Russia/Ukraine DA

B. Link
1. Obama has very limited political capital.
Oliphant, April 2014 James, Obama Begins to Say Good-Bye (http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/obama-begins-to-

say-good-bye-

20140411)
Constrained by crises over which he has little power to impact events, hemmed in by a divided Congress more interested in scoring points with voters than in legislating, and watching as his potential successor

Obama may be receding into history more quickly than either he or his aides ever
anticipated. It was impossible to listen to the president's speech Thursday at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Texas without hearing the trace of the valedictory. Certainly, it was not
assumes more and more of the political spotlight,

intended to be soand Obama didn't deliver it as such. (Bill Clinton does wistful; Obama may not have that gear.) But his remarks were less a clarion call to action than a stern statement of principle, his mouth
fixed flat for most of the address, his face betraying the weariness of almost six years of incessant conflict. His demeanor matched that of his White House, dogged, hunkered down, like Butch and Sundance in

For some time now, as Obama's

approval rating has fallen and his political capital has dried up , his supporters have insisted that the long view will vindicate him, as if a contemporaneous
Bolivia, surrounded by an increasingly tuned-out public, opportunistic Republicans, often feckless Democrats, and a skeptical press corps.

verdict on his stewardship cannot be trusted. (And again, Friday, he vowed outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would go "down in history" for her work to pass and implement
Obamacare, despite the fierce criticism she faced.) "The office humbles you," Obama said in Austin. "You're reminded daily that in this great democracy, you are but a relay swimmer in the currents of history,
bound by decisions made by those who came before you, reliant on the efforts of those who will follow to fully vindicate your vision." Coded in that statement is the disclaimer Obama has affixed to almost
every major speech he has ever given on the economy, that he inherited a train wreck (or a car was driven into a ditch, among other metaphors) and that his efforts to turn things around have been stymied at every
turn by those who couldn't see their way clear to support him. As National Journal noted earlier this week, Obama was more explicitly critical of the forces buffeting him in his extended interview with The New
Yorker, complaining that Johnson, for all of his legislative success, didn't have the problems with Republicans that he does. Thursday, Obama fully embraced Johnson's vision of the Great Society as his own,
placing both their presidencies on a continuum of change and suggesting that it may take years, if not decades, for the current chief executive to be fully appreciated, even as a critical reassessment of LBJ's work
continues. "Today we remain locked in this same great debate about equality and opportunity, and the role of government in ensuring each. As was true 50 years ago, there are those who
dismiss the Great
Society as a failed experiment and an encroachment on liberty; who argue that government has become the true source of all that ails us, and that poverty is due to the moral failings of those who suffer from it,"
Obama said. "There are also those who argue ... that nothing has changed; that racism is so embedded in our DNA that there is no use trying politicsthe game is rigged. But such theories ignore history." It was a
full-throttle defense of big government as a means of ensuring equal opportunity to all, an honest distillation of his personal philosophyone that shows him to be the progressive change agent that his supporters
admire and his opponents fear. It was a manifesto more aligned with Mitt Romney's 47 percent. But it was also impossible not to hear Obama draw himself in his sketch of Johnson as an impoverished outsider.
"Deprivation and discriminationthese were not abstractions to Lyndon Baines Johnson," Obama said. "In so many ways, he embodied America with all our gifts and all our flaws, in our restlessness and all our
big dreams," said the son of America and Africa alike, who wrote a best-seller about dreams. Obama's invocation of race as a divisive political force was consistent with his more open approach about the subject
in his second term, but it also helps explain why, as Jonathan Chait detailed in New York magazine, it may be nearly impossible to judge his tenure within the current political environment, so freighted as it has
been with questions about whether some of the animosity toward his presidency is rooted in skin color. And that some cooling via the passage of time might be necessary. The president seems to understand this
and perhaps is counting on it, that given distance and an economic rebound, his achievements, most notably the health care law in which he has invested so much, will turn indelible once the daily trench warfare
ends. But, as his rocky second term has illustrated, that is by no means the guaranteed outcome. The bloodshed in Syria, the threat to Ukraine, the uneven recovery, the never-ending threat of terrorism, and yes, the
Affordable Care Act's consequences, all may batter his record to the point where it becomes unsalvageable.

