the oxygen out of the room, the aides said. Weighing the imponderables of momentum, the often-mystical calculations about when the historic moment is ripe for an issue, will never be a science. It is mainly intuition, and its best practitioners have a long history in American politics. This is a tale tol d well in Steven Spielbergs hit movie Lincoln. Daniel Day-Lewiss Abraham Lincoln attempts a lot of behind-the-scenes vote-buying to win passage of the 13th Amendment, banning slavery, along with eloquent attempts to move peoples hearts and minds. He appears to be using the political capital of his reelection and the turning of the tide in the Civil War. But its clear that a surge of conscience, a sense of the changing times, has as much to do with the final vote as all the backroom horse-trading. The reason I think the idea of political capital is kind of distorting is that it implies you have chits you can give out to people. It really oversimplifies why you elect politicians, or why they can do what Lincoln did, says Tommy Bruce, a former political consultant in Washington. Consider, as another example, the storied political career of President Franklin Roosevelt. Because the mood was ripe for dramatic change in the depths of the Great Depression, FDR was able to push an astonishing array of New Deal programs through a largely compliant Congress, assuming what some described as near-dictatorial powers. But in his second term, full of confidence because of a landslide victory in 1936 that brought in unprecedented Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, Roosevelt overreached with his infamous Court-packing proposal. All of a sudden, the political capital that experts thought was limitless disappeared. FDRs plan to expand the Supreme Court by putting in his judicial allies abruptly created an unanticipated wall of opposition from newly reunited Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats. FDR thus inadvertently handed back to Congress, especially to the Senate, the power and influence he had seized in his first term. Sure, Roosevelt had loads of popularity and momentum in 1937. He seemed to have a bank vault full of political capital. But, once again, a president simply chose to take on the wrong issue at the wrong time; this time, instead of most of the political interests in the country aligning his way, they opposed him. Roosevelt didnt fully recover until World War II, despite two more election victories. In terms of Obamas second-term agenda, what all these shifting tides of momentum and political calculation mean is this: Anything goes. Obama has no more elections to win, and he needs to worry only about the
if he picks issues that the countrys mood will supportsuch as, perhaps, immigration reform and gun controlthere is no reason to think he cant win far more victories than any of the careful calculators of political capital now believe is possible, including battles over
support he will have in the House and Senate after 2014. But
tax reform and deficit reduction. Amid todays atmosphere of Republican self-doubt, a new, more mature Obama seems to be emerging, one who has his agenda clearly in mind and will ride the mood of the country more adroitly. If
he can get some early winsas he already has, apparently, on the fiscal cliff and the upper-income tax increasethat will create momentum, and one win may well lead to others. Winning wins . Obama himself learned some hard
lessons over the past four years about the falsity of the political-capital concept. Despite his decisive victory over John McCain in 2008, he fumbled the selling of his $787 billion stimulus plan by portraying himself naively as a post-partisan president who somehow had been given the electoral mandate to be all things to all people. So Obama tried to sell his stimulus as a long-term restructuring plan that would lay the groundwork for long -term economic growth. The president thus fed GOP suspicions that he was just another big-government liberal. Had he understood better that the country was digging in against yet more government intervention and had sold the stimulus as what it mainly wasa giant shot of adrenalin to an economy with a stopped heart, a pure emergency measure he might well have escaped the worst of the backlash. But by laying on ambitious programs, and following up quickly with his health care plan, he only sealed his reputation on the right as a close t socialist. After that, Obamas public posturing provoked automatic opposition from the GOP, no matter what he said. If the president put his personal imprimatur on any plan from deficit reduction, to health care, to immigration reformRepublicans were virtually guaranteed to come out against it. But this year, when he sought to exploit the chastened GOPs newfound willingness to compromise on immigration, his approach was different. He seemed to understand that the Republicans needed to reclaim immigration reform as their own issue, and he was willing to let them have some cre dit. When he mounted his bully pulpit in Nevada, he delivered another new message as well: You Republicans dont have to list en to what I say anymore. And dont worry about whos got the political capital. Just take a hard look at where Im saying this: in a state you were supposed to have won but lost because of the rising Hispanic vote. Obama was cleverly pointing the GOP toward conclusions that he knows it is already reaching on its own: If you, the Republicans, want to have any kind of a future in a vastly changed electoral map, you have no choice but to move. Its your choice.
6. Plan doesnt spend pol cap requires little push

Negroponte 13 (Formerly a trade lawyer and professor of history, Diana Negroponte is a nonresident senior fellow with the Latin America Initiative under Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. http://anacaalves.wordpress.com/page/6/) White House leadership to facilitate EPA approval could lead to the development of access roads and decongestion at the actual border. Mexican presidential encouragement to NADBANKs directors to seek PPPs and U.S. presidential urging to the EPA for a broad interpretation of its mandate could result in a decades work of new infrastructure projects. This will facilitate the anticipated tripling of cross-border trade as both countries negotiate a Trans-Pacific Partnership and Mexico negotiates a Pacific Trade Alliance with its South American partners. Presidential decisions to advance on instructing NADBANK to move forward with PPPs for these infrastructure projects are relatively easy. Their consequences will enhance the trade and prosperity of both nations.
7. [insert impact defense] 8. Case outweighs
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AT: Politics Debt Ceiling Obama Good

