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 Politics---Arms Control---1NC
GOP senators will protect Trump now---but a few defections set off
Trump’s worst fears
Katelyn Burns 12-26. "Murkowski "disturbed" by McConnell pledge to work with Trump
White House on impeachment". Vox. 12-26-2019. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2019/12/26/21037843/murkowski-disturbed-mcconnell-pledge-trump-impeachment
But even with conviction by the Senate almost certainly out of the question, moderate
Republicans like Murkowski and those facing tough reelection battles will be watched
closely to see if any Republicans defect to the Democrats’ side when it comes time to vote. Like
other moderate Republican senators , Murkowski has mostly remained tight-lipped as
the House has worked its way through its investigations. While commenting on McConnell, she also took a dig
at congressional Democrats, saying they rushed the impeachment investigations. “Speaker Pelosi was very clear, very direct that her
goal was to get this done before Christmas,” she said. All eyes turn to the Senate The parties have been arguing over
the scope of the Senate trial, including whether to call key witnesses and, if so, how many witnesses should
be called. On December 15, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to McConnell asking that four key witnesses who
have knowledge of the Ukraine scandal be called during the Senate trial: acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former
National Security Adviser John Bolton, White House aide Robert Blair, and Office of Management and Budget official Michael
Duffey. But McConnell rejected that proposal last Tuesday, suggesting in a floor speech that he preferred the “1999 approach,” from
the Clinton impeachment trial, in which senators decided whether to call witnesses only after the trial has begun. Democrats,
including Pelosi and Schumer, want it decided upfront whether witnesses will be called. Pelosi has said publicly that she doesn’t
trust that McConnell will run a fair trial after his Fox News comments. The issue is likely to be settled by a small
group of moderate Republican senators , most prominently Murkowski , Maine Sen.
Susan Collins , and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney . The group has mostly avoided direct comment on the
ongoing scandal, deferring to their constitutionally prescribed roles as impartial jurors in a Senate
impeachment trial. While pledging to be an impartial juror, Romney hasn’t shied away from criticizing the
president’s actions, including lambasting Trump’s public call for China to investigate the former Vice President and
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Collins, who faces a tough reelection bid next year in Maine
after voting on several key Trump priorities like the tax cuts and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, has
also expressed concern over McConnell’s commitment to work closely with the White House
throughout the trial. She said McConnell’s plan “would not be the approach that I’d’ve taken.” Given Republican control of the
Senate, it’s unlikely the chamber will end up voting for Trump’s conviction and removal, but any
GOP defections will be a blow to the president , as explained by Vox’s Li Zhou: In order for the
Senate to convict the president of charges, 20 Senate Republicans would have to join with the 47-member
breaks
Democratic caucus in order to reach the 67-person supermajority threshold that’s needed. Still, any
within the Republican conference don’t look great for Trump and
help give Democrats further ammunition to use against him in the 2020 election. It remains to be seen
whether these comments from Murkowski, Collins, or Romney are signs that they may defect from the party’s Senate majority. But
they certainly ensure that the Republican
moderates will continue to be closely watched as the
impeachment drama moves to the Senate.

Aff drains political capital with Republicans---spills over

Theresa Hitchens 16, Senior Research Associate at the Center for International & Security
Studies at the University of Maryland, Former Director of the World Security Institute’s Center
for Defense Information, Former Research Director at the British American Security
Information Council (BASIC), and David Chen, Senior Analyst and Consultant at CENTRA
Technology, Inc., Master’s Degree in Pacific International Affairs from the School of Global
Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego, Completed Studies at Nanjing
University and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, “A Pause
Button for Militarizing Space”, Omag Digital, April 2016.
http://www.omagdigital.com/publication/?i=295789&article_id=2439349&view=articleBrows
er#{%22issue_id%22:295789,%22view%22:%22articleBrowser%22,%22article_id%22:%22243
9349%22}
It's tempting to argue that the Obama administration should have done more on the diplomatic front, but the reality has been that
space arms control remains
other geopolitical problems have sucked up most of the diplomatic bandwidth. Further,
a contentious issue within the Republican-led Congress , with those who champion U.S.
missile defense concerned that arms control initiatives could hamper their efforts. Pushing for
space arms control would have take n political capital away from other
high-priority issues such as health care reform.

PC is key to staving off removal

Tim Fernholz 10-21. Reporter, covers space, the economy and geopolitics for Quartz.
"Impeachment is threatening to derail Trump’s mission to the moon". Quartz. 10-21-2019.
https://qz.com/1732110/trumps-impeachment-could-derail-his-plan-for-space/
President Donald Trump’s administration is now attempting to get its own ambitious program off the
ground , with a goal of landing astronauts, including the first woman, on the moon by 2024, four years
sooner than planned. “America is leading in space once again,” vice president Mike Pence said, as he does in all his space remarks,
during the International Astronautical Congress in Washington, DC today. This time, however, there were chuckles from an
audience hailing from around the globe. US
lawmakers have not committed to funding this project on
the president’s schedule, and NASA now says it won’t be able to even estimate the full cost of it until
2020. With the impeachment inquiry announced by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on Sept. 24 deepening,
political capital is likely to be more focused on
the White House’s
defending the president than winning space bucks to meet the new deadline. What made
things different in the 1990s? Clinton, never known as the most disciplined president, managed
to keep up the public
appearance of business as usual during his impeachment proceedings. He “compartmentalized” his
staff to focus on
work and delivered boring speeches about policy, two things Trump is unlikely to do.

Credible threat of removal causes Iran war.

Joel Mathis 19. Contributing writer to The Week, spent nine years as a syndicated columnist,
co-writing the RedBlueAmerica column as the liberal half of a point-counterpoint duo, awards
for best online commentary from the Online News Association and (twice) from the City and
Regional Magazine Association, 9/24/19, “Why Trump might be tempted into war,”
https://theweek.com/articles/867200/why-trump-might-tempted-into-war
Does anybody trust a scandal-tarred President Trump to lead the country into war? Trump is
almost always mired in scandal, of course, and America is almost perpetually at war — the battle in
Afghanistan, for example, has now lasted for a generation. But that doesn't make the question moot. Indeed, two
factors have given this issue new urgency : the burgeoning controversy over Trump's interactions
with Ukraine , and the continually rising tensions with Iran . War talk is brewing. But so are questions
about the president's judgment. Recent American history tells us that the quickest way for a president to create a
short-term burst in his approval ratings is to send troops into battle. But it is also true that a White
House facing a crisis of legitimacy often has less leeway from the public, the press, and fellow
politicians to put soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen in harm's way, or to kill foreign soldiers. For a
scandal-stained president such as the one currently in office, such forays into battle could provoke accusations of
"wagging the dog." If you need a refresher: Wag the Dog is a film that came out in 1997, during President Bill Clinton's second
term in office. The flick depicted a fictional president, mired in a sex scandal, who created a fake war to distract the country and
boost his own popularity. One month after the movie was released, the public found out Clinton had been having an affair with
Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. The impeachment process started in earnest soon after. During the march to
impeachment, Clinton launched two major military attacks — one against a Sudanese
pharmaceutical plant suspected of ties to Al Qaeda after bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, the other a four-day bombing
campaign against Iraq, which was resisting submitting to U.N. inspections of its weapons programs. Both events prefigured
America's major wars after 9/11, but at the time they were viewed with substantial suspicion by the press and Clinton's political
opponents. "Look at the movie Wag the Dog. I think this has all the elements of that movie," then-Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-
Nev.) told CNN at the time of the Sudan attack. "Our reaction to the embassy bombings should be based on sound credible evidence,
not a knee-jerk reaction to try to direct public attention away from his personal problems." The Clinton administration denied the
allegations, saying it acted only in the best interest of America's national security — and maybe that's the case. But when a president
becomes defined by their lies and bad behaviors, as Clinton had by 1998, it becomes difficult to trust anything about their leadership.
Which brings us back to Trump. We already know that the president finds it nearly impossible to distinguish the country's interests
from his own. He is susceptible to flattery, too willing to buddy up with dictators and murderers while giving a cold shoulder to
America's traditional friends. If recent reports of Trump's improprieties with regards to Ukraine are true, it would not be an
exaggeration to say his selfishness is in charge of U.S. foreign policy. The good news is that Trump has so far
proven reluctant to wage war in Iran. But if impeachment were to become a serious
threat to his presidency — and the Ukraine scandal seems to have increased the likelihood of
that happening — I wouldn't put it past him to use war as a method of distraction leading
into 2020. In that case, stopping Trump from wagging the dog could be difficult. The Constitution grants
Congress the power to declare war, but the legislative branch in recent decades has deferred much of its warmaking initiative to the
executive branch. Even if that were not the case, Trump remains the commander-in-chief of American forces
— he can order them into battle and let Congress figure out the rest later. Scandals
tend to constrain a president's
ability to launch wars abroad — and that is as it should be. Trump , however, has not shown himself
one to be constrained . America should go into battle only if its citizens are confident their leader is making the right
decisions for the right reasons. That doesn't sound like this president.

Global nuclear war.

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi 19. Iranian-American political scientist, has taught political science at
the University of Tehran, Boston University, and Bentley University and was a visiting scholar at
Harvard University, University of California-Berkeley, Binghamton University, and the Center
for Strategic Research, Tehran; and Nader Entessar, professor and chair of the department of
political science and criminal justice at the University of South Alabama, 7/2/19, “A nuclear war
in the Persian Gulf?,” https://thebulletin.org/2019/07/a-nuclear-war-in-the-persian-gulf/
Tensions between the United States and Iran are spiraling toward a military confrontation that carries a real possibility that the
United States will use nuclear weapons. Iran’s assortment of asymmetrical capabilities—all constructed to be effective against the
United States—nearly assures such a confrontation. The current US nuclear posture leaves the Trump administration at least open to
the use of tactical nuclear weapons in conventional theaters. Some in the current administration may well think it
to be in the best interest of the U nited S tates to seek a quick and decisive victory in the oil hub of the
Persian Gulf—and to do so by using its nuclear arsenal . We believe there is a heightened possibility of a US-
Iran war triggering a US nuclear strike for the following reasons: The sanction regime set against the Iranian economy is so brutal
that it is likely to force Iran to take an action that will require a US military response. Unless the United States backs down from its
present self-declared “economic warfare” against Iran, this will likely escalate to an open warfare between the two countries. In
response to a White House request to draw up an Iran war plan, the Pentagon proposed sending 120,000 soldiers to the Persian
Gulf. This force would augment the several thousands of troops already stationed in Iran’s vicinity. President Trump has also hinted
that if need be, he will be sending “a lot more” troops. Defeating Iran through conventional military means would likely require a
half million US forces and US preparedness for many casualties. The US nuclear posture review is worded in such a way that the use
of tactical nuclear weapons in conventional theaters is envisaged, foreshadowing the concern that in a showdown with a menacing
foe like Iran, the nuclear option is on the table. The United States could once again justify using nuclear force for the sake of a
decisive victory and casualty-prevention, the logic used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Trump’s
cavalier attitude toward
nuclear weapons , trigger-happy penchant, and utter disdain for Iran , show that he would likely
have no moral qualm about issuing an order to launch a limited nuclear strike , especially
in a US-Iran showdown, one in which the oil transit from the Gulf would be imperiled, impacting the global economy and
necessitating a speedy end to such a war. If the United States were to commit a limited nuclear strike against Iran, it would minimize
risks to its forces in the region, defang the Iranian military, divest the latter of preeminence in the Strait of Hormuz, and thus
reassert US power in the oil hub of the Persian Gulf. Oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz is critical to a rising China. US control
over this merchant waterway would grant the United States significant leverage in negotiations. A limited US nuclear strike could
cause a ‘regime change’ among Iranian leadership, representing a strategic setback for Russia, in light of their recent foray in the
Middle East with Iranian backing. Undoubtedly, there are several significant negative consequences to a US
use of nuclear weapons, opening the way for other nuclear -armed states to
emulate US behavior , and for many other non-nuclear weapons states to seek their
own nuclear deterrent shields. There would also be a huge outcry in the international community causing the US global
image to suffer. Will such anticipated consequences represent sufficient obstacles to prevent a limited U.S. nuclear strike on Iran?
With President Trump, who counts on “bomb Iran” billionaire Sheldon Adelson as one of his main campaign contributors, the
threshold for using nukes certainly seems to have been lowered. How the United States and Iran
came to the brink. President Donald Trump complicates the situation by stating that the United States is not seeking war with Iran,
while repeatedly threatening to annihilate it. In July of 2018, in response to a statement by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, Trump
tweeted “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF
WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.” On May 19, 2019, Trump fired another incendiary
volley, threatening the “official end” of Iran in a U.S.-Iran war. Then Friday June 21, 2019 the day after Iran shot down a US military
drone, the President said “I’m not looking for war and if there is, it’ll be obliteration like you have never seen before. But I am not
looking to do that. But, you (Iran) can’t have nuclear weapons.” In an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd. Citing Iran’s military threat,
the Trump administration continues to enforce relentless economic sanctions under the guise of a “maximum pressure” strategy,
designating Iran’s revolutionary guard a terrorist organization. The administration also is ramping up the US military presence in
the Persian Gulf, sending several warships, a Patriot missile battery, an expeditionary force of marines, and nuclear-capable B-52
strategic bombers to the region. The United States has also withdrawn all “non-emergency” personnel in Baghdad and Erbil. These
actions add fuel to the growing fear of war—a war sure to involve Iraq, home to both US military bases and powerful battle-hardened
pro-Iran Shiite militias. War could break out in a variety of ways: As a result of Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz (a
choke point for the daily transfer of some 19 million barrels of oil), a
preemptive strike on Iran’s military and
nuclear facilities (in light of Iran’s stated intention to resume aspects of its nuclear activities, banned under the 2015 nuclear
agreement), an application of the 9/11 legislation on Authorization of Military Force against al-Qaeda (accusing Iran of being in
league with al-Qaeda terrorists), or in response to perceived Iranian mischief (such as the recent sabotage on board several Saudi
and UAE merchant ships). The United States and Iran are not the only regional players, and care must be taken to understand the
context and implications of events. As pointed out by a number of US experts in the wake of the most recent attacks on oil tankers,
regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia have much to gain from a breakout of war between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. has echoed the
Saudi accusations against Iran and extended them to include blaming Iran for the Yemenis Houthi rebels’ drone attack on a Saudi
pipeline on May 14th. Accusations are one thing, but the big question is, will the Trump administration heed Saudi Arabia’s call for a
“US surgical strike” on Iran? Both the Saudis and Iranians harbor hegemonic ambitions in the region. The Saudis are pushing for a
limited US strike to eliminate some of Iran’s formidable naval and missile capabilities, thus weakening their regional rival. But even
a limited US strike would increase the likelihood of Iranian forces inflicting serious damage on US military assets in the region, both
directly and indirectly through multiple proxy forces. Iran’s military commanders have warned that the US military fleet is within
range of Iran’s short-range missiles. Iran has reportedly affixed anti-ship missiles on hundreds of its fast boats, as part of an
asymmetrical “swarming” tactic. Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has also instructed the country’s military forces to
commence preparations for war. It is worth recalling that Iran is ranked 14th for countries with the most military firepower. Iran has
also devoted considerable attention to upgrading its asymmetrical capabilities, including shifting its formal strategy to an “offensive-
defensive” posture—meaning that if the United States moves offensively against Iran, Iran will counter by moving offensively against
a regional target of value for the United States. An example of an offensive-defensive move would be if the United States were to use
its airbases to launch nuclear-capable B-52 strikes on Iran, Iran could counterattack the US base in Qatar, irrespective of friendly
ties with the country. Iran is in many respects a “regional superpower” with over a half a million active soldiers and another 350,000
reservists; it possesses thousands of guided missiles, over 1,600 tanks, some 500 aircraft, hundreds of military drones, and several
surface warships, submarines, and mine boats, in addition to some 3,000 fast boats. These assets indicate that the now seemly
imminent conflict with Iran will not be a cakewalk for the United States. This possibility of a costly conventional

conflict in our minds increases the likelihood of US conflict escalation to nuclear

war . The risk of nuclear warfare in the Persian Gulf represents a present and clear danger
to world peace , requiring the mobilization of the international community to intervene.
 T---1NC
Arms control is the limitation on weapons, not use
**Must eliminate the weapon---modifying how its used is not topical
Cot and Boniface 91 Jeane-Pierre Cot, professor of International Law at the University of
Paris-I, and Pascal Boniface, founding Director of the French Institute for International and
Strategic Affairs, “Disarmament and Arms Control” Chapter 37 in “International Law:
Achievements and Prospects”, edited by Mohammed Bedjaoui, 1991, Page 812
5. Arms control, like disarmament, must be distinguished from the laws of war. Their
purpose is simply to regulate the use of weapons during a conflict and not to limit or reduce
their numbers in time of peace. Accordingly, the 1925 Geneva protocol prohibiting the use of
chemical weapons has to do with the laws of war , while an agreement on the limitation
or elimination of chemical weapons concerns arms control or disarmament. Similarly,
an undertaking not to be the first to use nuclear weapons comes under the laws of war rather
than arms control or disarmament.

Space weapons are space force application and space control – we

have a case list
**note – space force application is attacking military systems, space control means attempts to
gain space superiority
Krepon & Clary 3 (Michael Krepon served as the president and CEO of the Henry L.
Stimson Center from 1989 to 2000. He is the author of Strategic Stalemate, Nuclear Weapons
and Arms Control in American Politics (1984), Arms Control in the Reagan Administration
(1989), and co-editor of Verification and Compliance, A Problem-Solving Approach (1988),
Commercial Observation Satellites and International Security (1990), The Politics of Arms
Control Treaty Ratification (1991), Open Skies, Arms Control and Cooperative Security (1992),
Crisis Prevention, Confidence Building, and Reconciliation in South Asia (1995), and Global
Confidence-Building: New Tools for Troubled Regions (2000). His newest book, Cooperative
Threat Reduction, Missile Defense, and the Nuclear Future, was published in January 2003 by
Palgrave. Christopher Clary works as a Research Assistant for the Weaponization of Space
Project at the Stimson Center. He graduated from Wichita State University in May 2001,
receiving the William J. Swett Prize for having the highest grade point average of any graduating
senior. He holds two bachelor's degrees, in International Studies and History, with additional
minors in Political Science and Economics. “Space Assurance or Space Dominance? The Case
Against Weaponizing Space,” The Henry L. Stimson Center. DOA: 7/18/19.
https://www.stimson.org/sites/default/files/file-attachments/spacebook_1.pdf)
A hedging strategy requires that the United States strictly abstain from flight-testing and
deploying space weaponry. In Chapter 2, weaponization was defined as activities that involve the
direct application of force either from space, within space, or , directed against objects in space
from the earth’s surface or atmosphere. Additionally, “space control” activities resulting in the
denial of access to space or negation of an adversary’s spacecraft constitute weaponization.
Included in this definition of weaponization are dedicated ASAT weapons, “defensive”
weapons carried on satellites or other space objects that could be used for offensive
purposes, and attacks against terrestrial-based targets carried out by military weapons
systems operating in or from space. Excluded from this definition of space weaponization
are military and civilian capabilities that could be used as ASATs but which have clearly been
designed to carry out other missions, such as long-range ballistic missiles, advanced
missile defenses, space launch vehicles, and the space shuttle . In a hedging strategy,
these capabilities must not be tested in an ASAT mode. In addition, a hedging strategy would
prohibit kill mechanisms for missile defenses that are flight-tested or deployed in space. Other
basing modes for missile defenses would not be constrained as long as they are not flight-tested
in an ASAT mode.

Vote negative for predictable limits – anything could be repurposed

as a space weapons – they allow banning anything that could be
launched into a satellite. That eliminates core negative ground about
ASATs and makes the topic bidirectional by allowing affs to ban things
like the space shuttle.
AND any we meet is extra-topical – eliminating BMD systems that
don’t go through space justifies any number of technologies that pass
through space – extra-T must be a voting issue – gives them extra
advantages and CPing out it moots core DA uniqueness
 In The Area---1NC
“In the area” means all of the activities.
UN 13. United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty.
http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part1.htm.
PART I INTRODUCTION Article 1
Use of terms and scope 1. For the purposes of this Convention: (1) "Area" means the seabed and ocean floor and subsoil thereof,
beyond the limits of national jurisdiction; (2) "Authority" means the International Seabed Authority; (3) "activities in the
Area" means all activities of exploration for, and exploitation of, the resources of the Area;

Violation---they don’t increase cooperation on all activities in their

area. Vote neg for limits and ground---tiny instances of cooperation
outweighs and destroys neg prep
 Revisionism DA---1NC
Space cooperation allows Russia to poach international prestige---
that provides critical leverage that enables global authoritarianism.
Peter Juul 19. Senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. "Trump’s Space
Force Gets the Final Frontier All Wrong," 3-20-2019, Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/20/trumps-space-force-gets-the-final-frontier-all-wrong
Today, however, the U nited S tates finds itself on the precipice of a new and uncertain era. American
astronauts continue to live and work aboard the International Space Station, but no American has rocketed into orbit from U.S.
territory since the last flight of the space shuttle in 2011. And back on
Earth, the U nited S tates and its
democratic allies in Europe and Asia have settled into a worldwide competition for
power and influence with Russia and China . Now Russia remains the only nation that regularly launches
humans into space. Meanwhile, reflecting their growing power, new players like India and China have embarked on their own
ambitious robotic exploration missions to Mars and the far side of the moon. National prestige and international standing are once
more at the forefront of space exploration, as is competition between nations—especially between democracies and autocracies—to
make impressive achievements on the final frontier. To navigate the new space competition, the United States
must first recognize that national prestige and global standing are critical national
interests worth pursuing and not pointless—and possibly dangerous—chest-thumping exercises. And
peaceful space exploration provides the United States a huge opportunity to restore pride at home and burnish its prestige
overseas. It certainly beats other —perhaps less productive—ways of seeking international

status , such as stockpiling nuclear weapons . America starts with an

advantage on this front despite not having launched astronauts from its own soil in
almost eight years. Even after five decades, the Apollo moon landings continue to stir pride at home and admiration abroad.
The space shuttle remains iconic nearly a decade after retirement, while the cosmic images beamed back from the Hubble Space
Telescope continue to provoke awe and wonder. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have turned their own camera
lenses back toward Earth and given the world stunning images of our home planet. Robotic explorers from Voyager to the Mars
rovers and New Horizons have kept the country on the cutting edge of discovery in our solar system. But this advantage
won’t last forever. Without consistent and increased funding for NASA, ambitious programs of both human and robotic
exploration will literally fail to leave the ground. Without consistent and increased funding for NASA, ambitious programs of both
human and robotic exploration will literally fail to leave the ground. Progress doesn’t entail an Apollo-level commitment of national
resources, but instead funding comparable to the early 1990s. An additional $5 billion a year should get the job done, with $3 billion
for human exploration and $2 billion for robotic missions. But funding isn’t everything, and in the new geopolitical
context, democracy must be seen to work effectively . When it comes to space
exploration, that means ratcheting back U.S. space cooperation with
Russia as well as forgoing any equally intimate cooperation with China and its secretive
space agency . The fact that the head of Russia’s space agency remains under U.S. sanctions for his role in Moscow’s military
intervention in Ukraine illustrates the hazards involved in working with autocracies in space. Deep cooperation with
autocratic powers in space gives autocracies a major point of diplomatic leverage over
the United States, and more generally allows them to poach unearned international
prestige by working on goals set and largely carried out by the U nited S tates. In today’s
world, there’s no reason for the United States to give Russia or China this sort of
standing by association. Cooperation between the United States and Russia won’t grind to an immediate halt,
though. With the International Space Station in orbit until at least 2024—if not longer—it will take time to disentangle the web of
functional ties that have bound NASA and its Russian counterpart over the last quarter century. Significant
cooperation
with China should be avoided altogether , especially given its notoriously opaque
and military-run space program. The space programs and agencies of other nations—NASA, the European Space
Agency and its member-nation agencies, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and even Russia’s Roscosmos—remain led and
run by civilians. In the meantime, the United States should buttress its already strong cooperative
ties with fellow democracies like Japan, Canada, and the nations of the European Space Agency. Here, the main
diplomatic challenge with partners like the ESA will be to convince them to curb their enthusiasm for cooperation with Russia and
China on space exploration. The United States should also forge stronger space ties with interested democratic allies like South
Korea, as well as newcomers like India and Israel.

That normalizes Russian territorial aggression---causes nuclear war

and extinction.
Frederick W. Kagan 19. American resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and
a former professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, less famous
brother of our favorite neighborhood neocon Robert Kagan “CONFRONTING THE RUSSIAN
CHALLENGE: A NEW APPROACH FOR THE U.S.,” Institute for the Study of War. June 2019.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000016b-6eef-dc80-a3ff-ffff778c0000
The Russian threat’s effectiveness results mainly from the West’s weaknesses . NATO’s European
members are not meeting their full commitments to the alliance to maintain the fighting power needed to deter and defeat the emerging challenge from
Moscow. Increasing political polarization and the erosion of trust by Western peoples in their governments creates
vulnerabilities that the Kremlin has adroitly exploited. Moscow’s success in manipulating Western perceptions of and reactions
to its activities has fueled the development of an approach to warfare that the West finds difficult to understand, let alone counter. Shaping the

information space is the primary effort to which Russian military operations, even conventional military operations, are
frequently subordinated in this way of war. Russia obfuscates its activities and confuses the discussion so

that many people throw up their hands and say simply, “Who knows if the Russians really did that? Who knows if it

was legal?”—thus paralyzing the West’s responses . Putin’s Program Putin is not simply an opportunistic predator. Putin and
the major institutions of the Russian Federation have a program as coherent as that of any Western leader. Putin enunciates his objectives in major
speeches, and his ministers generate detailed formal expositions of Russia’s military and diplomatic aims and its efforts and the methods and resources
it uses to pursue them. These statements cohere with the actions of Russian officials and military units on the ground. The common perception that he

is opportunistic Putin arises from the way that the Kremlin sets conditions to achieve these objectives in advance.

closely monitors the domestic and international situation and decides to

execute plans when and if conditions require and favor the Kremlin . The aims of Russian
policy can be distilled into the following: Domestic Objectives Putin is an autocrat who seeks to retain control of his state and the succession. He seeks
to keep his power circle content, maintain his own popularity, suppress domestic political opposition in the name of blocking a “color revolution” he
falsely accuses the West of preparing, and expand the Russian economy. Putin has not fixed the economy, which remains corrupt, inefficient, and
dependent on petrochemical and mineral exports. He has focused instead on ending the international sanctions regime to obtain the cash, expertise,
and technology he needs. Information operations and hybrid warfare undertakings in Europe are heavily aimed at this objective. External Objectives
Putin’s foreign policy aims are clear: end American dominance and the “unipolar” world order, restore
“multipolarity ,” and reestablish Russia as a global power and broker. He identifies NATO as an
adversary and a threat and seeks to negate it. He aims to break Western unity, establish Russian

suzerainty over the former Soviet States , and regain a global footprint.
Putin works to break Western unity by invalidating the collective defense provision of the North Atlantic Treaty (Article 5), weakening the European Union, and destroying the faith of Western societies in their governments. He is reestablishing a global military footprint similar in extent the Soviet Union’s, but with different aims. He is neither advancing
an ideology, nor establishing bases from which to project conventional military power on a large scale. He aims rather to constrain and shape America’s actions using small numbers of troops and agents along with advanced anti-air and anti-shipping systems.
Recommendations A sound U.S. grand strategic approach to Russia: • Aims to achieve core American national security objectives positively rather than to react defensively to Russian actions; • Holistically addresses all U.S. interests globally as they relate to Russia rather than considering them theater-by-theater; • Does not trade core American national
security interests in one theater for those in another, or sacrifice one vital interest for another; • Achieves American objectives by means short of war if at all possible; • Deters nuclear war, the use of any nuclear weapons, and other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD); • Accepts the risk of conventional conflict with Russia while seeking to avoid it and
to control escalation, while also ensuring that American forces will prevail at any escalation level; • Contests Russian information operations and hybrid warfare undertakings; and • Extends American protection and deterrence to U.S. allies in NATO and outside of NATO. Such an approach involves four principal lines of effort. Constrain Putin’s
Resources. Russia uses hybrid warfare approaches because of its relative poverty and inability to field large and modern military systems that could challenge the U.S. and NATO symmetrically. Lifting or reducing the current sanctions regime or otherwise facilitating Russia’s access to wealth and technology could give Putin the resources he needs to
mount a much more significant conventional threat—an aim he had been pursuing in the early 2000s when high oil prices and no sanctions made it seem possible. Disrupt Hybrid Operations. Identifying, exposing, and disrupting hybrid operations is a feasible, if difficult, undertaking. New structures in the U.S. military, State Department, and possibly
National Security Council Staff are likely needed to: 1. Coordinate efforts to identify and understand hybrid operations in preparation and underway; 2. Develop recommendations for action against hybrid operations that the U.S. government has identified but are not yet publicly known; 3. Respond to the unexpected third-party exposure of hybrid
operations whether the U.S. government knew about the operations or not; 4. Identify in advance the specific campaign and strategic objectives that should be pursued when the U.S. government deliberately exposes a particular hybrid operation or when third parties expose hybrid operations of a certain type in a certain area; 5. Shape the U.S.
government response, particularly in the information space, to drive the blowback effects of the exposure of a particular hybrid operation toward achieving those identified objectives; and 6. Learn lessons from past and current counter-hybrid operations undertakings, improve techniques, and prepare for future evolutions of Russian approaches in
coordination with allies and partners. The U.S. should also develop a counter-information operations approach that uses only truth against Russian narratives aimed at sowing discord within the West and at undermining the legitimacy of Western governments.

Delegitimize Putin as a Mediator and Convener. Recognition as one of the poles of a multipolar
world order is vital to Putin . It is part of the greatness he promises the Russian people in return
for taking their liberty. Getting a “seat at the table” of Western-led endeavors is insufficient for him because he seeks to transform the
international system fundamentally. He finds the very language of being offered a seat at the West’s table patronizing. He has gained much more
legitimacy as an international partner in Syria and Ukraine than his behavior warrants. He benefits from the continuous desire of Western leaders to
believe that Moscow will help them out of their own problems if only it is approached in the right way. The U.S. and its allies must instead recognize
that Putin is a self-declared adversary who seeks to weaken, divide, and harm them—never to strengthen or help them. He has made clear in word and
deed that his interests are antithetical to the West’s. The
West should therefore stop treating him as a potential
partner , but instead require him to demonstrate that he can and will act to advance rather than damage the
West’s interests before engaging with him at high levels . The West must not trade interests in one region
for Putin’s help in another, even if there is reason to believe that he would actually be helpful. Those working on American policy in Syria and the
Levant must recognize that the U.S. cannot afford to subordinate its global Russia policy to pursue limited interests, however important, within the
Middle East. Recognizing Putin as a mediator or convener in Syria—to constrain Iran’s activities in the south of that country, for example—is too high a
price tag to pay for undermining a coherent global approach to the Russian threat. Granting him credibility in that role there enhances his credibility in
his self-proclaimed role as a mediator rather than belligerent in Ukraine. The tradeoff of interests is unacceptable. Nor should the U.S.
engage with Putin about Ukraine until he has committed publicly in word and deed to what should be the minimum non-
negotiable Western demand—the recognition of the full sovereignty of all the former Soviet

