Verbatim 4.6 - Web viewAmerican Dominance Good – Encourages Regional Cooperation 86. American Dominance Good – Global Stability87. American Dominance Good – Human Rights88

Imperialism Kritik Answers SLUDL/NAUDL 2016-17Varsity Only

Imperialism Kritik Answers

Imperialism Kritik Index.................................................................................................................................1

Summary..........................................................................................................................................................3

Glossary...........................................................................................................................................................4

1NC .................................................................................................................................................................5

Link: Diplomatic Engagement.......................................................................................................................10

Link: Economic Engagement........................................................................................................................13

Link: North Korea..........................................................................................................................................17

Link: South China Sea...................................................................................................................................23

Link: Global Warming...................................................................................................................................29

Link: Human Rights......................................................................................................................................32

Impact: Global Violence/Environmental Destruction...................................................................................38

Impact: Regional Conflict..............................................................................................................................40

Impact: Resource Wars..................................................................................................................................41

Alternative Solves – Criticism Key...............................................................................................................42

Alternative: Ethical Rejection........................................................................................................................44

Alternative: Peaceful Decline from Power Good..........................................................................................46

Alternative: Withdrawal from Imperialism Possible.....................................................................................47

Alternative: Academic Rejections Create Broader Change...........................................................................48

Alternative: Individual Rejections Break Down Imperialism.......................................................................49

Discourse Key................................................................................................................................................50

Epistemology Key.........................................................................................................................................51

ANSWER TO: The Affirmative reduces imperialism (Link Turns).............................................................52

ANSWER TO: Permutation..........................................................................................................................54

1


ANSWER TO: China is a Threat...................................................................................................................58

ANSWER TO: Imperialism Sustainable.......................................................................................................62

ANSWER TO: Imperialism Good.................................................................................................................63

ANSWER TO: Imperialism is Benign..........................................................................................................64

ANSWER TO: Transition Wars....................................................................................................................65

ANSWER TO: American Dominance Good.................................................................................................66

AFFIMATIVE ANSWERS

No Link – Plan not Containment...................................................................................................................68

Perm – Moderate Strategy Solves..................................................................................................................69

Perm – Moderate Strategy Solves..................................................................................................................70

Turn – Engagement Solves Distrust..............................................................................................................71

ANSWER TO: South China Sea Link...........................................................................................................72

ANSWER TO: North Korea Link.................................................................................................................74

ANSWER TO: Global Warming Link..........................................................................................................76

ANSWER TO: Human Rights Link..............................................................................................................79

China is a Threat – Containment Necessary..................................................................................................81

American Dominance Sustainable.................................................................................................................83

American Dominance Good – Transition Wars ...........................................................................................85

American Dominance Good – Encourages Regional Cooperation ..............................................................86

American Dominance Good – Global Stability.............................................................................................87

American Dominance Good – Human Rights...............................................................................................88

American Dominance Good – Global Economy...........................................................................................89

ANSWERS TO: Epistemology Key..............................................................................................................90

2


Summary The thesis of this argument is that the United States uses its position as a global leader and hegemon to expand its control beyond its national borders. The Aff either aims to increase or at the very least sustains this system of imperialist domination. Even policies designed to maximize cooperation ultimately work to stabilize and preserve the status quo in which the US exerts control throughout the globe.

For example, the Aff might argue that the South China Sea is the most likely scenario for escalation, and that cooperation and mutual understanding would prevent a major conflict with China. But that result means that US would still be able to send warships unimpeded through the South China Sea, which is part of the larger project of imperialism.

This leads ongoing forms of structural violence and, if left unchecked, imperialism will eventually lead to large-scale conflicts with other major powers. The destructive effects on the environment also cannot be ignored which would end in planetary extinction. The alternative is to simply reject imperialism…our role as intellectuals means that we must constantly look for new ways to dismantle this violent and oppressive system. This can either be framed as an ethical choice, a question of pedagogy, or an attempt to build momentum with anti-imperial alliances throughout the globe (many of the cards mention certain struggles and movements that are intensifying now).

There are three key arguments you should be making on the Neg: 1) Imperialism is unsustainable – much like Cap debates, if you win this argument then it severely undercuts any “Imperialism Good” offense. 2) Imperialism turns the Aff’s impacts or makes them inevitable – it would definitely make your argument more persuasive if you could articulate how the impact scenarios outlined by the Aff are the result of the United States’ attempt to exert and impose control over various regions in the world…this is why North Korea is developing nuclear weapons in the first place, and this is why tensions are high in the South China Sea. US imperialism is also responsible for environmental destruction, increased CO2 emissions, human rights violations, etc. 3) Ethics matter, so rejecting imperialism becomes an ethical obligation for the judge. Even if the alternative is unable to solve for the K a “linear” fashion, it doesn’t matter – imperialism is unethical!

For the Aff, the two big arguments are: 1) Alternatives to US dominance are worse – other nations (like China) have imperial ambitions which would lead to many of the same impacts outlined by the Kritik. 2) Use the perm to shield yourself from the links, and talk about why the plan is still good. Many Aff’s won’t be necessarily committed to, say, continued US military presence. The Aff might sustain world in which the US exerts control over the world, but the perm could include the dismantling of bases while the US and China still cooperate to reduce CO2 emissions to stop global warming. So the perm would resolve enough of the impact to make voting for the plan beneficial

3


Glossary

Here are some definitions you may find helpful for this file:

Imperialism – the expansion of sovereign authority, power and influence through methods of (economic) exploitation and (military) domination.

Containment – in foreign policy, a strategy designed to limit the economic, military, or political growth of a country (in this case, China)

Freedom of Navigation – the ability to send warships and military forces through international waters anywhere and at any time.

Retrenchment – restrained or reduced US military deployments and defense commitments.

Discourse – practices of knowing, perceiving, sensing things in the world. Discursive criticism involves a critical examination of the way we go about thinking, speaking, writing, and representing the world.

Epistemology – the study of how we know what we know. Epistemological reflection would entail the questioning of the way in which certain “facts” are interpreted, and an understanding of how the conclusions we draw are informed by unconsciously held attitudes and beliefs.