1. Wont pass multiple reasons a. No bipart means failure farm bill proves Shaw 6/21 *John, politics reporter at MNI, US Budget Week: GOP Farm Bill Chaos Is Bad
Omen For Debt Hike, MNI, 2013, https://mninews.marketnews.com/index.php/us-budgetweek-gop-farm-bill-chaos-bad-omen-debt-hike?q=content/us-budget-week-gop-farm-bill-chaosbad-omen-debt-hike] WASHINGTON (MNI) - While the politics of farm legislation in the U.S. are politically charged and highly specific, the striking failure of House Republican leaders to pass a $740 billion five-year farm bill this week may be a bad omen for their ability to secure the votes needed to pass a debt ceiling increase later this year. The House
rejected Thursday a five-year farm bill crafted by the House Republican leadership on a 195 to 234 vote. In the vote, 171 Republicans supported the bill and 62 voted against it. Among Democrats, 172 opposed the bill and only 24 supported it. House Democrats said the bill cut critical programs too deeply while some House GOP conservatives said the bill was too profligate. During
a sharp exchange on the House floor after the vote, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor scorched Democrats for killing the bill , saying Democrats choose "partisanship over progress." House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer responded by arguing that GOP leaders turned a typically bipartisan bill into a partisan one .
At a briefing following the vote, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
called it " amateur hour " by the House
Republican leadership. Budget experts say the House vote on the farm bill is a troubling omen as key fiscal issues loom later this year. Congress is expected to need to pass debt ceiling legislation this fall. Additionally, Congress will need to pass a bill funding the government for the 2014 fiscal year that begins October 1. "The farm bill vote augurs badly for more important bills that are coming down the pike, including immigration and the debt ceiling," says Bill Frenzel, a former Republican congressman who is now a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. "I'm not convinced this shows the Republican leadership is that bad. Maybe it's the followership that's the real problem. The farm vote sure looks like a revolt of the (House Republican) caucus. And that is something that Speaker Boehner and his leadership team can't feel good about ," Frenzel said. Bob Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, said the defeat of the farm bill is troubling because the bill is often passed on a large bipartisan vote. Additionally, he said the failure of the House GOP leadership raises questions about their legislative acumen . "The farm bill is a major bill and the majority party is not supposed to bring up a major bill unless it's confident that it can pass it. This level of miscalculation should not occur," he said. " There is a pattern of House Republican leaders not being able to deliver on critical votes and this has to be of concern for anyone who has to negotiate
with them," Bixby added.
b. GOP guarantees default they have demands Obama cannot meet Benen 7/8 *Steve, syndicated political contributor, House GOP Draws up 'Menu' for DebtCeiling Crisis, MSNBC, 2013, http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/07/08/19353533 house-gop-draws-up-menu-for-debt-ceiling-crisis] Following up on an item from two months ago, Congressional Republicans have no reason to use the debt ceiling to hold the nation hostage again. None. The deficit is already shrinking with remarkable speed; the last GOP
debt-ceiling crisis did real harm to the nation; GOP leaders have ruled out default; and Republican lawmakers themselves don't even have anything specific in mind in terms of demands. There's just no need to put Americans through this again. But National Journal

reports that House
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Republicans intend to do it anyway . With an anxious eye toward the coming debt-ceiling negotiations, House Republicans are drafting what members call a "menu" of mandatory spending cuts to offer the White House in exchange for raising the country's borrowing limit. This menu is more a matrix of politically fraught options for the Obama administration to consider: Go small on cuts and get a short extension of the debt ceiling. Go big -- by agreeing to privatize Social Security, for example -- and get a deal that will raise the ceiling for the rest of Obama's term. It's a strategy meant to show the GOP is ready to deal. But even conservatives admit that this gambit might do little to help them avoid blame should the negotiations reach a crisis stage . We've reached a level of true madness here. We are, after all, talking about paying for things congressional Republicans have already bought, and so they have to raise the debt limit to avoid default. And yet , their official position is, in effect, "Give us a treat or we'll start deliberately hurting Americans. No goodies = no peace." But it's this "menu" that really rankles -- Republicans will
promise not to threaten to hurt Americans on purpose for a certain period of time, based on which part of Paul Ryan's House GOP budget plan Democrats accept. If Democrats agree to more means testing of Social Security benefits, Republicans will agree not to hold the nation hostage again for a short while. If Democrats agree to cut food stamps for struggling families or block-grant Medicaid, Republicans will agree not to hold the nation hostage again for a slightly longer period of time. And if Democrats agree to privatize social-insurance programs altogether, Republicans promise they won't threaten to hurt the country again on purpose until after the president leaves office. How gracious of them. This
is dangerously stupid and reflects a degree of post-policy nihilism that's hard to fully appreciate. This is arguably the single dumbest, manufactured, self-imposed crisis imaginable, but at least for now, it's going to happen
anyway. For the last few months, the political world has been preoccupied with some ridiculous "scandal" narrative, hoping to tie together unrelated stories -- which really weren't that interesting anyway -- to tell the public there are meaningful controversies unfolding in Washington. But so-called scandals like Benghazi and IRS scrutiny evaporated into nothing. But if the political world is eager to fill the void, the debt-ceiling story strikes me as a genuine scandal. For
the first time in generations, we have a major political party vowing to do deliberate harm to Americans unless their demands are met. How is that not a scandal? For its part, the Obama administration has said in no uncertain terms that it will not negotiate with those who would hold the nation's wellbeing hostage. "We will not negotiate over the debt limit," Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in writing in May. "The creditworthiness of the United States is non-negotiable. The question of whether the country must pay obligations it has already incurred is not open to debate."
2. No link - Border infrastructure projects dont cost pol cap

