STP Impact Core

IMPACT CORE: HEGEMONY,
SOFT POWER, & COMPETITIVENESS

impact core: Hegemony,................................1
soft power, & competitiveness.......................1
heg now............................... ..........................3
heg now............................... ..........................4
heg – generic wars impact.............................5
heg solves free trade.....................................6
heg solves prolif.............................................7
heg solves asia stability.................................8
at: heg kills soft power / multilateralism.........9
hard power is better than soft power...........10
at: heg  econ decline.................................11
at: counterbalancing....................................12
at: asian counterbalancing...........................13
at: eu counterbalancing...............................15
heg bad f/l........................................ ............16
heg bad f/l........................................ ............17
heg bad f/l........................................ ............18
ext. #1 – heg low now..................................19
heg collapse inevitable............................... ..20
multipolarity inevitable................................21
ext. #2 – heg  resentment  war..............22
ext. #2 – heg  resentment  wars............23
ext. #3 – Heg  c/balancing........................24
ext. #3 – heg  c/balancing.........................25
perception of heg  c/balancing..................26
heg  russia/china c/balance  war............27
at: trade solves counterbalancing................28
ext. #4 – heg  imperial wars.....................29
heg  globalization/genocide......................30
heg  collapse in soft power........................31
heg  terrorism...........................................32
heg  indo/pak war.....................................33
heg  econ collapse....................................34
at: heg solves prolif......................................35
soft power high now.....................................36
soft power impact – laundry list...................37
soft power solves global war........................39
soft power solves prolif................................40
soft power solves terrorism..........................41
soft power solves terrorism..........................42
soft power solves warming...........................43
soft power solves democracy.......................44
soft power solves middle east war...............45
soft power solves us/japan alliance..............46
soft power key to hard power.......................47
soft power is better than hard power...........48
f/l at: soft power...........................................49
f/l at: soft power...........................................51
ext. #1 – no soft power now.........................52
ext. #2 – soft power fails..............................53
ext. #3 – one policy can’t solve....................54
ext. #4 – alt causes to heg loss....................55
competitiveness high...................................56
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
Samuels/Topp/Pasquinelli Impact Core
competitiveness high...................................57
competitiveness high – at: china..................58
competitiveness high – at: healthcare..........59
competitiveness brink..................................60
competitiveness key to economy.................61
competitiveness key to leadership...............62
competitiveness solves disease...................64
competitiveness solves aids.........................65
competitiveness solves food stability/famine66
competitiveness down now..........................67
competitveness down now...........................68
competitiveness down now (china)..............69
competitiveness hurts econ growth.............71
competitiveness  trade wars.....................72
economic collapse  extinction...................73
at: safegaurds prevent collapse...................74
economic collapse coming...........................75
econ collapse impact defense......................76
“Everybody’s got a bomb, We can all die any day. But before I let that happen, I’ll dance my life
away.” 2
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG NOW
Anti-Americanism is the fad that will past—US has secured the dominant position in
the world and will remain for some time
Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and transatlantic
fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a general heg badass, 2006 Anti Americanism’s, Washington
Post, June 19th 2006//PS
There are two lessons to be drawn from all this. One is that in time the current tidal wave of anti-
Americanism will ebb, just as in the past. Smarter American diplomacy can help, of course, as can
success in places such as Iraq. But the other lesson is not to succumb to the illusion that America was
beloved until the spring of 2003 and will be beloved again when George W. Bush leaves office. Some
folks seem to believe that by returning to the policies of Harry Truman, Dean Acheson and John F.
Kennedy, America will become popular around the world. I like those policies, too, but let’s not kid
ourselves. They also sparked enormous resentment among millions of peoples in many countries,
resentments that are now returning to the fore. The fact is, because America is the dominant power in
the world, it will always attract criticism and be blamed both for what it does and what it does not do.
The US is the only global hegemon in the world due to economic, social,
cultural and military power
Miliband ’07 (David Miliband, November 15 2007, Foreign and Commonwealth Office News Release, Foreign
Secretary to the College of Europe, “Europe 2030: Model power not Superpower”, LexisNexis)
An American academic has defined a superpower as "a country that has the capacity to project
dominating power and influence anywhere in the world...and so may plausibly attain the status of
global hegemon." There is only one superpower in the world today - the United States. There may be
others on the horizon, such as China and India, but the US has enormous economic, social, cultural
and military strength. In terms of per capita income alone it will remain by far the dominant power for
my lifetime. For Europeans, that should not be a source of dread: there is a great shared project for
Europe and America, to embed our values and commitments in international rules and institutions.
US educational system ensures US hegemony for years to come

Zakaria, 2008. (FAREED ZAKARIA is Editor of Newsweek International Is America in Decline? Why the
United States will Survive the Rise of the Rest, Foreign Affairs May June 2008, ps)
Indeed, higher education is the United States' best industry. In no other field is the United States'
advantage so overwhelming. A 2006 report from the London-based Center for European Reform points
out that the United States invests 2.6 percent of its GDP in higher education, compared with 1.2 percent
in Europe and 1.1 percent in Japan. Depending on which study you look at, the United States, with five
percent of the world's population, has either seven or eight of the world's top ten universities and either
48 percent or 68 percent of the top 50. The situation in the sciences is particularly striking. In India,
universities graduate between 35 and 50 Ph.D.'s in computer science each year; in the United States,
the figure is 1,000. A list of where the world's 1,000 best computer scientists were educated shows that
the top ten schools are all American. The United States also remains by far the most attractive
destination for students, taking in 30 percent of the total number of foreign students globally, and its
collaborations between business and educational institutions are unmatched anywhere in the world. All
these advantages will not be erased easily, because the structure of European and Japanese
universities--mostly state-run bureaucracies--is unlikely to change. And although China and India are
opening new institutions, it is not that easy to create a world-class university out of whole cloth in a few
decades.
away.” 3
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG NOW
US hegemony is high—even after Iraq
fellow at the German Marshall Fund, 2006, Still the Colossus, The Washington Post, January 15// PS
The striking thing about the present international situation is the degree to which America remains what
Bill Clinton once called “the indispensable nation.” Despite global opinion polls registering broad
hostility to George W. Bush’s United States, the behavior of governments and political leaders suggests
America’s position in the world is not all that different from what it was before Sept. 11 and the Iraq war.
The rest of the world looks to the US for leadership—even today

It remains the case, too, that in many crises and potential crises around the world, local actors and
traditional allies still look primarily to Washington for solutions, not to Beijing, Moscow or even Brussels.
The United States is the key player in the Taiwan Strait. It would be the chief intermediary between India
and Pakistan in any crisis. As for Iran, everyone on both sides of the Atlantic knows that, for all the
efforts of British, French and German negotiators, any diplomatic or military resolution will ultimately
depend on Washington. Even in the Middle East, where hostility to the United States is highest,
American influence remains remarkably high. Most still regard the United States as the indispensable
player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Bush administration’s push for democracy, though erratic
and inconsistent, has unmistakably affected the course of events in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and
Lebanon—never mind Iraq. Contrary to predictions at the time of the Iraq war, Arab hostility has not
made it impossible for both leaders and their political opponents to cooperate with the United States.
This does not mean the United States has not suffered a relative decline in that intangible but important
commodity: legitimacy. A combination of shifting geopolitical realities, difficult circumstances and some
inept policy has certainly damaged America’s standing in the world. Yet, despite everything, the
American position in the world has not deteriorated as much as people think. America still “stands alone
as the world’s indispensable nation,” as Clinton so humbly put it in 1997. It can resume an effective
leadership role in the world in fairly short order, even during the present administration and certainly
after the 2008 election, regardless of which party wins. That is a good thing, because given the growing
dangers in the world, the intelligent and effective exercise of America’s benevolent global hegemony is
as important as ever.
away.” 4
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG – GENERIC WARS IMPACT

Heg key to prevent global nuclear war
Haas ’07 (Mark L. Haas, Summer 2007, International Security, “A Geriatric Peace?;
The Future of U.S. Power in a World of Aging Populations”, LexisNexis)
The same factors that help to preserve U.S. primacy also increase the likelihood of continued peace between the
United States and the other most powerful states in the system. Numerous studies have shown that power
transitions, either actual or anticipated, significantly increase the probability of international conflict. By implication,
the continuation of U.S. hegemony supported by the effects of global aging will decrease the probability of either
hot or cold wars developing with the other powers.
Lack of US unipolarity will create a power vacuum which will escalate to

global wars
Campbell Craig, has a chair in international relations at the University of Southampton, 2004, American
Realism Versus American Imperialism, World Politics, 57.1, pg 143-171
If we are to lament American unipolarity, let us consider real-world alternatives to it. Today, there is only one great
power. Neither Russia, the European Union, China, nor any other foreseeable entity is anywhere close to being able
to contend with the United States in military terms, and, so far, none of these states or unions appears very
interested in even attempting to do so. Because international politics is so heavily dominated by America, a
unilateral decision by the United States to relinquish its power, in a world in which no other entity possessed the
means to replace it, could usher in an extremely violent and turbulent period in international affairs. What would
become of the gigantic American military arsenal and force structure? Could it be peacefully dismantled and
returned home safely? What would happen in regions [End Page 151] of severe political grievance, in failed states,
in areas of border disputes and national confrontations? Would Pakistan and India keep their fingers off the nuclear
button without a United States to worry about? Would Israel? Power abhors a vacuum, and the largest vacuum in
recorded history would result from a rapid departure by the United States from international political predominance.
As corrupt, brutal, and venal as the Roman Empire became in its dying days, life in the Mediterranean world was
not ideal after its fall—and that was before the days of weapons of mass destruction.
Heg is key to global stability

Gray ’06 (Colin S. Gray, June 22 2006, Professor of International Politics and Strategic Studies, Director of the
Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, England, “Stability operations in strategic perspective: a
skeptical view; Quadrennial Defense Review”, Lexis)
The United States is the global hegemon at present, by default we must add. This hegemony is real, but it is
nonetheless only partial, it is context-specific, and it is certain to be challenged. As the hegemonic, "world-ordering"
power, America's competence, strengths, and reputation or prestige are of vital importance for global stability.
International order cannot afford its principal guardian to make major errors in statecraft or strategy. America's
national ideology, which is an integral part of its culture, does not travel as well as many Americans believe. The
issue is not the merit in the ideology, but rather the power of that ideology to misguide national security policy.
US hegemony prevents global war

Melloan ’94 (George Melloan, July 19 1994, The Globe and Mail (Canada), “Is the U.S. shedding
responsibility for Europe?”, LexisNexis)
What Europeans fear - for sound historical reasons - is a new struggle among European powers for continental
hegemony. Since the Second World War, the U.S. has been a quiet and welcome presence in Western Europe. It has
been, on the whole, a positive influence. Its troops have defended free Europe from Soviet aggression, and the
institutions it has promoted, in particular the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union, have
helped Europeans achieve more prosperous and secure lives than at any other time in their history. After the wall
came down in 1989, Berlin was indeed "frei." Many millions of other Europeans, from Thuringia to the Urals, have
since become freer than ever before as well.
away.” 5
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG SOLVES FREE TRADE

US hegemony is key to international trade—prefer our evidence because it
speaks to the flawed assumptions of their authors.
Odom and Dujarric 04 (William E, Former Director of the NSA under Reagan and Robert, Research Fellow
at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC, America's inadvertent empire, pg. 55-56)
Still, this enduring need for large U.S. military forces abroad after the Cold War is poorly understood,
not only in the academic community but also by American political leaders in both parties, in the
executive branch and in Congress, by experts in the think tank community, and by journalists.41
Douglass North emphasizes, it will be recalled, that third-party enforcement is essential for cap- turing
the gains from increasingly complex contracts and trade. The enforcement linkage between U.S.
military hegemony and international contracting and trade is not formal, but informally it is a pow-
erful factor. It exists in a subjective sense among most countries within the American empire, just as
good law and order from an effective city or state police force exists for domestic trade and con-
tracting. Preventing war and suspicions of warlike behavior among states lowers transaction costs for
international trade, just as an effective police force lowers it for domestic trade. This is precisely why
the long-term foreign deployments of U.S. military power in Europe and East Asia make a substantial
contribution to all the economies within the operational domain of those forces. They are not a dead
loss, a waste of "guns" that could be converted to "butter" without a negative impact on butter
production. They are more properly understood as an "overhead cost" for the developed economies
of the American empire.
Free trade solves nuclear war and extinction

Copley News Service ’99 (December 1, L/N)
For decades, many children in America and other countries went to bed fearing annihilation by nuclear
war. The specter of nuclear winter freezing the life out of planet Earth seemed very real. Activists
protesting the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle apparently have forgotten that threat. The
truth is that nations join together in groups like the WTO not just to further their own prosperity, but
also to forestall conflict with other nations. In a way, our planet has traded in the threat of a worldwide
nuclear war for the benefit of cooperative global economics. Some Seattle protesters clearly fancy
themselves to be in the mold of nuclear disarmament or anti-Vietnam War protesters of decades past.
But they're not. They're special-interest activists, whether the cause is environmental, labor or paranoia
about global government. Actually, most of the demonstrators in Seattle are very much unlike
yesterday's peace activists, such as Beatle John Lennon or philosopher Bertrand Russell, the father of
the nuclear disarmament movement, both of whom urged people and nations to work together rather
than strive against each other. These and other war protesters would probably approve of 135 WTO
nations sitting down peacefully to discuss economic issues that in the past might have been settled by
bullets and bombs. As long as nations are trading peacefully, and their economies are built on exports
to other countries, they have a major disincentive to wage war. That's why bringing China, a budding
superpower, into the WTO is so important. As exports to the United States and the rest of the world feed
Chinese prosperity, and that prosperity increases demand for the goods we produce, the threat of
hostility diminishes. Many anti-trade protesters in Seattle claim that only multinational corporations
benefit from global trade, and that it's the everyday wage earners who get hurt. That's just plain
wrong. First of all, it's not the military-industrial complex benefiting. It's U.S. companies that make high-
tech goods. And those companies provide a growing number of jobs for Americans. In San Diego, many
people have good jobs at Qualcomm, Solar Turbines and other companies for whom overseas markets
are essential. In Seattle, many of the 100,000 people who work at Boeing would lose their livelihoods
without world trade. Foreign trade today accounts for 30 percent of our gross domestic product. That's a
lot of jobs for everyday workers. Growing global prosperity has helped counter the specter of nuclear
winter. Nations of the world are learning to live and work together, like the singers of anti-war songs
once imagined. Those who care about world peace shouldn't be protesting world trade. They should be
celebrating it.
away.” 6
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG SOLVES PROLIF

Decrease in Hegemony Leads to Proliferation
Giragosian and Derghoukassian, 2001 [Richard and Khatchik, “ENGAGING IRAN BY BUILDING
CONSENSUS FOR STABILITY IN THE CAUCASUS,” Armenian News Network, 2001,
http://groong.usc.edu/ro/ro-20010430.html]//jh
These policies, however, should not be interpreted as a return to isolationism, but rather what the
analyst Christopher Lane qualifies as "offshore balancing". The practical implications of the Bush foreign
and security policy doctrine would mean, among other things, a major revamping of burden sharing in
peacekeeping in Europe and elsewhere, a delay in NATO expansion, and a virtual rejection of the
concept of humanitarian intervention (as seen in Kosovo). Even more importantly, this "offshore
balancing" concept would be marked most notably by the deployment of the National Missile Defense
system. As the U.S. remains the only superpower, with an annual overall defense budget equivalent to
the sum of the twelve most powerful nations' annual defense budgets, this "offshore balancing"
strategy is credible, despite the fact that its inherent unilateralism provokes friction, tension and even
conflict with other nations – including allies.
Proliferation leads to extinction.

Stuart Taylor, Senior Writer with the National Journal and editor at Newsweek, Legal Times, 9-16-2002
The truth is, no matter what we do about Iraq, if we don't stop proliferation, another five or 10
potentially unstable nations may go nuclear before long, making it ever more likely that one or more
bombs will be set off anonymously on our soil by terrorists or a terrorist government. Even an airtight
missile defense would be useless against a nuke hidden in a truck, a shipping container, or a boat.
[Continues…]
Unless we get serious about stopping proliferation, we are headed for "a world filled with nuclear-
weapons states, where every crisis threatens to go nuclear," where "the survival of civilization truly
is in question from day to day," and where "it would be impossible to keep these weapons out of the
hands of terrorists, religious cults, and criminal organizations." So writes Ambassador Thomas Graham
Jr., a moderate Republican who served as a career arms-controller under six presidents and led the
successful Clinton administration effort to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The only way to
avoid such a grim future, he suggests in his memoir, Disarmament Sketches, is for the United States to
lead an international coalition against proliferation by showing an unprecedented willingness to give up
the vast majority of our own nuclear weapons, excepting only those necessary to deter nuclear attack
by others
away.” 7
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG SOLVES ASIA STABILITY

US heg is key to solving Asian stability, Japanese rearm, and economic
growth.
Odom and Dujarric 04 (William E, Former Director of the NSA under Reagan and Robert, Research Fellow
at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC, America's inadvertent empire, pg. 56)
A counterfactual scenario can help clarify this point. Imagine what would happen if all U.S. forces were
withdrawn from Europe and Northeast Asia over a couple of years. Taiwan would either surrender to
China or be invaded. War between the two Koreas would almost certainly break out, and if war
produced a unified country, Korea would treat Japan as a hostile power and produce nuclear weapons.
Both of these developments would leave Japan little choice but rearmament and acquisition of nuclear
weapons. The businessmen of a rearmed Japan would not be welcome in most countries in the region.
An economic meltdown in East Asia would inexorably follow, adversely affecting the U.S. and EU
economies, as well as all East Asian economies. Europe would suffer similarly, though more slowly. The
first adverse development would probably be the European Union's inability to keep order in Bosnia
and Kosovo. Civil wars would spread throughout the Ballcans as European forces withdrew along with
American forces. The European Union would soon lose its momentum, especially in dealing with new
members in Central and Eastern Europe, leaving all these former communist states in the midst of
unstable economic and political transitions. As their ability to act in unison declined, Britain, France,
Germany, and Italy would resort to traditional balance-of-power diplomacy against one another. That,
of course, would allow even a weak Russia to compete with them for influence in Central Europe,
creating the kind of diplomatic competition seen there in the interwar period. At the same time,
migration issues could radicalize domestic politics in Italy, Austria, Ger- many, and France.
Impact is extinction
Ogura and Oh ’97 (Toshimaru and Ingyu, Teachers – Economics, Monthly Review, April)
North Korea, South Korea, and Japan have achieved quasi- or virtual nuclear armament. Although these
countries do not produce or possess actual bombs, they possess sufficient technological know-how to
possess one or several nuclear arsenals. Thus, virtual armament creates a new nightmare in this region
- nuclear annihilation. Given the concentration of economic affluence and military power in this region
and its growing importance to the world system, any hot conflict among these countries would threaten
to escalate into a global conflagration.
away.” 8
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
AT: HEG KILLS SOFT POWER / MULTILATERALISM

Hard Power is necessary to utilize Soft Power
Kern, 2007. (Soeren, Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios
Estratégicos. “Why Europe Needs a Hard Power reality check.” Oct 17. http://www.atlantic-
community.org)
Some Europeans are hoping that the next American president will adopt a more post-modern European
perception of reality. But doing so would be a big mistake—American elites of all political stripes
understand the vital role that “hard power” plays in securing US strategic interests. Many of them are
also growing impatient with Europe’s inability or unwillingness to follow through on even the most basic
of its transatlantic commitments. Listen to US presidential candidates talk about foreign policy, and one
hears hardly a word about Europe. For them, the future is with Asia.
Everyone knows that Europe cannot guarantee its own security, much less guarantee the security of
others. The United States will continue to be the main guarantor of European security for well into the
foreseeable future, even if reflexively anti-American European elites wish it were not so. By pretending
that Europe can go it alone, Europeans are damaging their credibility, and not just in the eyes of
Americans.
It is time for Europeans to realign their ambitions with reality. A good first step would be to acknowledge
that the ability to back up “soft power” with the credible threat of “hard power” still makes a very big
difference in a world where nation-states remain as strong as ever.
Heg doesn’t preclude short term cooperative international action

Layne, Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, 2002 [Chistopher “Offshore Balancing
Revisited” Washington Quarterly Spring]//jf
Unilateralism, the default strategy of great powers, does not mean that they should never cooperate or
ally with other states. In alliances, however, a great power must never lose sight of some fundamental
tenets of international politics. States that form alliances and coalitions typically have one common
interest and many conflicting ones. The interest that binds together allies or coalition partners is the
threat that a common adversary poses to the security of all. To defeat that threat, the other, divisive
issues among alliance or coalition partners may be forced into the background, but they do not vanish.
Even in wartime, coalition partners jockey to gain advantage in the postwar world. Occasionally,
coalitions fissure during wartime because reconciliation of the partners’ competing interests proves
impossible. In any event, once the threat had been disposed, the glue binding an alliance or coalition
surely dissolves, and the partners go their separate ways—the inevitable outcome in a self-help system.
away.” 9
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HARD POWER IS BETTER THAN SOFT POWER

Hard power is more important to our security than soft power
Nye, 2006. (Joseph, University Distinguished Service Professor at the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University. “Think Again: Soft Power.” March 1. yaleglobal.yale.edu)
“Some Goals Can Only Be Achieved by Hard Power”

No Doubt. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il’s penchant for Hollywood movies is unlikely to affect his
decision on developing nuclear weapons. Hard power just might dissuade him, particularly if China
agreed to economic sanctions. Nor will soft power be sufficient to stop the Iranian nuclear program,
though the legitimacy of the administration’s current multilateral approach may help to recruit other
countries to a coalition that isolates Iran. And soft power got nowhere in luring the Taliban away from al
Qaeda in the 1990s. It took American military might to do that. But other goals, such as the promotion
of democracy and human rights are better achieved by soft power. Coercive democratization has its
limits—as the United States has (re)discovered in Iraq.
away.” 10
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
AT: HEG  ECON DECLINE

