Wiki---Greenhill---Round 1

1NC
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League of Democracies CP:
Text: the United States federal government should increase its security
cooperation with a United Democratic League, made up of nations that meet
objective criteria for democratic governance, in the area of proactive cyber
defense strategies.

A new league of democracies solves the case, but keeping it separate from
NATO at the outset is key to global buy-in which solves a range of existential
threats
John Davenport 19, Professor of Philosophy and Peace & Justice Studies, Fordham University,
2019, A League of Democracies: Cosmopolitanism, Consolidation Arguments, and Global Public
Goods, p. 32-36 /jpb

Although it is not widely known, ideas for associations of democratic nations have been around under
various titles for a long time. As James Yunker describes, although ‘world federalist’ proposals peaked immediately following
World War II and tapered off during the Cold War, proposals for uniting democracies continued. In 1940, the American journalist,
Clarence Streit, suggested an alliance of Atlantic nations, which helped inspire NATO. In his 1961 book, Streit then proposed that
NATO nations found a new confederation aimed at becoming a tighter union over time.1

Following Streit and John Ikenberry, James Huntley

proposed an “Intercontinental Community of
Democracies” based on a treaty for mutual defense , a free trade zone modelled on the EU, and a central
council initially composed of democracies with advanced economies, significant militaries, and
“a demonstrated willingness to share burdens fairly .”2 By contrast, my proposal would include
more non-western and developing democracies as equal partners and add mass atrocity
prevention to the organization’s purposes. Huntley also suggested a broader Democratic Caucus at the UN and a
“Parliamentary Assembly of Democracies,” including up to 70 nations made up initially of delegates appointed by their governments
(and eventually, elected directly by their peoples).3 This looks like a smaller version of the UN limited to democracies, with a central
council larger than the UNSC’s but still much smaller than the Assembly. My proposal is structured differently (see chapter six), but I
will develop Huntley’s proposals for global arms controls and measures to resist “democide” by coup.

In recent policy circles, a concert of democracies has been a bipartisan idea in the U nited S tates, and it
has Europe an proponents as well. Perhaps inspired by Huntley, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her Polish
counterpart, Bronislaw Geremek, organized the Community of Democracies (CDem)4 beginning with a 2000 conference
in Warsaw attended by 106 nations. The resulting Warsaw Declaration is a bold statement that lays out a demanding set of
principles defining democracy, which
a future UDL could use as criteria for membership. CDem’s
“Governing Council” is made up of 27 well-established and solidly democratic nations that could
become future founders of a UDL. Yet most people have never heard of CDem because it has
operated only as a meeting of ministers taking little concrete action . CDem’s function is mainly symbolic,
and it has no aspirations to step into the breach when the Security Council fails to act. But it is a promising first step that led
Kinsman, as representative for Canada, to call for CDem to play a stronger role. Against rising isolationist sentiments, he affirms
Franklin Roosevelt’s sentiment that “other people’s lives do matter, because people ‘everywhere in the world, including Russia,
aspire to human rights we take for granted and [they] look to democrats beyond their borders for solidarity’ with their struggles.”5
To provide that solidarity would be a main function of a democratic league.
More recently, in a 2004 editorial, James Lindsay and Ivo Daalder (who later served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to
NATO), proposed an “alliance of democracies” in response to the tensions occasioned by the American invasion of Iraq.6 Around the
same time, I outlined a “federation of democracies” in a debate on just war theory with Jean Elshtain.7 In 2006, the Princeton
Project on National Security finished its “bipartisan initiative” to develop a national security strategy for America. Anne-Marie
Slaughter, dean of the Wilson School, and John Ikenberry published the final report advocating for a “Concert of Democracies” to act
as a backup to the UN and regional institutions, rather than as a replacement for the Security Council.8 They
envisioned this
concert as a new treaty organization devoted primarily to strengthening “security
cooperation among the world’s liberal democracies” by operating whenever possible through “existing regional
and global institutions,” but also acting directly when the UN fails. Its membership would be “selective, but self-selected,” meaning
that member nation s would abide by key norms. In particular, they would commit to holding
multiparty, free-and-fair elections at regular intervals; guarantee civil and political rights for
their citizens enforceable by an independent judiciary; and accept that states have a “responsibility to protect”
their citizens from avoidable catastrophe and that the international community has a right to act if they fail to uphold it.9

Clearly this early endorsement of R2P, and their proposed institution to fulfill it goes in the direction that I advocate, especially if the
R2P principle is considered binding on all nations. Yet Ikenberry and Slaughter weaken this proposal by
suggesting that the democratic concert would not initially be founded as “a new alliance
system” to supersede NATO or the UN “as long as those institutions can be successfully reformed .”
They clarify, however, that if the UNSC cannot be reformed within a few years, then “the Concert could become an alternative
forum for the approval of the use of force” when UNSC vetoes prevented “free nations from keeping faith with the aims of the U.N.
Charter” and R2P. This could require the concert to add agreements on “approving the use of force by a supermajority of member
states, with no veto power” when needed to defend peace or to stop mass atrocities.10

These very promising provisions are incorporated within the UDL proposal. However, I maintain that a
league of
democracies should be founded from the beginning as a democracy-only organization with a
vetoless version of the Security Council that is directly elected by individual citizens of member nations and authorized to act even
before attempting to get UNSC approval. As I argued in the Introduction, it
is too late to adopt a more incremental
approach, and the main arguments for a democratic league depend on giving it binding power to
make collective decisions about security and humanitarian crises like Syria . In other words, one of the
main reasons to create it would be to replace the Security Council and thereby express the free world’s determination to end cynical
manipulation by antidemocratic regimes. It was never realistic to hope for UNSC implementation of R2P, given R2P’s tensions with
the principles on which the UN was built, as I will argue (chapter four). A
league of democracies is needed to
proclaim a more adequate basis for both R2P and the entire system of international law , which
must finally be aligned with democratic ideals .

I will also argue that such a league should immediately supersede NATO because mutually assured
security and determination to end mass atrocities should wed together all of the world’s liberal or
democracies (see chapter four). Ikenberry and Slaughter propose that NATO
sufficiently rights-respecting
should be revived and updated with new bargains to strengthen its purpose , and to give the EU a clearer
role within its framework. By contrast, while an improved NATO might continue for some time alongside a

fledgling UDL , the democratic league would need to have primacy to give developing nations
enough reason to join it (see chapter five). Moreover, replacing NATO would bring crucial advantages ,
because NATO is associated with the Cold War and thus widely misunderstood as an
institution that exists only to promote western interests. Even significant expansion of NATO’s
mission could not easily shake this image , whereas replacing NATO with a new UDL would
offer invaluable leverage with Russia .
These points bear directly on Didier Jacobs’s 2007 argument for expanding NATO into something like a global concert of
democracies. 11 Jacobs also suggests that political scientists focusing on transnational governance have been too reluctant to
embrace direct democratic control of global institutions by individual citizens,12 when in fact there is no adequate substitute for
democratic answerability at any level of law and policy. He makes good points: NATO is an alliance of democratic nations that, unlike
the Security Council, has proven itself by using the huge military power at its disposal effectively. It thus has the credibility to attract
new members, and its expansion would make it more legitimate as a global authority: “The bet of global democracy is thus that the
incremental expansion of an organization like NATO could increase its legitimacy, as well as its military might, without decreasing its
credibility.”13

Jacobs is right that a more inclusive NATO would be more legitimate — especially if its council were directly
elected—and that an effective global democratic institution would have to wield serious enforcement power, giving its decisions real
teeth. However, directly electing NATO’s Atlantic Council and allowing it to operate by majority
rule (rather than current consensus requirements) are changes too radical to achieve through
the existing NATO amendment process ; they would require a whole new treaty. In that case,
why retain an identity associated with western Cold War policy? In a later editorial, Jacobs acknowledges
that “an open League of Democracies would be less threatening than a closed club like NATO ,”
and he supports this proposal14 (although in another article, he still entertains the expansion of NATO as the way to create such a
league).15

I believe that a fresh start without any direct association with NATO stands a better chance of
buy-in from democracies in Asia and the global South . Including such nations as founding
members of the UDL is crucial to its legitimacy , and to solving a range of global problems , from
mutual security to a stable global financial system and fair global immigration processes . If
most NATO nations (including the largest powers) were founding members of a new democratic
league, it would inherit some of the credibility that NATO has built up , while billing it as a new
organization would express willingness to lay aside Cold War mind-sets and any associated
hegemonic ambitions . For NATO nations would be pledging themselves to live by the decisions
of a global democratic league that gave non-western democracies a strong voice and voting
weight (see chapter five).

The impact’s extinction---only a new league of democracies solves

TPGs = transnational public goods

John Davenport 19, Professor of Philosophy and Peace & Justice Studies, Fordham University,
2019, A League of Democracies: Cosmopolitanism, Consolidation Arguments, and Global Public
Goods, p. 25-26 /jpb

In sum, democracies are now in serious peril from the rising economic and political power of China’s soft
despotism, Putin’s military aggressions and cyber-invasions, and the many transnational consequences of
mass atrocities. While people are focused on terrorism, these larger existential threats to democracy are
much less noticed . These developments since 1989 support my larger argument for a new
transnational institution in three ways. First, they suggest that existing institutions such as NATO are not
sufficient to secure TPGs shared by democratic nations; western democracies need more
support from younger democracies around the world . Rather than try to make the UN system work, China and
Russia have largely used it as a cloak to hide their intensions while they perfected new strategies to undermine democracy.
Second, my analysis suggests that a much better approach to coop eration among democracies is still
feasible . Asian and South American democracies would probably stand with older western
democracies if a democratic league were organized in a way that was fair to them. Emerging
African democracies and nations still deciding their direction in central Asia would be encouraged by
the opportunities that such a league would provide. A UDL would offer them a viable alternative to
the emerging Russia-China axis of corrupt power.
Moreover, within a UDL, would-be democratic nations struggling against ultrafundamentalist religious movements, such as Pakistan
and Iraq, would have massive support from a broad group of democracies without risk of unilateral control by Washington. Then the
antidemocratic forces in China would be weakened , and Russians might be enabled to save their
nation. The great courage of the Ukrainians at the Kiev Maidan should be a wake-up call: if these ordinary Ukrainians could stand
alone against Putin’s despotism, imagine what a broad league of democracies could do.

The timewe have left to turn things around is shortened by other factors such as fast-rising US
federal debt (and interest on the debt), rising tensions within Europe, and environmental challenges —
not only climate change but also loss of fisheries, loss of topsoil and farmland, the destruction of
coastal wetlands, and the ongoing erasure of tropical rainforests and the biodiversity they contain. By
2050 there may be little of these priceless ecosystems left to save, whereas a UDL formed
during the next ten years could coordinate strong preservation initiatives .
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DOS CP:
The United States federal government should increase its military assistance
and military-to-military engagement with the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization over proactive cyber defensive strategies.
It competes: at a minimum, security cooperation includes…
Colonel Albert Zaccor, currently Director for Southern Europe in the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, “Security Cooperation and Non-State Threats: A Call for an Integrated Strategy,”
August 2005, https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/46290/2005_08_Security_Cooperation_and_Non-
State_Threats.pdf, cc
It is an oft-repeated mantra that in order to defeat transnational terrorism, and by extension other related non-state threats, the United States must

apply all the elements of national power, including diplomatic, informational, military, and economic.34 The OSD SCG directs that
DOD Security Cooperation “will be integrated with other elements of national power…in order to achieve national
security, defense, and foreign policy objectives.”35 This formulation, while helpful , obscures two key facts . First,
Security Cooperation includes activities that by their very nature involve the simultaneous
application of more than one element of national power . Security Cooperation at a
minimum requires the combination of diplomatic relations , military assistance , military-to-
military contacts , and public diplomacy . In other words, Security Cooperation is itself an appli cation
of at least three of the classic elements of national power.36 Second, DOD is not the only entity in the USG that interacts with foreign governments to
achieve the stated objectives: relationships, capabilities, information and intelligence, and access. The Department of State , the
Intelligence Community, and to a lesser extent, other departments and agencies, conduct activities aimed at the accomplishment of these objectives,
broadly understood. There is, however, no common USG, or interagency, definition or concept of Security Cooperation.37 We will return to this issue in
the final section of this paper. For the purposes of the present discussion, this paper offers the following working definition of Security Cooperation:

That’s Zaccor 5.
The CP solves case while avoiding the dip cap disad.
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BAUDRILLARD K:
Cyberdefense’s simulated will to truth that causes violence. Vote neg to refuse
the 1AC’s reality.
Rivera 20. Alex Rivera, "Baudrillard and the Viral Violence of Cyber Security" (2020). Honors
College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. Paper 844.
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses/844

TOWARD AN ILLUSORY READING OF CYBER WAR If

the core of global violence manifests from the accumulation of
meaning, the only regress would be to abolish such a pursuit. Yet, our weapons to challenge this
immense system of semiotic exchange are extremely limited since external critique, like
described above, is increasingly coopted as an information commodity within the system
(Pawlett, 2016: 33-34). Even the most radical intellectual theories that appear to be in diametric contradiction with the virtue of such
exchange ultimately become tolerated and commodified. One can simply look at the plethora of radical critical literature books for sale on Amazon;
purchasing copies of books like The Communist Manifesto “[…] not only provides profits to a tax-dodging mega-corporation, it also demonstrates (or
rather, simulates) the openness, tolerance and freedoms of the consumer capitalist system” (Pawlett, 2016: 33-34). Thus,
these
oppositional challenges to commodification end up lauding the virtuous nature of
commodification by proving a tolerance that is so complete that it can literally tolerate
advocacies of its demise. Most criticism begins at the wrong place by placing their challenge in the domain of the real. For
Baudrillard, an unreal system is incapable of receiving a real death and thus our strategy must
be a weaponization of simulations that stage its symbolic downfall. This is why the previously
mentioned principal of reversibility is of the utmost importance; even when one injects meaning
that is toxic to the system’s vitality, it will be consumed and exchanged like any other piece of
information that is offered. Since the power of models that completely envelope reality derives
from their excess of information, the ability to know everything in advance, they are vulnerable
to paradox and irreconcilable confusion. Over identification with the voracious consumption of information and the
overproduction of meaning can therefore reverse its strength against itself, “[…] like a much larger opponent being thrown by the momentum of their
own weight in martial arts” (Pawlett, 2016: 33-34). One can imagine, for example, a society taking the messages of Red Bull commercials far too
seriously and consuming the beverage to the point of widespread intestinal dysfunction – a self-demonstrating critique of the culture of productivity.
As the entire system of symbolic exchange is a mere illusion, even a small act of deceit has the
potential to cause its downfall . This is not to say that we should accelerate the proliferation of
grotesque images like those of Abu Ghraib, quite the opposite, such a strategy would create
obscene violence and fail to stake a true virtual challenge of the system. Rather, we should view
those examples as demonstrations that even what initially appears impossible or destabilizing to
exchange, will indeed be exchanged. Therefore, Baudrillard’s solution is contained within the science of imaginary solutions coined
as Pataphysics; “Pataphysicians fight reality […]” not by confronting it, but by “[…] creating illusion and deceit” (Strehle, 2014). To avoid the

trap of succumbing to a will to truth that landed us here in the first place, we must instead be
radical enough to subvert reality by playing with simulations. Despite traditional assumptions, the purpose of radical
thought should not be to “[…] recognize and analyze reality, instead it must deny and contradict its hegemony. It has to create illusion and establish a
power of seduction that makes one lose the path of reality” (Strehle, 2014). This is comparable to a fishing lure, which takes advantage of the hunger
and curiosity of fish to lead them astray from their normal food course. Baudrillard’s playful work mimics “[…] a simulacrum in the strongest sense” by
denying seemingly obvious premises and writing in a riddle-like prose (Strehle, 2014). Language
and signs are useful tools that
can lead the subject to read and interrogate the event from a different angle. His propositions
thus construct a new reality, and if the grand simulacrum is to oppose his illusion, it would
expose its own unreality in the process. Yet critically, he is not concerned with discovering truth
or crafting an evidence intensive case to create these illusions. By placing premises that contradict reality, his “[…]
theories are like evil ghosts: They haunt reality by staging its excluded other—no matter if this other really exists or if it has to be feigned” (Strehle,
2014). This illusion of language attempts to replace what has been muted from the war by creating a new reality,
not simply describing one that is waiting in the world. It replaces the old model with a confused and unreadable one
in order to end the violence of predictability. To disrupt the destructive communicative model of
cyber war, we must build and weaponize radical simulations. Baudrillard coins this strategy as
theoretical terrorism; it is likened to a graffiti artist who sprays their own meanings or words
over the preexisting symbols on a building (Strehle, 2014). Suddenly, a new simulacrum disfigures and misguides the building’s
original connotation, imposing a code that is far less discernable than the last while laying a new reality over the old. Though we cannot

spell out how this would exactly look for cyber war, as doing so would defeat the purpose of
radical thought, we can be sure that it involves a shift in our model of communication. What is
desperately needed is some way to pervert the supposed cleanliness of this cyber war, to
confuse or distort its reality to the point of collapse. Much like how Baudrillard responded to the
Gulf War by completely withholding its dose of reality-effect, our antiwar stance could work
over the cyber event, never opposing it on its terms. Without such a strategy, we are doomed to
replicate the violence of simulations.
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DIP CAP DA:
Support to Ukraine left Middle Eastern allies neglected, but a new series of
visits promises to restore diplomatic engagement which establishes regional
security---the plan trades off.
Daniel L. Byman 22, Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy, 7/8/22,
“Biden’s difficult task: Reviving US partnerships in the Middle East,”
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/07/08/bidens-difficult-task-reviving-
us-partnerships-in-the-middle-east/

As President Joe Biden prepares to travel to the Middle East, his administration faces several challenges in its
relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other regional (non-treaty) allies. At the most basic level, the
United States and these allies do not share the same priorities. Part of why Biden is traveling to
Saudi Arabia is to convince the country’s leaders to pump more oil as global prices soar. In
addition, the United States seeks to maintain pressure on the Islamic State group (IS) to prevent
the terror organization from rebuilding. Yet both the Russia-Ukraine war and the struggle against the remnants of IS
are ancillary concerns for regional states , and they are concerned that the U.S. focus on Asia and Europe

will make the U nited S tates a less useful security partner.