Anderson 10 (Greg, Department of Political Science, University of Alberta, and Alberta Institute for American Studies, University of Alberta http://www.esteyjournal.com/j_html/viewer.php?FILE=anderson111&ABSTRACT=NO&ARCHIVE=NO ) Infrastructure can be built, information shared, and borders managed out of existing funding; such an approach need not generate disputes since local needs will be met; and it will not require scarce political capital for a large legislative initiative. Progress could be made on a range of pressing issues without requiring significant political capital expenditures on a major new integration project in the midst of an unusually full U.S. agenda.
3. Plan popular policymakers support NADBank expansion Clare Ribando Seelke 13 (Clare Ribando Seelke, Specialist in Latin American Affairs, Mexico
institutions have operated to encourage
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cooperation on trade, environmental and labor issues, and to consider nongovernmental petitions under the labor and environmental side agreements. Following up on a March 2002 agreement by Presidents Bush and Fox in Monterrey, Mexico, to broaden the mandate of the NADBank, Congress agreed in March 2004 to permit the NADBank to make grants and nonmarket rate loans for environmental infrastructure along the border. In the fall of 2011, the NADBanks mandate was broadened to include projects aimed at developing clean energy. Some U.S. and Mexican policymakers have supported broadening the functions of NADBank further to include other types of infrastructure development; this would likely require approval by both Congresses
4. No link uniqueness NSA, Syria, AP, and Benghazi scandals kill chances of CIR passing AP 6/16
*Political Turmoil at Home as Obama Heads to Europe, Saudi Gazette, 6/16/13, http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=2013061616998 8] President Barack Obama heads to next weeks summit of world leaders in Northern Ireland burdened by a messy domestic political landscape and distracting controversies. The latest one about a leaked global surveillance program has outraged people abroad and could cast a shadow
on his trip. The question is whether the growing political battles will affect Obamas standing at a G-8 summit of leading industrial countries, where he now will be dealing with reactions to his decision to arm Syrian rebel forces after a US finding that President Bashar Assads regime has used chemical weapons. The decision should put Obama more in line with Europeans who made similar findings weeks ago. It also sharpens the differences with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an Assad supporter, who will also attend the summit. Obama travels to Northern Ireland and later to Germany as he
struggles on
the domestic front. Despite his convincing victory in November, an improving economy and his still-respectable popularity numbers, his second-term agenda has stalled. An effort at gun control failed in the Senate, and his bid for a grand bipartisan bargain to cut government spending without harming the neediest Americans seems dead. His last big hope for a big legislative win rides on an overhaul of immigration laws. Yet its hard to keep lawmakers focused on immigration or much else with Obama on the defensive over a series of controversies. Republicans have been denouncing the administrations actions surrounding a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans. Beyond that, Obamas Justice Department took the unusual step of subpoenaing phone records of The A ssociated P ress without prior notification and obtaining a search warrant to secretly gather emails of a Fox News journalist. That prompted an uproar over what many critics saw as a violation of constitutional protections of press freedom. Now comes the leaked information about the N ational S ecurity A gency, the largest US spying organization, collecting the details of telephone records of Americans, and two NSA programs that
purportedly target foreign messages including private emails, voice and other data transmissions sent through US Internet providers. The
NSA operations on foreign communications traffic might cause trouble for one of
Obamas top goals at the G-8 summit. The president hoped the G-8 leaders could announce the start of negotiations
on a sweeping free-trade agreement to eliminate tariffs on trade with the European Union. European Parliament members, elected representatives from the 27-nation EU, now want language on data protection written into any possible deal.
5. Political capital doesnt exist and isnt key to their DA- more likely winners win Hirsch 13 [Michael, chief correspondent for National Journal. He also contributes to 2012 Decoded. Hirsh
previously served as the senior editor and national economics correspondent for Newsweek, based in its Washington
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bureau. He was also Newsweeks Washington web editor and authored a weekly column for Newsweek.com, The World from Washington. Earlier on, he was Newsweeks foreign editor, guiding its award-winning coverage of the September 11 attacks and the war on terror. He has done on-the-ground reporting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places around the world, and served as the Tokyo-based Asia Bureau Chief for Institutional Investor from 1992 to 1994. 2-7-2013, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207]
On Tuesday, in his State of the Union address, President Obama will do what every president does this time of year. For about 60 minutes, he will lay out a sprawling and ambitious wish list highlighted by gun control and immigration reform, climate change and debt reduction. In response, the pundits
will do what they always do this time of year: They will talk about how unrealistic most of the proposals are, discussions often informed by sagacious reckonings of how much political capital Obama possesses to push his program through. Most of this talk will have no bearing on what actually happens over the next four years. Consider this: Three months ago, just before the November election, if someone had talked seriously about Obama having enough political capital to oversee passage of both immigration reform and gun-control legislation at the beginning of his second term even after winning the election by 4 percentage points and 5 million votes (the actual final tally)this person would have been called crazy and stripped of his pundits license. (It doesnt exist, but it ought to.) In his first term, in a
starkly polarized country, the president had been so frustrated by GOP resistance that he finally issued a limited executive order last August permitting immigrants who entered the country illegally as children to work without fear of deportation for at least two years. Obama
didnt dare to even bring up gun control, a Democratic third rail that has cost the party elections and that actually might have been even less popular on the right than the presidents health care law. And yet, for reasons that have very little to do with Obamas personal prestige or popularityvariously put in terms of a mandate or political capitalchances are fair that both will now happen. What changed? In the case of gun control, of course, it wasnt the election. It was the horror of the 20 first-graders who were slaughtered in Newtown, Conn., in mid-December. The sickening reality of little girls and boys riddled with bullets from a high-capacity
assault weapon seemed to precipitate a sudden tipping point in the national conscience. One thing changed after another. Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association marginalized himself with poorly chosen comments soon after the massacre. The pro-gun lobby, once a phalanx of opposition, began to fissure into reasonables and crazies. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot in the head two years ago and is still struggling to speak and walk, started a PAC with her husband to appeal to the moderate middle of gun owners. Then she gave riveting and poignant testimony to the Senate, challenging lawmakers: Be bold. As a result, mom entum has appeared to build around some kind of a plan to curtail sales of the most dangerous weapons and ammunition and the way people are permitted to buy them. Its impossible to say now whether su ch a bill will pass and, if it does, whether it will make anything more than cosmetic changes to gun laws. But one thing is clear: The political tectonics have shifted
Meanwhile, the Republican members of the Senates so-called Gang of Eight are pushing hard for a new spirit of compromise on immigration reform, a sharp change after
dramatically in very little time. Whole new possibilities exist now that didnt a few weeks ago.
an election year in which the GOP standard-bearer declared he would make life so miserable for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. that they would self-deport. But this turnaround has
very little to do with Obamas personal influencehis political mandate, as it were. It has almost entirely to do with just two numbers: 71 and 27. Thats 71 percent for Obama, 27 percent for Mitt Romney, the breakdown of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 presidential
election. Obama drove home his advantage by giving a speech on immigration reform on Jan. 29 at a Hispanic-dominated high school in Nevada, a swing state he won by a surprising 8 percentage points in November. But the movement
on immigration has mainly come out of the Republican Partys recent introspection, and the realization
by its more thoughtful members, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, that without such a shift the party may be facing demographic death in a country where the 2010 census showed, for the first time, that white births have fallen into th e minority. Its got nothing to do with Obamas political capital or, indeed, Obama at all. The point is not that political capital is a meaningless term. Often it is a synonym for mandate or momentum in the aftermath of a decisive electionand just about every politician ever elected has tried to claim more of a mandate than he actually has. Certainly, Obama can say that because he was elected and Romney wasnt, he has a better claim on the countrys mood and direction. Many pundits still defend political capital as a useful metaphor at least. Its an unquantifiable but meaningful concept, says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. You cant really look at a president and say hes got 37 ounces of political capital. But the fact is, its a
the idea of political capitalor mandates, or momentumis so poorly defined that presidents and pundits often get it wrong. Presidents usually over-estimate it, says George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. The best
concept that matters, if you have popularity and some momentum on your side. The real pro blem is that
kind of political capitalsome sense of an electoral mandate to do somethingis very rare. It almost never happens. In 1964, maybe. And to some degree in 1980. For that reason, political capital is a concept that misleads far more than it enlightens. It is distortionary. It conveys the idea that
we know more than we really do about the ever-elusive