Obama is perceived as weak by the American people

Adam Edelman, November 2013 The New York Daily News, November 13, 2013 (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/obama-strongdecisive-leader-gallup-poll-article-1.1515536)
The President got 50% of survey takers agreeing that he is honest and trustworthy, but that figure is down 5 percentage points and comes after the government shutdown and the botched rollout of the
Affordable Care Act. Fewer than half of Americans see President Obama as a "strong and decisive leader," a new poll shows. According to a Gallup poll released Wednesday, only 47% of poll respondents said
those traits befit the President the first time Obama's reading on that question has fallen below 50% during his presidency... The number of respondents who deemed Obama "honest and trustworthy," also

President Obama only scored 47% of Gallup poll respondents agreeing

that he is a strong and decisive leader, the first time a President has fallen below 50% . About 50% of those polled said they would use
declined, the poll, which surveyed 1,039 people between Nov. 7 and 10, found.

those words to describe the President, down five percentage points from a September poll and down 10 percentage points since a similar Gallup poll from mid-2012... Obama's overall approval rating,

Another 52% said they disapproved of the job Obama was doing. "After six messy weeks defined chiefly by the
partial government shutdown and troubled rollout of the federal government's healthcare exchange website President Barack Obama's reputation with the
American public has faltered in some ways, but not in others," the poll's authors wrote.
nevertheless, stayed steady at 41%.

The president will always have a limit to the amount of power he or she possesses
Reich 2013, Robert, The Huffington Post, November 5, 2013
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/obamas-political-capital-_1_b_3874241.html)

Any president has a limited amount of political capital to mobilize

support for his agenda, in Congress and, more fundamentally, with the American people. This is especially true of a
president in his second term of office. Which makes President Obama's campaign to strike Syria all the more mystifying. President
Obama's domestic agenda is already precarious: implementing the Affordable Care Act, ensuring the Dodd-Frank Act adequately constrains Wall Street, raising the minimum wage, saving Social Security
Even if the president musters enough votes to strike Syria, at what political cost?

and Medicare from the Republican right as well as deficit hawks in the Democratic Party, ending the sequester and reviving programs critical to America's poor, rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, and, above all,
crafting a strong recovery. Time and again we have seen domestic agendas succumb to military adventures abroad -- both because the military-industrial-congressional complex drains money that might otherwise
be used for domestic goals, and because the public's attention is diverted from urgent problems at home to exigencies elsewhere around the globe. It would be one thing if a strike on Syria was critical to America's
future, or even the future of the Middle East. But it is not. In fact, a strike on Syria may well cause more havoc in that tinder-box region of the world by unleashing still more hatred for America, the West, and for
Israel, and more recruits to terrorism. Strikes are never surgical; civilians are inevitably killed. Moreover, the anti-Assad forces have shown themselves to be every bit as ruthless as Assad, with closer ties to
terrorist networks. Using chemical weapons against one's own innocent civilians is a crime against humanity, to be sure, but the United States cannot be the world's only policeman. The UN Security Council won't
support us, we can't muster NATO, Great Britain and Germany will not join us. Dictatorial regimes are doing horrendous things to their people in many places around the world. It would be folly for us to believe
we could stop it all. Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, are now arguing that a failure to act against Syria will embolden enemies of Israel like Iran and Hezbollah, and send a signal to Iran that the
United States would tolerate the fielding of a nuclear device. This is almost the same sort of specious argument -- America's credibility at stake, and if we don't act we embolden our enemies and the enemies of our
allies -- used by George W. Bush to justify toppling Saddam Hussein, and, decades before that, by Lyndon Johnson to justify a tragic war in Vietnam. It has proven to be a slippery slope: Once we take military
action, any subsequent failure to follow up or prevent gains by the other side is seen as an even larger sign of our weakness, further emboldening our enemies. Hopefully, Congress will see the wisdom of averting
this slope.