US defense spending doesn’t lead to econ decline, it spurs growth
Layne, Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, 1997 [Christopher, “From Preponderance
to Offshore Balancing: America’s Future Grand Strategy” International Security Vol 22 No.1 Summer,
JSTOR]//jf
Is the strategy of preponderance directly responsible for America’s relative economic decline (or
for making it worse than it otherwise might have been)? This is a complex question. Defense
spending does not invariably lead to economic decline; indeed, under certain conditions it can
stimulate economic growth/” It could be argued in fact that America’s sustained postwar
economic growth would have been impossible without “military Keynesianism.v’” Nevertheless,
the cumulative effect of the high levels of national security-related spending required to support
preponderance is that the United States is less well off economically than it otherwise would
have been.
away.” 11
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
AT: COUNTERBALANCING
Russia and China will be balanced by other powers before they can rise to
challenge US hegemony—
The truth is, America retains enormous advantages in the international arena. Its liberal, democratic
ideology remains appealing in a world that is more democratic than ever. Its potent economy remains
the driving wheel of the international economy. Compared with these powerful forces, the unpopularity
of recent actions will prove ephemeral, just as it did after the nadir of American Cold War popularity in
the late 1960s and early 1970s.
There are also structural reasons why American indispensability can survive even the unpopularity of
recent years. The political scientist William Wohlforth argued a decade ago that the American unipolar
era is durable not because of any love for the United States but because of the basic structure of the
international system. The problem for any nation attempting to balance American power, even in that
power’s own region, is that long before it becomes strong enough to balance the United States, it may
frighten its neighbors into balancing against it. Europe would be the exception to this rule were it
increasing its power, but it is not. Both Russia and China face this problem as they attempt to exert
greater influence even in their traditional spheres of influence.
No single state can counterbalance the US

Pape, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, 2005 [Robert Anthony, “Soft Balancing
against the United States, International Security June 26th
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/international_security/v030/30.1pape.html]
The dynamics of balancing are different in a unipolar system. Balancing against a unipolar leader
cannot be done by any one state alone; it can only be done by several second-ranked states acting
collectively. This means that buck-passing is not an option. Because no one state—by definition—is
powerful enough to balance a sole superpower, no state is available to catch the buck. Instead, the
main problem of states wanting to balance against the unipolar leader is fear of collective failure. An
individual state may fear that there are not enough states to form an effective countercoalition, that it
will take too long for a sufficient number to organize, or that the unipolar leader will single it out for
harsh treatment before the balancing coalition has coalesced.
away.” 12
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
AT: ASIAN COUNTERBALANCING

No Counterbalancing—the rise of Asia does not decrease American
Hegemony
Ikenberry 2008 (G. John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at
Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs, The Washington Note, May 6 2008
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/05/g_john_ikenberr/)
But I disagree with Kishore on other themes he advances, particularly his argument that the West is
somehow impeding or resisting the rise of Asia. I also disagree with the thesis that sometimes works its
way into Kishore's writing, namely that the "rise" of Asia entails the inevitable "decline" of America or
the West as a producer of global order and governance. Most of all, I disagree with Kishore's tendency
to cast the debate about the coming global order as a struggle between East and West.
The real struggle is between those who want to renew and expand today's rule-based global order -
which America itself championed for most of the postwar decades - or move to some sort of less
cooperative order built on spheres of influence and power balances. These fault lines do not map onto
geography nor do they split Asia and the West.
I agree with Kishore that the international distribution of power is shifting with the rise of Asia, but I do
not see a great transformation in the organizing logic or principles of international order following from
it.
To put it bluntly, I do not see Asia offering anything new or distinctive in the organization and
governance of the global system. I do not see a lot of new ideas about how global rules and institutions
should be transformed. I do not see an "Asian way" of world politics. I do see efforts - legitimate efforts -
to get seats at various tables. But the tables are not newly designed Asian tables. They are just tables,
many of them dating from earlier decades when the United States really did shape the rules and
institutions of the global system.
What I found missing in Kishore's book was a discussion of what actually a more powerful Asia might do
with its power.
Indeed, what is most striking about the rise of Asia is a silence on the big questions. This is clearly the
case with China, which has been quietly working with and within existing frameworks of global
cooperation. Arguably, over the last seven years, it is the United States - not China - that has been most
"revisionist" in its global orientation. China is more worried that the United States will abandon its
commitment to the old, Western-oriented global rules and institutions than it is eager to advance a new
set of Asian-generated rules and institutions.
So the idea of an "Asian century" is misleading. The notion behind this sort of grand thinking borrows
from the old great power image of world politics. Great powers rise and fall. In this old fashion vision,
America had its moment and now it is giving way to China.
But this misses my big argument: that the United States was not just a powerful state, it also built an
international order. That order still exists - and indeed it has expanded to encompass much of the
world. China - and Greater Asia - is rising in power but it is also integrating into this international order.
Asia wants power sharing not hegemony

Ikenberry 2008 (G. John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Prof of Politics and International Affairs at
Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs, The Washington Note, May 6 2008
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/05/g_john_ikenberr/)
away.” 13
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
The order that America helped produce is unlike orders produced by earlier great powers. Compared
with earlier orders, the American-led order is "easy to join and hard to overturn." Today this order is not
really an American order or even a Western order. It is an international order with deep and
encompassing economic and political rules and institutions that are both durable and functional.
The key point is that there is no alternative "Asian international order" that China and the rest of Asia
are attempting to call forth - doing so if only the West would, as Kishore urges, gracefully make way for
it. In my view, Asian countries want to join and help run the existing global system not overturn it.
away.” 14
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
AT: EU COUNTERBALANCING
There is no risk of counterbalancing from the EU—internal politics preclude a
defense force and hegemonic aspirations
The much-anticipated global effort to balance against American hegemony—which the realists have been
anticipating for more than 15 years now—has simply not occurred. On the contrary, in Europe the idea has all but
vanished. European Union defense budgets continue their steady decline, and even the project of creating a
common foreign and defense policy has slowed if not stalled. Both trends are primarily the result of internal
European politics. But if they really feared American power, Europeans would be taking more urgent steps to
strengthen the European Union’s hand to check it.
No EU counterbalancing—US/German relations are increasing-Iraq can only

help improve relations
Nor are Europeans refusing to cooperate, even with an administration they allegedly despise. Western
Europe will not be a strategic partner as it was during the Cold War, because Western Europeans no longer feel threatened and
therefore do not seek American protection. Nevertheless, the current trend is toward closer cooperation. Germany’s new
government, while still dissenting from U.S. policy in Iraq, is working hard and ostentatiously to improve relations. It
is bending over backward to show support for the mission in Afghanistan, most notably by continuing to supply a
small but, in German terms, meaningful number of troops. It even trumpets its willingness to train Iraqi soldiers.
Chancellor Angela Merkel promises to work closely with Washington on the question of the China arms embargo, indicating
agreement with the American view that China is a potential strategic concern. For Eastern and Central Europe, the growing threat
is Russia, not America, and the big question remains what it was in the 1990s: Who will be invited to join NATO?
Europeans support U.S. Hegemony

Alexander in ’08 (Shah Alexander, May 17, 2008, Global American Discourse, “Neoconservative Foreign
Policy, and US Relations with Europe and Japan”)
In his books, "Empire" and "Colossus", Ferguson insists that the United States be more interventionist to
maintain a liberal world order as Britain was.Another European advocate of American hegemony is Josef
Joffe, Editor of German weekly "Die Zeit" and Visiting Professor at Stanford University. In his book,
"Ãoeberpower",Joffe discusses how to maintain the American world order. Moreover, he defends the
special relationship between the United States and Israel in the article "A World without Israel" in
Foreign Policy, January 2005.In France, Jacques Chirac has gone, and Nicholas Sarkozy has taken
power.Not only do some European opinion leaders support American hegemony, but also European
nations explore more active involvement. According to Robert Kagan, Senior Associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, Europeans are stepping toward expansionist policy, in view of
disturbances in Ukraine, the Balkans, Turkey, and North Africa ("Embraceable EU"; Washington Post;
December 5, 2004).
away.” 15
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG BAD F/L

1. US power is in decline—Bush, the dollar, and overstretch prove
Kaplan, 2008. (Fred Kaplan is the national security columnist for Slate, Editorial pages Desk; Part M;
Part M; Pg. 6, Downsizing our dominance; The next president will have to deal with a world in which U.S.
hegemony is a thing of the past, Los Angeles Times February 3, 2008, LN, PS)
A larger reason, however, may be that no ambitious politician is willing to mention the discomfiting
reality about America's place in the world -- that we are weaker today than we were a decade or two
ago, and that we need a new foreign policy that acknowledges and builds on that fact.
President Bush's follies have accelerated the decline of U.S. influence, but he can't be blamed for its
onset. It started, ironically, at the moment of our late-century triumph, when the Soviet Union imploded
and the Cold War victory was ours. Some proclaimed that the United States was now "the sole
superpower." But, in fact, the end of the Cold War left the very concept of a "superpower" in tatters.
Our leverage over half the world during the previous half-century had stemmed not just from American muscle but from the
existence of a common enemy. Allies often acceded to U.S. interests, even to the detriment of their own national interests,
because the looming Russian bear posed a greater menace still. But when the bear died, the alliance's threads loosened. Many of
these nations would sometimes continue to follow our lead, but they also felt free to go their own way without so much concern
about Washington's preferences.
As a result, wielding power in the post-Cold War world became a harder game. Alliances could no longer be taken for granted;
they had to be crafted and nourished. American leadership might still be valued and necessary, but now it would have to be
earned.
When Bush came to power, he and his top aides understood none of this. (In fairness, few did.) They believed, and acted, as if
American power were not only undimmed but supreme and unchallengeable -- as if a president's grimace would still make tyrants
tremble and the dispatch of light armies could remake the world.
So, for much of the last seven years, U.S. leaders stomped around the globe with wide-elbowed
indifference to the consequences of their actions. Allies were alienated, enemies enraged and those in
between -- especially those rich in key resources -- cut their own deals and created their own networks
outside U.S. control.
Nations, including those whose leaders aren't so disposed to anti-Americanism, have learned, through
experience or observation, that defying Washington carries no penalty. Germany joins France in
opposing resolutions on Iraq in the U.N. Security Council -- and nothing happens to Germany. The
Turkish parliament votes against letting U.S. troops invade Iraq from the north -- and nothing happens to
Turkey. Bush warns Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak not to trample on human rights; the trampling
continues -- and not only does nothing happen to Egypt, but on his recent trip to the Middle East, Bush
commends Mubarak for his commitment to democracy.
Meanwhile, the dollar is plunging. American debt is in the hands of Chinese central bankers. And the
U.S. military, though by far the world's strongest, is stretched beyond its means in Iraq and Afghanistan
-- conflicts that, in Cold War days, would have been labeled "small wars."
away.” 16
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG BAD F/L

2. The affirmative attempts to consolidate US hegemony—this move will
breed resentment, spiraling military costs, and war
Gholz, Press and Sapolsky,1997 [Eugene, Daryl and Harvey, “”Come Home America: The Strategy of
Restraint in the Face of Temptation,” International Security, Spring 1997,
http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/polisci/faculty/bios/Pubs/Gholz_Press_ComeHome.pdf]//PS]
We raise four major objections to primacy. First, America should try to avoid a new bipolar
confrontation, but the simplest and surest way to do this is to come home. No aggressor can conquer
America's allies and consolidate global industrial might, so the United States does not need to balance
emerging powers. America should “just say no” to future bipolar confrontations by adopting a policy of
restraint.
Second, the general prescriptions of primacy are likely to cause the problems they are supposed to
avoid. Primacy is designed to prevent the costs of a future bipolar confrontation, but primacy's
prescription is to pay those costs today.84 America spends more today on defense than it did during
most peacetime years of the Cold War, yet many advocates of primacy want to increase defense
spending toward its Cold War peak.85 Primacy advocates remember the military casualties of the Cold
War's confrontations, but their strategy would immediately involve the United States in disputes in the
South China Sea, Eastern Ukraine, and Chechnya. It makes no sense to pay the costs of a new Cold War
today-and into the indefinite future-to avoid the possibility of incurring these costs later.
Furthermore, primacy increases the chances of a full-fledged confrontation with a new rival. As things
stand now, all of America's potential competitors have other countries to worry about; they all live near
one another and far from the United States. Number two, no matter who it is, has plenty of problems
without American engagement. But by adopting a policy of confrontation, attempting to limit the
economic and military power of Russia, China, Japan, and perhaps a united Europe, the United States
would make itself these countries' biggest problem-more powerful and threatening than their natural,
geographic adversaries. Primacy is the surest recipe for starting bipolar military confrontation.
Our third objection to primacy has to do with the unspecified details of the policy. How, exactly, do
advocates of primacy plan to use the military to prevent the growth of Chinese, Japanese, or European
power? Recent changes in relative power have not resulted from military conquest but from domestic
economic development. It is China's high economic growth rate that suggests ils potential as a twenty-
first century superpower. How will redoubled American defense spending prevent Chinese ascendance?
Do advocates of primacy intend to launch a preventive war against China, Japan, or Europe? If this is the
plan, would the moral, human, and financial costs be justified by the desire to be number one? If this is
not the plan, advocates of primacy should be more specific about which steps the United States should
take to keep down number two.
Fourth, a policy of primacy, even without a preventive war, will breed anger and resentment around
the world. It will turn allies into neutrals and neutrals into enemies. American culture, prominently
represented by movies and television programs, is already eating away at traditional cultures around
the world. English has become the universal language of business, science, entertainment, and
diplomacy. American consumer products have become a part of daily life around the world, and high
product standards, regulations, civil liberties, and political styles beckon all.87 Even without a foreign
policy of hegemony, the United States threatens those who hold power in much of the world.88
It is quite surprising that no coalition has banded together to balance against America's overwhelming
power-a testimony to the trust that its defense oriented foreign policy engendered among its Cold War
allies.89 A decision to consolidate American hegemony would undo that good will. Americans wonder
today who the next threat to great power security may be. To the rest of the world, it may be becoming
clear: the only country capable of threatening them is the United States.
away.” 17
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG BAD F/L

3. This will cause counterbalancing which leads to Russian/Sino
Cooperation
Roberts, 2007. (Paul Craig Roberts, http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=11422, US Hegemony
Spawns Russian-Chinese Military Alliance, August 9, 2007)
Reagan and Gorbachev ended the cold war. However, US administrations after Reagan's have broken
the agreements and understandings. The US gratuitously brought NATO and anti-ballistic missiles to
Russia's borders. The Bush regime has initiated a propaganda war against the Russian government of
Vladimir Putin.
These are gratuitous acts of aggression. Both the Russian and Chinese governments are trying to
devote resources to their economic development, not to their militaries. Yet, both are being forced by
America's aggressive posture to revamp their militaries.
Americans need to understand what the neocon Bush regime cannot: a nuclear exchange between the
US, Russia, and China would establish the hegemony of the cockroach.
4. Independently, Hegemony ensures imperial wars.

Golub, 2004 [Philip S, “Imperial politics, imperial will and the crisis of US hegemony,” Review of
International Political Economy, 10/04/04, http://people.cas.sc.edu/coate/Readings/Golub.pdf]//PS
Under George W. Bush this has turned out not to be the case. An explicit and robust discourse of Empire
has replaced the silky discussion on inter-dependence of the 1990s. In practice, the US is becoming a
quasi-territorial global empire, whose nodes of control are the military legions stationed in the heart of
dozens of semi-sovereign states. To paraphrase Stephen Peter Rosen, a leading ideologue of American
empire, the US is now in the business of ‘bringing down governments’, leaving in place ‘imperial
garrisons for decades’, and planning for ‘imperial wars’ using ‘the maximum of force ... to demonstrate
that the empire cannot be challenged with impunity’. In the longer run, the US’s aim must be to prevent
‘the emergence of powerful, hostile challengers to the empire, by war if necessary but by imperial
assimilation if possible. China is not yet powerful enough to be a challenger to the American empire,
and the goal of the US is to prevent that challenge from emerging’ (Rosen, 2002). This is not merely
Rosen’s personal view. The same case is made in the White House’s National Security Strategy 2002
document which defines the US’s central objectives as follows: ‘It is time to reaffirm the essential role of
American military strength. We must build and maintain our defenses beyond challenge ...The US must
and will maintain the capability to defeat any attempt by an enemy to impose its will on the US, our
allies, or our friends ... Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing
a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States’. Though these
visions of endless military supremacy post-date September 11, they were first articulated in doctrinal
form in 1992 in the still classified first draft of the Pentagon’s Defense Planning Guidance1992–1994.
Authored soon after the 1991 Gulf War by Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby now
respectively,Undersecretary of Defense and Chief of Staff of Vice President Dick Cheney, DPG 1992–
1994 recommended to ‘prevent any hostile power from dominating regions whose resources would
allow it to attain great power status’, to ‘discourage attempts by the advanced industrial nations to
challenge US leadership or upset the established political and economic order’, and to ‘preclude the
emergence of any potential future competitor.’
away.” 18
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #1 – HEG LOW NOW

US hegemony is declining in the SQ
Kaplan, 2008. (Fred Kaplan is the national security columnist for Slate, Editorial pages Desk; Part M;
Part M; Pg. 6, Downsizing our dominance; The next president will have to deal with a world in which U.S.
hegemony is a thing of the past, Los Angeles Times February 3, 2008, LN, PS)
The United States has emerged from the tectonic shift as something more like an ordinary country -- a
world power but not a superpower. This is unfamiliar territory for Americans. For half a century, we had
been a superpower in a world that was tightly structured. Now we're upper-middle management in a
world without big bosses -- a world that's either becoming multipolar or teetering toward anarchy.
Bush must have felt some of this strangeness during his Middle East voyage. He cajoled and kowtowed
but came away with nothing. Part of his failure was because of his lame-duck status (why should anyone
start haggling with an unpopular president in his final year in office?). But the next president, and the
one after that, will face similar frustrations if they continue to believe, as Bush apparently does deep
down, that the U.S. controls the agenda. The next presidents will have to get down in the dirt, strike
deals and trade favors.
It's no longer morning in America, but it's not quite twilight either. The next president's big challenge
will be to revive America's influence and stature while facing up to the limits of its power in a newly
fractured world. And one of the bigger political challenges of that task will be to acknowledge, openly,
that our power does have limits.
EU is counterbalancing the US
Stein, 2008 (JANICE GROSS STEIN Goodbye, America. Hello, China BOOK REVIEW; INTERNATIONAL
POLITICS; Pg. D4 The Globe and Mail (Canada), May 10, 2008)
In this dance of seduction, the not-so-subtle message is the rapid decline of the United States.
Washington is unquestionably the world's great military power, but its narrative of counterterrorism and
threat is less and less appealing. The European Union focuses on economic development, on
governance and rights, and attracts those who wish to join its society, to travel without borders and
share its prosperity. The European Union is the world's largest outward investor, and its presence far
beyond its borders, he insists, is formidable. Europe is spending its money and political capital, Khanna
concludes, locking peripheral countries into its orbit. Its influence is growing at U.S. expense.
away.” 19
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG COLLAPSE INEVITABLE

Heg Decline inevitable—economies
Lia 2005 [Brynjar Lia, senior researcher at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment,
Globalisation and the Future of Terrorism, Routledge Publishing, 2005]
There are several reasons to expect a gradual decline of US hegemony as regional powers develop their
economies and seek to assert their influence, and as American unilateral power politics prove
prohibitively costly. Long before the US military overstretch in Iraq and Afghanistan became apparent
and its current budget deficit reached an unprecedented 520 billion US dollars for the fiscal year of
2004, observers pointed to structural factors challenging the US global hegemony, especially in the
economic field.7 Forexample, Bomschier and Chaw-Dunn argued back in 1999 that 'the US economic
hegemony is declining'.
Decline inevitable—Iraq
Layne, 2003 (Christopher, visiting fellow in Foreign Policy Studies, Supremacy Is America’s Weakness
August 13, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6001, //PS)
If that happens, President George W. Bush will not be remembered for liberating Baghdad, but for
galvanising international opposition to American power. Mr Bush’s self-proclaimed “victory” over Iraq
may prove to have shattered the pillars of the international security framework the US established after
1945; triggered a bitter transatlantic divorce; given the decisive boost to European political unity; and
marked the beginning of the end of the era of US global preponderance.
Heg collapse inevitable—Costs

Layne, 1997 [Christopher, Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, “From Preponderance
JSTOR]//PS
My argument for adopting an alternative grand strategy is prospective: although sustainable for
perhaps another decade, the strategy of preponderance cannot be maintained much beyond that
period. The changing distribution of power in the international system-specifically, the relative decline
of U.S. power and the corresponding rise of new great powers-will render the strategy untenable. The
strategy also is being undermined because the robustness of America’s extended deterrence strategy is
eroding rapidly. Over time, the costs and risks of the strategy of preponderance will rise to
unacceptably high levels. The time to think about alternative grand strategies is now-before the
United States is overtaken by events.
away.” 20
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
MULTIPOLARITY INEVITABLE
Multipolarity is inevitable in the Squo
United States will Survive the Rise of the Rest, Foreign Affairs May June 2008, PS)
We are now living through the third great power shift of the modern era--the rise of the rest. Over the
past few decades, countries all over the world have been experiencing rates of economic growth that
were once unthinkable. Although they have had booms and busts, the overall trend has been vigorously
forward. (This growth has been most visible in Asia but is no longer confined to it, which is why to call
this change "the rise of Asia" does not describe it accurately.)
The emerging international system is likely to be quite different from those that have preceded it. A
hundred years ago, there was a multipolar order run by a collection of European governments, with
constantly shifting alliances, rivalries, miscalculations, and wars. Then came the duopoly of the Cold
War, more stable in some ways, but with the superpowers reacting and overreacting to each other's
every move. Since 1991, we have lived under a U.S. imperium, a unique, unipolar world in which the
open global economy has expanded and accelerated. This expansion is driving the next change in the
nature of the international order. At the politico-military level, we remain in a single-superpower world.
But polarity is not a binary phenomenon. The world will not stay unipolar for decades and then
suddenly, one afternoon, become multipolar. On every dimension other than military power--industrial,
financial, social, cultural--the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from U.S. dominance. That
does not mean we are entering an anti-American world. But we are moving into a post-American world,
one defined and directed from many places and by many people.
U.S. unipolarity will end, eventually

Biddle 2005 [Stephen Biddle, “American Grand Strategy After 9/11: An Assessment”, Lexis Nexis, April,
2005 ]
For great power competition, one could imagine a similar spectrum of possible end states. Here,
however, the ultimate end state is presumably the loss of American unipolar preeminence―the key
issue is when and how this comes about. Historically, all great powers―even superpowers―have
eventually declined. No unipolar system has ever been permanent, not the Roman Empire, not the
Spanish Hapsburgs, not the British Empire. This eventual decline may not happen quickly, but sooner or
later, one must assume that the United States, too, will lose its current predominance. The key issue for
grand strategy is how quickly this inevitable end is to occur, and whether it will be replaced with a
bipolar, multipolar, or unipolar successor.
away.” 21
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #2 – HEG  RESENTMENT  WAR

US fight to maintain hegemony will only fuel nationalism and war—US
must cede hegemony in order to maintain stable international order
Zakaria,2008. (FAREED ZAKARIA is Editor of Newsweek International Is America in Decline? Why the
There are many specific policies and programs one could advocate to make the United States' economy
and society more competitive. But beyond all these what is also needed is a broader change in strategy
and attitude. The United States must come to recognize that it faces a choice--it can stabilize the
emerging world order by bringing in the new rising nations, ceding some of its own power and
perquisites, and accepting a world with a diversity of voices and viewpoints. Or it can watch as the rise
of the rest produces greater nationalism, diffusion, and disintegration, which will slowly tear apart the
world order that the United States has built over the last 60 years. The case for the former is obvious.
The world is changing, but it is going the United States' way. The rest that are rising are embracing
markets, democratic government (of some form or another), and greater openness and transparency. It
might be a world in which the United States takes up less space, but it is one in which American ideas
and ideals are overwhelmingly dominant. The United States has a window of opportunity to shape and
master the changing global landscape, but only if it first recognizes that the post-American world is a
reality--and embraces and celebrates that fact.
A larger global presence by the U.S. risks global security.