concept of political
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power, and it discounts the way unforeseen events can suddenly change
everything . Instead, it suggests, erroneously, that a political figure has a concrete amount of political capital to invest, just as someone might
have real investment capitalthat a particular leader can bank his gains, and the size of his account determines what he can do at any given moment in history. Naturally, any president has practical and electoral limits. Does he have a majority in both chambers of Congress and a cohesive coalition behind him? Obama has neither at present. And unless a surge in the economy at the moment, still stuckor some other great victory gives him more momentum, it is inevitable that the closer Obama gets to the 2014 election, the less he will be able to get done. Going into the midterms, Republicans will increasingly avoid any concessions that make him (and the Democrats) stronger. But the abrupt emergence of the immigration and gun-control issues illustrates how suddenly shifts in mood can occur and how political interests can align in new ways just as suddenly. Indeed, the pseudo-concept of political capital masks a larger truth about Washington that is kindergarten simple: You just dont know what you can d o until you
depending on Obamas handling of any particular issue, even in a polarized time, he could still deliver on a lot of his secondterm goals, depending on his skill and the breaks. Unforeseen catalysts can appear, like Newtown. Epiphanies can
try. Or as Ornstein himself once wrote years ago, Winning wins. In theory, and in practice,
dawn, such as when many Republican Party leaders suddenly woke up in panic to the huge disparity in the Hispanic vote. Some political scientists who study the elusive calculus of how to pass legislation and run successful presidencies say that political
capital is, at best, an empty concept, and that almost nothing in the academic literature successfully quantifies or even defines it. It can refer to a very abstract thing, like a presidents popularity, but
theres no mechanism there. That makes it kind of useless, says Richard Bensel, a government professor at Cornell University. Even Ornstein concedes that the calculus is far more complex than the term suggests.
Winning on one issue often
changes the calculation for the next issue; there is never any known amount of capital. The idea here is, if an issue comes up where the conventional wisdom is that president is not going to get what he wants, and he gets it, then each time that happens, it changes the calculus of the other actors Ornstein says. If they think hes going to win, they may change positions to get on the winning side. Its a bandwagon effect. ALL THE WAY WITH LBJ Sometimes, a clever practitioner of power can get more done just because hes aggressive and knows the
hallways of Congress well. Texas A&Ms Edwards is right to say that the outcome of the 1964 election, Lyndon Johnsons landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, was one of the few that conveyed a mandate. But one of the main reasons for that mandate (in addition to Goldwaters ineptitude as a candida te) was President Johnsons masterful use of power leading up to that election, and his ability to get far more done than anyone thought possible, given his limited political capital. In the newest volume in his exhaustive study of LBJ, The Passage of Power, historian Robert Caro recalls Johnson getting cautionary advice after he assumed the presidency from the assassinated John F. Kennedy in late 1963. Dont focus on a long-stalled civil-rights bill, advisers told him, because it might jeopardize Southern lawmakers support for a tax cut and appropriations bills the president needed. One of the wise, practical people around the table *said that+ the presidency has only a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtnt to expend it on this, Caro writes. (Coinage, of course, was what political capital was called in those days.) Johnson replied, Well, what the hells the presidency for? Johnson didnt worry about coinage, and he got the Civil Rights Act enacted, along with much else: Medicare, a tax cut, antipoverty programs. He appeared to understand not just the ways of Congress but also the way to maximize the momentum he possessed in the lingering mood of national grief and determination by picking the right issues, as Caro records. Momentum is not a mysterious mistress, LBJ said. It is a controllable fact of political life. Johnson had the skill and wherewithal to realize that, at that moment of history, he could have unlimited coinage if he handled the politics right. He did. (At least until Vietnam, that is.) And then there are the presidents who get the politics, and the issues, wrong. It was the last president before Obama who was just starting a second term, George W. Bush, who really revived the claim of political capital, which he was very fond of wielding. Then Bush promptly demonstrated that he didnt fully understand the concept either. At his first news conference after his 20 04 victory, a confident-sounding Bush declared, I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. Thats my style. The 43rd president threw all of his political capital at an overriding passion: the partial privatization of Social Security. He mounted a full-bore public-relations campaign that included town-hall meetings across the country. Bush failed utterly, of course. But the problem was not that he didnt have enough political capital. Yes, he may have overestimated his standing. Bushs margin over John Kerry was thinhelped along by a bumbling Kerry campaign that was almost the mirror image of Romneys gaffe-filled failure this timebut that was not the real mistake. The problem was that whatever credibility or stature Bush thought he had earned as a newly reelected president did nothing to make Social Security privatization a better idea in most peoples eyes. Voters didnt trust the plan, and four years later, at the end of Bushs term, the stock -market collapse bore out the publics skepticism. Privatization just didnt have any momentum behind it, no matter who was pushing it or how much capital Bush spent to sell it. The mistake that Bush made with Social Security, says John Sides, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University and a well-followed political blogger, was that just because he won an election, he tho ught he had a green light. But there was no sense of any kind of public urgency on Social Security reform. Its like he went into the garage where vario us Republican policy ideas were hanging up and picked one. I dont think Obamas going to make that mistake. Bush decided he wanted to push a rock up a hill. He didnt understand how steep the hill was. I think Obama has
Obama may also get his way on the debt ceiling, not because of his reelection, Sides says, but because Republicans are beginning to doubt whether taking a hard line on fiscal policy is a good idea , as the party suffers
