SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 1 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative/Negative – Starter Set
***Affirmative Section*** .................................................................................................................................................................. 1
Afghanistan Affirmative [1/12]............................................................................................................................................................ 2
Afghanistan Affirmative [2/12]............................................................................................................................................................ 3
Afghanistan Affirmative [3/12]............................................................................................................................................................ 4
Afghanistan Affirmative [4/12]............................................................................................................................................................ 5
Afghanistan Affirmative [5/12]............................................................................................................................................................ 6
Afghanistan Affirmative [6/12]............................................................................................................................................................ 7
Afghanistan Affirmative [7/12]............................................................................................................................................................ 8
Afghanistan Affirmative [8/12]............................................................................................................................................................ 9
Afghanistan Affirmative [9/12].......................................................................................................................................................... 10
Afghanistan Affirmative [10/12] ........................................................................................................................................................ 11
Afghanistan Affirmative [11/12]........................................................................................................................................................ 12
Afghanistan Affirmative [12/12] ........................................................................................................................................................ 13
Inherency – US Will Stay in Afghanistan .......................................................................................................................................... 14
Inherency – US Losing War in Afghanistan ...................................................................................................................................... 15
Instability Adv – US Presence in Afghanistan Destabilizes Pakistan ................................................................................................ 16
Instability Adv – A2: No Coup .......................................................................................................................................................... 17
Instability Adv – A2: Weapons Are Safe ........................................................................................................................................... 17
Instability Adv – A2: Pakistan Collapse Alt Causes .......................................................................................................................... 18
Instability Adv – A2: Instability Turn ................................................................................................................................................ 19
Instability Adv – A2: Small Presence = Anti Americanism/Backlash ............................................................................................... 20
Heg Adv – Counterinsurgency Kill Hegemony ................................................................................................................................. 21
Heg Adv – Afghanistan Key to Future of US Hegemony .................................................................................................................. 21
Heg Adv – A2: Withdrawal Kills Heg ............................................................................................................................................... 22
Heg Adv – A2: Heg Doesn‘t Solve War ............................................................................................................................................ 23
Solvency – Withdrawal/Reducing Presence Good ............................................................................................................................. 24
Solvency – Withdrawal = Taliban Peace Settlement [1/2] ................................................................................................................. 25
Solvency – Withdrawal = Taliban Peace Settlement [2/2] ................................................................................................................. 26
Solvency – Withdrawal key to effective counterterrorism strategy ................................................................................................... 27
Solvency – Counterterrorism Focus Good – Key to Solve Terrorism................................................................................................ 27
Solvency – Counterterrorism Shift Solves – Intelligence .................................................................................................................. 27
***Case Negative*** ........................................................................................................................................................................ 27
Inherency – A2: Withdrawal Inevitable ............................................................................................................................................. 28
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [1/5] ........................................................................................................................................................ 29
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [2/5] ........................................................................................................................................................ 30
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [3/5] ........................................................................................................................................................ 31
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [4/5] ........................................................................................................................................................ 32
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [5/5] ........................................................................................................................................................ 33
A2: Instability Adv – 2NC Link Turn Ext. ........................................................................................................................................ 34
A2: Instability Adv – 2NC Pakistan Instability Turn ......................................................................................................................... 35
A2: Heg Adv – 1NC........................................................................................................................................................................... 36
A2: Heg Adv – 1NC........................................................................................................................................................................... 37
A2: Heg Adv – 2NC Alternate Causalties ......................................................................................................................................... 38
***Affirmative Section***
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 2 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [1/12]
Plan: The United States federal government should reduce nearly all military
presence necessary to pursue counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.
Advantage I: Hegemony
The war in Afghanistan will collapse American primacy – 2 internal links:
First – credibility. Obama announced a July 2011 withdrawal date, but at most
only small numbers will leave and it depends on conditions on the ground.
CBS News 6/24 (Brian Montopoli, 6/24/10, " July 2011 Deadline for Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal: Politics Over Policy? ",
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20008781-503544.html)
When President Obama announced late last year he was deploying 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, he said the troop surge would "allow us to begin the
transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011."
But it's become increasingly clear that the July 2011 deadline is more about politics than policy.
That's true for a few reasons. First off, the president said from the beginning that July 2011 was only when forces would begin to be brought
home - which means he could conceivably bring back just a few thousand troops and still technically meet the deadline.
But more importantly, the White House and military have made clear the deadline can simply be changed depending on conditions on the
ground. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said Thursday that if the strategy doesn't look like it's working at the end of the year, the military may recommend that the
timeline be altered.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, stressed that the drawdown plan is "conditions-based," and said while General David Petraeus agrees with the
president's overall strategy, "when he gets on the ground, he will assess the situation for himself."
"And at some point, he will make recommendations to the president," Gates said. "And that's what any military commander should do. And the president will welcome those
recommendations. But at the end of the day, the president will decide whether changes are to be made in the strategy."
Mr. Obama, for his part, maintained today that the current plan still stands - but he made clear that there would not be a mass exodus
of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
"We didn't say we'd be switching off the lights and closing the door behind us," the president said. "We said we'd begin a transition phase that would allow the Afghan government to take
more and more responsibility."
That's a very different message than the one heard from Vice President Joe Biden, who has been quoted as saying, "In July of 2011, you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out.
Bet on it."
There are, of course, political considerations at play - while Republicans like Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain have expressed concerns about setting a
deadline, liberals (including House Democrats who hold the purse strings for war funding) are increasingly unwilling to continue pouring money into a conflict
without a clear and defined endpoint.
"We cannot tell the enemy when you are leaving in warfare and expect your strategy to be able to prevail," McCain argues. "That's just a fundamental of warfare."
The vagueness of the message coming out of the White House - we have a deadline, only we don't have a deadline, we'll be
withdrawing lots of troops, only we might not - is meant to try to placate both sides of the debate as the battle continues.
Members of the military stress that they are on board with a strategy they helped craft, and say there are benefits to a deadline - it conveys a sense of urgency for Afghan leaders to take
greater responsibility, as Petraeus argues. But they also don't want to be boxed in: "In a perfect world," Petraeus said last week, "...we have to be very careful with timelines."
What appears most likely to happen in July 2011 is a drawdown of some and perhaps all of the 30,000 troops that were part of the
surge - political pressure from the left may simply be too significant for the White House not to make at least some concessions to their deadline.
The July 2011 announcement destroyed the perception of US commitment to
Afghanistan
Rubin, 10 – resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Civil-Military Relations;
and a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly. (Michael, Public Square, 3/8, ―The Afghanistan Withdrawal: Why Obama Was Wrong to Insist on a Deadline,‖
http://www.michaelrubin.org/7033/afghanistan-withdrawal-deadline)
It is true, as Schlesinger points out, that Obama did not set a date for the completion of the withdrawal, but he signaled its finite nature. And
herein lays the problem. The reason Obama spoke of a deadline was not to pressure Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai but rather to assuage
constituencies in the United States increasingly wary of open-ended U.S. involvement in the country. But in the Middle East and South Asia,
perception matters far more than reality.
Diplomatic affairs expert Omar Sharifi, speaking on Afghan television, declared, "Today the Afghans unfortunately lost the game and failed to get a long-term
commitment from the international community." Likewise, Afghan political analyst Ahmad Sayedi observed, "When the USA sets a timeline of 18 months for
troop withdraw, this by itself boosts the morale of the opponents and makes them less likely to take any step towards reconciliation."
It is absolutely correct to say that Obama did not say that all—or even a significant fraction—of U.S. troops would withdraw in July
2011, but this is what was heard not only by U.S. allies and adversaries in Afghanistan but also by the governments and media in
regional states such as Pakistan, Iran, and even Russia.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 3 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [2/12]
Second –overstretch
Counterinsurgency doctrine is overstretching the US military and exhausting
American leadership – withdrawing to a counterterrorism strategy is vital to
preventing great power challengers
Kretkowski, 10 – Frequently assists think tank in conferences and other work products that aid DoD's long-term
thinking about threats that may not be addressable via weapons platforms. Spent six months in Afghanistan working with Army
public affairs. (Paul, ―Against COIN, for CT in Afghanistan and Elsewhere‖, 1/7, Beacon (a blog),
http://softpowerbeacon.blogspot.com/2010/01/against-coin-for-ct-in-afghanistan-and.html)
Over the winter break I had an epiphany about the interrelation of U.S. hard and soft power: I now oppose a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy in
Afghanistan and advocate a purely counterterror (CT) strategy (PDF link) there instead.
Blame history—or histories—that I've read recently, starting with Livy's works on early Rome (books I-V) last spring and Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War
at the end of 2009. I've taken occasional dips back into Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics and his source materials (Churchill, the Federalists, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu,
and several others).
What I've taken from that reading is that the U.S. must pull back from its current efforts to remake Iraq and Afghanistan in the image of a Western
democracy, or risk long-term political and economic exhaustion.
What follows is not an argument about morality, and readers may find much of it amoral. It is about making cold-blooded political and economic calculations about
where U.S. national interests will lie in the next decade. They do not lie in an open-ended COIN mission.
The history of the Peloponnesian War is particularly relevant here. Athens began fighting Sparta with the resources of an empire and thousands of talents of silver
in the bank—enough to fight expensive, far-flung naval and land campaigns for three years without lasting financial consequences.
Athens was rich, and if peace with Sparta had come by the end of the third year, Athens would have continued to prosper and rule over much of the Mediterranean.
(Athens had a "hard"—conquered or cowed—empire as opposed to the "soft" empire of alliances and treaties the U.S. currently has.)
But the war with Sparta dragged on for decades, despite occasional peace overtures by both sides. By war's end—despite the spoils of battle and increased taxes
and tribute extracted from its shrinking dominion—Athens was broke, depopulated by fighting and plague, bereft of its empire, and could no longer project power
into the Mediterranean. Where its former interests ranged from Black Sea Turkey to southern Italy, it spent decades as a small-bore power and never regained its
former strength or influence.
I worry that the U.S. is similarly locked into an open-ended commitment to democratize a nation that is of regional rather than global importance—a parallel to
Athens convincing itself that it had to conquer distant, militarily insignificant Sicily.
"Winning" in Afghanistan
The U.S. could "win" in Afghanistan where victory is defined as a stable, legitimate central government that can project power within its own borders. I
don't doubt that the U.S. and its allies could accomplish this given enough time and resources. But I think—as many COIN experts also do—that it will take at
least another decade or more of blood and treasure to produce such a result, if ever.
Of course I'd like to see the results of a successful COIN campaign: a stable democracy, women's rights, and general prosperity for Afghans, who among all Asia's
peoples surely deserve those things. I certainly want to end al-Qa'ida's ability to operate freely in South Asia and elsewhere.
The U.S. is the only country that would both conceive of these missions and attempt to carry them out. But goals beyond keeping al-Qa'ida on the run don't serve
the long-term interests of the U.S., and I am more interested in regaining and preserving U.S. hard power than I am in the rewards that would come from "winning"
a lengthy COIN war.
I fear the U.S. people and government becoming exhausted from the costs of a lengthy COIN effort, just as they are already
exhausted from (and have largely forgotten about) the Iraq war. I worry that if this fatigue sits in, the U.S. will abandon foreign-policy
leadership as it has done periodically throughout history.
This outcome would be worse than a resurgent Taliban, worse than Afghan women and men being further oppressed, and worse than al-Qa'ida
having plentiful additional caves to plot in.
Here are some signs of an exhaustion of U.S. power: The U.S. is already overextended, with commitments in Iraq (shrinking for now), Afghanistan
(expanding), Yemen (pending) and Iran (TBD). At home, the U.S. economy remains feeble and in the long term is increasingly hostage to other nations for goods
and services it no longer produces (and increasingly, no longer can produce).
Even more worrisome is the U.S. credit situation. The wars, and much other U.S. government spending, are now heavily underwritten by other countries' purchases
of debt the U.S. issues. It has borrowed trillions from foreign countries and especially China, which continues its steady, highly rational policy of promoting
exports while freeriding under the American security umbrella (just as the U.S. once rode for free beneath Britain's).
Over time, those countries accrue enough debt to have a say in U.S. policies that may threaten the dollar's value, which is why you now see high U.S. officials
flying to Beijing to soothe PRC nerves and explain why America keeps borrowing money.
At home, there are few resources to apply following a major disaster, such as a Katrina-style hurricane or a major earthquake.
The U.S. needs to start rebuilding its reserves—of capital, of credit, of political goodwill abroad, of military force—to be ready for
these and more serious crises, for which we currently have few resources to spare. Such challenges may involve humanitarian
crises (think Darfur, a Rwanda-style genocide, Indian Ocean tsunamis); Latin American instability (Mexico, Venezuela, post-Castro Cuba);
rogue-state nuclear development (Iran, North Korea); or complex challenges from a rising power (China, a reinvigorated Russia ).
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 4 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [3/12]
Afghanistan is a quagmire of attrition warfare that is destroying US morale
and readiness.
Kuhner, 9 - the president of the Edmund Burke Institute for American Renewal (Jeffrey, Washington Times,
“Obama‟s quagmire; US should look to its own interests,” 9/7, Lexis Academic)
America is losing the war in Afghanistan. Rather than change course, President Obama is sending 21,000 additional U.S. troops. This will bring the total
to 68,000 American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, bolstering coalition forces to 110,000.
The troop surge, however, will not work. Afghanistan has become Mr. Obama's Vietnam - a protracted quagmire draining precious
American blood and treasure. August was the deadliest month for U.S. forces, with 47 soldiers killed by Taliban insurgents. More than 300 coalition troops have
died in 2009. This is the highest toll since the war began in 2001, and there are still four months to go.
The tide of battle has turned against the West. The Taliban is resurgent. It has reasserted control over its southern stronghold in Kandahar. The
Taliban is launching devastating attacks in the western and northern parts of the country - formerly stable areas. U.S. casualties are
soaring. The morale of coalition forces is plummeting. Most of our allies - with the exception of the Canadians and the British - are reluctant to
engage the Islamist militants. American public support for the war is waning.
The conflict has dragged on for nearly eight years. (U.S. involvement in World War II was four years, World War I less than one.) Yet, America's strategic
objectives remain incoherent and elusive.
The war's initial aim was to topple the Taliban and eradicate al Qaeda bases from Afghan territory. Those goals have been achieved. Washington should have
declared victory and focused on the more important issue: preventing Islamic fundamentalists from seizing power in Pakistan, along with its nuclear arsenal.
Instead, America is engaged in futile nation-building. Mr. Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, believes Afghanistan must be transformed by
erecting a strong central government, democracy and a modern economy. Washington argues this will prevent terrorism from taking root and bring about lasting
"stability."
Hence, following a recent reassessment of the war by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, the Obama administration is contemplating
deploying 20,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops - on top of the 21,000 already pledged. Moreover, billions have been spent building irrigation canals, schools, hospitals and
factories. Civilian advisers are being sent to encourage farmers to grow other cash crops besides opium poppies. Western aid money has been used to establish a
massive Afghan army, a large police force and a swollen government bureaucracy.
Gen. McChrystal said this week that the situation is "serious," but not impossible. He still believes victory is within reach. His new strategy is to protect Afghan
civilians from Taliban attacks. He also wants to create a lucrative jobs programs and improve local government services. The goal is to win the "hearts and minds"
of the Afghan people. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says we must combat Afghanistan's "culture of poverty." Call it humanitarian war
through social engineering.
Mr. Obama's policy will result in a major American defeat - one that will signal the end of America as a superpower and expose us
to the world as a paper tiger. Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. The mighty British and Russian armies were humiliated in drawn-out guerrilla
campaigns. The country's mountainous geography and primitive tribal culture are ideally suited for insurgent warfare. By sending in more
troops, Washington is playing right into the Taliban's hands: We are enabling the Taliban to pick off our forces one by one as they
wage a campaign of attrition.
The Taliban blend with the local population, making it almost impossible for U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians.
American counterinsurgency efforts are thus alienating some of the locals. Initially welcomed as liberators, we are now viewed in some
quarters as occupiers. Moreover, much of the West's aid money is siphoned off by greedy politicians in Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai's government is corrupt, venal and ineffective. It barely controls one-third of the country. It is despised by many Afghans for its brutality
and incompetence. In addition, Mr. Karzai's vice-presidential running mate is a drug trafficker.
The West's efforts to forge a cohesive national state based on federalism and economic reconstruction have failed. Warlords are
increasingly asserting power in the provinces. The country is fractured along tribal and ethnic lines. The center cannot hold:
Afghanistan remains mired in anarchy, blood feuds and weak, decentralized rule.
U.S. troops should be deployed to defend U.S. national interests. Their lives should never be squandered for an experiment in liberal internationalism. In fact, such
a policy is morally grotesque and strategically reckless.
Mr. Obama should quickly withdraw most U.S. forces from Afghanistan. American air power and small, flexible Special Forces
units are more than enough to wipe out al Qaeda terrorists. The Taliban is too hated to reoccupy the country - unless our huge
military and economic footprint drives numerous Afghans into the evil, welcoming arms of extremists.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 5 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [4/12]
This will obliterate American primacy
Pyne, 9 - Vice Chair of the Utah State Legislative Compensation Commission and Vice President of the Association of the United States
Army's Utah chapter and a Vice President of the Salt Lake Total Force Chapter of the Military Officers Association of America (David, “Obama failing
our troops in Afghanistan,” 11/7, http://westernfrontamerica.com/2009/11/07/obama-failing-troops-afghanistan/)
Since we invaded Iraq six and a half years ago and Afghanistan eight years ago, we have lost nearly 7,000 American soldiers and contractors killed in action with
tens of thousands more severely wounded at the cost of a trillion dollars thus far. October has been the single deadliest month for US forces since the war began. It
shouldn‘t take a military strategist to realize that after fighting a war for over eight years without any real idea how to win, it might be time to consider a drastic
change in strategy. This should include a sober assessment of the cost/benefit analysis of staying and fighting at a rising cost in American blood and treasure versus
conserving our military strength and bringing our troops home to defend America from terrorist attack.
The Soviets fought an eight year long war in Afghanistan before finally realizing that victory was not a possibility in a conflict which some say began a chain of
events that resulted in the collapse of the Evil Empire thanks to Reagan‘s support of proxy forces against the Soviet invaders. If the Soviet Union could not win
after eight years of fighting in Afghanistan, what makes our leaders think that we can? The longer we keep large numbers of our troops fighting no-
win counterinsurgency wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghanistan, the weaker and more vulnerable we will become to the point where
eventually the American Empire, as some call it, may decline precipitously or perhaps even collapse altogether. Worse yet, America‘s
increasing military weakness highlighted further by Obama‘s ongoing demolition of our nuclear deterrent might invite a catastrophic attack from our from our
Sino-Russian alliance enemies. Already some of our retired generals have stated that they believe our Army and Marine Corps ground forces have been broken by
their over-deployment in the desert sands of Iraq and Afghanistan.
If the Soviet Union could not win after eight years of fighting in Afghanistan, what makes our leaders think that we can? The longer we keep large numbers of our
troops bogged down fighting two no-win counterinsurgency wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghanistan, the weaker and more vulnerable we will become to the point
where eventually the American Empire, as some call it, may decline precipitously or perhaps even collapse altogether. Worse yet, America‘s increasing military
weakness highlighted further by Obama‘s ongoing demolition of our nuclear deterrent, might invite a catastrophic attack from our from our Sino-Russian alliance
enemies.
Already some of our retired generals have stated that they believe our Army and Marine Corps ground forces have been broken by
their over-deployment in the desert sands of Iraq and Afghanistan. This high tempo of deployments has resulted in much of our military
equipment to break down while procurement and readiness are at their lowest levels over the past quarter century. Our national security
always suffers when we get bogged down in wars where our troops are asked to bleed and die, but are not permitted by our political leaders to win. Our brave
soldiers should never be allowed to sacrifice in this way without the hope of victory! The best way to support our troops is to bring them home to their families and
make a commitment that we will not let a week go by without thanking a soldier for their willingness to risk life and limb to defend us all.
What is it going to take to get our political leaders to realize that the costs of staying and fighting the long war in Iraq and Afghanistan greatly outweigh the costs of
redeploying out of theater? The same voices we hear calling for us to send another 40,000 to 100,000 troops to Afghanistan are the ones that would have called for
us to keep surging and fighting in Vietnam in perpetuity at the cost of hundreds of thousands of our soldiers lives. It didn‘t make sense to do that then and it doesn‘t
make sense to do so now. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War against the Evil Soviet Empire in part by employing proxies to fight and win our battles for us. We
need to learn from Reagan and re-employ a strategy of arming and supporting proxies both states and insurgent movements to fight our wars so our troops don‘t
have to.