Iran , the foreign policy priority for Israel, Saudi Arabia, and many other regional states, is a major sticking point. Indeed, most
regional allies oppose the Biden administration’s efforts to restore the Iran nuclear deal, seeing it as making too many concessions to
Tehran and fearing that the United States in general will not stand up to Iranian aggression and subversion. With regular Iranian
missile strikes on Iraq and missile strikes from Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, this fear is
quite strong. Nuclear
talks appear to be floundering, and the Biden administration will need to decide
whether to try to revive them at the risk of further alienating regional states or abandon them only to work
on the next challenge
— how to create other diplomatic — and military — options that will stop the Iranian bomb and

ensure regional security . Iran, for its part, will interpret the Biden visit as the United States further siding with its regional
enemies.

Russia is another sticking point. The United States is trying to create a global coalition to oppose Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Middle Eastern states , however, see Russia as a source of wheat, while their populations question why Ukraine
should be the subject of global solidarity while Syria was not. Many are more anti-American than pro-Ukraine.
Regardless of regime views on Ukraine, Russia is also a military player in Syria, and Israel works with Moscow to ensure that Israel
can strike Iranian assets in Syria without interference from Russian forces.

In order to win over regional leaders, Biden will also need to curtail some of his critical rhetoric. This is especially true with his
condemnation of the Saudi murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the brutal Saudi and UAE war in Yemen. These are the right
stances from a human rights perspective, but Riyadh and its allies will not be accommodating in other areas if they are the subject of
regular, public criticism.

Actually walking back his comments on these grave human rights issues would be politically difficult even if Biden were inclined to
openly abandon the moral high ground. In practice, refraining from future criticism, the legitimacy bestowed by the trip itself, and
other steps that make it clear that Riyadh is being embraced, not shunned. As in the past, the United States is again emphasizing
that pragmatic concerns like oil prices and Iran, not human rights, will drive U.S. policy toward the kingdom.

Making these problems more difficult , the Biden administration inherited a weak hand from its
predecessors. U.S. engagement with the Middle East has declined dramatically since the George
W. Bush administration, when 9/11 and the Iraq War put the region at the center of U.S. foreign
policy. President Barack Obama tried to reduce U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and President Donald Trump, while more
sympathetic to autocratic Arab allies, also favored limited U.S. involvement in the region. The Biden administration has
emphasized great power competition, with the war in Ukraine and the rivalry with China
dominating strategic thinking. Biden’s trip is thus occurring with a regional perception that the
U nited S tates is focused on other parts of the world and at home, with little appetite for
resolving regional disputes and leading regional allies as it sought to in the past. Indeed, Biden’s
understandable focus on energy and Russia will reinforce this, making it clear that it is non-regional concerns that are driving his visit
rather than shared interests. The Biden administration also claims the trip is to encourage Saudi Arabia to formally make peace with
Israel, though U.S. officials almost certainly recognize a formal peace is highly unlikely even though Riyadh and Israel have stepped
up their security partnership.

Making the job even harder, Middle Eastern allies have preferred Republican presidents. Gulf state rulers believe Republican leaders
are more anti-Iran and less concerned about human rights. Israeli leaders too believe Republicans are more pro-Israel and more
likely to stand up to Tehran. In addition, regional allies rightly recognize that Trump or another disruptive leader may again assume
the U.S. presidency. The U nited S tates, in other words, will be considered an erratic ally, with policies and interest in
the Middle East varying wildly by administration.

One goal that may have more success is encouraging U.S. allies to work together. The United States historically has preferred
bilateral cooperation, with countries working with Washington more than with one another. As the U.S. limits its involvement,
however, it will want regional states to step up and combine their efforts, whether this is to counter Iran or to resolve regional wars
like those in Yemen and Libya. Israel, with its formidable military and intelligence services, can play an important role here, offering
high-end capabilities, such as providing radar systems to Bahrain and the UAE, when the United States is reluctant to do so for
political reasons.

The United States is also likely to have help from partners in sustaining the fighting against IS and other dangerous jihadi groups.
Although this struggle is less of a priority for allies, they too worry about violent jihadism and will continue longstanding intelligence
and military cooperation. Jihadi groups also remain weak compared with their past selves, limiting the effort required.

Regional partners will be aware of U.S. pivoting to focus on Asia and Europe, and Biden’s visit will not change this perception. The
best the administration can hope for is to make clear , both in private and in public, that the U nited S tates will
remain diplomatically and militarily involved in the Middle East, whether it be to counter IS or deter
Iran . The president’s visit is thus a useful signal , even if regional states will remain unsatisfied.

Perhaps the best that can be hoped from this trip is simply to restart the U.S. engagement with its allies in the region.
Such a goal doesn’t promise big wins — there may at best be modest concessions like a Saudi announcement it will pump a small
amount of additional oil — but it offers the hope of future improvements. For now , the U.S. relationship with
regional allies is transactional, with little trust or respect on either side. Repeated visits by high-
level officials will make them more likely to listen to Washington and consider U.S. interests rather than see
U.S. concerns as irrelevant, or even opposed, to their day-to-day problems.

Disengagement greenlights regional instability---extinction.

H. Brandon Morgan 22, U.S. Army Officer and non-resident fellow at the Modern War
Institute, 6/7/22, “The Imperative of Middle East Regional Order and U.S. Diplomacy,”
https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2022/6/7/the-imperative-of-middle-east-regional-
order-and-us-diplomacy

For U.S. strategists seeking to thwart rising Chinese hegemony or Russian military imperialism,
the idea of America leaving a volatile Middle East to its fate may sound appealing . Civil war in Syria
and Yemen coupled with the troubled democracies in Iraq and Sudan are only a few examples showcasing Washington’s ongoing
regional challenges. President Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in August 2021 perhaps reflected the country’s
general frustration with America’s Middle East engagement over the past two decades. Indeed, U.S. ambivalence towards recent
Iran-backed Houthi strikes against Saudi and Emirate oil facilities suggest that Washington is ready to accept broader strategic
disengagement from the region, come what may. But strategic disengagement from the Middle East to focus
on China and a war-bound Russia will likely come at high cost for Washington. Indeed, without a U.S.-
supported Middle East security architecture, the long simmering tensions could erupt into a
firestorm of region wide conflict inevitably requiring American military intervention to prevent
an oil crisis or renewal of transnational terrorism. This would completely undermine
Washington’s desire to pivot strategic focus towards the Indo-Pacific. But insuring against
negative outcomes in the Middle East—the region of traditional U.S. focus—also provides the opportunity
for the rise of positive outcomes in economic growth and institutional development. This would
not only provide positive trade benefits for the U.S., but it would also promote an American friendly regional order
while limiting the growing influence of China and Russia. Fortunately , the tools to prevent
strategic crises and promote Middle East regional growth lie increasingly less in military capacity
and more in the realm of diplomatic and economic engagement. This excess of military
capacity in the Middle East could prove highly valuable in the Indo-Pacific and Eastern
Europe .

A POTENTIAL NUCLEAR POWDER KEG IN THE MAKING

These attacks by Iranian irregular-proxy forces, combined with their turnkey nuclear program ,
suggests that the U.S. maximum pressure strategy has placed America’s interests of regional
stability and energy security at serious risk . Additionally, U.S. disengagement from the region—signaled by America’s
reluctance to counter Iran’s attacks—has led the Arab-Israeli coalition to determine that accelerating a
conventional weapons buildup is the only way to ensure their own protection .[7] U.S.
disengagement, Arab-Israeli arms buildup, and Iranian asymmetric warfare may have the
potential to become its own cycle of violence and instability . Left unchecked , this cycle could
contain grave risk of escalation towards regional conflict—one in which Iran could resort to completing its
nuclear weapons program and spark incipient proliferation . A Middle Eastern war between Iran and an
Arab-Israeli coalition could place the security of the Hormuz Strait and Suez Canal at risk, requiring
active intervention by the European and Asian powers whose economies fundamentally rely on
the energy and trade flow from these vital trade corridors . Some may argue that with America’s limited energy
imports from the region, these outside powers should be the ones to resolve such a conflict.[8] But allowing other great powers such
as China, Russia, and others to rewrite the Middle East’s security architecture with the U.S. on the sidelines is not in the geopolitical
interests of the American government. To prevent such an outcome, finishing a renewed nuclear deal is a central imperative for U.S.
interests.

FOUNDATIONS OF A REGIONAL ORDER

If a renewed nuclear deal could be completed, the U.N. Security Council plus Germany would be able to extend Iran’s nuclear
breakout time from three weeks to six months, establish a verifiable nuclear inspection regime, and forestall a nuclear crisis in the
Middle East.[9] Despite these crucial benefits, there are still some who call for the U.S. to reject the deal entirely. Critics often state
that the economic benefits to Iran will only increase Tehran’s ability to wage proxy warfare, building an ever-larger arsenal of
missiles and drones against the U.S. and regional partners.[10] Indeed, Iran’s economy grew by 13.4% in 2016—all before full
sanctions relief implementation, strongly suggesting that Iran stands to benefit from a renewed deal.[11] But it is important to
remember that although Iran has long maintained its asymmetric and ballistic missile capabilities, the scale and severity of attacks
against strategic oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Persian Gulf came after U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal in
2018. This suggests that while Tehran is not likely to surrender the Revolutionary Guard and proxy-force funding in the short term, it
is possible for the U.S. to establish a security dialogue that minimizes regional tensions and builds momentum for further diplomatic
victories in the long term.
A regional security architecture in the Middle East must be founded on reassurance to Arab-
Israeli partners, continued deterrence against Iran, and good faith negotiations. The U.S. should revitalize its
diplomatic engagement with Arab-Israeli partners. Importantly, this requires astute diplomacy that recognizes that a
general pivot to other regions does not equate to complete strategic disengagement from the Middle East. The U.S. should reassure
its Arab-Israeli partners that the American government will diplomatically support the coalition against attacks by Iran while offering
economic assistance in the aftermath of Iranian strikes. To deter Iran, the U.S. must re-signal its willingness and determination to
conduct proportional military counterstrikes in response to Tehran’s military aggression that threatens American partners in the
region. With U.S. security assurances established, the coalition can slow the pace of their arms buildup. This
would reduce
Iran’s perceived need to respond with asymmetrical strikes, thus limiting the escalation cycle. By
reestablishing Iranian deterrence, Washington will garner greater maneuvering space to
negotiate mutually desirable outcomes.
 OFF---1NC
PQD CP:
The United States Supreme Court should hold security cooperation with the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization over proactive defensive strategies as
unconstitutional.

The CP solves and unravels the Political Question Doctrine.

Jennifer L. Karnes 12, JD Candidate at SUNY Buffalo Law School, BA from New York University,
“Pirates Incorporated?: Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. and the Uncertain State of
Corporate Liability for Human Rights Violations Under the Alien Tort Statute”, Buffalo Law
Review, 60 Buffalo L. Rev. 823, 831-833, May 2012, Lexis

Judge Bork, on the other hand, dismissed the case on the ground that "[n]either the law of nations nor any of
the relevant treaties provides a cause of action that appellants may assert in courts of the U nited
S tates," reasoning that Congress's grant of ATS jurisdiction did not, in itself, create a cause of action that individuals could enforce
in municipal courts. Judge Bork found that the plaintiffs did not seek to enforce a statutory nor a constitutional right, as required to
invoke the power of the court. Relying on (1) the p olitical q uestion d octrine --which contends that some issues, such
as foreign policy issues, are better left to the political process than judicial intervention ; and (2) the
act of state doctrine --in which sovereign immunity precludes the U.S. courts from inquiring into the validity of the acts of a foreign
sovereign in its own territory, Judge Bork further reasoned that separation of powers principles prevented the court from
establishing a cause of action. Recognizing
a new cause of action, in Judge Bork's opinion, would require [*832] the
court to analyze principles of international law that are not clearly defined and may touch "sharply on
national nerves ," and create an exception to the general rule that international law only binds state actors. Further, it follows
from Filartiga's reasoning that if there exists an individual right to bring claims under the law of nations, then there also exists a
cause of action for any violation of the treaties to which the United States is a party. Bork cautioned that this line of reasoning was
absurd, because it would mean, "all existing treaties became, and all future treaties will become, in effect, self-executing when
ratified." Bork also noted that there was no international consensus on whether terrorism violated the law of nations, that no treaty
provided individuals with a right to seek damages, and that at the time of the enactment of ATS, the concept of international human
rights law simply did not exist. Bork concluded that "unless a modern statute, treaty, or executive agreement provided a private
cause of action for violations of new international norms which do not themselves contemplate private enforcement," it was not the
role of the court to develop new causes of action under ATS.

Judge Bork contended that the Filartiga court's formulation of ATS would run contrary to the Constitution by
allowing the court to meddle in the other branches' powers to decide matters of foreign
relations under Articles I and II. Following this reasoning, Judge Robb found that the case could not be
adjudicated on the basis of the p olitical [*833] q uestion d octrine. Judge Robb further warned that adjudicating
controversial foreign policy issues was a slippery slope , given each nation's differing notions of terrorism,
and that " each supposed scenario carries with it an incredibly complex calculus of actors ,
circumstances , and geopolitical considerations ." This debate over the foreign policy implications of ATS
jurisdiction persists today, and appears in Kiobel as a basis for rejecting corporate liability. Judges Bork's and Robb's
concurrences were very influential during the twenty-year period between Tel-Oren and the Supreme
Court's decision in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain. During this time, only the Second and Ninth Circuits allowed ATS claims--other
courts continued to rely on Tel-Oren to conclude that ATS jurisdiction did not apply over ATS plaintiffs' alleged claims.
Breaking the PQD prevents catastrophic nuclear accidents---extinction
Matthew M. Villmer 10, Attorney with the law firm of Emmanuel, Sheppard & Condon, J.D.
from Florida Coastal School of Law, “Procedural Squabbling Ahead of Global Annihilation:
Strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act in a New Technological Era”, Florida
Coastal Law Review, Spring 2010, 11 Fl. Coastal L. Rev. 321
I. INTRODUCTION

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA or the Act) greatly

improved U nited S tates environmental policy,
promising judicial oversight to federal actions. However, due to years of judicial interpretation that
significantly reduced NEPA's requirements, the Act lost its substantive impact . This erosion of NEPA
protections risked local and regional disaster in the nuclear era --but now, government contravention of NEPA
provisions risks even more: complete global destruction .
This Article follows the creation, development, and eventual demise of NEPA's environmental protections. The Article tracks NEPA's
application throughout the last thirty years using three case studies and particularly analyzes the United States government's
intentional evasion of the Act's safeguards. This Article then culminates with
a detailed proposition for
rehabilitating NEPA to its former status as an environmental safeguard for not only the United States,
but the earth as a whole . By amending NEPA to adequately protect the environment, humanity
will ensure its future on this planet.
II. THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT

NEPA integrates environmental policy considerations into everyday federal government decision making. Historically, NEPA is the [*322] most comprehensive overhaul to environmental policy in United States history. Therefore, the Act's historical development,
relevant requirements, and mandatory party actions necessitate discussion before delving into its functional inadequacies.