more momentum on his side because of the Republican Partys concerns about the Latino vote and the shooting at Newtown. in the polls. THE REAL LIMITS ON POWER Presidents are limited in what they can do by time and attention span, of course, just as much as they are by electoral balances in the House and Senate. But this, too, has nothing to do with political capital. Another well-worn meme of recent years was that Obama used up too much political capital passing the health care law in his first term. But the real problem was that the plan was unpopular, the economy was bad, and the pre sident didnt realize that the national mood (yes, again, the national mood) was at a tipping point against big-government intervention, with the tea-party revolt about to burst on the scene. For Americans in 2009 and 2010 haunted by too many rounds of layoffs, appalled by the Wall Street bailout, aghast at the amount of federal spending that never seemed to find its way into their pockets government-imposed health care coverage was simply an intervention too far. So was the idea of another economic stimulus. Cue the tea party and what ensued: two titanic fights over the debt ceiling. Obama, like Bush, had settled on pushing an issue that was out of sync with the countrys mood. Unlike Bush, Obama did ultimately get h is idea passed. But the bigger political problem with health care reform was that it distracted the governments attention from oth er issues that people cared about more urgently, such as the need to jump-start the economy and financial reform. Various congressional staffers told me at the time that their bosses didnt really ha ve the time to understand how the Wall Street lobby was riddling the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation with loopholes. Health care was sucking all the oxygen out of the room, the aides said. Weighing the imponderables of momentum, the often-mystical calculations about when the historic moment is ripe for an issue, will never be a science. It is mainly intuition, and its best practitioners have a long history in American politics. This is a tale told well in Steven Spielbergs hit movie Lincoln. Daniel Day-Lewiss Abraham Lincoln attempts a lot of behind-the-scenes vote-buying to win passage of the 13th Amendment, banning slavery, along with eloquent attempts to move peoples hearts and minds. He appears to be using the political capital of his reelection and the turning of the tide in the Civil War. But its clear that a surge of conscience, a sense of the changing times, has as much to do with the final vote as all the backroom horse-trading. The reason I think the idea of political capital is kind of distorting is that it implies you have chits you can gi ve out to people. It really oversimplifies why you elect politicians, or why they can do what Lincoln did, says Tommy Bruce, a former political consultant in Washington. Consider, as another example, the storied political career of President Franklin Roosevelt. Because the mood was ripe for dramatic change in the depths of the Great Depression, FDR was able to push an astonishing array of New Deal programs through a largely compliant Congress, assuming what some described as near-dictatorial powers. But in his second term,
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full of confidence because of a landslide victory in 1936 that brought in unprecedented Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, Roosevelt overreached with his infamous Court-packing proposal. All of a sudden, the political capital that experts thought was limitless disappeared. FDRs plan to expand the Supreme Court by putting in his judicial allies abruptly created an unanticipated wall of opposition from newly reunited Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats. FDR thus inadvertently handed back to Congress, especially to the Senate, the power and influence he had seized in his first term. Sure, Roosevelt had loads of popularity and momentum in 1937. He seemed to have a bank vault full of political capital. But, once again, a president simply chose to take on the wrong issue at the wrong time; this time, instead of most of the political interests in the country aligning his way, they opposed him. Roosevelt didnt fully recover until World War II, despite two more election victories. In terms of Obamas second-term agenda, what all these shifting tides of momentum and political calculation mean is this: Anything goes. Obama has no more elections to win, and he needs to worry only about the
if he picks issues that the countrys mood will supportsuch as, perhaps, immigration reform and gun controlthere is no reason to think he cant win far more victories than any of the careful calculators of political capital now believe is possible, including battles over
support he will have in the House and Senate after 2014. But
tax reform and deficit reduction. Amid todays atmosphere of Republican self-doubt, a new, more mature Obama seems to be emerging, one who has his agenda clearly in mind and will ride the mood of the country more adroitly. If
he can get some early winsas he already has, apparently, on the fiscal cliff and the upper-income tax increasethat will create momentum, and one win may well lead to others. Winning wins . Obama himself learned some hard
lessons over the past four years about the falsity of the political-capital concept. Despite his decisive victory over John McCain in 2008, he fumbled the selling of his $787 billion stimulus plan by portraying himself naively as a post-partisan president who somehow had been given the electoral mandate to be all things to all people. So Obama tried to sell his stimulus as a long-term restructuring plan that would lay the groundwork for long -term economic growth. The president thus fed GOP suspicions that he was just another big-government liberal. Had he understood better that the country was digging in against yet more government intervention and had sold the stimulus as what it mainly wasa giant shot of adrenalin to an economy with a stopped heart, a pure emergency measurehe might well have escaped the worst of the backlash. But by laying on ambitious programs, and following up quickly with his health care plan, he only sealed his reputation on the right as a close t socialist. After that, Obamas public posturing provoked automatic opposition from the GOP, no matter what he said. If the president put his personal imprimatur on any plan from deficit reduction, to health care, to immigration reformRepublicans were virtually guaranteed to come out against it. But this ye ar, when he sought to exploit the chastened GOPs newfound willingness to compromise on immigration, his approach was different. He seemed to understand that the Republicans needed to reclaim immigration reform as their own issue, and he was willing to let them have some credit. When he mounted his bully pulpit in Nevada, he delivered another new message as well: You Republicans dont have to listen to what I say anymore. And dont worry about whos got the political capital. Just take a hard look at where Im saying this: in a state you were supposed to have won but lost because of the rising Hispanic vote. Obama was cleverly pointing the GOP toward conclusions that he knows it is already reaching on its own: If you, the Republicans, want to have any kind of a future in a vastly changed electoral map, you have no choice but to move. Its your choice.
6. Plan doesnt spend pol cap requires little push