Schwarz and Layne, 2002 [Benjamin and Christopher, “A New Grand Strategy,” The Atlantic Journal,
01/15/02, http://people.ku.edu/~schrodt/pols572/04.atlantic.schwarz.layne.html]//jh
Several tasks confront us. The most immediate is the one that rightly preoccupies the nation now:
tracking down the al Qaeda terrorists and destroying their networks and their infrastructure, and waging
war on the Taliban movement that harbors them. The larger task will take time, because it amounts to
inventing a new American stance toward the world for the century ahead. We need to come to grips
with an ironic possibility: that the very preponderance of American power may now make us not more
secure but less secure. By the same token, it may actually be possible to achieve more of our ultimate
foreign-policy goals by means of a diminished global presence.
Unilateralism creates enemies and risks great wars.

http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/polisci/faculty/bios/Pubs/Gholz_Press_ComeHome.pdf]//jh]
Fourth, a policy of primacy, even without a preventive war, will breed anger and resentment around the
world. It will turn allies into neutrals and neutrals into enemies. American culture, prominently
represented by movies and television programs, is already eating away at traditional cultures around
the world. English has become the universal language of business, science, entertainment, and
diplomacy. American consumer products have become a part of daily life around the world, and high
product standards, regulations, civil liberties, and political styles beckon all. Even without a foreign
policy of hegemony, the United States threatens those who hold power in much of the world.
It is quite surprising that no coalition has banded together to balance against America's overwhelming
power, a testimony to the trust that its defense oriented foreign policy engendered among its Cold War
allies. A decision to consolidate American hegemony would undo that good will. Americans wonder
today who the next threat to great power security may be. To the rest of the world, it may be becoming
clear: the only country capable of threatening them is the United States.
away.” 22
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #2 – HEG  RESENTMENT  WARS

Unilateralism is the best recipe for starting a global war.
Second, the general prescriptions of primacy are likely to cause the problems they are supposed to
avoid. Primacy is designed to prevent the costs of a future bipolar confrontation, but primacy's
prescription is to pay those costs today. America spends more today on defense than it did during most
peacetime years of the Cold War, yet many advocates of primacy want to increase defense spending
toward its Cold War peak. Primacy advocates remember the military casualties of the Cold War's
confrontations, but their strategy would immediately involve the United States in disputes in the South
China Sea, Eastern Ukraine, and Chechnya. It makes no sense to pay the costs of a new Cold War today-
and into the indefinite future-to avoid the possibility of incurring these costs later.
Furthermore, primacy increases the chances of a full-fledged confrontation with a new rival. As things
stand now, all of America's potential competitors have other countries to worry about; they all live near
one another and far from the United States. Number two, no matter who it is, has plenty of problems
without American engagement. But by adopting a policy of confrontation, attempting to limit the
economic and military power of Russia, China, Japan, and perhaps a united Europe, the United States
would make itself these countries' biggest problem-more powerful and threatening than their natural,
geographic adversaries. Primacy is the surest recipe for starting bipolar military confrontation.
The U.S. goes to war when it feels its hegemony is threatened, Iraq proves.
Engdahl, 2004 [F. William, “A New American Century? Not!,” The Ferguson Report, 01/19/04,
http://fergusonreport.myonlinepublication.com/article.asp?pop_id=161&article_id=69]//jh
The coalition of interests which converged on war against Iraq as a strategic necessity for the United
States, included not only the vocal and highly visible neo-conservative hawks around Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. It also included powerful permanent interests, on whose global
role American economic influence depends, such as the influential energy sector around Halliburton,
Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco and other giant multinationals. It also included the huge American defense
industry interests around Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon, Northrup-Grumman and others. The issue
for these giant defense and energy conglomerates is not a few fat contracts from the Pentagon to
rebuild Iraqi oil facilities and line the pockets of Dick Cheney or others. It is a game for the very
continuance of American power in the coming decades of the new century. That is not to say that profits
are [not] made in the process, but it is purely a byproduct of the global strategic issue.
Military presence in regions increase the likelihood of war.

http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/polisci/faculty/bios/Pubs/Gholz_Press_ComeHome.pdf]//jh
The case for restraint rests on three theoretical foundations. First, the offense defense balance
influences both the likelihood of war and the mechanisms by which wars start. War begins either when
status quo powers fail to deter aggressor states (the "deterrence model") or when a status quo state's
defense policies undermine the security of one of its status quo neighbors, precipitating an action-
reaction cycle (the "spiral model"). Second, when faced with external threats to their security, states
tend to balance against the emerging threat, either internally by converting latent military power into
deployed forces, or externally by searching for allies." As threats become more intense, governments
think more seriously about their security and are more likely to use "realist" analysis in designing their
defense policy.
away.” 23
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #3 – HEG  C/BALANCING

U.S. attempts to maintain hegemony cause counterbalancing by other
countries.
01/15/02, http://people.ku.edu/~schrodt/pols572/04.atlantic.schwarz.layne.html]//PS)
But states must always be more concerned with a predominant power's capabilities than with its
intentions, and in fact well before September 11—indeed, throughout most of the past decade—other
states have been profoundly anxious about the imbalance of power in America's favor. This simmering
mistrust of U.S. predominance intensified during the Clinton Administration, as other states responded
to American hegemony by concerting their efforts against it. Russia and China, although long
estranged, found common ground in a nascent alliance that opposed U.S. "hegemonism" and expressly
aimed at re-establishing "a multipolar world." Arguing that the term "superpower" is inadequate to
convey the true extent of America's economic and military pre-eminence, the French Foreign Minister
Hubert Vedrine called the United States a "hyperpower." Even the Dutch Prime Minister declared that
the European Union should make itself "a counterweight to the United States."
Continued US preponderance results in attempting to challenge other rising

powers, leads to arms race
JSTOR]//jf
The strategy of preponderance identifies the rise of new great powers and the spillover of
instability from strategically peripheral areas to regions of core strategic interest as the two main
threats to U.S. interests in stability and interdependence. The emergence of new great powers
would have two deleterious consequences for the United States. First, new great powers could become aspiring hegemons
and, if successful, would seriously threaten U.S. security? Offensive and defensive realists concur that China is the state most likely to emerge as a hegemonic challenger in
the early twenty-first century. Offensive realists believe that the United States should respond to the prospect of emerging Chinese power by moving now to contain Beijing.
While holding the containment option in reserve, defensive realists prefer to engage China now in the hope that democratization and interdependence will have melio rating
effects on Beijing’s foreign policy.24
Second, the emergence of new great powers is always a destabilizing geopolitical

phenomenon. Although the United States may have to acquiesce in China’s rise to great power
status, the strategy of preponderance clearly aims to prevent the great power emergence of
Germany and Japan. U.S. policymakers fear that a “renationalized” Japan or Germany could
trigger an adverse geopolitical chain reaction. For their neighbors, resurgent German and Japa-
nese power would revive the security dilemma (dormant during the Cold War). At best, the
ensuing security competitions that could occur in Europe and East Asia would make cooperation
more difficult. At worst, renationalization could fuel a cycle of rising tensions and arms racing
(possibly including nuclear proliferation) that would undermine regional stability and perhaps
lead to war. Either way, however, U.S. strategic and economic interests in interdependence
would be imperiled.
away.” 24
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #3 – HEG  C/BALANCING

Being too powerful causes backlash
Layne, Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, 2002 [Chistopher “Offshore Balancing
Revisited” Washington Quarterly Spring]//jf
Although at first the conclusion may appear counterintuitive, states that seek hegemony invariably end
up being less, not more, secure. Being powerful is good in international politics, but being too powerful
is not. The reasoning behind this axiom is straightforward as well as the geopolitical counterpart to the
law of physics that holds that, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Simply put, the
response to hegemony is the emergence of countervailing power. Because international politics is
indeed a competitive, “self-help” system, when too much power is concentrated in the hands of one
state, others invariably fear for their own security. Each state fears that a hegemon will use its
overwhelming power to aggrandize itself at that state’s expense and will act defensively to offset
hegemonic power. Thus, one of hegemony’s paradoxes is that it contains the seeds of its own
destruction.
The U.S. sees Europe as a threat to its hegemony, risking the use of U.S.
military force.
Engdahl, 2004 [F. William, “A New American Century? Not!,” The Ferguson Report, 01/19/04,
http://fergusonreport.myonlinepublication.com/article.asp?pop_id=161&article_id=69]//jh
Rather than work out areas of agreement with European partners, Washington increasingly sees
Euroland as the major strategic threat to American hegemony, especially 'Old Europe' of Germany and
France. Just as Britain in decline after 1870 resorted to increasingly desperate imperial wars in South
Africa and elsewhere, so the United States is using its military might to try to advance what it no longer
can by economic means. Here the dollar is the Achilles heel.
away.” 25
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
PERCEPTION OF HEG  C/BALANCING

Perception of US military capability will provoke counterbalancing
Layne, 1993 (Christopher, teaches international politics at UCLA., The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great
Powers Will Rise , International Security, Vol. 17, No.4. (Spring,), pp. 5-51.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=01622889%28199321%2917%3A4%3C5%3A TUIWNG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0 ,
PS)
Invariably, the very fact that others believe a state is excessively powerful redounds to its disadvantage
by provoking others to balance against it. It was precisely for this reason that, responding to Sir Eyre Crowe's 1907
"German danger" memorandum, Lord Thomas Sanderson counseled that London should try hard to accommodate rising great
powers while simultaneously moderating its own geopolitical demands. Showing commendable empathy for other states' views of
Britain's policies and its power, he observed that it would be unwise for Britain to act as if every change in international politics
menaced its interests. "It has sometimes seemed to me that to a foreigner ... the British Empire must appear in the light of some
huge giant sprawling over the globe, with gouty fingers and toes stretching in every direction, which cannot be approached
without eliciting a scream'" does not downplay the importance of power as a factor in inducing balancing behavior; he simply says
it is not the only factor (p. 21). Indeed, power and threat blend together almost imperceptibly. Note that two
of his threat variables, geographic proximity and offensive capabilities, correlate closely with military
power. When Walt says that states do not necessarily balance against the most powerful actor in the
system he essentially is equating power with GNP. When he says that states balance against threat he is
saying that they balance against military power (coupled with aggressive intentions). Obviously, power
is more than just GNP. What states appear to balance against in reality is actual or latent military
capabilities. In a unipolar world, the hegemon's possession of actual or latent military capabilities will
result in balancing regardless of its intentions. If, in a unipolar world, capabilities matter more than
intentions, the Ll.S. monopoly on long-range power-projection capabilities-that is, its preponderance of
military power-probably will be viewed by others as threatening.
away.” 26
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG  RUSSIA/CHINA C/BALANCE  WAR

US hegemony leads to Russia China alliance to Counterbalance
This week the Russian and Chinese militaries are conducting a joint military exercise involving large
numbers of troops and combat vehicles. The former Soviet Republics of Tajikistan, Kyrgkyzstan, and
Kazakstan are participating. Other countries appear ready to join the military alliance.
This new potent military alliance is a real world response to neoconservative delusions about US
hegemony. Neocons believe that the US is supreme in the world and can dictate its course. The
neoconservative idiots have actually written papers, read by Russians and Chinese, about why the US
must use its military superiority to assert hegemony over Russia and China.
Impact is Nuclear War

Cynics believe that the neocons are just shills, like Bush and Cheney, for the military-security complex
and are paid to restart the cold war for the sake of the profits of the armaments industry. But the fact is
that the neocons actually believe their delusions about American hegemony.
Russia and China have now witnessed enough of the Bush administration's unprovoked aggression in
the world to take neocon intentions seriously. As the US has proven that it cannot occupy the Iraqi city
of Baghdad despite 5 years of efforts, it most certainly cannot occupy Russia or China. That means the
conflict toward which the neocons are driving will be a nuclear conflict.
In an attempt to gain the advantage in a nuclear conflict, the neocons are positioning US anti-ballistic
missiles on Soviet borders in Poland and the Czech Republic. This is an idiotic provocation as the
Russians can eliminate anti-ballistic missiles with cruise missiles. Neocons are people who desire war,
but know nothing about it. Thus, the US failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
away.” 27
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
AT: TRADE SOLVES COUNTERBALANCING

Trade does not prevent counterbalancing—the structure of the international
system makes counterbalancing inevitable in a unipolar world
Layne, 1993, (Christopher teaches international politics at UCLA. The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great
Powers Will Rise , International Security, Vol. 17, No.4. (Spring,), pp. 5-51.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=01622889%28199321%2917%3A4%3C5%3A TUIWNG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0 ,
PS)
It can be argued on the basis of hegemonic stability theory and balance of threat theory that a "benign"
hegemon might be able to prevent new great powers from emerging and balancing against it.30 These
arguments are unpersuasive. Although hegemonic stability theory is usually employed in the context of
international political economy, it can be extended to other aspects of international politics. The logic of
collective goods underlying the notion of a benign hegemon assumes that all states will cooperate
because they derive absolute benefit from the collective goods the hegemon provides. Because they
are better off, the argument goes, others should willingly accept a benign hegemon and even help to
prop it up if it is declining. However, as Michael C. Webb and Stephen D. Krasner point out, the benign
version of hegemonic stability theory assumes that states are indifferent to the distribution of relative
gains." This is, as noted, a dubious assumption. As Joseph Grieco points out, because states worry that
today's ally could become tomorrow's rival, "they pay close attention to how cooperation might affect
relative capabilities in the future."32 Moreover, if stability is equated with the dominant state's
continuing preeminence, the stability of hegemonic systems is questionable once the hegemon's power
begins to erode noticeably. As Gilpin points out, over time a hegemon declines from its dominant
position because: (1) the costs of sustaining its preeminence begin to erode the hegemon's economic
strength, thereby diminishing its military and economic capabilities; and (2) the hegemonic paradox
results in the diffusion of economic, technological, and organizational skills to other states, thereby
causing the hegemon to lose its" comparative advantage" over them." Frequently, these, others are
eligible states that will rise to great power status and challenge the hegemon's predominance.
away.” 28
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #4 – HEG  IMPERIAL WARS

US defending vital interests empirically sucks us into conflicts
Layne, 1997 [Christopher, Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School “From Preponderance
JSTOR]//jf
The strategy of preponderance assumes that the international system will be relatively orderly and
stable if the United States defends others’ vital interests, but would become disorderly and unstable if
others acquired the means to defend their own vital interests. Thus, to ensure a post-Cold War
geopolitical setting conductive to interdependence, the United States “will retain the preeminent
responsibility for selectively addressing those wrongs which threaten not only our interests but those of
our allies or friends, which could seriously unsettle international relations.r “ The corollary is that the
United States must defend its allies’ interests in both the core and in the periphery. Two cases
illustrate how the security/interdependence nexus invariably leads to U.S. strategic
overextension: the United States’ role in Indochina from 1948 to 1954 and its current
intervention in Bosnia.
U.S. leadership leads to war with rouge states

Walt, 2006 [Stephen M. Walt, academic dean and Professor of International Affairs, John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University “In the National Interest: a grand strategy for American
foreign policy”, http://www.bostonreview.net/BR30.1/walt.html, March 17, 2006]
This image of global dominance is undeniably appealing to some Americans, but the history of the past
few years also demonstrates how infeasible it is. President George W. Bush has embraced many of the
policies sketched above, but the rest of the world has not reacted positively. The Bush administration
has been scornful of existing institutions and dismissive of other states’ opinions, emphasizing instead
the unilateral use of American power to “promote liberty” and preempt potential threats. The result?
America’s global standing has plummeted, and with it the ability to attract active support from many of
its traditional allies. Instead, many of these states have been distancing themselves from America’s
foreign-policy agenda and looking for ways to constrain its power. So-called rogue states such as Iran
and North Korea have become more resistant to American pressure and more interested in acquiring the
ability to deter American military action. Efforts to “promote liberty” at the point of a gun have arguably
strengthened the hands of authoritarian rulers in the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, and elsewhere.
The strategy of preventive war and the goal of regional transformation led the United States into a
costly quagmire in Iraq, demonstrating once again the impossibility of empire in an era in which
nationalism is a profound social force. President Bush’s overall approach to foreign policy demonstrates
why global hegemony is beyond our reach, and even some supporters of this strategy have begun to
recognize that fact.
away.” 29
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG  GLOBALIZATION/GENOCIDE
U.S. Dominance causes globalization.
Sommers and Woolfson 2008 (Sommers, Jeffrey and Woolfson, Charles, 01 April 2008, Debatte: Journal
of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, [Director of Cultural and Educational Affairs of the State
Department, University of Glasgow Law faculty], 'Trajectories of Entropy and “the Labour Question”:
The Political Economy of Post-communist Migration in the New Europe' Pg. 60-61)
Yet, the limits to accumulation prevented the continuation of that system. The Clinton era National
Security Advisor Anthony Lake summed up this situation nicely: “Throughout the Cold War we contained
a global threat to market democracies”, but now we can “consolidate the victory of democracy and
open markets” (Chomsky 14, emphasis added). And, Clinton era Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers
declared, “Globalist economic policy . . . is the forward defence of America’s deepest security interest”
(Laxer). Thus, Keynesianism’s utility as a politico-economic paradigm was redundant. By the 1970s it
had created overcapacity and competition that proved ruinous to the US economy. With the end of the
Cold War it became an anachronism that obstructed future profitability and resurgent US hegemony.
The US could now pursue an “open market” strategy, which for the rest of the world looked suspiciously
like a giant Open Door policy as advocated by US Secretary of State John Hay a century previously.
Indeed, as Henry Kissinger asserted “globalization is only another word for US domination” (Amin 15). A
neoliberal globalization agenda replaced the Keynesian Bretton Woods Order.
Globalization causes cultural extinction and terrorism.