A. History, Purpose, and Applicability

In the late 1960s an enormous coalition of environmental activists applied extreme political pressure on federal legislators to protect the environment from disastrous human actions. By 1968 federal legislators acknowledged that a complete lack of standard
environmental regulations led to severe environmental problems. After the Act's crafting--consisting of a mere five pages of paper--President Richard Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1, 1970.

The purpose behind NEPA, according to Congress, was twofold: (1) to declare consistent national environmental policy that promoted harmony between the environment and man, and (2) to create a council that analyzed federal policy and environmental problems.
To achieve these goals, NEPA supplied a procedural framework the federal government must operate within when making changes that affect the environment. As stated by the United States Supreme Court, "NEPA itself does not mandate particular results, but
simply prescribes the necessary process" for agencies to use in order to prevent agencies from making uninformed decisions.

Certain NEPA procedural requirements apply when the federal government undertakes "major Federal action." Courts readily recognize [*323] there is no standardized test to determine what constitutes "major Federal action." However, courts generally look to a
definition provided by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). This definition, included in CEQ regulations, defines "major Federal action" as (1) "actions by the federal government" itself, or (2) "actions by nonfederal actors 'with effects that may be major and
which are potentially subject to Federal control and responsibility.'" More precisely, certain NEPA procedural requirements apply to nonfederal actors when a federal agency "possess[es] actual power to control the nonfederal activity."

Courts have held that NEPA procedural requirements demand maximum compliance by federal and nonfederal actors, evidenced by the Act's statement: "to the fullest extent possible . . . the policies, regulations, and public laws of the United States shall be
interpreted and administered in accordance with the policies set forth in [NEPA] . . . ." With only one compliance exception--when existing law applicable to federal agencies expressly prohibits or makes full compliance with NEPA an impossibility --NEPA requir[es]
nothing less than comprehensive and objective treatment by the responsible agency."

[*324] In light of NEPA's history, purpose, and applicability to federal and nonfederal actors, one must consider the Act's various procedural requirements. In particular, the exceptionally valuable, yet abused, Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) requirement.

B. Environmental Impact Statement Requirement

NEPA includes several procedural requirements, but only one warrants close scrutiny. When preparing a recommendation or report regarding legislation, or any "other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment," federal
agencies must provide a detailed environmental report. This detailed report, referred to by courts as an EIS, must include the following elements:

(i) the environmental impact of the proposed action,

(ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented,

(iii) alternatives to the proposed action,

(iv) the relationship between local short-term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and

(v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented.

Again, preparation of an EIS must occur when there are "major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment." To determine whether an action significantly affects the quality of the human environment, thus necessitating an EIS,
federal agencies must prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA). If, however, a federal agency simply prepares an EIS with the assumption that [*325] the action significantly affects the quality of the human environment, federal regulations do not require an EA.

Ultimately, federal agencies responsible for actions creating, or not creating, an environmental impact decide whether or not to prepare an EIS. Moreover, when federal agencies deliberate whether to draft an EIS, NEPA does not require agencies to receive public
input by way of announcement or publication. After discussing the EIS requirements, one must consider when NEPA requires the filing of an EIS.

C. Environmental Impact Statement Timeline

The specified time in which a federal agency must file an EIS is important to plaintiffs' challenges to the accuracy or comprehensiveness of the EIS. The United States Supreme Court delineates this time period as "the time at which [the federal agency] makes a
recommendation or report on a proposal for federal action." While this requirement appears unambiguous, it suffers from murky case law interpretation. On one side, a federal agency must write an EIS early enough to allow the government and public to review the
report for potential environmental dangers or EIS inadequacies. However, federal agencies must also draft the EIS late enough in the course of development to provide significant environmental and statistical data.

Therein lies the difficult legal question: at what point must a federal agency file its EIS, in light of the report's possible comprehensiveness [*326] or potential insufficiency? In Kleppe v. Sierra Club, the United States Supreme Court discussed the timing of EIS filing.
The Court removed NEPA's procedural bite, stating that going beyond the current NEPA requirement--filing an EIS at the time of a recommendation or report on a proposal for federal action--"would invite judicial involvement in the day-to-day decisionmaking
process of agencies." Therefore, beyond complying with the NEPA filing requirements, federal agencies have wide discretion as to when in the plan development process they begin to formulate an EIS.

By providing federal agencies this discretion when timing EIS data collection and preparation, courts paved the way for future government malfeasance. Intentional discovery delays leading to successful mootness claims and rushed judicial opinions plague the courts
and facilitate federal government impropriety.
III. MOOTNESS AND HURRIED JUDICIAL OPINIONS: SELECTED NEPA NONCOMPLIANCE CASES

When private citizens or environmental organizations hear of a federal agency's construction or testing plans, they often file a NEPA violation suit if the government failed to prepare an EIS. In some instances, even if the government prepares an EIS, the report
proves deficient after careful analysis. While a case remains stagnant on the trial calendar, the government often staves off discovery, completing the construction or testing while the case awaits judicial determination.

[*327] A. Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Bergland

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Bergland (Bergland), a controversy rendered moot due to the defendant's actions during the pending appeal. In 1967 Johns-Manville Sales Corporation (JMSC) submitted a
proposal to the United States Forest Service (Forest Service), requesting its approval for an exploratory mining venture in Custer National Forest. JMSC requested approval to (1) drill a three thousand-foot exploration tunnel next to a river, (2) create a three hundred-
foot access road to the exploration tunnel, (3) construct a fifty-foot bridge across the river, (4) build a temporary campsite next to the river, and (5) dump approximately four thousand cubic yards of rock in the forest, amongst other requests. In supposed compliance
with NEPA, in 1974 the Forest Service wrote an EA that concluded the above activities would not significantly affect the quality of the human environment in Custer National Forest. In late December of 1974 construction began--drilling, building, and paving.

On March 27, 1975, Friends of the Earth filed a NEPA violation suit against the secretary of agriculture to protect the forest from environmental damage, alleging (1) the Forest Service's EA was insufficient to prove an EIS was not necessary, and (2) subsequently, the
Forest Service approved the mining exploration operation without preparing the necessary EIS. The first court to hear the controversy was the United States District Court for the District of Montana. In support of the EA's insufficiencies, Friends of the Earth pointed
to the following facts: (1) the EA did not contain necessary discussions on secondary consequences, mitigating measures, or relevant factors required to make a negative determination; (2) the EA made assumptions without factual [*328] support, stating for
example that the United States' dependence on foreign sources of platinum would decrease; and (3) the EA made unwarranted conclusions, stating "[n]oise pollution exists only if there are people in the area to hear the noise."

In response to the alleged EA insufficiencies, the court summarily dismissed the claim, equating the adequacy of an EA to that of an EIS, stating "adequacy of an EIS should be determined through the rule of reason, and it is not fatally defective because it speaks in
conclusory terms or lacks detail." Responding to the lack of an EIS, the court reviewed the Forest Service's conclusions regarding mining exploration environmental impact. After deciding the activities resulted in only minor disturbances to the national park, the court
approved summary judgment in favor of the defendant on September 17, 1975.

Friends of the Earth then appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit without requesting a stay on appeal. As the case remained pending, JMSC commenced drilling the three thousand-foot exploratory tunnel and began all other proposed
construction. While boring the exploratory tunnel, JMSC penetrated a cavern filled with water, flooding the land and ceasing further drilling. By May of 1976 all exploratory work ceased, and JMSC promised to remove the temporary campsite by December of 1978.

Therefore, the appellate court dismissed the complaint as moot, stating "[w]here the activities sought to be enjoined have already occurred, . . the appellate courts cannot undo what has already been done . . . ." By quickly commencing the proposed mining
operation while the case remained in appellate limbo, JMSC completed the detrimental activities the Friends of the Earth's suit attempted to prevent.

[*329] B. Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Inc. v. Schlesinger

Bergland involved local environmental damage; however, as the U nited S tates transitioned into
the nuclear age , the importance of NEPA procedural compliance significantly increased . Unlike Bergland,
Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Inc. v. Schlesinger (Schlesinger) turned on hurried judicial decision making." In Schlesinger, the
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) planned to detonate a nuclear bomb below the surface of the earth
on Amchitka Island, Alaska. This underground nuclear test, code-named Cannikin, required the AEC to file an EIS. After filing the EIS, the Committee for Nuclear
Responsibility noticed severe deficiencies and omissions in the report. Specifically, the Committee alleged the EIS lacked any mention of existing scientific reports discussing
potential negative environmental consequences, and the AEC intentionally withheld existing federal agency reports recommending against the nuclear test due to
environmental concerns. During initial discovery, the government moved for summary judgment, and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted the
motion with no articulated reason.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the lower court's summary judgment in favor of the AEC, allowing the Committee for Nuclear
Responsibility to continue the discovery process in hopes of uncovering the missing scientific reports. After sending the case back to the district court, the plaintiff again
attempted to seek governmental documents articulating environmental concerns. The government blocked the production of documents, [*330] citing strict executive
privilege. In hopes of settling the evidentiary battle, the district court ordered the government to produce relevant documents for in camera inspection after removing all
government and military secrets. The government filed an application for immediate appeal claiming that even in camera inspection of nuclear testing documents violated the
claim of executive privilege.

The appellate court took up the case again to resolve the evidentiary issue. Two hours before oral arguments, the AEC issued a press release, stating:

The Atomic Energy Commission is now planning to proceed with the Cannikin test. We have now received the requisite authority to go ahead including detonation. . . . We
expect to be in a readiness state to detonate within a week. . . . Some objections have been raised on environmental grounds. In the careful examination of these issues within
the Executive Branch environmental damage has been exhaustively considered and overriding requirements of national security have, of necessity, taken precedence.

In support of withholding all nuclear testing documents from the plaintiff, the government posited two defenses: executive privilege and the separation of powers doctrine.
Regarding executive privilege, the government argued it was absolute "even where the document[s] only relate[] to certain factual material that is essential for disposition of the
lawsuit." In the same legal vein, the government argued the separation of powers doctrine provides the executive branch with inherent powers to decide which documents, if
any, it must produce in court. The appellate court held both of the government's arguments insufficient [*331] and allowed for in camera inspection of relevant documents by
the district court.

In addition to litigation over document inspection, the plaintiff requested the government halt its nuclear test
until judicial determination of the NEPA violation claim . The appellate court first acknowledged its government-
imposed limitation to relevant nuclear testing information. Then, the court avoided the issuance of the stay order

pending appeal, stating "[t]he Court limits its actions in this litigation to matters within the judicial
province ; it is in no position at this juncture to enter a stay order that would interject the Court into
national security matters that lie outside its province."
Solvency
 Solvency---1NC
NATO says no:
1---SPOILERS---states like Turkey will ruin the process.
Basu ’5-18 — Zachary; national security reporter at Axios. "Strongmen spoilers in Turkey and
Hungary threaten Western unity"; Axios; https://www.axios.com/2022/05/18/turkey- NATO-
finland-sweden-hungary-russia; //CYang

Why it matters: Critics have accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of employing a " hostage-taking " tactic
also practiced by Hungary, which for weeks has been singlehandedly blocking the European Union from
imposing an embargo on Russian oil. The outsized influence of single-member states in the EU and
NATO has drawn increased scrutiny in recent years, especially as both Hungary and Turkey have drifted toward authoritarianism
and strengthened their ties with Russia. Their resistance to two critical Western priorities risks undermining the united

front that leaders like President Biden have touted as key to effectively responding to Russia's invasion of
Ukraine. Driving the news: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has said he is "very confident" all NATO allies will ultimately
approve Sweden and Finland's applications, will meet on Wednesday with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. Çavuşoğlu
said Sunday that in exchange for Turkey lifting its opposition, Sweden and Finland must end their alleged support for Kurdish groups
that Turkey views as terrorists and a top national security threat. Turkey is also expected to use its leverage to seek bilateral
concessions from the U.S., including speeding up the potential sale of F-16 fighter jets. Between the liens: Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı,
director of the German Marshall Fund's office in Ankara, told Axios that Erdoğan "saw an opportunity to extract some benefits both
for Turkey and for his own political standing" ahead of a crucial election next year. Erdoğan
believes he's "more or less free
to do whatever he wants ," Ünlühisarcıklı said. He argued it's hard to stand up to Erdogan on this issue,
given the high stakes of Sweden and Finland's NATO applications, and the unique role Turkey is playing in
Ukraine as both a mediator in peace talks and supplier of highly effective drones. Critics, meanwhile, say the stunt could set a
precedent for other NATO leaders to essentially seek bribes in moments of crisis — with some going
as far as to call Turkey a "Trojan horse" within the Western alliance. Zoom out: That label has long been used to describe
Hungary's role as a spoiler within the EU. Hungary's far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán is viewed as the most
pro-Russian leader in the EU, and for weeks has used his veto to prevent the bloc from banning imports
of Russian oil. In the meantime, Orbán has used his leverage to pressure the EU to send Hungary a financial
compensation package — effectively neutralizing Brussels' landmark decision this year to withhold
pandemic recovery funds from Hungary over its democratic backsliding.

2---NORDIC STATES---their politicians will drag their feet---kills consensus.

Dr. Karsten Friis 21, PhD from the University of Groningen, Senior Research Fellow and head of
NUPIs Research group on security and defence, 4/06/2021, “Analyzing Security Subregions:
Forces of Push, Pull, and Resistance in Nordic Defense Cooperation,” Journal of Global Security
Studies, 6(4) https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogab009, cc

It is well known, if not always admitted, that many Nordic security and defense cooperation initiatives over the last ten
years have proven challenging , to say the least. When it comes to concrete projects , political will
has been less enthusiastic than the rhetoric would suggest.
An example is Stoltenberg's proposed Nordic declaration of solidarity, namely that “the Nordic governments could issue a mutually binding declaration
containing a security policy guarantee. In such a declaration, the countries could clarify in binding terms how they would respond if a Nordic country
were subject to external attack or undue pressure” (Stoltenberg 2009, 34). A declaration of solidarity was indeed passed in 2011, but its formulations
were neither binding nor very explicit: “Should a Nordic country be affected, the others will, upon request from that country, assist with relevant
means” (Nordic Declaration of Solidarity 2011). The rest of the declaration was similarly vague.
There has also been a general reluctance on the part of the Nordics to “stick together” as closely as
the United States has at times desired. While most agree that greater unity would give more presence and influence ,
there remains a low-key “beauty contest” to be Washington's number one Nordic ally. As a result, the Nordics keep a watchful eye on each other when
it comes to, for example, invitations to the White House or official visits.

Denmark was the most reluctant partner in NORDEFCO's first years (Wivel 2018), with Copenhagen's political priorities primarily focused
on Washington and NATO as “the only game in town” (Jakobsen 2006, cited in Saxi 2011, 55). Since 2003, Denmark's strategic military
orientation had been to move away from holding a balanced military force , abandoning certain platforms (such as
submarines) in favor of developing “niche capacities” for international deployment with its big allies (Saxi 2011, 45). As a result, Denmark opted out of
many NORDEFCO initiatives. Also, Norway has over the years regarded Nordic cooperation as “nice to have,” but not fully necessary (Græger 2018). An
Atlantic orientation has remained the priority for Norwegian politicians when it comes to “safeguarding Norwegian security and for international
status-seeking” (Græger 2018, 372).

