The Heg Debate

The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 1 The Heg Debate ***Heg Good Debate*** ............................................................................................................................................. 2 Thayer 1/3 ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Thayer 2/3 ...................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Thayer 3/3 ...................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Khalilzad ........................................................................................................................................................................ 6 Ferguson......................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Heg Good – Democracy ............................................................................................................................................... 8 Heg Good – Economy ................................................................................................................................................... 9 Heg Good – Prolif ....................................................................................................................................................... 10 Heg High/Sustainable ................................................................................................................................................. 11 Heg Bad Inevitable ...................................................................................................................................................... 12 Heg Bad Inevitable ...................................................................................................................................................... 13 ***Heg Bad Debate*** .............................................................................................................................................. 14 Heg Bad – Russia/China ............................................................................................................................................. 15 Heg Bad – Korea 1/2 ................................................................................................................................................... 16 Heg Bad – Korea 2/2 ................................................................................................................................................... 17 Heg Bad - Terrorism ................................................................................................................................................... 18 Heg Bad – Prolif .......................................................................................................................................................... 19 Heg Bad – Economy ................................................................................................................................................... 20 AT: Deterrence ............................................................................................................................................................ 21 Offshore Balancing Coming ....................................................................................................................................... 22 Offshore Balancing Good ........................................................................................................................................... 23 Offshore Balancing Good ........................................................................................................................................... 24 Soft Power is a Myth ................................................................................................................................................... 25 Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 1 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 2 ***Heg Good Debate*** Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 2 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 3 Thayer 1/3 Heg is sustainable and critical to international stability Thayer 06 – Professor of Defense and Strategic Studies @ Missouri State University [Thayer, Bradley A., ―In Defense of Primacy.,‖ National Interest; Nov/Dec2006 Issue 86, p32-37]edlee 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 capabilities 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 fail 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 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 threats will exist no matter 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 commons"—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. (2) 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 Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 3 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 4 Thayer 2/3 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 UN , 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 Venezuela. Of course, countries like 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 communication 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. 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 Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 4 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 5 Thayer 3/3 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 wellbeing 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. Fourth and finally, the United States, in seeking primacy, has been willing to use its power not only to advance its interests but to promote the welfare of people all over the globe. The United States is the earth's leading source of positive externalities for the world. The U.S. military has participated in over fifty operations since the end of the Cold War—and most of those missions have been humanitarian in nature. Indeed, the U.S. military is the earth's "911 force"—it serves, de facto, as the world's police, the global paramedic and the planet's fire department. Whenever there is a natural disaster, earthquake, flood, drought, volcanic eruption, typhoon or tsunami, the United States assists the countries in need. On the day after Christmas in 2004, a tremendous earthquake and tsunami occurred in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra, killing some 300,000 people. The United States was the first to respond with aid. Washington followed up with a large contribution of aid and deployed the U.S. military to South and Southeast Asia for many months to help with the aftermath of the disaster. About 20,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines responded by providing water, food, medical aid, disease treatment and prevention as well as forensic assistance to help identify the bodies of those killed. Only the U.S. military could have accomplished this Herculean effort. No other force possesses the communications capabilities or global logistical reach of the U.S. military. In fact, UN peacekeeping operations depend on the United States to supply UN forces. American generosity has done more to help the United States fight the War on Terror than almost any other measure. Before the tsunami, 80 percent of Indonesian public opinion was opposed to the United States; after it, 80 percent had a favorable opinion of America. Two years after the disaster, and in poll after poll, Indonesians still have overwhelmingly positive views of the United States. In