Positivism – a theory of epistemology that presupposes the existence of an objective reality “out there,” independent of our perceptions, that we can understand through observable facts. This is a useful argument for the Aff because it helps to defend claims about the threatening or aggressive nature of other countries.

4


No Li nk – Plan not Containment

(_)

( ) US policies toward China are in no way reminiscent of Cold War politics of containment…even when considering our military posturing. Christensen, 2006

[Thomas J. Christensen is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. “Fostering Stability or Creating a Monster? The Rise of China and U.S. Policy toward East Asia.” International Security, Volume 31, Number 1, Summer 2006. https://www.princeton.edu/politics/about/file-repository/public/christensen-1.pdf

Regardless of whether one agrees with Mearsheimer’s prescriptions for early abandonment of the U.S. policy of constructive engagement (and I do not), he, Grieco, and others are right to point out that, since the end of the Cold War, the United States generally has not been containing China but, for the most part, fostering its growth. Especially if one uses the United States’ containment policies toward the Soviet Union as a basis of comparison, the complaint often heard from Chinese experts—that the United States has been dedicated to a grand strategy of containment of China as part of a general policy to maintain U.S. hegemony—is, for the most part, divorced from reality. 81 During the Cold War, the United States adopted measures not only to check Soviet military expansionism but also to weaken the Soviet Union economically and diplomatically. As stated in the introduction of this article, few grand strategies are either purely zero-sum or positive-sum, but Cold War–style containment policies leveled at the Soviet Union and at China in the 1950s and 1960s are fairly close to the zero-sum end of the spectrum. This has hardly been the case with U.S. policy toward China since late 1978, when the United States normalized relations with the PRC and Deng Xiaoping launched his historic reform program. In fact, since then, no foreign country has done more to make China stronger economically and diplomatically than the United States. 82 Moreover, this is not some sort of accidental failure of strategy. As Deputy Secretary of State Zoellick has pointed out on numerous occasions, and prominently in his influential speech on September 21, 2005, it has not been and is not the intention of the United States to contain China’s overall national power. 83 On the contrary, in his speech and in his Senior Dialogue with Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo, Zoellick seems committed to encouraging China to play a more influential role on the international stage, albeit for purposes that fi common Sino-American security and economic interests. 84

5


Perm – Moderate Strategy Solves

(_)

( ) Moderate approaches like the Aff solve US-China tensions.Christensen, 2006


This article outlines a moderate U.S. strategy toward China and the region that mixes elements of positive-sum and zero-sum thinking. In such a strategy, a firm security posture toward China would not only hedge against a potential turn for the worse in Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy; it would also help shape long-term Chinese political and diplomatic evolution in directions that reduce the likelihood of unwanted conflict and instability between China and its neighbors and reduce the likelihood of dangerous miscalculations and unnecessary spirals of tension in Sino-American relations. Positive U.S. diplomatic and economic initiatives toward China and its neighbors similarly would not simply build trust and reassurance in the region, but also would maximize relative U.S. power and influence in the region in case China’s future foreign policy were to become more aggressive (e.g., if Beijing were to attempt to undercut U.S. regional leadership or extrude U.S. forces from the region). All things being equal, such goals would be harder for Chinese elites to achieve if the United States appears to behave in a constructive manner toward regional actors (including China), rather than if it appears to be provocative toward China, forcing regional actors to make a stark and unwelcome choice between Beijing and Washington.

6


Perm – Moderate Strategy Solves

( ) Moderate strategies reduce US power and containment practices while simultaneously building mutual trust and cooperation.Christensen, 2006


How should the United States respond to a rising China to help shape Chinese policy toward the East Asia region and the world? In the largely sterile engagement versus containment debate, those advocating moderate engagement policies toward China view them as ways of leading to more constructive Chinese policies toward the region, and thereby reducing the likelihood of conflict. Such policies are therefore considered wise even if they would somewhat reduce U.S. relative power if conflict were to arise. Tough U.S. policies, such as strengthening the American military presence or tightening coordination with U.S. allies or regional security partners, are often viewed as increasing U.S. power potential in case of conflict, but also as raising the chances for conflict by reducing the likelihood that China will adopt a reassuring and constructive posture toward the region. U.S. assertiveness is often criticized because it alienates U.S. allies who do not want to see an aggressive China policy in Washington. On the other side of the debate, zero-sum thinkers sometimes criticize those advocating engagement for adopting a logic that plays into China’s hands and allows Chinese power to grow unchecked by the one power that can do something about it, the United States. The analysis offered above suggests that this debate is far too simplistic. Even if straightforward and full-spectrum containment were attempted by the United States, it would be counterproductive, not only because it would raise China’s ire, but because it would reduce Washington’s relative power in the region. The United States would likely gain no new allies in such an effort and would lose some, if not all, of its current regional allies. In this sense, Washington’s positive engagement of China assists the United States even in the zero-sum aspects of its policies toward China because it helps the United States maintain its regional alliances. At the same time, China itself might be adopting many accommodating strategies in the region not as a reward for American and allied moderation, but at least in part as a way to counter U.S. influence. Beijing wants to make it more difficult and painful for regional actors to choose the United States over China in any future standoff. So, by maintaining a strong presence in the region, the United States has done more than provide collective goods in security and economic affairs; it may have provided a major catalyst for Beijing to help provide such collective goods as well. To the degree that Beijing’s new influence does not lead the United States to become fully extruded from the region, the end result of the competition for influence in the region may be a more stable and prosperous region in which actors in East Asia do not want to choose sides in a U.S.-China conflict and Beijing and Washington lack any real pretense for starting one.

