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West Coast 12011 September Supplement

WEST COAST DEBATE

Space 2011-2012September Supplement

Edited by Aaron Hardy and Jim Hansonwith Matt Taylor

Researched by:Brett Bricker and Aaron Hardy


WEST COAST DEBATE

Space 2011-2012Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.

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Table Of Contents WEST COAST DEBATE..................................................................................................................................1

WEST COAST DEBATE..................................................................................................................................2

Table Of Contents........................................................................................................................................3

Aliens Negative............................................................................................................................................8

No Aliens – Err Towards Science..............................................................................................................9

No Aliens – No Evidence........................................................................................................................10

No Aliens – Math...................................................................................................................................11

No Aliens – SETI.....................................................................................................................................12

No Aliens – Expansion...........................................................................................................................13

No Aliens – Fermi Paradox.....................................................................................................................14

No Aliens – Fermi Paradox.....................................................................................................................16

AT: Universe Society.............................................................................................................................17

AT: Earth Isn’t Unique...........................................................................................................................18

AT: Earth Is A Zoo..................................................................................................................................19

AT: Life = Common................................................................................................................................20

AT: Our Authors Are Qualified..............................................................................................................21

AT: Roswell/Photos...............................................................................................................................22

AT: Astronauts......................................................................................................................................23

AT: Abductions......................................................................................................................................24

AT: All Life Goes Intelligent...................................................................................................................25

AT: Meteoroids Prove Martians............................................................................................................26

AT: Salla................................................................................................................................................27

Multilateralism DA.....................................................................................................................................28

Multilateralism Disadvantage 1NC 1/2..................................................................................................29

Multilateralism Disadvantage 1NC 2/2..................................................................................................30

Multilateralism is Increasing Now.........................................................................................................31

The US is Pursuing Space Multilateralism Now......................................................................................32

The Plan Undercuts Multilateralism......................................................................................................33

Space Dominance Undercuts Multilateralism........................................................................................34

Military Policy in Space Undercuts Multilateralism...............................................................................35

Missile Defense Undercuts Multilateralism...........................................................................................36

Space Solar Power Undercuts Multilateralism.......................................................................................37


Lunar Mining Undercuts Multilateralism...............................................................................................38

Multilateralism Solves Debris................................................................................................................39

Multilateralism Solves US-China Relations............................................................................................40

Multilateralism Solves US-Russia Relations...........................................................................................41

Multilateralism Solves Climate Change.................................................................................................42

Space Weaponization Leads to War......................................................................................................43

Space Conflict Escalates.........................................................................................................................44

AT: Unilateralism is Key to Hegemony...................................................................................................45

AT: Space Weapons Key to Hegemony..................................................................................................46

AT: Space Weapons Key to Diplomacy..................................................................................................47

AT: Space Weapons are Key to Deterrence...........................................................................................48

Multilateralism DA Answers......................................................................................................................49

Weaponization is Happening Now.........................................................................................................50

X-37B is Perceived as Militarization.......................................................................................................51

Link Turn – Tangible Solutions...............................................................................................................52

Obama’s NSP Won’t Lead to Cooperation.............................................................................................53

Space Unilateralism is Good..................................................................................................................54

Space Cooperation Fails.........................................................................................................................55

Space Cooperation with China Fails.......................................................................................................56

Code of Conduct Fails............................................................................................................................57

Cooperation Undercuts US Aerospace..................................................................................................58

Aerospace Industry is Key to Hegemony...............................................................................................59

SKFTA DA...................................................................................................................................................60

SKFTA DA 1NC 1/2.................................................................................................................................61

SKFTA DA 1NC 2/2.................................................................................................................................62

SKFTA Will Pass......................................................................................................................................63

SKFTA Will Pass......................................................................................................................................64

SKFTA Will Pass – AT: TAA.....................................................................................................................65

SKFTA Will Pass in South Korea.............................................................................................................66

SKFTA = Top Of Docket..........................................................................................................................67

Obama Pushing SKFTA...........................................................................................................................68

Political Capital Key SKFTA.....................................................................................................................69

Obama Key SKFTA..................................................................................................................................70

US Ratification = Korean Ratification.....................................................................................................72

AT: Winners Win...................................................................................................................................73


AT: Obama’s Teflon..............................................................................................................................75

Link – Generic Space Links.....................................................................................................................76

Link – Spending......................................................................................................................................78

Link – Lobbies........................................................................................................................................79

Link – Asteroids.....................................................................................................................................80

Link – SPS...............................................................................................................................................81

Link – Space Weaponization..................................................................................................................82

SKFTA Good – Laundry List....................................................................................................................83

SKFTA Good – US Asian Heg Good.........................................................................................................84

SKFTA Good – Trade..............................................................................................................................85

SKFTA Good – US-SK Relations..............................................................................................................86

SKFTA Good – Doha...............................................................................................................................88

SKFTA Good – North Korea....................................................................................................................90

SKFTA Good – Economy.........................................................................................................................92

SKFTA DA Answers.....................................................................................................................................93

SKFTA Won’t Pass..................................................................................................................................94

SKFTA Won’t Pass..................................................................................................................................95

SKFTA Won’t Pass South Korea..............................................................................................................96

SKFTA Not Key To Alliance.....................................................................................................................97

US-SK Alliance Resilient.........................................................................................................................98

AT: SKFTA Good – North Korea.............................................................................................................99

AT: SKFTA Good – Economy................................................................................................................100

AT: SKFTA Good – Trade Leadership...................................................................................................101

SKFTA Bad – Worse For Alliance..........................................................................................................102

SKFTA Bad – Economy.........................................................................................................................103

SKFTA Bad – Auto Industry..................................................................................................................104

SKFTA Bad – Health Care.....................................................................................................................106

SKFTA Bad – Offshoring.......................................................................................................................108

SKFTA Bad – Workers Rights................................................................................................................109

SKFTA Bad – Global Warming..............................................................................................................110

SKFTA Bad – Agriculture......................................................................................................................111

ESA CP.....................................................................................................................................................112

1NC ESA CP..........................................................................................................................................113

ESA Solvency – General.......................................................................................................................114

ESA Solvency – Shuttle Replacement...................................................................................................115


ESA Solvency – Solar............................................................................................................................116

ESA Solvency – Satellites.....................................................................................................................117

ESA Solvency – Asteroids.....................................................................................................................118

ESA Solvency – NEO Detection............................................................................................................119

ESA Solvency – ISS...............................................................................................................................120

AT: US Key Warrants...........................................................................................................................121

2NC EU Credibility Add-On..................................................................................................................122

AT: Perm.............................................................................................................................................123

ESA CP Answers.......................................................................................................................................124

Perm Solves – Collaboration Key.........................................................................................................125

Perm Solves – Funding.........................................................................................................................126

Yes ESA/NASA Cooperation.................................................................................................................127

US Key – EU Alone Fails.......................................................................................................................128

AT: EU Leadership Add-On..................................................................................................................129

ESA Credibility Alt-Causes....................................................................................................................130

ESA Fails...............................................................................................................................................131

Capitalism Critique..................................................................................................................................132

1NC Capitalism Critique 1/2.................................................................................................................133

1NC Capitalism Critique 2/2.................................................................................................................134

Uniqueness – Capitalism Is Collapsing.................................................................................................135

Capitalism Link – Space........................................................................................................................136

Capitalism Link – Space........................................................................................................................137

Capitalism Link – Space Race...............................................................................................................138

Capitalism Link – Ethics........................................................................................................................139

Capitalism Link – Law...........................................................................................................................140

Capitalism Link – Hegemony................................................................................................................141

Capitalism Link – Satellites..................................................................................................................142

Impact – Nuclear War..........................................................................................................................143

Impact – War.......................................................................................................................................144

Impact – Genocide...............................................................................................................................145

Impact – Environment.........................................................................................................................146

Capitalism = Root Cause Of Environment............................................................................................147

Capitalism = Root Cause Of Racism.....................................................................................................148

AT: Capitalism Key Space.....................................................................................................................149

Alternative Solves – General................................................................................................................150


Alternative Solves – Space...................................................................................................................151

Alternative Solves – Withdrawing........................................................................................................152

AT: Permutation.................................................................................................................................153

AT: Permutation.................................................................................................................................154

AT: Capitalism Good............................................................................................................................155

AT: Capitalism Inevitable....................................................................................................................156

AT: Gibson Graham.............................................................................................................................157

AT: Tech Solves Capitalism..................................................................................................................158

AT: Universality Bad............................................................................................................................159

Capitalism Critique Answers....................................................................................................................161

Perm Solves Best.................................................................................................................................162

Perm Solves Best.................................................................................................................................163

Capitalist Reformism Is Good..............................................................................................................164

Capitalism Key Space...........................................................................................................................165

Growth Is Sustainable..........................................................................................................................166

There Are No Limits On Resources......................................................................................................167

No Resource Shortages........................................................................................................................168

Alt Fails – General................................................................................................................................169

Alt Fails – No Mindset Shift..................................................................................................................170

Alt Fails – Zizek Specific.......................................................................................................................171

AT: Capitalism = Unethical..................................................................................................................172

AT: Capitalism = Root Cause...............................................................................................................173

Capitalism Good – Environment..........................................................................................................174

Capitalism Good – Transition Wars.....................................................................................................175

Capitalism Good – Violence.................................................................................................................176


Aliens Negative


No Aliens – Err Towards Science

Err on our side of all aliens questions, there’s zero physical evidence for their claimAlan Hale, Professional astronomer, Dir. of Southwest Inst. for Space Research, March/April 1997, “An Astronomer’s Personal Statement,” Skeptical Inquirer, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/astronomerrsquos_personal_statement_on_ufos/ 1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The discovery that there are other intelligent beings in the universe — and, as a corollary, that life and intelligence can and has evolved at locations other than Earth — and that, moreover, these beings are visiting Earth on a semi-regular basis in spacecraft that seem to defy the laws of physics as we now know them, would unquestionably rank as the greatest discovery in the history of science, and most definitely is an extraordinary claim. Therefore, in order for me to accept it, you must produce extraordinary evidence. What might this evidence be? For one thing, the aliens themselves. Not some story where someone says that someone says that someone says that they saw aliens, but the actual physical aliens themselves, where I and other trustworthy and competent scientists and individuals can study and communicate with them. I'd like to examine their spacecraft and learn the physical principles under which it operates. I'd like a ride on that spacecraft. I'd like to see their star charts and see where the aliens come from. I'd like to know the astronomical, physical, chemical, and biological conditions of their home world and solar system, and how they compare with and contrast with ours. If possible, I'd like to visit their home world, and any other worlds that might be within their sphere of influence. In other words, I want the aliens visible front and center, where there can be no reasonable doubt as to their existence. Stories about “lights” or “things” in the sky do not impress me, especially when such reports come from people who have no idea of the vast array of natural and man-made phenomena that are visible in the sky if one would only take the time to look. 2. The burden of proof is on the positive. If you are making an extraordinary claim, the burden is on you to produce the extraordinary evidence to prove that you are correct; the burden is not on me to prove that you are wrong. Furthermore, you must prove your case by providing the direct and compelling evidence for it; you can't prove it by eliminating a few token explanations and then crying, “Well, what else can it be?” 3. Occam’s Razor: If one is confronted with a series of phenomena for which there exists more than one viable explanation, one should choose the simplest explanation which fits all the observed facts. It is an undeniable fact that many people have seen, or at least claimed to see, objects in the sky and on the ground for which they have no explanation. But it is also an undeniable fact that people can make mistakes about their observations. It is an undeniable fact that reports can come from people who are unaware of the various phenomena that are visible in the sky and from people who are not equipped or trained at making reliable scientific observations. It is an undeniable fact that a person’s preconceived notions and expectations can affect his/her observations. It is an undeniable fact that some people will lie and will create hoaxes for any one of various reasons. Taking all these undeniable facts together, the simplest explanation — to me, anyway — for the UFO phenomenon is that every report is either a hoax or is a mistake of some sort. If this explanation is incorrect, then you have to increase the sphere of undeniable facts; and for this, see points 1) and 2) above.


No Aliens – No Evidence

UFO’s are better explained by natural phenomenon – zero evidence supports their claims. Even if aliens exist, they can’t make it to Earth.Andrew Fraknoi, astronomy chair @ Foothill College and senior educator at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Jan/Feb 2009, “An Astronomer Looks at UFOs,” Skeptical Inquirer, v. 33.1, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/astronomer_looks_at_ufos_a_lot_less_than_meets_the_eyeIndeed, upon more careful investigation, many so-called UFOs turn out to be perfectly natural objects or processes in the Earth’s atmosphere or beyond. As the late Carl Sagan emphasized, “Extraordinary hypotheses require extraordinary proof.” Surely, the notion that some mysterious phenomenon you briefly observed in the sky must be an interstellar spacecraft (and not a human craft, meteor, or a bright planet) qualifies as such an “extra-ordinary” hypothesis! Yet, amazingly, given the number of UFO incidents believers report, not one UFO has left behind any proof—a piece of spacecraft material or machinery (or even a sandwich wrapper) that laboratory analysis has shown to be of clearly extraterrestrial origin. It’s also remarkable how unlucky the UFO occupants are in their choice of people to kidnap. Never do “aliens” seem to snatch a person with a good knowledge of astronomy or physics or someone with high-level government clearance. Time after time, their “victims” turn out to be homemakers, agricultural workers, or others whose relevant knowledge base seems to be limited to reading UFO enthusiast literature. Even UFO sightings turn out to be reserved (for the most part) for those who have not studied the sky in any serious way. Although the world’s supply of professional astronomers is not much larger than the population of Wasilla, Alaska, the world has many tens of thousands of active amateur astronomerss who spend a great deal of time observing the sky. You would think that if UFOs really are alien spacecraft, a large majority of reported sightings would come from this group. Yet, unsurprising to astronomers, you almost never get UFO reports from experienced amateurs whose understanding of what they see in the sky is much more sophisticated than that of the average person. All of which does not mean that astronomers in general are pessimistic about the presence of intelligent life on planets around other stars. Indeed, many observations over the last few decades have increased the level of optimism in the astronomical community about the potential for life to exist out there. Primary among these is the discovery of more than 300 planets around relatively nearby stars, which certainly shows that planetary systems like our own may be far more common than we dared to hope. We just don’t think that intelligent aliens are necessarily visiting Earth. The problem is that the stars are fantastically far away. If our Sun was the size of a basketball (instead of 864,000 miles across), Earth would be a small apple seed about thirty yards away from the ball. On that scale, the nearest star would be some 4,200 miles (7,000 km) away, and all the other stars would be even farther! This is why astronomers are skeptical that aliens are coming here, briefly picking up a random individual or two, and then going back home. It seems like an awfully small reward for such an enormous travel investment.


No Aliens – Math

No aliens – The math is on our sideMarshall Savage, Founder of the Living Universe Foundation, 1994, The Millenial Project, p. 350-351 & 353-355There are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. How could it be possible that ours is the only one harboring intelligent life? Actually, it goes far beyond that. Not only is our solar system the only source of intelligent life, it is probably the only source of any kind of life. Not only is our planet the only source of life in this galaxy, it is probably the only source of life in any galaxy. Hard as it may be to believe or accept, it is likely that our little world is the only speck of Living matter in the entire universe. Those who tend to reflect on these issues, especially those who believe that life must be a common phenomenon, derive long elaborate formulae to prove their case. They point out there are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way; of these, some 200 million are similar to the sun; around these other suns orbit 10 million earth-like worlds; life must have evolved on millions of these worlds; intelligent tool-users must then have developed hundreds of thousands of times; so there must be thousands of civilizations capable of star travel. Carl Sagan, the leading proponent of this viewpoint, calculates that the Milky Way has been home to no fewer than a billion technical civilizations! When this argument is extrapolated to the universe at large, the existence of ETs, at least somewhere, seems a virtual certainty. The odds of the Earth being the only living world in the universe are on the order of one in 1018. With such an overwhelming number of chances, a billion billion Earth-like worlds, Life must have sprung up innumerable times— mustn’t it? This argument is reasonable enough on its face, but as soon as speculators leave the realm of astronomy they enter terra incognita, where dwells an inscrutable mystery. No one knows what the odds are that life will evolve given an earth-like planet around a sun-like star. Sagan rates the chances at one in three. A close examination of the

issue indicates that he may be off in his estimate by billions and billions. The evolution of life is overwhelmingly improbable. The odds against life are so extreme that it is virtually impossible for it to occur twice in the same universe. That life ever evolved anywhere at all is a

miracle of Biblical proportions. If it wasn’t for our manifest presence, the creation of life could be dismissed as a wild fantasy. Generating animate matter through random chemistry is so unlikely as to be indistinguishable from impossible.

Yet, here we are. Obviously, miracles do happen. But the question is: do they happen twice? He Continues… To generate a strand of “Genesis DNA” would take 10x360 chemical reactions. That is a completely ridiculous number. Writing out such a number is an exercise in futility; it requires hundreds of zeroes. Describing it with words is just about as hopeless; a million billion trillion quadrillion quintillion sextillion septillion octillion nonillion decillion doesn’t even touch it. The only way to describe it is as ten nonillion nonillion googol googol googol. You can’t even talk about such numbers without sounding like your brain has been fused into molten goo. If you persist in thinking about them it certainly will be. Surely, there must be numbers of equal magnitude available to rescue us from such overwhelming odds. After all, DNA is

just a large molecule. So we must be dealing with atomic numbers, and those are always mind boggling—right? When Life arose, the Earth’s ocean’s were, as Carl Sagan suggests, one giant bowl of primordial soup. The number of chemical reactions going on in that stew must have been incredible. Over billions of years, any possible combination of DNA could have been cooked up—couldn’t it? Well, let’s take a look; the bottom line is always in the numbers. The oceans of the early Earth contained, at most, 1,044 carbon atoms.665 This sets the upper limit on the possible number of nucleic acid molecules at ~ (Assuming every atom of carbon in the ocean was locked up in a nucleic acid

molecule—an unlikely state of affairs.) The oceans could therefor contain no more than about 1042 nucleotide chains, with an average length of ten base pairs. If all these nucleotides interacted with each other 100 times per second for ten billion years, they would undergo 3 X 1,061 reactions. This would still leave them woefully

short of the sample needed to generate a strand of Genesis DNA. To get a self-replicating strand of DNA out of the global ocean, even if it was thick with a broth of nucleotides, would take ten billion googol googol googol years. Makes yours eyes spin counter-clockwise doesn’t it? But there are billions of stars in the galaxy and

billions of galaxies in the universe. Over time, the right combination would come up somewhere—wouldn’t it? Assume every star in every galaxy in the entire universe has an Earth-like planet in orbit around it; and assume every one of those planets is endowed with a global ocean thick with organic gumbo. This would give us 40,000 billion billion oceanic cauldrons in which to brew up the elixir of life. Now we’re getting somewhere—aren’t we? In such a

universe, where the conditions for the creation of life are absolutely ideal, it will still take a hundred quadrillion nonillion nonillion googol googol years for the magic strand to appear. Sheesh! Assuming some radically different form of life, independent of DNA, doesn’t really help. By definition, life forms will always be complex arrangements of matter and/or energy. This complexity has to arise out of chaos. Therefore, some initial degree of order must first just happen. Whatever the form of life, its creation is dependent on the same sort of

chance event that created our first strand of Genesis DNA. It doesn’t matter what sort of coincidence is involved: the matching of base pairs, alignment of liquid crystals, or nesting of ammonia vortices; whatever the form of order, it will be subject to the same laws of probability. Consequently, any form of highly complex, self-replicating material is just as unlikely to occur as our

form. Simply put, living is an unlikely state of affairs. When all of the fundamental constants underlying the bare existence of the universe are also taken into account, it becomes all too obvious that life is a sheer impossibility.


No Aliens – SETI

SETI proves no sentient life exist outside earth Robin McKie, science editor for the Observer, Sunday July 16 2000, “There's life out there ... but not as we dreamt it” http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2000/jul/16/spaceexploration.theobserverWe are alone. Mankind may be the sole intelligent occupier of the entire galaxy, according to a growing number of scientists involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti). After decades of employing radio telescopes in vain bids to hear E.T. phoning home, and after studying patterns of evolution on Earth, they believe that complex, brainy extraterrestrials must be rare, if not non-existent. Life may be ubiquitous, they admit, but only on our planet did it evolve into beings capable of rational thought, sophisticated behaviour and powerful civilisations. On other worlds, it has remained rooted at the level of amoebas, microbes, and primitive pond life. All aliens are scum, in other words - an observation with crucial implications. As UK astronomer Ian Crawford points out in the latest issue of Scientific American , we may be 'the most advanced life-forms in the galaxy'. 'We used to think that once life emerged on a planet, intelligent beings would inevitably appear,' added Dr Ian Morison, director of Seti research at Britain's Jodrell Bank radio telescope. 'Now, it seems we only evolved thanks to an extraordinary series of fortuitous events.' The first and most important of these lucky breaks concerns location, as astronomers Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee recently revealed in Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (Copernicus). Earth - far from being an average world in an unimportant part of the cosmos - turns out to be prime galactic real estate. First, our sun is a highly stable star and is unaffected by wild fluctuations in output of its radiation. Such afflictions emanate from many other stars and would destroy evolving advanced life-forms, allowing only bacteria-like entities to flourish. In addition, ours is a safe suburban part of the galaxy, the astronomical equivalent of Cheltenham. By contrast, in more crowded, 'down-town' galactic neighbourhoods, in stellar Sauchiehall Streets of the universe, jostling stars are likely to have continually dislodged the swathes of comets believed to hover at the edges of most solar systems. These comets would then have crashed into each star's family of planets - with devastating consequences for their evolving life-forms. In addition, Earth has a planetary big brother, Jupiter, which sweeps up those few dangerous comets that do make it through to the solar system's inner regions, while our world is further blessed in having a relatively large moon which helped stabilise Earth's rotation, preventing wild swings in our seasons and climate. All these improbable conditions, in combination, provided the stability that allowed four-billion-year-old primitive slime to evolve - about 250,000 years ago - into the only intelligent creatures known to science, ourselves. Humanity may therefore be viewed as the outcome of the biggest accumulator bet in the universe. As Professor Brownlee, of Washington University, Seattle, puts it: 'Earth is a charmed place. We know of no other body that is even remotely like it.'


No Aliens – Expansion

Expansion: If aliens existed we would know. Only risk humans are the only intelligent life there ever will be. Marcus Chown, writer for the New Scientist, 23 November 1996 “Is there anybody out there?” http://space.newscientist.com/channel/astronomy/astrobiology/mg15220578.200Finding that life may have started on two neighbouring planets in a single planetary system is remarkable enough. But add to this the recent discovery that many nearby stars are accompanied by planets, and there is the distinct possibility that our Galaxy is teeming with life. Suddenly, there are renewed worries about a long-standing puzzle: if life is widespread, why has the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, drawn a blank? Where is everybody? One person who is convinced he has the answer is Frank Tipler of Tulane University in New Orleans. "If the Martian evidence holds up," he says, "we may have to face the fact that primitive life is common in the Universe but that the development of intelligence is vastly improbable." In fact, he believes it is so fantastically improbable that it has happened only once since the big bang. "I believe we are the very first intelligence to arise in our Galaxy," he says. This extraordinary claim is based on a straightforward comparison between the age of our Galaxy and how long it would take a civilisation capable of interstellar travel to explore and colonise it. According to Tipler, such a colonisation would be achieved most efficiently by dispatching self-reproducing probes to the stars. The concept of self-reproducing probes was developed back in the 1950s by John von Neumann, a Hungarian-American mathematician. On arrival at a star, the von Neumann probes would use the available resources to build and launch copies of themselves. "One probe would become two, two would become four, and so on," says Tipler. "In this way, they would proliferate exponentially." Of course, you could argue that if probes like these populated the Galaxy, that would be very different from finding life. However, Tipler makes no distinction between the putative extraterrestrials and their robot emissaries. The probes would need to be highly intelligent and capable of using the material and energy resources in their environment to reproduce. In a sense, they would be life forms in their own right, flesh made machine, and the space-faring successors of planet-based life. According to Tipler, the biggest obstacle to creating von Neumann probes is computer technology. "The probes would need to have at least human-level intelligence," he says. They would also have to be fast. But travelling at 90 per cent of the speed of light would not be beyond the capabilities of an advanced civilisation, says Tipler. Travelling at such a speed, a probe would take about five years to reach a star 4.3 light years away-the distance between the Sun and its nearest neighbour, Alpha Centauri. If the probe takes, say, 100 years to make a copy of itself, then the average speed at which all probes would spread throughout the Galaxy would be about 1/25th the speed of light. At such a speed, the exploration of the Galaxy, which is roughly 100 000 light years across, would take about 3 million years. Even travelling at the speed of current rockets, it would take only 300 million years to explore every corner of the Galaxy and maintain a base around each star. Long overdue "The time needed to explore the Galaxy is hugely less than the age of the Galaxy, which is around 10 billion years," says Tipler. "So, if extraterrestrials exist, they should be here in the Solar System today. Since they're obviously not, they don't exist."


No Aliens – Fermi Paradox

Hard proof of extra-terrestrial intelligent life should be the only arguments you accept. Lack of a stellar corpse from non-human intelligent life proves we own this universe. Ian Crawford, Professor of Astronomy and Physics at University College in London, Scientific American, July 2000 “Where Are They? Maybe We Are Alone In the Galaxy After All” http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc92.htmThere are only four conceivable ways of reconciling the absence of ETs with the widely held view that advanced civilizations are common. Perhaps interstellar spaceflight is infeasible, in which case ETs could never have come here even if they had wanted to. Perhaps ET civilizations are indeed actively exploring the galaxy but have not reached us yet. Perhaps interstellar travel is feasible, but ETs choose not to undertake it. Or perhaps ETs have been, or still are, active in Earth’s vicinity but have decided not to interfere with us. If we can eliminate each of these explanations of the Fermi Paradox, we will have to face the possibility that we are the most advanced life-forms in the galaxy. The first explanation clearly fails. No known principle of physics or engineering rules out interstellar spaceflight. Even in these early days of the space age, engineers have envisaged propulsion strategies that might reach 10 to 20 percent of the speed of light, thereby permitting travel to nearby stars in a matter of decades [see "Reaching for the Stars," by Stephanie D. Leifer; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, February 1999]. For the same reason, the second explanation is problematic as well. Any civilization with advanced rocket technology would be able to colonize the entire galaxy on a cosmically short timescale. For example, consider a civilization that sends colonists to a few of the planetary systems closest to it.

After those colonies have established themselves, they send out secondary colonies of their own, and so on. The number of colonies grows exponentially. A colonization wave front will move outward with a speed determined by the speed of the starships and by the time required by each colony to establish itself. New settlements will quickly fill in the volume of space behind this wave front [see illustration on next page]. Assuming a typical colony spacing of 10 light-years, a ship speed of 10 percent that of light, and a period of 400 years between the foundation of a colony and its sending out colonies of its own, the colonization wave front will expand at an average speed of 0.02 light-year a year. As the galaxy is 100,000 light-years across, it takes no more than about five million years to colonize it completely. Though a long time in human terms, this is only 0.05 percent of the age of the galaxy. Compared with the other relevant astronomical and biological timescales, it is essentially instantaneous. The greatest uncertainty is the time required for a colony to establish itself and spawn new settlements. A reasonable upper limit might be 5,000 years, the time it has taken human civilization to develop from the earliest cities to spaceflight. In that case, full galactic colonization would take about 50 million years. The implication is clear: the first technological civilization with the ability and the inclination to colonize the galaxy could have done so before any competitors even had a chance to evolve. In principle, this could have happened billions of years ago, when

Earth was inhabited solely by microorganisms and was wide open to interference from outside. Yet no physical artifact, no chemical traces, no obvious biological influence indicates that it has ever been intruded upon. Even if Earth was deliberately seeded with life, as some scientists have speculated, it has been left alone since then. It follows that any attempt to resolve the Fermi Paradox must rely on assumptions about the behavior of other civilizations. For example, they might destroy themselves first, they might have no interest in colonizing the galaxy, or they might have strong ethical codes against interfering with primitive life-forms. Many SETI researchers, as well as others who are convinced that ET civilizations must be common, tend to dismiss the implications of the Fermi Paradox by an uncritical appeal to one or more of these sociological considerations.

But they face a fundamental problem. These attempted explanations are plausible only if the number of extraterrestrial civilizations is small. If the galaxy has contained millions or billions of technological civilizations, it seems very unlikely that they would all destroy themselves, be content with a sedentary existence, or agree on the same set of ethical rules for the treatment of less developed forms of life. It would take only one technological civilization to embark, for whatever reason, on a program of galactic colonization. Indeed, the only technological civilization we actually know anything about--namely, our own--has yet to self-destruct, shows every sign of being expansionist, and is not


especially reticent about interfering with other living things. Despite the vastness of the endeavor, I think we can identify a number of reasons why a program of interstellar colonization is actually quite likely. For one, a species with a propensity to colonize would enjoy evolutionary advantages on its home planet, and it is not difficult to imagine this biological inheritance being carried over into a space-age culture. Moreover, colonization might be undertaken for political, religious or scientific reasons. The last seems especially probable if we consider that the first civilization to evolve would, by definition, be alone in the galaxy. All its SETI searches would prove negative, and it might initiate a program of systematic interstellar exploration to find out why. Resolving the Paradox? Furthermore, no matter how peaceable, sedentary or uninquisitive most ET civilizations may be, ultimately they will all have a motive for interstellar migration, because no star lasts forever. Over the history of the galaxy, hundreds of millions of solar-type stars have run out of hydrogen fuel and ended their days as red giants and white dwarfs. If civilizations were common around such stars, where have they gone? Did they all just allow themselves to become extinct?


No Aliens – Fermi Paradox

Inevitable exceptions to self destruction means we would know about aliens if they existed at all Marcus Chown, writer for the New Scientist, 23 November 1996 “Is there anybody out there?” http://space.newscientist.com/channel/astronomy/astrobiology/mg15220578.200Other possible explanations for the absence of extraterrestrials in our neighbourhood include the "self-destruction hypothesis" and the "contemplation hypothesis". According to the self-destruction hypothesis, civilisations blow themselves up or otherwise commit suicide before they can travel to other stars. The contemplation hypothesis states that mature civilisations grow out of the adolescent urge to colonise, preferring instead to stay at home and explore the frontiers of art, perhaps, or contemplate the meaning of life. However, all these possibilities suffer from the same flaw. "Technological civilisations are likely to be diverse just like living organisms," says Tipler. "So, even if most self-destruct or stay at home to gaze at their navels, there will always be the exceptions. And the exceptions, by the logic of Darwinian evolution, are bound to come our way." In the long term, says Tipler, even extraterrestrials with a tendency to be couch potatoes will have to up sticks and move on. "Just as the Sun will turn into a red giant and force us to leave the Earth, the stars of alien races will eventually force them to go forth and colonise," he says.


AT: Universe Society

Aliens don’t exist – all their arguments are science fiction and the Universe Society is a jokeRobert Sheaffer, fellow @ CSI, Jan/Feb 2009, “UFOlogy 2009,” Skeptical Inquirer, v. 33.1, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ufology_2009_a_six-decade_perspectiveThe major fault line in UFOlogy today is the division between what can be called “New Age” UFOlogy and what its proponents call “scientific” UFOlogy but is in reality “science fiction.” Both are junk science and consistently ignore Occam’s Razor (all other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best). Proponents fail to reconcile whatever hypotheses they invent with the rest of the body of established scientific fact. While the dividing line between the two groups is not hard and fast, and some UFO claims will contain elements of both, most major UFOlogists and UFO groups will fit clearly into one group or the other. “New Age” UFOlogy is dominated by women and “Science Fiction” UFOlogy by men, although you will find members of both genders in either group. We can think of members of the first group as fans of Oprah, the second as fans of the SciFi Channel. “New Age” UFOlogists often seem oblivious to the very idea that anyone should have to prove their claims, as if people are expected to simply accept unsupported accounts of extraterrestrial interactions (as is routinely done in such circles). If you expect to see any kind of proof, you need to hang out in different UFO circles. “New Age” UFOlogy grew out of the “contactee” tradition of the 1950s, which is not based primarily on claimed “evidence” but instead on personal revelations. Contactees reportedly talk to extraterrestrials and receive cosmic wisdom from them, never offering convincing “proof” of such communications. Today’s “New Age” UFOlogists largely claim to receive extraterrestrial messages via telepathy, channeling, dreams, or other subjective experiences, continuing the contactee tradition of having a personal relationship with the UFOs and their occupants. “New Age” UFOlogy often uses religious terms and themes, typically promoting the idea of an immanent cosmic, metaphysical change in the Earth and in peoples’ lives: the “age of Aquarius,” the “end of the Mayan Calendar,” or some other ill-defined term that largely parallels the concept of the millennium in conventional Christian eschatology. One well-known group falling squarely in the “New Age” UFO tradition is the Unarius Educational Foundation in El Cajon, California. Founded in 1954, the group’s members believe that vaguely defined “energies” permeate the universe and claim they receive messages channeled from beings on other planets. They teach that “a new golden age for humanity” will begin as soon as we accept the wisdom and love of our space brethren. “Science Fiction” UFOlogists claim the reality of visitations from extraterrestrials, or perhaps from “another dimension” or some other nebulous realm, based upon the weight of UFO sightings, photos and videos, alleged “trace cases,” abductions, UFO crashes, etc. They eagerly offer “proof” when questioned, but it falls short by orders of magnitudes of the evidence required to support such extraordinary claims. They also typically fail to see how their claims contradict accepted science in very significant ways. When they do acknowledge the conflict, they insist it is time to invent a “new” science based upon the “evidence” of UFO incidents, not realizing the impropriety of having weighty, well-supported, time-tested scientific principles overturned by anecdotes, as if hummingbird feathers outweigh elephants. At the present time, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) is the largest and best-known organization of its kind in the U.S., primarily made up of “Science Fiction” UFOlogists.


AT: Earth Isn’t Unique

Resources: Existence of comets and asteroids proves unique Earth Marcus Chown, writer for the New Scientist, 23 November 1996 “Is there anybody out there?” http://space.newscientist.com/channel/astronomy/astrobiology/mg15220578.200Understandably, other scientists are reluctant to accept that we are alone in the Universe. Some say Tipler is premature in claiming there are no extraterrestrials in our backyard. "It's impossible to tell," says Edward Harrison of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "The evidence of life may be written across the sky and we may simply not recognise it." Many others share Harrison's view that the absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. "The whole point is we don't know whether they're out there or not," says Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Some scientists point out that extraterrestrials could be here without ever letting on. "Say there were nanoprobes abroad in the Solar System," says Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "How would we ever know?" However, Tipler claims that if the Solar System had been visited the signs would be unmistakable. "There would be no Oort Cloud of comets and no asteroid belt," he says. "All the available resources would have been turned into structures." Tipler's idea is that, on arriving at a new star system, a von Neumann probe would not just make copies of itself to send to other stars, but it would also exploit all the available mineral and energy resources of the star system. In our Solar System, for instance, the comets in the Oort Cloud and the asteroids in the asteroid belt would be obvious sources of minerals, which is why Tipler believes they would be long gone if extraterrestrials had ever visited. He has no idea what kind of technological artefacts such resources would be used to create, but that's not unreasonable. After all, the Romans would have had no idea that future civilisations would turn sand into computers, or bauxite into aeroplanes. The disappearance of resources is a logical consequence of Tipler's "biological" model for interstellar colonisation, in which life's success in filling all available niches and exploiting all available resources on Earth is repeated by intelligent life in the greater arena of the Universe.

No aliens – universe isn’t that bigEric Drexler, Ph.D. in molecular nanotechnology from MIT, chairman of the board of directors of Foresight Institute. Engines of Creation, 1987 http://foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_10.html#section06of09The idea that humanity is alone in the visible universe is consistent with what we see in the sky and with what

we know about the origin of life. No bashful aliens are needed to explain the facts. Some say that since there are so many stars,

there must surely be other civilizations among them. But there are fewer stars in the visible universe than there are

molecules in a glass of water. Just as a glass of water need not contain every possible chemical (even

downstream from a chemical plant), so other stars need not harbor civilizations.

Even if we were the lamest part of the galaxy and the aliens wanted to avoid us we would still see evidence if they existed. The noise from the cool parts of the galaxy would be so loud. Marcus Chown, writer for the New Scientist, 23 November 1996 “Is there anybody out there?” http://space.newscientist.com/channel/astronomy/astrobiology/mg15220578.200Assuming that Tipler's argument is valid, those who oppose his contention that we are alone must explain how the Galaxy can be teeming with colonising civilisations without any ending up in our neck of the woods. One possibility, according to Shostak, is that the Solar System is too dull. "Humans, despite colonising the Earth, are not everywhere on the planet-they are concentrated in cities," says Shostak. "In the same way, extraterrestrials may be concentrated in the interesting places in the Milky Way-the Galactic centre, giant

http://foresight.org/EOC/EOC_References.html#0190


molecular clouds, giant star clusters, and so on." Even if humans are not everywhere on Earth, says Tipler, the effects of their activities are seen everywhere on Earth, and microorganisms are ubiquitous.


AT: Earth Is A Zoo

Zoo impossible to enforce—if aliens existed we would know Marcus Chown, writer for the New Scientist, 23 November 1996 “Is there anybody out there?” http://space.newscientist.com/channel/astronomy/astrobiology/mg15220578.200Yet another possible explanation for the absence of extraterrestrials is the "zoo hypothesis". According to this hypothesis, emerging civilisations such as ours are cordoned off by star-faring civilisations of the Galaxy as part of a Star Trek-like non-interference policy. But, according to Tipler, this idea also has its Achilles heel. "It's a universal truth in human society that if you have three members of a society, you will have four opinions," he says. "There will inevitably be a diversity of opinion among Galactic societies about whether we should be contacted or not." Tipler also believes it would be impossible to enforce such a non-interference policy. "It would be necessary to patrol the perimeter of the Solar System," he says. "Even light beams would have to be stopped from entering." It is hard to imagine the existence of a coherent Galaxy-wide society when it takes 100, 000 years for a communications signal to cross from one side to the other. But if the extraterrestrials could communicate faster than the speed of light, then perhaps the society could enforce a non-interference policy, as pointed out last year by Ian Crawford of University College London. ( Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol 36, p 205). However, there remains the serious problem of maintaining an unwavering policy over millions or maybe hundreds of millions of years, when the lesson from Earth is that no society stays unchanged forever.

Earth can’t be a zoo—mathematically impossible for time reasons Guillermo Gonzalez, astronomer at the University of Washington, July/ August 1998, “Extraterrestrials: A Modern View” http://www.springerlink.com/content/ng247h6681161415/fulltext.pdfAnother proposed solution to Fermi's paradox is the idea that the Earth is being isolated as a kind of "zoo." Michael Hart, and more recently, Ian Crawford, have pointed out a number of very serious problems with this line of reasoning. For example, for most of its history the Earth has been inhabited by simple lifeforms, and thus there should have been little incentive to isolate it until relatively recently. Even if a civilization wanted to keep the Earth isolated, it would have to do so for billions of years, keeping other civilizations away. This does not seem at all likely. Very recent visitation is also unlikely on temporal grounds: why after billions of years would two advanced civilizations (ours and one other) arise nearly simultaneously in the Milky Way?


AT: Life = Common

The DNA accident is a one time event—to many variables for intelligent life to exist beyond earth Oscar Falconi, writer, physicist and consultant in computing and electro-optics, 1981, “The Case for Space Colonization—Now!-and why it should be our generation’s #1 priority,” http://nutri.com/space/Every bit of life on earth, be it plant or animal, bacteria or whale, monosexual or bisexual, is identical in the deepest sense in that they all use nucleic acids for storage and transmission of hereditary information. All organisms use the same basic genetic code. All use proteins in their metabolic processes. The structure of human sperm cells

is almost identical with paramecia. It's difficult to escape the conclusion that all life on earth evolved from one single instance of the origin of life. Now about that single instance - that chance combination of chemicals - it almost certainly happened only once on the earth's surface in all those billions of years. It was clearly a very fortuitous event, possibly never duplicated in all the universe. In labs the world over, many are trying to duplicate it in very ideal conditions. Scientists are injecting into sealed containers all sorts of combinations of amino acids; ammonia; water; gases; heat; sparks; UV, gamma and particle radiation; - whatever they can conjure up. They've come up with interesting organics, some simple proteins, but certainly nothing even closely resembling the most primitive form of monosexual life. Even when this monosexual life appeared on earth, another giant step had to be taken: bisexual life had to be created. A monosexual species, though it undergoes mutation, can improve its species only at a very slow rate. Mutations must take place serially, whereas with a bisexual species, mutations in different members can both be passed on into the offspring. Thus improvement by mutation and selection can take place in bisexual species at rates many orders of magnitude faster than in monosexual species. In order for advanced forms of life to appear on earth, a bisexual species had to appear. This is no mean task and must be considered another very fortuitous event in man's creation. One could make a long list of very improbable mutations necessary for an intelligent species: hands that grasp, legs that transport, sight, hearing, speech, etc., plus that one lucky development in the brain that differentiates us from the apes. But for that one mutation we could have been spending the next ten billion years foraging, grooming, and swinging from trees. Because of the long sequence of beneficial mutations required, intelligent life may not be as ubiquitous throughout the universe as most think. If life is so easily created, and so easily develops, spontaneously, all over the universe, then: # Why isn't there any indication that life on earth developed from anything but ONE very lucky beginning? # Why don't we see untypical lifeforms spontaneously developing in our world that's so overrun with organic matter ? # Why can't man manufacture life even under very artificially conducive conditions? Why do only the familiar carbon-based amino acids and simple proteins ever result from man's attempt to create life in a jar? Apparently these compounds are the ONLY building blocks that could ever result in life anywhere in the universe. That just one path is available for life to evolve is indeed a severe constraint. So instead of the Stanley Miller experiments proving how easy it is to create life, they have in fact added another limitation, another impediment, to the possibility of any other life in the universe, and have added one more argument to back up those of us who feel the probability of our uniqueness is quite good. # Why haven't we ever been contacted, visited, invaded, or colonized by all this other life that's supposed to exist? # Why have all attempts by Americans, Canadians, and Russians to detect radio signals from extraterrestrial beings been fruitless? ("Where are they?" asked Fermi.) # Why have our Viking I and Viking II missions completely failed in their search for life on Mars? # Why, out of more than 2,000,000 species of life on earth, has only one (man) succeeded in developing his brain and his

culture to such an advanced degree? The answer to all these questions is that life just isn't all that easy to come by, particularly intelligent life. Too many extremely fortuitous events and conditions all must have taken place, the likes of which may never have been duplicated in all space and all time. The fact that there is a complete lack of any indication of any other intelligent life has led Trinity University's Dr Michael Hart, using a clever and logical line of reasoning, to conclude that we are unique - at least in our own galaxy. (Quart. Jour. Royal Astr. Soc., 1975) He has also shown

that most classes of stars aren't capable of maintaining a luminosity constant enough, for a period of time long enough, to enable life to develop to an intelligent level. Even our own sun was barely able to qualify. If the earth were just 5% closer to the sun, or 1% farther away, mankind could not have evolved.


AT: Our Authors Are Qualified

Qualifications of their authors are irrelevant – even smart people get brainwashed by TVPhilip J. Klass, 30 year UFO researcher, CSICOP fellow and chair of UFO Subcommittee, Nov/Dec 1996, “That’s Entertainment! TV’s UFO Coverup,” Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/thats_entertainment_tvs_ufo_coverup/Don’t be surprised or shocked if you discover that a good friend-a well-educated, intelligent person-believes in UFOs, or that he or she suspects that the U.S. government recovered a crashed extraterrestrial craft and ET bodies in New Mexico

and has kept them under wraps for nearly half a century. Don’t be surprised if your respected friend, or a member of your own family, is convinced that ETs are abducting thousands of Americans and subjecting them to dreadful indignities. The really surprising thing is that you do not believe in crashed saucers, alien abductions, and government coverup if you spend even a few hours every week watching TV. There are many TV shows that promote belief in the reality of UFOs, government coverup, and alien abductions. And they

attract very large audiences-typically tens of millions of viewers. Often they are broadcast a second, possibly even a third time. TV has become the most pervasive means of influencing what people believe. That explains why companies spend billions of dollars every year on TV advertising to convince the public that Brand X beer tastes best, that you should eat Brand Y cereal, and that a Brand Z automobile is the world’s best. According to a recent survey reported in Business Week magazine, our children spend nearly twice as much time watching TV as they do in school. Consider the problem that TV created for the Audi 5000 automobile and the claim that the car would suddenly accelerate and crash into the front of an owner’s garage when the automatic transmission was in neutral. The Audi 5000 was introduced in 1978, and during the next four years only thirteen owners complained of a mysterious sudden acceleration incident. Then, in November 1986, CBS featured the alleged Audi 5000 problem on its popular 60 Minutes show. During the next month, some fourteen hundred people claimed that their Audi 5000s had experienced sudden acceleration problems (P. J. O’Rourke, Parliament of Whores, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991, pp. 86-7). Subsequent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that the problem was the result of driver error-stepping on the accelerator when they intended to step on the brake. Here’s another example: several years ago, a man who claimed he had found a hypodermic needle in a Pepsi-Cola can became an instant celebrity when he appeared on network TV news to describe his amazing discovery. Within several weeks, roughly fifty other persons around the country claimed they too had discovered hypodermic needles in Pepsi-Cola cans. Investigation showed all these reports were spurious. TV’s brainwashing of the public on UFOs occurs not only on

NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries and Fox network’s Sightings, but also on more respected programs such as CBS’s 48 Hours and ones hosted by CNN’s Larry King. Why pick on the TV networks? Cannot the same criticism be leveled at the print media? No. Generally, even cub reporters know that when writing an article on a controversial subject they should try to present both sides of the issue. If they fail to do so, their older and wiser managing editors will remind them. An article may devote 60 or 70 percent of its content to pro-UFO views, but with TV the pro-UFO content typically runs 95 percent-or higher.

SETI is a waste—cannot and will not find sentient aliens Oscar Falconi, writer, physicist and consultant in computing and electro-optics, 1981, “The Case for Space Colonization—Now!-and why it should be our generation’s #1 priority,” http://nutri.com/space/Back in 1966, Carl Sagan and I. S. Shklovskii, in their book, "Intelligent Life in the Universe" concluded that intelligent life is extremely common - to the tune of many millions of advanced civilizations just in our galaxy alone! In June 1976 Dr Sagan predicted that the July 1976 soft landing on Mars of Viking I would turn up signs of life. A headline went: "Sagan Expects Life to Loom Large on Mars" (New Scientist, June 17, 1976). Needless to say, no life was found - despite very sensitive life detection devices. In fact, since 1976, both authors have considerably modified their views: Dr Sagan, in one of his 1980 "Cosmos" TV episodes, set his lower limit to just several intelligent civilizations in the whole universe - quite a comedown. And Prof. Shklovskii has done a complete about-face in his 1976 article (in Russian) entitled: "Possible Uniqueness of Rational Life in the Universe". What about SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence? Since 1960, millions of dollars have been spent pointing antennas toward stars listening for meaningful signals. This may have been justified if only to satisfy our curiosity, especially in the 1960s when it wasn't so obvious that the chances of detecting intelligent signals were so infinitesimal. Despite a complete lack of success, there are those who still want to spend 10s of billions of dollars to probe more deeply into space to find life that, even if present, would take decades or centuries to converse with - a time far greater than mankind's life expectancy!


AT: Roswell/Photos

Roswell doesn’t prove aliens exist – just fabricationRobert Sheaffer, fellow @ CSI, Jan/Feb 2009, “UFOlogy 2009,” Skeptical Inquirer, v. 33.1, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ufology_2009_a_six-decade_perspectiveThe earliest crashed saucer claim to make it big in popular culture was the alleged crash near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. However, the

event was all but forgotten until it was resurrected by the 1980 book The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz (of Bermuda Triangle fame) and William L. Moore. You will look in vain for the word “Roswell” in any UFO book or article published before 1980, even if the subject is UFO crashes. A long series of sensationalist movies, TV shows, books, and so on have made Roswell a household name synonymous with UFO aliens. By the late 1990s, it was clear to anyone who cared about facts

that the supposed Roswell crash involved a once-secret balloon-borne intelligence-gathering initiative called Project Mogul. But once such an event, fictionalized or not, becomes embedded in popular culture, it doesn’t matter at all if the “evidence” is proven to be exaggerated, distorted, and/or fabricated. The Roswell legend will live on as long as there are claims of UFOs. Today, the list of alleged UFO crashes has expanded far beyond the few familiar names like Roswell, Kecksburg, and Aztec. Claims about UFO crashes and their cover-ups make up a major part of contemporary UFOlogy. Since 2003 a “Crash Retrieval Conference” has been held each November in Las Vegas. It is organized by Ryan S. Wood, who claims that there have been at least seventy-four UFO crashes worldwide. All of these incidents have, of course, been successfully covered up by the country in which the unfortunate extraterrestrials fell.

Photos don’t prove aliens exist – iphone means your arg is dumbRobert Sheaffer, fellow @ CSI, Jan/Feb 2009, “UFOlogy 2009,” Skeptical Inquirer, v. 33.1, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ufology_2009_a_six-decade_perspectiveCertain “classic” UFO photos continue to have a wide following today among “Science Fiction” UFOlogists who defend them energetically. The Trent photos from Oregon in 1950 tentatively passed muster with the famously skeptical Condon Report, whose analysis suggested that the object was distant. However, that analysis depends on certain assumptions, and if the photos were fabricated using a truck mirror with a reflective surface (as now seems likely), the assumptions are incorrect. The Brazilian Trindade Island UFO photos of 1958 have been widely touted even though the man who took them was a specialist in trick photography. The Lucci brothers’ photos from Pennsylvania in 1965, famous for being used in many UFO books and magazines, have recently been confessed by one of the brothers to be hoaxes. In recent years, the most famous photos and video are those of the Phoenix Lights of 1997. Widely observed and photographed around the entire region, they undoubtedly represent real objects. And they were indeed real objects—flares dropped by an Air National Guard unit training nearby. (UFO photos typically are taken by—and the object only seen by—one individual or small group, even though the object is allegedly flying near a major city.) However, there now exists a small cottage industry of individuals who write and lecture that they saw the Phoenix Lights doing impossible things, and hence the lights could not possibly have been flares. While there is considerable interest in UFO photos and videos today, few if any recent images are considered definitive. Nearly all of the recent “unidentified” objects in them appear as simply dots, blips, or lights. The famous Mexican infrared

UFO video of 2004 turned out to be simply airborne images of distant oil well flares. Given the near-ubiquitous availability today

of cell-phone and digital cameras, many of which are capable of producing videos, it is most curious that we do not have clear, close-up photos and videos of the many reported close encounters and abductions. We do get, however, plenty of photos of blips and dots that could be practically anything. Also, with the proliferation of software such as Photoshop for altering and even creating photos and videos, a photo or video cannot simply “stand by itself” as evidence of anything. For a photo or video to be convincing, we must know a great deal about its origins, the photographer, the location, etc. A number of really clever digital photo and video UFO hoaxes have been created in recent years, but typically they are submitted anonymously via the Internet because the story of their origin would not withstand scrutiny.


AT: Astronauts

Astronauts didn’t see any aliens – their stuff is based on bad TV showsDavid Morrison, Fellow @ CSI and Senior Scientist at NASA Astrobiology Inst., Jan/Feb 2009, “UFOs and Aliens in Space,” Skeptical Inquirer, v. 33.1, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ufos_and_aliens_in_spaceOne allegedly well-documented report stems from an interview in which astronaut Buzz Aldrin describes seeing a UFO during the Apollo 11 mission. In an interview on the Science Channel (left, top), Aldrin stated that he, Neil Armstrong, and Mike Collins saw unidentified objects that appeared to follow their Apollo spacecraft. To get the story straight, I called Buzz Aldrin, who was happy to explain what happened. He said that his remarks were taken out of context to reverse his meaning. It is true that the Apollo 11 crew spotted an unidentified object moving with the spacecraft as they approached the Moon. After they verified that this mystery object was not Apollo 11’s large rocket upper stage, which was about 6,000 miles away by then, they concluded that they were seeing one of the small panels that had linked the spacecraft to the upper stage (any part of the spacecraft’s rocket upper stage will continue to move alongside the spacecraft, as both are floating in free-fall). These panels were too small to track from Earth and were relatively close to the Apollo spacecraft. Aldrin told me that they chose not to discuss this on the open communications channel since they were concerned that their comments might be misinterpreted. His entire explanation about identifying the panels was cut from the broadcast interview, giving the impression that the Apollo 11 crew had seen a UFO. Aldrin told me that he was angry about the deceptive editing and asked the Science Channel to correct the intentional twisting of his remarks, but they refused. Later, Aldrin explained what happened on CNN’s Larry King Live (left, bottom) but was nearly cut off by the host before he could finish.

No astronaut has ever seen a UFO – their evidence is lyingDavid Morrison, Fellow @ CSI and Senior Scientist at NASA Astrobiology Inst., Jan/Feb 2009, “UFOs and Aliens in Space,” Skeptical Inquirer, v. 33.1, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ufos_and_aliens_in_space With the popularity of YouTube, this same question is addressed to me repeatedly, as in: “Check out this video on YouTube with Buzz Aldrin saying he saw a UFO on Apollo 11. Who is fibbing? NASA or the great American hero, Buzz Aldrin?” My answer was that the fibbing was being done by the producers of the video, who omitted the second half of the interview. It is instructive to watch this interview to see the ways the story is embellished and ultimately manipulated. Most of the talking is done by the interviewer and not Aldrin, but their comments have been edited to create the illusion of a seamless narrative. Throughout the interview we see a montage of short scenes from Apollo and other missions, including a blurry image through the window taken during a later flight. Only a critical viewer will distinguish what Aldrin said from the narrative by the interviewer or realize that the video clips are unrelated. The end product is clever disinformation, strongly suggesting—without explicitly lying—that Aldrin and his crewmates saw an alien spacecraft. Many Internet claims of encounters between NASA astronauts and alien spacecraft are based on quotes from “secret communications” between flight crews and Houston. It is true that there are such private conversations, concerning crew health for example. But the Internet stories of overheard conversations are never documented and often attributed to leaks from unnamed NASA workers whose jobs (or even lives) would allegedly be at risk if they were identified. Many of these stories involve the Apollo 11 flight, and they include claims that alien spaceships accompanied the NASA craft during its Moon landing and that a row of alien spacecraft along a crater rim monitored the astronauts’ spacewalk on the lunar surface. (Incidentally, Apollo 11 landed on a flat plain where there were no hills or crater rims to provide such a viewpoint.) To my knowledge, no NASA astronaut has ever reported seeing a UFO in space, let alone having a confrontation with aliens. However, this is not to say that no astronaut believes that alien visitations to Earth might be happening. Recently there were news reports that Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell believes in the reality of some reports of UFOs. He has attended a number of meetings of UFO believers, and he asserts that some of these reports are true, and that the U.S. government and military are aware of these alien visits. However, Mitchell does not claim to have seen aliens himself. His astronaut colleagues tell me that he has always had an interest in the occult, and he even tried to conduct a parapsychology experiment on the way to and from the Moon. It is easy for a journalist to ignore Mitchell’s caveats about most UFO reports being untrue, or about not encountering an alien himself, to give the impression that he and other astronauts have had frequent encounters with beings from other worlds.


AT: Abductions

Abductions are just sleep paralysis – don’t prove aliens existSusan Blackmore, Reader in Dep. Of Psych @ U. of West of England, June 1998, “Abduction by Aliens or Sleep Paralysis?” Skeptical Inquirer, 22.3, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/abduction_by_aliens_or_sleep_paralysisIn a typical sleep-paralysis episode, a person wakes up paralyzed, senses a presence in the room, feels fear or even terror, and may hear buzzing and humming noises or see strange lights. A visible or invisible entity may even sit on their chest, shaking, strangling, or prodding them. Attempts to fight the paralysis are usually unsuccessful. It is reputedly more effective to relax or try to move just the eyes or a single finger or toe. Descriptions of sleep paralysis are given in many of the references already cited and in Hufford’s (1982) classic work on the “Old Hag.” I and a colleague are building up a case collection and have reported our preliminary findings (Blackmore and Rose 1996). Sleep paralysis is thought to underlie common myths such as witch or hag riding in England (Davis 1996-1997), the Old Hag of Newfoundland (Hufford 1982), Kanashibari in Japan (Fukuda 1993), Kokma in St. Lucia (Dahlitz and Parkes 1993), and the Popobawa in Zanzibar (Nickell 1995), among others. Perhaps alien abduction is our modern sleep paralysis myth. Spanos et al. (1993) have pointed out the similarities between abductions and sleep paralysis. The majority of the abduction experiences they studied occurred at night, and almost 60 percent of the “intense” reports were sleep related. Of the intense experiences, nearly a quarter involved symptoms similar to sleep paralysis. Cox (1995) divided his twelve abductees into six daytime and six nighttime abductions and, even with such small groups, found that the nighttime abductees reported significantly more frequent sleep paralysis than either of the control groups. I suggest that the best explanation for many abduction experiences is that they are elaborations of the experience of sleep paralysis. Imagine the following scenario: A woman wakes in the night with a strong sense that someone or something is in the room. She tries to move but finds she is completely paralyzed except for her eyes. She sees strange lights, hears a buzzing or humming sound, and feels a vibration in the bed. If she knows about sleep paralysis, she will recognize it instantly, but most people do not. So what is she going to

think? I suggest that, if she has watched TV programs about abductions or read about them, she may begin to think of aliens. And in this borderline sleep state, the imagined alien will seem extremely real. This alone may be enough to create the conviction of having been abducted. Hypnosis could make the memories of this real experience (but not real abduction) completely convincing.

Statistical analysis proves abductions are just sleep paralysisSusan Blackmore, Reader in Dep. Of Psych @ U. of West of England, June 1998, “Abduction by Aliens or Sleep Paralysis?” Skeptical Inquirer, 22.3, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/abduction_by_aliens_or_sleep_paralysisThese results provide no evidence that people who reported more of the indicator experiences had a better idea of what an alien should look like or what should happen during an abduction. If real gray aliens are abducting people from Earth, and the Roper Poll is correct in associating the indicator experiences with abduction, then we should expect such a relationship. Its absence in a relatively large sample casts doubt on these premises. Among the adults (though not the children), there was a correlation between the amount of television they watched and their knowledge about aliens and abductions. This suggests that the popular stereotype is obtained more from television programs than from having been abducted by real aliens. Our sample certainly included enough people who reported the indicator experiences. Although not all the indicator experiences were included, for the four questions that were used, the incidence was actually higher than that found by the Roper Poll. Presumably, therefore, many of my subjects would have been classified by Hopkins, Jacobs, and Westrum as having been abducted. The results suggest this conclusion would be quite unjustified. These findings do not and cannot prove that no real abductions are occurring on this planet. What they do show is that knowledge of the appearance and behavior of abducting aliens depends more on how much television a person watches than on how many “indicator experiences” he or she has had. I conclude that the claim of the Roper Poll, that 3.7 million Americans have probably been abducted, is false.


AT: All Life Goes Intelligent

To many variables to life becoming sentient—humanity is unique Ian Crawford, Professor of Astronomy and Physics at University College in London, Scientific American, July 2000 “Where Are They? Maybe We Are Alone In the Galaxy After All” http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc92.htmTo my mind, the history of life on Earth suggests a more convincing explanation. Living things have existed here almost from the beginning, but multicellular animal life did not appear until about 700 million years ago. For more than three billion years, Earth was inhabited solely by single-celled microorganisms. This time lag seems to imply that the evolution of anything more complicated than a single cell is unlikely. Thus, the transition to multicelled animals might occur on only a tiny fraction of the millions of planets that are inhabited by single-celled organisms. It could be argued that the long solitude of the bacteria was simply a necessary precursor to the eventual appearance of animal life on Earth. Perhaps it took this long--and will take a comparable length of time on other inhabited planets--for bacterial photosynthesis to produce the quantities of atmospheric oxygen required by more complex forms of life. But even if multicelled life-forms do eventually arise on all life-bearing planets, it still does not follow that these will inevitably lead to intelligent creatures, still less to technological civilizations. As pointed out by Stephen Jay Gould in his book Wonderful Life, the evolution of intelligent life depends on a host of essentially random environmental influences. This contingency is illustrated most clearly by the fate of the dinosaurs. They dominated this planet for 140 million years yet never developed a technological civilization. Without their extinction, the result of a chance event, evolutionary history would have been very different. The evolution of intelligent life on Earth has rested on a large number of chance events, at least some of which had a very low probability. In 1983 physicist Brandon Carter concluded that "civilizations comparable with our own are likely to be exceedingly rare, even if locations as favorable as our own are of common occurrence in the galaxy."