Smith 2008 (Smith, Paul J., April 1, 2008, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Staff Writer, A Handbook of
Terrorism and Insurgency in Southeast Asia; Book review)
The final section of the book features two essays on counter-terrorism presented by two regionally-
based scholars. Rohan Gunaratna, who has written extensively on Al Qaeda, describes the linkage
between local groups and the larger Al Qaeda movement. Among other things, he argues that "the
dispersal of al-Qaeda worldwide into less centralized nodes has dictated the dramatically altered
security environment in Southeast Asia" (p. 437). Renato Cruz De Castro argues that contemporary
terrorism in Southeast Asia can be tied to incomplete or disruptive globalization: "As globalization
creates alienation and religious and cultural extinction, those who are alienated and marginalized may
act out their discontent and grievances through terrorism" (p.
away.” 30
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG  COLLAPSE IN SOFT POWER

American unilateralism will cause other world powers to reject American
unipolarity
2005 ]
To date, American preponderance has stimulated little real balancing from other great powers. Most
analysts attribute this to benign perceptions of American intent: since others have seen us as a status
quo power with strongly multilateralist impulses, our strength has been no threat to them, and need not
be balanced.54 Yet maximum effort against terrorism requires American uses of force that have already
had major negative effects on others’ perceptions of our intent, and more is likely if America continues
to act as energetically as it has. If the chief determinant of balancing is perception of others’ intent,
then continued erosion of world perception of American intentions can be an important stimulus to
great power competition, and energetic American use of force against terror has proven to be an
important catalyst for negative perceptions of American intentions.
Hardpower erodes our soft power and causes blowback

Goh 2003 (Goh is an int’l relations lecturer at St. Anne’s College, Oxford, Hegemonic constraints,
Australian International Affairs, 4/2/03
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713648929~db=all)
At the heart of the post-11 September world lie several critical issues surrounding US power: its
unprecedented primacy, the way in which it is exercised, and how it is perceived and received around
the world. Even as US primacy and 'hard' power projection have been reinforced, the terrorist attacks
and Washington's responses have adversely affected the vital 'soft' foundations of its power: the appeal
of American values and culture; the perception that US hegemony is benign; and the apparent
legitimacy of the exercise of American power. These trends will, in the longer term, constrain US
hegemonic power by limiting the effectiveness of foreign and security policies. At the international level,
Washington will experience increased friction and costs in dealing with its allies and other friendly
states; and at the domestic level, the Bush and subsequent administrations will have to take into
account rising domestic costs of 'blowback'.
American unilateralism lowers world opinion of America

2005 ]
The war in Iraq, for example, had a major effect on world opinion of America. Polling data in every major
power turned sharply against American policy with the invasion decision, and has rebounded only
slightly since. In France, 63 percent of respondents viewed America favorably before the invasion of
Iraq, but only 31 percent did afterwards. In Germany, a 61 percent favorable rate dropped to 25; in
Britain, 75 fell to 48; in Russia, 61 fell to 28.55 Elite perceptions are harder to track systematically, but
leaders whose policies fail to reflect views held as widely (and deeply) as these risk replacement: in
Spain, for example, the incumbent Aznar government fell due in no small part to its unpopular support
for American policy in Iraq. America’s first counter-terror war in Afghanistan proved less damaging for
popular opinion overseas, but it is unlikely that further invasions would enjoy Afghanistan’s level of
worldwide support―the clarity of Afghanistan’s connection to 9/11, and the war’s proximity to the terror
attacks themselves are unlikely to be equaled elsewhere.
away.” 31
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG  TERRORISM
American’s grand strategy of preponderance leads to terrorism—9/11 proves
01/15/02, http://people.ku.edu/~schrodt/pols572/04.atlantic.schwarz.layne.html]//jh)
Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. grand strategy has revolved around maintaining this country's
overwhelming military, economic, and political preponderance. Until now most Americans have
acquiesced in that strategy, because the costs seemed to be tolerably low. But the September 11
attacks have proved otherwise. Those assaults were neither random nor irrational. Those who
undertook them acted with cool calculation to force the United States to alter specific policies—policies
that largely flow from the global role America has chosen. The attacks were also a violent reaction to
the very fact of America's pre-eminence.
Imperialistic wars breed terrorists against the U.S.

01/15/02, http://people.ku.edu/~schrodt/pols572/04.atlantic.schwarz.layne.html]//jh
Any remaining doubt that American hegemony could trigger a hostile reaction, whether reasonable or
not, surely dissipated on September 11. The role the United States has assigned itself in the Persian
Gulf has made it—not Japan, not the states of Western Europe, not China—vulnerable to a backlash.
Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan resent America's intrusion into regional affairs. The widespread perception
within the region that the Middle East has long been a victim of "Western imperialism" of course
exacerbates this animosity. Moreover, aggrieved groups throughout the Middle East contest the
legitimacy of the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Gulf emirates which the United States is
compelled to support, making America even more of a lightning rod for the politically disaffected. In this
sense Osama bin Laden's brand of terrorism (which aims to compel the United States to remove its
military forces from the Persian Gulf, and to replace America's client, the Saudi monarchy, with a
fundamentalist Islamic government) dramatically illustrates U.S. vulnerability to the kind of "asymmetric
warfare" of which some defense experts have warned.
away.” 32
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG  INDO/PAK WAR

US hegemony will lead to revolution in Pakistan
In a mere 6.5 years the Bush regime has destroyed the world's good will toward the US. Today,
America's influence in the world is limited to its payments of tens of millions of dollars to bribed heads
of foreign governments, such as Egypt's and Pakistan's. The Bush regime even thinks that as it has
bought and paid for Musharraf, he will stand aside and permit Bush to make air strikes inside Pakistan.
Is Bush blind to the danger that he will cause an Islamic revolution within Pakistan that will depose the
US puppet and present the Middle East with an Islamic state armed with nuclear weapons?
Considering the instabilities and dangers that abound, the aggressive posture of the Bush regime goes
far beyond recklessness. The Bush regime is the most irresponsibly aggressive regime the world has
seen since Hitler's.
Impact is nuclear war with India

The independent, 2006, (March 8. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/toppling-musharraf-
heat-rises-on-pakistani-leader-467130.html
The Pakistani leader is also the army's chief and still, as far as we know, has the most powerful wings of
the military firmly on his side. But Pakistan is also still a hotbed for al-Qa'ida-affiliated extremists and
jihadi militants hiding out and training in the wild ungovernable provinces along the border with
Afghanistan. Twice, they have tried to blow up the President.
The Taliban, who fled here after being driven from Kabul, have not gone away either. Musharraf's
removal, by elements who believe he is not Islamic enough, could open the way for dramatic regional
instability, the threat of jihadists getting hold of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, or provoking a nuclear war
with and India, and what Bush himself once warned would be "the worst form of Islamist militancy" in
South Asia.
away.” 33
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
HEG  ECON COLLAPSE

Hegemony leads to overexpansion
Nyden ’06 (Paul J. Nyden, December 10 2006, Charleston Gazette (West Virginia), “Review; Good vs.
evil; Disastrous Iraq war part of long foreign policy since end of World War II”, LexisNexis)
"Security imperatives cannot explain U.S. expansion or the U.S. pursuit of extra-regional
hegemony," he writes. "Domestic factors play a much greater role in explaining U.S. grand strategy
than they do in explaining other great powers' strategies." In the long run, "hegemonic grand
strategy" designed to dominate the world will end up hurting the United States, Layne argues -
a point also made in other recent books including Ivan Eland's "The Empire Has No Clothes" and Gareth
Porter's "Perils of Dominance." Hegemony leads to overexpansion. It creates delusions. Today,
exploding federal budget deficits and trade deficits loom on our horizon, as Republican strategist Kevin
Phillips also pointed out in his "American Theocracy." Layne warns that the "United States cannot live
beyond its means indefinitely. Sooner or later, the bill will come due in the form of higher taxes
and higher interest rates."
Overexpansion leads to economic depression

Doyle, Radzicki, Trees ’98 (James K. Doyle, Michael J. Radzicki, W. Scott Trees, May 26 1998, Department
of Social Science and PolicyStudies, Department of Economics, ”Measuring Change in Mental Models of
Dynamic Systems: An Exploratory Study”, https://www.wpi.edu/Images/CMS/SSPS/14.pdf)
Subjects participated in a systems thinking intervention structured around their experience playing
STRATEGEM-2, a simulation game of the Kondratiev cycle, or economic long wave, developed by
Sterman and Meadows (1985) and employed in experiments on dynamic decision making by Sterman
(1989). The purpose of the game is to help students and managers learn about and gain confidence in a
simplified behavioral theory of the causes of long-term cycles of overexpansion and depression in the
economy (Sterman, 1985). According to the theory, which focuses on the capital-producing
sector of the economy, management investment decisions lead to overexpansion due to time
delays in production and the reinforcing nature of capital self-ordering. This overexpansion
leads to a subsequent depression as excess capital slowly depreciates over time.
away.” 34
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
AT: HEG SOLVES PROLIF

Unilateral counterproliferation can not solve, military restraint is our best
options to stop nuclear proliferation.
A military counterproliferation operation against a regional power with a dispersed, concealed weapons
program would require weeks or months of ground operations. Stopping an Iranian weapons program,
for example, would not be a precision strike. Iran's armed forces would have to be neutralized and its
major military and industrial areas occupied. In other words, Iran would have to be conquered.
Counterproliferation operations would be long, complex, and costly, but more to the point, these
operations would multiply, not reduce, the risk that America will be the target of nuclear attacks. The
reason to attack an Iranian nuclear program is that Iran might, in some fit of irrationality, use nuclear
weapons against the United States. But during an attack, Iran would be forced to defend itself. It would
not face the difficulty of delivering a warhead against a distant U'.S. homeland, because American
troops would be on its shore. Even worse, the Iranian government might believe it had little to lose.
Nuclear proliferation among hostile states would not be a pleasant development, but an activist security
policy does not reduce the danger. To the contrary, the best the United States may be able to do is to
stay out of hostile countries' disputes and maintain a powerful nuclear deterrent. Fortunately, that is
probably good enough. Military restraint would not increase the danger of rogue states developing
nuclear weapons, because even an activist policy could not halt their efforts.
Unilateral military engagement can not solve for proliferation of nuclear

weapons.
Some advocates of continued engagement argue that America should use its military to prevent hostile
countries (e.g., Iran, Syria, and Libya) from developing nuclear weapons. These critics of restraint argue
that, due to the nuclear revolution, the oceans grant less security than ever before; even poor faraway
countries can do serious harm. Counterproliferators conclude that today more than ever America needs
to discourage proliferation by allies and adversaries."
The spread of nuclear weapons to hostile countries is not good news. Certain countries may use nuclear
weapons in irrational attacks on Americans or their friends. Accidental nuclear wars are not likely but
are possible, especially if new nuclear states lack technical safeguards for their weapons. Continued
military engagement, however, will not help stop proliferation to America's enemies.
away.” 35
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER HIGH NOW

Despite some weaknesses, America’s soft power remains high globally
Fullilove July 8 2008. (Michael Fullilove is director of the global issues program at the Lowy Institute in
Sydney, Australia, and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, ABC News (Smart
power: Exaggerating America's decline- http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/08/2297206.htm)
America has some worrying weaknesses - but we should not ignore the frailties of others: the cleavages
in China, the divisions within Europe, the dark side of Russia, or the poverty of India. In terms of soft
power, too - the ability to get others to want what you want - the case for America's decline is easily
overstated. America retains its hold on the world's imagination. For most non-Americans around the
world, America's politics are, at some level, our politics as well. Why is the world so interested?
America's bulk is only part of the answer. Ultimately, it is not really the size of the US economy that
draws our attention. It is not even America's blue-water navy or its new bunker-busting munitions.
Rather, it is the idea of America which continues to fascinate: a superpower that is open, democratic,
meritocratic and optimistic; a country that is the cockpit of global culture; a polity in which all
candidates for public office, whether or not they are a Clinton, seem to come from a place called Hope.
Soft Power is increasing – naval strategies prove

Lubold 2007 (George Lubold, Donald Winter, quoted, is the Navy Secretary, December 27, 2007, “US
Navy Aims to ‘Flex’ Soft Power”, Christian Science Monitor, on page Lexis)
The US Navy is trying to set a new course, embracing a shift in strategy that focuses heavily on
administering humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and other forms of so-called soft power to woo allies to
help the United States fight global terrorism. The Navy's new maritime strategy, unveiled this fall and
shared by the Marine Corps and Coast Guard, is a shift in tone that reflects a broader change in the
Pentagon's approach as it organizes itself for what many military officials refer to as a "generational
conflict" against extremism. It's a move away from the go-it-alone stance of the Bush White House and
toward a new emphasis on building partnerships abroad and finding common interests. Critics say that
while the Navy's new approach is noble, the sea service should stick to meeting more conventional
threats to US security from countries like China and build more ships that can be used to flex America's
naval muscle. While the Navy says it will maintain its ability to use the "hard power" for which it's
known, the new focus represents an important change - the first major rewrite of strategy in more than
20 years. It puts greater emphasis on humanitarian aid, disaster relief, "partnering" with foreign navies
also working to combat piracy, terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. "We
can't do things unilaterally, we recognize that," says Donald Winter, the Navy secretary. "Not all things,
not all places."
Soft Power is on the Brink

Nye 2004. (Joseph S. Nye, Jr. former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Dean of Harvard University's
John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is author of Soft Power: The Means to Success in World
Politics. The Decline of America's Soft Power fullaccess.foreignaffairs.org)
Anti-Americanism has increased in recent years, and the United States' soft power -- its ability to attract
others by the legitimacy of U.S. policies and the values that underlie them -- is in decline as a result.
According to Gallup International polls, pluralities in 29 countries say that Washington's policies have
had a negative effect on their view of the United States. A Eurobarometer poll found that a majority of
Europeans believes that Washington has hindered efforts to fight global poverty, protect the
environment, and maintain peace. Such attitudes undercut soft power, reducing the ability of the United
States to achieve its goals without resorting to coercion or payment.
away.” 36
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER IMPACT – LAUNDRY LIST

Soft power is key to multilateral cooperation, climate, disease, crime, and
terrorism.
Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations at Harvard, Summer 2004, “Soft
Power and American Foreign Policy,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, Iss.2; pg. 255, proquest,
accessed 07/10/07
Power depends on context, and the distribution of power differs greatly in different domains. In the global information age, power
is distributed among countries in a pattern that resembles a complex three-dimensional chess game. On the top chessboard of
political-military issues, military power is largely unipolar, but on the economic board, the United States is not a hegemon or an
empire, and it must bargain as an equal when Europe acts in a unified way. And on the bottom chessboard of transnational
relations, power is chaotically dispersed, and it makes no sense to use traditional terms such as unipolarity, hegemony, or
American empire. Those who recommend an imperial American foreign policy based on traditional military
descriptions of American power are relying on woefully inadequate analysis. If you are in a three-
dimensional game, you will lose if you focus only on one board and fail to notice the other boards and
the vertical connections among them-witness the connections in the war on terrorism between military
actions on the top board, where we removed a dangerous tyrant in Iraq, but simultaneously increased
the ability of the al Qaeda network to gain new recruits on the bottom, transnational board.25 Because
of its leading edge in the information revolution and its past investment in military power, the United
States will likely remain the world's single most powerful country well into the twenty-first century.
French dreams of a multipolar military world are unlikely to be realized anytime soon, and the German
Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, has explicitly eschewed such a goal.26 But not all the important types
of power come out of the barrel of a gun. Hard power is relevant to getting the outcomes we want on all
three chessboards, but many of the transnational issues, such as climate change, the spread of
infectious diseases, international crime, and terrorism, cannot be resolved by military force alone.
Representing the dark side of globalization, these issues are inherently multilateral and require
cooperation for their solution. Soft power is particularly important in dealing with the issues that arise
from the bottom chessboard of transnational relations. To describe such a world as an American empire
fails to capture the real nature of the foreign policy tasks that we face.
Soft Power is key to solving competitiveness, terrorism, war, proliferation,

disease, human trafficking, and drug trafficking. (disease terminal impact is
on page 94)
Joshua Kurlantzick, visiting scholar in the Carnegie Endowment’s China Program, Dec 2005, “The
Decline of American Soft Power,” Current History, Vol. 104, Iss. 686; pg. 419, proquest, accessed
07/10/07
A broad decline in soft power has many practical implications. These include the drain in foreign talent
coming to the United States, the potential backlash against American companies, the growing
attractiveness of China and Europe, and the possibility that anti-US sentiment will make it easier for
terrorist groups to recruit. In addition, with a decline in soft power, Washington is simply less able to
persuade others. In the run-up to the Iraq War, the Bush administration could not convince Turkey, a longtime US ally, to play
a major staging role, in part because America's image in Turkey was so poor. During the war itself, the United States has failed to
obtain significant participation from all but a handful of major nations, again in part because of America's negative image in
countries ranging from India to Germany In attempts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, Washington has
had to allow China to play a central role, partly because few Asian states view the United States as a neutral, legitimate broker in
the talks. Instead, Washington must increasingly resort to the other option Nye discusses-force, or the threat of force. With
foreign governments and publics suspicious of American policy, the White House has been unable to
lead a multinational effort to halt Iran's nuclear program, and instead has had to resort to threatening
sanctions at the United Nations or even the possibility of strikes against Iran. With America's image declining in nations like
Thailand and Pakistan, it is harder for leaders in these countries to openly embrace counterterrorism cooperation with the United
States, so Washington resorts to quiet arm-twisting and blandishments to obtain counterterror concessions. Force is not a long-
term solution. Newer, nontraditional security threats such as disease, human trafficking, and drug
trafficking can only be managed through forms of multilateral cooperation that depend on America's
ability to persuade other nations. Terrorism itself cannot be defeated by force alone, a fact that even the
away.” 37
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
White House recognizes. The 2002 National security Strategy emphasizes that winning the war on terror requires the United
States to lead a battle of ideas against the ideological roots of terrorism, in addition to rooting out and destroying individual
militant cells.
away.” 38
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER SOLVES GLOBAL WAR

U.S. soft power solves and prevents global conflicts – empirically proven
Nye and Armitage in 07 (Richard L. Armitage and Joseph S. Nye Jr., Dec. 9, 07, Stop Getting Mad,
America. Get Smart., The Washington Post, Lexis Nexis)
In a changing world, the United States should become a smarter power by once again investing in the
global good -- by providing things that people and governments want but cannot attain without U.S.
leadership. By complementing U.S. military and economic strength with greater investments in soft
power, Washington can build the framework to tackle tough global challenges. We call this smart
power.
Smart power is not about getting the world to like us. It is about developing a strategy that balances our
hard (coercive) power with our soft (attractive) power. During the Cold War, the United States deterred
Soviet aggression through investments in hard power. But as Gates noted late last month, U.S. leaders
also realized that "the nature of the conflict required us to develop key capabilities and institutions --
many of them non-military." So the United States used its soft power to rebuild Europe and Japan and to
establish the norms and institutions that became the core of the international order for the past half-
century. The Cold War ended under a barrage of hammers on the Berlin Wall rather than a barrage of
artillery across the Fulda Gap precisely because of this integrated approach.
away.” 39
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER SOLVES PROLIF

Soft Power is key to solving proliferation.
accessed 07/10/07
According to the National Security Strategy, the greatest threats the American people face are
transnational terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and particularly their combination. Yet,
meeting the challenge posed by transnational military organizations that could acquire weapons of
mass destruction requires the cooperation of other countries -and cooperation is strengthened by soft
power. Similarly, efforts to promote democracy in Iraq and elsewhere will require the help of others.
Reconstruction in Iraq and peacekeeping in failed states are far more likely to succeed and to be less
costly if shared with others rather than appearing as American imperial occupation. The fact that the
United States squandered its soft power in the way that it went to war meant that the aftermath turned
out to be much more costly than it need have been.
Proliferation leads to extinction.

Stuart Taylor, Senior Writer with the National Journal and editor at Newsweek, Legal Times, 9-16-2002
The truth is, no matter what we do about Iraq, if we don't stop proliferation, another five or 10
potentially unstable nations may go nuclear before long, making it ever more likely that one or more
bombs will be set off anonymously on our soil by terrorists or a terrorist government. Even an airtight
missile defense would be useless against a nuke hidden in a truck, a shipping container, or a boat.
[Continues…]
Unless we get serious about stopping proliferation, we are headed for "a world filled with nuclear-
weapons states, where every crisis threatens to go nuclear," where "the survival of civilization truly is in
question from day to day," and where "it would be impossible to keep these weapons out of the hands
of terrorists, religious cults, and criminal organizations." So writes Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr., a
moderate Republican who served as a career arms-controller under six presidents and led the
successful Clinton administration effort to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The only way to
avoid such a grim future, he suggests in his memoir, Disarmament Sketches, is for the United States to
lead an international coalition against proliferation by showing an unprecedented willingness to give up
the vast majority of our own nuclear weapons, excepting only those necessary to deter nuclear attack
by others
away.” 40
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER SOLVES TERRORISM

Soft Power prevents the spread of terrorism
Nye, 2004 (Joseph S. Nye, PhD in political science at Harvard, 2004, Perseus Books group, “Soft Power:
The Means to Success in World Politics”, book)
Hard power remains crucial in a world of states trying to guard their independence and of non-state
groups willing to turn to violence. It forms the core of the Bush administration's new national security
strategy. But according to Joseph Nye, the neo-conservatives who advise the president are making a
major miscalculation: They focus too heavily on using America's military power to force other nations to
do our will, and they pay too little heed to our soft power. It is soft power that will help prevent terrorists
from recruiting supporters from among the moderate majority. And it is soft power that will help us deal
with critical global issues that require multilateral cooperation among states. That is why it is so
essential that America better understands and applies our soft power. This is our guide.
Soft Power is essential to boost U.S. reputation and prevention of terrorist

attacks
Nye in 07 (Joseph S. Nye, Dec. 18th 07, Recovering America's 'Smart Power', Korea Times, LN)
The United States needs to rediscover how to be a "smart power." That was the conclusion of a
bipartisan commission that I recently co-chaired with Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary
of state in the Bush administration. The Smart Power Commission, convened by the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington, comprised Republican and Democratic members of
Congress, former ambassadors, retired military officers, and heads of non-profit organizations. We
concluded that America's image and influence had declined in recent years, and that the U.S. must
move from exporting fear to inspiring optimism and hope.
Defense called for the U.S. government to commit more money and effort to "soft power," including
diplomacy, economic assistance, and communications, because the military alone cannot defend
America's interests around the world. Gates pointed out that military spending totals nearly a half-
trillion dollars annually, compared to the State Department's budget of $36 billion. He acknowledged
that for the head of the Pentagon to plead for more resources for the State Department was odd, but
these are not normal times.
But, while the Pentagon is the best-trained and best-resourced arm of the government, there are
limits to what hard power can achieve on its own. Democracy, human rights, and the development of
civil society do not come from the barrel of a gun. True, the American military has impressive
operational capacity, but turning to the Pentagon because it can get things done creates an image of
an over-militarized foreign policy.
The effects of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have also thrown us off course. Since the shock of
those attacks, the U.S. has been exporting fear and anger rather than the country's more traditional
values of hope and optimism. Guantanamo Bay has become a more powerful global icon than the
Statue of Liberty.
The CSIS Smart Power Commission acknowledged that terrorism is a real threat and likely to be with us
for decades, but pointed out that over-responding to extremists' provocations does more damage to the
U.S. than terrorists ever could. Success in the struggle against terrorism means finding a new central
premise for American foreign policy to replace the current theme of a "war on terror."
away.” 41
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER SOLVES TERRORISM