states, specifically including Ukraine, in their borders as of the dates of their admission as independent countries to the United Nations, and the
formal renunciation (including the repealing of relevant Russian legislation) of any right to interfere in the internal affairs of those states
Defend NATO. The increa sed Russian threat requ ire s increa sed effort s to defend NATO aga inst both convent iona l and hybrid threat s. All NATO mem be rs must meet their com mitment s to defense spending targets— and should be prepa red to go bey ond those c omm itments t o field the forces necessary t o defend themselve s and other alliance me mbe rs. The Russian base in Syria poses a th reat to We stern operations in the Mid dle Ea st that are e ssent ial t o protecting our own citizen s and security aga inst terrorist threats and Iran. Neither the U.S. nor N ATO is postu red to protect the Mediterranean or fight for access t o the Middle Ea st through the eastern Medite rranean . N ATO mu st now prepa re to fie ld and deploy additional f orces to ensu re that it can win that fight. The West should a lso re move a s muc h am biguity a s possible from t he NATO c omm itment to defend mem ber states th reatened by hy brid warfa re. The 2018 Brussels Dec larat ion affirmin g the alliance’s intention to defend mem be r state s attacked by hybrid wa rfare wa s a good start . The U. S. and
other N ATO states w ith stronge r milita rie s sh ould go further by decla ring that they w ill come t o the aid of a mem ber state attacked by conventional or hy brid mean s rega rdle ss of whether Article 5 is formally activated, c reating a p re-emptive c oalition of the willing t o deter Russia n aggre ssion. Bilatera l Neg otiat ion s. Recogn izing that Russia is a se lf -defined adversary and threat d oes n ot preclude direct neg otiations. The U. S. neg otiated several a rms c ontrol treat ies w ith th e Soviet Un ion and ha s negot iated with other se lf-defined enemie s as well. It sh ould retain open channels of com munication and a willin gness to w ork together with Russia on bilate ral area s in wh ich real and ve rifiable agreement is possible, even wh ile refu sing t o grant legit imacy to Ru ssian inte rven tion in conflicts be yond it s borde rs. Such area s could include stra tegic nuclear weap ons, cy ber operat ion s, inte rference in elections, the Intermediate Nuclea r Forces treaty , and other matters related to direct Russo -Am erican ten sions and conce rns. The re is little like lihood of any neg otiat ion
yielding fru it at this p oint, but there is no need to refuse to ta lk w ith Russia on these and sim ila r issue s in h opes of laying the g roundwork f or m ore successful d iscussions in the future. INTRO DUCT ION The Ru ssian challen ge is a parad ox. Russia’s nuclea r arsenal p ose s the only truly existentia l threat to the Un ited State s and it s allie s, bu t Russia’s c onventiona l m ilit ary forces have neve r rec overed anythin g like the powe r of the Soviet military . Those force s pose a lim ited and uneven threat to America’ s Eu ropean a llie s and to U. S. armed force s, part ially be cause many U .S. allie s are n ot mee ting the ir N ATO defense spending comm itments. Ru ssia is w illing and a ble t o act more rap idly and accept greater risk than We stern c ountrie s becau se of it s autocratic nature. It s cy ber capa bilitie s are am ong the be st in the world, and it is developing an in formation- based w ay of wa r that the West ha s not collective ly prope rly understood, let alone begun develop ing a re spon se to. That information- based w arfare ha s inc luded attempts to affect and disrupt elections in the
U.S. and allied state s. The complex ity and paradoxical natu re of the Russian threat is pe rhaps it s g reatest strength. It is one of the key rea son s for the failure of successive American adm inistrations and U. S. partners a round the world to develop a coherent strate gy for securin g themselv es and their people and advanc ing their intere sts in the face of Russian efforts aga inst them. The West’ s lack of continuou s focus on the Russian challen ge has cre ated major g aps in our collective understanding of the proble m—another key reason for our failure to deve lop a sound counter- strategy . American c oncerns about Russia are bifurcated, moreove r. Many Americans see the Russian thre at prim arily a s a domest ic problem: Moscow’ s inte rference in the 20 16 presidentia l election, attempts t o interfe re in the 2018 m idterm e lection , and efforts t o shape the 20 20 elections. The U. S. nat iona l security esta blish ment acknow ledge s the dome stic proble m but is gene rally m ore conce rned with the milita ry challeng es a seem ingly reviving Russia poses t o U. S. N ATO allies and
other partners in the Eu ro- Atlant ic reg ion; with Russia’ s activ itie s in place s like Syria and Venezuela; and with Russia’s outreach to rogue states such as North Korea and I ran. Even that ove rsea s security conce rn, howeve r, is pervaded by complex ity and some c onfusion. The recommendation s of the current U .S. Nat iona l Security St rategy ( NSS) and N ation al Defen se St rategy ( NDS) are d ominated by re spon ses t o much-trumpeted Russian inve stment s in the m odernizat ion of con ventiona l and nuclear forces. At the same time, those documents ackn ow led ge the importance of Russian capa bilitie s at the lower end of the m ilit ary spectrum and in the non - military realms of information, cy ber, space, inf orm ation , and econom ic effort s. Americans thus genera lly ag ree that Russia is a threat to wh ich the U.S. must respond in some way , but the varyin g definitions of that threat hinder discussion of the approp riate re spon se. Russia ha s entang led itse lf sufficiently in American partisan politic s that conversation a bout the national securit y thre at it poses is
increasingly pola rized. We mu st find a way t o tran scend this polarization t o develop a strategy to secure the U. S. and its a llie s and advance U .S. intere sts, despite Russian efforts t o underm ine Ame rica’ s dome stic polit ics. AMERIC AN INT ERESTS—WHAT IS AT STAK E The Ideals of the American Republic The sta kes in the Russo-American conflict a re high. Ru ssian leade r Vladim ir Putin seeks to undermine confidence in de mocrat ically elected in stitution s and the inst itution of democracy itse lf in t he United States and the We st.1 He is t rying t o interfere w ith the ability of Ame rican and Eu ropean people s to ch oose their leaders freely 2 and is underm ining the rules- ba sed intern ation al order on which Am erican prosperity and security rest. H is action s in U kra ine and Sy ria ha ve driven the w orld towa rd greate r violence and disorde r. The norma lization of Putin’ s illega l actions over t ime will likely prompt other state s to emu late his behav ior and cause further deterioration of the internat iona l sy stem . Mosc ow’s w ar on the very idea of truth has been perhaps
the most dam aging Ru ssian undertaking in recent years. The m ost ba sic e lement of the Russian inform ation strategy, which we w ill consider in more detail present ly, is the creation of a sense of uncertaint y a round any important issue. Russia’ s strategy d oes n ot re quire pe rsuadin g Western audiences that it s action s in Ukraine’ s Crimean Pen insula or the Kerch Stra it, which connects the Blac k Sea and the Sea of Azov, f or ex ample, we re le gal or justified. 3 It is en ough to create an environment in which many people say simply, “who know s?” The “who know s?” principle feeds powerfully int o the phenomena of viral “fake new s,” as we ll a s other falsehood s and accusations of falsehood s which, if left unchecked, will u ltimate ly ma ke civ il discourse impossible. The Kre mlin’s propaganda doe s not nece ssa rily need its ta rget audience s to believe in lie s; its p rim ary g oal is to ma ke sure they do not believe in the truth. Th is a spect of Putin’s approach is one of the greate st obstac les t o forming an accurate assessment and m aking recommendations. It is also one of the
most insidiou s threat s the current Russian strategy pose s to the surv ival of the Ame rican repu blic . The good news is that the wa r on the idea of truth does n ot in v olve military operat ion s or violence, though it can lead to both. The bad new s is that it is ext raordinarily d ifficult to id entify, let alone to counter. Yet we mu st counter it if we are t o surv ive a s a functionin g polity. American Prospe rity The debate about the trade deficit and tariffs only underscores the scale and importance of the role Europe play s in the American economy. Eu rope is the la rge st sin gle ma rket for American e xport s and the second - large st source of Ame rican import s, w ith trade tota ling nea rly $ 1. 1 trillion.4 Ame rican exports t o Europe are e stimated to su pport 2.6 million jobs in the U .S. 5 Sign ificant damage t o the European economy, let a lone the collap se of major Eu ropean states or Europe it self, w ould deva state the U. S. econ omy a s well. American prosperity is tightly interw oven w ith Europe’ s. American prosperity also depends on Europe rem ainin g la rgely de mocrat ic, with m arket-
based ec onom ies, and su bscribing t o the idea of a rulesba sed intern ationa l order. The re-eme rgence of authoritarian regimes in ma jor European state s, which w ould most like ly be fueled by a resurgence of extre mist n ation alism , would lead to the collapse of the entire European system, including it s econ omic foundations. European economic cooperat ion re sts on Eu ropean pe ace, which in turn re sts on the continued submergence of extrem ist nat iona lism and adherence to a com mon set of value s. Russi an action s ag ainst Western de mocrac ies and support for extre mist groups, often with nationa list agenda s, re inforce neg ative trend s eme rging within Europe itself. These actions the refore c onstitute a thre at to American prosperity and security ove r the long te rm. The Ame rican econ omy a lso depends on the free flow of g ood s across the world’s ocean s and through critical maritime ch okepoin ts. Ru ssia posed no threat t o those ch okepoints after the Soviet Un ion fell, but that situation is changing. The esta blish men t of what appears to be a perm anent Russian
air, land, and nava l base on the Sy rian coast g ive s Russia a foothold in the Medite rrane an for the first time since 1991. Ru ssian effort s to neg otiate ba ses in Egypt and Libya and around the Horn of Africa would a llow Moscow to th reaten ma ritime and air traffic through the Suez C anal and the Red Sea.6 Since roughly 3.9 million barrels of oil pe r day tran sited the Suez in 20 16, to say nothin g of the food and othe r carg o m oving th rough the canal, Ru ssian inte rference would have significant impacts on the g lobal economy—and therefore on America’s ec onomy.7 Russia’ s effort s to e stablish control over the m arit ime routes opening in the Arctic a ls o threaten the free m ovement of goods through an eme rging set of m aritime chokepoints.8 Th ose efforts a re even m ore relevant t o the U. S. because the Arctic routes ultimately pa ss th roug h the Bering Stra it, t he one ( maritime) border Ame rica share s with Russia. Russian act ion s can hinder or prevent the U. S. and its a llies from benef iting f rom the opening of the Arctic. Russia is already brin ging China int o the
Arctic re gion through energy inve stment projects and negotiat ion s a bout the use of the Northe rn Sea R oute, despite the fact t hat China is a state w ith no Arctic territory or claims.9 NAT O The collective defense provision of the N ATO t reaty (kn own a s Article 5) has been invoked only once in the 70 -ye ar history of the alliance: on Septem ber 12, 200 1, on beha lf of the United St ates. NAT O milita ry forces provided limited bu t important a ssistance to the U.S. in the immediate w ake of the 9/11 attacks, including a ir surveillance patrols over the United States, an d have continued supporting the U .S. in the long wa rs that followed. N ATO e stablished milita ry m issions in both Ira q and Afghan istan in the next two decades, deploy ing tens of thousand s of sold iers to fight and to t rain Ame rica’ s Ira qi and Afghan partne rs. Ame rican a llies, prim arily N ATO me mbe rs, have suffered m ore than 1,100 deaths in the Afghan war, slight ly under half the numbe r of U. S. death s. 10 The non-U .S. N ATO me mbe r st ates collective ly spent roughly $ 313 billion on defense in 2018—
about half the American defense budget. 11 The failu re of m ost NAT O mem bers to meet their c omm itment to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense is lamenta ble and must be addre ssed. But the fact remain s that the alliance and it s mem bers have spent large am ounts of blood a nd treasure fight ing along side American force s aga inst the enem ies that attac ked the U.S. home land two decades ago, and that they provide strength and depth to the defense of Europe, which rema ins of vital strate gic importance to the United State s. The U .S. cou ld not come close to replacin g them with out sign ificantly increa sing its own defense spending and the size of the U.S. milita ry—to say n othing of Ame rican ca sualtie s. N ATO is also the m ost effective a lliance in world history by the standard that counts most: it has achieved it s founding object ive for 70 ye ars. The alliance w as formed in 1949 to defend Western Europe from the threat of Sov iet agg ression, idea lly by deterring Soviet attack, and has neve r needed to fight to defend itse lf. The Un ited States alwa ys provided
the preponderance of milita ry force for the alliance, but the European military contribution has alway s been crit ical a s well. American conventional f orces th roughout the C old Wa r depended on the facilitie s and the com bat powe r of Eu ropean m il itaries, and the independent nuclear deterrent s of France and G reat Brita in were like ly a s imp ortant to dete rrin g ove rt Sovie t a ggre ssion as Ame rica’ s nuclear a rsena l. The Sov iets might have c ome to d oubt that the U. S. w ould risk nuclear ann ihilation t o defend Europe, but they never dou bted that France and Britain would resort to nuclea r arms in the face of a Soviet inva sion. Ha s NATO bec ome irre levant w ith the passing of the C old Wa r and the drawdown of U. S. force s from I raq and Afghanistan? Only if the threat of wa r has pa ssed and Europe itse lf has become irrelevant to the Unite d States. Neither is the ca se. Eu rope’s surv iva l, p rosperity, and dem ocratic va lues rema in central t o America’ s well- being , as n oted above, and t oday’s g lobal environment m ake s war more likely than it has been since the collapse
of the Sov iet Union. It is n ot a given that Europe w ill rem ain dem ocratic and a pa rt of the internat iona l rule s- based order if N ATO crum ble s. The U.S. can and shou ld continue to w ork with it s Eu ropean partne rs t o increa se their defense expenditure s and, m ore to the p oint, m ilita ry capabilit ies (f or wh ich the percent of GDP spent on defen se is n ot a sufficient proxy). The U. S. mu st also recogn ize the centrality of the alliance to America’s own security, a s both the National Security Strategy and the Nat iona l Defense Strateg y do. 12 The maintenance and defe nse of N ATO itself is a c ore n at iona l security intere st of the Un ited States. Cy ber Ru ssia is one of the world’s le ading cy ber powe rs, competin g with the U. S. and China for the top spot, at lea st in offensive cy ber capa bilitie s. Russian hackin g has become legenda ry in the U. S. than ks to Russia’s efforts t o influence the 20 16 presidential ca mpaign , but Russia ha s turned it s cybe r capabilitie s aga inst its neighbors in other dama ging w ays. Ru ssia attacked Est onia in 200 7 with a massive dist ributed denial- of-
serv ice attack. It attac ked Ukrain ian computers with the N otPetya m alwa re in 2017, which eventually caused billions of dollars in da mage, including in the Ame rica s.13 It a lso employed cybe rattacks in coord ination with it s ground inva sions of Georgia in 20 08 and Ukraine in 20 14. Fears of Russian cybe r capabilitie s are w arranted. This report doe s not con sider the Russian cybe r challenge in detail becau se others with fa r more technical expe rtise and support a re active ly engaged in com batin g it, defending ag ain st it, and deterring it. Our so le contribution in this are a will be to con sider it in the specific context of inf ormat ion operations support for hybrid operations in the recommendations section below. Th is approach ste ms from the rec ognit ion that the Krem lin’s cy ber operat ion s la rgely se rve a s enablers for its larger campa ign s, rather than as a ma in effort. One must note, h oweve r, that while dete rrence with convent iona l and nuclear forces pre vents attacks, the Un ited State s is su bject to cy berattack every da y and has n ot esta blished an e ffective mean s
of retaliation, and thus deterrence. Weapon s of Mass De struction Ru ssia’s nuclea r arsena l is la rge enough t o destroy the Unit ed States c omplete ly. The U. S. currently ha s no fie lded ability to defend again st a full- scale Ru ssian nuclear attac k—nor can Russia defend again st a U .S. n uclear attack. Ame rican m issile defense syste ms, by de sign, d o not have the characte ristics or scale nece ssa ry to shoot down any important fraction of the numbe r of wa rheads the Russian s have a imed at the U. S. from land- and sea- ba sed launch platforms. America’s security a gainst Russian nuclear attack today rest s on the same principle a s it ha s since t he Russians f irst acquired nuclear we apons: deterrence. Russia a lso lac ks the a bility to shoot down American land - or sea- launched missiles and may not even be a ble reliably to shoot down U .S. nuclear-a rmed fifth-generation bom bers. Deterrence is ext remely likely t o continue to work ag ain st Putin, who is a rat iona l actor w ithout the kin d s of apoca lyptic visions that might le ad another leader to opt for ann ihilation in pursu it of
some de lusiona l greate r good. 14 The U. S. mu st pursue necessary mode rnization of it s nuclear a rsenal to sust ain the credibilit y of its nuclea r deterrent forces, but there is no rea son to fea r that deterrence w ill fa il a gain st Putin if it does so. 15 It is le ss cle ar that Russia will continue to abide by its comm itments t o a bjure chem ical weap ons, h oweve r. Russian a gents have alre ady conducted severa l chemical attacks, bizarre ly using distinctive , milit a ry-g rade chemical agents in attempted assa ssinations in the United Kingdom. 16 Putin has a lso given top cove r to Syrian Pre sident Basha r al- Assad’ s use of chemical we apons a gain st his own pe ople, desp ite Russia’s form al role in guaranteeing Assad’s adherence to his 20 13 promise to de stroy h is chem ical we apons stoc kpile and refrain from any such use. 17 Period ic Russian-in spired “rum ors” that Western military pe rsonnel and U kra ine—which ha s no chemica l weapon s program—we re planning t o use chem ical weap ons on Ukra inian territ ory raise the concern that Russian a gents provocateurs m ight conduct false
flag operat ion s of their own. 18 Russia h as the capa bility to produce chemical weap ons at w ill—a s doe s any indust ria lized state— but it is now sh owing that it may be willing to do so and to use them . The Soviet Union also mainta ined a vibrant biologica l weapon s progra m. Russia has not thus fa r sh own any sign s of hav ing re started it or of having any intent to do so. The complete ly false cla ims that the U .S. has built bi olog ical weap ons facilitie s in Ru ssia’s ne igh boring states raise some c oncern on this front, since they could theoret ically p rov ide cover f or the use of Russia’ s own biologica l weapon s, but they are m ore likely intended to influence the inform ation space an d ju stify other Ru ssian actions. 19 Terrorism Russia p ose s severa l challen ges t o any sound Ame rican approach to counter-te rrorism . In addition to I ran, the w orld’ s m ost prolific state spon sor of terrorism, Moscow’s preferred partners in the Midd le East are those whose actions most directly fuel the spread of Salafi-jihadi g roups. Russia encou raged and supported sy stematic effort s to e liminate
moderate, secula r opposit ion g roups in Sy ria t o the benefit of the Sa lafi-jihadi g roups. Putin a ims t o expel or con stra in the U. S. in the Middle Ea st and esta blish his own force s in key locat ion s that would a llow him to disrupt American efforts t o re-enga ge. 20 Russia is the co- leade r of a politica l and milita ry coa lition that includes Iran, Le bane se Hezbollah, the Assad regime, and I ranian-c ontrolled I raqi Shi’a m ilitia s. 21 Russia provides most of the air support to that coa lition in Syria, a s we ll a s special forces troop s (SPET SN AZ), intelligence capabilitie s, air defense, and long- range missile strike s.22 That coalition’ s campaign of secta rian c leansing ha s driven millions of people from their home s, fueling the refugee crisis that has da maged Europe. 23 The coalition see ks t o re impose a m inorita rian ‘ Alaw ite dictatorsh ip in Sy ria and a militantly ant i-American and anti– Sunni Ara b g overnment in Iraq. 24 The atrocitie s Russian forces the mse lves ha ve com mitted, includin g deliberate and precise airstrike s ag ain st hosp itals, have increased the sense of desperat ion
within the Sunni Ara b community in Sy ria , which Salafi- jihad i groups such as I SI S and al Q aeda have exploited. 25 Russia supported Assad’s ca mpaign t o destroy the non- Sa lafi-jihadi opposition groups opposin g him—pa rticula rly those backed by the U. S.—to aid the narrative tha t the only choice s in Syria were Assad’ s government or the Salafi-jihad is.26 That na rrative wa s false in 2015 when Russian forces entered the fight but has become much truer follow ing their e fforts.27 Russia backed this undertaking with military f orce, but even more powe rfully w ith information operat ion s th at continually ham mered on the theme that the U. S. itse lf was backing terrorists in Sy ria and Russia wa s fighting ISIS.28 The insidiou sness of the Russian dem ands that the U. S. remov e its f orces f rom Sy ria is masked by the current U. S. adm inistrat ion’ s desire to do e xactly that. 29 One can argue the me rit s of keep ing American troops in Sy ria or pulling them out — and this is n ot the place for that discussion—but the choice should be America’s. At the moment it still is. The
consolidation of Russian anti-access/ a rea-denia l (A2/ AD) system s in Sy ria , howeve r, together with the prospect of the withdraw al ( or expulsion) of American force s from Iraq ( or the closu re of Iraqi airspace t o support U. S. ope rations in Sy ria) , could severe ly complicate America n efforts to strike ag ain st terrorist threat s that will like ly re- emerge in Syria ove r time.30 The more the U. S. relie s on an ove r-the-horizon strategy of precision strike s ag ainst te rrorist s actively planning attacks on the Ame rican h omeland, the more vulnera ble it become s to the pot ential disruption of those strike s by Russian a ir defense sy stems, whether ope rated openly by Russian s or no mina lly by their loca l partners. RU SSI A’S O BJ ECTI VES Mention of Putin’s objective s or of any syste matic effort t o achieve them a lm ost a lway s elicits as a resp onse the a ssertion that Putin ha s no plan: Putin has no strate gy; there is no Russian grand strate gy , and so on. The other ext reme of the debate considers Putin a calculated strateg ist w ith a g rand ma ster plan. The que stion of whether Putin
has a plan, h owever that word is meant by th ose wh o a sse rt that he does n ot, has important conse quences f or any Ame rican strategy t o advance U. S. intere sts w ith rega rd to Russia . The trou ble is that it is not clea r what it w ould mean for Putin to hav e a plan or to lack one. We mu st first consider that m ore a bstract que stion before addre ssing whether he ha s one. To ha ve a plan usua lly me ans t o have art iculated goals, specif ic methods by wh ich one will seek t o achieve those g oals, and identif ied mean s re quired for those method s to succeed. Goals, meth ods, and means can range from very specific to e xtreme ly vague and can be m ore flex ible or m ore rig id. Specif icity and flexibility can v ary a mong the e lements of this t riad, moreove r—g oals may be ve ry specif ic and rig id, method s general and flex ible, me ans specific and flexible, or an y other logica l com bin ation . When conside rin g the quest ion of Putin’s plan , therefore , we mu st break the discussion down int o these four c omponent s: Doe s he have goal s? Has he determined method s of achiev ing his g oals?
Has he specified resources requ ired for th ose methods? H ow specif ic and how flexible are h is g oals, h is methods, and the resources he a llocates? Putting th is discussion in context is he lpful. Doe s a U .S. president have “a plan”? N ot in any technica l or lite ral sense . Eve ry U. S. administrat ion produces not a p lan, but a National Secu rity Strategy that is generally lon g on objective s—often rea son ably specific— and very short on details of imple mentation ( methods). Different nat iona l security advisers oversee proce sse s w ithin the White House t o build out implementation details t o g reater or le sser deg rees, but the actual implementation plan s (method s) a re developed by the rele vant Ca binet depart ments. Th ose dep a rtments a re also genera lly resp onsible for determin ing the re source s that will be needed to imple ment their plans. The White House mu st then approve both the plan s themse lve s and the allocation of the re quested re source s—and then must persuade C ongre ss actually t o appropriate the re sou rces in the wa y the White House wishes to allocate
them. This ent ire process take s m ore than a y ear from the st art of a new admin istration and is neve r comp lete—the world changes, personnel turn over, and annual budget cycles and m id-term e lection s cause significant flutter. The one thing that doe s not happen is that a preside nt receives and sign s a “plan” w ith clear goa ls, detailed and specified method s, and the specific resources requ ired, wh ich is then executed.31 Putin doe s n ot ha ve more of a plan than the U.S. doe s. It is v irtually certa in that he also lac ks an y such clear sin gle document laying out the goals, methods, and means that he and his m inisters are e xecuting. But doe s he have a s much of a plan as P residents Ge orge W . Bush , Ba rack O ba ma, and D onald T rump have had? By a ll exte rnal sign s, he doe s. Putin ha s clea rly articulated a series of ove rarchin g objective s and goals for Russia’ s fore ign policy and national security. Putin has been continu ously commun icating the m through va riou s media, includin g Russia’ s doctrin al document s, re gular speeches, h is senior subordinate s, and the
Kremlin’ s va st propa ganda machine for the past tw o decades. Russia has a f ore ign policy concept similar in scope and fra ming t o the U. S. N ation al Security Strateg y, a m ilitary doct rine sim ila r to the U. S. National Defense Strategy , and a se rie s of other st rategie s ( such as m arit im e, information security, and energ y security) re lating t o the other components of nation al powe r and intere st. 32 Th ese document s re main ve ry much living concepts and have gone through mult iple rev ision s in the decades since the fall of the Soviet Un ion. Through regula r speech es, Putin con sistently communicate s his goals and the key narrative s that underpin Russian f orei gn policy. He ma kes an annual speech to the Russian Federal Asse mbly that is similar in some respects t o the U. S. pre sident’s Stat e of the Union addre ss. Putin’s addresses tend to be even more specific (and much m ore boring) in pre senting the prev ious yea r’ s accomplishments and an outline of goa ls and intention s for the next ye ar. 33 Ru ssia’s d octrine s and concepts match Putin’ s speec hes closely en ough to
sugge st that there is some connection between them . Putin also ma kes other re gular speeches, including at the U N Genera l Asse mbly, the Valdai Discussion Clu b, the Mun ich Security Conference at times, and during lengthy press conference s with the Russian media. The se re ma rks are u sually rather specific in their pre sentation of his objective s and somet ime s, some of the means by wh ich he intends to pursue them. Such speeches are ne ither le ss frequent nor le ss specific than the ma jor policy speeches of Ame rican pre sident s. The w idespread belief that Putin is simply or even primarily an opportunist who reacts t o American or European mistake s is thus e rroneous. N or is Putin’ s most common rhetorical t rope—that he is the innocent vict im forced to defend Russia again st unjust ified Weste rn agg ression—tethered to reality. 34 Putin’s statement s, key Russian nat iona l security documents, and the action s of Putin’s senior subord inates over the tw o decades of his re ign cannot be distilled into a “plan, ” but rather represent a set of g rand st rategic a im s and
strateg ic and operat iona l campaigns underwa y to achieve them . Putin ha s rem ained open and con sistent about his c ore objective s since his rise to power in 1999: the preservation of his re gime , the end of Ame rican “global hegem ony, ” and the rest orat ion of Russia a s a m ighty forc e to be reckoned w ith on the internat iona l sta ge. Some of his fore ign policy pursu its a re purely pragmat ic and aimed at gain ing re sou rces; others are intended for domestic purp ose s and have nothin g to do w ith the West. Put in has a rticulated a v ision of how he want s the world to be and what role he w ishe s Russia to p lay in it. He see ks a world with out NATO, where the U.S. is confined to the We stern Hem isphere , where Russia is dom inan t ove r the forme r Sov iet countrie s and can do what it likes t o it s own pe ople with out condemnation or oversight, and where th e Kremlin enjoys a veto through the UN Security C ouncil over action s that any other state w ishe s to ta ke bey ond it s borders. 35 He i s w orking t o bring that v ision t o rea lity through a set of coherent, mutua lly supporting ,
and indeed, overlapping lines of effort. He like ly allow s his su bordinate s a g reat deal of latitude in choosing the specific means and time s to advance those lines of effort—a fact that make s it seem as if Russian policy is simply opportunistic and reactive. But we must n ot allow ourselves t o be deluded by this impre ssion any m ore than by other Ru ssian effort s to shape our understanding of reality. Putin’ s Domest ic Objective s Maintain ing re lative contentment within h is power circle is a key part of regime pre servat ion. Put in has a c lose, tru sted circle of senior subord inates, including several m ilitary and intelligence officia ls who have been with him for the pa st 20 ye ars. 36 His power circle ha s seve ral outer layers, which inc lude—but are n ot limited to— major Ru ssian bu sine ssmen, often refe rred to a s “oliga rchs. ” The use of the term “oligarch” t o describe th ose wh o run ma jor port ion s of the economy is in accurate, howeve r. Th ose individua ls have p ower because Put in give s it t o them, not because they have any inherent a bility t o se ize or h old it independently.
He shuffles them around—and sometime s retire s them completely— at his w ill, rather than in re spon se to their demands.37 They do not check or cont rol Putin either individua lly or collective ly, and they ra rely , if ever, attempt to act collective ly in any e vent. Putin controls Russia a nd its policie s as c ompletely as he chooses. This situation is different from the way in which the Soviet Un ion w as ruled after J oseph Stalin’s death in 1953. The post-Sta lin U SSR rea lly wa s an oligarchy. P olitburo me mbe rs had their own power ba ses and fiefdoms. They made decisions— including selecting new mem bers, choosing new le aders, and even firing one leader ( Stalin’s successor, N ikit a Khrushchev)— by ma jority v ote. There is n o equ ivalent of the Politburo in t oday’s Russia, no one to balance Putin, and certain ly no one to remove him. Putin see ks to ke ep the close st circ le of su bordinate s an d the broader Ru ssian national security e sta blishment content, as they form one of the core pilla rs of his p ower. He thus see ks t o ma intain a relat ive degree of contentment within
various layers of his powe r st ructures, including a mong the “oliga rchs.” F or e xample , the Kremlin offered to help mitigate sanction s-re lated conse quences for Russian businessmen. 38 Krem lin- lin ked actors, in another ex ample, reportedly em bezzled billion s of dolla rs in the preparations for the 20 14 Winter Olymp ics in Sochi, Russia —the $50 billion price tag of which wa s the highe st for any O lympic game s. 39 Putin can still ret ire any of the “olig archs” at will w ithout fear of meaningful c onse quences—yet his re gime is much more sta ble if they collect ively remain rea sona bly sat isfied. Th is reality will drive Putin t o continu e to seek access t o re source s, legal and illegal, with which to mainta in that sat isfaction. Mainta ining p opular support is a core object ive of Putin’ s policie s. Putin is an autoc rat with dem ocratic rhetoric and trappin g s. Putin’s Ru ssia ha s no free e lection s, no f ree media , and no a lternative political p latforms. He insist s, how ever, on ma in tain ing the “dem ocratic ” façade. He holds e lection s at the times de signated by la w (even if he periodica lly
causes the la w to be amended) and is genuine ly (if decrea sing ly) popula r. Nor is h is fe int at democratism necessarily a pose . The tran sformation of the Soviet Union into a dem ocracy w as the signa l achieve ment of the 1990s.40 Putin played a role in that achievement, supportin g St . Petersburg mayor An atoliy Sobchak, then Boris Y eltsin, in the ir battle s aga inst attempt s by commun ist s to regain c ontrol an d destroy the democ racy, and then by an extreme right-w ing nat iona list party to g ain powe r.41 Put in has ca lled out man y weakne sses of the Yeltsin era— but never the creation of a dem ocrat ic Russia. Putin ha s not yet shown an y sign of forma lly turnin g away from de m ocracy a s the ostensible basis of his p ower, although he ha s con stra ined the politica l space w ithin Russia t o the point that the elections a re a sham. H owever, were h e to aband on the democrat ic principle s to which he still superficia lly subscribe s, h e w ould need fundamentally to redesign the just ification of his rule and the nature of his reg ime. Neverthele ss, he can only ma int ain even the
fiction of dem ocratic le gitimacy if he re main s popula r enough to win elect ion s that are not outrage ously st olen. He ha s not been a ble to f ix the Russian econ omy, de spite ea rly effort s to d o so. The fall of g lobal oil price s from their h ighs in the 2000 s, a s we ll a s the Weste rn sanctions imp osed for his action s in Ukraine, a mong other thing s, are causing inc reasing ha rd ship for the Russian people.4 2 Putin ha s adopted an informat ion ope rations approach to this problem by pushing a numbe r of core narrative s, ev olv ing over time, to just ify his c ontinued rule a nd explain away the failure s of his policie s. He has also g row n the police state within Ru ssia for situation s in wh ich the informat ion operations d o not w ork to his satisfaction. Putin’ s ju stif icat ion of his ru le has e volved over t ime. He first p ositioned himse lf as the m an who w ill bring order. The 1990s was a decad e of econom ic catast rophe for Ru ssia. Inflation ran wild, unemployment skyrocketed, crime became n ot only pe rva sive but also h ighly org anized and predatory , and civil order eroded. Putin
succeeded Yeltsin w ith a promise to change a ll that. His “open letter t o vote rs” in 2000 conta ined a phrase fascinat ing to students of Russian h ist ory: “Ou r land is rich, but there is n o order. ” That phrase is similar t o one supposedly sent by the predecessors of the Russians at the d awn of Russian history to a Viking p rinc e who w ould come to con quer them: “Ou r land is rich, but there is n o order. C ome t o rule and reign over u s.” By using the first part of that line, Putin , like Riurik, the founder of Russia’ s first dynasty , cast himse lf as the founder of a new Russia in which order wou ld replace chaos.4 3 Putin’s initial va lue proposit ion t o his p opulation wa s thus order and sta bility . He did, indeed, attempt to bring order t o Russia’ s dome stic scene. Putin st rengthened gove rnment in stitution s and curbed certain kinds of crime . He re stored control over the region of Chechnya through a brutal military ca mpaign . He tried to w ork with econ om ic technocrats t o bring the econ omy into some kind of orde r. The ta sk wa s immen se, howe ver— Sov iet leade rs had built the
entire Russian industrial and ag ricultura l system and econom ic base in a centralized fashion. Undoing that centralization and creating an ec onom y in which the ma rket really could w ork was bey ond Putin’s skill and patience. He largely a bandoned the effort w ithin a few yea rs, bo th because it w as t oo hard and because it see med unnecessa ry.44 The risin g price of oil in the early 2000 s fueled the Russian econo my and filled the g overn ment’s coffers on the one hand.45 The genuine structural reform s and inn ovation that were needed, on the other, a lso beca me antithetical t o Putin’s a bility t o ma intain cont rol, a s gove rnment corruption is a powe rful tool of influenc e in Ru ssia. Putin began t o erode civil libe rties in that period offerin g the unspoken but clear exchange: Give me your liberties and I w ill giv e you prosperity and sta bility . T he 2008 global financ ial crisis c ollapsed oil prices, and the post - 2014 sanction s re gime rem oved the patches and worka rounds Putin had u sed to offset h is fa ilure t o tran sform Russia’s economy. C ontinuing low oil price s (and
sanction s) have pre vented it from recove ring with much of the re st of the globa l econ omy, even as Putin ha s continued to e sch ew any real effort t o addre ss the system ic failing s hold ing Russia’ s econ omy back. Put in has theref ore ref ocused on a d ifferent value prop osition: Give me your libe rtie s and I will give y ou greatne ss. He is increa sin gly linking the leg itim acy of his own aut ocracy with Russia’s posit ion on the world sta ge and with Russia’ s a bility to stand up to American “global hege mony. ”46 Putin has simultaneou sly e rected a narrat ive to deflect criticism for Russia’ s problems onto the We st. The We st, supposed ly fea rful of Russia rising and determined to keep Russia down , has thwa rted its rightful effort s to rega in it s proper p lace in the world at eve ry turn. Putin claim s the Russian econ omy is in sha mbles because of unjust a nd illega l sanction s that have nothin g t o do w ith Russia’s action s and are simply me ant to keep “the Russian be ar in cha ins. ”47 Putin has also con sistently fostered a c omplex n arrative that com bines diverse and—from the
Western perspective— often conflicting elements, including Soviet nostalgia , Ea stern O rthodoxy , Russian nat iona lism, and the simu ltaneous e mphasis on Russia’ s mult iethnic and multireligious characte r. The importance Putin give s this narrative is v isible in th ings large and sm a ll. He ha s named Russia’ s ballist ic missile submarine s after Rom anov t sars and Mu scov ite prince s.48 He issued a decree in 2009 mandat ing the introduction of religious education in Russian schools, which be gan in 2012.49 He continues t o place a major e mphasis on Soviet-e ra achievements. Putin and his information machine ta ke these v arious e lement s, refine and tailor them, and produce a mix of idea s to cate r to va rious pa rts of the Russian p opulation. We can expect Putin’s na rrat ives t o continue to shift to accomm odate changing realitie s, but the current rheto rical lin kage between Russia’ s position on the w orld stage and the le gitimacy of Putin’ s dome stic powe r is concern ing. It sugge sts that Putin m ay be more stu bborn a bout making and reta ining gain s in the
international a rena than he wa s in the first 15 yea rs of his rule, a s he se eks way s to bolste r his p opularity, which is fla gging , and on which his myth os relies. Blockin g a “c olor rev olution” in Russia is the overa rching ju stification Putin g ive s for the erosion of political freed om and th e expansion of Russia’ s police state . Revolut ion s ove rturned post- Soviet g overn ments in Ge orgia (the R ose Rev olution in 2003), U kra ine (the Oran ge Revolut ion in 2004), and Kyrgyzstan (the Tulip Revolution in 200 5). Putin bla med all of them on efforts by the We st, primarily t he U.S. , to underm ine pro-Ru ssian g overnm ents, even th ough all th ree emerged indigen ously and spontane ously with out external assistance. He reg arded the Ukrain ian EuroMaidan Rev olution of 2014 a s an extension of this phenomenon. 50 The rhet oric Putin and ot her Russian officials and writers use a bout “color revolution s” is ext reme. It paints them as pa rt of a coherent Western effo rt aimed ultimate ly at overthrowing the Russian gove rnment it self. It is quite p ossible that Putin believe s that there
is such an effort underway and that the events that rocked the post- Soviet states we re a part of it. Even if he did not believe this when he sta rted to talk about it, he m ay well have conv inced himse lf of it after 15 ye ars of vituperation on the su bject. The not ion of a “color rev olution” conspiracy aga inst Russia is also a c onvenient way f or Putin t o disc redit any opposition , an ea sy way to t ar politica l opponent s as f ore ign agent s and trait ors, to c ontrol and expel foreign non-g overn mental organ ization s, and gene rally to justify the erosion of civil libe rtie s, human rights, and free expre ssion in Rus sia. It externa lizes resist ance to Putin’s increa sing autocracy while simultane ously providing scapeg oats t o blame for Russia’ s problem s. It a lso create s the narrative bas is for ca sting any Weste rn efforts t o con strain Ru ssian actions any where a s pa rt of a la rger effort to set precondit ion s for a “color revolution ” in Moscow . It fuels a narrative t o which Russian s are h ist orica lly amena ble: that Russia is surrounded and und er siege by hostile powe rs t rying t o contain or de stroy
it. Putin can cast a lm ost any act ion foreign states t ake of wh ich he does n ot approve a s part of this effort.51 The net effects of this n arrative a re threefold . First, it tends to con solidate support beh ind Putin as he present s him self a s the defender of Russia ag ain st a hostile w orld —an d his near-t otal c ontrol of the information m ost of his pe ople receive ma kes it difficult for many to hea r and be lieve an y other side. Second, it constant ly confronts th e We st with the susp icion that someone really is tryin g to orchest rate a con spiracy t o cause “reg ime change ” in Russia. Alth ough no state or alliance ha s had any such objective since the fall of the Sov iet Union in 1991, the negative c onnotations of even the idea of attempting re gime change c reate opposit ion to p olicies la beled in this way . Third, it a lso create s opposition to a p otential peaceful c hange in the nature of the Russian re gime from within, as Putin ha s a ssociated the idea of political change w ith the “color rev olution ” prism of chaos, dest ruction, and an inevita bly worsenin g economy. Putin pre sents h is pe ople a
simp le (but false) choice between the prospect of g oing back t o somethin g like the chaos and poverty of the 1990s . .. or Vladim ir Put in . U sing the boge y of the “color rev olution” con spiracy theory and other narrative s, Put in is expanding the already- sign ificant state cont rol ove r his people’ s com munication s and m ovin g to a m ore rigid authoritarian m odel. He ha s prevented the emerg ence of any signif icant polit ical opposition pa rty or leader. Key opposit ion figu res have been mu rdered, imprisoned, p oisoned, and ot herwise attacked. 52 Putin’s regime suppresse s— somet ime s brutally— politica l dissent in the form of peaceful st reet prote sts or dem onst rations, de spite their small sizes. 53 The polit ical env iron ment in Russia t oday is not markedly different from that of the Soviet Union in it s la st decade. Putin has brought the ove rwhelming m ajority of significant Russian media outlets into line with h is own desired narrative s, presentin g the Russian people w ith a coherent strea m of propaganda virtually without deviation . He appears t o have decided that even
this leve l of inf ormat ion c ontrol is in sufficient, howeve r, and ha s recently begun to a ssert even g reater technical and polic y control ove r Russian s’ access to the inte rnet.54 He has n ot yet matched these activ itie s with recreation of an inte rnal security appa ratus on the scale needed to control the population through coercion, intimidat ion, and forc e, but he has been steadily expanding the internal security services during his two decade s of ru le. He has centralized some e lement s of the interna l security apparatu s under the control of a loya l lieutenant, but he would need to expand it con siderably to be a ble t o rely on it t o ma intain order by force bey ond Mosc ow and St. P etersburg.55 In a sse ssing whether Putin aim s to shift the ba sis of his rule to more ove rt dictatorship, one of the key indicators t o watch for is further e xpansion of that apparatus. It is a lso an indicator of the degree to wh ich he since rely believes that any sort of “c olor re volut ion” is in the offing. Ex pan sion of the Russian econ omy re main s an important component of Putin’s a bility to susta in and
grow h is a ssertive fore ign policy, popula r support, and the re source s su bsidizing h is close circle . Putin see ms largely to have given up the idea of reformin g the economy and has thus set a bout at lea st two major underta king s to improve it without ref orm . Underm ining the We stern sanction s reg ime . The imp osition of ma jor sanctions on Russia followin g the inva sion of Ukra ine and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 has inflicted g reat damage on the Russian econ omy. Putin has launched a number of efforts t o erode and break th ose sanctions, both in Europe and in the U.S. Despite repeated declarat ion s about the ineffectiveness of sanction s, Putin cle arly be lieve s that noth ing would improve the econom y more dra matically and rap idly than their e liminat ion. The Mueller Report amply d ocuments Putin’s fear of new sanctions after t he 2016 elect ion s and his efforts t o deflect them or have the m nullif ied.56 He even went so far a s to p rom ise n ot to retaliate aga inst the sanction s the Obama adm inistrat ion imposed, in h opes of persuading the incom ing Trump
administrat ion to reverse or bloc k them. His effort s failed, howeve r, a s C ongre ss insisted on new sanction s and Pre sident Tru mp did n ot stop them . Russian activ itie s in Europe have aimed in part to suborn one or more mem be rs of the European Union ( EU) t o refuse t o renew th e sanction s imposed followin g Russia’ s 20 14 inva sion of U kra ine. Openly p ro-Russian government s in Budapest and now Rome, a long w ith other states that hav e indicated gre ater re luctance to continue the sanct ion s reg ime, hav e not yet cast the v ote to stop the renewa l of sanctions. Putin ha s not given up, howe ver, and continues to work to shape the political, informational, and economic environ ment in Eu rope to make it safe for one country to v ote aga inst sanction s renew al—and one vote is a ll he needs in the consen sus- ba sed EU model. The collapse of the sanction s re gime and a flood of fore ign direct invest ment into Russia could dra matically inc rease the resources availa ble to support Putin’ s fore ign and defense effort s, even w ithout fundamentally addressing the problem s
of the Russian ec onom y. Putin w ould likely u se those re source s to return to the ag gre ssive conventional milita ry bu ildup he was pursuing before the imposit ion of sanctions in 20 14 and to supercha rge his econ omic efforts to e sta blish Ru ssian influence around the world. Developing new revenue st ream s is anothe r obvious approach to bringing ca sh int o the Russia n economy and g overnment . Russia is at a d isadv antage in this re gard because of the structural we akne sse s of its econ omy. Its princ ipal e xport s are alm ost ent irely in the form of m inera l wealth —oil, coa l, and natura l ga s, a s well as other raw mate ria ls. Weapon s and milita ry tra ining services are the ma jor indust ria l export. The use of private military c ompanie s (P MC s) such as the Wagn e r Group is a f oreign policy tool for the Kremlin, but also one of the main exp orta ble “services.” C iv ilian nuclear technolog y is a n iche expertise that Putin is willing to sell as well. Putin has worked hard to e xpand Russia’s ec onom ic portfolios in all th ese a rea s. He has pushed both the N ord Stream II and the Turk
Strea m natural gas p ipeline s to make Europe eve r m ore heav ily dependent on Russian natural ga s and to e liminate Russia’s dependency on the Ukrain ian ga s tran sit syste m. His lieutenants are actively ne gotiating dea ls throughout the Middle Ea st and Af rica to sell civ ilian nuclea r technology. This gene rates c ontinuous revenue becau se the state s that com mit to u sing Ru ssian nuclear reactor technology will like ly become dependent on Russian e quipment and expert ise t o keep it running. 57 Russia’ s m ilitary activitie s in Sy ria can be described as a ma ssive outdoor weapon s exposition.58 The Russian armed force s have ostentatiously used se vera l advanced weapon s sy stem s that were n ot re quired for the specific tactica l tasks at hand.59 The Russian m ilitary staged these d isplays with the informational and geopolitica l aim of dem on st ratin g Russia’ s renewed and advanced conventional capa bilit ies. They also showed the effectiveness of weap ons and platf orm s whose ex p ort versions are for sale. Ru ssian milita ry hardwa re sale smen a re active throughout the
Middle East and a re havin g success. Turki sh Pre sident Recep Tayy ip Erdogan see ms c omm itted to purchasing the S-400 air defense sy stem, de spite vigorous Ame rican and NATO opposition and the threat that the U. S. will refuse to complete planned sale s of the F-35 stea lth aircraft to Turke y.60 The U. S. should certa inly n ot delive r the F-35 to Turkey if Erdogan proceed s with purchase of the S-400. A Turkish trade of the F- 35 for the S-400 w ould neverthe less be a significant v ictory for Putin in both economic and politica l term s. Putin’ s effort s to steal a rms business from the U. S. w ould also be a ssisted by legislat ion or executive dec ision s blocking the export of weapon s syste m s to Saudi Arabia over the conduct of the war in Ye men. Income from such sale s is a trivia l percentage of Ame rican net exports, to say nothin g of U. S. G D P, but wou ld be much la rger in the Russian ledg ers, where t otals are more than an order of m agnitude smaller. The proliferation of Russian PMCs is another potent ial source of revenue—in addition t o be ing a Kre mlin fore ign
policy tool— although it is h ard to a ssess it s significance because of the secrecy surrounding the entire P MC enterprise. The reported num bers of mercenaries deployed by variou s Russian P MC s are genera lly in the low hundred s here and there—n ot large enough, in princip le, to su ggest that the income from them wou ld be ve ry gre at. There is n o kn owing the terms of their cont racts, h oweve r, or what other activit ies they m ight enga ge in while st ationed in poorly g overned states rife w ith corruption and organized crime. None of the se activit ies is likely t o ge nerate floods of money into Russia’ s coffers in the near te rm, wh ich is likely why Putin rema ins so he avily focused on sanctions relief. Put in has n o other v ia ble option s for obt ainin g re source s on a large sca le. A significant increase in the price of hydrocarbons—e ither oil or natura l gas—would once aga in flood Russia with ca sh. But Putin