October 2005, an enormous earthquake struck Kashmir, killing about 74,000 people and leaving three million homeless. The U.S. military responded immediately, diverting helicopters fighting the War on Terror in nearby Afghanistan to bring relief as soon as possible. To help those in need, the United States also provided financial aid to Pakistan; and, as one might expect from those witnessing the munificence of the United States, it left a lasting impression about America. For the first time since 9/11, polls of Pakistani opinion have found that more people are favorable toward the United States than unfavorable, while support for Al-Qaeda dropped to its lowest level. Whether in Indonesia or Kashmir, the money was well-spent because it helped people in the wake of disasters, but it also had a real impact on the War on Terror. When people in the Muslim world witness the U.S. military conducting a humanitarian mission, there is a clearly positive impact on Muslim opinion of the United States. As the War on Terror is a war of ideas and opinion as much as military action, for the United States humanitarian missions are the equivalent of a blitzkrieg. THERE IS no other state, group of states or international organization that can provide these global benefits . None even comes close. The United Nations cannot because it is riven with conflicts and major cleavages that divide the international body time and again on matters great and trivial. Thus it lacks the ability to speak with one voice on salient issues and to act as a unified force once a decision is reached. The EU has similar problems. Does anyone expect Russia or China to take up these responsibilities? They may have the desire, but they do not have the capabilities. Let's face it: for the time being, American primacy remains humanity's only practical hope of solving the world's ills. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 5 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 6 Khalilzad Leadership prevents global nuclear exchange Khalilzad 95, Defense Analyst at RAND (Zalmay, "Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War" The Washington Quarterly, RETHINKING GRAND STRATEGY; Vol. 18, No. 2; Pg. 84) Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 6 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 7 Ferguson Multipolarity is unlikely – the alternative to the unipolar system is apolarity – a global vaccum of power Ferguson 4 Niall Ferguson 04 Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History @ Harvard University, Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution (When Empires Wane, http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005244) Yet universal claims were an integral part of the rhetoric of that era. All the empires claimed to rule the world; some, unaware of the existence of other civilizations, maybe even believed that they did. The reality, however, was political fragmentation. And that remains true today. The defining characteristic of our age is not a shift of power upward to supranational institutions, but downward. If free flows of information and factors of production have empowered multinational corporations and NGOs (to say nothing of evangelistic cults of all denominations), the free flow of destructive technology has empowered criminal organizations and terrorist cells, the Viking raiders of our time. These can operate wherever they choose, from Hamburg to Gaza. By contrast, the writ of the international community is not global. It is, in fact, increasingly confined to a few strategic cities such as Kabul and Sarajevo. Waning empires. Religious revivals. Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities. These are the Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might find itself reliving. The trouble is, of course, that this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one than the one of the ninth century. For the world is roughly 25 times more populous, so that friction between the world's "tribes" is bound to be greater. Technology has transformed production; now societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of mineral oil that are known to be finite. Technology has changed destruction, too: Now it is possible not just to sack a city, but to obliterate it . For more than two decades, globalization has been raising living standards, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. Deglobalization--which is what a new Dark Age would amount to--would lead to economic depression. As the U.S. sought to protect itself after a second 9/11 devastated Houston, say, it would inevitably become a less open society . And as Europe's Muslim enclaves grow, infiltration of the EU by Islamist extremists could become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to breaking point. Meanwhile, an economic crisis in China could plunge the Communist system into crisis, unleashing the centrifugal forces that have undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out, and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of the Dark Age would be felt on the margins of the waning great powers. With ease, the terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers and cruise liners while we concentrate our efforts on making airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in Korea and Kashmir; perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East. The prospect of an apolar world should frighten us a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of Charlemagne. If the U.S. is to retreat from the role of global hegemon --its fragile self-belief dented by minor reversals--its critics must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony. The alternative to unpolarity may not be multipolarity at all. It may be a global vacuum of power . Be careful what you wish Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 7 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 8 Heg Good – Democracy US hegemony is essential democracies Larry Diamond, Senior researcher fellow at Hoover Institution, Orbis, ―Beyond the Unipolar Moment: Why the United States Must Remain Engaged‖, p. 405-413, 1996 In the past, global power has been an important reason why certain countries have become models for emulation by others. The global power of the United States, and of its Western democratic allies, has been a factor in the diffusion of democracy around the world, and certainly is crucial to our ability to help popular, legitimate democratic forces deter armed threats to their overthrow, or to return to power (as in Haiti) when they have been overthrown. Given the linkages among democracy, peace, and human rights-as well as the recent finding of Professor Adam Przeworski (New York University) that democracy is more likely to survive in a country when it is more widely present in the region-we should not surrender our capacity to diffuse and defend democracy. It is not only intrinsic to our ideals but important to our national security that we remain globally powerful and engaged-and that a dictatorship does not rise to hegemonic power within any major region. Extinction is only possible absent a world with proliferating democracy Larry Diamond 1995 , staff, ―Promoting Democracy in the 1990’s‖, Oct, p. online: http://www.carnegie.org/sub/pubs/deadly/dia95_01.html lexis This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness. LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse " their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 8 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 9 Heg Good – Economy Heg prevents global economic collapse Starobin- writer at national journal- 2006. (Paul Starobin. ―Beyond Hegemony.‖ National Journal. 12/1/06. http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/1201nj1.htm.) Chaos