7


Turn – Engagement Solves Distrust (_)

( ) Plan reduces strategic distrust between US and ChinaLieberthal and Jisi, 2012

[Kenneth Lieberthal, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and in Global Economy and Development and is Director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. Wang Jisi, Director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies and Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University. “Addressing US-China Strategic Distrust.” March 2012. http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/3/30-us-china-lieberthal/0330_china_lieberthal.pdf]

This monograph is written in the conviction that U.S.-China strategic distrust is growing, is potentially very corrosive, is little understood on either side, and there-fore should be addressed directly as a major issue. The co-authors hope that our candid explication of the substance and internal narratives of distrust in each government may help policy makers on each side to understand the underlying context in which their own policies are seen and thus to become more effective in achieving the goals they have set. Our recommendations reflect our belief that strategic distrust is very difficult but not impossible to address meaningfully. We have sought, therefore, to suggest a variety of specific initiatives that may erode the bases for deep distrust over long-term intentions and facilitate greater mutual understanding and cooperation. The stakes in this endeavor are exceptionally high. The United States and China are the two most consequential countries in the world over the coming decades. The nature of their relationship will have a profound impact on the citizens of both countries, on the Asia-Pacific region, and indeed on the world. Strategic distrust will inevitably impose very high costs on all concerned if it continues to grow at a rapid pace, as we believe it has been doing. As explicated above, there are both objective and subjective reasons for strategic distrust on both sides. With major efforts, it may be possible to bring this destabilizing element in U.S.-China relations under control and reduce its impact. Words matter, and therefore many of our recommendations focus on new dialogues that should be undertaken. If such dialogues and related actions do not prove effective, then both leaderships should consider very carefully how to manage U.S.-China relations so as to maximize cooperation and minimize the tensions and conflict, despite each side’s deep distrust the long-term intentions of the other.

8


ANSWER TO: South China Sea Link

(_)

( ) Without continued US influence in the South China Sea, regional instability would lead to conflict. Glaser, 2014

[Bonnie S. Glaser, Senior Advisor for Asia, Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Armed Clash in the South China Sea.” April 2012. http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/armed-clash-south-china-sea/p27883]

Alliance security and regional stability. U.S. allies and friends around the South China Sea look to the United States to maintain free trade, safe and secure sea lines of communication (SLOCs), and overall peace and stability in the region. Claimants and nonclaimants to land features and maritime waters in the South China Sea view the U.S. military presence as necessary to allow decision-making free of intimidation. If nations in the South China Sea lose confidence in the United States to serve as the principal regional security guarantor, they could embark on costly and potentially destabilizing arms buildups to compensate or, alternatively, become more accommodating to the demands of a powerful China. Neither would be in the U.S. interest. Failure to reassure allies of U.S. commitments in the region could also undermine U.S. security guarantees in the broader Asia-Pacific region, especially with Japan and South Korea. At the same time, however, the United States must avoid getting drawn into the territorial dispute—and possibly into a conflict—by regional nations who seek U.S. backing to legitimize their claims.

( ) The US has several strategic interests in protecting the South China Sea. Glaser, 2015

[Bonnie Glaser, Senior Advisor for Asia, Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Conflict in the South China Sea.” April 2015. http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/conflict-south-china-sea/p36377]

U.S. interests in the South China Sea include freedom of navigation, unimpeded passage for commercial shipping, and peaceful resolution of territorial disputes according to international law. Failure to respond to Chinese coercion or use of force could damage U.S. credibility, not only in Southeast Asia, but also in Japan, where anxiety about intensified activity by Chinese military and paramilitary forces is growing. Conflict in the South China Sea would put at risk the more than $5 trillion in trade that passes through those strategic waters annually. Also at stake is the U.S. relationship with China, including Washington's efforts to gain greater cooperation from Beijing on global issues such as combatting terrorism, dealing with epidemics, confronting climate change, securing a deal on Iran's nuclear program, and persuading North Korea to relinquish its nuclear weapons.

9

http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/conflict-south-china-sea/p36377

http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/armed-clash-south-china-sea/p27883


ANSWER TO: South China Sea Link ( ) US activities in the South China Sea are purely benign and in accordance with international law. As a result, bilateral cooperation with China increasing despite tensions. Morton, 2016 [Katherine Morton, Chair and Professor of China's International Relations at the University of Sheffield. “China's ambition in the South China Sea: is a legitimate maritime order possible?” International Affairs, Volume 92, Issue 4, July 2016]

A US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on 17 September revealed that the US Navy had not conducted a freedom of navigation operation in Chinese territorial waters since 2012.72 A month later, on 26 October 2015, a US Navy missile destroyer, USS Lassen, from Yokosuka naval base in Japan, conducted a freedom of navigation patrol within the Chinese-claimed 12 nautical miles territorial limit of Subi Reef. Despite the buildup of tensions and media outrage, signs of restraint were evident on both sides. China responded in words only, urging the United States to ‘immediately correct its wrongdoing’ and refrain from military provocation.73 In the event, the US destroyer conducted an innocent passage by lowering its radar as consistent with international law.74¶

In assessing the competitive dynamics between the United States and China it is also important to acknowledge the advances in bilateral cooperation. Both navies contributed to the adoption of a Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), which was signed by 21 Pacific nations at the Western Pacific Naval Symposium hosted by China in Qingdao in April 2014. In the same year, an additional mechanism for enhancing strategic communications was established between defence agencies regarding the safety of air and maritime forces.75 Televised meetings between Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of the US Pacific Command, and Admiral Wu Shengli, Commander of the PLAN, have further helped to advance military diplomacy.76¶

Equally relevant is the fact that US and Chinese interests in safeguarding global maritime stability are increasingly aligned. Redefining the US–China relationship on the basis of a global maritime security agenda is likely to gain momentum over time, in keeping with China's expanding maritime interests from the polar oceans to the Gulf of Aden and the Mediterranean. However, this positive realignment may not be sufficient to offset the buildup of tensions in the South China Sea.77

10


ANSWER TO: North Korea Link

(_)

( ) North Korea is a threat – recent actions and statements prove. Carlson ’16 [John Carlson, counselor to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, member of the Advisory Council of the International Luxembourg Forum, member of VERTIC’s International Verification Consultants Network, and adviser to the Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. “Dealing with the North Korean Nuclear Threat.” May 9, 2016. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/dealing-the-north-korean-nuclear-threat-16102