Negroponte 13 (Formerly a trade lawyer and professor of history, Diana Negroponte is a nonresident senior fellow with the Latin America Initiative under Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. http://anacaalves.wordpress.com/page/6/) White House leadership to facilitate EPA approval could lead to the development of access roads and decongestion at the actual border. Mexican presidential encouragement to NADBANKs directors to seek PPPs and U.S. presidential urging to the EPA for a broad interpretation of its mandate could result in a decades work of new infrastructure projects. This will facilitate the anticipated tripling of cross-border trade as both countries negotiate a Trans-Pacific Partnership and Mexico negotiates a Pacific Trade Alliance with its South American partners. Presidential decisions to advance on instructing NADBANK to move forward with PPPs for these infrastructure projects are relatively easy. Their consequences will enhance the trade and prosperity of both nations.
7. [insert impact defense] 8. Case outweighs
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AT: Politics Obama Good Plan Popular - Bipart

NADBank has bipart support The Brownsville Herald 11(Brownsville Daily Newspaper at The Brownsville Herald, Bill
would give boost to NAD Bank for border development, June 18, 2011, http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/valley /article_99fbbf75-cdb6-58f5-b20ad68ee9795314.html) U.S. Rep. Rubn Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, whose district includes a portion of Cameron County, announced that he introduced bipartisan legislation with 19 original co-sponsors to enhance the North Ameri-can Development Bank (NADBank) and increase economic devel-opment in the U.S.Mexico border areas. HR 2216, the NADBank Enhancement Act of 2011, allows NAD-Bank to work on infrastructure projects that in turn will increase economic development in the border areas while complying with existing environmental laws and regulations. We must continue our efforts to improve economic development and safety in the border areas of both the United States and Mexico, Hinojosa said. My legislation, co-sponsored by 19 of my colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives, both Republicans and Demo-crats, will allow NADBank to work on infrastructure projects that adhere to environmental law while increasing economic develop-ment in the border areas. We should continue to build on our record of success, bringing jobs and infrastructure improvements to border communities in Mexico and the United States. My legislation will do just that.
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AT: Pink Tide DA

1. Too unique Pink Tide cant be revived. Chile, Honduras, and Chavezs death have all crushed the movement. Paul 13 (not Jonathan Paul but SUDEEP PAUL, who is an assistant editor with the Opinion Pages of The Indian Express
Chavez and the oil curse Indian Express March 9th, 2013, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/chavez-and-the-oil-curse/1085285/#sthash.LquL047o.dpuf)
By 2008, the Pink Tide had overwhelmed nearly half of the 20-odd Latin American countries, excluding permanently red Cuba. El Salvador and Peru were conquered subsequently, in 2009 and 2011 respectively. But by 2010, Chile and Honduras had already left the fold and Brazil's Lula da Silva had made way for his protg Dilma Rousseff. It was believed by all, except perhaps the starry-eyed hosts of late
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Kolkata and Delhi's JNU, suicidal path taken by Christina Fernandez de Kirchner in
that the Pink Tide was ebbing. One look at the
Argentina, and you can rest assured that the
Bolivarian revolution will end with Chavez.
2. No link all of their evidence is specific to the Cuba embargo. Mexico is a democracy and funding NADBank doesnt do anything to finance an alternative political movement. 3. Russian-Latin American ties wont cause US-Russia conflict Russian intentions arent hostile. Ramirez 10 (Dr. Paul Telman Sanchez Ramirez Professor and researcher at the Department of Global Studies, ITESM,
Mexico City Campus Latin American Policy; Volume 1, Issue 2, Article first published online: 14 OCT 2010 appears in the December edition obtained via Wiley-Blackwell Full Collection) Russia is demonstrating to the White House its position of establishing a global strategic equilibrium and its capability of defending its own national interests. There
is no ideological conflict between the government of the United States and its Russian counterpart like there was during the Cold War because the latter shares the values of democracy and a market economy. Russias strategy in Latin America does not consist of establishing a political regional alliance to face the hegemonic power of Washington, but it does send a message to the White House. The Kremlin is moving closer to Latin America with the objective to establish not an ideological or military competition with the United States, but a competition guided by considerations that will prioritize pragmatism and mutual advantage. Russia is attempting to increase its presence in Latin
America and will accomplish this through the signing of commercial, energy, and military agreements with some left-wing countries of the region such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, and Cuba. There is also the possibility of signing energy and military agreements with left-wing countries such as Peru, Colombia, and Mexico.
4. Russia impact is wrong not a threat and miscalc risks exaggerated. Graham 7 (Thomas, a retired U.S. diplomat and Clinton-era arms-control ambassador, Russia in Global Affairs, "The dialectics
of strength and weakness", http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/20/1129.html) An astute historian of Russia, Martin Malia, wrote several years ago that Russia
has at different times been demonized
or divinized by Western opinion less because of her real role in Europe than because of the fears and frustrations, or hopes and aspirations, generated within European society by its own domestic problems. Such is the case today. To be sure, mounting Western concerns about Russia are a consequence of Russian policies that appear to undermine Western interests, but they are also a reflection of declining confidence in our own abilities and the efficacy of our own policies. Ironically, this growing fear and distrust of Russia come at a time when Russia
is arguably less threatening to the West, and the United States in particular,
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than it has been at any time since the end of the Second World War. Russia does not champion a totalitarian ideology intent on our destruction, its military poses no threat to sweep across Europe, its economic growth depends on constructive commercial relations with Europe, and its strategic arsenal while still capable of annihilating the United States is under more reliable control than it has been in the past fifteen yea rs and the threat of a strategic strike approaches zero probability. Political
gridlock in key Western countries, however, precludes the creativity, risk-taking, and subtlety needed to advance our interests on issues over which we are at odds with Russia while laying the basis for more constructive long-term relations with Russia.
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AT: Saudi Oil DA