When it comes to concrete Nordic defense initiatives , some have been implemented with varying degrees of success,
while others have hardly been implemented at all or seen slow progress and a lack of continuity ,
with some eventually grinding to a halt . In particular, cooperation on defense materiel has struggled, with NORDEFCO failing to achieve
the intended system similarity, and therefore joint force production or harmonization of military needs. Procurement processes have remained national
prerogatives, with planning processes based on national needs, priorities, procedures, and planning cycles (Saxi 2011, 75). There
has never
been sufficient political will to change this, which has at times caused significant crises in bilateral
relationships , particularly regarding joint acquisition and procurement projects. In some cases, protection of national defense industries may
also lie behind this reluctance (Bredesen and Friis 2019).

Following several failed bilateral procurement processes between Sweden and Norway, the political drive for NORDEFCO also cooled. In 2013, for
instance, Sweden conducted an inquiry into its international defense cooperation, led by diplomat Tomas Bertelman (Bertelman 2013). The report
argued that there was “too great a distance between positive political rhetoric and real political willingness regarding defence cooperation” (Saxi 2019,
670). In other words, insufficient political will existed to overcome the numerous obstacles preventing substantial Nordic defense integration.

Several projects are also limited by political–legal circumstances related to NATO membership. Many of NORDEFCO's
landmark agreements, such as the exchange of air surveillance data (NORECAS) and the easy access agreement, remain limited to

peacetime. This limits their value when it comes to enhancing Nordic security , with many Nordic officials
expressing a strong desire for the NORECAS agreement to be extended to times of crisis and even wartime. However, Swedish and Finnish military non-
alignment, and the Norwegian preference for formal treaty-enshrined guaranties, has thus far made this difficult. Sweden and Finland have, though,
found it somewhat easier to deepen their bilateral cooperation “beyond peacetime conditions” (Bringéus 2016, 14–15). The Nordic NATO states worry
about becoming dependent upon these arrangements, only to see their radar screens go dark and landing rights withdrawn in a crisis—for them,
NORDEFCO is an addition, not an alternative, to NATO. Conversely, Sweden and Finland worry about losing—at least theoretically—their national
freedom of action to keep out of a conflict (Bringéus 2016, 13; Dalsjö 2017).

In short, the Nordic states’ divergent strategic orientations have not changed as a result of outside-in push forces.
Sweden and Finland remain non-aligned, while Norway and Denmark remain in NATO. This limits the extent and depth of possible
defense cooperation . Despite the language of NORDEFCO's Vision 2025 referring to cooperation in “peace, crisis, and conflict,” certain red
lines constrain Nordic defense cooperation. Until there is the political will for greater security interdependence among the Nordic
states, this will remain the case .

3---CYBER SPLITS---the alliance is fragmented over goals AND methods to

achieve security.
Dr. Max Smeets 21, Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich
and Director of the European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative, 8/6/21, “NATO allies’ offensive
cyber policy: A growing divide?,” https://hcss.nl/report/nato-allies-offensive-cyber-policy-a-
growing-divide/, cc
Yet when it comes to the direction of allies’ cyber policy, growing differences are apparent –
especially in the development and deployment offensive cyber capabilities. First, even though most states now have – or are in the process of –

establishing a cyber command, operational capabilities vastly differ across states. Whereas some governments are
increasingly allocating significant resources to conduct cyber operations – and are now starting to benefit from these investments – the

majority of allies still run their cyber commands on a budget of a few million a year –an amount that
is insufficient for effective operations in the cyber domain .

Secondly, until
a few years ago, NATO members’ strategic visions were largely aligned. National cyber strategies shared a
common threat focus on operations that could potentially cause major societal havoc , such as taking

down the power grid . Allies’ national strategies were also largely unified in their vision to address this threat,
discussing the need for deterrence , resilience , and norms . However, this changed with the
publication of the US D epartment o f D efense’s strategy on Defend Forward and US Cyber Command’s vision on Persistent
Engagement.[8] The United States emphasizes the need to cause friction “wherever the adversary maneuvers,” operating “globally, continuously and
seamlessly” (potentially) below the threshold of armed attack. “We must…maneuver seamlessly across the interconnected battlespace, globally, as
close as possible to adversaries and their operations, and continuously shape the battlespace to create operational advantage for us while denying the
same to our adversaries,” in the words of NSA director and Cyber Command head Gen. Paul Nakasone.[9] Whereas deterrence is about changing your
adversary’s cost-benefit calculus, Persistent Engagement is about taking the opportunity away froms the adversary to act.[10]

Third, NATO member positions on how international law applies – particularly the obligations of states vis-a-vis
sovereignty – are now more divergent than a decade ago . Whereas countries like the Netherlands and
France are located on the side of the “ sovereignty as a rule ” camp, the U nited K ingdom has taken the
position that a remote cyber operation by one state into another’s cyber systems or network does not violate the latter’s
sovereignty.
Where to go from here?

The divergence in cyber policy across NATO member states is problematic. Allies disagree on both the goals of cyber policy and the ways and
means to achieve them. This can cause tension between allies , especially when it comes to the necessity and legitimacy of
operating on each other’s national systems and networks.
Cohesion Advantage
 Space Deterrence---1NC
1. No cyber impact---attribution, restraint, and capabilities.
James Andrew Lewis 20, senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies
Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 8/17/20, "Dismissing Cyber
Catastrophe," https://www.csis.org/analysis/dismissing-cyber-catastrophe

More importantly, there are powerful strategic constraints on those who have the ability to launch
catastrophe attacks . We have more than two decades of experience with the use of cyber
techniques and operations for coercive and criminal purposes and have a clear understanding of motives ,
capabilities , and intentions . We can be guided by the methods of the Strategic Bombing Survey, which used interviews
and observation (rather than hypotheses) to determine effect. These methods apply equally to cyberattacks. The conclusions we can
draw from this are:

Nonstate actors and most states lack the capability to launch attacks that cause physical
damage at any level, much less a catastrophe . There have been regular predictions every year
for over a decade that nonstate actors will acquire these high-end cyber capabilities in two or three years in
what has become a cycle of repetition. The monetary return is negligible , which dissuades the skilled
cybercriminals (mostly Russian speaking) who might have the necessary skills . One mystery is why these groups
have not been used as mercenaries, and this may reflect either a degree of control by the Russian state (if it has forbidden
mercenary acts) or a degree of caution by criminals.

There is enough uncertainty among potential attackers about the U nited S tates’ ability to
attribute that they are unwilling to risk massive retaliation in response to a catastrophic attack. (They
are perfectly willing to take the risk of attribution for espionage and coercive cyber actions.)

No one has ever died from a cyberattack, and only a handful of these attacks have produced physical
damage. A cyberattack is not a nuclear weapon, and it is intellectually lazy to equate them to
nuclear weapons. Using a tactical nuclear weapon against an urban center would produce several hundred thousand
casualties, while a strategic nuclear exchange would cause tens of millions of casualties and immense physical destruction. These are
catastrophes that some hack cannot duplicate. The shadow of nuclear war distorts discussion of cyber
warfare.

State use of cyber operations is consistent with their broad national strategies and interests.
Their primary emphasis is on espionage and political coercion . The U nited S tates has
opponents and is in conflict with them, but they have no interest in launching a catastrophic
cyberattack since it would certainly produce an equally catastrophic retaliation . Their goal is
to stay below the “use-of-force” threshold and undertake damaging cyber actions against the United States, not
start a war.

This has implications for the discussion of inadvertent escalation , something that has also never
occurred . The concern over escalation deserves a longer discussion, as there are both technological and
strategic constraints that shape and limit risk in cyber operations , and the absence of
inadvertent escalation suggests a high degree of control for cyber capabilities by advanced
states . Attackers, particularly among the U nited S tates’ major opponents for whom cyber is
just one of the tools for confrontation, seek to avoid actions that could trigger escalation .
The U nited S tates has two opponents ( China and Russia ) who are capable of damaging
cyberattacks. Russia has demonstrated its attack skills on the Ukrainian power grid, but neither Russia nor China
would be well served by a similar attack on the U nited S tates. Iran is improving and may reach the
point where it could use cyberattacks to cause major damage, but it would only do so when it has
decided to engage in a major armed conflict with the U nited S tates. Iran might attack targets outside
the United States and its allies with less risk and continues to experiment with cyberattacks against Israeli critical infrastructure.
North Korea has not yet developed this kind of capability.

2. Cyberattacks are slow and puny.

Lennart Maschmeyer 22, Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich.
He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto and an M.Phil in International
Relations from the University of Oxford, 7/12/2022, "Infiltrate, Exploit, Manipulate: Why the
Subversive Nature of Cyber Conflict Explains Both Its Strategic Promise and Its Limitations,"
https://www.lawfareblog.com/infiltrate-exploit-manipulate-why-subversive-nature-cyber-
conflict-explains-both-its-strategic, cc

Manipulating unfamiliar systems in another country to produce effects

Accordingly, traditional subversion has regularly fallen short of its promise.

that are simultaneously unexpected for the victim and yet fully in line with one’s expectations poses steep operational challenges. Moreover, success requires

keeping the exploitation secret long enough to prevent the victim from inducing countermeasures , posing
a further nontrivial challenge . Secrecy in intelligence operations falls on a spectrum, from highly stealthy operations that take intensive efforts to obscure
both the activity itself (known as a clandestine operation) and the identity of the sponsor (covert) to less stealthy operations as well as those that maintain only a pretense of

plausible deniability. However, in cyber conflict there is a caveat: Because subversive operations, and thus cyber operations, depend on adversary systems to
produce effects, access to and manipulation of these systems must remain hid den from the victim at least until the effect is produced. Doing so is important
because upon discovery of a hostile subversive operation, the victim can take relatively straightforward steps
to neutralize it: arrest or kill the spies involved in a traditional operation, or revoke access credentials, patch vulnerabilities, and remove malware used in a cyber
operation.

My research shows that these challenges pose a set of countervailing trade-offs that pose a trilemma for subversive
actors —and despite their use of novel technology, cyber operations face the same trilemma. These trade-offs concern operational
speed , intensity of effects , and the degree of control . Speed is an issue because to exploit and manipulate
adversary systems, actors must learn how they work and find vulnerabilities. This takes time . Traditional
subversion targets social vulnerabilities, such as flaws in human psychology or security rules and practices. “Social engineering” techniques in cyber
operations target the same. However, cyber operations can also target technical vulnerabilities by exploiting flaws in the logic of programming code
that determines what information technologies “do.” Exploiting these flaws tends to be even more demanding than targeting social vulnerabilities,

further slowing speed. Conversely, the faster one operates, the greater the chance of missing something ,
leading to failure .

Meanwhile, the more intense the effects one pursues, the more demanding that exploitation and
manipulation tend to become. For starters, the more a target system is capable of producing strategically
significant effects, the likelier the system is to be well protected —raising the requirements to evade detection. The
greater the scope and scale of effects pursued, the greater the manipulation’s scope and scale need to be and, therefore, the greater the subverting
actors’ reach into the target system. Expanding this reach in turn requires learning and adaptation, which takes (further) time.

The last point above leads to the third constraint, the ephemerality and precarity of control over adversary systems. Subversion produces effects
through adversary systems. Consequently, subversion depends on systems designed and/or operated by the adversary. These systems are never fully
familiar, nor is one’s reach absolute. Rather, subversive actors typically control only those parts of a system relevant to their objective. As a result,

manipulating systems can produce outcomes that are unexpected not only for the victim but also for the
subverter. Exploitation and manipulation are more art than science. In fact, the original meaning of the term “hacker” referred to “a person who
enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities” and “enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively
overcoming or circumventing limitations.” Because manipulation involves creative experimentation, it may either fail to produce intended outcomes or

produce unintended outcomes—both reducing strategic value. Reducing the risk of such detrimental consequences
requires either more time for reconnaissance and development, or limiting the scope and scale of effects pursued.
Because of these trade-offs, subversive actors face a trilemma among speed, intensity, and control where an improvement in any of these variable(s)
tends to produce a corresponding loss in the remaining one(s). As illustrated in Figure 1, holding all else equal, the faster one operates, the lower
intensity and control tend to be. Increasing control in turn tends to lower speed and intensity. The same applies to intensity increases, and vice versa.

Figure 1. Depiction of the “Subversive Trilemma” from International Security.

Finally, increasing two of these variables at once tends to doubly decrease the remaining one. High
speed and high intensity make control loss highly likely, for example. Conversely, pursuing highly intense effects while striving to minimize the chance
of premature discovery, failure to produce effects, or unintended consequences will require extensive preparation. This can take years, as in the

infamous Stuxnet operation, which took two to five years of development and still spread out of control
beyond the intended target . Because of this trilemma, subversive operations tend to be either too slow, too weak, or too volatile to
provide strategic value.

3. No NC3 impact.
Erica Lonergan 22, assistant professor in the Army Cyber Institute at West Point and a
research scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia
University; and Keren Yarhi-Milo, the Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies in
the political science department and the School of International and Public Affairs and the
director of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University,
4/21/2022, “CYBER SIGNALING AND NUCLEAR DETERRENCE: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UKRAINE
CRISIS,” https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/cyber-signaling-and-nuclear-deterrence-
implications-for-the-ukraine-crisis/, edited for ableist language, cc

First, successfully conducting cyber operations against strategic targets, like nuclear systems, is harder than
the conventional wisdom might suggest. It requires a means of gaining access to a particular system and developing an
exploit to cause a desired effect — and then maintaining persistent (and stealthy) access to be able to conduct an offensive
operation at the desired time. Moreover, the overall outcome may be unpredictable and net less-than-desirable results.

Second, even if a state is able to conduct these kinds of operations , they typically prefer to do so in secret
— and this mitigates some escalation concerns . That’s because, to cause an escalatory
response , a state like Russia would have to uncover a cyber operation during a particular time period — such as while the Ukraine conflict is
unfolding. For example, Russia would have to detect a cyber operation against a nuclear command and control
system to cause Putin to perceive a “ window of vulnerability ,” perhaps assessing that it is part
of a U.S. or NATO counterforce strategy to disable [destroy] Russia’s ability to retaliate with nuclear
weapons . But the likelihood of these circumstances arising is low because — unless a state is trying to signal
with a cyber capability — it will try to keep these kinds of sensitive operations secret . Therefore, the chances of such an
operation being discovered at a particular time period are relatively small.

Finally, even
if, hypothetically, Russia was to discover a cyber operation taking place, the likelihood of it leading to
escalation is low. This is due to the virtual nature of cyber “weapons” — they rarely cause
destruction in the physical world, let alone permanent damage. For example, even Russia’s 2015 cyber attack against Ukraine’s power grid, an
important example of a strategic cyber attack against civilian critical infrastructure, only resulted in service disruptions for a few hours. During the
current conflict, Russia-linked actors have so far been stymied in using cyber operations for strategic impact, such as the failed cyber attack by the
group Sandworm against Ukraine’s power grid.

Taken together, this reasoning suggests that, in practice, cyber operations may not rise to a level that would cause a state like Russia to
actually fear the integrity of its nuclear command, control, and communications systems, creating few reasons to escalate to the

level of nuclear employment .