North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un, has outlined his country’s nuclear weapon policy. At the Workers’ Party Congress, now in session, he announced that “as a responsible nuclear weapons state, our Republic will not use a nuclear weapon unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes.” He also said “North Korea will faithfully fulfill its obligation for non-proliferation and strive for the global denuclearization.”¶ This last statement is totally inconsistent with North Korea’s record. North Korea withdrew from the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) in 2003. Subsequently it has conducted four nuclear tests, and a further nuclear test appears imminent. Mr Kim has posed on television with what was presented as a nuclear warhead. North Korea has test-fired a variety of ballistic missiles, including intercontinental and submarine-launched missiles. And North Korea has helped the nuclear proliferation efforts of other countries, the most spectacular example being the construction of a plutonium production reactor in Syria (bombed by Israel in 2007). Currently North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for around a dozen nuclear weapons, and is also believed to be producing highly enriched uranium (HEU), though the quantity is not known.¶ Most experts consider that North Korea’s claims are exaggerated. To date its nuclear tests have been small-scale, its claims to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb are discounted, and most of its missile tests are evident failures. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that over time, if nothing changes, North Korea’s capabilities will continue to improve. It could possibly have a missile, albeit of uncertain reliability, capable of reaching the US mainland with a nuclear warhead by the end of this decade.¶ South Korea and Japan are increasingly agitated about North Korean developments. In both countries there is public discussion of whether they should renounce their nonproliferation commitments and develop nuclear weapons of their own. China, supposedly North Korea’s ally, also has every reason to worry about the dangers of North Korea’s behaviour. It is imperative to find a circuit breaker before the situation escalates into a major regional crisis.

11

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/dealing-the-north-korean-nuclear-threat-16102

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/dealing-the-north-korean-nuclear-threat-16102


ANSWER TO: North Korea Link ( ) Experts agree – North Korea is a threat that must be contained. Now is key.Ramirez, 2016 [Elaine, staff writer for The Diplomat. Based in Seoul since 2009, she has written and edited for The Korea Herald, Groove Korea, and Tech in Asia. “North Korea’s Missile Threat: No Longer Crying Wolf.”April 26, 2016. http://thediplomat.com/2016/04/north-koreas-missile-threat-no-longer-crying-wolf/]It is impossible not to sense the global exasperation at the repeated North Korean provocations and condemnations that lead to nowhere, only to see the cycle continuously repeat itself. Experts say the United States and South Korea must do more than look down their noses at the North — they must take action to prevent further advances in North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.¶ Park Hwee-rhak, a political science professor at Kookmin University, assesses that this week’s showing is about three times more serious than North Korea’s 2013 nuclear test. Despite the country’s weak economy, military progress has accelerated under Kim Jong-un in comparison to the gains made under his late father, the longtime strongman Kim Jong-il. South Korea’s Ministry of Defense predicted the North would have an operational SLBM in three to four years, which it shortened to two to three years after the latest showing, but many experts, including Park, believe it could be one to two years or even less.¶ Yet public apathy and political pussyfooting create a toxic environment that is reinforcing attitudes of hesitation and inaction, experts say. Continuing to nudge the issue under the rug only makes the problem worse for future generations.¶ “The most dangerous thing is that the South Korean people and the U.S. military are getting immune to the emergence of new threats from North Korea,” says Park. He adds that they like to think that North Korean threats are a show for domestic purposes to consolidate public support under Kim’s flaunted military muscle, but no one wants to believe Pyongyang’s intentions to “unify” the Koreas with nuclear weapons.¶ The North’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology still lacks the capability reach the United States, says Park, but the submarine-launched ballistic missile, which Park says is relatively easy to develop, could put the U.S. mainland in danger in as little as one to two years.¶ Park says North Korea is using its missiles to drive a wedge into the South Korea-U.S. alliance, with the ultimate aim of isolating South Korea and “unifying” the Koreas through nuclear weapons. North Korea is trying to force the United States to question its priorities — should Washington keep its word that it would protect the South unconditionally or defend its territory despite the threat of an attack on the U.S. mainland?¶ “If North Korea succeeds [in developing] the SLBM which can strike the U.S., the U.S. would be in a serious question — should the U.S. try to attack North Korea with nuclear weapons as retaliation [for an attack on South Korea], with the risk of North Korea’s nuclear attack onto Seattle or San Francisco or Los Angeles?” says Park. It questions the fundamentals of the alliance, and tests how far Washington would go to risk its own citizenry in order to protect the people of another country. “It’s not the U.S.’s fault if that situation occurs,” Park adds. “Most countries would protect their own people if assisting foreign allies.”¶ Experts believe the vicious cycle of North Korean provocations is doomed to repeat itself as long as the United States is stunted by inaction. Now is the time when Washington should be applying more pressure, they say, but the South’s ally has little incentive to get more involved due to limited national interest and a focus on slimming down its own government and military.

12

http://thediplomat.com/2016/04/north-koreas-missile-threat-no-longer-crying-wolf/


ANSWER TO: Global Warming Link (__)

( ) China’s changing attitude toward climate change is the result of internal forces, not imperialist coercion. Tseng, 2015

[Yi-tsui Tseng, doctoral candidate at the University of Denver. “A Discursive Perspective on China’s Global Politics of Climate Change, 1992-2013.” Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015. http://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2052&context=etd]

Firstly, the issue of climate change is now merged with the development policy for the Chinese government. Although China has insisted on its status as a developing 152 country at climate negotiations, the policy linkages between climate mitigation and economic and energy policies took place only recently. Secondly, it was the co-evolution of several changing conditions that together shaped the outcome of the policy shift. Three types of “social forces” in material, institutional, and ideational forms embodied in a conglomerate of events took place in the first several years of the 21st century, causing the development agenda to absorb the climate issue with the operation of a set of policy narratives based on the official idea of Science-based Development. As a third finding, energy shortage and the growing cost of environmental degradation were perceived to be most acute problems in the material aspect. The expanded energy demand reflected on the increased energy intensity during the first few years in the 2000s, the increasing reliance on foreign oil, and the constraints on using domestic coal together constitute the problem of energy shortage for the Chinese government. While the international pressure on emissions reductions and internal struggles over reforming state-owned enterprises (targeting some of the largest oil and energy companies) are present, shortage is the most salient propelling force to China’s rethinking of its development, energy, and the extended environment and climate policy. Institutionally, the consolidation of power-transition rules within the party and government seemed to have reduced the political uncertainty within the party so that the government could be more concentrated on national development issues. The elevation of climate issue to the centrally-coordinating level in 1998 and the following stepping-up to the highest-executive level in 2007 represented at least one important point. The 153 leadership came to perceive that the climate issue has becoming an issue beyond diplomacy and international politics. The complexity of the problem has gotten noted in many dimensions particularly those under the agenda of development. An integral framework thus was needed.