In his 2005 book "The Case for Goliath," Mandelbaum's core thesis is that America acts not as a kind of empire , bullying lesser subjects purely for its own selfish ends, but as a world government for the society of nations, providing necessary "public goods." The most important such good is security. Mandelbaum is not arguing that America is motivated by altruism -- he is saying that America, in following its own global interests, is benefiting everyone. He offers this analogy: "The owner of a large, expensive, lavishly furnished mansion surrounded by more-modest homes may pay to have security guards patrolling his street, and their presence will serve to protect the neighboring houses as well, even though their owners contribute nothing to the costs of the guards. That is what the United States does in the world of the 21st century." Mandelbaum does not dwell on what an American withdrawal from this role would mean for the world, except to say, "The world would become a messier, more dangerous, and less prosperous place," perhaps yielding "a repetition of the great global economic failure and the bloody international conflicts the world experienced in the 1930s and 1940s." Whatever the "life span" of America's role as the world's government, he writes in the book's last sentence, other countries "will miss it when it is gone. Economic collapse causes World War Three Mead, 9 – Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (Walter Russell, ―Only Makes You Stronger,‖ The New Republic, 2/4/09, http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8&p=2) History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well. If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises. Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born? The United States may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't get the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 9 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 10 Heg Good – Prolif Heg solves prolif – international organizations Thayer 06 – Professor of Defense and Strategic Studies @ Missouri State University [Thayer, Bradley A., ―In Defense of Primacy.,‖ National Interest; Nov/Dec2006 Issue 86, p32-37] 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 UN, 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. Proliferation leads to extinction. Victor A Utgoff, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of Institute for Defense Analysis, Summer 2002, Survival, p.87-90 In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot outs will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed towards a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear ―six shooters‖ on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather together on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 10 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 11 Heg High/Sustainable Military, economic and technological power ensure that US hegemony is sustainable Brooks and Wohlforth ‘8 (Stephen G. Brooks & William C. Wohlforth 08 Associate Professors in the Department of Government @ Dartmouth College, (World Out of Balance, p. 27-31)) ―Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power; nothing,‖ historian Paul Kennedy observes: ―I have returned to all of the comparative defense spending and military personnel statistics over the past 500 years that I compiled in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, and no other nation comes close.‖ Though assessments of U.S. power have changed since those words were written in 2002, they remain true. Even when capabilities are understood broadly to include economic, technological, and other wellsprings of national power , they are concentrated in the United States to a degree never before experienced in the history of the modern system of states and thus never contemplated by balance-of-power theorists. The United States spends more on defense that all the other major military powers combined, and most of those powers are its allies. Its massive investments in the human, institutional, and technological requisites of military power, cumulated over many decades, make any effort to match U.S. capabilities even more daunting that the gross spending numbers imply. Military research and development (R&D) may best capture the scale of the long-term investment that give the United States a dramatic qualitative edge in military capabilities. As table 2.1 shows, in 2004 U.S. military R&D expenditures were more than six times greater than those of Germany, Japan, France, and Britain combined. By some estimates over half the military R&D expenditures in the world are American. And this disparity has been sustained for decades: over the past 30 years, for example, the United States has invested over three times more than the entire European Union on m ilitary R&D. These vast commitments have created a preeminence in military capabilities vis-à-vis all the other major powers that is unique after the seventeenth century. While other powers could contest U.S. forces near their homelands, especially over issues on which n uclear deterrence is credible, the United States is and will long remain the only state capable of projecting major military power globally. This capacity arises from ―command of the commons‖ – that is, unassailable military dominance over the sea, air, and space. As Barry Posen puts it, Command of the commons is the key military enabler of the U.S global power position. It allows the United States to exploit more fully other sources of power, including its own economic and military might as well as the economic and military might of its allies. Command of the commons also helps the United States to weaken its adversaries, by restricting their access to economic, military, and political assistance….Command of the commons provides the United States with more useful military potential for a hegemonic foreign policy than any other offshore power has ever had. Posen’s study of American military primacy ratifies Kennedy’s emphasis on the historical importance of the economic foundations of national power . It is the combination of military and economic potential that sets the United States apart from its predecessors at the top of the international system. Previous leading states were either great commercial and naval powers or great military powers on land, never both . The British Empire in its heyday and the United States during the Cold War, for example, shared the world with other powers that matched or exceeded them in some areas. Even at the height of the Pax Britannica, the United Kingdom was outspent, outmanned, and outgunned by both France and Russia . Similarly, at the dawn of the Cold War the United States was dominant economically as well as in air and naval capabilities. But the Soviet Union retained overall military parity, and thanks to geography and investment in land power it had a superior ability to seize territory in Eurasia. The United States’ share of world GDP in 2006, 27.5 percent, surpassed that of any leading state in modern history , with the sole exception of its own position after 1945 (when World War II had temporarily depressed every other major economy). The size of the U.S economy means that its massive military capabilities required roughly 4 percent of its GDP in 2005, far less than the nearly 10 percent it averaged over the peak years of the Cold War , 1950-70, and the burden borne by most of the major powers of the past. As Kennedy sums up, ―Being Number One at great cost is one thing; being the world’s single superpower on the cheap is astonishing.