America needs to conserve its military strength for a time when we they may be called upon to fight great power enemies, not
waste it bogged down fighting Vietnams in the desert as we have been doing the past several years. Until we do, we will remain in a state of
imperial overstretch and strategic paralysis with no reserve forces to fight new hypothetical wars of necessity and with a continuing
window of vulnerability which our enemies will undoubtedly continue to exploit. North Korea has already been exploiting our
window of vulnerability with their ongoing nuclear missile buildup as has the Islamic Republic of Iran is doing with its near imminent
development of weaponized nukes. Even Russia has done so with their invasion of US-ally Georgia this past year.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 6 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [5/12]
American primacy is vital to accessing every major impact—the only threat to
world peace is if we allow it to collapse
Thayer, 6 - professor of security studies at Missouri State (Bradley, The National Interest, “In Defense of
Primacy”, November/December, p. 32-37)
A grand strategy based on American primacy means ensuring the United States stays the world's number one power-the diplomatic, economic and military leader. Those arguing against primacy claim that the United States should retrench, either because the United States lacks the power to maintain its primacy and should
withdraw from its global commitments, or because the maintenance of primacy will lead the United States into the trap of "imperial overstretch." In the previous issue of The National Interest, Christopher Layne warned of these dangers of primacy and called for retrenchment.1 Those arguing for a grand strategy of
retrenchment are a diverse lot. They include isolationists, who want no foreign military commitments; selective engagers, who want U.S. military commitments to centers of economic might; and offshore balancers, who want a modified form of selective engagement that would have the United States abandon its landpower
presence abroad in favor of relying on airpower and seapower to defend its interests. But retrenchment , in any of its guises, must be avoided. If the United States adopted such a strategy, it would be a profound strategic mistake that would lead to far greater
instability and war in the world , imperil American security and deny the United States and its allies the benefits of primacy. There are two critical issues in any discussion of America's grand strategy: Can America remain the dominant state? Should it strive to do this? America can
remain dominant due to its prodigious military, economic and soft power capabilities. The totality of that equation of power answers the first issue. The United States has overwhelming military capa bilities and wealth in comparison to other states or likely potential alliances. Barring some disaster or tremendous folly, that will
remain the case for the foreseeable future. With few exceptions, even those who advocate retrenchment acknowledge this. So the debate revolves around the desirability of maintaining American primacy. Proponents of retrenchment focus a great deal on the costs of U.S. action but they fall to realize what is good about
American primacy. The price and risks of primacy are reported in newspapers every day; the benefits that stem from it are not. A GRAND strategy of ensuring American primacy takes as its starting point the protection of the U.S. homeland and American global interests. These interests include ensuring that critical resources
like oil flow around the world, that the global trade and monetary regimes flourish and that Washington's worldwide network of allies is reassured and protected. Allies are a great asset to the United States, in part because they shoulder some of its burdens. Thus, it is no surprise to see NATO in Afghanistan or the Australians in
threats will exist no matter
East Timor. In contrast, a strategy based on retrenchment will not be able to achieve these fundamental objectives of the United States. Indeed, retrenchment will make the United States less secure than the present grand strategy of primacy. This is because
what role America chooses to play in international politics. Washington cannot call a "time out", and it cannot hide from threats .
Whether they are terrorists, rogue states or rising powers, history shows that threats must be confronted. Simply by declaring that the United States is "going home", thus abandoning its commitments or making unconvincing half-pledges to defend its interests and allies, does not mean that others will respect American wishes to
retreat. To make such a declaration implies weakness and emboldens aggression. In the anarchic world of the animal kingdom, predators prefer to eat the weak rather than confront the strong . The same is true of the
anarchic world of international politics. If there is no diplomatic solution to the threats that confront the United States, then the conventional and strategic military power of the United States is what
protects the country from such threats. And when enemies must be confronted, a strategy based on primacy focuses on engaging enemies overseas, away from .American soil. Indeed, a key tenet of the Bush Doctrine is to attack terrorists far from America's shores and
not to wait while they use bases in other countries to plan and train for attacks against the United States itself. This requires a physical, on-the-ground presence that cannot be achieved by offshore
balancing. Indeed, as Barry Posen has noted, U.S. primacy is secured because America, at present, commands the "global common"--the oceans, the world's airspace and outer space-allowing the United States to project its power far from its borders, while denying those common avenues to its enemies. As a
consequence, the costs of power projection for the United States and its allies are reduced, and the robustness of the United States' conventional and strategic deterrent capabilities is increased.' This is not an advantage that should be relinquished lightly. A remarkable fact about international politics today--in a world where
American primacy is clearly and unambiguously on display--is that countries want to align themselves with the United States. Of course, this is not out of any sense of altruism, in most cases, but because doing so allows them to use the power of the United States for their own purposes, their own protection, or to gain greater
influence. Of 192 countries, 84 are allied with America--their security is tied to the United States through treaties and other informal arrangements-and they include almost all of the major economic and military powers. That is a ratio of almost 17 to one (85 to five), and a big change from the Cold War when the ratio was
about 1.8 to one of states aligned with the United States versus the Soviet Union. Never before in its history has this country, or any country, had so many allies. U.S. primacy--and the bandwagoning effect-has also given us
extensive influence in international politics, allowing the United States to shape the behavior of states and international institutions. Such influence comes in many forms, one of which is America's ability to create coalitions of like-minded states to free Kosovo, stabilize Afghanistan, invade Iraq or
to stop proliferation through the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Doing so allows the United States to operate with allies outside of the where it can be stymied by opponents. American-led wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq stand in contrast to the UN's inability to save the people of
Darfur or even to conduct any military campaign to realize the goals of its charter. The quiet effectiveness of the PSI in dismantling Libya's WMD programs and unraveling the A. Q. Khan proliferation network are in sharp relief to the typically toothless attempts by the UN to halt proliferation. You can count with one hand
countries opposed to the United States. They are the "Gang of Five": China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezeula. Of course, countries lik e India, for example, do not agree with all policy choices made by the United States, such as toward Iran, but New Delhi is friendly to Washington. Only the "Gang of Five" may be
expected to consistently resist the agenda and actions of the United States. China is clearly the most important of these states because it is a rising great power. But even Beijing is intimidated by the United States and refrains from openly challenging U.S. power. China proclaims that it will, if necessary, resort to other
mechanisms of challenging the United States, including asymmetric strategies such as targeting communica tion and intelligence satellites upon which the United States depends. But China may not be confident those strategies would work, and so it is likely to refrain from testing the United States directly for the foreseeable
future because China's power benefits, as we shall see, from the international order U.S. primacy creates. The other states are far weaker than China. For three of the "Gang of Five" cases--Venezuela, Iran, Cuba-it is an anti-U.S. regime that is the source of the problem; the country itself is not intrinsically anti-American.
Indeed, a change of regime in Caracas, Tehran or Havana could very well reorient relations.
Everything we
THROUGHOUT HISTORY, peace and stability have been great benefits of an era where there was a dominant power--Rome, Britain or the United States today. Scholars and statesmen have long recognized the irenic effect of power on the anarchic world of international politics.
think of when we consider the current international order-free trade, a robust monetary regime, increasing respect for human
rights, growing democratization--is directly linked to U.S. power . Retrenchment proponents seem to think that the current system can be maintained without the current amount of U.S. power behind it. In that they are dead wrong
Appalling things happen when international orders collapse The Dark Ages followed Rome's collapse.
and need to be reminded of one of history's most significant lessons: .
Hitler succeeded the order established at Versailles Without U.S. power, the liberal order created by the U S will end just as . nited tates
assuredly. As country and western great Rai Donner sang: "You don't know what you've got (until you lose it)." Consequently, it is important to note what those good things are. In addition to ensuring the security of the United States and its allies, American primacy within the international system causes many
positive outcomes for Washington and the world.
American primacy helps keep a number of
The first has been a more peaceful world. During the Cold War, U.S. leadership reduced friction among many states that were historical antagonists, most notably France and West Germany. Today,
complicated relationships aligned--between Greece and Turkey, Israel and Egypt, South Korea and Japan, India and Pakistan,
Indonesia and Australia. a Pax Americana does reduce war's
This is not to say it fulfills Woodrow Wilson's vision of ending all war. Wars still occur where Washington's interests are not seriously threatened, such as in Darfur, but
likelihood, particularly war's worst form: great power wars.
Second, American power gives the U S the ability to spread democracy nited tates and other elements of its ideology of liberalism. Doing so is a source of much good for the countries concerned as well as the United States
once states are governed
because, as John Owen noted on these pages in the Spring 2006 issue, liberal democracies are more likely to align with the United States and be sympathetic to the American worldview.3 So, spreading democracy helps maintain U.S. primacy. In addition,
democratically, the likelihood of any type of conflict is significantly reduced. it is because they This is not because democracies do not have clashing interests. Indeed they do. Rather,
are more open, more transparent and more likely to want to resolve things amicably in concurrence with U.S. leadership. And so, in general, democratic states are good for their citizens as well as for
advancing the interests of the United States. Critics have faulted the Bush Administration for attempting to spread democracy in the Middle East, labeling such an effort a modern form of tilting at windmills. It is the obligation of Bush's critics to explain why democracy is good enough for Western states but not for the rest, and,
one gathers from the argument, should not even be attempted. Of course, whether democracy in the Middle East will have a peaceful or stabilizing influence on America's interests in the short run is open to question. Perhaps democratic Arab states would be more opposed to Israel, but nonetheless, their people would be better
off. The United States has brought democracy to Afghanistan, where 8.5 million Afghans, 40 percent of them women, voted in a critical October 2004 election, even though remnant Taliban forces threatened them. The first free elections were held in Iraq in January 2005. It was the military power of the United States that put
Iraq on the path to democracy. Washington fostered democratic governments in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Caucasus. Now even the Middle East is increasingly democratic. They may not yet look like Western-style democracies, but democratic progress has been made in Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, the
Palestinian Authority and Egypt. By all accounts, the march of democracy has been impressive.
With its allies, the U S has labored to create an economically liberal
Third, along with the growth in the number of democratic states around the world has been the growth of the global economy. nited tates
worldwide network characterized by free trade and commerce, respect for international property rights, and mobility of capital and
labor markets . The economic stability and prosperity that stems from this economic order is a global public good from which all states benefit, particularly the poorest states in the Third World. The United States created this network not out of altruism but for the benefit and the economic well-being of
This economic order forces American industries to be competitive, maximizes efficiencies and growth, and benefits defense as
America.
well because the size of the economy makes the defense burden manageable . Economic spin-offs foster the development of military technology, helping to ensure military prowess. Perhaps the greatest testament to
the only way to
the benefits of the economic network comes from Deepak Lal, a former Indian foreign service diplomat and researcher at the World Bank, who started his career confident in the socialist ideology of post-independence India. Abandoning the positions of his youth, Lal now recognizes that
bring relief to desperately poor countries of the Third World is through the adoption of free market economic policies and
globalization, which are facilitated through American primacy .4 As a witness to the failed alternative economic systems, Lal is one of the strongest academic proponents of American primacy due to the economic prosperity it provides.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 7 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [6/12]
The plan solves – reducing to a counterterrorism focus creates sustainable
presence, and prevents vacillations between engagement and isolationism
Stewart, 9- Ryan Family Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights
Policy, studied at Oxford and served briefly in the British army before working in the diplomatic service in Indonesia and as
British representative to Montenegro (9/16/09, Rory, ―The Future of Afghanistan,‖ http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-
events/news/testimonies/rory-stewart-on-afghanistan)
The best Afghan policy would be to reduce the number of foreign troops from the current level of 90,000 to far fewer – perhaps
20,000. In that case, two distinct objectives would remain for the international community: development and counter-terrorism. Neither would amount to the
building of an Afghan state or winning a counter-insurgency campaign. A reduction in troop numbers and a turn away from state-building should
not mean total withdrawal: good projects could continue to be undertaken in electricity, water, irrigation, health, education,
agriculture, rural development and in other areas favoured by development agencies. Even a light US presence could continue to allow for
aggressive operations against Al Qaeda terrorists, in Afghanistan, who plan to attack the United States. The US has successfully prevent Al Qaeda
from re-establishing itself since 2001 (though the result has only been to move bin Laden across the border.). The US military could also (with other forms of
assistance) support the Afghan military to prevent the Taliban from seizing a city or taking over the country.
These twin objectives will require a very long-term presence, as indeed is almost inevitable in a country which is as poor, as fragile and traumatized as Afghanistan
(and which lacks the internal capacity at the moment to become independent of Foreign aid or control its territory). But a long-term presence will in turn mean a
much lighter and more limited presence (if it is to retain US domestic support). We should not control and cannot predict the future of Afghanistan. It may in the
future become more violent, or find a decentralised equilibrium or a new national unity, but if its communities continue to want to work with us, we can, over 30
years, encourage the more positive trends in Afghan society and help to contain the more negative.
Such a policy can seem strained, unrealistic, counter-intuitive and unappealing. They appear to betray the hopes of Afghans who trusted us and to allow the Taliban
to abuse district towns. No politician wants to be perceived to have underestimated, or failed to address, a terrorist threat; or to write off the ‗blood and treasure‘
that we have sunk into Afghanistan; or to admit defeat. Americans are particularly unwilling to believe that problems are insoluble; Obama‘s motto is not ‗no we
can‘t‘; soldiers are not trained to admit defeat or to say a mission is impossible. And to suggest that what worked in Iraq won‘t work in Afghanistan requires a
detailed knowledge of each country‘s past, a bold analysis of the causes of development and a rigorous exposition of the differences, for which few have patience.
The greatest risk of our inflated ambitions and fears, encapsulated in the current surge is that it will achieve the exact opposite of its
intentions and in fact precipitate a total withdrawal. The heavier our footprint, and the more costly, the less we are likely to be
able to sustain it. Public opinion is already turning against it. Nato allies are mostly staying in Afghanistan simply to please the United States and
have little confidence in our objectives or our reasons. Contemporary political culture tends to encourage black and white solutions: either we garrison or we
abandon.
While, I strongly oppose troop increases, I equally strongly oppose a total flight. We are currently in danger of lurching from troop
increases to withdrawal and from engagement to isolation. We are threatening to provide instant electro-shock therapy followed by
abandonment. This is the last thing Afghanistan needs. The international community should aim to provide a patient, tolerant long-term relationship
with a country as poor and traumatized as Afghanistan. Judging by comparable countries in the developing world (and Afghanistan is very near the bottom of the
UN Human Development index), making Afghanistan more stable, prosperous and humane is a project which will take decades. It is a worthwhile project in the
long-term for us and for Afghans but we will only be able to sustain our presence if we massively reduce our investment and our ambitions and
begin to approach Afghanistan more as we do other poor countries in the developing world. The best way of avoiding the mistakes of the 1980s and
1990s – the familiar cycle of investment and abandonment which most Afghan expect and fear and which have contributed so
much to instability and danger - is to husband and conserve our resources, limit our objectives to counter-terrorism and humanitarian
assistance and work out how to work with fewer troops and less money over a longer period. In Afghanistan in the long-term, less will be more.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 8 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [7/12]
Obama will sell the plan as a drawdown to a lighter but permanent
commitment to Afghanistan – this resolves confusion over the withdrawal
deadline and restores US credibility
Stewart, 10 - Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, studied at Oxford and
served briefly in the British army before working in the diplomatic service in Indonesia and as British representative to Montenegro (Rory, ―Afghanistan: What
Could Work‖, New York Review of Books, 1/14, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jan/14/afghanistan-what-could-work/?page=3)
But this moderate tone gains Obama the leverage that Bush lacked. As long as the US asserted that Afghanistan was an existential threat, the front line in the war on terror, and that,
therefore, failure was not an option, the US had no leverage over Karzai. The worse Afghanistan behaved—the more drugs it grew and terrorists it fostered—the more money it received.
If it sorted out its act, it risked being relegated to a minor charitable recipient like Tajikistan. A senior Afghan official warned me this year ―to stop referring to us as a humanitarian crisis:
asserting convincingly that Afghanistan is not the be-
we must be the number one terrorist threat in the world, because if we are not we won‘t get any money.‖ By
all and end-all and that the US could always ultimately withdraw, Obama escapes this codependent trap and regains some leverage over the
Afghan government. In his politer words:
It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.
But perhaps even more importantly, defining a more moderate and limited strategy gives him leverage over his own generals. By refusing to endorse or use the language of
counterinsurgency in the speech, he escapes their doctrinal logic. By no longer committing the US to defeating the Taliban or state-building, he dramatically reduces the objectives and the
costs of the mission. By talking about costs, the fragility of public support, and other priorities, he reminds the generals why this surge must be the last. All of this serves to ―cap‖ the troop
increases at current levels and provide the justification for beginning to reduce numbers in 2011.
But the brilliance of its moderate arguments cannot overcome that statement about withdrawal. With seven words, ―our troops will
begin to come home,‖ he loses leverage over the Taliban, as well as leverage he had gained over Karzai and the generals. It is a
cautious, lawyerly statement, expressed again as ―[we will] begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.‖ It sets no final exit date or numbers. But the Afghan
students who were watching the speech with me ignored these nuances and saw it only as departure.
This may be fatal for Obama‘s ambition to ―open the door‖ to the Taliban. The lighter, more political, and less but still robust militarized presence that his
argument implies could facilitate a deal with the Taliban, if it appeared semi-permanent. As the President asserted, the Taliban are not that strong. They have
nothing like the strength or appeal that they had in 1995. They cannot take the capital, let alone recapture the country. There is strong opposition to their presence,
particularly in the center and the north of the country. Their only hope is to negotiate. But the Taliban need to acknowledge this. And the only way they will is if
they believe that we are not going to allow the Kabul government to collapse.
Afghanistan has been above all a project not of force but of patience. It would take decades before Afghanistan achieved the political cohesion, stability, wealth,
government structures, or even basic education levels of Pakistan. A political settlement requires a reasonably strong permanent government. The best argument
against the surge, therefore, was never that a US operation without an adequate Afghan government partner would be unable to defeat the Taliban—though it won‘t. Nor that the
attempt to strengthen the US campaign will intensify resistance, though it may. Nor because such a deployment of over 100,000 troops at a cost of perhaps $100 billion a year would be
completely disproportional to the US‘s limited strategic interests and moral obligation in Afghanistan—though that too is true.
Instead, Obama should not have requested more troops because doing so intensifies opposition to the war in the US and Europe and
accelerates the pace of withdrawal demanded by political pressures at home. To keep domestic consent for a long engagement we
need to limit troop numbers and in particular limit our casualties. The surge is a Mephistophelian bargain, in which the President has gained force but lost time.
What can now be done to salvage the administration‘s position? Obama has acquired leverage over the generals and some support from the public by making it
clear that he will not increase troop strength further. He has gained leverage over Karzai by showing that he has options other than investing in Afghanistan. Now he needs to
regain leverage over the Taliban by showing them that he is not about to abandon Afghanistan and that their best option is to negotiate. In short,
he needs to follow his argument for a call strategy to its conclusion. The date of withdrawal should be recast as a time for reduction to a lighter, more
sustainable, and more permanent presence . This is what the administration began to do in the days following the speech. As National Security Adviser General James
Jones said, ―That date is a ‗ramp‘ rather than a cliff.‖ And as Hillary Clinton said in her congressional testimony on December 3, their real aim should be to ―develop a long-term
sustainable relationship with Afghanistan and Pakistan so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past, primarily our abandonment of that region.‖
A more realistic, affordable, and therefore sustainable presence would not make Afghanistan stable or predictable. It would be merely a small if necessary part of an Afghan political
strategy. The US and its allies would only moderate, influence, and fund a strategy shaped and led by Afghans themselves. The aim would be to knit together different Afghan interests
and allegiances sensitively enough to avoid alienating independent local groups, consistently enough to regain their trust, and robustly enough to restore the security and justice that
Afghans demand and deserve from a national government.
What would this look like in practice? Probably a mess. It might involve a tricky coalition of people we refer to, respectively, as Islamists, progressive civil society, terrorists, warlords,
learned technocrats, and village chiefs. Under a notionally democratic constitutional structure, it could be a rickety experiment with systems that might, like Afghanistan‘s neighbors,
include strong elements of religious or military rule. There is no way to predict what the Taliban might become or what authority a national government in Kabul could regain. Civil war
would remain a possibility. But an intelligent, long-term, and tolerant partnership with the United States could reduce the likelihood of civil war and increase the likelihood of a political
settlement. This is hardly the stuff of sound bites and political slogans. But it would be better for everyone than boom and bust, surge and flight. With the right patient leadership, a
political strategy could leave Afghanistan in twenty years‘ time more prosperous, stable, and humane than it is today. That would be excellent for Afghans and good for the
world.