13


ANSWER TO: Global Warming Link ( ) There’s no such thing as “green imperialism” – sustainable development is a norm acknowledged by most countries.Tseng, 2015


When the environmental advocacy began promotion from the Western industrialized nations in the 1970s, some developing countries, including China and India, had been against the international environmental governance in the fear of concern “green imperialism.” Today, while tension still lingers between the North and South and the contention of green imperialism persists in trade or environmental talks from time to time, “protecting the environment” has secured its normative legitimacy as a global norm that very few would oppose largely because the idea of SD [Sustainable Development] can contain so many divergent and even contradictory initiatives that each actor can articulate its particular identities and interests through many discursive practices. Northern and Southern countries are joined together under the big tent of SD, as SD soon incorporates other agendas for human rights, global equity, technological and human capital development, etc. From a perspective of discursive hegemony, the roles of SD as an ideological void and political common ground enable the global environmental issues to epitomize a construction and operation of discursive hegemony. While there are always dissents over means of implementing sustainable development, and sometimes even over definitions of sustainable development; yet there is always the consent from all to adhering to SD as the common goal. Responses to climate change can be a good example.

14


ANSWER TO: Global Warming Link

( ) Cooperation between US and China on climate is progressing. Empirics show that China is open to changes in climate policy. Tseng, 2015


On June 30, 2015, China submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the FCCC as its proposal for the COP-21 in Paris, after a widely-reported joint statement on responding to climate change with the United States a few months ago in January. The Paris Climate Convention, scheduled to be in December 2015, is aimed to create a more enforceable and effective global climate regime than the Kyoto Protocol. “Enforceability” means the measuring, reporting, and verifying mechanisms, and “effectiveness” means to include the majority of global GHG emitters, including the United States, China and other large emerging economies in order for a truly global mitigation effort. China’s pledges this time contain halting growth of carbon emissions and the use of renewable energy sources (Buckley, 2015). The Chinese government had promised in 2009 to cut its carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45% from its 2005 level, and to do so by 2020. Premier Li Keqiang announced a new goal in June this year, to extend the cut to 60 to 65% by 2030. It was analyzed that China had already fulfilled much of its original commitment. By late 2014, according to government data, carbon intensity was down by 33.8% from the 2005 level. Other proposed targets in the submission include the promise to peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, which was first announced in 2014. Li also reiterated that renewables 151 should make up 20% of China’s primary energy supply (China Dialogue, 2015). With the effectuation of the revised Environmental Protection Law, China has introduced new and toughly-enforced regulations and penalties to hasten changes to how energy, raw materials and goods are produced and consumed in the country. Although many technical issues over how the proposed goals can be realized have arisen, it is no doubt that how much and how quickly China’s emissions can be reduced plays a crucial role in the management of global climate change, and the actions of Chinese government will very likely stir political debates among policymakers in Washington, creating impact that bears great significance on the history of global climate governance. For years, international negotiations have brought little agreement on how to assign responsibility for cutting greenhouse gas pollution. Many have hoped, even expected that Paris will be very different from the Copenhagen in 2009 that substantive cooperation can happen between wealthy and developing economies, especially between the United States and China. Understanding what drives China’s policy positions thus has been essential empirically and practically.

15


ANSWER TO: Human Rights Link (_)

( ) Human rights aren’t an intrinsically “western” concept, and their historical origins shouldn’t be used to discount their validity. Svensson, 2002

[Marina Svensson, Professor of Modern China Studies at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University. Debating Human Rights in China: A Conceptual and Political History. 2002, pg 50-51]

The proposition that human rights are universal only refers to their applicability and not to their origin or recognition. It is important to distinguish be-tween the historical genesis of the idea and its justification and realization in the contemporary world. The fact that the concept of human rights originated in the West does not undermine its universal applicability, nor do the obvious violations of human rights worldwide, including in the West, make their future realization impossible. Even though the concept was first formulated in the West, it does not follow that it reflects exclusive Western concerns. Totalitarianism and the denial of human rights is unfortunately as much a pan of the West, both in theory and in practice, as are democracy and the respect for human rights. Nor are human rights as deeply embedded in Western thought as is often assumed. For those who dismiss human rights simply because of their Western origin, it should be pointed out that many schools of thought in the West have been highly critical of the concept, without making them any less Western. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. has noted: ¶ As a historian, I confess to a certain amusement when I hear the Judeo-Christian tradition praised as the source of our concern for human rights. In fact, the great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights in the contemporary sense. They were notorious not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression but for enthusiastic justifications of slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, genocide.16 ¶ Although the concept of human rights was first formulated in the West, its development and acceptance has been far from smooth. Respect for human rights in non-Western societies is probably as realistic, or unrealistic, as is the respect for human rights in the West. Since the concept of human rights has gradually evolved in the West, it is not too farfetched to imagine a similar development in the rest of the world, especially in the contemporary world of cross-cultural communication and exchange of ideas. The concept of human rights was once equally foreign to traditional Western societies as it now may seem to some non-Western societies, but the development of the modern nation—state and market economy have made it relevant and indispensable. This should not be taken to mean that history only moves in one inevitable direction, or that developments in the rest of the world will mirror that of the West. Furthermore and unfortunately, it is not at all certain that democracy and respect for human rights will represent the "end of history," not even in the West." The concept of human rights will no doubt continue to evolve in response to the appearance of new threats against humankind. In contrast to the early human rights debates, which were completely dominated by the West, different cultures and societies today play an equally important role in shaping the new global human rights discourse.