‖ Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 11 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 12 Heg Bad Inevitable Their heg-bad arguments are irrelevant when we control the uniqueness debate – history proves that the United States has and will always trigger the link to their heg bad arguments by being neocons Kagan 07 Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [Robert ―End of Dreams, Return of History‖ Policy Review (http://www.hoover.org/publications/p...512.html#n10)] The first illusion, however, is that Bush really changed anything. Historians will long debate the decision to go to war in Iraq, but what they are least likely to conclude is that the intervention was wildly out of character for the United States. Since the end of World War ii at least, American presidents of both parties have pursued a fairly consistent approach to the world. They have regarded the United States as the ―indispensable nation‖ 2 and the ―locomotive at the head of mankind.‖3 They have amassed power and influence and deployed them in ever-widening arcs around the globe on behalf of interests, ideals, and ambitions, both tangible and intangible. Since 1945 Americans have insisted on acquiring and maintaining military supremacy, a ―preponderance of power‖ in the world rather than a balance of power with other nations. They have operated on the ideological conviction that liberal democracy is the only legitimate form of government and that other forms of government are not only illegitimate but transitory. They have declared their readiness to ―support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation‖ by forces of oppression, to ―pay any price, bear any burden‖ to defend freedom, to seek ―democratic enlargement‖ in the world, and to work for the ―end of tyranny.‖ 4 They have been impatient with the status quo. They have seen America as a catalyst for change in human affairs, and they have employed the strategies and tactics of ―maximalism,‖ seeking revolutionary rather than gradual solutions to problems. Therefore, they have often been at odds with the more cautious approaches of their allies. 5 When people talk about a Bush Doctrine, they generally refer to three sets of principles — the idea of preemptive or preventive military action; the promotion of democracy and ―regime change‖; and a diplomacy tending toward ―unilateralism,‖ a willingness to act without the sanction of international bodies such as the United Nations Security Council or the unanimous approval of its allies. 6 It is worth asking not only whether past administrations acted differently but also which of these any future administration, regardless of party, would promise to abjure in its conduct of foreign policy. As scholars from Melvyn P. Leffler to John Lewis Gaddis have shown, the idea of preemptive or preventive action is hardly a novel concept in American foreign policy. 7 And as policymakers and philosophers from Henry Kissinger to Michael Walzer have agreed, it is impossible in the present era to renounce such actions a priori.8 As for ―regime change,‖ there is not a single administration in the past half-century that has not attempted to engineer changes of regime in various parts of the world, from Eisenhower ’s cia-inspired coups in Iran and Guatemala and his planned overthrow of Fidel Castro, which John F. Kennedy attempted to carry out, to George Herbert Walker Bush ’s invasion of Panama to Bill Clinton’s actions in Haiti and Bosnia. And if by unilateralism we mean an unwillingness to be constrained by the disapproval of the un Security Council , by some of the nato allies, by the oas, or by any other international body, which presidents of the past allowed themselves to be so constrained? These qualities of American foreign policy reflect not one man or one party or one circle of thinkers . They spring from the nation ’s historical experience and are a characteristic American response to international circumstances. They are underpinned, on the one hand, by old beliefs and ambitions and, on the other hand, by power. So long as Americans elect leaders who believe it is the role of the United States to improve the world and bring about the ―ultimate good,‖10 and so long as American power in all its forms is sufficient to shape the behavior of others, the broad direction of American foreign policy is unlikely to change, absent some dramatic — indeed, genuinely revolutionary — effort by a future administration. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 12 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 13 Heg Bad Inevitable Obama will continue to intervene as a hegemon Kagan 7 Robert Kagan Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ―Obama the Interventionist‖ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...042702027.html) America must "lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good." With those words, Barack Obama put an end to the idea that the alleged overexuberant idealism and America-centric hubris of the past six years is about to give way to a new realism, a more limited and modest view of American interests, capabilities and responsibilities. Obama's speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week was pure John Kennedy, without a trace of John Mearsheimer. It had a deliberate New Frontier feel, including some Kennedy-era references ("we were Berliners") and even the Cold War-era notion that the United States is the "leader of the free world." No one speaks of the "free world" these days, and Obama's insistence that we not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs" will sound like an anachronistic conceit to many Europeans, who even in the 1990s complained about the bullying "hyperpower." In Moscow and Beijing it will confirm suspicions about America's inherent hegemonism. But Obama believes the world yearns to follow us, if only we restore our worthiness to lead. Personally, I like it. All right, you're thinking, but at least he wants us to lead by example, not by meddling everywhere and trying to transform the world in America's image. When he said, "We have heard much over the last six years about how America's larger purpose in the world is to promote the spread of freedom," you probably expected him to distance himself from this allegedly discredited idealism. Instead, he said, "I agree." His critique is not that we've meddled too much but that we haven't meddled enough. There is more to building democracy than "deposing a dictator and setting up a ballot box." We must build societies with "a strong legislature, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, a vibrant civil society, a free press, and an honest police force." We must build up "the capacity of the world's weakest states" and provide them "what they need to reduce