1. Literally zero risk of a link the aff doesnt decrease US dependence on Saudi Oil. 2. Non-unique. Iran prolif coming makes Saudi prolif inevitable. Samay Live 13
(Samay Live a leading Hindi news portal this report is internally quoting The Institute for Science and International Security This same article is released on Agence France Presse and is basically an international wire release. January 15, 2013 lexis)
Iran is on track to produce material for at least one nuclear bomb by mid-2014 as sanctions hit its economy but fail to stop the atomic program, said a US think tank, further adding that Islamic republic could reach 'critical capability' within this time frame without detection by the West. The
Institute for Science and International Security, a private group opposed to nuclear proliferation, called for tougher US economic sanctions against Iran and pressure on major trading partners to isolate Tehran yesterday. The group looked at Iran's "critical capability,"defined as the point at which the clerical regime will be able to produce enough weapons-grade uranium or separated plutonium to build one or more bombs before foreign detection. "Based on the current trajectory of Iran's nuclear program, we estimate that Iran could reach this critical capability in mid-2014," the think tank said in a report. The think tank based its assessment on the growth in Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium and number of centrifuges and what it described as an uncooperative stance by Tehran toward the UN atomic agency. The
institute said it was "deeply skeptical" of the potential for preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and painted a dire pictur e of the consequences if the regime developed the bomb. The think tank said that a nuclear weapon would "embolden
Iranian aggression and subversion" and questioned whether Iran's leadership, with its "apocalyptic messianism and exaltation of martyrdom," could be deterred from using a bomb. The report also said that an
Iranian nuclear arsenal could
motivate Saudi Arabia to develop a nuclear program ,fueling proliferation in a region where Israel is the
sole,albeit undeclared, state with nuclear weapons. The United States has championed sanctions aimed at crippling the Iranian economy by cutting off its oil exports,while Israel has not ruled out the possibility of a military strike on Iran.
3. Link inevitable growing US oil production Fox News 13

*Fox News, 3/8/13, 'Secret energy revolution' could hasten end to dependence on foreign oil, http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/08/secret-energy-revolution-could-hasten-end-to-dependence-on-foreignoil/#ixzz2W406KHfi]
A wealth of new technologies -- from underwater robots to 3-D scanners to nano-engineered lubricants -- are transforming the energy exploration industry in ways that will hasten the end of Americas reliance on Middle East oil. Thats the take on Americas secret energy revolution, according to a report in the Washington Guardian. And the proof is in the balance sheets: According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, monthly imports of oil peaked in Sept. 2006 at 12.7
million barrels per day and has declined 40 percent since then, to 7.6 million barrels in Nov. 2012. Thats partly due to falling demand, as the U.S. economy contracted and drivers with smaller wallets balked at the high price of gas. Cars became more fuel efficient as well, often powered by batteries rather than gas. But its also largely due to the increased production of oil on U.S. shores, the IISS said. Rising
production of liquid fuels in the United States accounts for 60 percent of the fall in U.S. oil imports since 2006 and nearly 100 percent since 2010, the group reported. If the trend continues, the U.S. could become oil independent in the coming years, they added. Whats led to such a surge? An assortment of new technologies and innovative means to tap the oil trapped in shale rock formations, helping sip every last drop from deep wells beneath U.S. soil. Nanoengineered materials, underwater robots, side-scanning 3-D sonar, specially engineered lubricants, and myriad
other advances are opening up titanic new supplies of fossil fuels, many of them in unexpected places perhaps most significantly, North America, wrote Vince Beiser in Pacific Standard. The
problem for domestic oil has never been a lack
NSS Lab
of supply, surprisingly. Its been the inability to tap into that oil, Beiser noted. Fracking is the most
high-profile means of doing so, a method for pumping pressurized, specially treated mud into the dense shale formations that trap oil and gas. Fracking has brought with it real environmental concerns, however, including charges that it increases the risk of earthquakes and pollutes ground water. But
theres no doubt the process succeeds in getting fuel out of
the ground. Fracking is about as popular with the general public as puppy kicking, but its very big business, Beiser wrote.
American shale gas production totaled 320 billion cubic feet in 2000; in 2011, the number was 7.8 trillion. Thats by no means the only innovation. To
hit some of the deepest ocean wells, Houstons FMC Technologies wants to move oil production to the bottom of the ocean, with special undersea robots built to survive the
incredible pressure at those depths. We are not far from this vision. Maybe 15 years, Paulo Couto, a vice president of technology for FMC, told Pacific Standard. Other companies are using chemistry to tweak the mud shot down pipes into the ground to lubricate the path for drills, and using new means to detect the pockets of oil that do lie nearby. The wrote.
dynamics of
abundant fuel supplies will be a catalyst for major geo-political shifts, the Washington Guardian
4. No impact - Saudi Arabia will never prolif. Lippman 8