Life does not have to become intelligent—best scientist agree Tariq Malik, Senior Editor for Space.com, 21 April 2008, “Primitive Alien Life May Exist, Stephen Hawking Says” http://www.space.com/news/080421-hawking-aliens-space.htmlAlien life may well exist in a primitive form somewhere in our corner of the galaxy, famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Monday. Given the size of the universe, it is unlikely that Earth is the only planet to develop some sort of life, Hawking told an audience at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He added that humanity must embrace space exploration, if only to ensure its long-term survival. "While there may be primitive life in our region of the galaxy, there don't seem to be any advanced intelligent beings," said Hawking during a lecture as part of a series commemorating NASA's 50th anniversary this year. The lack of success by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project to discover signals from an alien civilization suggests that none exist within several 100 light-years of Earth, Hawking said, though he offered three theories on the dearth of interplanetary communications. The probability of primitive life developing on a suitable planet may be extremely low, or it may be high, but aliens intelligent enough to beam signals into space may also be smart enough to build civilization-destroying weapons like nuclear bombs, he said. More likely, he added, is that primitive life is likely to develop, but intelligent life as we know it is exceedingly rare.


AT: Meteoroids Prove Martians

Meteoroids don’t mean there is life on MarsDavid Lamb, honorary Reader in Philosophy and Bioethics at the University of Birmingham, 2001, The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, p. 105There were disputes over the age of the fossils and doubts were expressed whether bacteria of the alleged size could actually contain genetic material. Moreover, no evidence of cellular structures had been detected in the fossils prior to the announcement (see Kiernan et al., 1996: 4—5). One sceptic, Dr Monica Grady, Curator of Meteorites at the Natural History Museum, London, who has examined chunks ofALH84001, told the Observer (11 August 1996: 20): I am completely unconvinced there is any evidence on this meteorite to support the idea that life once existed on Mars.’ Sceptics argued that the evidence presented did not conclusively rule out the thesis that what had been observed in the meteorite could be explained with reference to inorganic processes. Other sceptics have argued that the temperature in which the alleged microfossils were formed was probably too hot for any micro-organism to survive. The sceptics maintained that the tiny egg-shaped structures were too small to represent living forms, although claims have been made that some forms of terrestrial bacteria are almost as small.

Chemical and evolutional properties are universal—not assuming to be like human Marcus Chown, writer for the New Scientist, 23 November 1996 “Is there anybody out there?” http://space.newscientist.com/channel/astronomy/astrobiology/mg15220578.200Others, like Harrison, believe there is a fundamental error in Tipler's biological model of the expansion of intelligent life. "It assumes that extraterrestrials share the motivations of humans," he says. "However, life

may evolve to a level beyond imagination and its motivations may be utterly incomprehensible to us." Tipler counters that he assumes only that intelligent life forms behave like all known life forms on Earth, all of which go through a dispersal phase. He says it is time astronomers admitted that intelligent life is subject to the same evolutionary laws as other life.


AT: Salla

Salla isn’t qualified – American U fired him for being an idiotWikipedia, 2009, “Michael Salla,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_SallaMichael Emin Salla (September 25, 1958) is an international politics scholar who in 2001 became interested in the study of exopolitics and subsequently embarked on a personal effort to disseminate his exopolitical beliefs and hypotheses via the mediums of the internet, UFO and News conferences and radio appearances. Salla's most recent academic position was in Washington at American

University, Center for Global Peace. The Center did not sanction his ufological research, and emphasizes that it is personal.[1] Controversy eventually led to Salla's dismissal from the university.

Salla is wrong about everything, and so is anyone babbling about a moon strikeJames Black, 10-21-2009, “UFO research community in chaos,” Infocalipsis, http://infocalipsis.blogspot.com/2009/10/ufo-research-community-in-chaos.htmlOf course, he is also victim of a common delusion in the ufological community. Chaos is not new at all. Chaos is the product of talking and talking and writing about something that we don't know what is, as if we knew. Chaos is the product of charlatanism, total lack of objectivity, fantasy, pseudo-science, profiteering, and unjustified mysticism. While this happens, the "aliens" ( ...) This is so because lots of individuals are selling lies, and each one says: "My lie is True, yours is just a lie". Perhaps the "ufonauts" have something to do with this chaos? No. The Ufonauts, unknown, unexplained, mischievous, detached, are doing "their thing", but nobody knows what this thing is. Viggiani writes also that the abductions are "demonized", well, we must recognize that abductions are a crime, right? So they are perfectly "demonizable". Anything we say about the "aliens" is chaotic, because we don't know what we are talking about. Salla says that the extraterrestrial presence in our Earth is an hypotesis, and ALSO he writes that disclosure will happen soon (only if the hypotesis becomes a fact.) So, he also is talking nonsense. Dr.Boylan, self proclaimed Councilor

of Earth, uses the psychic power of his group UFOfacts to save the Alien community in the Moon from the NASA bomb. More nonsense. Never evidences, nothing serious, no science at all. As Shakespeare writes " Life is

a tell told by an Idiot, full of sound and fury". In the Exopolitical community, chaos comes from ignorance disguised as knowledge. The Big Circus, sooner or latter, becomes a Big Asylum. It's the price they pay for writing stupidities. Is the price they pay for selling what they know it's not true.

Zero evidence for exopolitics – Salla sucksRobert Sheaffer, fellow @ CSI, Jan/Feb 2009, “UFOlogy 2009,” Skeptical Inquirer, v. 33.1, http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ufology_2009_a_six-decade_perspectiveAnother interesting contemporary exercise in UFO fantasy involves what is called exopolitics, “political

implications of the extraterrestrial presence.” It is the brainchild of Michael Salla, who, with a doctorate in government, travels worldwide to participate in conferences and retreats, campaigning for peaceful relations between humans and extraterrestrials and for an end to the alleged UFO cover-up. Since there is no actual evidence of any alleged “extraterrestrial presence,” this discipline has much in common with medieval disputes concerning angels and pinheads. Nonetheless, it has become a significant player on the UFO scene, and Salla’s Web site, exopolitics.org, receives several million visitors yearly. Exopolitics claims that “hidden agreements concerning extraterrestrial life have been secretly entered into by a range of government-authorized agencies, departments, and corporations. In some cases, these pacts involve representatives of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations whose existence has not been disclosed to the general public.” They insist that such agreements should be made openly.


Multilateralism DA


Multilateralism Disadvantage 1 NC 1/2

International space cooperation is increasing nowDaniel Dant, chief of staff of the Air Force fellow and the director of space policy for the under secretary of defense for policy, 2-2011, " The National Space Policy: Sustainability and Cooperation in a Congested, Competitive, and Contested Domain,” High Frontier, http://www.afspc.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-110224-052.pdfA perceptible result of cooperating in space, and thus converting competitors to collaborators, is that it gives space-faring partners a stake in pursuing responsible behavior and increases their willingness to cooperate in space (or at least lessens the chances of hostile or irresponsible actions in space). Once again, the president, in both substance and tone, has started us on the right path with the new NSP by re-energizing international cooperatio n . It is now up to the Department of Defense (DoD), led by and in close coordination with the State Department via a whole of government approach, to translate our advantages in space to active leadership of the coalition of responsible space-faring nations.

This cooperation exteds throughout the international sphere and private sectorFrank Rose, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, 4-4-2011, “Strengthening Stability in Space,” Regulatory Intelligence Data, pg. 3 The U.S. National Space Policy directs us to collaborate with other nations, the private sector, and intergovernmental organizations to improve our SSA - in other words, to improve our shared ability to rapidly detect, warn of, characterize, and attribute natural and man-made disturbances to space systems. Having this information as early as possible and as accurately as possible is critical for a number of reasons.

Unilateralism undercuts space cooperationVincent Sabathier, senior associate with the CSIS Technology and Public Policy Program and former senior fellow and director of CSIS space initiative, 9-18-2006, “The Case for Managed International Cooperation in Space Exploration,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/060918_managed_international_cooperation.pdf In general, any unilateral action sends a signal that the actor is an unpredictable and therefore an unreliable and possibly disrespectful partner. This tends to sabotage the possibility of future cooperation. As such, there is a long-term benefit to maintaining cooperation, even when the immediate cost may seem to call for terminating it. If cooperation has never occurred (as is the case be-tween China and the United States), the advent of cooperation is a significant event, likely delivering a lot of diplomatic utility . On the other hand, if cooperation is the norm (as is the case between Canada and the United States), it is to be expected . The diplomatic utility of maintaining this cooperation is often not recognized. Nevertheless, the diplomatic utility cost of terminating this cooperation is large, because it would alienate a key ally.


Multilateralism Disadvantage 1 NC 2/2

This leads to a space warTheresa Hitchens, president of the Center for Defense Information, 2-2008, “Space Wars - Coming to the Sky Near You?,” Scientific American, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=space-wars-coming-to-the-sky-near-youThe options range from treaties that would ban antisatellite and space-based weapons to voluntary measures that would help build transparency and mutual confidence. The Bush administration has adamantly opposed any form of negotiations regarding space weapons. Opponents of multilateral space weapons agreements contend that others (particularly China) will sign up but build secret arsenals at the same time, because such treaty violations cannot be detected. They argue further that the U.S. cannot sit idly as potential adversaries gain spaceborne resources that could enhance their terrestrial combat capabilities. Proponents of international treaties counter that failure to negotiate such agreements entails real opportunity costs. An arms race in space may end up compromising the security of all nations , including that of the U.S., while it stretches the economic capacities of the competitors to the breaking point.

Weaponization of space leads to warGordon Mitchell, Associate Professor of Communication, 2001, “Missile Defence: Trans-Atlantic Diplomacy at a Crossroads,” ISIS Briefing on BMD, http://www.isisuk.demon.co.uk/0811/isis/uk/bmd/no6.htmlA buildup of space weapons might begin with noble intentions of 'peace through strength' deterrence, but this rationale glosses over the tendency that '… the presence of space weapons…will result in the increased likelihood of their use'. This drift toward usage is strengthened by a strategic fact elucidated by Frank Barnaby: when it comes to arming the heavens, 'anti-ballistic missiles and anti-satellite warfare technologies go hand-in-hand'. The interlocking nature of offense and defense in military space technology stems from the inherent 'dual capability' of spaceborne weapon components.

Space warfare leads to extinctionGordon Mitchell, Associate Professor of Communication, 2001, “Missile Defence: Trans-Atlantic Diplomacy at a Crossroads,” ISIS Briefing on BMD, http://www.isisuk.demon.co.uk/0811/isis/uk/bmd/no6.htmlDeployment of space weapons with pre-delegated authority to fire death rays or unleash killer projectiles would likely make war itself inevitable, given the susceptibility of such systems to 'normal accidents'. It is chilling to contemplate the possible effects of a space war. According to retired Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman, 'even a tiny projectile reentering from space strikes the earth with such high velocity that it can do enormous damage — even more than would be done by a nuclear weapon of the same size! ' . In the same Star Wars technology touted as a quintessential tool of peace, defence analyst David Langford sees one of the most destabilizing offensive weapons ever conceived: 'One imagines dead cities of microwave-grilled people'.38 Given this unique potential for destruction, it is not hard to imagine that any nation subjected to space weapon attack would retaliate with maximum force, including use of nuclear, biological, and/or chemical weapons. An accidental war sparked by a computer glitch in space could plunge the world into the most destructive military conflict ever seen.


Multilateralism is Increasing Now

Obama is pursuing space cooperation – US multilateral leadership is creating a framework against weaponizationWade Huntley, senior lecturer in the National Security Affairs department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, Spring-2011, “The 2011 U.S. National Space Security Policy: Engagement as a Work in Progress”, Disarmament Times, pg. 7Once again, U.S. space policy was subsumed by other national priorities, in this case dominated by military security concerns. This background is essential for appreciating how the space policies of the Obama administration are beginning to genuinely break new trails. The U.S. National Space Policy issued in June 2010 has been widely recognized for its cooperative and multilateral tone, including as explicit near-term goals the expansion of international cooperation on all activities and pursuing international as well as national measures to enhance space stability. Particularly notable are the document’s emphasis on orienting U.S. “leadership” toward fostering international cooperation, and its references, in its concluding section, to cooperation with other states and non-state actors in the pursuit of national security space objectives.

Obama is pursuing multilateral cooperation in space nowWade Huntley, senior lecturer in the National Security Affairs department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, Spring-2011, “The 2011 U.S. National Space Security Policy: Engagement as a Work in Progress”, Disarmament Times, pg. 7The policy also was generated and issued far earlier in the tenure of the administration than either of its predecessors, indicating an increased prioritization of attention to space policy at higher levels of policy-making. To some degree, a turn toward multilateral cooperation in U.S. space policy was to be expected. China’s 2007 anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) test and the 2009 Iridium-Cosmos collision increased awareness of the challenge of space debris and the need for better global information sharing on space situational awareness (SSA).5 Also, new budget realities and unpromising technological developments have scaled back ambitions in some quarters for solving U.S. space security concerns with new independent capabilities. Finally, the Obama administration has pursued a more cooperative disposition across a wide range of global policy challenges, from Iranian nuclear ambitions to global climate change. But the improved clarity of vision in the 2010 Space Policy suggests that the emphasis on fostering global cooperation on space-related activities is more grounded in deliberate foresight than sailing the prevailing political winds. The 2011 National Security Space Strategy, released February 4, is best interpreted against this background of the Obama administration’s turn toward both greater international space cooperation and greater attention to space policy in general.

Multilateral engagement is increasing nowWade Huntley, senior lecturer in the National Security Affairs department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, Spring-2011, “The 2011 U.S. National Space Security Policy: Engagement as a Work in Progress”, Disarmament Times, pg. 7In sum, the National Security Space Strategy appears to mark not only a swing in U.S. policy toward greater global engagement but also, and more importantly, a step toward greater long-term coherence in thinking concerning the core goals of U.S. space activities.


The US is Pursuing Space Multilateralism Now

Even non-binding measures are increasing multilateralismFrank Rose, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, 4-4-2011, “Strengthening Stability in Space,” Regulatory Intelligence Data, pg. 3 The United States is already following such practices - as we did when we promptly notified Russia through diplomatic channels when we detected the collision of a commercial Iridium satellite with an inoperable Russian military spacecraft in February 2009. This experience is contributing to our ongoing dialogue with Russia on developing additional concrete and pragmatic bilateral TCBMs that will enhance spaceflight safety. Non-legally binding measures such as the proposed Code could build on our existing practices as well as U.S. and allied SSA capabilities by mitigating the risk of mishaps, misperceptions, and mistrust.

US isn’t investing in space control nowBenjamin Lambeth, senior staff member at RAND, where he also directed the International Security and Defense Policy Program, 2011, “Toward a Theory of Space Power: Selected Essays,” http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib/pdf/spacepower/spacepower.pdfUnlike the related cases of sea and air control, however, serious investment in space control has been slow to take place in the United States, in part due to a persistent lack of governmental and public consensus as to whether actual combat, as opposed to merely passive surveillance and other terrestrial enabling functions, should be allowed to migrate into space and thus violate its presumed status as a weapons-free sanctuary. The delay also has had to do with the fact that the United States has not, at least until recently, faced direct threats to its on-orbit assets that have needed to be met by determined investment in active space control measures, all the more so in light of more immediate and pressing research and development and systems procurement priorities. For both reasons, the space control mission area remains almost completely undeveloped.

Status quo space cooperation solves Chinese backlashTracey Hayes, Lt Col, USAF, MA in International Affairs, 2009, “Proposal for a Cooperative Space Strategy with China,” DoD Reports, http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada530117.pdfAn unanticipated benefit of a cooperative strategy could be that China would become increasingly dependent on space capabilities potentially rivaling the deterrent value of space warfare technology and the demonstrated willingness to use it. Michael Krepon, Co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center and space security expert, claims that states are deterred from space warfare by their inherent dependence on satellites: “Because every space faring nation can lose badly in the event that vulnerable and essential satellites are damaged…a rudimentary deterrence against satellites exist…”


The Plan Undercuts Multilateralism

The plan’s unilateralism undermines the NSP – it is perceived as abandoning Obama’s commitmentMarcia Smith, Space and Technology Policy Group, 2-2011, “President Obama’s National Space Policy, Space Policy, Vol. 27, No. 1, pg. 22 Over succeeding months national security officials began speaking about how the USA cannot do everything on its own. For example, General James Cartwright , vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in May 2010: Reality is that we don’t fight alone, we don’t deter alone, we don’t assure alone. Everything is done in partnerships . Everything is in coalitions. We [think we] have to have the only capability; we have to fill every rung on the ladder with the best capability in the world. We can’t afford it, nor can we do it. There are other very capable nations out there very willing to partner up. We’ve got to make sure that our strategy is inclusive. You cannot afford to do everything yourself. We are not an island [4]. Thus, a major thrust of the new US policy is working together with like-minded countries in using space and treating space as a global commons for which all are responsible.

Even the perception of unilateralism triggers the linkMarcia Smith, Space and Technology Policy Group, 2-2011, “President Obama’s National Space Policy, Space Policy, Vol. 27, No. 1, pg. 22A policy, of course, is just words on paper the real point is how it is implemented. But perception is key and the Obama policy clearly wants to convey that the USA is willing not only to talk, but to listen, and to find mechanisms for ensuring space sustainability. In a real sense implementation will have to happen on an international basis. If other countries do not agree that space sustainability is a critical need, the USA cannot do it alone. “Sustainability” has become the keyword and while it is not defined in the policy, that means all the stakeholders will have the opportunity to discuss what it is and what is needed to achieve it. Non-US policy makers may have as much influence on the implementation of these aspects of the policy as their American colleagues.

The plan’s unilateralism tanks cooperationJeff Foust, editor of Space Review, 1-14-2010, “New paradigms in human spaceflight policy,” Space Politics, http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/01/14/new-paradigms-in-human-spaceflight-policy/That approach is unlikely to continue given the apparent unwillingness of the US to spend the money sufficient to take such a dominant role, he argues, requiring more equitable international partnerships. “What this means is that the US must become comfortable with such close cooperation, as unilateral decisions with no prior consultation with partners will end,” he writes. “The advantage is that true cooperation translates into greater equality in terms of budget share—the US will no longer operate as the funder of last resort with the unpleasantness that situation generates. One downside is that projects will move more slowly (although in truth no one may notice, given the delays common presently) due to the need for effective consultation among the partners before programs are initiated and necessary changes are made.”


Space Dominance Undercuts Multilateralism

The perception of pursuing space dominance will destroy the commitment to the new Obama National Space PolicyDaniel Dant, chief of staff of the Air Force fellow and the director of space policy for the under secretary of defense for policy, 2-2011, " The National Space Policy: Sustainability and Cooperation in a Congested, Competitive, and Contested Domain,” High Frontier, http://www.afspc.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-110224-052.pdfIn addition, the policy specifies that the US endeavors to leverage national security space to “expand international cooperation” in order to “extend the benefits of space; further the peaceful use of space; and enhance collection and partnership in sharing of space-derived information.” This represents a subtle but significant shift in policy. Some argue, including many international partners I have spoken to, that our previous policies paid a certain degree of “lip service” to cooperation and were best described as bellicose. Moreover, these policies were underwritten by an informal strategy of “space dominance” which called for discouraging and restraining others to our benefit. This methodology was lost neither by our allies nor our rivals. Clearly, that scheme of maneuver has not worked, evidenced by the increasing competition in the domain, higher incidents of denied access in space, and decline in the American space industrial base, especially second and third tier companies.

The plan breaks the trend of prior consultationJohn Logsdon, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, 2-2011,“Change and Continuity in US Space Policy,” Space Policy, Vol. 23, No. 1, pg. 22Included in areas for increased cooperation are several national security and dual use space activities, in particular space situational awareness. In pursuit of the policy’s objectives, representatives of the Department of State and Department of Defense have in recent months carried out a series of consultations in various venues around the world regarding ways of working together in such areas; this represents a significant departure from past US practice, and could represent a significant change in how the USA advances its own interests in the security space arena.

Prior consultation is solving international concerns nowJohn Logsdon, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, 2-2011,“Change and Continuity in US Space Policy,” Space Policy, Vol 23, No. 1, pg. 22Our approach to foreign policy must reflect the world as it is, not as it used to be. It does not make sense to adapt a 19th-century concert of powers or a 20th-century balance-of-power strategy. We cannot go back to Cold War containment or to unilateralism. We will lead by inducing greater cooperation among a greater number of actors and reducing competition, tilting the balance away from a multi-polar world and toward a multipartner world. This approach stands in rather stark contrast to the unilateralist path to leadership articulated in the 2006 Bush administration space policy. It also recognizes that in the space arena other nations and groups of nations have developed, and are continuing to develop, world-class space capabilities, and that unless they are engaged with the USA as they pursue their own objectives, other poles of space leadership will emerge.


Military Policy in Space Undercuts Multilateralism

The plan’s military approach devastates multilaterals cooperationTheresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, 5-23-2007, “Is Current US Policy Protecting our Security,” Center for Defense Information, http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/HitchensTestimony.pdfHow can this negative situation be reversed? As a first step, the U.S. government needs to establish a policy of engagement with other space-faring nations . At a minimum, the United States needs to do more to explain its views, policies and intentions to the rest of the world, in particular to allied and friendly nations. Moreover, Washington must discard the current unilateral, militarized approach in favor of establishing a foundation of collective security in space. In other words, the U.S. government must exhibit a willingness to take into account the security concerns of other space-faring nations and recognize that rejection of rules of behavior in space opens the door toward overtly negative actions, as the Chinese test attests.

Militarization of space ensures backlash, absent rules of the road initiativesTheresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, 5-23-2007, “Is Current US Policy Protecting our Security,” Center for Defense Information, http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/HitchensTestimony.pdfKeeping military options open, as the United States has been attempting to do in space, is at the same time closing the door to other options that might more cheaply and reliably ensure the safety of U.S. space assets. The acceptance of some limitations on U.S. space operations would be in U.S. interests if those limitations were applied to all space actors. It is thus in U.S. interests to support international efforts to establish “rules of the road” that spell out what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in space, and a specific “space traffic management” regime for peacetime operations.

Even passive military policies trigger the linkTheresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, 5-23-2007, “Is Current US Policy Protecting our Security,” Center for Defense Information, http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/HitchensTestimony.pdfInstead, the perception that this is precisely what Washington has been trying to do has resulted in the isolation of the United States politically, engendering the widespread perception that the United States itself is the nation posing the biggest threat to global security in space. Indeed, at this point, even every legitimate step the U.S. military takes to protect its own space assets is now being seen as threatening to other nations.


Missile Defense Undercuts Multilateralism

Missile defense encourages first strikes on US assetsForrest Morgan, defense policy researcher working @ RAND, 2010, “Deterrence and First-Strike Stability in Space,” Air Force Thesis,http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA522541&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdfBallistic missile defense (BMD) systems that also have ASAT capabilities would likely affect first-strike dynamics in space in ways that mirror counterspace weapons. Systems with orbital components that could attack other satellites would, in a crisis with another spacefaring nation that also had ASAT capabilities, exert pressure on that state to strike first, in an effort to save its own satellites from first-strike losses.16 Similarly, terrestrial-based BMD weapons capable of intercepting satellites, might also be threatening to a spacefaring opponent in a crisis, but first-strike pressures would not be as great as they would be if either of the adversaries had weapons in orbit. In all of the foregoing cases, brandishing behaviors would make first-strike instability more severe, given space systems’ inherent vulnerabilities, as might explicit deterrent threats if they are not carefully tailored to support a coherent national strategy to enhance first-strike stability in space.

Space interceptors lead to security dilemmasThomas Graham, former special representative of the president for arms control, 12-2005, “Space Weapons and the Risk of Accidental Nuclear War,” Arms Control Today, http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_12/Dec-spaceweapons.aspThe United States and Russia maintain thousands of nuclear warheads on long-range ballistic missiles on 15-minute alert. Once launched, they cannot be recalled, and they will strike their targets in roughly 30 minutes. Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, the chance of an accidental nuclear exchange has far from decreased. Yet, the United States may be contemplating further exacerbating this threat by deploying missile interceptors in space. Both the United States and Russia rely on space-based systems to provide early warning of a nuclear attack. If deployed, however, U.S. space-based missile defense interceptors could eliminate the Russian early warning satellites quickly and without warning. So, just the existence of U.S. space weapons could make Russia’s strategic trigger fingers itchy.

Space BMD drastically increases security dilemmasThomas Graham, former special representative of the president for arms control, 12-2005, “Space Weapons and the Risk of Accidental Nuclear War,” Arms Control Today, http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_12/Dec-spaceweapons.aspAlthough the current ground-based configuration envisions a few dozen interceptors, continuous space coverage over a few countries of concern would likely require a very large number of interceptors because a particular interceptor will be above a particular target for only a few minutes a day. Today’s missile defenses provide very little real protection as the United States currently faces no realistic threat of deliberate attack by nuclear-armed long-range missiles. But space weapons could actually be detrimental to U.S. national security. They would increase the perceived vulnerability of early warning systems to attack and cause Russia and perhaps other countries such as China to pursue potentially destabilizing countermeasures, such as advanced anti-satellite weapons.


Space Solar Power Undercuts Multilateralism

Unilateral space solar power leads to backlashPeter Glaser, aerospace engineer, 2008, “An energy pioneer looks back”, Ad Astra, http://www.nss.org/adastra/AdAstra-SBSP-2008.pdfGlaser: Since it would be such a huge undertaking, I think it would be best accomplished at an international level, perhaps even managed by the United Nations. Each country could contribute their best effort, and then each country would reap the benefit of cheap and plentiful power from the sun. We could utilize the knowledge of all the nations that have been researching space- based solar power. If only one country has the satellites, the international community will worry that the technology will be misused. With every nation taking part in the planning, building, and operation of the system, there would be inherent transparency, oversight, and equality. There would be no secrets, and no country would be left in the dark. On the other hand, if one nation decides to build the system, all hell may break loose. There would be distrust and a huge shift in the balance of power. Any nation with such a system would not only have an advantage in space, but they would have economic and military advantages on the ground as well. And there are many countries taking the idea of solar power from space much more seriously that we are in the United States. I would prefer to see a network of power satellites built by an international effort.

The plan would be perceived as weapons deploymentVirgiliu Pop, PhD Student, 2000, “Security Implications of Non-Terrestrial Resource Exploitation,” Personal, http://www.geocities.com/virgiliu_pop/publications/security.pdfThe SPS system, although not directly aimed at countering strategic ballistic missiles, might be accused of having an ABM “hidden agenda”, given its real ABM capabilities. Indeed, “[i]t was speculated that a high-energy laser beam could function as a thermal weapon to disable or destroy enemy missiles”. Foldes also considers that one of the most logical offensive uses of SPS can include the “microwave heating of other space objects” OTA believes that “[a]lthough unlikely, use of the SPS for directed-energy weaponry, either directly, or as a source of energy to be transmitted to remote platforms, or for tracking, would be regulated by the ABM Treaty. Use of the SPS for ABM purposes would hence be banned.”

It could be used to set cities on fireVirgiliu Pop, PhD Student, 2000, “Security Implications of Non-Terrestrial Resource Exploitation,” Personal, http://www.geocities.com/virgiliu_pop/publications/security.pdfAnother “mass destruction-like” effect may be presented by the SPS that would use lasers instead of microwaves as means of transmission of energy and that may also have the capacity to cause catastrophic fires on enemy territory. Gerrard and Barber note that “ there is some debate as to whether nuclear- powered lasers are [weapons of mass destruction]”. The same may be true in the case of use of orbiting solar mirrors: it may “become technically feasible to concentrate solar energy in certain areas of the earth and thereby cause fires, scorch the earth, or cause floods”. Precedents of the use of solar rays as a weapon exist as far back as the 3rd Century BC, when Archimedes is said to have put fire to the Roman fleet invading Syracuse by using solar rays concentrated by mirrors.


Lunar Mining Undercuts Multilateralism

The plan is perceived as militarizationLou Friedman, Former 30 year Executive Director of The Planetary Society, 1-30-2011, “Peace,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1751/1American leadership in space is much more desired that resented—except when it gets used unilaterally, as in the past Administration’s call for “dominance in cislunar space.” Asian countries (China, Japan, India) are especially interested in lunar landings; Western countries, including the US, much less so. However, cooperating with Asian countries in lunar science and utilization would be both a sign of American leadership and of practical benefit to US national interests. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been a leader advocating such cooperation. At the same time American leadership can be extended by leading spacefaring nations into the solar system with robotic and human expeditions to other worlds.

The plan leads to militarization of the moonBenhamin Hatch, Editor of Emory Law Review, 2010, “Dividing the Pie in the Sky: the Need for a New Lunar Resources Regime,” Emory International Law Review, http://www.law.emory.edu/fileadmin/journals/eilr/24/24.1/Hatch.pdfThe total repeal of the OST would almost certainly solve the Moon's economic problems generated by the tragedy of the commons. With no regulation or convoluted proprietary schemes and no legal mandate to provide for free riders, the disincentives that have suppressed lunar development would vanish. However, this total lack of lunar law would likely heighten the comparison to the Wild West - with no regulation, states would have an incentive to militarize the Moon and to engage in prolonged conflicts with other would-be users to gain monopolies and exclusive uses over valuable lunar resources. While a scheme rejecting all lunar regulation might lead to an era of free and open use of the Moon, it also may lead to World War III.

Mining the moon for helium-3 would cause Russia and China to weaponize spaceMark Beljac, PHD @ Monash University, 5-22-2007, “He-3 Nuclear Fusion and Moon Wars”, Science Security, http://sciencesecurity.livejournal.com/43875.htmlBut the interest in the Moon by Washington, Moscow and Beijing (perhaps also the EU) is very interesting and if He-3 fusion is driving the agenda then it certainly opens up the prospect of conflict on the Moon and creates a perverse logic behind moves to weaponise space. If the US achieves “space control” it would have the ability to deny Moscow and Beijing the use of near Earth orbit, let alone the Moon and other sources of energy in the Solar System. If we are to take our quarrels into the Solar System then just what kind of a pathetic species are we?


Multilateralism Solves Debris

Multilateralism solves space debrisAmy Klamper, Space News Analyst, 7-2-2010, “International Cooperation Emphasis of Obama Space Policy,” Space News, http://www.spacenews.com/policy/100702-international-cooperation-emphasis-policy.htmlOne area the administration views as ripe for international cooperation is developing options to counter the growing problem of orbital debris in an increasingly congested orbital environment. The urgency of this issue was driven home in early 2009 when a spent Russian satellite slammed into and destroyed an operational Iridium communications satellite. “ The policy seeks to minimize the creation of new debris and also to research operations for removing debris with other countries, and so you can see how international cooperation would be a very important foundation for this aspect of the policy,” Barry Pavel, senior director for defense policy and strategy at the White House National Security Council, said during a June 28 conference call with reporters.

Space cooperation is solving debris nowJames Rendleman, Colonel, U.S. Air Force (Retired), 2010, “A Strategy for Space Assurance,”Astropolitics, Vol. 8, pg. 250Using global engagement to enhance an understanding and situational awareness of the space debris threat, the United States, other spacefaring nations, and the international commercial space sector are now cooperating and working to reinvigorate data sharing procedures in order to avoid, minimize, and manage the numbers of collisions and other space debris generating events.

Debris takes out commercials space assetsHeidi Blake, an investigative reporter for The Daily Telegraph, 2-1-2011, “Space so full of junk that a satellite collision could destroy communications on Earth,” Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8295546/Space-so-full-of-junk-that-a-satellite-collision-could-destroy-communications-on-Earth.htmlSpace is so littered with debris that a collision between satellites could set off an “uncontrolled chain reaction” capable of destroying the communications network on Earth, a Pentagon report warned. The volume of abandoned rockets, shattered satellites and missile shrapnel in the Earth’s orbit is reaching a “tipping point” and is now threatening the $250 billion (£174bn) space services industry, scientists said. A single collision between two satellites or large pieces of “space junk” could send thousands of pieces of debris spinning into orbit, each capable of destroying further satellites. Global positioning systems, international phone connections, television signals and weather forecasts are among the services which are at risk of crashing to a halt.


Multilateralism Solves US-China Relations

Multilateralism solves US-China relationsDavid Mindell, Director of the Space, Policy, and Society Research Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 12-2008, “The Future of Human Spaceflight” Report of the Space, Policy, and Society Research Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, http://web.mit.edu/mitsps/MITFutureofHumanSpaceflight.pdfAny movement on the U.S. relationship with China in human spaceflight must be nuanced by consideration of the larger relationship, particularly regarding commerce and national security. Still, by pursuing cooperation the United States could reassert its role as the leader of global human space efforts and avoid a costly lunar space race and a dangerous space arms race. China would meet its goals of displaying technological prowess and raising national prestige by engaging with the world’s greatest space power. Dispelling the notion of a new race to the moon (or other destinations) will be beneficial for both the United States and China. The United States should begin engagement with China on human spaceflight in a series of small steps, gradually building up trust and cooperation. Despite technical and political hurdles on both sides, such efforts could yield benefits for U.S. primary objectives. All would entail radical revision of the current situation of non-cooperation between the United States and China.

US-China cooperation spills over to solve all areas of relationsDavid Mindell, Director of the Space, Policy, and Society Research Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 12-2008, “The Future of Human Spaceflight” Report of the Space, Policy, and Society Research Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, http://web.mit.edu/mitsps/MITFutureofHumanSpaceflight.pdfTo reduce mutual tensions, Chinese and U.S. leaders must adopt a broader conception of their nation’s interests, one that includes advancing the global good as a joint means to realizing their country’s own national aims. China and the United States can almost always achieve their diverse economic, security, and other objectives more effectively through cooperative use of their smartpower resources—including diplomatic, economic, military, political, and cultural tools—rather than through unilateral action.

US-China relations solve a laundry list of global threatsCarola McGiffert, Senior Fellow @ the CSIS, 3-2009, “Smart Power in US-China Relations, CSIS, http://csis.org/press/csis-in-the-news/us-china-policy-group-calls-mutual-respectU.S.-Chinese ties could have a greater impact on international affairs than any other relationship. Solving the world’s most serious issues—including global financial instability, proliferation and terrorism, climate change, and energy insecurity—is difficult to envision without joint action by Beijing and Washington. In today’s globalized world, transnational challenges require transnational solutions, especially by the most important states. U.S.-China partnership is indispensable for addressing many of the main challenges of the twenty-first century.


Multilateralism Solves US-Russia Relations

US multilateralism solves US-Russia relationsDavid Mindell, Director of the Space, Policy, and Society Research Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 12-2008, “The Future of Human Spaceflight” Report of the Space, Policy, and Society Research Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, http://web.mit.edu/mitsps/MITFutureofHumanSpaceflight.pdfGiven the public enthusiasm for human spaceflight around the globe, a clear perception of the United States as collaborating with other countries to accomplish goals in space would have far reaching benefits. The United States should invite international and commercial partners to participate in its new exploration initiatives to build a truly global exploration effort, with significant cost sharing. The United States should continue to build a sustainable partnership with Russia to promote shared values, build greater credibility and confidence in the relationship, and ultimately improve U.S. national and international security. Such a partnership would support Russia’s interest in prolonging the service life of the ISS until 2020 and cooperating on transportation elements of the lunar and Mars programs. A sustainable partnership could ensure utilization of the ISS, share costs and risks, help prevent proliferation, and help turn Russian public opinion in favor of collaboration with the United States in other arenas.

Space cooperation is historically useful in preserving relationsDavid Mindell, Director of the Space, Policy, and Society Research Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 12-2008, “The Future of Human Spaceflight” Report of the Space, Policy, and Society Research Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, http://web.mit.edu/mitsps/MITFutureofHumanSpaceflight.pdfInternational partnerships in human spaceflight represent the best use of science and technology to advance broad human goals and bring nations together around common values, hence they are a primary objective. The 1975 Apollo -Soyuz Test Project, for example, showcased an international gesture of cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union at a time of tension between the nations. Through these and similar means, human spaceflight can be an effective instrument of global diplomacy. United States should reaffirm its long standing policy of international leadership in human spaceflight and remain committed to its existing international partners.

Relations solve terrorismJames Collins, associate and director of the Russia and Eurasia Program @ Carnegie, 3-12-2009, “Opportunities for the U.S.-Russia Relationship,” Carnegie, http://carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22889&solr_hilite=The U.S. determination to restore our international image and capacity to lead will depend largely on our own efforts, but Russia can either complicate or facilitate at times by being a benevolent bystander or aspirant spoiler. By contrast Russia’s role will be vital in future efforts to contain catastrophic terrorism as it will in efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Here progress will clearly depend on a U.S.–Russia joint lead.


Multilateralism Solves Climate Change

Multilateralism solves climate changeLou Friedman, Former 30 year Executive Director of The Planetary Society, 1-30-2011, Friedman, “Peace,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1751/1US resources and capability for Earth remote sensing dropped considerably in the past decade, so much so that both the National Research Council and the Department of Defense sounded alarms. This was brought to the attention of the space community by a “Climate Change and National Security” panel at the 2008 National Space Symposium. Last year, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said, “We know that climate change will exacerbate food and water shortages, increase the spread of disease, and may contribute to migration both within and across state borders. Increased poverty, environmental degradation, even social unrest and possible weakening of governments are potential consequences.” He added a phrase I particularly liked: “It [climate change] serves, in the vocabulary of conflict analysis, as an instability accelerant.” Climate change is, of course, an international concern, and data and information about it are critical to US international policies, including treaty negotiations and possible environmental regulations. Without Earth observing satellites and international cooperation in space, we would be flying blind into the maelstrom of climate change .

Space cooperation spills over to solve climate changeLou Friedman, Former 30 year Executive Director of The Planetary Society, 1-30-2011, Friedman, “Peace,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1751/1The International Space Station and the intricate cooperation among the US, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada carries on the tradition of world peace through international cooperation. Cooperation in human space flight is synergistic with cooperation in science, cooperation in Earth observing, and cooperation in solar weather monitoring and planetary defense. In a congressional event held by the Planetary Society two years ago, Charlie Kennel, now head of the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board, connected human space flight and Earth observations by citing how necessary international cooperation in the latter is enhanced by the political cooperation in the former.

Warming leads to extinctionJeffrey Mazo, PhD in Climatology, 3-2010, “Climate Conflict: How global warming threatens security and what to do about it,” pg. 122Without early and severe reductions in emissions, the effects of climate change in the second half of the twenty-first century are likely to be catastrophic for the stability and security of countries in the developing world - not to mention the associated human tragedy. Climate change could even undermine the strength and stability of emerging and advanced economies, beyond the knock-on effects on security of widespread state failure and collapse in developing countries.' And although they have been condemned as melodramatic and alarmist, many informed observers believe that unmitigated climate change beyond the end of the century could pose an existential threat to civilisation." What is certain is that there is no precedent in human experience for such rapid change or such climatic conditions, and even in the best case adaptation to these extremes would mean profound social, cultural and political changes.


Space Weaponization Leads to War

Space weaponization esures conflictPR Chari, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, 2007, “China’s ASAT Test,” Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, http://www.ipcs.org/pdf_file/issue/1512612560IPCS-Special-Report-34.pdfA nation which discovers that its space-based assets have become vulnerable to attack would, most likely, either enlarge their numbers or equip them with self-protecting equipment possessing both defensive and offensive capabilities. It could also place its other nuclear forces on hair-trigger alert to attack the aggressor if it finds its space-based assets being targeted or attacked. This not implausible scenario might very well spell the initiation of a nuclear Armageddon.

Deterrence failure in space is inevitablePR Chari, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, 2007, “China’s ASAT Test,” Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, http://www.ipcs.org/pdf_file/issue/1512612560IPCS-Special-Report-34.pdfProceeding further, the national judgment of when, how and in what manner it would determine that its space-based assets have been attacked to launch its counter-attack from space or earth would be made by computers. Given the reality that computers do malfunction and the well-recognized maxims of Murphy’s Law, the transfer of decision-making on such vital national security issues to computers and machines is hardly reassuring. Stated differently, the chances of accident, misunderstanding and misperception will increase should decisionmaking be largely premised on mechanical instruments, which is inevitable when satellites are equipped and empowered to launch attacks and defend themselves in space. This dispensation is, intrinsically, conducive to great instability and tensions in bilateral relations.

Space weapon deployment leads to accidental nuclear warMatthew Hoey, Research Associate at the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, 2-2006, “Military space systems: the road ahead,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/563/1Many people believe that a deployed anti-satellite capability and an ability to attack targets on or near the Earth’s surface from space would create a global climate of insecurity both by enhancing current risks and by creating new problems. These new and increased risks would be the byproducts not only of systems to be deployed by the United States but also of the subsequent arms race in space which could be expected to result thanks to responses by China, Russia, the European Union, and perhaps Japan. Perhaps t he most consequential impact would be increasing the probability of accidental nuclear war. Space-based weapons could shorten the road to armed conflict, whether nuclear or conventional. In the event that a space asset of one nation was attacked by another (on purpose or by accident), an immediate military response would be triggered, shortening the diplomatic process while escalating the armed conflict. Once employed regularly, anti-satellite systems and space weapons would litter LEO with debris, which in turn would permanently compromise our collective ability to explore the heavens and use space for constructive commercial purposes.


Space Conflict Escalates

No limited warfare in spaceMichael Krepon, president of the Stimson Center, 2003, “Space Assurance or Space Dominance?,” Stimson, http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/spacebook.pdf The resulting combat is likely to be less discriminating and proportional, and far more lethal, either because the stronger party has lost satellites used for targeting and precision guidance, or because the weaker party is unlikely to be concerned about collateral damage. Concepts of limited warfare and escalation control that were intimately associated with nuclear deterrence during the Cold War have not been propounded by U.S. advocates of space warfare. To engage in tit-for-tat, controlled warfare against satellites would suggest that the first kill of a satellite in the history of armed conflict would reflect a mere quest for balance or a novel form of message sending. The rationales provided by proponents of space control are notably different. The object of acquiring space warfare capabilities is to win, not to tie. In other words, U.S. advocates of space warfare capabilities are less interested in deterrence than in dominance and compellance.

Hegemony can’t prevent a conflict because ASATs will limit connectivityFrank Walsh, JD @ Georgetown, 2007, “Forging a Diplomatic Shield for American Satellites,” Journal of Air Law, Vol. 72, pg. 772Because the United States no longer maintains comprehensive backup land lines, a Chinese ASAT could potentially sever the link between American conventional forces and leave the American military disoriented, uncoordinated, and fighting a war without real-time intelligence. Not only are satellites the crucial link in sustaining America's RMA, but they are also extremely vulnerable to attack. As described in Part III, infra, no technology exists to make satellites durable enough to withstand an attack like the kinetic energy kill vehicle that destroyed the FY-1C. The satellites that have allowed for unprecedented American military effectiveness are also America's Achilles' heel: they are vulnerable and, if attacked, threaten to bring down a seemingly unstoppable warrior .

The aff can’t win an external impact – a space war will render all of space unusable for thousands of yearsGeoffrey Forden, PhD @ MIT, 2008, “Viewpoint: China and Space War,” Astropolitics, Vol. 6, pg. 138If the short-term military consequences to the U.S. were not that bad, the long term consequences to all spacefaring nations would be devastating. The destruction of the nine satellites hit during the first hour of the attack considered here could put approximately 19,000 new pieces of debris over 10 cm in diameter into the most populated belt of satellites in LEO. Even more debris would be put into GEO, if China launched an attack against communications satellites. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the debris from each satellite would continue to clump together, much as the debris from China’s 2007 test. Over the next year or so, and assuming the space war with China was resolved well before that, the debris fields would fan out and eventually strike other satellites. These debris fields could cause a run-away chain of collisions that renders space unusable from hundreds to thousands of years.


AT: Unilateralism is Key to Hegemony

Cooperation is comparatively more effective at promoting US leadershipLou Friedman, Former 30 year Executive Director of The Planetary Society, 1-30-2011, “Peace,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1751/1American leadership in space is much more desired that resented—except when it gets used unilaterally, as in the past Administration’s call for “dominance in cislunar space.” Asian countries (China, Japan, India) are especially interested in lunar landings; Western countries, including the US, much less so. However, cooperating with Asian countries in lunar science and utilization would be both a sign of American leadership and of practical benefit to US national interests. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been a leader advocating such cooperation. At the same time American leadership can be extended by leading spacefaring nations into the solar system with robotic and human expeditions to other worlds.

Unilateralism ensures policy failureLou Friedman, Former 30 year Executive Director of The Planetary Society, 1-30-2011, “Peace,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1751/1The US can’t do everything alone. Climate monitoring, Earth observation, space weather prediction, and ultimately asteroid deflection are huge and vital global undertakings that require international participation. That is also true with exploration projects sending robots and human to other worlds. American leadership in these areas is welcomed and used by other countries, even as they develop their own national programs. The US government should make more of this and not treat it as an afterthought—or even worse, prohibit American leadership as the House of Representatives is doing this week by banning any China collaboration or cooperation.

Hard power and alliances guarantee hegemony is inevitableR. Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at Harvard University, 2-2009, “The Ascension”, National Interest, pg. 3To start with, the United States is still the single, strongest global power. It will remain so for decades to come. Consider American power by any metric. Militarily, Commander in Chief Obama can count on the continued supremacy of U.S. forces worldwide. During his time in office, we will still spend more on our national defense than the next ten countries combined. We will still be the only country capable of projecting force on a global basis and sustaining troops in faraway theaters for years at a time. We will remain the only country that leads powerful multinational military alliances in both Europe and Asia-- a crucial underpinning of America's global power. And, we will retain the remarkable capacity of our armed forces that have demonstrated their quality and competence in the interventions of the last fifteen years in Bosnia and Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.


AT: Space Weapons Key to Hegemony

Ground-based weapons can still wreck US satellitesForrest Morgan, defense policy researcher working @ RAND, 2010, “Deterrence and First-Strike Stability in Space,” Air Force Thesis, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA522541&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdfGiven the importance of space systems to U.S. national security, some academics and security analysts have argued that the United States should “seize the high ground” and place counterspace weapons in orbit to impose space dominance in the event of a conflict with another spacefaring nation. While such arguments resonate with those acculturated in the U.S. military tradition, it is hard to conceive how placing counterspace weapons in orbit would do anything to defend U.S. satellites from enemy ground-based weapons or, for that matter, other weapons in space. Rather, given the inherent vulnerability of satellites, placing weapons in orbit would increase first-strike instability in space by threatening potential adversaries with weapons that cannot, themselves, be defended. Taking this step may also encourage other spacefaring nations to follow suit, ultimately resulting in a dangerously unstable strategic environment that would generate severe “use-or-lose” pressures in the event of a military confrontation, whether the crisis originated in space or the terrestrial domain.

Space weapons lead to nuclear pre-emption before deploymentAlex Englehart, JD, 2008, “Common Ground in the Sky,” Pacific Rim Journal of Policy, Vol. 133, pg. 140If the United States starts to deploy space-based interceptors that can shoot down ICBMs, China will face enormous internal pressure to at least consider the idea of launching a massive nuclear first strike. This is because once a robust space-based interceptor system is deployed, the United States would have essentially unlimited power to dictate terms to China on any matter it chooses--China would be at the absolute mercy of the United States. China would have a limited window of time in which to use its ICBMs before they became worthless in the face of orbiting interceptors, and it could very well feel compelled to do so in order to avoid the total collapse of its strategic nuclear deterrent.

Space weapons fail to interceptTheresa Hitchens, president of the Center for Defense Information, 2-2008, “Space Wars - Coming to the Sky Near You?,” Scientific American, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=space-wars-coming-to-the-sky-near-youBasing weapons in orbit also presents difficult technical obstacles. They would be just as vulnerable as satellites are to all kinds of outside agents: space debris, projectiles, electromagnetic signals, even natural micrometeoroids. Shielding space weapons against such threats would also be impractical, mostly because shielding is bulky and adds mass, thereby greatly increasing launch costs. Orbital weapons would be mostly autonomous mechanisms, which would make operational errors and failures likely. The paths of objects in orbit are relatively easy to predict, which would make hiding large weapons problematic. And because satellites in low Earth orbit are overhead for only a few minutes at a time, keeping one of them constantly in range would require many weapons.


AT: Space Weapons Key to Diplomacy

Space weapons limit diplomatic optionsJeffrey Lewis, PhD, Postdoctorate Fellow, 7-2004, “What if Space Were Weaponized? Possible Consequences for Conflict Scenarios” Center for Defense Information, http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/scenarios.pdfThe prospect that space weapons might render the United States invulnerable to any kind of attack will remain tempting. And, for the foreseeable future, it will remain out of reach, for myriad reasons. Many warn that space weapons will be technologically daunting and cost-prohibitive, while alienating nations allied to the United States and antagonizing others. These five scenarios attempt to explain a different, complicated idea: In a world with space weapons, the United States may be better armed, but we may well be less secure. • Scenario 1 argues that our anti-satellite (ASAT) programs are likely to inspire and aid the ASAT programs of others. In world where many states have ASATs, the United States, which is heavily dependent on space systems, has the most to lose. • Scenario 2 argues that the tremendous value provided by space-based military systems is also very vulnerable to attack, creating perverse incentives for a U.S. president to rapidly escalate conflict in a crisis situation.

Space weapons make escalation more likelyJeffrey Lewis, PhD, Postdoctorate Fellow, 7-2004, “What if Space Were Weaponized? Possible Consequences for Conflict Scenarios” Center for Defense Information, http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/scenarios.pdfScenario 4 argues that the space-enabled war-fighting strategies tangle nuclear and space forces together in way that creates unnecessary risks of accident — such as a piece of space debris striking a Russian early-warning satellite that could be interpreted as an attack.• Scenario 5 considers the possibility of conflicts that escalate into space threatening American space assets through collateral damage, even if the United States is a third party. In many of these scenarios, space weapons merely exacerbate underlying instabilities. In others, space capabilities, by reinforcing the belief that vulnerability is a choice, may blind U.S. policymakers to the need to complement military power with political and diplomatic efforts.

Coercive diplomacy failsUnited States Institute of Peace, independent, nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress, 2003, “The United States and Coercive Diplomacy: Past, Present, and Future,” http://www.usip.org/resources/united-states-and-coercive-diplomacy-past-present-and-futureAlthough coercive diplomacy has increasingly become a popular tool for U.S. policymakers since the 1950s, the effectiveness of the limited use or threat of military force by the United States is open to debate. In fact, according to Robert Art, his research on applications of coercive diplomacy by U.S. policymakers over the past 12 years shown that, "coercive diplomacy fails more often than it succeeds." Discussing the cases in his study, which range from U.S. interventions in Somalia and Kosovo to the Clinton administration's 1994 negotiations with North Korea, Art stated that applications of coercive diplomacy by the United States only succeeded in meeting its policy objective 20 percent of the time.


AT: Space Weapons are Key to Deterrence

DoD is too vulnerable to cyber attack to boost deterrencePaul Strassman, Professor of Information Sciences, 9-9-2010, “Cyber Defenses and the DoD Culture,” Homepage, http://pstrassmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/cyber-defenses-and-dod-culture.htmlDefense Department leadership appears to be viewing cyberdefense issues primarily as a matter of policy and strategy that can be fixed incrementally. That is not possible. Cyberdefense deficiencies have became deeply rooted as result of the defective ways in which the Defense Department acquired IT over the past decades. Cyberdefense flaws are inherently enterprise-wide and are mostly not application specific. The Defense Department has not as yet confronted what it will take to make systems and networks sufficiently secure.

DoD information technology is too fractured to succeedPaul Strassman, Professor of Information Sciences, 9-9-2010, “Cyber Defenses and the DoD Culture,” Homepage, http://pstrassmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/cyber-defenses-and-dod-culture.htmlThe IT environment at the Defense Department is fractured. Instead of using shared and defensible infrastructure, over 50 percent of the IT budget is allocated to paying for hundreds and possibly for thousands of mini-infrastructures that operate in contractor-managed enclaves. Such proliferation is guaranteed to be incompatible and certainly not interoperable.Over 10 percent of the total Defense Department IT budget is spent on cyberdefense to protect a huge number of vulnerability points. The increasing amount of money spent on firewalls, virus protection and other protective measures is not keeping up with the rapidly rising virulence of the attackers.

The most secure cyberfacilities in the DOD have thousands of vulnerabilitiesPaul Strassman, Professor of Information Sciences, 9-9-2010, “Cyber Defenses and the DoD Culture,” Homepage, http://pstrassmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/cyber-defenses-and-dod-culture.htmlTake the case of the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet, which accounts for less than 4.8 percent of Defense Department IT spending. The NMCI contains approximately 20,500 routers and switches, which connect to 4,100 enterprise servers at four operations centers that control 50 separate server farms. Since the NMCI represents the most comprehensive security environment in the Defense Department, one can only extrapolate what could be the total number of places that need to be defended. Vulnerability points include hundreds of thousands of routers and switches, tens of thousands of servers and hundreds of server farms. There are also over six million desktops, laptops and smart phones with military, civilian, reserves and contractor personnel, each with an operating system and at least one browser that can be infected by any of the 2,000 new viruses per day. From a security assurance standpoint, such proliferation of risks makes the Defense Department fundamentally insecure.


Multilateralism DA Answers


Weaponization is Happening Now

The international community is already angry because of ConstellationElizabeth Newton, PhD @ UA-Huntsville, Leader @ Center for System Studies, 2011, “United States space policy and international partnership,” Space Policy, Vol. 27, Science DirectPresident Obama’s 2010 policy is notable for the shift over the 2006 version, which most agree to be more a stylistic change of tone, rather than one of substance. The messages conveying the need for multilateral action are likely to be welcome to external audiences’ ears and suggest a more consultative approach. That said, the cancellation of the Constellation program was done without prior notice or consultation with international partners, and much of the debate on the subject has centered on the domestic repercussions of the decision, not the impact on the partners. There is evidently a mismatch between intent and such unilateralist actions.

The US is perceived as weaponizing nowHenk Ruyssenaars, Space Military Staff, 5-22-2010, “US Air Force Militarizing: Space Pearl Harbor Next?,” http://forpressfound.livejournal.com/37871.html"As usual with this type of thing, there is plenty of speculation about what the military will do with the X-37B. Christian Science Monitor believes the X-37B rollout may signal the start of war in space, quoting arms control advocates who say it's clearly the beginning of the "weaponisation of space." THE U.S. CLAIMED UNIVERSE Henk Ruyssenaars April 22nd 2010 - For writer Todd Halvarson of Florida Today, what's happening on Cape Canaveral apparently is an enigma: "Next-generation spaceship, X-37B, set for first launch. Now nestled in the protective nosecone of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, the Air Force X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 41. The planned liftoff time is 7:52 p.m. and the launch window will extend through 8:01 p.m."* And the 'Christian Science Monitor' published concerning the Weaponization of Space this: "But whether the X-37 space plane is merely showing off nearly two decades of research and development or is actually a precursor to militarizing the final frontier, is far from clear since the vehicle’s payload is classified. An Air Force official won’t even say when it will return to California or where it will land. But it can “loiter” over the globe for more than nine months. Arms control advocates say it is pretty clearly the beginning of a “weaponization of space” – precursor to a precision global strike capability that would allow the US to hover for months at a time over anywhere it chose with little anyone could do about it." - [end excerpt]*

This perception is causing an international backlashHenk Ruyssenaars, Space Military Staff, 5-22-2010, “US Air Force Militarizing: Space Pearl Harbor Next?,” http://forpressfound.livejournal.com/37871.htmlWhile the implementation of space weapons is likely to increase the capability gap between Washington and other powers at first, a broader vision reveals dangers involved in the move that could affect U.S. interests, for it will likely trigger off determined reactions by its competitors. Competitor states could successfully deploy a small number of low cost orbital weapons, thus forcing the U.S. to design an extremely expensive space defense system.


X-37B is Perceived as Militarization

X-47B shrouded in secrecy, unilateral and triggering an international military backlashJijo Jacob, Business Times Staff, 3-6-2011, “Space weaponry in focus as US Air Force launches mysterious X-37B robotic plane,” International Business Times, http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/119232/20110306/us-air-force-x-37b-orbital-test-vehicle-unmanned-space-craft-nasa-military-weaponry-weapon-russia-ch.htmThe U.S. Air Force's second mysterious robotic mini spacecraft, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, carrying classified payload. Soon after the launch a media blackout shrouded the mission in secrecy, fueling speculation about its possible military purposes.

The Air force is currently testing space weaponsJijo Jacob, Business Times Staff, 3-6-2011, “Space weaponry in focus as US Air Force launches mysterious X-37B robotic plane,” International Business Times, http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/119232/20110306/us-air-force-x-37b-orbital-test-vehicle-unmanned-space-craft-nasa-military-weaponry-weapon-russia-ch.htmThe Air Force has said the unmanned mission is intended to test out new spacecraft technologies. The launch of a second secret space mission in two years has given room for renewed space weaponry rumors though the Air force says the mission is only about testing out hardware for future space shuttles. "Partly as a result of the secrecy, some concern has been raised — particularly by Russia and China — that the X-37B is a space weapon of some sort," according to space.com.

Chinese military responses were censoredGary Mortimer, Senior Staff, 1-30-2011, “Russians and China said to be working on their own X37 type craft,” Suas News, http://www.suasnews.com/2011/01/3610/russians-and-china-said-to-be-working-on-their-own-x37-type-craft/A report published by China Aviation Journal, China has successfully launched its own space plane prototype, the news came out shortly after the US Air Force announced the successful test of their advanced X37B space plane, which is widely regarded as a next-generation super weapon that is even more dangerous than atomic bomb. This story has now been deleted. Last year the X37 B was lost and found not once but twice by a South African amateur astronomer. The Ming Pao and the Zhongguo Pinglun (China Review), a news website in Hong Kong, posted an article headlined “China succeeds in spacecraft test flight in tandem with U.S. X-37B” until early Tuesday, but no mainland Chinese media websites mentioned anything about it. China’s “Hermes” Space Plane: A December 16 photo shows a model of the Shenlong and a new model of the Chinese “Hermes” space plane. China has made significant progress toward the development of an unmanned trans-atmospheric vehicle and a Space Plane. Beijing’s technological advancement has obvious commercial and scientific uses, however the military significance of the plane cannot be denied.


Link Turn – Tangible Solutions

Turn – Obama’s SSP is too rhetorical, no tangible policiesMichael Krepon, Founder of the Stimson Center, 2010, “The Obama Administration’s National Space Policy,” Stimson, http://www.stimson.org/summaries/the-obama-administrations-national-space-policy/The new NSP is extremely shy about foreshadowing the kinds of diplomatic initiatives worthy of subsequent endorsement. The Pentagon and the Intelligence Community - the two primary players in this stage of the administration's prolonged, multi-stage approach to space diplomacy - endorsed transparency and confidence-building measures, but there is only so much sustenance to be had in this thin gruel. Piecemeal approaches will yield, if successful, piecemeal results. A larger construct is required to pull the pieces together and to achieve the NSP's goal of strengthened US international leadership on space issues.

The plan provides that tangible solutionEligar Sadeh, Associate Director for the Center for Space and Defense Studies at the United States Air Force Academy, 6-9-2008, “Space policy questions and decisions facing a new administration,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1146/1The United States government has not given sufficient indication that the strategy is to include allies in national space policy. Space represents a “soft power” foreign policy tool. Space is an international drawing card that engenders national prestige, prevents conflict, and is a domain for international cooperation.

Only tangible policies can encourage space cooperationEligar Sadeh, Associate Director for the Center for Space and Defense Studies at the United States Air Force Academy, 6-9-2008, “Space policy questions and decisions facing a new administration,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1146/1Policy Choice Maintain support for the National Space Policy priority on space education and workforce development or build upon this priority by formulating policies and laws to bring about a national commitment to education in science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines. Establish clear imperatives to motivate and recruit tomorrow’s engineers and scientists. This is necessary to sustain the long-term availability of educated Americans for both government and industry. The United States Space Exploration Policy is a good model to help accomplish this end. Additional consideration needs to be given to other ways to motivate and recruit. This entails addressing global infrastructural challenges, like alternative energy production from space, e.g., space based solar power, as a national goal. A challenge of this magnitude can motivate and inspire technical and scientific education as the Apollo program did for the United States in the 1960s.


Obama’s NSP Won’t Lead to Cooperation

The actual proposals in the NSP are all unilateralDan Hendrickson, MA from George Washington, 2010, “Evaluating the Potential for International Cooperation in Future U.S. Human Spaceflight Programmes,” European Space Policy Institute, pg. 7Unlike the Constellation Programme, the Obama Administration’s direction does not center on one definitive destination. Rather,the Administration’s Plan focuses on attempting to change spaceflight paradigms. As the White House and Congress attempt to forge a compromise programme, it is not clear exactly what elements of the Obama Plan will assuredly be realised. With that said, some elements of the new initiative are better suited for international cooperation than others. One of the most controversial elements of the Obama Plan remains the shift in utilising commercial companies for launching astronaut crews to low Earth orbit. The potential for intergovernmental cooperation in this part of the program is minimal, aside from commercial companies selling services to non-U.S. entities. It is fair to point out that commercial supply of crew and cargo to the ISS would be one form of international cooperation, but very little incremental progress in new cooperation initiatives could be expected from a reliance on commercial companies for low Earth orbit crew transportation.