Meanwhile, Obama‘s broader strategic argument must not be lost. He has grasped that the foreign policy of the president should not consist in a series of
extravagant, brief, Manichaean battles, driven by exaggerated fears, grandiloquent promises, and fragile edifices of doctrine. Instead the foreign policy of a great
power should be the responsible exercise of limited power and knowledge in concurrent situations of radical uncertainty. Obama, we may hope, will develop this
elusive insight. And then it might become possible to find the right places in which to deploy the wealth, the courage, and the political capital of the United States.
We might hope in South Asia, for example, for a lighter involvement in Afghanistan but a much greater focus on Kashmir.1
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 9 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [8/12]
The plan‘s rejection of counterinsurgency creates a doctrinal shift towards
selective engagement that can sustain US presence globally
Gventer, 9 - Senior Defense Analyst at the RAND Corporation and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. She
served two tours in Iraq, including a year as a senior adviser to General Peter Chiarelli, the operational commander in Iraq in 2006
(Celeste, ―False Promise of 'Counterinsurgency'‖, 12/1, http://www.rand.org/commentary/2009/12/01/NYT.html)
An effort to conduct "counterinsurgency" in Afghanistan is not just a costly business for still-unspecified strategic returns. It is
likely to also prolong the U.S. defense establishment's preoccupation with military-led nation-building in unfamiliar cultures and
perpetuate the deeply problematic assumption that chronic societal failure and social pathologies around the world are a form of
warfare. This notion is built in part on what seems to be an oversimplified and glamorized—and thus dangerously misleading—
pop history about the 'surge' in Iraq and the role it played in the still-unfolding outcomes there.
The opportunity for the new strategy in Afghanistan was to form the beginning of a new era of American restraint in its foreign
policy—one based on confidence in America's own values, protection of its borders, strong intelligence capabilities, and selective
engagement of a strong, credible U.S. military capable of applying overwhelming force.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 10 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [9/12]
Advantage Two – Regional Instability
US troops in Afghanistan increase extremism amongst the Pashtun people –
this de-stabilizes Pakistan.
Graham E. Fuller is a former CIA station chief in Kabul and a former vice-chair of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. He is author of
numerous books on the Middle East, including "The Future of Political Islam." The Christian Science Monitor, December 2, 2009 – available
via Lexis-Nexis Academic
Many decades ago, as a fledgling CIA officer in the field, I was naively convinced that if the facts were reported back to Washington correctly, everything else
would take care of itself in policymaking. The first loss of innocence comes with the harsh recognition that "all politics are local" and that overseas realities bear
only a partial relationship to foreign-policy formulation back home. So in President Obama's new policy directions for Afghanistan, what goes down in Washington
politics far outweighs analyses of local conditions. I had hoped that Obama would level with the American people that the war in Afghanistan is not
being won, indeed is not winnable within any practicable framework. Obama possesses the intelligence and insight to grasp these realities.
But such an admission - however accurate - would sign the political death warrant of a president to be portrayed as having snatched defeat out of the jaws of
"victory." The "objective" situation in Afghanistan remains a mess. The details are well known. Senior commanders acknowledge that we are not
now winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan; indeed, we never can, and certainly not at gunpoint . Most Pashtuns will never
accept a US plan for Afghanistan's future. The non-Pashtuns - Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, etc. - naturally welcome any outside
support in what is a virtual civil war. America has inadvertently ended up choosing sides. US forces are perceived by large
numbers of Afghans as an occupying army inflicting large civilian casualties. The struggle has now leaked into Pakistan - with even
higher stakes. Obama's policies would seem an unsatisfying compromise among contending arguments. Thirty thousand more troops will not turn the
tide; arguably they present more American targets for attack. They will heighten traditional xenophobia against foreigners
traipsing through Pashtun villages and homes. It is a fool's errand to persuade the locals in Pashtun territory that the
Taliban are the enemy and the US is their friend. Whatever mixed feelings Pashtuns have toward the Taliban, they know the Taliban remain the
single most important element of Pashtun political life; the Taliban will be among them long after Washington tires of this mission. The strategy of the Bush era
envisioned Afghanistan as a vital imperial outpost in a post-Soviet dream world where hundreds of overseas US bases would cement US global hegemony, keeping
Russia and China in check and the US on top. That world vision is gone - except to a few Washington diehards who haven't grasped the new emerging global
architectures of power, economics, prestige, and influence. The Taliban will inevitably figure significantly in the governance of almost any future Afghanistan, like
it or not. Future Taliban leaders, once rid of foreign occupation, will have little incentive to support global jihadi schemes - they
never really have by choice. The Taliban inherited bin Laden as a poison pill from the past when they came to power in 1996 and have learned a bitter
lesson about what it means to lend state support to a prominent terrorist group. The Taliban with a voice in power will
have every incentive to welcome foreign money and expertise into the country, including the Pashtun regions - as long as it is
not part of a Western strategic package. An austere Islamic regime is not the ideal outcome for Afghanistan, but it is by far the most realistic. To reverse ground
realities and achieve a markedly different outcome is not in the cards and will pose the same dilemma to Obama next year. Meanwhile, Pakistan will never be
willing or able to solve Washington's Afghanistan dilemma. Pakistan's own stability has been brought to the very brink by US demands that it solve America's self-
created problem in Afghanistan. Pakistan will eventually be forced to resolve Afghanistan itself - but only after the US has gone, and only by making a pact with
Taliban forces both inside Afghanistan and in Pakistan itself. Washington will not accept that for now, but it will ultimately be forced to fairly soon. Maybe the
Pakistanis can root out bin Laden, but meanwhile, Al Qaeda has extended its autonomous franchises around the world, and terrorists can train and plan almost
anywhere in the world; they do not need Afghanistan. By now, as in so many other elements of the Global War on Terror, the US has become more part
of the problem than part of the solution. We are sending troops to defend troops that themselves constitute an affront to
Afghan nationalism. Only expeditious American withdrawal from Afghanistan will prevent exacerbation of the problem.
Afghans must face the complex mechanics of internal struggle and reconciliation. They have done so over long periods of their history. The ultimate outcome is of
greater strategic consequence to Pakistan, Russia, China, Iran, India, and others in the region than to the US. Europe and Canada have lost all stomach for this
mission that is now promoted primarily in terms of "saving NATO" for future (and obsolescent) "out of area" struggles in a world in which Western strategic
preferences can no longer predominate.
(Note to the students: A ―coup‖ is a sudden, unconstitutional overthrow of a government by a rival faction. It‘s pronounced ―koo‖ – the
―p‖ is silent.
―Pashtuns‖ are an ethnic group – in fact, they are Afghanistan's largest and historically dominant ethnic group. When articles talk of
―ethnic Afghans‖, they are often referring to Pashtuns. Most Pashtuns live in South-east Afghanistan or in parts of Western Pakistan.
When this evidence speaks of ―Non-Pashtuns‖ it is referring to other people that are also in Afghanistan – but might ethnically identify
as from Tajikistan or Uzbekistan. According to this author, Pashtuns and Non-Pashtuns are at odds – and US Troops make that tension
worse.)
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 11 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [10/12]
US presence is the problem – withdrawal from Afghanistan is key to checking
collapse of the Pakistani State.
Nicholas Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times. He is quoting a group of former
intelligence officials – the qualifications of this group are embedded within this piece of evidence and their qualifications are
impressive. A seasoned journalist, Kristoff has traveled to South Asia, offering a compassionate glimpse into global health,
poverty, and gender in the developing world. The New York Times, ―The Afghanistan Abyss‖, September 6, 2009 –
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06kristof.html
''Our policy makers do not understand that the very presence of our forces in the Pashtun areas is the problem,'' the group said in a statement
to me. ''The more troops we put in, the greater the opposition. We do not mitigate the opposition by increasing troop levels,
but rather we increase the opposition and prove to the Pashtuns that the Taliban are correct. ''The basic ignorance by our leadership
is going to cause the deaths of many fine American troops with no positive outcome,'' the statement said. The group includes Howard Hart, a former Central
Intelligence Agency station chief in Pakistan; David Miller, a former ambassador and National Security Council official; William J. Olson, a counterinsurgency
scholar at the National Defense University; and another C.I.A. veteran who does not want his name published but who spent 12 years in the region, was station
chief in Kabul at the time the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and later headed the C.I.A.'s Counterterrorism Center. ''We share a concern that the country is
driving over a cliff,'' Mr. Miller said. Mr. Hart, who helped organize the anti-Soviet insurgency in the 1980s, cautions that
Americans just don't understand the toughness, determination and fighting skills of the Pashtun tribes. He adds that if the
U.S. escalates the war, the result will be radicalization of Pashtuns in Pakistan and further instability there -- possibly even
the collapse of Pakistan. These experts are not people who crave publicity; I had to persuade them to go public with their concerns. And
their views are widely shared among others who also know Afghanistan well. ''We've bitten off more than we can chew; we're setting
ourselves up for failure,'' said Rory Stewart, a former British diplomat who teaches at Harvard when he is not running a large aid program in Afghanistan. Mr.
Stewart describes the American military strategy in Afghanistan as ''nonsense.'' I'm writing about these concerns because I share them. I'm also troubled because
officials in Washington seem to make decisions based on a simplistic caricature of the Taliban that doesn't match what I've found in my reporting trips to
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Among the Pashtuns, the population is not neatly divisible into ''Taliban'' or ''non-Taliban.'' Rather, the Pashtuns are torn by complex
aspirations and fears. Many Pashtuns I've interviewed are appalled by the Taliban's periodic brutality and think they are too extreme; they think they're a little nuts.
But these Pashtuns also admire the Taliban's personal honesty and religious piety, a contrast to the corruption of so many officials around President Hamid Karzai.
Some Taliban are hard-core ideologues, but many join the fight because friends or elders suggest it, because they are avenging the deaths of relatives in previous
fighting, because it's a way to earn money, or because they want to expel the infidels from their land -- particularly because the foreigners haven't brought the roads,
bridges and irrigation projects that had been anticipated. Frankly, if a bunch of foreign Muslim troops in turbans showed up in my hometown in rural Oregon,
searching our homes without bringing any obvious benefit, then we might all take to the hills with our deer rifles as well. In fairness, the American military has
hugely improved its sensitivity, and some commanders in the field have been superb in building trust with Afghans. That works. But all commanders can't be
superb, and over all, our increased presence makes Pashtuns more likely to see us as alien occupiers. That may be why the troop
increase this year hasn't calmed things. Instead, 2009 is already the bloodiest year for American troops in Afghanistan -- with four months left to go.
(Note to the students:
As referenced in this evidence, the Soviet Union had a long war in Afghanistan. It began in 1979 and lasted for 10 years. The Soviet
invasion is often cited as an historical example of how even super-powers will struggle to win a conflict in Afghanistan.)
State collapse risks take-over by extremist entities in Pakistan
Arianna Huffington is an author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as co-founder of the news website The
Huffington Post. For the relevant portion of the evidence, she internally quotes Robert Baer, a former CIA field operative – LA
Times – October 14th – 2009 – http://www.latimes.com/sns-200910141852tmsahuffcoltq--m-
a20091014oct14,0,6163789,full.story
The number of those on both sides of the political spectrum who share Biden's skepticism is growing. At the beginning of September, George Will called for
the U.S. to pull out of Afghanistan and "do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent
Special Forces units." Former Bush State Department official and current head of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haas argued in The New York Times
that Afghanistan is not, as Obama insists, a war of necessity. "If Afghanistan were a war of necessity, it would justify any level of effort," writes Haas. "It is not and
does not. It is not certain that doing more will achieve more. And no one should forget that doing more in Afghanistan lessens our ability to act elsewhere." In
"Rethink Afghanistan," Robert Greenwald's powerful look at the war (and a film Joe Biden should see right away), Robert Baer, a former CIA field operative says,
"The notion that we're in Afghanistan to make our country safer is just complete bulls--t. . . . What it's doing is causing us greater danger , no
question about it. Because . . . the more we fight in Afghanistan, the more the conflict is pushed across the border into Pakistan ,
the more we destabilize Pakistan, the more likely it is that a fundamentalist government will take over the army . . . and we'll
have al-Qaida-like groups with nuclear weapons."
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 12 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [11/12]
The risk of extremists running Pakistan forces India‘s hand – causing pre-
emptive nuclear conflict in South Asia
Thomas Ricks is the author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003-05, which was a no. 1 New York Times
bestseller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. He is special military correspondent for The Washington Post, senior fellow
at the Center for a New American Security and a contributing editor for Foreign Policy magazine. Washington Post – October 21,
2001 – http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27875-2001Oct20?language=printer
The prospect of Pakistan being taken over by Islamic extremists is especially worrisome because it possesses nuclear weapons.
The betting among military strategists is that India, another nuclear power, would not stand idly by, if it appeared that the Pakistani nuclear
arsenal were about to fall into the hands of extremists. A preemptive action by India to destroy Pakistan's nuclear
stockpile could provoke a new war on the subcontinent. The U.S. military has conducted more than 25 war games involving a
confrontation between a nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, and each has resulted in nuclear war, said retired Air Force Col. Sam
Gardiner, an expert on strategic games.
India-Pakistan conflict is extremely bad – no restraint, and smoke yields that
risk extinction
Dr. Alan Robock is a professor of climatology in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University and the associate director of its Center
for Environmental Prediction. Prof. Robock has been a researcher in the area of climate change for more than 30 years.. His current research focuses on soil
moisture variations, the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate, effects of nuclear war on climate, and regional atmosphere/hydrology modeling. He has served as
Editor of climate journals, including the Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology and the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres. He has published
more than 250 articles on his research, including more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and Owen Brian Toon is professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic
Sciences and a fellow at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado.[1] He received his Ph.D. from Cornell
University – From the January 20 10 Scientific American Magazine – http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=local-nuclear-war
Nuclear bombs dropped on cities and industrial areas in a fight between India and Pakistan would start firestorms that would put massive
amounts of smoke into the upper atmosphere. The particles would remain there for years, blocking the sun, making the earth’s surface cold,
dark and dry. Agricultural collapse and mass starvation could follow. Hence, global cooling could result from a regional war, not just a conflict between the U.S. and Russia.
Cooling scenarios are based on computer models. But observations of volcanic eruptions, forest fire smoke and other phenomena provide confidence that the models are correct.
Twenty-five years ago international teams of scientists showed that a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union could produce a
“nuclear winter.‖ The smoke from vast fires started by bombs dropped on cities and industrial areas would envelop the planet and absorb so much sunlight that the earth’s
surface would get cold, dark and dry, killing plants worldwide and eliminating our food supply. Surface temperatures would reach winter values in the summer. International
discussion about this prediction, fueled largely by astronomer Carl Sagan, forced the leaders of the two superpowers to confront the possibility that their arms race endangered not
just themselves but the entire human race. Countries large and small demanded disarmament. Nuclear winter became an important factor in ending the nuclear arms race. Looking
back later, in 2000, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev observed, ―Models made by Russian and American scientists showed that a nuclear war would result in a
nuclear winter that would be extremely destructive to all life on earth; the knowledge of that was a great stimulus to us, to people of honor and morality, to act.‖ Why discuss this
topic now that the cold war has ended? Because as other nations continue to acquire nuclear weapons, smaller, regional nuclear wars could create a similar global catastrophe.
New analyses reveal that a conflict between India and Pakistan , for example, in which 100 nuclear bombs were dropped on cities and industrial areas—only
0.4 percent of the world’s more than 25,000 warheads—would produce enough smoke to cripple global agriculture. A regional war could cause widespread loss of
life even in countries far away from the conflict. Regional War Threatens the World By deploying modern computers and modern climate models, the two of us
and our colleagues have shown that not only were the ideas of the 1980s correct but the effects would last for at least 10 years, much
longer than previously thought. And by doing calculations that assess decades of time, only now possible with fast, current computers, and by including in our calculations
the oceans and the entire atmosphere—also only now possible—we have found that the smoke from even a regional war would be heated and lofted by the sun and remain
suspended in the upper atmosphere for years, continuing to block sunlight and to cool the earth. India and Pakistan, which together have more than 100 nuclear weapons,
may be the most worrisome adversaries capable of a regional nuclear conflict today. But other countries besides the U.S. and Russia (which have
thousands) are well endowed: China, France and the U.K. have hundreds of nuclear warheads; Israel has more than 80, North Korea has about 10 and Iran may well be trying to
make its own. In 2004 this situation prompted one of us (Toon) and later Rich Turco of the University of California, Los Angeles, both veterans of the 1980s investigations, to begin
evaluating what the global environmental effects of a regional nuclear war would be and to take as our test case an engagement between India and Pakistan. The latest estimates
by David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security and by Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council are that India has 50 to 60 assembled
weapons (with enough plutonium for 100) and that Pakistan has 60 weapons. Both countries continue to increase their arsenals. Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons tests indicate
that the yield of the warheads would be similar to the 15-kiloton explosive yield (equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT) of the bomb the U.S. used on Hiroshima. Toon and Turco, along
with Charles Bardeen, now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, modeled what would happen if 50 Hiroshima-size bombs were dropped across the highest population-
density targets in Pakistan and if 50 similar bombs were also dropped across India. Some people maintain that nuclear weapons would be used in only a
measured way. But in the wake of chaos, fear and broken communications that would occur once a nuclear war began, we doubt
leaders would limit attacks in any rational manner. This likelihood is particularly true for Pakistan, which is small and could be quickly
overrun in a conventional conflict. Peter R. Lavoy of the Naval Postgraduate School, for example, has analyzed the ways in which a conflict between India and Pakistan
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 13 of 38
Afghanistan Affirmative [12/12]
might occur and argues that Pakistan could face a decision to use all its nuclear arsenal quickly before India swamps its military bases with
traditional forces. Obviously, we hope the number of nuclear targets in any future war will be zero, but policy makers and voters should know what is possible. Toon and Turco
found that more than 20 million people in the two countries could die from the blasts, fires and radioactivity—a horrible slaughter. But the investigators were shocked to
discover that a tremendous amount of smoke would be generated, given the megacities in the two countries, assuming each fire would burn the same area
that actually did burn in Hiroshima and assuming an amount of burnable material per person based on various studies. They calculated that the 50 bombs exploded in Pakistan would produce three teragrams of smoke, and the 50 bombs
hitting India would generate four (one teragram equals a million metric tons). Satellite observations of actual forest fires have shown that smoke can be lofted up through the troposphere (the bottom layer of the atmosphere) and sometimes
then into the lower stratosphere (the layer just above, extending to about 30 miles). Toon and Turco also did some ―back of the envelope‖ calculations of the possible climate impact of the smoke should it enter the stratosphere. The large
magnitude of such effects made them realize they needed help from a climate modeler. It turned out that one of us (Robock) was already working with Luke Oman, now at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, who was finishing his Ph.D.
at Rutgers University on the climatic effects of volcanic eruptions, and with Georgiy L. Stenchikov, also at Rutgers and an author of the first Russian work on nuclear winter. They developed a climate model that could be used fairly easily for
the nuclear blast calculations. Robock and his colleagues, being conservative, put five teragrams of smoke into their modeled upper troposphere over India and Pakistan on an imaginary May 15. The model calculated how winds would blow
the smoke around the world and how the smoke particles would settle out from the atmosphere. The smoke covered all the continents within two weeks. The black, sooty smoke absorbed sunlight, warmed and rose into the stratosphere. Rain
never falls there, so the air is never cleansed by precipitation; particles very slowly settle out by falling, with air resisting them. Soot particles are small, with an average diameter of only 0.1 micron (µm), and so drift down very slowly. They also
rise during the daytime as they are heated by the sun, repeatedly delaying their elimination. The calculations showed that the smoke would reach far higher into the upper stratosphere than the sulfate particles that are produced by episodic
volcanic eruptions. Sulfate particles are transparent and absorb much less sunlight than soot and are also bigger, typically 0.5 µm. The volcanic particles remain airborne for about two years, but smoke from nuclear fires would last a decade.