4. Glitches AND asteroid crashes trigger the impact too!

<< MBA is gray >>

Sitki 1AC Egeli 21. Teaches at Turkey’s Izmir University of Economics. He holds a doctorate in
international relations from Bilkent University and a master’s degree in the same field from the
University of Chicago. He was the foreign relations director of Turkey’s Undersecretariat for
Defense Industries from 1991 to 1999, and afterwards served as vice president of Overseas
Development Corporation, a multinational consulting firm specializing in the defense and
aerospace industries. “Space-to-Space Warfare and Proximity Operations: The Impact on
Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications and Strategic Stability,” Journal for Peace and
Nuclear Disarmament, Volume 4, 2021, pp. 116-140,
https://doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2021.1942681 //EM

Amid increased tensions , perhaps even an imminent military confrontation between two nuclear -
armed adversaries , a high-value (for example, early-warning or strategic communication) satellite stops
functioning or communicating instantly and inexplicably. SSA sensors do not pick up any anomalies . This
may be the outcome of a technical malfunction or a natural phenomenon , such as the impact
of a collision with a meteoroid or piece of space debris small enough to have evaded detection.
Alternatively, the satellite perhaps becomes the victim of a deliberate, undetected attack. Earth-to-space
kinetic, electronic, or directed energy attacks would leave behind some trails. A cyberattack , which is harder to
detect and attribute, is a strong possibility . So is a stealthy attack by hostile spacecraft . In fact, the
adversary is known to have experimented with ominous small spacecraft that could easily
conceal or disguise themselves until conducting a final maneuver to neutralize their targets. The victim would also be
aware that, especially at distant GEO and HEO altitudes, SSA is not sufficiently comprehensive to detect and give warning of all
suspicious or threatening movements as they happen. As suspicions abound, decision makers are faced with hard choices. Could this
perhaps be the harbinger of a wider nuclear or nonnuclear first strike , along with which the attacker is
seeking to eliminate the possibility of retaliation by degrading the defender’s capacity to
command, control, and communicate with its forces? Should the defender react immediately before the remaining space-
enabled NC3 elements are also compromised and its control over nuclear and nonnuclear forces degrades even further? In the
absence of a clear-cut picture of what actually has happened, there is a risk that impending decisions
will be made on the basis of insufficient and potentially erroneous information, and the climate will be ripe for
unfounded presumptions and predispositions. The resulting ultimatums , responses, or counteractions
could set off a dangerous cycle of escalation and tit-for-tat actions, whereby reactions and
overreactions between adversaries lead to potentially catastrophic consequences . At a minimum,
heightened tension in orbit would have the outcome of spilling down to Earth so as to further aggravate an already tense situation.
 Disinformation---1NC
1. Say no and coordinated responses fail---NATO is incapable of countering
disinformation.
Dr. Rod Thornton 15, Senior Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department of King’s College
London, Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, September 2015, “The Changing Nature of
Modern Warfare: Responding to Russian Information Warfare,” The RUSI Journal, Vol. 160, No.
4, pp. 40-48, https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2015.1079047, RMax
The first option, censorship of the Russian media message, is widely dismissed across the EU and in the US. As John Whittingdale, the UK’s current
secretary of state for culture, media and sport, stressed in 2014: ‘There is nothing Russia would like more than to be able to say the West is censoring

[it]’. 71 The second alternative would be for Western powers, through NATO, to employ their own counter-
information warfare campaigns to match those of Russia. However, this would be futile , not least
because NATO’s members are, for the most part, liberal democracies whose governments are expected to
remain wedded to the truth in the info rmation they provide to both domestic and international audiences.
Moreover, they have a free media acting as the fourth estate to ensure that the truth is told. When it
comes to conducting information-warfare campaigns, this predilection for the truth can be something of a handicap [ barrier ],
allowing for the projection of only one narrative amid the welter of counter-narratives produced by Russian outlets. Furthermore,
Western efforts to promote this singular message have been underwhelming . As the UK parliamentary Defence Committee
was recently told, ‘although the BBC Russian Service was available, it was only online and was in no way a counterweight to the propaganda channelled
through Russian Television’. 72 One outlet tucked away on a website is no answer to a Russian information-warfare ‘blitzkrieg’. There is similar
reluctance, for instance, in Washington, to use the Voice of America radio station in an ‘overtly propagandistic role’. Meanwhile, in the Baltic States the

attempts to counter Moscow’s ‘information war’ are seen as ‘uncoordinated and weak’. 73 The basic problem across the board is
that liberal democracies have an inherent distaste for producing anything at the strategic level that
resembles propaganda or could be classed as psychological warfare .74 In fact, one of the reasons that the
Russians concentrate so much on their information-warfare output is that they know it cannot be
countered effectively ; indeed, they have shown a ‘readiness to stoop to methods the West cannot emulate without sullying itself’.

75 As Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss point out, the Russians are thinking asymmetrically: ‘Feeling itself relatively weak, the Kremlin has
systematically learnt to use the principles of liberal democracies against them ’.76
This asymmetry in willingness and abilities does not, however, mean that no action has been taken by Western powers. In January 2014, NATO set
upaStrategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga asadirect consequence of the Russian information-warfare campaign in an attempt to
counter Russia’s significant advantage in this realm. Yet even this body recognises that it is difficult for the West with itsfree media ‘to compete with
the forceful, synchronised messaging of the Russian government’. 77

For its part, the EU is discussing sponsoring its own Russian-language channel as ‘The truth is the best weapon the EU has’. 78 However, doubts remain
as to how much impact a single channel can have; indeed, this channel ‘needs to find a way to counter Moscow’s grip on the Russian-language airwaves
or its target audience will never hear [the truth]’. 79

Furthermore, it
will always be difficult for any collective of states – whether NATO or the EU – to agree on the
nature and content of information campaigns, not least due to disagreement over what exactly the ‘truth’ is and how best to
present it. As one Estonian military officer concerned with NATO’s information operations put it, ‘if we want to counter Russian propaganda…we have

to unite our lines and speak with the same voice’.80 However, there is no such unity in these international organisations
and thus the idea of NATO producing its own ‘synchronised messaging’ remains a pipe-dream .
Therefore what collectives such as NATO will always lack is what makes Moscow’s information assault so
effective: a truly integrated approach.

2. Tons of alt causes---they don’t solve social media or politicians.

Projection Advantage
 Projection ADV---1NC
2. Heg is sustainable---defense of Ukraine has bolstered legitimacy.
Kroenig 20, Professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of
Foreign Service at Georgetown University. (Matthew, The Return of Great Power Rivalry:
Democracy versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the U.S. and China, pg. 205-207, Oxford
University Press)
America’s Military Strength

America’s final advantage is its military strength. The United States remains the world’s only military
superpower . It has global power-projection capabilities . As it demonstrated as far back as World War II, it
can bring military forces to any spot on the globe and wage a sustained, major-theater war . It
currently deploys forces on every major continent except Antarctica. Russia and China lack these
capabilities .

When analysts worry about World War III, they are talking about a possible fight in Russia or China’s backyard. Some
international relations theorists argue that we are moving to a more multipolar world . But in the
classic European balance of power system, Prussia’s ability to threaten France was roughly equivalent to France’s capacity to do
harm to Prussia. Until Russia and China have the ability to fight a full-scale war in North America ,
talk of genuine multipolarity is premature .

In addition, as the United States demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, and Libya, hostile dictators in small and
medium-sized countries remain in power only at the mercy of the U.S. Department of Defense .
While rebuilding governments has proved to be an insurmountable challenge, the Pentagon has shown that it can topple them with
relative ease.

The United States uses its large economy to continue to invest in military strength. Its annual
defense spending towers over that of its competitors at $ 718 billion per year, compared to
$ 146 billion in China and $ 68 billion in Russia . Indeed, the United States spends more on defense than
the next nine countries combined , and most of these countries are U.S. allies and partners .

China is certainly expanding its military capabilities, but it takes time (often a decade or more ) to
build major military platforms . Even if Xi Jinping makes the decision to do so today , it would take
China until 2050 at the earliest to become a global military superpower .
Washington also has trust in its officer corps and strong civil-military relations. The United States is comfortable delegating tactical
decisions to commanders on the ground. This provides a significant advantage over more sclerotic autocratic competitors, especially
in a messy, high-intensity fight.

The United States also retains a healthy lead in military applications of high tech nology and strategic
forces. Washington first deployed stealth tech nology in the late 1980s, for example. China has been
working on stealth technology since that time, and it is still not clear whether it has mastered it. Washington
is still the only great power that conducts regular nuclear deterrence patrols with its
submarine force; this is a strategic advantage that is sixty years old and counting.
Washington is also exploring new military technologies : hypersonic glide vehicles, d irected- e nergy
lasers for missile defense , and other sci-fi-like capabilities . The United States is already
incorporating 3D printing into its defense acquisition process , with the potential to produce
better products while drastically lowering the defense budget.13 China and Russia are also working in
these areas, but history and theory , from the Greek phalanx to thermonuclear weapons, suggest that an open
society will likely be the first to develop novel military technologies and the operational concepts to put
them to good use.

Perhaps America’s greatest military strength, however, is the simple fact that it can focus its defense strategy against foreign
threats. Unlike its autocratic foes, U.S. leaders do not worry that the American system of government might fall tomorrow. As a
result, they do not need to spend exorbitant amounts on domestic security. To be sure, the United States has effective law
enforcement and provides adequate resources to the FBI and state and local police. But among the new great power competitors,
the United States is unique in spending less on domestic security than on international security . If
you follow the money, Russia and China believe that the greatest threat to their security comes from
their own people . In the United States, domestic tranquility provides for our common
defense .

U.S. domestic political stability will allow Washington to continue to execute its consistent
grand strategy from the past seventy-five years and counting: expanding and defending the U.S.-led , rules-
based international order . Pessimists have argued that this order is dead , but they are incorrect . It
can and should be revitalized, adapted , and defended for a new era.14

The United States has certainly made some costly errors in foreign and defense policy . Most believe the Iraq
war was a mistake and the execution of the conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan left something to be desired. Yet ,
consistent with democracies in the past, America’s mistakes have been fewer and easier to
rectify . Occupying Iraq and Afghanistan is not invading Russia in the winter . Despite fighting for
nearly two decades in what may be considered losing wars , the United States remains the world’s preeminent
military power .

3. Leadership’s inevitable and resilient.

Beckley 18 Michael Beckley, International Relations Professor at Tufts University, PhD at
Columbia. [Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower, an addition to
the series Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, edited by Robert J. Art, Robert Jervis, and Stephen
M. Walt, Cornell University Press]

By most measures, the United States is a mediocre country. It ranks seventh in literacy, eleventh in infrastructure,
twenty-eighth in government efficiency, and fifty-seventh in primary education. 1 It spends more on healthcare than any other
country, but ranks forty-third in life expectancy, fifty-sixth in infant mortality, and first in opioid abuse. 2 More than a hundred
countries have lower levels of income inequality than the United States, and twelve countries enjoy higher levels of gross national
happiness. 3 Yetin terms of wealth and military capabilities—the pillars of global power—the United States is in a
league of its own. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States accounts for 25
percent of global wealth, 35 percent of world innovation, and 40 percent of global military
spending. 4 It is home to nearly 600 of the world’s 2,000 most profitable companies and 50 of the top
100 universities. 5 And it is the only country that can fight major wars beyond its home region and strike
targets anywhere on earth within an hour, with 587 bases scattered across 42 countries and a navy and air
force stronger than that of the next ten nations combined . 6 According to Yale historian Paul Kennedy,
“Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power; nothing.” The United States is, quite simply, “the
greatest superpower ever.” 7 Why is the United States so dominant? And how long will this imbalance of power last? In the
following pages, I argue that the United States will remain the world’s sole superpower for many decades, and
probably throughout this century . We are not living in a transitional post–Cold War era. Instead, we are in the midst of
what could be called the unipolar era—a period as profound as any epoch in modern history. This conclusion challenges the
conventional wisdom among pundits, policymakers, and the public. 8 Since the end of the Cold War, scholars have dismissed
unipolarity as a fleeting “moment” that would soon be swept away by the rise of new powers. 9 Bookstores feature bestsellers such
as The Post-American World and Easternization: Asia’s Rise and America’s Decline; 10 the U.S. National Intelligence Council has
issued multiple reports advising the president to prepare the country for multipolarity by 2030;11 and the “rise of China” has been
the most read-about news story of the twenty-first century. 12 These writings, in turn, have shaped public opinion: polls show that
most people in most countries think that China is overtaking the United States as the world’s leading power. 13 How can all of these
people be wrong? I argue that the current literature suffers from two shortcomings that distort peoples’
perceptions of the balance of power. First, the literature mismeasures power. Most studies size up countries
using gross indicators of economic and military resources, such as gross domestic product (GDP) and military spending. 14 These
indicators tally countries’ resources without deducting the costs countries pay to police, protect, and provide services for their
people. As a result, standard
indicators exaggerate the wealth and military power of poor, populous
countries like China and India—these countries produce vast output and field large armies, but they also bear
massive welfare and security burdens that drain their resources. To account for these costs, I measure
power in net rather than gross terms. In essence, I create a balance sheet for each country: assets go on one side of
the ledger, liabilities go on the other, and net resources are calculated by subtracting the latter from the former. When this is done,
it becomes clear that America’s economic and military lead over other countries is much larger than
typically assumed—and the trends are mostly in its favor. Second, many projections of U.S. power are based on flawed notions
about why great powers rise and fall. Much of the literature assumes that great powers have predictable life spans and that the
more powerful a country becomes the more it suffers from crippling ailments that doom it to decline. 15 The Habsburg, French, and
British empires all collapsed. It is therefore natural to assume that the American empire is also destined for the dustbin of history. I
argue, however, that the
laws of history do not apply today. The United States is not like other great powers.
Rather, it enjoys a unique set of geographic , demographic , and institutional advantages that
translate into a commanding geopolitical position . The United States does not rank first in all sources of national
strength, but it scores highly across the board, whereas all of its potential rivals suffer from critical weaknesses. The United States
thus has the best prospects of any nation to amass wealth and military power in the decades ahead.
2NC---Greenhill---Round 1
LOD CP
 OV---2NC
A global democratic alliance solves cyber-conflict, deters cybercrime and
hacking, and builds global defenses for critical infrastructure
John Davenport 19, Professor of Philosophy and Peace & Justice Studies, Fordham University,
2019, A League of Democracies: Cosmopolitanism, Consolidation Arguments, and Global Public
Goods, p. 154-155 /jpb
Third, there are tipping point problems. As Clarke explains, the first-striker’s potential advantages may force a quick decision by the victim nation who
sees the first strike coming or unfolding; but a hasty decision may be an overreaction.76 Although NATO itself has no coordinated “offensive
cyberforces” to counter Russian hackers who increasingly target NATO systems, NATO
declared in 2014 that “it could rule a
cyberattack on one of its member states to be the equivalent of an armed attack, which would lead to a
commitment by all NATO members to respond .”77 There is thus a clear risk of rapid escalation into
a new scenario with which world leaders have little experience . Clarke also notes that some cyber-weapon “such as
worms, can spread globally in minutes,” potentially imposing collateral damage on many innocent third parties,78 somewhat like a biological attack.

Thus again the need to deter cyber-sabotage before it happens. Given the potential that a cyber-response might fail, a
guaranteed kinetic
response may be the only effective deterrent, as it proved to be with nuclear arms . For example,
NATO policy could promise that a cyberattack on our stock market, power grid, or
communications systems would be met by sinking naval vessels or destroying air force bases in
the attacking nation, in addition to cyber-sabotage measures. Yet this tough approach demands confidence in
attribution, which in turn requires international agreements on networking protocols that make
tracing easier.79 Nations refusing to participate in such systems that enable attribution would be
suspect and thus blamable with lower levels of evidence .

If such a policy sounds disproportionate, we should remember that lack of deterrence may lead to far worse outcomes. Still, a broad
democratic league would offer the alternative of potent economic sanctions against nations
launching first cyberstrikes, and might eventually be able to close off large portions of the
internet for months to any nation that originated or frequently acted as a conduit for serious cyberattacks. A
similar response might deter systemic cybercrime causing large economic harms. A league of
democracies could also share the massive costs of cyber-shields that can effectively defend
civilian infrastructure, financial networks, and transportation systems—including ways to switch
such systems quickly to “a non-networked” backup control once it is evident that a cyberwar is
underway.80

Here's a card specific to disinfo!