Soft Power Key to Solving Terrorism
Gordon ’07 (Philip H. Gordon, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies, Director of the Center on the
United States and France at the Brookings Institution, Bridging the Atlantic Divide, Foreign Affairs,
Nov/Dec 2003
Less than 12 hours after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush proclaimed the start of a global war on terror.
Ever since, there has been a vigorous debate about how to win it. Bush and his supporters stress the
need to go on the offensive against terrorists, deploy U.S. military force, promote democracy in the
Middle East, and give the commander in chief expansive wartime powers. His critics either challenge
the very notion of a "war on terror" or focus on the need to fight it differently. Most leading Democrats
accept the need to use force in some cases but argue that success will come through reestablishing the
United States' moral authority and ideological appeal, conducting more and smarter diplomacy, and
intensifying cooperation with key allies. They argue that Bush's approach to the war on terror has
created more terrorists than it has eliminated -- and that it will continue to do so unless the United
States radically changes course.
Empirically Proven – a decrease in soft power increases terrorism

Shattuck in ‘8 (Joseph Shattuck, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, January 2008,
“Healing Our Self Inflicted Wounds”, The American Prospect, on page Lexis)
The Bush administration's record on human rights and the rule of law has undercut the capacity of the
U.S. to achieve important foreign-policy goals. The erosion of America's soft power has made it more
difficult for the U.S. to succeed in preventing or containing threats of terrorism, genocide, and nuclear
proliferation. The denigration of American values has made the U.S. ineffective in promoting human
rights and democracy. Indeed, the current administration's frequent disregard of the rule of law has
jeopardized five frequently stated foreign-policy objectives.
away.” 42
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER SOLVES WARMING

Soft power key to solve warming
Nye in 8 [Joseph, Survival, February 2008]
The bottom chessboard is the realm of transnational relations that involve actors crossing borders
outside of government control. This realm includes players as diverse as bankers electronically
transferring sums larger than most national budgets, terrorists transferring black-market weapons and
hackers disrupting Internet operations. It also includes ecological threats, such as pandemics and global
climate change, that can do damage on a scale equal or larger to that of major wars. (More people died
in the 1918 flu pandemic, for example, than as a direct result of the First World War.) This adds a new
dimension to questions of security and risk, and includes issues for which the military instruments that
dominate the top board are clearly insufficient. On this bottom board, power is widely dispersed, and it
makes no sense to speak of unipolarity, multipolarity or hegemony. And yet it is from this bottom board
that many of the most important security challenges arise. Those who recommend a hegemonic
American foreign policy based on traditional military power are relying on inadequate analysis, and like
one-dimensional chess players in a three-dimensional game, they will eventually lose. Because of its
leading edge in the information revolution and its past investment in traditional power resources, the
United States will likely remain the world’s single most powerful country in military, economic and soft-
power terms well into the twenty-first century. While potential coalitions to check American power could
be created, countries like Russia, China and India have differing goals and priorities, and it is unlikely
that they would become firm military allies unless the United States used its hard, coercive power in an
overbearing, unilateral manner that undermined its soft or attractive power. Because soft power is
particularly important in dealing with issues arising from the bottom chessboard of transnational
relations, America’s resources in this area are increasingly important. While polls show that American
soft power has declined in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, they also show that the cause of the
decline is government policies, not American culture and values. This is important because policies can
change relatively quickly, while culture and values change more slowly. In the early 1970s, American
policies in Vietnam led to low ratings in polls, but the country regained much of its soft power within a
decade.
away.” 43
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER SOLVES DEMOCRACY

( ) a. Multilateralism is key to global democracy.
accessed 07/10/07
Ironically, however, the only way to achieve the type of transformation that the neoconservatives seek
is by working with others and avoiding the backlash that arises when the United States appears on the
world stage as an imperial power acting unilaterally. What is more, because democracy cannot be
imposed by force and requires a considerable time to take root, the most likely way to obtain staying
power from the American public is through developing international legitimacy and burden sharing with
allies and institutions. For Jacksonians like secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, this may not matter. They
would prefer to punish the dictator and come home rather than engage in tedious nation building. For
example, in September 2003, Rumsfeld said of Iraq, "I don't believe it's our job to reconstruct the
country."31 But for serious neoconservatives, like Deputy Defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, their
impatience with institutions and allies may undercut their own objectives. They understand the
importance of soft power but fail to appreciate all its dimensions and dynamics.
b. The impact is extinction.

Larry Diamond, Snr Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, 1995
p. 6-7
This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades.
In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread.
The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that
have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of
tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very
source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new
and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence
of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness.
LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of this century offers important lessons.
Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They
do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic
governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face
ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build
weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another.
( ) Soft power is key to democracy.

accessed 07/10/07
According to the National Security Strategy, the greatest threats the American people face are
transnational terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and particularly their combination. Yet,
meeting the challenge posed by transnational military organizations that could acquire weapons of
mass destruction requires the cooperation of other countries -and cooperation is strengthened by soft
power. Similarly, efforts to promote democracy in Iraq and elsewhere will require the help of others.
Reconstruction in Iraq and peacekeeping in failed states are far more likely to succeed and to be less
costly if shared with others rather than appearing as American imperial occupation. The fact that the
United States squandered its soft power in the way that it went to war meant that the aftermath turned
out to be much more costly than it need have been.
away.” 44
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER SOLVES MIDDLE EAST WAR

US soft power is key to Middle East stability.
Frances J. Wirta Houlton, July 5, 2007, “Diplomacy for Peace,” Bangor Daily News (Maine), lexis nexis
The week of June 10 brought the second attack on the Shiite Golden Dome in Samarra, Iraq, with further
killings and the renewal of city curfews.." The Iraq war is only escalating: Sunnis now battling al-Qaida, Shias
battling Sunnis, with the al-Maliki government divided and unable to provide leadership. Now with other battles and other
crises raging in Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon, how can we believe that a few thousand more
American forces will be able to turn the corner in Iraq? Congress, backed by the majority of the
American people, can change the president's policy to end our military support of hopeless battles.
Instead, our Congress can promote the beginnings of a Middle Eastern diplomacy which will begin the
withdrawal of our military forces in Iraq - to bring a sizable force home but also to leave an appropriate number there to support
the beginnings of a peaceful change in the Middle East. We have a responsibility to help repair the huge chaos we have inflicted.
With the Middle East increasingly unsettled, a full corps of American diplomats will be needed to negotiate for full Iraqi leadership
and a reduction of American military. This could best be accomplished with the establishment of an extended Middle East
peacekeeping force, supported by other nations of the region, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. If our government
can begin to think globally and diplomatically, multinationally and with "soft power," America could help
bring a Middle East peace. If we think inclusively of working with a combination of world organizations -
the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, the Islamic Union, America would once again become a
strong supporter and expander for the future of world peace.
This is key to solving nuclear war.

John Steinbach, Center for Research on Globalization, March 3, 2002
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/STE203A.html)
Meanwhile, the existence of an arsenal of mass destruction in such an unstable region in turn has serious implications for future
arms control and disarmament negotiations, and even the threat of nuclear war. Seymour Hersh warns, "Should war break
out in the Middle East again,... or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear
escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability."(41) and Ezar
Weissman, Israel's current President said "The nuclear issue is gaining momentum(and the) next war will not be
conventional."(42) Russia and before it the Soviet Union has long been a major(if not the major) target
of Israeli nukes. It is widely reported that the principal purpose of Jonathan Pollard's spying for Israel was to
furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other super sensitive data relating to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy. (43) (Since
launching its own satellite in 1988, Israel no longer needs U.S. spy secrets.) Israeli nukes aimed at the Russian heartland seriously
complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and, at the very least, the unilateral possession of nuclear weapons by
Israel is enormously destabilizing, and dramatically lowers the threshold for their actual use, if not for all out nuclear war. In the
words of Mark Gaffney, "... if the familar pattern(Israel refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not
reversed soon- for whatever reason- the deepening Middle East conflict could trigger a world conflagration."
(44)
away.” 45
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER SOLVES US/JAPAN ALLIANCE

Soft power is key to maintaining a stable US-Japan Alliance
accessed 07/10/07
In the global information age, the attractiveness of the United States will be crucial to our ability to
achieve the outcomes we want. Rather than having to put together pick-up coalitions of the willing for
each new game, we will benefit if we are able to attract others into institutional alliances and eschew
weakening those we have already created. NATO, for example, not only aggregates the capabilities of
advanced nations, but its interminable committees, procedures, and exercises also allow these nations
to train together and quickly become interoperable when a crisis occurs. As for alliances, if the United
States is an attractive source of security and reassurance, other countries will set their expectations in
directions that are conducive to our interests. Initially, for example, the U.S.-Japan security treaty was
not very popular in Japan, but polls show that over the decades, it became more attractive to the
Japanese public. Once that happened, Japanese politicians began to build it into their approaches to
foreign policy. The United States benefits when it is regarded as a constant and trusted source of
attraction so that other countries are not obliged continually to re-examine their options in an
atmosphere of uncertain coalitions. In the Japan case, broad acceptance of the United States by the
Japanese public "contributed to the maintenance of US hegemony" and "served as political constraints
compelling the ruling elites to continue cooperation with the United States."18 Popularity can contribute
to stability.
Breakdown of U.S.-Japan relations causes World War Three

Terumasa ’90 ((Nakanshi, Prof @ Shizouka Perfectural Univerostu, Japan Echo, Spring)
Sudden changes in the strategic picture in Asia are not desirable for the United States either. As a Pacific Rim
nation, it would be dealt a tremendous strategic and economic blow by turbulence in the region, and its
position as the leading global power might even be undermined. Were Japan left to fend for itself, the only result
would be the traumatic realignment of Asian countries that could bring about a fundamental deterioration in global
politics. Loss of the cooperatives ties between Japan and the Untied States, which between them produce 40% of
the world’s GNP and have a dominant position in technology and international finance, could turn global politics
into an arena where disorderly competition and distrust reign supreme possibly even causing humankind to plunge
into another costly and lengthy world war. Today, with the cold war finally ending, even the thought of such a
future is horrifying. If it comes about due to an American rejection of partnership with Japan, this will be a second
“mistake of the century” to follow the 1919 vote in the U.S. Congress rejecting membership in the League of
Nations.
away.” 46
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER KEY TO HARD POWER

Soft power is key to maintaining heg.
Fried 06 (Eli, “The Soft Power of Multilateralism,” The Jerusalem Report, Oct 16, proquest)
If there is one big lesson to be learned from the war in Lebanon and Iraq, it is that both Israel and the
United States can gain as much, if not more, from international cooperation as from the unilateral use of
naked power. America's experience in Iraq has demonstrated that no amount of military power can
make up for a lack of vital international support. Indeed, as a result of its aggressive and unilateralist
post- September 11 policies, Washington found itself unable to play the role of regional broker early on
in the Lebanon fighting. However, it went on to pursue a sustainable cease-fire through a process of
multilateral engagement, and, with the passing of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, significantly
enhanced its persuasive capacity - or "soft power" - in the region. Its pursuit of an agreed- upon policy
enabled the United States to co-opt the international community without sacrificing President Bush's
paradigmatic division between the forces of good and evil. In other words, it is not the U.S.'s moral
partitioning that the world opposes, but rather its perceived neo-colonialist policies and unilateralist
tendencies.
Credibility key to US preponderance strat

JSTOR]//jf
The diplomatic historian Robert J. McMahon has observed that since 1945 U.S. policymakers consistently
have asserted that American credibility is “among the most critical of all foreign policy objectives.T”” As
Khalilzad makes clear, they still are obsessed with the need to preserve America’s reputation for
honoring its security commitments: “The credibility of U.S. alliances can be undermined if key allies,
such as Germany and Japan, believe that the current arrangements do not deal adequately with
threats to their security. It could also be undermined if, over an extended period, the United
States is perceived as lacking the will or capability to lead in protecting their interests.T’” Credi-
bility is believed to be crucial if the extended deterrence guarantees on which the strategy of
preponderance rests are to remain robust.
Preponderance’s concern with credibility leads to the belief that U.S. commitments are
interdependent. As Thomas C. Schelling has put it: “Few parts of the world are intrinsically worth
the risk of serious war by themselves ... but defending them or running risks to protect them
may preserve one’s commitments to action in other parts of the world at later times.,,45 If
others perceive that the United States has acted irresolutely in a specific crisis, they will
conclude that it will not honor its commitments in future crises. Hence, as happened repeatedly
in the Cold War, the United States has taken military action in peripheral areas to demonstrate-
both to allies and potential adversaries-that it will uphold its security obligations in core areas.
away.” 47
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
SOFT POWER IS BETTER THAN HARD POWER

Soft Power is more effective than hard power
Shank and Kabalan 2007 (Michael Shank and Marwan Kabalan, April 2007, “Bad Behavior Brings Good
Results”, Foreign Policy in Focus, on page CIAO)
In doing so, Pelosi’s visit to Damascus may not have produced breakthroughs, but that was not the
point. Diplomatic engagement was the point. There were no threats, no orders, and no ultimatums. Soft
power of this sort will salvage what remains of American credibility in an environment where anti-
Americanism runs high. Hard power, meanwhile, has no chance of recovering dwindling U.S. prestige in
the Middle East. President Clinton understood this and so does Pelosi. Cheney’s claim the legislative
branch has no business conducting foreign policy hints at a widening schism between the branches
birthed by the nation’s founding fathers. Given the Democrats’ timidity to challenge the Iraq War,
Pelosi’s efforts to dialogue with Syria, against the will of the executive branch, is a surprising and
impressive assertion of its authority. America’s founding fathers would be proud. It’s also making Syria
proud. Damascus is finally taken seriously by Washington and given a platform to voice its grievances
on the Golan Heights. At long last, diplomacy, albeit legislative not executive, is forging the foundation
for further more substantive negotiations. It’s remarkable what a little dialogue and a little legislative
liberty will garner. Far more than the executive branch has been able to muster in Iraq or Iran.
Soft power is more strategic than hard power

Hoffmann 02 (Stanley Hoffmann, July, 2002, Foreign Affairs, Buttenwieser University Professor at
Harvard University and a regular book reviewer for Foreign Affairs, Clash of Globalizations, LN)
Finally, the unique position of the United States raises a serious question over the future of world affairs.
In the realm of interstate problems, American behavior will determine whether the non-superpowers
and weak states will continue to look at the United States as a friendly power (or at least a tolerable
hegemon), or whether they are provoked by Washington's hubris into coalescing against American
preponderance. America may be a hegemon, but combining rhetorical overkill and ill-defined designs is
full of risks. Washington has yet to understand that nothing is more dangerous for a "hyperpower" than
the temptation of unilateralism. It may well believe that the constraints of international agreements and
organizations are not necessary, since U.S. values and power are all that is needed for world order. But
in reality, those same international constraints provide far better opportunities for leadership than
arrogant demonstrations of contempt for others' views, and they offer useful ways of restraining
unilateralist behavior in other states. A hegemon concerned with prolonging its rule should be especially
interested in using internationalist methods and institutions, for the gain in influence far exceeds the
loss in freedom of action.
away.” 48
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
F/L AT: SOFT POWER

1. US leadership permanently ruined.
Van Wolferen ’04 (Karen Van Wolferen is a professor of comparative political and economic institutions at the
University of Amsterdam. Hamilton Spectator – Feb 21st)
This widespread acceptance of American hegemony was predicated both on a belief in American strength and on
trust in American intentions and reasonableness. More specifically, European and most Asian governments
believed that Washington would always consider its own long-term interests to be interwoven with the continuation
of the world order which it dominated. In other words, they trusted the United States not to lose its head. This
trust came to an end in 2003, with the current administration's decision to engage in "preventive war". In the
process, it broke with America's own tradition of political principles and violated valued international agreements, including the United Nations
Charter. Governments worldwide cannot fathom how this action could serve any conceivable American national interest, since its consequences
have only endangered American security. Perhaps driven by a psychological need to reject craziness as a motive force and to find reason in all
things, some commentators have pointed to supposed national interests such as oil supplies, troop withdrawal from Saudi Arabia or simple war
profiteering. None of those stands scrutiny as an ultimate reason, and none begins to match in importance what the United States has lost. In
fact if not in name, the Atlantic Alliance has been abolished. The former Cold War allies now find themselves offered only a
system of vassalage, with the consultation stipulated in the North Atlantic Treaty now replaced by command. The Middle East, now even more
unstable, has become a rich recruiting ground for terrorists, and nuclear proliferation is once again a global threat. Washington is steadily losing the
informal control it once possessed over various international agencies. The international faith in America's strength has suffered
much as a result of the occupation of Iraq, even in the wake of the capture of Saddam Hussein, since its political authority never lay in
its mere muscle power, and America's dire limitations are now manifest. So far the response of Europe's elite circles to the end of American
hegemony have been ambivalent, with many confirmed Atlanticists as much in a state of denial as is the majority of the American public. But in the
past few months, the European general public has become well-nigh unanimous in its distrust of the United States. Asian governments, elites and
populations alike have become fearful of what they see as destructive American capriciousness. In South Korea, once a staunch ally with an
emotionally pro-American populace, it would be hard to find even a handful of people who still trust Washington. Like France, Germany and Russia,
along with Brazil and other less influential nations, Asian governments have been forced to rethink their long-term diplomatic and strategic goals.
The vast majority of Americans, including the political elite, never realized the extent to which Asians and Europeans had come to see each other,
and to see world events, through American filters. Even as they decry the Bush administration's unilateralist tendencies, most of its opponents
appear not to have grasped the damage being done to the world system. This is due to the age-old triumph of theory over experience. Ingrained
assumptions, derived from the "realist" and "neorealist" doctrines that have informed academic studies of international relations, simply block the
view of the authors of preventive-war policy and of their critics alike. These doctrines were inspired by a world that passed out of existence with the
Second World War, however, and since then have been accepted on faith rather than on any clear-minded assessment of recent world conditions.
The balance-of-power metaphor which is central to the "realism" legacy, and which was relevant to Cold War containment policies, appears to have
been the spur for the current American policy-makers who seek to establish the United States as an unchallengeable military power in perpetuity.
Heirs to a tradition of American exceptionalism, they reject the inevitability of an emerging challenge of counterpower -- the core of realist doctrine --
and focus on creating conditions that will prevent the theory from becoming fact. The received wisdom around the world is that
there has never been a country as powerful as the United States is today. This is true, but because of a
misreading of global realities, because of national paranoia and because of partisan political exploitation in the
form of the so-called "war on terrorism" -- so-called, because the nature of terrorism makes a true war against it
impossible -- the United States has rapidly passed its peak and has already begun to shrivel as a world power.
The creation of a genuine empire to substitute for hegemony is beyond its grasp. It does not have the material or
bureaucratic wherewithal to maintain one, its ruling elite does not have the intellectual capacity to run one and the
American public will put a stop to it the moment it realizes that the current administration is trying to build one.
Contrary to accusations by Bush supporters, very few Europeans engage in self-righteous finger-pointing or see
recent developments as an opportunity for schadenfreude. Many have tried to suppress their dawning realization of
catastrophe by talking up America's capacity for self-repair, while continuing to hope that in the international
arena, things will somehow go back to normal. But the betrayal of a trust creates irreparable breaks, and it is very
unlikely that a stable world order founded on American hegemony can ever return, even if Washington resumes a
multilateral foreign policy.
2. Nye’s analysis is flawed – policies to increase soft power will inevitably

fail
Maiko Ichihara, Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at George Washington University, Winter
2006, “Making the Case for Soft Power,” SAIS Review, Vol. 26, Iss. 1; pg 197, 4 pages, proquest)
For Nye, hard and soft power are not mutually exclusive but should be considered complementary to each other. This
conceptualization and categorization of power renders his argument persuasive and balanced. However, Nye's
conceptualization of soft power exhibits weaknesses as well because in certain respects his concept of soft
power fails to meet his own stated requirements for power. Nye defines power as a relational concept requiring a
clear target yet actors may not always specify their targets when wielding soft power. For example, a private company
operating abroad may unintentionally disseminate its country's political values and cultures. Although such dissemination may
influence other actors' policy preferences, it should not be considered as soft power according to Nye's line of reasoning because
it is not targeting a specific actor. Nye avoids addressing this problem by focusing on cases in which non-state actors'
away.” 49
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
soft power gains influence through states' strategy of utilizing non-state actors, but not in the cases in which non-
state actors' soft power gains influence without the help of the state.
away.” 50
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
F/L AT: SOFT POWER

3. One policy isn’t enough to solve – the trend is still unilateral overall
Hirsh 2002 (Michael, former Foreign Editor of Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, September/October)
But Bush, to judge by his actions, appears to believe in a kind of unilateral civilization. Nato gets short
shrift, the United Nations is an afterthought, treaties are not considered binding, and the administration
brazenly sponsors protectionist measures at home such as new steel tariffs and farm subsidies. Any compromise of Washington's
freedom to act is treated as a hostile act. To quash the International Criminal Court (ICC), for example, the administration
threatened in June to withdraw all funds for UN peacekeeping. Global warming may be occurring, as an administration report
finally admitted in the spring, but the White House nonetheless trashed the Kyoto Protocol that the international
community spent ten years negotiating, and it offered no alternative plan. One State Department careerist complains that the
unilateralist ideologues who dominate the administration have outright contempt for Europe's consensus-based community, with
little sense of the long and terrible history that brought Europe to this historic point. When NATO after September 11 invoked its
Article V for the first time ever, defining the attack on the United States as an attack on all members, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld dispatched his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, to say this would not be necessary because "the mission would define the
coalition." One senior hard-liner at a Pentagon meeting summed up the U.S. view thus: "Preserve the myth, and laugh." The effect
is that when Bush does invoke his "we're in this together" rhetoric or talks of creating a "common security framework for the
great powers," it rings hollow. It suggests a towering insincerity: fine words, but no real commitment to
anything enduring except American security. U.S. security, of course, must be number one on any president's agenda.
And the disparity in power does justify a certain degree of unilateral leadership. In recent months, Bush has also, in small
ways, begun moderating his unilateralism. Faced with European outrage, he compromised on the ICC,
and for the Middle East, he created a "quartet" -- the EU, Russia, the UN, and the United States -- to
oversee the creation of a Palestinian state. But if Bush plays the war leader well, as a global leader he
still falls short, for Bush's stunted vision fails to recognize that U.S. security is now inextricably bound
up in global security and in strengthening the international community.
4. Alternate causes to deterioration of soft power – they can’t solve