Russia/Ukraine DA

2. Isolationism - The United States has become increasingly isolationist under the Obama
administration, and as of a recent poll, it was discovered that public support for international
action has risen greatly. However, we must act responsibly - we cannot do all things at once. We
must prioritize our projects.
Ariel Edwards-Levy, 29 August 2014, A Growing Minority Of Americans Think We're Too Isolationist
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/foreign-policy-poll_n_5732088.html)

Rising concern about international threats has caused some Americans to reassess how active the U.S. should be
abroad, a new Pew/USA Today poll finds. While the wide majority of Americans still think the U.S. does too much or the right amount to help solve the world's problems, the number who
say the U.S. should be doing more has nearly doubled since last fall, while the faction who say it should do less has
diminished. Members of both parties, as well as independents, are now more likely to say the U.S. should be doing
more, but the change is especially pronounced among the GOP. Forty-six percent of Republicans now say the U.S. does too little, up from only 18 percent last November. President Barack Obama wins few
plaudits on international relations. A 54-percent majority of Americans say he isn't tough enough on national security, up from his first term
but little changed since last fall. Barely more than a third of Americans approve of his handling of situations in Russia, Israel and Iraq. Other surveys show his overall foreign policy rating at the worst it's been
during his presidency. Recent polling has also demonstrated the U.S.'s strong, if slightly muddled, isolationist streak, with Americans looking for their country to be less active in international affairs, while still

Pew/USA Today results, however, suggest some level of recalibration on what role the U.S.
should play in a world that 65 percent say is more dangerous than it was several years ago. While concern about al
Qaeda has remained steady, worries about Russia have also risen , and two-thirds now also view the Islamic State as a major threat. The shift in opinions isn't
projecting an image of strength. The

only at an abstract level. Support for U.S. airstrikes in Iraq grew significantly after they went from a hypothetical possibility to a policy announced by President Barack Obama. A HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted
in June found just 44 percent in favor of airstrikes; by late August, that figure rose to 66 percent, although most remained adamantly opposed to any U.S. ground presence. The Pew/USA Today poll used live calls
to landlines and cell phones to survey 1,501 Americans between Aug. 20 and Aug. 24.

3. It is crucial for Obama to focus his remaining political capital on Russia and Ukraine.
Malone 2014, Jim, Voice of America, 1 September 2014, Obama Faces Chaotic World, Limits of Power
(http://www.voanews.com/content/column-faces-chaotic-world-and-limits-of-power/2432432.html)

President Barack Obama faces dueling foreign

policy crises that pose a leadership test both at home and abroad. The growing threat from Islamic State militants in the Middle East and Russias
latest military move into Ukraine have brought into clear focus the challenges for the United States in an age where
Washington policy makers are acutely mindful of the U.S. publics waning appetite for overseas military engagements. President Obamas
Two months before midterm congressional elections that will have a huge impact on the last two years of his tenure,

acknowledgement that the U.S. doesnt have a strategy yet with regard to containing Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria suggests the administration wants to take some time to explore its options both militarily
and diplomatically before reaching any decisions on whether to expand the U.S. air campaign into Syria. As the president said, Syria is not simply a military issue, its also a political issue. Obamas comment
drew some immediate fire from some of his Republican critics. Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Mike Rogers of Michigan, said the presidents comment confirmed what we have been
talking about really for almost two years. There has been no real strategy. Another Republican had a different view. Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma told MSNBC television said he thought the president
was being commendably cautious about being involved in the middle of the Syrian civil war. Cole also said the administration should go to Congress for authorization on ramping up its military strikes on
Islamic State fighters in Syria, something several Democrats have also said they would support if a decision is made to expand attacks beyond northern Iraq. Obama is also warning that Russia is likely to face
more Western sanctions over its latest moves in Ukraine, but he also said the U.S. will not be taking military action to solve the Ukrainian problem. As Congress returns to Washington from its lengthy August
recess, the president can expect even more Republican pressure to act decisively and boldly in light of the twin challenges in Syria and Ukraine. Both issues could resonate with voters in November's midterm