[Thomas W. Lippman is a former Middle East correspondent and a diplomatic and national security reporter for The Washington Post (1966-1999, 2003). He covered the war in Iraq for The Washington Posts online edition in 2003. He appears frequently on radio and television as a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs. He is the author of several books about the Middle East and American foreign policy, including Inside the Mirage: Americas Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia (2004), Madeleine Albright and the New American Diplomacy (2000), Egypt After Nasser (1989) and Understanding Islam (1995). He has also written on these subjects for several magazines, including The Middle East Journal, SAIS Review and US News and World Report. His latest book on the history of US engagement in Saudi Arabia and US-Saudi relations will be published in January 2008. Lippman is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Nuclear Weapons and Saudi Strategy The Middle East Institute, http://www.mei.edu/Portals/0/Publications/nuclear-weapons-saudi-strategy.pdf] It is widely believed among policymakers and strategic analysts in Washington and in many Middle Eastern capitals that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will feel compelled to do the same. In some ways this belief makes sense because Saudi Arabia is as vulnerable as it is rich, and it has long felt threatened by the revolutionary ascendancy of its Shiite rival across the Gulf. Moreover, some senior Saudi officials have said privately that their countrys hand would be forced if it became known beyond doubt that Iran had become nuclear weapons capable. The publication in late 2007 of portions of a US National Intelligence Estimate reporting that Iran had abandoned a program to weaponize nuclear devices in 2003 did not put an end to the speculation about a Saudi Arabian response; the NIE made clear that Iran was continuing its effort to master the uranium enrichment process, and could resume a weapons program on short notice.
It is far from certain, however, that Saudi Arabia would wish to acquire its own nuclear arsenal or that it is capable of doing so. There are compelling reasons why Saudi Arabia would not undertake an effort to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, even in the unlikely event that Iran achieves a stockpile and uses this arsenal to threaten the Kingdom. Money is not an issue if
destitute North Korea can develop nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia surely has the resources to pursue such a program. In the fall of 2007, the Saudis reported a budget surplus of $77 billion, and with oil prices above $90 a barrel, Riyadh is flush with cash. But the
acquisition or development of nuclear weapons would be provocative, destabilizing, controversial and extremely difficult for Saudi Arabia, and ultimately would likely weaken the kingdom rather than strengthen it. Such a course would be directly contrary to the Kingdoms longstanding stated goal of making the entire Middle East a nuclear weapons free zone. According to Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz, the Defense Minister and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, nuclear weapons by their nature contravene the tenets of Islam. Pursuing nuclear weapons would be a flagrant violation of Saudi Arabias commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and would surely cause a serious breach with the United States. Saudi Arabia lacks the industrial and technological base to develop such weapons on its own. An attempt to acquire nuclear weapons by purchasing them, perhaps from Pakistan, would launch Saudi Arabia on a dangerously inflammatory trajectory that could destabilize the entire region, which Saudi Arabias leaders know would not be in their countrys best interests. The Saudis always prefer stability to turmoil.
NSS Lab
AT: Spending DA
1. Link is not unique multiple instances of spending in the status quo should have triggered it 2. No link NADBank is self-financing, it doesnt increase congressional spending.
The Dallas Morning News 11 (newspaper, Editorial: North American Development Bank needs streamlined bureaucracy, 15 April 2011, http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20110415-editorial-north-americandevelopment-bank-needs-streamlined-bureaucracy.ece)
All of its projects must somehow enhance environmental quality, recognizing that an unfixed problem on one side of the border can have serious consequences for residents on the other side. For example, a large part of the smoky haze that regularly settles over Big Bend National Park is the result of air pollutants from dumps and coal-fired power plants in Mexico. The bank hasnt had a stellar past. Because all loans require approval of agencies and officials from both countries, all kinds of political jockeying can come
A simple loan application can get mired in bureaucratic quicksand. There was a justified concern that the bank wasnt performing as it should, said Gernimo Gutirrez, NADBanks managing director. Much has changed. The bank, which once relied on congressional funding, now is 100 percent self-financing, with $3 billion in capital. It holds upper-tier status from major ratings agencies. The bank can perform even better if Mexico and the U.S. find ways to streamline the binational governing structure and empower the banks leadership to make decisions more quickly. Dont relax oversight, but dont allow bureaucracy to stifle NADBanks good work at the border.
into play.
3. Infrastructure improvements are key to the economy - [insert 1AC extensions] 4. [insert an add-on that solves the economy]

Mexico Border Infrastructure Affirmative - SDI 2013

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US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

Environment Advantage Module

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

general impression is that

**We disagree with the authors use of gendered language

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

And, its a D-Rule

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

Narrowly Focused Mandate NADBank's

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

the broader developmental needs and environmental concerns of border-region communities.

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

Relations Advantage Module

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

Terrorism Advantage Module

This makes the Southern Border a welcome mat for terrorists

discovered an e-mail in which

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

Nuclear terrorism leads to global nuclear war and extinction

a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states, such as

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

World War III is a necessitynot an option.

That causes extinction

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

And, the timeframe for bioweapons to spread globally is six weeks

are responsible for both

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

Texas Advantage Module

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

Risks devastating use of WMEs by terrorists

Bioweapons use causes extinction

engineered biological weapons, many without a known

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

And, nuclear terrorism leads to global nuclear war and extinction

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states, such as

World War III is a necessitynot an option.

are responsible for both

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

Trade Advantage Module

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

The Pea Nieto administration currently looks

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

United States is Mexicos top

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

trade relationship requires

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013

US-Mexico Border Infrastructure Aff SDI 2013