Obama’s NSP doesn’t encourage global cooperationDan Hendrickson, MA from George Washington, 2010, “Evaluating the Potential for International Cooperation in Future U.S. Human Spaceflight Programmes,” European Space Policy Institute, pg. 8Similarly, the Orion Rescue Vehicle proposed by President Obama in his March 2010 speech at the Kennedy Space Center, offers little in terms of new cooperative progress. Adding logistical support to ISS operations is a contribution toward more cooperation; however, it does little to pave new paths for cooperation. An even less appropriate candidate for cooperation lies with the design of a heavy-lift launch vehicle. An end product launch vehicle could be used to lift international elements, but the Obama Plan emphasises studying heavy-lift options for years. The design and construction of a U.S. heavy-lift vehicle is likely to be a solely domestic activity for the United States. The dual use nature of propulsion development makes it an unfavourable activity for cooperation.

NSP won’t result in tangible progress – DoD and intragovernmental backlashTheresa Hitchens, president of the Center for Defense Information, 2010, “Multilateralism in Space: Opportunities and Challenges for Achieving Space Security,” Space and Defense, 4.2, pg. 124Still, it is by no means clear that discussions within the CD would result in the near-term or medium-term establishment of negotiations on PAROS or the PPWT. First of all, while the Obama campaign signaled support for an eventual space weapons treaty, the administration’s stance has shifted considerably over the last year toward a more cautious approach and, according to American insiders, there is a serious debate within the administration on what, if any, multilateral agreements for space security should be pursued. Led by the Department of Defense (DOD), a review of U.S. national security space posture was begun in May 2009.


Space Unilateralism is Good

Unilateralism leads to coalitions in spaceChris Stone, Space policy analyst, 3-14-2011, “American leadership in space: leadership through capability,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1797/1Some seem to want to base our future national foundations in space using the important international collaboration piece as the starting point. Traditional national leadership would start by advancing United States’ space power capabilities and strategies first, then proceed toward shaping the international environment through allied cooperation efforts. The United States’ goal should be leadership through spacefaring capabilities, in all sectors. Achieving and maintaining such leadership through capability will allow for increased space security and opportunities for all and for America to lead the international space community by both technological and political example.

Space peace is best guaranteed by US leadershipChris Stone, Space policy analyst, 3-14-2011, “American leadership in space: leadership through capability,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1797/1If America wants to retain its true leadership in space, it must approach its space programs as the advancement of its national “security, prestige and wealth” by maintaining its edge in spaceflight capabilities and use those demonstrated talents to advance international prestige and influence in the space community. These energies and influence can be channeled to create the international space coalitions of the future that many desire and benefit mankind as well as America. Leadership will require sound, long-range exploration strategies with national and international political will behind it. American leadership in space is not a choice. It is a requirement if we are to truly lead the world into space with programs and objectives “worthy of a great nation”.

US space unilateralism is key to space leadership - It will establish a baseline for future cooperation Christ Stone, Space policy analyst, 5-16-2011, “Collective assurance vs. independence in national space policies,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1843/1As the US current space policy notes, every nation has the right to access and use space. Each nation has the right to develop its own nationally-focused “unilateral” space policies that serve to advance their vital interests in security, prestige, and wealth as the baseline for any international cooperation they choose to support. Failure to invest in bold, ambitious space efforts with a national tone (in all sectors) in space will not only hurt the US space industry, but will harm our nation’s ability to advance its global interests in space, impact our traditional vital interests of independence and achievement, and threaten the very preeminence that we have labored so hard to achieve over the past fifty years.


Space Cooperation Fails

Cooperation in space is impossibleYasuhito Fukishima, National Institute for Defense Studies, 2-2011, “An Asian perspective on the new US space policy: The emphasis on international cooperation and its relevance to Asia” Vol. 27, Issue 1, pg. 7Yet it should be noted that there are some obstacles to having substantial cooperation in space. First, as many have noted, collaboration among nations does not necessarily contribute to cost savings. Rather, it sometimes causes budget overruns and delays. Even if one can expect cost reductions, space-related activities still entail a lot of costs. Some countries may therefore hesitate to collaborate and prefer continued reliance on the USA or commercial services . Second, the future of the ongoing reform of the US export control system is uncertain while the domestic political scene in the USA remains cloudy. Lastly, some American lawmakers have voiced concerns that even civil space cooperation with China may strengthen Chinese military capabilities . These are the issues which need to be considered when promoting international cooperation.

Protectionism undermines cooperationJames Rendleman, retired USAF Colonel, and Walter Faulconer, President of Strategic Space Solutions, 2010, “Improving international space cooperation: Considerations for the USA,” Space Policy, Vol. 26, pg. 143Similarly the international launch market is well over capacity for launching the current and foreseeable demand for communications, remote sensing and navigation satellites. Eight different countries continue to subsidize their own launch capability and other nations are developing their own launchers. The USA prohibits US civil and commercial spacecraft from launching on Chinese vehicles. ESA demands that European satellites be launched on Ariane . These directions are driven by important national or regional interests. However, there may be no easy way to foster improved international cooperation if such protectionist behaviors stand in the way. And there are further obstacles to cooperation.

Export controls block cooperationJames Rendleman, retired USAF Colonel, and Walter Faulconer, President of Strategic Space Solutions, 2010, “Improving international space cooperation: Considerations for the USA,” Space Policy, Vol. 26, pg. 143Designing and manufacturing increasingly interoperable platforms, performing cooperative planning, and executing satellite operations are complicated by U.S. law and policy that imposes controls on the release of sensitive technologies and operations. Indeed, important technologies and information relating thereto may be determined by the US government to be non-releasable, even to allies and close partners. This is not just a US phenomenon; other nations have their own laws and policies that clamp down on technology transfers and specific relations with other nations.


Space Cooperation with China Fails

Cooperation doesn’t solve relations – other issues outweighJeff Foust, editor and publisher of The Space Review, 6-17-2006, “US-China space cooperation: the Congressional view,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/661/1Inevitably, any China-US space cooperation will get tangled up in bigger issues between the two countries, like economic policy and human rights, something that the congressmen said shouldn’t be avoided. “The fact is when you talk to the United States you have to talk democracy and human rights; it’s just part of who we are. We’re going to talk jobs, and we’re going to talk about the economy. We’re going to talk about military issues,” said Larsen. “They may be uncomfortable to talk about, but we’re going to have to address these issues if we’re going to even get to a point where we can talk about moving forward.”

China won’t get on board for exploration cooperation – if they do, the next administration will roll back the agreementTaylor Dinerman, author and journalist based in New York City, 11-30-2009, “Just how soft is NASA’s soft power going to be?,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1519/1Atmospherics, however, are also important. If the US is seen as meekly asking the rest of the world to please support the goals and ambitions of the exploration program, it will be treated with contempt. This will not only make it exceptionally difficult to come up with acceptable international agreements, but it will almost certainly ensure that the next Congress or the next administration will seek to overturn any unfair, unequal, or humiliating deals made by the current leadership.

International space cooperation makes the US look weak – undercuts any soft power benefitsTaylor Dinerman, author and journalist based in New York City, 11-30-2009, “Just how soft is NASA’s soft power going to be?,” The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1519/1On the other hand, we know that the Obama Administration and Congress are chock-a-block full of motivations, many of them contradictory or confused, but all of them expressed with passion. There are political motivations: after all, Florida, Texas, and California are all big voter-rich states. There are questions of prestige and international power. There are industrial, scientific, and technological reasons why leaders in Washington think that this is important. There is a strong desire on the part of both parties to use NASA’s accomplishments as a way to inspire kids to study science and engineering. In all of NASA’s programs, ever since the Eisenhower days, there has been an element of “soft power”. Some administrations have used it more effectively than others, but it has always been there. Yet this kind of power is only a tool, not a goal in itself. If the US presents itself as too eager for partnership agreements or too weak to explore the solar system without assistance, then the world and the American people will only see softness.


Code of Conduct Fails

Restraint in space has no effect on Russia and ChinaChrist Stone, Space analyst, 4-2009, “How should we secure our space-based assets as a nation?,” 4/9, The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1345/1Despite reassurances of quite the opposite, General Popovkin, the Russian Deputy Defense Minister gives the impression that the Russians, while developing their own space weapons systems are just defending their interests. “Russia has always been for non-deployment of weapons in space, but when others are doing this, we cannot be just onlookers, and such work is underway in Russia. This is all I can tell you.” By reading reports in the press such as these, as well as decades of Russian and Chinese open source planning and doctrine papers from their government diplomatic and war colleges, it appears the Russians and Chinese are moving (and have been for many years) towards weaponizing space, but they are blaming the US falsely for doing it first as their excuse.

Space arms control agreements encourage backslidingChrist Stone, Space analyst, 4-2009, “How should we secure our space-based assets as a nation?,” 4/9, The Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1345/1The Obama Administration must seriously question the wisdom of entering into space arms control agreements of any kind with Russia and China when they may be engaging in a campaign of deception designed to trick the US into signing treaties that leave our space systems and their users completely vulnerable. In other words, they seek only to constrain US power and are exploiting the good intentions of the arms control community and the American people to help achieve their ends.

Committing to international treaties only encourages cheatingStephen Redifer, Master of Science in Space Systems Operations, 2011, “Taking the Imperative – Protecting US Interests in Space,” USMC Thesis, pg. 43

Unfortunately, committing the United States to such treaties also has negative ramifications and may actually limit options for protecting US equities in space, squandering the current advantage the United States has in space. Additionally, signatories could secretly pursue space weapons while under the protection of such international treaties, buying themselves time to close the technology gap with the United States, and then withdraw from these treaties when it is to their advantage to do so. Finally, as with any treaty, verification to ensure compliance would provide significant challenges, especially in the space domain – current limits to SSA make it both difficult to precisely assess what is being launched into space and what its true purpose is or could be; additionally, the legitimate secrecy that surrounds many launches (to protect technology advances and satellite capabilities) would further hinder the ability to verify adherence to treaty standards.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1345/1



Cooperation Undercuts US Aerospace

Cooperation undercuts US aerospace marketsJames Rendleman, retired USAF Colonel, and Walter Faulconer, President of Strategic Space Solutions, 2010, “Improving international space cooperation: Considerations for the USA,” Space Policy, Vol. 26, pg. 143Many other nations are eager to duplicate this success. They are working diligently to grow indigenous capabilities to exploit orbital space for their own commercial or military gain, or for national pride. This has all had the effect of generating considerable interest from other nations and commercial entities to seek space cooperation with USA and other potential partners. Initially such space cooperation might be perceived as inimical to the US aerospace industrial base: cooperation could cause decreased domestic employment because foreign nations could then build space systems and components that might otherwise have been constructed in the USA.

Cooperation specifically undercuts US STEM workersJames Rendleman, retired USAF Colonel, and Walter Faulconer, President of Strategic Space Solutions, 2010, “Improving international space cooperation: Considerations for the USA,” Space Policy, Vol. 26, pg. 143India and China are producing huge numbers of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) qualified manpower in their rush to become first-tier superpowers. This is problematic for the USA, as cooperation with such states could allow them eventually to better engineer and then undercut US markets.

This link only goes one way – other countries will use cooperation to hamstring the USJeff Foust, editor of the Space Review, 3-7-2011, “Debating a code of conduct for space,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1794/1Peter Marquez, the former director of space policy at the National Security Council who helped craft the current National Space Policy, brought up on the panel a passage in Section 6.1 of the Code that requires notification when spacecraft perform maneuvers in “dangerous proximity” of other objects. “‘Dangerous proximity’ all depends on one’s inherent capabilities,” he said. Some, like ISS partner nations, can safely operate very close to the space station. “Another nation that has no idea what they’re doing gets within one kilometer of my satellite, and I’m going to be scared.” He was also skeptical about the utility of Section 9, which provides a “consultation mechanism” and means to “investigate proven incidents” in space, leaving the specific details of such investigations for later. “That one just seems to be, in some ways, ripe for theater,” he said. “I can just see this going the wrong way, that it just becomes an investigation after investigation of the US.”



Aerospace Industry is Key to Hegemony

Space leadership is rapidly eroding – risks collapsing warfighting and overall hegemonyA. Thomas, Chair @ Institute for Defense Analyses Research Group, et al., 7-2008, “Leadership, Management, and Organization for National Security Space,” http://www.armyspace.army.mil/ASJ/Images/National_Security_S pace_Study_Final_Sept_16.pdfToday, U.S. leadership in space provides a vital national advantage across the scientific, commercial, and national security realms. In particular, space is of critical importance to our national intelligence and warfighting capabilities. The panel members nevertheless are unanimous in our conviction that, without significant improvements in the leadership and management of NSS programs, U.S. space preeminence will erode to the extent that space ceases to provide a competitive national security advantage. Space technology is rapidly proliferating across the globe, and many of our most important capabilities and successes were developed and fielded with a government technical workforce and a management structure that no longer exist.

Space leadership is key to all sectors of US leadershipA. Thomas, Chair @ Institute for Defense Analyses Research Group, et al., 7-2008, “Leadership, Management, and Organization for National Security Space,” http://www.armyspace.army.mil/ASJ/Images/National_Security_S pace_Study_Final_Sept_16.pdfSpace capabilities underpin U.S. economic, scientific, and military leadership. The space enterprise is embedded in the fabric of our nation’s economy, providing technological leadership and sustainment of the industrial base. To cite but one example, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is the world standard for precision navigation and timing. Global awareness provided from space provides the ability to effectively plan for and respond to such critical national security requirements as intelligence on the military capabilities of potential adversaries, intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program proliferation, homeland security, and missile warning and defense. Military strategy, operations, and tactics are predicated upon the availability of space capabilities. The military use of space-based capabilities is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and their use in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom is pervasive.

A collapsing aerospace sector takes down key sectors of US hegemonyRobert Walker, Chair of the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry Commissioners, et. al., 2002, “Final Report of the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry Commissioners,” http://www.trade.gov/td/aerospace/aerospacecommission/AeroCommissionFinalReport.pdfThroughout this dynamic and challenging environ-ment, one message remains clear: a healthy U.S. aerospace industry is more than a hedge against an uncertain future. It is one of the primary national instruments through which DoD will develop and obtain the superior technologies and capabilities essential to the on-going transformation of the armed forces, thus maintaining our position as the world’s preeminent military power.


SKFTA DA


SKFTA DA 1NC 1/2

SKFTA will pass nowSean Goforth, politics prof @ Coastal Carolina, 8-19-2011, “U.S. Set to Pass Trade Deals,” World Politics Review, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/9825/u-s-set-to-pass-trade-deals-with-colombia-panama-and-s-koreaIn addition, recent bilateral deals among other major global players threaten to reduce U.S. exports. In the past two months, trade agreements between South Korea and the European Union, and between Colombia and Canada, have entered into force. According to John Murphy of the American Chamber of Commerce, EU exports to South Korea have increased 16 percent since the trade deal went into effect, and early signs point to U.S. goods losing ground in South Korea to European goods. A dithering and dysfunctional Washington is costing U.S. workers jobs. That's hardly an image the administration wants to reinforce little more than a year from next year's presidential election. As a result, passage of the trade deals is likely sometime this fall -- provided, of course, that lawmakers are finally willing to let economics trump politics. Despite claims in December by then-White House spokesman Robert Gibbs that the deals were being held

up by congressional representatives affiliated with the Tea Party, most lingering objections come from the Democrats' side of the aisle. Two weeks ago, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said of the three trade deals, "The White House may support it, but the Congress may have a different view." When MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell commented to Pelosi that the agreements would boost U.S. exports and create jobs, Pelosi responded, "That's debatable."

Political capital is key to passage – overcomes bundlingMichael Green, Japan chair at CSIS, 8-22-2011, “[Viewpoint] Threading the needle in Washington,” JoongAng Daily, http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2940479The Korea, Columbia and Panama agreements will pass in September if the White House is willing to defy part of the Democratic leadership and work with the majority. On the other hand, a Korus FTA-only bill probably will not

pass. The best path forward, therefore, would be a concerted administration effort to build a workable compromise in the coming weeks. This will take presidential leadership in Washington and a spirit of compromise from the Republican side.

Space exploration drains political capital.Taylor Dinerman, author and journalist, 8/17/2009, “Remembering the lessons of SEI,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1445/1From 1989 until they left office in 1993 Bush and Quayle fought hard to keep the SEI alive. Repeatedly they saw every penny of money for their program stripped from the budget. It was a hard lesson seared into a generation of space advocates and NASA employees. Today, when the Constellation plan faces tough times the White House shows little sign, at least so far, of being willing to expend political capital to support the project. If the US government is going to continue to lead the world’s space exploration efforts then it will have to spend the money needed to accomplish the goal in a reasonable time frame. Hogan’s book is a reminder of what happens

when that political capital, and thus that funding, isn’t forthcoming.


SKFTA DA 1NC 2/2

SKFTA solves North Korean aggression and proliferationCharles Pritchard et al, President of the Korea Economic Institute 6-16-2009, “A New Chapter for U.S.-South Korea Alliance.” http://www.cfr.org/publication/19635/new_chapter_for_ussouth_korea_alliance.htmlWhile all eyes have been trained on North Korea's belligerent and aggressive actions in recent weeks, it is important to note that the U.S.-South Korea alliance has emerged as a linchpin in the Obama administration's efforts to successfully manage an overcrowded

global agenda, and a pivotal tool for safeguarding U.S. long-term interests in Asia. When South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak meets with President Barack Obama at the White House Tuesday, the two leaders must effectively address three main areas: policy coordination to address North Korea's nuclear threat, the development of a global security agenda that extends beyond the peninsula, and collaboration to address the global financial crisis as South Korea takes a lead on the G-20 process. By conducting a second nuclear test in May, followed by a number of missile launches, North Korea has forced its way onto

the Obama administration's agenda. First and foremost, effective U.S.-South Korea alliance coordination is critical to managing

both the global effects of North Korea's nuclear threat on the nonproliferation regime and the regional security challenges posed by potential regime actions that lead to further crisis in the region. North Korea's internal focus on its leadership succession, and the apparent naming of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's little-known and inexperienced youngest son as his successor, make the task of

responding to North Korea's aggressive and destabilizing actions all the more challenging. Both deterrence and negotiation must be pursued on the basis of close consultations. Presidents Obama and Lee must also develop coordinated

contingency plans in the event of internal instability in North Korea. Through effective U.S.-South Korea alliance coordination, it should be possible to forge a combined strategy capable of managing the nuclear, proliferation, and regional security dimensions of North Korea's threat. A coordinated position would also strengthen the administration's hand in its

efforts to persuade China to put pressure on North Korea.

Nuke WarPeter Hayes, prof at Victoria University, and Michael Green, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute, 1-5-2010, “The Path Not Taken, the Way Still Open: Denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia”, http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/10001HayesHamalGreen.pdfThe consequences of failing to address the proliferation threat posed by the North Korea developments, and related political and economic issues, are serious, not only for the Northeast Asian region but for the whole international community. At worst, there is the possibility of nuclear attack1, whether by intention, miscalculation, or

merely accident, leading to the resumption of Korean War hostilities. On the Korean Peninsula itself, key population centres are well within short or medium range missiles. The whole of Japan is likely to come within North Korean missile range. Pyongyang has a population of over 2 million, Seoul (close to the North Korean border) 11 million, and Tokyo over 20 million. Even a limited nuclear exchange would result in a holocaust of unprecedented proportions. But the

catastrophe within the region would not be the only outcome. New research indicates that even a limited nuclear war in the region

would rearrange our global climate far more quickly than global warming. Westberg draws attention to new studies modelling the effects of even a limited nuclear exchange involving approximately 100 Hiroshima-sized 15 kt bombs2 (by comparison it should be noted that the United States currently deploys warheads in the range 100 to 477 kt, that is, individual warheads equivalent in yield to a range of 6 to 32 Hiroshimas).The studies indicate that the soot from the fires produced would lead to a decrease in global temperature by 1.25 degrees Celsius for a period of 6-8 years.3 In Westberg’s view: That is not global winter, but the nuclear darkness will cause a deeper drop in temperature than at any time during the last 1000 years. The temperature over the continents would decrease substantially more than the global average. A decrease in rainfall over the continents would also

follow...The period of nuclear darkness will cause much greater decrease in grain production than 5% and it will

continue for many years...hundreds of millions of people will die from hunger...To make matters even worse, such amounts of

smoke injected into the stratosphere would cause a huge reduction in the Earth’s protective ozone.4 These, of course, are not the only consequences. Reactors might also be targeted, causing further mayhem and downwind radiation effects, superimposed on a smoking,

radiating ruin left by nuclear next-use. Millions of refugees would flee the affected regions. The direct impacts, and the follow-on impacts on the global economy via ecological and food insecurity, could make the present global financial crisis pale by comparison. How the great powers, especially the nuclear weapons states respond to such a crisis, and in particular, whether nuclear weapons are used in response to nuclear first-

use, could make or break the global non proliferation and disarmament regimes. There could be many unanticipated impacts on regional and

global security relationships5, with subsequent nuclear breakout and geopolitical turbulence, including possible loss-of-control over fissile material or warheads in the chaos of nuclear war, and aftermath chain-reaction affects involving other potential proliferant states. The Korean nuclear proliferation issue is not just a regional threat but a global one that warrants priority consideration from the international community.


SKFTA Will Pass

SKFTA Will Pass – TAA has been resolvedGlenn Kessler, 8-23-2011, “Obama’s claim that GOP is holding up trade deals,” Truth about Trade & Tech, http://www.truthabouttrade.org/news/latest-news/18321The dispute seems to be close to a resolution, largely on the administration's terms. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced earlier this month that an agreement to allow both the trade deals and renewal of TAA to go forward. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) echoed that with his own statement: "I look forward to the House passing the FTAs, in tandem with separate consideration of TAA legislation, as soon as possible." "We have made abundantly clear, publicly and privately, that the House is prepared to vote on all three trade agreements and TAA extension in tandem with each other," said Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck. "The only thing holding us up is the fact those trade bills are still sitting on the president's desk."

Will happen soon – they’re just ironing out detailsGlenn Kessler, 8-23-2011, “Obama’s claim that GOP is holding up trade deals,” Truth about Trade & Tech, http://www.truthabouttrade.org/news/latest-news/18321"The administration has been eager to send these agreements up for some time now, starting with our offer to submit the U.S.-South Korea agreement several months ago; since that time, we have been working diligently to find a path forward that satisfies concerns in Congress about the completion of all three agreements, as well as Trade Adjustment Assistance," said Carol J. Guthrie, assistant U.S. trade representative for public affairs. Guthrie added: "The next step is to nail down remaining specifics on a bipartisan, bicameral agreement to move forward with all three agreements and TAA in a timely fashion. We are particularly pleased with the progress announced by Senate leadership shortly before Congress left for the August recess, and look forward to working with both the Senate and House to finalize a bipartisan, bicameral agreement." Once submitted, the trade deals will move on an expedited track and would be subject to an up-or-down vote with no amendments.

Will pass – GOP supportGlenn Kessler, 8-23-2011, “Obama’s claim that GOP is holding up trade deals,” Truth about Trade & Tech, http://www.truthabouttrade.org/news/latest-news/18321The administration has clearly played a balancing act, trying to attract Democratic support without losing significant Republican backing. We're not going to judge who is more right on the history leading up to this point, but we do think it is a highly selective recounting of that history for the president to suggest GOP lawmakers are blocking the deal because they are putting party before country. There is actually strong support for these agreements within the Republican Party -- just like there is strong support for trade adjustment legislation among Democrats.There may be a philosophical dispute over aid for companies harmed by free trade, but the administration in the end is responsible for making passage of TAA a condition for submitting the trade deals. Moreover, Obama leaves the distinct impression that Congress is sitting on the bills, when in fact they have not yet been officially submitted for consideration.


SKFTA Will Pass

SKFTA will pass soonSean Goforth, politics prof @ Coastal Carolina, 8-19-2011, “U.S. Set to Pass Trade Deals,” World Politics Review, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/9825/u-s-set-to-pass-trade-deals-with-colombia-panama-and-s-koreaAt long last, Washington looks ready to pass free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Congressional ratification has been a long time in the making -- the trade agreement with Colombia was signed in

2006, while the agreements with Panama and South Korea were inked in 2007. The trade deals with Colombia and Panama were, in

some sense, part of a last-ditch effort by President George W. Bush to salvage the work put in by former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Hopes for that hemisphere-wide trade zone effectively died in 2005, mainly because Latin American countries preferred to direct their attention to the construction of trade blocs that excluded the United States.

SKFTA will pass – agreement over TAAInvestor’s Business Daily, 8-5-2011, “A Free-Trade Finale At Last?” http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/580678/201108051846/A-Free-Trade-Finale-At-Last-.aspxPolitics: Has America's bleak economy finally caught President Obama's attention? How else to explain the sudden movement on three free-trade pacts that have been gathering dust in a White House desk drawer for five years? It certainly has caught Congress' attention. Fresh from forging a compromise on the debt ceiling with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced that free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea would move forward in September. A bill on trade adjustment assistance (TAA) for the unemployed will be taken up separately. It was a dramatic moment, because Reid has never met a free-trade agreement he liked. In his statement, he hastened to add that he wouldn't vote for the pacts himself. But there's no way he would have presented them if they would not be capable of passage, a Senate GOP staffer told IBD. It shows that a reality check has come over the worst opponents of free trade, from Reid to the president, based on the fact

that the economy is in trouble, and the 9.1% unemployment rate is a disaster for them. Even the AFL-CIO, which is loudly opposing the

pacts, is unlikely to have the clout it once did, a House Democratic staffer told IBD. "Let 'em complain," he said. Separating the trade pacts from the unrelated TAA issue cleared the path. Last May, President Obama announced movement on the pacts, but soon threw a monkey wrench into the process by insisting that the now-$1.5 billion TAA program be attached to the South Korean pact, appalling fiscal conservatives in Congress.

SKFTA will pass – strong bipart commitmentInvestor’s Business Daily, 8-5-2011, “A Free-Trade Finale At Last?” http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/580678/201108051846/A-Free-Trade-Finale-At-Last-.aspxAs for House Democrats such as Ways and Means ranking member Sander Levin of Michigan and Jim McDermott of Washington, they think the program is reasonably bipartisan and if the Tea Party-heavy House rejects TAA, they can go back to attaching it to the Korea pact that would be voted on after TAA. That's seen as an acceptable risk for all sides. "This agreement between the leaders reflects strong bipartisan commitment to pass these agreements into law as soon as the president sends them up," said Michael Brumas, spokesman for McConnell, who is a strong proponent of free trade. Congress thinks the president will send them up. If so, it means he has finally accepted that free trade is about jobs and economic growth. It doesn't come a moment too soon. As the U.S. stares at a double-dip recession ahead, Europe and Canada are eating our lunch overseas, which is a huge source of economic growth, snapping up America's market share with pacts of their own. On July 1, South Korea and the European Union put their free-trade agreement (worth at least $10 billion)in force, supercharging already high commerce between Asia's fourth biggest economy and the 27-member European Union, paying zero tariffs on pork, cars and luxury goods while U.S. firms remain stuck paying Korean tariffs. On Aug. 15, the picture duplicates as the Canada-Colombia free trade pact starts, dropping tariffs on Canadian wheat, chemicals, machine tools and other products to zero while Americans continue to pay and watch their market share go to zero. The best that can be done in the U.S. is a September vote, but if it's real, it's good enough, given the bleak lack of progress on any other prospect of boosting our economy and creating jobs. Given the success of the debt-ceiling compromise, trade may be headed for a finale too. It's long past time for Obama and the Democrats to take that opportunity.


SKFTA Will Pass – AT: TAA

Boehner has the votes for TAAMichael Green, Japan chair at CSIS, 8-22-2011, “[Viewpoint] Threading the needle in Washington,” JoongAng Daily, http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2940479I wrote in a previous column that the main stumbling block to the Korus FTA in the Congress could be the Obama administration’s demand that Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) be passed as a precondition for the Korus FTA. TAA is viewed by many free market Republicans as nothing more than a hand out to labor unions and many on the right were threatening to oppose TAA. However, it now looks like the Speaker of the House, Republican Representative John

Boehner of Ohio, will be able to muster sufficient Republican votes to pass TAA since many of his new members come from districts like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania with struggling manufacturing industries and no desire to go into the election having voted against assistance to workers.

Dems compromised on TAADiego Urdaneta, staff writer, 8-4-2011, “Senators hopeful on S. Korea deal vote,” AFP, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h8JmayE8XeGh9GYHd3nSV1q7DB8A?docId=CNG.04298063bfaf94bb62f5d50fe84a1d68.251WASHINGTON — US Senate leaders have voiced hope at ratifying long-stalled free trade deals with South Korea,

Colombia and Panama after agreeing to separate the votes from an unrelated point of contention. President Barack Obama and the rival Republican Party both support the free trade agreement with South Korea, which would end 95 percent of tariffs in the largest such pact for the United States in nearly two decades. But with some labor supporters upset over the deal, Obama's Democratic Party linked ratification to the renewal of assistance to workers -- angering Republicans who control the House of Representatives. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said that after weeks of talks the two parties had agreed to a vote on the workers' aid followed by separate votes on the three free trade agreements. Reid and top Republican Senator

Mitch McConnell both said in statements that they had found a "path forward." "I have long supported passage of the long-delayed FTAs, and I know that I speak for many on my side of the aisle that we are eager to get moving and finally pass them," McConnell said. House Speaker John Boehner said he hoped his chamber would approve the trade deals "as soon as possible" and also promised "separate consideration" of the workers' aid, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA. A Democratic-led Congress ramped up the assistance program in 2009 by making hundreds of thousands of workers in the service industry eligible for benefits and retraining if their jobs were threatened by foreign trade. The program cost $1.1 billion in the last fiscal year but its expansion expired after Republicans won 2010 congressional elections. The Obama administration earlier said it had reached a compromise with a senior Republican to restore the aid, albeit with cuts, through 2013. Reid voiced confidence at the "passage of the bipartisan compromise" on the aid. But with separate votes now planned, it remains to be seen whether Republicans will allow the program's renewal.

Will pass despite TAA fight and committee obstruction – vote soonInside US Trade, 7/1/11The Senate Finance Committee could reschedule the markup for the FTAs next week, since the Senate is in

session. While Republicans could again block the consideration of TAA in the draft Korea implementing bill, one lobbyist doubted they would because they will have had more time to review the amendments. Part of the reason Republicans blocked the mock markup this week was because they wanted more time to review the

almost 100 amendments that were filed.In addition, these Republicans will not want to appear overly "obstructionist" by blocking a mock markup two times, this lobbyist said. This lobbyist predicted that, if a mock markup were

to take place in the Finance Committee, the committee would approve the Korea FTA implementing bill with TAA included .He said Republicans may initially vote together on an amendment to strip TAA out of the bill, but predicted that that amendment would fail because Democrats would unify against it. At that point, at least some Republicans would support the Korea FTA with TAA included due to their support for the FTA, this lobbyist hoped.


SKFTA Will Pass in South Korea

It’s about to be ratified in South Korea – wide popularityJoongAng Daily, 8-6-2011, “Chun’s strange sophistry,” http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2939848The Korus FTA is finally on the threshold of ratification in both countries after having traveled a thorny five-

year path from the Roh Moo-hyun administration to the Lee Myung-bak administration. We feel deeply ashamed that Chun, who served as

the justice minister under the Roh administration, has even attempted to urge his counterparts not to ratify the pact now. His claim - that a majority of Koreans are worried about the pact - is also groundless. At the start of the Lee administration, many people

were opposed to the trade deal because of increasing worry about mad cow disease with U.S. beef imports. But that has changed.

According to a survey conducted after the Korea-EU FTA was successfully ratified by both sides, an overwhelming majority of people said they support the Korus FTA. Another survey by the DP shows that 75 percent believe the Korus FTA will help boost our national interests.

It will be submitted soonKim Eun-jung, 8-5-2011, “Ruling party gearing up to submit,” Yonhap News, http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2011/08/05/29/0301000000AEN20110805003300315F.HTMLThe ruling Grand National Party (GNP) will push to submit the long-pending free trade deal with the U.S. to the National Assembly this month, in a move to keep pace with Washington's effort to get the deal through Congress in September, officials said Friday. The move comes shortly after U.S. Congressional leaders said they have agreed on a path to approve the trade agreement with South Korea, which was also backed by President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. GNP lawmakers welcomed their support, though Washington's agreement fell short of their expectation to pass the deal before the August recess due to the standoff over raising the debt ceiling.

There are enough votesJack Kim, 6-24-2011, “Q+A Where is the S. Korea, US free trade pact headed?” Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/24/korea-usa-trade-idUSL3E7HO0AC20110624South Korea President Lee Myung-bak's government has sent the trade bill to parliament but the assembly has yet to set the date to begin reviewing it. A majority of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) support the deal. Some opposition Democratic Party members oppose it, saying a revision to the deal reached in December damaged the interest of South Korean automakers. The ruling GNP has the number to force it through parliament but does not want to repeat the political embarrassment caused by a previous attempt to do so. IS THERE ENOUGH SUPPORT ONCE IT COMES TO A VOTE? The December revision addressed concerns by U.S. car makers and auto unions that the original deal had favoured South Korean automakers too heavily. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said those changes meant winning approval in Congress would no longer be "horribly difficult". But it still faces stiff opposition, including from the AFL-CIO, the main U.S. labour group. In South Korea, the pact has broad support from the public and from businesses which see it as a chance to enter a greater U.S. market and to buy cheaper imports at home. In addition to backing from the ruling GNP, some opposition Democratic Party members, who had supported the pact when the former liberal president negotiated it in 2007, are for the deal.


SKFTA = Top Of Docket

South Korea is coming up in SeptemberSoutheast Farm Press, 8-9-2011, “Grain industry hopeful for FTA in September,” http://southeastfarmpress.com/markets/grain-industry-hopeful-fta-septemberFollowing the contentious debt-ceiling vote, the U.S. Congress left town for its August recess without finalizing action on stalled free trade agreements (FTA) with South Korea, Panama and Colombia, but Floyd Gaibler, U.S. Grains Council director of trade policy, is hopeful all three will be approved some time in September. “A delayed vote would be unfortunate, since it would further delay getting these FTAs in place,” said Gaibler, noting that FTAs with competitors are moving forward. South Korea’s FTA with the European Union went into effect July 1 and Colombia’s FTA with Canada will take effect Aug. 15. “The lack of these agreements diminishes our ability to be competitive and threatens further erosion in our corn exports to Colombia,” he said. As the political and economic pressure to create more jobs becomes more apparent, he believes Congress and the President will come to an agreement on a trade jobs program that has held up the FTA votes, especially since the pacts have clear bipartisan support.

Obama will push for it after labor dayMimi Whitefield, 8-24-2011, “Colombian envoy urges Americans to support trade deal,” Miami Herald, http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/24/2373674/colombian-envoy-urges-americans.htmlThe Obama administration had hoped to win passage of free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea before the August congressional recess but the fight over the debt ceiling and partisan squabbling intervened. “The debt ceiling debate was damaging for Washington’s credibility as a whole,’’ Silva said during a visit to The Miami Herald. But now, he said, “people are eager to come back to Washington and solve problems.’’ And among those problems is creating jobs and putting Americans back to work. “Free trade means jobs,’’ said Silva. “I feel this will be a critical piece in President Obama’s job creation strategy that will be issued after Labor Day.’’

Top of the docket after recessSam Graves, 8-25-2011, “Fair trade can boost job creation,” Kearney Courier, http://www.kccommunitynews.com/kearney-courier-opinion/28961965/detail.htmlThe unemployment rate continues to remain too high. Too many Americans are without a job, and too many have become so discouraged with the job market that they have simply stopped looking. There is no magic bullet, but there are things Congress can do. One of the things we can do is open up new markets for American products and goods. When Congress returns to session in September, the president has said he will submit the three pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea for approval.


Obama Pushing SKFTA

Obama is pushing SKFTASean Goforth, politics prof @ Coastal Carolina, 8-19-2011, “U.S. Set to Pass Trade Deals,” World Politics Review, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/9825/u-s-set-to-pass-trade-deals-with-colombia-panama-and-s-koreaMore recently, however, Obama has adopted the free trade agenda with a convert's fervor. He has endorsed the three deals in primetime TV addresses, weekend YouTube messages and stump speeches. Addressing workers in Michigan last week, he said, "Send a message to Congress to come to an agreement on trade deals that will level the playing field and open markets to our businesses, so we can sell more goods to countries around the world. . . . Those trade bills are teed up; they're ready to go. Let's get it done." The reasons for the shift are not hard to find. To begin with, domestic politics are now pushing the trade deals onto center-stage: After a toxic debt-ceiling debate, the White House needs to show that it can still work with Congress to enact legislation.

Obama is pushing SKFTAEd Morrissey, Staff writer for Hot Air, 12-6-2010, “Obama inks South Korea free-trade agreement,” http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/06/obama-inks-south-korea-free-trade-agreement/When Barack Obama came back empty-handed from his trip to South Korea, we noted the failure to get a free-trade agreement as a major and embarrassing failure. Over the weekend, though, the administration announced that the US and the RoK had finalized an agreement on free trade, and that Obama would push hard for quick ratification. However, a question on beef exports might induce at least one influential Democrat in the Senate to balk (via The Week):

SKFTA is a top prioritySonari Glinton, Staff writer for NPR, 12-10-2010, “South Korea Free Trade Deal Could Be Boon For GM,” http://www.npr.org/2010/12/10/131968047/south-korea-free-trade-deal-could-be-boon-for-gmRecent polls have shown Americans increasingly skeptical of free trade. But, the Obama administration and congressional Republicans say the Korean trade deal is a top priority for the new Congress.


Political Capital Key SKFTA

GOP and union opposition mean PC is keyJim Wyss, Staff writer for the Miami Herald, 11-11-2010, “Experts: Power shift clouds hope for change,” p. np But the power shift in the House of Representatives, the ascendancy of tea party politics and the United States' sluggish economy could cloud those hopes, according to a panel of experts speaking at an event organized Wednesday by the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy. ``There will be no big breakthroughs,'' said Susan Kaufman Purcell, director of the center. With all that's going on, she said, ``it's going to be hard to have much of a focus on Latin America.'' Among the issues closely followed in South Florida are free-trade agreements with Colombia and Panama that have been awaiting U.S. Congressional approval since 2006. Earlier this year Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said he was confident the trade deal with his country would see a vote after the Nov. 2 midterm elections. But experts aren't so sure. While Republicans are usually reliable supporters of free-trade agreements, it's unclear how the tea party -- and its wider influence on a Republican-controlled House -- might change that dynamic, said Ray Ruga, the founding partner of CVOX Group, a communications and marketing firm specializing in Latin America. During the campaign, the Tea Party lashed out at illegal immigration and troubles along the Mexican border. That could make it politically tricky for them to pivot and advocate for free-trade deals in Latin America, panelists said. And Democrats, freshly chastened, have suggested they will redouble their efforts to shore up their base among labor groups, also spelling trouble for trade deals, said Purcell. U.S. labor leaders have criticized Latin American nations for not doing more to protect workers and Colombia, in particular, for allegedly turning a blind eye to violence against union members. The experts said the Obama administration may use its waning political capital to lean on Congress to approve a free-trade agreement with South Korea. Obama, who was visiting the Asian nation

Wednesday, has said a deal with Korea is a priority.

Political capital is key to SKFTADoug Palmer, 5-5-2011, “Boehner says Obama push needed to pass trade deals,” Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/05/us-usa-trade-boehner-idUSTRE74453V20110505The U.S. House of Representatives hopes to pass long-delayed free-trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama by August, House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday. "We can move pretty quickly but it's going to take help by the president as well," Boehner told reporters. Although Republicans, who now control the House, are generally pro-trade, some members of the party are skeptical of trade deals. "I do believe a lot of work will have to be done with our own members," Boehner said. In addition, a large portion of Democrats are likely to vote against the pacts, especially the Colombia agreement, which is generally seen as the most controversial of the three trade deals because of a long history

of violence against union workers in the Andean country. "The president is going to have to be out there as well talking about the importance of these three agreements. We hope to have them finished by the August recess," Boehner said. U.S.

Trade Representative Ron Kirk told reporters separately he was optimistic Congress would pass the three trade deals with "good bipartisan support."

Obama arm twisting empirically keyDoug Palmer, 5-5-2011, “Boehner says Obama push needed to pass trade deals,” Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/05/us-usa-trade-boehner-idUSTRE74453V20110505After striking side deals to address outstanding concerns about each of the three trade pacts, the Obama administration now has "agreements that we think are going to garner good bipartisan support," Kirk said. "We believe we can work with the leadership in the House and the Senate to get them passed," Kirk said. The trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama were signed during the administration of President George W. Bush, but they stalled in the face of Democratic opposition. Since December, the Obama administration has negotiated new auto provisions for the Korean agreement, a tax information exchange treaty with Panama and an action plan with Colombia to address longstanding US concerns about anti-union violence. Administration officials said Wednesday they were prepared to begin technical discussions with Congress on implementing legislation for all three agreements, after Colombia met initial benchmarks in the labor action plan.


Obama Key SKFTA

SKFTA will require a big push from ObamaChing Lee, Staff writer for Ag Alert, 12-1-2010, “Outlook for trade deals improves, but work remains,” http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/AgAlertStory.cfm?ID=1642&ck=81C650CAAC28CDEFCE4DE5DDC18BEFA0"Compared to the last two years where we couldn't do much of anything related to trade with Congress, the outlook for trade-related legislation and activities is looking better," he said. "But it's still going to take work." Trade was a not a big issue in most congressional races, he noted, and some new members of the Republican caucus did not run as traditional Republicans in their campaigns, so their views on trade issues remain unclear. "I'm not exactly sure where they will be until they take over in January and they have to start discussing and taking positions on these issues," Salmonsen said. The Obama administration

does appear more willing to tackle trade of late, he said. Earlier this year, the president said he wants to double U.S. exports by

2015 as part of his economic agenda. His recent trip to Asia was promoted as an effort to strengthen trade relations, increase exports and boost American jobs. Although the president did not succeed in reaching a deal in the

long-stalled free trade agreement with South Korea, he said the two nations will continue their discussions. "This was the first real indication, at least publicly, that the administration does want to get (the trade agreement) done," said Joe Zanger, a Hollister-based grower, processor, packer and retailer of fruits and vegetables who chairs the California Farm Bureau Federation Trade Advisory Committee.

Strong Obama push is key to KORUSLiz Peek, Staff writer for The Fiscal Times, 12-5-2010, “Obama Must Push South Korea Trade Deal through Congress,” http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Blogs/2010/12/05/Obama-Must-Push-South-Korea-Trade-Deal-through-Congress.aspxIt is good news that negotiators have concluded a revised trade agreement with South Korea. It is now imperative that President

Obama aggressively shepherd the pact through Congress. Not only is the deal essential to his goal of doubling exports, it will show whether he’s serious about rebuilding his relationship with the business community. This is the largest trade agreement to come before Congress since NAFTA was concluded with Canada and Mexico in 1994; it is, to paraphrase Vice President Joe Biden , a (very?) big deal. President Obama retreated from last month’s G20 summit in Seoul in embarrassment after failing to conclude the Korea trade deal – which he had virtually promised to wrap up and which has languished in a labor-friendly Congress for three years. Sticking points have been mutual tariffs on auto imports and restrictions on U.S. beef exports to South Korea. As I have written before, the auto frictions have been exacerbated by Ford Motor. GM’s purchase of Daewoo some years ago gave that company an edge in penetrating the Korean market; Ford has trailed, and has consequently been the frontrunner in pressing for more favorable treatment. The good news is that both the U. S. and South Korea have now agreed to agree, with concessions on tariffs phase-outs and reductions being made on both sides. The beef issues, which are viewed as less significant, were unresolved. Why is the pact important? South Korea is a crucial ally to the United States in Asia, serving as a counterpoint to both North Korea and China. The leadership of the country is pro-U.S. and deserving of support. President Lee Myung-bak has long put his political capital behind securing the agreement, but had promised early on not to alter the terms of the original deal inked in 2007. Now that the provisions have been tweaked in response to U.S. interests, Lee could face opposition. The floor leader of the opposing Democratic Party has described the changes as “humiliating” and renounced the deal. Lee’s party holds a majority of 171 seats in the 299- seat legislature, and is pushing for a quick vote. A drawn-out argument over the deal in the U.S., though possibly buttressing Lee’s position that Korea did not give too much away, could allow his rivals time to mount a more effective campaign against ratification. He could, as a result, emerge weakened, which would not benefit the U.S. Building economic relations is essential to furthering our diplomatic ties; South Korea is now the fifteenth largest economy in the world (and our seventh largest trading partner) and is growing rapidly. Other nations have jumped ahead of us in securing favorable trade deals. Just recently the EU concluded an agreement with South Korea, significant enough to inspire a similar push by Japan which fears being left behind. Ahead of the recent Summit, Russian President Medvedev courted the country’s leaders, seeking their business expertise. Trade between Russia and South Korea is up 20% so far this year and has soared 52-fold since diplomatic relations were first established two decades ago. On announcing the trade deal, President Obama claimed the agreement would “boost annual exports of American goods by up to $11 billion (and) …increase American economic output by more than our last nine free trade agreements combined.” Though there may still be some lingering opposition to the deal (Montana Senator Max Baucus, speaking up for his state’s beef industry, will likely oppose the bill), it is clear that we cannot go back to the well. South Korea feels that it has given considerable concessions; there will be no more horse trading. This will therefore be

our last bite of the apple; the pact must be approved. Unhappily, there is growing opposition to trade deals in the U.S., due to the steady loss

of manufacturing jobs overseas. President Obama needs to counter this unease by becoming an inspiring advocate for the economic advantages of trade and specifically for this agreement. He must reassure Americans that we are indeed capable of competing in foreign markets, and that such pacts will free our companies to build exports.

Obama is key to getting SKFTA throughPhilip I. Levy, AEI's Program in International Economics, prof of Economic at Yale, 12-29-2010, “ Obama's 2010,” http://www.aei.org/article/102948From a trade perspective, it is remarkable to think how little has been accomplished in the first two years of the Obama presidency. When he took office, President Obama inherited an agenda that included stalled global trade talks (the Doha round of World Trade Organization negotiations), three already-negotiated free trade agreements (South Korea, Colombia, and Panama), and a troubled trade relationship with China. Across all of these items, the only achievement approaching progress was the revision to the Korean free trade

agreement, and that came at the very end of 2010. The revision left Ford and the United Auto Workers happier, but came at the expense of other sectors, such as pork producers. Better late than never, but there were costs to the lost time. Free trade agreements that promised U.S. producers at least a period of privileged access to a trading partner's market are now just offering the prospect of equal access, since our jilted


partners went and negotiated agreements with other countries while the United States dallied. Frustration was already high with the lagging global trade talks; it has since mounted. What's more, the repeated empty promises of the G-20 nations to conclude the Doha round undermined that group's credibility. The ineffectiveness of the G-20 was also revealed in the sad Seoul summit, in which China and Germany objected to any global rebalancing plan that pushed past platitudes. The Obama administration--Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in particular--deserves credit for putting forth a credible approach; it just didn't seem to gain traction. As with trade liberalization, the administration might have been more credible had it led by example. In trade, it called for a new WTO agreement while condoning "Buy America" protectionism and showing that it would not spend the political capital to push through existing agreements. In international finance, it called for global rebalancing while dramatically increasing spending, creating a significant new entitlement program through its health care plans, and relegating any plans for fiscal restraint to a separate deficit commission (as opposed to using its own Office of Management and Budget).


US Ratification = Korean Ratification

US ratification ensures Lee can get it through the National AssemblyLiz Peek, Staff writer for The Fiscal Times, 12-5-2010, “Obama Must Push South Korea Trade Deal through Congress,” http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Blogs/2010/12/05/Obama-Must-Push-South-Korea-Trade-Deal-through-Congress.aspxWhy is the pact important? South Korea is a crucial ally to the United States in Asia, serving as a counterpoint to both North Korea and China. The leadership of the country is pro-U.S. and deserving of support. President Lee Myung-bak has long put his political capital behind securing the agreement, but had promised early on not to alter the terms of the original deal inked in 2007. Now that the

provisions have been tweaked in response to U.S. interests, Lee could face opposition. The floor leader of the opposing Democratic

Party has described the changes as “humiliating” and renounced the deal. Lee’s party holds a majority of 171 seats in the 299-

seat legislature, and is pushing for a quick vote. A drawn-out argument over the deal in the U.S., though possibly

buttressing Lee’s position that Korea did not give too much away, could allow his rivals time to mount a more effective campaign against ratification. He could, as a result, emerge weakened, which would not benefit the U.S.

Opposition will failEd Morrissey, Staff writer for the Free Republic, 12-6-2010, “Obama inks South Korea free-trade agreement (But will Congress ask : "Where's the Beef?")” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2638217/postsPoliticians in Seoul are less than impressed with the US position on autos, but they only have themselves to blame. The US will keep in place its 2.5% tariff on auto imports from South Korea, while South Korea will halve their own import duties on

American autos — but those tariffs start at 8%. They want to see action on the US to lower tariffs immediately, but still

keep their tariffs at a higher rate than ours. That doesn’t sound like solid ground for obstruction in Seoul, and

the opposition will probably have a tough time arguing against the agreement on that basis.

The opposition can’t prevent Lee’s agendaEvan Ramstad, Korea Realtime, 12-9-2010, “Fistfight Theater in Korea Parliament,” http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2010/12/09/roll-up-roll-up-for-national-assembly-fistfight-theater/South Korea’s parliament has no filibuster or any other method for opposition parties to slow down legislation they don’t like. Most of the time, the opposition party lawmakers simply vote their votes and let the ruling party take responsibility for good or bad legislation.


AT: Winners Win

Controversy drains PC without a chance of regaining itMichael Gerson, 12-17-2010, Staff writer for Real Clear Politics, “Hectorer in Chief,” http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/12/17/the_hectorer_in_chief_108281.htmlIn some areas -- such as education reform or the tax deal -- Obama's governing practice is better than his political skills. But these skills matter precisely because political capital is limited. The early pursuit of ambitious health care reform, as former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel internally argued, was a political mistake. But every president has the right to spend his popularity on what he regards as matters of principle. Political risks, taken out of conviction with open eyes, are an admirable element of leadership. Yet political errors made out of pique or poor planning undermine the possibility of achievement. Rather than being spent, popularity is squandered -- something the Obama administration has often done.

Gains from wins are ephemeral – high unemployment and high expectationsPeter Nicholas, Staff writer for the LA Times, 7-30-2010, “Obama the Velcro president,” http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/30/nation/la-na-velcro-presidency-20100730/3What's not sticking to Obama is a legislative track record that his recent predecessors might envy.

Political dividends from passage of a healthcare overhaul or a financial regulatory bill have been fleeting. Instead, voters are measuring his presidency by a more immediate yardstick: Is he creating enough jobs? So far the verdict is no, and that has taken a toll on Obama's approval ratings. Only 46% approve of Obama's job performance, compared with 47% who disapprove, according to Gallup's daily tracking poll. "I think the accomplishments are very significant, but I think most people

would look at this and say, 'What was the plan for jobs?' " said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). "The agenda he's pushed here has been a very important agenda, but it hasn't translated into dinner table conversations." Reagan was able to glide past controversies with his popularity largely intact. He maintained his affable persona as a small-government advocate while seeming above the fray in his own administration. Reagan was untarnished by such calamities as the 1983 terrorist bombing of the Marines stationed in Beirut and scandals involving members of his administration. In the 1986 Iran-Contra affair, most of the blame fell on lieutenants. Obama lately has tried to rip off the Velcro veneer. In a revealing moment during the oil spill crisis, he reminded Americans that his powers aren't "limitless." He told residents in Grand Isle, La., that he is a flesh-and-blood president, not a comic-book superhero able to dive to the bottom of the sea and plug the hole. "I can't suck it up with a straw," he said. But as a candidate in 2008, he set sky-high expectations about what he could achieve and what government could accomplish. Clinching the Democratic nomination two years ago, Obama described the moment as an epic breakthrough when "we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless" and "when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Those towering goals remain a long way off. And most people would have preferred to see Obama focus more narrowly on the "good jobs" part of the promise. A recent Gallup poll showed that 53% of the population rated unemployment and the economy as the nation's most important problem. By contrast, only 7% cited healthcare — a single-minded focus of the White House for a full year. At every turn, Obama makes the argument that he has improved lives in concrete ways. Without the steps he took, he says, the economy would be in worse shape and more people would be out of work. There's evidence to support that. Two economists, Mark Zandi and Alan Blinder, reported recently that without the stimulus and other measures, gross domestic product would be about 6.5% lower. Yet, Americans aren't apt to cheer when something bad doesn't materialize. Unemployment has been rising — from 7.7% when Obama took office, to 9.5%. Last month, more than 2 million homes in the U.S. were in various stages of foreclosure — up from 1.7 million when Obama was sworn in. "Folks just aren't in a mood to hand out gold stars when unemployment is hovering around 10%," said Paul Begala, a Democratic pundit.

It takes a long-time to rebuild capital – a re-growth wouldn’t be in time to impact immediate agenda itemsTom Schaller, Five Thirty Eight.com, 8-18-2009, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/08/is-obama-spending-his-political-capital.htmlObama is investing now with an eye toward medium- and long-range returns. Call this the "you've got to spend

political capital to make political capital" theory, in which Obama knows that the first summer is a good time to make a big investment, with sufficient time to recover his losses and maybe even come out ahead by the 2010


midterms, or at least by the time his own 2012 re-election campaign rolls around. If you have to do health care at some point in the first

term, it's now or never...and so, after taking an initial hit, his capital reserves will slowly rise back to pre-Summer '09 levels.


AT: Obama’s Teflon

Obama is Velcro not TeflonPeter Nicholas, Staff writer for the LA Times, 7-30-2010, “Obama the Velcro president,” http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/30/nation/la-na-velcro-presidency-20100730/3Reporting from Washington — If Ronald Reagan was the classic Teflon president, Barack Obama is made of Velcro. Through two

terms, Reagan eluded much of the responsibility for recession and foreign policy scandal. In less than two years, Obama has become ensnared in blame. Hoping to better insulate Obama, White House aides have sought to give other Cabinet officials a higher profile and additional public exposure. They are also crafting new ways to explain the president's policies to a skeptical public. But Obama remains the colossus of his administration — to a point where trouble anywhere in the world is often his to solve .

Can’t insulate ObamaPeter Nicholas, Staff writer for the LA Times, 7-30-2010, “Obama the Velcro president,” http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/30/nation/la-na-velcro-presidency-20100730/3Insulating the president from bad news has proved impossible . Other White Houses have tried doing so with

more success. Reagan's Cabinet officials often took the blame, shielding the boss. But the Obama administration is about one man. Obama is the White House's chief spokesman, policy pitchman, fundraiser and negotiator. No Cabinet secretary has emerged as an adequate surrogate. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is seen as a tepid public speaker; Energy Secretary Steven Chu is prone to long, wonky digressions and has rarely gone before the cameras during an oil spill crisis that he is working to end. So, more falls to Obama, reinforcing the Velcro effect: Everything sticks to him. He has opined on virtually everything in the hundreds of public statements he has made: nuclear arms treaties, basketball star LeBron James' career plans; Chelsea Clinton's wedding. Few audiences are off-limits. On Wednesday, he taped a spot on ABC's "The View," drawing a rebuke from Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, who deemed the appearance unworthy of the presidency during tough times. "Stylistically he creates some of those problems," Eddie Mahe, a Republican political strategist, said in an interview. "His favorite pronoun is 'I.' When you position yourself as being all things to all people, the ultimate controller and decision maker with the capacity to fix

anything, you set yourself up to be blamed when it doesn't get fixed or things happen." A new White House strategy is to forgo talk of big policy changes that are easy to ridicule. Instead, aides want to market policies as more digestible pieces. So, rather than tout the healthcare package as a whole, advisors will talk about smaller parts that may be more appealing and understandable — such as barring insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions. But at this stage, it may be late in the game to downsize either the president or his agenda. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said: "The man came in promising change. He has a higher profile than some presidents because of his youth , his race and the way he came to the White House with the message he

brought in. It's naive to believe he can step back and have some Cabinet secretary be the face of the oil spill. The buck stops with his office ."

Obama isn’t Teflon – his PC can evaporate quicklyUSA Today, 1-15-2009, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-15-obamapoll_N.htmOn a string of presidential responsibilities, 70% or more say they believe Obama will be able to handle them: to manage the

executive branch, prevent major scandals in his administration, handle an international crisis, use military force wisely, defend U.S. interests abroad. The history of expectations is a cautionary one, though. Presidents often come into office with a reservoir of goodwill only to see it sapped when the inevitable controversies and tough calls of governing develop. Predictions about the new president's capabilities on that list of duties

were just about as rosy eight years ago when George W. Bush won the White House on a promise to restore respect for the

presidency and civility in politics. Now, only one-third of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing.


Link – Generic Space Links

Pushing space policy costs capitalAnthony Young, author on Space, 9-29-2008, “Review: Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1218/1The authors in this book put forth the views that US presidents do not have that power and certainly cannot mandate the Congress to fully fund ambitious manned and unmanned exploration programs. The reality is that formulating

and funding space programs is a much more complex process than it would appear to the man on the street. This myth, the authors contend, probably stems from the iconic speech President Kennedy made before Congress—as part of “Urgent National Needs”—and the seemingly unobstructed carte blanche funding the Congress agreed to provide for Kennedy’s announced space exploration programs. What viewers and voters did not see were the behind-closed-doors Congressional meetings and intelligence briefings that took place weeks before Kennedy’s speech. The Soviet Union’s payload launch capability and obvious technical and scientific prowess and the portent they held for US national security and geopolitical power—not to mention national prestige—were the real drivers behind Congressional willingness to fund an ambitious and expensive manned space program in general and Project Apollo in particular. President Kennedy would not have made such a public request for that national commitment if the money had not already been approved. As Launius and McCurdy state in their book: Most space supporters did not understand how truly exceptional the Apollo mandate was. After the glamor of Kennedy’s moment dimmed, space policy came to rest alongside all the other priorities of government for which presidential leadership played a diminishing role. This eventually disappointed those who believed in the power of presidents to make space exploration special. The Apollo decision was, therefore, an anomaly in the history of the U.S. space program.

Obama can’t just fiat space exploration – requires wrangling with CongressAnthony Young, author on Space, 9-29-2008, “Review: Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1218/1Perhaps it is because the Kennedy era and Project Apollo achieved such astounding goals for the United States that this is still seen as the model for other presidents to follow. Indeed, almost every subsequent US president has made some formal announcement for the need for a new era of American space exploration. Various advisory councils are established by presidential decree to survey the current status of America’s space program and make recommendations to the president on the direction the country to take in the years ahead. Glossy, impressive, and inspiring documents are produced to give the president, Congress, and the public recommendations and reasons why American should undertake a bold new initiative. The contributors to this book state while these efforts are laudable, they rarely have the desired effect of moving Congress, which holds the purse strings, to fund those goals. Fifteen years have gone by since that symposium was held, but US space policy and goals remained essentially unchanged until the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia and the death of its crew on reentry in 2003. That was primarily true because the International Space Station and the space shuttle orbiter were inexorably linked. The ISS could not be completed without the shuttle orbiter, so the shuttle program continued longer than any manned spacecraft program in US history. The shuttle fleet was nearly a quarter of a century old when Columbia disintegrated during its return to Earth. No American astronauts died during missions in their Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo capsules; fourteen astronauts have died aboard two space shuttle orbiters: seven aboard Challenger during launch and seven aboard Columbia during reentry. The calls for retiring the shuttle fleet were unstoppable. That is what drove the need for a new manned spacecraft, launch vehicle and creation of Project Constellation. Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership will not only clarify in the reader’s mind the

machinations behind US space policy and congressional funding of NASA and its programs, it might also realistically lower expectations of what the next US president will promote and achieve.