President Obamas
overall public approval ratings remain lowjust above 40 percent in most national pollsand that usually spells
trouble for the presidents party in a midterm contest. But the public so far seems supportive of air attacks on Islamic State militants in Iraq, also known as ISIL, and the recent beheading of American
elections, which present Republicans with their best opportunity in years to seize control both of both houses of Congress for the final two years of the Obama presidency.

journalist James Foley seems to have galvanized U.S. public opposition to the group. But lingering public wariness of U.S. ground troops engaging in overseas conflicts in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq means the president must still confront the limits of U.S. military power in the context of what the American public is willing to support in any given crisis. It is far easier to build public support for limited,
successful drone and air attacks than a more open-ended military commitment that could involve ground troops. Foreign policy issues usually dont become critical factors in midterm elections. But given recent
events in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, the Obama administrations overall foreign policy approach has come under fire from congressional Republicans and is being highlighted by some Republican
candidates for the House and Senate. President Obama has been getting some negative public approval ratings on his handling of foreign policy and that, combined with continuing apprehension about the
economy, have driven his overall ratings to some of the lowest points of his presidency. Some analysts believe that a firmer hand against Islamic State militants in both Iraq and Syria could help alter public
perceptions about the presidents management of foreign policy, an area where he was given solid marks in previous years.

Russia may need to be 'coerced' to stop bullying its neighbors according to Clinton
Christine Murray, 5 September 2014 (http://blink.htcsense.com/web/articleweb.aspx?regionid=1&articleid=28442468)
Hillary Clinton on Friday criticized Russia for trying to intimidate its neighbors and said Moscow needed to be
has been critical of U.S. President Barack Obama's foreign policy in
recent weeks, said she was concerned about Russian President Vladimir Putin's approach to relations with Ukraine and other
Former U.S. Secretary of State

persuaded or even "coerced" into looking to the future rather than the past. Clinton, who

nations. "I do worry about President Putin's view that Russia should dominate its borders and intimidate people beyond its borders using gas and oil as a weapon, even where we're seeing now with Ukraine,

Western nations have accused Putin of supporting a pro-Russian rebellion in eastern

Ukraine that has killed more than 2,600 people since April. The conflict followed Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea
region earlier this year."It's very important that Europe remain whole, stable and at peace and that Russia be persuaded or somehow
convinced, even coerced into looking toward the future, not the past," Clinton said at an event hosted by Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim. Clinton, the wife of former U.S.
military force," Clinton said in Mexico City.

President Bill Clinton, pushed as secretary of state the Obama administration's "reset" of relations with Russia, which had soured in the final years of President George W. Bush's presidency. Seen as the
frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton, 66, has remained coy on speculation of whether she would make another White House bid, after losing out to her fellow Democrat, Obama,
in 2008. She told the audience in Mexico City that she likely would make a decision after Jan. 1, 2015. "I do have a unique vantage point and set of experiences about what makes the United States operate well
and what doesn't, and what a president can do and should be doing," Clinton said.