poverty, build healthy and educated communities, develop markets, . . . generate wealth . . . fight terrorism . . . halt the proliferation of deadly weapons " and fight disease. Obama proposes to double annual expenditures on these efforts, to $50 billion, by 2012. It's not just international do-goodism. To Obama, everything and everyone everywhere is of strategic concern to the United States. "We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child, everywhere, is ta ught to build and not to destroy." The "security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people." Realists, call your doctors. Okay, you say, but at least Obama is proposing all this Peace Corps-like activity as a substitute for military power. Surely he intends to cut or at least cap a defense budget soaring over $500 billion a year. Surely he understands there is no military answer to terrorism. Actually, Obama wants to increase defense spending. He wants to add 65,000 troops to the Army and recruit 27,000 more Marines. Why? To fight terrorism. He wants the American military to "stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar," and he believes that "the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in eliminating the shadowy terrorist networks we now face." He wants to ensure that we continue to have "the strongest, best-equipped military in the world." Obama never once says that military force should be used only as a last resort. Rather, he insists that "no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary," not only "to protect ourselves . . . when we are attacked," but also to protect "our vital interests" when they are "imminently threatened." That's known as preemptive military action. It won't reassure those around the world who worry about letting an American president decide what a "vital interest" is and when it is "imminently threatened." Nor will they be comforted to hear that "when we use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others." Make every effort? Conspicuously absent from Obama's discussion of the use of force are four words: United Nations Security Council. Obama talks about "rogue nations," "hostile dictators," "muscular alliances" and maintaining "a strong nuclear deterrent." He talks about how we need to "seize" the "American moment ." We must "begin the world anew." This is realism? This is a left-liberal foreign policy? Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 13 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 14 ***Heg Bad Debate*** Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 14 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 15 Heg Bad – Russia/China Heg causes Russian-Sino alliances to counterbalance – causes nuclear extinction Paul Craig Roberts 07 Senior Research Fellow @ the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies (―US Hegemony Spawns Russian-Chinese Military Alliance,‖ http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts218.html) This week the Russian and Chinese militaries are conducting a joint military exercise involving large numbers of troops and combat vehicles. The former Soviet Republics of Tajikistan, Kyrgkyzstan, and Kazakstan are participating. Other countries appear ready to join the military alliance. This new potent military alliance is a real world response to neoconservative delusions about US hegemony. Neocons believe that the US is supreme in the world and can dictate its course. The neoconservative idiots have actually written papers, read by Russians and Chinese, about why the US must use its military superiority to assert hegemony over Russia and China . Cynics believe that the neocons are just shills, like Bush and Cheney, for the military-security complex and are paid to restart the cold war for the sake of the profits of the armaments industry. But the fact is that the neocons actually believe their delusions about American hegemony. Russia and China have now witnessed enough of the Bush administration’s unprovoked aggression in the world to take neocon intentions seriously. As the US has proven that it cannot occupy the Iraqi city of Baghdad despite 5 years of efforts, it most certainly cannot occupy Russia or China. That means the conflict toward which the neocons are driving will be a nuclear conflict. In an attempt to gain the advantage in a nuclear conflict, the neocons are positioning US anti-ballistic missiles on Soviet borders in Poland and the Czech Republic. This is an idiotic provocation as the Russians can eliminate anti-ballistic missiles with cruise missiles. Neocons are people who desire war, but know nothing about it. Thus, the US failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reagan and Gorbachev ended the cold war. However, US administrations after Reagan’s have broken the agreements and understandings. The US gratuitously brought NATO and anti-ballistic missiles to Russia’s borders. The Bush regime has initiated a propaganda war against the Russian government of V. Putin. These are gratuitous acts of aggression. Both the Russian and Chinese governments are trying to devote resources to their economic development, not to their militaries. Yet, both are being forced by America’s aggressive posture to revamp their militaries. Americans need to understand what the neocon Bush regime cannot: a nuclear exchange between the US, Russia, and China would establish the hegemony of the cockroach . In a mere 6.5 years the Bush regime has destroyed the world’s good will toward the US. Today, America’s influence in the world is limited to its payments of tens of millions of dollars to bribed heads of foreign governments, such as Egypt’s and Pakistan’s. The Bush regime even thinks that as it has bought and paid for Musharraf, he will stand aside and permit Bush to make air strikes inside Pakistan. Is Bush blind to the danger that he will cause an Islamic revolution within Pakistan that will depose the US puppet and present the Middle East with an Islamic state armed with nuclear weapons? Considering the instabilities and dangers that abound, the aggressive posture of the Bush regime goes far beyond recklessness. The Bush regime is the most irresponsibly aggressive regime the world has seen since Hitler’s. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 15 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 16 Heg Bad – Korea 1/2 Hegemony spurs Korean war – deterrence doesn’t check Christopher Layne 06 Research Fellow @ the Independent Institute, Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies @ the Cato Institute (The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present, p. 164-5) America’s hegemonic strategy holds that in East Asia (and in Europe) the United States must (1) protect U.S. allies from ―rogue states‖ armed with nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction; (2) remain in Eurasia to prevent great power rivalries from erupting into war by providing regional deterrence and reassurance; and (3) underscore the credibility of its commitments by fighting in defense of its allies if deterrence fails. This is potentially a high-risk strategy. Its viability hinges on a key question: How credible are American security guarantees in East Asia? America’s East Asian strategy is most immediately challenged by North Korea . Although Pyongyang claims it has nuclear weapons, it is uncertain whether it actually does. If it does not presently