Fukuyama ’02 (Francis Fukuyama is professor of international political economics at Johns Hopkins
University -- Courier Mail -- August 9th – lexis)
In my view, the idea of the West remains a coherent one, but there are some deeper differences emerging. There is by now
a familiar list of European complaints about American policy, including the Bush Administration's
withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, its failure to ratify the Rio Pact on biodiversity, its
withdrawal from the ABM treaty and pursuit of missile defence, its treatment of Al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo
Bay, its opposition to new provisions of the biological warfare convention, and most recently its opposition
to the International Criminal Court. THE most serious act of US unilateralism in European eyes concerns the
Bush Administration's announced intention to bring about regime change in Iraq. The US is scaring itself to death over
terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. A more realistic appraisal of future threats will raise the bar to pre-emption, while
keeping it in the arsenal. Second, the US needs to take some responsibility for global public bads, such as
carbon emissions. Finally, there should be a winding back of the steel and agricultural subsidy decisions taken earlier this
year. There can be no US leadership on any major issue related to the global economy in their wake. The US-European rift
that has emerged in 2002 is not just a transitory problem reflecting the style of the current US
Administration or the world situation after September 11. It is a reflection of differing views of the locus
of democratic legitimacy within a broader Western civilisation.
away.” 51
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #1 – NO SOFT POWER NOW

Bush has caused a loss in U.S. hegemony and soft power
Mideast Mirror 2008 (Mideast Mirror, January 9, 2008 Wednesday, A chorus of disapproval, LN
It has been many years since America has endured such a failed president, who has caused so much
damage to so many interests and values in such a short period of time. Think of the United States that
he inherited and the United States he is passing on to his successor. For the first time in a generation,
the United States is facing real threats to its global hegemony. American citizens are forced to conceal
their identity in many parts of the world. The U.S. economy is in poor shape and its global standing is at
an all-time low. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is rearing its head again, Iraq is crushed, nuclear-armed
Pakistan is about to descend into anarchy, Saudi Arabia is wavering, there is disquiet in Egypt, Russia is
returning to the days of the Cold War, China is gobbling up markets and growing at a dizzying pace, and
just this weekend, a handful of Iranian speedboats managed to spook three American warships before
returning safely to the port. And, of course, there's Osama Bin Laden, who survived Bush's eight-year
presidency without so much as a scratch and shows no signs of stopping. Finally, there's Hugo Chavez,
president of tiny Venezuela, who treats Bush like a retarded child and enjoys every minute of it.
Soft Power is deteriorating now

Nye ’04 (Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Dean of Harvard University’s JFK School of Government, The Decline of
America’s Soft Power, Foreign Affairs May/June 2004)
Anti-Americanism has increased in recent years, and the United States' soft power -- its ability to attract
others by the legitimacy of U.S. policies and the values that underlie them -- is in decline as a result.
According to Gallup International polls, pluralities in 29 countries say that Washington's policies have
had a negative effect on their view of the United States. A Eurobarometer poll found that a majority of
Europeans believes that Washington has hindered efforts to fight global poverty, protect the
environment, and maintain peace. Such attitudes undercut soft power, reducing the ability of the United
States to achieve its goals without resorting to coercion or payment.
away.” 52
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #2 – SOFT POWER FAILS

Soft power isn’t a concrete concept. Claims that it can be obtained or used
are flawed.
Blechman, 2005 (Barry M, founder and president of DFI International Inc., a research and consulting
company in Washington, DC (frequent consultant to the US Government),Winter 2004/ “Soft Power: The
Means to Success in World Politics,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, Iss 4; pg. 680-681, proquest)
Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics by Joseph S. Nye. New York, Public Affairs, 2004. 208 pp.
$25.00.
Joseph Nye has done his usual masterful job in this elegant monograph, describing the many sources of influence in international
relations and reminding readers that excessive reliance on military or economic instruments of policy can often trigger backlashes
that harm the nation's interests in the longer term. Nye points out that rather than either coercing others to share our objectives
or buying their agreement with economic incentives, it is better for the United States to get what it wants because others share
our goals. Soft power, he says, is more than influence or persuasion, "it is also the ability to attract, and attraction often leads to
acquiescence" (p. 6). Much of the book is devoted to descriptions of the sources of soft power in the United States and other
countries, including the nation's values and the styles of individual behavior expressed in the dominant culture and transmitted
through both commercial activities (Hollywood movies, for example) and personal contacts, and the nation's policies, particularly
when they reflect values that are widely shared around the world. Thus, Nye argues, the United States won the Cold War in part
because of the attractiveness of the American form of government and economy, and because American values, or American soft
power, eventually came to dominate global perceptions of the two superpowers and induced others to want to share in our vision
of the world. Although Nye makes a persuasive case, in the end, the book is unsatisfying because of
inherent limitations in the concept of soft power. It is a form of power, yes, but not an instrument of
power that can be deployed in specific situations or even one that can be shaped in a meaningful way
by the government. Soft power exists, and may be influenced by governmental choices, but it is more
an existential factor in the policy environment than something policy makers can utilize to
their advantage. A nation's "attractiveness" to others is not a factor that can be exploited
in any coherent way. Indeed, the chapter "Wielding Soft Power" is devoted solely to public diplomacy-the various means
available to the government to communicate the nation's policies and values. But in our interdependent and interactive world,
government-inspired communications of all types are only a tiny fraction of the information received by people around the world
about the United States. Even if the United States spent a more reasonable amount on its public diplomacy
than it does now, as Nye rightfully suggests, it's diplomacy would still be dwarfed by the private sources
of information in the United States and abroad, and by the huge volume of interactions among citizens of all nations
that take place independent of government actions or inactions
Soft power can’t shape international attitudes.

Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, Jan/Feb 2003, “Power,”
Foreign Policy, Iss. 134; pg. 18, 6 pgs, proquest
"The United States Exerts Influence Through Soft Power" Not really. Harvard political scientist Joseph S.
Nye Jr. coined the concept of "soft power"-the notion that nontraditional forces such as cultural and
commercial goods can exert influence in world affairs. And since so many of the world's largest
multinationals are of U.S. origin, some argue that the products they sell make American culture
attractive and are the key to the real power the United States wields. But the trouble with soft power is
that it's, well, soft. All over the Islamic world kids enjoy (or would like to enjoy) bottles of Coke, Big
Macs, CDs by Britney Spears and DVDS starring Tom Cruise. Do any of these things make them love the
United States more? Strangely not. Well, perhaps it is not so strange. In the 19th century, Great Britain
pioneered the use of soft power, though it projected its culture through the sermons of missionaries and
the commentaries in Anglophone newspapers. Yet it was precisely from the most Anglicized parts of the
indigenous populations of the British Empire that nationalist movements sprang. The archetype was the
Bengali babu-better able to quote William Shakespeare than the average expatriate Brit-who worked for
the British by day but plotted their overthrow by night. Antiglobalization protesters smashing
McDonald's windows while clad in Gap khakis and Nike trainers are today's version of the same Janus--
faced phenomenon.
away.” 53
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #3 – ONE POLICY CAN’T SOLVE

One action isn’t comprehensive enough to recover US soft power.
Kurlantzick 07 (Joshua, fellow at the USC School of Public Diplomacy and the Pacific Council on
International Policy and previous foreign editor at The New Republic, Charm Offensive, pg. 239-240)
None of this public diplomacy or formal diplomacy will matter, though, if the globe continues to detest
American policies. The world's anger will not be easily placated-it is more intense than anti-American
sentiment during the Vietnam War. But it can be addressed. It can be addressed, first of all, if
Washington reconsiders its opposition to multilateral institutions, an opposition that has fostered
perceptions of America as bully. This does not mean supporting a multilateral organization that seriously limits American
sovereignty. But the UN cultural treaty, the treaty on land mines, the International Criminal Court, and other institutions-
participating in these could help rehabilitate America's image. Washington should not only reengage with
multilateral organizations but also remind the world that the United States was the driving force behind
the modern international system- the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund. By creating and participating in these institutions after the Second World War, Washington demonstrated that
America would follow international law, According to Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, authors of America Unbound: The Bush
Revolution in Foreign Policy, ' m e hallmark of [Harry] Truman's foreign policy . . . was its blend of power and cooperation. Truman
was willing to exercise America's great power to remake world affairs, both to serve American interests and to advance American
values. However, he and his advisers calculated that U.S. power could more easily be sustained, with less chance of engendering
resentment, if it were embedded in multilateral institution~.''
Single policies can’t increase soft power

Barry M Blechman, founder and president of DFI International Inc., a research and consulting company
in Washington, DC (frequent consultant to the US Government),Winter 2004/2005 “Soft Power: The
Means to Success in World Politics,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, Iss 4; pg. 680-681)
Joe Nye is correct. Soft power contributes importantly to the nation's ability to achieve its goals in the
world. But I don't think Professor Nye would disagree that soft power also has its limitations. U.S.
attractiveness to others will never be shaped fundamentally by the government, nor can it be tapped
for use in particular situations. Nor will soft power be a dominant consideration in situations in which
there are real differences of interest and perspective. In these cases, harder forms of national strength
will continue to dominate policy choices.
away.” 54
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
EXT. #4 – ALT CAUSES TO HEG LOSS

Multiple alt causes: death penalty, gun control, ag subsidies, hypocrisy,
environmental stance
Power and American Foreign Policy,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, Iss.2; pg. 255, proquest
Some domestic policies, such as capital punishment and the absence of gun controls, reduce the
attractiveness of the United States to other countries but are the results of differences in values that
may persist for some time. Other policies, such as the refusal to limit gas-guzzling vehicles, damage the
American reputation because they appear self-indulgent and demonstrate an unwillingness to consider
the effects we are having on global climate change and other countries. Similarly, domestic agricultural
subsidies that are structured in a way that protects wealthy farmers while we preach the virtue of free
markets to poor countries appear hypocritical in the eyes of others. In a democracy, the "dog" of
domestic politics is often too large to be wagged by the tail of foreign policy, but when we ignore the
connections, our apparent hypocrisy is costly to our soft power.
Iraq War, security measures, and nonpartisan public diplomacy have

damaged our soft power
Joshua Kurlantzick, visiting scholar in the Carnegie Endowment’s China Program, Dec 2005, “The
Decline of American Soft Power,” Current History, Vol. 104, Iss. 686; pg. 419, proquest
The past four years have transformed this resentment into outright anger. The Iraq War in particular has
sharply reduced global acceptance of the legitimacy of America's role in the world-and a number of us
actions have aggravated this decline. For example, poorly conceived security measures launched in the
wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have made it much harder for many foreigners to
obtain American student, work, and tourist visas, or to apply for political asylum in the United States.
These changes have prompted questions about the idea of America as a land of opportunity and refuge.
The number of foreign visa applications to the United States, mostly for scholars, that were sent for extensive security review
grew twenty-fold between 2000 and 2003, even though the resources to conduct these reviews were not yet in place. Despite
diese problems, the Republican leadership of Congress and the White House have been unable to agree on a comprehensive
strategy to manage immigration and balance visa policies with homeland security. The White House also has made
further mistakes in public diplomacy, such as the growing politicization of Voice of America under an
increasingly partisan board of governors. Politicization has led to reports of VOA staffers being prodded
to promote rosy stories on the war in Iraq, stories that could compromise VOA'S position as a beacon of
accuracy and affect foreigners' perceptions of American freedoms and rule of law. The Bush administration has reportedly
imposed tighter restrictions on Foreign Service officers' contacts with journalists abroad, has struggled to complement the VOA with newer
broadcasting in the Middle East (the White House slashed VGA'S Arabic service), and has failed to develop a broader public diplomacy strategy to
communicate America's values, beyond short-term political campaign-style responses to global events. In fact, the Bush administration is already on
its third public diplomacy czar, White House confidante Karen Hughes, who recently embarked on a "listening tour" of the Middle East during which
she drew extensive and often critical coverage in the American media but only a limited response from locals.
US human rights policies have damaged its soft power.

Kurlantzick 07 (Joshua, fellow at the USC School of Public Diplomacy and the Pacific Council on
International Policy and previous foreign editor at The New Republic, Charm Offensive, pg. 190)
Worse than the White House's indifference toward economics, the excesses of the war on terror, like
abuses at Guantanamo Bay, undermined the attractiveness of American values, since that
attractiveness rested in part on perceptions of the United States as a humane and lawful actor-as
compared with, say, China. These excesses also undermined American attempts to promote democracy
and human rights abroad, since repressive nations could always turn the spotlight back on the White
House's own unattractive policies. "The treatment of prisoners at Guanthamo and in Iraq, and US
policies in other corners of the Muslim world . . . have all undercut US moral standing in the region:'
reported one panel of Asia experts.25
away.” 55
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
COMPETITIVENESS HIGH
US economic base strong—ensures competitiveness for years to come
U.S. military power is not the cause of its strength but the consequence. The fuel is the United States'
economic and technological base, which remains extremely strong. The United States does face larger,
deeper, and broader challenges than it has ever faced in its history, and it will undoubtedly lose some
share of global GDP. But the process will look nothing like Britain's slide in the twentieth century, when
the country lost the lead in innovation, energy, and entrepreneurship. The United States will remain a
vital, vibrant economy, at the forefront of the next revolutions in science, technology, and industry.
United States has the top amount of competitiveness despite national deficit
BBC 07 (BBC, 5/9/2007 US economy tops competitive table, http://news.bbc.co.uk)
The US economy has remained the world's most competitive, despite the country's soaring trade deficit.
The world's biggest economy topped the rankings of 55 nations compiled in the Swiss-based IMD World
Competitiveness Yearbook 2007. The study ranks nations by how well they create and maintain
conditions favorable to business. Project director Stephane Garelli said the US's position was supported
by the strength of its financial market and the ease with which venture capital for business
development could be secured. The upbeat assessment came despite recent record levels in the
nation's budget deficit.
US tech base strong—ensures competitiveness

In trying to understand how the United States will fare in the new world, the first thing to do is simply
look around: the future is already here. Over the last 20 years, globalization has been gaining breadth
and depth. More countries are making goods, communications technology has been leveling the playing
field, capital has been free to move across the world--and the United States has benefited massively
from these trends. Its economy has received hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, and its companies have entered
new countries and industries with great success. Despite two decades of a very expensive dollar, U.S. exports have held ground,
and the World Economic Forum currently ranks the United States as the world's most competitive economy. GDP growth, the
bottom line, has averaged lust over three percent in the United States for 25 years, significantly higher than in Europe or Japan.
Productivity growth, the elixir of modern economics, has been over 2.5 percent for a decade now, a full percentage point higher
than the European average. This superior growth trajectory might be petering out, and perhaps U.S. growth will be more typical
for an advanced industrialized country for the next few years. But the general point--that the United States is a highly
dynamic economy at the cutting edge, despite its enormous size--holds.
Consider the industries of the future. Nanotechnology (applied science dealing with the control of
matter at the atomic or molecular scale) is likely to lead to fundamental breakthroughs over the next 50
years, and the United States dominates the field. It has more dedicated "nanocenters" than the next three nations
(Germany, Britain, and China) combined and has issued more patents for nanotechnology than the rest of the world combined,
highlighting its unusual strength in turning abstract theory into practical products. Biotechnology (a broad category that
describes the use of biological systems to create medical, agricultural, and industrial products) is also
dominated by the United States. Biotech revenues in the United States approached $50 billion in 2005,
five times as large as the amount in Europe and representing 76 percent of global biotech revenues.
away.” 56
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
COMPETITIVENESS HIGH
Outsourcing increases US competitiveness
Manufacturing has, of course, been leaving the country, shifting to the developing world and turning the United
States into a service economy. This scares many Americans, who wonder what their country will make if everything
is "made in China." But Asian manufacturing must be viewed in the context of a global economy. The Atlantic
Monthly's James Fallows spent a year in China watching its manufacturing juggernaut up close, and he provides a
persuasive explanation of how outsourcing has strengthened U.S. competitiveness. What it comes down to is that
the real money is in designing and distributing products--which the United States dominates--rather than
manufacturing them. A vivid example of this is the iPod: it is manufactured mostly outside the United States, but
most of the added value is captured by Apple, in California.
Competitiveness is going up – recent increase in R&D grants

dBusiness News, 2008. (“Piedmont Triad Partnership Enhances Economic Competitiveness of Rural and
Underserved Populations through Transformation Grants.” July 7. dbusinessnews.com)
PIEDMONT TRIAD - The Piedmont Triad Partnership (PTP) has awarded five new grants under its Transformation
Grants program. The Transformation Grant program goals are to encourage, develop and implement innovation,
entrepreneurship, education and workforce development across the Piedmont Triad, and to ensure that such
opportunities are accessible to the Region’s rural communities and minority and underserved populations.
Transformation grants are funded through the U.S. Department of Labor’s Workforce Innovation in Regional
Economic Development (WIRED) grant, awarded to the PTP in 2006. The grant’s objective is to help transform the
Piedmont Triad’s economy by enhancing the Region’s global competitiveness.
It continues…
The total funding awarded by PTP through these five grants is more than $424,000. Including leveraged funds, the
total value of the five projects is well over $800,000. Theresa Reynolds, WIRED Project Manager, says, “these
transformation grants reflect our intent to foster replicable, sustainable programs that will enhance our economic
competitiveness, transform workforce delivery systems, and reflect new collaborations across the region.”
Reynolds adds “it is important for the region to focus on our rural, minority and underserved communities as we
seek to enhance our ability to compete in the global marketplace, to ensure no one is left behind.”
Competitiveness will skyrocket compared to other countries in the squo

MacDonald, 2008. (Larry, former economist who now manages his own portfolio and writes on
investment topics. He is the author of several business books, including corporate biographies of Nortel
and Bombardier. “China and India’s Growth Just Currency Related Issues?” July 8. seekingalpha.com)
Let’s explore an interesting development: the different inflation experiences of emerging countries and developed
countries. In case you haven’t noticed, inflation in emerging countries is higher, demand-pull in nature, and
advanced to the stage of a wage-price spiral; in developed countries, it is lower, cost-push in nature, and not
advanced to a wage-price spiral.
Does this have any significance? One ramification could possibly be the unwinding of the secular growth stories of
the emerging countries and a return to economic supremacy of the developed countries. It could also mean the
stock markets of the developed countries will be more rewarding places over the next decade or so compared to
the stock markets of emerging countries.
The cost-push inflation of developed countries is easier to resolve, I believe. It should ebb as long as central
bankers refrain from overly stimulative monetary policy -- thereby letting the deflationary forces of the stagflation
slow the economy to a non-inflationary path. And this is the course of action that the central banks appear to be
following (e.g. a rate hike by the European Central Bank, little increase in the narrowly defined U.S. money supply in
2008, etc).
Demand-pull inflation and wage-price spirals tend to be more stubborn. Taming them usually requires a substantial
tightening of monetary policy. A greater setback in growth could be the consequence for emerging economies.
away.” 57
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
COMPETITIVENESS HIGH – AT: CHINA

China’s growth is not sustainable – US competitiveness will still veil
MacDonald, 2008. (Larry, former economist who now manages his own portfolio and writes on
investment topics. He is the author of several business books, including corporate biographies of Nortel
and Bombardier. “China and India’s Growth Just Currency Related Issues?” July 8. seekingalpha.com)
All of which begs a few questions. Could emerging countries now be mismanaging their economies to
the extent they kill off their vaunted secular growth stories? They wouldn’t be the first to botch things:
in the 1980s, Japan was said to be on a path to overtake the U.S. but then it fell into a two-decade
deflationary period.
Like Japan in its heyday, China and India have been enhancing export competitiveness by maintaining
artificially low currency rates. Could their well-publicized growth trajectories similarly prove to be
chimeras? And could the U.S. and other developed countries once again emerge on top while providing
the better stock markets in which to invest over the next decade or so?
Competitiveness is up – were still ahead of China

The Standard, 2008. (“Maybe its time to say hola to Mexico.” July 9. www.thestandard.com)
The effects of the changing terms of trade can already be seen: American exports are up; container
volume at Yantian is down; and North American industries once thought dead are showing signs of new
life.
Trends such as continually declining Chinese costs and increasing competitiveness can no longer be
projected indefinitely into the future.
away.” 58
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
COMPETITIVENESS HIGH – AT: HEALTHCARE