The climatic response to the smoke was surprising. Sunlight was immediately reduced, cooling the planet to temperatures lower than any
Killing Frosts in Summer
experienced for the past 1,000 years. The global average cooling, of about 1.25 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit), lasted for several years, and even after 10 years the
temperature was still 0.5 degree C colder than normal. The models also showed a 10 percent reduction in precipitation worldwide. Precipitation, river flow and soil moisture all
decreased because blocking sunlight reduces evaporation and weakens the hydrologic cycle. Drought was largely concentrated in the lower latitudes, however, because global
cooling would retard the Hadley air circulation pattern in the tropics, which produces a large fraction of global precipitation. In critical areas such as the Asian monsoon regions,
rainfall dropped by as much as 40 percent. The cooling might not seem like much, but even a small dip can cause severe consequences. Cooling and
diminished sunlight would, for example, shorten growing seasons in the midlatitudes. More insight into the effects of cooling came from analyses of the aftermaths of massive volcanic eruptions. Every once in a while such eruptions produce
temporary cooling for a year or two. The largest of the past 500 years, the 1815 Tambora eruption in Indonesia, blotted the sun and produced global cooling of about 0.5 degree C for a year; 1816 became known as ―The Year without a
Summer‖ or ―Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.‖ In New England, although the average summer temperature was lowered only a few degrees, crop-killing frosts occurred in every month. After the first frost, farmers replanted crops, only
to see them killed by the next frost. The price of grain skyrocketed, the price of livestock plummeted as farmers sold the animals they could not feed, and a mass migration began from New England to the Midwest, as people followed reports
of fertile land there. In Europe the weather was so cold and gloomy that the stock market collapsed, widespread famines occurred and 18-year-old Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein. Certain strains of crops, such as winter
wheat, can withstand lower temperatures, but a lack of sunlight inhibits their ability to grow. In our scenario, daylight would filter through the high smoky haze, but on the ground every day would seem to be fully overcast. Agronomists and
In addition to the cooling, drying and darkness,
farmers could not develop the necessary seeds or adjust agricultural practices for the radically different conditions unless they knew ahead of time what to expect.
extensive ozone depletion would result as the smoke heated the stratosphere ; reactions that create and destroy ozone are temperature-dependent.
Michael J. Mills of the University of Colorado at Boulder ran a completely separate climate model from Robock’s but found similar results for smoke lofting and stratospheric
temperature changes. He concluded that although surface temperatures would cool by a small amount, the stratosphere would be heated by more than 50 degrees C, because the
black smoke particles absorb sunlight. This heating, in turn, would modify winds in the stratosphere, which would carry ozone-destroying nitrogen oxides into its upper reaches.
Together the high temperatures and nitrogen oxides would reduce ozone to the same dangerous levels we now experience below the ozone hole above Antarctica every spring.
Ultraviolet radiation on the ground would increase significantly because of the diminished ozone. Less sunlight and precipitation, cold spells, shorter growing
seasons and more ultraviolet radiation would all reduce or eliminate agricultural production. Notably, cooling and ozone loss would be most profound in
middle and high latitudes in both hemispheres, whereas precipitation declines would be greatest in the tropics.
Withdrawing US troops solves – it lessens the risk of Pakistani instability
Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. ―Winning In Afghanistan‖ –
December 31st – 2008 – http://www.newsweek.com/2008/12/30/winning-in-afghanistan.html
One of history's enduring lessons is that Afghans don't appreciate it when outsiders tell them how to govern their affairs—
just ask the British or the Soviets. U.S. success in overthrowing the Taliban seemed to suggest this lesson no longer applied, at least to Americans. That quickly proved an illusion. In Iraq, toppling the old order was
easy. Installing a new one to take its place has turned out to be infinitely harder. Yet the challenges of pacifying Afghanistan dwarf those posed by Iraq .
Afghanistan is a much bigger country—nearly the size of Texas—and has a larger population that's just as fractious. Moreover, unlike Iraq, Afghanistan possesses almost none of the prerequisites of modernity; its
literacy rate, for example, is 28 percent, barely a third of Iraq's. In terms of effectiveness and legitimacy, the government in Kabul lags well behind Baghdad—not exactly a lofty standard. Apart from opium, Afghans
Meanwhile, the chief effect of
produce almost nothing the world wants. While liberating Iraq may have seriously reduced the reservoir of U.S. power, fixing Afghanistan would drain it altogether.
allied military operations there so far has been not to defeat the radical Islamists but to push them across the Pakistani
border. As a result, efforts to stabilize Afghanistan are contributing to the destabilization of Pakistan, with potentially
devastating implications. September's bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad suggests that the extremists are growing emboldened. Today and for the foreseeable future, no country
poses a greater potential threat to U.S. national security than does Pakistan. To risk the stability of that nuclear-armed state
in the vain hope of salvaging Afghan-istan would be a terrible mistake. All this means that the proper U.S. priority for
Afghanistan should be not to try harder but to change course. The war in Afghanistan (like the Iraq War) won't be won militarily. It can be settled—however
imperfectly—only through politics. The new U.S. president needs to realize that America's real political objective in Afghanistan is actually quite modest: to ensure that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda can't use it as a
safe haven for launching attacks against the West. Accomplishing that won't require creating a modern, cohesive nation-state. U.S. officials tend to assume that power in Afghanistan ought to be exercised from Kabul.
Yet the real influence in Afghanistan has traditionally rested with tribal leaders and warlords. Rather than challenge that tradition, Washington should work with it. Offered the right incentives, warlords can accomplish
U.S. objectives more effectively and more cheaply than Western combat battalions. The basis of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan should therefore become decentralization and outsourcing, offering cash and other
emoluments to local leaders who will collaborate with the United States in excluding terrorists from their territory. This doesn't mean Washington should blindly trust that warlords will become America's loyal partners.
U.S. intelligence agencies should continue to watch Afghanistan closely, and the Pentagon should crush any jihadist activities that local powers fail to stop themselves. As with the Israelis in Gaza, periodic airstrikes
may well be required to pre-empt brewing plots before they mature. Were U.S. resources unlimited and U.S. interests in Afghanistan more important, upping the ante with additional combat forces might make sense.
Rather than committing more troops, therefore, the new president
But U.S. power—especially military power—is quite limited these days, and U.S. priorities lie elsewhere.
should withdraw them while devising a more realistic—and more affordable—strategy for Afghanistan.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 14 of 38
Inherency – US Will Stay in Afghanistan
US forces will stay indefinitely – statements from Petraeus and Obama
confirm
Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal an Islamic scholar, freelance columnist, and is President of Center for Islam and Science (in Canada) –
―Another Licence to Kill‖ – The News – July 02, 2010 – http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=248425
Yet, they have to tell the world when they will finish their mission impossible. President Obama made the immature statement that July 2011 is the
date when withdrawal will begin. Now he is desperately trying to find ways to break that promise. His generals and cronies are
sending out initial round of statements. Thus it was no surprise that several senators questioned Petraeus on the July 2011 date given by Obama last
year for the beginning of a drawdown of US forces, recalling that the date was announced at the same time when the president announced increase of US
troop level by 30,000, perhaps to deceive US public opinion. Responding to the questions, Petraeus took his clue from Obama 's recent statement: "As
the president has stated, July 2011 is the point at which we will begin a transition phase in which the Afghan government will take more and more responsibility for
its own security. As the President has also indicated , July 2011 is not a date when we will be rapidly withdrawing our forces and switching off
the lights and closing the door behind us. It is going to be a number of years before Afghan forces can truly handle the security tasks
in Afghanistan on their own. The commitment to Afghanistan is necessarily, therefore, an enduring one." Reassured that the
focus of public opinion, if there is any, has been blunted, Obama has started to distance himself from his withdrawal promise : "Now, there
has been a lot of obsession around this whole issue of when do we leave," he said on June 27 at a press conference following the G20 summit to nowhere, "My
focus right now is how do we make sure that what we're doing there is successful, given the incredible sacrifices that our young men and women are putting in."
The current deadline for Afghan troop withdraw fails – it‘s too slow and it‘s
not guaranteed
Edward Irving Koch has served in Congress and as the Mayor of New York City. This army veteran is currently a partner in a
law firm and hosts his own radio program. Koch is also a regular guest on television programs and his articles can be read in top
publications. ―Withdraw From Afghanistan‖ – Newsmax – June 29th, 2010 – http://www.newsmax.com/Koch/Afghanistan-
withdraw-UStroops-Obama/2010/06/29/id/363364
President Barack Obama did the right thing in firing Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Now, he should direct the armed forces to take the measures
needed to leave Afghanistan by the end of this year. When he authorized a 30,000-troop surge for Afghanistan — like the one used
in Iraq — he assured his radical left base that he would start bringing our troops home by July 2011. Now the White House is
conveying that the only thing that will occur by July 2011 is a reevaluation of our plans and a decision on whether to commence a pull-
out or stay. As I have stated many times before, I believe we should leave Afghanistan as soon as possible because we cannot win there.
The surge begun in Marja, a small city of 60,000, initially as touted as a success but now is seen as a failure, with the Taliban driven out during the day but coming
back at night and threatening residents with death if they cooperate with U.S. forces, just as the Vietcong did in Vietnam. The second planned foray — an attack on
Kandahar, a city of 1 million — has been delayed. The New York Times reported Monday that CIA Director Leon Panetta ―acknowledged that the
administration‘s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, based in part on the deployment of 30,000 more American troops, was off to a troubled start, though he
insisted it was making progress. ‗It‘s harder, it‘s slower than I think anyone anticipated,‘ he said.‖ Rather than coming to our aid, our NATO allies are
abandoning us in droves. Most of them are planning to leave Afghanistan as soon as they can. Even today, we provide the vast majority of troops
on the ground. Meanwhile, we have seen our casualties mount, with deaths now over 1,000, 97 of which occurred this month alone. Further undermining our efforts is the fact that the Karzai government is widely
unpopular among Afghans. On ―Meet The Press‖ Sunday, reporter Tom Ricks, commenting on the unwillingness of Afghans to accept the Karzai government even while rejecting the Taliban, said, ―I remember
reading an interview with an Afghan villager. The reporter said to him, ‗What did you think of the Taliban vs. what did you think of the police sent by Kabul?‘ He said, ‗Well, the Taliban were pretty mean to us; they
were pretty rough. We didn't like them. But when the police from Kabul came, the first thing they did was take our little boys and rape them.‘ You've got to deal with this Afghan government. Our biggest single
Besides the Kabul government, we are impeded by
problem in Afghanistan is not the Taliban. They are a consequence of our problem. Our problem in Afghanistan is the Kabul government.‖
new rules of engagement that will not allow us to win. The June 23 New York Times carried a lengthy article on those rules and reported how frustrated the American soldiers
are, believing they are being denied needed support from our Air Force because of the fear of injuring civilians. We are doing to ourselves what the United Nations is trying to do to Israel — imposing a doctrine of
proportional response. The lives of our soldiers are no longer our prime concern. We will not provide maximum protection if doing so could damage our relationship with President Karzai or other Afghan political
figures. If we won‘t protect our troops as our first priority, then along with other reasons, we cannot win, and we should get out now. The June 23 Times also pointed out the deleterious effect of our new rules of
engagement as perceived by our soldiers: ―But the new rules have also come with costs, including a perception now frequently heard among troops that the effort to limit risks to civilians has swung too far, and
A military that is so constrained cannot
endangers the lives of Afghan and Western soldiers caught in firefights with insurgents who need not observe any rules at all.‖
successfully fight a war against an enemy that does not follow any rules. The best way to save our soldiers‘ lives is the obvious one:
Bring them home.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 15 of 38
Inherency – US Losing War in Afghanistan
Afghanistan is not stabilizing
O‘Hanlon 10 - Director of Research and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy @ Brookings (Michael, Director of Research and
Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy @ Brookings, " May 2010 Index Update: Afghanistan Picture is Troubling,‖ Brookings, June 8th,
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0608_index_update_ohanlon.aspx)
Afghanistan is more complex and on balance much less reassuring. (Indeed, with 15 NATO soldiers killed in just two days the first week of
June, the situation may get worse before it gets better.) Security incidents continue to climb, averaging almost 100 a day in May. (By contrast,
at the worst of the violence in Iraq, there were about 200 such "incidents" of all types daily, though in Iraq they were typically more lethal.) That is only
modestly worse than the rate for the same period last year but twice as bad as 2008 and three times as bad as 2007, roughly. Some of the increase is
due to the greater presence of ISAF (and Afghan) forces, who are now seeking and making contact with insurgents more frequently. Indeed, the number of security
events initiated by insurgent forces is up only modestly over the last three years. Unfortunately, the overall picture is troubling; while civilian
fatalities from violence have grown only modestly, security forces are absorbing many more casualties than before 2009.
No corner has yet been turned.
Every metric is firmly against the US
McManus, 10 – (Doyle, ―Obama‘s Choice: Withdraw or Reinforce Failure?,‖ Los Angeles Times, 6/17,
http://afpakwar.com/blog/archives/5565)
The news from Afghanistan has been bad lately. The military campaign to win control of Kandahar, the country‘s second-largest city, has slowed to a
crawl. Taliban insurgents have filtered back into parts of southern Afghanistan that U.S. Marines had cleared in the spring . President
Hamid Karzai, the erratic leader of Afghanistan‘s civilian government, has given only halfhearted support to the U.S.-led military effort — and has done little to clean up
the corruption that undermines public support for his regime. Yet when Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. military commander in Kabul, delivered an
assessment of the state of the war last week, he said — very cautiously — that he is succeeding at his initial goal: interrupting the Taliban‘s momentum.
―We see progress everywhere, but it‘s incomplete,‖ McChrystal said. ―It is slow, but it‘s positive.‖
In McChrystal‘s words lies the central dilemma President Obama will face later this year, when he reviews his policy in Afghanistan: The war isn‘t being lost anymore — but it isn‘t being
won yet, either. When Obama agreed to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, he imposed an American timetable on the war. He gave his generals a year to show results, saying he‘d
has refused to operate on an
review the situation in December 2010. He also set a target date of July 2011 for starting to draw down U.S. troops. But so far, Afghanistan
American timetable, and that‘s unlikely to change. Experts in counterinsurgency — the labor-intensive, winning hearts-and-minds form of warfare we
are trying to wage — say it typically takes at least a decade, not 18 months, of serious commitment to turn a country around . When Gen. David
H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East (and McChrystal‘s boss), appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, he couldn‘t muster much
enthusiasm for the Obama timetable. He offered only ―a qualified yes‖ when asked if he supported the president‘s plan. ―We have to be very careful about timelines,‖ he said. And then
Petraeus fainted — because he was jet-lagged, aides said, not because of the questioning. Mismatched calendars aren‘t the only impediment to success. Another is the continuing failure
of Karzai‘s government to win its own people‘s support for the war. When I visited Afghanistan in March, McChrystal‘s aides were optimistic about the campaign being launched in
Kandahar, the Taliban‘s historic power base. Describing the strategy as a potential turning point in the war, they confidently showed reporters a timeline that began with a series of town
meetings — shuras — to win public support, and culminated in military operations that would sweep the Taliban from the countryside around Kandahar by mid-August, when the holy
month of Ramadan begins. ―We‘re going to shura our way to success,‖ one U.S. officer predicted. But that‘s not what has happened. Local elders used the shuras to express their doubts
about the military campaign. Some simply didn‘t want U.S. or Afghan troops in their neighborhoods. Others wanted to try negotiating with the Taliban first. The result of the shuras,
instead of success, was a stalemate. The offensive will still happen, just ―more slowly than we had originally anticipated,‖ McChrystal said. ―It takes time to convince people,‖ he said. ―I
don‘t intend to hurry it.… It‘s more important we get it right than we get it fast.‖ Karzai, too, has been part of the problem. McChrystal and his aides were relying on the president, whose
family comes from Kandahar province, to endorse the offensive and persuade his fellow Pashtuns to as well. ―We‘re going to help Karzai step into the role of commander in chief,‖ one of
has opted for a role as mediator-in-chief, promising Kandaharis that
them said. Instead, Karzai has waffled. Instead of acting as commander in chief, he
the offensive would not move forward over their objections. That‘s not the only issue on which the mercurial president has refused to follow the
recommendations of his U.S. patrons. He has launched back-channel talks with Taliban leaders, to the alarm of Western governments that aren‘t sure what he‘s up
to. And, earlier this month, he pushed two of the Obama administration‘s favorite ministers out of his government, Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh.
That‘s very bad news, diplomats say, because the United States and its allies have counted on being able to work directly with competent Cabinet ministers like Atmar and Saleh to make
Afghanistan‘s government function. (Karzai is ―hopeless‖ as a manager, a diplomat in Kabul told me.) Indeed, one of the reasons Karzai forced the two men out was that he reportedly felt
they had grown too close to the Americans. The underlying problem, Saleh and others say, is that Karzai is hedging his bets; he‘s no longer fully committed to the war. ―The president
has lost his confidence in the capability of either the coalition or his own government to protect this country,‖ Saleh told the New York
Times. ―President Karzai has never announced that NATO will lose, but the way that he does not proudly own the campaign shows that he doesn‘t trust it is working.‖
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 16 of 38
Instability Adv – US Presence in Afghanistan Destabilizes Pakistan
Military presence in Afghanistan destabilizes Pakistan – pushes insurgents
across the border and boosts terrorism
Simon, and Stevenson, 9 * adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, AND **Professor of Strategic Studies at the US
Naval War College, (Steven and Jonathan, ―Afghanistan: How Much is Enough?‖ Survival, 51:5, 47 – 67, October 2009
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a915362559&fulltext=7132409)
Whatever US officials might concede privately, the White House, State Department and Pentagon have thus far not acknowledged publicly the possibility that greater American
intrusiveness in Afghanistan might mean less Pakistani cooperation. That, however, appears to be the case. To be sure, Pakistan has pragmatically responded to US pressure to thwart the
Pakistan has objected to expanded US military operations in
Taliban in its tribal areas. But it is more significant in the broader strategic context that
Afghanistan on two grounds. Firstly, they would cause a cross-border spillover of militants into Pakistan and increase the counter-
insurgency burden on the Pakistani military. Secondly, they would foment political instability in Pakistan by intensifying popular
perceptions of American military occupation of the region and the Pakistani government's complicity with the Americans in
suppressing a group that was not even considered an enemy of Pakistan . Indeed, in a July 2009 briefing, Pakistani officials made it clear that, however
concerned the United States was about the Taliban, they still regard India as their top strategic priority and the Taliban militants as little more than a containable nuisance and, in the long
term, potential allies.5
Pakistani officials made clear that they still regard India as their strategic priority
realistic American objective should not be to ensure Afghanistan's political integrity by neutralising the Taliban and
In this light, the
is probably unachievable. Rather, its aim should be merely to ensure that al-Qaeda is denied both
containing Pakistani radicalism, which
Afghanistan and Pakistan as operating bases for transnational attacks on the United States and its allies and partners .
Pitfalls of the current policy
The Obama administration's instincts favouring robust counter-insurgency and state-building in Afghanistan reflect the 1990s-era US and European predilection for peacekeeping,
reconstruction and stabilisation, and the multilateral use of force for humanitarian intervention, deployed to positive effect in the Balkans and withheld tragically in Rwanda. To the extent
that this mindset was premised on an expansion of the rule of law to hitherto poorly and unjustly governed areas, such as Somalia and Bosnia, it reflects the broader conception of counter-
terrorism adopted after 11 September. Insofar as it favours collective action by major powers with the unambiguous endorsement of the UN Security Council, it is also consistent with the
Obama administration's rejection of Bush-era unilateralism. And an aggressive internationalist approach to spreading democracy and the rule of law, notwithstanding the shortsightedness
a larger US military
and inefficacy of the Bush doctrine, is admirable and in some instances appropriate.6 In this case, however, it is more likely to hurt than help. While
footprint might help stabilise Afghanistan in the short term, the effects of collateral damage and the aura of US domination it
would generate would also intensify anti-Americanism in Pakistan. This outcome, in turn, would frustrate both core American objectives
by rendering it politically far more difficult for the Pakistani government to cooperate with Washington (and easier for the quasi-independent
Inter-Services Intelligence to collude with the Taliban and al-Qaeda), thus making it harder for the United States to defeat al-Qaeda. It would also
increase radicalisation in Pakistan, imperil the regime and raise proliferation risks, increasing rather than decreasing pressure on
India to act in the breach of American ineffectuality.
Increased US troops incentivize Taliban and al-Qaeda retaliation threatening
instability
Simon and Stevenson, 9 -Steven Simon is Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Jonathan
Stevenson is a Professor
of Strategic Studies at the US Naval War College. (Survival, Oct-Nov 2009, ―Afghanistan: How much is enough,‖
http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/725396__915362559.pdf)
Finally, within the operational environment of Afghanistan and Pakistan themselves, the alternative to a minimalist approach is likely to be not the controlled and
purposeful escalation envisaged by the current policy but rather a pernicious spiral with an indeterminate outcome. If the United States continues to
respond to the threat of al-Qaeda by deepening intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Qaeda and the Taliban will rejoin with
heightened terrorist and insurgent operations that bring further instability . Indeed, that appears to be happening. In August 2009, as US
ground commanders requested more troops, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on CNN described the situation in Afghanistan as
‗serious and deteriorating‘ and the Taliban as having ‗gotten better, more sophisticated, in their tactics‘.28
The United States‘ next logical move would be to intensify pressure, raising civilian casualties, increasing political pressure on the
Kabul and Islamabad regimes, and ultimately weakening them, which would only help al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In fact, some
evidence of this dynamic has already materialised, as the Pakistani government has faced difficulties in dealing with hundreds of
thousands of Pakistanis displaced by the military campaign, undertaken at Washington‘s behest, in the Swat Valley. Certainly worries about Islamabad‘s
ability to handle the Taliban on its own are justified. Some Taliban members are no doubt keen on regime change in favour of jihadists, as noted by Bruce Riedel,
who headed up the Obama administration‘s 40 day policy review.29 But Pakistan‘s military capabilities should not be given short shrift. The Pakistani army,
however preoccupied by India, is seasoned and capable, and able to respond decisively to the Taliban should its activities reach a critical level of destabilisation.