Normalize Russia s violations of i n na ona law The Russian cyberattack against Estonia n
2007 invasion of Georgia n 2008 w h h ub qu n ann xa on o h G o g an o o Abkha a and Sou h O a invasion of
Ukraine n 20 4 d b a attacks against civilians in Syria d n o A ad u o h m a w apon and o h m aga n human
h m a w apon a a k on Ru an xpa a n h UK and seizure of Ukrainian naval vessels and p onn a mp ng o an h K h

S a are all violations of international law. Russia ha paid ua no price o an o h m except h

invasion of Ukraine On h on a Pu n ha po on d h m a a m d a o n S a a hough no a u u on b on n ng a p udo–p a

p o n A ana ha omp w h h n na ona ogn d G n a P o wh h ha a o b n un u u ob u Pu n on nu o po a Ru a a a
m dao n n h Uk a n on wh h ab g n H u u ob u a d h ga o h a on n and b ond h K h S a and ha d d om o
h opp ob um h a nS ad b a u ng h U S o uppo ng o and h S an oppo on o ondu ng h h m a w apon a a k 88 Th
xpu on o Ru an o a — n ud ng n g n o — b h U S UK and o h a n pon o h h m a w apon a a k n B a n wa ha d a pp ng
The net result of these repeated violations of in na ona law that do not result in meaningful
pon 89

consequences is h normalization Each one establishes a precedent that Putin can

and will h n use to defend similar or even more aggressive activities If the West
accepted h a illegal seizure of Ukrainian ships n n na ona wa n a h K h S a how will it react if
Russian forces seize om o h h p on a ump d up p x wh a mp o an the op n ng Arctic shipping route?
Ha ng ak n no a on aga n Ru a o d n o A ad u o h m a w apon how wou d h W pond o a o Ru an op a on o u h m a wa a n

Uk a n wh failure to act in one case a bu ng h n d n o h Uk a n an o a W n go nm n Th p n p d an w ha o ou

does not preclude action in subsequent cases If the West has not responded adequately
to mo o h Russian transgressions neither has it explicitly condoned them—
yet That is a line that we must be very wary of inadvertently crossing mag n an
un k bu no an mpo b ua on n wh h Uk a n P d n Vo od m Z n k d n Ap 20 9 a k h U S and h EU o wa Ru an an on o
Uk a n —o h m a og h —a pa o a d a h n go a ng o nd h on nh oun wou d b d u o u h a qu n nd ng wa d ab
p a an b don w h h appa n a p an o bo h d Th n o ndo ng u h a d a how wh h wou d u a C m a n Ru a hand and

a to endorse retroactively h violations of i nternational

n Uk a n n a hang d po a a on h p o K wou d b

law Putin committed n 20 4 Do ng o would nd d establish a precedent that Putin can

impose his will on other states as long as he ub qu n succeeds w nough to convince o o ho
states into recognizing his actions Th o ou no n w p n p a wo k h It has always been true n h
mod n a m that a successful aggressor can have h aggression legitimized by a subsequent peace

agreement n on o u mpo d on h d a d a Th no n h ua on wo o d F Ru a ha no b n un a d n d a h agg o —

Pu n o n Uk a n a no g n a a p d a h o n and g ab h a ua w —and Pu n o n an d a wou d b a m d a o a h han b g n
on h ng o a p ha Pu n aun h d wag d and won a wa o agg on h ou om o wh h h d a d a ho oa p ano h o a ha h a a d and
m da dap a ag m n n a on o wh h h wa no a ua pa wh n n a h n a d and d b n d om S ond the p n p a issue

goes beyond h a gh o wa d on o legitimizing a forcible conquest—it a o touches on the nature of the

post-Soviet states sovereignty Putin has asserted a w ha a gu d that Russia has the right to
intervene b o in any of the post-Soviet states and the international community has no right to
interfere n ud ng n b o ng an op n on Recognizing his activities in Ukraine ex post facto
recognizes this principle a w It establishes as a firm precedent n o ng h p d n a ad ab h d
b h n a on o G o g a that there are degrees of sovereignty in the international community and ha om a

a mo o gn han o h Putin is a attempting to establish p that principle The West must resist
h temptations h ma o to allow him to do so Create a constellation of alliances and friendly
states that gravitate toward Russia . Putin has been working hard to create multiple blocs
and groupings of which Russia is either the sole center or one of a small number of core states, as an alternative to
the U.S.-dominated international order he so opposes.90 Few of these individual efforts have been
particularly effective, nor is it clear that the sum of them will result in a truly Russia-centric constellation of states. But the tenacity with
which he has pursued this objective and the sheer number of attempts to reach it demonstrate, if nothing
else, the importance he seems to attach to it. Some of these groupings offer Russia little inherent influence. BRICS (Brazil, Russia,
India, China, South Africa) began simply as an acronym to describe major emerging markets, for example. It has no formal decision-making process, nor are its members
aligned with one another on political or economic policies. It has no military component at all. Some, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) require Russia to
compete with China for predominant influence.91 That competition is not going well for Moscow, at least in the case of the SCO, leading Putin to de-emphasize this forum for the
moment. Some, like the Eurasian Economic Union, remain largely aspirational. They have not yet established themselves as meaningful associations through which Russia could
hope to exert influence now, nor is it clear that they will gain more significance over time—although Putin continues to work at it.92 Others are operational and meaningful. The
Astana Process tripartite has not brought peace to Syria, but it has helped establish Putin at the heart of a triad with Iran and Turkey that is shaping Ankara’s drift away from
NATO and toward Moscow. The Quartet Intelligence Center has not yet integrated the Iraqi military or government into the Russian orbit as fully as Putin might like, but it gives
form to the very real military coalition of Russia, Iran, and Syria that is fighting in Syria.93 Still others, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) are largely moribund at the moment, but the Union Treaty with Belarus had also been dormant almost since its creation in the
1990s, and Putin is attempting to reify it.94 We cannot discount the possibility that he may do so with one of the other agreements that are legacies of the 1990s. The purpose of
laying out these various efforts is not to suggest that they are likely to succeed, or that their success would have dire consequences for American national security—it might or
might not, depending on the circumstances. The purpose is, rather, to demonstrate again the coherence between Putin’s stated grand strategic vision and the undertakings the
Russian state is pursuing to achieve it. Putin’s goals are antithetical to the security and national interests of the United States and its allies. We must prevent him from achieving
them, without resorting to major war if at all possible. We turn next, therefore, to the means by which Putin and his subordinates pursue his aims—an examination that will
show the tremendous challenges his methods pose, on the one hand, and the opportunities to respond with means well short of war, on the other. THE RUSSIAN WAY OF WAR

The Russian way of war today is based on recognition of Russia’s fundamental weaknesses
and the fact that Russia is not a near-peer of the U.S. and will not become one any time soon. It is designed to achieve Moscow’s objectives
without fighting a major war against the West that Russia would likely lose if it did not escalate to using

nuclear weapons .95 Its technological emphases have therefore been on less-expensive and asymmetric
capabilities such as information operations, cyber operations, A2/ AD systems, and nuclear systems. Its intellectual
development has focused on the category of political-informational-military activities encapsulated in the terms “hybrid war” or “gray zone” conflict.96 Russia

is optimizing itself to fight a poor man’s war because it is poor and will remain so. Putin is sufficiently in
contact with reality to know that he will fail if he attempts to regain anything approaching conventional military parity

with the West.

Assessing the novelty of this Russian approach is difficult. None of the concepts or technologies on which it relies is new or unique to it. Most of the key intellectual framework goes back to the early days of Soviet military thinking. Some can be traced back centuries to Sun Tsu. Nor has Russia abandoned traditional military approaches and conventional capabilities. It would be both wrong and dangerous to ascribe to Russia the invention of an entirely new way of war that is the only way in which it will fight now, or in the future.
There are nevertheless important differences between the current Russian approach and the approach that characterized Russian military and national security strategy and doctrine in the 2000s and the 1990s, to say nothing of the Soviet period. The differences lie partly in emphasis and partly in the degree of intellectual development of certain concepts at the expense of others. It would be equally wrong and dangerous, therefore, to see the current Russian approach to war as the same as, or even congruent with, all of the post-
Soviet period. The Russian military in the 1990s and 2000s focused largely on acquiring the capabilities it most envied in the stunning conventional American military victories against Iraq in 1991 and 2003. It sought to acquire long-range precision-strike capabilities that the Soviet military never had, stealth technology, and tanks and aircraft roughly equivalent with the mainstay technologies of NATO countries.97 It also sought to transform itself from a mass cadre-andreserve conscript force into a volunteer professional
military, recognizing the tremendous value the U.S. transition to the all-volunteer force had brought on the battlefield.98 It has managed to achieve only partial success in most of these measures after nearly three decades. It has re-equipped many, but by no means all, of its combat units with weapons systems roughly equivalent to American fourth-generation aircraft (such as the F-15E Strike Eagle), M1 tanks, etc. It has struggled to field a force of fifth-generation aircraft and is unlikely to build a large enough arsenal of such
aircraft to pose a serious challenge to American capabilities in any short period of time.99 It has acquired and demonstrated the ability to employ precision weapons, including long-range precision missile systems. Its mix of those systems and “dumb bombs” in Syria, however, was more similar to the mix the U.S. used in 1991 than to the mix American forces use today—the large majority of Russian munitions dropped in Syria were not precision-guided munitions because the Russian stockpiles are not large enough to support
their widespread employment.100 The Russian military has notably failed to transition fully to an all-volunteer force, moreover, and has given up the effort. It has become, therefore, a segmented force with a volunteer element (so-called contract soldiers) and a large body of conscripts serving one-year terms (half the two-year service requirement for conscripts in the Red Army). This partial professionalization will continue to exercise a drag on its ability to complete its modernization programs; one-year conscripts simply
cannot learn both how to be soldiers and how to use very advanced modern weapons systems. Russia’s modernization efforts lurched dramatically in 2008 with the appointment of Anatolii Serdyukov as defense minister.101 Serdyukov’s mandate was to reduce the cost of the Russian military significantly in response to the collapse in global oil prices resulting from the global financial crisis. He sought to make major personnel cuts, to restructure weapons system acquisition, and to reorganize the military, especially the ground
forces, in a way that would have severely degraded its ability to conduct large-scale conventional warfare without optimizing it for any other sort of warfare. Serdyukov’s successor, Sergei Shoigu, along with Chief of the General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov, have reversed many, but not all, of those reforms. It is important to note, therefore, that some of the changes being made to the Russian military that enhance its ability to fight maneuver war are reversals of changes made in 2008 for cost-cutting purposes, rather than new
improvements on an already-sound structure. The emphasis in Russian military development has changed significantly since the start of Russian involvement in Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2015. Gerasimov published a noteworthy article in 2013, discussion of which in the Western press gave rise to the phrase “Gerasimov doctrine.”102 The author of that phrase subsequently not only retracted it, but also aggressively attacked the idea of its existence.103 As with “hybrid war” and “gray zone,” this paper will not attempt to
defend or attack the validity of the term, but will explore the collection of concepts and actions to which it could meaningfully be said to apply and that do actually comprise the current Russian approach to war.104 The heart of this approach is the conclusion that wars are won and lost in the information space rather than on the battlefield. Russian military thinkers have gone so far as to argue that every strategic, operational, and even tactical undertaking should be aimed first at achieving an effect in the information space, and
that it is the information campaign that is decisive.105 Formal Russian doctrine has not gone this far, nor has Russian military activity on the ground, but the extreme statement is a measure of how important the concept is.106 The importance of information operations is old hat for any Sovietologist. The Soviets were renowned for the “active measures” of the KGB, for “disinformation” and various efforts to suborn groups in the West, sometimes unwittingly, to advance their ideological and concrete agendas. The Soviet military
evolved an elaborate theory of deception, bringing the term “maskirovka” into common parlance among those who studied it. The Soviets also built out a concept called “reflexive control” that is the most noteworthy element of Putin’s ability to play a poor hand well.107 Reflexive control is a fancy way of saying “gaslighting.” It is the effort to shape the information space in which an adversary makes decisions so that he voluntarily chooses to act contrary to his own interests and his own benefit—all the while believing that he is
actually advancing his own cause. Reflexive control is a form of intellectual jiu-jitsu, which may be one reason it appeals to Putin, who is a long-time and high-level practitioner of the Russian form of judo known as sambo.108 It uses the enemy’s strength against him in the best case, but at least causes him to avoid bringing his strength to bear against you. None of this, again, is new. Even the additions of cyber operations and cyber-enabled information operations such as bots and troll farms are not new or unique to the Russian
approach to war. The novelty comes in part from the relative emphasis in Russian operations on efforts to shape the information space and the frequent subordination of conventional military operations and the threat of such operations to those efforts. Another novel aspect is the vulnerability of Western societies to these kinds of efforts, resulting in part from the effects of changes in the technological shape of the information space and the way in which it interacts with the psychology and sociology of Western individuals and
societies. The current information environment favors the attacker over the defender for several reasons. The extremely widespread penetration of the internet in Western societies gives an attacker almost universal access to the population, unfiltered by government agency or corporate leadership. The anonymity made possible by the internet makes it difficult or impossible for individuals to know who is speaking to them. The decentralization of sources of information magnifies the effect of that anonymity by allowing it to seem
that multiple independent sources verify and validate each other even when a single individual or group controls all of them. And the psychological asymmetry of outrage and retraction means that corrections and fact-checking almost never fully undo the damage done by a false accusation and often have little effect. These characteristics of the modern information space have created the ideal environment in which ideas first developed and attempted by the Soviets can flourish in ways the Soviets could never have imagined. We
must be careful to avoid attributing too much brilliance to Putin and Gerasimov. It is not necessarily the case, or even likely, that they perceived the opportunities these phenomena would present and skillfully designed a “doctrine” to take advantage of them. On the contrary, they and their Russian and Soviet predecessors have been trying to make these approaches work all along. The increased intellectual, doctrinal, and organizational emphasis on them, starting overtly in 2015, likely results instead from the realization that
they were suddenly working very well. As with all important military innovations, therefore, the emergence of the current Russian approach to war was almost certainly the result of theory, action, experience, and reflections on interactions with the adversary rather than a sudden explosion of insight. Whatever its origins and novelty or lack thereof, this Russian approach has allowed Putin to make gains he could never have hoped to make with conventional military forces alone.109 Syria is a case in point. Russia could never have
established a lodgment on the Syrian coast and then expanded it to encompass a naval facility, a permanent and expanded military airbase, and a ground forces garrison—all protected by advanced air defense systems—through conventional military operations, against the wishes of the U.S. and its allies. Russian aircraft flying to Syria must transit either NATO airspace (through Turkey or Romania or Bulgaria and then Greece) or Iraqi airspace (via Iran) that the U.S. dominates. Had the U.S. been determined to prevent Russian
planes from getting to Syria, the Russian Air Force could not have penetrated the defenses the U.S. and its allies could have put up. But the U.S. and its allies made no such decision. They have, on the contrary, worked hard to avoid any risk of military confrontation with Russian aircraft—a project made challenging, not unironically, by the periodic aggressiveness of Russian pilots. The prospect of a Russian naval expedition forcing its way into the Tartus naval facility in the face of efforts by the U.S. Sixth Fleet to stop it is even
more fanciful. The key to Putin’s success in this gambit lay in his ability to persuade American and NATO leaders that Russia’s military presence in Syria was not a threat and might even be helpful—while simultaneously stoking the belief that any U.S. effort to oppose or control the Russian deployment would lead to major, possibly nuclear, war. The key to that success, in turn, lay in the fact that neither the Obama nor the Trump administration wanted to be in Syria or wished to fight any kind of conflict with Russia. President
Obama, on the contrary, invited Putin into Syria in 2013 to help him out of the trap he had created by announcing that any further use of chemical weapons by Assad was a “red line”—without actually being willing to enforce that red line when Assad crossed it. Obama’s decision to reach out to Moscow likely resulted in part from the long bipartisan trend of seeking to “reset” relations with Russia, bring Russia back into the fold of responsible international stakeholders, and generally return to what Americans saw as the golden
age of U.S.-Russian cooperation in the 1990s. This trend began in the first years of the George W. Bush administration, shortly after Putin’s accession to power. It continued with Hillary Clinton’s vaunted push of the “reset” button and Donald Trump’s praise for Putin and continued attempts to find ways to cooperate with him toward supposedly common objectives.110 The conviction that a Russian reset and a return to the golden years of the 1990s is just one phone call or summit away has become one of the few truly bipartisan
foreign policy assumptions in this increasingly polarized era. Putin has used it skillfully to advance his own projects while offering few or no concessions in return. Conventional military forces play a critical role in the Russian approach to war nevertheless. Russian airpower and long-range precision-strike capability were critical to preserving, stabilizing, and then expanding the Assad regime and the territory it controlled in Syria. Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and the other components of the pro-regime coalition all lack similar
capabilities. The hardening of opposition defenses in various parts of Syria before the Russian intervention raised the requirement for continued regime offensive operations beyond what the pro-regime coalition could provide.111 The Russian intervention was therefore essential to the survival of the regime and remains essential to its precarious stability and to any hope it has of regaining control of the rest of Syria. The very limited deployment of a few dozen aircraft and salvoes of long-range missiles made Russia indispensable
to the pro-regime coalition and gave Putin enormous leverage in Syria at relatively low risk and low cost. The deployment of Russian S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft systems to Syria dramatically increased that leverage, again at very low risk and cost. The American military could destroy those systems and operate freely over Syrian airspace even against Moscow’s wishes, but the cost in U.S. aircraft and missiles devoted to the operation, in time, and possibly in casualties and aircraft losses would be significant. The range of the S-
300 and the reported locations at which launchers were deployed, moreover, means that most Israeli Air Force and some Turkish Air Force aircraft are within range of those systems the moment they take off from airbases in Israel and Turkey. That fact has not been lost on Israeli or Turkish leaders. Putin has also used conventional military forces on a limited scale in Ukraine. He relied on the naval infantry forces already deployed in Crimea, reinforced by small numbers of special forces and other units, to seize control of that
peninsula in 2014. Small numbers of conventional forces battalion tactical groups and similar-sized formations helped local proxies seize and hold ground in eastern Ukraine, while highly skilled special forces elements supported them in the battle area and in the rear of the Ukrainian forces.112 Russia has provided air defense capabilities and significant electronic warfare support to its Ukrainian proxies and also to its fighters and allies in Syria. The highly targeted assistance of Russia’s conventional military is probably even
more essential to Putin’s proxies in Ukraine than in Syria. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are likely to regain control over the Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine if the Russian military stops supporting its proxies on the battlefield. The current Russian way of war, therefore, truly is hybrid. It requires the use of limited numbers of highly capable conventional forces able to conduct expeditionary operations beyond Russia’s borders. However, it also relies on the creation and maintenance of a political and information
environment that facilitates the presence and activities of those forces without serious opposition from any state or actor that could meaningfully challenge them. The conventional forces themselves are enablers to a larger political-informational campaign rather than being the main effort. Evidence for that assessment lies in Putin’s response to the several occasions on which his conventional forces suffered losses— specifically, the Turkish downing of a Russian aircraft in 2015; the accidental downing of another Russian plane
by Syrian forces during an Israeli airstrike in 2018; and the killing of several hundred members of the Wagner PMC during an attack by that group on an outpost in eastern Syria held by the opposition, where American advisers were also present.113 Washington and the world held their breath in each case, worrying about Putin’s possible response. The U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, reached out immediately to Gerasimov to send messages of both deterrence and de-escalation each time.114
Putin did not retaliate militarily on any of these occasions. He responded to the Turkish shoot-down by deploying Russian S-300 systems operated by Russian troops, and to the Syrian shoot-down by completing a contract with the Assad regime for S-300 systems of its own, which had long been held up. He made no meaningful response to the Wagner incident and did not even use his air defense systems to disrupt the massive U.S. air operations against the attacking Wagner forces as they were destroyed. Putin has similarly
refrained from using his own S-300 and S-400 systems to shoot at Israeli aircraft during any of Israel’s repeated airstrikes against regime targets within Syria and has, reportedly, prevented the Syrians from using their S-300 system.115 Nor has Putin retaliated against Israel for those strikes or against the U.S. for the 2017 missile strikes Washington launched against the Shayrat airbase in response to Assad’s renewed use of chemical weapons. The aircraft and missile systems Putin has deployed to Syria, therefore, are clearly not
meant to give him control over Syria’s skies. They are also obviously not meant to challenge the ability of the U.S., Turkey, or Israel to conduct anti-regime operations, at least within the current limits of such operations. Lastly, they are not meant to enable Putin to retaliate in any symmetrical tit-for-tat manner for Russian losses suffered directly or indirectly at the hands of the U.S., Turkey, or Israel. The relative inaction of Russia’s aircraft against those states could be at least partially explained by Moscow’s focus on fighting the
opposition. But the air defense systems can only be intended to defend against the U.S., Turkey, and Israel, since the opposition has never had aircraft against which those systems are effective.116 The Kremlin has, in other words, deployed systems to defend against attacks that have, in fact, come—and yet not used those systems to defend against those attacks. This conundrum can only be resolved by recognizing that the purpose of those systems is to shape the behavior of the U.S., Turkey, and Israel rather than to fight openly
against them. The deployments of advanced air defense weapons, and also of some of the air-to-air-optimized aircraft Russia has periodically sent to Syria, support a political-informational campaign rather than a conventional military operation (even if we regard counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism as being in that category). Circumstances might, of course, arise in which Putin would authorize his troops to use some or all of their capabilities conventionally against the U.S. and its partners and allies. That fact drives the
fear of escalation that leads the U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman to jump on the phone to Moscow every time a major incident occurs. It also shapes American, Turkish, and Israeli calculations about military options they might choose. This is exactly the point from Moscow’s perspective. Putin’s S-300 and S-400 systems in Syria work best if they are never used. Problems of Escalation—for Russia The U.S. military and those who study it are preoccupied, understandably, by its shortcomings and inadequacies. The shortcomings are real,
and the military is, indeed, inadequate for the global requirements it must meet. The preoccupation with our own failings has tended to obscure an objective assessment of the relative risks to the U.S. and Russia of a conventional military confrontation in Syria, however. The U.S. has therefore tended to overestimate the likelihood that a crisis with Russia in Syria will escalate to the point of such a major confrontation and, as a result, has allowed Putin’s very limited deployment of combat power and good use of the information
space to drive a high degree of American self-deterrence. Russia has rarely had more than a couple of dozen combat aircraft at its airfields in Syria at any given time.117 Most of them are usually ground-attack planes (principally Su-25 Frogfoots, which are roughly similar to the U.S. Air Force A-10), and they have limited ability to conduct air-to-air combat against U.S. fighter bombers. The rest are generally variants of the Su-30 fighter bomber, sometimes with a few more-advanced airframes optimized for air-to-air combat,
including, occasionally, the Su-57 stealth fighter bomber. A single U.S. carrier strike group has around 48 strike fighters, all with air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities. The U.S. Navy alone has more than 775 strike aircraft (including all variants of the F/A-18 and the F-35).118 The U.S. Air Force has more than 1,240 fighters and fighter bombers, as well as around 140 strategic bombers.119 The single carrier strike group—almost invariably in the Mediterranean or in or near the Persian Gulf—thus outguns the Russian aircraft in
Syria by a significant margin, and the U.S. Air Force and Navy could rapidly begin to flow crushing numbers of reinforcements to the theater. The Russian Air Force, by contrast, has a total of roughly 745 fighter bombers in its entire inventory, according to the most recently published Defense Intelligence Agency estimates.120 It has an additional 215 attack aircraft (mostly Su-25s) and another 141 strategic bombers. It is thus somewhat larger than the U.S. Navy, considerably smaller than the U.S. Air Force, and about one-third
the size of both together. These numbers exclude the roughly 240 F-16s in the Turkish Air Force—which have demonstrated their ability to shoot down Russian fighters in limited engagements, and so should not be dismissed—as well as those of America’s other NATO allies, not to mention the Israeli Air Force, one of the best in the world. The U.S. thus has absolute escalation dominance in an air-to-air fight over the skies of Syria, unless one imagines that Russian aircraft and pilots are an order-of-magnitude more lethal than
their American counterparts—a notion there is no evidence for, and considerable evidence against.121 Critics of this argument need not challenge this assertion, but could argue instead that it is beside the point. The U.S. military cannot focus solely on fighting the Russians in Syria. It must support American ground forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan; conduct counter-terrorism operations throughout Africa; and deter and be ready to respond to aggressions by China, North Korea, and Iran, at least. The concentration of
aircraft, ships, and pilots needed to fight a significant air war against Russia in Syria would severely degrade the U.S. military’s ability to meet these other requirements. This fact more than any fear of confronting the Russian military in the Middle East explains the self-paralysis of the U.S. military. Putin, by contrast, has projected a willingness to mix it up in Syria. His pilots ostentatiously fly close to American aircraft, engage in risky maneuvers near them, lock targeting radars on them, and in other ways portray almost an
eagerness to engage in a fight.122 The Turkish downing of a Russian aircraft in 2015 resulted from repeated violations of Turkish airspace by Russian pilots in another set of deliberate provocations.123 Putin’s message through these actions has consistently been: You will not fight me here, but I am willing to fight you. Yet on each occasion when blows have been traded, Putin has backed down. One reason is that his escalation calculus is far worse than America’s. The Russian Air Force also has essential tasks outside Syria that
would prevent it from concentrating all, or even most of its available assets there. It must cover Russia’s enormous periphery, the largest land border of any country in the world, including a long border with China. Putin would be foolish to strip aircraft from St. Petersburg, a short flight from NATO airfields, while fighting the U.S. in Syria. Nor could he denude his forces in Crimea, linked to the Russian mainland by a single bridge, or his forces in and near eastern Ukraine. He could not even prudently strip his far east of all
advanced aircraft. He might— or might not—decide that China would not take advantage of any weakening of his defenses, but the U.S. can threaten him from carriers in the Pacific even if Japan opts to deny the use of its bases in a conflict with Russia to which it is not party. Would the U.S. bomb St. Petersburg or Vladivostok while fighting Russia in Syria? Of course not. But strategic calculus does not work that way. It is a fact that the U.S. could conduct such attacks, and any professional military staff forced to confront the
prospect of an escalation to major conventional war in one theater would have to consider the possibility that such a war might spread to other theaters. Best professional military advice in such a situation would be to maintain sufficient combat power in any other vulnerable theater to deter and, if necessary, defeat enemy attempts to transfer the conflict there. It is equally true, after all, that a rapid U.S.-Russia dustup in Syria would be very unlikely to trigger a Chinese military adventure or a North Korean invasion of South
Korea. Yet the U.S. military allows the fears of just such scenarios to undermine its willingness to contemplate fighting Russia in Syria— and the Russian military will behave no differently. Even that calculation is not Russia’s most serious problem with the idea of escalation to conventional conflict in the skies over Syria. The biggest problem is actually financial. Russia could not afford to replace the losses it would inevitably take in such a fight, whereas the U.S. could. Bad as the differential in aircraft looks for the Russians, we
must recall that the differential in overall economic power and in defense budgets looks much worse. The Russian economy and defense budgets are less than one-tenth the size of America’s. Its military is struggling to “modernize” to a level of technology similar to what the U.S. has had for decades. The cost of having to replace many lost modern aircraft would disrupt Russian defense programs for years. The U.S. could make good such losses in short order if it chose.

Nuclear Escalation Theprospect of the world’s two largest nuclear powers going to war, even in a
limited conventional way, is of course terrifying . The U.S. certainly should do everything in its power to achieve its
objectives without resorting to major combat operations against Russia—that is the guiding principle of current national security
documents and of this report. The straightforward equation sometimes made between any such local conflict and global nuclear war,
however, is entirely unjustified. It simply is not the case that any major conventional war will lead inevitably, or even probably, to
nuclear war. One
can trace escalation paths from a conventional war Putin is losing in Syria to his
use of a theater nuclear weapon, either to change the odds or to try to force the U.S. to
back down . He could use such a weapon to destroy a U.S. airfield in one of the regional states (Turkey, perhaps, or Kuwait) or
a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group. The destruction of any single airbase or carrier would not prevent the U.S. from carrying forward
an air war to successful conclusion. There are simply too many bases and carriers the U.S. could use for the elimination of a single
one to terminate a campaign. Unless Putin were willing to destroy many airbases in many different countries (most of them NATO
members) and sink every carrier moving into the theater, he could not prevent the U.S. from destroying his assets in the Middle
It is impossible to predict the American response to such a use of nuclear
East.
weapons —regardless of the occupant of the White House. The U.S. could respond by using theater nuclear weapons of its own
against Russian forces in the Middle East (which this report emphatically does not support or recommend)—and here, a single
nuclear device dropped on the airfield near Latakia would pretty much destroy Russian capabilities to continue the air war in the
region. Alternatively, Washington
could engage in either conventional or nuclear retaliation against
Russian forces beyond the region, including in Russia proper (and, again, this report does not support or recommend
using nuclear weapons under any circumstances, except possibly in extremis situations far more dire than those under consideration
here).Putin would then be forced to decide whether to escalate further . He could
conduct a larger nuclear strike against NATO (since any effort seriously to disrupt U.S. military capabilities in and
around Europe would require breaking or badly damaging the alliance). He could also go directly for a strike
on the U.S. homeland. If he chose the latter and launched an all-out strike, the U.S. president would likely
respond in kind, leading to the destruction of both Russia and the U.S.—and possibly
life on Earth . One could endlessly consider lesser variants, but they all lead to dramatically increased risk of Armageddon.
Thus, the real questions are, would Putin risk Armageddon for Syria, or is he likely to miscalculate an American response to a nuclear escalation badly enough to end up there against his will?
Full-scale global thermonuclear war is an insane undertaking. The reason for maintaining large arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons is to deter such a war, not to fight it. A tiny handful of leaders in the past have been willing to accept their own total destruction in pursuit of some larger cause—Hitler being the prime exemplar of this, as of so many evils—but none of them, mercifully, has had nuclear weapons. Putin does not fall anywhere near this category. He is a thoroughly rational actor who has prospered by taking prudent
risks and backing down, rather than escalating, on almost every occasion when the breaks did not go his way.124 He holds to no ideology that transcends his own existence sufficiently to cause him to prefer obliteration to defeat. Considerable evidence opposes the idea that he would accept, let alone embrace, full-scale nuclear war if given any choice to avoid it.
The real risk of such a war emerging from a regional crisis, therefore, comes from the risk of miscalculation. It comes, in other words, from the notion that Putin might persuade himself that he could safely use a nuclear weapon of his own without triggering a nuclear retaliation that could escalate to total destruction.
Putin himself has set conditions, for fear of precisely this kind of miscalculation, through his discussions of “de-escalation” with regard to scenarios for warfare in the Baltic states. The Russian military has openly discussed using one or a small number of nuclear weapons to terminate a conventional, even a regional or local, conflict on its own terms.125 It is by no means clear, of course, that all three of the nuclear NATO states (the U.S., Britain, and France) would choose not to retaliate against a nuclear attack on another NATO
member state. But neither is it obvious, in the current circumstances, that they would. Putin might have some reason to think he could successfully “escalate to de-escalate,” given the general ambivalence within some NATO capitals about the desirability of even fighting for the Baltics to begin with.
It is harder to imagine him making such a calculation in the context of the Syria scenario being considered here, however. In this scenario, the conflict involves American versus Russian forces directly, and the attack would be on American troops, with thousands or tens of thousands killed in the nuclear strike. The U.S. president would already have demonstrated a willingness to escalate to a high level conventionally, a fact that would weigh heavily against the notion that that president would tamely accept a Russian escalation to
a higher level of conflict. Putin would have to be an imbecile, or a gambler of epic proportions, to persuade himself that he could safely escalate to de-escalate in such a conflict. Assuming deterrence continues to work at the strategic level, in other words, it is very likely to continue to work at the operational and tactical levels, even in a major conventional conflict involving American and Russian forces, at least outside of Russian territory.
The purpose of the foregoing discussion was not in any way to suggest that a U.S.-Russian conventional war in Syria or anywhere else is safe, would definitely not spread, and could not lead to nuclear war. Still less was it a brief to advocate for any such conflict. The aim, rather, was to show that the escalation paths from the current situation to higher levels of conflict look much worse for Putin than they do for the U.S., and that even adding the notion of the risk of nuclear war or escalation to de-escalate, Putin has every reason to
believe that outright confrontation with the American military will end badly for him.
That is one of the main reasons behind his preference for hybrid warfare. It is the reason he is unlikely to abandon that preference any time soon but seems, rather, to be doubling down on it. This has implications far beyond Syria. It goes into the Baltics, Poland, NATO, and even Ukraine and Belarus with various important modifications. The current Russian way of war reflects the realities of Russia’s situation and the correlation of forces between Russia and the U.S. for the foreseeable future. This is the way of war against which
the U.S. and its allies must most urgently prepare, and from which they must not allow themselves to be distracted, even while taking necessary steps to address deficiencies in conventional combat power and other areas. Hybrid war is not a façade or a fad— it is the only realistic way Putin has to achieve his objectives by force.
THE BLOWBACK PHENOMENON
 Dip Cap---1NC
Dip Cap DA

Quick trade deal with the UK coming now.