16


ANSWER TO: Human Rights Link ( ) Critiques of human rights can easily collapse into cultural relativism, justifying the worst atrocities.Svensson, 2002 [Marina Svensson, Professor of Modern China Studies at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University. Debating Human Rights in China: A Conceptual and Political History. 2002, pg 49-50]

While it is true that our standards and moral values are shaped by the society in which we live, our values are also, and increasingly, shaped by our participation in and interaction with the global community. In recent years the language of human rights has become a global language that can be understood in parts of the world where it once was considered foreign and incomprehensible. The globalization of human rights talk is an indisputable fact. In many parts of the world disadvantaged groups of people are now making skillful use of human rights discourses to protect their rights and interests vis-a-vis other groups in society, domestic power holders, and multinational corporations.' Human rights, in other words, have itself become part and parcel of these societies' cultural practices.' Some people also seem to object to universal human rights because they believe that such an advocacy "produces an unhealthy sameness" and has a totalitarian ring to it' To advocate universal human rights, they claim, is to be guilty of dogmatism, monism, and cultural imperialism. They hold that human rights conceptions and standards inevitably vary between different societies, and that these differences should be accepted in the name of cultural pluralism.' This may on the surface seem like a rather harmless and even worthwhile proposition: who could possibly be against cultural pluralism! But to accept pluralism in the field of human rights conceptions is potentially dangerous and easily pushes one into the arms of cultural relativists. An advocacy of universal human rights and rejection of cultural relativism, I would contend, does not imply an attack on cultural diversity, nor does it rule out that cultural traditions to some extent influence both our understanding of human rights as well as their implementation.9 It is not the advocacy of universal human rights that threatens cultural pluralism but, ironically enough, it is the acceptance of a pluralism of human rights conceptions. As a matter of fact, universal human rights actually serve to defend pluralism by protecting people's rights to hold different beliefs and opinions.

17


China is a Threat – Containment Necessary ( ) China’s rise to challenge American preeminence will lead to a resurgence of nationalism, resulting in more aggressive policies and risking major power conflicts. Tellis, 2014

[Ashley J. Tellis, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. “Balancing without Containment: An American Strategy for Managing China.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2014. http://carnegieendowment.org/files/balancing_without_containment.pdf]

Finally, Beijing’s ascent to global hegemony, first as a rival and then as a primate, could also pose an especially concerted threat to American interests because it may intensify the upsurge in Chinese nationalism. If the last two decades of Chinese growth have corroborated anything, it is that expanding economic power invariably stimulates various kinds of national awakenings, including those of the virulent variety. Western states that were once rising powers themselves are familiar with this phenomenon, which they often forget at their peril.45 Not surprisingly, then, China’s growing economic clout has already been accompanied by an unhealthy nationalism stimulated at different times by its media, its increasingly confident middle classes, its new netizen community, or sometimes even by the state itself.46 These entities have boosted Chinese aggressiveness in recent years, which has been manifested in seizures of disputed territories or threats of punishment directed toward traditional rivals. The availability of new resources has empowered Beijing to pursue coercive actions that were previously considered out of reach or excessively risky, and either new social forces within the state or the aroused citizenry has legitimized these actions. This development effectively refutes the widespread expectation that China’s economic growth, deriving as it did from interdependence instead of from the autarkic means that have led to the rise of other great powers, would produce a more pacific and cosmopolitan population focused on securing self-government at home rather than the expansion of national influence abroad. The likelihood that such pernicious nationalism would be aggravated even after China becomes either a peer of the United States or the most powerful state in international politics is great for three different, but mutually reinforcing, reasons. First, if the Chinese Communist Party survives at the helm, its problems of legitimacy could compel it—as is the case today—to excite Chinese nationalism whenever it senses serious threats to its survival or its hold on power.47 Second, the deeply etched memory of China’s “century of humiliation” at the hands of foreign invaders ensures that a rising Beijing would be strongly motivated to prevent any loss of power. As a result, it would utilize all forms of political mobilization to bolster its strength in hopes of warding off any return to weakness that might spawn fresh indignities.48 Third, a powerful China would quickly discover that it remains surrounded by various challengers, some of whom may be capable of growing at even faster rates over time. Coping with these unending threats would charge Chinese nationalism further, in part because the major competitors along the country’s immediate periphery—Russia, India, and Japan, not to mention the United States—are also significant powers with proud histories and their own unique chauvinisms.49 The persistence of Chinese nationalism, then, will likely intensify the threats Beijing levies on Washington and its allies beyond what is inevitable due to the normal jostling of great-power competition.

18


China is a Threat – Containment Necessary ( ) Even if China is not a threat to the US, America’s primacy is necessary to contain Chinese regional aggression and protect our allies.Kazianis, 2015

[Harry J. Kazianis, former Executive Editor of The National Interest. Mr. Kazianis also serves as Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest, Senior Fellow at the China Policy Institute as well as a Fellow for National Security Affairs at The Potomac Foundation. He previously served as Editor of The Diplomat and as a WSD Handa Fellow at Pacific Forum: CSIS. “Unthinkable: If America Walked Away from Asia.” December 30, 2015. http://nationalinterest.org/feature/unthinkable-if-america-walked-away-asia-14760?page=show]

And what’s so bad about America’s so-called primacy in Asia in the first place? Glaser, at least in my view, makes it sound like the Asia-Pacific is some large American vassal state that it should relinquish control of. It should be clear for anyone to see that Washington is the provider of many important net public goods—like those all-important security alliances, nuclear umbrellas and protected sea lanes that allow trade to thrive. As former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman points out:¶ “The concept of Primacy has underpinned U.S. grand strategy since the end of the Cold War because no other nation was able to provide the collective public goods that have upheld the security of the international system and enabled a period of dramatically increased global economic activity and prosperity. Both the United States and the global system have benefitted from that circumstance.”¶ But what happens when America gives up its so-called primacy in Asia? Glaser never defines what the end of American primacy in Asia would look like. What are the specifics? Does Washington simply walk away from treaty commitments and alliance guarantees to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines? What about growing strategic relations with Vietnam and India? Does America simply say “sorry” and begin withdrawing its forces from the region? Or does America offer some sort of “grand bargain” to Beijing, where Washington holds a sphere of influence from the shores of California to Hawaii with China holding the rest? What would be the ramifications globally? Could you really imagine President Obama walking up to a microphone and proposing any of this?¶ As a senior Taiwanese official explained to me when I was in Taipei this fall: “We want more America, not less. Washington is the only thing that ensures China’s rise is not Asia’s nightmare or that we don’t become another Hong Kong.” Each time in the last three years I went to Asia, every senior official I spoke with wanted more American leadership, more American commitment and even more American resolve to face down the challenge of a ‘rising’ China who is constantly threatening to overturn the status quo—time and time again. Just imagine if America walked away from Asia, the thought is too frightening to imagine and the damage to our credibility certainly unfixable. That is why approach proposed by Mr. Glaser should be relegated to what is—fantasy.