Space costs capital – sparks battlesTaylor Dinerman, 4-18-2011, “NASA’s continuing problems,” Space Review, p. npThat effort is complicated by the loss of the Glory spacecraft earlier this year on a Taurus XL launch vehicle made by Orbital Sciences Corporation. This firm is one of the two winners of the commercial space station resupply contracts that NASA hopes will lead to a manned taxi service into orbit. Unfortunately, Orbital Sciences plans to fulfill this contract using a rocket called the Taurus II. Spaceflight is, at the

moment, an inherently unsafe business and failures are to be expected, but if the commercial space industry on which NASA is

betting its future cannot do better than this, then the agency will be in even worse political shape than it is in already. Reps. Ralph Hall (R-TX) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), the chair and the ranking member, respectively, of the House Space, Science, and Technology Committee, have expressed their disappointment—to put it mildly—with the 2012 proposed NASA budget. The administration’s proposal, according to both of them, ignores the NASA authorization bill that President Obama signed last year. Congressman Hall has promised, “I will continue to push NASA to adhere to congressional direction and follow the priorities that are now the law of the land.” US civil space policy is now subject to a bitter and prolonged tug-of-war between Congress and the


administration. For future political scientists, the actions of Bolden and the White House’s science policy makers may turn out to be a textbook case in how not to reform a government program.


Link – Spending

NASA funding costs capitalEric R. Hedman, CTO @ Logic Design, 12-29-2005, “The Politics and Ethics of Spending Money,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/520/1I would like to see NASA get a significant extra boost in spending to get past the transition from flying the shuttle to the CEV. I doubt that anything of great significance will happen in this area. Given that realization, Michael Griffin and his staff have to make hard decisions as to what will be the most effective way to spend the amount allotted. The President and Congress have to use their judgment as to how money gets allocated to each agency with spending guidelines and missions. Like any compromise and negotiated deals, there will always be people unhappy with the outcome. Proponents and agencies need to always fight for more because if they don’t, they will get less because there is always an alternative use for the money they get.

Funding ensures political capital lossRodger Handberg, Poly Sci prof @ UCF, 1-17-2011, “Small ball or home runs,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1759/1The US space program remained focused, not on duplicating Apollo, but on achieving another difficult goal such as going to Mars, a logical extension truly of the Apollo effort. Twice, the presidents Bush provided the presidential rationale, if not support, for achieving great things. The Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) in 1989 and the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) in 2004 were announced with great fanfare but neither survived the realities of congressional and presidential budgeting. The VSE appeared on paper more realistic about funding, but its choices were draconian: the ISS and space shuttle were both to be sacrificed on the altar of the new program. The earlier SEI died quickly, so hard choices were not required, while the VSE in the form of the Constellation Program lingers on although its effective demise appears certain. The Obama Administration prefers another approach while the new Congress is likely more hostile to big ticket discretionary spending. If the Tea Party faction in the Republican House caucus means what it says, the future for Constellation or any other similar program is a dim one.

Congress doesn’t perceive space funding as necessaryRodger Handberg, Poly Sci prof @ UCF, 1-17-2011, “Small ball or home runs,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1759/1The reality is that the Apollo program, the SEI, and the VSE are examples in space terms of the home run approach. Such efforts confront the cruel but obvious reality that the human spaceflight program is considered by the public and most of Congress to be a “nice to have,” but not a necessity when compared to other programs or national priorities. Congressional support is narrow and constituency-driven (i.e. protect local jobs), which means most in Congress only support the space program in the abstract. Big ticket items or programs are not a priority for most, given other priorities. What happens is what can be loosely termed normal politics: a situation where human spaceflight remains a low priority on the national agenda. Funding for bold new initiatives is going to be hard to come by even when the economy recovers and deficits are under control. The home run approach has run its course at least for a time; now the small ball approach becomes your mantra.


Link – Lobbies

Other agencies will ensure funding is controversialRodger Handberg, Poly Sci prof @ UCF, 1-17-2011, “Small ball or home runs,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1759/1NASA Administrator Charles Bolden alluded to that reality recently: “Future NASA space programs must be affordable, sustainable and realistic to survive political and funding dangers that have killed previous initiatives.” This is harsh talk but it reflects the reality confronting all US discretionary programs in the federal budget. The new Republican House majority is determined to cut federal expenditures and appear to have little concern for where the cuts occur. The budget struggles this year and next will find all discretionary programs mobilizing their supporters. Competing agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) have constituencies who are savvy veterans of getting their way even when budgets are tight. The cure for some disease is always just another appropriation away from happening.

Constituencies for private space flight oppose the planLee Roop, NASA analyst, 6-19-2011, “NASA supporters find no white knight,” http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/06/nasa_supporters_find_no_white.htmlNASA supporters have strongly criticized President Barack Obama for killing the agency's manned space program after taking office in 2009, but no Republican challenger seems ready to ride to the rescue in 2012. To the contrary, space enthusiasts in Huntsville and other NASA cities were swapping emails last week about the cold shoulder shown the space program by the GOP presidential candidates in a debate in New Hampshire last Monday night. A collective newspaper headline might have read: "NASA, they're just not that into you." For example, reporter Richard Dunham of the Houston Chronicle opened his report by writing, "The Republican presidential field sent a clear message to NASA workers in Texas and Florida: They don't see a federal role in funding human space flight." The critical moment came when CNN moderator John King asked if any GOP candidate would raise a hand to show support for continued federal funding for NASA. On the stage were Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain. "Nobody," King commented as the field stood silently with hands down.

Budget battles ensure a linkMark Whittington, space journalist, 2-17-2011. “NASA's Budget Slashed to Hire Police,” Yahoo News, http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110217/pl_ac/7881514_nasas_budget_slashed_to_hire_police_1No more glaring result of the chaos that has descended upon space policy has occurred than the successful amendment offered by Rep. Antony Weiner, Democrat from New York, to transfer $298 million from NASA's budget to a community policing program. That NASA's budget is in for some economies is a given, considering the budget crisis. But the Weiner amendment is not a budget deficit measure. It simply practices a time honored Washington game of predatory budgeting by raiding the account of one government agency to pay for another.


Link – Asteroids

Asteroids policies cost capital – perceived as alarmistMatthew Dearing, MA Physics, 4-12-2011, “Protecting the planet requires heroes,” Dynamic Patterns Research, http://research.dynamicpatterns.com/2011/04/12/protecting-the-planet-requires-heroes-money-and-citizen-scientists/Many of us while growing up and listening to our bedtime stories learned to not freak out and run screaming through the streets if we thought that the “sky is falling.” As little chickens, we were taught at an early age that it was best to be brave, calm, and rational, else be considered a crazed lunatic. This childhood behavioral bias infiltrated adulthood in the relationship between professional astronomers, policy-makers and national budget-number crunchers. When a scientist expresses probabilistic concerns about the impending doom of our planet

from a cataclysmic change of a major impact event, say, in the next 100, 1,000, or 10,000 years, it requires just too much risk of political capital and tax-payer dollars to divert significant budget resources to something that might only be a concern for our uber-great grandchildren. The simultaneous efforts of two Hollywood studios in the late nineties of the last century tried to get something stirring in our cultural awareness with their mega-disaster flicks, Armageddon and Deep Impact. These features did bring us through the box office (which was certainly their primary goal!), but they did not push us en masse to the round table to prepare for the ultimate defensive plan for our planet. Combating Earth-bound asteroids, or “near-earth objects” (NEOs), is an unsolved problem, and one that citizen scientists largely ignore because it’s assumed that this issue must be only approached via the domain that has access to the massive amounts of taxpayer dollars and the international collaborations between those nations who can liberally spend all of that money. It’s this requirement of essentially unlimited funds that is the sticking point to making serious progress on defending against an event that may, or may not, happen in the upcoming budget cycle.

No politics support for the planMatthew Dearing, MA Physics, 4-12-2011, “Protecting the planet requires heroes,” Dynamic Patterns Research, http://research.dynamicpatterns.com/2011/04/12/protecting-the-planet-requires-heroes-money-and-citizen-scientists/There are many issues that NASA must juggle with here, including political, financial, and scientific. Who is willing to risk one’s political capital to champion the destruction of once-in-an-epoch giant fireballs in the sky, albeit one that

can destroy our civilization as we know it? How much of taxpayer dollars can be appropriated to a once-in-an-epoch event, albeit one that can destroy our civilization as we know it? And, with deflection technology really already at hand, how professionally interesting is it to track and monitor orbiting rocks, since a Nobel Prize doesn’t target too many rocks these days? The bottom line is that the political will and the money are not available from the United States federal government, so the financing of advancing technology–well in advance of

pending doom–is not really an option right now, and will likely continue to not be an option for some time. Methods of averting potentially impacting objects have already been proposed, and should be reasonable to implement without too much of a technological leap, if any, although the funding factor will always be an application killer. In fact, according the the task force’s minutes, NASA should stay out of the direct defensive activities, and leave that to those who know how to defend, like the Air Force. Of course, the United States is already over-criticized for being the police force of the world, so why should it now have to be the defender of the planet and of all civilization?

Congress opposes asteroid funding Traci Watson, 6-28-2010, “Landing on an asteroid: Not quite like in the movies,” USA Today, http://www.physorg.com/news196920110.html In February, Obama took steps toward killing Bush's moon program, which was beset by technical troubles and money woes. Two months later, in a speech at Cape Canaveral, Fla., Obama announced that the astronauts' next stop is an asteroid. So far,

the Obama administration has been quiet on the need for a major sum of money to accomplish his goal. And unlike

Kennedy, who used Russian spacecraft missions known as Sputnik to promote the moon mission, Obama doesn't have a geopolitical imperative to justify the scheme. Congress is resisting Obama's change of direction, which could delay investment in the program.

http://research.dynamicpatterns.com/2011/04/12/protecting-the-planet-requires-heroes-money-and-citizen-scientists/





Link – SPS

SPS requires political capitalLeonard David, Research Associate, 5-15-2008, “Space-Based Solar Power - Harvesting Energy from Space”, CleanTech, http://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleId=69Space Based Solar Power: Science and Technology Challenges Overall, pushing forward on SBSP "is a complex problem and one that lends itself to a wide variety of competing solutions," said John Mankins, President of Artemis Innovation Management Solutions, LLC, in Ashburn, Virginia. "There's a whole range of science and technology challenges to be pursued. New knowledge and new systems concepts are needed in order to enable space based solar power. But there does not appear, at least at present, that there are any fundamental physical barriers," Mankins explained. Peter Teets, Distinguished Chair of the Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies, said that SBSP must be economically viable with those economics probably not there today. "But if we can find a way with continued technology development ... and smart moves in terms of development cycles to bring clean energy from space to the Earth, it's a home run kind of situation," he told attendees of the meeting. "It's a noble effort," Teets told Space News. There remain uncertainties in SBSP, including closure on a business case for the idea, he added. "I think the Air Force has a legitimate stake in starting it. But the scale of this project is going to be enormous. This could create a new agency ... who knows? It's going to take the President and a lot of political will to go forward with this," Teets said.

Noone wants to support SPSDwayne A. Day, Program Officer @ NRC, 6-9-2008, “Knights in Shining Armor,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1147/1If all this is true, why is the space activist community so excited about the NSSO study? That is not hard to understand. They all know that the economic case for space solar power is abysmal. The best estimates are that SSP will cost at least three times the cost per kilowatt hour of even relatively expensive nuclear power. But the military wants to dramatically lower the cost of delivering fuel to distant locations, which could possibly change the cost-benefit ratio. The military savior also theoretically solves some other problems for SSP advocates. One is the need for deep pockets to foot the immense development costs. The other is an institutional avatar—one of the persistent policy challenges for SSP has been the fact that responsibility for it supposedly “falls through the cracks” because neither NASA nor the Department of Energy wants responsibility. If the military takes on the SSP challenge, the mission will finally have a home.

SPS costs capital – tied to unpopular military policiesDwayne A. Day, Program Officer @ NRC, 6-9-2008, “Knights in Shining Armor,” Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1147/1But there’s also another factor at work: naïveté. Space activists tend to have little understanding of military space, coupled with an idealistic impression of its management compared to NASA, whom many space activists have come to despise. For instance, they fail to realize that the military space program is currently in no better shape, and in many cases worse shape, than NASA. The majority of large military space acquisition programs have experienced major problems, in many cases cost growth in excess of 100%. Although NASA has a bad public record for cost overruns, the DoD’s less-public record is far worse, and military space has a bad reputation in Congress, which would never allow such a big, expensive new program to be started. Again, this is not to insult the fine work conducted by those who produced the NSSO space solar power study. They

accomplished an impressive amount of work without any actual resources. But it is nonsensical for members of the space activist community to claim that “the military supports space solar power” based solely on a study that had no money, produced by an organization that has no clout.




Link – Space Weaponization

Plan is a flip-flop – Obama is opposed to space weaponsJo-Anne Gilbert, Griffith Asia Institute, 8-9-2010, “A Spoon Full of Sugar,” http://sustainablesecurity.org/article/spoon-full-sugar-makes-medicine-go-down-analysis-obama-administration%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98new%E2%80%99-national-spaceOn 28 June 2010, US President Barack Obama released a new, and much anticipated National Space Policy (NSP) document. In contrast to the bellicose and unilateral tone of George W. Bush’s 2006 policy, the 2010 document is replete with references to ‘international cooperation’ and ‘responsibility.’ When taken with Obama’s campaign promise to pursue a “world-wide ban” on space weapons(1) and overtures to the Conference on Disarmament that the US is prepared to negotiate international arms control agreements regarding space, those opposed to the weaponisation of space might have some cause for optimism that the US has stepped back from setting a dangerous precedent.

Flip flops hurt the agendaTaegan Goddard, influential political writer, 3-19-2009, “Does Obama Practice a Different Kind of Politics?”, CQ Politics, http://innovation.cq.com/liveonline/51/landing# Dan from Philadelphia: How quickly is Obama burning through his political capital? Will he have anything left to actually keep some of his promises? With potential shifts from his campaign stances on the question of Gitmo, Iraq troop withdrawals and taxing employer healthcare benefits, it seems he is in for tough fights on all fronts. # Taegan Goddard: That's a great question. I think Obama spends some of his political capital every time he makes an exception to his principles -- such as hiring a lobbyist to a key position or overlooking an appointee not paying their taxes. Policy reversals such as the ones you note burn through even more of this precious capital.

Widespread opposition to space militarizationCenter for International and Security Studies, 1-23-2008, “Large Majorities of Americans and Russians Oppose All Space Weapons,” http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/10631/3/CISSM_Space_Jan08_art.pdfMost Americans and Russians agree that their governments should work together to prevent an arms race in space. Large majorities in both countries favor unilateral restraint and a treaty that would keep space free of weapons. A United States Air

Force Defense Support System satellite used for infrared detection (Photo: USAF) Americans and Russians also support treaties that would prohibit countries from attacking or interfering with each others' satellites and from testing or deploying weapons designed to attack satellites. These are among the key findings of a WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 1,247 Americans and 1,601 Russians developed in conjunction with the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM). Knowledge Networks in the United States and the Levada Center in Russia conducted the interviews. Russia (67%) say that as long as no other country puts weapons into space, their own governments should also refrain from doing so. Most Russians (72%) and Americans

(80%) also favor a new treaty banning all weapons in space. Support for such a ban was strong among Americans even when

they were presented counter arguments about the potential military advantages of deploying such systems. The US poll revealed strong bipartisan consensus on the issue. Majorities in both the Republican and Democratic parties believe the US government should refrain unilaterally from deploying space weapons. There is also bipartisan backing for a treaty to ban these weapons, though support is higher among Democrats. Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, noted that there was remarkable agreement within and between the two countries on the issue of space weapons. "What is striking is the robust consensus among Russians as well as Americans, and among Republicans as well as Democrats that space should not be an arena for the major powers to compete for military advantage," Kull said.


SKFTA Good – Laundry List

SKFTA key to the alliance, US hegemony in Asia, and Asian trade deals. Ser Myo-ja, Staff writer for Joong Ang Daily, 4-7-2007, “Trade deal shows maturing ROK-U.S. ties,” http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2874217After a half-century of relations largely based on the American security umbrella over the peninsula, experts in both

countries see the trade deal between the United States and South Korea as a new form of bilateral relations based on business rather than keeping the communists across the border at bay. It may even change the dynamics of Northeast

Asia, allowing the United States to further cement its position as a Pacific country and prompting Korea’s neighbors to move aggressively to forge similar pacts with each other and the United States. For the U.S., Korea has

been seen as a potential flashpoint for conflict but the free trade deal is a sign of more mature relations. Security and diplomacy have long been the key issues in the region. North Korea’s erratic behavior, missiles and nuclear arms have spread worry and prompted China to play a larger diplomatic role. Seeing such developments, Japan has moved to the right, making nationalistic noises and Washington, bogged down by its military failures in the Middle East, has been looking for a new role. Amid such changes, the administration of President Roh Moo-hyun accelerated its approach to China and engagement with North Korea, while concerns rose at home and abroad over weakening ties with the United States and Japan. That, however, has been reversed, at least as far

as the United States goes, experts here and in Washington say. “The South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement hides a U.S. message to the

region,” a senior official with the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, said, “that it will check China, stimulate Japan and at the same

time put the brakes on South Korea’s pro-China and pro-North policies.” Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, shares a similar view. In an e-mail interview with the JoongAng Daily, Klingner said, “The FTA would give U.S. business another important bridgehead into the Asian market, counterbalance South Korea’s growing trade ties with China, and potentially allow the United States to regain its position as Seoul’s preeminent trade partner.” Calling the combination of trade and military ties between the United States and South Korea a “comprehensive alliance,” Kim Sung-han, a professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said both countries will benefit. “I want to point out the timing and the

history,” Kim said. “In the past, either China or Japan played the strong power in the region. When they clashed in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, Korea was the battlefield. Right now, both are rising.” Kim said the free trade deal, in tandem with the existing military alliance with the United States, will help Korea survive the current era. “With the free trade agreement, the reason to bolster the military alliance will grow because there will be more investments and more trade to protect,” Kim said. U.S. experts agreed. “Although the agreement will not have any direct impact on the military alliance itself, it is a tangible indicator of the importance of economic trade to the overall bilateral relationship, transcending military ties,” Klingner said. “It reflects both the critical importance of the relationship as well as the diversity of values and interests that we share. Having a formal trade relationship may mitigate future military-related disagreements between the U.S. and South Korea since

they may be seen as minor irritants within the context of broader, stronger relations.” Marcus Noland, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., said the real importance of the agreement may be political or diplomatic, because the economic impact on the United States will be relatively small. He pointed out that the U.S. trade with South Korea accounts for only about 3 percent of American trade. “Relations between Washington and Seoul have been tense for several years, and by successfully concluding the agreement, the two governments have shown that they can cooperate for their

mutual benefit,” Noland said. While the agreement needs to be approved by both countries’ legislatures, experts were also optimistic about ratification. “KORUS will face stiff challenges in the U.S. Congress, but I remain hopeful,” Klinger said. “Key lawmakers in both parties have cautiously indicated active, even enthusiastic, support for free trade agreements.” Noland also expects passage, though there will be opposition. “The Congress has not rejected free trade agreements in the past, though the last one, CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, only passed the House of Representatives by a single vote,” he said. “The Congressional Republicans will largely support the President and vote in favor of the deal. On the Democratic side, a key player is Congressman Charles Rangel who heads the House Ways and Means Committee. Chairman Rangel is a Korean War veteran and a serious legislator and he has indicated that he will support the deal. The issue is how many Democratic votes he will bring with him,” Noland said. Experts in Seoul and Washington also say the agreement could change the dynamics in Northeast Asia. Kim said both China and Japan must have been alarmed by the upgraded ties between Korea and

the United States, seeing it as a counterbalance to their power. “It is a powerful statement of U.S. commitment to the region,” said Klingner. “Even prior to ratification, the Korus free trade agreement has triggered economic tremors of

apprehension in Beijing and Tokyo, who now worry about being left behind in Northeast Asian trade.

Both have reached out to Seoul to reinvigorate dormant FTA negotiations, while Tokyo has indicated its intent to initiate its own FTA with Washington.”


SKFTA Good – US Asian Heg Good

US involvement in the region is key to Asian stabilityRobert J. Lieber, Professor of Government and International Affairs @ Georgetown University. The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century. 2005. Pg.174-175.Taken together, these Asian involvements are not without risk, especially vis-a-vis North Korea, China-Taiwan, and the

uncertain future of a nuclear-armed Pakistan. Nonetheless, the American engagement provides both reassurance and

deterrence and thus eases the secu rity dilemmas of the key states there, including countries that are America’s allies but

remain suspicious of each other. Given the history of the region, an American withdrawal would be likely to trigger arms races and the accelerated proliferation of nuclear weapons. It is thus no exaggeration to describe the American presence as providing the “oxygen” crucial for the region’s stability and economic prosperity37

Nuke warMichael May, Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford, Washington Quarterly, Summer 1997.The unpalatable facts, to Europeans and North Americans, are that Asia has about half of the world's people, that it is growing faster than

other parts of the world, and that, by mid-century, it will probably have more than half the population of the developed world and more than half of its money. Energy consumption, economic influence, and military power will be distributed in proportion. That is

the rosy scenario. The dark scenario is that of a war that would , in all likelihood -- because nuclear weapons can be procured and deployed by any of these countries at a fraction of the cost of peaceful development --leave most of the civilized world devastated .

US trade deals prevents China hegChristopher A. Padilla, under secretary of commerce for states news service, July 7, 2008, INTERNATIONAL TRADE ASIAN ECONOMIES IN TRANSITION: WILL UNITED STATES BE LEFT BEHIND?, p. npThe next Administration should be creative and ambitious in launching new bilateral and regional trade agreements and working toward a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). It is not something that will happen overnight, but our strategy must be to work toward an FTAAP to achieve APEC's core agenda of trans-Pacific economic integration. It would have the benefit of bringing under one umbrella the plethora of sub-regional and bilateral free trade agreements which now exist in Asia, with harmonized rules and disciplines. It could serve as a useful catalyst for multilateral trade negotiations in the WTO, or could liberalize trade even further through WTO-plus commitments. And, perhaps most importantly, FTAAP would include the United States. The key question is whether America will remain committed to economic openness a" to open trade, open investment, and the more open movement of people and ideas across borders. If the United States turns away from openness, drifting toward trade protectionism and restrictive investment and immigration policies, then Asia is likely to proceed on its own with regional integration that leaves the United States behind. This would leave leadership on the Asian economic playing field largely to China, which is the fastest-growing and most dynamic Asian economy. A hesitant, timid, and inwardly-focused America could give rise to an economic "Pax Sinica," in which China has the opportunity to shape Asia' economic architecture as it would prefer, rather than as we might like. Others in Asia might have little choice but to accommodate themselves to this economic reality.


SKFTA Good – Trade

It’s now or never – the next month is key to leadershipMichael Green, Japan chair at CSIS, 8-22-2011, “[Viewpoint] Threading the needle in Washington,” JoongAng Daily, http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2940479The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (Korus FTA) is entering the most critical stage in the coming month. In

November, President Barack Obama heads to Bali, Indonesia for his first East Asia Summit (EAS) and then to Hawaii, where

he will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The White House needs the Korus FTA to pass in order to convince the rest of the Asia that Obama is serious about economic engagement with the region. The U.S. government has always negotiated the most substantive trade liberalization pacts - the “gold

standard” - but in the wake of the financial crisis, debt ceiling politics and over 100 trade agreements in Asia that do not include the United

States, it would be disastrous to American credibility if Obama went to Bali and Hawaii empty-handed on trade. Moreover, once the pressure of APEC and the EAS pass and the American political calendar focuses on the 2012 election, it will be exponentially more difficult to pass trade agreements in the Congress. After that, internationalists of all political stripes in Washington worry that we will be left behind on trade integration in the region if we do not act soon.

KORUS key to trade leadershipWilliam H. Cooper, Coordinator, Specialist in International Trade and Finance, 11-12-2010, “The Proposed U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA): Provisions and Implications,” Congressional Research Service.Failure of the KORUS FTA could be viewed as a serious blow to the U.S. “competitive liberalization” strategy. With FTAs throughout East Asia proliferating, a failure of the KORUS FTA to be implemented would also likely mean that the United States would be shut out of regional economic groupings in East Asia. In contrast, the implementation of the KORUS FTA could spark interest of other East Asian countries, such as Japan, to negotiate FTAs with the United States in order not to lose their share of the huge U.S. market to South Korea. Thus, if the proponents of the “competitive liberalization” argument are correct, the fate of the KORUS FTA could play an important role in accelerating or decelerating the move to open market regionalism in East Asia.

SKFTA is key to overall US trade policyWilliam H. Cooper, Coordinator, Specialist in International Trade and Finance, 11-12-2010, “The Proposed U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA): Provisions and Implications,” Congressional Research Service.Similarly, the fate of the KORUS FTA is likely to be seen as a bellwether for broader U.S. trade policy, which is now in a period of re-evaluation. In addition to the KORUS FTA, U.S. FTAs with Colombia and Panama are pending. The Doha Development Agenda round in the WTO is, for all intent and purposes, on life support, if not dead. This raises questions in the minds of U.S. policymakers and other experts, regarding the future role of the WTO and multilateral negotiations in shaping the international trading framework. The KORUS FTA will likely play a role in this reassessment. For better or worse, its rejection or indefinite delay might call into question the viability of FTAs as a serious U.S. tool to strengthen economic ties with major trading partners.


SKFTA Good – US-SK Relations

KORUS is vital to relationsScott A Snyder, et al, adjunct senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum at CSIS, April 2009, “Pursuing a Comprehensive Vision for the U.S.–South Korea Alliance.” CSIS, http://csis.org/files/media/csis/.../090409_snyder_pursuingcompvision_web.pdfAs one imagines concrete forms of cooperation that might usefully be added as components of the institutional

infrastructure of the alliance that would strengthen its capacity to respond to existing and emerging threats, the first task is to identify shared interests and specific tasks that require cooperation to effectively address global, regional, functional, and peninsular challenges in the twenty-first century. (Another major challenge consistent with the objective of developing a

comprehensive alliance is the fashioning of deeper bilateral economic integration, currently being addressed through the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement [KORUS FTA]. The economic aspectsof such cooperation and how they might strengthen

the alliance are important, but are beyond the scope of this report.22 The fate of the KORUS FTA has political implications that will influence prospects for the development of a comprehensive security alliance.) Many of these items have already been presented in various forms as general issue areas to be developed as focal points for alliance cooperation. But efforts to strengthen the capacity of the alliance to meet new and emerging threats will require new forms of cooperation in these areas. It is important to consider the institutional structures that will be required to support such an expanded vision for cooperation in practical terms. The next section attempts to sketch out some of concrete forms of cooperation that might be required to address new challenges in an alliance context.

KORUS is the biggest issue – it’s essential to success in all other areas. Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former director of the American Institute in Taiwan, member of the National Security Staff for Reagan and H.W. Bush, 11-12-2009, “U.S. Objectives in Asia,” http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=24167I think the stop in Korea this time really represents a punctuation point to what has been a paragraph of real improvements over the last year. The Obama administration has made its contributions to improving relations with South Korea and South Korea has made a lot of contributions as well. The big issue hanging over our relationship with Korea is the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, known as

KORUS. This agreement—the South Koreans agreed to it a little over two years ago. Their people are growing impatient not seeing the results of it. Unfortunately, it got caught up in the American Democratic primary process last year, and although the agreement is overwhelmingly advantageous to the U.S.—because of the different tariff tables that are involved, ours are very low, Korea already has the access they want, there’s are very high, we want to lower them through this agreement—we’ve gotten stuck on the question of the export of American automobiles to their market and a large number of Korean automobiles to our market. Negotiations are taking place. I think they’re not really negotiations to resolve the problem so much as negotiations to buy time until the mood in Congress improves toward free trade agreements and until Obama gets past his big domestic agenda on healthcare, climate change, and the like, and doesn’t want to lose any votes on side issues involving trade with Korea. This has been a frustration for the Korean government. Despite that, the Koreans have stepped up to help in Afghanistan. They have been continuing to implement very sensitive military adjustments where there are forces in Korea will move away from the DMZ with North Korea, farther south, they’ll be consolidated. The South is paying for the new facilities, they’re paying for the housing. We’re shipping our spouses and kids of serviceman over there for the first time, and they’re building housing for them. So in lots of little ways and big ways Korea has really been a very constructive partner. The Obama contribution to this has really been to bring South Korea into the consultation process leading up to talks with North Korea. There may or may not be talks with North Korea that go somewhere, but at least the South Koreans don’t feel like they did in the latter Bush years, that they’ve been left out or have been an afterthought. They are genuinely being consulted this time. Now Obama’s going there to reify that. I’m sure there’ll be an announcement in the next few days of a movement toward sending an envoy to North Korea to see whether the North Koreans are serious this time. We’ve had a couple of bad experiences negotiating with North Korea. We don’t want to use force to resolve the problem. We should use diplomacy, and we should explore diplomacy whenever it’s on the table, but we shouldn’t be fools about it. We should have tough standards. The government of Lee Myung-bak in South Korea and the Obama administration seem to see eye-to-eye on

setting a very high bar for success with negotiations, and even a high bar to start formal negotiations. We’ll see whether the North is ready to move forward. This is a good basis for U.S.-South Korean relations and as an outsider I certainly hope we can get on to the free trade agreement because 1) it’s

beneficial for our economy and 2) it will strengthen all those other elements of the alliance relationship I’ve just been discussing.

KORUS key to US-ROK relationsWilliam Cohen, former U.S. Senator and U.S. Secretary of Defense, current chairman of The Cohen Group, 6-27-2010, “U.S.-S. Korea relationship version 3.0.” http://www.koreaherald.com/opinion/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20100625000513Our strategic relationship may be grounded in security cooperation but today’s $82 billion in bilateral trade is the most dynamic aspect of our strategic relationship. South Korea is now the world’s 14th largest economy known worldwide for its cars,


electronics and shipbuilding. The Free Trade Agreement presents an opportunity for leaders in both Washington and Seoul to “upgrade” our strategic relationship and reap the benefits of a closer trade relationship.


SKFTA Good – Doha

KORUS jumpstarts DohaJames Bacchus, Chairman, Global Trade and Investment Practice Group, 12-30-2010, “Reviving U.S. Power Abroad From Within,” http://www.cfr.org/publication/23701/reviving_us_power_abroad_from_within.htmlhttp://www.cfr.org/publication/23701/reviving_us_power_abroad_from_within.htmlPresident Barack Obama seemed to discover international trade in 2010. This raises hopes in the United States and elsewhere that real progress may actually be made in lowering worldwide barriers to trade in 2011. As one more means of jumpstarting the sputtering American economy and creating more American jobs, the president announced this past year a goal of doubling exports in five years. New export incentives and aggressive export promotion will continue in 2011. But the president may be beginning to realize -- if he did not before -- that trade is not only about exports; it is about how exports and imports can combine in an international division of labor to create more overall prosperity for the entire world. Creating such prosperity requires much more than merely export incentives and export promotion; it requires increased market access everywhere. This is why, in the past, Democratic and Republican presidents alike have made securing more market access by lowering tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade the bipartisan cornerstone of U.S. trade policy. And this is why Obama will be driven to do the same in 2011. By far the best way of creating more market access worldwide for American goods and services -- and more American jobs through more trade -- is by lowering trade barriers worldwide among all WTO members. He got a head start toward

yearend when the United States and South Korea resolved their longstanding differences over auto trade. This could lead to congressional approval early in the new year of the long-delayed free trade agreement between the two countries. Approval of the trade agreement with South Korea could also pave the way toward approval of long-pending free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama. This in turn could open the political door, at long last, to renewed American leadership in breaking the deadlock in the decade-long Doha Development Round of global trade negotiations among the more than 150 member countries of the World Trade Organization. By far the best way of creating more market access worldwide for U.S. goods and services -- and more American jobs through more trade -- is by lowering trade barriers worldwide among all WTO members.

Doha prevents war and terrorThomas Atkins, 9-8-2007, “WTO head Lamy says trade deal within reach,” Reuters, http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=937dfbcf-b614-4d53-8880-6e641956fcbc&k=71583Lamy warned that a collapse in talks could initiate a period of legal bickering, trade disputes and indeed aggravate diplomatic tensions that have in the past led to armed conflict. "Since the 1930s, there is this inexorable chain of events that leads from the spreading of protectionism to war. The chain of social

unrest can fuel this process," he said. The Doha Round was launched only months after the 9/11 attacks on the United States in an effort to stimulate economic growth and confidence in multilateralism that suffered a severe blow as fears of

terrorism surged. "A failure in the Doha Round might lead to resentment, frustration, in particular from developing countries who have invested heavily in these negotiations and want to rebalance the (global trade) system in their favor," he said. "Terrorism is about increasing instability and global trade rules are about injecting stability," he said.

Terrorism causes extinctionMohamed Sid-Ahmed, internationally renowned reporter and columnist in Al Ahram, "Extinction!" Al-Ahram Weekly, September 1, 2004<http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm>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.


SKFTA Good – North Korea

KORUS key to deter North KoreaUSA Today, 12-26-2010, “Our view on commerce: Trade deal with South Korea deserves rapid ratification,” http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2010-12-27-editorial27_ST_N.htmAnother argument for the trade deal with South Korea is not economic but geopolitical. A vibrant and prosperous South Korea is a check against the ambitions of the bizarre and belligerent regime to its north. For many years, South Korea has shown a more accommodating view of totalitarian North Korea than the United States has. But the North's recent unprovoked shelling of South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island, and its sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, have prompted a re-evaluation. Tighter economic links between the U.S. and South Korea, to complement existing diplomatic and military ties, would create an even stronger united front against North Korea.

KORUS solves war on the Korean Peninsula.Lee Hee Beom, Staff writer for the Korea Herald, 12-23-2006, “FTA With U.S. Will Upgrade Korean Economy,” http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WVrm3hyvGCkJ:www.fas.usda.gov/gainfiles/200611/146249641.doc+%22Extensive+research+has+been+conducted+on+the%22+%22North+Korean+nuclear+issue+and+other+issues%22&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-aExtensive research has been conducted on the expected benefits of the KORUS FTA. Although exact analyses of the possible effects of the FTA on detailed items will be possible, we can't overemphasize the reason the KORUS FTA should be concluded and the significance the FTA has for the overall Korean economy. Above all, Korea's FTA with the United States, one of its top three trading partners, can be regarded as the heart of FTA promotion policies which Korea has been actively pursuing. For Korea, the United States has been traditionally its most important partner in terms of trade and investment. Recently, the shares of the two countries have been dwindling in bilateral trade and investment. In this sense, the KORUS FTA is expected to provide an opportunity for the two nations to put their bilateral trade and investment back on a recovery track by reversing the current situation. We must not give up an opportunity to secure stable access to the U.S. market, the world's biggest and most advanced market, which is vital to achieving a sustainable growth of trade considered as the backbone of the Korean economy. Korea is now working toward achieving the goal of $1 trillion in trade and a per capita income of $20,000. Up until now, Korea depended mainly on quantitative inputs for its economic growth. From now on, however, it is necessary for Korea to shift the quantitative growth to a qualitative growth. To that end, it is required to strengthen the efficiency in each sector of the Korean economy. Thus, FTAs with advanced countries like the United States are expected to upgrade the Korean economy to a higher level in quality by improving domestic systems and attracting more investment into Korea. What's more, if the KORUS FTA is concluded, Korea will be placed in a more advantageous position in the negotiation tables with Japan, the European Union, and China with which Korea has been currently discussing

FTAs. Furthermore, there will be noneconomic benefits. Through the KORUS FTA, Korea and the United States will be able to elevate their

security alliance to a more comprehensive relationship to include bilateral economies. In the meantime, the KORUS FTA will serve as an effective instrument to bring stability to the East Asian region and the Korean Peninsula, which are now in unstable situations due to the North Korean nuclear issue and other issues.

KORUS key to Asian stabilityChristopher Hill, Assistant Secretary for Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 6-13-2007, “The United States-South Korea FTA: The Foreign Policy Implications.” http://seoul.usembassy.gov/413_061407.htmlWhile the agreement achieves many of our economic goals, it is important to note that the impact of this FTA will go far beyond bilateral commercial benefits. The KORUS FTA is a powerful symbol of the U.S.-South Korea partnership, augmenting our longstanding

bilateral security alliance and the robust ties between the South Korean and American people. It will create a new dynamic,

reflecting both the growing sophistication of our relationship, and the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) increasingly positive global role. It will strengthen our relations with one of our most important and reliable allies, serving as a pillar for the alliance

in the 21st century as the mutual defense treaty did during the last half century. And it will decisively anchor the U.S. presence in the most dynamic and rapidly-growing economic region on the globe. Benefits of KORUS FTA I’ll let my colleague Karan Bhatia, who oversaw the negotiation of this historic agreement, including through several sleepless nights in Seoul leading up to our April 1 conclusion of the deal, explain the benefits of the KORUS FTA for U.S. commercial interests and our global trade liberalization strategy – which are significant. His familiarity with the details of the agreement far exceeds my own. Instead, I will focus my remarks on the agreement’s foreign policy implications. First, the KORUS FTA will strengthen the U.S.-South Korea partnership. It will help ensure that the U.S. partnership with South Korea, long centered on defense ties, remains a vital force for stability at a time of change and challenge on


the Korean peninsula and in the broader Northeast Asian region. It will be concrete proof to South Korea that we are committed to broadening and modernizing our alliance.


SKFTA Good – Economy

KORUS prevents inevitable double dip and is key to the global economy. Kyung-min Jung, New York correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo, 7-12-2010, “FTA is a shield against a double dip.” JoongAng Daily. http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2923009FTA is a shield against a double dip The U.S. and Korea need to sign a trade pact before a second crisis hits. That can only happen if Korea relents on auto trade. Lately, something unusual is happening with the U.S. economy. The atmosphere has completely changed from the beginning of the year when financial authorities were debating when to announce an interest rate increase. Since the tax credit of up to $8,000 offered to first-time home buyers ended in April, housing transactions have nearly disappeared. The mortgage loan interest rate has plummeted to a historic low. The economic upturn that seemed to have started earlier this year was just the result of the government’s economic stimulus measures. Outside the United States, circumstances are just as gloomy. The $1 trillion relief package seemed to have ended the financial crisis that hit Europe, but there is no sign of resolution or recovery now. Germany, which is responsible for providing the funds, is reluctant to take on the burden for failed economies. Understandably, Germany is not pleased with the Southern European nations that squandered money and are still not aggressively making efforts to revive the economy. And the United States does not have any magic tricks to make things better. Arizona has enacted a controversial law allowing the state government to crack down on illegal immigration, which is under the jurisdiction of the federal government. In short, Arizona is not willing to give jobs to illegal immigrants. Humanity paid a high price for the Great Depression of the 1930s. If you try to survive by bringing down others, you will all go down together. Countries around the world experienced the worst of the depression as they closed their markets. Korea weathered the financial crisis of 1998 because it boldly broke down all boundaries. By tearing down the wall surrounding the market, Korean companies found ways to move outward. The United States finds itself in a similar situation. The U.S. government poured in $787 billion to boost domestic consumption, but the market has not warmed up. The Buy American Act, a clause passed in 1933 that requires the suppliers to the U.S. government to use U.S.-made products, was revived. Its purpose was to protect jobs in the U.S., but it is repellent to Europe, Canada and China. For the United

States to get out of this quagmire, it should not try to survive at the expense of other economies. The answer is free trade, which will benefit all parties. Fortunately, President Barack Obama has proposed early ratification of

the free trade agreement between Korea and the United States. The Korea-U.S. free trade agreement is not enough to significantly change

the U.S. economy, but its impact on both countries and the global economy will be unimaginable. The FTA will be a shield for Korea against the second economic crisis. The European and U.S. markets are struggling, and the aftereffects are sure to come to Korea very soon. If Korean products are freely sold in the U.S., Korea might be able to win an advantage over China, Japan and Taiwan.

Immediate boost to the economy- tradePeter M Robinson, president and CEO of the United States Council for International Business, 8-10-2010, “Obama needs to go further on trade.” http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/113601-obama-needs-to-go-further-on-tradePresident Obama recently introduced the new members of his national export council, headed by the CEOs of Boeing and Xerox, and charged them with helping achieve his ambitious objective of doubling U.S. exports within five years. He rightly observed that, with 95 percent of the world’s consumers outside our borders, we can’t have a decent or lasting economic recovery without trade. Doubling exports is a laudable goal, and the private sector is committed to working closely with the administration to achieve it. But one has to ask: Where will all these new exports come from? Part of the growth will occur naturally, as trade recovers from a severe contraction following the 2008 financial shocks. U.S. exports declined 15 percent in 2009, but global recovery has helped us to recoup that fall-off during the first half of 2010. As economic activity returns to more normal levels throughout the world, trade and investment should continue to rise. But it’s not enough to just get back to where we started. To create lasting prosperity, we need to work harder, much harder, to open markets overseas, while resisting the temptation to retreat into economic isolationism at home.

The president has called for the swift completion of pending free trade agreements with Korea, Panama and Colombia.

This is an important and courageous step, given the strong opposition to these agreements from trade critics. Completing the

trade pacts will provide an immediate, pain-free stimulus to our economy. If the past is any guide, once the U.S. implements them, exports should rise significantly, and our trade balance with each country will improve. (In the case of Colombia and Panama, many of their products already enter the U.S. duty-free. Why wouldn’t we want similar treatment?)


SKFTA DA Answers


SKFTA Won’t Pass

SKFTA won’t pass – TAA Arirang, 8-13-2011, “Trade Assistance Program Could Delay Korea-US FTA Once Again”, http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=119215&code=Ne2&category=2The pending free trade agreement between Korea and the United States may face another setback.Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress had agreed to consider the deal next month along with a separate bill to extend a program called Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA, to help workers hurt by foreign trade. However, according to the publication Inside US Trade, Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio now says he wants the FTA to be passed BEFORE Congress considers the TAA. Analysts say Senator Portman's public opposition to the TAA could cause party leaders to be split again over the timing issue. The Korea-US FTA has been awaiting ratification for more than four years.

Bipartisan oppositionVicki Needham, editor for The Hill, 8-7-2011, “Labor ramps up effort to stop trade deals”, http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1005-trade/175799-labor-ramps-up-effort-to-stop-trade-dealsSome opposition to the South Korea deal will come from lawmakers close to the U.S. textile industry, including

Reps. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) and Larry Kissell (D-N.C.), co-chairmen of the House Textile Caucus. “The administration had a chance to fix the textile errors but it refused,” they wrote in a March letter. “We now need to stand up for our textile producers and workers and insist on a better deal. We strongly urge you to vote no on the Korea Free Trade Agreement.”

Unions oppose SKFTAVicki Needham, editor for The Hill, 8-7-2011, “Labor ramps up effort to stop trade deals”, http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1005-trade/175799-labor-ramps-up-effort-to-stop-trade-dealsOrganized labor and other opponents of three pending free-trade deals are ramping up grass-roots campaigns intended to pressure lawmakers to oppose the agreements. While the accords with South Korea, Colombia and Panama have broad support from the White House and Republican leaders, opponents are using the August recess to try to build up opposition. They argue the deals will harm an economy still struggling to create jobs amid a fragile economic recovery. “We'll be talking to every legislator out there about the trade deals,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Friday. The AFL-CIO will hold more than 450 events across the country this month where the deals will be discussed, and it has started a petition “urging politicians to bring the same urgency to the jobs crisis that they brought to the politically manufactured crisis over the deficit,” Trumka said. The fight over the agreements is splitting President Obama from unions and other liberal groups at a time when there is already tension between the White House and the left over the debt-ceiling deal . Supporters of the trade deals in the administration, Congress and the business community argue they will create jobs and help the economy recover. More news from The Hill: ♦ S&P exec: Could take decade to restore credit rating ♦ Ex-Clinton aides: Obama lacked clear message in debt talks ♦ FCC announces net-neutrality competition winners ♦ After debt debate, healthcare is the topic for GOP lawmakers ♦ GOP rep. to Obama: Create jobs by ‘putting brakes’ on EPA House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back Wednesday against all of the trade deals, telling MSNBC it is “debatable” whether the agreements will create jobs. Trumka, citing figures from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, argued the largest of the three trade pacts, with South Korea, will cost the U.S. 159,000 jobs. The deal with Colombia will cost 54,000 jobs, he said. Trumka and other labor leaders are particularly fired up over the deal with Colombia, where the union leader said three trade unionists were killed last week. The Obama administration negotiated a labor plan intended to improve Colombia’s protections for unions, but Trumka said “it's obvious to us that labor plan isn't sufficient." House Democrats want the action plan included in the Colombian agreement as an assurance that U.S. trade officials will take action if Colombia’s worker situation doesn't improve. Lori Wallach, executive director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch group, said the deal the administration has reached with the Senate to move a workers assistance program in conjunction with the trade deals is far from sufficient. “The agreement doesn't change the job-killing trade agreements," Wallach told The Hill. She also cast doubt on whether the deal announced this week will allow the workers assistance program known as Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) to move through Congress, suggesting it was more a matter of convincing South Korea’s government to hold a special legislative session this month to give its approval of the deal. Congressional leaders haven't announced how they would push the trade agreements through both chambers although it appears certain that TAA will move separately and either just ahead of or in tandem with the three trade agreements. The White House doesn’t want to send the trade agreements to Congress until it is sure TAA will get a vote.

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1005-trade/175799-labor-ramps-up-effort-to-stop-trade-deals

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1005-trade/175799-labor-ramps-up-effort-to-stop-trade-deals

http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=119215&code=Ne2&category=2


SKFTA Won’t Pass

No risk of SKFTA absent Colombia, which will NEVER happenMichael Green, Japan chair at CSIS, 8-22-2011, “[Viewpoint] Threading the needle in Washington,” JoongAng Daily, http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2940479However, there is still one other serious stumbling block between the House Republicans and the White House. The White House - bowing to the demands of Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, representative of California - is demanding that Congress pass only the Korus FTA and not two other pending trade agreements with Columbia and Panama. Columbia is controversial with the left wing of the Democratic Party because of previous allegations that the Colombian government allowed violent campaigns against labor organizers in that country. An independent task force of the Center for Strategic and International Studies determined that the Colombian government had gone a long way toward cleaning up and accounting for these abuses and this should have cleared the way for the FTA to pass, but among Democrats in the House there is still strong opposition . The

Obama White House, which cares primarily about job creation and credibility in Asia, has thus far sided with the Democrats in

the House by holding up the Columbia and Panama FTAs in order to get support in their party for the economically more significant

Korus FTA. Republicans, on the other hand, are equally adamant that Columbia and Panama must be passed jointly with the Korus FTA because they know the White House will not submit them otherwise. For Republicans, the economic impact of the Columbia and Panama FTAs may be small, but these agreements remain strategically important as a symbol of U.S. support for key allies struggling against drug cartels and the destructive foreign policies of

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. In short, the Korus FTA is now bound in a national security and ideological battle between the

right and the left regarding Latin America. This may seem a bit bizarre and unfair to Korean readers, but such is the nature of the

legislative process in a democracy. Shortly after the 2010 election, Boehner told Obama that Congress will not pass the

Korus FTA unless there is one package that also includes the Columbia and Panama agreements. The White House has tried to put pressure on the Republican leadership through the business community, which clearly has greater interest in the huge Korus FTA.

KORUS will be delayed—GOP opposition and TAA disagreement Josh Rogin, 8-4-2011, “This Fight Ain’t Over”, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/04/this_fight_aint_over?page=full//DNThis one should have been simple. Free trade was supposed to be the one international issue that both the Obama administration and congressional Republicans could agree on. But now, over two-and-a-half years into the administration, Congress has yet to pass a free trade deal because Democrats and Republicans can't agree on how to compensate domestic workers who might lose out. Thursday, Senate leaders announced they had finally agreed to a procedure to bring the three most urgent free trade bills -- with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama -- to a vote. Until now progress has been nonexistent because Democrats and the administration want to link free trade agreements with renewal of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which provides aid and training to workers who have lost their jobs due to outsourcing. Republicans, many of whom are opposed to the TAA, want to delink the two issues. Under an agreement announced by Senate leaders Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

Thursday, the Senate will first bring up the TAA, and then the trade deals, in September. Whether the Senate will be able to agree on a compromise on the TAA is unknown. On top of that, in the House there is GOP opposition to the TAA and Democratic opposition to the trade deals themselves, further complicating the picture. If the deals ever come to a final vote, they are expected to pass. But despite some movement, Congress is still a long way from actually completing any new agreements on free trade.

GOP oppositionCommon Dreams, 7-15-2011, “Kucinich, Michaud Organize opposition to Korea Free Trade Agreement”, http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/08/15-4WASHINGTON - August 15 - Representatives Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Michael Michaud (D-ME), members of the House Trade Working Group, have begun organizing in the House of Representatives to garner opposition to the proposed Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) expected to be considered by Congress in September.

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/08/15-4

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/04/this_fight_aint_over?page=full//DN


SKFTA Won’t Pass South Korea

Won’t pass South Korean oppositionKorea Herald, 8-15-2011, “Rallies mark Liberation Day”, http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110815000248Various political and civic groups held rallies across Seoul on Monday, as the country marked the 66th anniversary of independence from Japan. The groups, many of which were separated along ideological lines, sought to take advantage of the historical day as an opportunity to voice their views on a range of pending issues, including the free trade agreement with the U.S., college tuition cuts and Japan’s territorial claim over Dokdo. One of the biggest rallies was organized by about 80 liberal civic and labor groups and five political parties at Cheonggye Plaza at 11 a.m. to celebrate Liberation Day and to voice their hopes for peace and unification of the two Koreas. The event also called on the government to change its hardline stance toward North Korea and showed opposition to the U.S. FTA. In the afternoon, a demonstration calling for the halving of college tuition was organized at Seoul Plaza by civic groups including Korean University Students’ Association and political parties. “People should be freed from the financial burden of tuition costs and overall expenses in education,” one of the civic groups said. They also declared that they would take measures against the government to realize the half-tuition policy and expand educational opportunities.

Won’t pass South KoreaDonga, 8-4-2011, “Lingering opposition to FTA with U.S.”, http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2011080476968)Korea has more to gain from the agreement with the U.S. reached in December last year as well. The main opposition Democratic Party is claiming that the country will suffer losses, however, saying, “The Lee Myung-bak administration’s renegotiation has broken the balance of interest.” By contrast, the Korean automotive industry said it "eagerly awaits ratification of the pact.” Despite this, certain groups, including the Democratic Party, particularly oppose the free trade agreement with the U.S. Those seeking to follow in the footsteps of former President Roh Moo-hyun also oppose it though it was considered Roh’s achievement. They apparently do so to differentiate themselves from the ruling Grand National Party and torment the Lee government.

Korea’s parliament will block the dealGreg Knowler, Publisher of the Maritime Professional, 12-7-2010, “ FTA between Korea and US will have to box its way through parliament,” http://www.maritimeprofessional.com/Blogs/Far-East-Maritime/December-2010/FTA-between-Korea-and-US-will-have-to-box-its-way-.aspxHowever, it is not yet a done deal. Ratification of the bill still needs to be made by the Korean parliament and getting it through will probably require the use of a rubber truncheon rather than a rubber stamp. Despite the positive trade figures being tossed out like confetti at a wedding by the government, the trade pact has managed to stir up tensions. The Koreans have long been masters at whipping up public fury and creating legendary street protests, and this trade deal has all the hallmarks of an ugly political stand off. Few things infuriate Koreans more than trade issues. Who can forget the Korean farmer climbing up a fence at the Cancun WTO meeting and cutting his throat. Now that is dedication. Self defeating, certainly, but dedication nonetheless. This robust opposition can be found in parliament itself when stopping the passing of a bill is often done physically with brawling legislators bringing down the house.

http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2011080476968

http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2011080476968

http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110815000248


SKFTA Not Key To Alliance

SKFTA isn’t key to the US-SK allianceDong Sun Lee, research fellow at the East-West Center, and Sung Eun Kim, Associate professor of statistics at CSU Long Beach, 1-2010, “Ties that Bind?” East Asia Institute, http://www.eai.or.kr/data/bbs/eng_report/201002251819214.pdfTo take a notable example, it is a common expectation that the KORUS FTA (Korea-Unites States Free Trade Agreement)

would revitalize their security alliance, which has been in decline throughout the turbulent post-Cold War period.4 Many experts and ordinary citizens, regardless of their political affiliation and attitude toward the alliance, believe that closer commercial ties produced by an FTA would broaden and deepen common interests and thereby enhance security cooperation between the signatories. Consequently, the impact of the agreement would turnaround the alliance’s steady decline. This expectation dominates the public discourse and partly motivates governments in Washington and Seoul to push for ratification of the KORUS FTA.5 For instance, the United States Department of State declares: “by boosting economic ties and broadening and modernizing our longstanding alliance, [the FTA] promises to become the pillar of our alliance for the next 50 years as the Mutual Defense Treaty has been for the last 50 years.”6 A South Korean government think tank similarly reports: “besides its economic benefits, the ROK-U.S. FTA will also be significant on the diplomatic and security fronts, namely in terms of strengthening the ROK-U.S. military alliance.”7 Despite its wide acceptance, however, few scholars have systematically evaluated this conventional view that commerce and alliance cohesion are positively associated in East Asia. Few studies offer a thorough logical analysis, and even fewer draw upon credible evidence from a comprehensive examination of regional alliances. Such a dearth of rigorous evaluation, which contrasts sharply with frequent applications of the proposition, is highly problematic. This unproven assumption, if false, could lead scholars down unproductive paths of inquiry, thereby hindering scholarly progress. The policy impact of this assumption might

include costly miscalculations and blunders. For example, overstressing the impact of trade on the alliance may lead to an overestimation of the KORUS FTA’s value in general, while exposing the agreement unnecessarily to attack from anti-alliance groups. Conversely, the security alliance could draw fire from opponents of free trade, if strengthening the alliance is used as a major rationale for the KORUS FTA. In the worst case scenario, a powerful political coalition could emerge in both countries aiming to destroy the alliance and the FTA, thereby critically damaging the bilateral relationship. In any case, misunderstanding the security implications of the FTA could lead to unwise security policies by generating overconfidence in the strength of the alliance.

South Korean FTA doesn’t help the allianceDong Sun Lee, research fellow at the East-West Center, and Sung Eun Kim, Associate professor of statistics at CSU Long Beach, 1-2010, “Ties that Bind?” East Asia Institute, http://www.eai.or.kr/data/bbs/eng_report/201002251819214.pdfIn an attempt to fill this void in the extant scholarship, this article investigates how economic interdependence affects U.S. alliances in East Asia, combining relevant insights from historical experiences as well as international relations theory. For a theoretical analysis, we combine relevant propositions drawn from previous studies on the relationship between international commerce and alliance to formulate a novel argument.8 For empirical analysis, we examine the impact of bilateral trade on the U.S. alliances with South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan over the past quarter-century.

Contrary to the conventional view, our analysis finds that economic ties do not markedly reinforce the security alliances of East Asia, because they have an asymmetrical structure . This does not

mean that trade has little impact or any negative effect on alliances in general. Rather, the point is that its security effect is not as uniform as is commonly presumed: economic interdependence does not strengthen asymmetrical alliances— formed between a great power and a non-great power—to a marked extent. This article is organized into three parts. The first reviews what realist international theory has to say about the impact of trade on alliance cohesion, and presents a new argument that economic interdependence does not increase the cohesion of asymmetric alliances. In the second section, we scrutinize how trade patterns have been associated with the strength of U.S. alliances with the four East Asian nations. The final section highlights key findings and offers implications.


US-SK Alliance Resilient

US-South Korean ties are resilientKris Snibbe, Harvard News Office, 9-14-2009, “Firm allies, past and present,” http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/firm-allies-past-and-present/In 1975, Kathleen Stephens was fresh out of Prescott College in Arizona when she arrived in Yesan, South Korea, as a Peace Corps volunteer. The country was still very poor and isolated. Most people in her village had never seen a Westerner, and it was hard to get a passport. But even decades after a truce was declared in the Korean War (1950-1953), Stephens felt a sense of “shared sacrifice” between South Korea and the United States during her Peace Corps tour — “a relationship forged in blood,” she told a recent Harvard audience. Today, South Korea is stable, prosperous, and cosmopolitan and enjoys the 13th largest economy in the world. And today South Korea also has Stephens, who last year was named U.S. ambassador to the country in which she spent two years of her youth. She visited the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum last week (Sept. 11) and, in a rare double ambassadorial appearance, took the stage with her South Korean counterpart, Han Duck-soo. Earlier this year, Han — a former prime minister of South Korea and one of the architects of its economic boom — assumed the duties of ambassador to the United States. In a conversation in front of a capacity crowd at the forum, the

two diplomats reflected on the historical strength of the alliance and what issues might put it at risk. Both agreed it would take a lot to shake a political relationship that dates back to the 19th century, and one that was forged in steel by the Korean War. It is an alliance “less brittle and far more resilient than it ever has been,” said Stephens. Han, who in 1984 earned a Harvard Ph.D. in economics, called the U.S.-South Korea alliance the foundation of his nation’s “economic growth, prosperity, and security.” It remains so firm and mutual today, he added, that it could be an international model of cooperation — “the exemplar alliance relationship of the future.”

One-shot events, like SKFTA failure, cannot seriously undermine the allianceKris Snibbe, Harvard News Office, 9-14-2009, “Firm allies, past and present,” http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/firm-allies-past-and-present/Skeptical and probing, Allison prompted the two diplomats to imagine a near future in which the traditional alliance enjoyed by the United States and South Korea goes sour. In sum, he asked, what could go wrong and what issues need attending to? Neither of the ambassadors budged much. In fact, said Han, “there is a very, very fundamental notion that U.S.-Korea relations cannot be swayed by one or two events.” It is and has been an alliance, he said, that has never been “underestimated or disregarded. It was always central.”

North Korean aggression means no risk of alliance break downViola Ginger and Bomi Lim, 1-14-2011, “Gates Calls for Close Ties to Deter Next North Korean Attack” Bloomberg, “http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-14/gates-calls-for-close-ties-to-deter-next-north-korean-attack.html”Both ministers said the countries will continue to work together on North Korean issues. While any talks with North Korea must first begin with discussions with South Korea, rather than other countries, such an inter-Korean meeting can only take placed if the communist nation takes responsibility for last year’s attacks, Kim said. South Korea and Japan are both part of the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, which last met in December 2009. China, Russia and the U.S. also take part in the forum. Kim’s comments came after North Korea yesterday urged South Korea to agree to hold talks on economic projects. South Korea has said any talks must include last year’s attacks and nuclear program, rejecting North Korea’s overture as “insincere.” ‘Open-Heartedly’ “There is nothing the north and the south sides cannot settle it they sit face to face open-heartedly,” North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said, citing an unidentified spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea. “The door for dialogue is

open.” There is no change in South Korea’s position, Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong Joo said today by telephone in Seoul. The U.S. and South Korea affirmed the solidarity of their alliance and discussed ways to cooperate militarily to prevent another North Korean attack, according to a statement from the South Korean Defense Ministry after Kim’s meeting with Gates. North Korea’s development of an intercontinental ballistic missile and its pursuit of nuclear weapons and transfers of such technology also threaten the Pacific Rim and international stability, Gates said in a speech at Keio University in Tokyo yesterday. ‘More Lethal’ “North Korea’s ability to launch another conventional ground invasion is much degraded from even a decade ago, but in other respects it has grown even more lethal and more destabilizing,” Gates said. The U.S. has resisted China’s call for restarting six- nation talks with North Korea over its nuclear program, saying the regime of leader Kim Jong Il must first take “concrete action” to demonstrate it’s serious about refraining from attacks and shutting down weapons development. Such actions might include a moratorium on missile and nuclear weapons work, Gates said. “When and if North Korea’s behavior gives us any reasons to believe that negotiations can be conducted productively and in good faith, we will work with Japan, South Korea, Russia, and China to resume” six-nation talks, Gates said during his speech in Tokyo. “The first step in the process should be North-South engagement.”