Herath 1-2 --- John Herath @ Ag Web Could the U.S. Land a Quick Trade Deal With the
U.K.? Profile picture for user John Herath 02:09PM Jan 02, 2020
https://www.agweb.com/article/could-us-land-quick-trade-deal-uk
The United Kingdom appears on a clear path to exit the European Union following last month’s elections
which delivered a majority to the Brexit-backing prime minister, Boris Johnson. If the U.K. exits the EU by the Jan. 31 deadline,
how quickly could the U.S. negotiate a bi-lateral trade deal? The chief agriculture negotiator for
the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) says it will happen very quickly . “I think people will be amazed how
quickly we are going to be able to hit the ground running in negotiating with the U.K. if
that opportunity arises,” Chief Ag Trade Negotiator Gregg Doud told Farm Journal’s DC Signal to Noise Podcast. “We’ve
already gone through, with Congress and Trade Promotion Authority , the negotiating
objectives which is kind of the prerequisite discussions. That’s already done ,” Doud said. The U.S. already enjoys an
ag trade surplus, selling $2 billion worth of ag exports to the U.K. while purchasing $824 million in ag goods in 2018 according to
USTR. The top categories for ag sales to the U.K. are wine and beer, tree nuts, prepared food, soybeans and live animals. Overall, the
U.K. is the United States’ 7th largest trading partner. Doud said the lessons learned from 2019 trade negotiations with
Canada, Mexico, Japan and China will benefit the U.S. trade team in finalizing a deal with the United Kingdom.
“We really kind of feel like we’re a seasoned team around here,” Doud said. “We’ve got a few of these deals
under our belt with this administration. We kind of really know what we’re doing now and I’m looking forward
to a chance to roll up our sleeves with the U.K .”

Aff makes effective diplomacy impossible.

Paul K. Martin 16. NASA Office of the Inspector General. 2016 IG-16-020. Nasa’s
International Partnerships: Capabilities, Benefits, And Challenges
https://oig.nasa.gov/audits/reports/FY16/IG-16-020.pdf
In sum, we found that NASA faces significant challenges to its use of international partnerships.
First, the process of developing agreements with foreign space agencies requires approval from

the Department of State , which often takes many months, if not years , to
complete. Second, U.S. export control regulations can hinder dialogue between NASA and its partners, causing
frustration with project planning and implementation and reducing the competitiveness of the U.S. space
industry. Third, the lack of strong, centralized international space coordination groups and
restrictions on the number of NASA employees who are permitted to attend international
conferences make dialog between NASA and its partners more difficult . Finally, both the U.S.
political process and geopolitical realities complicate NASA’s efforts to expand international

partnerships, particularly with the Russian and Chinese space agencies .

US negotiating leverage is key to pharma---UK deal makes billions
and sets a global precedent.
McGee 12-6 --- Luke McGee, CNN Business US pharma companies really do want Britain to
pay more for drugs Updated 5:16 AM ET, Fri December 6, 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/06/business/nhs-trump-trade-drugs-analysis-intl-
ge19/index.html
London (CNN Business)When President Donald Trump arrived in the United Kingdom this week, he landed bang in
the middle of a huge political fight about the country's National Health Service. One of the biggest
issues in the UK election slated for December 12 is what a trade deal with the United States after Brexit
might look like , and whether or not it would allow American pharmaceutical
companies to charge the NHS more for their drugs. There's a huge amount at stake . The
United Kingdom is a wealthy nation with an aging population and a state-funded health care system.
The King's Fund, a health policy think tank, estimates that the NHS spent $ 22.7 billion on medicines
in England alone in 2017. Billions more would have been spent in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland. Not very much of that money was spent on US imports. For example, the US drug industry exported nearly
$56 billion in biopharmaceuticals in the same year, according to PhRMA, a trade association, but the United Kingdom accounted for
only $3.6 billion of that haul. PhRMA declined to comment for this story, but earlier this year it
urged US trade
negotiators to bring home a deal that would boost exports to the United Kingdom. Both main
British political parties have made misleading claims during the campaign. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party,
says that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is so eager to strike a trade deal with Trump that he will sell out the NHS, exposing it to
higher prices for prescription drugs and allowing services to be privatized. Johnson has repeatedly said that the NHS is
not, and never will be, on the table in trade talks. The reality is more complicated . It's unlikely that
many US companies want to take over large parts of the bureaucratic NHS. But securing a bigger share of the British
market for American pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer (PFE) and Merck (MKGAF) would be a
big prize for US trade negotiators . Fueling concern in the United Kingdom is the fact that prescription drugs
cost more in the United States than almost anywhere else on the planet. And the United States spends more than double the United
Kingdom per capita on medicines. There are numerous reasons for this. But a common complaint of the US pharmaceutical lobby is
that other nations, including the United Kingdom, have strict regulatory systems and arrangements where governments subsidize
medicine development that they believe keeps the price of drugs artificially low. This, they claim, makes it very hard for US
companies to compete. The UK system for valuing medicines is particularly complicated. It looks at the clinical effectiveness of a
drug, and the bang for buck value of each medicine. It also takes into consideration input from drug companies before determining
what it believes is a fair price. The United States has publicly declared that it would demand not only that its companies have "full
market access" to the United Kingdom, but also that "government regulatory reimbursement regimes are transparent." That would
likely mean a provision allowing US drug companies to have a greater say in how the United Kingdom values medicines for the NHS,
similar to one included in the US trade deal with South Korea last year. The US pharmaceutical industry would like to see "rules
around how drug pricing and government reimbursement for pharmaceuticals is reached" in any deal with the United Kingdom,
says Allie Rennison, head of European and trade policy at the Institute of Directors. Why
is America so obsessed with
this? If the United States is able to get it s way, American companies could charge the NHS more
for prescription medicines. The Labour Party claims the bill could rise by as much as £500 million ($655 million) a week,
though this seems to be a projection based on an unlikely worst-case scenario. But the NHS is only the start . One side
effect of the UK system is that it has a comprehensive list of drug prices, and some other countries
informally use this as a benchmark for setting drug prices in their health care systems. In 2010, the British
parliament published a document which claimed that "up to 25% of world pharmaceuticals sales reference UK prices to some
extent." If the United States can get a provision that allows it to influence UK drug prices into a
trade deal with the United Kingdom, then, in theory, drug prices around the world could rise.
" The UK system is a benchmark in all sorts of ways. That might be specific decisions on pricing or whether it
allows a drug to be used in the NHS," says Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at Nuffield Trust, another health think tank. "Decisions
made in the UK will be noticed internationally and could affect how decisions are
made in other countries." Getting a sweet deal with the United Kingdom would provide another
boost for both the drug lobby and US trade negotiators: it would set a precedent for
any future US trade deals with other countries. The UK is a soft target "Trade deals rely on precedents . If the
US hasn't managed to secure something in any previous agreement, it's harder to argue for it in a new one," says Dmitry
Grozoubinski, founder of ExplainTrade.com and visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde. While it might seem odd that a
wealthy ally like the United Kingdom is deemed the best place for Washington to push its luck, the issue has to be seen in the context
of the Brexit crisis. "If after the election, a post-Brexit UK is led into trade talks by a prime minister and trade minister
who campaigned on a quick and easy US trade deal, the
US will seize that opportunity to push the
boundaries of what's possible," says Grozoubinski. "It doesn't mean they're going to get what they want, but it would be
near negligent of them not to try."
Solves pandemics---extinction.
Jeffrey Sachs 14. Professor of Sustainable Development, Health Policy and Management at
Columbia University, Director of the Earth Institute @ Columbia University and Special adviser
to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals. “Important
lessons from Ebola outbreak,” Business World Online, August 17, 2014,
http://tinyurl.com/kjgvyro
Ebola is the latest of many recent epidemics, also including AIDS, SARS, H1N1 flu, H7N9 flu, and
others. AIDS is the deadliest of these killers, claiming nearly 36 million lives since 1981. Of course, even larger and more
sudden epidemics are possible , such as the 1918 influenza during World War I, which claimed
50-100 million lives (far more than the war itself). And, though the 2003 SARS outbreak was contained, causing fewer
than 1,000 deaths, the disease was on the verge of deeply disrupting several East Asian economies including China’s. There are
four crucial facts to understand about Ebola and the other epidemics. First, most emerging infectious
diseases are zoonoses, meaning that they start in animal populations, sometimes with a genetic mutation
that enables the jump to humans. Ebola may have been transmitted from bats; HIV/AIDS emerged from chimpanzees;
SARS most likely came from civets traded in animal markets in southern China; and influenza strains such as H1N1 and H7N9 arose
New zoonotic diseases are inevitable
from genetic re-combinations of viruses among wild and farm animals.
as humanity pushes into new ecosystems (such as formerly remote forest regions); the food industry creates
more conditions for genetic recombination; and climate change scrambles natural habitats and
species interactions. Second, once a new infectious disease appears, its spread through airlines, ships,
megacities, and trade in animal products is likely to be extremely rapid . These epidemic diseases are new markers of
globalization, revealing through their chain of death how vulnerable the world has become from the pervasive movement of people
and goods. Third, the poor are the first to suffer and the worst affected. The rural poor live closest to the infected animals that first
transmit the disease. They often hunt and eat bushmeat, leaving them vulnerable to infection. Poor, often illiterate, individuals are
generally unaware of how infectious diseases -- especially unfamiliar diseases -- are transmitted, making them much more likely to
become infected and to infect others. Moreover, given poor nutrition and lack of access to basic health services, their weakened
immune systems are easily overcome by infections that better nourished and treated individuals can survive. And “de-medicalized”
conditions -- with few if any professional health workers to ensure an appropriate public-health response to an epidemic (such as
isolation of infected individuals, tracing of contacts, surveillance, and so forth) -- make initial outbreaks more severe. Finally, the
required medical responses, including diagnostic tools and effective medications and vaccines, inevitably lag behind the
emerging diseases. In any event, such tools must be continually replenished . This requires cutting-
edge biotech nology, immunology, and ultimately bioengineering to create large-scale industrial
responses ( such as millions of doses of vaccines or medicines in the case of large epidemics). The
AIDS crisis, for example, called forth tens of billions of dollars for research and development -- and similarly substantial
commitments by the pharmaceutical industry -- to produce lifesaving antiretroviral drugs at global scale. Yet each breakthrough
inevitably leads to the pathogen’s mutation, rendering previous treatments less effective. There is no ultimate victory,
only a constant arms race between humanity and disease-causing agents.
 Unilat---1NC
Unilat CP
Text: The United States federal government should
-- offer an annual declaration regarding the current and planned
numbers of the US missile defense system
-- provide advanced notice of changes in the planned numbers
-- commit to not direct missile defenses against Russian strategic
ballistic missiles
-- publish technical briefings as to why US missile defenses do not
threaten Russian strategic ballistic missiles
-- conduct SM-3 interceptor tests in a location and manner visible to
the Russian Federation.

Unilateral action solves, doesn’t hurt missile defense flexibility, and

causes follow-on.
Steven Pifer 12. Directs the Brookings Arms Control Initiative; ambassador to Ukraine from
1998 to 2000. "Missile Defense in Europe: Cooperation or Contention?." Brookings. 5-8-2012.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/missile-defense-in-europe-cooperation-or-contention/
The Russian proposal for a legal guarantee is accompanied by a proposal for “objective
criteria,” which translates to limits on numbers, velocities and locations of missile defense
interceptors—a treaty covering missile defense. Short of a treaty , however, there are ways to reassure
Moscow about the capabilities of U.S. missile defenses and the inherent limits on those
capabilities. For example, as the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency has suggested, the Russians could observe
SM-3 interceptor tests to confirm that the velocity and range of the missile would not allow it
to engage Russian strategic missiles. The U.S. government might also offer an annual declaration
regarding the current and planned numbers of key elements of the U.S. m issile d efense
system—interceptor missiles, silos and land-based launchers, associated radars and missile-
defense capable ships— and commit to provide advance notice of changes in the planned
numbers. This would allow Moscow to gauge whether the sum of U.S. capabilities seriously
challenged its strategic deterrent.
In different political circumstances, given current U.S. plans, it would appear that a ten-year agreement limiting each side to no
more than 100-125 interceptors capable of engaging strategic ballistic missiles would (1) assure Moscow that its strategic ballistic
missile force was not threatened, and (2) permit the United States to do everything that it wants to do over the next decade to defend
against the Iranian and North Korean ballistic missile threats. The administration, however, is not exploring such a treaty, as it
understands that any such agreement would have no prospect of Senate ratification.
For the time being, missile defense falls into the category of difficult issues in U.S.-Russia relations. Achieving
a NATO-
Russia agreement on m issile d efense coop eration appears all but impossible in 2012. The
U.S. and NATO objective should be to keep the door open for a NATO-Russia agreement in 2013. Then, the United States and NATO
could offer a package to encourage Russia to join in a cooperative missile defense. Such a package could include some or all of the
following measures:
A U.S. and NATO political commitment not to direct their missile defenses against Russian
strategic ballistic missiles.
Maximum transparency regarding planned U.S. missile defenses. This should include an
offer of an annual notification laying out the numbers of key missile defense elements currently
deployed and planned for deployment each year over the next decade. This should be accompanied
by a commitment to provide the Russians notice in advance should there be any changes in
those planned deployment numbers. Ideally, this would apply on a reciprocal basis.
Technical briefings as to why the Defense Department concludes that U.S. missile defenses
will not threaten Russian strategic ballistic missiles.
Reiteration of the offer to allow Russian experts, using their own sensors, to observe SM-3 interceptor tests.
Indicating that a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense arrangement could be of a provisional, time-limited nature, with NATO
acknowledging at the outset that (1) Moscow has strong concerns regarding U.S./NATO missile defense capabilities and (2) Russia’s
decision to agree to a provisional cooperative arrangement does not preclude that Moscow may decide not to make the arrangement
permanent if it believes that U.S./NATO missile defense capabilities will threaten its strategic forces.
Indicating that, as long as the ability of NATO’s missile defense to protect all Alliance members is not degraded, NATO is prepared to
listen to and accommodate reasonable Russian suggestions for a cooperative arrangement.
Indicating that the “adaptive” part of the EPAA includes a possibility that the United States might slow development of and/or in
consultation with NATO choose not to deploy the SM-3 Block IIB interceptor if it were clear that Iran were not making significant
progress toward achieving a longer- range missile capability.
Establishing regular U.S.-Russia (or NATO- Russia) ballistic missile threat assessment conferences, focusing on North Korea and
Iran, to close the gap in the sides’ estimates.
In 2013, if Moscow is prepared to move forward, these recommendations would provide a basis for engaging the Russians and for
moving to agree on and implement ideas for a cooperative missile defense arrangement for Europe. Some of these recommendations
would prove controversial in Washington. But theywould not undermine current U.S. plans for missile
defense to protect Europe and the U.S. homeland. They would only cause a change in those plans if it became clear that some
threats, such as an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile, were not emerging.
The United States and NATO should seek, without degrading their ability to defend against limited ballistic missile attack, to make it
as easy as possible for Moscow to agree to a cooperative missile defense arrangement. Ultimately, the Russians will have to decide
how to respond. A
Russian readiness to accept a political commitment that U.S. missile
defenses were not directed against their strategic ballistic missiles rather than a legal
guarantee would open dramatic potential for coop eration. The reported convergence in
the sides’ thinking could presage a relatively rapid realization of a practical
cooperative arrangement . That would be in the U.S. interest, making missile defense an
asset rather than a liability on the U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia agendas, providing for a
stronger missile defense of Europe, and perhaps proving a game-changer in broader NATO and
Russian attitudes toward each other.
 Japan DA---1NC
Japan DA
Accepting Russian-dictated legally-binding technical guarantees caps
SM-3 development---that crushes Japan assurance and deterrence.
Frank A. Rose 15. Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance,
US State Department. “Transatlantic Missile Defense: Defining the Right Threat Set.” 06-25-
2015. https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/rls/2015/244392.htm
The 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review (or BMDR) makes clear that the U nited S tates’ missile defenses are focused
on defending against limited missile threats to the U.S. homeland and regional missile threats to
our deployed forces, allies and partners throughout the world. The development of ballistic
missiles by countries like Iran and North Korea , and the proliferation of these systems around the
world is what drives our threat assessment .
Our deployment of missile defenses is focused on strengthening the twin U.S. goals of
deterrence and assurance . In so doing, they also contribute to international peace and
stability and reinforce our nonproliferation aims .
At the same time, we have made clear both in our policy and in the capabilities we have deployed that our missile defense efforts are
not intended to affect the strategic balance with Russia and China.
As a practical matter, the U.S. experience with missile defense suggests that attempting to develop a comprehensive missile defense
system to defend against ballistic missile attack from Russia would be extremely challenging – and costly – given the size and
sophistication of Russia’s strategic missile force and the relatively limited number of missile defense interceptors that would be
available to defend against such a large force.
It is to address the regional threats from the Middle East and North Korea, and to enhance our regional deterrence posture, that
leads us to cooperate with our allies and partners in deploying missile defense systems and architectures today.
For example, I just returned from a trip to the Middle East, where the United States and Gulf Cooperation Council (or GCC) member
states have committed to develop a region-wide ballistic missile defense capability, including through the development of a Ballistic
Missile Early Warning System. At the recent U.S.-GCC Summit, the United States committed to work with the GCC to conduct a
study of a GCC-wide missile defense architecture and offered technical assistance in the development of a GCC-wide Ballistic Missile
Early Warning System. Finally, we agreed to hold a senior leader missile defense tabletop exercise to examine improved regional
ballistic missile defense cooperation.
In Europe , we continue to make excellent progress implementing the European Phased Adaptive
Approach (or EPAA ), which will serve as the U.S. national contribution to NATO’s missile defense
system.
Starting in 2011 with Phase 1, we deployed a missile defense radar in Turkey and began the sustained deployment of Aegis Ballistic
Missile Defense (BMD)-capable ships in the Mediterranean. With NATO’s declaration of Interim Capability in 2012, the radar in
Turkey transitioned to NATO operational control. Additionally, we have been working with Spain to deploy four U.S. Aegis BMD-
capable ships at the naval facility at Rota which will allow us to increase our rotational presence in the region and respond to
potential crises.
We are on track to complete the deployment of an Aegis Ashore site in Romania as part of Phase 2 of the EPAA later this year. When
operational, this site, combined with BMD-capable ships in the Mediterranean, will enhance coverage of NATO from short- and
medium-range ballistic missiles launched from the Middle East.
Finally, Phase 3 will involve the construction of an Aegis Ashore site in Poland equipped with the new SM-3 Block IIA interceptor.
President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request designates approximately $200 million for the establishment of the site,
including construction which will begin next year, allowing us to remain on schedule to complete this site by 2018. The Phase 3 site
in Poland, when combined with other EPAA assets, will provide ballistic missile defense coverage of all NATO European territory
In the Asia-Pacific, we are continuing missile defense cooperation through our bilateral alliances and
key partnerships. I’d highlight that the next generation of Aegis missile defense interceptor ,
the S tandard M issile- 3 Block IIA, which we are co-developing with Japan , just completed
a successful flight test earlier this month. We also recently deployed a second AN/TPY-2 radar to Japan, which will
enhance the defense of both the U nited S tates and Japan .
Finally, over the past twenty years, the U nited S tates and NATO offered Russia various proposals for missile
defense cooperation . Russia declined to accept our proposals. As you’re aware, Russia’s illegal
actions in Ukraine led to the suspension of our dialogue on missile defense cooperation. But prior to the
suspension, Russia continued to demand that the U nited S tates provide “legally binding”
guarantees that U.S. missile defenses will not harm or diminish Russia’s strategic nuclear
deterrent. These guarantees would have been based on criteria that would have limited our
missile defenses and undermined our ability to protect ourselves , our deployed
forces, allies and friends against an evolving and growing ballistic missile threat .
The 2010 BMDR is quite clear on our policy: U.S. missile defenses are neither designed nor directed against Russia’s or China’s
strategic nuclear forces. However, by the same token, we have also made it clear that we
cannot and will not accept
legally-binding or other constraints that would limit our ability to defend ourselves , our
allies , and our partners. The U nited S tates will continue to insist on having the flexibility to
respond to evolving ballistic missile threats .

Effective damage limitation is key to allied assurance---erosion of

capabilities causes rapid prolif and breaks the alliance.
Dr. Keith B. Payne 17. **Professor and Head of the Graduate Department of Defense and
Strategic Studies, Missouri State University. **Dr. John S. Foster, Director of Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory and as Director, Defense Research and Engineering under four
Secretaries of Defense and two Presidents. **Dr. Kathleen Bailey, Senior Reviewer, Senior
Associate, National Institute for Public Policy; former Assistant Director of the Arms Control
and Disarmament Agency; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. **Gen Kevin Chilton, USAF
(ret), Senior Reviewer, former Commander, US Strategic Command; Commander, Air Force
Space Command. “A New Nuclear Review for a New Age.” National Institute for Public Policy.
http://www.nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/A-New-Nuclear-Review-final.pdf
These states derive their security from a predictable international system—a system that is still
upheld by the United States, including through the US nuclear umbrella. If the US were to
reduce or even end its role as a nuclear protector, the security perceptions of its allies would
change radically —and in some cases could even lead them to re-consider their attitudes
vis-à-vis nuclear possession. The result could well be the largest wave of prolif eration since
the dawn of the nuc lear age. …US extended deterrence is a most effective non-proliferation tool
and must be sustained for the deterrence of aggression, the assurance of allies and non-
proliferation purposes.36
While the primary audiences for US deterrence messaging are adversaries and potential
adversaries, the primary audiences for US assurance efforts are allies and partner countries. US
deterrence and assurance goals are closely related and “two sides of the same coin.” For
example, the credibility of US extended deterrence commitments to allies (e.g., the US
“nuclear umbrella”) is a key to their assurance, and a primary reason many have agreed to
forego acquisition of their own independent nuclear deterrent capabilities . Indeed,
following North Korea’s nuclear tests, the United States reaffirmed its “unwavering and ironclad
alliance commitments,” to the ROK and Japan, “and emphasize[d] that U.S. extended
deterrence commitments are guaranteed by the full spectrum of U.S. military capabilities,
including conventional, nuclear, and missile defense capabilities.”37
However, deterrence and assurance are separate goals and may require different supporting
strategies and capabilities. One difference is reflected in the “Healey Theorem.” To wit, Denis
Healey, a British Defense Minister during the Cold War, famously observed that US deterrence
strategy required five percent credibility to deter the Soviet Union, but 95 percent credibility to
assure allies.38
The United States has extended nuclear deterrence and assurance commitments to more than
30 countries around the world—including North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies,
Japan, South Korea and Australia—to address their unique threat circumstances. Just as
deterrence efforts are best tailored to specific adversaries, so too are US assurance efforts.
US assurance efforts can include all forms of US power, military and political. For example, the
most recent NATO communiqué issued in Warsaw in July 2016, states that: “To protect and
defend our indivisible security and our common values, the Alliance must and will continue
fulfilling effectively all three core tasks as set out in the Strategic Concept: collective defence,
crisis management, and cooperative security. These tasks remain fully relevant, are
complementary, and contribute to safeguarding the freedom and security of all Allies.”39 In
October 2016, then-Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter “reaffirmed the continued U.S.
commitment to provide extended deterrence for the ROK using the full range of military
capabilities, including the U.S. nuclear umbrella, conventional strike, and missile defense
capabilities.” In addition, he “also reiterated the long-standing U.S. policy that any attack on the
United States or its allies will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons will be met with an
effective and overwhelming response.”40
In the contemporary highly-charged threat environment, the assurance of US allies and partners
has become both increasingly relevant and challenging. Speaking of the Baltic states of Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania, Gen. Petr Pavel, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, stated,
“Their concern is justified. They are living close to Russia. They face on a daily basis the effects
of a continuous information and propaganda campaign.”41
As the Healey Theorem suggests, providing assurance to allies may be even more challenging
than establishing a credible deterrent to aggression. As Russia, China, and North Korea pursue
aggressive foreign policies, US allies such as Japan, South Korea, and some NATO members are
expressing increased concern about the US capabilities and credibility that underpin US defense
commitments, including the US nuclear umbrella.
Allied perceptions of declining US credibility could ultimately lead some allies to feel
compelled to pursue independent responses to common threats, including independent nuclear
deterrence capabilities. This development would, of course, significantly undermine long-
standing US nuclear nonproliferation goals.
Public opinion polls in South Korea already show strong support for an independent
South Korean nuclear deterrent,42 and a recent report by an official South Korean presidential
advisory group recommended asking the United States to redeploy US nuclear weapons to the
Korean peninsula.43 As Robert Einhorn, a senior State Department advisor in the Obama
Administration recently observed, South Korean leaders want the US nuclear deterrent to be
strengthened, including, “by permanently stationing U.S. ‘strategic assets’ (such as nuclear-
capable aircraft and perhaps even U.S. nuclear weapons) in South Korea.”44 Former South
Korean President Park Geun-hye stated in 2014 that if North Korea continues testing its nuclear
devices, “It would be difficult for us to prevent a nuclear domino from occurring in this area.”45
Correspondingly, former Vice President Joseph Biden has stated that Japan could go nuclear
“virtually overnight ” if the threat from No rth Ko rea is not dealt with.46
Officials in Poland apparently are considering various options, including moving toward an
independent form of deterrence: “Without measures to address the new nuclear threat
environment in Europe, Poland is left with three options. The first is to accept the risk of falling
prey to the ‘escalate to de-escalate’ doctrine. The second is to offer political concessions to
Moscow and drift towards a ‘Finlandized’ status, in order to decrease the likelihood of a military
attack by Russia. The third is to create a nonnuclear deterrent for Poland (similar in logic to the
French and British nuclear deterrents) that would create an alternative decision dynamic for
adversaries contemplating escalation.”47
These examples illustrate the possible causes and consequences of US assurance strategies
perceived as incredible in a rapidly deteriorating threat environment. Democratic and
Republican administrations have long recognized that the great benefits of assuring allies and
partners include nonproliferation and stronger alliance cohesion. In short, credible
assurance has been and must again be a priority goal for US nuclear policy, including in the
determination of the US nuclear force posture.
Specific US Capabilities for Assurance
The United States pursued a “second-to-none” assurance standard for its nuclear forces during
the Cold War and in the George W. Bush Administration’s 2001 NPR, in part to contribute to the
credibility of extended deterrence. In 2008 and 2009, the bipartisan US Strategic Posture
Commission held closed-door hearings with allied representatives on the subject of US nuclear
capabilities and found that, “U.S. allies and friends in Europe and Asia are not all of a single
mind concerning the requirements for extended deterrence and assurance. These have also
brought home the fact that the requirement to extend assurance and deterrence to others may
well impose on the United States an obligation to retain numbers and types of nuclear weapons
that it might not otherwise deem essential to its own defense.”48 For example, in 2010 a
Japanese government report listed some of the US nuclear force requirements that Japanese
officials perceived as necessary for credible assurance: “… not only possess and deploy an
invulnerable nuclear force, but must also put in place an escalation control capability that
will force potential aggressors to take the threat of nuclear retaliation seriously. Such
capabilities must be underpinned by a superior d amage- l imiting capability made
possible by a strong counterforce capability against the potential aggressor (the ability to
effectively destroy the enemy’s nuclear strike force) and an effective strategic defense
force .”49
The US nuclear posture remains an important metric for the assurance of many allies in the
contemporary international threat environment. As the NATO Warsaw Summit Communiqué
states, “The strategic forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States, are the
supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies... NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture also relies,
in part, on United States’ nuclear weapons forward-deployed in Europe and on capabilities and
infrastructure provided by Allies concerned. These Allies will ensure that all components of
NATO’s nuclear deterrent remain safe, secure, and effective. That requires sustained leadership
focus and institutional excellence for the nuclear deterrence mission and planning guidance
aligned with 21st century requirements.”50
The Joint Communiqué of the 48th US-South Korea Security Consultative Meeting in
Washington in October 2016 stated that part of the US extended nuclear deterrence response to
the 2016 North Korean missile and nuclear tests was the B-52 deployment to South Korea and
the “Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile demonstrations earlier this year at
Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.”51 The Communiqué also endorsed the “tailored
deterrence” of North Korea.
US measures of nuclear posture adequacy must take into consideration the assurance needs of
allies and partners, including the effects of an increasingly threatening security environment,
and an emerging concern among some allies about the credibility of US commitments. As the
2010 NPR states, “A failure of reassurance could lead to a decision by one or more non-nuclear
states to seek nuclear deterrents of their own, an outcome which could contribute to an
unraveling of the NPT regime and to a greater likelihood of nuclear weapon use.”52
As noted above, these pressures already are at play in some allied capitals. Lawmakers in South
Korea’s ruling party recently called for the return of US non-strategic nuclear weapons to Asia or
for starting their own nuclear weapons program as a way to increase their deterrence efforts
against North Korea.53 South Korean polling shows nearly two-thirds of the public support
these ideas.54 In Japan, Prime Minister Abe’s cabinet reportedly recently ruled that, “war-
renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution does not necessarily ban Japan from possessing and
using nuclear weapons.”55 In addition, a panel of the ruling political party in Japan recently
made an “urgent proposal” to the Abe government to procure long-range cruise missiles for
deterrent and retaliatory purposes.56 These developments signal the renewed importance of,
and need for, US assurance efforts. As former US Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert Scher
recently stated, “If allies and partners conclude that they cannot rely on the United States to
respond effectively to restore deterrence, they might opt to pursue their own arsenals, thus
undermining our nonproliferation goals. These are conditions that would be truly dangerous
and destabilizing .”57
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden has described the situation vis-à-vis North Korea starkly:
“By the end of Donald Trump’s first term, we could be facing an isolated, pathological little
gangster state able to obliterate Seattle.” He suggested that response options include making,
“U.S. missile defenses facing the Pacific Basin a lot stronger,” and that “we could even revisit the
decision to pull American nuclear weapons out of South Korea, or the rate at which American
nuclear-capable ships visit Chinese/Korean waters…”58 In November 2016, a US Trident
submarine reportedly made a port call at Guam to reinforce extended nuclear deterrence in the
Asia Pacific region.59 Clearly, assurance is a priority goal and US assurance efforts have the
potential to include moves that the United States would be unlikely to consider in the absence of
this priority goal.
Damage Limitation
In the event that deterrence fails, limiting damage has been and continues to be a US policy
goal.60 This continuity is reflected explicitly in numerous past nuclear policy documents, and
most recently, implicitly, in the 2013 Report on Nuclear Employment Strategy of the United
States. 61
There is an inherent linkage between the goals of deterrence and d amage l imitation. As
then Assistant Defense Secretary Robert Scher explained recently, “First, effective deterrence
requires credibility. We sometimes distinguish between the ability to deter and the ability to
achieve our objectives if deterrence fails, but the two are in fact inextricably linked. Deterrence
is most effective when underwritten by forces, posture, and strategy that can credibly
succeed in the event deterrence fails . At the opposite extreme, a deterrent without
credibility would be no deterrent at all. The current US nuclear weapons employment strategy
supports credible deterrence by sustaining a flexible range of plans and capabilities to
provide options to the President in the event deterrence fails.”62
Extending deterrence into a conflict, “intra-war deterrence,” is a primary form of damage
limitation. The priority goal is to reestablish deterrence to minimize further damage to US
military, political, and societal assets. This has been referred to as a strategy of “escalation
control” that is intended to limit the escalation of a conflict, and thus its destructiveness.
Robert Scher summarized US policy on this point recently, saying, “Regional deterrence
requires a balanced approach to escalation risk that deters escalation, but also prepares for the
possibility that deterrence might fail. We accept and convey the reality that no one can count on
controlling escalation in a crisis or conflict… [but] we do not simply assume that escalation
cannot be limited once the nuclear threshold has been crossed…. Possessing a range of options
for responding to limited use makes credible our message that escalating to deescalate is
dangerous and will ultimately be unsuccessful.”63
Escalation control , or intra-war deterrence, to support the goal of damage limitation may be
most possible with US nuc lear options, including limited options , that can provide a
proportionate response to any level of attack.64 A renowned contributor to US nuclear
deterrence theory, the late Herman Kahn, referred to this form of deterrence as Lex Talionis and
emphasized its potential value.65 The United States therefore should retain a spectrum of
nuclear deterrent threat options as necessary to help support the goal of damage limitation
via intra-war deterrence in the event deterrence fails.
US-Japan relations are key to avert a host of existential threats---
climate change, ecological destruction, North Korea instability, space
debris, open Internet, and South Asia coop.
Richard Armitage 16. **United States Deputy Secretary of State. **John Hamre, president
and CEO of CSIS. **Ryozo Kato, Japanese lawyer and career diplomat who served as the
Japanese Ambassador to the United States from 2001 to 2008. “The U.S.-Japan Alliance to
2030 Power and Principle.” Report of the Commission on the Future of the Alliance. 2/29/2016.
https://www.spf.org/topics/finalreportfinal.pdf
For the first time in nearly a quarter century, the world is witnessing multiple momentous challenges to the

international order. China’s emergence , Russia’s resurgence , and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s ( ISIL ’s)
barbarity are forcing the United States and Japan to address simultaneous, diverse threats
to the international order. Within Asia, increasing prosperity and economic interdependence coincide with intensifying friction among the major powers. Changes in
relative power, rapid expansion in the military budgets of some states, territorial disputes,
historical animosities, irregular threats, and nuclear proliferation all present serious risks to
regional security. Managing these challenges will require an understanding of how long-term trends, such as demographics, technology, and climate change, are likely to affect the strategic
environment. Asia is the world’s most dynamic region, so understanding current trends and potential future discontinuities is essential if the United States and

Japan are to adopt an overall strategy that is capable of adapting effectively to rapid shifts in the security
environment. While regional trends in the Asia-Pacific region favor continued growth and economic integration, there are pockets of uncertainty that could threaten both economic progress and political stability. These include: obstacles to China’s economic transition from its past export-led growth model to a
domestically driven model; the shrinking working age population in Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Singapore; and the over-reliance of countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and Australia on Chinese momentum to drive their own growth. Economic growth and integration in Asia have been driven by intra-regional trade as
well as global investment flows and production networks, underpinned by the international financial institutions established at Bretton Woods and sustained since then with the active support of Japan and the United States. However, as the international economy has diversified, the original managers of global financial governance, such as the G-7, have
lost ground to more inclusive but less effective groupings, such as the G-20. Moreover, progress on global trade liberalization at the World Trade Organization (WTO) has stalled. China is challenging the existing international financial institutions with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and its new “One Belt, One Road” initiatives. At the
same time, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), led by the United States and Japan, has the potential to reboot international trade liberalization and governance. Passage of TPP in Japan, the United States, and the ten other participating countries would boost economic growth in Asia by reducing barriers, establishing standards for ensuring protection
of intellectual property in new areas such as e-commerce, empowering China’s economic reformers as Beijing is drawn by preferential tariffs to join TPP, animating negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and perhaps eventually helping to revitalize the pursuit of global free trade agreements through the WTO.