The cost of healthcare does not doom competitiveness – reform is being
made in the squo
Teslik, 2008. (Lee Hudson, Associate Editor for the Council on Foreign Relations. “Healthcare costs and
US Competitiveness.” March 18. www.cfr.org)
It remains to be seen what sort of political tidal wave it would take to force an overhaul of the system,
but increased pressure from the business community has made the prospect of change increasingly
likely. “Now you’re hearing it from the marquee CEO crowd in private industry that we have to come up
with some comprehensive solution or they simply won’t be able to compete,” says John Sarbanes, the
U.S. representative from Maryland. GM’s G. Richard Wagoner, Jr., for instance, chastised legislators on
the need to find some “serious medicine” for the healthcare system. Testifying before the House Foreign
Affairs Committee in January, CFR’s Gene B. Sperling argued the United States needs a universal
healthcare plan to help its businesses keep up with competitors globally.
What many executives and politicians alike now recommend is an expanded public-private partnership.
Some countries, Rideout notes, feature top-down implementation and reimbursement programs. Britain,
for instance, has implemented a pay-per-performance program through which physicians can increase
their income by up to fifty thousand dollars a year by meeting government-regulated performance
standards. Sarbanes says both sides of the public-private partnership could save money if the
government provided more funding on the front end by “improving delivery models, broadening
coverage, and setting up clinics and preventative care.” Similarly, Rideout says the government can
implement programs to insure workers who do not receive coverage through their employers, footing an
up-front cost but reducing long-term strain on emergency care, the most expensive form of medical
care.
away.” 59
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
COMPETITIVENESS BRINK
Now is a key time to restore US competitiveness
IEEE-USA, 2007. (IEEE-USA's mission is to recommend policies to benefit the public in the United States
in appropriate professional areas of economic, ethical, legislative, social and technology policy concern.
“US Competitiveness: The Innovation Challenge.”
http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/issues/innovation/index.html
At the dawn of the 21st Century, America desperately needs a new national competitiveness strategy
that reflects the realities of the post-Cold War world. Today we face a new, more rough and tumble form
of global economic competition, especially in the science, engineering and technology based sectors
that have fueled U.S. prosperity since World War II. Competing successfully in this new global
environment is essential for our national and economic security and to ensure that the U.S. is able to
create high-value jobs and maintain a vital national engineering capability.
away.” 60
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
COMPETITIVENESS KEY TO ECONOMY

Competitiveness key to economic growth
Donofrio, 2005. (Nick, honorary doctorate in Science from U Warwick in the UK. “US Competitiveness: the
innovation challenge.” House science committee hearing. July 21.
www.ieeeusa.org/policy/reports/InnovationHearing0705.pdf)
A major factor in the accelerated growth of the American economy since 1995 has been increased productivity
resulting from the application of information technology to the improvement of business processes. The pace of
economic change in the US and elsewhere in the world is being driven by the convergence of three historic
developments: the growth of the Internet as the planet’s operational infrastructure; the adoption of open technical
standards that facilitate the production, distribution and management of new and better products and services; and
the widespread application of these technologies to the solution of ubiquitous business problems.
In an increasingly networked world, the choice for most companies and governments is between innovation or
commoditization. Winners can be innovators those with the capacity to invent, manage and leverage intellectual
capital or commodity players who differentiate through low price, economies of scale and efficient distribution of
someone else’s intellectual capital.
Competition is key to economic growth – four reasons

Kolasky, 2002. (William, law degree from Harvard, former prof of anti-trust law at American U, former
Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. “The Role of Competition in Promoting
Dynamic Markets and Economic Growth.” Hearing from the dept of Justice. www.justice.gov)
Competition has a positive impact, not only on the well being of consumers, but also on a country's economy as a
whole. Competition bolsters the productivity and international competitiveness of the business sector and promotes
dynamic markets and economic growth. I know I do not need to persuade an audience as sophisticated as this of the virtues
of competition. Michael Porter, who has studied the Japanese economy for years, has shown that the Japanese industries that are
most competitive internationally are those in which domestic rivalry is strongest.(4) During our bilateral yesterday, Commission
Shibata of the JFTC shared with me a recent study by our National Bureau of Economic Research showing how deregulation
contributed to the growth of the British economy over the last twenty years.(5) In the United States, we have found that
deregulation has reduced prices by as much as 30-75 percent in many key sectors as it forced those industries to restructure in
order to become more efficient.(6) Let me review very briefly some of the principal benefits of competition. The most obvious
benefit of competition is that it results in goods and services being provided to consumers at competitive prices. But
what people often forget is that producers are also consumers. They must buy raw materials and energy to produce their
products, telecommunications services to communicate with their suppliers and customers, computer equipment to keep track of
their inventories, construction services to build their plants and warehouses, and so forth. To the extent that prices for these
goods and services are higher than those of their foreign competitors because of a lack of competition in those markets, firms will
be less competitive and will suffer in the marketplace. A second benefit of competition is its effect on efficiency and
productivity. Companies that are faced with vigorous competition are continually pressed to become more efficient
and more productive. They know that their competitors are constantly seeking ways to reduce costs, in order to increase profits
or gain a competitive advantage. With that constant pressure, firms know that if they do not keep pace in making efficiency and
productivity improvements, they may well see their market position shrink, if not evaporate completely. It is exactly this process
of fierce competition between rivals that leads firms to strive to offer higher quality goods, better services and lower prices. A
third benefit of competition is its positive effects on innovation. In today's technology-driven world, innovation is crucial to
success. Innovation leads to new products and new production technologies. It allows new firms to enter into markets dominated
by incumbents, and is critical for incumbent firms who want to continue their previous market successes and stimulate consumer
demand for new products. Competition drives innovation. Without competition, there would be little pressure to introduce
new products or new production methods. Without this pressure, an economy will lag behind others as a center of
innovation and will lose international competitiveness. A fourth benefit of competition is that it fosters
restructuring in sectors that have lost competitiveness. It is difficult for governments to determine which sectors of the
economy need to be restructured, which firms in those sectors should remain or should cease to exist, and when it is best to
engage in such restructuring. Governments are subject to political constraints and pressures, which more often than not lead to
sub-optimal decisions. The competitive process, on the other hand, is unbiased. It forces decisions to be based on market factors,
such as demand, product uses, costs, technologies, rather than the incomplete information in the possession of government
bureaucrats. The competition for capital and other resources by firms throughout the economy leads to money and
resources flowing away from weak, uncompetitive sectors and firms and towards the strongest, most competitive
sectors, and to the strongest and most competitive firms within those sectors. In these ways, the very operation of
the competitive process makes decisions on restructuring clear, and leads to the strongest and most competitive
economy possible.
away.” 61
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COMPETITIVENESS KEY TO LEADERSHIP

US Competiveness is key to our leadership and national security
Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, 2005. (“The Knowledge Economy.” Feb 16.
http://www.futureofinnovation.org/PDF/Benchmarks.pdf)
It is essential that we act now; otherwise our global leadership will dwindle, and the talent pool required
to support our high-tech economy will evaporate. As a recent report by the Council on Competitiveness
recommends, to help address this situation the federal government should:
Increase significantly the research budgets of agencies that support basic research in the physical
sciences
and engineering, and complete the commitment to double the NSF budget. These increases should
strive to
ensure that the federal commitment of research to all federal agencies totals one percent of U.S. GDP.1
This is not just a question of economic progress. Not only do our economy and quality of life depend
critically on a vibrant R&D enterprise, but so too do our national and homeland security. As the Hart-
Rudman Commission on National Security stated in 2001:
…[T]he U.S. government has seriously underfunded basic scientific research in recent years… [T]he
inadequacies of our systems of research and education pose a greater threat to U.S. national security
over the next quarter century than any potential conventional war that we might imagine. American
national leadership must understand these deficiencies as threats to national security. If we do not
invest heavily and
wisely in rebuilding these two core strengths, America will be incapable of maintaining its global
position
long into the 21st century.2 In the post-9/11 era especially, we should heed this warning.
Competitiveness is key to soft power

Bih-jaw, 2004. (Lin, vice president of National Chengchi University and the director of the Institute of
International Relations at the school. Reforms come first in using soft power. May 31.
www.taipeitimes.com)
Some say soft power must be defined vaguely, but it is a simple concept that embraces all non-military
and non-punitive forces, including a nation's culture, political system, education, ideology, economic
perspective, competitiveness, technological creativity, transparency, outward investment and foreign
economic aid.
US soft power has often been examined in terms of that nation's successful political, economic and
higher educational systems as well as its technological innovation. But is soft power only for major
powers? Not necessarily. Research has revealed that the former Soviet Union and today's Singapore
have both successfully used soft power. Appropriate planning allows any country, regardless of size or
ideology, to usefully employ this strategy.
Competitiveness key to global leadership

Emerald, 1993. (Book Abstract: Competitiveness and global leadership. http://emeraldinsight.com)
With the end of the cold war two major developments in the world have taken place. First, regional
trade pacts and alliances have taken on added value as a mechanism for economic growth and
prosperity (e.g., North America Free Trade Agreement, European Unity, etc.). Second, the patterns of
competition on a worldwide basis are changing more rapidly than ever. Along with these developments,
a new understanding of global leadership has emerged. Global leadership is no longer measured solely
by military strength. Indeed, commitment to the military and defense industry may be a burden
inconsistent with maintaining a nation's competitive position in the global marketplace. This study is
designed to address the economic competitiveness of the U.S., Germany, and Japan and their
away.” 62
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
leadership position in world markets.
away.” 63
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COMPETITIVENESS SOLVES DISEASE

Competitiveness leads to R&D
Dep’t of Education, 2006. (“The American Competitiveness Initiative: Encouraging Innovation.” April.
www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/innovation.html)
Today, President Bush Discussed His American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI)—A Comprehensive
Strategy To Keep Our Nation The Most Innovative In The World. As the President outlined in his State of
the Union Address, the ACI commits $5.9 billion in FY 2007 and more than $136 billion over 10 years to
increase investments in research and development (R&D), strengthen education, and encourage
entrepreneurship and innovation.
R & D solves disease

Nordisk 08 (Novo Nordisk, April 28th 2008, Novo Nordisk, Health Care Company, Novo Nordisk donation
aids Chinese pharmaceutical development and who efforts to combat neglected disease,
novonordisk.com)
The World Health Organization-based Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases
(TDR) will select targets and screens to support the identification of new drug candidates or leads for
infectious tropical diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, African sleeping sickness, dengue, Chagas
disease, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, filariasis, onchocerciasis and soil-transmitted helminths. It will
also bring in young scientists from developing countries, especially Africa, to be trained at the institute.
Dr Robert Ridley, director of TDR, says, "This collaboration is part of an innovative drug discovery model
that involves developing and developed country scientists and partners. We hope that with this
collaboration, the prospects for new drugs for infectious tropical diseases and capacity
development for innovation in developing countries will be further enhanced."
Disease leads to extinction

Steinbruner, 1997. (“Biological Weapons: A Plague Upon All House.” Winter. Proquest)
Although human pathogens are often lumped with nuclear explosives and lethal chemicals as potential
weapons of mass destruction, there is an obvious, fundamentally important difference: Pathogens are
alive, weapons are not. Nuclear and chemical weapons do not reproduce themselves and do not
independently engage in adaptive behavior; pathogens do both of these things.
That deceptively simple observation has immense implications. The use of a manufactured weapon is a
singular event. Most of the damage occurs immediately. The aftereffects, whatever they may be, decay
rapidly over time and distance in a reasonably predictable manner. Even before a nuclear warhead is
detonated, for instance, it is possible to estimate the extent of the subsequent damage and the likely
level of radioactive fallout. Such predictability is an essential component for tactical military planning.
The use of a pathogen, by contrast, is an extended process whose scope and timing cannot be precisely
controlled. For most potential biological agents, the predominant drawback is that they would not act
swiftly or decisively enough to be an effective weapon. But for a few pathogens - ones most likely to
have a decisive effect and therefore the ones most likely to be contemplated for deliberately hostile use
- the risk runs in the other direction. A lethal pathogen that could efficiently spread from one victim to
another would be capable of initiating an intensifying cascade of disease that might ultimately threaten
the entire world population. The 1918 influenza epidemic demonstrated the potential for a global
contagion of this sort but not necessarily its outer limit.
away.” 64
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COMPETITIVENESS SOLVES AIDS

a. Competitiveness leads to R&D
Dep’t of Education, 2006. (“The American Competitiveness Initiative: Encouraging Innovation.” April.
www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/innovation.html)
Today, President Bush Discussed His American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI)—A Comprehensive Strategy To Keep
Our Nation The Most Innovative In The World. As the President outlined in his State of the Union Address, the ACI
commits $5.9 billion in FY 2007 and more than $136 billion over 10 years to increase investments in research and
development (R&D), strengthen education, and encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.
b. R&D solves AIDS
IDSA 07 (Infectious Diseases Society of America, 2007, , Medical association that represents health
professionals, Product Research & Development: AIDS Specific, https://www.idsociety.org)
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a devastating disease that is ravaging individuals and
communities worldwide. The search for a cure must be the world health community's highest priority. Accelerated
research into new treatments and vaccine candidates is imperative if we are to succeed in developing these
products and ending this scourge.
c. AIDS causes extinction
Souden, 2000 (David, Research Fellow of Emmanuel College, Autumn, Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd.
Project, http://darrendixon.supanet.com/killerdiseases.htm)
AIDS is the number one killer virus and has the potential to cripple the human race. Its effects are at their starkest
in many of the poorest parts of Africa, where poverty means that drugs to control infection are not available and a
lack of effective sex education hastens its spread. The UN conference on AIDS in Africa, held in July 2000,
highlighted the bleak future for many African countries, with extremely low life expectancies, the varying degrees
of success in dealing with the problem, and the potential loss of a whole generation. Few were hopeful, and some
predicted chaos and war in the wake of AIDS. Nature's ability to adapt is amazing - but the consequences of that
adaptation are that mutations of old diseases, we thought were long gone, may come back to haunt us. But of all
these new and old diseases, AIDS poses the greatest threat. It has the capacity to mutate and evolve into new
forms, and the treatments that are being developed have to take account of that. Yet the recent history of life-
threatening and lethal diseases suggests that even if we conquer this disease, and all the others described here,
there may be yet another dangerous micro-organism waiting in the wings. The golden age of conquering disease
may be drawing to an end. Modern life, particularly increased mobility, is facilitating the spread of viruses. In fact,
some experts believe it will be a virus that leads to the eventual extinction of the human race.
( ) R&D leads to major medical attention on HIV/AIDS panademic

CRDF 08 (U.S. Civilian Research & Development Foundation, 2008, organization that promotes international
scientific and technical collaboration, HIV/AIDS Research Public Health Center of Excellence Grant Competition,
http://www.crdf.org/funding/funding_show.htm? doc_id=507171)
The U.S. Civilian Research & Development Foundation (CRDF), together with the Russian Federal Agency for Science
and Innovation (FASI), was pleased to announced a new grant competition that will support the creation of two
HIV/AIDS Research Public Health Centers of Excellence (PHCE) through the development of comprehensive research
and education initiatives. This program provides up to two years of support toward research performed jointly
among multiple Russian organizations working together with U.S. partner organizations. Applicants are invited to
propose research topics that match their capacities and interests; however, the topics require researchers from
multiple disciplines to work together jointly on:
* Incidence/prevalence in HIV/AIDS and related infections;
* Studies of adherence to HIV/AIDS treatment;
* Transmission dynamics in HIV/AIDS and related infections;
* Clinical progression of HIV/AIDS; and
* Monitoring and evaluation of prevention and treatment programs for HIV/AIDS and related infections.
away.” 65
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COMPETITIVENESS SOLVES FOOD STABILITY/FAMINE

( ) a. International Competitiveness leads to better food safety
Spriggs and Issac in 01 (John and Grant, 2001, Food Safety and International Competitiveness, Google
Scholar)
What is particularly special about this new era is that, running alongside this food safety dynamic, has
been an unprecedented interest in the globalization of trade. The advent of the computer age and the
information age, along with the growth of new arrangements to facilitate international trade have led to
a drive between countries to be internationally competitive. It is only natural that food safety would
become an important dimension of this drive for international competitiveness. Thus, even countries
that had no strong domestic reason to improve their food safety, had an international imperative to do
so- if they wanted to gain and maintain access to international markets. It is drawing out this link
between food safety and international competitiveness that underlies this book.
b. Starvation is worse than extinction

LaFollette, 2003. (Hugh, Chair in Ethics, University of South Florida St. Petersburg. “World Hunger.”
http://www.stpt.usf.edu/hhl/papers/World.Hunger.htm)
Those who claim the relatively affluent have this strong obligation must, among other things, show why
Hardin's projections are either morally irrelevant or mistaken. A hearty few take the former tack: they
claim we have a strong obligation to aid the starving even if we would eventually become malnourished.
On this view, to survive on lifeboat earth, knowing that others were tossed overboard into the sea of
starvation, would signify an indignity and callousness worse than extinction (Watson 1977). It would be
morally preferable to die struggling to create a decent life for all than to continue to live at the expense
of the starving. However, most who think we ought to feed the starving will claim, or imply, that if
feeding the starving had the terrible consequences Hardin predicts, then we should not feed them
(Singer 1977/1972: 34). Therefore, most who reject Hardin’s neo-Malthusianism must show that the
projected consequences are at least implausible, if not demonstrably wrong. To set the stage for
showing that Hardin’s views are wrong, I must first describe the developmental alternative.
( ) Competitiveness solves food stability by preventing crop disease

McCandless 08 (Linda McCandless, April 2nd 2008, Cornell, Director of Com, Cornell University to lead
broad global partnership to combat wheat rust disease and protect resource-poor farmers,
www.wheatrust.cornell.edu)
“The rust pathogens recognize no political boundaries and their spores need no passport to travel
thousands of miles in the jet streams. Containing these deadly enemies of the wheat crop requires alert
and active scientists, strong international research networks, and effective seed supply programs,” said
the 94-year-old Borlaug, who is credited with bringing radical change to world agriculture and saving
hundreds of millions of lives. “The new Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project led by Cornell
University is a critical component in building an effective research and development responses to the
current stem rust threat, and can help avert a global rust pandemic that can rob tens of millions of tons
from production.” Wheat is among the world’s most important primary staple food crops, representing
approximately 30 percent of the world’s production of grain crops. In the last year, global wheat stocks
have plummeted and the price for wheat quadrupled.
away.” 66
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COMPETITIVENESS DOWN NOW

U.S. global competitiveness is down and will continue to drop.
Thornton ’08 (Philip Thornton, July 9, 2008, Economics Correspondent, "US slides down competition
league". The Independent (London), http://findarticles.com)
The United States has lost its top slot in a global ranking of economic competitiveness published
yesterday because of mounting concern among businesses over its budget deficit and crumbling faith in
its institutions. The world's largest economy fell from first to sixth place in the World Economic Forum's
annual survey that is based on interviews with 11,000 business leaders. The harsh verdict comes a
week after the International Monetary Fund highlighted a US slowdown as the biggest threat to the
world economy. The UK has slipped one place to 10th as one in five of the business leaders polled said
that Britain had an "inadequately educated" workforce. In its annual assessment of the competitiveness
of 125 countries, the WEF said a number of weaknesses in the US, particularly related to
macroeconomic imbalances and the institutional environment, were beginning to "erode the country's
overall competitiveness potential". Augusto Lopez-Claros, the chief economist and head of the WEF's
global competitiveness network, said the US would remain one of the most competitive economies in
the world for the "foreseeable future". But he warned: "With potentially open-ended expenditure
commitments linked to defense and homeland security, ongoing plans to lower taxes further, as well as
other longer-term potential claims on the budget, the prospects for sustained fiscal adjustment seem
not too bright." He said the low savings rate in the US and the country's record current account deficit
posed a "non-negligible risk" to its overall competitiveness and the future of the global economy itself,
given the relative size of the US. Mr Lopez-Claros said the quality of the country's public institutions
had fallen "somewhat short of the levels of transparency and efficiency" seen in other members of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development club of rich nations. He said that, without
redress, such worries "could allow other countries in a highly competitive global economy to challenge
the US's privileged position". It ranked just 69th out of 125 in terms of the basic health of its economy,
with its health and primary education ranked 40th and the quality of its institutions 27th.
US competitiveness is doomed – China is already surpassing our economic

leadership
Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. (Research News and Publications. “Study shows China as World
Techonology Leader.” Jan 28. http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=1682)
A new study of worldwide technological competitiveness suggests China may soon rival the United
States as the principal driver of the world’s economy – a position the U.S. has held since the end of
World War II. If that happens, it will mark the first time in nearly a century that two nations have
competed for leadership as equals.
The study’s indicators predict that China will soon pass the United States in the critical ability to develop
basic science and technology, turn those developments into products and services – and then market
them to the world. Though China is often seen as just a low-cost producer of manufactured goods, the
new “High Tech Indicators” study done by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology clearly
shows that the Asian powerhouse has much bigger aspirations.
“For the first time in nearly a century, we see leadership in basic research and the economic ability to
pursue the benefits of that research – to create and market products based on research – in more than
one place on the planet,” said Nils Newman, co-author of the National Science Foundation-supported
study. “Since World War II, the United States has been the main driver of the global economy. Now we
have a situation in which technology products are going to be appearing in the marketplace that were
not developed or commercialized here. We won’t have had any involvement with them and may not
even know they are coming.”
away.” 67
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
COMPETITVENESS DOWN NOW

Competitiveness is doomed by the cost of health care
Teslik, 2008. (Lee Hudson, Associate Editor for the Council on Foreign Relations. “Healthcare costs and
US Competitiveness.” March 18. www.cfr.org)
Employer-funded coverage is the structural mainstay of the U.S. health insurance system. According to
2005 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the most recent official data available, employer-provided
health benefits cover 175 million Americans, or about 60 percent of the population. Those numbers
have fallen since 2001, when 65 percent of the country had some form of employer coverage, based on
data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit focused on healthcare issues. Premiums have
skyrocketed, rising 87 percent since 2000. In 2004, health coverage became the most expensive benefit
paid by U.S. employers, according to a report by the Employment Policy Foundation.
These ballooning dollar figures place a heavy burden on companies doing business in the United States
and can put them at a substantial competitive disadvantage in the international marketplace. For large
multinational corporations like General Motors, which covers more than 1.1 million employees and
former employees, footing healthcare costs presents an enormous expense—the company says it spent
roughly $5.6 billion on healthcare expenses in 2006. GM says healthcare costs alone add $1,500 to the
sticker price of every automobile it makes, and estimates that by 2008 that number could reach $2,000.
It is difficult to quantify the precise effect high healthcare costs have had so far on the U.S. job market.
Healthcare is one of several factors—entrenched union contracts are another—that make doing
business in the United States expensive and it’s difficult to parse the effects of each factor. Moreover,
economists disagree on the number of U.S. jobs that have been lost to offshoring—the transfer of
business operations across national boundaries to friendlier operating environments. The Princeton
economist Alan S. Blinder, in a 2006 Foreign Affairs article, says that judging by data compiled from
“fragmentary studies,” it is apparent that “under a million service-sector jobs in the United States have
been lost to offshoring to date.” Blinder goes on to predict that somewhere between 28 million and 42
million U.S. jobs are “susceptible” to offshoring in a future where technology allows the more efficient
transfer of jobs. Many other economists, however, have shied away from making such estimates, and
some have criticized Blinder’s approach.
It is clear, however, that healthcare expenses affect every level of U.S. industry. For large corporations
they mean the massive “legacy costs” associated with insuring retired employees. For small business
owners they can be even more devastating. “In many places, you have small businesses that simply
cannot afford to offer coverage,” Sarbanes says. Often, he says, healthcare expenses make it
impossible for small business owners to hire candidates they would otherwise desire.
away.” 68
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COMPETITIVENESS DOWN NOW (CHINA)