AT: SKFTA Good – North Korea

No Korean conflict – neither side has an interest Andrew O’Neil, Senior Lecturer in the School of Political and International Studies, Flinders University, 2007, “Nuclear Proliferation in Northeast Asia” Yet despite the nussive military buildup on the northern and southern sides of the narrow L)MZ, there is strong evidence that both sides remain deterred from initiating armed conflict or risking armed conflict by pushing the other side too far. The near certainty of defeat means that Pyongyang probably recognizes that war would be tantamount to inviting South Korea and the United States to institute regime change in the North. For the ROK and its American ally, the massive costs of any conventional conflict would dramatically eclipse any

conceivable Strategic benefits that could be gained as a result of initiating war with North Korea. As I argue in Chapter 3, there are also strong grounds to conclude that Seoul and Washington are deterred by the prospect of North Korea possibly

using nuclear weapons against targets in the South and Japan. However, Northeast Asian states recognize that deterrence may not, in itself, be sufficient to prevent a deterioration of the strategic situation on the peninsula and have sought to

engage Pyongyang in dialogue to encourage greater transparency with respect to its nuclear program and in its dealings with other regional actors more generally. The so-called Six-Party Talks, although aimed ostensibly at persuading the L)PRK to wind back its nuclear program, are also designed to keep the Pyongvang regime engaged in a dialogue io prevent its further isolation in Northeast Asia. The kLy motivating factor for Northeast Asian countries in their approach to all issues on the Korean peninsula is the desire to preserve the status quo. This essentially means doing all they can to forestall any developments that could threaten the survival of North Korea as a unitary state. China and South Korea provide substantial economic assistance to the DPRK, while Japan and Russia have provided significant amounts of humanitarian (mainly food) aid through the United Nations.6 Only when the Pyongyang regime has undertaken actions (such as the October 2006 nuclear test) that these countries feel compelled to respond to arc economic assistance and food aid supplies threatencd.M The one country often identified as having both the capacity and motive to remove the Pyongyang regime, the United States, has provided North Korea with over one billion dollars in aid since the mid1990s and has sought to reassure the North Korean leadership publicly that it has no interest in imposing regime change on

Pyongyang.69 The rationale for Northeast Asian states is clear enough: they appreciate that any collapse of the DPRK

either through implosion or the use of external force would have serious adverse consequences for their strategic interests, both in the immediate and long term. For South Korea, in the short term it would mean dealing with an

influx of possibly hundreds of thousands of refugees from the North and the diversion of prodigious economic resources to help

underwrite the transition to reunification on the peninsula. China would lose a key buffer state in the event of a DPRK collapse and, like Seoul, would face the prospect of large numbers of North Korean refugees streaming into its territory across a I ,400-kilometer front. In addition to the economic challenge

of assisting the transition to reunification, Beijing would need to confront the challenge of dealing with a unified Korea on its

doorstep. As the largest economy in the region, Japan would be expected to contribute generously to the process of reunification, but Tokyo would have major reservations about a united Korea given the underlying popular antipathy toward Japan on the peninsula that could potentially become an even more potent rallying point for Korean nationalism both during and after any transition to reunification.

North Korea can be deterred and won’t be defensive – nuclear weapons are for defensive purposes Andrew O’Neil, Senior Lecturer in the School of Political and International Studies, Flinders University, 2007, “Nuclear Proliferation in Northeast Asia” However, the argument that North Korea is an expansionary power in Northeast Asia is unconvincing. It is far more likely that national survival and the closely associated objective of regime preservation remain the main determinants of the DPRK’s national strategy. ‘While rcunihcation of the Korean peninsula on North Korea’s terms was a staple of L)PRK official pronouncements for decades after the end of the Korean War, official statements no longer refer to this as a realistic aim, let

alone one that constitutes the guiding objective of national strategy. As outlined in Chapter 1, since the early 1990s a dramatic deterioration in the DPRK’s strategic circumstances, its marked economic decline, and its deep isolation from the international

community of nations has forced the Pyongyang regime into what amounts to a highly defensive national posture. Dependent on substantial amounts of external aid to feed its own people, less certain of support from its major power ally, China, and confronting a

United Statcs that is itself less wedded to the international status quo than it was a decade ago, North Korea has retreated further into its strategic shell. It is no coincidence that North Korea’s concerted attempt to acquire an operational nuclear weapons capability has coincided with its rapidly declining fortunes since the end of the cold war. Nuclear weapons are seen by the regime as a core capability that offsets North Korea’s declining strategic fortunes, deters external threats to the DPRK’s sovereignty, and provides it with a modicum of self reliance in a dangerous world.


AT: SKFTA Good – Economy

SKFTA has a negligible effect on the economySewell Chan, Staff writer for the NYT, 12-7-2010, “Few New Jobs Expected Soon From Free-Trade Agreement With South Korea,” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/business/global/08korea.html?src=buslnBut the pact is likely to result in little if any net job creation in the short run, according to the government’s own analysis. Praising the deal reached by his trade negotiators, President Obama said on Monday that the accord would “boost our annual exports to South Korea by $11 billion” and “support at least 70,000 American jobs.” The Obama administration has been careful to use the verb “support,” not “create.” In fact, the effect of the agreement on aggregate output and employment in the United States “would likely be negligible,” according to a federal study, largely because the United States economy is so much larger than that of South Korea. Indeed, the study found, the country’s overall trade deficit with the rest of the world is likely to grow slightly as a result of the agreement.

US economy is resilient – ambitious, adaptive work forceRobert Samuelson, analyst, 1-4-2010, “The Great Recession’s Aftermath,” Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/id/229210"Younger people . . . tend to be more innovative, more willing to take risks, more willing to do things differently," Stanford University economist Paul Romer says in an interview for the book "From Poverty to Prosperity" by Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz. As noted, today's turmoil could make even the young more risk-averse. Or older and middle-aged people could increasingly dominate corporate hierarchies and university research grants, as Romer worries. An aging society could become a stand-pat society, protective of the status quo and resistant to change. Against this glum prospect, the standard rebuttal evokes history. The U.S. economy is amazingly resilient, the argument goes. It has been a consistent job creator: 21 million in the 1970s, 18 million in the 1980s, 17 million in the 1990s, 12 million in the past decade through 2007. (Lower gains reflect slower labor-force growth, not less dynamism.) A "can-do" culture—combining intense ambition with a flexibility to adapt and an instinct for innovation—ensures that the economy will ultimately rebound strongly. The harsh recession may have actually improved the long-term outlook by purging high-cost firms and forcing efficiencies. Productivity (output per hour worked) has risen 4 percent in the past year. Profits are already up 21 percent from their low; surviving firms will soon expand.

Korea FTA increases deficit, destroys 90% of manufacturing jobs, and increases deficit.Jane Hashmer, January 25, 2011, “Guide to NAFTA-Korea Style Trade Deal, Jobs and the State of the Union Speech”, http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/01/25/guide-to-nafta-korea-style-trade-deal-jobs-and-the-state-of-the-union-speech/EPI projects American job losses from the Korea FTA at 159,000: A study by the Economic Policy Institute examined the U.S. historical experience with major changes in bilateral trade policy – namely changes in trade flows with Mexico and China after NAFTA implementation and Chinese World Trade Organization (WTO) accession, respectively – to determine the likely impact of the Korea FTA on trade flows and U.S. jobs.11 EPI found that implementation of the Korea FTA would boost the U.S. trade deficit with Korea by $13.9 billion over the next seven years.12 This rise in

the trade deficit, in turn, would cost the U.S. economy about 159,000 net jobs.13 This is equivalent to losing 90 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Detroit.14

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AT: SKFTA Good – Trade Leadership

SKFTA doesn’t solve trade leadershipPhilip I. Levy, member of the secretary of state's Policy Planning Staff. Mr. Levy also served as an economist for trade on the President's Council of Economic Advisers and taught economics at Yale University, 1-6-2011, “Leadership Vacuums in Trade,” http://blog.american.com/?p=24627Perhaps now that the administration has recovered from its post-election stupor and named William Daley as White House chief

of staff, it can move to restore U.S. global leadership in trade. Up to this point, the Obama administration has struggled even to act as a participant in good standing of the world trading system. It gave in to protectionist pressures from Congress on “Buy America” legislation and restrictions on Mexican trucking. It took two tries to wrap up a three-year-old agreement with a major Asian trading partner. It is only now beginning to come into compliance with long-standing World Trade Organization (WTO) decisions on how tariffs can be set—adjusting a practice known as “zeroing” (to be fair, a problem that dated back to the Bush administration). The moves on Korea and zeroing are encouraging to those who hoped for much more on trade. But they do not constitute leadership. For that, there must be a serious investment of time and political capital and an effort to address the major problems of the global trading system.

Can’t get Doha through domestically even if we make a concessionEconomist, 8-7-2010, “Defying Gravity and History,” lnYet whatever the mood music, the gaps between what different countries expect from further negotiations seem only to have grown wider. America believes that inking a trade deal that results in little fresh liberalisation is pointless. But India's recently-departed ambassador to the WTO, Ujal Bhatia, says that the focus should be on "capturing liberalisation that has [already] happened autonomously", rather than striving for further opening. China's position is pretty similar. Without tangible benefits in terms of new market access, however, America's administration will find it difficult to sell any deal on Doha back home, particularly given a stuttering economic recovery. It is said to be urging the likes of China and India to commit to much deeper cuts in their tariffs on manufactured-goods imports than were proposed earlier. One Indian official suggests that some flexibility might be forthcoming.

Doha can’t succeed – no US political willBusiness Line, 9-14-2010, “News US Domestic Compulsions,” lnThe Commerce Secretary, Dr Rahul Khullar, said on Monday that it will not be possible to conclude the World Trade

Organisation's Doha Round negotiations this year due to the domestic compulsions of the US. Speaking at a CII conference

on 'WTO and Bilateral Agreements', Dr Khullar said, "For those who thought Doha was going to get done in 2010, it's not going to get done. It is very difficult to go into a room to negotiate a deal when one of the major trading partners in

the world (the US) is just not there." "Doha (Round talks) is held up because the US is not ready just yet, whatever

be the compulsion, political or economic in terms of very high unemployment. Right now, it (the Round) is not happening," he said.


SKFTA Bad – Worse For Alliance

SKFTA collapses the alliance long term and encourages regional aggression – outweighs any short term benefitDong Sun Lee, research fellow at the East-West Center, and Sung Eun Kim, Associate professor of statistics at CSU Long Beach, 1-2010, “Ties that Bind?” East Asia Institute, http://www.eai.or.kr/data/bbs/eng_report/201002251819214.pdfIn the long run, however, Seoul and Washington might be better off breaking the linkage between the FTA and the alliance. To the extent that this linkage is accepted, ratification of the FTA could provide a short-term psychological boost for the alliance. However, this potential benefit (which is bound to be ephemeral) may not be worth the longterm risks associated with allowing the linkage to persist. The unsubstantiated conviction that the FTA would strengthen the alliance will produce excessive expectations about alliance commitment. In the nearly inevitable event that actual support fails to satisfy these high hopes, such disillusionment could generate distrust and bitterness, thereby jeopardizing the alliance. Moreover, the overly high expectations might embolden the allies to adopt a risky foreign policy, thereby increasing the chance of entrapment in unnecessary

international conflicts. Also, breaking the linkage would insulate the alliance from opposition to the FTA motivated by perceptions of its unfairness or grievances against its adverse sectoral effects. The current economic hardship in both countries threaten to activate these latent opponents to the FTA by elevating the priority of economic issues and diminishing both sides’ patience and willingness to make concessions. By legitimizing the FTA on the grounds of its alleged strategic

value, the two governments could be exposing the alliance to economically-motivated attacks. By delinking the FTA and the alliance, Seoul and Washington could minimize these risks to its long enduring security alliance .

Doesn’t boost the alliance – empirically provenDong Sun Lee, research fellow at the East-West Center, and Sung Eun Kim, Associate professor of statistics at CSU Long Beach, 1-2010, “Ties that Bind?” East Asia Institute, http://www.eai.or.kr/data/bbs/eng_report/201002251819214.pdfOur analysis begins by tracing the past trajectories of commercial and security ties between Seoul and Washington—a case of direct relevance. The case of South Korea challenges the conventional view of economic interdependence: two of three examined

periods fail to match its predictions, while only one period (2001-2007) provides mixed support. 1987-1993. As shown in Figures 1 and 2, the economic interdependence between the United States and South Korea declined considerably during this period. Although the U.S. economy became slightly more dependent on South Korea in the late 1980s, the early 1990s saw a decline in absolute trade volume with South Korea as well as in the trade-toGDP ratio. From the South Korean side, there occurred a more significant change in economic dependence. Although Seoul’s total trade with the United States increased by 27 percent, its GDP more than doubled during this period, and its U.S. trade-to-GDP ratio declined from 17.9 percent in 1987 to 8.81 percent in 1993. Such declining commercial interdependence notwithstanding, this period did not see a lessening in the cohesiveness of their bilateral alliance . Although in 1989 Washington established a three-stage plan for reducing its military presence in South Korea, as well as in other East Asian countries (the East Asian Security Initiative), the troop drawdown in South Korea soon came to a halt as the international crisis erupted over North Korea’s nuclear program.28 South Korea’s commitment to the alliance also did not diminish, even though its economic dependence on the United States declined. Seoul even began to pay direct financial support for USFK

beginning in 1989 and signed a multi-year cost-sharing agreement in 1991. Host nation support increased over the subsequent years. Also, despite subtle differences over tactics, Seoul and Washington effectively coordinated their broad strategies for dealing with the North Korean nuclear crisis.29


SKFTA Bad – Economy

KFTA increases deficit by 16.8 billion and costs 214,000 American jobs.Dustin Ensinger, February 26, 2010, “Proposed FTAs Set to Increase Trade Deficit and Job Losses”, Economic Monitor, http://economicmonitor.net/content/proposed-ftas-set-increase-trade-deficit-and-job-lossesDespite claims to the contrary by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Obama administration, proposed free trade agreements with South Korea and Panama, would add to the nation’s already exploding trade deficit and result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs . The Chamber of Commerce, as it has in the debate over previous free trade agreements, is claiming that the deals would be a boon for the American economy, providing opportunity to create American jobs through increased exports. According to a study by the Chamber, the trade deals would create 383,400 jobs domestically. That, however, is just another rosy projection by a group that is one of the nation’s most rabid supporters of free trade, according to the study by the EPI. Using past trade agreements as a model, the EPI projects that trade

agreements with South Korea and Columbia would be very costly to the American economy. According to the study, the nation would lose 214,000 jobs by 2015, mostly well-paying manufacturing jobs. The trade deficit would rise by $16.8 billion, the study projects. The Chamber of Commerce’s predictions are skewed by a number of factors. By not taking into account the likely influx of foreign direct investment, the effects of currency manipulation in South Korea and Columbia or the effects of U.S. exports due to non-tariff barriers, the deals appear to be much sweeter than they truly are, the EPI study says.

SKFTA will increase the imports, the trade deficit, and unemployment.Sam Willford , January 10, 2011, “Hold Your Representatives Accountable for South Korea FTA”, economy in crisis, http://www.economyincrisis.org/content/hold-your-representatives-accountable-south-korea-ftaWhile lawmakers could claim ignorance of the detrimental consequences when they passed the North American Free Trade Agreement, the potential repercussions of the South Korean Free Trade Agreement are clear to all. This is an agreement

whose ramifications will harm the American economy. This is another trade agreement that makes no sense for America.

While it will increase exports, it is almost certain to increase imports far more. A report from the Economic

Policy Institute shows that this deal could increase the U.S. trade deficit by $16.7 billion and cost up to 159,000 jobs. Also, while it will somewhat offset the free trade agreement the European Union recently signed with South Korea, the Europeans got much better concessions than the U.S. did. If

everyone else is jumping off a bridge, are we going to follow them? We need fair trade agreements that correct America's trade imbalance as well as protecting the rights of workers and the environment. This agreement is clearly

unfair, especially with respect to automobiles (the U.S. would be allowed to export up to 75,000 a year to South Korea). It does nothing about South Korea's value-added tax, or government policy to audit anyone who buys an American vehicle.

SKFTA increases imports, which flood the market. Martha Grevatt, January 20, 2011, “U.S. – South Korea Free Trade Agreement: an attack on workers in both countries”, http://www.workers.org/2011/world/fta_0127/For the 30 million unemployed or underemployed U.S. workers, 70,000 jobs would do little. In fact, any job creation due to exports will likely be more than offset by imports of other products. Moreover, the agreement encourages companies to move jobs overseas.

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SKFTA Bad – Auto Industry

SKFTA threatens to destroy the auto industryJennifer John, 2010, “Workers pay for flawed trade policies”, http://www.uaw.org/story/workers-pay-flawed-trade-policiesWith lower wages, the American worker can't afford to buy merchandise, and with the 'free' trade agreements that are in place and protectionist policies of many foreign countries, we have no place to sell our merchandise," said Dave Chegash, a UAW Local 412 member and veteran industrial engineer who has worked at Chrysler's Warren (Mich.) Truck Plant for more than nine years. Chegash said those who benefit most from these policies are Wall Street investors, CEOs and executive-level employees – not UAW members. "Someone once said, 'There's no such thing as a free lunch.' The same thing applies to 'free' trade. Except this time, it's the American worker who pays and pays and pays," said Chegash, 57, who lives with his wife, Vicky, and

daughter, Anne, in Richmond Township, Mich. "I can't think of anyone who hasn't feared losing their job due to the unfair trade laws that affect U.S. jobs, especially in the auto industry," said Chegash, adding that his wife, an occupational therapist in the seemingly safe health care field, isn't immune to the threat of layoffs. "With so many autoworkers laid off and retiree benefits cut, they simply cannot afford to pay for medical care and they don't seek proper medical attention. With fewer patients to treat, the need for therapists is reduced," he added. You'd think new trade agreements would seek to fix this imbalance, but the Bush-negotiated U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) will make the problem worse. Instead of opening Korean markets to U.S. products, it will allow unfair trading practices to continue. Both the Korean government and the U.S. International Trade Commission have forecasted that passage of the KORUS FTA would result in a $1 billion annual increase in the U.S. auto trade deficit with Korea. The auto trade imbalance with Korea is part of a larger story: the dramatic deterioration of our nation's international

trade balance over the past two decades. In 1988 the U.S. trade deficit was $127 billion. In 2008 it was $840.2 billion. These staggering deficits, which are a direct consequence of decisions by U.S. policy makers to abandon domestic manufacturing, are more than just numbers on a page. The result is enormous pain for millions of workers, fewer manufacturing jobs, declining real wages, erosion of health care and retirement benefits, increasing poverty, devastated communities and dramatic increases in income inequality.

Auto industry key to economic recovery.Joseph Szczesny, June 4, 2009, “Auto Industry Key to Future Economic Growth”, http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2009/06/auto-industry-key-to-future-economic-growth/ The domestic automobile industry is an important element in innovation engine that is critical to prosperity in the U.S., suggests a new study from a Washington think tank. The auto sector – including its parts suppliers, engineers, and related services – is a key part of our innovation system that encompasses much more than the goal of producing new, fuel-efficient cars,” Hughes said. “We need an even stronger industrial base so that we can pay our way in the world, instead of borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China, Japan, Germany, and many oil-rich states. It is hard to envision America having the capacity to produce hundreds of billions of dollars of manufactured goods in the future without a

strong, innovative automotive sector,” he said. It took 30 years for somebody to finally figure it out,” said Lutz, adding, “They want to revitalize the American automobile industry. There finally is a realization that our country cannot remain economically strong and militarily strong and have a global impact if it’s not backed up by wealth-producing industries. “Going forward,” Hughes warned, “we need national policies that support the auto and other industrial sectors coupled with national investments in advanced manufacturing. We neglect the industrial base at our peril.”

South Korea exports would flood market, killing US auto industry.Dustin Ensinger, October 18, 2010, “South Korea FTA Would Further Damage U.S. Auto Industry”, http://economyincrisis.org/content/south-korea-fta-would-further-damage-us-auto-industryNever one to let a job-killing free trade agreement wither on the vine and die, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pushing for U.S. and South Korean officials to ratify a flawed trade pact ahead

of the next scheduled G-20 summit meetings. Concerns over access for U.S. automakers to the growing South Korean market have prevented Congress from ratifying the deal, although President Obama has indicated the deal is essential to his plan to double U.S. exports over a five year period. Those concerns are not unfounded. According to recent reports in a South Korean newspaper, over the first 10 months of the year, South Korean auto exports to America totaled $7.41 billion, up 45 percent from the same period the previous year. U.S. auto exports to Korea, on the other hand, totaled just $536 million over the first 10 months of the year. While that is an increase over the $268 million recorded in the first 10 months of 2009, it

is still not nearly enough to achieve balanced trade in autos. In fact, South Korea recorded a surplus of $6.87 billion over the first ten months of the year, up 42 percent from the $4.84 billion surplus South Korea recorded over the first 10 months of 2009. In all of 2009,

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the U.S. exported just 5,878 autos to South Korea. South Korea, on the other hand, exported 476,833 autos to the U.S.


SKFTA Bad – Health Care

SKFTA destroys South Korean health care and U.S. reform.Christine Ahn and Martin Hart-Landsberg, October 1, 2010, “Forget the FTA Fix, Just Say No”, Foreign Policy in Focus, http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/01-6The investment chapter would grant foreign investors important new rights. In particular, foreign corporations would be able to directly sue governments (local, state, or national) if they introduced new laws or regulations that, in their opinion, reduced their ability to profit from a pre-existing business opportunity. And they could choose to have the suit heard in a foreign tribunal by experts without regard to existing national laws. A number of interwoven mandates from several chapters take dead aim at the public provision of health care. This is especially threatening to South Koreans who currently have such a system. These mandates would also make it much harder to create such a system in the United States. [CA1] Among other things, the FTA provides for the establishment of special economic zones in South Korea where private U.S. insurance

companies could set up operations under favorable conditions, thereby undermining the universal coverage and viability of the existing national public insurance system. Even more deadly, several chapters appear to have the potential to bust South Korea’s health cost-control system. Currently, South Korea has a positive drug list, which is a listing of generic, low-cost drugs that the government believes are medically effective and which its insurance will cover. The FTA provides U.S. pharmaceutical corporations with several avenues to demand that their higher priced drugs be placed on the list. Such an outcome would put a huge financial strain on the country’s health care budget, potentially leading the government to abandon its public commitment.

Health care reform is necessary to prevent pandemicsNorris 8 (Amanda, The Stamford Times, “Locals provide input for Obama’s transition team,” December 28, http://thestamfordtimes.com/story/462337, AD: 7-31-09)One group debated whether health care should be universally provided by the government the same way that public education is, and, if so, at what cost and to whom. Two business owners appeared to square off over whether universal health care was desirable or even possible. Both of the men said they provided health insurance to all their employees and both said the exorbitant cost of doing so had led them to provide basic, "catastrophic" plans with limited coverage for more minor procedures and services. Roy Kamen, owner of Kamen Entertainment, a company that makes health and fitness DVDs, said he is certain that the nation could not handle a major pandemic or biological-based terrorist attack. Kamen was hopeful that president-elect Obama's

administration would provide a solution. "I don't think the insurance companies are going to solve this," Kamen said. "I was an Obama supporter, and I think they virtually have to solve this. This is really a new time. There is a new mindset. The greed of the past is gone."

Unchecked disease causes human extinctionSouth China Morning Post, 1-4-1996 (Dr. Ben Abraham= “called "one of the 100 greatest minds in history" by super-IQ society Mensa” and owner of “Toronto-based biotechnology company, Structured Biologicals Inc” according to same article)Despite the importance of the discovery of the "facilitating" cell, it is not what Dr Ben-Abraham wants to talk about. There is a much more pressing medical crisis at hand - one he believes the world must be alerted to: the possibility of a virus deadlier than HIV. If this makes Dr Ben-Abraham sound like a prophet of doom, then he makes no apology for it. AIDS, the Ebola outbreak which killed more than 100 people in Africa last year, the flu epidemic that has now affected 200,000 in the former Soviet Union - they are all, according to Dr Ben-Abraham, the "tip of the iceberg". Two decades of intensive study and research in the field of virology have convinced him of one thing: in place of natural and man-made disasters or nuclear warfare, humanity could face extinction because of a single virus, deadlier than HIV. "An airborne virus is a lively, complex and dangerous organism," he said. "It can come from a rare animal or from anywhere and can mutate constantly. If there is no cure, it affects one person and then there is a chain reaction and it is unstoppable. It is a tragedy

waiting to happen." That may sound like a far-fetched plot for a Hollywood film, but Dr Ben -Abraham said history has already proven

his theory. Fifteen years ago, few could have predicted the impact of AIDS on the world. Ebola has had sporadic outbreaks over the past 20 years and the only way the deadly virus - which turns internal organs into liquid - could be contained was because it was killed before it had a chance to spread. Imagine, he says, if it was closer to home: an outbreak of that scale in London, New York or Hong Kong. It could happen anytime in the next 20 years - theoretically, it could happen tomorrow. The shock of the AIDS epidemic has prompted virus experts to admit "that something new is indeed happening and that the threat of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent", said Joshua Lederberg of the Rockefeller University in New York, at a recent conference. He added that the problem was "very serious and is getting worse". Dr Ben-Abraham said: "Nature isn't benign. The survival of the

human species is not a preordained evolutionary programme. Abundant sources of genetic variation exist for viruses to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system." He cites the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak as an example of how viruses have

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outsmarted human intelligence. And as new "mega-cities" are being developed in the Third World and rainforests are destroyed, disease-carrying animals and insects are forced into areas of human habitation. "This raises the very real possibility that lethal, mysterious viruses would, for the first time, infect humanity at a large scale and imperil the survival of the human race," he said.


SKFTA Bad – Offshoring

SKFTA increases offshoringMark Matthews, January 16, 2011, “Korea free trade agreement draws protests in SF”, http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article18860SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — In December, the U.S. and South Korea reached a tentative agreement on lowering trade barriers between the two countries. The agreement ends tariffs on 95 percent of industrial and consumer trade over the next five years, but opponents fear it’s a bad deal for workers in both countries. Outside the Federal Building at Seventh and Mission streets

in San Francisco, California Fair Trade Coalition Director Tim Robertson beat the drum against the proposed free trade agreement with Korea. "It’s bad for workers, it’s bad for the environment," he said. Robertson says it’ll kill U.S. manufacturing jobs while growing jobs in China. "The deal allows for up to 65 percent of Korean products to be sourced from China," he said.

Offshoring of high-tech high-education jobs will spark a protectionism lash outAlan Binder, Memorial Professor of Economics at Princeton University, 2006, “Offshoring: The Next Industrial Revolution? Foreign Affairs, vol. 85, no. 2Perhaps the most acute need, given the long … relative economic positions of the United States and Europe.Perhaps the most acute need, given the long lead-times, is to figure out how to educate children now for the jobs that will actually be available to them lo and 20 years from now. Unfortunately, since the distinction between personal services (likely to remain in rich coun tries) and impersonal services (likely to go) does not correspond to the traditional distinction between high-skilled and low-skilled work, simply providing more education cannot be the whole answer. As the transition unfolds, the number of people in the rich countries who will feel threatened by foreign job competition will grow enormously. It is predictable that they will become a potent political force in each of their countries. In the United States, job-market stress up to now has been particularly acute for the uneducated and the unskilled, who are less inclined to exercise their political voice and less adept at doing so. But the new cadres of displaced workers, especially those who are drawn from the upper educational reaches, will be neither as passive nor as quiet. They will also be

numerous. Open trade may therefore be under great strain. Large-scale offshoring of impersonal-service jobs from rich countries to poor countries may also bear on the relative economic positions of the United States and Europe. The more flexible, fluid American labor market will probably adapt more quickly and more successfully to dramatic workplace and educational changes than the more rigid European labor markets will.

Protectionism causes nuclear warMiller and Elwood 1988 (Vincent H., pres. ISIL and James R., VP, ISIL, “Free Trade”, p. http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/free-trade-protectionism.html)History is not lacking in examples of cold trade wars escalating into hot shooting wars: Europe suffered from almost non-stop wars during the 17th and 18th centuries, when restrictive trade policy (mercantilism)

was the rule; rival governments fought each other to expand their empires and to exploit captive markets. British tariffs provoked the American colonists to revolution, and later the Northern-dominated US government imposed restrictions on Southern cotton exports - a major factor leading to the American Civil War. In the late 19th Century, after a half

century of general free trade (which brought a half-century of peace), short-sighted politicians throughout Europe again began erecting trade barriers. Hostilities built up until they eventually exploded into World War I. In 1930, facing only a mild recession,

US President Hoover ignored warning pleas in a petition by 1028 prominent economists and signed the notorious Smoot-Hawley Act, which

raised some tariffs to 100% levels. Within a year, over 25 other governments had retaliated by passing similar laws. The result?

World trade came to a grinding halt, and the entire world was plunged into the "Great Depression" for the rest of the decade. The depression in turn led to World War II. The world enjoyed its greatest economic growth during the relatively free trade period of 1945-1970, a period that also saw no major wars. Yet we again see trade barriers being raised around the world by short-sighted politicians. Will the world again end up in a shooting war as a result of these economically-deranged policies? Can we afford to allow this to happen in the nuclear age? "What generates war is the economic philosophy of nationalism: embargoes, trade and foreign exchange

controls, monetary devaluation, etc. The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war." Ludwig von Mises

http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article18860


SKFTA Bad – Workers Rights

SKFTA destroys workers’ rights.Martha Grevatt, January 20, 2011, “U.S. – South Korea Free Trade Agreement: an attack on workers in both countries”, http://www.workers.org/2011/world/fta_0127/In fact, free trade agreements protect polluters through “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) provisions that allow corporations to file lawsuits when their investments are negatively affected. Worse than NAFTA, the “labor rights” language of KORUS has not been touched in the supposedly improved version. The agreement expressly prohibits any reference to the International Labor Organization’s conventions on the right to organize and bargain collectively. Instead,

disputes are to be resolved by a “Labor Council” comprised of representatives of the two governments — neither of which is a friend of unions. The International Metalworkers Federation states that in south Korea “labor repression is among the worst in the world.” (www.imfmetal.org) Around 200 union activists are in prison; they include leaders of the Korean Metal Workers Union, jailed for over a year for a 2009 sitdown strike at Ssangyong Motors, and of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions that protested KORUS in 2007. Recent struggles of autoworkers at Hyundai and GM Daewoo have drawn attention to the plight of 8.5 million temporary or “precarious” workers, who are more than half of all south Korean workers and two-thirds of women workers. The KMWU predicts that KORUS-FTA will increase precarious work.

Without labor rights genocide and war are inevitable.Frances D'Souza, Executive Director of Article 19, the International Centre Against Censorship. Public Hearing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy Subcommittee on Human Rights Brussels, 25 April 1996. “Freedom of Expression: The First Freedom?” Article 19, International Centre Against Censorship. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/hearings/19960425/droi/freedom_en.htmIn the absence of freedom of expression which includes a free and independent media, it is impossible to protect other rights, including the right to life. Once governments are able to draw a cloak of secrecy over their actions and

to remain unaccountable for their actions then massive human rights violations can, and do, take place. For this

reason alone the right to freedom of expression, specifically protected in the major international human rights treaties, must be considered to be a primary right. It is significant that one of the first indications of a government's intention to depart from democratic principles is the ever increasing control of information by means of gagging the media, and preventing the freeflow of information from abroad. At one end of the spectrum there are supposedly minor infringements of this fundamental right which occur daily in Western democracies and would include abuse of national security laws to prevent the publication of information which might be embarrassing to a given government: at the other end of the scale are the regimes of terror which employ the most brutal moves to suppress opposition, information and even the freedom to exercise religious beliefs. It has been argued, and will undoubtedly be discussed at this Hearing, that in the absence of free speech and an independent media, it is relatively easy for governments to capture, as it were,

the media and to fashion them into instruments of propaganda, for the promotion of ethnic conflict, war and genocide.

SKFTA destroys workers’ rights. Jennifer John, representative from the UAW Solidarity House, 2010, “Proposed Korea-U.S. FTA bad for both countries”, http://www.uaw.org/story/proposed-korea-us-fta-bad-both-countries“The addition of worker rights by House Democrats satisfies only one of the key objectives the UAW and other unions have long

demanded,” said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, “and these same Democratic leaders have made it clear they continue to have major problems with the Korea trade deal.” On May 1 the UAW and KMWU issued a joint declaration in strong

opposition to the proposed trade agreement. Chong believes FTA passage will erode union power in South Korea and promote political injustices, cementing what she termed “the rightward way of politics” like the current White

House. “It’s a polarizing issue,” she added.

http://www.uaw.org/story/proposed-korea-us-fta-bad-both-countries



SKFTA Bad – Global Warming

SKFTA increases carbon emissions, leading to global warmingMartha Grevatt, January 20, 2011, “U.S. – South Korea Free Trade Agreement: an attack on workers in both countries”, http://www.workers.org/2011/world/fta_0127/Like NAFTA, KORUS-FTA is bad for the environment. Communities that take action against corporate polluters could likely see a repeat of the Metalclad case. The changes in the new free trade agreement, hailed by both Ford CEO Alan Mulally and UAW President Bob King, make it easier for Detroit to export vehicles by lowering south Korea’s fuel economy standards and reducing higher taxes on larger engines. That means more carbon emissions, adding to global warming.

Global warming leads to extinctionDavid Stein, Science editor for The Guardian, 7-14-2008, “Global Warming Xtra: Scientists warn about Antarctic melting,” http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/07/14/02463.htmlGlobal Warming continues to be approaches by governments as a "luxury" item, rather than a matter of basic human survival. Humanity is being taken to its destruction by a greed-driven elite. These elites, which include 'Big Oil' and other related interests, are intoxicated by "the high" of pursuing ego-driven power, in a comparable manner to drug addicts who pursue an elusive "high", irrespective of the threat of pursuing that "high" poses to their own basic survival, and the security of others. Global Warming and the pre-emptive war against Iraq are part of the same self-destructive prism of a political-military-industrial complex, which is on a path of mass planetary destruction, backed by techniques of mass-deception."The scientific debate about human induced global warming is over but policy makers - let alone

the happily shopping general public - still seem to not understand the scope of the impending tragedy. Global warming isn't just warmer temperatures, heat waves, melting ice and threatened polar bears. Scientific understanding increasingly points to runaway global warming leading to human extinction", reported Bill Henderson in CrossCurrents. If strict global environmental security measures are not immediately put in place to keep further emissions of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere we are looking at the death of billions, the end of civilization as we know it and in all probability the end of humankind's several million year old existence

SKFTA will increase deficit, job loss and environmental degradation. Kristen Beifus and Stan Sorscher, director for Washington Fair Trade Coalition and labor representative for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, January 24, 2011, “The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement is bad for both countries”, The Seattle Times, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2014027477_guest25beifus.htmlSouth Koreans have seen the effects of the North American and Central American free-trade agreements in other countries. They want to avoid that kind of job loss, environmental degradation and dislocation in their communities. They are saying no to this agreemen t! Many Americans feel the same way. In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 83 percent of blue-collar workers said our economy is struggling because of outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries. The Economic Policy Institute

estimates that the Korea-U.S. agreement would worsen our trade deficit with Korea by $13.9 billion over the next seven years. Rising Korean imports would displace approximately 888,000 U.S. jobs over this same time. Taking into account all the products we trade with South Korea — exports and imports — the proposed trade agreement would result in a net loss of 159,000 jobs. Similarly, the U.S. International Trade Commission predicts that jobs would be lost in high-wage industries, such as electronic equipment, motor vehicles and parts, and other transportation

equipment, with deficits for these sectors totaling up to $1.8 billion. We have decades of experience with our failed "free trade" model. We know it works very well for multinational companies, but works against the public interest in America and in South Korea.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2014027477_guest25beifus.html

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/07/14/02463.html



SKFTA Bad – Agriculture

SKFTA would destroy U.S. agricultural industry.Martha Grevatt, January 20, 2011, “U.S. – South Korea Free Trade Agreement: an attack on workers in both countries”, http://www.workers.org/2011/world/fta_0127/Rank-and-file autoworkers are circulating petitions against KORUS-FTA. The KMWU, the KCTU and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions remain steadfastly opposed to any free trade agreement. Stopping the FTA was a major demand of November protests in Seoul during the G-20 Summit. Last month thousands of farmers, fearing the loss of 200,000 agricultural jobs if U.S. agribusiness floods south Korea with mass-produced food items, took to the streets in protest.

Ag industry key to economic recoveryClint Jhonson, March 24, 2009, “Agriculture Holds the Key to Economic Recover”, http://www.articlesbase.com/economics-articles/agriculture-holds-the-key-to-economic-recovery-832093.htmlDid you know that agriculture and the vast plantations in the United States were the key pillars that made America as one of the wealthiest nations in the world? The huge amount of money supply that was poured in producing cotton, wheat, corn, and other valuable food crops and agricultural products propelled America to greatness. However, this was taken for granted by modern economic planners. Instead, the United States started focusing on building finance capital and speculative portfolio investments which crashed recently in a very painful manner. If student loans were invested on agriculture and the money supply was heavily invested in this sector, the United States will not be facing a hyperinflationary recession today. The strengthening of agriculture through the infusion of modern machineries, technologies, and modern farming techniques could sustain the United States towards a more robust economic growth. Instead, the money supply was pumped into the financial market to treble the speculative leverage of banking and finance capital institutions. Such overflow of money supply triggered inflation which was unprecedented in U.S. economic history. And when the market collapsed, it brought down with it the entire American economic system. The Obama administration therefore should take positive steps not by fueling the current crisis with more spending. The current

administration should not accelerate the infusion of more fiat currency into the economy. Instead, it should strengthen the basic pillars of the economy such as agriculture and manufacturing. It should also re-implement the gold backing of the U.S. dollar to prevent the impending collapse of the buck.

Economic decline causes extinctionPhil Kerpen, National Review Online, October 29, 2008, Don't Turn Panic Into Depression, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/29/opinion/main4555821.shtmlIt’s important that we avoid all these policy errors - not just for the sake of our prosperity, but for our survival. The Great Depression, after all, didn’t end until the advent of World War II, the most destructive war in the history of the planet. In a world of nuclear and biological weapons and non-state terrorist organizations that breed on poverty and despair, another global economic breakdown of such extended duration would risk armed conflicts on a n even greater scale .

http://www.articlesbase.com/economics-articles/agriculture-holds-the-key-to-economic-recovery-832093.html

http://www.articlesbase.com/economics-articles/agriculture-holds-the-key-to-economic-recovery-832093.html



ESA CP


1NC ESA CP

Text: The European Union, through the European Space Agency, should < INSERT MANDATES OF AFFIRMATIVE PLAN >

The ESA is at the top of the space exploration gameESA, 1-4-2006,“ESA probes make prestigious Science top ten, http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Cassini-Huygens/SEM40K0VRHE_0.htmlESA’s planetary probes featured in the top 10 list of major scientific achievements of 2005, according to the prestigious US journal Science. At the end of each year, Science publishes its annual top 10 list of major scientific breakthroughs. Space scientists and engineers around the world outdid themselves in 2005, with many spacecraft at or on the way to the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, an asteroid and a comet. The high point of the year, however, came when the Huygens probe drifted down on to Saturn's haze-shrouded moon Titan. The Huygens mission gained the runner-up position in the list, highlighting the advances made by robotic explorers in space. A fleet of other explorers was mentioned with Huygens this year. NASA's Voyager 1 approached the ‘edge’ of the Solar System and the Deep Impact spacecraft successfully collided with Comet Tempel 1. The NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft repeatedly swung by Saturn's rings, Titan and other moons. ESA's SMART-1 arrived at our Moon using its ion engine, and Europe’s first mission to Venus, Venus Express, was launched. Huygens landed on Saturn's moon Titan on 14 January 2005, the furthest from Earth that a spacecraft had ever touched down. The information gathered as Huygens parachuted through the atmosphere and finally settled on the moon’s surface is shedding light on a world that may look a lot like Earth did 4600 million years ago. According to Science, "It seems that planetary scientists, for the time being at least, are in their second golden age of Solar System exploration." The number one spot in Science’s list was awarded jointly to several studies that looked at the intricate workings of evolution on Earth.

They have plenty of moneyPeter Selding, writer for Space News, 1/21/2011, “ESA Budget Rises to $4B as 14 Nations Boost Contributions”, Space News, http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110121-esa-budget-rises.htmlPARIS — Fourteen of the European Space Agency’s (ESA)18 member nations have agreed to raise their contributions for 2011 despite public debt concerns that have reached near-crisis levels in some of them, ESA officials said.As a result, the agency has been given an overall 7 percent budget increase, to 2.975 billion euros ($4 billion). The additional money could provide a financial cushion in the event unplanned bills arrive ahead of its member governments’ scheduled payments, officials said. “The fact that these nations have agreed to a fairly substantial increase in their contributions at this time is an indication of their belief that spending on research, and specifically on space technology, is an investment in the future,” said Gerhard Kreiner, ESA’s head of corporate controlling. In a Jan. 18 interview, Kreiner said that, in keeping with ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain’s commitment not to overstress the liquidity positions of its member governments, this money will not necessarily all be spent in 2011. European Commission payments to ESA in 2011 are expected to total about 778 million euros. Another 233 million euros will come from organizations for which ESA performs work, such as Europe’s Eumetsat meteorological satellite organization. Finally, the agency expects to receive payments totaling 7.9 million euros in 2011 from nations that have cooperating-state agreements in place with ESA, a relationship that falls short of full membership. Dordain said he would be signing a cooperation accord with Israel in the coming weeks, and that Romania this year likely will become ESA’s 19th member state. All these funding sources combined will give the agency 3.99 billion euros in 2011, which is 6.7 percent over what ESA had to work with in 2010. For 2011, science is ESA’s fourth-largest spending area, accounting for 11.6 percent of the budget.

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110121-esa-budget-rises.html

http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Cassini-Huygens/SEM40K0VRHE_0.html

http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Cassini-Huygens/SEM40K0VRHE_0.html


ESA Solvency – General

ESA is incredibly competent in space – they’re a global leaderESA, 10-29-2010, “A new space policy for Europe at the European Parliament”, http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM64B2PLFG_index_0.htmlJean-Jacques Dordain addressing the European ParliamentJean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of ESA, highlighted the importance of the Lisbon Treaty for space, for Europe and for ESA. Mr. Dordain recalled that “thanks to its Member States, Europe is leader in space science and technology and the European space industry and operators are among the most competitive of the world”. He also stressed that “the new competences of the European Union in space should allow Europe to be stronger in the world and to become world leader, through the relevant EU policies, in a number of domains that use space (environment, climate change, management of natural or man-made disasters, maritime surveillance, air traffic control, aid to development, security)” .“We must work all together towards achieving this”, concluded Mr. Dordain. Speakers at the conference explored the many facets of space policy, emphasising the possibilities in the sector and the strong performance of ESA in ensuring Europe’s leadership in space. As Navigation and Earth Observation programmes continue to mature, opportunities are opening up for many new services. By exploiting these opportunities in space services, Europe is becoming increasingly well-positioned to take global leadership not only in space but also in the services space can offer its citizens.

ESA is very good at tech advancement - new materials proveDan Thisdell, 7-1-2011, “ESA investigates microgravity and thermoelectrics”, http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2011/07/01/51365/science-esa-investigates-microgravity-and-thermoelectrics.htmThe European Union has kicked off the "human genome project" of metallurgy, which European Space Agency head of advanced materials and energy research David Jarvis says promises to be as revolutionary in the fight against global warming as the multi-billion dollar push to map our DNA has been in medicine. Speaking at the Paris air show, Jarvis said the €22 million ($31.7 million), five-year "Accelerated Metallurgy" pilot project promises to start unlocking the mysteries of metal alloys that thousands of years of trial and error and laboratory research have barely begun to reveal. Just 5% of all possible three-or-more element alloys have been thoroughly investigated, says Jarvis, but an ESA-patented 30s automated process for mixing powdered elements and testing for attractive properties will for the first time make it possible to scour the periodic table for performance "sweet spots". Promising candidates can then be sent to the International Space Station, where ESA runs the world's only microgravity materials science laboratory, which was delivered to the ISS in September 2009 (see below). Microgravity research may pave the way to "revolutionary materials" such as the high-temperature superconductors needed to slash energy consumption and boost the performance of electronics. Jarvis stresses the significance of microgravity work on the fundamental properties of materials as being the best or only way forward to a better understanding of how important metals behave at the atomic or crystal level - the viscosity of liquid iron, for example, remains an unknown. One hopeful line of materials research in microgravity will be into nanostructured thermoelectrics, materials capable of scavenging waste heat and converting it to electricity. Jarvis notes that 70% of the energy in diesel or petrol is wasted as heat, with just 20% driving a road vehicle and the rest lost to friction. Sufficient development of heat-scavenging materials could save Europe 2 billion barrels of oil annually. The potential uses of nanostructured thermoelectrics are vast; just before the Paris air show, Airbus unveiled its vision of the aircraft interior of 2050, which included energy harvesting materials capable of converting passengers' body heat to the electricity needed to power on-board systems.

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2011/07/01/51365/science-esa-investigates-microgravity-and-thermoelectrics.htm

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2011/07/01/51365/science-esa-investigates-microgravity-and-thermoelectrics.htm

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM64B2PLFG_index_0.html


ESA Solvency – Shuttle Replacement

ESA is already poised to fill in after the space shuttleMichael Trei, 6-22-2011,“As NASA winds down, the Europeans start making their own shuttle”, http://dvice.com/archives/2011/06/as-nasa-winds-d.phpWith just one flight to go, NASA is winding down the 30-year-old Space Shuttle program. The European Space Agency, on the other hand, is all systems go, with a green light to start building its Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV). IXV is quite different from the NASA shuttle, using a lifting body design instead of wings, with some flaps and thrusters to provide control. Another change is that it lifts off for space on the nose of a small Vega rocket, and splashes down in the Pacific Ocean instead of landing on a runway. In that way it more closely resembles America's initial forays into space, such as the splash-down orbiter designs of the Mercury Program. The biggest difference however is that the IXV flies autonomously, with no fragile human crew to drive up the costs. At least, the IXV isn't planned to carry passengers into space just yet, taking a page from Russia's unmanned, autonomous cargo ships that help resupply the International Space Station. Tuesday's agreement gives manufacturer Thales Alenia Space the go ahead to start building IXV, with a first flight scheduled in 2013.

ESA is on the cutting edge of manned explorationDan Thisdell, 7-7-2011, “Space: ESA pushes for re-entry vehicle testing in 2013”, http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2011/07/07/51405/space-esa-pushes-for-re-entry-vehicle-testing-in-2013.htmWith the Space Shuttle set for imminent retirement, the only vehicles capable of re-entering the atmosphere from low-Earth orbit will be Russia's venerable Soyuz capsules and the US Air Force's X-37B unmanned experimental spaceplane. Neither are replacements for the Shuttle: Soyuz can accommodate three crew and a small amount of cargo, and X-37B is small, strictly experimental and shrouded in military secrecy. So a European Space Agency push towards testing its IXV - Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle - in 2013 is a programme with significant implications for space transportation, exploration and robotic servicing of space infrastructure. At the Paris air show, ESA signed the contract with Thales Alenia Space Italia to build the vehicle. ESA's project manager, Giorgio Tumino, says it is too early to say what will follow the 2013 test flight. His team will begin seriously considering further evolution of the lifting-body spaceplane concept after returning from the summer holidays. IXV will be launched into a suborbital trajectory on ESA's small Vega rocket and return to Earth as if from a low-orbit mission, to test and qualify new critical re-entry technologies such as advanced ceramic and ablative thermal protection. The 2-tonne lifting body will attain an altitude of around 450km, allowing it to reach a velocity of 7.5 km/s on entering the atmosphere, which Tumino describes as fully representing a return from a low-Earth orbit mission - for example from the International Space Station. IXV will collect a large amount of data during its hypersonic and supersonic flight, controlled by thrusters and aerodynamic flaps before a parachute descent to the Pacific Ocean to await recovery and analysis. IXV is the "intermediate" step in a European drive to develop re-entry technology, following the 1998 flight of the less-manoeuvrable Atmospheric Re-entry Demonstrator. What comes after IXV is likely to be a multipurpose vehicle, or series of design evolutions, possibly capable of landing on a runway, to return cargo or crew to Earth, or even to return following a deep-space exploration mission.

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2011/07/07/51405/space-esa-pushes-for-re-entry-vehicle-testing-in-2013.htm

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2011/07/07/51405/space-esa-pushes-for-re-entry-vehicle-testing-in-2013.htm

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/06/as-nasa-winds-d.php


ESA Solvency – Solar

ESA has expertise in space solar Andrew Wilson, 2005, “ESA Achievments more than 30 years of pioneering space activity”, http://www.scribd.com/doc/53618958/ESA-AchievementsSMART-1 is the first of the SmallMissions for Advanced Research in Technology of ESA’s Horizons 2000science plan. Its principal missionis to demonstrate innovative andkey technologies for deep-spacescience missions. Its primary objective is to flight test Solar Electric Primary Propulsion (SEPP)for future large missions; theBepiColombo Mercury mission will be the first to benefit, followed by Solar Orbiter and LISA

Europe is leading the way in solar panel systems to power spacecraftBrittany Sauser, 6-24-2011, “An ESA Spacecraft, New Moon Images, and Solar-Electric Propulsion”, http://www.technologyreview.es/blog/deltav/tags/moon/Space News this Week: An ESA Spacecraft, New Moon Images, and Solar-Electric PropulsionA new European re-entry vehicle, unprecedented moon images, and a call for solar electric propulsion systems. The European Space Agency announced that its re-entry spacecraft, called Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), will be ready to fly in 2013. The agency first announced the vehicle concept in 2009. Now the detailed design and technologies are ready and the agency has partnered with Thales Alenia Space Italia to manufacture the vehicle. Its first flight will be in 2013. According to the press release, Europe's ambition for a spacecraft to return autonomously from low orbit is a cornerstone for a wide range of space applications, including space transportation, exploration and robotic servicing of space infrastructure. This goal will be achieved with IXV, which is the next step from the Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator flight of 1998. More maneuverable and able to make precise landings, IXV is the 'intermediate' element of Europe's path to future developments with limited risks. The new spacecraft, which resembles a wing-less space shuttle and it s test vehicle, will launch aboard a small ESA rocket, reaching an altitude of 450 kilometers. It will test technologies like advanced thermal protection systems, new guidance, navigation and control systems, and will collect lots of data. It will operate autonomously. It could be proving ground for ESA to develop a vehicle that can travel to the space station or other destinations. To reach destinations beyond low Earth orbit spacecraft needs propulsion systems that are efficient and powerful. Chemical propulsion systems are most commonly used for spacecraft, but they require large amounts of fuel and are inefficient for deep space missions. Now NASA is seeking proposals for mission concepts of solar electric propulsion systems. The systems use solar panels to generate electricity that gives a positive charge to atoms inside a chamber, which are pulled by magnetism towards the back of the spacecraft and pushed out. The stream of atoms going out of the spacecraft gives it the thrust it needs to move through space. (The agency tested an ion-propulsion system it developed in 2009 and expects it to launch in 2013.)


ESA Solvency – Satellites

ESA can develop hi-tech communication satellites Stephen Harris, 7-14-2011, “ Deep Space Radio System Could Boost Satellite Communication”, http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/aerospace/news/deep-space-radio-system-could-boost-satellite-communication/1009400.articleSatellites orbiting other planets could communicate with Earth up to 20 times faster using a new deep-space radio system from BAE Systems. The technology, developed in anticipation of a European

Space Agency (ESA) tender, could help cut the costs of monitoring multiple deep-space craft and allow authorities to track them more accurately. This could allow vehicles to make more precise calculations about the gravity and mass of planets and moons and even help to verify Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Nick James, BAE’s lead engineer on the project, told The Engineer that being able to receive data more quickly would enable several distant spacecraft to be monitored at the same time. ‘If there are multiple spacecraft around Mars — for example, a couple of US ones and a European one — to save money in the future it’s likely the agencies will share support,’ he said. Using equipment that can demodulate data from all three spacecraft at once will cut costs because only one agency will need to monitor the signals at any time, added James. The prototype technology improves on BAE’s intermediate frequency modem system (IFMS), developed in the late 1990s and since used to receive very weak radio signals from spacecraft at ESA ground stations. It works by converting the analogue radio signal into a digital one, processing it with a high-speed digital filter and then using software to remove background noise. The new system increases the speed or sampling rate of both the analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) and the digital filter, which determines the maximum bandwidth of data the technology can process. ‘It is this latter sampling rate that is the really important one,’ said James. ‘This has gone from 35MHz to 700MHz. So we can say that the new receiver is 20 times faster [or more powerful] than the old one.’ BAE expects the ESA to put out a call for a new communications system this year, in advance of the IFMS’s end of life in 2015. As well as the faster sampling rate, the ESA is likely to be looking for a reduction in lifetime costs of about 50 per cent and operation over a much wider range of radio frequencies. James said the BAE equipment could receive signals with a frequency of up to 1.8GHz, covering much of the radio spectrum from long-wave to mobile-phone signals. This is possible because of the faster sampling rate of the ADC, which BAE has increased from 280MHz to 2.1GHz — a factor of eight. Like the original IFMS, the new technology will also be reconfigurable as new software is developed, prolonging the life of the equipment and allowing it to speak with different spacecraft on demand. James would not reveal how much the project was worth to BAE or how much had been invested in the prototype device, but he did say that the long-term cost of the IFMS was around £12m over 10 years.

European communications satellites are way better the USAndrew Wilson, 2005, “ESA Achievments more than 30 years of pioneering space activity”, http://www.scribd.com/doc/53618958/ESA-AchievementsESA and Telecommunications ESA has played the lead role in developing space communications for Europe, with the Orbital Test Satellite(OTS), European Communications Satellite (ECS), Maritime ECS (Marecs)and the direct-broadcasting Olympus. Public telecommunications services have made full use of ESA satellites, through Outlast and Inmarsat; some satellites served for more than15years. Artemis, launched in 2001,is demonstrating further innovative techniques. After a relatively late start, European space industry has achieved a high level of technical competence. In 2000,its provision of commercial telecommunications satellites exceeded that of US industry for the first time. ESA’s long-term telecommunications plan is to help European industry maintain and improve its competitiveness.

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/aerospace/news/deep-space-radio-system-could-boost-satellite-communication/1009400.article

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/aerospace/news/deep-space-radio-system-could-boost-satellite-communication/1009400.article


ESA Solvency – Asteroids

Europe already scouting asteroidsEmily Lakdawalla, 8-6-2008, “ESA’s Rosetta Has Asteroid Steins in Sight”, http://planetary.org/news/2008/0806_ESAs_Rosetta_Has_Asteroid_Steins_in.htmlESA's flagship solar system mission Rosetta is fast approaching the next waypoint on its long journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. On September 5 at 18:37 UTC, the spacecraft will zoom past asteroid (2867) Steins, the spacecraft's first scientific target. Steins has not before been visited by a spacecraft, so everything that is known about it is based on data from Earthbound telescopes. It is believed to be

approximately 5 kilometers in diameter, and it is an E-type asteroid, a rare spectral class. The Rosetta team has planned a full slate of observations at Steins, aimed at refining calculations of its orbital characteristics, determining basic information about its shape, mass, density, surface composition, geomorphology, and its relationship to its nearby space environment

ESA is already planning expeditions to get samplesJonathan Amos, Science Reporter for BBC, 9-18-2008,”Europe plans asteroid sample grab”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7623411.stmEuropean scientists and engineers are working on a potential new mission to bring back material from an asteroid. The venture, known as Marco Polo, could launch in the next decade, and would be designed to learn more

about how our Solar System evolved. The plan is to select a small asteroid - less than 1km across - near Earth and send a spacecraft there to drill for dust and rubble for analysis. Mission plans are being worked on by UK Astrium and OHB in Germany. Both satellite manufacturers have been asked to undertake a feasibility study, to assess the type of spacecraft architecture that would be needed to carry out the project. A final decision on whether to approve the mission will be made by the European Space Agency (Esa) in a few years' time. The mission would launch towards the end of the next decade, in about 2017. Esa says the mission could fly towards the end of the next decade Asteroids are the debris left over from the formation of the Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago. Studying their pristine material should provide new insights on how the Solar System came into being and how planets like Earth evolved. Steins (Esa) Asteroids are the rubble left over after the planets formed Rosetta probe makes asteroid pass "We'll be looking at the best solution for getting there and back," UK Astrium's Dr Ralph Cordey told BBC News. "We've got to look at all elements of the mission - how we would design the mission, how to design the trajectory to one of a number of possible asteroids, how to optimise that so we use the smallest spacecraft, the least fuel and the smallest rocket." Marco Polo might work like this: • After the launch on a Soyuz rocket from Europe's Kourou spaceport, a propulsion unit would take the mission out to its target asteroid • The main spacecraft unit would undertake a remote-sensing campaign, gathering key information on shape, size, mass, spin and global composition • It would then attempt to land, drilling a few cm into the surface. Up to 300g of dust and pebbles would be stored away in a sealed capsule • After lifting off the asteroid, the spacecraft would put itself on a homeward trajectory, releasing the capsule close to Earth for a re-entry • The capsule would land without parachutes. It would be opened in a clean facility to ensure there was no Earth contamination Marco Polo (EADS Astrium) Marco Polo would map the asteroid as well as grabbing a sample Esa has an exploration roadmap for the missions it wishes to conduct in the coming years. Marco Polo is being considered under its Cosmic Visions programme, and is one of a number of

competing ideas in a class of missions that could cost in the region of 300 million euros. It is quite possible that Marco Polo, if approved,

could be undertaken in partnership with Japan. Sample return missions are of significant interest to scientists. Although in-situ measurements provide remarkable insights, so much more would be learnt if materials were brought back to Earth laboratories, where the full panoply of modern analytical technologies can be deployed. Marco Polo (EADS Astrium) The small return capsule would be released just prior to re-entry An asteroid sample return mission would have huge scientific merit in its own right but it would also help develop the technology needed for the more challenging task of getting down and up from a large planetary body that has a much bigger gravitational pull - such as Mars. Not that getting down on to a small, low-gravity body is easy. The wrong approach could crush landing legs or even result in the vehicle bouncing straight back off into space. Europe, itself, is no novice in the field of asteroid study. Its Rosetta probe, which is en route to a comet, took close-up pictures of Asteroid Steins during a flyby earlier this month. Ultimately, it is possible that astronauts could visit an asteroid. The US space agency is currently studying how this might be done; but even if approved, such a mission would not happen for many decades.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7623411.stm

http://planetary.org/news/2008/0806_ESAs_Rosetta_Has_Asteroid_Steins_in.html


ESA Solvency – NEO Detection

The EU is capable of detecting Near-Earth ObjectsG. Drolshagen, et. al, European Space Agency, 2010, “The NearEarth Objects Segment of the European Space Situational Awareness Program,” Cosmic Research, Vol. 48, No. 5 pp. 399–402, http://www.springerlink.com/content/0h0753l6w1vn2766/fulltext.pdfThe European SSA–NEO system will be based initially on existing facilities and capabilities. Later, dedicated sensors and instruments will be added. Europe has many optical telescopes, located within or

outside Europe, and several radars which are suitable for NEO observations. These facilities were originally built for other purposes. For example, the ESA’s Optical Ground Station was built for optical communications with satellites, but it was regularly and successfully used for space debris and more recently for asteroid observations. Numerous national research telescopes exist at various locations and have different apertures. Some of these telescopes can be used on a regular or occasional basis for NEO observations. Many amateur telescopes which could make valuable contributions to this field also should not be forgotten. Existing European radar facilities were mainly built for military purposes, but some of them can be used on special occasions for NEO observations, as it took place in the past for space debris observations (e.g., the German FGAN and the French GRAVES systems). A unique European NEO asset is the Near Earth Objects–Dynamic Site (NeoDys). The NeoDys system was established in 1998 and is continuously improved [5]. It is a duplicate system whose elements are located at the Universities of Pisa (Italy) and Valladolid (Spain). Based on astrometric measurements obtained worldwide and collected centrally by the MPC, NeoDys computes NEO orbits and predicts their further motion. It then computes impact risks for NEOs on a regular basis (everyday updates). NeoDys keeps a risk list, and it contains a database with information on all known asteroids and NEOs. The NeoDys website also contains a link to European Asteroid Research Node (EARN) which is a database of physical properties of NEOs [6]. EARN was developed by DLR in Berlin and is updated on a regular basis. Other existing European structures include the Spaceguard facility [7] and the Planetary Database [8]. Spaceguard is an association aimed at the protection of the Earth environment against the bombardment of

objects of the Solar System. It maintains a priority list of NEO which require additional observations. The Planetary Database was originally developed as a source of information on nonspherical gravitational fields of the Solar System’s bodies. It can serve as kernel of a wider database for all NEO information.

EU solves NEO detectionNew Scientist, 9-26-2009, “It's behind you!” p. npThere is one major way to improve our prospects - point more eyes at the skies. The European Space Agency wants to get into the monitoring game and may set its telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile on the problem. This could fill a gap in the NASA-funded surveys, which are limited to watching the skies of the northern hemisphere, says Richard Crowther of the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council, who is a consultant for ESA and heads a United Nations working group on near-Earth objects. Be prepared "Up to now, the US has taken the majority of the responsibility for dealing with this issue and I think it's time for other states to take on a more equitable share of that," he says.