Governance of global trade and finance is in flux, but the forces of liberalization and integration are still present. Beyond these economic concerns the dangers of climate change and ecological
degradation threaten the region. The ability of the major Asia-Pacific economies to cooperate in the face of all these transnational challenges will have important
implications for the future strategic environment. While China and the United States are the world’s leading emitters of greenhouse gases (in that order), Japan is the world’s

superpower in clean tech nology and energy efficiency. There are encouraging signs of U.S. and Chinese initiatives to curb greenhouse gas
emissions as well as the recent agreement at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, but these promises remain aspirational and unenforceable, requiring further efforts at

bilateral , regional, and global cooperation to reduce carbon emissions. China The Commission believes that China’s trajectory is one of the most uncertain variables in shaping the security environment of the Asia-Pacific region out to 2030. Given the variety and

complexity of the factors involved, it is impossible to predict a single outcome for China. To the contrary, the range of plausible alternative futures for that country is exceptionally broad. That said, the most influential drivers of China’s development will likely be internal—demographic trends; the pace, form, and success of efforts at economic reform; the attitudes and actions of various actors in the Party, the state, and society; and the successes, failures, and unintended effects of government policies. Regardless of China’s
economic trajectory, its investment in military capabilities is likely to continue, the scope of its interests will expand, and its assertive behavior and expansive claims to territory are unlikely to abate and could intensify. The Commission’s baseline projection over the next 15 years is that China will continue to grow more powerful and somewhat more aggressive than in the past. This projection includes the following elements: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will maintain its grip on power with a mixture of concessions to and
repression of newly empowered sectors within the country. The Party will also continue to make use of appeals to a militant form of popular nationalism that emphasizes its own central role in righting the wrongs done to China during the so-called “century of humiliation.” Efforts to shift the nation’s growth model towards greater reliance on domestic consumption and enhanced productivity will encounter significant obstacles. Growth will continue, albeit less steadily and at a significantly lower rate than in recent decades.
China is unlikely to overtake the United States as the largest economy in the world by 2030. While China could increase the share of GDP allocated to defense, Beijing may also choose to follow its historic pattern of proportionate allocations to defense, which would mean reductions from the annual double-digit increases in defense spending of the past two decades. As reforms announced in November 2015 indicate, China’s leadership intends to continue the transformation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into a
technologically and organizationally advanced warfighting military. Given increasing unit costs of sophisticated systems, the PLA will thus grow in capability even if the growth in numbers of platforms and weapons systems slows before 2030. In aggregate, PLA capabilities will not exceed those that the United States, Japan, and other allied countries can bring to bear in East Asia through 2030. However, the PLA’s growing anti-access and area denial capabilities will pose an increasing threat to U.S. and Japanese bases and to

China will continue to press its claims to Taiwan, in the E ast

their forces operating inside the First and Second Island Chains. China’s military advantages over other neighboring countries, such as Vietnam and the Philippines, will also continue to grow.

and S outh C hina S eas, and over disputed territory with India, and it will use both paramilitary and
coercive military tactics to do so. There will also be further attempts by Beijing to weaken U.S. alliances and construct an Asia-Pacific economic and security order that marginalizes the United States, as suggested by Xi Jinping in Shanghai in the spring of 2014. China
will continue to use external tensions to mobilize domestic political support and it will try to use its growing military and paramilitary capabilities for coercive purposes, but it is unlikely to take deliberate actions intended to trigger an armed conflict with its neighbors or the United States. China will assume a more cooperative role in dealing with at least
some global problems, and it will continue to develop Chinese-led alternatives to existing economic, diplomatic, and military organizations, particularly within Asia. Xi Jinping’s signature “One Belt, One Road” initiative will result in increased investments in infrastructure, agriculture, and natural resource extraction throughout Central, South, and
Southeast Asia. These activities could lead to expanded diplomatic influence, but they may also result in growing friction between China and some of its neighbors, including Russia, and could increase Chinese exposure to the forces of radical Islamic extremism. As with other rising powers throughout history, China will attempt to revise the regional
order of which it is a part, but rather than pose a direct challenge it will likely attempt to continue to benefit from freeriding on the existing U.S.- and Western-led order. This baseline projection to 2030 does not mean that the Commission rules out more significant discontinuities, ranging from higher growth trajectories based on economic restructuring,
to political instability, liberalization, or even economic or political collapse. However, it provides the most useful scenario to plan against as it highlights both the downside risks of China’s increasingly revisionist behavior in Asia and the upside possibilities for expanded cooperation with China on global challenges and to some extent within Asia. With

the U nited S tates and Japan must develop a sufficiently resilient strategy to handle a
the uncertainties in China’s future,

wide range of potential developments. Korean Peninsula North Korea will continue to be a critical
security concern as the situation on the Korean Peninsula remains unstable and uncertain .
North Korea represents a dangerous threat to both Japan and the United States, particularly now that it appears to have developed nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Further

improvements in warhead and missile design (including the development of miniaturized thermonuclear devices capable of delivery by intercontinental
ballistic missiles) will enhance Pyongyang’s ability to threaten an increasingly wide range of countries, including the U nited S tates. It is

highly probable that North Korea will continue a pattern of intermittent provocative military actions to
justify its grip on power internally, and it is extremely unlikely that the regime will give up its nuclear weapons as it regards them as a guarantee against attack by the United States and South Korea. Despite
disapproval of North Korea’s adventurism and its growing nuclear arsenal, China is unlikely to alter its current policy of providing Pyongyang economic assistance and a measure of diplomatic support. Beijing still
prefers the status quo on the peninsula, and only more extreme North Korean provocations might change that calculation. As in the past, the North Korean regime may experiment with some limited market
elements in its economy, but there is no doubt that the regime will retain tight political control over the population through brutal and effective security measures. Changes to this dismal projection could come

from unexpected events. A faction within the power elite in North Korea upset with Kim’s leadership and the impoverishment of the country could stage a coup . China might
use its leverage more actively to push North Korea towards a larger private sector, potentially providing incentives for more moderate behavior by the regime. Finally, although he is in his mid-30s, Kim Jong-

Un could die or be killed, setting off a succession struggle with unpredictable consequences. Sudden
regime instability or collapse could lead to dangerously chaotic situations inside North Korea that
would require close U.S.- Japan -Republic of Korea (ROK) coop eration as well as dialogue with China and Russia to avoid potentially dangerous repercussions. In the meantime, Washington, Tokyo, a nd Seoul should appreciate and address the mutual

dependence of the U.S.-ROK and U.S.-Japan alliances. Japan relies on Korea to protect its western flank while the ROK depends on Japan for indispensable rear area support on the peninsula. Trilateral security cooperation among those three democratic countries is increasingly important and political leadership will be required to overcome the political obstacles that continue to stand between Japan and South Korea. Southeast Asia Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders seek a regional balance that allows
them to sustain reasonable security, protect their sovereignty, and grow their economies. Member countries have developed an innate geopolitical survival instinct: namely, to avoid being overly influenced by any single outside power. That basic trait is found not only in ASEAN as a regional institution, but individually among its member nations, and will continue to guide ASEAN policies and behavior for the next 15 years. Most of the ASEAN member states are located in strategically important maritime areas from the Bashi
Channel through the South China Sea and from the Malacca Strait to the Indian Ocean. Maritime law enforcement and naval capabilities of those nations are far from adequate to assume responsibilities to secure these vast maritime zones and should be built up in the coming years. ASEAN also seeks regional peace and stability so its members can continue to pursue economic growth in ways that sustain domestic political stability, including through equitable growth, investment, capacity building, training and education, and
development of infrastructure. However, perceived bullying by China in the South China Sea, and concerns among some ASEAN nations that China’s behavior represents the beginning of a trend that could threaten their autonomy and endanger peace and stability if left unchecked, has driven many Southeast Asian states to welcome greater U.S. and Japanese security involvement in the region. At the same time, China’s increasing influence over some ASEAN countries has created divisions that could weaken the organization’s
capacity for collective action. Most ASEAN members have concluded that they need to act individually to professionalize and modernize their militaries and redirect their security establishments to focus more on external threats, while at the same time investing in more effective cooperation to enhance interoperability and strengthen collective security. Such action will also promote preparedness in coping with natural disasters. The United States and Japan should continue to help build the capacity of Southeast Asian nations to
defend their airspace and territorial waters from hostile intrusion. ASEAN members are dealing with domestic politics that have an impact on how quickly each can move toward advancing regional goals. Generally, the region is moving toward more open, participatory models of governance and strengthened domestic institutions. While high-profile moves in the opposite direction, such as the May 2014 coup in Thailand, attract headlines, a closer look suggests ASEAN’s incumbent governments are moving quickly, even with a

sense of urgency defined by concerns for political survival, to adapt to increasing demands from more engaged and discerning constituencies. The United States and Japan have a high stake in the outcome of this process, based on both geopolitical interests and democratic values Russia and the Arctic Russia, once the raison d’être for the
 U.S.-Japan Alliance , has assumed a second-tier role in the geopolitics of East Asia. Russia’s Far Eastern conventional and nuclear forces are a shadow of what they once were and
Russia’s diplomatic profile in Asia is also limited, even in areas where Russia has traditionally played a key role, such as the Six-Party Talks. Nevertheless, Russia is more capable

and active in Asia than it has been at any time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While Russia
appears to be working with China to counter the U.S.-led alliance system, Moscow is also quietly bolstering its regional military forces , as well as

putting more investment into its Far Eastern federal regions in hopes of enhancing its geopolitical position and preserving its autonomy with respect to China. Russia’s activities in Ukraine have resulted in an
international sanctions regime and damage to Russian relations with all democracies— particularly the United States, but also Japan. In the immediate future Japanese and U.S. interests regarding Russia will not perfectly coincide. Japan’s need for energy diversity will lead it to consider increasing imports of Russian natural gas, and many in Japan will
continue to seek a resolution of the Northern Territories issue with Russia. That said, beyond the current crisis with Putin over Ukraine and through the longer term, the United States and Japan share a geopolitical interest in cooperating with Russia in ways that inhibit the possible emergence of a Sino-Russian bloc. Although President Putin’s military
buildup and aggressive actions currently enjoy wide popularity within Russia, it is unlikely that he and his successors will be able to sustain them through 2030. Russia faces daunting economic and demographic problems, and its aggressive actions in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific have awakened dormant fears of its intentions
worldwide. Putin seems unique among recent Russian leaders in his willingness to take unpredictable risks in foreign policy. His primary external focus is competition with the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which fuels his opportunistic alignment with China in the near-term. Sixty-three years old, he is likely to
remain in power for another decade, but he is not yet grooming a younger successor in his mold. Developments in the Arctic will impact the Alliance in new and profound ways. The Arctic is warming at a rate almost double that of the rest of the world, and the resulting loss of sea ice poses security challenges as well as potential commercial opportunities.
The melting sea ice and partially navigable northern passages could create new shipping routes between Europe, North America, and Asia. Such navigational changes in ocean transport could raise sovereignty concerns in several littoral states and drive legal disputes regarding which ocean areas constitute international waters and what rights to passage
associate with such waters according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Moreover, the combination of melting ice and rapid developments in transportation and exploitation technologies may open the possibility for large reserves of oil, gas, and minerals to be exploited. Arctic littoral states could move quickly and competitively to
mine natural resources on their continental shelves and sea floors within their 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). Recent years have seen a rapidly growing military presence on the part of some Arctic littoral states, most notably Russia, in the high Arctic areas, including the movement of troops and hardware. With Japan joining four
other Asian states, including China, as observers to the Arctic Council, there is an increasing focus among Asian states on engaging the existing core Arctic states on a range of regional issues. Australia, India, and Europe Japan and the United States work closely with a number of important allies and partners outside Northeast Asia.

Tokyo and Washington have together been transforming the Alliance into a hub for
regional and global coop eration by networking these relationships. Networking alliance relationships has been attractive
because the challenges that the United States and Japan face are not isolated to Northeast Asia and are too big for bilateral alliances to manage alone. Foremost among these relationships are ties to

other major democratic countries that share support for international rules, norms, and values .
Efforts to increase security coop eration with Australia , India , and key European states
have been central to Alliance strategy in recent years. Australia is already an extremely close ally of the United States and is now expanding security
cooperation with Japan in a variety of areas, including possible sub marine development, based on the historic Japan-Australia Security Agreement concluded in 2007. While its
security interests and core values are fundamentally aligned with the United States and Japan, Australia has relatively higher dependence on the Chinese market for exports of natural resources. That could
change, however, as exports of Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan outpace commodity exports to a slowing Chinese economy. Overall, the trend will be towards closer U.S.-Japan-Australia strategic
alignment and security cooperation over the next 15 years. India’s economic growth is impressive, and could substantially improve with better governance and economic reform. India shares a democratic political

system with the United States and Japan, but its international ambitions and diplomatic capacities are likely to remain limited for the foreseeable future. Both Japan and the U nited S tates
are increasing security and economic cooperation with India, complemented by enhanced trilateral strategic dialogue and joint military
exercises, such as the annual Malabar exercise hosted by India. India’s non-aligned tradition will likely prevent mutual security commitments, but opportunities for security cooperation have expanded and are

Europe has an important role to play in Asia’s security landscape and should ideally be coordinating more with the
likely to continue to do so over the coming years.

United States and Japan in forging a common approach to “grey zone” challenges , whether they are in Eastern Europe or the East China
Sea. However, many European capitals view Asia through the lens of economic cooperation with China and show little inclination to oppose Beijing’s territorial ambitions, aggressive mercantile behavior, or
repression of dissent. China, meanwhile, finds it increasingly easy to divide Europe and put pressure on individual member states. The United Kingdom’s surprise announcement that it would join the AIIB in 2015
provides an example of how important it is for the United States and Japan to convince European allies that they too have a stake in the security order in Asia. At the same time, Japan’s new security cooperation

Terrorism The
agreements with the United Kingdom and France point to the potential for greater alignment between the Atlantic and Pacific allies on challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region.

threat from violent extremist Islamic organizations shows no sign of diminishing over the next 15 years.
Originating in the Middle East, some of these organizations have spread through North Africa, South Asia, and into Southeast Asia. These organizations draw sympathizers, often inspired by
global social media, from among minority populations in developed countries in Europe, North America, and Asia. These organizations change names, and new leaders emerge. They have grandiose ambitions to

they plan and inspire terrorist

establish new Muslim states, such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant; they control territory, as does Boko Haram in Nigeria; and

attacks in countries with both Islamic and secular governments around the world . Although the actual number of
victims of terrorist attacks is relatively small, the random nature of these attacks and the intense media coverage substantially impact policies in developed countries. Most governments in the world oppose these groups, but have varying degrees of capacity to
confront them, and cooperation is hampered by suspicion and policy differences in other areas. Reducing this threat will depend on a combination of military and law enforcement measures against the radical elements, improvement of governance and economic
progress in countries in which social conditions give rise to support for these radical organizations, and developments within Islamic communities that further discredit terrorism as a legitimate action. Cyber The cyber domain will become increasingly important
through 2030 as the Internet continues to grow and take on more important functions. The “Internet of things” and Internet Protocol Version 6 will dramatically increase the size of the Internet. Nationally sponsored cyber attacks on public and private companies in
other countries have occurred, and it will be a major challenge to agree on limiting these attacks short of war. Cyber espionage is also growing rapidly, and there are differences among major countries in their choice of targets and techniques. It is a short step from
cyber espionage to cyber attacks, and the lack of international understanding and agreement is potentially dangerous. The North Korean and Russian regimes both appear to have used the Internet to strike at targets in for eign countries, including the United States.
The United States, Japan, and other advanced industrial countries have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in intellectual property to commercial cyber espionage, in many cases aided and abetted by authoritarian regimes. Cybercrime is another widespread and
complex issue that should bring the major nations together in a common cause, at least for activities that they all consider to be criminal. A final unresolved international cyber issue is the degree of control over the Internet. China, Russia, and other authoritarian

the United States and Japan favor an open Internet

countries insist that their sovereignty extends beyond network facilities on their territory, while

driven by private sector cooperative efforts. Despite the growing dependence of all countries on a functioning Internet, the major powers have not agreed formally or infor mally on principles
to outlaw, prevent, or deter major cyber war—large-scale government-sponsored attacks on the power grids, transportation systems, or other critical infrastructure of another country. The link between cyber space and outer space also merits further attention.
Additionally, major states have failed to establish and uphold rules and norms for economic espionage in cyber space. In both the United States and Japan, government organizations and responsibilities for protecting government networks are relatively recent and
in the developmental stage. A legal and effective relationship between government and the private sector—inventor and operator of most of the important networks—has not yet been firmly established in either country. Moreover, both countries face a significant
shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals. The Commission calls special attention to the vulnerabilities that might be introduced into Japan’s electric grid and power generation system as it plans for fundamental restructuring of the ownership and operating
structures of this critical network. Electric power generation and distribution networks are truly fundamental critical infrastructure. Every other infrastructure system (for example, rail transportation, fuel pumps for gasoline refueling stations, signal systems for
road and rail networks, etc.) ultimately depends on reliable electric power supplies. The critical nodes of a nation’s electrical system (transformers, switching stations, generation plants, etc.) are controlled by computers. Cyber disruption of those computers could

The space domain will also be increasingly important to Japan and

damage or destroy essential components of a national power network. Space

the U nited S tates through 2030, for both economic prosperity and national security. In 2014, China and Russia between them conducted almost
twice as many space launches as the United States and Japan combined. As space has become more crowded, it has also become more

contested. China’s a nti sat ellite test in 2007 made clear the risks that kinetic weapons pose to civilian and
military satellites. That test produced more than 2,600 pieces of large debris (greater than 10 centimeters) and
at least 150,000 pieces of small debris (greater than 1 centimeter), the vast majority of which are in orbits projected to last a decade
or longer. Other threats to satellites, such as jamming, high-powered microwaves, and laser
blinding, can threaten satellites in a wider range of orbits. The threat to satellites in orbit is
growing . The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits nuclear weapons in space and contains a general exhortation against other hostile space activities, but has had little effect on the development of anti-
satellite weapons. By 2030, China will become as dependent on satellites for both military and commercial

purposes as the U nited S tates, Japan , and other advanced countries. Therefore, it may be possible to reach
understandings , if not treaties , concerning the regulation of hostile activities in
space .
Arms Race Adv
 No Solvency---Nuke Posture---1NC
No solvency---nuke posture drives arms racing----Russia’s demand for
legally binding guarantees is a symptom of a larger problem.
Samuel Charap 11. **Director for Russia and Eurasia at the Center for American Progress.
**Mikhail Troitskiy is an adjunct professor at the Moscow State Institute of International
Relations. "Beyond Mutually Assured Destruction." Center for American Progress. 7-6-2011.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2011/07/06/10043/beyond-
mutually-assured-destruction/
Among emerging challenges to international security, the threats posed by potential proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies would seem to be one that would unite the
U nited S tates, its NATO allies, and Russia. Yet , as the distinctly downbeat statements that
came out of Monday’s NATO-Russia Council meeting on missile defense in Sochi seem to
demonstrate, somehow the prospect of working together to counter these threats—or more
specifically, the prospect that a ballistic missile from the Middle East would strike Europe—is driving Washington and
Moscow apart . Recent pronouncements of senior officials lead one to believe that the dispute
centers on legal reassurances that Russia wants and the U nited S tates and NATO refuse
to provide. But the fundamental reason for the missile defense dispute lies in the
continuation of Cold-War-era nuclear postures on both sides .
For those states that maintain them, nuclear weapons are generally considered a deterrent against potential adversaries. Leaders
wager that the catastrophic impact of a nuclear response would prevent another country from attacking. But U.S.-Russia
deterrence is a product of Cold War-era planning that imagined a worst-case scenario where one
side developed the capacity to neutralize the other side’s entire arsenal by targeting it with a
decisive first strike. Thus came the arms race , which ended when both sides put mutually verifiable binding
limits on numbers of warheads, as well as the means of defending against them (i.e., the 1972 antiballistic missile, or ABM, treaty).
These agreements established the infamous mutually assured destruction, or MAD, by ensuring that one side would retain the
capacity to launch a counterattack (known as a “second strike capability”) even if the other started a war with a massive nuclear first
strike. Washington and Moscow still follow doctrines that define "strategic stability" as MAD despite the fact that this notion of
stability was created at a time when Moscow was the capital of an ideological, expansionist superpower that was engaged in a global
competition with the United States.
It is hard to believe that two indispensable international actors should seek to bolster their security through a mutual posture as
detached from current realities as MAD. Does it really make sense for Washington or Moscow to prepare for the other’s massive first
strike aimed at preventively destroying its nuclear arsenal? Could either country’s polity ever tolerate such an action? Outside of the
Cold War context, how could a political leader in either country justify the prospect of even one warhead hitting a densely populated
city in order to justify an all-out missile attack?
It is still this kind of worst-case scenario thinking that motivates Russia’s objections to
the Obama-era U.S. missile defense plan, known as the European Phased-Adaptive Approach, or EPAA , which
by 2020 will have some capability against intercontinental missiles . The United States and NATO
propose cooperation, saying that joint work on missile defense will provide Moscow the information it needs to be sure that the
system won’t mitigate Russia’s second strike capabilities. Russia agrees to the cooperation, but only on the

condition that the U nited S tates provide legally binding guarantees that the system
won’t have the capacity to shoot down Russian ICBMs—guarantees that have no chance of
passing the U.S. Senate .
MAD logic is at the core of this dispute: Russia is asking for assurances that even after a hypothetical U.S.
first strike it will maintain the ability to launch a devastating counterattack unhindered by U.S.
missile defenses. This Cold-War-era concept of stability still holds because political leaders in
Washington and Moscow have not instructed their planners to modernize obsolete paradigms .
Ironically, it was the George W. Bush administration that made the first decisive—if unilateral—moves away from MAD even though
it was generally averse to arms control. President Bush abrogated the ABM treaty and then signed an arms control deal with Moscow
that essentially codified what the United States was planning on doing anyway while offering no verification mechanisms to ensure
compliance and build confidence. Essentially, these steps amounted to one side declaring MAD irrelevant without consideration of
the impact on the other side’s concept of stability.
New START, the strategic arms reduction treaty with comprehensive inspection and verification regimes that was signed by
Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev in April 2010 and entered into force in February 2011, returned us to the status quo
ante on offensive weapon limitations. But the combination of the lack of binding limits on defensive systems and the continuation of
Cold War-era worst-case scenario planning lead both sides to hedge against the risks that future political leaders might engage in
brinkmanship. So the Russian officials’ demands for legally binding guarantees on
European missile defense , unrealistic though they may be, are no less illogical than
the U.S. worst-case scenario planning that imagines a Russian first strike.
So what to do? Moscow and Washington should certainly continue to try to find a way out of the present dispute—perhaps through a
statement from NATO approved by all allies about the intentions behind the EPAA clarifying that it is meant to respond to the
missile threats from the Middle East and not blunt Russia’s strategic deterrent. Such a statement might not be a legally binding
treaty, but changing it would require consensus among NATO allies, while it only takes a U.S. president’s signature to get out of a
bilateral treaty.
But in parallel they should also seek to redefine "strategic stability" in U.S.-Russia relations for the 21st century.
Mutually assured destruction created stability between irreconcilable geopolitical rivals. Worst-case scenario war planning following
incidents like the Cuban Missile Crisis was perhaps inevitable. Today, Washington and Moscow certainly don’t see eye-to-eye on
every issue, but the fundamental divergences that made MAD seem sane no longer exist. Moreover, should the two largest nuclear-
armed powers continue to insist that stability is only possible under MAD, other nuclear-armed states, including nonsignatories of
the Non-Proliferation Treaty, will have an easy pretext to engage into mutually reinforcing arms build-ups.
Getting out of this impasse requires creative thinking and unconventional solutions. So in parallel to the in-the-weeds NATO-Russia
talks on missile defense like the ones that ended on Monday, senior policymakers in both countries need to sit down together and
think long and hard about a new framework for stability that will provide for their respective countries’ security needs while not
locking themselves into an outdated MAD logic.
Having done that, both countries could undertake steps aimed at overcoming the logic of mutually assured destruction. The steps

need not come as a negotiated treaty , but rather as unilateral , coordinated moves
toward a shared goal.
Doing away with MAD logic does not require the elimination of nuclear weapons. Nuclear-armed
states, including the United States and Russia, will continue to maintain their arsenals as long as others do. Their nuclear arsenals
will continue to deter others from aggression. But outgrowing a 20th-century relic of mutual assured destruction has long ago
become a must for the two largest stakeholders in nuclear stability.
 No Solvency---Tech---1NC
Game changing tech zero solvency---Russia fears developments
beyond midcourse interception, which the plan can’t topically nor
feasibly resolve.
Charles D. Ferguson 17. **President of FAS; graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the
Naval Nuclear Power School; Ph.D. in physics from Boston University. **Bruce W. MacDonald
is the Adjunct Senior Fellow for National Security Technology at FAS; master’s degree in
aerospace engineering and master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University. “Nuclear
Dynamics In a Multipolar Strategic Ballistic Missile Defense World.” Federation of American
Scientists. July 2017. https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/media/Nuclear-Dynamics-In-A-
Multipolar-Strategic-Ballistic-Missile-Defense-World.pdf
Russia has demanded “legally-binding” limitations on U.S. BMD capabilities. While the
U nited S tates has not wanted to provide such an agreement, numerous U.S. officials have tried
explaining to their Russian counterparts that the U.S. BMD systems are neither directed
against Russia nor effective in shooting down Russian ballistic missiles.85 Despite these clear
U.S. political statements and “limited” deployments , Russia and China remain
concerned about the impact of U.S. BMD on their strategic deterrents. Their main concerns
are not current U.S. BMD systems, but the development of “ game changing” tech nologies in the future and
advanced systems in the future, as we discuss below. But even with the current type of hit-to-kill kinetic interceptors, which the
United States has deployed only 44 strategic BMD interceptors over the last 13 years, Russia and China are concerned that there is
nothing to stop the United States from deploying far more than this modest number in the coming years to decades. As we have
noted previously, this possibility pressures China more than Russia because of China’s much smaller sized nuclear arsenal.
At least two fields of game changing BMD technology could exacerbate strategic and
crisis instability among the U nited S tates, Russia , and China:
1. The development of non-kinetic, high-energy weapons would allow both rapid and low-
cost , multi-shot capabilities . This could enable higher kill capability against incoming
warheads, as opposed to relying upon slower-moving interceptor missiles
with kinetic kill vehicles . Solid-state lasers are already finding some important tactical applications and may be
relevant to BMD, as well. Development of tactical high-energy lasers is already well along , and
adaptive optics and related technologies could be used to apply them to strategic BMD, for example.
Boost-phase intercepts might be possible using high-energy laser systems carried on
u nmanned a erial v ehicles.86
2. The set of concepts referred to as “left-of-launch” techniques could prevent missiles from
even being launched by disrupting, disabling, or destroying them. Cyber options are examples of these
techniques, where a cyberattack could seriously compromise an adversary’s ability to launch its
ballistic missiles. This type of action was reportedly already used against North Korean missile
launches.87
A particular challenge of the second approach is that it would likely be exceptionally difficult for a country to determine how effective
such a left-of-launch technique would be, as such capabilities would be very difficult to even qualitatively estimate, much less
quantitatively estimate. Furthermore, it would be hard to design a regime that would limit or control such
an approach if successfully developed, as verification would be extremely challenging if
accomplished through cyber means . Chinese experts during discussions about this new development commented
that they believed that left-of-launch techniques would be destabilizing.88 One American expert argued that it could place China in a
dilemma of use or lose during a crisis.89 Also, there would be substantial uncertainty about whether all
missiles could be destroyed or disabled prior to launch.
In conclusion of this section, we underscore that even if the U nited S tates were to agree to some modest
limits to traditional BMD deployments, Russian and Chinese anxieties would likely
remain . To hedge against this major uncertainty , countries could either increase their
offensive missile forces or diversify their offenses to put more emphasis on bombers and cruise
missiles, though a left-of-launch breakthrough could potentially affect such air-breathing capabilities as well as
ballistic missiles.
 No Arms Race---1NC
No Russian arms racing---financial constraints.
Alec Luhn 18. Reporter at the Telegraph. "Putin threatens arms race if US walks away from
nuclear weapons treaty." 12/5/18. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/05/putin-
threatens-arms-race-us-walks-arms-treaty/
But Moscow-based defence analyst Dmitry Kornev said Russia, which has been hit by sanctions and lower oil
prices, would have difficulty funding the development of new mid-range missiles . The
SSC-8 has a flight time of several hours compared to just minutes for ballistic missiles. “It's a new round of the arms
race,” he said. “These missiles don't exist now, we will have to create them, and it's a heavy financial burden .” “A
definite loser is Europe, a definite loser is Russia , and for the U nited S tates the situation
won't change , the number of warheads targeting US territory won't increase,” he added. The latest back-and-forth over the
INF treaty comes amid high tensions after Russia seized three Ukrainian ships off Crimea and deployed anti-ship and anti-air
missiles to the peninsula, which it annexed in 2014. Ukraine has declared martial law and has called up military reservists, claiming
that Russia has been building up troops for a potential ground invasion. The deployment of the new Russian laser
system announced on Tuesday, while surely meant to intimidate Western adversaries, won't change the
balance of power .
Space Arms Adv
 No Space Miscalc---1NC
No miscalc or escalation
James Pavur 19, Professor of Computer Science Department of Computer Science at Oxford
University and Ivan Martinovic, DPhil Researcher Cybersecurity Centre for Doctoral Training at
Oxford University, “The Cyber-ASAT: On the Impact of Cyber Weapons in Outer Space”, 2019
11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict: Silent Battle T. Minárik, S. Alatalu, S. Biondi,
M. Signoretti, I. Tolga, G. Visky (Eds.), https://ccdcoe.org/uploads/2019/06/Art_12_The-
Cyber-ASAT.pdf
A. Limited Accessibility Space is difficult. Over 60 years have passed since the first Sputnik launch and only nine countries (ten
including the EU) have orbital launch capabilities. Moreover, a launch programme alone does not guarantee the
resources and precision required to operate a meaningful ASAT capability . Given this,
one possible reason why space wars have not broken out is simply because only the US has ever had
the ability to fight one [21, p. 402], [22, pp. 419–420]. Although launch technology may become cheaper
and easier, it is unclear to what extent these advances will be distributed among presently non-
spacefaring nations. Limited access to orbit necessarily reduces the scenarios which could
plausibly escalate to ASAT usage. Only major conflicts between the handful of states with ‘space club’ membership could
be considered possible flashpoints. Even then, the fragility of an attacker’s own space assets creates
de-escalatory pressures due to the deterrent effect of retaliation . Since the earliest days of
the space race, dominant powers have recognized this dynamic and demonstrated an inclination
towards de-escalatory space strategies [23]. B. Attributable Norms There also exists a long-
standing normative framework favouring the peaceful use of space . The effectiveness of this
regime, centred around the Outer Space Treaty ( OST ), is highly contentious and many have pointed out its serious legal and
political shortcomings [24]–[26]. Nevertheless, this status quo framework has somehow supported over six decades
of relative peace in orbit. Over these six decades, norms have become deeply ingrained into
the way states describe and perceive space weaponization. This de facto codification was dramatically
demonstrated in 2005 when the US found itself on the short end of a 160-1 UN vote after opposing a non-binding resolution on
space weaponization. Although states have occasionally pushed the boundaries of these norms, this has
typically occurred through incremental legal re-interpretation rather than outright opposition [27]. Even the
most notable incidents, such as the 2007-2008 US and Chinese ASAT demonstrations, were couched in rhetoric from both the norm
states
violators and defenders, depicting space as a peaceful global commons [27, p. 56]. Altogether, this suggests that
perceive real costs to breaking this normative tradition and may even moderate their
behaviours accordingly. One further factor supporting this norms regime is the high degree of
attributability surrounding ASAT weapons. For kinetic ASAT technology, plausible deniability
and stealth are essentially impossible . The literally explosive act of launching a rocket cannot evade detection
and, if used offensively, retaliation. This imposes high diplomatic costs on ASAT usage and testing,
particularly during peacetime. C. Environmental Interdependence A third stabilizing force relates to the orbital
debris consequences of ASATs. China’s 2007 ASAT demonstration was the largest debris-generating event in history,
as the targeted satellite dissipated into thousands of dangerous debris particles [28, p. 4]. Since debris particles are
indiscriminate and unpredictable, they often threaten the attacker’s own space assets [22, p. 420].
This is compounded by Kessler syndrome, a phenomenon whereby orbital debris ‘breeds’ as large pieces of debris collide and
disintegrate. As space debris remains in orbit for hundreds of years, the cascade effect of an ASAT attack can
constrain the attacker’s long-term use of space [29, pp. 295– 296]. Any state with kinetic ASAT capabilities will
likely also operate satellites of its own, and they are necessarily exposed to this collateral damage threat. Space debris thus
acts as a strong strategic deterrent to ASAT usage.
 AT Russia War
Russia won’t escalate – MAD & hyperbole
Shepp 18 – Writer & Editor for NY Mag and RCP [Jonah Shepp, Are Putin’s New Nukes a
Real Threat?, MAR. 4 18, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/are-putins-new-
nukes-a-real-threat.html]
As terrifying as the thought of nuclear-armed drones and “invincible” nuclear missiles may be, these revelations don’t actually
change the balance of power between Russia and the U.S. in any meaningful way. For one thing, the
Pentagon was already aware that Russia was developing some of these technologies, as indicated in the
nuclear posture review ordered by President Donald Trump last year and published in January. The supposed threat
posed by Russia’s military innovations are part of the justification for the new sea-based nukes the
Trump administration wants to develop, as well as Trump’s stated desire to spend $1.2 trillion modernizing and expanding the
U.S. nuclear arsenal. The key bit of context to keep in mind here is that the U.S. and Russia both possess
enough atomic firepower that a nuclear exchange between them would wipe both countries off the
map and basically cause the collapse of human civilization as we know it. If Putin wanted to nuke Florida — as in an
animation he showed during his address that State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert described as “cheesy” — he
already had the means to do so. His new gadgets don’t really make any difference in that regard. The ability to elude U.S.
and NATO defenses also sounds like a scarier feature than it really is, because these defenses are incredibly easy to elude. Ballistic
missile defense systems perform spottily even under ideal test conditions and provide more the illusion of safety than safety itself.
Even if a THAAD battery can knock down one or two incoming ballistic missiles, stopping dozens of them is a much taller order that
That’s why the cornerstone of the U.S.’s nuclear
current antiballistic missile technology can’t handle.
defense strategy remains the promise of massive retaliation in the event of an attack. In any
case, a direct hit on Mar-a-Lago isn’t the kind of Russian nuclear mischief the administration is worried about. Putin stressed on
Thursday that these new nuclear deployment systems were designed with defensive purposes in mind and that Russia would never
launch a nuclear first strike. He’s probably not lying about that. For all his megalomaniacal tendencies, Putin
surely has the presence of mind to understand that starting a nuclear war, particularly against the U.S.,
is guaranteed to end catastrophically and that his billions of dollars won’t be worth much in the post-apocalypse.
Rather, what the Trump administration fears is a supposed Russian doctrine known as “escalate to de-
escalate,” wherein Moscow would either threaten or actually carry out a low-yield nuclear strike as part of a conventional conflict
in its own backyard, betting that NATO would decide that avenging the loss of, say, Tallinn wasn’t worth ending the world after all.
This doctrine appears nowhere, however, in Russia’s published military strategy , in its
large-scale military exercises, or in public statements from its officials, leading arms control experts like Bruno Tertrais
and Michael Krepon to doubt that it really exists outside the fever dreams of American
hawks and Russian neo-fascist revisionists. The notion of Russia crossing the
nuclear threshold with the hope of de-escalating a conventional conflict is
probably as absurd as it sounds .
2NC
Politics DA
 Overview---2NC
Independently---removal spurs a quick Russian first strike.
Dave Hodges 10-26. Professor at Grand Canyon University, holds an M.C. at University of
Phoenix, faculty member at Rio Salado College. 10-26-2019. "The Impeachment or
Assassination of Trump Means World War III with Russia and China." The Common Sense
Show. https://thecommonsenseshow.com/activism-martial-law-religion/impeachment-or-
assassination-trump-means-world-war-iii-russia-and-china
Putin needs for Trump to stay free and independent from the New World Order. Together, the nations could combine forces and
defeat anything that UN can offer. However, if the United States falls to globalist-inspired Deep State interests and Trump is
deposed , Russia will combine its forces with China and attack the U nited S tates.
Impeachment or assassination means World War III . How Close We Came to World War III in 2016 I am
still shuddering at how close we came to nuclear war with Russia. A Hillary Clinton election would have guaranteed nuclear war with
Russia. In the present-day climate, if Trump is deposed, or assassinated, this guarantees a war with Russia. Deep inside sources that
I was speaking on the last night before the election, believe that Russia
was days away from launching a nuclear
first strike against the U nited S tates. One source I spoke with said that there was no way that Putin was not under
intense pressure to launch a first strike given what was going on, as the polls were predicting a Clinton victory with a 4-
8% margin of victory in the 2016 election. NATO's build up in the Baltics and directly on Russia's
borders, the relentless cyber-attacks , launced by Obama on the days before the election, in what appeared to be a
preliminary move to to disable Russia's command and control were extremely provocative and
seemed to be inviting some kind of show of force by Putin to back down the United States, at minimum, or to go to full scale war, at
the maximum. The universal thinking was that Putin was awaiting election results . There is no
question that the election of Clinton would have meant war. There was no way Putin was going to wait for Clinton to impose her
no-fly zone in Syria and start WW III on America's terms which she promised to do in debate #2. Any expert
that I have spoken with, and I mean 100% of them, said we would have been attacked well before
inauguration day and it most likely would have been nuclear . If Trump is deposed, this leads to an
easy victory by Clinton against a compromised and impotent Pence. If Pence and Trump are both removed from office,
Pelosi becomes President, she appoints Hillary, resigns and Hillary becomes President. In either scenario, there is clear
evidence that Putin is preparing to launch a first strike against the U nited S tates interests in both
the Middle East and here at home . The CSS researcher, Marilyn Rupar, sent me documentation that the
Russians are landing nuclear bombers in South Africa . Pastor Abri Brancken has sent me the same
information, a day before i which the information was reported on by local African media. We have not seen a word of this in
Western media. The message , again, is clear , Putin will launch a first strike if he faces the possibility of facing-off
against a Deep State controlled Democrat. The removal of Trump guarantees World War III . I
frequently hear the following: Russia is a Christian nation. Putin is good Christian man. Russia only wants to defend its borders.
Putin is the only obstacle between the New World Order and the people of the world. Perhaps this is true, but Putin is indeed
preparing to start World War III and he has been for the past four years. This could be a war that will kill billions ,
destroy nations and threaten all of humanity . And all that is needed to trigger this war is a Hillary Clinton
Presidency!