Inter-Services Intelligence, devious though it may be, would be loath to allow the transfer of nuclear weapons to the Taliban.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 17 of 38
Instability Adv – A2: No Coup
Pakistani Coup is feasible – Neg ev too dated
The Business Times Singapore – editorial staff – November 12, 2009 – lexis
The respected New Yorker magazine in its latest issue claims that the US has been negotiating highly sensitive agreements with
the Pakistani military about the security of its nuclear arsenal. The Americans think that fundamentalists within the
Pakistani military might stage a coup or take control of some nuclear weapons or even divert a warhead, it reported. Understandably,
Pakistan has strongly denied any such talks. But whatever is going on concerning the nuclear arsenal issue, the general security
situation in Pakistan is clearly deteriorating. The US, which perhaps has the most influence over the political establishment in Islamabad, should
take notice and help the civilian government with more money and war material. As well, Washington must give far more in development aid for schools, hospitals
and transport networks immediately.
Pakistan Army would not necessarily block a coup – they‘re radicalizing now
Seymour M. Hersh is a United States Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He
is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. The New Yorker – November 16, 2009 –
lexis
Others are less sure. "Nuclear weapons are only as safe as the people who handle them," Pervez Hoodbhoy, an eminent nuclear physicist in
Pakistan, said in a talk last summer at a Nation and Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy forum in New York. For more than two decades, Hoodbhoy
said, "the Pakistan Army has been recruiting on the basis of faithfulness to Islam. As a consequence, there is now a different
character present among Army officers and ordinary soldiers. There are half a dozen scenarios that one can imagine."
There was no proof either that the most dire scenarios would be realized or that the arsenal was safe, he said.
Instability Adv – A2: Weapons Are Safe
Pakistan‘s nuclear arsenal is vulnerable – their ―safeguards‖ actually leave
them more open to terrorist manipulation
Seymour M. Hersh is a United States Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He
is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. The New Yorker – November 16, 2009 –
lexis
Safeguards have been built into the system. Pakistani nuclear doctrine calls for the warheads (containing an enriched radioactive
core) and their triggers (sophisticated devices containing highly explosive lenses, detonators, and krytrons) to be stored separately from each
other and from their delivery devices (missiles or aircraft). The goal is to insure that no one can launch a warhead-in the heat of
a showdown with India, for example-without pausing to put it together. Final authority to order a nuclear strike requires consensus within
Pakistan's ten-member National Command Authority, with the chairman-by statute, President Zardari-casting the deciding vote. But the safeguards meant
to keep a confrontation with India from escalating too quickly could make the arsenal more vulnerable to terrorists. Nuclear-
security experts have war-gamed the process and concluded that the triggers and other elements are most exposed when they are being
moved and reassembled-at those moments there would be fewer barriers between an outside group and the bomb . A
consultant to the intelligence community said that in one war-gamed scenario disaffected members of the Pakistani military could instigate a terrorist attack inside
India, and that the ensuing crisis would give them "a chance to pick up bombs and triggers-in the name of protecting the assets from extremists."
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 18 of 38
Instability Adv – A2: Pakistan Collapse Alt Causes
First – not all instability is the same
A. Our Ricks ev proves that India is mostly concerned about Pakistan being
taken-over by extremists.
B. Other forms of instability don‘t access our internal link to Indian pre-
emption.
Second – US presence is the vital internal link to de-stabilizing Pakistan
Malou Innocent is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, ―Myth v. Fact: Afghanistan‖ – Huffington Post – September
4th, 2009 – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/malou-innocent/myth-v-fact-afghanistan_b_277411.html.
Finally, and most importantly, while America has a vital interest in ensuring Pakistan does not become weakened , its America's
own policies that are pushing the conflict over the border and destabilizing the nuclear-armed country. Airstrikes from
unmanned drones are strengthening the very jihadist forces America seeks to defeat by allowing militants to exploit the popular
resentment felt from the accidental killing of innocents. On August 12, the U.S. special envoy for the region, Richard Holbrooke, told an audience at the Center for American
Progress that the porous border and its surrounding areas serve as a fertile recruiting ground for al Qaeda. One US military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called airstrikes from U.S.
unmanned drones "a recruiting windfall for the Pakistani Taliban." Citizens living outside the ungoverned tribal areas also detest drones. A
recent poll conducted by Gallup Pakistan for Al-Jazeera found that a whopping 59 percent believed the U.S. was the greatest threat to Pakistan. If America's
interests lie in ensuring the virus of anti-American radicalism does not infect the rest of the region, discontinuing policies
that add more fuel to violent religious radicalism should be the first order of business.
Their Baloch argument is wrong – Baloch insurgents pose no real threat to
Pakistan stability.
Shahid R. Siddiqi began his career in the Pakistan Air Force. Later, he worked as a broadcaster with Radio Pakistan and remained the Islamabad bureau chief of an English weekly magazine
‗Pakistan & Gulf Economist‘. ―Why Insurgency in Balochistan Cannot Succeed‖ – Foreign Policy Journal – March 30, 2010 –
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/03/30/why-insurgency-in-balochistan-cannot-succeed/2/
With the experience of recent counter-insurgency operations that the Pakistan Army gained in Swat and Waziristan and for other
reasons, there is no chance of Balochistan becoming another Bangladesh. Some of the conditions that will prevent this
insurgency from succeeding are: the much smaller size of the Baloch population – a mere 2.5 million dispersed over a vast area; the very small size
of their resistance, which according to an estimate employs only 3000- 5000 foot soldiers; tribal and sub-tribal rivalries that weaken the
insurgency; lack of broad tribal support for secession from Pakistan, including the Pashtun tribes; the inability of India to cross the international border to
intervene in Balochistan; and the ability of the army and the air force to mobilize at a short notice and the relative ease with
which both can conduct operations, if it finally comes to military action.
Poverty is not the root cause of insurgent violence – studies are inconclusive
Denis Dragovic has spent three years in senior leadership positions working for US based NGOs inside Iraq. He has over ten years of experience in Asia, Middle East and Africa both in emergency
response capacities and transitioning programs into post-conflict environments. The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance – October 5, 2009 – http://jha.ac/2009/10/05/terrorism-and-the-aid-industry-a-back-
to-basics-plan/
Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova found in their 2002 study that better economic conditions and higher levels of educational attainment have a positive correlation to the support of terrorism[5]. Empirical research by
Alberto Abadie of Harvard University found that countries with intermediate levels of political freedom and high linguistic fractualization were better indicators of the rate and severity of terrorist acts rather than
in a November 2006 Foreign Policy survey including 9,000 interviews in 8 Muslim countries showed that twenty five
poverty[6]. While
percent of self proclaimed ‗radicals‘ enjoy ―above average or very high income levels‖ compared to twenty one percent of
‗moderates‘[7]. Anecdotal evidence similarly supports the argument that poverty is not a root cause of terrorism. Nasra Hassan, after
interviewing two hundred and fifty Palestinian militants and associates of militants, reported in the November 2001 New Yorker, ―None of
them were uneducated, desperately poor, simple minded, or depressed. Many were middle class and, unless they were fugitives, held paying
jobs. Two were the sons of millionaires.‖ [8]
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 19 of 38
Instability Adv – A2: Instability Turn
( ) Not Unique – Pakistan is not stable now, and US troop presence is the root
cause. Our Bacevich, Kristof, and Fuller ev all prove this.
( ) US withdraw would not boost parties seeking to de-stabilize Pakistan
Paul R. Pillar is director of graduate studies at Georgetown University‘s Security Studies Program and a former national
intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia. The National Interest. March/April 2010 –
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22916
THE WEAKNESS of the rationale for pressing the fight in Afghanistan has led many supporters of that war to say that the real
concern is next door in Pakistan. Visions of mad mullahs getting their hands on Pakistani nuclear weapons are tossed about, but exactly how events in
Afghanistan would influence the future of Pakistan does not get explained. The connection seems to be based on simple spatial thinking about instability spreading
across borders, rather like the Cold War imagery of red paint oozing over the globe. A Taliban victory in Afghanistan would not bring any
significant new resources to bear on conflict in Pakistan, which has a population five times as large and an economy ten times as big as its South
Asian neighbor. Nor would it offer Pakistani militants a safe haven any more attractive or useful than the one they already
have in Pakistan‘s own Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
( ) US troop presence radicalizes Pakistan – brings together unrelated forms
of animosity
Malou Innocent is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, ―5 Basic Reasons the US Should Leave Afghanistan‖ – June
24, 2010 – available at: http://craigconsidine.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/5-basic-reasons-the-us-should-leave-afghanistan/
Moreover, ifAmerica‘s interests lie in ensuring the virus of anti-American radicalism does not infect the rest of the region,
discontinuing policies that add more fuel to violent religious radicalism should be the first order of business. The dominant
political force within Pakistan is not radical fundamentalist Islam, but rather a desire for a sound economy and basic security. But
the foreign troop presence risks uniting otherwise disparate militant groups from both sides of the border against a hostile
occupation of the region.
( ) US troop presence hurts Pakistan stability – pushes the conflict and
discourages terror coop
Paul R. Pillar is director of graduate studies at Georgetown University‘s Security Studies Program and a former national
intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia. The National Interest. March/April 2010 –
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22916
Pakistanis themselves offer the most authoritative take on how, if at all, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan affect security
challenges within their own country. The Pakistanis have expressed concern that to the degree those operations are
successful, they will merely push militants across the Durand Line (just as bin Laden and his colleagues were pushed across eight years ago).
The unpopularity among most Pakistanis of any U.S. military operations in the region also limits Islamabad‘s political
ability to cooperate with the United States in pursuing Washington‘s goals, including counterterrorist objectives.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 20 of 38
Instability Adv – A2: Small Presence = Anti Americanism/Backlash
First – Their evidence assume a partial withdrawal. Plan envisions a gradual,
but complete, withdrawal
Withdrawal best solves anti-American resentment
Andrew J. Bacevich, IR prof @ Boston University, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – December 8, 2009 – lexis
double down in Afghanistan is to
So the war launched as a prequel to Iraq now becomes its sequel, with little of substance learned in the interim. To
ignore the unmistakable lesson of Bush's thoroughly discredited "global war on terror": Sending U.S. troops to fight
interminable wars in distant countries does more to inflame than to extinguish the resentments giving rise to violent anti-
Western jihadism. Under the guise of cleaning up Bush's mess, Obama has chosen to continue Bush's policies. No doubt pulling the
plug on an ill-advised enterprise involves risk and uncertainty. It also entails acknowledging mistakes. It requires courage. Yet without these
things, talk of change will remain so much hot air.
The larger the US presence, the greater the Pashtun‘s discontent
Selig Harrison, Director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, available via the
Middle East Online – ―Afghanistan‘s Ethnic Split‖ – First Published 10-28-09 – http://www.middle-east-
online.com/english/opinion/?id=35320.
Alexander the Great, the British Raj and the Red Army all learned the hard way that the Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest
and historically dominant ethnic group, will unite to fight a foreign occupation force simply because it is foreign. As
Howard Hart, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan , recently told The New York Times, "The very presence of our forces in
the Pashtun areas is the problem. The more troops we put in, the greater the opposition." The tenacity of the Taliban insurgency is
rooted in opposition to an occupation that is, in this case, a particularly distasteful one to the Pashtuns. The U.S. infidel is hated for Persian Gulf and Middle East
policies - especially unconditional support for Israel - that are perceived as anti-Muslim. But there are other factors that explain the strength of the Taliban. Some
are widely written about: drug money, popular anger at corrupt warlords and support from Pakistani intelligence agencies. One factor of special sensitivity and
importance that receives almost no attention either in the public debate about Afghanistan or in the internal policy battles of the Obama administration may well be
the most important: the domination of the Afghan armed forces, police, secret police and intelligence agencies by leaders of the Tajik ethnic minority, who use their
U.S.-backed power in Kabul to lord it over their historic Pashtun rivals. Pashtun kings ruled Afghanistan from its inception in 1747 until the overthrow of the
monarchy in 1973. Initially limited to the Pashtun heartland in the south and east, the Afghan state gradually conquered the neighbouring Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek
areas to the north and west. Today, Pashtuns make up an estimated 42 per cent of a population of 28 million; Tajiks make up 27 per cent. Yet Tajik generals hold
the key levers of power in Kabul because they happened to be in the right place at the right time during the confused months when U.S. forces overthrew the
Taliban in 2001. During the struggle against the Soviet occupation, the Tajiks built up a militia in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul, that had close CIA ties.
Later, it acquired allies in neighbouring areas and became the Northern Alliance, which fought the Pashtun-based Taliban government that ruled from 1996 until
2001. When the victorious U.S. forces marched into Kabul, the Northern Alliance was there too, and with U.S. help a clique of Tajik generals seized the key
security posts in the new government. The Bush administration, wanting to give a Pashtun face to the initial interim government, installed Hamid Karzai as
President. He, too, had long-standing CIA ties and was the only Pashtun leader acceptable to the Tajik in-group headed by Muhammad Fahim. Mr. Fahim vetoed
other more popular Pashtun figures identified with the last Pashtun king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, notably Abdul Sattar Sirat. The United States later blocked
Pashtun efforts to make Mohammed Zahir Shah president of the second transitional government, which ruled from 2002 until a constitution was adopted and Mr.
Karzai was elected president in 2004. Now, the Tajiks are riding high. In Mr. Karzai's recent bid for a second term (in elections widely regarded as rigged), Mr.
Fahim was his running mate as first vice-president. Army chief of staff Bismillah Khan Mohammadi has made fellow Tajiks his key corps commanders, and about
70 per cent of his battalion commanders are Tajiks, making it difficult to enlist Pashtuns. The Tajik-dominated National Security Directorate, a sprawling network
of intelligence and secret police agencies, systematically harasses Pashtun leaders who seek to contest Tajik control. The U.S. has painted itself into a corner in
Afghanistan from which there can be no graceful escape. If the U.S. seeks to end Tajik dominance and shifts to a pro-Pashtun policy, there could well be a Tajik
backlash and an uncontrollable, ethnically defined civil war. Yet a continuation of the status quo will only deepen Pashtun discontent.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 21 of 38
Heg Adv – Counterinsurgency Kill Hegemony
Counterinsurgency will destroy US heg
Boyle, 10 - 1 Lecturer in International Relations and a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political
Violence at the University of St Andrews (3/10/10, Michael, International Affairs, ―Do counterterrorism and counterinsurgency go
together?‖ http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123318677/abstract)
At the political level, however, the effects of the conflation of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency are perhaps more serious.
One of the unfortunate by-products of the experience of the last eight years, which has seen two major national insurgencies
conducted concurrently with a global struggle against Al-Qaeda, is that policy-makers have begun to conclude (as Miliband did)
that counterterrorism is counterinsurgency. The dangers of such a position are manifest. To treat every terrorist threat through the
lens of counterinsurgency is to commit the US to undertaking countless state-building missions abroad, often with limited
prospects of success. To treat every insurgency as the potential incubator of a future terrorist threat is a recipe for overextension,
distraction and exhaustion. The struggle with Al-Qaeda can be won only if the US keeps sight of its priorities and avoids
entangling itself in an ever-increasing number of distant conflicts. But it will certainly be lost if the US exhausts itself—
financially, militarily, even morally—by forever scanning the horizon for new monsters to destroy.93
Heg Adv – Afghanistan Key to Future of US Hegemony
Afghanistan will make or break overall US power for decades
Salam, 9- previously an associate editor at The Atlantic, a producer for NBC News, a junior editor and editorial researcher
at The New York Times, a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a reporter-researcher at The New Republic
(9/17/09, Reihan, ―Don‘t Short the Surge,‖ http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2009/dont_short_the_surge_12856)
One of the many ironies of this political moment is that some of President Obama's worst enemies are poised to become his best friends. Bill Kristol, the editor of
the Weekly Standard, is widely credited with crafting the strategy that defeated Bill Clinton's 1993 healthcare overhaul. This time around, Kristol has been an
equally fierce critic of Democratic health-reform proposals. But as one of the founders of the Foreign Policy Initiative, successor to the pro-war Project for the New
American Century, he has also worked to persuade Republicans to back the president on an issue of at least equal importance, one that might soon prove more
politically perilous--the fighting in Afghanistan. Over the next decade, there is very good reason to believe that the United States and China,
the two pillars of the global economy, will grow at a slower rate . Though hardly anyone thinks of the 2000s as a golden age of peace and
prosperity, that could very well change as a slide in global growth sharpens competition for resources. Even as the U.S. economy recovers, job growth will most
likely be pathetically low. While liberals have hoped that this might spark support for an expanded welfare state, it seems just as likely that belt-tightened voters
will feel less inclined towards generosity at home and abroad. We're seeing this in the ferocious debates over taxes and spending, and we're also seeing it in the
backlash against the war in Afghanistan. It's far too early to say that the sun is setting on the American empire. The U.S. has strengths that
the British and the Soviets lacked, and that the Chinese won't have for decades or more. It is, however, very hard to imagine the
country pulling off something like the invasion of Iraq in the straitened circumstances of 2009. As the war in Afghanistan enters a
new phase, it looks like the capstone of America's unilateral moment, when it seemed as though our military and economic power
could bend reality. Success in Afghanistan--even a modest success, like the retreat from total disaster we've seen in Iraq--could represent a down
payment on a more stable geopolitical environment, the kind of investment that will pay dividends for decades. Failure could
jeopardize the basic stability that makes the global economy work. And failure is a very real possibility. This week, Admiral Mike
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told Congress that a serious counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan will "probably" require a sharp
increase in the number of American troops. General Stanley McChrystal, the new commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, reportedly wants 30,000 to
40,000 reinforcements, raising troop levels from 68,000 at the end of this year to over 100,000. Part of the issue is that the 21,000 new troops President Obama has
already agreed to send to Afghanistan won't be enough to change the dynamics on the ground, as combat forces need to be matched by personnel dedicated to
logistical support.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 22 of 38
Heg Adv – A2: Withdrawal Kills Heg
( ) Withdraw would not hurt the US‘s global image
Paul R. Pillar is director of graduate studies at Georgetown University‘s Security Studies Program and a former national
intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia. The National Interest. March/April 2010 –
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22916
My sparring partner asserts that backing away from the commitment in Afghanistan would damage U.S. credibility —a
logic eerily reminiscent of the chief rationale for the war in which I served as an army officer: the one in Vietnam. The idea was as
unexamined and invalid then as it is now . Governments (or terrorist groups) simply do not calculate other governments‘
credibility that way.1 Nagl‘s reference in this regard to how Pakistan would revisit ―its recent decisions to fight against the Taliban‖ is odd given that the
most recent decision—announced during a visit by the U.S. secretary of defense, no less—is that the Pakistani army would not launch any new offensives for as
much as a year.
Withdraw is the best option for US hegemony – troop tradeoffs and US image
Malou Innocent is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, ―No More Troops for Afghanistan‖ – This article appeared
in the Huffington Post on September 16, 200 9. Available at: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10550
As public support for the war in Afghanistan hits an all-time low, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen has endorsed an increase in U.S. forces there. But
President Obama should strongly resist any calls to add more troops. The U.S. and NATO military presence of roughly 110,000 troops is more than enough to carry
out the focused mission of training Afghan forces. Committing still more troops would only weaken the authority of Afghan leaders and
undermine the U.S.'s ability to deal with security challenges elsewhere in the world. The Senate hearings this week on Afghanistan are
displaying the increased skepticism among many top lawmakers toward a war that is rapidly losing public support. At a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing,
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked Mullen, "Do you understand you've got one more shot back home?" alluding to polls showing most Americans oppose the
war and oppose sending more troops. "Do you understand that?" Sadly, a common view among policymakers and defense officials is that if America
pours in enough time and resources--possibly hundreds of thousands of troops for another 12 to 14 years--Washington could really turn
Afghanistan around. But while military leaders like Gen. Stanley McChrystal say a new strategy must be forged to "earn the support of the [Afghan]
people," Washington does not even have the support of the American people. The U.S. does not have the patience, cultural
knowledge or legitimacy to transform what is a deeply divided, poverty-stricken, tribal-based society into a self-sufficient, non-
corrupt, and stable electoral democracy. And even if Americans did commit several hundred thousand troops and pursued decades of
armed nation-building--in the middle of an economic downturn, no less--success would hardly be guaranteed, especially in a country notoriously
suspicious of outsiders and largely devoid of central authority. The U.S. and its allies must instead narrow their objectives. A long-term, large-scale presence is not
necessary to disrupt al Qaeda, and going after the group does not require Washington to pacify the entire country. Denying a sanctuary to terrorists that seek to
attack the U.S. can be done through aerial surveillance, retaining covert operatives for discrete operations against specific targets, and ongoing intelligence-sharing
with countries in the region. Overall, remaining in Afghanistan is more likely to tarnish America's reputation and undermine U.S.
security than would withdrawal.