have them, however, it certainly is close to having some weapons in hand, and – unless something happens either diplomatically or militarily to interrupt its weapons development program – its arsenal could grow considerably during the next few years. Moreover, Pyongyang currently has ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads against targets in South Korea and Japan, and it could have some intercontinental missile capability in a decade or so. The North Korean regime’s unpredictability, its nuclear ambitions, and the military standoff along the 38th parallel between North Korean forces and U.S. and South Korean troops make the peninsula a volatile place. Conflict is not inevitable, but neither is it unimaginable. If diplomacy fails to bring about a North Korean agreement to dismantle its nuclear weapons, the United States may decide to strike preemptively in an attempt to destroy Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities. It is impossible to know whether this would spark an all-out war on the peninsula. On the other hand, fearing it might be the target of such strikes or a U.S. campaign to bring about regime change, North Korea might lash out irrationally in ways that confound the predictions of deterrence theory . Given that the American homeland currently is not vulnerable to North Korean retaliation, the U.S. deterrent umbrella should dissuade Pyongyang from using nuclear weapons to attack civilian or military targets in South Korea or Japan. Whether North Korea actually would be deterred, though, is a huge unknown. Three things are known, however. First, if North Korea has nuclear weapons, U.S. troops in South Korea, and possibly in Japan, are hostages. Second, even a nonnuclear conflict on the peninsula would be costly to the United States (notwithstanding the fact that the United States ultimately would prevail on the battlefield). Third, U.S. troops in South Korea act as a trip wire, which ensures that, if war does occur, the United States automatically will be involved. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 16 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 17 Heg Bad – Korea 2/2 And, Korean conflict results in apocalypse Pat Fungamwango 99 (Africa News, Third world war: Watch the Koreas, 10/25, lexis) If there is one place today where the much-dreaded Third World War could easily erupt and probably reduce earth to a huge smouldering cinder it is the Korean Peninsula in Far East Asia. Ever since the end of the savage three-year Korean war in the early 1950s, military tension between the hardline communist north and the American backed South Korea has remained dangerously high. In fact the Koreas are technically still at war. A foreign visitor to either Pyongyong in the North or Seoul in South Korea will quickly notice that the divided country is always on maximum alert for any eventuality. North Korea or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has never forgiven the US for coming to the aid of South Korea during the Korean war. She still regards the US as an occupation force in South Korea and wholly to blame for the nonreunification of the country. North Korean media constantly churns out a tirade of attacks on "imperialist" America and its "running dog" South Korea . The DPRK is one of the most secretive countries in the world where a visitor is given the impression that the people's hatred for the US is absolute while the love for their government is total. Whether this is really so, it is extremely difficult to conclude. In the DPRK, a visitor is never given a chance to speak to ordinary Koreans about the politics of their country. No visitor moves around alone without government escort. The American government argues that its presence in South Korea was because of the constant danger of an invasion from the north. America has vast economic interests in South Korea . She points out that the north has dug numerous tunnels along the demilitarised zone as part of the invasion plans. She also accuses the north of violating South Korean territorial waters. Early this year, a small North Korean submarine was caught in South Korean waters after getting entangled in fishing nets. Both the Americans and South Koreans claim the submarine was on a military spying mission. However, the intension of the alleged intrusion will probably never be known because the craft's crew were all found with fatal gunshot wounds to their heads in what has been described as suicide pact to hide the truth of the mission. The US mistrust of the north's intentions is so deep that it is no secret that today Washington has the largest concentration of soldiers and weaponry of all descriptions in south Korea than anywhere else in the World, apart from America itself. Some of the armada that was deployed in the recent bombing of Iraq and in Operation Desert Storm against the same country following its invasion of Kuwait was from the fleet permanently stationed on the Korean Peninsula. It is true too that at the moment the North/South Korean border is the most fortified in the world. The border line is littered with anti-tank and anti-personnel landmines, surface-to-surface and surfaceto- air missiles and is constantly patrolled by warplanes from both sides. It is common knowledge that America also keeps an eye on any military movement or build-up in the north through spy satellites. The DPRK is said to have an estimated one million soldiers and a huge arsenal of various weapons. Although the DPRK regards herself as a developing country, she can however be classified as a super-power in terms of military might. The DPRK is capable of producing medium and longrange missiles. Last year, for example, she test-fired a medium range missile over Japan, an action that greatly shook and alarmed the US, Japan and South Korea. The DPRK says the projectile was a satellite. There have also been fears that she was planning to test another ballistic missile capable of reaching North America. Naturally, the world is anxious that military tension on the Korean Peninsula must be defused to avoid an apocalypse on earth . It is therefore significant that the American government announced a few days ago that it was moving towards normalising relations with North Korea. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 17 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 18 Heg Bad - Terrorism Primacy causes terrorism Christopher Layne 06 Research Fellow @ the Independent Institute, Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies @ the Cato Institute (The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present, p. 190-1) The events of 9/11 are another example of how hegemony makes the United States less secure than it would be if it followed an offshore balancing strategy. Terrorism, the RAND Corporation terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman says, is "about power: the pursuit of power, the acquisition of power, and use of power to achieve political change."86 If we step back for a moment fro m our horror and revulsion at the events of September 11, we can see that the attack was in keeping with the Clausewitzian paradigm of war: force was used against the United States by its adversaries to advance their political objectives . As Clausewitz observed, "War is not an act of senseless passion but is controlled by its political object."88 September 11 represented