John Davenport 19, Professor of Philosophy and Peace & Justice Studies, Fordham University,
2019, A League of Democracies: Cosmopolitanism, Consolidation Arguments, and Global Public
Goods, p. 155 /jpb

Fourth, as noted in the Introduction, Putin’s

regime has opened a whole new front with cyberattacks on
democratic systems across the western world, and paid little price for these acts of war . This
extends far beyond supporting particular candidates like Marine Le Pen or Donald Trump and undermining their opponents; it is a
new kind of cyberwar aimed at “discrediting the entire idea of a free and fair election.”81 This
wide effort to destroy our
news media and essential political institutions might be far more damaging in the long run than a
cyberattack on military bases or infrastructure . The Russians have done much more than launch cyberbots and pay
small armies of Macedonians to spread false news stories that harm Putin’s political opponents abroad.82 In Poland, they
eavesdropped on politicians to promote a right-wing party that has since taken over public medias and tried to dissolve the
constitutional court.83 Russian cyber-mercenaries and bots are posting thousands of artificial comments on social media to shape
coverage of Russia and inflame social rifts and tensions within democratic nations.84

This danger is growing, whether or not any official in the Trump circle directly colluded by encouraging Russians to steal
their opposition’s emails. Five months before the US midterm elections of 2018, Facebook is scrambling to take down hundreds of
new propaganda pages apparently started by Russian interests. Putin’s
massive campaign to corrupt democratic
processes and public trust in free media systems will never be stopped without an equally
massive response . In my opinion, a declaration of war against Russia followed by a wide spectrum of conventional military
strikes would be justified to punish and deter these continuing attacks on our social fabric. However, a wide league of
democracies would be able to punish Putin’s regime with proportionate ly crippling financial and
trade sanctions —along with initiatives to make Europe independent of Russian gas .s

They say the US doesn’t spearhead the plan---that’s incorrect---

 OV---Impact---2NC
Democratic engagement with the global south is key to global public goods
provision---prevents extinction from a host of threats
Stuart J. Peacock 22, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, 2/12/22, “Vaccine
nationalism will persist: global public goods need effective engagement of global citizens,”
Globalization and Health, Vol. 18, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-022-00802-y /jpb

Covid-19 presents a unique opportunity to transform democratic engagement in the

governance of global public goods. Systematic approaches to engaging publics, especially from
middle- and low-income countries, have yet to be fully developed for international organizations
involved in providing global public goods. Improving the representation of publics from middle-
and low-income countries could go a long way to addressing concerns about the equitable
allocation of vaccines. It is difficult to overstate the importance of global public goods in the
twenty-first Century: we face existential threats from the climate crisis and biodiversity loss
(clean air, habitable temperatures, and biodiversity are all global public goods). Global public
goods are central to preparing for future pandemics , as well as UN S ustainable Development
Goals on sustainability, climate change, and biological diversity. To make us more resistant and
resilient to future global health crises we need transformative thinking to democratically engage
global citizens. We need to lay the foundations for a ‘ global social contract ’ on global public
goods.

Globally coordinated democratic action successfully deters Russian and Chinese

aggression and disinfo campaigns---otherwise their expansionism’s locked in
Ash Jain 21, Director for Democratic Order with the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security,
oversees the Atlantic Council’s Democratic Order Initiative and D-10 Strategy Forum; Matthew
Kroenig, deputy director for strategy in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and
director of the Global Strategy Initiative and associate professor of government and foreign
service at Georgetown University; and Jonas Parello-Plesner, Executive Director of the Alliance
of Democracies Foundation, December 2021, “AN ALLIANCE OF DEMOCRACIES: From Concept to
Reality in an Era of Strategic Competition,”
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/An-Alliance-of-Democracies-
From-concept-to-reality-in-an-era-of-strategic-competition.pdf /jpb

Systemic competition with autocracy. The first defining challenge

is the increasing assertiveness by China and
Russia to disrupt and displace the democratic-led, rules-based international system. China and
Russia are using military, diplomatic, and economic coercion— including cyber operations, malign
finance, and other “wolf warrior diplomacy” tactics to threaten the security of democratic neighbors
and pressure governments and corporations to accommodate Beijing’s or Moscow’s interests.34 Both powers are
using tools of technology and surveillance and other tactics to crack down on pro-democracy movements in their own countries and
are increasingly aligning their efforts to suppress such movements in other places around the world.35 In addition, China and
Russia have embarked on increasingly successful propaganda and disinformation campaigns , utilizing their
own global television networks and social media operations to deride liberal democracy as hypocritical and ineffective.
In response , the alliance can serve as a platform for democracies to take more coordinated
actions on each of these fronts, and help ensure that the free world succeeds in this systemic
competition between democracy and autocracy. For example, the alliance could facilitate more
coordinated sanctions and other measures against autocratic regimes that are engaged in
coercive activities, and provide a mechanism to coordinate assistance to targeted democracies.36 The
alliance could also foster efforts to make democracies less vulnerable to economic coercion, including, for example, by
facilitating alternative supply chains related to sensitive technologies and critical energy
supplies.37 In addition, the alliance can help invigorate coordinated support to pro-democracy
movements around the world by advancing the norm of a “right to assist,” promoting new approaches and tools to support
civil-resistance movements, and constraining the efforts of authoritarian governments to suppress such movements.38 Finally, the
alliance can orchestrate
counter-disinformation campaigns and impactful public-engagement efforts to
highlight the dangers of authoritarianism and the virtues of democracy, aimed at influencing
audiences within their own countries and around the world .
 Perm: Do Both---2NC
Doesn’t solve:
a) Successful league of democracies requires a clean break from any
association with NATO at the outset---otherwise it’s perceived as Western-
dominated and inauthentic which kills global legitimacy and buy-in---solves
none of the net-benefit---that’s Davenport.
b) Perm’s perceived as NATO 2.0---that torpedoes its global acceptance and
legitimacy, and shatters momentum for democratization
John Davenport 19, Professor of Philosophy and Peace & Justice Studies, Fordham University,
2019, A League of Democracies: Cosmopolitanism, Consolidation Arguments, and Global Public
Goods, p. 193-194 /jpb

Things are different with NATO: what happens with this Cold War institution involves much
trickier prudential assessments. It might help foster broad acceptance of the democratic
league if NATO were to be disbanded with the UDL’s founding. This would especially make
sense if most NATO nations had become UDL members (and right now, Turkey is the only NATO
member that definitely could not join the UDL, although Hungary is problematic). Democracies
from Asia and the global South would take this as further confirmation that western
democracies were committed to working with them as equal partners . Perhaps promising in
writing to disband NATO within ten years of the UDL treaty taking effect would persuade Russia
to make the democratic reforms necessary to be approved as a UDL founding member :
Russians would thus have a golden opportunity to replace NATO with an organization that they
could help to shape.

On the other hand, some critics would doubtless argue that the league of democracies is simply
NATO 2.0 . This would be a specious criticism if half the UDL’s founders were not NATO nations.
However, it might help appearances if western nations planned to continue NATO for some
time, but with a return to its narrower mutual security mission and a guarantee to respect the
UDL’s higher authority in all cases beyond direct defense of NATO members . For if the UDL
works, NATO would no longer need to undertake missions of the sort it undertook in Kosovo,
Afghanistan, and Libya. This would assure non-NATO nations that western democracies would
never try to use NATO to bypass the new authority of the democratic league .

Either way, it must be clear that the league of democracies is not simply a new NATO with the
United States still in a dominant role. This much is essential for the legitimacy of the new
organization, and for acceptance of the UDL throughout Asia and the developing world . It may
be useful in selling the UDL proposal to European and North American nations to argue that it
will build on NATO’s successes within a fundamentally new framework involving a larger set of
purposes and more consolidated powers to match them. But the distinctive identity of the UDL
will help make it politically possible for a reformed Russia to join, and perhaps eventually a
reformed China as well. Their eventual inclusion is the threshold for the UDL’s ultimate success.
For if China democratizes and joins, it would be obvious that Russia gains much more inside the
UDL than outside of it.

Bureaucratic inertia DA---identical effort by NATO means diplomats will

abandon the CP’s league---it’s only effective if it’s distinct
Ash Jain 21, Director for Democratic Order with the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security,
oversees the Atlantic Council’s Democratic Order Initiative and D-10 Strategy Forum; Matthew
Kroenig, deputy director for strategy in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and
director of the Global Strategy Initiative and associate professor of government and foreign
service at Georgetown University; and Jonas Parello-Plesner, Executive Director of the Alliance
of Democracies Foundation, December 2021, “AN ALLIANCE OF DEMOCRACIES: From Concept to
Reality in an Era of Strategic Competition,”
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/An-Alliance-of-Democracies-
From-concept-to-reality-in-an-era-of-strategic-competition.pdf /jpb

Perhaps the greater obstacle to getting an Alliance of Democracies off the ground is bureaucratic
inertia . Creating a new alliance would require a significant commitment of political and
diplomatic capital by officials of leading democracies, particularly the United States, whose support would be key to bringing
the alliance to fruition. Officials may determine that the operational benefits of an alliance are not

worth the arduous political effort required to get it off the ground, and that it is good enough to
rely on the existing architecture — the G7, NATO , OECD, and smaller coalitions around specific
issues—to address current challenges.

Smaller coalitions of democracies focused on discrete issues are certainly useful , and may be able to
generate meaningful outcomes. But, an Alliance of Democracies would provide benefits that such

coalitions cannot replicate . The Biden administration has framed the current era as a historic inflection point between
autocracy and democracy. The
alliance would provide a signature initiative that is directly responsive to this
challenge—one that demonstrates leadership and can help align the democratic world in a common
strategic direction. The alliance provides an umbrella to facilitate more effective cooperation
across key challenges, and it would do so in a highly visible and symbolically significant mechanism
that is likely to resonate with domestic and international public audiences in ways that smaller
coalitions of the willing cannot . Moreover, while creating a new alliance will require a significant diplomatic investment, the
steps required to move from a two-part summit convening the world’s democracies to a more structured and sustainable network of
democracies would not be overly burdensome.

Divide and conquer DA---only a league that’s unified from the start prevents
Russia and China from playing spoiler
John Davenport 19, Professor of Philosophy and Peace & Justice Studies, Fordham University,
2019, A League of Democracies: Cosmopolitanism, Consolidation Arguments, and Global Public
Goods, p. 22-23 /jpb

(c) Our leaders also failed to foresee new Chinese and Russian strategies to pit old and emerging
democratic nations against each other , thus blocking the natural tendency for these countries
to ally. The massive transitions to democracy in India, parts of Southeast Asia, and Latin America are among the greatest triumphs
of humanity after World War II. If western governments had been friendlier to them , these developing
democracies could joined us in an alliance that clearly rejected old colonial attitudes and Cold
War strategies involving anti-socialist manipulations. But suspicions built up from decades of abuse by
Britain, France, and the United States, when we supported too many right-wing military strongmen in developing nations, made it
easy for Russia to organize the “BRICS” block , which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
Supposedly acting as a counterweight to NATO nations and their allies in other western-style democracies, the
BRICS idea implies that Brazil, India, and South Africa have more interests in common with the
world’s leading dictatorships than they do with other democratic nations .

Western leaders should have fought harder against this “divide and conquer” stratagem, by which
Russia and China lulled some politicians in developing democracies. While ANC party leader Jacob Zuma in South Africa supported
Mugabe’s tyrannical regime in Zimbabwe, some Indian and Brazilian leaders put trade and economic ties with dictatorships ahead of
standing up for the human rights so flagrantly violated by their new friends. Thus the spectacle of Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff backing
Russia’s opposition to any military action to stop Assad’s mass murder in Syria. The BRICS coalition is designed to undermine R2P by
talking up imagined “western aggressions” rather than defending innocent lives from ethnic cleansing, chemical warfare, and
genocidal mayhem.44 Nations that have survived oppression by fascist death squads and brutal colonial rule should not be tricked
into overlooking the obvious similarities between Putin and Marshal Branco, or between the Communist party elite in China and the
British Raj.

A league of democracies would fundamentally alter this new alignment , encouraging nations like
Brazil, India, Argentina, South Africa, and Indonesia to cooperate more closely with peoples who
share their fundamental ideals and principles, and with democratic governments that would give
them a “most-favored” status in trade relations. New leadership in South Africa, Brazil, and other developing
democracies may open up such possibilities , if we had a better model to offer them . A UDL would

also contradict the narrative that Putin has been spreading since 2007 that “Washington aimed at
nothing less than world domination,” as Daalder put it.45 If Russia’s new belligerency was partly motivated by the 2003
Iraq invasion, as Daalder argues, a democratic league could also assure Russians that the U nited S tates would
never again invade other nations without approval by a diverse group of other democratic
nations.
 Perm: Do CP---2NC
the CP does not increase cooperation with NATO. Even if every NATO state joins
the league of democracies, that’s distinct from cooperating with NATO as an
organization. International organizations have unique legal personality that’s
distinct from their member states, AND other organizations
Sherrod Lewis Bumgardner 10, Legal Adviser, NATO Allied Transformation Staff Element
Europe, et al., 2010, NATO Legal Deskbook: Second Edition,
https://info.publicintelligence.net/NATO-LegalDeskbook.pdf

The 2nd pillar (below the Washington Treaty) relates to the status of NATO as an international organisation (the
civilian headquarters in Brussels, the political bodies, and the NATO agencies) and the status of the international staff and the
national representations to NATO.

For NATO members, the status is defined in the Ottawa Agreement (September 1951). The Ottawa Agreement
announces explicitly that it does not apply to any military headquarters established by NATO or to any other military bodies – unless
so decided by the North Atlantic Council. In very broad terms the Agreement defines NATO as a legal entity
under international law . Furthermore, in addition to providing NATO with a legal personality , the
Ottawa Agreement defines the immunities and privileges to be granted to NATO, to the international
staff (not full diplomatic immunity) and to the national missions established to NATO (full diplomatic immunity).

In 1994, in connection with the introduction of the PfP Framework Document, it was decided to invite PfP states to post national
missions to NATO. In order to define the status of those missions, an agreement – the Brussels Agreement (September 1994) - was
concluded between NATO member states. The Brussels Agreement grants equivalent status to missions representing PfP states as
conferred to missions of NATO states. PfP states are not signatories to the agreement, but upon accession to NATO, the new NATO
members are required to sign the Agreement.

3. Third pillar – Status of forces and headquarters

The 3rd pillar records agreements regarding the status of forces and international military Headquarters within NATO.

The two main documents in this category are the NATO Status of Forces Agreement concluded in June 1951 and the Paris Protocol
on the Status of International Military Headquarters (August 1952). The NATO SOFA defines the status of forces when NATO states
are sending and receiving troops as a genuine part of the co-operation within the alliance. The NATO SOFA defines the bilateral
relations between a sending and a receiving state in a multinational treaty.

Both the NATO SOFA and the Paris Protocol are supplemented by agreements concluded amongst Nations (NATO SOFA) and
between Supreme Headquarters and individual Nations (Paris Protocol).58

4. Fourth Pillar – Partnership for Peace

The 4th pillar is linked to the PfP Framework Document, and lists the agreements concluded in support of PfP. While the PfP
Framework Document is not an agreement in the legal sense, it is the foundation of the PfP co-operation that covers a broad spectre
of activities, depending on the wishes and capabilities of the involved countries. The cooperation is the result of and driven by
political commitments, a shared understanding of the values on which NATO is founded. In 1997, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership
Council (EAPC) was created to replace the NACC and to build on its achievements, paving the way for the development of an
enhanced and more operational partnership.

The EAPC and the PfP programme have steadily developed their own dynamic, as successive steps have been taken by NATO and its
Partner countries to extend security cooperation, building on the partnership arrangements they have created.

The formal basis for the Partnership for Peace is the Framework Document, which sets out specific undertakings for each Partner
country.

Each Partner country makes a number of far-reaching political commitments to preserve democratic societies; to maintain the
principles of international law; to fulfil obligations under the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Helsinki
Final Act and international disarmament and arms control agreements; to refrain from the threat or use of force against other
states; to respect existing borders; and to settle disputes peacefully.
Specific commitments are also made to promote transparency in national defence planning and budgeting to establish democratic
control over armed forces, and to develop the capacity for joint action with NATO in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations.
The Framework Document also enshrines a commitment by the Allies to consult with any Partner country that perceives a direct
threat to its territorial integrity, political independence, or security. Cooperation is tailored to the Partner Nations‘ individual
requirements but may include:

- Efforts to maintaining the capability and readiness to contribute to operations under the authority of the United Nations and/or
the responsibility of the OSCE;

- Military relations with NATO, for the purpose of joint planning, training and exercises, aimed at strengthening the ability of PfP
nations to undertake various missions (peacekeeping, search and rescue, humanitarian operations, and others as may subsequently
be agreed);

- Development, over the longer term, of forces that are better able to operate with those of the members of the North Atlantic
Alliance.

Launched at the November 2002 Prague Summit, Individual Partnership Action Plans (IPAPs) are open to countries that have the
political will and ability to deepen their relationship with NATO. An IPAP should clearly set out the cooperation objectives and
priorities of the individual partner country, and ensure that the various mechanisms in use correspond directly to these priorities.