Allies already perceive that the US is going to cut and run – Obama‘s soft
deadline proves
ANNE FLAHERTY and PAULINE JELINEK, both writers for the Associated Press – Washington Examiner –
06/17/10 – http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/congress/general-says-july-2011-is-not-afghan-exit-date-but-tied-to-
how-war-is-going-at-the-time-96473414.html
Much of the debate on Capitol Hill has focused on when U.S. troops should leave. Obama's promise to start the withdrawal in July 2011 helped
him with Democrats. But it prompted Republican charges that the U.S. was encouraging the Taliban and demoralizing its allies by setting a
hard and fast withdrawal date. To allay these fears, military officials have repeatedly said the number of troops and how soon they would
leave will depend entirely on how the war is going. They did so again Wednesday. "We're just not going to know until we get much closer to July 2011
how many troops and where they'll come from, the pace and the place," Mullen said. During a House hearing Wednesday, California Republican Rep. Buck
McKeon asked Petraeus what conditions would have to be in place for troops to leave. Petraeus said there would have to be better security and governance, and an
Afghan security force able to contribute to that stability. Asked what happens if those conditions don't exist, Petraeus said he would recommend a delay in the
withdrawal. "If that's what's necessary, that's what I will do," he said. Petraeus' remarks were not likely to change that perception among many
Afghans that U.S. support for the war is ebbing. Afghans still have bitter memories of the 1980s and early 1990s, when the U.S. promised not to
abandon the region after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union — then did just that. Civil war and the rise of the Taliban to power followed. "Many Afghan
officials and officers, and allied officers and diplomats, are at best confused and at worst privately believe that we will leave," wrote Anthony
Cordesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in an analysis published Wednesday.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 23 of 38
Heg Adv – A2: Heg Doesn‘t Solve War
US hegemony is effective – it‘s the best solution for wars
Bradley Thayer – Associate Professor in the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University – In
Defense of Primacy, The National Interest, December, 2006 – lexis
THROUGHOUT HISTORY, peace and stability have been great benefits of an era where there was a dominant power--
Rome, Britain or the United States today. Scholars and statesmen have long recognized the irenic effect of power on the anarchic world of international politics.
Everything we think of when we consider the current international order --free trade, a robust monetary regime, increasing respect for
human rights, growing democratization--is directly linked to U.S. power. Retrenchment proponents seem to think that the current
system can be maintained without the current amount of U.S. power behind it. In that they are dead wrong and need to be
reminded of one of history's most significant lessons: Appalling things happen when international orders collapse. The Dark
Ages followed Rome's collapse. Hitler succeeded the order established at Versailles. Without U.S. power, the liberal order created by the United States will end just
as assuredly. As country and western great Ral Donner sang: "You don't know what you've got (until you lose it)." Consequently, it is important to note what those
good things are. In addition to ensuring the security of the United States and its allies, American primacy within the international system causes many
positive outcomes for Washington and the world. The first has been a more peaceful world. During the Cold War, U.S. leadership reduced friction among
many states that were historical antagonists, most notably France and West Germany. Today, American primacy helps keep a number of complicated relationships
aligned--between Greece and Turkey, Israel and Egypt, South Korea and Japan, India and Pakistan, Indonesia and Australia. This is not to say it fulfills Woodrow
Wilson's vision of ending all war. Wars still occur where Washington's interests are not seriously threatened, such as in Darfur, but a Pax Americana does
reduce war's likelihood, particularly war's worst form: great power wars . Second, American power gives the United States
the ability to spread democracy and other elements of its ideology of liberalism. Doing so is a source of much good for the countries concerned as well
as the United States because, as John Owen noted on these pages in the Spring 2006 issue, liberal democracies are more likely to align with the United States and
be sympathetic to the American worldview.3 So, spreading democracy helps maintain U.S. primacy. In addition, once states are governed
democratically, the likelihood of any type of conflict is significantly reduced. This is not because democracies do not have clashing
interests. Indeed they do. Rather, it is because they are more open, more transparent and more likely to want to resolve things amicably
in concurrence with U.S. leadership. And so, in general, democratic states are good for their citizens as well as for advancing the interests of the United States.
Critics have faulted the Bush Administration for attempting to spread democracy in the Middle East, labeling such an effort a modern form of tilting at windmills.
It is the obligation of Bush's critics to explain why democracy is good enough for Western states but not for the rest, and, one gathers from the argument, should not
even be attempted. Of course, whether democracy in the Middle East will have a peaceful or stabilizing influence on America's interests in the short run is open to
question. Perhaps democratic Arab states would be more opposed to Israel, but nonetheless, their people would be better off. The United States has brought
democracy to Afghanistan, where 8.5 million Afghans, 40 percent of them women, voted in a critical October 2004 election, even though remnant Taliban forces
threatened them. The first free elections were held in Iraq in January 2005. It was the military power of the United States that put Iraq on the path to democracy.
Washington fostered democratic governments in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Caucasus. Now even the Middle East is increasingly democratic. They may
not yet look like Western-style democracies, but democratic progress has been made in Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, the Palestinian Authority and
Egypt. By all accounts, the march of democracy has been impressive. Third, along with the growth in the number of democratic states around the world has been
the growth of the global economy. With its allies, the United States has labored to create an economically liberal worldwide network characterized by free trade and
commerce, respect for international property rights, and mobility of capital and labor markets. The economic stability and prosperity that stems from this economic
order is a global public good from which all states benefit, particularly the poorest states in the Third World. The United States created this network not out of
altruism but for the benefit and the economic well-being of America. This economic order forces American industries to be competitive, maximizes efficiencies and
growth, and benefits defense as well because the size of the economy makes the defense burden manageable. Economic spin-offs foster the development of military
technology, helping to ensure military prowess. Perhaps the greatest testament to the benefits of the economic network comes from Deepak Lal, a former Indian
foreign service diplomat and researcher at the World Bank, who started his career confident in the socialist ideology of post-independence India. Abandoning the
positions of his youth, Lal now recognizes that the only way to bring relief to desperately poor countries of the Third World is through the adoption of free market
economic policies and globalization, which are facilitated through American primacy.4 As a witness to the failed alternative economic systems, Lal is one of the
strongest academic proponents of American primacy due to the economic prosperity it provides.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 24 of 38
Solvency – Withdrawal/Reducing Presence Good
Substantially reducing presence still maintains US influence but eliminates
the risks of large deployments
Innocent and Carpenter, 9 - *foreign policy analyst at Cato who focuses on Afghanistan and Pakistan AND
**vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at Cato (Malou and Ted, ―Escaping the Graveyard of Empires: A Strategy
to Exit Afghanistan,‖ http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/escaping-graveyard-empires-strategy-exit-afghanistan.pdf)
Given the nature of the conflict in Afghanistan, a definitive, conventional ―victory‖ is not a realistic option. Denying a sanctuary to
terrorists who seek to attack the United States does not require Washington to pacify the entire country, eradicate its opium fields,
or sustain a long-term military presence in Central Asia. From the sky, U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles can monitor villages,
training camps, and insurgent compounds.
On the ground, the United States can retain a small number of covert operatives for intelligence gathering and discrete operations
against specific targets, as well as an additional small group of advisers to train Afghan police and military forces. The United
States should withdraw most of its forces from Afghanistan within the next 12 to 18 months and treat al Qaeda‘s presence in the
region as a chronic, but manageable, problem. Washington needs to narrow its objectives to three critical tasks:
Security. Support, rather than supplant, indigenous security efforts by training and assisting the Afghan national army and police
and, where appropriate, paying off or otherwise co-opting regional militias. Training should be tied to clear metrics. If those
benchmarks are not achieved, Washington must cut its losses and cease further assistance. U.S. forces should not become
Afghanistan‘s perpetual crutch.
Intelligence and Regional Relations. Sustain intelligence operations in the region through aerial surveillance, covert operations,
and ongoing intelligence-sharing with the Afghan and Pakistani governments. Seek cordial relations with all of Afghanistan‘s
neighbors, particularly Russia and Iran, as each has the means to significantly undermine or facilitate progress in the country.
Drugs. Dial back an opium eradication policy to one that solely targets drug cartels affiliated with insurgents rather than one that
targets all traffickers, including poor local farmers. Harassing the latter alienates a significant portion of the rural population.
Central Asia holds little intrinsic strategic value to the United States, and America‘s security will not be endangered even if an
oppressive regime takes over a contiguous fraction of Afghan territory. America‘s objective has been to neutralize the parties
responsible for the atrocities committed on 9/11. The United States should not go beyond that objective by combating a regional
insurgency or drifting into an open-ended occupation and nation-building mission.
Most important, Afghanistan serves as the crossroads of Central Asia. From its invasion by Genghis Khan and his two-million
strong Mongol hordes to the superpower proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union, Afghanistan‘s trade routes
and land-locked position in the middle of the region have for centuries rendered it vulnerable to invasion by external powers.
Although Afghanistan has endured successive waves of Persian, Greek, Arab, Turk, Mongol, British, and Soviet invaders, no
occupying power has ever successfully conquered it. There‘s a reason why it has been described as the ―graveyard of empires,‖
and unless America scales down its objectives, it risks meeting a similar fate.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 25 of 38
Solvency – Withdrawal = Taliban Peace Settlement [1/2]
Reducing presence makes it sustainable and facilitates a settlement with the
Taliban
Stewart, 10- Ryan Family Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights
Policy, studied at Oxford and served briefly in the British army before working in the diplomatic service in Indonesia and as
British representative to Montenegro (1/14/10, Rory, ―Afghanistan: what could work,‖
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jan/14/afghanistan-what-could-work/?page=4)
This may be fatal for Obama‘s ambition to ―open the door‖ to the Taliban. The lighter, more political, and less but still robust militarized presence that his
argument implies could facilitate a deal with the Taliban, if it appeared semi-permanent. As the President asserted, the Taliban are not that strong. They
have nothing like the strength or appeal that they had in 1995. They cannot take the capital, let alone recapture the country. There
is strong opposition to their presence, particularly in the center and the north of the country. Their only hope is to negotiate. But
the Taliban need to acknowledge this. And the only way they will is if they believe that we are not going to allow the Kabul
government to collapse. Afghanistan has been above all a project not of force but of patience. It would take decades before Afghanistan achieved the political
cohesion, stability, wealth, government structures, or even basic education levels of Pakistan. A political settlement requires a reasonably strong permanent
government. The best argument against the surge, therefore, was never that a US operation without an adequate Afghan government partner would be unable to
defeat the Taliban—though it won‘t. Nor that the attempt to strengthen the US campaign will intensify resistance, though it may. Nor because such a deployment of
over 100,000 troops at a cost of perhaps $100 billion a year would be completely disproportional to theUS‘s limited strategic interests and moral obligation in
Afghanistan—though that too is true. Instead, Obama should not have requested more troops because doing so intensifies opposition to the
war in the US and Europe and accelerates the pace of withdrawal demanded by political pressures at home. To keep domestic
consent for a long engagement we need to limit troop numbers and in particular limit our casualties. The surge is a Mephistophelian
bargain, in which the President has gained force but lost time. What can now be done to salvage the administration‘s position? Obama has acquired leverage over
the generals and some support from the public by making it clear that he will not increase troop strength further. He has gained leverage over Karzai by showing
that he has options other than investing in Afghanistan. Now he needs to regain leverage over the Taliban by showing them that he is not about
to abandon Afghanistan and that their best option is to negotiate. In short, he needs to follow his argument for a call strategy to its conclusion. The
date of withdrawal should be recast as a time for reduction to a lighter, more sustainable, and more permanent presence. This is what
the administration began to do in the days following the speech. As National Security Adviser General James Jones said, ―That date is a ‗ramp‘ rather than a cliff.‖
And as Hillary Clinton said in her congressional testimony on December 3, their real aim should be to ―develop a long-term sustainable relationship with
Afghanistan and Pakistan so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past, primarily our abandonment of that region.‖ A more realistic, affordable, and
therefore sustainable presence would not make Afghanistan stable or predictable. It would be merely a small if necessary part of an
Afghan political strategy. The US and its allies would only moderate, influence, and fund a strategy shaped and led by Afghans
themselves. The aim would be to knit together different Afghan interests and allegiances sensitively enough to avoid alienating
independent local groups, consistently enough to regain their trust, and robustly enough to restore the security and justice that
Afghans demand and deserve from a national government. What would this look like in practice? Probably a mess. It might involve a tricky coalition
of people we refer to, respectively, as Islamists, progressive civil society, terrorists, warlords, learned technocrats, and village chiefs. Under a notionally democratic
constitutional structure, it could be a rickety experiment with systems that might, like Afghanistan‘s neighbors, include strong elements of religious or military rule.
There is no way to predict what the Taliban might become or what authority a national government in Kabul could regain. Civil war would remain a possibility.
But an intelligent, long-term, and tolerant partnership with the United States could reduce the likelihood of civil war and increase the likelihood of a political
settlement. This is hardly the stuff of sound bites and political slogans. But it would be better for everyone than boom and bust, surge and flight.
With the right patient leadership, a political strategy could leave Afghanistan in twenty years‘ time more prosperous, stable, and
humane than it is today. That would be excellent for Afghans and good for the world.
Withdrawal key to negotiations – Taliban won‘t speak until concessions
granted
Shah & Gannon, 10 (4/6/10, Amir and Kathy, The Associated Press, ―Afghan Peace Conference backs Karzai Plan to
Approach Taliban for Talks,‖
http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/world/afghan_peace_conference_calls_for_negotiating_with_militants_in_boost_for_karzai/7cf83011)
The United States supports overtures to lower-level militants but thinks talks with top leaders will go nowhere until NATO-led and
Afghan forces are successful in weakening the Taliban and strengthening the Afghan government in Kandahar province and
elsewhere in the south.
The Taliban insist no talks are possible until foreign troops withdraw from the country - a step Karzai cannot afford with the
insurgency raging. U.S. officials contend the Taliban leadership feels it has little reason to negotiate because it believes it is
winning the war.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 26 of 38
Solvency – Withdrawal = Taliban Peace Settlement [2/2]
Withdrawal puts pressure on the Taliban to reconcile with the Afghan
government
Afghan Daily, 9 (12/4/09, from BBC Monitoring International Reports, ―Talk of troops withdrawal deprives Taleban of some of its propaganda -
Afghan daily,‖ Gale group)
President Barack Obama that the American leadership is trying to enter a new phase of war by
It can be inferred from the comments by US
raising the issue of withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan. Evidence establishes that Afghans will have to take most of the political,
military and security responsibilities in the new phase. If this happens, the political, military and security forces of Afghanistan will gain the necessary confidence.
Barack Obama has said that US forces will begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in 18 months . He has also explained and emphasized that
he will send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Having to take greater responsibility for administering Afghanistan is an issue that different security and
political institutions of Afghanistan have been asking for. It has been the international community and countries involved in Afghanistan which have not paid
attention to this request. What is interesting in this debate is the US interest that Afghanistan's destiny be handed over to the government of Afghanistan. This issue
can be of interest to the people of Afghanistan too because they have constantly emphasized their independence. However, they are also shocked to hear that 30,000
more troops will arrive in Afghanistan. Taleban have taken advantage of this situation and strengthened their positions. Taleban have
constantly argued that Afghanistan has been militarily occupied and that it is under the political influence of powerful countries
that maintain a military presence in this country. Whenever President Karzai has extended an offer of reconciliation to the Taleban,
they have demanded that foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan fi rst. It has also been one of the main conditions of the Hezb-e Eslami faction
led by Golboddin Hekmatyar that a clear timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops must first be set. Barack Obama has now announced that the United States
will start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan in 18 months. This can neutralize the excuses of the armed government opposition groups. Many experts familiar
with political and social affairs in the country believe that Barack Obama's strategy, which can be called an exit strategy, can make the people of
Afghanistan and of the entire world optimistic about the future of Afghanistan. Afghans have always strived to keep the shadow of another
country from falling on their political life. This has meant that our country has distanced itself from many international political affairs in different phases of its
history. Although Afghanistan has been a long-time member of the United Nations, it has not benefited from international political issues due to its policy of
caution. Afghanistan has been a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and this demonstrates that political independence, impartiality and non-alignment have
always been important to the people of Afghanistan. The presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan has enabled the armed government opposition groups and
regional countries to make excuses. Now that Americans have announced their withdrawal, Afghan government officials will also strive
to increase their capacity to manage the situation in Afghanistan. This will also include dealing with the Taleban and all other
armed opposition groups. In fact, it can be argued that both the Taleban and Hezb-e Eslami faction led by Golboddin Hekmatyar
will no longer have an excuse and they will be pressured by public opinion to reconcile with the government. The future government of
Afghanistan, whose cabinet will soon be formed, will strive to use its material and spiritual resources to secure public confidence and extend the writ of the
government throughout Afghanistan. This will also strengthen people's sense of independence and motivate them to lead and play a direct
and visible role in paving the way for security, peace and stability in their society . By arguing that the government is not fully
independent, the Taleban have directed the sympathy of many youths in different parts of the country towards themselves.
However, the withdrawal of foreign forces or even talk of their imminent withdrawal will deprive the Taleban of this excuse.
US withdrawal is a prerequisite to a political settlement with the Taliban
Their, 10 - director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the US Institute of Peace (J. Alexander, ―Afghanistan‘s Rocky Path to
Peace,‖ Current History, April,
http://www.usip.org/files/afghanistan/Thier%20-%20Path%20to%20Peace%20-%20Current%20History.pdf
For the Taliban leadership, the condition is the withdrawal of foreign forces. The Taliban‘s success today relies not on ideology,
but rather on resistance to foreign occupation and Karzai‘s corrupt puppet regime. It would be hard for the Taliban, perhaps
impossible, to accept some sort of accommodation with Karzai—but it is nearly unimaginable that the Taliban would accept any
agreement that does not include the fairly quick withdrawal of foreign forces from the Taliban heartland, and their timeline-based
withdrawal from the entire country. Between this Taliban demand and the US desire to withdraw, a pleasing symmetry exists. But
Afghanistan‘s fragility and that of neighboring Pakistan—a country that to the United States represents an even greater national
security concern—will make pulling out entirely a risky endeavor.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 27 of 38
Solvency – Withdrawal key to effective counterterrorism strategy
Withdrawing troops is vital to the success of any counterterrorism strategy
Bandow 09- Senior Fellow @ Cato, former special assistant to Reagan (11/31/09, Doug, ―Recognizing the Limits of
American Power in Afghanistan,‖ Huffington Post, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10924)
Thus, the Taliban may well focus on its own interests. Mullah Mutawakkil, once a minister in the Taliban government, believes a deal is possible: remove bounties
on commanders, release insurgent prisoners held at Bagram air base, and accept Taliban rule in Afghanistan's southern provinces in return for a commitment not to
allow use of Taliban-controlled territory in attacks on the West. This would not be a radical policy, since Washington already has ceded certain areas to warlord
control. Insurgent leaders know well that denial is less costly than control: Washington could launch targeted strikes against any al-Qaeda operations and oust any
regime, Taliban or other, which allied itself with terrorists. This approach also would demonstrate to the Muslim world that the U.S. is targeting terrorists, not
Islamic governments. In contrast, warns Mutawakkil: "If the Taliban fight on and finally became Afghanistan's government with the help of al-Qaeda, it would then
be very difficult to separate them." Currently joined with the Taliban are opportunistic warlords such as Gulbaddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani.
Washington should appeal to differences among uneasy allies and offer to buy off--or lease--the more venal opposition.
An essential aspect of this strategy, however, is withdrawing allied troops, since many Afghan fighters are determined to resist any
foreign occupiers. A continuing occupation, no matter how well-intentioned from our perspective, will generate "more casualties,
irritation and recruitment for the Taliban," in the words of Nicholas Kristof. In fact, the longer more U.S. forces remain, the harder
more insurgents will resist. In 2007, for instance, 27 often feuding groups coalesced in Pakistan in response to U.S. airstrikes. In Afghanistan the population
has not turned on the Taliban the way Iraqis turned on the al-Qaeda. Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, advocated a U.S.
withdrawal over the next 18 months: "Many experts in and from Afghanistan warn that our presence over the past eight years has already hardened a meaningful
percentage of the population into viewing the United States as an army of occupation which should be opposed and resisted."