Link alone turns the case---fiat doesn’t shield because this argument
is about the defecting minority
David Parker 19. PhD. US Foreign Policy Towards Russia in the Post-Cold War Era. “US
Foreign Policy Towards Russia in the Post-Cold War Era,” Kindle Edition
Cross-case study findings Looking across the span of the three cases, several themes emerge beyond the
findings and data highlighted above. One key finding is the importance of domestic level actors, motivated by
Cold War understandings, on US—Russian relations. This is so in broad terms addressed in wider literature, such as the
importance of the CEE electoral vote. It is also evident in four other distinct ways. First, as the NST case outlined, the Cold War-
informed ideas and perceptions
of Russia held by domestic actors, in that case Congress, limited what
negotiation and cooperation was possible with Russia — with actors rejecting any meaningful cooperation on missile
defence and limiting the scope of the reset — as well as influencing the administration's discourse to secure ratification. This was
also evident in the NATO case study, where Republican views of Russia meant that the administration had to harden their
framings of Russia to secure ratification. Second, domestic groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, provided expert advice that
reinforced Cold War ideas and imagery and maintained the prevalence of the Cold War in political culture. This was discernible in all
three cases. Third, institutionalised expertise of how to deal with, and manage relations, with Russia have the capacity to

undermine presidential efforts to improve relations . This was apparent in

both the democracy promotion and NST case studies. Finally, anti-Russian
narratives, even if not
representative of the administration, contributed to wider messaging towards Russia that
influenced Russian perceptions of the wider US political community's perceptions. For example,
leading Russian officials responded negatively to the reports and activities of Freedom House whilst Russian NST
negotiators raised the critical comments made by Republican Senators with US officials.
 AT: Takes time
“Should” requires immediate legal effect.
Summers 94 Justice – Oklahoma Supreme Court, “Kelsey v. Dollarsaver Food Warehouse
of Durant”, 1994 OK 123, 11-8,
http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=20287#marker3fn13
¶4 The legal question to be resolved by the court is whether the word "should" 13 in the May 18 order

connotes futurity or may be deemed a ruling in praesenti.14 The answer to this query is not to be divined from rules of
grammar;15 it must be governed by the age-old practice culture of legal professionals and its immemorial language usage. To
determine if the omission (from the critical May 18 entry) of the turgid phrase, "and the same hereby is", (1) makes it an in futuro
ruling - i.e., an expression of what the judge will or would do at a later stage - or (2) constitutes an in in praesenti resolution of a
disputed law issue, the trial judge's intent must be garnered from the four corners of the entire record.16 [CONTINUES – TO
FOOTNOTE] 13 "Should" not only is used as a "present indicative" synonymous with ought but also is the past tense of "shall" with
various shades of meaning not always easy to analyze. See 57 C.J. Shall § 9, Judgments § 121 (1932). O. JESPERSEN, GROWTH
AND STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1984); St. Louis & S.F.R. Co. v. Brown, 45 Okl. 143, 144 P. 1075, 1080-81
(1914). For a more detailed explanation, see the Partridge quotation infra note 15. Certain contexts mandate a
construction of the term "should" as more than merely indicating preference or desirability. Brown,
supra at 1080-81 (jury instructions stating that jurors "should" reduce the amount of damages in proportion to the amount of
contributory negligence of the plaintiff was held to imply an obligation and to be more than advisory); Carrigan v. California Horse
Racing Board, 60 Wash. App. 79, 802 P.2d 813 (1990) (one of the Rules of Appellate Procedure requiring that a party "should devote
a section of the brief to the request for the fee or expenses" was interpreted to mean that a party is under an obligation to include the
requested segment); State v. Rack, 318 S.W.2d 211, 215 (Mo. 1958) ("should" would mean the same as "shall" or
"must" when used in an instruction to the jury which tells the triers they "should disregard false testimony"). 14 In praesenti
means literally "at the present time." BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 792 (6th Ed. 1990). In legal parlance the phrase
denotes that which in law is presently or immediately effective , as opposed to something that will or
would become effective in the future [in futurol]. See Van Wyck v. Knevals, 106 U.S. 360, 365, 1 S.Ct. 336, 337, 27
L.Ed. 201 (1882).

Republicans hate the plan

Jeffrey Mankoff 18. Visiting Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Washington D.C. " US Congress After Midterms: Looking Tough on Russia ". Valdai
Club. 11-23-2018. http://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/us-congress-after-midterms-looking-
tough-on-russia/
Ever since the 2016 election, relations with Russia have deeply divided
Republicans and Democrats—even though Congress has given bipartisan support to
multiple rounds of sanctions. Because of Trump’s support for better relations with Russia, many
Republicans (especially outside of Congress) have questioned the narrative of Russian interference in the
2016 election and opposed the push for sanctions. Their position is becoming less tenable. Between the
Democratic gains and the approaching climax of the Mueller investigation, U.S. policy toward Russia
is likely, if anything, to become more confrontational in the short-medium term .
Many Democrats are still angry at what they perceive as Russian support for Trump in 2016 and
continued Russian support for right-wing groups and causes in the United States. Republicans,
meanwhile, will have a narrow path to tread; while they still want to avoid crossing Trump, elected Republicans will mostly be
looking out for their own interests and re-election prospects. That means taking seriously any charges that emerge from the Mueller
investigation, and likely continuing to support sanctions legislation. To the extent the investigation creates political

problems for Trump, the best path for Congressional Republicans is to look
tough on Russia in the hope of avoiding blame by association. The new year is likely to
prove difficult for Trump, and for U.S.-Russia relations .
That’s uniquely key to getting Republicans to consider removal
Peter Harris 9-26. assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University, "The
Only Way the Democrats Impeachment Gambit Can Hurt Donald Trump". The National
Interest. 9-26-2019. https://nationalinterest.org/print/feature/only-way-democrats-
impeachment-gambit-can-hurt-donald-trump-83576
Framing impeachment as a national security requirement has great potential for the Democrats.
Whereas the mere prospect of impeachment will be enough to excite the Democratic base, it is the logic and language of
national security that has the potential to broaden the appeal of impeachment proceedings in a
way that invites the vocal support of a bipartisan coalition : not just the usual chorus of
“Never Trump” Republicans, but also national security experts, media organizations, and,
ideally, some current GOP officials . If the Democrats can remain united on the question
of impeachment, they have every chance of succeeding in the House of Representatives. Of course,
this does not mean that the Senate will convict; all indications are that Mitch McConnell and his colleagues will stand by their man.
Unless party unity breaks down in some unexpected fashion, then, President Trump will probably still be on the ballot in November
2020. This is why it is so important for the Democrats to win the contest over what’s at stake. President Trump cannot be
allowed to frame his reelection bid as a fight against a corrupt and anti-democratic political
establishment , which never accepted his election and has always sought to undermine him. He
must, instead, be forced to run for reelection under the cloud of serious concerns about his suitability to safeguard national security.
So too must Republican candidates for the House and Senate be forced to defend their support for a President accused of such gross
malpractice. Making impeachment about national security will not just saddle Trump and the
Republicans with a heavy burden. It will also positively benefit Democrats . This will be especially
important for the eventual nominee, whose flank will be protected against a President who might otherwise have wrapped himself in
the mantle of militarism and sold himself as a hawkish defender of strict national interests. Down ballot, the specter of a
national security exigency will benefit moderate Democrats who will have the opportunity to
cast themselves as supporting impeachment with heavy hearts, not gleeful and vindictive political hacks but
somber custodians of national safety. Of course, the above scenario entirely hinges upon the Democrats
successfully framing impeachment as a core issue of national security. This might not be a
slam dunk . Some voters might be open to the suggestion that, in fact, what happens in Eastern
Europe is far removed from U.S. national security ; that even if President Trump did threaten to withhold
military aid to Ukraine, it is a stretch to conclude that this placed American lives in danger. Much will depend on how Republicans
and their supporters in the news media choose to defend the President. Will they deny, justify, or deflect? After all, Trump’s
supporters have managed to put out fires before. They might be able to do so again. It is also possible that new information will come
to light that appears to exonerate Trump in the court of public opinion. Another risk is that the Democrats will
overreach by succumbing to the temptation to widen their impeachment inquiry beyond
national security concerns. This would be a mistake. The narrative that Trump is corrupt ,
incompetent, reckless, and guilty of breaking domestic laws is nothing new—and so building a case for
impeachment along these lines would probably backfire and leave the Democrats looking weak,
narrowly partisan, and opportunistic. For their impeachment gambit to pay off, the Democrats
need to establish in the minds of the general public that the President has put the
national security of the U nited S tates in jeopardy and that he might do it again. Only
this allegation has the potential to transcend party politics and place an unbearable
strain up Trump, the Republicans, and wavering voters.
 UQ---AT: Removal Impossible---2NC
2. Threshold is low---a few defections set off Trump’s worst fears
Bill Powell 11-15. Senior writer for Newsweek and Time. "Could the Senate convict Donald
Trump? Here's what Mitch McConnell worries about". Newsweek. 11-15-2019.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-impeachment-mitch-mcconnell-senate-1471897
Mitch McConnell has reason to worry—and that means Donald Trump does, too. To convict President
Trump of an impeachable offense, the Democrats have to muster a two-thirds vote in the Senate: at least 20 Republican
senators (and probably more like 22 because of expected Democratic defections) would have to break ranks. That
math sounds unforgiving , and it's true that the road to 67 votes is a narrow and bumpy one. But the Senate
majority leader and the White House fear that if more than a couple of GOP senators say they

intend to vote against Trump, there will be something of a traffic jam as Republican
senators turn against the president . For starters, it's no secret that some senators can't
stand Trump. Former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, famously a "never Trumper," said in September that if it were a
private vote, 35 senators would vote to oust the president . Utah Senator Mitt Romney stands out
among this group—and for Trump the feeling of disdain is distinctly mutual, never mind that during his transition the then-
president-elect actually interviewed the former GOP standard bearer for Secretary of State. Romney recently called Trump's
interactions with Ukraine's president "appalling." Trump called Romney "a pompous ass" on Twitter. Though Romney has said he
has an open mind and will see where the facts take him, Trump vote-counters already assume his vote is lost. The White
House—and McConnell—have their eyes on two senators in particular: Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa
Murkowski of Alaska. They are no fans of the president. Murkowski famously voted against the bill repealing Obamacare in
2017, thus helping save it and dealing Trump a bitter defeat. Collins, who is up for reelection in what is expected to be a close race
next year, has repeatedly criticized Trump. She said he "made a big mistake" asking Beijing to investigate Hunter Biden's business
dealings there and called for the president to retract a tweet in which he compared the House impeachment investigation to a
"lynching." McConnell is worried their votes are not safe. In fact, in his role as Trump's sherpa—the calm hand who
knows better than anyone how to count his caucus' votes—McConnell counseled the president to call Murkowski and pledge to work
with her on an ambitious energy bill that the Alaska senator has been pushing for three years. He also told Trump to knock off the
juvenile name-calling of Mitt Romney, which other senators found distasteful. "[McConnell] has stressed to the president that he
thinks he can keep the caucus together, but Trump needs to help," says a Senate source familiar with McConnell's thinking. "He can't
just demand loyalty and expect to give nothing back. That's not how this is going to work." The passionate partisanship that has kept
Republicans aligned with Trump until now might work against the president and McConnell. University of Virginia political scientist
Larry Sabato notes that "the nationalization of politics—how people feel about the president—is bleeding down the ballot to an
extreme degree." In 2016, every state with a Senate race voted for the same party for senator and president—the first time that's
happened since 1912, when the era of popular voting for the Senate began. And as Sabato says, "impeachment may be the ultimate
nationalizing event" for Senate members. To understand the implications, consider the GOP senators up for reelection
in purple swing states: first-term Senators Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona and Joni Ernst of Iowa.
The first two are in races viewed as toss-ups; in Colorado Trump is deeply underwater and in Arizona only slightly less so. If the
nationalization thesis holds, it could be risky for Gardner and McSally to vote to acquit an increasingly
unpopular president. Impeachment road to 67 cover Cover illustration by Alex Fine for Newsweek. COVER ILLUSTRATION
BY ALEX FINE FOR NEWSWEEK. Senator Ernst at this point is a slight favorite to be re-elected in Iowa, but the race will be tricky.
Trump's trade war with China has hurt the state's agricultural sector. Ernst also, associates say, has complained about Trump's
boorishness: the hush money payments to a porn star, the Billy Bush "locker room talk" video. She publicly has been
supportive of Trump but privately isn't much of a fan. If she defects , it could prompt some
others —who are currently saying all the right things to the White House— to consider it, too . Tom Tillis of North
Carolina is in a race considered a toss up. Trump won North Carolina in 2016, but is no lock next year. This is the scenario
the Trump White House dreads , and for good reason . The risk is not, at this point, that enough GOP
senators will defect to oust him—at least not, again, based on what's currently known about the Ukraine affair. The risk is that even if
he's acquitted, he begins to look politically weak in his own party, becoming a drag on down-ballot candidates. RELATED STORIES
Trump Impeachment Has More Evidence Than Nixon Faced: Watergate Witness A Senate trial will be open and reasonably fair. It
will not look like the president is being railroaded. It will be presided over by John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and
the president's defense team will be allowed to cross examine hostile witnesses and call their own to testify. If, given that, several
GOP senators still end up voting for removal, Trump potentially is a dead man walking. "He won't just look weaker going into the
general election, he will be weaker," says a source close to McConnell. "If you get Joni Ernst and Martha McSalley, military veterans
both, voting against you, you've got trouble." Other GOP lawmakers are making their own calculations, driven by the ambivalence—
usually expressed only privately—that many Republicans in both the House and Senate feel about Trump. Unlike the president, most
are used to operating in traditional ways. The president's crassness, his chaotic White House, the recent sellout of the Kurdish
fighters in Syria, the "lunatic" effort to strong arm the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden, as one senior Senate staffer
describes it: all serve to make Republicans distinctly uncomfortable. There's an ideological factor at play as well. The vast majority of
GOP-ers in both House and Senate believe in longtime Republican policies like free trade and fiscal sobriety. The Tea Party elected
138 House members in 2010 largely as a protest against what was then viewed as out-of-control spending in Washington. In the
Trump era, free trade is dead and no one ever talks about spending. Republicans on the Hill feel as if they're "trapped" into
supporting Trump, says Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican who announced his intention to leave the GOP this summer.
Another GOP congressman, unwilling to speak on the record, says a big chunk of the party has been "lobotomized." "There are any
number of people up here who feel the same way, they're just not willing to say so publicly," he says. The reason for that is simple: as
politicians, they know how to read polls. And while in several recent polls a slim majority of Americans now
believe Trump should be removed from office, his support among Republican voters
remains rock solid . In a recent Fox News poll in which 51 percent favored his removal, only 16 percent of Republicans
did. Trump's overall approval rating was 86 percent among Republicans . Apostates within Trump's
GOP are not treated kindly. Ask Francis Rooney, a representative from Naples, Fla. Last month he gave a television interview in
which he equated Trump's Ukraine scandal with Watergate. "I'm very mindful of the fact that back during Watergate everybody said,
'Oh, it's a witch hunt to get Nixon.' Turns out it wasn't a witch hunt. It was absolutely correct." The backlash from his district was
swift, intense and stoked by a furious White House. Several constituents called his office and said if he wasn't prepared to support
the president he should stand down. The reaction stunned Rooney; so much so that the next day, he took the advice and announced
that he would not run for re-election next year. The episode, more than anything, showed "that this is not the Republican Party
anymore," says political scientist Sabato. "It's the Party of Trump." RELATED STORIES Donald Trump Impeachment Inquiry Latest
Updates McConnell has already spoken directly with the president on "multiple occasions" about the impeachment trial, according
to four Capitol Hill and White House sources. At this point, sources familiar with McConnell's thinking say, the majority leader does
not disagree with the conventional view of the forthcoming impeachment drama: the country's founders made it difficult to remove a
president. Based on his understanding of the facts surrounding the Ukraine affair, in which the president allegedly tried to leverage
military aid in return for a Ukrainian investigation into political rival Joe Biden and his son, McConnell believes there is little chance
Trump would be convicted in the Senate—particularly if a vote to impeach in the House proceeds strictly along partisan lines, which
is expected. McConnell, White House sources say, has told Trump that privately. He is said to be dismissive, too, of the charges
Democrats are likely to bring in the House that the Trump White House obstructed their investigation into the Ukraine matter.
Asked if Trump could be convicted, GOP Senate staffers answer with a standard caveat: "If all we know [about Ukraine-gate] is out
there now, and nothing new emerges or happens, then no, he would be acquitted," says one staff member of the Senate Judiciary
Committee. The bottom line, for them, is that the military aid money ultimately flowed to Ukraine, and the government in Kiev
never investigated the Bidens. Trump's alleged intervention in the affair ended up being of no consequence, and the idea "that this
amounts to an impeachable offense is a joke," as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham puts it. But with Trump, this source
acknowledges, "you never know." After all, it was just one day after Robert Mueller's Congressional
testimony about so-called Russian collusion—which buried Democratic dreams of impeaching Trump on that issue—that the
phone call between the president and his Ukrainian counterpart took place. An impeachment is fluid.
Things may not proceed precisely as the political pros believe they will. If Trump loses key votes of support in
swing states he needs to win the election, how nervous will the party get ? Is it possible enough
senators get so nervous they go to the White House and ask that Trump resign, rather than have to put lawmakers on record voting
for or against him? Might a weak president put the GOP's hold on the Senate at risk next November? As of now, the president's
rock-solid GOP polls make that seem unlikely, and the Trump base would be enraged and
very unlikely to vote for Mike Pence, Nikki Haley or anyone else who might gain the nomination in
Trump's wake. Trump may survive and even flourish, much as Bill Clinton did after the GOP's misguided impeachment effort
in 1998. But it isn't a lock . Trump's election upended all political norms and expectations; his
impeachment trial is likely to do the same.

3. Defections set the dominos into motion---they’ll remove if they

think Trump can’t be controlled.
Douglas Mackinnon 12-14, political and communications consultant and author, was a
writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and former
special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of
the Bush administration. "Is a trap being set for Trump in the Senate trial?," 12-14-2019, The
Hill, https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/474242-is-a-trap-being-set-for-trump-in-the-
senate-trial.
Can 20 U.S. senators withstand the potentially irresistible temptation to reverse the results of the 2016
election and remove a president a number of them openly or privately dislike? Since Donald Trump
announced his intention to run for the White House on June 16, 2015, many of the entrenched elites across the various
power centers of Washington and beyond have spent many of their waking hours trying to stop or unseat him. The
political charade of an impeachment “investigation” is but the latest example. But that impeachment charade could harbor the
greatest threat to Trump’s presidency. Over the past week, I have heard from three seasoned Republicans who fear that
President Trump and the West Wing are seriously underestimating the potential danger
of a Senate trial . Human nature and common sense dictate that, despite the well-meaning resolution circulated by Sen.
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) condemning the House impeachment process, it's important for the White House to understand that the
weight of history is settling upon the shoulders of these senators — some of them quite weak —
and because of that pressure, private conversations are taking place and a trap may be sprung for the
president in that trial. A potential trap set by seemingly loyal Republican senators . Those I spoke
with, like others, worry that the impeachment process, especially a potential conviction in the Senate, will forever poison the
integrity of our constitutional and congressional processes and put every future president at risk of having his or her election
reversed for partisan and ideological reasons. But such is the lingering animosity about Trump by many in the
GOP establishment, and there very well may be enough Republican senators willing to
topple the first domino and set in motion a chain reaction — no matter the consequences. In
a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in October, former governor and U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley put her finger on the
greater issue, saying in part, “President Trump is a disruptor. That makes some people very happy, and it makes some people very
mad. ... When I was in the administration, I served alongside colleagues who believed the best thing to do for America was to
undermine and obstruct the president. Some wrote about it anonymously in The New York Times. Others just did it. They sincerely
believed they were doing the right thing. I sincerely believed they weren’t. ... No policy disagreement with him ... justifies
undermining the lawful authority that is vested in his office by the Constitution.” What’s at stake, Haley said, “is not President
Trump’s policies. What’s at stake is the Constitution.” She is correct, but does all of this go beyond Trump being a disruptor? As we
have witnessed, Trump is being opposed, called out and undermined through leaks by multiple anonymous and named sources from
the “deep state,” his own National Security Council, former White House staff, former and current Pentagon, State Department and
diplomatic officials, members of Congress and their staffs, and basically every other agency within the federal government. There
appears to be a common thread that runs through all of this opposition and stated hatred: “He is not
part of the club. He is not one of us. He can’t be controlled .” The unrelenting opposition to Trump is
not based on the fictional quid pro quo with Ukraine’s president but rather a desperate need by the entrenched establishment from
both political parties to maintain the status quo of their all-powerful club — aka part of the “swamp” Trump sought to drain. For
Trump to be convicted in a Senate trial, 20 Republican senators would have to join
forces with the 47 Democrats. We should not worry about those who openly dislike Trump,
such as Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Susan Collins (R-Maine) or Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska); we should
worry about those in the purple states , who face tough reelection fights in 2020 , and
those who have continually criticized and demeaned the president in private. What is driving all of
this, of course, is the fear that Trump will win reelection. Well, 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016, and 20
GOP senators soon may have the power to invalidate those votes. Can they resist doing so and vote not to convict? Conventional
wisdom says that will be the outcome. But as we all know when it comes to Donald Trump , you can throw
conventional wisdom right out the window.

4. Their authors psychologically underestimate the chance of

removal.
David Nussbaum 20. Adjunct associate professor of behavioral science at the Booth School
of Business at the University of Chicago. “Courage could be contagious in the Senate," 1-1-2020,
BostonGlobe, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/01/02/opinion/courage-could-be-
contagious-senate
It’s easy to criticize those Republicans for remaining silent. But in fairness, it’s hard to stand up
against your own team, particularly when you must do it alone . Just ask Senator Jeff Flake or
Congressman Justin Amash, who were viciously attacked by the President and his allies and quickly found themselves homeless in
the Republican Party. Worse, the benefits of speaking out may seem minimal: there’s no apparent effect of doing so, other than to be
marginalized and vilified by your colleagues and the president. Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and
some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy. If he actually
read the biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump,.... But this overlooks a key benefit of speaking out
publicly, which is to embolden others who are struggling to muster the courage to do so. The current landscape facing a
prospective defector is a Republican Party in near-perfect lockstep. But if even a few people
spoke out in even a small way, that u nanimity could begin to crumble . This matters because, as
economist Robert Frank makes clear in his forthcoming book, “Under the Influence,” beliefs are contagious: what we see when we
look outward can matter as much or more than what we see when we look inward. Frank’s argument builds on the idea that although
we like to think we develop our opinions independently, in fact we often look to others when deciding what to believe and do.
Someone becomes 25 percent more likely to smoke, for example, when the percentage of smokers among her friends rises from 20 to
30; and a new rooftop solar installation in a neighborhood typically leads other neighbors to take the same step. What others do is
far more influential than most of us realize. Consider
a classic study by psychologist Solomon Asch in
the 1950s, who asked which of three lines in one drawing had the same length as a single line in a second drawing. To any neutral
observer, the answer was obvious, and when people answered individually, they were correct more than 99 percent of the time. But
when faced with the same question in a group of eight, where the previous seven people had all given the wrong answer (they were
Asch’s confederates), people wavered: only 63 percent gave the right answer. Notably, when even one of the seven
others dissented, the correct response rate rebounded to more than 95 percent . Conventional wisdom
holds that in the face of compelling evidence assembled in the House, McConnell and Senate Republicans are going to acquit Trump.
But before that can happen, the Senate must agree on rules governing their deliberations, and only four Republican senators’ votes
are needed to assure a procedurally fair trial. If there’s to be any chance of mustering those votes, it won’t be because Democrats
show Republicans evidence they’ve already seen; it will be because those Republicans found the courage to speak their truth. I
recently asked Frank what might make that outcome more likely. His first advice was to begin with small steps. It’s much easier to
vote to allow witnesses in a Senate trial, he said, than to vote for the president’s removal. But even this seemingly small
step can serve as an important signal of senators’ willingness to speak up. It’s also one that’s relatively
easy to defend: let’s get the facts on what actually happened rather than hide our heads in the sand. Frank also pointed out
that even small actions can alter or reinforce your identity in ways that matter. Carrying a reusable
bottle has only a negligible effect on the environment, but it can serve as a reminder that the environment matters, making you more
likely to support candidates who will protect it. Similarly, insisting on a fair trial could serve as a reminder that your first allegiance
is to the Constitution, not an individual or party. Next, Frank suggested that there’s safety in numbers. It’s easy to isolate
an individual from the pack, as when former Republican Justin Amash was forced out of the party when he publicly announced his
support for impeachment. But
preserving the apparent unanimity in the GOP would become
virtually impossible if the number of dissenters grew even slightly . Finally, Frank
pointed to the work of economist Timur Kuran, whose book “Private Truths, Public Lies” noted that many political
revolutions (like the fall of Communism and the French Revolution) caught the world almost completely by surprise. This happened
because people’s private views differed from those that were prudent to express publicly. But once even minor
expressions of dissent began to surface, they quickly snowballed. And with each additional citizen who spoke
out against an oppressive regime, it became safer for others to do so. Circumstances confronting today’s
Republicans are similar: Although former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake reports that at least 35 of his former Republican
colleagues would vote to convict Trump if they could do so in private, pundits insist that none of them would
be willing to cast such a vote publicly. Maybe so, but an inherent feature of contagious
processes is that dramatic change is sometimes far more likely than it appears . In any
event, one thing is clear: If we do see a dramatic shift among Republican senators, it most likely will have begun with only a small
handful of them having the courage to stand up to Mitch McConnell and support a majority vote for a procedurally fair Senate trial.
 AT: Pelosi
She’ll deliver them within the week
Cristina Marcos, 1-2-2020, "Pelosi faces decision on articles of impeachment," TheHill,
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/476528-pelosi-faces-decision-on-articles-of-
impeachment
Rank-and-file Democrats are supportive of Pelosi’s strategy, but holding the articles indefinitely
could pose risks for moderates who don’t want the impeachment process to drag on deep into an election year. Rep.
Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a freshman who represents a district that Trump carried in 2016, said before the recess that holding the
articles temporarily seemed reasonable. “I think that it can't drag on forever,” Slotkin told reporters in the Capitol. “But I
think it's all right to ask for the process and what it will actually look like when it hits the Senate.” Pelosi’s decision has got under the
skin of Trump, who has repeatedly criticized it over the holidays from his Mar-a-Lago estate. “Remember when Pelosi was screaming
that President Trump is a danger to our nation and we must move quickly,” Trump wrote in a Dec. 31 tweet criticizing Pelosi as
reversing her call for impeachment to be conducted in a timely fashion. “They produced no case so now she doesn’t want to go to the
Senate. She’s all lies. Most overrated person I know!” Democratswill want to show that they’ve achieved
something by holding the articles. “Simply saying that it's urgent and moving in the House based on
that urgency and then handing it over to a Senate that will simply dismiss this and not really
deal with it in a fair and open fashion doesn't address the urgency of the situation,” Rep. Dan Kildee
(D-Mich.) said on CNN's “New Day.” Others predicted that there will be more movement next week when

lawmakers return to Washington. “I suspect the first week of January you'll see all of
this ironed out . And then Speaker Pelosi will be in an appropriate position to be able to say, OK, here's
what we're looking for. Here's the kind of managers that will be best suited for those kinds of witnesses and the documents
and the questions that are inevitably going to be asked,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) said on “CNN Newsroom.”
 AT: primaries---2NC
PC’s working now to hold off GOP rebellion in the Senate---but
continued arm-twisting is vital
Samuel Husemann 10-25. Contributor at Next Generation Politics. 10/25/19.
"Impeachment – So what?", Next Generation Politics.
https://nextgenpolitics.org/impeachment-so-what/
On to what would follow the passing of articles of impeachment in the House : the Senate
trial . This would again kill most bills being debated in the Senate, though since the Senate is basically the
“ graveyard ” of Congress, that wouldn’t be much of a change. Senate nominations would likely be delayed, but not
political capital that
rejected, so long term impacts would be few. However, a bigger issue would be the
the White House would have to use with Republican senators . It’s almost certain
that Senate Republicans would vote to acquit the President. Nonethelesss , depending on the
severity and pervasiveness of the evidence presented, the White House might have to use varying
degrees of arm-twisting to avoid an embarrassing Republican rebellion or—
however unlikely—removal from office, potentially handing more leverage to dissenting Republicans in the Senate.
 AT: Iran now
GOP rebellion causes Trump to wag the dog even without removal
Stephen M. Walt 10-7. Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at
Harvard University. 10-7-2019. "Welcome to Trump’s Impeachment Foreign Policy." Foreign
Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/07/impeachment-trump-foreign-policy-turkey-
syria/
For all these reasons, impeachment itself may not have that much impact on Trump’s foreign or
domestic policy. But there is one important caveat, and it’s not reassuring. If the accumulating
evidence of presidential malfeasance eventually leads the House to vote to impeach, if public
opinion supports that move, and if these developments lead some Republicans to grow
spines and start putting country ahead of party, the White House is going to get increasingly
desperate . And in these circumstances, Trump is likely to be tempted to see foreign policy as a
way to distract, divert, or discredit the impeachment campaign . (Fun fact: President
Richard Nixon tried this too .) The most worrisome possibility would be an attempt to rally

public support via some sort of Wag the Dog war . Or Trump might seek some sort of dramatic
diplomatic breakthrough with Iran or China or North Korea. The problem, of course, is that a manufactured crisis can still
escalate in dangerous ways , and a president who is desperate for a deal and in need of a
big photo-op is in a very weak bargaining position . U.S. adversaries are not stupid, and the
people Trump would be bargaining with will be fully aware of his desperation. In this way,
impeachment could lead indirectly to additional foreign-policy blunders.
 ---AT: “Credible Threat” Now
Trump is in desperation mode to limit defections --- even a small
clique of GOP Senators turning on him triggers his worst impulses
Tim Alberta 11-8. “Who Will Betray Trump? Donald Trump knows there are potential
traitors in his midst. His presidency could depend on keeping them at bay .,” 11-8.-
2019. Politico, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/11/08/trump-impeachment-
republicans-congress-229904)---ability edited
Of course, the yawning delta between what Republicans feel privately and what they say publicly has been a defining theme of the
Trump era. Whether any of those lawmakers suddenly find the courage to defy him on a legacy-shaping vote will go a long way
toward shaping history’s view of Trump’s presidency, his impeachment, and his stewardship of the Republican Party. From dozens
of interviews with GOP lawmakers, congressional aides and White House staffers over the past month, it’s evident that Rooney is
right: There is a sizable number of Republican senators and representatives who believe Trump’s
actions are at least theoretically impeachable, who believe a thorough fact-finding mission is necessary, who believe his
removal from office is not an altogether radical idea. But it’s also evident that, barring a plain admission of guilt by the president
himself—think Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men—the Republican Party will not be forsaking Trump. He could lose a stray vote in
the House, maybe even two, when articles of impeachment come to the floor. He could fare even worse in the Senate, knowing that
more than a few of the 53 Republican jurors might be tempted etch their names in the history books at his expense. None of this will
alter his standing atop the party; none of this will change the fact that he is president through January 2021 and perhaps beyond.
And yet, Trump cannot stand to be embarrassed—and there is no greater embarrassment to a president than being
impeached, much less with the abetting of his own tribe. There is an urgency, then, not only to limit
defections but eliminate them . The administration, working in concert with its allies on
Capitol Hill, has been hard at work identifying potential turncoats in the party and monitoring
their activities to catch any sign of slippage. Believing that a unified party-line vote is needed in the House to prevent any
narrative of Republicans abandoning Trump when action moves to the Senate, the president’s allies are determined to stay one step
ahead of any lawmaker who might be going soft, gaming out scenarios for who could desert and why. It amounts to a
preemptive game of political whodunit, with Trump’s enforcers seeking to solve a mystery of
political betrayal before it occurs. Naturally, there is no bigger fan of this game than the president himself. To
understand Trump’s fixation on the word loyalty is to understand that his interpretation, at least in a political context, means
submission, subservience, subjugation. Having conquered the GOP with a scorched-earth primary campaign—wrecking the Bush
dynasty, pillaging the party’s establishment wing, refashioning the American right in his own image—Trump continues to demand
the party’s complete and total devotion to him. It began after he won the Indiana primary in May 2016, eliminating Ted Cruz and
John Kasich and becoming the presumptive nominee, only to be dumbfounded at hearing Paul Ryan, then the House speaker,
declaring that he wasn’t ready to support the party’s new standard bearer. To Trump, who long possessed a sort of medieval, winner-
take-all understanding of business and life, it had never occurred to him that this was a possibility. He was the victor; he deserved
the spoils, starting with the allegiance of the subjects he now ruled. Every day since, Trump has been preoccupied
with questions of treachery within his newfound tribe. When we sat for an interview early this year for my book,
American Carnage, the president returned time and again to this notion of fidelity. Because he had returned the GOP to power,
Trump intimated, allowing Republicans to claim victories on all matter of policy and personnel, they owed him their unwavering
support. “The Republican Party was in big trouble,” Trump told me. “I brought the party back. The Republican Party is strong. The
Republican Party is strong.” He then added, “They’ve got to remain faithful. And loyal.” People around the president say he seldom
grows agitated at the conduct of Pelosi, or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, or House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, the
Democrats he most enjoys lampooning on Twitter. They are the opposition party, and because Trump holds a symmetrical view of
politics, he expects (and often embraces) their antagonism. It’s an entirely different story when it comes to intraparty dissent. “The
Republican Party was in big trouble. I brought the party back. The Republican Party is strong. The Republican Party is strong.
They’ve got to remain faithful. And loyal.” —PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP Rarely does the president become more wrathful, his
allies say, than when he learns of a Republican criticizing him, particularly if done in a public setting. And even when he hears of an
internecine attack launched behind closed doors, Trump has been known to fly into a rage, calling people who were in the room to
grill them for details on the alleged act of duplicity. On more than one occasion, after receiving reports of unflattering talk by his
fellow Republicans, the president has resorted to blasting out angry, cryptic tweets hinting at a possible betrayal. “The Never
Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than
the Do Nothing Democrats,” he tweeted on October 23. “Watch out for them, they are human scum!” The president didn’t call out
anyone by name. But at the time, Republicans widely interpreted the missive to be the continuation of a recent campaign against
Mitt Romney, the Utah senator and Trump’s longtime nemesis. In the weeks preceding the tweet, Romney had resumed his role as
Trump’s chief Republican tormentor, calling his interactions with Ukraine “wrong and appalling,” while separately skewering the
president for his abandoning the Kurds in Syria. (It was also revealed, after reporting in The Atlantic and Slate, that Romney
maintained a burner Twitter account from which he promoted anti-Trump commentary.) In return, the president unleashed a
furious tweetstorm, calling Romney “a pompous ‘ass’” and suggesting he should be impeached. Never mind that senators are not
subject to impeachment under the Constitution—Trump was livid, and he was lashing out. Given the history of hostilities between
them, and Romney’s obvious belief that Trump has abused his power and used the office of the presidency for his personal gain, it’s
easy to understand why the junior senator from Utah is universally viewed as the likeliest Republican apostate on the question of
impeachment, in either chamber. What’s harder to understand is why Trump would choose to deploy the phrase “human scum!” in
describing disloyal Republicans—a rhetorical eyebrow-raiser, even for him—without making clear to whom he was referring or what
specifically was provoking his fury. Parsing the president’s tweets can be a fool’s errand. But considering the historic nature of the
converging events of late October—the Ukraine quid pro quo, the forsaking of the Kurds, the decision (later reversed) to host the G-7
at Trump’s luxury golf resort in Florida—and the unprecedented outcry heard among Republicans, the “human scum!” outburst
provides a valuable window into a presidency in crisis. That Trump was not singling out Romney, the president’s team began to
sense, reflected a pair of interrelated realities: first, that the Utah senator was a lost cause; and second, that Trump suddenly had
other senators to worry about. It’s doubtful that any American, whether Trump’s biggest fan or his boldest critic, is going to have
their perceptions swayed by a single Republican senator voting to remove the president from office—particularly if that senator is
Romney. But what about two Republican senators? Or three? Or five? Nobody on Capitol Hill believes the number of GOP mutineers
could even remotely approach the 20 needed to convict Trump in a Senate trial. All the same, there is a recognition among
the president’s allies that his reelection campaign, not to mention his place in history, could be
[ devastated ] crippled by even the smallest clique of Republicans banding
together and issuing what would be an institution-defining rebuke. What would be especially damning, they
know, is if those converts aren’t easily explained away as fair-weather friends like Romney. Senators Susan Collins and Lisa
Murkowski sit on either side of Trump while he speaks during a White House meeting Oh, it wouldn’t shock anyone if Susan Collins,
the centrist from Maine, turned on Trump once and for all. She has never thought highly of the president. She has exhausted the
polite ways in which to articulate her belief that he is unfit for office. She, like Romney, called Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian
president “appalling.” Nor would it surprise Republicans if Lisa Murkowski, the other quasi-independent in the GOP caucus, turned
on Trump. The Alaska senator has been a chronic problem for the White House. Whether it was her vote against the GOP’s
Obamacare repeal proposal, or her persistent abuse of the administration for its handling of a 35-day government shutdown, or her
go-it-alone refusal to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Murkowski has shown a unique capacity for afflicting the
president. In late October, it was those three GOP senators—Romney, Collins and Murkowski—who conspicuously refused to co-
sponsor Lindsey Graham’s resolution condemning the House of Representatives for its impeachment inquiry. So, sure, any one of
those three voting to remove Trump from office would come as less than a revelation. Heck, all three voting to remove Trump from
office might not move the needle much in political circles. Then again, three is more than zero. And what if it’s more? The Senate
Trump can be impeached in the House with Democratic votes alone. But whether or not he's convicted in the Senate will be
determined by Republican votes. Lamar Alexander Tennessee Elected in 2002; retiring in 2020 Trump won Tennessee in 2016,
61.1% to 34.9% Votes in line with Trump: 91.3% Cory Gardner Colorado Elected in 2014; running for re-election in 2020 Clinton
won Colorado in 2016, 47.2% to 44.4% Votes in line with Trump: 89.8% Mitt Romney Utah Elected in 2018; up for re-election in
2024 Trump won Utah in 2016, 45.9% to 27.8% Votes in line with Trump: 81.5% Ben Sasse Nebraska Elected in 2014; running for
re-election in 2020 Trump won Nebraska in 2016, 60.3% to 34.0% Votes in line with Trump: 86.1% What if Lamar Alexander, the
retiring statesman from Tennessee who has struggled to mask his disillusionment with Trump’s destruction of norms, decides to go
out with a bang? What if Cory Gardner, whose reelection in Colorado seems destined to be doomed by the top of the ticket, thinks his
next act in politics depends on establishing distance from Trump? What if Ben Sasse or Pat Toomey or Rob
Portman, all thoughtful conservatives in the Burkean tradition, reach a point where they feel compelled
to meet a moment on behalf of their party and their country and perhaps even their constituents, as upset as many of them might
be? None of this might seem realistic. Yet these are precisely the scenarios being bandied about by the president’s team—and on
occasion, by Trump himself. According to multiple people who have been consulted by the president on the impeachment endgame,
it’s not far-fetched to imagine as many as five Republican senators ultimately taking the leap
together. This is because there’s a near-certain foundation of one with Romney, and a plausible foundation of three with Romney,
Collins and Murkowski. Two or three more isn’t impossible to imagine ; there is reassurance in
numbers, a knowledge among some potential combination of defecting senators that they won’t be out on a limb by themselves.
(None of the senators in question have commented with any real clarity on the impeachment
proceedings, preferring for now to cloak their silence in the explanation that they will soon be jurors in America’s
most important trial.)
Advantage 1
 No Solvency---Nuke Posture---2NC
Russia will assume the worst.
Maxwell Downman 17. Analyst at the British American Security Information Council MA in
Japanese at the University of Edinburgh and a MA in International Studies and Diplomacy at
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. “Changing Nuclear
Weapons Policy in the Trump Era.” The British American Security Information Council.
December 2017. https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2-
Downman-NATO-Nukes-final-Web-7-12-17.pdf
Nuclear signalling with Russia
By far the most important actor for the United States to signal nuclear policy to in Europe is Russia. In
response to
unclear and sometimes contradictory signalling , it is likely that Russia may assume the worst ,
that being the habit of defence establishments . Russia will pick up on comments
within the U nited S tates that refer to it as a nuclear threat and target. For example, in a Congressional
hearing in March, General Selva argued that the ‘continuing realisation that Russia intends to project itself as a great power’, is the
largest strategic change since the 2010 NPR and will be the focus of the present NPR.76 The White House’s unwillingness to talk
modernisation programme that would deliver a superior US strategic capability
holistically about arms control, a possible
that could create some form of dominance and ambiguous US signalling will affect Russian
strategic thinking and affirm the conclusion that the two are locked into strategic
competition . As the NPR outcome draws near, the window to avoid a downward spiral of relations may be closing.
A recent report by those who have seen a draft of the NPR speculated that it may relax the constraints of the previous 2010 NPR
which pledged that the United States would use nuclear weapons only in ‘extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the
United States or its allies and partners.’77 This would mark a major step back from the broad consensus
that nuclear weapons are for last resort, would contradict the current role of nuclear weapons
within NATO and most dangerously could be interpreted as the U nited S tates preparing ways
to coerce Russia with nuclear weapons . The new NPR may come to be seen as designed
not to restore trust with Russia and improve global strategic stability, but to maximise US
capabilities and freedom of action .