a violent counterreaction to America's geopolitical-and cultural-hegemony. As the strategy expert Richard K. Betts presciently observed in a 1998 Foreign Affairs article: It is 'hardly likely that Middle Eastern radicals would be hatching schemes like the destruction of the World Trade Center if the United States had not been identified so long as the mainstay of Israel, the shah of Iran, and conservative Arab regimes and the source of a cultural assault on Islam.89 U.S. hegemony fuels terrorist groups like al Qaeda and fans Islamic fundamentalism, which is a form of "blowback" against America's preponderance and its world role.90 As long as the United States maintains its global hegemony-and its concomitant preeminence in regions like the Persian Gulf-it will be the target of politically motivated terrorist groups like al Qaeda. After 9/11, many foreign policy analysts and pundits asked the question, "Why do they hate us?" This question missed the key point. No doubt, there are Islamic fundamentalists who do "hate" the United States for cultural, religious, and ideological reasons. And even leaving aside American neoconservatives' obvious relish for making it so, to some extent the war on terror inescapably has overtones of a "clash of civilizations:' Still, this isn't-and should not be allowed to become-a replay of the Crusades. Fundamentally 9/11 was about geopolitics, specifically about U.S. hegemony. The United States may be greatly reviled in some quarters of the Islamic world, but were the United States not so intimately involved in the affairs of the Middle East, it's hardly likely that this detestation would have manifested itself in something like 9/11. As Michael Scheurer, who headed the CIA analytical team monitoring Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, puts it, "One of the greatest dangers for Americans in deciding how to confront the Islamist threat lies in continuing to believe-at the urging of senior U.S. leaders-that Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than for what we do."91 It is American policies-to be precise, American hegernony-that make the United States a lightning rod for Muslim anger. A terrorist attack causes extinction. Sid-Ahmed ‘04 Political Analyst, Al-Ahram (Mohamed, Al-Ahram Weekly, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm) This means that fundamental changes must be brought to the world system itself. The phenomenon of terrorism is even more dangerous than is generally believed. We are in for surprises no less serious than 9/11 and with far more devastating consequences. A nuclear attack by terrorists will be much more critical than Hiroshima and Nagazaki, even if -- and this is far from certain -- the weapons used are less harmful than those used then, Japan, at the time, with no knowledge of nuclear technology, had no choice but to capitulate. Today, the technology is a secret for nobody. So far, except for the two bombs dropped on Japan, nuclear weapons have been used only to threaten. Now we are at a stage where they can be detonated. This completely changes the rules of the game. We have reached a point where anticipatory measures can determine the course of events. Allegations of a terrorist connection can be used to justify anticipatory measures, including the invasion of a sovereign state like Iraq. As it turned out, these allegations, as well as the allegation that Saddam was harbouring WMD, proved to be unfounded. What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 18 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 19 Heg Bad – Prolif U.S. Hegemony is the cause of proliferation – countries need WMDs to stop intervention Noam Chomsky, Linguists Professor @ MIT, HEGEMONY OR SURVIVAL, 2003, pp. 37-8 Several leading figures of the foreign policy elite have pointed out that the potential targets of America's imperial ambition are not likely simply to await destruction. They "know that the United States can be held at bay only by deterrence," Kenneth Waltz has written, and that "weapons of mass destruction are the only means to deter the United States." Washington's policies are therefore leading to proliferation of WMD, Waltz concludes, tendencies accelerated by its commitment to dismantle international mechanisms to control the resort to violence. These warnings were reiterated as Bush prepared to attack Iraq: one consequence, according to Steven Miller, is that others "are likely to draw the conclusion that weapons of mass destruction are necessary to deter American intervention." Another well-known specialist warned that the "general strategy of preventive war" is likely to provide others with "overwhelming incentives to wield weapons of terror and mass destruction" as a deterrent to "the unbridled use of American power." Many have noted the likely impetus to Iranian nuclear weapons programs. And "there is no question that the lesson that the North Koreans have learned from Iraq is that it needs a nuclear deterrent," Selig Harrison commented." Proliferation leads to extinction. Victor A Utgoff, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of Institute for Defense Analysis, Summer 2002, Survival, p.87-90 In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot outs will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed towards a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear ―six shooters‖ on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather together on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 19 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 20 Heg Bad – Economy US hegemony destroys the economy Ivan Eland 02, Director of defense policy studies Cato Institute, Policy Analysis No. 459- The Empire Strikes Out: The New Imperialism and Its Fatal Flaws, November 26, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa459.pdf) Most of all, the strategy of empire is likely to overstretch and bleed America’s economy and its military and federal budgets, and the overextension could hasten the decline of the United States as a superpower , as it did the Soviet Union and Great Britain. The strategy could also have the opposite effect from what its proponents claim it would have; that is, it would alarm other nations and peoples and thus provoke counterbalancing behavior and create incentives for other nations to acquire weapons of mass destruction as an insurance policy against American military might. Nuclear War Mead, 9 – Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (Walter Russell, ―Only Makes You Stronger,‖ The New Republic, 2/4/09, http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8&p=2) History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well. If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises. Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born? The United States may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't get the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 20 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 21 AT: Deterrence Heg doesn’t deter conflict – engagement makes wars statistically more likely Gholz, Press and Sapolsky 97 - Gholz and Press are doctoral candidates in the Department of Political Science at MIT, Sapolsky is Professor of Public Policy and Organization in Political Science at MIT, and Director of MIT defense studies program (Eugene, Daryl, Harvey, "Come Home America" International Security vol 21, no 4, spring, pg 30) Several prominent analysts favor a policy of selective engagement .70 These analysts fear that American military retrenchment would increase the risk of great power war. A great power war today would be a calamity, even for those countries that manage to stay out of the fighting. The best way to prevent great power war, according to these analysts, is to remain engaged in Europe and East Asia. Twice in this century the United States has pulled out of Europe, and both times great power war followed. Then America chose to stay engaged, and the longest period of European great power peace ensued. In sum, selective engagers point to the costs of others' great power wars and the relative ease of preventing them. The selective engagers' strategy is wrong for two reasons. First, selective engagers overstate the effect of U.S. military presence as a positive force for great power peace. In today's world, disengagement will not cause great power war, and continued engagement will not reliably prevent it. In some circumstances, engagement may actually increase the likelihood of conflict . Second, selective engagers overstate the costs of distant wars and seriously understate the costs and risks of their strategies. Overseas deployments require a large force structure. Even worse, selective engagement will ensure that when a future great power war erupts, the United States will be in the thick of things. Although distant great power wars are bad for America, the only sure path to ruin is to step in the middle of a faraway fight. Selective engagers overstate America's effect on the likelihood of future great power wars. There is little reason to believe that withdrawal from Europe or Asia would lead to deterrence failures. With or without a forward U.S. presence, America's major allies have sufficient military strength to deter any potential aggressors. Conflict is far more likely to erupt from a sequence described in the spiral model. The danger of spirals leading to war in East Asia is remote. Spirals happen when states, seeking security, frighten their nei ghbors. The risk of spirals is great when offense is easier than defense, because any country's attempt to achieve security will give it an offensive capability against its neighbors. The neighbors' attempts to eliminate the vulnerability give them fleeting offensive capabilities and tempt them to launch preventive war.71 But Asia, as discussed earlier, is blessed with inherent defensive advantages. Japan and Taiwan are islands, which makes them very difficult to invade. China has a long land border with Russia, but enjoys the protection of the East China Sea , which stands between it and Japan. The expanse of Siberia gives Russia, its ever trusted ally, strategic depth. South Korea benefits from mountainous terrain which would channel an attacking force from the north. Offense is difficult in East Asia, so spirals should not be acute. In fact, no other region in which great powers interact offers more defensive advantage than East Asia. Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 21 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 22 Offshore Balancing Coming Off-shore balancing coming – result of hegemonic decline Layne in '98 (Christopher, Visiting Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, World Policy Journal, "Rethinking American grand strategy: Hegemony or balance of power in the twenty-first century?" Volume 15, Issue 2, Summer, Proquest) My argument for adopting an alternative grand strategy is prospective: although it may be sustainable for perhaps another decade. American hegemony cannot be maintained much beyond that period. The changing distribution of power in the international system--specifically, the relative decline of U.S. power and the corresponding rise of new great powers-will render the strategy of pre-dominance untenable. This strategy is also being undermined because the credibility of America's extended deterrence strategy is eroding rapidly. Over time, the costs and risks of the strategy of preponderance will rise to unacceptably high levels. The time to think about alternative grand strategic futures is now-before the United States is overtaken by events. In advocating an offshore balancing strategy, I do not deprecate those who believe that bad things (increased geopolitical instability) could happen if the United States were to abandon the strategy of preponderance. Indeed, they may; however, that is only half of the argument. The other half, seldom acknowledged by champions of preponderance, is that bad things--perhaps far worse things--could happen if the United States stays on its present strategic course. Grand strategies must be judged by the amount of security they provide; whether they are sustainable; their cost: the degree of risk they entail; and their tangible and intangible domestic effects. Any serious debate about U.S. grand strategy must use these criteria to assess the comparative merits of both the current grand strategy and its competitors. The time is rapidly approaching when the strategy of preponderance will be unable to pass these tests. The suggestion that the days of American hegemony are numbered no doubt will be met with disbelief by advocates of the current grand strategy. This is unsurprising. Having fulfilled their hegemonic ambitions following the Soviet Union's collapse, the advocates of preponderance want to keep the world the way it is. American grand strategists view the prospect of change in international politics in much the same way that British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury did toward the end of the nineteenth century. "What ever happens will be for the worse," Salisbury said, "and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible." However, it is the very fact of the Soviet Union's collapse that has knocked the props out from under the strategy of preponderance. The United States could be hegemonic only because the Soviet threat caused others to accept American preeminence as preferable to Soviet domination. The United States could enjoy the relative predictability and stability of the bipolar era only because of the effects of bipolarity itself. Simply put, without the Cold War, America will not be able to preserve its Cold War preponderance or stability. International politics is dynamic, not static. As Paul Kennedy has observed, "It simply has not been given to any one society to remain permanently ahead of all the others ...." 30 The conditions that made American preponderance Possible are changing rapidly. Make no mistake: sometime in the early decades of the twenty-first century, America's grand strategy will no longer be preponderance. If the United States does not choose now to begin making the transition to a new grand strategy better suited to the new century’s emerging international realities, events will force it to do so . Last printed 11/6/2009 10:39:00 PM "believe it or not, pimps don't offer good coverage" ~ Lamballe 22 The Heg Debate Dartmouth 2K9 23 Offshore Balancing Good Offshore balancing doesn't increase the risk of war - historical record proves Layne in '98 (Christopher, Visiting Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, World Policy Journal, "Rethinking American grand strategy: Hegemony or balance of power in the twenty-first century?" Volume 15, Issue 2, Summer, Proquest)