Solvency – Counterterrorism Focus Good – Key to Solve Terrorism
Maintaining intelligence cooperation and Special Forces raids solves the risk
of terrorism
Bandow 09- Senior Fellow @ Cato, former special assistant to Reagan (11/31/09, Doug, ―Recognizing the Limits of
American Power in Afghanistan,‖ Huffington Post, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10924)
The administration should adjust its policy ends. Washington's principal objective should be protecting U.S. security. The Washington
Post's David Ignatius railed against adopting "a more selfish counterterrorism strategy that drops the rebuilding part and seeks to assassinate America's enemies."
But the U.S. government's overriding obligation is to protect U.S. citizens, and that means focusing on al-Qaeda rather than the Taliban,
forestalling and disrupting terrorist operations against America. Doing so requires sharing intelligence widely among affected
nations, squeezing terrorist funding networks, utilizing Special Forces on the ground, employing predator and air strikes--judiciously,
given the tragic risk of civilian casualties, which both raises moral issues and fuels anti-American sentiment--and cooperating with various Afghan
forces and the Pakistani government.
Solvency – Counterterrorism Shift Solves – Intelligence
A counterterrorism approach solves – can rely on local networks and
surveillance for intellgience
Bacevich 9, Professor of International Relations at Boston University, former US Army Officer (Andrew J, 4/15/10, Nov
09, Harper Magazine,―The War We Can‘t Win,‖ http://harpers.org/archive/2009/11/0082687)
What might this mean in practice? General Petraeus, now in charge of U.S. Central Command, recently commented that ―the mission is to ensure that Afghanistan
does not again become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and other transnational extremists,‖ in effect ―to deny them safe havens in which they can plan and train for such
attacks.‖ The mission statement is a sound one. The current approach to accomplishing the mission is not sound and , indeed, qualifies as
counterproductive. Note that denying Al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan hasn‘t required U.S. forces to occupy the frontier regions of
that country. Similarly, denying transnational extremists safe havens in Afghanistan shouldn‘t require military occupation by the
United States and its allies. It would be much better to let local authorities do the heavy lifting . Provided appropriate incentives, the tribal
chiefs who actually run Afghanistan are best positioned to prevent terrorist networks from establishing a large-scale presence. As a
backup, intensive surveillance complemented with precision punitive strikes (assuming we can manage to kill the right people) will suffice to
disrupt Al Qaeda‘s plans. Certainly, that approach offers a cheaper and more efficient alternative to the establishment of a large-scale
and long-term U.S. ground presence—which, as the U.S. campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated, has the unintended effect of handing
jihadists a recruiting tool that they are quick to exploit.
***Case Negative***
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 28 of 38
Inherency – A2: Withdrawal Inevitable
The US won‘t withdraw – they will stay until they can declare victory to avoid
the appearance of defeat
Jay, 10 - CEO and Senior Editor, The Real News Network (Paul, Huffington Post, 6/25, ―Alliance With Warlords Makes War Strategy Hopeless,‖
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-jay/alliance-with-warlords-ma_b_625088.html)
Now that we all know about the massive Afghan minerals find (the Saudi Arabia of lithium we are told), the Pentagon has found a reason
to stay in Afghanistan long after the date for the draw down. Gen. David Petraeus testified in the Senate that one role of the US armed forces is to
create a "foundation of security" so that the minerals can be exploited. That's clearly not happening within a year. But it's unlikely that lithium is what's driving
Petraeus. The US army will not have it seen that they lost this war. They will not allow another Vietnam, a defeat that made it
almost impossible to launch major wars for decades. They will insist on staying until, like the sham success in Iraq, they can declare a
victory no matter the reality. Why? Because the projection of US power around the world rests on a global belief in US military
supremacy. It's the critical glue that holds an entire jigsaw puzzle of regimes in power; it protects a system that favors the wealthy powers
over the poorer ones. This is what makes Republican Senator Lindsey Graham literally shake whenever he contemplates "defeat". For such leaders it's worth
thousands of lives and billions of dollars to avoid the US being seen as strategically weak . Can Obama risk being known as the President who lost
the Afghan war? Not likely before the election of 2012. And then, Presidents do like their place in history. As unpopular as this war gets,
Obama has shown himself to be far more afraid of his right flank than his left . That is, unless Americans rise up against this war in a way that is
yet to be seen.
Petraeus will prevent withdrawal and manage public expectations
Porter, 10 - investigative journalist and historian specializing in U.S. national security policy (Gareth, ―Why Petraeus won't
salvage this war,‖ 6/28,
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/28/why_petraeus_wont_salvage_this_war
Rather than renounce the Obama July 2011 timeline for beginning the transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan government,
Petraeus may wish to take advantage of that date as well as the full evaluation scheduled for December 2010. He could use those
dates as the basis for a new variant of his early 2007 vow to determine whether the strategy he adopts is working and to convey his
assessment to the president. Meanwhile, he will certainly wish to begin the process of managing public expectations about progress by
providing a more sobering analysis of the magnitude of the problems he will face in Afghanistan than has been heard publicly
from McChrystal thus far. One of the purposes of the reassessment of strategy will presumably be to identify objectives that need to
modified or dropped because they cannot be achieved . Petraeus may abandon McChrystal's plan to expel the Taliban from key districts in Helmand
and Kandahar provinces as a metric of success, because it has proven to be beyond the capabilities of the coalition forces and the Afghan government.
Obama won‘t be able to withdraw – election politics
Menon, 10 (Rajan, Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, January/February 2010, Boston Review,
―Afghanistan‘s travails cannot be separated from circumstances in Pakistan,‖ http://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.1/menon.php)
The president and his advisers seek to reassure Americans that we will not be trapped in an Afghan quagmire, that there is an ―exit
strategy,‖ and that the troop increase is laying the groundwork for it . This is wishful thinking. The current Afghan surge is in fact
a prelude to a larger surge, not, in any reasonable stretch of time anyway, a withdrawal. It is hard to believe that this keenly
intelligent president does not see this pitfall, and even harder to discern why he is deepening the military commitment in Afghanistan if he does.
Obama is no doubt sincere about the arguments he has provided on behalf of the surge. If it fails, he will not be able to claim that
the conditions necessitating a counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign have disappeared. The military brass and the political right (in both parties)
will, as they always do, ask for more troops. With an election looming it will be hard for the President to say no. Those who call for an even
bigger effort will insist that, if we are not succeeding, it is because we are not trying hard enough, and they will deploy the imagery
of 9/11 to press the case that there is no choice but to persist . Count on it.
The US won‘t withdraw without reconciliation
Chellaney, 10 - professor of strategic studies at the privately funded Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. (Brahma,
Washington Times, ―Surge, bribe and run; Washington has learned nothing from past policies,‖ 2/16, lexis)
What President Obama's administration has been pursuing in Afghanistan for the past year has received international imprimatur, thanks to last
month's well-scripted London Conference. Four words sum up that strategy: Surge, bribe and run. Mr. Obama has designed his twin troop surges
not to rout the Afghan Taliban militarily but to strike a political deal with the enemy from a position of strength . As his top commander
in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, has admitted, the aim of such troop increases is to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table,
not to beat back the insurgency. Without a deal with Taliban commanders, the U.S. cannot execute the "run" part.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 29 of 38
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [1/5]
Smaller footprint increases anti-Americanism and recruitment outside of
Afghanistan
Hegghammer ‗09
(Thomas,- senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) and an associate of the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs at
Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs ―The big impact of small footprints‖11-11
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/11/the_big_impact_of_small_footprints)
Why, then, would a small footprint approach in Afghanistan create more visual symbols of Muslim suffering? For a start, a troop
reduction would not take away the occupation, at least not in the eyes of non-Afghan Islamists. Al Qaeda has a very wide definition of
occupation and would frame any U.S. military presence in the region as such. Moreover, the surgical strikes would not be that
surgical. A significantly smaller U.S. ground presence is likely to produce less good human intelligence, because it will be harder
to protect informants. This will increase the risk of hitting, for example, wedding parties. In addition, fewer strikes means that each individual
operation is more visible. This mitigates the problem of information saturation which currently frustrates jihadi
propagandists. In war, many bad things happen, but individual incidents drown in the noise of the conflict. This may explain why
interest in the Iraqi insurgency on jihadi forums has decreased steadily since 2005; there was so much going on that even jihadis were
desensitized. A related dynamic may be behind the paradox that in Pakistan, public outrage over CIA drone strikes seems to have decreased in 2008 and 2009
as the frequency of strikes has gone up. For al Qaeda's propagandists, less can be more. Last but not least, the Taliban will be better placed to exploit
the attacks politically. Surgical strikes can work, provided the government on whose territory they occur is a relatively friendly one. The killing of al Qaeda
operative Abu Ali al-Harithi by a CIA drone in Yemen in 2002 was certainly controversial, but it did not become a major symbol of Muslim suffering, because
there was no civilian collateral damage and no images of the incident. Likewise, drone strikes in Pakistan have been unpopular, but Islamabad's complicity gives
Pakistani officials an incentive to keep photographers away from the aftermath. By contrast, a future Taliban-dominated government would do
everything in its power to amplify the visual impact and exaggerate the collateral damage of American operations. It would
use diplomatic and other channels to build international political pressure on the U.S. stop its attacks. There would be calls on
Washington to offer concrete evidence and justification for each major attack , which would be hard to do without sharing sensitive
intelligence. Meanwhile, al Qaeda would hide among civilians. For the Taliban, plausible deniability would be easy to establish: after all, Kabul cannot
prevent Arab tourists, charity workers and preachers from entering the country. With the small footprint approach, al Qaeda will have a safe
haven in Afghanistan, albeit a somewhat less open one than in the late 1990s.
Withdrawal increases dependence on UAV strikes --- inflames resentment
Hegghammer ‗09
(Thomas,- senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) and an associate of the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs at
Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs ―The big impact of small footprints‖11-11
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/11/the_big_impact_of_small_footprints)
proponents of troop reduction in Afghanistan are also critical of drone strikes in Pakistan. What they do
It is ironic that many
not seem to realize is that the small footprint approach will increase our reliance on drone strikes in Afghanistan. Without
a major ground presence, airstrikes will be our principal tool for keeping al Qaeda on the run and deterring the Taliban
from hosting them. Such intermittent strikes may well create more anti-Americanism outside Afghanistan than the current
occupation.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 30 of 38
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [2/5]
Instability Turn:
US withdraw de-stabilizes Pakistan – it only encourages extremism
Lisa Curtis is Senior Research Fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies Center and James Phillips is Senior
Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the
Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation. ―Shortsighted U.S. Policies on
Afghanistan to Bring Long-Term Problems‖ – Heritage Foundation Reports – Published on October 5, 2009 –
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/10/shortsighted-us-policies-on-afghanistan-to-bring-long-term-problems
There have been several positive developments in Pakistan over the last six months , such as the Pakistan military's thrust into the
Swat Valley to evict pro-Taliban elements and significant improvement in U.S.-Pakistani joint operations along the Afghanistan-
Pakistan border that led to the elimination of Baitullah Mehsud in August. Moreover, the Pakistani military is reportedly preparing for an offensive in South
Waziristan, where al-Qaeda and other extremists have been deeply entrenched for the last few years. But this recent success in Pakistan should not
mislead U.S. policymakers into thinking that the U.S. can turn its attention away from Afghanistan. In fact, now is the time
to demonstrate military resolve in Afghanistan so that al-Qaeda and its affiliates will be squeezed on both sides of the
border. If the U.S. scales back the mission in Afghanistan at a time when the Taliban views itself as winning the war there,
it is possible that the recent gains in Pakistan will be squandered. Anti-extremist constituencies in Pakistan that are
fighting for their lives and the future of Pakistan are begging the U.S. to "stay the course" in Afghanistan, with full
knowledge that a U.S. retreat would embolden extremists region-wide. Washington should listen to these voices.
US Withdraw cause Al Qaeda to re-enter. This forces US re-entry – turning the
case.
John Nagl is the president of the Center for a New American Security. The National Interest. March/April 20 10 –
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22916
This is not to mention the regional consequences of an American withdrawal from Afghanistan, the costs of which would be
severe. The dominant regional narrative—that the United States will abandon its friends without compunction—would be
reinforced. NATO, having made a more extensive commitment to Afghanistan than to any post–Cold War conflict, would be
severely weakened. Pakistan would be forced to recalculate its recent decisions to fight against the Taliban inside its own borders
because the balance of power in the region would shift in favor of the Taliban upon our departure. Al-Qaeda would likely again
decide that Afghanistan presents a more favorable home under those circumstances than do the tribal regions of Pakistan,
which are subject to at least some degree of state control. America would again have to invade and occupy Afghanistan to
drive out the terrorists.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 31 of 38
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [3/5]
No risk of instability or a coup ---
Army checks
Grare ‘06
(Frédéric,- Visiting Scholar @ Carnegie ―Pakistan: The Myth of an Islamist Peril‖ http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/45.grare.final.pdf)
As sectarian conflict has intensified in Pakistan, the army has been accused of having created an Islamic Frankenstein it could no longer control. Yet, careful examination shows that the army, including the
ISI direc- torate, has always been able to maintain violence at an ―acceptable‖ level by dividing groups, generating infighting every time an organization became too important, and
sometimes physically eliminating uncontrolable elements. Azam Tariq, leader of the Lashkar-e-Janghvi, the most lethal sectarian Sunni terrorist organization, was assassinated on October 5, 2003, for
example.
The army nevertheless cannot maintain total control. In December 2004, two suicide attackers nearly succeeded in assassinating Musharraf. Some extremely militant groups have become so estranged by
the army leader- ship’s turn to the United States that they are beyond the government’s control. In November 2003, when Musharraf banned fif- teen to seventeen violent sectarian organiza- tions, other
similar organizations that are useful in Afghanistan and Kashmir were merely kept on a watch list. Although sectarian violence is a serious law-and-order problem, it is not a threat to regime
stability in Pakistan.
Public opposition
Grare ‘06
(Frédéric,- Visiting Scholar @ Carnegie ―Pakistan: The Myth of an Islamist Peril‖ http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/45.grare.final.pdf)
When Islamic parties gain local power— usually by political manipulation as in parts of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan, stability and secu- rity are no better or worse than
in areas con- trolled by their secular alternatives. When Islamic parties are in opposition, they are used by the regime as a vessel to receive and channel popular dissatisfaction. The religious
parties’ low mass appeal makes them less threatening to the military establishment than the more popular PPP. Demonstrations organized by the MMA during the Iraq War, for example, bolstered a
Pakistani government caught between popu- lar opinion hostile to the war and the govern- ment’s need not to alienate the United States. Most observers in Pakistan believed in 2003 hat the Iraq War
would unleash a series of protests and terrorist attacks. Preparations were made and security was reinforced, yet, not a single incident occurred. Musharraf, representing the dominant army,
got the government’s message out, and the leaders of the large Islamist political parties and even key terrorist organizations followed it. Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Musharraf told a
group of businesspeople in Lahore that Pakistan would be the next target of U.S. military punishment if it continued to be perceived as a state supporting terrorism. Pakistan’s possession of
nuclear weapons only raised the likelihood of a U.S. strike. It was time for radical groups in Pakistan to lie low and go along with the state’s cooperation with the United States. Qazi Hussein
Ahmad, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, and more radi- cal players such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba, fol- lowed along. The remarkable calm showed the sunny side of the patron-client relation-ship between the
Pakistan state establishment and key Islamist parties and forces.
No risk of loose nukes
Bokhari ‘07
(Farhan,- Pakistan-based commentator who writes on political and economic matters ―Pakistan's nuclear assets - myth vs reality‖
http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2007/12/09/42688.html)
Since the controversy surrounding Khan erupted almost four years ago, Pakistan's structure of nuclear management has been significantly transformed. The country's nuclear establishment
has overseen the induction of improved standards across the board. New safeguards have been applied for taking charge of nuclear assets in a variety of ways, ranging from closer monitoring of up
to 2,000 individuals who hold key positions in the nuclear establishment to the enforcement of safe practices such as a two-man rule, which essentially means that key decisions in the use of
nuclear materials will never be left to any individual. Takeover Besides, scenarios such as the danger of a Taliban takeover are just too far-fetched to become part of a serious discourse.
For years Pakistan has been widely seen as a country which has seen a stark rise in the number of Taliban-type militants. The present anxieties in the Western world are probably fuelled by the reality
of Taliban-type Islamists ruling the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) for the past five years. As key partners in a ruling provincial coalition, those Islamists have also held sway over the provincial
government in the south western Balochistan province. The truth, however, is that these two provinces represent well below 20 per cent of Pakistan's population of 165 million - a fact which is often
ignored when political analysts blindly contemplate the Taliban sweeping through Pakistan and taking charge not only of the country but also of its nuclear assets. Further reassurance for the anti-nuclear
proliferation lobby must be the fact that the management of Pakistan's nuclear assets lies squarely in the hands of the armed forces. Unlike political governments which can be voted in or out of office, the
Pakistan army as an institution provides consistency in managing nuclear assets. In its short history as an independent state, Pakistan has seen a series of military coups and returns to
civilian rule, political murders and times of reconciliation. When East Pakistan seceded from the country to become Bangladesh in 1971, there was also talk of the nation coming undone, but it
survived that and will likely survive this. The fact that Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons may make the current situation there more worrisome to us in the West, but it's also worth remembering that
other nuclear powers of longer standing have been here before. Throughout the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, China remained in control of its nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union survived
the dissolution of its statehood, and so far at least, this hasn't led to atomic catastrophe. But whether elections go ahead next month as planned or a state of emergency is declared and the vote
postponed, Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will likely play a key role in the country's future. If anything, the blow of Bhutto's death will make the military -- which has seen its prestige among
Pakistanis suffer during President Pervez Musharraf's rule -- all the more eager to see civilians back in charge of the country.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 32 of 38
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [4/5]
India won‘t militarily respond --- terrorist threat doesn‘t outweigh risk of
nuclear retaliation
Kumar ‘10
(Radha,- Program Director, Peace and Conflict, Delhi Policy Group @ Council on Foreign Relations May 13 th ―Summer Thaw in
India-Pakistan Freeze?‖)
Many people have argued that the Mumbai attacks of 2008 created a sense of such frustration and helplessness within India,
that if there is another Mumbai, India will have no option but to respond militarily. Within India, however, those who
would argue that point would argue for a conventional military response, not for a nuclear response . When they say a
conventional military response, they are not factoring in that Pakistan then might push it to the nuclear stage . But I feel fairly convinced that as far
as the prime minister of India is concerned, or the leading decision-makers are concerned, that's one of the fears that would restrain even a
military response. My own preference would be for Pakistanis not to say, "What would you do the next time this happens?" and to add, as they often do, "and
we know it will happen," but for them to say, "What can we do to see that it doesn't happen again?" And how real are fears of a nuclear confrontation in such an
event? When it comes to the question of nuclear confrontation, it's an interesting but little-mentioned fact that the Indian government has tended
traditionally, right from the days of testing its first nuclear weapons in 1974, to see nuclear weapons as symbolic deterrents--not as actual offensive
weapons. And there was a huge complacency within the Indian establishment that Pakistan's nuclearization would not lead to a
real military confrontation. Some of that complacency was exploded in 2002, when India massed its troops on the Pakistani border in response to an attack on the Indian Parliament, and Pakistan
responded in fact by arming some of its tanks with nuclear weapons and moving them to its border. But even then, the point didn't sink home in India, that the level of Pakistani alarm at Indian muscle-flexing is one that
can go very rapidly from rhetoric to nuclear. Even today, there is possibly not a sufficient recognition in India of that will. That makes for a very dangerous situation.
Even if there is instability, radical groups won‘t change anything
Grare ‘06
(Frédéric,- Visiting Scholar @ Carnegie ―Pakistan: The Myth of an Islamist Peril‖ http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/45.grare.final.pdf)
The Pakistani Army, which largely controls the major Islamist organizations, could be infiltrated by Islamist actors who could then seize leadership through a coup d’état or reg- ular
promotion. Although the military remains opaque, there is so far no evidence that it has been widely infiltrated, much less controlled, by the Islamists. It seems that the army reflects the
society: Although Islamists are undoubtedly present, there is no reason to believe that their numbers are significantly greater than in the rest of Pakistani society. Even if the top
echelons of the army hierarchy were to be occupied by Islamists, it would be extremely unlikely to change the course of Pakistan’s foreign policy.
Islamic parties often provide no more than an Islamic rationalization of existing foreign policies on which a convergence of interests already exists.