Trump’s nuclear modernization is a larger internal link to crisis

instability.
Maxwell Downman 17. Analyst at the British American Security Information Council MA in
Japanese at the University of Edinburgh and a MA in International Studies and Diplomacy at
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. “Changing Nuclear
Weapons Policy in the Trump Era.” The British American Security Information Council.
December 2017. https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2-
Downman-NATO-Nukes-final-Web-7-12-17.pdf
The report argues that President Trump is redefining US nuclear weapons policy at a time of
heightened tension with Russia . To date his actions have worsened problems on a
number of key strategic areas . There is a risk that the deteriorating US-Russia relationship
could hold negotiations on existing and future arms control agreements hostage , to the
detiment of European security. President Trump is presiding over a crisis of European arms control, having failed to coordinate a
NATO response to Russia’s alleged violation of the INF Treaty, signed 30 years ago on 8 December 1987, casting doubt on the future
of New START and decertifying the Iran nuclear deal.
At the same time the U nited S tates is continuing its nuclear modernisation programme and
contemplating whether or not to reintroduce new sub-strategic nuclear weapons systems . Given
the current crisis in arms control, without carefully calibrated signalling to reassure Moscow this could be
interpreted by Russia as an attempt to assert strategic dominance and re-establish
nuclear warfighting capabilities . Of specific concern are upgrades to the US’ existing
B61 gravity bombs stationed in Europe which would appear to make these weapons more
usable , and the emphasis on nuclear cruise missiles . Nuclear weapons which are
designed to be used in escalation scenarios would increase the risk of conflict in Europe going
nuclear and would likely provoke countermeasures from Russia .
 No Solvency---Tech---2NC
Russia hates US radar capabilities.
Ivanka Barzashka 12. Research associate at the Centre for Science and Security Studies,
King's College, London, and an affiliate of Stanford University's Center for International
Security and Cooperation. "Technical concerns: Why Russia worries about missile defense."
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 5-14-2012. https://thebulletin.org/2012/05/technical-
concerns-why-russia-worries-about-missile-defense/
Away from borders. Russian officials have expressed concerns about any deployments close to their
borders because they could transform the missile shield into “something offensive that could
control Russian territory as far as the Urals.” Gerasimov and Ilyin‘s briefings showed that shooters in
Poland and off the Baltic coast could catch Russian missiles headed toward the US. Earlier,
Lavrov also criticized the US radar deployed in Turkey because it duplicates an existing
American radar that could track missiles originating in the Middle East and could
“simultaneously scan a significant part of Russia .” However, the Ministry of Defense did not complain
about the Turkish radar but did advertise the capabilities of its Gabala and Armavir radars — what would likely be Russia’s
contribution to a joint system — to spot and track missile launches from the south. The Russian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs was also unhappy about the participation of the USS Monterey — the first missile
defense cruiser deployed as part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach — in anti-piracy
military exercises in the Black Sea last summer. The Montreux Convention restricts access of US warships to
the Black Sea. Because missile interceptors would have no role in fighting pirates, Moscow saw the multi-purpose
ship’s presence in this “highly sensitive region” as a reconnaissance mission. However, no Black Sea
scenarios were discussed at the meeting in Moscow, and neither were any NATO-Russia conflicts using conventional weapons.
 No Solvency---Bad Faith---2NC
Russia’s demand for legal guarantees is a troll they knew the US
couldn’t accept---they’ll create new objections to the Aff because they
have domestic political incentives to hype the threat.
Steven Pifer 13. Directs the Brookings Arms Control Initiative; ambassador to Ukraine from
1998 to 2000. “Will Russia Take ‘Yes’ for an Answer?” The New York Times. 03-29-2013.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/opinion/global/the-u-s-missile-defense-plan-in-
europe.html
When Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced this month that the Pentagon would increase the number of missile interceptors
in Alaska, he noted that the U.S. missile defense program in Europe would be restructured. This means cancellation of Phase
4 of the plan, which called for the deployment of upgraded interceptors in Eastern Europe.
The decision could open the way for resolving U.S.-Russian differences over missile defense,
one of the thorniest problems on the bilateral agenda, and remove an obstacle to further nuclear arms
reductions — if Moscow can say something other than “nyet.”
The initial Russian reaction gave little ground for optimism. But Russian officials often react slowly to new
ideas, so we may not yet have the final word.
The Obama administration unveiled its “European Phased Adaptive Approach” in 2009 with the goal of deploying increasingly
capable SM-3 missile interceptors in anticipation that Iran would develop missiles with increasingly longer ranges. Moscow initially
appeared to welcome the approach.
In November 2010, NATO and Russia agreed to explore a coop erative missile defense for Europe.
Talks between U.S. and Russian officials in early 2011 yielded significant convergence on questions such as transparency, joint
exercises and jointly manned NATO-Russia centers to share early warning data and plan how NATO and Russia missile defense
systems would work together.
The dialogue stalled , however, as Russian officials began to complain more vociferously about
Phase 4 of the plan, originally scheduled for 2020, when the SM-3 IIB interceptor would achieve the capability to engage
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Moscow asserted that Iran stood many years, if not decades, from developing an ICBM, and claimed that the United States instead
planned to target SM-3 IIBs against Russian ICBMs. U.S. officials countered that SM-3 IIBs in Europe would be ill-placed to engage
Russian strategic missiles.
Hagel’s announcement renders that argument moot .
Now if the Russians do not want to move forward on resolving their differences with Washington over missile defense, they have
to find other reasons to object . And they may.
A Russian official has expressed opposition to the fact that Phases 2 and 3 of the missile defense
plan will go forward in Romania and Poland. SM-3 interceptors in those phases, however, will only be able to engage intermediate-
range missiles. That presumably poses no problem for Moscow, as a 1987 treaty bans Russia (and the United States) from having
intermediate-range missiles.
Russian recalcitrance may reflect
simmering resentment about NATO enlargement ,
and the prospective deployment of SM-3 missile interceptors in Eastern Europe could add to the unhappiness. But
how will
small U.S. military detachments with interceptors to defend against missiles that Russia does
not have pose a threat to Russia?
Moscow has sought a “legal guarantee” that U.S. missile defenses would not be directed against Russian strategic
missiles, even though they know full well that Senate Republicans would block such a
treaty . Russian officials assert that the absence of legally binding limits creates uncertainty
about the offense-defense relationship.
Moscow is correct that increasing missile defense capabilities could undermine the balance in
strategic offensive forces, but that problem will not arise for 15 or 20 years, if then . The
United States plans to deploy only 44 interceptors capable of engaging ICBMs in 2017.
Russia could cut its strategic missile force by 50 percent or even 75 percent and still easily overwhelm those interceptors. Until the
gap between strategic offense and defense narrows considerably, a U.S. political commitment not to target Russian missiles, coupled
with transparency on missile defense plans, should suffice.
Domestic motives may lie behind the Russian position . President Vladimir Putin may see
political value in scratchy relations with the U nited S tates. Similarly, the Russian Ministry of
Defense may hope that keeping alive tensions over missile defense will produce greater
resources for military modernization.
If the Russians want to continue the argument over missile defense , they can offer
various pretexts . But that should not obscure the main point: their assertion that missile
defenses, specifically SM-3 IIB interceptors, will threaten Russian ICBMs and thereby
undermine the strategic balance now has no substantive basis .
So is Moscow prepared to engage in a serious way with Washington and NATO to settle the
missile defense question and pursue a cooperative approach ?
Russian officials have begun to offer a more nuanced reaction to Hagel’s announcement and, on Monday, he and the Russian
defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, agreed to resume consultations on missile defense. This is good news.
The question now is whether Moscow can find a way to say yes. Or will it instead seek an excuse to keep
the fight going? President Putin, over to you.
 No Arms Race---2NC
Russia won’t arms race---funding constraints.
Maxim Starchak 18. Fellow of the Center for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s
University, expert on Russian nuclear policy and nuclear industry. “How will Russia respond to
the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty?” 12/27/2018. https://www.ridl.io/en/how-will-russia-
respond-to-the-us-withdrawal-from-the-inf-treaty/
A subsequent response could be the RS-26 missile. However, due to the difficult economic situation in
Russia and cuts to the defence budget , plans to turn the RS-26 into a mobile missile system
will not be enacted as part of the new arms program until 2027. This missile is also available as a silo-
based version. It is a Rubezh system armed with an Avangard small-sized inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a range of
2,000 – 6,000 km. In other words, it is quite capable of carrying out tasks of medium-range ballistic missiles. Taking into account
that Avangard is developed on the basis of the Yars missile system and will be produced at the same manufacturing facility, one can
expect an output of 20 missiles a year. The Russian expert community has put forward a more ambitious proposal: i.e. to develop
new intermediate- and shorter-range missiles using, for example, the Soviet-era Pioneer mobile medium-range ballistic missile as
the basis for a new system. This missile was capable of carrying three nuclear independently targeted warheads at a range of 600-
5,000 km. Its accuracy can be improved thanks to new technologies. Another option suggested by an unnamed
source from the aerospace-missile industry is to resume production of the upgraded Kuryer
missile (which is the Soviet-type mobile ground-based missile system armed with a small-sized solid-fuel ICBM). The monoblock
warhead of this missile packs a relatively small punch – no more than 150 kt but this is compensated for by its relatively small
circular probable deviation which should not exceed 350 m. However , expenses associated with such
projects are unpredictable ; programmes such as the Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), Iskander
system and others have shown that the costs of producing prototypes of such missiles often exceed
developers’ estimates and require constant additional financial expenditure. Besides, there are already
ten types of combat missile systems in Russia aside from the RS-26, Sarmat and manoeuvring units. Each new missile
system constitutes an additional burden on Russia’s military budget . Entirely unwarranted
plans aimed at creating extra-long-range (up to 12,000 km) ballistic missiles and super-powerful nuclear warheads (100 megatons
and more) for unconventional carriers such as the Kh-101 cruise missile have also been voiced. The notion of developing an anti-ship
medium-range ballistic missile (ASBM) meant to destroy carrier battle groups (CVBG) of an enemy in a range of 1,500 – 2,000 km
has also been hatched. So
far, these plans remain merely ideas . Many are impossible to
implement for lack of funding . For example, Barguzin and Rubezh missile systems were
removed from the state arms programme signed in February 2018. However, in the absence of any agreement in this
area, Russia’s technical response is only a matter of time. Nuclear weapons are still a priority for Russian arms builders.

Official statements
RT 18. "Russia won’t be dragged into new arms race, but will respond to US withdrawal from
INF – Putin.” 11/19/18. https://www.rt.com/news/444394-putin-russia-inf-arms-race/
Moscow will not leave Washington’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the landmark nuclear arms treaty unanswered, Russian
President Vladimir Putin said, adding that the country doesn’t need to join another arms race.
Russia is still ready to continue dialog with the US on the bilateral treaty banning medium-range missiles, which has become one of
the cornerstones of nuclear disarmament, the Russian leader said at a government meeting in Sochi. Still, the US should “treat this
issue with full responsibility,” the president said, adding that Washington’s decision to withdraw from the
agreement “cannot and will not be left unanswered.”
These are not empty threats, Putin warned. He said that Russia had previously cautioned the US against leaving the ABM treaty
regulating missile systems and warned Washington about potential retaliation. “Now, we have hypersonic weapons capable of
penetrating any missile defense,” Putin said, referring to Russia’s newest state-of-the-art weapons.
The president also called on the government and military officials to develop “concrete steps” Russia can take in response to the US
withdrawal from the INF Treaty.
Moscow will not allow anyone to drag itself into another armed race , the Russian leader
said. Instead, Russia
plans to focus on “balanced development” of its Army, Navy and Air Force. The troops
are expected to adopt new military training techniques, using the combat experience they
received in Syria. Russia will also continue to modernize its military hardware.
 AT: Hypersonics---2NC
Hypersonics are hype---won’t emerge for a while, maneuverability
trades-off with accuracy, and point defenses solve.
James Acton 10/4. Co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace. “China’s ballyhooed new hypersonic missile isn’t exactly a game-
changer.” The Washington Post. 10/4/2019.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/04/chinas-ballyhooed-new-hypersonic-
missile-isnt-exactly-game-changer/
In the show of military might Tuesday to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, one of the highlights
among the weapons trundling through Tiananmen Square in Beijing was a hypersonic boost-glide missile. The exhibition
of 16 DF-17 missiles (or possibly models of the real thing), displayed in public for the first time , will probably add to
disquiet in the United States about a growing military imbalance, but that unease should be tempered
by a few practical considerations .
For the past few years, scientists, Pentagon officials and uniformed military leaders have warned about China’s
apparent lead in hypersonic technology, which they often describe as a “game changer.”
Over the long term , hypersonic missiles could indeed provide China (and Russia, too) with a uniquely
threatening capability, but there is time for a considered response : The DF-17 and its
immediate successors are unlikely to add much, if anything , to China’s already impressive military
forces.
To be sure, the DF-17 is a powerful weapon, even armed with a conventional warhead, as it will be, according to the parade
announcer in Beijing. The missile consists of a rocket that launches a glider, presumably at more than five times the speed of sound.
(That’s what “hypersonic” means.) The U.S. intelligence community reportedly estimates the missile’s range at 1,100 to 1,550 miles,
and Chinese state media has described it as being capable of conducting “precision strikes.” Not on the U.S. mainland, though;
Beijing is nearly 6,000 miles from San Francisco.
But the important question isn’t whether the DF-17 poses a danger to U.S. and allied forces in the western Pacific. It does. Better to
ask whether the DF-17 significantly enhances the threat from China’s formidable arsenal of existing weapons, in particular its force
of between 900 and 1,950 ballistic missiles, most of them conventionally armed, with ranges of less than 1,850 miles.
There are good reasons to question how much additional capability the DF-17 will provide. Chinese
ballistic missiles are based on mature technology, and the Pentagon has determined that they are able to strike their targets
precisely. Chinese propaganda , by contrast, is the only unclassified source for the accuracy of
the first-of-its-kind DF-17 .
Moreover, hypersonic gliders are actually at a speed disad vantage compared with ballistic
missiles of the same range. Ballistic missiles are also boosted to high speed by large rockets, before
arcing through the vacuum of space. A glider , by contrast, spends most of its trajectory in the
atmosphere , using aerodynamic lift to extend its range. The increased range comes at the cost of faster
deceleration caused by atmospheric friction. One implication of this reduced speed is that hypersonic gliders
may be more vulnerable to interception by U.S. “point” missile defenses (especially after such
defenses have been optimized for that purpose ). Like cornerbacks in football, point missile defenses are
intended to protect small but important areas — such as U.S. military bases in the western Pacific.
The main advantage claimed for hypersonic gliders is their ability to maneuver during
flight. If capable of adjusting
their heading rapidly enough, these gliders could indeed defeat
defenses by dodging interceptors. But executing
rapid maneuvers without sacrificing the accuracy necessary for military effectiveness
presents a significant technical challenge . There is no ev idence that China, or any other
state, has yet surmounted it.
 AT: Nuclear terror---1NC
No risk of nuclear terrorism---too many obstacles
John J. Mearsheimer 14. R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political
Science at the University of Chicago, “America Unhinged”, January 2,
nationalinterest.org/article/america-unhinged-9639?page=show
Am I overlooking the obvious threat that strikes fear into the hearts of so many Americans, which is terrorism? Not at
all. Sure, the United States has a terrorism problem . But it is a minor threat . There is no question we
fell victim to a spectacular attack on September 11, but it did not cripple the United States in any meaningful
way and another attack of that magnitude is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there has
not been a single instance over the past twelve years of a terrorist organization exploding a
primitive bomb on American soil, much less striking a major blow. Terrorism—most of it arising from domestic
groups—was a much bigger problem in the United States during the 1970s than it has been since the Twin Towers
were toppled. What about the possibility that a terrorist group might obtain a nuclear weapon? Such
an occurrence would be a game changer, but the chances of that happening are virtually nil . No
nuclear-armed state is going to supply terrorists with a nuclear weapon because it would have no
control over how the recipients might use that weapon. Political turmoil in a nuclear-armed state could in
theory allow terrorists to grab a loose nuclear weapon, but the United States already has detailed
plans to deal with that highly unlikely contingency. Terrorists might also try to acquire fissile material
and build their own bomb. But that scenario is extremely unlikely as well : there are
significant obstacles to getting enough material and even bigger obstacles to
building a bomb and then delivering it. More generally, virtually every country has a profound
interest in making sure no terrorist group acquires a nuclear weapon, because they cannot be sure
they will not be the target of a nuclear attack, either by the terrorists or another country the terrorists strike. Nuclear
terrorism, in short, is not a serious threat . And to the extent that we should worry about it, the main
remedy is to encourage and help other states to place nuclear materials in highly secure custody.
Advantage 2
 No Space Miscalc---2NC
It doesn’t go nuclear---resilience, deterrence, and low-level attacks
are empirically denied.
Zack Cooper 18. Senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS). Thomas G. Roberts is a research assistant and program coordinator for the
Aerospace Security Project at CSIS, "Deterrence in the Last Sanctuary," War on the Rocks,
https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/deterrence-last-sanctuary/
Until recently, resilience in space was largely an afterthought. It was assumed that a conflict in space would likely lead to or precede
a major nuclear exchange. Therefore, the focus was on cost-effective architectures that maximized satellite capabilities, often at the
cost of resilience. Recently, however, some have hoped that new
architectures could enhance resilience and
prevent critical military operations from being significantly impeded in an attack. Although
resilience can be expensive, American investments in smaller satellites and more distributed space
architectures could minimize adversary incentives to carry out first strikes in space.
In the late 20th century, minor escalations against space systems were treated as major events, since
they typically threatened the superpowers’ nuclear architectures. Today, the proliferation of
counter-space capabilities and the wide array of possible types of attacks means that most
attacks against U.S. space systems are unlikely to warrant a
nuclear response . It is critical that policymakers understand the likely break points in any conflict involving space
systems. Strategists should explore whether the characteristics of different types of attacks against space systems create different
thresholds, paying particular attention to attribution, reversibility, the defender’s awareness of an attack, the attacker’s ability to
assess an attack’s effectiveness, and the risks of collateral damage (e.g., orbital debris). Competitors may attempt to use

non-kinetic weapons and reversible actions to stay below the threshold that would
trigger a strong U.S. response. The 2017 National Security Strategy warns: Any harmful interference with or an attack
upon critical components of our space architecture that directly affects this vital U.S. interest will be met with a deliberate response
at a time, place, manner, and domain of our choosing. In order to fulfill this promise, the United States will want to ensure that it has
capabilities to respond both above and below various thresholds to ensure a full-spectrum of deterrence options for the full range of
potential actors. In the first space age, the two superpowers had largely symmetric capabilities and interests in outer space (with a
few notable exceptions). In the second space age, however, the space domain includes many disparate players with vastly different
asymmetric capabilities and interests. The United States is more reliant on space than any other country in the world, but it also
retains greater space capabilities than any of its competitors. Although the 2011 National Security Space Strategy states, “Space
capabilities provide the United States and our allies unprecedented advantages in national decision-making, military operations, and
homeland security,” this also means that that the United States has more to lose. From the dawn of the first space age, Americans
understood the many benefits that could come from the peaceful uses of space and the great harm that could result from hostile uses
of space. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy addressed the dilemma of how to reap the benefits of space without conflict, stating
only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a
new terrifying theater of war… space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes
that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours. For 60 years, space has been the exception: the one
domain that has remained free from the scars of war. By better understanding the dynamics of
the second space age, we may be able to keep it that way.

Alliances check.
MacDonald 13—MacDonald, Bruce. 2013. “Deterrence and Crisis Stability in Space and
Cyberspace.” In Anti-Satellite Weapons, Deterrence and Sino-American Space Relations. The
Stimson Center. https://www.stimson.org/content/anti-satellite-weapons-deterrence-and-sino-
american-space-relations.
The US alliance structure can promote deterrence and crisis stability in
space , as with nuclear deterrence. China has no such alliance system. If China were to engage in large-
scale offensive counter-space operations , it would face not only the
United States , but also NATO , Japan , South Korea and other highly aggrieved
parties . Given Beijing’s major export dependence on these markets, and its dependence upon them for key raw material and
high technology imports, China would be as devastated economically if it initiated strategic attacks in
space. In contrast to America’s nuclear umbrella and extended deterrence, US allies make a tangible and
concrete contribution to extended space deterrence through their multilateral participation
in and dependence upon space assets. Attacks on these space assets would directly damage allied interests as well as
those of the United States, further strengthening deterrent effects.

It creates M.A.D.---results in existential deterrence.

Bleddyn Bowen 18. Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Leicester, "The
Art of Space Deterrence,", https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/the-art-
of-space-deterrence/
Fourth, the ubiquity of space infrastructure and the fragility of the space environment may create

a degree of existential deterrence . As space is so useful to modern economies and military forces, a
large-scale disruption of space infrastructure may be so intuitively escalatory to decision-makers
that there may be a natural caution against a wholesale assault on a state’s entire
space capabilities because the consequences of doing so approach the mentalities of total war, or nuclear
responses if a society begins tearing itself apart because of the collapse of optimised energy grids and just-in-time supply chains. In
addition, the problem of space debris and the political-legal hurdles to conducting debris clean-up
operations mean that even a handful of explosive events in space can render a region of Earth
orbit unusable for everyone. This could caution a country like China from excessive
kinetic intercept missions because its own military and economy is increasingly reliant on outer space, but perhaps
not a country like North Korea which does not rely on space. The usefulness, sensitivity, and fragility of space
may have some existential deterrent effect. China’s catastrophic anti-satellite weapons test in 2007 is a valuable
lesson for all on the potentially devastating effect of kinetic warfare in orbit.

5. Space war would be viewed as a conventional attack---won’t go

nuclear and empirically denied.
Niall Firth 19. News Editor at MIT Technology Review. "How to fight a war in space (and get
away with it)". MIT Technology Review. 6-26-2019.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613749/satellite-space-wars/
Space is so intrinsic to how advanced militaries fight on the ground that an attack on a satellite
need no longer signal the opening shot in a nuclear apocalypse . As a result,
“deterrence in space is less certain than it was during the Cold War,” says Todd Harrison, who heads the Aerospace Security Project
at CSIS, a think tank in Washington, DC. Non-state actors, as well as more minor powers like North Korea and Iran, are also gaining
access to weapons that can bloody the noses of much larger nations in space. That doesn’t necessarily mean blowing up satellites.
Less aggressive methods typically involve cyberattacks to interfere with the data flows between satellites and
the ground stations. Some hackers are thought to have done this already .
 AT: Hybrid
No Russia impact---their doctrine is escalation control, NOT first
strike.
Jay Ross 18. Associate with Booz Allen Hamilton supporting the Department of Defense, and
a U.S. Army Reserve Nuclear Weapons Officer, currently assigned to the Defense Threat
Reduction Agency; has 16 years of military and defense experience focused on nuclear
technology, weapons, and strategy, and on Russian strategic military issues. “Time to Terminate
Escalate to De-Escalate – It’s Escalation Control.” War on the Rocks. 4/24/2018.
https://warontherocks.com/2018/04/time-to-terminate-escalate-to-de-escalateits-escalation-
control/.
“Escalate to de-escalate” is catchy, it rhymes, and it rolls off the tongue. Unfortunately, it is also wrong — but not
for the reasons experts usually focus on. Since Russia released its 2014 National Defense Strategy, and especially after the
publication of America’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, U.S. officials, pundits, and national security wonks have used
the phrase either to describe Russia’s strategy, or as a launching point to criticize that description. Buzz phrases
like “escalate to de-escalate” tend to spread through officialdom where they are misunderstood and misused as
quickly as they are shared. The problem with the term is not that Russia doesn’t have capacity or plans to use calculated escalation
(nuclear or otherwise) to contain or terminate a conflict. It’s that such escalation is only one part of a larger strategic approach, and
the focus
on Moscow’s nuclear threshold risks missing the forest for the trees . Russia’s
approach to conflict is better described as “ escalation control ,” a concept that was a part of the American
strategy lexicon until the end of the Cold War. The United States, facing non-peer adversaries in post-Cold War conflicts, has been
able to dominate opponents at any level of conflict where an adversary is capable. Under this framework of “escalation dominance,”
careful calculations of thresholds and escalation triggers have been more a matter of preference than necessity for state survival.
Russia, on the other hand, has had no such advantage vis-à-vis the West and has instead adopted
escalation control — a strategic approach that relies on carefully calculated, proactive measures to
ensure a conflict is contained at lower, more acceptable levels. Through this approach Russia can
control the level of conflict escalation, dominating the mechanics and circumstances of
escalation rather than dominating conflict levels themselves. De-escalating actions are just one tool in this
strategy’s larger toolbox. Russia’s strategy should be addressed in whole rather just the part focused on the nuclear end of the
conflict spectrum. To truly appreciate Moscow’s approach, and the variety of tools available at levels below kinetic conflict, the West
needs to dust off its understanding of escalation control. Failing to use the correct framework to understand today’s evolved
capabilities, and the blurred delineations between military and nonmilitary lines of effort, can lead to miscommunication and,
possibly, miscalculation. Problems with the Bumper Sticker Version “Escalate to de-escalate” tends to focus solely
on Russia’s thresholds for nuc lear weapons use, rather than taking a holistic approach to conflict.
De-escalatory strikes are essentially an action to deter further aggression — that is, to control escalation – but
such actions do not need to take place in the nuc lear realm. For instance, Russia “escalated to de-
escalate” in 2015 and 2016, when it deployed S-400 and S-300 air defense systems to Syria,
against the backdrop of increasing tensions between U.S. and Russian forces operating in close proximity there. As one U.S. official
quipped when asked about the intent behind the 2016 S-300 deployments, “Nusra doesn’t have an air force do they?” The United
States took note of the possibility Russians might shoot down a U.S. aircraft. The increased risk that both nations would stumble
into a conflict forced the Pentagon to avoid sustained unilateral actions against regime forces (limited cruise missile strikes aside)
because the potential gains did not justify the risk of direct conflict with Russia. In ZAPAD-2017, another example, tactical nuclear
weapons were not incorporated into the exercise scenario, but the exercise nonetheless showed how Russia planned to use
overwhelming artillery and rocket fire to change the enemy’s cost-benefit analysis. De-escalatory actions don’t have
to use nuc lear weapon s . A second, more dangerous problem is that policymakers (and policy wonks) tend to
misinterpret the phrase as meaning Russia has lowered its nuc lear threshold. It’s easy to
mentally reduce “escalate to de-escalate” to simply a strategy of out-escalating the other
party, perhaps very early in a conflict, by turning to nuclear weapons more quickly than the United States would. But consider that
the United States is able to project combat power to Russia’s backyard, a mere 300 miles from Moscow, holding the country at risk
of a mass attack of shock and awe. If Russia responded with nuclear strikes in this scenario, U.S. officials may misinterpret the
reaction as “escalate to de-escalate” in action. But in fact nuclear use in this case would have been driven by Washington’s approach,
not Moscow’s. Further, focusing on whether Russia will resort to nuclear use risks overlooking other
actions taken intentionally below NATO’s escalation thresholds. In 2014, Russia could have
virtually guaranteed a decisive military victory over Ukraine by displaying its modern military
advancements and dominance, sending multiple divisions across the border, supported by
thunderous artillery and heavy bombers. It did not , of course, choosing instead to try and achieve
as many of its goals operating at as low a level of conflict as possible , and doing so quickly, to
avoid NATO intervention . Additional spin-off terminology has aggravated the problem. The
commander of U.S. Strategic Command recently described Russia’s strategy as “escalate to win,” but this term is
unhelpful as it leaves open the definition of “win” in a given conflict. If winning means achieving strategic
goals, then that’s just every conflict in history and is too broad to be useful. If the definition of win becomes flexible, then the
possible goals become too varied to pin down in a universal rule. The phrase also doesn’t account for examples of
Moscow using restraint to keep the conflict below levels that invite reciprocal
escalation — which is encompassed by the more holistic and useful term “escalation control.”
Another variation is “escalate to survive,” mentioned on a recent War on the Rocks podcast on this subject, meaning escalatory
actions taken to preserve the existence of the state, or perhaps return to a status quo ante. But again, this term doesn’t account for
more aggressive actions at lower levels of conflict where the existence of the Russian state is not at immediate risk, such as in
Ukraine. By focusing on escalate to de-escalate, escalate to win, or escalate to survive, the West
may fail to see what actions Russia might take at lower thresholds — and to understand why it is doing so.
Escalation Control: A More Useful Term… Escalation control is the concept that best accounts for the range of military and
diplomatic actions the Kremlin has taken in recent years. This framework, specifically applied to Russian strategy, outlines a
proactive approach to controlling the process of escalation rather than militarily defeating the adversary at any given escalation
level. It requires Russia to maintain the initiative in a conflict, an area in which it has excelled. In Ukraine, Russia tried a
number of methods — at incremental levels of engagement, rather than at higher levels
requiring decisive combat power — to achieve measured success before NATO could interdict
and escalate the conflict to a level unacceptable for Moscow. Generally speaking, Russia has controlled
the pace and scale of the conflicts in Syria as well, forcing American-backed forces to react to Russian-backed
forces’ actions. Since Russia first intervened in Syria in 2015, a number of incidents have raised tensions between Russia and the
United States: cruise missile strikes in response to chemical weapon use, harassment and encirclement of At Tanf, and the massively
successful U.S. strikes on alleged Russian mercenaries. In
each case, Russia has set the tone for what
happens next , kept the conflict from escalating beyond its means or desires, and
remained on track to have a sustained military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. Escalation control also
requires a confident understanding of the adversary’s escalation thresholds. This was clearly a consideration for the Kremlin in
Ukraine, where it consciously chose to incrementally increase direct action in the country’s east without escalating to decisive
combat power (and probably not because it was deterred by fear of Ukraine’s military). Rather, Russia applied and refined its
understanding of NATO thresholds for intervention, taking care to avoid inviting conflict. In this way, Western deterrence worked at
one level of conflict but failed to some degree at another. Russia’s incremental increases were not de-escalatory
actions, designed to create shock and compel and adversary to back down. Instead, they were
intentionally constrained to avoid NATO intervention thresholds. This is consistent with a
model of escalation control, but is not “escalate to de-escalate.” …But an Even Tougher Problem The nuance
between “escalate to de-escalate” and a strategy that includes de-escalatory actions in its toolbox might seem like a matter of
semantics, a little like knowing the exact size of a boot that is kicking you in the face. But this difference has significant implications
for how the United States deals with the Kremlin. Unfortunately, de-escalatory
nuc lear strikes — the victim of the
“escalate to de-escalate” misnomer — are neither the only nor the most likely level of conflict
that the West will see from Russia, as Ukraine and Syria have shown. Escalation control can
be applied with any weapon system , including nuclear weapons, and it’s not even Russia’s idea, at least not
originally. “We may seek to terminate a war on favorable terms using our [remaining] forces as a bargaining weapon-by threatening
further attack … our large reserve of … firepower would give an enemy an incentive to avoid our cities and to stop a war.” This might
seem like a quote from a Russian Military Thought article, but in fact it was U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1962
explaining U.S. strategy to use limited nuclear strikes to de-escalate a conflict using “deliberate escalation,” specifically in a situation
where NATO non-nuclear forces could not successfully defend against a Soviet attack. What was old is new again. Whether de-
escalation actions take the form of deploying advanced air defense where U.S. aircraft are operating or
launching a demonstrative nuclear strike, they achieve their desired aim not through the actual effect of the weapon, but by
increasing the risk of what could come next. Deterring further escalation through these actions only works if
the possible consequences are both credible and undesirable, which is why it can work at many levels of
conflict. Escalation control proactively uses that risk to keep more capable adversaries deterred at
lower levels of conflict. Critics of escalation control often point out that escalation is not something that a party does, but
rather is something that happens, and therefore no party to a conflict can actually control escalation. Indeed, some critics make the
case that Russians don’t believe they can control escalation. often focus on the higher ends of the conflict spectrum, in this case on
nuclear first use thresholds, where the stakes are higher and there are fewer rungs left to climb on the escalation ladder. But at lower
levels, the Kremlin has in fact successfully controlled conflict escalation in two theaters with the
potential for U.S./NATO intervention in the last four years. Moreover, Russia’s approach takes full
advantage of this fear that escalation is uncontrollable. If an adversary believes that no one can control
escalation, increasing the risk of a larger-scale conflict at lower levels can deter even lower-level intervention. Uncertainty
increases risk, and the shared risk of escalation into a direct large-scale war can deter lower level
confrontation. Through proactive and calculated escalatory actions, Russia can use the risk and uncertainty of
potential escalation to enhance its deterrence of adversaries at these lower levels of conflict .
1NR
DA
 Link---2NC
Damage limitation is key to reassurance.
James L. Schoff & Sugio Takahashi 18. **Senior fellow in the Carnegie Asia Program;
previously served as senior adviser for East Asia policy at the U.S. Office of the Secretary of
Defense and as director of Asia Pacific Studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.
**Chief of the Policy Simulation Division of the National Institute for Defense Studies in Japan;
Deputy Director of the Office of Strategic Planning in Japan’s Ministry of Defense from 2008 to
2016. “STRENGTHENING U.S.-JAPAN ALLIANCE DETERRENCE.” Asia Strategy Initiative.
https://www.spf.org/jpus/investigation/spf-asia-initiative001.html
1. Further institutionalize current efforts to improve the credibility of extended nuclear deterrence. Growing No rth
Ko rean nuclear threats require different elements of extended deterrence, including quick
assured retaliation and damage limitation . If North Korea launches a nuclear strike against
Tokyo, regardless of whether the United States retaliates with nuclear weapons or not, Japan will suffer tremendously.
To reassure Japan that the U nited S tates can deter a North Korean strike, a more specific and credible
U.S. nuclear damage limitation posture is needed . The allies should have a collaborative nuclear-
related planning process to develop standard operating procedures for information sharing regarding U.S. nuclear use.
Preparing in this way can convey allied readiness to respond resolutely to Pyongyang's nuclear
threats and deter North Korean use in the first place. This process should work in parallel with a similar U.S.-
South Korea arrangement for maximum alliance coordination. Forward deployment of non-strategic U.S. nuclear weapons would
not have operational benefit at this time. Rather than pursuing forward deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons, it is more important to
consider a collaborative decision-making/responsibility-sharing mechanism for nuclear employment. 6

3. The plan backtracks on carefully negotiated collective self-defense

guidelines---that lack of consultation undermines interoperability.
Frank A. Rose 15. Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance,
US State Department. “Missile Defense, Extended Deterrence, and the Future of America's
Alliances.” L'Association Aéronautique et Astronautique (3AF) International Missile Defense
Conference. 06-12-2015. https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/rls/2015/243776.htm
In the Asia-Pacific, we are continuing missile defense cooperation through our
bilateral alliances and key partnerships. For example, the U nited S tates and Japan are working
closely together to develop the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor , which will make a key
contribution to the EPAA as well as ship-based deployments in the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere
around the world. We also recently deployed a second AN/TPY-2 radar to Japan, which will enhance the defense of both the
United States and Japan. We engage with Japan on missile defenses issues quite regularly, including at our bilateral Extended
Deterrence Dialogues. And finally, we
are continuing to work on enhancing interoperability between
U.S. and Japanese forces, which will be aided by the recent changes to the updated U.S.-Japan
Defense Cooperation Guidelines . The inclusion of missile defense in these guidelines
reflects the valuable contribution of BMD to our collective self-defense .
We also work closely with the Republic of Korea on missile defense issues. In 2013, we agreed to develop a comprehensive alliance
counter-missile strategy to detect, defend, disrupt, and destroy North Korean WMD and missile threats. Another important
component of our cooperation is the Deterrence Strategy Committee, which looks at not only U.S. extended deterrence efforts, but
also areas—such as missile defense—where we can work together to deter North Korea and defend against attacks. In his visit to
Seoul last month, Secretary Kerry affirmed that “The U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance has literally never been stronger…we are united
firmly in our determination to stand up against any threats from the DPRK.”
Having led bilateral consultations with our Japanese and Republic of Korea partners, I can attest
to the value of having candid , whole-of-government dialogues and the important
contributions such cooperation has in strengthening our already sturdy bilateral
alliances .
Finally, let me say a few things about missile defense and Russia. Prior to the suspension of our dialogue as a result of Russia’s illegal
actions in Ukraine, Russia
continued to demand that the U nited S tates provide Russia with
“legally binding” guarantees that U.S. missile defenses will not harm or diminish Russia’s
strategic nuclear deterrent. These guarantees would have been based on criteria that would
have limited our missile defenses and undermined our ability to stay ahead of the
ballistic missile threat . The Ballistic Missile Defense Review is quite clear on our policy: U.S. missile defense is neither
designed nor directed against Russia’s and China’s strategic nuclear forces. However, at the same time, we have also made it clear
that wecannot and will not accept legally-binding or other constraints that would limit our ability
to defend ourselves, our allies , and our partners. The U nited S tates will continue to insist on
having the flexibility to respond to evolving ballistic missile threats .