In addition to the Brussels Agreement, the agreements that regulate the status issues in activities in cooperation with PfP countries
are the following:

- Agreement among the States Parties to the North Atlantic Treaty and the other States participating in the Partnership for Peace
regarding the Status of their Forces / Brussels, 19 June 1995

- Additional Protocol to the Agreement among the States Parties to the North Atlantic Treaty and the Other States Participating in
the Partnership for Peace regarding the Status of their Forces. Done at Brussels June 19, 1995

- Further Additional Protocol to the Agreement among the States Parties to the North Atlantic Treaty and the Other States
Participating in the Partnership for Peace regarding the Status of their Forces. Done at Brussels December 19, 1997

D. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE LEGAL PERSONALITY OF

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

1. Legal personality on international level

International law presupposes that legal personality is a prerequisite for the capacity to bear
rights and obligations. It is increasingly recognized that while the indicia for legal personality of
international organization has been drawn from the incidents of statehood , international
organizations are not merely states writ large and that rights and duties resulting from their
personhood are not identical to that enjoyed by states .59 Given that international organizations are
―secondary subjects‖ of international law, their creation and their actual existence flows from the will of other international legal
persons. Having international personality means that the international organization possesses
rights, duties, powers and liabilities as distinct from its members or creators on the
international plane and in international law .
THE EXAMPLE OF OTTAWA AGREEMENT

Preamble of the Ottawa Agreement states that regulating of the status is in the interest of the functions:

―Considering that for the exercise of their functions and the fulfilment of their purposes it is necessary that the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, its international staff and the representatives of Member States attending meetings thereof should have the
status set out hereunder,‖

The assertion that an international organization has legal personality is generally accepted, unless there is clear evidence to the
contrary.60 Taking into consideration diverse guidance given by definitions of international organization, by using the common
denominators offered by commonly used definitions,61 an international organization may be described as an
autonomous entity , set up by a constituent instrument, which expresses independent will through common
organs and has capacity to act on the international scene .62

It is legitimate to maintain that international personality is a necessary attribute of an international organization63 and it simply
reflects the autonomy of the organization to act on its own.

The legal personality can be conferred:

- Explicit recognition by conventional means – in the constituent document of the international organization.

- Implicitly – approach introduced by the International Court Of Justice in the Reparations64 case based on the observation that of
the conferment of specific legal capacities on the organization as such and of particular functions which could not practically be
carried out if the organization did not posses juridical personality in the international sphere.

- The international legal personality is associated with certain criteria, the existence of which endows the organization with
personality on the basis of general international law.65
Solvency
 Say No---Overview---2NC
If one country says no, zero solvency for the plan because of the consensus rule.
NATO 22, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 6/14/2022, “Consensus decision-making at
NATO,” https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49178.htm#:~:text=All%20NATO
%20decisions%20are%20made,agreement%20reached%20by%20common%20consent., cc

All NATO decisions are made by consensus , after discussion and consultation among member
countries .
 A decision reached by consensus is an agreement reached by common consent.

 When a “NATO decision” is announced, it is therefore the expression of the collective will of all the
sovereign states that are members of the Alliance .
 This principle of consensus is applied at every committee level , which implies that all
NATO decisions are collective decisions made by its member countries.
Applying the principle of consensus decision-making

Consensus decision-making is a fundamental principle which has been accepted as the sole basis for decision-making in NATO since the creation of the
Alliance in 1949.

Consensus decision-making means that there is no voting at NATO. Consultations take place until a decision that is
acceptable to all is reached. Sometimes member countries agree to disagree on an issue. In general, this negotiation process is rapid
since members consult each other on a regular basis and therefore often know and understand each other's positions in advance.

Facilitating the process of consultation and consensus decision-making is one of the NATO Secretary General's main tasks.

The principle of consensus decision-making applies throughout NATO .

 Say No---Cyber---2NC
Specifically, they’ll say no to info sharing.
Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider 21, Ph.D., a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and an affiliate at
Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation; and Dr. Erica Lonergan, Ph.D., is an
assistant professor in the Army Cyber Institute and a research scholar in the Saltzman Institute
of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, 12/17/21, “CYBER CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW
NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY,” https://warontherocks.com/2021/12/cyber-challenges-for-the-
new-national-defense-strategy/, cc

Cyberspace presents a unique challenge for alliances . For years, Washington’s traditional alliance relationships
struggled to even agree on basic cyber terms and attempts to share information were
complicated by cyber operations’ close relationship with the highly classified world of signals
intelligence . Moreover, U.S. actions in cyberspace have, in some cases, strained alliance relationships.
Two prominent examples include the backlash over the Edward Snowden leaks as well as concerns
about the implications of persistent engagement and defend forward for allied-owned networks.
Cohesion
 Space Scenario---2NC
Triggers escalation even if there’s not an actual attack! Insert…
Sitki 1AC Egeli 21. Teaches at Turkey’s Izmir University of Economics. He holds a doctorate in
international relations from Bilkent University and a master’s degree in the same field from the
University of Chicago. He was the foreign relations director of Turkey’s Undersecretariat for
Defense Industries from 1991 to 1999, and afterwards served as vice president of Overseas
Development Corporation, a multinational consulting firm specializing in the defense and
aerospace industries. “Space-to-Space Warfare and Proximity Operations: The Impact on
Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications and Strategic Stability,” Journal for Peace and
Nuclear Disarmament, Volume 4, 2021, pp. 116-140,
https://doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2021.1942681 //EM

The circumstances of the third scenario are similar to those of the second in that tensions are already high between nuclear-armed
adversaries, but this time there is no loss of contact with a satellite . Instead, a suspicious spacecraft

belonging to the adversary has positioned itself nearby or on the same orbital plane as a critical NC3 satellite . Even worse,
there are indications that it may be undertaking additional maneuvering. The side whose satellite is being shadowed judges that a hostile action is
imminent and that evasive, defensive, or preventive measures – or some combination of those – are warranted. Evasive maneuvering would take the
targeted satellite out of its primary mission and achieve the same results the attacker was seeking. Alternatively, if appropriately equipped, the
targeted satellite could resort to defensive measures such as emitting laser beams or HPMs to interfere with the sensors and electronics of the nearby

attacker. The side believing its satellite is in imminent danger may decide to move in one of its
small “defensive” spacecraft to fend off the “offensive” craft . However, the decision to actually engage the
attacker will not be easy. Even when employed in a presumably preemptive and self-defense mode, the use of space-to-space weapons or a

guardian spacecraft to inflict damage on the adversary would be tantamount to having the first shot of a military confrontation fired in
space. Escalat ory risks of launching the first strike in the space domain are evident (Bilsborough 2020).

Benign operations can turn into catastrohpic accidents. Insert…

Sitki 1AC Egeli 21. Teaches at Turkey’s Izmir University of Economics. He holds a doctorate in
international relations from Bilkent University and a master’s degree in the same field from the
University of Chicago. He was the foreign relations director of Turkey’s Undersecretariat for
Defense Industries from 1991 to 1999, and afterwards served as vice president of Overseas
Development Corporation, a multinational consulting firm specializing in the defense and
aerospace industries. “Space-to-Space Warfare and Proximity Operations: The Impact on
Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications and Strategic Stability,” Journal for Peace and
Nuclear Disarmament, Volume 4, 2021, pp. 116-140,
https://doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2021.1942681 //EM

In this scenario, a spacecraft capable of proximity operations conducts relatively benign activity ,
such as close inspection or eavesdropping , near its object of interest and ends up inadvertently
harming it . This could be an accidental collision or perhaps unintended activation of its
repertoire of kinetic and non-kinetic tools. That is not implausible , given the continuous presence of such
vehicles nowadays in the immediate vicinity of others’ sensitive satellites. The trend toward embedding more autonomy and
automation in spacecraft increases the probability of such accidents and the consequent rounds of uncontrolled events. In fact,
even the debris resulting from in-orbit experiments at more distant orbits (such as the firing of high-
speed projectiles) could find its way to a collision with a high-value satellite of an adversary. This may be a particularly
discomforting possibility in the tightly populated GEO belt where the majority of NC3 satellites are located. If such inadvertent
events were to take place during times of high tension between two adversaries, would the victim believe that the harm was
unintended? Would forbearance and conciliation rule the day? Or would the responses be shaped by suspicion, worst-case
assumptions and consequent reprisals, and thus escalation? There is little doubt that this scenario represents a set of dangerous
uncertainties.
 Taiwan Scenario---2NC
A confluence of historical evidence and economic factors prove Xi will not
invade Taiwan.
Andrew Nathan 22, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University,
6/23/2022, “Beijing Is Still Playing the Long Game on Taiwan,”
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2022-06-23/beijing-still-playing-long-game-
taiwan?
check_logged_in=1&utm_medium=promo_email&utm_source=lo_flows&utm_campaign=regist
ered_user_welcome&utm_term=email_1&utm_content=20220625, cc

But fears of an imminent Chinese attack are misplaced . For decades, China’s policy toward
Taiwan has been characterized by strategic patience , as has its approach to other territorial claims and disputes—from
India to the South China Sea. Far from spurring China to jettison this approach in favor of an imminent military assault on Taiwan, the war in
Ukraine will reinforce Beijing’s commitment to playing the long game . The price Moscow has
paid , both militarily and in the form of international isolation , is but a fraction of what China
could expect if it were to attempt to take Taiwan by force. Better to wait patiently for Taiwan’s eventual surrender, as

Beijing sees it, than to strike now and risk winning the island at too high a cost —or losing it forever .
IMPENDING ATTACK?

Fear that China will attack Taiwan had been growing well before Putin invaded Ukraine. As Robert Blackwill and Philip Zelikow observed in a 2021
report published by the Council on Foreign Relations, Taiwan is “becoming the most dangerous flash point in the world for a possible war that would
involve the United States of America, China, and probably other major powers.” In addition to its historical and economic motives for controlling
Taiwan, Beijing feels the need to prevent other powers from using the island as a base to pressure China militarily or subvert it politically. For its part,
the United States has strong motives for insisting on what Washington has referred to since 1972 as the “peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue”—
which, given the anti-unification sentiments of the Taiwanese people, means an open-ended and perhaps permanent state of de facto autonomy for
the island. Although there is much emotion on both sides—for China, nationalism; for the United States, commitment to democracy—what makes the
Taiwan issue truly nonnegotiable are the two countries’ security interests.

In 1979, when the United States broke diplomatic relations with Taiwan to normalize relations with China, Beijing had a reasonable chance of winning
over Taiwan without using force. Taiwan was diplomatically isolated, militarily weak, and increasingly economically dependent on the mainland. China
encouraged this dependence by establishing a host of incentives for Taiwanese enterprises to do business on the mainland, by purchasing Taiwanese
exports, and by sending Chinese tourists to the island. Beijing also invested in Taiwanese media with the aim of generating favorable news coverage
and held exchanges with leaders of the anti-independence Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party.

But these efforts proved insufficient to stem the tide against unification in Taiwanese public opinion and politics. According to opinion
polls , the share of Taiwanese voters favoring unification fell from 28 percent in 1999 to less
than two percent in 2022 . An overwhelming majority favor “maintaining the status quo,” which in the language of Taiwanese politics
means sustaining autonomy without formally declaring independence. Since 2016, the anti-unification D emocratic P rogressive P arty
has controlled both the presidency and the legislature, and it looks well positioned to win the next set of national elections in 2024.
Fears of an imminent Chinese attack are misplaced.

These trends have prompted China to adopt a more threatening posture toward Taiwan. Beijing has
stepped up measures to isolate the island diplomatically, slowed imports and the tourist trade,
trained the Chinese military to conduct the complicated joint operations necessary for a cross-strait invasion, and
conducted frequent probes of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. China has also developed what the Pentagon
calls “anti-access/area denial” capabilities—including long-range precision missiles, submarine-launched torpedoes, antiship ballistic missiles,
cybertools, and space capabilities—designed to hold at bay a U.S. defense of Taiwan.
These moves have fed speculation that China is building up to a full-scale attack . In addition to
Xi’s desire to secure his legacy, the shifting balance of power between China and the United States is often cited by U.S.
analysts as a possible motivation for Xi. The scholars Michael Beckley and Hal Brands, for instance, have suggested that China may
attack in the near term because it has reached the peak of its national strength—and China’s leaders know it. China is looking at a

period of decline caused by a combination of unsustainable debt, rising labor costs, an aging population, declining productivity, and a critical
water shortage. Meanwhile, the United States and Taiwan have recently started to readjust their military postures to counter the asymmetric threat
China poses. The Biden administration is pulling Japan and South Korea together around a commitment to “stability in the Taiwan Strait,” and Western
businesses are gradually moving their production sites out of China because of rising labor costs, lack of a level playing field in the Chinese market, and
COVID-19 restrictions. As this reorientation gathers steam, the West’s economic incentives to avoid war with China will diminish. By this logic, Beijing
has reason to strike before its adversaries are ready.

WAITING GAME

The facts on which such forecasts are based are not wrong , but they are incomplete . A fuller
set of facts suggests that China is still pursuing a strategy of strategic patience when it comes to Taiwan. First,
Chinese leaders—rightly or wrongly—seem confident that they can handle their own problems better than
the West can handle its problems. They don’t deny the challenges that Beckley and Brands highlight, but they believe the West is in
decline , hobbled by ill-managed and slow-growing economies, social divisions, and weak political leaders. However, Chinese strategists do not
seem to believe that China has yet reached a favorable power balance with the West. As Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at
Tsinghua University, has argued, “China’s global reach still has its limits. Despite being a major power, China also thinks of itself as a developing country
—and rightly so, considering that its GDP per capita remains far behind those of advanced economies.”

Beijing can afford to wait for power in the Western Pacific to tip decisively in its favor. When
Washington comes to understand that the cost of defending Taiwan is beyond its means , and
Taiwanese officials realize that Washington no longer has the appetite for a clash with China,
Taiwan will pragmatically negotiate an arrangement that Beijing can accept. In the meantime, China
needs only to deter Taipei and Washington from attempting to lock in formal Taiwanese independence . Beijing’s
shows of force are not precursors of an imminent attack, therefore, but measures intended to buy time for history
to take its course.

Second, contrary to the common portrayal of China as itching for war, Beijing has demonstrated strategic patience in
pursuit of its other goals . A good example is Beijing’s behavior in the S outh C hina S ea, where China has built and militarized
seven sand islands without triggering a war with the United States or rival territorial claimants. It did so by building only on
landforms it already controlled, claiming all along that it wasn’t doing what it was doing. The rival territorial claimants were too weak to confront China,
while the United States lacked a justification for doing so because it has no territorial claims where China was building. Beijing restricted access to but
refrained from seizing a landform it contests with the sole U.S. treaty ally involved in these disputes—the Philippines—which in any case lacked an
appetite to invoke its alliance with Washington by moving militarily to defend itself.

The conflict in Ukraine is reminding Xi that war is unpredictable and rule over a resisting population is costly.

China likewise changed the strategic status quo without triggering an armed conflict over the
contested Senkaku Islands , known in China as the Diaoyu Islands, by escalating from an occasional maritime presence in Japanese
waters to a permanent one, supplementing its naval forces with less confrontational coast guard, maritime militia, and fishing vessels. Beijing followed

a similar playbook in the contested Ladakh region of India , where Chinese troops gradually advanced their positions and
established a series of new lines of control with only one confirmed outbreak of shooting that was quickly contained.

China has invested in ostensibly civilian port projects across the Indian Ocean and beyond that could serve as foundations for future naval operations,

raising some alarm but no counteraction. Beijing has also used its economic and diplomatic influence in Africa,
Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Oceania and its norm-setting power in
international institutions to incentivize governments to align with China’s interests, again generating some alarm but no effective
resistance. Such diplomatic, economic, and military “gray zone tactics” illustrate that China’s strategic behavior is geared
toward the long term rather than the short term , moving from no presence to sustained presence in a host of arenas
without generating substantial pushback, much less armed conflict (with the exception of the fighting in Ladakh). That same strategic
caution has so far been evident in China’s policy toward Taiwan , where Beijing has dialed up
tension and deterred a Taiwanese drive for independence without precipitating a crisis .