For example, the Islamic parties pro- vided an Islamic rationale for fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. The similar quest to control Muslim-majority
parts of Kashmir, or at least to deny Indian sovereignty over Kashmir, is constant in both the modernist and Islamist discourses. When Islamic
parties get close to power, they often adapt their discourse to political realities, and sometimes they just drop Islamic rhetoric. Pakistan’s
rapprochement with the United States following September 11, 2001, for instance, was criticized by religious parties on geopolitical grounds, not
ideological ones: Islamist parties argued that siding with the United States would alienate China and Iran, more important friends to Pakistan.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 33 of 38
A2: Instability Adv – 1NC [5/5]
Alt causes --
Baloch insurgents
Zambelis ‘06
(Chris,- Senior Analyst with Applied Marine Technology specializes in Middle East and South Asian politics and international terrorism issues, June 29, 2006 Violence and Rebellion in
Iranian Balochistan, http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/analysts.php?authorid=311)
Tehran's resort to force in quelling the uprising in Sistan-Balochistan through deployments of special and regular army units is not likely to
contribute to lasting peace and stability in the region. Since Iranian Baloch grievances run deep, movements such as Jundallah will maintain a
sizeable following among the population. Although there is no credible evidence implicating the group of al-Qaeda's brand of radicalism or the
strain of Taliban-style Sunni extremism violently opposed to Shiite Islam found in parts of Pakistan, Jundallah's cause does have the potential to be
hijacked by militants with a different agenda. This has serious implications for stability, not only in Iran's Sistan-Balochistan province, but Pakistani
Balochistan as well. At the same time, despite its Sunni Islamist rhetoric, Jundallah's agenda to date remains fixated on Iranian Baloch causes.
Resource shortages and poverty
Pervez ‘08
(Fouad,- writer, actor, policy analyst, and contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus July 11th ―The Real Crisis in Pakistan‖
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5360.)
The greatest threat Pakistan faces is perhaps economic. The rather miniscule – and shrinking – Pakistani middle class makes perhaps 20-30% of its counterpart in the United States. Most Pakistanis live on much less – the
annual GDP per capita is under $3,000. In spite of this, over the past few months, prices for seemingly everything except pirated DVDs have risen sharply. I paid the exact same for meat and vegetables in Karachi as I do in Washington, DC.
Consumer products, clothing, apartment rental fees, cars – everything costs virtually the same as it does in the United States. On their substantially lower salaries, Pakistanis are therefore struggling to make ends meet. Every person I spoke to
agreed that this was the worst economic crunch they could recall. Fuel, wheat, and sugar prices keep rising, while the Pakistani rupee has hit record lows. The government recently
withdrew subsidies, so food prices rose over 30% for the month of June – a new high. Overall inflation has climbed to over 20%, another record high. Foreign investment is staying
away, making an economic recovery even more challenging. The plummeting stock market seems to be on the verge of collapse, even though government-imposed regulations have
artificially limited its fall. Simply put, the economic downfall is causing substantial suffering for all Pakistanis, and there seems to be no end in sight. On top of the economic woes, there
is a shortage of both electricity and water. While always an issue in Pakistan, these shortages are substantially worse now. Usually, electricity would be out for an hour or two in some areas, at most once a
day. This time, however, power goes out several times a day for anywhere between 5-12 hours, as part of nationwide power load sharing. In Islamabad, the load sharing was on a precise schedule, so people could prepare for it. The shortages
were more frequent, but shorter in length – 6 outages a day, all for about an hour. Karachi was far less predictable, and power would usually go out for at least 2-3 hours at a time. As an increasingly industrial country, Pakistan will need more and
more power. This point, however, has been lost on the government, which has conducted little research into power generation. Maintenance of current power plants has been delinquent, resulting in many plants running well under 100%. And new
power plants were not built at a pace to accommodate the increasing electricity usage. In addition, water shortages are quite severe right now. Numerous sections of Karachi are getting by with no water at
all. Residents of these water-less areas go to nearby neighborhoods in the early morning to steal water. The electricity and the water shortages have combined to cause great health
hazards to Pakistanis. They have also made everyday functioning exponentially harder. Additionally, the scale of these problems and the lack of any long-term solutions and short-term
relief have greatly increased the population’s frustration with the government. [Continues –Text Removed] Not only would all these steps help alleviate significant suffering within
Pakistan, they would also go a long way toward repairing America’s image in the country. As it stands, Pakistanis have constructed the United States as a threat. They have responded
to that threat by balancing against it whenever and however possible, often through violent means. No matter how many militants the United States strikes down, more will rise up until
and unless Pakistanis see the United States as something other than a cruel neo-colonial or neo-imperial power. America’s current Pakistan policy, focusing on military action in the
northwest region while neglecting the real crises ravaging the country, will only strengthen this perception. If nobody steps in to help soon, Pakistan could collapse. The consequences
of that would be grim for everyone.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 34 of 38
A2: Instability Adv – 2NC Link Turn Ext.
The plan increases the visibility of each attack and prevents desensitizing
potential recruits to the conflict --- history proves these symbols affect
recruitment more than an escalated conflict
Hegghammer ‗09
(Thomas,- senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) and an associate of the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs at
Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs ―The big impact of small footprints‖11-11
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/11/the_big_impact_of_small_footprints)
A growing number of people, led by Vice President Joe Biden, are advocating a so-called "small footprint" approach to the U.S. military mission in
Afghanistan. They propose a significantly reduced military presence that focuses more on destroying al Qaeda than on building Afghanistan, and relies more on
airstrikes and special forces than on conventional tactics. America will get about as much security as before, the argument goes, but at a much lower price. A return
of the Taliban to power is not necessarily a problem, small footprint proponents argue, because the regime can be deterred from hosting al Qaeda by the threat of
U.S. airstrikes or another invasion. One of the many assumptions behind this tempting argument is that there is a certain level of proportionality
between the amount of force we use and the level of resistance we encounter . If we stop occupying Afghanistan and limit violence to the
really bad guys, al Qaeda will be unable, and other radicalized Muslims unwilling, to attack the United States. This may be true for local insurgencies such as the
Taliban, but not for small transnational movements such as al Qaeda. In fact, a significantly smaller U.S. presence in Afghanistan may paradoxically
generate more anti-Americanism outside Afghanistan and ultimately more anti-Western terrorism than a more conventional
military approach. This is because jihadi propaganda today relies on visually powerful symbols to mobilize people, and intermittent
"surgical" strikes, and the casualties they cause, may create more such symbols than continuous conventional warfare. The history
of jihadism is full of examples of seemingly small incidents having a major effect on mobilization. In August 1998, the U.S. launched
missiles on Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for al Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa. The strikes made Mullah Omar work more
closely with Osama Bin Laden and were followed by an increase in recruitment to al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. In April 2002, the
Israeli military's incursion into Jenin caused a veritable political earthquake in the Muslim world, and demonstrably helped
recruitment to al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. This was despite the relatively few casualties (a U.N. report concluded 52 Palestinian were
killed, half of them civilians). In Pakistan, a few failed U.S. airstrikes in the Tribal Areas in 2006 and 2007 caused public outrage.and dramatically increased anti-
Americanism across the country. The power of small incidents has increased in the past decade thanks to the Internet. Increasing bandwidth,
cheaper digital cameras and fast-learning activists have turned the world wide web into a giant propaganda tool which can generate powerful visual messages and
project them instantly to a global audience. The smallest detail can be dramatically enlarged and turned into a symbol of "Muslim suffering at the hands of non-
Muslims." On jihadi discussion forums such as Faloja (named after the Iraqi city whose 2004 battles between jihadis and U.S. forces made it an icon of Muslim
suffering), high-quality video productions appear on a daily basis. The relationship between objective physical destruction and jihadi
mobilization has never been less linear. (Of course, the non-linearity works both ways; more conventional power does not necessarily generate less
powerful propaganda.)
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 35 of 38
A2: Instability Adv – 2NC Pakistan Instability Turn
Extend our Pakistan Instability Turn:
Our 1NC Curtis & Phillips ev proves that US presence currently helps the
Pakistani government defeat terror cells that pose a threat to Pakistan.
This turns the Aff because their argument is that terrorism in Pakistan freaks-
out India.
Here‘s more proof that US withdraw de-stabilizes Pakistan – more suicide
bombings and hurts Pakistan‘s economy
Wall Street Journal, editorial staff, ―U.S. Credibility and Pakistan‖ – OCTOBER 1, 2009 –
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574443352072071822.html
As for the consequences to Pakistan of an American withdrawal , the foreign minister noted that "we will be the immediate
effectees of your policy." Among the effects he predicts are "more misery," "more suicide bombings," and a dramatic loss of
confidence in the economy, presumably as investors fear that an emboldened Taliban, no longer pressed by coalition forces in Afghanistan, would soon
turn its sights again on Islamabad. Mr. Qureshi's arguments carry all the more weight now that Pakistan's army is waging an often bloody struggle to clear areas
previously held by the Taliban and their allies. Pakistan has also furnished much of the crucial intelligence needed to kill top Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in U.S.
drone strikes. But that kind of cooperation will be harder to come by if the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan and Islamabad feels obliged to protect itself in the
near term by striking deals with various jihadist groups, as it has in the past. Pakistanis have long viewed the U.S. through the lens of a relationship that has
oscillated between periods of close cooperation—as during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s—and periods of tension and even sanctions—as
after Pakistan's test of a nuclear device in 1998. Pakistan's democratic government has taken major risks to increase its assistance to the U.S. against al Qaeda and
the Taliban. Mr. Qureshi is warning, in so many words, that a U.S. retreat from Afghanistan would make it far more difficult
for Pakistan to help against al Qaeda.
Troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is bad – increases the risk that Pakistan‘s
weapons will fall into the wrong hands.
The Times (London) – May 3, 2010 – lexis
Afghanistan remains a necessary war. To abandon it would risk Western security. Not only would al-Qaeda return to use
the country as a haven but such a failing state could destabilise neighbouring Pakistan and its weak Government . An
Islamist takeover of Pakistan and its nuclear weapons would be a disaster for the region and for efforts to counter nuclear
proliferation.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 36 of 38
A2: Heg Adv – 1NC
Withdrawal signals weakness --- sparks regional conflict
Khalilzad „05
(Zalmay, Former US Ambassador, The National Interest, Summer, Lexis)
Regarding our efforts in Afghanistan, this means that we must bring each regional power to the point where its leaders accept the fact that their interests are better served by a
stable, independent and prosperous Afghanistan, an outcome that opens the way to a wider economic transformation of the region. They also must come to see that the worst
outcome is a return to proxy competition, a game that exacts an enormous cost in blood and treasure, and could result in a rival coming to dominate
Afghanistan and using it as a base of operations to threaten its competitors. Moreover, all the major powers would benefit from the restoration of the historic
Afghan land bridge connecting the markets of Central Asia, South Asia and southwest Asia--a region with a collective and growing GDP of $4 trillion. There is a
strong case to be made that each country would benefit more from the prosperity derived from trade than from seeking to dominate its neighbors. Second, to
effect this shift in the calculations of regional powers, we need to persuade their leaders that the United States is unalterably committed to success
in Afghanistan. If the leaders of these countries are uncertain about the strength of our commitment to stay the course, they are likely to hedge
against the possibility that we will pull out. In Afghanistan, this means that they will maintain relations with clients or factions that would give
them an instrument for violent proxy competition after an American disengagement. Their support for these groups can hamper our effort to enable
the Afghans to stabilize and rebuild their country. The challenge is finding ways to effectively signal our commitment, through both words and deeds,
to leaders who are convinced of our short attention span.
Heg doesn‘t deter hostile global rivals
Layne ‘96
(Chris,- Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute ―Less is more‖ National Interest‖
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_n43/ai_18298481)
The strategy of preponderance is an impractical strategy because, over time, the United States cannot successfully perpetuate unipolarity by
thwarting the emergence of new great powers. America's post-Cold War "unipolar moment" is an ephemeral geopolitical aberration. The emergence
of these new powers is a recurring feature in international politics that reflects both the impact of differential growth rates among states and the logic of the system.
The relative distribution of power among states is constantly, if slowly, changing; Japan's closing in on the United States in terms of GNP provides a concrete
example. And the structural effects of anarchy compel states that possess the requisite capabilities to become great powers. States have virtually
irresistible incentives to acquire the same kinds of capabilities that their rivals (actual or potential) possess, even in cases, such as Japan's,
where historical memory militates against it. Another key structural effect is the tendency of states to balance against others who are
too strong or threatening. The pressure to balance is especially strong in a unipolar system, as modern international history amply confirms.
Maximal realists, however, assuming that their own belief in American exceptionalism is shared by the rest of the world, believe that this will not apply in the case
of the United States. Instead of challenging America's hegemony, they argue, other states welcome it because they trust the United States to exercise its power
fairly and wisely. This is an illusory view of how others perceive American hegemony. Hegemons may love themselves but others neither love nor trust them;
other states are concerned more with a hegemon's fixed capabilities than its ephemeral intentions. Thus, any strategy aimed at
suppressing the emergence of new great powers will instead stimulate the rise of challengers . It may be true, as Huntington argues,
that a "state such as the United States that has achieved international primacy has every reason to attempt to maintain that primacy", but it is equally true that other
states with the capabilities to do so will work to create counterweights to American overbearing power.
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 37 of 38
A2: Heg Adv – 1NC
Instability turns the advantage --- tanks credibility and leadership [Note:
Instability Turn is in Pakistan 1NC]
Wisner „03
(Frank G. II, Co-Chair – Council on Foreign Relations Task Force, ―Afghanistan: Are We Losing the Peace?‖, June,
http://www.asiasociety.org/policy_business/afghanistan061703.pdf)
The Task Force concludes that to achieve the U.S. goal of a stable Afghan state that does not serve as a haven for terrorists, the U nited S tates should be providing
greater support to the transitional government of President Hamid Karzai. More vigorous military, diplomatic, and economic measures are needed to bolster the
central government’s hand and to prevent further deterioration in the security situation and the dimming of economic reconstruction prospects. Unless the present
disturbing trends are arrested, the successes of Operation Enduring Freedom will be in jeopardy. Afghanistan could again slide back into near anarchy and the
United States could suffer a serious defeat in the war on terrorism. This is a compelling report about what the United States should be doing next in Afghanistan.
The Task Force warns that the world thinks of Afghanistan as America‘s war. If the peace is lost there because of inadequate support for the government of
Hamid Karzai, America’s credibility around the globe will suffer a grave blow. Washington needs to take corrective action before it is too late.
Heg is unsustainable --- other rising powers, U.S. economic weakness
Layne ‘10
(Christopher,- Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute ―Graceful Decline‖
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2010/may/01/00030/)
The epoch of American dominance is drawing to a close, and international politics is entering a period of transition: no longer unipolar
but not yet fully multipolar. President Barack Obama‘s November 2009 trip to China provided both substantive and emblematic evidence of the shift. As the
Financial Times observed, ―Coming at a moment when Chinese prestige is growing and the U.S. is facing enormous difficulties, Mr. Obama‘s trip has symbolized
the advent of a more multi-polar world where U.S. leadership has to co-exist with several rising powers, most notably China.‖ In the same Pew study, 44 percent of
Americans polled said that China was the leading economic power; just 27 percent chose the United States. Much of America‘s decline can be attributed to its own
self-defeating policies, but as the U.S. stumbles, others—notably China, India, and Russia—are rising. This shift in the global balance of power
will dramatically affect international politics: the likelihood of intense great-power security competitions—and even war—will increase; the current era of
globalization will end; and the post-1945 Pax Americana will be replaced by an international order that reflects the interests, values, and norms of
emerging powers. China‘s economy has been growing much more rapidly than the United States‘ over the last two decades and continues to do so, maintaining
audacious 8 percent growth projections in the midst of a global recession. Leading economic forecasters predict that it will overtake the U.S. as
the world‘s largest economy, measured by overall GDP, sometime around 2020. Already in 2008, China passed the U.S. as the world‘s leading
manufacturing nation—a title the United States had enjoyed for over a century—and this year China will displace Japan as the world‘s second-largest economy.
Everything we know about the trajectories of rising great powers tells us that China will use its increasing wealth to build formidable military power
and that it will seek to become the dominant power in East Asia. Optimists contend that once the U.S. recovers from what historian Niall Ferguson calls the ―Great
Repression‖—not quite a depression but more than a recession—we‘ll be able to answer the Chinese challenge. The country, they remind us, faced a larger debt-
GDP ratio after World War II yet embarked on an era of sustained growth. They forget that the postwar era was a golden age of U.S. industrial and financial
dominance, trade surpluses, and persistent high growth rates. Those days are gone. The United States of 2010 and the world in which it lives are far different from
those of 1945. Weaknesses in the fundamentals of the American economy have been accumulating for more than three
decades. In the 1980s, these problems were acutely diagnosed by a number of writers—notably David Calleo, Paul Kennedy, Robert Gilpin, Samuel Huntington,
and James Chace—who predicted that these structural ills would ultimately erode the economic foundations of America‘s global preeminence. A spirited late-
1980s debate was cut short, when, in quick succession, the Soviet Union collapsed, Japan‘s economic bubble burst, and the U.S. experienced an apparent economic
revival during the Clinton administration. Now the delayed day of reckoning is fast approaching. Even in the best case, the United States will
emerge from the current crisis with fundamental handicaps. The Federal Reserve and Treasury have pumped massive amounts of dollars
into circulation in hope of reviving the economy. Add to that the $1 trillion-plus budget deficits that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts
the United States will incur for at least a decade. When the projected deficits are bundled with the persistent U.S. current-account deficit, the entitlements overhang
(the unfunded future liabilities of Medicare and Social Security), and the cost of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is reason to worry about
the United States‘ fiscal stability. As the CBO says, ―Even if the recovery occurs as projected and the stimulus bill is allowed to expire, the country will face the
highest debt/GDP ratio in 50 years and an increasingly unsustainable and urgent fiscal problem.‖
SNFI 2010 Afghanistan Aff
Starter Set Page 38 of 38
A2: Heg Adv – 2NC Alternate Causalities
Heg will collapse --- dollar weakness and spending will force withdrawal
Layne ‘10
(Christopher,- Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute ―Graceful Decline‖
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2010/may/01/00030/)
The dollar‘s vulnerability is the United States‘ geopolitical Achilles‘ heel. Its role as the international economy‘s reserve currency ensures
American preeminence, and if it loses that status, hegemony will be literally unaffordable. As Cornell professor Jonathan Kirshner observes, the
dollar‘s vulnerability ―presents potentially significant and underappreciated restraints upon contemporary American political and military predominance.‖ Fears for
the dollar‘s long-term health predated the current financial and economic crisis. The meltdown has amplified them and highlighted two new
factors that bode ill for continuing reserve-currency status. First, the other big financial players in the international
economy are either military rivals (China) or ambiguous allies (Europe) that have their own ambitions and no longer require U.S.
protection from the Soviet threat. Second, the dollar faces an uncertain future because of concerns that its value will diminish over
time. Indeed, China, which has holdings estimated at nearly $2 trillion, is worried that America will leave it with huge piles of depreciated dollars. China‘s vote of
no confidence is reflected in its recent calls to create a new reserve currency. In coming years, the U.S. will be under increasing pressure to defend the dollar by
preventing runaway inflation. This will require it to impose fiscal self-discipline through some combination of budget cuts, tax increases, and interest-rate hikes.
Given that the last two options could choke off renewed growth, there is likely to be strong pressure to slash the federal budget. But it will be almost
impossible to make meaningful cuts in federal spending without deep reductions in defense expenditures. Discretionary non-
defense domestic spending accounts for only about 20 percent of annual federal outlays. So the United States will face obvious ―guns or butter‖ choices. As
Kirshner puts it, the absolute size of U.S. defense expenditures are ―more likely to be decisive in the future when the U.S. is under pressure to make real choices
about taxes and spending. When borrowing becomes more difficult, and adjustment more difficult to postpone, choices must be made between raising taxes, cutting
non-defense spending, and cutting defense spending.‖ Faced with these hard decisions, Americans will find themselves afflicted with
hegemony fatigue. The United States will be compelled to overhaul its strategy dramatically, and rather than having this adjustment
forced upon it suddenly by a major crisis, the U.S. should get ahead of the curve by shifting its position in a gradual, orderly fashion. A new American global
posture would involve strategic retrenchment, burden-shifting, and abandonment of the so-called ―global counterinsurgency‖ being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As a first step, the U.S. will need to pull back from its current security commitments to NATO, Japan, and South Korea. This is not
isolationism. The United States undertook the defense of these regions under conditions very different from those prevailing today. In the late 1940s, all were
threatened by the Soviet Union—in the case of South Korea and Japan, by China as well—and were too weak to defend themselves. The U.S. did the right thing by
extending its security umbrella and ―drawing a line in the sand‖ to contain the Soviet Union. But these commitments were never intended to be permanent. They
were meant as a temporary shield to enable Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea to build up their own economic and military strength and assume
responsibility for defending themselves.