4. The tech we’re developing with Japan is explicitly for the EPAA!
Frank A. Rose 15. Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance,
US State Department. “Enhancing Regional Missile Defense Cooperation.” Center for Strategic
and International Studies. 04-07-2015. https://2009-
2017.state.gov/t/avc/rls/2015/240427.htm
In the Asia-Pacific, we are continuing to cooperate through our bilateral alliances and key partnerships.
For example, the U nited S tates and Japan already are working closely together to develop the

SM-3 Block IIA, which will make a key contribution to the EPAA as well as being
deployed elsewhere in the world. We also recently completed the deployment of a second AN/TPY-2 radar to Japan, which will
enhance the defense of both the U.S. and Japan. And finally, we are continuing to work on enhancing
interoperability between U.S. and Japanese forces, which will be aided by recent changes to the U.S.-Japan
Defense Cooperation Guidelines, which we expect to complete soon.
We also continue to consult closely with Australia. For example, as a result of U.S.-Australia Foreign and Defense ministerial-level
consultations over the past year, the United States and Australia have established a bilateral BMD Working Group to examine
options for potential Australian contributions to the BMD architecture in the Asia-Pacific region.
Additionally, we are also consulting closely with the Republic of Korea as it develops the Korean Air and Missile Defense system,
which is designed to defend the Republic of Korea against air and missile threats from North Korea. The Republic of Korea recently
announced its plans to purchase Patriot PAC-3 missiles, which will enhance its capability to defend against the North Korean
ballistic missile threat.
A Constraint Free Missile Defense
Finally, let me say a few things about missile defense and Russia.
Prior to the suspension of our dialogue as a result of Russia’s illegal actions in Ukraine, Russia
continued to demand
that the U nited S tates provide it “legally binding” guarantees that our missile defense will
not harm or diminish its strategic nuclear deterrent. These guarantees would have been based
on criteria that would have limited our missile defenses and undermined our ability
to stay ahead of the ballistic missile threat .
The Ballistic Missile Defense Review is quite clear on our policy: U.S. missile defense is not designed nor directed against Russia and
China’s strategic nuclear forces.
However, at the same time, wehave also made it clear that we cannot and will not accept legally-
binding or other constraints that limit our ability to defend ourselves , our allies ,
and our partners.
The security of the U nited S tates, its allies and partners is our foremost and solemn responsibility. As
such, the U nited S tates will continue to insist on having the flexibility to respond to evolving
ballistic missile threats , free from obligations or other constraints that limit our
BMD capabilities .
5. Allied development is the largest internal link.
Frank A. Rose 14. Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and
Compliance, US State Department. “Implementing Missile Defense in a Global Context.” 3AF
Missile Defense Conference. 06-17-2014. https://2009-
2017.state.gov/t/avc/rls/2014/227802.htm
In the Asia-Pacific, we are continuing to cooperate through our bilateral alliances . For example,
the U nited S tates and Japan already are working closely to develop jointly an advanced
interceptor known as the SM-3 Block IIA along with deployment of a second AN/TPY-2 radar to Japan, while
continuing to work on enhancing interoperability between U.S. and Japanese forces. With the
Republic of Korea, we are continuing to consult closely as it develops the Korean Air and Missile Defense system, which is designed
to defend the ROK against air and missile threats from North Korea.
No Constraints
Before I conclude, let me speak about missile defense and Russia. Russia
continues to demand that the U nited
S tates provide it with “legally-binding” guarantees that our missile defenses will not
negatively impact its strategic nuclear deterrent. What the Russians really mean is that they
want legally-binding limitations or constraints on U.S. missile defenses—defenses we
and our partners and allies believe must be flexible and unconstrained in order to
adequately protect ourselves from emerging ballistic missile threats . Such “ legally
binding guarantees ” would create limitations on our ability to develop and deploy
future missile defense systems against regional ballistic missile threats such as those we
see evolving in the Middle East and North Korea . We have repeatedly made clear to the
Russian government that the U nited S tates cannot and will not accept any obligations that
limit our ability to defend ourselves, our allies, and our partners, including where we deploy our
BMD-capable Aegis ships .

Development and testing is key to demonstrate capabilities.

Robert F. Behler 19. Director, Operational Test and Evaluation Office of the Secretary of
Defense. "Statement before the House Armed Forces Committee." 5-8-2019.
https://armedservices.house.gov/_cache/files/a/9/a989c2fa-c418-4f01-8950-
f77e35898c9d/97541179FD334534AC3C05BD6E38837D.hhrg-116-as29-wstate-behlerr-
20190508.pdf
Test Adequacy and the Integrated Master Test Plan
The MDA continues to execute a rigorous test planning process , documented in the Integrated
Master Test Plan (IMTP), which the MDA Director and I both approve. The MDA continues to emphasize operational
realism when planning for and conducting both ground and flight testing , and involves my office
with each update of the IMTP. Lieutenant General Greaves has welcomed DOT&E involvement and advice throughout his tenure at
MDA, and it has been a pleasure to work with him
U.S. Homeland Defense Testing: Flight testing of the GMD system is constrained by a number of factors, including range safety
considerations and cost. The GMD test conducted in March, for example, cost more than $300 million. Hence, independently
accredited models and simulations (M&S), anchored by flight test data, will be required to assess the effectiveness of GMD across its
full battlespace. Including the most recent flight test, the
MDA plans to conduct a total of five GMD
intercept flight tests from 2019 to 2025. These tests include objectives that address
current data gaps , such as a multiple simultaneous threat engagement .
Regional/Theater Defense Testing: As with U.S. Homeland Defense, flight testing of regional/theater defense systems is constrained
by range safety and cost considerations, which limits my ability to assess the effectiveness of these systems in realistic combat
scenarios involving raids of multiple missiles, with multiple BMDS elements. The MDA and the Army have robust
flight test programs for Aegis BMD, THAAD, and Patriot operating independently. Additional M&S capability, anchored
by flight testing of Aegis BMD , THAAD , and Patriot systems operating together , will be
needed to evaluate the effectiveness of these systems operating together under realistic
combat conditions.
 AT: Japan Moderating
Japan assurance strong now---internal statements.
Gregory Kulacki 18. China project manager and senior analyst, Union of Concerned
Scientists; PhD, Political Theory, University of Maryland; lived and worked in China for the
better part of the last twenty-five years. “Nuclear Hawks Take the Reins in Tokyo.” Union of
Concerned Scientists. 2/16/2018. https://allthingsnuclear.org/gkulacki/nuclear-hawks-take-
the-reins-in-tokyo
Donald Trump’s plan for a more muscular US nuclear posture got a ringing endorsement from
the increasingly right-wing government of Japan. Not long after the Trump administration released its Nuclear
Posture Review (NPR) in early February, Foreign Minister Taro Kono said he “highly appreciates” the new
approach to US nuclear weapons policy, including the emphasis on low-yield nuclear options the United
States and Japan can rely on to respond to non-nuclear threats. Kono’s endorsement of Trump’s NPR was a surprise to those who
saw him as a moderate who could temper Prime Minister Abe’s geopolitical ambitions, which include amending Japan’s pacifist
constitution to allow for an expansion of the size and role of Japan’s military forces. Support within the conservative
leadership of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for an increased US emphasis on the role of nuclear weapons
is not new. Nine years ago, foreign ministry officials loyal to the LDP testified to a US congressional commission advising the
Obama administration on US nuclear weapons policy. Their testimony reads like a blueprint for some of the most controversial
sections of Trump’s NPR—especially its emphasis on low-yield nuclear weapons, which used to be called
t actical n uclear w eapons because they were options for fighting limited nuclear wars against
nuclear and non-nuclear states, rather than strategically deterring the use of nuclear weapons by
others. Prime Minister Abe recently promoted one of the officials who testified to the commission in 2009, Takeo Akiba, to the top
bureaucratic post in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Akiba and the rest of the LDP’s nuclear hawks may
have had to wait a long time to get what they wanted, but their view of the role of US nuc lear
weapons in Asia is about to become official US government policy. Then and Now UCS obtained a copy of a statement
Mr. Akiba submitted to the congressional commission on 25 February 2009, along with hand-written notes—taken by commission
staff—of responses to questions. That statement, titled “Japan’s Perspective on the U.S.’s Extended Deterrence,” makes two primary
requests: A US presidential statement that places “nuclear deterrence as the core of Japan – US
security arrangements.” The maintenance of US nuclear weapons capabilities that are: “(a)
flexible, (b) credible, (c) prompt, (d) discriminating and selective, (e) stealthy/demonstrable,
and (f) sufficient to dissuade others from expanding or modernizing their nuclear capabilities.”
Obama’s 2010 NPR undoubtedly disappointed the Japanese officials who submitted that statement. Obama emphasized the declining role of US nuclear weapons in regional
security: When the Cold War ended, the United States withdrew its forward deployed nuclear weapons from the Pacific region, including removing nuclear weapons from naval
surface vessels and general-purpose submarines. Since then, it has relied on its central strategic forces and the capacity to redeploy nuclear systems in East Asia in times of
crisis. Although nuclear weapons have proved to be a key component of U.S. assurances to allies and partners, the United States has relied increasingly on non-nuclear elements
to strengthen regional security architectures, including a forward U.S. conventional presence and effective theater ballistic missile defenses. As the role of nuclear weapons is
reduced in U.S. national security strategy, these non-nuclear elements will take on a greater share of the deterrence burden. President Trump’s NPR discusses the future role of
US nuclear options in Asia in a way that is much more in line with the preferences in the statement Mr. Akiba submitted to the congressional commission in 2009. Trump’s NPR
states: Expanding flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression… In the
2010 NPR, the United States announced the retirement of its previous nuclear-armed SLCM [sea-launched cruise missile], which for decades had contributed to deterrence and
the assurance of allies, particularly in Asia. We will immediately begin efforts to restore this capability… Mr. Akiba’s testimony to the US congressional commission suggested a
preference for retaining the SLCM President Obama retired, since it “provides the flexibility of options (namely, it is low-yield, sea-based (stealthy), stand-off (survivable) and
“flexible” nuclear options figure
can loiter).” That SLCM was the nuclear Tomahawk Land-Attack Missile, TLAM/N. These types of

prominently in Trump’s NPR. The Japanese statement defined nuclear flexibility as having weapons that, “could hold a
wide variety of adversary threats at risk.” These threats included “deep and hardened underground facilities, movable targets, cyber
attack, anti-satellite attack and anti-access/area denial capabilities.” In this case, the Japanese statement’s use of “anti-access/area
denial” was a reference to China’s conventional military capabilities. The Trump NPR gives Japan’s nuclear hawks
all the “flexibility” they asked for in 2009, backed up by an unambiguous declaration that the United
States will use nuclear weapons to respond to non-nuclear attacks, including “new forms of
aggression” like cyber attacks. It also appears to endorse a strategy of offsetting China’s conventional military capabilities,
including space and cyber capabilities, with new US nuclear weapons. The Trump administration’s intention to use nuclear weapons
to counter non-nuclear Chinese military capabilities is repeated in the administration’s National Defense Strategy. Making Okinawa
Nuclear Again? The handwritten notes on the 2009 Japanese statement indicate one of the commission co-chairs, former US
Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, asked if Japan could adjust its domestic policies to prepare for the redeployment of US
nuclear weapons in Okinawa. Mr. Akiba responded by warning Schlesinger there was still strong domestic support for the Japan’s
Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which were first announced in 1967, and subsequently reaffirmed by various members of the
Japanese government as well as a 1971 vote in the Japanese Diet. The principles declare that Japan would not possess, manufacture,
or allow the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan. But despite these concerns about Japanese public opinion, Akiba told
Schlesinger that preparing to return US nuclear weapons to the Japanese island of Okinawa “sounds
persuasive to me.” Given the Trump NPR’s emphasis on new tactical nuclear weapons that can be redeployed in Asia, and the
Abe government’s unequivocal support for Trump’s NPR, it is worth investigating the possibility both sides have agreed to
upgrade US munitions storage facilities in Okinawa so they can store US nuclear weapons on the
island. There are several reasons why redeploying nuclear weapons in Okinawa may make sense to bureaucrats, like Mr. Akiba,
who support an increased role for US nuclear weapons in the Asia. The first is the existence of a secret agreement between Japan and the United States that allows
the US military to redeploy US nuclear weapons in Okinawa. The agreement was signed by US President Nixon and Japanese Prime Minister Sato in 1969 as part of the legal process that returned sovereign control of the island to the government of Japan. The
United States had occupied Okinawa since the end of WWII and built an expansive set of US military bases that remain there today. Some of those bases housed US nuclear weapons, which were removed in 1972 at the request of the Japanese government. The
agreement was kept secret for decades and both sides still refuse to discuss it publicly. Many of the details were finally made public in an official investigation conducted by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs during a brief period when the opposition D emocratic
Party of Japan (DPJ) controlled the government from September 2009 to December 2012. Another reason redeploying US nuclear weapons in Okinawa might sound persuasive to Mr Akiba is that US and Japanese officials can use ambiguities in the language of the
Nixon-Sato agreement, and tight controls on the dissemination of information about related bilateral discussions, to obscure th e process that would be followed if the United States decided to make Okinawa nuclear again. Schlesinger’s question and the Japanese
answer suggest the United States would ask the Japanese government for permission. But that permission need not be explicit, or public. It may not even be necessary. The language of the Nixon-Sato agreement is intentionally vague and suggests simple notification
at a relatively low level of the bureaucracy might be enough. This kind of low level agreement would give the prime minister and other LDP officials the same kind of plausible deniability they used to avoid discussing the Sato-Nixon agreement on redeploying nuclear
weapons in Okinawa for more than 50 years. The potential presence of US nuclear weapons in Okinawa would be further obscured from public view by the US government’s non-confirm, non-deny policy on military deployments. US silence on the question would
make it a lot easier for the Japanese government to consent to redeployment. In the absence of an external inquiry, US nuclear weapons could be put back in Okinawa quietly, without public knowledge or debate. The final reason Okinawa might sound persuasive to
Mr. Akiba is that the United States is building a new military base in the Okinawan village of Henoko. The project includes significant upgrades to a munitions storage depot, adjacent to the new base, where US nuclear weapons were s tored in the past. Henoko is

Abe is one of Donald

specifically mentioned in the 1969 Nixon-Sato agreement as a mutually acceptable location for the possible redeployment of US nuclear weapons in Japan. Birds of a Feather Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo

Trump’s most loyal international supporters. He was the first world leader to visit Trump Tower
during the transition and he highlighted his close personal friendship with the US president during recent
Japanese elections. Mr. Akiba is Abe’s chief foreign policy advisor, especially on the question of extended nuclear deterrence. Akiba
selected, organized and led the first several Japanese delegations to the US-Japan Extended Deterrence Dialogue (EDD) and has
toured US nuclear weapons facilities. With the release of the new US nuclear posture review and the Abe
government’s unapologetic endorsement , it seems clear that all three men agree on the
need to increase the role of US nuclear weapons in Asia.

No moderation---Japan doesn’t trust Chinese overtures.

Yuma Osaki 19. PhD Candidate at the Graduate School of Law, Doshisha University. “Is This
a True Thaw in Sino-Japanese Relations?” The Diplomat. 2/16/2019.
https://thediplomat.com/2019/02/is-this-a-true-thaw-in-sino-japanese-relations/
However, even though China and Japan hail a new level to their relationship, there remains a
considerable gap between rhetoric and reality , as well as paradoxical effects of any
significant moves within Sino-Japanese relations . Why is that the case?
Love-Hate Relationships
While private capital through trade and investment govern the trust between China and Japan, distrust reigns due to
both the internal and external political structures . U.S. President Donald Trump weaponizing
uncertainty in the U.S.-China trade war has undoubtedly pushed China and Japan closer together in terms of economic cooperation.
Accompanied by a Japanese delegation of 500 people from a range of business sectors, Abe’s visit to China pledged new
commitment to explore third-party markets for infrastructure projects jointly as well as to set up three-year currency swap
agreement with China. Likewise, China is set to relax or lift an import ban on food from 10 Japanese areas including Tokyo. At the
regional level, two countries have also pledged to speed up the negotiations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership Agreement (RCEP). To what extent is the recent rapprochement sustainable, both politically and economically?
At the macro level, one should not lose sight of the fact that there has always been a traditional pattern of Chinese diplomacy to turn
to Japan (and Europe) when there is an issue in relations with the United States. This trend is compounded by the fact that China
and Japan came to an impasse while reaching a consensus in defining the “new historical” starting point. During his visit to Beijing,
Abe raised “three principles” that he expected to guide Sino-Japanese relations going forward: First, shifting from competition to
collaboration; second, becoming partners instead of threats to each other; and third, developing a free and fair trade regime. Though
acknowledging the contents, Beijing refrained from using the “three principles” term when touting a “new chapter” in the bilateral
relationship. Chinese
reluctance to fully acknowledge the third principle, in particular, simply
indicates that Beijing yielded some of its political space to minimize tit-for-tat on the field of
play with the U nited S tates.
What is more, at the micro level as it has been at other times, the simplified politics using the “Japan card” that have been segued
into interest group politics in China and vice versa, remain intact. For instance, prior to and after the Abe’s visit, instead of
discussing the essence of the “new historical starting point” like prospective joint investments in infrastructure in third countries,
the bottom line of public discussion on a vast scale tended more toward a series of flashbacks on
Japan’s China ODA policy which somewhat exploited by particular interest groups . A recent
Chinese-edition of the Global Times inflamed that it is rather China that had been generous by not insisting on war reparations and
thus paved the way for Japanese companies and goods during the reform and opening period. In other words, while China
acknowledged ODA’s contribution to its remarkable economic growth, Japan should be more thankful for having been a beneficiary
of China’s development.
Accordingly, when it comes to Japan, perception and approach toward China’s rising influence invariably come to mesh with double-
layered forces, namely gaiatsu (foreign pressure) mainly from the United States and naiatsu (internal pressure) from domestic
groups. On the one hand, the alleged characteristics of Japanese defensive nature on the U.S. gaiatsu might be a thorn amidst the
diplomatic détente. Only one month after the state visit, following a decision by the the United States to prohibit government
purchases of Huawei telecommunication products, Japan
also revised its internal rules on procurement and
effectively excluded Huawei and ZTE . On the other hand, the gap between rhetoric and reality
of Sino-Japanese relations has been increasingly deepening due to the incongruences of naiatsu-
led policies that consequently raised two-fold problems.
Falling into the Inconsistency Trap
Japan in the contemporary era of a top-down leadership guided by the prime minister’s office (kantei-syudou 官邸主導) could have
broken away from the long-standing fragmented bureaucratic-led policymaking process (kanryou-syudou 官僚主導) particularly
pertaining to Japan’s China policy. By contrast, it seems that Japan in fact has experienced serious setbacks due to an
unprecedented dissent and competing interests within inner circle of policymakers, both in kantei and kanryou – illustrating how
policy associated with China’s BRI have become much more complicated, politically dynamic, if
not inconsistent. Bureaucrats from the Ministry of Economic, Trade, and Industry (METI) occupying most of the key Kantei
posts find hard to reach consensus with their counterparts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). METI whose primary
interest has revolved around Japan’s participation in the BRI so as to courting regional infrastructure development has been voicing
different stances than the MOFA which is stridently protective of its bureaucratic turf in supporting the free and open Indo-Pacific
(FOIP) vision. Adding complexity, Abe’s personnel policy has been swayed by a faction led by Takaya Imai and Toshihiro Nikai
appeared to pit against the camp anxious about security. Imai, an executive secretary to the prime minister and former METI
official, who was directly appointed by Abe, has been considered the driving force behind Abe’s pragmatic moves on China. Imai
even confessed that he is the one who rewrote the content of a personal letter from Abe to Xi in 2018, including the passage
highlighting Japan’s conditional support for the BRI. During his visit to Beijing, as cited by the the People’s Daily, Abe even clearly
mentioned the BRI as “promising.” This touched the nerve of some key groups in MOFA; just as a Chinese expert Shin Kawashima
skeptically points out that Japan’s attempts to steer China towards such “global standard” would
never readily be accepted by China .
In short, vested
interests cliques have clearly intruded into the foreign policy structure, which has
resulted in the peculiar features of contemporary Japan’s China policy. The double stances of
Japan – drifting toward a more pragmatic and proactive policy at the same time – raise doubts
over the longevity of Sino-Japanese diplomatic détente.
Hot Politics, Cold Economics
Relatedly, the dawning recognition that Japan and China had done well economically under the long-standing paradigm, “cold
politics, hot economics” (seirei keinetsu) may now be reversed. The current relationship seems rather “ hot
politics, cold economics ” (seinetsu keirei). As mentioned above, while Japan now has practically accepted China’s
BRI, albeit with several conditions, the seemingly-enthusiastic business sectors are pondering 52 infrastructure projects. By and
large, it is because Japanese business and Chinese SOEs, two key pillars of infrastructure collaboration, are
completely and diametrically opposed in their views and perceptions about the long-term
investment risks. Japan holding back a consortium with a Chinese counterpart for a $6.9 billion
Thailand rail project last December epitomizes this kind of “ hot politics and cold
economics ” on the infrastructure nexus. Although it was expected to be a symbolic model of joint project from various
accounts, the 220 km rail project linking the three main airports of Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang, and U-Tapao in one hour as well as
part of core infrastructure projects in Thailand – the Eastern Economic Corridor, was apparently dismissed from the memorandum
of cooperation on 52 joint projects signed. The Thai conglomerate, Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group and the China Railway
Construction Company, initially planned to collaborate with Japanese firms like Itochu Cooperation and Hitachi supported by the
JBIC for the project. Nevertheless, just as happened in the case of Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, the Thai government
refused to provide a government guarantee and disagreed on Japan’s second proposal of a semi-high speed rail to minimize
construction costs. Eventually, Itochu and Hitachi opted out of the projects. Another Japanese key stakeholder in the railway
business, the Japan Railway Group is reluctant to take numerous high-risk projects even as they are simultaneously focusing on
Indian high-speed railway projects.
What can be implied from this case is the fact that Sino-Japanese collaboration in the
infrastructure realm, which ought to be the key pillar of two countries’ mending relations,
instead turned out to be an extra headwind regardless of a fair political wind. Indeed, the basis
of policy paradigm currently underpinning two Asian giants’ relationships is at a crossroad.

Japanese decision-makers think mutual vulnerability is bad---

exacerbates the stability-instability paradox.
Takahashi Sugio 17. Research fellow at Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies and
chief of its Policy Simulation Division. “Redefining Strategic Stability: A Japanese View.”
Carnegie. 11/7/2017. https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/11/07/redefining-strategic-stability-
japanese-view-pub-74631
Under such strategic conditions, Japan’s strategist community pays more attention to

strategic stability . The main focus for them is crisis stability, or, more precisely, mutual
vulnerability . The author, for example, raises the issue of the stability-instability paradox, focusing on mutual vulnerability
in strategic stability and pointing out that U.S. acceptance of a condition of mutual vulnerability
between the two countries could cause deterioration in the regional security
environment through that paradox.6 The stability-instability paradox implies a situation
in which mutual deterrence at the strategic level leads to a challenger’s aggressive behavior at
the regional level, because that challenger perceives that the counterpart would refrain from
responding to avoid escalation. Japan’s strategist community demonstrates serious
concern that this paradox could be realized in this way: in the event that the U nited S tates
explicitly accepts mutual vulnerability with China , China may make even bolder
moves , with the attendant risk of escalation , from the gray zone to conventional
conflict . These moves might be based on China’s overconfidence in its deterrence against a U.S.
response and its assessment that the U nited S tates would want to avoid a severe showdown at the
strategic nuclear level because of mutual vulnerability. In this way, crisis stability based on
mutual vulnerability at the strategic level may invite instability at the theater level .
Ishikawa Taku, another nuclear strategist in Japan , points out the asymmetry in
vulnerability within this region.7 While China and North Korea have acquired invulnerable
theater strike capabilities with road-mobile missiles, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan lack such strike
capability. In this sense, China and North Korea enjoy one-sided invulnerability. Ishikawa argues that this asymmetrical
invulnerability is offset by U.S. theater and strategic strike capabilities, which hold China and North Korea’s full range of targets at
risk. With its commitment to extended deterrence, the United States guarantees regional mutual vulnerability even though regional
allies and friends lack strike capability.
This implies that regional allies and friends might be highly sensitive to the fear of de-coupling ,
because their one-sided vulnerability can only be mitigated and resolved by the assistance
of the U nited S tates. Even worse, in the face of China’s rapid development of theater-level A2/AD capabilities, the United
States’ in-theater strike force may be easily neutralized once actual kinetic conflict breaks out. Again, this observation
reaffirms the seriousness of Japanese concern about the stability-instability paradox if the
U nited S tates admits mutual vulnerability at the strategic level.

BMD policy is stable now---Trump is continuing Obama’s course.

Frank A. Rose 18. Senior Fellow, Security and Strategy - Foreign Policy. “Will the upcoming
Missile Defense Review maintain the current course or plot a new direction?” Brookings.
6/11/2018. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/06/11/will-the-
upcoming-missile-defense-review-maintain-the-current-course-or-plot-a-new-direction/
Over the past several months, the Trump administration has slowly been releasing its key national security strategy documents. First
came the National Security Strategy (NSS), then the National Defense Strategy (NDS), followed by the Nuclear Posture Review
(NPR). Next on the docket: the Missile Defense Review (MDR), which was expected to be released in February yet the wait
continues. Amid the suspense, many in Washington are wondering whether the document will maintain the existing consensus in
the United States on missile defense (i.e., defense against limited threats from regional states), or move in a different direction.
When it comes to missile defense, to date, the Trump administration has largely followed the same
approach as the Obama administration, which generally received bipartisan support in Congress. In
fact, there is little difference between how the Obama administration addressed missile defense and
how the Trump administration addresses it in his NSS . The NSS outlines the goal of U.S. homeland missile
defense system as follows: The United States is deploying a layered missile defense system focused on North Korea and Iran to
defend our homeland against missile attacks. This system will include the ability to defeat missile threats prior to launch.
Enhanced missile defense is not intended to undermine strategic stability or disrupt
longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China. The NDS makes the same general
point, outlining that missile defense “investments will focus on layered missile defenses and
disruptive capabilities for both theater missile threats and North Korean ballistic missile
threats.” And the 2018 NPR echoes a similar sentiment, stating that U.S. missile defenses will stay “ahead of North Korean
missile threats if they continue to grow, while also taking steps to preclude an arms race with China or Russia.” All three
national security documents echo the same message : The U nited S tates will develop layered
missile defenses to address missile threats from Iran and North Korea, while at the same
time trying to maintain a level of stability with Russia and China . The Trump
administration’s missile defense programmatic and budget decisions to date aren’t a drastic
departure either. The current administration is continuing most of the key missile defense
investments made by Obama, like the development and deployment of the Long-Range Discrimination Radar for Alaska;
the Redesigned Kill Vehicle for the Ground-Based Interceptors; and the Aegis Ashore site in Poland. That said, the administration
has also made some modest adjustments in the program, like: increasing top-line funding levels for missile defense; expanding the
number of long-range missile defense interceptors from 44 to 64 by 2023; and funding two additional long-range discrimination
radars for deployment in Hawaii and the Pacific. However, none of these adjustments, which are primarily focused on
addressing the North Korean missile threat, have been particularly controversial. Indeed, had Hillary Clinton
been elected, her administration would likely have made similar adjustments. However, are these
policies to date representative of the future approach the administration will take on missile defense, or are they merely a
holding pattern , similar to how it initially handled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran? On two key issues—
addressing the missile threat from Russia and China, and the future of space-based interceptors—this
administration’s current approach may represent more of a holding pattern than a long-term
trend. How the upcoming Missile Defense Review addresses these two issues will have significant implications for the domestic
consensus on missile defense within the United States, strategic relations with Russia and China, and ally relationships. While there
no such
is currently strong bipartisan support in the United States for addressing Iranian and North Korean missile threats,
consensus exists to re-orient U.S. missile defenses against Russia and China, as some
analysts have contended . Additionally, there are also serious questions as to whether the United States has the
technical capability to deal with advanced missile threats from Russia and China. The NSS, NDS, and NPR all infer
that U.S. missile defenses are not intended to undermine strategic stability with
Russia and China ; however they also highlight the reemergence of great power competition with regards to these
countries and the threat they pose. For example, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Fiscal Year 2019
missile defense budget, John Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy, stated that “the central challenge to our prosperity and
security is the reemergence of long-term strategic competition by revisionist powers in China and Russia.” While Rood did not
specifically say in his testimony that MDR would seek to address Russia and China’s ballistic missile capabilities, there appears to be
an ongoing debate within the Trump administration about the extent the United States should re-orientate its missile defenses
against this threat.
 AT: BMD Not Credible (Toucas 17)
6. Damage limitation---BMD locks in nuke superiority, which makes
the US win any war it fights. That’s Payne. That’s the largest internal
link to deterrence---first strike dominance is stabilizing whereas
mutual vulnerability makes war more likely.
Matthew Kroenig 17. Professor of political science at Georgetown. “The Limits of Damage
Limitation.” International Security 42(1): 193-207.
In “Should the United States Reject MAD?” Charles Glaser and Steve Fetter argue that the U nited S tates should
forgo a damage-limitation capability against China's strategic forces.1 To arrive at this conclusion, however, they
underestimate the advantages of a damage-limitation strategy and do not even consider more feasible
and desirable policy options for a strategic equilibrium with China. When these steps are corrected , it becomes
clear that the U nited S tates should not forgo this capability. Rather, it should preserve its
damage-limitation capability and quantitative nuclear superiority over China, while accepting
the inevitability of China's possession of an assured nuclear retaliatory capability.
Glaser and Fetter begin by making the conceptual mistake of searching for an arbitrary
threshold for meaningful damage limitation. In doing so, they underestimate the value of
limiting damage in the event of nuclear war. Glaser and Fetter are correct that completely denying China's nuclear
deterrent is increasingly difficult if not impossible as China expands and modernizes its arsenal, but this is an unnecessarily high
bar. D amage l imitation is better conceived of as a continuous , not a binary, variable. There
is no magical threshold beyond which the ability to limit damage in a nuclear war ceases to
matter. Any U.S. president would want to protect as much of the country as possible in the event
of a nuclear exchange, and any damage-limitation capability (even far below the threshold set by
Glaser and Fetter) would therefore be valuable. To argue otherwise, one would have to argue that
saving millions of American lives is unimportant or politically irrelevant, which is an
untenable position .
Glaser and Fetter's second error is to misconceive of nuclear deterrence in the wake of the nuclear
revolution and overlook recent scholarly research . As a result, they underestimate how
damage limitation enhances deterrence and extended deterrence . Theories of the nuclear
revolution (including those Glaser helped develop) suggest that political conflicts of interest among nuclear
powers are best conceived of as games of nuclear brinkmanship .2 To deter nuclear war,
therefore, a central question is: What causes states to back down in these “competitions in risk
taking.”3 As recent research shows, nuclear superiority and associated degrees of vulnerability to nuclear war
affect the balance of resolve , even when both sides possess an assured retaliation
capability .4 China will be less likely to challenge the U nited S tates and its allies , and to
achieve coercive success against them, therefore, if the U nited S tates maintains a damage-limitation
capability. In other words, a U.S. damage-limitation capability bolsters deterrence and
extended deterrence .
Scholars have questioned whether this logic also applies to nuclear compellence , but recent
research shows that it does.5 A nuclear-armed state has never issued a militarized compellent
threat against a nuclear superior state. In other words, nuclear superiority deters compellent
threats .
More broadly, order in the Asia Pacific has for decades rested on U.S. primacy . And as international
relations theory suggests, rapid shifts in the balance of power , such as that which would occur if
the U nited S tates abandoned nuclear advantages over China , would be destabilizing .6
Preserving stability in Asia through the continued maintenance of U.S.
predominance is a far better option.