Competiteness is tanked – China is innovating at a way faster rate than we
are
Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. (Research News and Publications. “Study shows China as World
Techonology Leader.” Jan 28. http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=1682)
China’s emphasis on training scientists and engineers – who conduct the research needed to maintain
technological competitiveness – suggests it will continue to grow its ability to innovate. In the United
States, the training of scientists and engineers has lagged, and post-9/11 immigration barriers have
kept out international scholars who could help fill the gap.
“For scientists and engineers, China now has less than half as many as we do, but they have a lot of
growing room,” noted Newman. “It would be difficult for the United States to get much better in this
area, and it would be very easy for us to get worse. It would be very easy for the Chinese to get better
because they have more room to maneuver.”
China is becoming a leader in research and development, Porter noted. For instance, China now leads
the world in publications on nanotechnology, though U.S. papers still receive more citations.
On the input indicators calculated for 2007, China lags behind the United States. In “national
orientation,” China won a score of 62.6, compared to 78.0 for the United States. In “socioeconomic
infrastructure,” China rated 61.2, compared to 87.9 for the United States. In the other two factors, China
also was behind the U.S., 60.0 versus 95.5 for “technological infrastructure” and 85.2 versus 93.4 for
“productive capacity.”
China has been dramatically improving its input scores, which portends even stronger technological
competitiveness in the future.
“It’s like being 40 years old and playing basketball against a competitor who’s only 12 years old – but is
already at your height,” Newman said. “You are a little better right now and have more experience, but
you’re not going to squeeze much more performance out. The future clearly doesn’t look good for the
United States.”
China Outranks US in International Competitiveness

Chen in 08 (Stephan, January 26, 2008, South China Morning Post News Pg 7, China Outranks US in
study of hi-tech Competitiveness LexisNexis)
A study of technological competitiveness by a research institute in the US has given China - often
regarded as a low-tech, low-cost manufacturing centre - its highest ranking to date. The study, which
has been compiled by the Georgia Institute of Technology for the past 20 years and covers 33
countries, gave China a rating of 82.8 last year. The US stood at 76.1, Germany 66.8, and Japan 66.
Just 11 years ago, China's score was only 22.5. The US peaked in 1999 with a score of 95.4. The
scores are scaled from 0 to 100. The figures, indicating each nation's recent success in exporting hi-
tech products, were determined by four factors: orientation towards technological competitiveness,
socioeconomic infrastructure, technological infrastructure, and productive capacity. Each of the factors
was judged on the basis of statistical data and expert opinion. China trailed the US by only $100US million in the value of
technological products exported, according to the study, which has been funded by the US National Science Foundation since
the mid-1980s. China would also soon pass the US in that measure of technological leadership, the
study's co-author, Nils Newman, said in a press release. "For the first time in nearly a century, we see
leadership in basic research and the economic ability to pursue the benefits of that research ... in
more than one place on the planet," Dr Newman said. "Since World War II, the United States has been the main
driver of the global economy. "Now we have a situation in which technology products are going to be appearing in the
marketplace that were not developed or commercialised here. We won't have any involvement with them, and may not even
know they are coming." However, at The Hague on Thursday, a senior Beijing science and technology official described the
status of innovation on the mainland as "low" and lacking in originality. Zhang Weixing, vice-director general of the Ministry of
Science and Technology's Torch Hi-Tech Industrial Development Centre, acknowledged the nation's backwardness at a
conference hosted by the European Patent Office, Xinhua reported. Mainland industry, now suffering from low research and
development investment, was lacking expertise in some key hi-tech fields and was highly dependent on foreign input, Mr
Zhang said.
away.” 69
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
away.” 70
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
COMPETITIVENESS HURTS ECON GROWTH

The doctrine of competitiveness is flawed – focus on competitiveness
empirically leads to economic mismanagement
Krugman in 94 (Paul, A., Professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
02139, March/April 1994, Foreign Affairs Volume 73 Number 2, http://fullaccess.foreignaffairs.org/)
The view that nations compete against each other like big corporations has become pervasive among Western
elites, many of whom are in the Clinton administration. As a practical matter, however, the doctrine of
competitiveness is flatly wrong. The world’s leading nations are not, to any important degree, in economic
competition with each other. Nor can their major economic woes be attributed to losing on world markets. This is
particularly true in the case of the United States. Yet Clinton’s theorists of competitiveness, from Laura D. Andrea
Tyson to Robert Reich to Ira Magaziner, make seemingly sophisticated arguments, most of which are supported by
careless arithmetic and sloppy research. Competitiveness is a seductive idea, promising easy answers to complex
problems. But the result of this obsession is misallocated resources, trade frictions and bad domestic economic
policies.
Competitiveness leads to poor policymaking

Krugman in 94 (Paul, A., Professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
02139, March/April 1994, Foreign Affairs Volume 73 Number 2, http://fullaccess.foreignaffairs.org/)
Perhaps the most serious risk from the obsession with competitiveness, however, is its subtle indirect effect on the
quality of economic discussion and policymaking. If top government officials are strongly committed to a particular
economic doctrine, their commitment inevitably sets the tone for policy-making on all issues, even those which
may seem to have nothing to do with that doctrine. And if an economic doctrine is flatly, completely and demonstrably wrong, the
insistence that discussion adhere to that doctrine inevitably blurs the focus and diminishes the quality of policy discussion across a broad range of
issues, including some that are very far from trade policy per se.
Consider, for example, the issue of health care reform, undoubtedly the most important economic initiative of the
Clinton administration, almost surely an order of magnitude more important to U.S. living standards than anything that might be done about
trade policy (unless the United States provokes a full-blown trade war). Since health care is an issue with few direct international linkages, one might
have expected it to be largely insulated from any distortions of policy resulting from misguided concerns about competitiveness.
But the administration placed the development of the health care plan in the hands of Ira Magaziner, the same
Magaziner who so conspicuously failed to do his homework in arguing for government promotion of high value-
added industries. Magaziner's prior writings and consulting on economic policy focused almost entirely on the issue
of international competition, his views on which may be summarized by the title of his 1990 book, The Silent War. His appointment reflected
many factors, of course, not least his long personal friendship with the first couple. Still, it was not irrelevant that in an administration
committed to the ideology of competitiveness Magaziner, who has consistently recommended that national industrial policies be based on the
corporate strategy concepts he learned during his years at the Boston Consulting Group, was regarded as an economic policy expert.
We might also note the unusual process by which the health care reform was developed. In spite of the huge size of
the task force, recognized experts in the health care field were almost completely absent, notably though not exclusively
economists specializing in health care, including economists with impeccable liberal credentials like Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution. Again,
this may have reflected a number of factors, but it is probably not irrelevant that anyone who, like Magaziner, is strongly committed
to the ideology of competitiveness is bound to have found professional economists notably unsympathetic in the
past, and to be unwilling to deal with them on any other issue.
To make a harsh but not entirely unjustified analogy, a government wedded to the ideology of competitiveness is as unlikely to
make good economic policy as a government committed to creationism is to make good science policy, even in areas
that have no direct relationship to the theory of evolution.
Competitiveness leads to unemployment

Boltho 96 (Andrea Boltho, Autumn 1996, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol.12, No. 3, “The Assessment:
International Competitiveness”, http://oxrep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/12/3/1)
More importantly, at least from a European perspective, is a further and different danger. In a world of less than full
employment, improving national competitiveness (e.g. by cutting nominal wages or by engineering a depreciation
of the currency) would raise the production of domestic tradables and hence the level of employment. Beggar-thy-
neighbor policies of this kind, however, invite retaliation and their ultimate result is likely to be not a zero- but a
negative-sum game. Trying to reduce nominal wages in every country would lead to higher unemployment all
round, without anyone’s competitiveness having improved, while tit-for-tat depreciations would similarly leave real
exchange rates unchanged, but in this case result in generalized inflation as a consequence of easier monetary
policies.
away.” 71
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
COMPETITIVENESS  TRADE WARS

Competitiveness causes global trade wars
Krugman in 94 (Paul Krugmen, New York Times Economist, March/April of 1994, Foreign Affairs,
“Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession”, http://fullaccess.foreignaffairs.org/19940301faessay5094-
p10/paul-krugman/competitiveness-a-dangerous-obsession.html)
A much more serious risk is that the obsession with competitiveness will lead to trade conflict, perhaps
even to a world trade war. Most of those who have preached the doctrine of competitiveness have not
been old-fashioned protectionists. They want their countries to win the global trade game, not drop out.
But what if, despite its best efforts, a country does not seem to be winning, or lacks confidence that it
can? Then the competitive diagnosis inevitably suggests that to close the borders is better than to risk
having foreigners take away high-wage jobs and high-value sectors. At the very least, the focus on the
supposedly competitive nature of international economic relations greases the rails for those who want
confrontational if not frankly protectionist policies
away.” 72
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
ECONOMIC COLLAPSE  EXTINCTION

Economic collapse leads to extinction
Bearden, 2000. (Director, Association of Distinguished American Scientists, 00 “The Unnecessary
Energy Crisis: How to Solve it Quickly,” June 24, http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisis-Bearden.htm)
History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse,
the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where
the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost
certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South
Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose long range nuclear
missiles can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such
scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly.
Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched,
adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real
legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance
a nation has to survive at all, is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly
and massively as possible.
As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs, with a great percent of the WMD
arsenals being unleashed . The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and
perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.
The Impact is global nuclear war

Chris Lewis, 1998
Most critics would argue, probably correctly, that instead of allowing underdeveloped countries to
withdraw from the global economy and undermine the economies of the developed world, the United
State, Europe, and Japan and others will fight neocolonial wars to force these countries to remain within
this collapsing global economy. These neocolonial wars will result in mass death, suffering and even
regional nuclear wars. If First World countries choose military confrontation and political repression to
maintain the global economy, then we may see mass death and genocide on a global scale that will
make the death of World War II pale in comparison.
Economic collapse leads to global wars

Mead, 1998. (Walter Russell, . “Markets Biggest Threat to Peace.” August 23. LA Times. Elibrary
elementary)
Forget suicide car bombers and Afghan fanatics. It's the financial markets, not the terrorist training
camps that pose the biggest immediate threat to world peace.
How can this be? Think about the mother of all global meltdowns: the Great Depression that started in
1929. U.S. stocks began to collapse in October, staged a rally, then the market headed south big time.
At the
bottom, the Dow Jones industrial average had lost 90% of its value. Wages plummeted, thousands of
banks and brokerages went bankrupt, millions of people lost their jobs. There were similar horror stories
worldwide.
But the biggest impact of the Depression on the United States--and on world history--wasn't money. It
was blood: World War II, to be exact. The Depression brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany,
undermined the
ability of moderates to oppose Joseph Stalin's power in Russia, and convinced the Japanese military that
the country had no choice but to build an Asian empire, even if that meant war with the United States
and Britain.
That's the thing about depressions. They aren't just bad for your 401(k). Let the world economy crash
far enough, and the rules change. We stop playing "The Price is Right" and start up a new round of
"Saving Private Ryan."
away.” 73
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
AT: SAFEGAURDS PREVENT COLLAPSE

Safeguards put in place after the depression have been repealed
Schoon, 2008. (Darryl, economist and author, focusses on the depression. “The Great Depression of
the 2010s.” http://www.321gold.com/editorials/schoon/schoon050608.html)
The collapse of financial markets in the first Great Depression led to the US Congress to enact laws that
would hopefully insure that such a collapse would never again happen. To that end, in 1933 the Glass-
Steagall Act was passed by Congress and signed into law.
Acknowledging the role that investment banks had played in the Great Depression, the passage of the
Glass-Steagall Act in 1933 separated investment banking and commercial banking to insure that
investment bank speculation would not again destabilize commercial banks as it did during the Great
Depression leading to the loss of America's savings.
What bankers hath joined together let no man put asunder
However, in 1999, the US Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and America was once again
vulnerable to the highly leveraged shenanigans of Wall Street. This time, however, it was not only the
US but the entire world whose futures were to be bet and lost by Wall Street gamblers.
The globalization of financial markets had spread the dangers of US investment banking to banks,
insurance companies, and pension funds around the world. Now, the savings of Europe and Asia as well
as the US were to be impacted by the wagers of Wall Street who in the 2000s literally bet the house on
the possibility that subprime CDOs were actually worth their AAA ratings.
Glass-Steagall, the law enacted in1933 to prevent another Great Depression was repealed at the behest
of bankers. While it is true that at certain times the US government will act in the best interest of
society, usually (and usually in the guise of so doing) the US government is the pawn of the special
interests that benefit from the trough of government largesse and regulation. The repealing of the
Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 was therefore a reversion to the mean.
We are today in the initial stages of another collapse that will lead to another Great Depression. The
safeguards put in place to prevent such from happening were not only disassembled in 1999; but, now
in 2008, the US government has moved even closer to exposing its citizenry and indeed the world to the
speculative carnage and folly of investment banking excess.
away.” 74
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
ECONOMIC COLLAPSE COMING

It doesn’t matter what we do- the economy is doomed anyway
Hielema in 08 (Bert Hielema, Jun 11, 2008, Belleville Intelligencer, Editorialist, “All the signs are coming clear and worse, peak
oil is near” http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/search/newssubmitForm.do)
.While scanning my old columns, I also saw that I had predicted the housing horror in the USA some
four years before it hit: another nail in the capitalistic coffin. It now looks more and more likely, as I
predicted last March that the US economy will collapse in September, a mere three months from now.
When in panic, start a war. Bomb Iran. I am afraid that this will be the Bush response. And panic it is.
The stock market lost some 400 points last Friday, while oil jumped to $138 per barrel.
Already we see chain stores closing, credit tightening, economic conditions worsening. The American
government is broke, so the administration proposes to cut taxes. The people are broke(r). Cutting
taxes for the rich started this race toward economic disaster, that and the two wars the USA is
fighting and losing, while making moves to start a third.
Thanks to the USA the world is in a real pickle. Oil will only go up, tightening the noose around the
consumer’s neck even more. The majority of Americans, having lost their home equity, are now
maxing out their credit cards paying 20 percent interest in the process-just to get food on the table.
Bye-bye cheap travel. It costs Air Canada $70,000 for a fill up to fly to London, or $200 per person
with a full load. This cannot last. Tens of thousands of air-line jobs will disappear, and even more in
the automotive industry.
With high and higher oil prices, utility bills will go unpaid, cutting off thousands of households from
electricity and heating. With high and higher oil prices, foreclosures will dramatically increase, while
house prices collapse even more and jobs there disappear by the thousands.
Global warming too is in high gear, with floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornados, killing and drowning
people and livestock, destroying precious properties, causing escalating insurance rates and
stretching public finances to the breaking point, making higher property taxes inevitable.
Combine all this with ever rising inflation, and ever more depressed real estate values -- I am talking
USA all the time--- and the word depression is perhaps a euphemism. Now also the corn belt in Iowa
and Illinois is receiving pelting rain, destroying the crops that were supposed to provide the world
with food and the USA with export money. Corn is used in practically every prepared food item. Both it
and wheat, another export item, doubled in price in the past year, because we burn them to fuel cars:
resulting in famine everywhere. Our gods are killing us.
The US and the world economy will collapse in the squo

Shann in 07 (Ed Shann, October 13, 2007, Herald Sun, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/search/newssubmitForm.do)
IT IS wrong to conclude that the share market rebound means there will be no major fallout from the
US credit market meltdown.
There will be more casualties from the US sub-prime borrowing problems and the real economy will
only respond with a lag to the jump in lending risk premium.The market is assuming the best, but we
will not know the actual outcome for some time.
The equity market has concluded all is well because US employment and activity did not immediately
collapse.
However, the US economy will slow gradually. Higher risk margins will slow activity with a lag and
there is more pain to come in housing.
Once the US slows there will be a further lag before slowing US growth hits Chinese exports and
investment. China's exports are 40 per cent of its output and it would not escape unharmed if the US
slows substantially. The rest of Asia depends on rapid US and Chinese growth and would also slow.
away.” 75
SDI 2008 ___ / ___
ECON COLLAPSE IMPACT DEFENSE

Safeguards prevent a depression
Atlanta Journal Constitution, November 17th 2002
In place now are regulatory agencies, stock market safeguards and social safety nets that did not exist
in the 1930s to cushion the Depression's impact. They exist now because of what happened in the '30s.
No one says "it can't happen again," but most strategists believe another depression is improbable.
"If you look at the world economy, at stock valuations and earnings, the chances we will continue to
spiral down as in the 1930s are pretty slim," says SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Gary Tapp. "The
government isn't likely to make the major policy mistakes that we had then."
Different Fed strategy
This time, the Federal Reserve has gone to the opposite extreme from its policies during a comparable
period of the 1930s. It has lowered interest rates a dozen times over two years and increased the
money supply to stimulate the sluggish economy. In the '30s, the conventional wisdom held that
government intervention was not necessary to right a weak economy.
An economic depression does not cause war

Lloyd deMause, director of The Institute for Psychohistory, “Nuclear War as an Anti-Sexual Group
Fantasy” Updated December 18th 2002, http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/ja/nucsex.htm
The nation "turns inward" during this depressed phase of the cycle. Empirical studies have clearly
demonstrated that major economic downswings are accompanied by "introverted" foreign policy moods,
characterized by fewer armed expeditions, less interest in foreign affairs in the speeches of leaders,
reduced military expenditures, etc. (Klingberg, 1952; Holmes, 1985). Just as depressed people
experience little conscious rage--feeling "I deserve to be killed" rather than "I want to kill others"
(Fenichel, 1945, p. 393)--interest in military adventures during the depressed phase wanes, arms
expeditures decrease and peace treaties multiply.
Economic decline does not cause war

Daniel Deudney, Hewlett Fellow in Science, Technology, and Society at the Center for Energy and
Environmental Studies @ Princeton University, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Environment and Security:
Muddled and Thinking April 1991, proquest
away.” 76

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IMPACT CORE: HEGEMONY,

SOFT POWER, & COMPETITIVENESS

US educational system ensures US hegemony for years to come

The rest of the world looks to the US for leadership—even today

HEG – GENERIC WARS IMPACT

Lack of US unipolarity will create a power vacuum which will escalate to

Heg is key to global stability

US hegemony prevents global war

HEG SOLVES FREE TRADE

Free trade solves nuclear war and extinction

HEG SOLVES PROLIF

Proliferation leads to extinction.

HEG SOLVES ASIA STABILITY

AT: HEG KILLS SOFT POWER / MULTILATERALISM

Heg doesn’t preclude short term cooperative international action

HARD POWER IS BETTER THAN SOFT POWER

“Some Goals Can Only Be Achieved by Hard Power”

AT: HEG  ECON DECLINE

No single state can counterbalance the US

AT: ASIAN COUNTERBALANCING

Asia wants power sharing not hegemony

No EU counterbalancing—US/German relations are increasing-Iraq can only

Europeans support U.S. Hegemony

HEG BAD F/L

HEG BAD F/L

HEG BAD F/L

4. Independently, Hegemony ensures imperial wars.

EXT. #1 – HEG LOW NOW

HEG COLLAPSE INEVITABLE

Heg collapse inevitable—Costs

U.S. unipolarity will end, eventually

EXT. #2 – HEG  RESENTMENT  WAR

A larger global presence by the U.S. risks global security.

Unilateralism creates enemies and risks great wars.

EXT. #2 – HEG  RESENTMENT  WARS

Military presence in regions increase the likelihood of war.

EXT. #3 – HEG  C/BALANCING

Continued US preponderance results in attempting to challenge other rising

effects on Beijing’s foreign policy.24

Second, the emergence of new great powers is always a destabilizing geopolitical

EXT. #3 – HEG  C/BALANCING

PERCEPTION OF HEG  C/BALANCING

HEG  RUSSIA/CHINA C/BALANCE  WAR

Impact is Nuclear War

AT: TRADE SOLVES COUNTERBALANCING

EXT. #4 – HEG  IMPERIAL WARS

U.S. leadership leads to war with rouge states

Globalization causes cultural extinction and terrorism.

HEG  COLLAPSE IN SOFT POWER

Hardpower erodes our soft power and causes blowback

American unilateralism lowers world opinion of America

Imperialistic wars breed terrorists against the U.S.

HEG  INDO/PAK WAR

Impact is nuclear war with India

HEG  ECON COLLAPSE

Overexpansion leads to economic depression

AT: HEG SOLVES PROLIF

Unilateral military engagement can not solve for proliferation of nuclear

SOFT POWER HIGH NOW

Soft Power is increasing – naval strategies prove

Soft Power is on the Brink

SOFT POWER IMPACT – LAUNDRY LIST

Soft Power is key to solving competitiveness, terrorism, war, proliferation,

SOFT POWER SOLVES GLOBAL WAR