Russia/Ukraine DA

C. The Impact of inaction is nuclear war

1. Obama inaction on Ukraine could impede nuclear disarmament
Shapiro 2014, Jeffrey ScottWashington Times, 1 September 2014
The muted American response to Russias invasions of Ukraine could have consequences far beyond Eastern
Europe, according to security analysts who fear the crisis may discourage countries in the future from swearing off
nuclear weapons like Kiev did in a 1994 treaty. Three years after the Soviet Unions breakup, newly independent Ukraine was compelled by the three nuclear superpowers
to enter into the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, a treaty that guaranteed its signatories would respect the territorial integrity
or political independence of Ukraine and seek immediate U.N. Security Council action if the country should face an act of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.
experts say U.S. inaction
risks signaling to countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea that their sovereignty could be at risk without a
nuclear arsenal. Arms reduction should be a policy in consideration for all nations that have them. But I dont think thats the reason that Ukraine is experiencing the problems it is having, said Brad
Blakeman, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and former president of the national security group Freedoms Watch. The reason is a weak America and a Cold War
relationship with Putin where there is neither respect nor fear of the United States. The U.S. has no credibility. Why would anyone enter into an agreement with us now? he asked.
Although the agreement only requires the signatories take immediate action if Ukraine is threatened with nuclear weapons, foreign policy

and Russian

security, agreed. To countries like Iran and

North Korea, this is one more example that giving up their nuclear weapons makes no sense, because no guarantee will stand, he said.
Prior to the 1994 accord, Ukraine harbored the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In April Ukrainian parliament member Pavlo Rizanenko told USA
Today that many of his colleagues were already discussing the possibility of rearmament.We gave up nuclear weapons because of this
Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council who specializes in Russian affairs and international

agreement, he said. Now theres a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake. Then-acting Ukraine President Oleksandr Turchynov also wrote an op-ed for The New York Times warning that the
apparent consequences of Ukraines disarmament may lead to nuclear proliferation around the world. Ariel Cohen, director of the Center for Energy Natural Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for the

Analysis of Global
Security, said the situation looks like a disaster for Ukraine, but more importantly, it looks like a disaster for the cause of nonproliferation. This is because the three principal
nuclear powers guaranteed Ukraines territorial sovereignty in exchange for its abandoning its nuclear weapons, and now the Russians are paying a relatively low price for violating the Budapest protocol. Mr.

Cohen, who spoke to The Washington Times via telephone

from Kiev, added, This sends a strong signal to proliferators such as North Korea, Pakistan, Iran and others that any kind of security
guarantees from the existing nuclear club are not worth the paper they are written on. Events in Ukraine have turned a nonproliferation regime on its head. The Budapest Memorandum also promised that its

signatories would not place undue economic pressure on Ukraine so that it would not be compelled to surrender its power in exchange for financial
aid; the current Moscow-Kiev conflict erupted in
March after the Ukrainian Parliament ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych for accepting a $15 billion bailout from the Kremlin. When the crisis began, the State Department issued a press release in March
noting that President Obama had called then-acting Ukraine President Oleksandr Turchynov to assure him of the strong support of the United States, and also called Mr. Putin to tell him that Moscow was
violating the 1994 treaty.

2. Putin is threatening nuclear war over Ukraine

Elena Scotti, 31 August 2014 (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/31/putin-threatens-nuclear-war-over-ukraine.html)
as Russian Federation tanks and troops poured across the border into eastern Ukraine, Vladimir
Putin talked about his countrys most destructive weaponry. I want to remind you that Russia is one of the most
powerful nuclear nations, he said. This is a reality, not just words. Russia, he told listeners, is
strengthening our nuclear deterrence forces. That same day, Putin used a term for eastern Ukraine meaning New Russia. So when he refers to repelling any
aggression against Russia and speaks of nuclear deterrence, as he did on Friday, the Russian president is really warning us he will use nukes to protect his grab of
Ukrainian territory. For more than a generation, nuclear weapons were considered defensive only. In a few short
sentences on Friday, however, Putin made these devices offensive in nature, just another tool to be employed by an
aggressor. And to highlight his threat, on Aug. 14 at Yalta, the Crimean city he had seized this year, Putin mentioned surprising the West
with our new developments in offensive nuclear weapons about which we do not talk yet. Also in Yalta, where the
On Friday,