19

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/unthinkable-if-america-walked-away-asia-14760?page=show

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/unthinkable-if-america-walked-away-asia-14760?page=show


American Dominance Sustainable

( ) Decline not inevitable – renewed assertiveness can lead to a successful recasting of American power. Empirics prove that the perception of decline leads to creation of new policies to ensure the continued basis of global leadership. Zanchetta, 2015

[Barbara Zanchette, PhD and is Senior Researcher, Department of International History at the Graduate Institute. “Deconstructing ‘declinism’: The 1970s and the reassertion of American international power.” International Politics Vol. 52, 3. 2015]

If this is true, then the debate on American decline emerges as relative and cursory. One needs only to expand the time frame of analysis, go beyond the alarmism caused by existing trends and assess, instead, what the US leaders do to react to alleged decline. Today, as was the case during the 1970s, it is hard to imagine a US leadership that stands idle and simply accepts the notion of its inexorable and inevitable decline. No matter how heated the scholarly debate is, America still thinks of itself as the world power. It is thus very likely that future assessments will unveil that – in response to alleged decline – policies have been implemented to ensure that America will remain a key power on the world scene for the foreseeable future. Some might argue that certain trends – the pace of Chinese economic growth, the demographic rise of India and other Asian states, the emergence of the global South – are beyond American control. True. In fact, in the future America will most likely have to adjust to a very different world compared with the one when its hegemony seemed unquestioned (such as the times of its nuclear monopoly, or of its ‘unipolar moment’). But the coming of a different world – just like in the 1970s – does not necessarily entail the permanent or semi-permanent eclipse of American power. In one or more categories that define power – economic vitality, political influence, cultural clout, military strength – the United States may already trail behind.¶ However, it is difficult to imagine American decline in all aspects that define the sinews of power. And, most significantly, it is all the more difficult to imagine a US leadership that would passively accept such a development, without reacting. Paul Kennedy in his influential the Rise and Fall of Great Powers (1988) underlined how overextension leads to ever-increasing costs that, eventually, lead to retrenchment and decline. As he skillfully analyzed, history has shown that this is how great powers have fallen. But history also shows that sometimes great powers do bounce back. This has certainly been the case for America that has repeatedly reasserted its power and managed to adjust to the changed global balance of power.¶ After all, as the crisis in Ukraine and the threat posed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria demonstrate, there is one – intangible but clearly existing – aspect of power that still clearly pertains only to the United States. Notwithstanding China’s mighty economic growth, the challenge from other emerging economies, and the efforts of the European Union, the world’s attention has turned to America (not to China, Brazil, India) for leadership on ways to somehow ‘deal’ with the major ongoing geopolitical crises. Perhaps, therefore, in the midst of the charges of decline, America still maintains what Dean Acheson once defined as ‘the shadow cast by power’ (Acheson, 1987). Until, and as long as, this remains the case, American decline will not only be relative and debatable, but will most likely also lead to renewal – just as it has in the past.

20


American Dominance Sustainable

( ) American primacy is sustainable – no decline. Economy and military are still the best in the world.Kagan, 2012

[Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.. “Not Fade Away: The myth of American decline.” January 10, 2012. https://newrepublic.com/article/99521/america-world-power-declinism]

The answer is no. Let’s start with the basic indicators. In economic terms, and even despite the current years of recession and slow growth, America’s position in the world has not changed. Its share of the world’s GDP has held remarkably steady, not only over the past decade but over the past four decades. In 1969, the United States produced roughly a quarter of the world’s economic output. Today it still produces roughly a quarter, and it remains not only the largest but also the richest economy in the world. People are rightly mesmerized by the rise of China, India, and other Asian nations whose share of the global economy has been climbing steadily, but this has so far come almost entirely at the expense of Europe and Japan, which have had a declining share of the global economy.¶ Optimists about China’s development predict that it will overtake the United States as the largest economy in the world sometime in the next two decades. This could mean that the United States will face an increasing challenge to its economic position in the future. But the sheer size of an economy is not by itself a good measure of overall power within the international system. If it were, then early nineteenth-century China, with what was then the world’s largest economy, would have been the predominant power instead of the prostrate victim of smaller European nations. Even if China does reach this pinnacle again—and Chinese leaders face significant obstacles to sustaining the country’s growth indefinitely—it will still remain far behind both the United States and Europe in terms of per capita GDP.¶ Military capacity matters, too, as early nineteenth-century China learned and Chinese leaders know today. As Yan Xuetong recently noted, “military strength underpins hegemony.” Here the United States remains unmatched. It is far and away the most powerful nation the world has ever known, and there has been no decline in America’s relative military capacity—at least not yet. Americans currently spend less than $600 billion a year on defense, more than the rest of the other great powers combined. (This figure does not include the deployment in Iraq, which is ending, or the combat forces in Afghanistan, which are likely to diminish steadily over the next couple of years.) They do so, moreover, while consuming a little less than 4 percent of GDP annually—a higher percentage than the other great powers, but in historical terms lower than the 10 percent of GDP that the United States spent on defense in the mid-1950s and the 7 percent it spent in the late 1980s. The superior expenditures underestimate America’s actual superiority in military capability. American land and air forces are equipped with the most advanced weaponry, and are the most experienced in actual combat. They would defeat any competitor in a head-to-head battle. American naval power remains predominant in every region of the world.¶ By these military and economic measures, at least, the United States today is not remotely like Britain circa 1900, when that empire’s relative decline began to become apparent. It is more like Britain circa 1870, when the empire was at the height of its power. It is possible to imagine a time when this might no longer be the case, but that moment has not yet arrived.