EU solves best for NEO deflectionRussell L. Schweichart, Chair of B612 Foundation, former astronaut, 2007, “NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS,” Congressional Testimony, p. npWhat needs to be done to mitigate the risks of potential NEO impacts? There are two key actions to be taken that would make significant progress toward protecting the Earth from the potential devastation of NEO impacts. Neither of them is expensive yet both of them are extremely important, even urgent, in light of the anticipated rapid rise in the NEO discovery rate in the near future. a) NASA should assign someone in its NEO Program to the specific task of thinking through, analyzing and understanding the NEO deflection challenge. (Recommendation 3) So long as the NASA effort, and therefore thinking, is restricted to the NEO discovery process only, the government will lack the critical information and understanding needed to protect the Earth from NEO impacts. There is critical linkage between the upstream process of NEO search and orbit analysis and the downstream information needed to deflect NEOs. Absent someone explicitly thinking this through we stand justly accused of focusing on numeric goals for the sake of meeting an abstract quota. I hasten to point out that NASA cannot make such an assignment without being given the explicit responsibility for this critical function. b) NASA should validate a basic NEO deflection capability through the execution of a demonstration mission. (Recommendation 4) While deflection concepts can and indeed must first be worked out conceptually, in an endeavor as critical to public safety as deflecting an asteroid bound for an impact, our ultimate success in such a vital undertaking cannot depend solely on a paper analysis. A demonstration program can be performed on

a non- threatening asteroid at a cost no more than that of a typical small scientific mission. This effort need not, and perhaps should not, be undertaken as a US mission per se. The European Space Agency (ESA) has already performed the initial feasibility and design phase of such a mission (though it should be modified to validate the "slow push" component).

Were an international partnership agreement negotiated a reasonable cost estimate for a complete NEO deflection demonstration campaign could be performed for about the cost of a single scientific mission.


ESA Solvency – ISS

ESA already has an explicit role in ISS due to its existing partnershipsMarcia Smith, 11-27-2010, “European Space Ministers Empahsize Space-Based Infastructure, Exploration”,http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1245:european-space-ministers-emphasize-space-based-infrastructure-exploration&catid=91:news&Itemid=84Article 189 of the Lisbon Treaty, which went into force in December 2009, gives the EU an explicit role not only in European space applications like Galileo and GMES, but also in space exploration. The resolution issued yesterday "CONSIDERS" that Europe's robotic and human space exploration program should be undertaken "within a worldwide programme" developed by building upon existing international partnerships. The International Space Station (ISS) is specifically cited as an example. The resolution "TAKES NOTE" of the decision by some ISS partners to extend operations of the ISS until at least 2020 and stresses the need to effectively utilize the facility. Regarding space exploration, the resolution "STRESSES the strong common interest of Member States in Mars exploration" and "CALLS UPON the European Commission and ESA [Director General], jointly, to develop and propose a European exploration strategy..." ESA issued its own press release, quoting Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain as saying that the Lisbon Treaty with its Article 189 is "good news for space, good news for Europe and good news for ESA. It allows us not to do the same thing differently, but to do more, together ."

Key to ISS survivalAndrew Wilson, 2005, “ESA Achievments more than 30 years of pioneering space activity”, http://www.scribd.com/doc/53618958/ESA-AchievementsESA astronaut missions for the foreseeable future will, of course, center on the International Space Station. This is the largest project of international cooperation ever undertaken. For the first time, almost half a century after the dawn of the Space Age, scientists and engineers have a permanent international presence in space. While orbiting at an average altitude of 400km, they are performing scientific and technological tests using laboratories comparable with the best on Earth. The Station will be a research base like those built in the Antarctic or on the ocean floor, but it uniquely involves five international Partners(USA, Europe, Japan, Russia and Canada) and embraces almost all fields of science and technology. Physicists, engineers, technicians, physicians and biologists are working together to pursue fundamental research and to seek commercially-oriented applications. Research will extend far beyond basic goals such as puzzling over the mysteries of life: the Station is a test center for developing innovative technologies and processes, speeding their introduction into all areas of our lives. Despite significant budget reductions in space activities, Europe in March1995 committed itself to full partnership in the International Space Station and to providing elements on a strict schedule. This major multi-year investment immediately boosted Europe’s aerospace industry,

hard hit since the late 1980s by budget cuts in defense and aviation. Opting for this new space policy ensured that established teams of engineers and scientists could remain intact, assuring the future of European high technology.

ESA key to the ISS laboratoriesAndrew Wilson, 2005, “ESA Achievments more than 30 years of pioneering space activity”, http://www.scribd.com/doc/53618958/ESA-AchievementsISS operations will continue to at least 2016, so ESA is already considering further activities. The cargo carrier of ATV could bereplaced with a recoverable capsule to return experiment results from the Station. This will become a pressing need if NASA carries out itsdeclared intention of retiring theShuttle fleet in 2010 when ISSassembly is

completed. MannedSoyuz missions could be launchedfrom Kourou, and Europe could cooperate in the development of the‘Clipper’ new generation of Russian manned craft. The ISS could be used to demonstrate inflatable modules ,regenerative life-support systems and ‘intelligent’ robots for future deep-space exploration


AT: US Key Warrants

ESA collaborates globally – ensures diffusion and no link to the relations DAESA, 3-9-2009, http://www.esa.int/esaCP/ESATE4UM5JC_index_0.htmlInternational cooperation To ensure that ESA remains at the forefront of space research and exploration, ESA frequently joins in cooperative ventures with other spacefaring nations such as the United States, Russia, China, Canada, India and Japan. Negotiations with countries wishing to join ESA also take place in Paris. International collaboration also includes assisting developing countries. ESA manages a worldwide network of ground-receiving stations to collect remote sensing data and has set up a network to transmit weather and environmental data to African countries. ESA's Office for International Relations interacts with international organisations such as the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The ESA headquarters in Paris also hosts the International Astronautical Federation (IAF).

ESA has decades of experience collaborating with ChinaESA Press Release, 10-15-2003, “ESA Director General salutes China's first human space flight”http://www.dglr-muenchen.de/chinaspace.htmOur warmest congratulations to the People's Republic of China on this outstanding achievement said ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain soon after the successful Shenzou launch. China becomes the third country to send human beings into space, demonstrating the reliability of its aerospace technology. This mission could open up a new era of wider cooperation in the worlds space community, he added. ESA and China already have a long-standing record of cooperation that began in 1980 with an agreement to facilitate the exchange of scientific information. Cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Science in connection with ESAs Cluster satellites was set up in 1993, and another cooperation agreement linking ESA and China in the Double Star project was signed in 2001. Double Star - two satellites to be launched by Chinese Long March 2C rockets in December 2003 and spring 2004 - will follow in the footsteps of ESA's Cluster mission, studying the Suns effects on the Earth's environment. Ten instruments will be provided by ESA, and eight by China. In addition, following the recent agreement between the EU and China on Galileo, initial talks have taken place between ESA and the Chinese authorities to identify potential contributions that China can make to the European satellite navigation system. The way has been paved not only for reciprocal exchanges between scientists, but also for the establishment of wide-ranging cooperation between ESA and the Chinese government. This should soon materialise with the signature of a 5-year cooperation agreement - currently being finalised - on space cooperation for peaceful purposes covering the areas of space science, Earth observation, environmental monitoring, meteorology, telecommunications and satellite navigation, microgravity research (biology and medicine), and human resource development and training.

ESA can cooperate with Russia effectivelyESA, 10-1-2004, “ESA’s Permanent Mission in Russia”, http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMC3NMKPZD_index_0.htmlESA’s Permanent Mission to Russia was established nine years ago through an agreement, signed on 10 April 1995, between the European Space Agency and the Government of the Russian Federation.

The mission, which is located in Moscow, has diplomatic status and is registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As ESA’s office in Russia, ESA Moscow is a showcase for Europe’s achievements in space, facilitates the exchange of information between ESA and Russia, fosters cooperation between the two, and provides logistic support for ESA staff and contractors visiting Russia. The Russian Federation is one of ESA’s major partners

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMC3NMKPZD_index_0.html

http://www.dglr-muenchen.de/chinaspace.htm

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/ESATE4UM5JC_index_0.html


2NC EU Credibility Add-On

Successful ESA is key to European independenceDan Thisdell, 6-14-2011, “Europe Outlines Future in Space”, http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/06/14/357539/europe-outlines-future-in-space.htmlThe European Commission spelled this vision out with admirable clarity in an April 2011 paper detailing its priorities for a new, "reinforced" European space policy, which will emerge from the coming rounds of EU budget making. As commission vice-president for industry Antonio Tajani puts it, space is about improving the safety and daily lives of Europeans. He says: "Space is strategic for Europe's independence, job creation and competitiveness. Space activities create high-skilled jobs, innovation, new commercial opportunities and improve citizens' well-being and security." And, he adds: "In order to achieve our goals, Europe needs to keep an independent access to space."Lastly, the Commission's list of priorities includes the agreement of a European space industry policy. This should boost industrial competitiveness in a sector that generates economic growth, high-quality jobs and opportunities for product and service innovation beyond the space sector. It should also "increase the excellence of European research".S

Space is Key to EU decisionmakingMarcia Smith, 11-27-2010, “European Space Ministers Empahsize Space-Based Infastructure, Exploration”,http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1245:european-space-ministers-emphasize-space-based-infrastructure-exploration&catid=91:news&Itemid=84Among its many points, the resolution itself "ACKNOWLEDGES the increasing dependence of the European economy and policies ... on space assets and the critical nature of space infrastructures for autonomous European decision making...." It also "NOTES the EU's proposal for a Code of Conduct in Outer Space" and "RECOGNISES the need for a future Space Situational Awareness (SSA) capability as an activity at European level..."

Strong EU is key to solve extinctionJohn Bruton T.D, The Irish Times, Thursday, January 31, 2002, A Report For The Joint Oireachtas Committee On European Affairs As the Laeken Declaration put it, "Europe needs to shoulder its responsibilities in the governance of globalisation" adding that

Europe must exercise its power in order "to set globalisation within a moral framework, in other words to anchor it in solidarity and sustainable development". Only a strong European Union is big enough to create a space, and a stable set of rules, within which all Europeans can live securely, move freely, and provide for themselves, for their families and for their old age. Individual states are too small to do that on their own. Only a strong European Union is big enough to deal with the globalised human diseases, such as AIDS and tuberculosis. Only a strong European Union is big enough to deal with globalised criminal conspiracies, like the Mafia, that threaten the security of all Europeans. Only a strong European Union is big enough to deal with

globalised environmental threats, such as global warming, which threaten our continent and generations of its future inhabitants. Only a strong European Union is big enough to deal with globalised economic forces, which could spread recession from one country to another and destroy millions of jobs. Only a strong European Union is big

enough to regulate, in the interests of society as a whole, the activities of profit seeking private corporations, some of which

now have more spending power than many individual states. These tasks are too large for individual states. Only by coming together in the European Union can we ensure that humanity, and the values which make us, as

individuals, truly human, prevail over blind global forces that will otherwise overwhelm us.

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/space/esp/index_en.htm


AT: Perm

NASA too broke to partner with ESA—would only delay projectsDavid Shiga, 3/21/2011, “Nasa and ESA ‘Divorce’ over money”, http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/03/nasa-and-esa-divorce-over-mone.htmlThe honeymoon is over for NASA and the European Space Agency. Tight budgets at NASA have put ambitious joint space missions on the chopping block. In recent years, NASA and ESA have been planning joint missions to places like Jupiter's

moons and Mars. The idea was that by joining forces, they could mount bigger missions than either could afford alone. But with NASA's budget expected to stay flat in the coming years, it now appears unable to pay its share of the bill for these missions, calling their future into question. NASA planetary science chief James Green announced in a 17 March meeting with outer planet scientists that the agency is postponing indefinitely (pdf) an orbiter for Jupiter's icy moon Europa, which may harbour an ocean of liquid water beneath its surface.

ESA says no to the perm - doesn’t want to partner with NASATaylor Dinerman, 3-8-2010, “Does NASA have an international future?”http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1581/1Since then the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA have successfully cooperated on several solar physics missions, including the long running SOHO probe and now the potentially spectacular Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft launched last month. Yet even after thirty years, ESA has not forgotten, or forgiven, what happened to the ISPM. Another European disappointment was the Spacelab module, which flew far fewer missions

than ESA had hoped. At least that program led the way for Italy to become proficient at building space structures. The science work that had been planned had to be abandoned, leaving NASA with yet another blot on its international record. The US has a fundamental problem with the way it designs and builds long-term civilian science and technology programs. It is simply too easy for an administration to propose a new project, if Congress agrees to get funding. But there is nothing that obliges any future administration to continue any particular

program. Even worse, there is no sense among politicians or civil servants that once a program has begun it is wise to finish it. A nation with a reputation for never finishing what it starts will find few genuine partners for any of its major projects.

One of the worst examples of this was the cancellation in 1993 of the Superconducting Super Collider, a giant particle physics project that was voted down by a Congress anxious to deal a blow to what was then known as “Big Science”. Since then America’s standing in this branch of science has fallen from a place of indisputable leadership to one of parity with Europe and Japan. CERN in Geneva is world’s premier center for this research and the technological benefits that go along with it have long been lost. The US has a fundamental problem with the way it designs and builds long-term civilian science and technology programs. There is nothing that obliges any future administration to continue any particular program. Though the problem may appear to be political, it might be a good idea to look at the structural roots of this phenomenon. The US has never been able to put together a “Capital Improvement Budget”. The Pentagon can occasionally put together a multi-year program, but they are generally restricted to items that have been in production for many years and whose cost structure is well understood by the procurement bureaucracy and industry. Ambitious science and technology projects fall well outsid

NASA’s budget leads to mission cancellationsSpaceosaur, 3-9-2011, “NASA And ESA Mars Rover Faces Cancellation”, http://spaceosaur.co.uk/2697/nasa-and-esa-mars-rover-faces-cancellation-marsday/A joint Mars exploration mission planned by both NASA & ESA for 2018 could be put on hold or even scrapped altogether because NASA has a funding shortfall of $1 billion. This is potentially very bad news. ESA’s ExoMars is designed and ready to be built, but NASA’s Max-C looks as though it may be too expensive – thus jeopardising the entire mission. This news comes via a new report from the U.S. National Research Council (officially titled “Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022,” – available here though many are referring to it as the “planetary decadal survey”). The decadal survey is purely advisory at this point, but it does carry weight. It’s conducted by a group of independent scientists and is viewed as a barometer of the larger space and planetary science community’s feelings and therefore is taken seriously by NASA policymakers and those controlling NASA’s budget. The mission, as originally planned, called for two rovers–one from each agency–to share a

ride on the same rocket to Mars where each would then conduct missions on the surface. The European rover ExoMars would drill into the surface in search of life while its American counterpart Max-C would collect and package rocks for later retrieval and eventual return to Earth. But the decadal report, relying on information from knowledgeable,

independent parties, says Max-C would cost at least $3.5 billion to build and launch, a full $1 billion more than NASA can spare for the mission. The report doesn’t suggest NASA scrap the mission but rather that it scale back to stay

within budget. If that can’t be done, however, the report suggests deferring the mission until later or canceling it outright.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/03/nasa-and-esa-divorce-over-mone.html


ESA CP Answers


Perm Solves – Collaboration Key

ESA and NASA empirically collaborate, NASA is keyAndreas Diekmann,2-10-2010, “Executing successful partnerships with NASA -International Partners’ Perspectives ESA” http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/427639main_PMC_2010_Diekmann_Executing.pdfNASA is ESA’s most significant cooperation partner (in terms of history and volume of cooperation). ESA/European space engineering and management culture is based on NASA model. In many cases, there is long continuity of

personal contacts between ESA and NASA programme and project managers. ESA is much smaller than NASA. Therefore, (a) NASA mostly in leadership role, (b) the prominent mode of cooperation so far: contributions to each others missions; new trend: more integrated cooperation.

NASA/ESA cooperation works – wins awardsESA, 4-8-2008, “Joint ESA/NASA team wins international award”, http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMRWNZXUFF_index_0.html The Ulysses mission operations team has won an international award in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the success and scientific productivity of the joint ESA/NASA observatory mission, now orbiting the poles of the Sun. The ESA/NASA Ulysses team was tapped to receive the 2008 'International SpaceOps Award for Outstanding Achievement' by the International Committee on Technical

Interchange for Space Mission Operations and Ground Data Systems, also known as the SpaceOps Committee. The award will be presented during the SpaceOps 2008 Conference, taking place from 12 to 16 May in Heidelberg, Germany. The Ulysses spacecraft was launched in 1990 on a planned five-year mission; keeping the hugely successful spacecraft operating for more than 17 years has presented operations engineers on the ground with a series of unique challenges. “Ulysses has performed everything it was designed to do - and also a number of things that it wasn't.” Science of the highest quality "Fortunately, the science from our mission has been of the highest quality, which has made it easier for both ESA and NASA to justify extending the mission on three occasions. I'd also like to commend Dornier, now Astrium, for delivering such a robust spacecraft; from flying past Jupiter to traversing the poles of the Sun, it has performed everything it was designed to do and also a number of things that it wasn't," said Nigel Angold, ESA Mission Operations Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California. According to the SpaceOps Secretariat, the Achievement award is presented for 'outstanding efforts in overcoming space operations and support challenges, and recognises those teams or individuals whose exceptional contributions were critical to the success of a space mission.'

NASA/ESA cooperation is high quality – solves the case bestESA, 2006, “ESA/NASA solar mission wins prestigious award”, http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?id=/research/headlines/news/article_08_06_05_en.html&item=Infocentre&artid=7359A team of European and US space operation engineers has won the prestigious 'International SpaceOps Award for Outstanding Achievement’ for its contribution to the successful Ulysses observatory mission now orbiting the poles of the sun. Despite initial plans to place Ulysses in orbit for 5 years, the satellite has successfully been in operation for over 17 years, giving scientists a bird's eye view of the heliosphere from the equator to the poles. The achievement award was presented by the International Committee on Technical Interchange for Space Mission Operations and Ground Data Systems (SpaceOps Committee) during the SpaceOps 2008 Conference, which recently took place in Heidelberg, Germany. The award recognises the 'outstanding efforts in overcoming space operations and support challenges, and recognises those teams or individuals whose exceptional contributions were critical to the success of a space mission'. Thanks to the skills and dedication of the people involved in the mission, the recovery of science data throughout the mission has been excellent, explained Ed Massey, NASA project manager for Ulysses at the US Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). 'For 17 years, more than 98% of available data has been captured and made available to the science investigators,' he said. 'The level of experience of management has been fairly stable throughout and young, smart and innovative people have cycled through and made significant contributions to the operations team,' Mr Massey remarked. For Nigel Angold, ESA Mission operations manager at JPL, the quality of the scientific work was also key to the mission’s success. ‘Fortunately, the science from our mission has been of the highest quality, which has made it easier for both ESA and NASA to justify extending the mission on three occasions,’ he said. Mr Angold had words of praise for the manufacturers of the ‘robust’ satellite they delivered. ’From flying past Jupiter to traversing the poles of the Sun, it has performed everything it was designed to do and also a number of things that it wasn't,' he said. 'I am very proud to be part of the Ulysses team and appreciate all the hard work of my dedicated colleagues at JPL, ESA and industry in making this mission

such a long and successful one.' Ulysses was constructed in Europe while NASA engineers provided the Radio-isotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) power source and the launch on board Space Shuttle Discovery. Following years of successful operations, Ulysses will be decommissioned in the near future because the power produced by the Radio-isotope Thermoelectric Generator has begun dropping, thus forcing communications, heating and scientific equipment to run on minimum power. Once the on-board temperature drops below 2°C, the hydrazine fuel - used as rocket fuel - will freeze, causing blockage of the fuel pipes and unmanageability of the spacecraft, the researchers say.

http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?id=/research/headlines/news/article_08_06_05_en.html&item=Infocentre&artid=7359

http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?id=/research/headlines/news/article_08_06_05_en.html&item=Infocentre&artid=7359

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMRWNZXUFF_index_0.html

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/427639main_PMC_2010_Diekmann_Executing.pdf


Perm Solves – Funding

Perm solves the link – only NASA and ESA partnership can fund the plan while avoiding political falloutAndy Pasztor, 6-23-2011, , “Europe ends independent pursuit of manned space travel,” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304569504576403810498723484.html?mod=googlenews_wsjUnder President George W. Bush, NASA explicitly said it didn't want European involvement in critical manned systems. Now, the agency is singing the praises of international cooperation as the only way to cover the huge costs of manned exploration of deep space. But budget constraints and political squabbling may put many of those plans on hold.

Neither side can afford the plan – partnership provides fundingLou Friedman, 2-21-2011, ”The case for international cooperation in space exploration”http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1782/1I owned an American car built in Australia from an Italian design with Japanese parts. It is trite now to comment on globalization and interdependency of world industry. The International Space Station is an extraordinary testament to how globalization and international cooperation have permeated the space program. The United States and Europe have also merged their planning for future robotic space exploration ventures to Mars and the outer planets. If these plans materialize, they will enable much more to be accomplished than could be done in national programs. International cooperation is enabling a golden era of robotic space exploration even in the face of budget cuts and increasing costs.

ESA can’t do the plan alone—budget freezeDoug Messier, 6-9-2010, “ESA Grapples with Tight Budgets; DLR Escapes German Budget Cuts”, http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng/newsi-r.htm?id=4762&printversion=1Spaceflight Now reports that ESA is going through some belt tightening as it deals with the global recession:The European Space Agency’s spending freeze is not delaying missions yet, but all options will be on the table as the cash-strapped agency prepares for even tighter budgets in 2011 and 2012 , the organization’s top financial official said. Ludwig Kronthaler, ESA’s director of resources management, said the space agency should have enough money to avoid a moratorium on contract signings this year. But more serious consequences may be in store for the next two years. “For 2010, I don’t see a huge problem in the budget,” Kronthaler said. “But it’s clear we have to prepare ourselves that 2011 and 2012 might be tighter.” ESA is freezing spending for 2010 and 2011 at last year’s level of 3.35 billion euros, or $4 billion. The space agency’s budget remains higher, but ESA’s expenditures will be stretched out through contract modifications.

http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng/newsi-r.htm?id=4762&printversion=1


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304569504576403810498723484.html?mod=googlenews_wsj



Yes ESA/NASA Cooperation

ESA and NASA already making plans for space explorationLou Friedman, 2-21-2011, ”The case for international cooperation in space exploration”http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1782/1The interdependency of national space programs will play a part in the big space exploration decision that Europe has to make later this year: what to explore in the 2020s. Because of the

complications of having over a dozen nations involved in decision-making and project implementation, the European Space Agency has to make decisions long in advance of their technical necessity. They will probably decide this year or next on their next big step in space exploration and choose a mission that will probably not launch until well into the 2020s. They are considering their first outer planets mission: an orbiter of Jupiter and its giant moon Ganymede, to fly as a companion to NASA’s putative Europa orbiter. An International X-Ray Observatory is also being considered in cooperation with both NASA and JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It would be a large telescope companion to the James Webb Space Telescope at the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point, L2. The third candidate in the science competition is a gravity wave detector called LISA, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. It would be a cooperative mission with NASA, utilizing three satellites.

NASA and ESA are working on space exploration togetherAmy Klamper,9-17-2010, “NASA Sees Expanded Role on Euclid as Down Payment on Dark Energy Flagship”, http://www.spacenews.com/civil/nasa-dark-energy.htmlIn the meantime, Morse said NASA is proposing to increase a planned investment in Euclid, a dark energy mapper designed by the European Space Agency (ESA). Morse said Euclid is “similar to WFIRST and could potentially be well aligned” with the highest science priorities laid out in the Astro2010 decadal survey. “We’re trying to prudently plan for the future such that the U.S. would have a leading role in a dark energy program that would get us to data this decade,” Morse said, adding that Euclid’s projected launch near the end of this decade could provide the U.S. astronomy community with access to dark energy data sooner than

WFIRST. Euclid is one of three so-called M-class missions vying for funding under the ESA’s Cosmic Vision program for separate launch opportunities in 2017 and 2018. A decision is expected in mid-2011 on which two of three finalists proceed toward launch. Morse said Euclid — which is expected to cost roughly 500 million euros ($650 million) — shares a number of scientific goals with WFIRST. He views a proposed 33 percent investment in Euclid as a near-term down payment on the decadal survey’s top science objective. Released Aug. 13, the Astro2010 decadal survey — formally titled “New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics” — designated WFIRST as the top priority for large missions for the decade ahead. The survey envisions WFIRST being developed by NASA in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and ESA at an estimated cost of $1.6 billion to study dark energy, hunt for Earth-like planets and advance scientific understanding of the nature and evolution of galaxies. Morse said ESA invited NASA earlier this year to make a 20 percent contribution to Euclid. But he said increasing the investment to 33 percent would afford greater scientific opportunities. Under the proposed arrangement, NASA would select four U.S. scientists to join Euclid’s 12-member science team and ask Europe to consider a reciprocal investment in WFIRST if Euclid is selected, including commensurate representation on the science definition team.

ESA and NASA developing Mars programs togetherDefence and Aerospace News, 6-14-2011, “NASA ESA select experiment for 2016 ExoMars orbiter”, http://www.brahmand.com/news/NASA-ESA-select-experiment-for-2016-ExoMars-orbiter/7282/1/21.htmlWASHINGTON (BNS): NASA and European Space agency (ESA) will perform new scientific experiments for the new Mars lander that will launch in 2016. The new Mars lander which is also called as Entry, descent, and landing Demonstrator Module (EDM) will probe the atmosphere and send the first ever data on electrical fields at the surface of Mars. “The EDM will be landing during the dust storm season. This will provide a unique chance to characterise a dust-loaded atmosphere during entry and descent, and to conduct interesting surface measurements associated with a dust-rich environment,” ESA quoted Jorge Vago, ExoMars Project Scientist as saying. For the descent phase, two proposed investigations called Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Science and IDEAS (Investigations During Entry and Atmospheric Science)

were selected and combined into one Entry and Descent Science programme. ESA and NASA are jointly developing the two programmes on Mars after ExoMars 2016 an programme ExoMars 2018, will drop a rover onto the Red Planet to look for evidence of past or present life. Once on the surface, the DREAMS (Dust characterisation, Risk assessment, and Environment Analyser on the Martian Surface) scientific payload will function as an environmental station for the two to four days of the surface mission. DREAMS will also make the first measurements of electrical fields at Mars' surface, ESA officials said. Electrical fields are likely to be generated when grains rub against each other in the dust-rich atmosphere. The EDM will also have a color camera system. No design has yet been chosen for the camera, but a decision is expected before the end of this year, officials said.

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/nasa-dark-energy.html



US Key – EU Alone Fails

ESA can’t work alone, they need collaboration to produce resultsDan Thisdell, 6-23-2011, “Paris Space Nations Must Unite on Transport Policy ESA”, http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/06/23/358578/paris-space-nations-must-unite-on-transport-policy-esa.htmlEurope's drive for technological non-dependence in space will not extend to manned spaceflight capabilities, says European Space Agency director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain. Speaking at the Paris air show, Dordain restated his conviction that a key lesson of the International Space Station experience is that ISS partners have made a "collective mistake" in failing to devise a common transport policy. The result, he said, is that following the final flight of the US Space Shuttle later this year there will be just one route to the space station, via Soyuz. And that, he said, means "the situation today is uncomfortable. We run the risk of being glued to the ground." Working independently, rather than collaboratively with a common policy on interfaces between spacecraft and a collective vision of what is needed to sustain the ISS and other joint missions, has also resulted in both ESA and the Japanese space agency developing cargo delivery ships - ESA's ATV and Japan's HTV - but no-one devising a cargo return capability to replace the Shuttle. Transport, he stressed, represents 50% of the cost of space operations, so spacefaring nations must discuss their common needs and work out "who does what". Dordain stressed that Europe will not unilaterally devise a human-capable system, but may contribute to one. He said that ISS partners might in the autumn "converge" on a modular concept that would allow each partner to develop spacecraft to suit their needs while remaining interoperable.

ESA can’t fly solo – needs the US for human explorationAndy Pasztor, 6-23-2011, , “Europe ends independent pursuit of manned space travel,”http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304569504576403810498723484.html?mod=googlenews_wsjLE BOURGET, France—Europe appears to have abandoned all hope of independently pursuing human space exploration, even as the region's politicians and aerospace industry leaders complain about shrinking U.S. commitment to various space ventures. After years of sitting on the fence regarding a separate, pan-

European manned space program, comments by senior government and industry officials at the Paris Air Show here underscore that budget pressures and other shifting priorities have effectively killed that longtime dream. Jean-Jacques Dordain, head of the European Space Agency, stressed that Europe won't design its own rockets or new spacecraft for manned missions, but may contribute to international efforts.

Plan is key to international cooperation on space and spills over to overall leadershipJustin Koplow, JD Candidate @ Georgetown, 2005, Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, p. npThe free rider problem that could be one of the treaty's greatest weaknesses would become one of its greatest successes; such a situation creates a duty to attempt to avert a foreign asteroid impact even outside of the structures of a treaty and, thereby, international humanitarianism and the world community are greatly served. The actor States would become the greatest proponents of the treaty system because without it they could still be bound to act but would have to foot the bill for their own domestic protection and their own coordination with foreign States. [*306] Similarly, much of the criticism of U.S. hegemony and military brutishness would also be turned on its head. n144 The United States would be seen as engaging the world and looking out for its protection rather than dictating what other countries should do. Renouncing placement of nuclear weapons in space as part of this program

will also show that the actor States are not using this as an excuse to militarize space. The bureaucratic system of the world would yield to a dedicated structure and system, creating an efficient and greatly needed body. n145 Additionally, this system would remove a great deal of currently existing duplicity and waste. Ultimately, a treaty on the topic of cooperation in asteroid diversion would be a fantastic opportunity to address a very real threat and to do so in a roundly beneficial fashion. An eventual asteroid impact is not an "if" because the asteroid that might eventually collide with Earth is even now coming closer; thus, catastrophe is coming that much closer, too. With the realness of the threat, there are too many "ifs" in both the current legal frameworks and the current response framework to leave the problem for another day.



http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/06/23/358578/paris-space-nations-must-unite-on-transport-policy-esa.html

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/06/23/358578/paris-space-nations-must-unite-on-transport-policy-esa.html


AT: EU Leadership Add-On

Strong EU crushes US HegemonyGerard Baker, associate editor of the Financial Times, 9-22-2003,The Weekly Standard, p. 11All right, say the non-worriers, but so what? Even if a new E.U. takes the Franco-German tilt, does it really matter? Everyone knows, thanks to Robert Kagan's analysis, that Europeans are ideologically committed to weak-kneed multilateralism, that they are not really interested in exercising power. What possible effect could a United Europe have on America's ability to execute its intentions? As one conservative puts it, "Why get upset about 10,000 Vanessa Redgraves marching through

Paris?" This "Europe as soft multilateralists" argument is only half right. The E.U.'s increasingly urgent efforts to turn itself into a single state expose a fundamental deception in the European project. The Europeans are not multilateralists at home. On

the contrary, they want to turn Europe from an intergovernmental institution into a single nation--with real power. It's true that even the French have no grand design to take on the United States in some new superpower struggle. But this

misses the point. The kind of multilateralism they do believe in is the one that uses institutions to hold American power in check. Think of the E.U. not as a Superpower but as a kind of Sniperpower, constantly picking off parts of U.S. foreign policy objectives around the world. It made life difficult enough over the Iraq war; it could make life in post-Saddam Iraq much harder for the United States . It could cause plenty of mischief in all corners of the globe. Imagine a united Europe aggressively pursuing a single line against the United States in the councils of NATO. Or throwing its sizable economic weight around in Latin America or Africa. And one other longstanding goal of U.S. policy could also make European awkwardness more of a constraint for America. It has long been an axiom of U.S. policy that Europe should develop military capabilities of its own--genuine ones that would enable Europe to fight hot wars in difficult places and take some of the burden off

the Americans. This too has always been dubious policy. If a united Europe really does develop enhanced capabilities, it is inconceivable that it will not demand a bigger say in the decision-making in new international crises.

The EU is in position to effectively neutralize US hegemonyJan Oberg, 2000, member of the Scientific Committee of International University for Peoples'Initiatives for Peace, “The Militarisation of the European Union: A Civilisational Mistake,”http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/region/euforce.htm, accessed July 9, 2004)So, the EU sees its chance now. It also wants to guard itself against excessive US dominance in the future. The most recent example of the rapidly widening disagreement, if not worse, between the EU and the US came with Secretary of Defence, Richard Cohen's warning to European

defence ministers in Brussels on December 5 in effect saying "don't even try to compete with NATO, coordinate with it and let us -- US -- control force planning and interventions." The EU's chosen means to play a world role is economic first and from now on, military. While the former may succeed, the latter won't in the foreseeable future. If a small power wants to fight a bigger one, the first rule of thumb is: don't choose the field in which the opponent is much stronger. So, if the EU chooses to militarise itself it will remain a European sub-division of NATO. If on the contrary it does things differently, draws some other lessons from Kosovo and decides to deal with conflicts around the world in a new way, it may become much stronger and even a moral force - - and stronger than the US on most power scales. It may become a power of the future rather than a replica of its colonial past and of the present NATO. It would probably also create less suspicion among people and governments within a radius of 4000 kilometres, and beyond, who would have less reason to ask: what on earth is the EU up to for the future?

A strong EU is a threat to US hegemonyEugene McCartan, Communist Party of Ireland, June 19-20-2003, http://solidnet.org/cgi-bin/agent?parties/042=ireland,_communist_party_of_ireland/Irelandcp.docWe are also witnessing the attempts by the U.S to consolidate its influence in Eastern Europe in its effort to prevent an EU challenge to its world hegemony, its "Old Europe" and "New Europe" tactic. With the help of the

governments of Britain, Spain, and Italy, it hopes to turn the EU into a subservient ally. It is worried that an independent Europe with its own strong currency and political and military structures would be an obstacle to its dreams of world domination. Although globalisation represents an acceleration towards monopoly and homogeneity there are contradictions in the situation such as competition between imperialisms (or styles of imperialism) e.g. US verses EU V Japan, or within the EU between Britain, France and Germany. It is clear that the United States ruling elite will not tolerate the emergence of any power, political, economic most importantly military, which challenges its global hegemony since the dismantling of the Soviet Union. As far as it is concerned, it has seen off the challenge from communism and will not allow any other movement, country, or group of countries to emerge to rival it. We are aware that within the wider labour movement of Europe (and some within our own ranks of communist parties) who believe that a strong EU is necessary as a bulwark against the United States.


ESA Credibility Alt-Causes

Internal conflicts hurt the ESA – satellite funding provesPeter B. de Selding, 3-5-2010, “Controversy Deepens Over European Weather Satellite Contract”, http://www.spacenews.com/satellite_telecom/100305-meosat-contract-issue-remains-unsettled.htmlMUNICH, Germany — German government officials are blaming their own tactical error during negotiations with France for the controversy that has blocked approval of Europe’s $1.7 billion next-generation weather satellite program since the beginning of the year and now threatens to cause lasting damage to the 18-nation European Space Agency (ESA), German government and industry officials said.

German nationalism threatens ESA credibility and fundingPeter B. de Selding, 3-5-2010, “Controversy Deepens Over European Weather Satellite Contract”, http://www.spacenews.com/satellite_telecom/100305-meosat-contract-issue-remains-unsettled.htmlEuropean government and industry officials said the Transport Ministry is furious that Germany will not be prime contractor for a program in which, due to its place as Europe’s leading economy, it is paying the largest share. Eumetsat’s ruling council had been scheduled to meet in December to open the process of soliciting MTG contribution approvals from Eumetsat member governments. That meeting then was delayed to March 15 to give ESA time to resolve the satellite contract problem. It was recently delayed again, to March 26, as it became clear that ESA, despite two months of effort by ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain, has been unable to win German backing for ESA’s MTG contractor choice. “What we are faced with now is something that could be disastrous for ESA if the agency agrees to change its decision based on political pressure,” one German government official said.

German board recommendations are crippling the ESAPeter B. de Selding, 3-5-2010, “Controversy Deepens Over European Weather Satellite Contract”, http://www.spacenews.com/satellite_telecom/100305-meosat-contract-issue-remains-unsettled.html“It is a very delicate issue.” Another German government official said: “The question here goes to the heart of whether we should favor ESA as a channel for our space investment, or favor national and bilateral projects done outside ESA in which we are sure to have a control that corresponds to our investment. That is what this issue has caused us to think about.” Even industry officials who are backing the Astrium

MTG bid concede that if ESA were to buckle to pressure and reject its evaluation board’s recommendation, it would compromise its credibility for future contract tenders. “This would be catastrophic for ESA, no one doubts that,” said one industry official whose company is not involved in the Thales Alenia-OHB bid. “Once you open the door to political pressure, the system collapses.”

http://www.spacenews.com/satellite_telecom/100305-meosat-contract-issue-remains-unsettled.html




ESA Fails

ESA fails – funding and delaysAerospace Daily, 12-8-2009, “Medium-Sized Missions Could Test ESA Science Management Skills,” p. npA slate of new medium-sized science missions being evaluated by the European Space Agency (ESA) could reignite debate on the agency’s ability to keep within cost and schedule envelopes mandated by its member states. Gross underestimates of technology risks on the BepiColombo Mercury mission have led to more rigorous evaluation of ESA science projects (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 30). The six missions, presented at the Oceanographic Institute here last week, are being proposed for the so-called «M» (medium) Mission portion of ESA’s new science program, Cosmic Vision 2015-25. The missions cover a range of undertakings, from pinpointing Earth-like planets and exploring dark matter and energy to providing a close-up view of the sun’s polar regions and backside. They will be reviewed and ranked by priority in January in preparation for a downselect by ESA’s Science Program Committee the following month. The SPC is likely to approve 2-4 missions for further study. Final selection of the missions, due to be launched in 2017-19, is planned in 2011. Some of the missions presented may be in for a rough ride on the key criterion of cost. Two of them — the Marco Polo near-Earth-object sample return mission and Cross-Scale, a 12-satellite space plasma experiment — carry an estimated price tag of €600-630 million ($900-$945 million) in 2010 conditions, far above the €475 million target cost for M-Missions and close to cornerstone missions like Gaia, says Frederic Safa, who heads ESA’s advanced studies and technology preparation division. A third, the Euclid dark energy probe, carries an acknowledged mass and schedule risk that could push up its €500 million estimated cost. The high estimates may raise member state concerns that ESA is still not able to keep its science projects within cost and schedule targets. «The last three ESA councils have all taken issue with science mission costs, and the next this month will do so, too ,» says ESA’s director of science and robotic exploration, David Southwood, noting that industry bears part of the blame.

ESA can’t solve – restrictions on US techSpace News, 5-28-2010, “European Space Agency Seeks To Lessen Its Dependence On U.S. Propulsion Providers, http://www.spacenews.com/civil/100528-esa-lessen-dependence-propulsion-providers.htmlThe European Space Agency (ESA) is promoting the creation of European expertise in certain propulsion technologies to avoid technology-transfer roadblocks associated with U.S. components even if the U.S. hardware is substantially less expensive, ESA officials said. These officials said that they have been forced into the policy by the fact that for its satellite programs, ESA requires that it be able to understand the source of a problem that crops up either in ground testing or in orbit. U.S. International

Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) policy makes such a post-failure review impossible, they said. “If the U.S. has already developed something and can sell it to us for half of what it would cost us to build it, why should we develop it? We can use our resources elsewhere,” said Jose Gonzalez del Amo of ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, Netherlands. “The problem is that if a component doesn’t work, we need to understand what happened, and ITAR prevents this.” As a result, ESA is financing development of satellite regulators, latch and flow-control valves and other components instead of continuing to rely on U.S. goods, Gonzalez del Amo said here May 4 during the Space Propulsion 2010 conference organized by the French Aeronautics and Astronautics Association. It is not just satellite components. The 18-nation ESA’s general policy of nondependence — this can mean independence or maintaining at least two competing non-European suppliers — has worked its way into most of the agency’s programs in the decade since ITAR, which classifies most satellite components as weaponry, became U.S. policy. Mark Ford, head of ESTEC’s propulsion engineering section, said the agency is determined to continue to wean itself from dependence on U.S. suppliers for propulsion technologies to avoid ITAR-related complications. ESA and other European government officials have long said Europe’s space budget is too small to pursue autonomy in all sectors. Besides the cost of developing the technology, maintaining production lines for these components is often difficult given Europe’s relatively low demand, they said. Using U.S. components has been especially attractive in recent years because of the strength of the euro relative to the U.S. dollar, which gives U.S. exports an advantage over European suppliers. Michel Courtois, ESA’s director of technical and quality management, said the large investment needed to design and test new propulsion technologies, coupled with the low price of U.S. and other non-European hardware, holds down market prices and discourages new European market participants. Despite this, Courtois said in a written presentation to the conference, ESA is moving toward “full qualification of European feed system components — regulators, latch valves and flow control valves — to remove ITAR dependencies.” Gonzalez del Amo said several companies are already under ESA contract to develop propulsion-related systems that are considered critical for future European missions and are available in the United States but only under restrictive conditions.


Capitalism Critique


1NC Capitalism Critique 1/2

Space exploration is just an expression of the capitalist drive to expansionPeter Dickens, Professor of Sociology – University of Brighton and Cambridge, UK, 6-6-2010 “The Humanization of the Cosmos – To What End?”, Monthly Review, 62(6), November, “http://monthlyreview.org/archives/2010/volume-62-issue-06-november-2010”Instead of indulging in over-optimistic and fantastic visions, we should take a longer, harder, and more critical look at what is happening and what is likely to happen. We can then begin taking a more measured view of space humanization, and start developing more progressive alternatives. At this point, we must return to the deeper, underlying processes which are at the heart of the capitalist economy and society, and which are generating this demand for expansion into outer space. Although the humanization of the cosmos is clearly a new and exotic development, the social relationships and mechanisms underlying space-humanization are very familiar. In the early twentieth century, Rosa Luxemburg argued that an “outside” [area] to capitalism is important for two

main reasons. First, it is needed as a means of creating massive numbers of new customers who would buy the goods made in the capitalist countries.7 As outlined earlier, space technology has extended and deepened this process, allowing an increasing number of people to become integral to the further expansion of global capitalism. Luxemburg’s second reason for imperial expansion is the search for cheap supplies of labor and raw materials. Clearly, space fiction fantasies about aliens aside, expansion into the cosmos offers no benefits to capital in the form of fresh

sources of labor power.8 But expansion into the cosmos does offer prospects for exploiting new materials such as those in asteroids, the moon, and perhaps other cosmic entities such as Mars. Neil Smith’s characterization of capital’s relations to nature is useful at this point. The reproduction of material life is wholly dependent on the production and reproduction of surplus value. To this end, capital stalks the Earth in search of material resources; nature becomes a universal means of production in the sense that it not only provides the subjects, objects and instruments of production, but is also in its totality an appendage to the production process…no part of the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere, the oceans, the geological substratum or the biological superstratum are immune from transformation by capital.9 Capital is now also “stalking” outer space in the search for new resources and raw materials. Nature on a cosmic scale now seems likely to be incorporated into production processes, these being located mainly on earth.

Resist the affirmative’s call to “do something” – this is just a way to justify capitalismAdria Johnston, research fellow at Emory, December 2004, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, v. 9, i. 3, p. 259The height of Zizek's philosophical traditionalism, his fidelity to certain lasting truths too precious to cast away in a postmodern frenzy, is his conviction that no worthwhile praxis can emerge prior to the careful and deliberate formulation of a correct conceptual framework. His references to the Lacanian notion of the Act (qua agent-less occurrence not brought about by a

subject) are especially strange in light of the fact that he seemingly endorses the view that theory must precede practice, namely,

that deliberative reflection is, in a way, primary. For Zizek, the foremost "practical" task to be accomplished today isn't some kind of rebellious acting out, which would, in the end, amount to nothing more than a series of impotent, incoherent outbursts. Instead, given the contemporary exhaustion of the socio-political imagination under the hegemony of liberal-democratic capitalism, he sees the liberation of thinking itself from its present constraints as the first crucial step that must be taken if anything is to be changed for the better. In a lecture given in Vienna in 2001, Zizek suggests that Marx's call to break out of the sterile closure of abstract intellectual ruminations through direct, concrete action (thesis eleven on Feuerbach--"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it") must be inverted given the new prevailing conditions of late-capitalism. Nowadays, one must resist succumbing to the temptation to short-circuit thinking in favor of acting, since all such rushes to action are doomed; they either fail to disrupt capitalism or are ideologically co-opted by it.

http://monthlyreview.org/2010/11/01/the-humanization-of-the-cosmos-to-what-end#en77




1NC Capitalism Critique 2/2

We’re at the endgame – unchecked growth will cause extinction, and no reform to capitalism can save us. The only way out is full-blown revolution. Joel Kovel, Professor of Social Studies at Bard College, 2002, The Enemy of Nature, p. 5-6As the world, or to be more exact, the Western, industrial world, has leapt into a prosperity unimaginable to prior generations, it has prepared for itself a calamity far more unimaginable still. The present world system in effect has had three decades to limit its growth, and it has failed so abjectly that even the idea of limiting growth has been banished from official discourse. Further, it has been proved decisively that the internal logic of the present system translates ‘growth’ into increasing wealth for the few and increasing misery for the many. We must begin our inquiry therefore, with the chilling fact that ‘growth’ so conceived means the destruction of the natural foundation of civilization. If the world were a living organism, then any sensible observer would

conclude that this ‘growth’ is a cancer that, if not somehow treated, means the destruction of human society, and

even raises the question of the extinction of our species. A simple extrapolation tells us as much, once we learn that the growth is uncontrollable. The details are important and interesting, but less so than the chief conclusion — that irresistible growth, and the

evident fact that this growth destabilizes and breaks down the natural ground necessary for human existence, means, in the plainest terms, that we are doomed under the present social order, and that we had better change it as soon as possible if we are to survive. One wants to scream out this brutal and plain truth, which should be on the masthead of every newspaper and the station-identification of every media outlet, the leading issue before Congress and all governmental organizations, the focus of every congregation and the centrepiece of every curriculum at all levels of education ... but is nothing of the kind.

Our alternative is to do nothing – this is essential to resist capitalism and avoid replicating the aff’s harmsZizek, 2004 Slavoj Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle, page 71-71 The stance of simply condemning the postmodern Left for its accommodation, however, is also false, since one should ask the obvious difficult question: what, in fact, was the alternative? If today’s ‘post-politics’ is opportunistic pragmatism with no principles, then the predominant leftist reaction to it can be aptly characterized as ‘principle opportunism’: one simply sticks to old formulae (defence of the welfare state, and so on) and calls them ‘principles’ , dispensing with the detailed analysis of how the situation has changed – and thus retaining one’s position of Beautiful Soul.

The inherent stupidity of the ‘principled’ Left is clearly discernable in it standard criticism of any analysis which proposes a more complex picture of the situation, renouncing any simple prescriptions on how to act: ‘there is no clear political stance involved in your theory’ – and this from people with no stance but their ‘principled opportunism’. Against such a stance, one should have the courage to affirm that, in a situation like today’s, the only way really to remain open to a revolutionary opportunity is to renounce facile calls to direct action, which necessarily involve us in an activity where things change so that the totality remains the same. Today’s predicament is that, if we succumb to the urge of directly ‘doing something’ (engaging in the anti-globalist struggle, helping the poor…) we will certainly and undoubtedly contribute to the reproduction of the existing order. The only way to lay the foundations for a true, radical change is to withdraw from the compulsion to act, to ‘do nothing’ – thus opening up the space for a different kind of activity.


Uniqueness – Capitalism Is Collapsing

Capitalism is collapsing – financial shifts ensureMichale Parenti, 4-26-2010, “Capitalism’s Apocalypse,” No Lies Radio, http://noliesradio.org/archives/15436Parenti predicted the financial crisis and said that giant corporate capitalism - by it’s very nature - is an apocalyptic system. When unregulated the built in elements of ever increased growth may well bring the whole system down. And he described the growing national debt not as a tragic mistake but as a means to shift ever more money from the tax payers to the financial institutions in the form of interest payments. This speech is an analysis of the many structural flaws of a capitalist system that puts it on a permanent collision course with democracy.

Capitalism is dead – the bourgeoisie has used up all of their lifelines.Eduardo Smith, 1-27-2009, “The Economic Crisis: State Capitalism Is Running Out of Room for Manoeuvre,” Internationalism no 149, http://en.internationalism.org/inter/149/state-capitalismYet given the fact that so far the bourgeoisie has failed to contain the crisis, the odds for Obama's success are definitely not good. Nothing in the toolkit used by the doctors of moribund capitalism seems to have worked so far. After uncountable monetary and fiscal gimmicks -the Fed's key interest rate is close to being negative, trillions of dollars have been

injected into the financial system, the federal budget deficit has ballooned to over one trillion dollars - the economy just keeps getting worse. The financial system is still in shambles, while the so-called real economy is getting worse by the day. Economic production and commodity sales are rapidly falling, bringing with them a wave of company bankruptcies and a massive upsurge in the numbers of workers being laid off throughout all the sectors of the economy. Although there are still no comprehensive figures about the economic performance during the past holiday season, all estimates predict historically low sales, while the last official figures on unemployment have the unemployed rate running at a 7.2 percent, the highest in the last 16 years

Collapse inevitable – this recession is the end of a 40 year process of decent Eduardo Smith, 1-27-2009, “The Economic Crisis: State Capitalism Is Running Out of Room for Manoeuvre,” Internationalism no 149, http://en.internationalism.org/inter/149/state-capitalismAs we have often pointed out the present economic slump is just one moment in the open crisis of capitalism

that started at the end of the 1960's, and that has only gotten worse ever since, despite the "recoveries" which follow the progressively worse "recessions" over the last four decades. Throughout these years -up to now -

state capitalist policies have been able to avoid a dramatic collapse similar to that of the great depression, but only at the price of aggravating on the long term capitalism chronic crisis. Thus the ongoing recession -in

America and throughout the world - with its dramatic shakeup in the financial system and its apparent unresponsiveness to the government economic manipulation, expresses the reckoning with reality of a system in crisis kept artificially alive by state capitalist policies. Let us be clear, the policies being prepared by Obama's bright boys are not new, they are variants of the same capitalist policies implemented by the state at one moment or another during the last four decades and that were widely used before during FDR's Depression era. However the failure of this state capitalist economic toolkit to work its magic and keep this moribund system alive is what gives the present world economic slump its true historical significance. And this does not bode well for the Obama's administration. If anything, the margin of maneuver that the state has today to manipulate the economy is far more reduced than what the bourgeoisie had in the 30's.


Capitalism Link – Space

Space exploration as an attempt to fix global problems just expands capitalism and causes mass violencePeter Dickens, Professor of Sociology – University of Brighton and Cambridge, UK, 6-6-2010 “The Humanization of the Cosmos – To What End?”, Monthly Review, 62(6), November, “http://monthlyreview.org/archives/2010/volume-62-issue-06-november-2010” Since Luxemburg wrote, an increasing number of political economists have argued that the importance of a capitalist “outside” is not so much that of creating a new pool of customers or of finding new resources.10 Rather, an outside is needed as a zone into which surplus capital can be invested. Economic and social crisis stems less from the problem of finding new consumers, and more from that of

finding, making, and exploiting zones of profitability for surplus capital. Developing “outsides” in this way is also a product of recurring crises, particularly those of declining economic profitability. These crises are followed by attempted “fixes” in distinct geographic regions. The word “fix” is used here both literally and figuratively. On the one

hand, capital is being physically invested in new regions. On the other hand, the attempt is to fix capitalism’s crises. Regarding

the latter, however, there are, of course, no absolute guarantees that such fixes will really correct an essentially unstable social and economic system. At best, they are short-term solutions. The kind of theory

mentioned above also has clear implications for the humanization of the cosmos. Projects for the colonization of outer space should be seen as the attempt to make new types of “spatial fix,” again in response to economic, social, and environmental crises on earth. Outer space will be “globalized,” i.e., appended to Earth, with new

parts of the cosmos being invested in by competing nations and companies. Military power will inevitably be made an integral part of this process, governments protecting the zones for which they are responsible. Some influential commentators argue that the current problem for capitalism is that there is now no “outside.”11 Capitalism is everywhere. Similarly, resistance to capitalism is either everywhere or nowhere. But, as suggested above, the humanization of the cosmos seriously questions these assertions. New “spatial fixes” are due to be opened up in the cosmos, capitalism’s emergent outside. At first, these will include artificial fixes such as satellites, space stations, and space hotels. But during the next twenty years or so, existing outsides, such as the moon and Mars, will begin attracting investments. The stage would then be set for wars in outer space between nations and companies attempting to make their own cosmic “fixes.”

Space exploration allows mass capitalist expansion in the name of profitsMarin Parker, prof @ Leicester, 2009, Sociological Review, v. 57So the means become the end. The end is the playing of the game, and finds no justification beyond itself, and questions about ends, about values, are no longer asked.This, it seems to me, is the paradox of having capitalists in space. As if the distance between the Earth and 47 Ursae Majoris is a problem for marketing, and the sublime evaporates in the exhaust fumes of managerialism. But, at the same time, it is naïve to imagine that Apollo and the rest have been free from such earthly entanglements. In the context, it doesn't matter that much whether we articulate these entanglements as nation building; party political interest; hidden subsidy of the military industrial complex, or research institutes; career and identity projects; needing to pay the mortgage; or compensating for small penis size. All these, and many more, have undoubtedly driven human beings to work on space exploration projects. But now, in an era of globalising capitalism, it seems that matters of profit and loss are becoming more relevant than ever in driving human beings to such work. Commercial space tourist flights will be the first clear example of what has, so far, been a tendency partly concealed by state and state agency operations. But now, it seems, NASA is being pushed out of the way, in order that enterprise can be launched.




Capitalism Link – Space

Space development is a strategy of capitalist accumulation.Fraser Macdonald, , Senior Lecturer in Human Geography – University of Melbourne, 2007 “Anti-Astropolitik – Outer Space And The Orbit Of Geography,” 603-604, EBSCO)Many of these space-enabled developments have, unaccountably, been neglected by the mainstream of geography. For instance, Barney Warf makes the comment that ‘to date, satellites remain a black hole in the geographical literature on communications’ (Warf, 2006: 2). Yet these technologies underwrite an array of potentially new subjectivities, modes of thinking and ways of being whose amorphous shape has recently been given outline by Thrift in a series of original and perceptive essays (Thrift, 2004a; 2004b; 2005a). He draws our attention to assemblages of software, hardware, new forms of address and locatability, new kinds of background calculation and processing, that constitute more active and recursive every-day environments. The background ‘hum’ of computation that makes western life possible, he argues, has been for the most part inaudible to social researchers. Of particular interest to Thrift is the tendency towards ‘making different parts of the world locatable and transposable within a global architecture of address’ (Thrift, 2004a: 588), which is, of course, the ultimate achievement of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), of which GPS is the current market leader. On the back of the absolute space of GPS – and its ancillary cartographic achievements (Pickles, 2004) – have emerged other (relational) spatial imaginaries and new perceptual capacities, whereby the ability to determine one’s location and that of other people and things is increasingly a matter of human precognition (Thrift, 2005a: 472). Dissolving any neat distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘technology’, this new faculty of techno-intelligence can support quite different modes of sensory experience. Thrift offers the term ‘a-whereness’ to describe these new spatial modalities that are formed when what used to be called ‘technology’ has moved ‘so decisively into the interstices of the active percipience of everyday life’ (Thrift, 2005a: 472; see also Massey and Thrift, 2003: 291). For all its clunky punnage, ‘a-whereness’ nevertheless gives a name to a set of highly contingent forms of subjectivity that are worth anticipating, even if, by Thrift’s own admission, they remain necessarily speculative. Reading this body of work can induce a certain vertigo, confronting potentially precipitous shifts in human sociality. The same sensation is also induced by engagement with Paul Virilio (2005). But, unlike Virilio, Thrift casts off any sense of foreboding (Thrift, 2005b) and instead embraces the construction of ‘new qualities’ (‘conventions, techniques, forms, genres, concepts and even ... senses’), which in turn open up new ethicopolitical possibilities (Thrift, 2004a: 583). It is important not to jettison this openness lightly. Even so, I remain circumspect about the social relations that underwrite these emergent qualities, and I am puzzled by Thrift’s disregard of the (geo)political contexts within which these new technologies have come to prominence. A critical geography should, I think, be alert to the ways in which state and corporate power are immanent within these technologies, actively strategizing new possibilities for capital accumulation and military neoliberalism. To the extent that we can sensibly talk about ‘a-whereness’ it is surely a function of

a new turn in capitalism, which has arguably expanded beyond the frame (but not the reach) of Marx and Engels when they wrote that: the need for a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere. (Marx and Engels, 1998: 39) The current struggle for orbital supremacy, as the next section will make clear, is an extension of these relations into space in order to consolidate them back on Earth. Indeed, outer space may become, to use David Harvey’s term, a ‘spatio-temporal fix’ that can respond to crises of over-accumulation (Harvey, 2003: 43). While this might seem like shorthand for the sort of Marxist critique that Thrift rejects (Amin and Thrift, 2005), it is an analysis that is also shared by the advocates of American Astropolitik, who describe space as the means by which ‘capitalism will never reach wealth saturation’ (Dolman, 2002: 175). The production of (outer) space should, I think, be understood in this wider context.

Nuclear space exploration is a Trojan horse for space militarizationSpace.com, May 21, 2000, http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/nuclearmars_000521.htmlMoreover, Gagnon warns, the so-called "peaceful" uses of nuclear power in space such as nuclear Mars rockets are merely a cover to develop power systems that can be used for space-based weapons. Once developed under the guise of space exploration, he said, nuclear reactors could be used to drive dangerous space-based laser weapons. "These rockets are the foot in the door, the Trojan horse, if you will, for the militarization of space," Gagnon said.


Capitalism Link – Space Race

US space dominance is a tool for the violent expansion of global capitalismRaymond Duvall, Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, and Jonathan Havercroft, Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science at The University of British Columbia, October 2006, “Taking Sovereignty Out of This World: Space Weapons and Empire of the Future,” October, http://www.ligi.ubc.ca/sites/liu/files/Publications/Havercroft_paper.pdfEach of the three forms of space weaponization has important constitutive effects on modern sovereignty, and, in turn, productive effects on political subjectivities. Exclusive missile defense constitutes a “hard shell” of sovereignty for one state, while erasing the sovereign political subject status of other states. Space control reinforces that exclusive constitution of sovereignty and its potentiality for fostering unilateral

decision. It also constitutes the ‘‘space-controlling’’ state, the U.S., as sovereign for a particular global social order, a global capitalism, and as a state populated by an exceptional people, ““Americans.”” Space weaponization in the form of capacities for direct force application obliterate the meaning of territorial boundaries for defense and for distinguishing an inside from an outside with respect to the scope of policing and law enforcement——that is authorized locus for deciding the exception. States, other than the exceptional “American” state, are reduced to empty shells of sovereignty, sustained, if at all, by convenient fiction

——for example, as useful administrative apparatuses for the governing of locals. And their “citizens” are produced as “bare life” subject to the willingness of the global sovereign to let them live. Together, these three sets of effects constitute what we believe can appropriately be identified as late-modern empire, the political subjects of which are a global sovereign, an exceptional “nation” linked to that sovereign, a global social order normalized in terms of capitalist social relations, and “bare life” for individuals and groups globally to participate in that social order. If our argument is even half correct, the claim with which this paper began——that modes of political killing have important effects——would be an understatement!

Space control strategies function in a fundamentally capitalist fashionRaymond Duvall, Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, and Jonathan Havercroft, Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science at The University of British Columbia, October 2006, “Taking Sovereignty Out of This World: Space Weapons and Empire of the Future,” October, http://www.ligi.ubc.ca/sites/liu/files/Publications/Havercroft_paper.pdfThe second type of militarization—space control—is both a form of “privatizing” the commons of orbital space and a form of military exclusion, an extra-territorial complement to the effort to create an exclusive territorial “hard shell” for just one state (and perhaps its “friends”) through missile defense. In the first

respect, it can be understood as a type of “primitive accumulation”,48 whereby the commons of orbital space is effectively colonized and “made safe” for the capitalist interests that flow through it—primarily

information services at this point in time. Here, the project of space control is constitutive of the U.S. as expressly capitalist state—sovereign subject of a particular global socio-economic order. In the second respect, that moment of constitution is conjoined with the constitution of an exclusive—a singular—sovereignty in regard to the workings of that socio-economic order through the global commons of orbital space.