Duma was meeting, the Russian leader spoke about renouncing the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and Russia. The treaty outlaws ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles
with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles and is a foundation of the post-Cold War peace. It is one thing to talk about withdrawing from the pactPutin has been doing that since 2007it is another to violate it,
which Putin has apparently been doing since 2008, when Russia began testing cruise missiles again. And when the State Departments Rose Gottemoeller raised the concern in May of last year, Russian officials
tried to shut down the dialogue. According to The New York Times, they said that they had looked into the matter and consider the issue to be closed. Administration officials said the upheaval in Ukraine
pushed the issue to the back burner, the paper reported of the INF violation. Putin, with his comments Friday, just moved it to the front of the stove. And not just in the European kitchen. If Putin manages to
intimidate the West with his not-so-veiled promises to incinerate Ukraines defenders, other aggressors may think they too can employ his threatening tactics. For instance, both North Korea and China have
recently talked about unleashing Armageddon. Perhaps we can ignore the ranting of the Kim regime, but Chinese nuclear threats are particularly worrisome. Chinas flag officers have, for two decades, been
issuing belligerent warnings about Beijings willingness to use nukes to seize Japans outlying islands or Taiwan, but the threats took on an especially belligerent tone last October. With no apparent provocation,
the main outlets of Chinese state mediaPeoples Daily, China Central Television, and PLA Daily, among othersran identical articles that month about how Chinese submarines launching ballistic missiles
tipped with nuclear warheads could kill tens of millions of Americans in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Portland in Maine, and the Navy towns of

now that a reckless

Putin has raised the stakes on Friday by making nukes just another appliance of aggression, an incident of
mass slaughter looks dangerously real and perilously close.
Annapolis and Norfolk. Those Chinese reports also talked about radiation deaths in Chicago. On Thursday, a nuclear exchange was, at least for most people, inconceivable. Yet

Russia/Ukraine DA

(This card isnt necessary, can drop if running out of time)

Putin is vocal, confident, and aggressive in his nuclear threats over Ukraine.
Damien Sharkov, 1 September 2014, Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/russia-has-threatened-nuclear-attack-says-ukraine-defence-minister267842)

Kiev has received threats of nuclear retaliation from Russia through unofficial channels if it continues to fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern
Ukraine, the Ukrainian Minister of Defence, Valeriy Heletey, announced o\.The Russian side has threatened on
several occasions that, in the case of continued resistance they are ready to use a tactical nuclear weapon
against us, Heleteys statement reads. The minister goes on to say that Russias hybrid war in Ukraine is at an end, accusing the Kremlin of attempting a full-scale invasion. Heletey called for all
Ukrainian forces to consolidate and begin building defences against Russia, insisting today the operation to liberate the Eastern Ukraine against terrorism is complete. Heleteys cryptic message comes after
rapidly escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine over continuing reports of Russian military activity near the separatist-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine. Italian newspaper La

Russian president Vladimir Putin had said in a phone call to European Commission President
Jose Manual Barroso that he could take Kiev in two weeks if he wanted to. Putin also alluded to
potential nuclear conflict when he told Russian youth campers last week: "Thank God, I think no one is thinking of unleashing a largescale conflict with Russia," he said. "I want to remind you that Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers . Last week two groups of
Repubblica reported that

Russian soldiers were captured by Ukrainian forces, which the Kremlin insisted had not entered Ukraine as part of a military operation. The Kremlin has gone on record to deny any military involvement in
Ukraine, insisting that all Russians fighting for Ukrainian eastern separatist forces are not stationed on military duty but are there as volunteers, despite mounting evidence that a full-scale military operation is
underway. But Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia of "direct and undisguised aggression" shortly before the Ukrainian military said it had retreated from a strategically valuable airport near the
city of Luhansk today, after coming into contact with a Russian tank battalion. Western leaders have condemned Russian military activity in Ukraine with British Prime Minister David Cameron branding Russian

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on Russia to cease its

aggressive behaviour. The Federation of American Scientists estimates Russias total inventory of
nuclear warheads at 8,000, 1,600 of which are strategically operational.
troops presence in Ukraine unacceptable and unjustified, while