Finally, the lesson Xi is likely drawing from Putin’s war in Ukraine is not that territorial aggression would go
unpunished militarily by the West but that it would be both difficult and costly . There is no reason to believe that Xi
is surrounded, as Putin seems to be, by yes men who will tell him that a war over Taiwan can be easily won. Even if he is, however, the grinding conflict

in Ukraine is reminding him that war is unpredictable and rule over a resisting population is
costly . The amphibious operation China would need to undertake to seize Taiwan would be far more difficult than the land
invasion Russia has carried out in Ukraine. Xi has been reforming the Chinese military’s command structure and ramping up training for such an

operation, but Chinese forces remain untested in actual combat operations. Meanwhile, the chances that the United States
would intervene to defend Taiwan have increased as anti-Chinese sentiment has risen in the United States and Europe—and
after U.S. President Joe Biden remarked last month that defending Taiwan is “the commitment we
made .”
1NR vs. Lexington WL---Greenhill Round
1
Dip Cap DA
 1NR---Overview
It causes extinction, even without escalation
William Fahy 20, Writer for Massive Science, citing a Study by Dr. Jonas Jä germeyr,
Science Collaborator at The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, PhD in Computer
Science from the University of Chicago, “There’s An Additional Environmental Toll To
Nuclear Warfare”, Massive Science, 6/8/2020, https://massivesci.com/notes/nuclear-
winter-food-insecurity-famine-models-prediction/
Almost 30 years after the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear Armageddon seems like a thing of the past. Even though
tensions over the Kashmir region between India and Pakistan and the U.S.’swithdrawal from the Iran nuclear
deal have increased the threat of the use of nuc lear weapon s on a regional basis, fears of a cold,
irradiated Earth are mostly gone. Unfortunately, Jonas Jä germeyr, his colleagues, and their models of global climate and
food production aren’t convinced. According to their predictions, even a regional nuclear war holds the

potential to plunge the world into a so-called “nuclear winter,” with drastic consequences for
global public health and food security .
The nuclear winter scenario was originally proposed in the journal Science by a group of scientists lead by Carl Sagan during
the Cold War. It claims that the
smoke and dust launched into the atmosphere by a series of nuclear
detonations and the resulting mass firestorms has the potential to block out a portion of incoming
sun light to the Earth’s surface. That could dramatically influence global temp erature s , destroy
the ozone layer, and make it harder for crops to grow . Together, those factors make the food supply one of
the most vulnerable systems in the event of a nuclear winter.

That brings us back to the new simulations published this year and its predictions. According to the authors, “ a
regional
conflict using <1% of the worldwide nuclear arsenal could have adverse consequences for
global food security unmatched in modern history.” They predict a drop in average global food production
of about 11% for up to 5 years, surpassing even the worst historical famines caused by volcanic winters.

It draws in every power and goes nuclear---extinction

Dr. John Avery 13, PhD from the University of London, Lektor Emeritus, Associate
Professor, at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, Contact Person
in Denmark for Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, “An Attack On Iran
Could Escalate Into Global Nuclear War”, Counter Currents, 11/6/2013,
https://www.countercurrents.org/avery061113.htm
As we approach the 100th anniversary World War I, we should remember that this colossal disaster escalated uncontrollably
from what was intended to be a minor conflict. There is a danger that an attack
on Iran would escalate into a
large-scale war in the Middle East, entirely destabilizing a region that is already deep in
problems.

The unstable government of Pakistan might be overthrown , and the revolutionary Pakistani government
might enter the war on the side of Iran, thus introducing nuclear weapons into the conflict.

Russia and China , firm allies of Iran, might also be drawn in to a general war in the Middle East. Since
much of the world's oil comes from the region, such a war would certainly cause the price of oil to reach unheard-of
heights, with catastrophic effects on the global economy .
 nuc lear weapon s
In the dangerous situation that could potentially result from an attack on Iran, there is a risk that

would be used, either intentionally , or by accident or miscalc ulation. Recent research

has shown that besides making large areas of the world uninhabitable through long-lasting
radioactive contamination , a nuclear war would damage global ag riculture to such a
extent that a global famine of previously unknown proportions would result.

Thus, nuclear war is the ultimate eco logical catastrophe. It could destroy human civilization and
much of the biosphere. To risk such a war would be an unforgivable offense against the lives and future of all the peoples of
the world, US citizens included.

Diplomatic failure cedes the region---erodes US geopolitical influence

broadly AND undermines military deterrence
H. Brandon Morgan 22, U.S. Army Officer and non-resident fellow at the Modern War
Institute, 6/7/22, “The Imperative of Middle East Regional Order and U.S. Diplomacy,”
https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2022/6/7/the-imperative-of-middle-east-
regional-order-and-us-diplomacy

While such a regional order may seem far-fetched, the

U.S. government would at least benefit
significantly from renewing its geostrategic appreciation of the Middle East . Importantly,
this focus should rely on diplomacy and economics as the primary instruments to achieve a stable balance

of power and regional order . The likely alternative of escalating tensions , expanded conflict,
and abdicating American regional influence to strategic competitors would only serve to further
erode U.S. geopolitical strength in the Middle East and beyond . Furthermore, Washington will
have to undertake a concerted effort to renew progress towards a Palestinian-Israeli resolution to achieve broader regional
stability. The U.S. will also have to consider the implications of recognizing disputed territory—such as the Western Sahara as
part of Morocco, and the Golan Heights as part of Israel—with America’s assertion that military force should not be used to
rewrite borders, as in Russia’s occupation of Crimea. A physical equilibrium must match its moral counterpart. As Henry
Kissinger remarked in Diplomacy, a regional balance of power “reduces the opportunities for using force” while “a shared
sense of justice reduces the desire to use force.”[15] Indeed, if there
is any hope to complete the Indo-
Pacific military pivot, the U.S. must commit to restore world class diplomacy in the
Middle East .
 1NR---Link
Plan saps funding directly from the DOS---this answers their claim the aff is
security cooperation and NOT diplomatic cooperation
Aaron Taliaferro 18, senior project leader and professional research staff at the Institute for
Defense Analyses, 6/23/2022, “Resourcing Planned GCC Security Cooperation Activities,”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep22810.4?seq=1, cc

For the most part, security cooperation activities intended to build the capacity of foreign security forces and institutions
cannot be undertaken with Title 10 (USC) funds authorized and appropriated by the U.S. Congress for the DOD
or the Military Departments. U.S. law and policy generally regards interactions between U.S. and foreign armed forces, in peacetime,18 as an aspect of
U.S. foreign policy. To that end, the law states,

The Secretary of State is responsible for the continuous supervision and general direction of economic assistance, military assistance, and
military education, and training, including determining whether there shall be a security assistance program and the value thereof, to the
end that such programs are effectively integrated both at home and abroad, and that the foreign policy of the United States is best served
thereby. (Section 622(c), Foreign Assistance Act, 1961.)

Therefore, a preponderance of U.S. taxpayer dollars made available for DOD security cooperation activities,
especially those intended to build the capability and capacity of partner nations through train, equip, and advise activities, come from Title
22 (i.e., Department of State ) appropriations. Furthermore, even those dollars not appropriated under Title 22 are still
subject to the constraints of Title 22 regarding the provision of foreign assistance.19

Urging other countries to share the burden expends precious diplomatic

capital.
Jason Ralph et al. 19, Professor of International Relations and former Head of the School
of Politics and International Studies; Dr. Jess Gifkins, University of Manchester; and Dr.
Samuel Jarvis, Lecturer in International Relations at York St John University, 11/13/2019,
“The United Kingdom’s special responsibilities at the United Nations: Diplomatic practice in
normative context,” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 22(2),
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1369148119887317, cc

For this project, we interviewed 29 diplomats with experience working in or around the Security
Council from 13 different states . Interpreting this data, we found that there are limits to using diplomatic

activism as a ‘compensatory strategy’ (Adler-Nissen 2008) for material decline. The diplomatic capital that enables
activism at the Council, and cultivates the reputation for great power responsibility , is not directly
linked to material power, but our data indicates that it is easier to convince other states to contribute resources

to peace operations if the state drafting the mandate in New York is perceived to be shouldering a fair share of the material burden.
Conversely, if the great power is not contributing material resources, content only to do the diplomatic ‘heavy lifting’, troop

contributing countries are likely to resent what they see as an unreasonable distribution of
responsibility and are less likely to follow. Indeed, we illustrate this point with reference to current criticism of
Security Council mandates and the manner in which their complexity has evolved beyond capabilities.

The US is pursuing ambitious diplomacy now, but resources are finite.

Morgan L. Kaplan 22, fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 2/7/22, “SIGNALING AMERICA’S NEW MIDDLE EAST
FOREIGN POLICY,” https://warontherocks.com/2022/02/signaling-americas-new-middle-
east-foreign-policy/
The Biden administration seems to understand the need for clarity and has promoted a public
diplomacy campaign to remedy this. But the message needs to thread a fine needle :
reassure partners and allies that Washington remains committed to the region’s security, while also
indicating that its goals will be scaled back. For example, at the most recent Manama Dialogue, Brett McGurk of
the National Security Council staff was careful to indicate that “The U.S. is not going anywhere. This region is
too important, too volatile, too interwoven with American interests to contemplate
otherwise.” Yet, McGurk also noted that the Biden administration also wants to be “ ambitious in the
power of our diplomacy but disciplined to ensure that such ambition is applied to clear
aims , pursued through a sustainable and necessarily finite base of resources .”

3. CYBER--- Herding the many discordant perspectives on cybersecurity

expends scarce diplomatic resources, spilling over to other areas---the
greater the risk of say no, the larger the link.
André Barrinha 17, Senior Lecturer, Politics, Languages & International Studies EPSRC
Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security, University of Bath; and Thomas Renard, at
the time a Senior Research Fellow at Egmont Institute, 12/28/2017, “Cyber-diplomacy: the
making of an international society in the digital age,”
https://doi.org/10.1080/23340460.2017.1414924, cc

Diplomacy , understood as “the attempt to adjust conflicting interests by negotiation and

compromise” (Wight, 1979, p. 89), is, for the English School, at the core of international politics; it is a central institution in the definition and
maintenance of international society (Hall, 2006; Neumann, 2002, 2003; Watson, 1982). Indeed, for Hedley Bull, diplomacy is “a custodian of the
idea of international society, with a stake in preserving and strengthening it” (1977/2002, p. 176). According to him, there are five main

functions to the diplomatic practice: to facilitate

communication in world politics, to negotiate agreements , to
gather intelligence and information from other countries, to avoid or minimize “ friction in
international relations ” (1977/2002, p. 165) and, finally, to symbolize the existence of a society of
states .
One of our key assumptions is that these functions remain unaltered, even though the context, actors and issues of diplomatic work have
changed since the writings of Hedley Bull. Diplomacy is no longer an activity solely undertaken by a select group of (mostly) white men
elegantly discussing and negotiating the main issues in international politics in cocktail parties and at official receptions. It is not even just about

relations between states. It now has

to take into account “ wider relationships and dialogues, involving such
entities as regional and international organisations – be they intergovernmental (IGOs) or non-governmental (NGOs) –
multinational firms, sub-national actors, advocacy networks, and influential individuals” (Jö nsson & Langhorne, 2004, p. vii). As mentioned by
former British Ambassador Tom Fletcher regarding the latter group, entrepreneurs such as Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt have a “pulling
power” that is hard to match for any state representative (2016, p. 222). They are, in his view, the “new emperors” (2016, p. 222).

Diplomacy has also progressively extended to new policy areas over the years, entering uncharted political territories
such as climate negotiations or, lately, cyber issues .

Cyber-diplomacy can be defined as diplomacy in the cyber domain or, in other words, the use of diplomatic resources
and the performance of diplomatic functions to secure national interests with regard to the cyberspace. Such
interests are generally identified in national cyberspace or cybersecurity strategies, which often include references to the diplomatic agenda.
Predominant issues on the cyber-diplomacy agenda include cybersecurity, cybercrime, confidence-building, internet freedom and internet
governance.

Cyber-diplomacy is therefore conducted in all or in part by diplomats , meeting in bilateral formats

(such as the US–China dialogue) or in multilateral fora (such as in the UN). Beyond the traditional remit of diplomacy, diplomats
also interact with various non-state actors, such as leaders of internet companies (such as Facebook or Google), technology entrepreneurs or
civil society organizations. Diplomacy can also involve empowering oppressed voices in other countries through technology (Owen, 2015). While
this sets quite a broad reach of activities, it does allow us to firmly situate cyber-diplomacy as an international society institution, even when
interacting with world society actors. We exclude from our definition the more technical interactions between line ministries (such as justice,
telecoms or economy) or official agencies (such as Computer Emergency Response Teams) from different countries, when diplomats are not
involved. This is important as it helps differentiate purely diplomatic activities from those that take place between government departments and
agencies of different countries, interactions that in many cases predated diplomatic ones as we further explain below, but whose primary

concern is to address technical rather than political issues. We recognize that there
is a certain “grey area” where some of
these activities may complement or combine themselves. This “grey area” leads in practice to some tensions between

national stakeholders on issues of competence and representation .4 However, that observation is

not fundamentally unlike what is observed in other policy areas , such as the environment or trade .

4. SAY NO magnifies the link---the greater the resistance, the more difficult it is
to ensure NATO agrees to the plan---especially when the 2AC dropped say no
5. SPACE---outer space strategy is in its infancy---the plan expends significant
diplomatic resources
Jo Inge Bekkevold 22, senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence
Studies, 7/11/22, “NATO’s New Division of Labor on Russia and China Won’t Be Easy,”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/11/nato-strategy-china-russia-threat-europe-asia-
geopolitics/
The division of labor debate has already begun. The Aspen Strategy Group has made the simple and obvious recommendation
trans-Atlantic dialogue on China. Others emphasize how the United
that Washington and Europe strengthen the
States could save billions of dollars by suggesting NATO
transcend geographic boundaries by focusing on
defending cyber and outer space . As these examples show, the discourse is still in its infancy . A
successful strategy will require much more work and fine-tuning, including inputs from
policymakers, diplomats , defense officials, and the wider strategic communities in the U nited S tates, Europe, and
Asian partner countries. NATO’s belated acknowledgment in Madrid of a new global balance of power means this work can
finally start.
 1NR---AT: Thumpers---Taiwan
Reengagement now solves---human rights issues don’t distract
Camilla Giussani 22, junior correspondent intern at OWP, 8/18/22, “Biden’s First Visit In
The Middle East: A New Era Of US Influence?,” https://theowp.org/bidens-first-visit-in-the-
middle-east-a-new-era-of-us-influence/
Traveling from Israel, the US team flew an unprecedented direct flight, signaling the improvement in relations between the
two countries which Biden was hoping to achieve. The
White House’s strategy is to unite the Middle
Eastern bloc in a new regional organization formed by Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan,
UAE, Bahrein, and Qatar to pressure Iran into a new nuclear agreement and allow the US to gain a bigger
role in the conflict management process. As the Middle East is becoming even more
crucial for oil supplies Biden was also hoping to encourage the Kingdom towards
additional oil production, ready to keep an eye closed on those human rights and
democratic values that seemed to be so important to him during the 2020 presidential
campaign.

In the aftermath of the visit, no immediate tangible results were achieved. However, Biden has finally
made clear what
his strategy in the Middle East is . “Greater peace, greater stability, greater connection” is
what he declared to be his goal for the region, which he intends to achieve through the “ 3D approach ”:

deterrence , diplomacy , and de-escalation . While the prospect seems positive , the US in reality
is trying to protect its own interests and establish a new era of influence on the region, in fear that the void would otherwise
be filled by Russia and China.

BUT diplomatic focus is key---history proves

Tamara Cofman Wittes 21, former senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at
Brooking, 1/25/21, “What to do – and what not to do – in the Middle East,”
https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-to-do-and-what-not-to-do-in-the-middle-east/
In a region where the United States long reigned as hegemon, the reality Mara Karlin and I described in late 2018 — of
reduced priority, diminished interests, and resulting diminished influence — is painful for many in U.S. policy circles to accept.
But history is instructive about the policy tools that have brought the U nited S tates is greatest
strategic gains in this region . It was American diplomacy that pulled Egypt out of the
Soviet sphere and into a negotiated peace with Israel; and it was diplomacy, along with the superb
U.S. military effort, that brought together a historic 38-nation coalition to expel Saddam Hussein
from Kuwait and set the stage for the Madrid Peace Conference. With COVID-19, among other things,
having shifted the Middle East’s dynamics, the U nited S tates enjoys opportunities for progress toward a

more stable region that do not require expensive or long-term commitments. A focus on
constraining geopolitical competition within the region, confronting Iranian behavior
more effectively, and wielding diplomacy to resolve conflicts where possible should enable
Washington to do less and not have its regional dominance threatened. Risks and challenges for
American interests remain, and the virus is a reminder of how fragile governance and social services are in too many parts of
the Middle East, posing a long-term challenge to stability and security. The United States may have found a path out of
purgatory, but it is not yet clear if that road is headed uphill or down.