Capitalism Link – Ethics

Space exploration is unethical – it spreads capitalist destruction to spacePatrick Lin, Prof @ Cal-Poly, 2006, “Viewpoint: Look Before Taking Another Leap For Mankind,” Digital Commons, http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=phil_facOne of the first and natural reactions of many is to ask: should we be encouraging private space exploration, given what we have done to our own planet? What is to prevent problems on Earth from following us into outer space, if we have not evolved the attitudes, and ethics, which have contributed to those problems? As examples, an over-developed sense of nationalism may again lead to war with other humans in space, and ignoring the cumulative effects of small acts may again lead to such things as the overcommercialization of space and space pollution. Have we learned enough about ourselves and our history to avoid the same mistakes as we have made on Earth?Preserving the pristine, unspoiled expanses of space is a recurring theme, much as it is important to preserve wetlands rainforests, and other natural wonders here on Earth. We have already littered the orbital environment in space with floating debris that we need to track so that spacecraft and satellites navigate around, not to mention abandoned equipment on the Moon and Mars. So what safeguards are in place to ensure we do not exacerbate this problem, especially if we propose to increase space traffic? Furthermore, are we prepared to risk accidents in space from the technologies we might use, such as nuclear power?

Resisting capitalism is your primary ethical responsibilitySlajov Zizek, philosopher and Glyn Daly, 2004, Conversations with Zizek, p. 14-16For Zizek it is imperative that we cut through this Gordian knot of postmodern protocol and recognize that our ethico-political responsibility is to confront the constitutive violence of today’s global capitalism and its obscene naturalization / anonymization of the millions who are subjugated by it throughout the world. Against the standardized positions of postmodern culture – with all its pieties concerning ‘multiculturalist’ etiquette – Zizek is arguing for a politics that might be called ‘radically incorrect’ in the sense that it break with these types of positions 7 and focuses instead on the very organizing principles of today’s social reality: the principles of global liberal capitalism. This requires some care and subtlety. For far too long, Marxism has been bedeviled by an almost istic economism that has tended towards political morbidity. With the likes of Hilferding and Gramsci, and more recently Laclau and Mouffee, crucial theoretical advances have been made that enable the transcendence of all forms of economism. In this new context, however, Zizek argues that the problem that now presents itself is almost that of the opposite . That is to say, the prohibitive anxieties surrounding the taboo of economism can function as a way of not engaging with economic reality and as a way of implicitly accepting the latter as a basic horizon of existence. In an ironic Freudian-Lacanian twist, the fear of economism can end up reinforcing a de facto economic necessity in respect of contemporary capitalism (i.e. the initial prohibition conjures up the very thing it fears). This is not to endorse any kind of retrograde return to economism.

Zizek’s point is rather that in rejecting economism we should not lose sight of the systemic power of capital in shaping the lives and destinies of humanity and our very sense of the possible. In particular we should not overlook Marx’s central insight that in order to create a universal global system the forces of capitalism seek to conceal the politico-discursive violence of its construction through a kind of gentrification of that system. What is persistently denied by neo-liberals such as Rorty (1989) and Fukuyama (1992) is that the gentrification of global liberal capitalism is one whose ‘universalism’ fundamentally reproduces and depends upon a disavowed violence that excludes vast sectors of the world’s populations. In this way, neo-liberal ideology attempts to naturalize capitalism by presenting its outcomes of winning and losing as if they were simply a matter of chance and sound judgment in a neutral market place. Capitalism does indeed create a space for a certain diversity, at least for the central capitalist regions, but it is neither neutral nor ideal and its price in terms of social exclusion is exorbitant. That is to say, the human cost in terms of inherent global poverty and degraded ‘life-chances’ cannot be calculated within the existing economic rationale and, in consequence, social exclusion remains mystified and nameless (viz. the patronizing reference to the ‘developing world’). And Zizek’s point is that this mystification is magnified through capitalism’s profound capacity to ingest its own excesses and negativity: to redirect (or misdirect) social antagonisms and to absorb them within a culture of differential affirmation. Instead of Bolshevism, the tendency today is towards a kind of political boutiquism that is readily sustained by postmodern forms of consumerism and lifestyle. Against this Zizek argues for a new universalism whose primary ethical directive is to confront the fact that our forms of social existence are founded on exclusion on a global scale. While it is perfectly true that universalism can never become Universal (it will always require a hegemonic-particular embodiment in order to have any meaning), what is novel about Zizek’s universalism is that it would not attempt to conceal this fact or reduce the status of the abject Other to that of a ‘glitch’ in an otherwise sound matrix.


Capitalism Link – Law

Reliance on the law guarantees the rapid spread of capitalism. Internationalist Perspective, Spring 2000, “Capitalism and Genocide”, #36, Accessed 4/29/09, http://www.geocities.com/wageslavex/capandgen.htmlThe real domination of capital is characterized by the penetration of the law of value into every segment of social existence. As Georg Lukács put it in his History and Class Consciousness, this means that the commodity ceases to be "one form among many regulating the metabolism of human society," to become its "universal structuring principle." From its original locus at the point of production, in the capitalist factory, which is the hallmark of the formal domination of capital, the law of value has systematically spread its tentacles to incorporate not just the production of commodities, but their circulation and consumption. Moreover, the law of value also penetrates and then comes to preside over the spheres of the political and ideological, including science and technology themselves. This latter occurs not just through the transformation of the fruits of technology and science into commodities, not just through the transformation of technological and scientific research itself (and the institutions in which it takes place) into commodities, but also, and especially, through what Lukács designates as the infiltration of thought itself by the purely technical, the very quantification of rationality, the instrumentalization of reason; and, I would argue, the reduction of all beings (including human beings) to mere objects of manipulation and control. As Lukács could clearly see even in the age of Taylorism, "this rational mechanisation extends right into the worker's `soul'." In short, it affects not only his outward behavior, but her very internal, psychological, makeup.

Relying on the rule of law makes capitalism stronger than ever. Slavoj Zizek, Senior Researcher University of Ljubljana, October 1997, New Left Review, Accessed 4/29/09, http://newleftreview.org/?getpdf=NLR22102Nonetheless, the post-Nation-State logic of capital remains the Real which lurks in the background, while all three main leftist reactions to the process of globalization—liberal multiculturalism; the attempt to embrace populism by way of discerning, beneath its fundamentalist appearance, the resistance against ‘instrumental reason’; the attempt to keep open the space of the political—seem inappropriate. Although the last approach is based on the correct insight about the complicity between

multiculturalism and fundamentalism, it avoids the crucial question: how are we to reinvent political space in today’s conditions of globalization? The politicization of the series of particular struggles which leaves intact the global process of capital is clearly not sufficient. What this means is that one should reject the opposition which, within the frame of late capitalist liberal democracy, imposes itself as the main axis of ideological struggle: the tension between ‘open’ post-ideological universalist liberal tolerance and the particularist ‘new fundamentalisms’. Against the liberal centre which presents itself as neutral and post-ideological, relying on the rule of the Law, one should reassert the old leftist motif of the necessity to suspend the neutral space of Law.

Failure to focus on the economy props up capitalismSlavoj Zizek, famous philosopher, 1999, The Ticklish Subject, p. 356Of course, one should fully acknowledge the tremendous liberating impact of the postmodern politicization of domains which were hitherto considered apolitical (feminism, gay and politics, ecology, ethnic

and other so-called minority issues): the fact that these issues not only became perceived as inherently political but also gave birth to new forms of political subjectivization thoroughly reshaped our entire political and cultural landscape. So the point is not to play down this tremendous advance in favour of the return to some new version of so-

called economic essentialism; the point is, rather, that the depoliticization of the economy generates the populist Right with its Moral Majority ideology, which today is the main obstacle to the realization of the very

(feminist, ecological. . .) demands on which postmodern forms of political subjectiv¬ization focus. In short, I am pleading for a 'return to the primacy of the economy' not to the detriment of the issues raised by postmodern forms of politicization, but precisely in order to create the conditions for the more effective realization of feminist, ecological, and so on, demands.


Capitalism Link – Hegemony

US hegemony only exists to further global capitalism through military interventionsJohn Bellamy Foster, editor of the Monthly Review, December 2001, “Imperialism and ‘Empire’,” The Monthly Review, Vol 53, No 7, http://www.monthlyreview.org/1201jbf.htmAt the present stage of the global development of capital, Mészáros insists, “it is no longer possible to avoid facing up to a fundamental contradiction and structural limitation of the system. That limitation is its grave failure to constitute the state of the capital system as such, as complementary to its transnational aspirations and articulation.” Thus it is

here that “the United States dangerously bent on assuming the role of the state of the capital system as such,

subsuming under itself by all means at its disposal all rival powers,” enters in, as the closest thing to a “state of the capital system.” (pp. 28-29). But the United States, while it was able to bring a halt to the decline in its economic position relative to the other leading capitalist states, is unable to achieve sufficient economic dominance by itself to govern the world system—which is, in any case, ungovernable. It therefore seeks to utilize its immense military power to establish its global preeminence.* “What is at stake today,” Mészáros writes, is not the control of a particular part of the planet—no matter how large—putting at a disadvantage but still tolerating the independent actions of some rivals, but the control of its totality by one hegemonic economic and military superpower, with all means—even the most extreme authoritarian and, if needed, violent military ones—at its disposal. This is what the ultimate rationality of globally developed capital requires, in its vain attempt to bring under control its irreconcilable antagonisms. The trouble is, though, that such rationality—which can be written without inverted commas,

since it genuinely corresponds to the logic of capital at the present historical stage of global development-—is at the same time the most extreme irrationality in history, including the Nazi conception of world domination, as far as the conditions required for the survival of humanity are concerned (pp. 37-38).

Global wars are just an outgrowth of US hegemonic attempts to further capitalist orderJohn Bellamy Foster, editor of the Monthly Review, December 2001, “Imperialism and ‘Empire’,” The Monthly Review, Vol 53, No 7, http://www.monthlyreview.org/1201jbf.htmAmong the disquieting developments that Socialism or Barbarism points to are: the enormous toll in Iraqi civilian causalities

during the war on Iraq and the death of more than a half million children as a result of sanctions since the war; the military onslaught on

and occupation of the Balkans; the expansion of NATO to the East; the new U.S. policy of employing NATO as an offensive military force that can substitute for the United Nations; U.S. attempts to further circumvent and undermine the United Nations; the

bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade; the development of the Japan-U.S. Security treaty aimed at China; and the growth of an aggressive U.S. military stance with regard to China—increasingly

seen as the emerging rival superpower. Over the longer run even the present apparent harmony between the United States and the European Union cannot be taken for granted, as the United States continues to pursue its quest for global domination. Nor is there an answer to this problem within the system at this stage in the development of

capital. Globalization, Mészáros argues, has made a global state imperative for capital, but the inherent character of capital’s social metabolic process, which demands a plurality of capitals, makes this impossible. “The potentially deadliest phase of imperialism” thus has to do with the expanding circle of barbarism and destruction that such conditions are bound to produce.

http://www.monthlyreview.org/1201jbf.htm#hegemony


Capitalism Link – Satellites

Satellites are a tool of capitalist exploitation.Peter Dickens, Professor of Sociology – University of Brighton and Cambridge, UK, 6-6-2010 “The Humanization of the Cosmos – To What End?”, Monthly Review, 62(6), November, “http://monthlyreview.org/archives/2010/volume-62-issue-06-november-2010”Yet among these plans and proposals, it is easy to forget that outer space is already being increasingly humanized. It has now been made

an integral part of the way global capitalist society is organized and extended. Satellites, for example, are extremely important elements of contemporary communications systems. These have enabled an increasing number of people to become part of the labor market. Teleworking is the best known example. Satellite-based communications have also facilitated new forms of consumption such as teleshopping. Without satellite-based communications, the global economy in its present form would grind to a halt. Satellites have also been made central to modern warfare. Combined with pilotless Predator drones, they are now being used to observe and attack Taliban and Al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This action is done by remote control from Creech Air Force Base at Indian Springs, Nevada. The 1980s Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” program, aimed to intercept incoming missiles while facilitating devastating attacks on supposed enemies. A version of the program is still being developed, with the citizens of the Czech Republic and Poland now under pressure to accept parts of a U.S.-designed “missile defense shield.” This is part of a wider strategy of “Full Spectrum Dominance,” which has for some time been official U.S. Defense Policy.4 Using surveillance and military equipment located in outer space is now seen as the prime means of protecting U.S. economic and military assets both on Earth and in outer space. Less dangerously, but still very expensively, a full-scale space-tourism industry has for some time been under active development. Dennis Tito, a multi-millionaire, made the first tourist trip into outer space in 2001. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has now sold over three hundred seats at $200,000 apiece to its first tourists in outer space. The program is due to start in 2011, with spaceports for this novel form of travel now being built in Alaska, California, Florida, New Mexico, Virginia, Wisconsin, the United Arab Emirates, and Esrange in Sweden. Excursions circling the moon, likely to cost the galactic visitors around $100,000,000, are now under development.

Satellites can be used for evil as well as good – their advocacy isn’t benignFraser MacDonald, Lecturer @ Melbourne, no date, post 2006, “Progress in Human Geography,” http://www.landfood.unimelb.edu.au/rmg/geography/papers/anti-outerspace.pdfIn this discussion so far, I have been drawing attention to geography’s recent failure to engage outer space as a sphere of inquiry and it is important to clarify that this indictment applies more to human than to physical geography. There are, of course, many biophysical currents of geography that directly draw on satellite technologies for remote sensing. The ability to view the Earth from space, particularly

through the Landsat programme, was a singular step forward in understanding all manner of Earth surface processes and biogeographical patterns (see Mack, 1990). The fact that this new tranche of data came largely from military platforms (often under the guise of ‘dual use’) was rarely considered an obstacle to science. But, as the range of geographical applications of satellite imagery have increased to include such diverse activities as urban

planning and ice cap measurements, so too has a certain reflexivity about the provenance of the images. It is not enough, some are realizing, to say ‘I just observe and explain desertification and I have nothing to do with the military’; rather, scientists need to acknowledge the overall context that gives them access to this data in the first place (Cervino et al., 2003: 236). One thinks here of the case of Peru, whose US grant funding for agricultural use of Landsat data increased dramatically in the 1980s when the same images were found to be useful in locating insurgent activities of Maoist ‘Shining Path’ guerrillas (Schwartz, 1996). More recently, NASA’s civilian Sea- Wide Field Studies (Sea-WiFS) programme was used to identify Taliban forces during the war in Afghanistan (Caracciolo, 2004). The practice of geography, in these cases as with so many others, is bound up with military logics (Smith, 1992); the development of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) being a much-cited recent example (Pickles, 1995; 2004; Cloud, 2001; 2002; see Beck, 2003, for a case study of GIS in the service of the ‘war on terror’).



Impact – Nuclear War

The continuation of capitalism guarantees nuclear extinction.Istvan Meszaros, Prof. of Philosophy @ Univ. of Sussex, January 2000, Monthly Review, LN Given the way in which the ongoing tends of global development assert themselves, in a clearly identifiable way, we may have perhaps a few decades to bring to a halt their destuctiveness, but certainly not centuries. The great liberal economist, Schumpeter, used to characterize—and idealize—capitalism as a system of “productive destruction.” This was, on the whole, true of capital’s ascending phase of development. Today, by contrast, we have reached a stage when, instead of “productive destruction,” we are even increasingly confronted by capital’s destructive production, proceeding on a frightening scale. You ask: “do you think that great mass movements have a chance to blossom again” in the age of globalization and under the “third way” of European social democracy? For me the “third way” is nothing more than a wishful fantasy, in defense of the established, untenable, order. Sociologists like Max Scheler have been predicting for almost a century the merging of the classes into a happy “middle-class”—one could only wonder: the middle of what? In reality, social polarization in our time is greater than ever before, making a mockery of the old social democratic expectations of eliminating—or at least greatly reducing—inequality through “progressive taxation.” As things turned out, we saw the diametrical opposite. To give you just two, very recent, examples: 1.) according to the Budget Office of the U.S. Congress (no “left-wing exaggerator,” for sure), the income of the top 1 percent is equivalent to that of the bottom one hundred million people, i.e. nearly 40 percent of the population. Twenty years ago it was “only” 1 percent against forty-nine million, i.e., less than twenty percent of the U.S. population. Some “equalization” and “merging of the classes into one another!” 2.) In England child poverty trebled in the last twenty years, and continued to be aggravated under the “New Labour” government in the last two and a half years. The “new labour” government preaches the vacuous “third way” sermon, and practices with ever greater severity the politics of antilabor measures, imposing even such policies which Mrs. Thatcher did not dare to introduce, cutting the Welfare State in every possible way, including even the precarious livelihood of the handicapped. Only a fool can assume that this can go on forever. So, in answer to your question, I am firmly convinced that there is a future for a radical mass movement, not only in England but also in the rest of the world. Or, to put

it another way, if there is no future for such a movement, there can be no future for humanity itself. If I had to modify Rosa Luxemburg’s dictum, in relation to the dangers we face, I would add to “socialism or barbarism:” “barbarism if we are lucky”—in the sense that extermination of humankind is the ultimate concomitant of capital’s destructive course of development. And the world of that third possibility,

beyond the alternatives of “socialism or barbarism,” would be fit only for cockroaches, which are said to be

able to endure lethally high levels of nuclear radiation. This is the only rational meaning of capital’s third way.

The sooner capitalism collapses the better. Structural violence is the equivalent of an ongoing thermonuclear war on the poor.Mumia Abu-Jamal, hardcore journalist who hangs with Immortal Technique, September 19, 1998, “A Quiet and Deadly Violence,” http://www.flashpoints.net/mQuietDeadlyViolence.html We live, equally immersed, and to a deeper degree, in a nation that condones and ignores wide-ranging "structural' violence, of a kind

that destroys human life with a breathtaking ruthlessness. Former Massachusetts prison official and writer, Dr. James Gilligan observes; By "structural violence" I mean the increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted by those who are above them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably

large proportion of them) are a function of the class structure; and that structure is itself a product of society's collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting "structural" with "behavioral violence" by which I mean the non-natural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide, soldiers in warfare, capital punishment, and so on. --(Gilligan, J., MD, Violence: Reflections On a National Epidemic (New York: Vintage, 1996), 192.) This form of violence, not covered by any of the majoritarian, corporate, ruling-class protected media, is invisible to us and because of its invisibility, all the more insidious. How dangerous is it--really? Gilligan notes: [E]very fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world. [Gilligan, p. 196]


Impact – War

Capitalism leads to war and extinctionIstvan Mezaros, Professor at the University of Sussex, April 2000, Socialism or Barbarism, p. 37-38The military dimension of all this must be taken very seriously. It is no exaggeration to say-in view of the formerly quite unimaginable

destructive power of armaments accumulated in the second half of the twentieth century-that we have entered the most dangerous phase of imperialism in all history. For what is at stake today is not the control of a particular part of the planet-

no matter how large-putting at a disadvantage but still tolerating the independent actions of some rivals, but the control of its totality by one hegemonic economic and military superpower, with all means-even the most extreme authoritarian and, if

needed, violent military ones -at its disposal. This is what the ultimate rationality of globally developed capital requires, in its vain attempt to bring under control its irreconcilable antagonisms. The trouble is,

though, that such rationality-which can be written without inverted commas, since it genuinely corresponds to the logic of capital at the present historical stage of global development-is at the same time the most extreme form of irrationality in history, including the Nazi conception of world domination, as far as the conditions required for the survival of humanity are concerned. When Jonas Salk refused to patent his discovery, the polio vaccine, insisting that it would be like wanting "to patent the sun," he could not imagine that the time would come when capital would attempt to do just that, trying to patent not only the sun but also the air, even if that had to be coupled

with dismissing any concern about the mortal dangers which such aspirations and actions carried with them for human survival. For the ultimate logic of capital in its processes of decision making can only be of a categorically authoritarian "top-down" variety, from the microcosms of small economic enterprises to the highest levels of political and military decisionmaking. But how can one enforce the patents taken out on the sun and the air? There are two prohibitive obstacles in this regard, even if capital-in its drive to demolish its own untranscendable limits- must refuse to acknowledge them. The first is that the plurality of capitals cannot be eliminated, no matter how inexorable and brutal the monopolistic trend of development manifest in the system. And the second, that the corresponding plurality of social labor cannot be eliminated, so as to turn the total labor force of humankind, with all its national and sectional varieties and divisions, into the mindless "obedient servant" of the hegemonically dominant section of capital. For labor in its insurmountable plurality can never abdicate its right of access to the air and the sun; and even less can it survive for capital's continued benefit-an absolute must for this mode of controlling social metabolic reproduction-without the sun and the air.

Capitalism can only result in unending warSamir Amin, director of the Third World Forum in Senegal, 2004, The Liberal Virus, pg. 23-4In fact, the global expansion of capitalism, because it is polar¬izing, always implies the political intervention of the dominant powers, that is, the states of the system’s center, in the societies of the dominated periphery. This

expansion cannot occur by the’ force of economic laws alone; it is necessary to complement that with political support (and military, if necessary) from states in the service of dominant capital. In this sense, the expansion is always entirely imperialist even in the meaning that Negri gives to the term (“the projection of national power beyond its

fron¬tiers,” on condition of specifying that this power belongs to cap¬ital). In this sense, the contemporary intervention of the United States is no less imperialist than were the colonial conquests of the nineteenth century Washington’s objective in Iraq, for exam¬ple, (and tomorrow elsewhere) is to put in place a dictatorship in the service of American capital (and not a “democracy”), enabling the pillage of the country’s natural resources, and noth¬ing more. The globalized “liberal” economic order requires per¬manent war—military interventions endlessly succeeding one another—as the only means to submit the peoples of the periph¬ery to its demands.

Capitalism makes genocidal violence inevitable.Internationalist Perspective, Spring 2000, “Capitalism and Genocide”, #36, Accessed 4/29/09, http://www.geocities.com/wageslavex/capandgen.htmlThe immanent tendencies of the capitalist mode of production which propel it towards a catastrophic economic crisis, also drive it towards mass murder and genocide. In that sense, the death-world, and the prospect of an Endzeit cannot be separated from the continued existence of humanity's subordination to the law of value. Reification, the overmanned world, bio-politics, state racism, the constitution of a pure community directed against alterity, each of them features of the economic and ideological topography of the real domination of capital, create the possibility and the need for genocide. We should have no doubt that the survival of capitalism into this new millenium will entail more and more frequent recourse to mass murder.


Impact – Genocide

Capitalism is responsible for genocide and violence.Internationalist Perspective, Spring 2000, “Capitalism and Genocide”, #36, Accessed 4/29/09, http://www.geocities.com/wageslavex/capandgen.htmlMarxism is in need of a theory of mass death and genocide as immanent tendencies of capital, a way of comprehending the link (still obsure) between the death-world symbolized by the smokestacks of Auschwitz or the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and the unfolding of the logic of a mode of production based on the capitalist law of value. I want to argue that we can best grasp the link between capitalism and genocide by focusing on two dialectically inter-related strands in the social fabric of late capitalism: first, are a series of phenomena linked to the actual unfolding of the law of value, and more specifically to the completion of the transition from the formal to the real domination of capital; second, are a series of phenomena linked to the political and ideological (this latter understood in a non-reductionist sense, as having a material existence) moments of the rule of capital, specifically to the forms of capitalist hegemony. It is through an analysis of the coalescence of vital elements of these two strands in the development of capital, that I hope to expose the bases for the death-world and genocide as integral features of capitalism in the present epoch.

Capitalism creates a system that rewards genocidal violence.Joel Kovel, Professor at Bard, 2002, The Enemy of Nature, P. 141Capital produces egoic relations, which reproduce capital. The isolated selves of the capitalist order can choose to become personifications of capital, or may have the role thrust upon them. In either case, they embark upon a pattern of non-recognition mandated by the fact that the almighty dollar interposes itself between all elements of experience: all things in the world, all other persons, and between the self and its world: nothing really exists except in and through monetization. This set-up provides an ideal culture medium for the bacillus of competition and ruthless self-maximization.

Because money is all that ‘counts’, a peculiar heartlessness characterizes capitalists, a tough-minded and cold abstraction that will sacrifice species, whole continents (viz. Africa) or inconvenient sub-sets of the population (viz. black urban males) who add too little to the great march of surplus value or may be seen as standing

in its way The presence of value screens out genuine fellow-feeling or compassion, replacing it with the calculus of profit-expansion. Never has a holocaust been carried out so impersonally. When the Nazis killed their victims, the crimes were accom¬panied by a racist drumbeat; for global capital, the losses are regrettable necessities.

Capitalism creates a world unending violence Internationalist Perspective, Spring 2000, “Capitalism and Genocide”, #36, Accessed 4/29/09, http://www.geocities.com/wageslavex/capandgen.htmlThe other side of bio-politics, of this power over life, for Foucault, is what he terms "thanatopolitics," entailing an awesome power to inflict mass death, both on the population of one's enemy, and on one's own population: "the power to expose a whole population to death is the underside of the power to guarantee an individual's continued existence. .... If genocide is indeed the dream of modern powers ... it is because power is

situated at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of population." Nuclear, chemical, and biological, weapons make it possible to wield this power to condemn whole populations to death. Bio-politics, for Foucault, also necessarily entails racism, by which he means making a cut in the biological continuum of human life,

designating the very existence of a determinate group as a danger to the population, to its health and well-being, and even to its very life. Such a group, I would argue, then, becomes a biological (in the case of Nazism) or class enemy (in the case of Stalinism, though the latter also claimed that biological and hereditary characteristics were linked to one's class origins). And the danger represented by such an enemy race can necessitate its elimination through physical removal (ethnic cleansing) or extermination (genocide).


Impact – Environment

Capitalism will cause eco-doom by 2013 through global warmingMinqi Li, teaches economics at the University of Utah, August 2008, “Climate Change, Limits to Growth, and the Imperative for Socialism,” The Monthly Review, http://monthlyreview.org/080721li.phpThe 2007 assessment report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that it is virtually certain that human activities (mainly through the use of fossil fuels and land development) have been responsible for the global warming that has taken place since the industrial revolution. Under current economic and social trends, the world is on a path to unprecedented ecological catastrophes.1 As the IPCC report was being released, new evidence emerged suggesting that climate change is taking place at a much faster pace and the potential consequences are likely to be far more dreadful than is suggested by the IPCC report. The current evidence suggests that the Arctic Ocean could become ice free in summertime possibly as soon as 2013, about one century ahead of what is predicted by the IPCC models. With

the complete melting of the Arctic summer sea ice, the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheets may become unavoidable, threatening to raise the sea level by five meters or more within this century. About half of the world’s

fifty largest cities are at risk and hundreds of millions of people will become environmental refugees.2

Should let capitalism collapse now instead of later – key to save the environmentGlen, Barry, PhD, the President and Founder of Ecological Internet, January 4, 2008 “Economic Collapse and Global Ecology,” http://www.countercurrents.org/barry140108.htmWe know that humanity must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% over coming decades. How will this and other necessary climate mitigation strategies be maintained during years of economic downturns, resource wars, reasonable demands for equitable consumption, and frankly, the weather being more pleasant in some places? If efforts to reduce emissions and move to a steady state economy fail; the collapse of ecological, economic and social systems is assured. Bright greens take the continued existence of a habitable Earth with viable, sustainable populations of all species including humans as the ultimate truth and the meaning of life. Whether this is possible in a time of economic collapse is crucially dependent upon whether enough ecosystems and resources remain post collapse to allow humanity to recover and reconstitute sustainable, relocalized

societies. It may be better for the Earth and humanity's future that economic collapse comes sooner rather than later , while more ecosystems and opportunities to return to nature's fold exist . Economic collapse will be deeply wrenching -- part Great Depression, part African famine. There will be starvation and civil strife, and a long period of suffering and turmoil. Many will be killed as balance returns to the Earth. Most people have forgotten how to grow food and that their identity is more than what they own. Yet there is some justice, in that those who have lived most lightly upon the land will have an easier time of it, even as those super-consumers living in massive cities finally learn where their food comes from and that ecology is the meaning of life. Economic collapse now means humanity and the Earth ultimately survive to prosper again. Human suffering -- already the norm for many, but hitting the currently materially affluent -- is inevitable given the degree to which the planet's carrying capacity has been exceeded. We are a couple decades at most away from societal strife of a much greater magnitude as the Earth's biosphere fails. Humanity can take the bitter medicine now, and recover while emerging better for it; or our total collapse can be a final, fatal death swoon. A successful revolutionary response to imminent global ecosystem collapse would focus upon bringing down the Earth's industrial economy now. As society continues to fail miserably to implement necessary changes to allow creation to continue, maybe the best strategy to achieve global ecological sustainability is economic sabotage to hasten the day. It is more fragile than it looks.

Capitalisim isn’t sustainable – collapse is inevitableBarbara Harriss-White, Development Studies Prof @ Oxford, 2006, “Undermining Sustainable Capitalism,” Socialist Register, socialistregister.com/socialistregister.com/files/ecolbhweh19Oct06.docCapitalism is not fixing the environment. It is not able to, either in theory or in historical practice. Market-driven politics has ensured that renewable energy remains far from the point where it might start to form any kind of technological base, either for an alternative model of capitalist development (in the UK or in an engagement with large developing countries which are about to enter a highly polluting phase of industrialisation ), or for the remoralised and equitable allocations argued for by Altvater. In energy, there is no sign of the politics able to generate a new kind of social, non-market regulation of money and nature. Sustainable capitalism is a fiction and the politics of renewable energy are merely a reflection of the fiction.


Capitalism = Root Cause Of Environment

Capitalism is the root cause of environmental destructionDemocratic Socialist Party, ENVIRONMENT, CAPITALISM, AND SOCIALISM, online edition, 2004. Available from the World Wide Web at: http://www.dsp.org.au/dsp/ECS/index.htm, accessed 8/5/07. Thus, the capitalist private profit system is the root cause of the environmental crisis. With its inherently

anarchic exploitation of both human labour and natural resources for short-term profits, capitalism is incapable of utilising natural resources in a way that meets not only the current needs of all members of society but those of future generations

as well: If resources in capitalism are "freely" available, like water, air and soil, then they are treated as "external inputs" whose cost of reproduction is ignored. If, however, they are incorporated into the costs of production of capitalist firms (for example through government taxes and charges on the use of these resources) the burden of these extra costs is simply passed on to the consumer. Moreover, no capitalist government will impose taxes and charges on the use of natural resources that the major corporations deem "excessive" to their ability to maximise profits. The compartmentalisation of production under capitalism (in which each particular natural resource is the independent object of profit-making) and the self-centered rationality of each individual capitalist firm make it "cheaper" to throw away or incinerate industrial by-products than to recycle them. Thus mountains of waste and toxic waste are the inevitable result of the capitalist version of the "affluent society". Capitalism's need to maximise short-term profits also leads it to impose irrational patterns of consumption on the mass of consumers through the commodification of rational needs (for example, substitution of private automotive transport for mass public transport systems) and through manipulative advertising. To this extent, the behavior of individual consumers is a factor contributing to the ecological crisis. Capitalist ideology plays directly on this factor with its credo that "people are responsible for the crisis" or with the claim that it is caused by "excessive consumption" on the part of ordinary working people in the imperialist countries. Such arguments are a convenient means of diverting attention from the fundamentally anti-environmental nature of the capitalist mode of production — and the patterns of consumption it forces working people to adopt. Today's capitalism, with its entrenched exploitation of the "South" by the advanced capitalist "North" also places an unequal burden of pollution and environmental degradation on those economies which are newly industrialising. In a world marked by excess capacity in most major branches of industry even palliative environmental protection measures can make struggling industries uncompetitive. The economic "miracle" countries of South East Asia have also been those most blighted by environmental degradation and natural resource depletion. Uncontrolled "development" of the remaining frontier in countries like Brazil, Thailand and Burma shows no sign of differing from the destructive historical model of "slash and burn". Indeed, the rules applied by international trade organisations, such as the World Trade Organisation and the North American Free Trade Association, are invoked to undermine traditional agricultural biodiversity and systems of land management.

Our capitalist international system is the cause of Third World poverty, environmental crisis and overpopulationDemocratic Socialist Party, “Chapter II: Symptoms and Causes of the Environmental Crisis,” ENVIRONMENT, CAPITALISM, AND SOCIALISM, online edition, 2004. Available from the World Wide Web at: www.dsp.org.au/dsp/ECS/Chapter2.htm, accessed 4/22/06. However, if the poor nations and humanity as a whole are being brought to the brink of environmental disaster, the responsibility for this cannot be laid at the door of the peoples of the Third World. Rather, the responsibility rests squarely with the ruling classes of the industrialised capitalist countries. The governments and big corporations of the First World have imposed on the Third World an international economic system that takes more out of these countries than it puts in and that forces the latter to deplete their environmental resources at an alarming rate. The economic exploitation of Third World countries by transnational capital, and the accompanying military-political intervention by Western governments to maintain this exploitation, is the fundamental obstacle to the social and economic changes required to eliminate poverty in those countries, bring about a decline in their population growth and take pressure off their environment.


Capitalism = Root Cause Of Racism

Capitalism is the root cause of racism. The white ruling class uses it in part of a calculated effort to keep certain people exploitable.E. San Juan, Fulbright Lecturer @ Univ. of Leuven, Belgium, 2003, “Marxism and the Race/Class Problematic: A Re-Articulation”, http://clogic.eserver.org/2003/sanjuan.htmlCox theorizes racism as a "socio-attitudinal facilitation of a particular type of labor exploitation": "The fact of crucial significance is that racial exploitation is merely one aspect of the problem of the proletarianization of labor, regardless of the color of the laborer. Hence racial antagonism is essentially political-class conflict" (1972, 208). The capitalist

demonstrates his practical opportunism when he uses racial prejudice to "keep his labor and other resources freely exploitable." Race prejudice, for Cox, is not just dislike for the physical appearance or attitudes of the other person. "It rests basically upon a calculated and concerted determination of a white ruling class to keep peoples of color and their resources exploitable" (1972, 214). And this pattern of race prejudice becomes part of the social heritage so that "both exploiters and exploited for the most part are born heirs to it."

Capitalism is the root cause of racismSlavoj Zizek, famous philosopher, 2008, Violence, p 101-104But we are not dealing here only with good old racism. Something more is at stake: a fundamental feature of our emerging “global” society. On ii September 2001 the Twin Towers were hit. Twelve years earlier, on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. That date heralded the “happy ‘9os,” the Francis Fukuyama dream of the “end of history” —the belief that liberal democracy had, in principle, won; that the search was over; that the advent of a global, liberal world community lurked just around the corner; that the obstacles to this ultra-Hollywood happy ending were merely empirical and contingent (local pockets of resistance where the leaders did not yet grasp that their time was up). In contrast, 9/11 is the main symbol of the end of the Clintonite happy ‘9os. This is the era in which new walls emerge everywhere, between Israel and the West Bank, around the European Union, on the U.S.—Mexico border. The rise of the populist New Right is just the most prominent example of the urge to raise new walls. A couple of years ago, an ominous decision of the European Union passed almost unnoticed: the plan to establish an all-European border police force to secure the isolation of Union territory and thus to prevent the influx of immigrants. This is the truth of globalisation: the construction of new walls safeguarding prosperous Europe from the immigrant flood. One is tempted to resuscitate here the old Marxist “humanist” opposition of “relations between things” and “relations between persons”: in the much-celebrated free circulation opened up by global capitalism, it is “things” (commodities) which freely circulate, while the circulation of “persons” is more and more controlled. We are not dealing now with “globalisation” as an unfinished project but with a true “dialectics of globalisation”: the segregation of the people is the reality of economic globalisation. This new racism of the developed is in a way much more brutal than the previous ones: its implicit legitimisation is neither naturalist (the “natural” superiority of the developed West) nor any longer culturalist (we in the West also want to preserve our

cultural identity), but unabashed economic egotism. The fundamental divide is one between those included in the sphere of (relative) economic prosperity and those excluded from it.


AT: Capitalism Key Space

Capitalism isn’t key to space – just a tactic to divert attention from exploitationJulien Tort, UNESCO, July 28 2005, Working paper for the Ethical Working Group on Astrobiology and Planetary Protection of ESA (EWG) “Exploration and Exploitation: Lessons Learnt from the Renaissance for Space Conquest” http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/ev.php-URL_ID=6195&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=-465.htmlThe scenario in which extraterrestrial room is used as a response to the degradation of the terrestrial environment also leads us to the second question that may be asked when considering the parallel between the conquest of the West and the exploration of space. While the possibility of colonizing celestial bodies may seem distant, it diverts attention from terrestrial issues in

a very real way. The paradigm of the accumulation of Capital is profoundly bound to the pollution and the overexploitation of natural resources. Likening space exploration to the discovery of America may then be misleading and dangerous. There is –most

probably— no new earth to be discovered through space conquest and it is, so far, unlikely that any relief can come from outer space for environmental pain. Furthermore, even if the possibility of human settlements on

other celestial bodies was likely, would it still be right to neglect the terrestrial environment, with the idea that we can go and live elsewhere when we are done with this specific planet (again a scenario that science fiction likes: see for

example the end of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation)? In a way, the presentation of space as a new area for conquest and expansion tends to deny that the model of the limitless exploitation of natural resources is facing a crisis.

The aff has the wrong focus – we should turn away from spaceMarin Parker, prof @ Leicester, 2009, Sociological Review, v. 57Uninvited or not, business interests will continue to find their way into space. A year before the Armstrongs

were watching TV, Stanley Kubrick had placed a rotating Hilton hotel and a Pam Am shuttle plane in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The brands may change, and the future will not happen as quickly as we think, but unless we imagine massive state

interventionism on a Soviet scale, capitalism will go into space. Dickens and Ormrod claim that it already has, at least in terms of

near earth orbit, and that the key issue is to engineer ‘a relationship with the universe that does not further empower the already powerful’ (2007: 190). In other words, a Marxist political economy of space would suggest that the military-industrial complex has already empowered the powerful, but would presumably be equally sceptical about the space libertarians' claims to be representing the ordinary citizen. Of course we might conclude from this that the answer is simply to turn away from space. The whole programme has not been without its critics, whether of capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, techno-fetishism, bad science, bad policy making or even new world order conspiracy (Etzioni, 1964; DeGroot, 2007). Even at the height of space euphoria, in the summer of 1969, we find dissenting voices. ‘The moon is an escape from our earthy responsibilities, and like other escapes, it leaves a troubled conscience’ said Anthony Lewis in the New York Times. An Ebony opinion leader, asking what we will say to extra-terrestrials, suggested ‘We have millions of people starving to death back home so we thought we'd drop by to see how you're faring’. Kurt Vonnegut, in the New York Times Magazine, put it with characteristic élan.


Alternative Solves – General

Only critique can throw off the shackles of capitalismAdam Katz, English Instructor at Onodaga Community College. 2000. Postmodernism and the Politics of “Culture.” Pg. 141.Any discussion of the public intellectual, especially in connection with the various crises framing such discussions (of the humanities, of the Left or leftist intellectuals, of the university, of the public sphere) needs to be grounded in the assumption that only as a result of sustained theoretical struggle—the contention of foundational claims made exoteric—will any genuine critique emerge from the site of theory. Also, it will only be possi¬ble to do anything more than conceal the roots of the aforementioned cri¬sis if such critiques make visible the polemics constitutive of the public sphere and if they do so by siding with the polemic of theory against com¬mon sense. This, of course, requires implicating common sense in the op¬erations of global capitalism through ideology critique. Only in this way, by defending the public “rights” of theory and the theoretical grounds of politics, will it be possible to explain anything, that is, to offer critiques of ideology and expose the structures of violence appearing (anti)politically.

Only the alternative can solveEduardo Smith, April 30, 2009, “The Economic Crisis: The Only Response is the Class Struggle,” Internationalism no150, p1For revolutionaries there is only one solution to the crisis and that is sending capitalism once and of all to dustbin of history. This is the historical task of the world working class. But this will not happen automatically. A social revolution that will leave behind the ‘prehistory' of humanity by overcoming the exploitation of man by man, the divisions of society into classes, the existence of nations.... can only be the product of a conscious and collectively organized effort of the world proletariat. Of course this revolution will not fall out of the sky; it can't only be the result of a prolonged class struggle of which today we are only seeing the beginnings around the world. Faced with relentless attacks workers need to respond by refusing to submit to the logic of capitalism and developing the class struggle to its ultimate conclusion: the overthrow of capitalism. The task is immense, but there is no other way out.

We have an obligation to spread the news that capitalism is unsustainable in order to transition to socialismJoel Kovel, Professor of Social Studies at Bard College, 2002, The Enemy of Nature, p. 222-23If one believes that capital is not only basically unjust but radically unsustainable as well, the prime obligation is to spread the news, just as one should feel obliged to tell the inhabitants of a structurally unsound house doomed to collapse of what awaits them unless they take drastic measures. To continue the analogy, for the critique to matter it needs to be combined with an attack on the false idea that we are, so to speak, trapped in this house, with no hope of fixing it or getting out. The belief that there can be no alternative to capital is ubiquitous and no wonder, given how wonderfully convenient the idea is to the ruling ideology.2 That, however, does not keep it from being nonsense, and a failure of vision and political will. Whether or not the vision of ecosocialism offered here has merit, the notion that there is no other way of organizing an advanced society other than capital does not follow. Nothing lasts for ever, and what is humanly made can theoretically be unmade.


Alternative Solves – Space

Our alternative solves tech innovation and science, including spaceMike Palecek, August 2009, “Capitalism versus Science” “http://www.marxist.com/capitalism-versus-science.htm”Sputnik 1 was the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. It was launched by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. Work by Gregory R Todd.The ultimate proof of capitalism’s hindrance of science and technology comes not from capitalism, but from the alternative. While the Soviet Union under Stalin was far from the ideal socialist society

(something which we have explained extensively elsewhere), its history gives us valuable insight into the potential of a nationalized planned economy. In 1917 the Bolsheviks took control of a backwards, semi-feudal, third world country that had been

ruined by the First World War. In a matter of decades, it was transformed into a leading super-power. The USSR would go on to be the first to put a satellite into orbit, the first to put a man in space, and the first to build a permanently manned outpost in space. Soviet scientists pushed the frontiers of knowledge , particularly in the areas of Mathematics, Astronomy, Nuclear Physics, Space Exploration and Chemistry. Many Soviet era scientists have been awarded Nobel prizes in various fields. These successes are particularly stunning, when one considers the state the country was in when capitalism was overthrown. How were such advancements possible? How did the Soviet Union go from having a population that was 90% illiterate, to having more scientists, doctors and engineers per capita than any other country on Earth in just a few decades? The superiority of the nationalized planned economy and the break from the madness of capitalism is the only explanation .

The first step in this process was simply the recognition that science was a priority. Under capitalism, the ability of private companies to develop science and technology is limited by a narrow view of what is profitable. Companies do not plan to advance technology, they plan to build a marketable product and will only do what is necessary to bring that product to market. The Soviets immediately recognized the importance of the overall development of science and technology and linked it to the development of the country as a whole. This broad view allowed them to put substantial resources into all areas of study.

Another vital component of their success was the massive expansion of education. By abolishing private schools and providing free education at all levels, individuals in the population were able to meet their potential. A citizen could continue their studies as long as they were capable. By contrast, even many advanced capitalist countries have been unable to eliminate illiteracy today, let alone open up university education to all who are able. Under capitalism, massive financial barriers are placed in front of students, which prevent large portions of the population from reaching their potential. When half of the world’s population is forced to live on less than two dollars a day, we can only conclude that massive reserves of human talent are being wasted.

Extending capitalism’s reach to space guarantees devastating exploitation of the environment.Peter Dickens, Professor of Sociology – University of Brighton and Cambridge, UK, 6-6-2010 “The Humanization of the Cosmos – To What End?”, Monthly Review, 62(6), November, “http://monthlyreview.org/archives/2010/volume-62-issue-06-november-2010”The general point is that the vision of the Space Renaissance Initiative, with its prime focus on the power of the supposedly autonomous and inventive individual, systematically omits questions of social, economic, and military power. Similarly, the Initiative’s focus on the apparently universal benefits of space humanization ignores some obvious questions. What will ploughing large amounts of capital into outer space colonization really do for stopping the exploitation of people and resources back here on earth? The “solution” seems to be simultaneously exacerbating social problems while jetting away from them. Consumer-led industrial capitalism necessarily creates huge social divisions and increasing degradation of the environment. Why should a galactic capitalism do otherwise? The Space Renaissance Initiative argues that space-humanization is necessarily a good thing for the environment by

introducing new space-based technologies such as massive arrays of solar panels. But such “solutions” are again

imaginary. Cheap electricity is most likely to increase levels of production and consumption back on earth. Environmental degradation will be exacerbated rather than diminished by this technological fix.

http://www.marxist.com/capitalism-versus-science.htm

http://www.marxist.com/capitalism-versus-science.htm


Alternative Solves – Withdrawing

Only by withdrawing support for the government as currently constituted, can we solve.Tony Wilsdon, Activist and Freelance Author, September 18, 2005, The Socialist Alternative, Accessed 4/27/09, http://www.socialistalternative.org/literature/katrina/logic.htmlTo achieve this means breaking from giving any support to the two big-business political parties - the Republicans and Democrats. They are both fully implicated in creating the present mess we are in. We need to build a new political party to represent our interests as workers, the poor, and young people, and which points a finger at the real villains, the super-rich and the capitalist system. Freed from control by corporate sponsors, this workers' party could put forward a program that addresses our needs. It would be able to end this system of capitalism, which has been responsible for enriching a tiny group of billionaires at a time of massive need and poverty. We could then create a new democratic socialist society, where the working-class majority would have the power rather than the 1% who are rewarded under this system.

Only a radical rejection of capitalist practices can solve.Adam Katz, English Instructor at Onodaga Community College, 2000, Postmodernism and the Politics of “Culture.” P. 127-128.Virno does recognize the danger that a politics predicated upon Exodus, by downgrading the “absolute enmity” implicit in the traditional Marxist assumption that class struggle in its revolutionary form issues in civil war, leads to the assumption that one is “swimming with the current” or is being driven “irresistibly forward” (1996, 203). A politics aimed at the establishment of liberated zones within capitalism under the assumption that the state will wither away without actually being “smashed” leads to the problematic one sees over and over again in postmodern cultural studies: “doing what comes naturally” as radical praxis. To counter this, Virno redefines the “unlimitedly reactive” “enmity” of the “Multitude” in terms of the “right to resistance” (206): What deserve to be defended at all costs are the works of “friendship.” Violence is not geared to visions of some hypothetical tomorrow, but functions to ensure respect and a continued existence for things that were mapped out yesterday. It does not innovate, but acts to prolong things that are already there: the autonomous expressions of “acting-in-concert” that arise out of general intellect, organisms of non-representative democracy, forms of mutual protection and assistance (welfare, in short) that have emerged outside of and against the realm of State Administration. In other words, what we have here is a violence that is conservational (206). The decisiveness of the question of absolute enmity becomes clear if we ask a rather obvious question: What distinguishes autonomous expressions from any privatized space (say, Internet chat rooms) that withdraws from the common in the name of friendships, mutual aid, or, for that matter, networks, gated communities, or whatever? In short, nothing can lead more directly to the death of revolutionary politics than the assumption that the days of absolute enmity are over. Autonomous expressions necessarily lead to the esoteric and the singular as the paths of least resistance. Therefore (as in all Left-Nietzscheanisms), they take as their main enemy the programmatic and the decidable, transforming liberation into a private, simulacral affair, regardless of their denunciations of capitalism. I will return to this issue in the next two chapters, but I want to conclude this discussion by stressing that only theory and action that establish spaces that bring the common out into the open—before an outside (theory and judgment) so as to make visible the concentrated political-economic force of the ruling class—can count as a genuinely “new” politics.


AT: Permutation

Permutation fails – too rooted in science Chris McMillan, PhD student at Massey, 11-12-2008, “In Defence of the Hungry,” http://sewersociety.blogspot.com/Sach’s blindness is part of a larger trend, the scientific hegemony of global problem solving. Science itself has a role to play in both the reduction of poverty and in managing environment change, but it does not consider the structuration of its own understanding. This has led to a situation where the status of global politics is considered as either moral or scientific, never human. Both social theory and politics are foreclosed from the debate – with the result that not only do we not look outside of current understanding for solutions, but human behaviour is implicitly considered to be fundamentally malleable. However, as Terry Eagleton has asserted, mountains has proved much easier to move that the structures of social life.

Only total rejection can solve.Working Class Freedom, May 21, 2008, Accessed 4/29/09, http://www.workingclassfreedom.com/index.php?display=cgd.vs.activismThe socialist analysis of society shows that capitalism itself is the underlying cause of most of the problems which the social activists want to solve. The social activists attack the symptoms but ignore the cause. Social activists work to reform capitalism, socialists work to eliminate capitalism: the cause of the problems. If people eliminate the cause of the problems, the problems will not keep cropping up. Instead of trying to fix the symptoms, year in and year out, over and over again, forever, people can eliminate the cause, once. Then we can all get on with living our lives in a world where solutions actually solve problems, instead of just covering up symptoms. This approach can be emotionally difficult. It may even mean that someone dies today, who might have been saved by social activism. A

simple analogy to explain the socialist perspective: If a pipe bursts and the water is rising on the floor, one can start bailing the water out while it continues to flow in, or one can turn the water off, and then start bailing. It may take a while to find the tap, and some valuables might be destroyed while searching, but unless the water is turned off, the water will continue to rise and bailing is rather pointless.

Complete rejection of the affirmative is necessary for anti-capitalism to be successful. Slavoj Zizek, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Studies in Ljubljana, 2004, Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle, p. 83-84There is a will to accomplish the ‘leap of faith’ and step outside the global circuit at work here , a will which was expressed in an extreme and terrifying manner in a well-known incident from the Vietnam War: after the US Army occupied a local village, their doctors vaccinated the children on the left arm in order to demonstrate their humanitarian care; when, the day after, the village was retaken by the Vietcong, they cut off the left arms of all the vaccinated children. .. . Although it is difficult to sustain as a literal model to follow, this complete rejection of the enemy precisely in its caring ‘humanitarian’ aspect, no matter what the cost, has to be endorsed in its basic intention. In a similar way, when Sendero Luminoso took over a village, they did not focus on killing the soldiers or policemen stationed there, but more on the UN or US agricultural consultants or health workers trying to help the local peasants after lecturing them for hours, and then forcing them to confess their complicity with imperialism pub¬licly, they shot them. Brutal as this procedure was, it was rooted in an acute insight: they, not the police or the army, were the true danger, the enemy at its most perfidious, since they were ‘lying in the guise of truth’ — the more they were ‘innocent’ (they ‘really’ tried to help the peasants), the more they served as a tool of the USA. It is only such a blow against the enemy at [their]his best, at the point where the enemy ‘indeed helps us’, that displays true revolutionary autonomy and ‘sovereignty (to use this term

in its Bataillean sense). If one adopts the attitude of ‘let us take from the enemy what is good, and reject or even fight against what is bad’, one is already caught in the liberal trap of ‘humanitarian aid’.


AT: Permutation

The plan is overwhelmed with the logic of capitalism, any inclusion of their advocacy dooms solvency.Adam Katz, English Instructor at Onodaga Community College, 2000, Postmodernism and the Politics of “Culture.” P.199.The core of these antinomies is the unity of necessity and violence in the wage relation. This is the relation that requires daily ratification and thereby undermines the distinction between coercion and consent, that produces the conditions of its own reproduction and hence makes knowledge and apologia inseparable, and that requires a constant intellectual and material attack on the conditions of collective power required for submitting all hierarchical relations to public inspection. A certain polemical line—interested in pursuing questions of coercion and consent, knowledge and justification, and power and authority to their “logical conclusions”—is thus cut off at the roots. The human rights worldview produces and conceals the antinomy of complicity and powerlessness while rendering necessary, as historically concrete “radical alterity,” the pursuit of that polemical line as it is cut off categorically (in

actually existing relations between power, knowledge, and principles). That is, radical alterity is ideology critique as the foundational mode of political action.

Permutation doesn’t solve – fails to disturb the systemSlavoj Zizek, famous philosopher, 2008, In Defense of Lost Causes, p. 33The "worldless" character of capitalism is linked to this hegemonic role of scientific discourse in modernity, a feature clearly identified already by Hegel who wrote that, for us moderns, art and religion no longer obey absolute respect: we can admire them, but we no longer kneel down in front of them, our heart is not really with them —today, only science (conceptual knowledge) deserves this respect. "Postmodernity" as the "end of grand narratives" is one of the names for this predicament in which the multitude of local fictions thrives against the background of scientific discourse as the only remaining universality deprived of sense. Which is why the politics advocated by many a leftist today, that of countering the devastating world-dissolving effect of capitalist moder nization by inventing new fictions, imagining "new worlds" (like the Porto Alegre slogan "Another world is possible!"), is inadequate or, at least, profoundly ambiguous: it all depends on how these fictions relate to the underlying Real of capitalism — do they just supplement it with the imaginary multitude, as the postmodern "local narratives" do, or do they disturb its functioning? In other words, the task is to produce a symbolic fiction (a truth) that intervenes into the Real, that causes a change within it.29

The act of rejection is key to the revolutionAdam Katz, English Instructor at Onodaga Community College, 2000, Postmodernism and the Politics of “Culture.” P. 131-132.Thus, despite Ross’s references to economic and historical determina¬tions, his investigation into New Age philosophy ultimately considers it to be a cultural matter, determined by inexplicable needs and desires. This means that although the critic can mark its differences from his or her own practices and commitments, he or she cannot critique it in the sense of inquiring into its conditions of possibility and political effects. The no¬tion that desire is a mechanism of hegemony and articulated within the dominant ideology and that it is therefore what most needs to be ex¬plained is completely excluded in the dominant discourses of postmodern cultural studies. All that is called for in these discourses is an updating of cultural forms, to allow for greater freedom—for some—within the exist¬ing social arrangements. The role of the critic, then, is to sympathize with this desire and establish its legitimacy regardless of the various and at times questionable forms it might take.


AT: Capitalism Good

We control uniqueness – capitalism is already deadBertell Ollman – 1999- The Question is Not - "When Will Capitalism Die?"- - but "When Did it Die, and What Should Our Reaction Be?"- (Talk at The International Symposium on Socialism in the 21st Century in Wuhan, China - Oct., l999)- online- http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/china_speech.phpMarxists, who view capitalism as a historically specific social formation with a beginning and an ending, have traditionally asked one or another version of the question, "When will capitalism die?". This has had a profound effect on all our political strategy and practice. But what if capitalism is already dead? Then, the appropriate question is - "When did it die, and what should our reaction be?" No, I am not jesting, nor is this just a polemical point. When exactly something dies is not easy to determine. As regards the individual, is it when everything in the body stops working? Or is it when the heart stops? Or when one goes into an irreversible coma? Or contracts a terminal disease? There is obviously a process here, and one could make a case for focusing on any of these moments as the moment of death. The same is true of a social system, such as capitalism. Because it appears to be alive and even strong, many are likely to be shocked by my assertion that capitalism is already dead. I would only ask you to recall,

however, what Marx taught us about the deceptive nature of appearances. Have you ever seen a chicken with its head cut off, how it runs wildly about, sometimes for several seconds, before it collapses and dies? If you are small

and unlucky enough to be in its way, you can get badly hurt by these final gyrations. Capitalism is a lot like this chicken. It has died, but doesn't know it, and is flailing away in its death throes, causing terrible harm to everyone within striking distance.

Collapse of capitalism is inevitable – problems are already terminalBertell Ollman – 1999- The Question is Not - "When Will Capitalism Die?"- - but "When Did it Die, and What Should Our Reaction Be?"- (Talk at The International Symposium on Socialism in the 21st Century in Wuhan, China - Oct., l999)- online- http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/china_speech.phpCapitalism died the moment the conditions necessary for accumulating capital on the scale required by the enormous amount of wealth available for investment could no longer be assured. It died when the related conditions that are indispensable for selling all of the rapidly growing amount of finished goods likewise evolved out of reach. Today, there are simply not enough profitable investments in the production and distribution of goods, given the gigantic sums seeking such investments; nor are there enough people with the purchasing power to buy the mountain of goods that have already been produced. These problems, of course, have always existed as part of capitalism - Marx presents them as internal and necessary contradictions of the capitalist system. But only recently have these problems become terminal. Earlier, major wars and a Cold War came to the rescue of the system by destroying and wasting enough wealth to create new opportunities for profitable investment. Thankfully, in the age of nuclear power, a major war is unthinkable (and if it occurs, there will be no one around to reap the benefits), and minor wars, as in the Gulf and Yugoslavia, do not

destroy enough to play the same economic role in capitalism that was played by World Wars I and II. The alternatives that have arisen - like investment in the former "socialist" lands, the expansion of credit, space exploration, etc. - are simply too little to take up the slack.


AT: Capitalism Inevitable

Capitalism isn’t inevitable – multiple warrants disprove your wishful thinkingJoel Kovel, Professor of Social Studies at Bard College, 2002, The Enemy of Nature, p. 115-16What is the root of capital’s wanton ecodestructivity? One way of seeing this is in terms of an economy geared to run on the

basis of unceasing accumulation. Thus each unit of capital must, as the saying goes, ‘grow or die’, and each capitalist must constantly search to expand markets and profits or lose his position in the hierarchy. Under such a regime the eco-

nomic dimension consumes all else, nature is continually devalued in the search for profit along an expanding frontier, and the ecological crisis follows inevitably. This reasoning is, I believe, valid, and necessary for grasping how capital becomes the efficient cause of the crisis. But it is incomplete, and fails to clear up the mystery of what capital is, and consequently what is to be done about it. For example, it is a commonly held opinion that capitalism is an innate and therefore inevitable outcome for the human species. If this is the case, then the necessary path of human evolution travels from the Olduvai Gorge to the New York Stock Exchange, and to think of a world beyond capital is mere baying at the moon. It only takes a brief reflection to demolish the received understanding. Capital is certainly a potentiality for human nature, but, despite all

the efforts of ideologues to argue for its natural inevitability, no more than this. For if capital were natural, why has it only occupied the last 500 years of a record that goes back for hundreds of thousands? More to the point,

why did it have to be imposed through violence wherever it set down its rule? And most importantly, why does it have to be continually maintained through violence, and continuously re-imposed on each generation through an enormous apparatus of indoctrination? Why not just let children be the way they want to be and trust that they will turn into capitalists and workers for capitalists — the way we let baby chicks be, knowing that they will reliably grow into chickens if provided with food, water and shelter? Those who believe that capital is innate should also be willing to do without police, or the industries of culture, and if they are not, then their arguments are hypocritical. But this only sharpens the questions of what capital is, why the path to it was chosen, and why people would submit to an economy and think so much of wealth in the first place? These are highly practical concerns. It is widely recognized, for example, that habits of consumption in the in dustrial societies will have to be drastically altered if a sustainable world is to be achieved. This means, however that the very pattern of human needs will have to be changed, which

means in turn that the basic way in which we inhabit nature will have to be changed. We know that capital forcibly indoctrinates people to resist these changes, but only a poor and superficial analysis would stop here and say nothing further about how this

works and how it came about. Capital’s efficient causation of the ecological crisis establishes it as the enemy of nature. But the roots of the enmity still await exploration.

Capitalism isn’t inevitable – our alternative can make miracles happenDaly, Lecturer of International Studies @ University College of Northampton, 2004 (Glyn, “Slavoj Zizek: Risking the Impossible,” Lacan.com, http://www.lacan.com/zizek-primer.htm, Kel)Zizek's thought is concerned crucially to reactivate the dimension of the miraculous in political endeavour. For Zizek the miracle is that which coincides with trauma in the sense that it involves a fundamental moment of symbolic disintegration (2001b: 86). This is the mark of the act: a basic rupture in the weave of reality that opens up new possibilities and creates the space for a reconfiguration of reality itself. Like the miracle, the act is ultimately unsustainable - it cannot be reduced to, or incorporated directly within, the symbolic order. Yet it is through the act that we touch (and are touched by) the Real in such a way that the bonds of our symbolic universe are broken and that an alternative construction is enabled; reality is transformed in a Real sense. The Real is not simply a force of negation against which we are helpless. In contrast to standard criticisms, what psychoanalysis demonstrates is that we are not victims of either unconscious motives or an infrastructural logic of the Real. If reality is a constitutive distortion then the ultimate lesson of psychoanalysis is that we are responsible for its reproduction. Miracles can and do happen. We are capable of Real acts that give reality a new texture and direction; acts that reflect this gap in the order of Being, this abyss of freedom. If Freud - in his theory of the unconscious - affirms an essential autonomization of the signifier, then what Zizek emphasises is an essential autonomization of the act: a basic capacity to break out of existing structures/cycles of signification. Far from being constrained by the notion of impossibility, Zizek's perspective is sustained and energised by the ontological potential for achieving the "impossible" through Real intervention. In this sense, Zizek's conception of the Real may be said to constitute both an inherent limit and an inherent opening/beginning: the radically negative dimension that is the condition of creatio ex nihilo and the political itself.

http://www.lacan.com/zizek-primer.htm


AT: Gibson Graham

Gibson-Graham is inapplicable because they misunderstand class analysis Rene Francisco Poitevin, Writer for the Socialist Review, 2001, “The end of anti-capitalism as we knew it: Reflections on postmodern Marxism.” http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3952/is_200101/ai_n8932891One of the problems with trying to make the case for postmodern Marxism is that in order to get rid of Marxism and declare its tradition obsolete, you have to distort its legacy by constructing a straw man. This straw man-reading of Marx is predicated upon the double maneuver of collapsing Marxist history into Stalinism, on the one hand, and reducing Marxist theory to

"essentialism," "totality," and "teleology," on the other. As J.K. Gibson-Graham themselves acknowledge, without any regrets, "Indeed, as many

of our critics sometimes charge, we have constructed a [straw person] 'straw man.'"21 What is left out of their quasi-

humorous dismissal of Marxism is the complicity of such a [straw person] straw man in the long history of red-baiting and anti-Marxist repression in this country and around the world. Also left out is the rich Marxist scholarship that was addressing their concerns long before there was a postmodern Marxist school. The fact is that postmodern Marxist's "contributions" are not as original nor as profound as they might have us believe. For example, what about the bulk of the Western Marxist tradition since the Frankfurt School? Has it not been predicated on a rejection of the economic reductionism embedded in the passage from the Preface to the Introduction to A Critique of Political Economy in which the (in)famous base/superstructure metaphor of society gets set in stone as the "official" definition of historical materialism? Or what about Horkheimer and Adorno's relentless critique of instrumental rationality? Marxism, in spite of what the postmodern Marxists want us to believe, has long been making the case for the centrality of culture and its irreducibility to economic laws, as anybody who has read Walter Benjamin or Antonio Gramsci can certify. Furthermore, postcolonial Marxism and critical theory have also been theorizing at more concrete levels of analyses the irreducibility of subjectivity to class.22 And despite the postmodern Marxist excitement when talking about class as a relational process, in fact it is impossible to tell that they are not the first ones to talk about class as a relational process, lots of Marxists before the Amherst School have been theorizing and clarifying the relational mechanisms embedded in class

politics.23 Postmodern Marxism also ignores Lefebvre's urban Marxist contribution: his emphasis on the importance of

experience and the everyday in accounting for social processes.24 And Marxist feminist contributions on the intersection of

agency and gender with race, class, and sexuality are conveniently erased from J.K. Gibson-Graham's reduction of Marxism to a straw man.25 The fact is that when one looks at Marxism not as a distorted [straw person]"straw

man" but on its own terms, taking into account its richness and complexity, Marxist theory starts to appear all of a sudden less "totalizing," "essentializing," and "reductionist" and instead as more rich in possibilities and more enabling.

Gibson-Graham is wrong - this approach forecloses Marxist politicsRene Francisco Poitevin, Writer for the Socialist Review. 2001. “The end of anti-capitalism as we knew it: Reflections on postmodern Marxism.” http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3952/is_200101/ai_n8932891And it is Marxist legitimacy that the postmodern Marxists lack and desperately seek. The Amherst School's strategy has been to lock on to Althusser's "overdetermination" and claim it as their own as a way to argue for the legitimacy of

postmodern epistemologies as an acceptable part of the Marxist canon. In this way postmodern Marxists get to have their cake and eat it too. They get to reject and condemn notions of capitalism as a macro-system that is

inherently exploitative -- while remaining Marxists at the same time. Thus, statements like "overdetermination enables us to read the causality that is capitalism as coexisting with an infinity of other determinants, none of which can be said to be less or more significant"11 together with sentences like "We are not arguing for the abandonment of such

terms as 'working class,' but for an approach to their use that does not know in advance what they mean" get to pass for legitimate Marxist positions.12 How claims such as these, where we can neither explain capitalism nor tell what we mean by "working class," can pass for Marxist theory today, all in the name of Althusser, is beyond my comprehension. The Amherst School's sleight of hand is made possible in part because Althusser actually never fully developed his concept of overdetermination beyond some rather cryptic comments.13 But fortunately for the Amherst School, this is where post-structuralist theory can come to the rescue, making it possible for Althusserian thought to become more clear. Take for example J.K. Gibson-Graham's approach, when they say that "Althusser's overdetermination can be understood as signaling the irreducible specificity of every determination... the openness and incompleteness of every identity; the ultimate unfixity of every identity ...."14 People familiar with Derrida's work will recognize immediately that what Gibson-Graham have done is attribute to Althusser what is in fact Derrida's definition of the

"sign," which for him is one of the fundamental building blocks of language. What this seemingly innocent trick by the Amherst School does is to

effectively transform Althusser's "overdetermination" into a problem of language and discourse - and therefore into a post-structuralist agenda.15 This kind of post-structuralist-wolves-dressed-up-in-Marxist-clothes trick, so entrenched within the postmodern Marxist tradition, needs to be rejected and denounced. To substitute Derrida for Althusser might be a clever trick that allows postmodern Marxism to sound legitimate, but it is certainly not Althusserian Marxism.


AT: Tech Solves Capitalism

More tech only ensures the costs of production go down – makes the environmental crisis worseJoel Kovel, Professor of Social Studies at Bard College, 2002, The Enemy of Nature, p. 156-58Technological answers It is a widely held assumption that technological means of overcoming the ecological crisis are at hand. With the cracking of the genome, with astounding feats of information technology and telecommunications, with the emergence of extremely low-polluting

energy devices such as fuel cells (the product of whose combustion is water vapour), with the whole broad advance of science — and with a nice boost from the propaganda machine — the conflict between humanity and nature can be made to seem eminently resolvable. In an important sense,

this is, if not absolutely true, at least operationally plausible — for if the technology did not, or could not, exist, then it would

make no sense at all to agitate for an ecologically rational world. But this is only a truism. Those of us old enough to recall the launching of the atomic age will recall how nuclear energy was going to be ‘too cheap to meter’, just as the discoveries of antibiotics were supposed to herald the eradication of infectious disease. If we know better now it is a sign of growing ecological consciousness that events in nature are reciprocal and multi-determined, and, across such a broad scale, never neatly predictable. What remains much

less appreciated is that technology can never be ap preciated outside of its social relations . Ross Perot’s campaign dictum, ‘If it’s broke, fix it’, was a sign of the crudity that regards social problems as essentially mechanical and susceptible to tinkering, that is, to manipulation from the outside by a disinterested expert, as

a mechanic would fix the transmission on a car. This is mechanical materialism of a vulgar sort, which sees technology as something added on to society and not an integral part of society. In the specific case of capitalism, technological innovation has been the sine qua non of growth, and, because it cheapens the cost of labour, indispen sable to surplus value extraction. The more technology, roughly speaking, the more growth under a capitalist regime — and since growth, capitalist-style, is the efficient cause of the ecological crisis, it shouldn’t take a genius to sense the ambivalence of technological solutions to the crisis. If, for instance, energy were suddenly made free and unlimited and inserted into the capitalist system as it now exists, the results could be as catastrophic as giving an alcoholic unlimited drink. Free energy would, for example, so lower the costs of producing and operating motor vehicles that the world would rapidly fill up with as many cars as Los Angeles, collapsing infrastructure, tremendously increasing resource depletion, paving over the remainder of nature, and leaving humanity to kill itself off in a spasm of road rage. Limits of energy and materials are, in this sense, brakes on rampant growth, but capital, nature’s cancer, tolerates neither limit nor boundary. It goes where the profit is, and the more cars, the more profit.

Even if tech solves in theory, growth stops it from being effective – alt solvesJohn Bellamy Foster- professor at Oregon, 12-3-2000 Capitalism’s Environmental Crisis— Is Technology the Answer?The ways in which cars, roads, public transports systems (often notable by their absence), urban centers, suburbs, and malls have been constructed mean that people often have virtually no choice but to drive if they are to work and live. Under these circumstances the car (or minivan), which consumers seem to crave,

also becomes a kind of prison, made more tolerable (if only barely) by the introduction of cell phones and other gadgets. Meanwhile the social costs pile up. “Capitalism,” as K. William Kapp declared in The Social Costs of Private Enterprise, must be regarded as an economy of unpaid costs, ?unpaid’ in so far as a substantial portion of the actual costs of production remain unaccounted for in entrepreneurial outlays; instead they are shifted to, and ultimately borne by, third persons or by the community as a whole (231). In such a system, it makes no sense to see possibilities for sustainable development as limited to whether or not we can develop more technological efficiency within the current framework of production—as though our entire system of production, with all of its irrationality, waste, and exploitation has been “grandfathered” in. Rather, our hopes have to be pinned on transforming the system itself. This means not simply altering a particular “mode of regulation” of the system, as Marxist

regulation theorists say, but in transcending the existing regime of accumulation in its essential aspects. It is not technology that constitutes the problem but the socioeconomic system itself. The social-productive means for implementing a more sustainable relation to the environment within the context of a developed socioeconomic formation are available. It is the social relations of production that stand in the way.


AT: Universality Bad


Universalism is a prerequisite to their argument – the criticism of our alternative is only possible in our worldSlavoj Zizek, famous philosopher, 2000, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, p 102So when we criticize the hidden bias and exclusion of universality, we should never forget that we are already doing so within the terrain opened up by universality: the proper critique of ‘false universality’ does not call it into question from the standpoint of pre-universal particularism, it mobilizes the tension inherent to universality itself, the tension between the open negativity, the disruptive power, of what Kierkegaard would have called ‘universality-in-becoming’, in the fixed form of established universality. Or – we have, on the one hand, the ‘dead’, ‘abstract’ universality of an ideological notion with fixed inclusion / exclusions and, on the other, ‘living’, ‘concrete’ universality as the permanent process of questioning and renegotiation of its own ‘official’ content. Universality becomes ‘actual’ precisely and only be rendering thematic the exclusions on which it is grounded, by continuously questioning, renegotiating, displacing them, that is, by assuming the gap between its own form and content, by conceiving itself as unaccomplished in its very notion. This is what Butler’s notion of the politically salient use of ‘performative contradiction’ is driving at: if the ruling ideology performatively ‘cheats’ by undermining – in its actual discursive practice and the set of exclusions on which this practice relies – its own officially asserted universality, progressive politics, should precisely openly practice performative contradiction, asserting on behalf of the given universality the very content of this universality (in its hegemonic form) excludes.

Impacts are caused by their particularism, not our altSlavoj Zizek, famous philosopher, 2000, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, p 104The theoretical task is not only to unmask the particular content of inclusions / exclusions involved in the game, but to account of enigmatic emergence of the space of universality itself. Furthermore – and more precisely – the real task is to explore the fundamental shifts in the very logic of the way universality works in the socio-symbolic space: premodern, modern and today’s ‘post-modern’ notion and ideological practice of universality do not, for example, differ only with regard to the particular contents that are included / excluded in universal notions – somehow, on a more radical level, the very underlying notion of universality functions in a different way in each of the epochs. ‘Universality’ as such does not mean the same thing since the establishment of bourgeois market society in which individuals participate in the social order not on behalf of their particular place within the global social edifice but immediately, as ‘abstract’ human beings.

Our alt doesn’t cause dominationSlavoj Zizek, famous philosopher, 2000, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, p 217Here, again, I think it is crucial also to emphasis the opposite aspect: what universality excludes is not primarily the underprivileged Other whose status is reduced, constrained, and so on, but its own permanent founding gesture – a set of unwritten, unacknowledged rules and practices which, well publicly disavowed, are none the less the ultimate support of the existing power edifice. The public power edifice is haunted also by its own disavowed particular obscene underside, by the particular practices which break its own public rules – in short, by its ‘inherent transgression’.


Capitalism Critique Answers


Perm Solves Best

Total rejection of capitalism fragments resistance – the perm solves bestJ.K. Gibson-Graham, feminist economist, 1996, End of CapitalismOne of our goals as Marxists has been to produce a knowledge of capitalism. Yet as “that which is known,” Capitalism has become the intimate enemy. We have uncloaked the ideologically-clothed, obscure monster, but we have installed a naked and visible monster in its place. In return for our labors of creation, the monster has robbed us of all force. We hear – and find it easy to believe – that the left is in disarray. Part of what produces the disarray of the left is the vision of what the left is arrayed against. When capitalism is represented as a unified system coextensive with the nation or even the world, when it is portrayed as crowding out all other economic forms, when it is allowed to define entire societies, it becomes something that can only be defeated and replaced by a mass collective movement (or by a process of systemic dissolution that such a movement might assist). The revolutionary task of replacing capitalism now seems outmoded and unrealistic, yet we do not seem to have an alternative conception of class transformation to take its place. The old political economic “systems” and “structures” that call forth a vision of revolution as systemic replacement still seem to be dominant in the Marxist political imagination.

Total rejection makes the problem worse – perm is more realisticJ.K. Gibson-Graham, feminist economist, 1996, End of CapitalismThe New World Order is often represented as political fragmentation founded upon economic unification. In this vision the economy appears as the last stronghold of unity and singularity in a world of diversity and plurality. But why can’t the economy be fragmented too? If we theorized it as fragmented in the United States, we could being to see a huge state sector (incorporating a variety of forms of appropriation of surplus labor), a very large sector of self-employed and family-based producers (most noncapitalist), a huge household sector (again, quite various in terms of forms of exploitation, with some households moving towards communal or collective appropriation and others operating in a traditional mode in which one adult appropriates surplus labor from another). None of these things is easy to see. If capitalism takes up the available social space, there’s no room for anything else. If capitalism cannot coexist, there’s no possibility of anything else. If capitalism functions as a unity, it cannot be partially or locally replaced. My intent is to help create the discursive conception under which socialist or other noncapitalist construction becomes “realistic” present activity rather than a ludicrous or utopian goal. To achieve this I must smash Capitalism and see it in a thousand pieces. I must make its unity a fantasy, visible as a denial of diversity and change.

Perm solves – only using capitalism to fight capitalism can be effectiveMonthly Review, March 1990, v. 41, no. 10, p 38No institution is or ever has been a seamless monolith. Although the inherent mechanism of American capitalism is as you describe it, oriented solely to profit without regard to social consequences, this does not preclude significant portions of that very system from joining forces with the worldwide effort for the salvation of civilization, perhaps even to the extent of furnishing the margin of success for that very effort.


Perm Solves Best

Critique alone fails – integration of actual solutions keyPeter Dickens and James Ormrod, Visiting Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex AND **Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Brighton, 2007, “Cosmic Society: Towards a Sociology of the Universe” pg 190Explanatory critique can only go so far. Philosophy and sociology are only tools for uncovering how reality is structured and for freeing up the discussion of feasible alternatives. It will take much hard work and politics on

a mass scale to forge new social alliances, counter-hegemonic ideologies and space projects that benefit oppressed populations. The ultimate aim of this must be a relationship with the universe that does not further empower the already powerful.

The alt alone is coopted – you need a multitude of standpoints means the perm solvesWilliam Carroll, founding director of the Social Justice Studies Program at the University of Victoria, 2010, “Crisis, movements, counter-hegemony: in search of the new,” Interface 2:2, 168-198Just as hegemony has been increasingly organized on a transnational basis – through the globalization of Americanism, the construction of global governance institutions, the emergence of a transnational capitalist class and so on (Soederberg 2006; Carroll 2010) – counter-hegemony has also taken on transnational features that go beyond the classic organization of left parties into internationals. What Sousa Santos (2006) terms the rise of a global left is evident in specific movementbased campaigns, such as the successful international effort in 1998 to defeat the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI); in initiatives such as the World Social Forum, to contest the terrain of global civil society; and in the growth of transnational movement organizations and of a ‘democratic globalization network’, counterpoised to neoliberalism’s transnational historical bloc, that address issues of North-South solidarity and coordination (Smith 2008:24). As I have suggested elsewhere (Carroll 2007), an incipient war of position is at work here – a bloc of oppositional forces to neoliberal globalization encompassing a wide range of movements and identities and that is ‘global in nature, transcending traditional national boundaries’ (Butko 2006: 101). These moments of resistance and transborder activism do not yet combine to form a coherent historical bloc around a counter-hegemonic project. Rather, as Marie-Josée Massicotte suggests, ‘we are witnessing the emergence and re-making of political imaginaries…, which often lead to valuable localized actions as well as greater transborder solidarity’

(2009: 424). Indeed, Gramsci’s adage that while the line of development is international, the origin point is national, still has currency. Much of the energy of anti-capitalist politics is centred within what Raymond Williams (1989) called militant particularisms –

localized struggles that, ‘left to themselves … are easily dominated by the power of capital to coordinate

accumulation across universal but fragmented space’ (Harvey 1996: 32). Catharsis, in this context, takes on a spatial character. The scaling up of militant particularisms requires ‘alliances across interrelated scales to unite a diverse range of social groupings and thereby spatialize a Gramscian war of position to the global scale’ (Karriem 2009: 324). Such alliances, however, must be grounded in local conditions and aspirations. Eli Friedman’s (2009) case study of two affiliated movement organizations in Hong Kong and mainland China, respectively, illustrates the limits of transnational activism that radiates from advanced capitalism to exert external pressure on behalf of subalterns in the global South. Friedman recounts how a campaign by the Hong Kong-based group of Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior to empower Chinese mainland workers producing goods for Hong Kong Disneyland failed due to the lack of local mobilization by workers themselves. Yet the same group, through its support for its ally, the mainland-based migrant workers’ association, has helped facilitate self-organization on the shop floor. In the former case, well-intentioned practices of solidarity reproduced a paternalism that failed to inspire local collective action; in the latter, workers taking direct action on their own behalf, with external support, led to ‘psychological empowerment’ and movement mobilization (Friedman 2009: 212). As a rule, ‘the more such solidarity work involves grassroots initiatives and participation, the greater is the likelihood that workers from different countries will learn from each other’, enabling transnational counter-hegemony to gain a foothold (Rahmon and Langford 2010: 63).


Capitalist Reformism Is Good

Using state-based politics is key to solve the worst excesses of capitalismStephen Eric Bronner, Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, 2004, Reclaiming the Enlightenment: Toward a Politics of Radical Engagement, p. 9-10Again: the political spirit of the Enlightenment crystallized around the principles connected with fostering the accountability of institutions, reci¬procity under the law, and a commitment to experiment with social reform. Not in imperialism, or racism, or the manipulation of liberty, but in these ideals lies the basis of

Enlightenment universalism. Democracy remains an empty word without it. Enlightenment universalism protects rather than threatens the exercise of subjectivity. It presumes to render institutions ac¬countable, a fundamental principle of democracy, and thereby create the preconditions for expanding individual freedom. Such a view would inform liberal movements concerned with civil liberties as well as socialist move¬ments seeking to constrain the power of capital. Reciprocity can be under¬stood in the same way: it, too, underpins the liberal idea of the citizen with its inherently democratic imperative—against all prejudice—to include “the other” as well as the socialist refusal to identify the working person as a mere “cost of production.” The Enlightenment notion of political engagement, indeed, alone keeps democracy fresh and alive. Ideals such as these provide an enduring foundation for opposing con¬temporary infringements on individual rights and dignity by new global forms of capitalism, the imperatives of the culture industry, and parochial bi¬ases of every sort. They constitute the radical quality of the Enlightenment, and its “positive” moment beyond the prejudices of its particular representa¬tives. Too many on the fringes have been forgotten like the proto-socialist Mably or the proto-communist Morelly and, until the appearance of Radical Enlightenment (2001) by Jonathan Israel, even major intellectuals like Spinoza have not received the political recognition that they were due. But this vol¬ume is concerned with something other than uncovering the past. Its intent is instead to reinvigorate the present, salvage the enlightenment legacy, and contest those who would institutionally freeze its radicalism and strip away its protest character. Such an undertaking is important, moreover, since their efforts have been remarkably successful. Enlightenment thinking is seen by many as the inherently western ideology of the bourgeois gentleman, the Ver¬nunftrepublikaner of the Weimar Republic, or characters like the “windbag” Settembrini who endured the sarcasm of totalitarians and the boredom of philistines in The Magic Mountain (1924) by Thomas Mann.

Only concrete criticism of social practices can solveJim Crosswhite, University of Oregon, September 25, 2001, Critique, Fantasy and September 11, Accessed 4/29/09, http://www.uoregon.edu/~jcross/response_to_zizek.htmAnd it is difficult to understand what he is asking at the end: "Or will America finally risk stepping through the fantasmatic screen separating it from the Outside World, accepting its arrival into the Real world, making the long-overdue move from 'A thing like this should not happen HERE!' to 'A thing like this should not happen ANYWHERE!'." Of course, to abandon the "here" for the "anywhere" would be foolish. We are in real bodies in real places with real limitations and with real work to do. It is not simply a "fantasmatic screen" that deeply attaches people in a unique way to the sufferings of their neighbors and their fellow citizens. But the demand that Zizek makes is neither unfamiliar nor inappropriate. It is more than worth pursuing. What can we do to work to see that what the people of New York City suffered on September 11 does not happen anywhere,;neither in the U.S. nor anywhere else? The reactions of the American government now threaten regions all over the world and seriously threaten liberty and privacy and tolerance in the United States. The American past carries humanitarian successes and catastrophic failures and genocide. Perhaps fantastic critique has a role to play. Certainly we must struggle to sustain serious social criticism through threatening times, but unless we are simply displaying critical virtuosity, we must achieve a kind of criticism that is reasonably concrete, less pretending to ultimate truths of history, more capable of acknowledging the real suffering of real people, criticism that is not too proud to descend to the practicable.


Capitalism Key Space

Capitalist growth makes space travel possibleNader Elhefnawy, taught at the University of Miami, published widely on space and international issues, Monday, September 29, 2008, “Economic growth and space development over the long haul” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1220/1Nonetheless, even if one should not get carried away by seemingly staggering numbers, the fact of higher output still means an enlarged range of options. Just as China’s economic growth has made its new ambitions in space more than just a dream (even if many of its plans have yet to prove to be realistic), a space project of any given size would seem far more affordable in a world where global wealth had risen by a factor of two, three, or five.

Growth key to space travelNader Elhefnawy, taught at the University of Miami, published widely on space and international issues, Monday, September 29, 2008, “Economic growth and space development over the long haul” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1220/1Most discussions of cutting the cost of space development revolve around the price of space launch. This is, of course, understandable, given that this very high cost is a key bottleneck for any space development scheme. Nevertheless, that emphasis also happens to be narrow. Particularly where manned space flight is overly concerned, cheaper must go hand in hand with safer and more reliable. (A manned vehicle with a failure rate of one every fifty launches is not nearly good enough, at any price.) The reduction of the needed payload size to accomplish a given task, which has greatly helped to widen access to satellites, is just as important. The plain truth is that relying on terrestrial economic expansion to endow us with the resources for eventual space expansion will mean admitting the most exciting things are further off than we would like. No less important is the expansion of the economic base that would have to support such endeavors, a point which rarely gets much attention. There is an obvious reason why that approach is often ignored: the

common claim that the limits to growth on Earth mandate a turn to the exploitation of space. (Such arguments are not exclusive to the writers of the 1970s. John S. Lewis posits that the failure to do so will mean “civilization collapses to subsistence agriculture by 2030” in his 1996 book Mining the Sky.) However, this is far from being the only reason. The plain truth is that relying on terrestrial economic expansion to endow us with the resources for eventual space expansion will mean admitting the most exciting things are further off than we would like, outside the time frame of “meaningful” discussions of what public policy should be or what private business can do. Besides, it makes for a less compelling and attractive story than the idea of a technological revolution just over the horizon that opens up the heavens to all of us—especially if one is a market romantic when it comes to these matters (see “Market romanticism and the outlook for private space development”, The Space Review, September 2, 2008). Nonetheless, that is what one would have to assume given the state of the art. Additionally, however, while space launch costs (and other, related costs) may drop in real terms in the coming decades, it is safe to say that any viable future spacefaring society will also see them drop markedly in relative terms. The United Nations

predicts the rise of Gross World Product (GWP) to about $140 trillion by 2050, more than twice today’s level, and this is still rather conservative next to some previous periods of comparable length. A repeat of the growth of 1950–1990, for instance, would likely result in a GWP in the $250–350 trillion range. And of course, if one goes in for that sort of thinking, the growth we could realize if the predictions of futurists like Ray Kurzweil pan out would absolutely explode those numbers.

Growth gets off the rock Robin Hason, Professor of economics at George Mason University, Oct. 18, 2001, http://hanson.gmu.edu/wildideas.htmlIf our growth does not stop, it must continue. And it cannot continue this long without enabling and encouraging massive space colonization. Spatial/material growth requires it, technical growth enables it, and economic growth induces technical growth.


Growth Is Sustainable

There are no limits to growth – scientists say soGeorge Melloan, ‘Limits to Growth’; a Dumb Theory That Refuses to Die, WALL STREET JOURNAL, OPINION TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2002Thirty years ago, a group of academic theorists came up with a document almost as subversive as “Das Kapital” or Mao’s little red book, for much the same reasons. It was called, “The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predica-ment of Mankind.” Like Marx and Mao, the “Limits to Growth” authors had a modest goal: forcing all of us stupid earthlings to become better people. One, Donella Meadows, conceded that saving the earth would require “a fundamental revision of human behavior and, by implication the entire fabric of present-day society.” The need for humankind to become more frugal, less concupiscent and more observant of the rights of small creatures was based on the Club’s conclusion that people are ruining the planet. The warning got attention because we had not long before seen the first view of our blue orb from a camera in outer space. It looked awfully small from that distance. As Jere-miah proved many centuries ago, prophe-cies of doom wake up the congregation. Jimmy Carter, having read “Limits to Growth,” went on TV dressed in a sweater in the late ‘70s to tell Americans that the energy scarcity they were then enduring was good for the soul. They didn’t buy it. Ronald Reagan, espousing deregulation of energy and policies to re-store economic growth, sent Mr. Carter into retirement in 1980. Research by serious economists, demographers and earth scientists debunked the Club of Rome’s theories, finding that there is no danger of the world running out of such essentials as energy or water, and that economic and technological development is good, not bad.

Technology fixes can outpace environmental harm James Gustave Speth, environmental NGO founder, environmental litigator, former think tank head, former environmental advisor to Jimmy Carter, former US Agency for International Development head, 2008 “The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability” Yale University Press A core belief of those who hold that we need not worry about growth per se, because we can green growth to acceptable levels, is that technological change of an environment-saving sort can be driven so rapidly that it more than compensates for the additional environmental stresses growth produces. The well-known “IPAT equation” helps in examining this proposition.7 I=PAT Environmental Impact=Population x Affluence x Technology This equation is actually an identity: Impact=Population x (GDP/Population) x (Impact/GDP) or Impact GDP X (Impact/GDP) where GDP per capita is a measure of affluence and where environ mental impact per dollar of GDP (or unit of output) is a reflection of the technology deployed in the economy. If GDP is going up at 3 percent a year, and if one wants to reduce environmental impacts greatly, then the environmental impacts of each dollar of GDP and each unit of economic output must decline at rates substantially in excess of 3 percent a year. To reduce environmental impacts faster than the economy is growing requires rapid technological change. That is why I and many others have called for policies that promote an environmental revolution in technology—an urgent ecological modernization of the economy that would include both the transformation of existing capital stocks and, through innovation and entrepreneurship, the creation of new environmentally friendly industries, products, and services.8 A major way to reduce pollution and consumption of natural resources while experiencing economic growth is to bring about a wholesale transformation in the technologies that today dominate manufacturing, energy, construction, transportation, and agriculture. The twentieth-century technologies that have contributed so abundantly to today’s problems should be phased out and replaced with twenty-first-century technologies designed with environmental sustainability and restoration in mind. The economy should be “dematerialized” to the fullest possible extent through a new generation of technologies that sharply reduces the consumption of natural resources and the generation of residual wastes per unit of economic output.


There Are No Limits On Resources

No energy or environmental limits to growth – tech innovation solvesWill Wilkinson, Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, 8-4-2008, “No Limits to Growth,” http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/08/04/no-limits-to-growth/Here is a thumbnail sketch of my position on the sustainability of economic growth. What do you think is wrong with it? (a) energy is not scarce; the historically most efficient sources (oil, coal, etc.) are; (b) a well-functioning price system will shift energy consumption to (cleaner) alternative energy sources as prices for historical extracted sources of energy

rise; (c) the initial high price of alternative energy will temporarily slow growth, but competition and technological progress will eventually push prices below the historical trend and even asymptotically approach zero, increasing

average rates of growth; (d) environmental quality is a global public good, but; (e) this is most likely to be secured as a consequence of growth — as a consequence of the technological innovation that both creates and

is created by growth — together with the rising scarcity and prices of the most environmentally degrading energy sources. So, (f) there are no meaningful limits to growth from either the scarcity of energy, or from negative environmental externalities from economic production, since in the medium run, those externalities are positive.

Growth is sustainable – technological advances proveWilliam J Baumol, professor of economics at NYU, Robert E. Litan, Senior Fellow of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institute, and Carl J. Schramm, President and chief executive officer of the Kauffman Foundation,” 2007, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and ProsperityOne line of skepticism about growth arises from individuals and groups who worry that as the world’s population

increases and economic growth continues, societies will use up scarce resources and, at the same time, degrade the environment. In the early 1970s, a group called the “Club of Rome” expressed such worries, fearing that eventually (and rather soon) the

world would run out of energy and some commodities, so that growth couldn’t continue at anything like the existing pace. Today, there are those who believe, for similar reasons, that growth shouldn’t continue. The doomsayers who projected that economic growth would come to a standstill were wrong. Since 1975, total world economic output has increased more than sevenfold.2 On a per capita basis, world output is more than five times higher than it was thirty years

ago. Growth in output, and therefore income, per person throughout the world advanced at a far more rapid pace (nearly ninefold) in the twentieth century than in any other century during the previous one thousand years (to the extent these things can be measured).3 Per capita output continues to increase because firms around the world continue to make more use of machines and information technology that enable workers to be more productive and because technology itself continues to advance, making it possible for consumers to use new products and services. There is good reason to hope that this process can and will continue, though there are some lurking dangers, including foolish actions by governments. But should growth continue? What about the supplies of energy that will be depleted in the process or the pollution that will be

generated as ever more things are produced and used? Curiously, economists who tend to be quite rational in their lives urge the worriers

to have faith—faith that continued technological progress powered by market incentives will ease these concerns. As it turns out, however, economists’ faith has roots in historical fact. In the early 1800s, Thomas R.

Malthus famously predicted that the world’s population would eventually starve or, at the least, live at a minimal level of subsistence

because food production could not keep pace with the growth of population. Technological advances since that time have proved him wrong. Through better farming techniques, the invention of new farming equipment, and continuing advances in agricultural science (especially the recent “green revolution” led by genetic

engineering), food production has increased much more rapidly than population, so much so that in “real terms” (after adjusting for inflation), the price of food is much lower today than it was two hundred years ago, or for that matter, even fifty years ago. Farmers, who once accounted for more than 0 percent of the population at the dawn of the twentieth century in the United States, now comprise less than a percent of population—and are able to grow far more food at the same time.


No Resource Shortages

Resource shortage is a mythBjorn Lomborg, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, 2001, Environmental Conflict, p. 143As should be abundantly clear, we are far from exhausting our raw material resources. The reasons look a lot like the

explanations for why we do not run out of oil, gas, and coal: We continuously find new resources, use them more efficiently, recycle them, and substitute them. Reviewing the forty-seven elements known to have advanced materials applications, studies from the late 1980s showed that only eleven seemed to have potentially insufficient reserves. Today it turns out that for all but three of these, the reserves have become bigger, not smaller. The total cost of the last three elements—tantalum, mercury, and cadmium—is about three-millionth of our global GNP. Moreover, the total economic expense for raw materials is 1.1 percent of global GNP, and 60 percent of our expenses come from raw materials with more than 200 years of consumption left. Finally, the price on nearly all resources has been declining over the cen-

tury, and despite an astounding increase in production of a large number of important raw materials they have more years of consumption left than before.

We won’t run out of non-renewable resourcesBjorn Lomborg, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, 2001, Environmental Conflict, p. 140-142The concern for running our of resources not only applies to energy but also the vast number of other, nonrenewable resources that we use today. Prices of the vast majority of raw materials have been dropping over the last hundred years. The World Bank’s index for the world’s twenty-four top-selling nonenergy products shows a general, falling tendency across the century (Leon and Soto, 1995: 16). Over the last 100 years prices have been reduced to a third. The same picture repeats itself for metals. The IMF index in Figure 7.5 shows how prices since 1957 have dropped approximately 50 percent and that metals in the second quarter of 1995 were cheaper than ever before. Altogether, raw materials make up at most 1.1 percent of the global GNP. Moreover, a rather limited number of raw materials constitute the vast majority of this expense. The value of cement, aluminum, iron, copper, gold, nitrogen, and zinc constitute 80 percent of the global resource production. Will We Run Out? There is no risk of running out of cement (Craig et al., 1996: 340; Hille, 1995: 299). Aluminum is the second most abundant metallic element after silicon—it makes up 8.2 percent of Earth’s crust. It is estimated that with the current identified reserves there is sufficient aluminum for 243 years of consumption at the present level. As with oil, gas, and coal, the number of years will not necessarily decline over time, even if we use more and more, because we get better at exploiting existing resources and locating new ones. In Figure 7.6 we can actually see that for the four most frequently used metals there is no sign of falling years of consumption—indeed, there is a slight upward trend. And this despite the fact that we use ever more of the four raw materials. Aluminum consumption is today more than fourteen times higher than in 1950, and yet the remaining years of consumption have increased from 171 years to 243 years. Similarly with iron the reserves leaves us with 264 years of consumption at present levels. Figure 7.6 shows that there are more years of consumption in 1997 than in 1957 despite the quadrupling of production. Copper is nowhere as abundant as aluminum and iron. Copper only makes up 0.0058 percent of Earth’s crust. Although this is enough for 83 million years of consumption, such a figure is rather fictitious, since we will never be able to extract all the copper. With our present reserves we have enough copper for fifty-six years at present rates of consumption. This figure, however, is still higher than in 1950, when we had enough copper left for just forty-two years, despite having consumed about 380 million

tons over the period and despite having quintupled consumption. Actually, cop per has been found faster than it has been consumed, at least since 1946 (Craig et al., 1996: 273). Moreover, Earth’s crust does not even constitute the most important part of the copper resources. In many places in the deep oceans the seafloor is scattered with small nodules about 5—10 cm in diameter containing manganese, iron, nickel, copper, cobalt, and zinc. It is estimated that the total resources in recoverable nodules are an excess of 1 billion tons of copper, or about the same as the on-land resources (Craig et al., 1996: 273). Consequently, there is at least sufficient copper for a century or more. Zinc makes up 5 percent of our raw material consumption, and it is mainly used to galvanize steel and iron to prevent rust. Zinc, like copper, is relatively rare—zinc only constitutes 0.0082 percent of Earth’s crust, which theoretically is equivalent to 169 million years of consumption, although we could never mine all of it. Nevertheless, we have found much more zinc than has been used, and the number of years of consumption have grown since 1950 from thirty-six to fifty-five years. The demand for zinc has quadrupled since 1950, and yet the price has been dropping slightly.


Alt Fails – General

Alt fails – causes more violenceJames Herod 2007, Social Activist and Author, Attended American University of Beirut and University of Kansas, Getting Free: Creating an Association of Democratic Autonomous Neighborhoods, March, http://jamesherod.info/?sec=book&id=1&PHPSESSID=5647f67eacd126ade3dbf1cab7f38ff8We cannot destroy capitalism with guerrilla warfare. This strategy has been mostly deployed as part of national liberation movements in colonial countries in order to capture the governments there. It is a form of leninism. As noted above, leninism in general didn’t work. And now, guerrilla warfare as a particular tactic within leninism doesn’t work. Capitalists have learned how to defeat it. The strategy was based on the assumed unwillingness of the capitalists to murder the civilian population in order to kill the guerrillas too. Capitalists have shown no such reluctance. They are willing to murder on a massive scale, and uproot and displace whole populations, in order to defeat guerrilla movements. And they win. (The current wars in Colombia and Iraq will

perhaps serve as the final test of this strategy.) Some wild-eyed romantic revolutionaries have thought to adopt the strategy for use in the core countries, with disastrous results. Capitalists have been delighted to have a new enemy B namely, Aterrorists@ and Aanarchists@B now that Acommunists@ are gone. But of course they will malign any opposition movement, so this is not the reason guerrilla warfare will not work here. It won’t work because it is part of leninism (seizing state power), and leninism didn’t work. It will not work because of the overwhelming firepower amassed by every advanced capitalist government. It will not work because it doesn’t contain within itself the seeds of the new civilization. I would think twice before joining the underground.

Pointing out individual failures of capitalism doesn’t indict the entire system AND they have to provide a working alternativeJohan Norberg, economist, fellow at the Swedish think tank Timbro, recipient of the distinguished Antony Fisher International Memorial Award, 2003, In Defense of Global Capitalism, p. 98Capitalism is not a perfect system, and it is not good for everyone all the time. Critics of globalization are good at

pointing out individual harms—a factory that has closed down, a wage that has been reduced. Such things do happen, but by concentrating solely on individual instances, one may miss the larger reality of how a political or

economic system generally works and what fantastic values it confers on the great majority compared with other alternatives.

Problems are found in every political and economic system, but rejecting all systems is not an option. Hunting down negative examples of what can happen in a market economy is easy enough. By that method water or fire can be

proved to be bad things, because some people drown and some get burned to death, but this isn't the full picture. A myopic focus on capitalism's imperfections ignores the freedom and independence that it confers on people who have never experienced anything but oppression. It also disregards the calm and steady progress that is the basic rule of a society with a market economy. There is nothing wrong with identifying problems and mishaps in a predominantly successful system if one does so with the constructive intent of rectifying or alleviating them. But someone who condemns the system as such is obligated to answer this question: What political and economic system could manage things better? Never before in

human history has prosperity grown so rapidly and poverty declined so heavily. Is there any evidence, either in history or in the world

around us, to suggest that another system could do as well?


Alt Fails – No Mindset Shift

No mindset shift—individuals won’t adjust lifestylesPaul R. Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Department of Biology Sciences at Stanford, and Anne H. Ehrlich, Senior Research Associate in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford, 1996, Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, p. 69-70But human beings are specialists in cultural evolution, which can pro-ceed much more rapidly than can genetic evolution. Through ingenuity and invention, it is possible to enlarge human carrying capacity-as indeed has happened in the past. Today, widespread behavioral changes-such as becoming vegetarian-potentially could increase Earth's carrying capacity for human beings in a short time as well. As-suming full cooperation in the needed changes, it might be possible to support 6 billion people indefinitely (that is, to end human overpopu-lation, if there were no further population growth). But we doubt that most people in today's rich nations would willingly embrace the changes in lifestyle necessary to increase global carrying capacity. How many Americans would be willing to adjust their lifestyles radically to live, say, like the Chinese, so that more Dutch or Australians or Mexi- cans could be supported? How many Chinese would give up their dreams of American-style affluence for the same reason? Such lifestyle changes certainly seem unlikely to us, since most current trends among those who can afford it are toward more affluence and consumption, which tend to decrease carrying capacity and intensify the degree of overpopulation.

Individual attempts at a socialist revolution failsF.E. Trainer, academic in the Department of Social Work, Social Policy and Sociology, University of New South Wales and the author of numerous books on the environment and population issues, 1985, Abandon Affluence!, p. 278-9We are certainly talking about change that is radical, so the term revolution might as well be used, although it could give the erroneous impression that violent disruption of the existing order is envisaged. Our activities will be distinctly subversive, but they will also be perfectly legal and respectable since we will only be engaging in and stimulating critical public discussion about social issues and advocating adoption of new goals and procedures. There would seem to be little place in this revolution for Leninist strategies; there does not seem to be any need for a secret and ruthless party willing to resort to illegal and violent means. What is to be done can be done, and indeed can only be done, through open discussion, persuasion and teaching. (The time may come when this is no longer possible - but it is quite possible now in most developed countries.) There is no chance of instituting the alternative outlined by overthrowing the state, seizing society's repressive machinery and dictating that henceforth everyone must help his or her neighbour. The alternative cannot work unless most people clearly understand the reasons for it, understand what it involves and willingly adopt it. It cannot work without a great deal of effort, co-operation, goodwill, community responsibility and mutual concern. Dictatorship and repression cannot force people to display these attitudes. They will only be there in sufficient strength and quantity if the relevant ideas and considerable practice has been built up over many years. There is not much a Leninist vanguard party or a guerrilla movement could contribute to this end. This revolution will have to be largely spontaneous if it is to succeed. It cannot be engineered by a small dedicated group acting on behalf of ignorant and apathetic masses. Further, the traditional revolutionary strategy is hierarchical, anti-democratic and authoritarian and therefore embraces some values and structures that are the antithesis of those we will have to be very proficient at exercising after the transition. (This is not to say that vanguard parties and resort to violence are inappropriate in other contexts, such as in the struggle against Third World military dictatorships.)


Alt Fails – Zizek Specific

Their alternative is totally ineffective – lack of a specific replacement for the capitalist order causes Nazi GermanyErnesto Laclau, professor of Political Theory at the University of Essex, 2000, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, p. 288-Zizek calls the reader’s attention to the fact that Butler, as well as Laclau, in their criticism of the old ‘essentialist’

Marxism, none the less silently accept a set of premisses: they never put in question the fundamentals of the capitalist market economy and of the liberal democratic political regime; they never envisage the possibility of a thoroughly different economico-political regime. In this way, they fully participate in the abandonment of these questions by the ‘postmodern’ Left: all the changes they propose are changes within this economico-political regime. (SZ, p. 223) The reader must excuse me for smiling at the naive self-complacence this r-r-revolutionary passage reflects. For if Butler and I are not envis - aging ‘the possibility of a thoroughly different economico-political regime’, Zizek is not doing so either .

In his previous essay Zizek had told us that he wanted to overthrow capitalism; now we are served notice that he also wants to do away with liberal democratic regimes — to be replaced, it is true, by a thoroughly different regime which he does not have the courtesy of letting us know anything about. One can only guess. Now, apart from capitalist society and the parallelograms of Mr. Owen, Zizek does actually know a third type of sociopolitical arrange-ment: the Communist bureaucratic regimes of Eastern Europe under which he lived. Is that what he has in mind? Does he want to replace lib eral democracy by a one-party political system , to undermine the division of powers, to impose the censorship of the press? Zizek belongs to a liberal party in Slovenia, and was its presidential candidate in the first elections after the end of communism. Did he tell the Slovenian voters that his aim was to abolish liberal democracy — a regime which was slowly and painfully established after protracted liberalization campaigns in the 1980s, in which Zizek himself was very active? And if what he has in mind is something entirely different, he has the elemen tary intellectual and political duty to let us know what it is. Hitler and Mussolini also abolished liberal democratic political regimes and replaced them by ‘thoroughly different’ ones. Only if that explanation is made available will we be able to start talking politics, and abandon the theological terrain. Before that, I cannot even know what Zizek is talk ing about — and the

more this exchange progresses, the more suspicious I become that Zizek himself does not know either.

Traversing the fantasy is just a hollow buzz-word that reinforces ideologyBran Nicol, English @ Chichester, Paragraph, July 2001, v. 24, n. 2, p. 152-3Perhaps there is a note of anxiety in all the compulsive energy of Zizek’s project: he brilliantly unmasks the workings of ideology as if we can overthrow them, but is only too aware that this is impossible. Alternatively, this might

well be the source of a certain critical jouissance we can detect in his continual affirmation of the unassailable quality of the big Other. In this respect Zizek himself shifts between the hysterical and the perverse positions in his theory: exposing the fragile status of the big Other by questioning it, while also investing in its ultimate status as the Law. Zizek’s very method of exposing the ideological mechanism, in other words, reinforces its inevitability. The paradox bears a strong similarity to Baudrillard’s critique of Marxism in The Mirror of Production, that it depends upon precisely the same ideology (the idea of self-production) as the late-capitalist political economy it claims to deconstruct. Zizek’s ubiquitous interpretative mechanism functions as the mirror of the transcendent processes he identifies at the heart of culture. We might even see its status in Zizek’s work as the equivalent of the fundamental fantasy at the core of the individual, supporting his very identity as a theorist. Like Clarice Starling, who thinks she need only rescue one more victim and the lambs will stop crying, it is as if Zizek imagines he need give us just one more example of the traumatic encounter with the real and the dominance of the Big Other will be exposed and overthrown. This, as Hannibal Lecter might say, is no more than a fantasy.


AT: Capitalism = Unethical

Capitalism is most ethical – enables economic abundance and democracyJames Wilson, Professor of Public Policy @ Pepperdine Capitalism and morality” 1995 Public Interest, No. 121, FallHowever one judges that debate, it is striking that in 1970 - at a time when socialism still had many defenders, when certain American economists (and the CIA!) were suggesting that the Soviet economy was growing faster than the American, when books were being written explaining how Fidel Castro could achieve by the use of moral incentives" what other nations achieved by employing material ones-kristol and Bell saw that the great test of capitalism would not be economic but moral. Time has proved them right. Except for a handful of American professors, everyone here and abroad now recognizes that capitalism produces greater material abundance for more people than any other economic system ever invented. The evidence is not in dispute. A series of natural experiments were conducted on a scale that every social scientist must envy. Several nations-china, Germany, Korea, and Vietnam - were sawed in two, and capitalism was installed in one part and "socialism" in the other. In every case, the capitalist part out-produced, by a vast margin, the non-capitalist one. Moreover, it has become clear

during the last half century that democratic regimes only flourish in capitalist societies.

Consequences come first – even if capitalism have problems, it’s better than the alternativeJames Wilson, Professor of Public Policy @ Pepperdine Capitalism and morality” 1995 Public Interest, No. 121, FallNot every nation with something approximating capitalism is democratic, but every nation that is democratic is, to some significant degree, capitalist. (By "capitalist," I mean that production is chiefly organized on the basis of privately owned enterprises, and exchange takes place primarily through voluntary markets.) If capitalism is an economic success and the necessary (but not sufficient) precondition for democracy, it only remains vulnerable on cultural and moral grounds. That is, of course, why today's radical intellectuals have embraced the more

extreme forms of multiculturalism and postmodernism. These doctrines are an attack on the hegemony of bourgeois society and the legitimacy of bourgeois values. The attack takes various forms - denying the existence of any foundation for morality, asserting the incommensurability of cultural forms, rejecting the possibility of textual meaning, or elevating the claims of non-western (or non-white or non-Anglo) traditions. By whatever route it

travels, contemporary radicalism ends with a rejection of the moral claims of capitalism. Because morality is meaningless, because capitalism is mere power, or because markets and corporations destroy culture, capitalism is arbitrary, oppressive, or corrupting. Most critics of capitalism, of course, are not radicals. Liberal critics recognize, as postmodernists pretend not to, that, if you are going to offer a moral criticism of capitalism, you had better believe that moral judgments are possible and can be made persuasive. To liberals, the failure of capitalism lies in its production of unjustifiable inequalities of wealth and its reckless destruction of the natural environment. Capitalism may produce material abundance, the argument goes, but at too high a price in human suffering and social injustice. I do not deny that capitalism has costs; every human activity has them. (It was a defender of capitalism, after all, who reminded us that there is no such thing as a free lunch.) For people

worried about inequality or environmental degradation, the question is not whether capitalism has consequences but whether its consequences are better or worse than those of some feasible economic alternative. (I stress "feasible" because I tire of hearing critics compare capitalist reality to socialist - or communitarian or cooperative - ideals. When ideals are converted into reality, they tend not to look so ideal.) And, in evaluating consequences, one must reckon up not simply the costs but the costs set against the benefits. In addition, one must count as benefits the tendency of an economic system to produce beliefs and actions that support a prudent concern for mitigating the unreasonable costs of the system. Capitalism and public policy By these tests, practical alternatives to capitalism do not seem very appealing. Inequality is a feature of every modern society,


AT: Capitalism = Root Cause

Capitalism isn’t the root cause of our harms Richard Levin, a professor and American economist who has served as president of Yale University since 1993. He is currently the longest-tenured Ivy League president, 2008 “ACTIVIST POLITICS” AND/OR THE JOB CRISIS IN THE HUMANITIES”, “http://www.theminnesotareview.org/journal/ns48/levin.htm.”One reason given by Neilson and Meyerson for opposing Bérubé's plan to decrease graduate admissions in the humanities is that it will deprive the rejected students of "a political education, a means by which students learn to read the . . . truths hidden and distorted by capitalist culture" (45: 271, 47: 247). Most liberals would agree that students should learn to "read" hidden or distorted truths and that capitalist culture provides plenty of material to work on, but we'd like to know whether they'll also learn to "read" the truths

hidden or distorted by Marxist culture. When they encounter a statement like "capitalism [is] the engine behind global suffering" (47: 242), will they be able to "read" it by asking: was there no suffering before the advent of capitalism? Is there no suffering now in non-capitalist societies? Is capitalism responsible for FGM or AIDS, or the ethnic massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda, or the horrors of Stalin's purges and Mao's Cultural Revolution and Pol Pot's holocaust? And has it had no beneficial effects? If the kind of training that Neilson and Meyerson have in mind doesn't lead students to ask such questions, then they're talking not about political education but about political indoctrination. They're certainly not the only academic leftists to regard indoctrination in Marxism as the proper goal of teaching(Jennifer Cotter says it should "produce knowledges that enable the fundamental transformation of capitalist economic and social relations" (121), and many more examples can be cited. Their usual defense of this practice is to deny the "liberal" distinction between education and indoctrination by arguing that education that claims to be nonpartisan is really indoctrinating for the right. Many people on the far right also deny this distinction, which is why they try to censor the teaching of books with "wrong" ideas: they assume that students will be indoctrinated in these ideas, whereas they want them to be indoctrinated in "right" ideas. This is another similarity of the two political extremes that follows from their polarized perspectives(just as they cannot admit any intermediate positions between the two poles, so they cannot admit any intermediate kind of teaching that doesn't indocrinate for one pole or the other.

K isn’t the root cause of the aff – their argument is a generalizationScott D. Sagan – Department of Political Science, Stanford University – ACCIDENTAL WAR IN THEORY AND PRACTICE – 2000 – available via: www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/trachtenberg/cv/sagan.docTo make reasonable judgements in such matters it is essential, in my view, to avoid the common "fallacy of overdetermination." Looking backwards at historical events, it is always tempting to underestimate the importance of the immediate causes of a war and argue that the likelihood of conflict was so high that the war would have broken out sooner or later even without the specific incident that set it off. If taken too far,

however, this tendency eliminates the role of contingency in history and diminishes our ability to perceive the alternative pathways that were present to historical actors. The point is perhaps best made through a counterfactual about the

Cold War. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a bizarre false warning incident in the U.S. radar systems facing

Cuba led officers at the North American Air Defense Command to believe that the U.S. was under attack and that a nuclear weapon was about to go off in Florida. Now imagine the counterfactual event that this false warning was reported and

believed by U.S. leaders and resulted in a U.S. nuclear "retaliation" against the Russians. How would future historians have seen the causes of World War III? One can easily imagine arguments stressing that the war between the U.S. and the USSR was inevitable. War was overdetermined: given the deep political

hostility of the two superpowers, the conflicting ideology, the escalating arms race, nuclear war would have occurred eventually. If not during that specific crisis over Cuba, then over the next one in Berlin, or the Middle East, or

Korea. From that perspective, focusing on this particular accidental event as a cause of war would be seen as misleading. Yet, we all now know, of course that a nuclear war was neither inevitable nor overdetermined during the Cold War.


Capitalism Good – Environment

Environmental quality improving now under cap – disproves internal link between the twoTerry L. Anderson, executive director of the Property and Environment Research Center, a think tank focusing on market solutions to environmental problems, 2004, “You Have to Admit It's Getting Better: From Economic Prosperity to Environmental Quality”Bjørn Lomborg, determined to prove Julian Simon wrong and to verify the doomsday-visions of the kind that permeated The Global 2000

Report, enlisted ten of his “sharpest students” to comb through the empirical data (Lomborg 2001, xix) on long-term temporal trends in human and environmental well-being. Much to his surprise, they found that although the population continues to grow, albeit at a decelerating pace, the state of humanity has never been better, that the average person on the globe has never been less hungry, better educated, richer, healthier, and longer-lived than today.1 No less important, not only is human well-being advancing but, in

many cases, so seems to be the state of the environment, especially in the rich countries of the world.

Despite small flaws, Capitalism remains the only system capable of providing environmentally neutral effects.Martin W. Lewis, Director of International Relations, Stanford University, “Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism,”1992 pg. 9"Primal" economies have rarely been as harmonized with nature as they are depicted; many have actually been highly destructive. Similarly, decentralized, small-scale political structures can be just as violent and ecologically wasteful as large-scale, centralized ones. Small is sometimes ugly, and big is occasionally beautiful. Technological advance, for its part, is clearly necessary if we are to develop less harmful ways of life and if we are to progress as a human community. And finally, capitalism, despite its social flaws, presents the only economic system resilient and efficient enough to see the development of a more benign human presence on the earth.

Research shows that environmental quality rises with increased incomeTerry L. Anderson, executive director of the Property and Environment Research Center, a think tank focusing on market solutions to environmental problems, 2004, “You Have to Admit It's Getting Better: From Economic Prosperity to Environmental Quality”The doomsayers contend that such growth will ultimately deplete natural resources and destroy the environment, but Lomborg finds positive correlations between economic growth and environmental quality. He correlates the World Bank’s environmental sustainability index with gross domestic product per capita across 117 nations, concluding that “higher income in general is correlated with higher environmental sustainability” (Lomborg 2001, 32). This idea is known as the “environmental Kuznets curve,” based on Nobel laureate Simon Kuznets’s earlier work on patterns of economic growth. Measuring environmental quality (for example, air quality) on the vertical axis and economic performance (for example, the gross domestic product, or GDP) on the horizontal axis, the relationship displays a J-curve. At lower levels of income, environmental quality can deteriorate as people trade environmental quality for economic growth. But as Bruce Yandle, Maya Vijayaraghavan, and Madhusudan Bhattarai review in Chapter 3, all studies show that the relationship between environmental quality and economic performance becomes positive at higher levels of income because environmental quality is what economists call an income-elastic good. In other words, if income rises 10 percent, the demand for environmental quality rises more than 10 percent. Generally, the (annual) income level at which the turning point occurs is between $4,000 and $8,000, with the demand for water quality turning upward at lower levels of income than the income levels at which the demand for endangered species preservation turns upward.


Capitalism Good – Transition Wars

Alternatives to Capitalism end in war and genocideRudolph Rummel, prof. emeritus of political science at the University of HawaiiRudolph, 2004, “The Killing Machine that is Marxism”Of all religions, secular and otherwise, that of Marxism has been by far the bloodiest – bloodier than the

Catholic Inquisition, the various Catholic crusades, and the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants. In practice, Marxism has meant bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal prison camps and murderous forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions and fraudulent show trials, outright mass murder and genocide. In total, Marxist regimes murdered nearly 110 million people from 1917 to 1987. For perspective on this incredible toll, note that all domestic and foreign wars during the 20th century killed around 35 million. That is, when Marxists control states, Marxism is more deadly then all the wars of the 20th century, including World Wars I and II, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. And what did Marxism, this greatest of human social experiments, achieve for its poor citizens, at this most bloody cost in lives?

Nothing positive. It left in its wake an economic, environmental, social and cultural disaster.

Alternatives to capitalism empirically cause mass deathRudolph Rummel, prof. emeritus of political science at the University of HawaiiRudolph, 2004, “The Killing Machine that is Marxism”What is astonishing is that this "currency" of death by Marxism is not thousands or even hundreds of thousands, but millions of deaths. This is almost incomprehensible – it is as though the whole population of the American New England and Middle Atlantic States, or California and Texas, had been wiped out. And that around 35 million people escaped Marxist countries as refugees was an unequaled vote against Marxist utopian pretensions. Its equivalent would be everyone fleeing California, emptying it of all human beings. There is a supremely important lesson for human life and welfare to be learned from this horrendous sacrifice to one ideology: No one can be trusted with unlimited power. The more power a government has to impose the beliefs of an ideological or religious elite, or decree the whims of a dictator, the more likely human lives and welfare will be sacrificed. As a government's power is more unrestrained, as its power reaches into all corners of culture and society, the more likely it is to kill its own citizens.

Capitalism prevents warDoug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, 10-26,-2005 “A Capitalist Peace?”, “http://www.reason.com/news/show/32985.html”There are a number of reasons why economics appears to trump politics. The shift from statist mercantilism

to high-tech capitalism has transformed the economics behind war. Markets generate economic opportunities that make war less desirable. Territorial aggrandizement no longer provides the best path to riches. Free-flowing capital markets and other aspects of globalization simultaneously draw nations together and raise the economic price of military conflict, because the political destabilization resulting from war deters profitable investment and trade. Moreover, sanctions, which interfere with economic prosperity, provides a coercive step short of war to achieve foreign policy ends.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/32985.html


Capitalism Good – Violence

Capitalism is on-balance the best system for solving violence and mass atrocity. Dr. Andrew Bernstein, Professor of Philosophy Pace University, September 29, 2005, Capitalism Magazine, Accessed 4/29/09, http://www.andrewbernstein.net/articles/01_globalcap.htmBut what is not clear to many people is the nature of freedom. For centuries, political philosophers have written about the virtues of freedom, and for millenia men have hungered, fought and died for it. However, no one until Ayn Rand defined its essential nature. In her influential novel, Atlas Shrugged, and in such non-fiction works as Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, she shows that

the fundamental attribute of freedom is: the absence of physical coercion. For men to be free, they must be able

to act on the best rational judgment of their own minds without physical force initiated against them. “Freedom, in a political context, has only one meaning: the absence of physical coercion.” 3 A man’s freedom of action may be violated either by private individuals or by the government, and by one means only – by the initiation of force against him. Private individuals who initiate force are criminals, and men form governments to protect themselves from these. But the government itself is potentially the gravest danger to an individual’s freedom, because it has a legal monopoly on the use of force in a given geographical region. A government that is dictatorial threatens men in a manner far worse than that of a common criminal. Murderous tyrants like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao tse Tung and Pol Pot killed vastly more innocent victims than did thugs like Al Capone and John Gotti. It is against the government that men’s freedom needs to be most urgently protected. It is well in this regard to remember George Washington’s famous warning that, “Government, like fire, is a dangerous servant.” For men to be free, the initiation of force

must be banned from human life. This is just as true of governmental force as of its private use. The use of force must be legally limited to retaliation against those who start it. Human beings require a written Constitution with a Bill of Rights to protect them from the

state. The Constitution must legally outlaw the initiation of force by the government, as well as by private citizens. Capitalism requires, as a matter of principle, a universal ban on the initiation of force.

The alternative to capitalism is violence and famine.Radley Balko, Freelance Writer, October 9, 2002, FoxNews, Accessed 4/29/09, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,65278,00.htmlThese studies, taken together, paint a telling picture of the state of humanity, and of what steps we can take to make it even better. When countries embrace free markets, trade, and political freedom, they thrive. Incomes grow. Lifespans lengthen. Social maladies mend. When nations isolate themselves from international markets, when they deny citizens free elections, free press, and property, they falter. Incomes wane. Disease and famine swell. Strife looms. Communist and isolated North Korea, for example, has lost 10 percent of its population -- two million people -- to

famine since 1995. And that’s in an allegedly "developed" country. Anti-globalization protesters can rail all they like against the evils of capitalism, international markets and classical liberalism. But the numbers are unmistakable. Wealth is the only remedy for poverty, and capitalism is the only real way to create wealth.

The alternative to capitalism is brutal violence and oppressive dictators. Dr. Andrew Bernstein, Professor of Philosophy Pace University, September 29, 2005, Capitalism Magazine, Accessed 4/29/09, http://www.andrewbernstein.net/articles/01_globalcap.htmBut today, despite the lessons of the past, political dictatorships even worse than those of feudal Europe proliferate across the globe. For example, though Communism today may be in its death throes, it butchered 100 million innocent victims in 80 years and still enslaves and murders innocent men in China, in Cuba and in North

Korea. More broadly, statism – the subjugation of the individual by the state – exists everywhere. Brutal theocracies and military dictatorships in the Middle East murder their own citizens, and sponsor terrorist attacks against the world’s freest

country, the United States. In Africa, individual rights and liberty are non-existent – the continent bristles with military and/or tribal dictatorships. For too long the situation was no different in Haiti and only slightly better throughout Latin

and South America, where sundry tin pot dictators were and remain the rule. Today, more than 225 years after the American Revolution, freedom is virtually unknown around the globe . In North Korea, Communist oppression is unspeakable. As merely one example, political prisoners are enslaved, starved and used for target practice by guards and troops. In Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, the torture and execution of political prisoners was routine. In Afganistan, the Taliban denied the right to an independent life to the entire female gender, oppressing by that policy alone one/half of the country’s population. Further, to be brutally honest, any degree of freedom is virtually unknown on the African continent.14

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