21

https://newrepublic.com/article/99521/america-world-power-declinism


American Dominance Good – Transition Wars

( ) Strong US influence is key to de-escalate conflict, ensuring that their impact scenarios will remain manageable. Without it, multiple hotspots would escalate into nuclear war. Kagan, 2007

[Robert Kagan,Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “End of Dreams, Return of History,” Hoover Institution, No. 144, August/September, 2007, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6136

The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying — its regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic.

It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and possibly beyond. Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed embargos, of the kind used in World War I and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way that is now impossible.

Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power. Even the European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power, for without it the European nations after World War ii would never have felt secure enough to reintegrate Germany. Most Europeans recoil at the thought, but even today Europe ’s stability depends on the guarantee, however distant and one hopes unnecessary, that the United States could step in to check any dangerous development on the continent. In a genuinely multipolar world, that would not be possible without renewing the danger of world war.

22

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6136


American Dominance Good – Encourages Regional Coop

( ) US dominance only encourages Chinese cooperation with its neighbors, promoting stability in the region. Christensen, 2006


To the degree that China has a grand strategy at all, it seems likely that, up until now, Chinese efforts to reassure its neighbors, encourage regional multilateralism, and deepen regional economic interdependence are rooted more in a hedging strategy against potential U.S. pressure on China than they are in a straightforward drive for regional hegemony or a desire to extrude the United States from the region. For example, in a recent book Avery Goldstein argues persuasively that China has adopted a neo-Bismarckian strategy designed to prevent the formation of an overwhelming countering coalition as it builds strength at home. 123 Such a hedging strategy does not call for direct confrontation of the United States and its allies and, in most cases, proscribes such confrontation, especially in the near term. If China is more focused on preventing the United States from forming a strangling coalition around it and less focused on pushing the United States out of the region, then Beijing’s concern about the prospect of U.S. dominance in Asia might play a constructive role in encouraging Beijing to reduce tensions with its neighbors. If the United States does not stumble badly in maintaining its own relationships with its allies and security partners in the region, it could end up in the best of all possible worlds: China’s competitive energies would be largely channeled into positive-sum endeavors such as reassuring its neighbors and building long- term Chinese equities in peace and stability in the region, while the United States could maintain a strong military presence and set of alliances to prevent China from converting its growing material and diplomatic power into regional political hegemony if, at some point, its strategic priorities were to move in that direction.

23


American Dominance Good – Global Stability (_)

( ) Primacy good – ensures security for America and its alliesTellis, 2014


The prospect that China might one day become “the greatest power in the world,” riding to that apex on the back of American investments in maintaining a liberal international order, should be disturbing to the United States. Whatever else it may imply, the loss of American hegemony would be dangerous to U.S. security because it would entail a diminution of strategic autonomy, the first and most important benefit of possessing greater power than others in a competitive environment. Being the most powerful entity in the global system for over a century has not only increased U.S. safety by allowing the United States to defeat threats far from its shores but also permitted Washington to shape the international environment in ways that reflect its own interests. This capacity to configure the milieu in which it operates to its advantage in all arenas—economic, military, geopolitical, ideational, and institutional—implies that Washington can constrain the choices of other states far more than it is constrained by them. This critical measure of relative power affords the United States greater immunity than its competitors enjoy. 37 The loss of American primacy to China, therefore, would put Washington at Beijing’s mercy far more than is currently the case. Consequently, as long as the international system remains rivalrous and harbors threats to U.S. security, the United States has no alternative but to preserve American hegemony. Such preeminence provides greater security than the alternative of equality with, let alone subordination to, others. It allows the United States to attract the resources necessary to maintain the most innovative economic system on the planet, a capacity that permits it to enjoy a high standard of living and produce the formidable military instruments that enable it to impose its will on rival powers. It affords the United States the luxury of being able to defend itself by conducting military operations closer to the homelands of its adversaries than to its own. It enables Washington to maintain a robust system of alliances that offers the promise of collective defense against common threats and provides significant reservoirs of capability for expeditionary operations abroad. It gilds the attractiveness of American ideas, customs, and fashions internationally and thus procures legitimation by means that go beyond mere force. And it permits the United States to protect its national equities through various international institutions that represent a “rule-based” order and secure favorable outcomes for Washington without it having to repeatedly apply raw power.

24


American Dominance Good – Human Rights (_)

( ) Primacy key to international human rights – even if the US isn’t perfect, its commitment to liberal ideals make it preferable to alternatives.Tellis, 2014


Whether the Western approach to life and order is superior is beside the point; what is pertinent is that China as an Eastern entity is different. Consequently, if Beijing succeeds (or challenges) Washington as a global hegemon, it is unlikely to champion the values that the United States, as the latest incarnation of Western ascendancy, has long promoted worldwide. Such a loss of momentum, which would afflict diverse causes such as human rights, religious freedom, democracy promotion, and human trafficking, would not only have deleterious consequences for American interests but also evolve the international order in directions that are far removed from Washington’s own ideals. This does not imply that American foreign policy has always hewed to its highest aspirations or that the strategic interests of the United States have revolved solely around realizing the loftiest visions of global order. For all its deviations, however, the United States, more than any other country and certainly more than China, has defined its identity in terms of some estimable values and has always tried, however imperfectly, to align its self-interest with the demands of a larger and more encompassing morality. 44 This disposition has produced much good throughout the world. Beyond the various discrete acts of benevolence, such as providing substantial developmental assistance since the Second World War, it has nurtured a set of international norms that constitute standards for what is desirable human behavior in a gamut of areas ranging from the rights of children to the use of weapons of mass destruction. There is no assurance that a future Chinese hegemony would promote this agenda, which is ultimately grounded in a Kantian conception of the political good. Even if China subsisted as merely a challenger to the United States, the same outcome would obtain. The resulting recidivism in undesirable international behaviors would not only stymie the further evolution of the global system in desirable directions but also have distressing impacts on American security.

25


American Dominance Good – Global Economy (_)

( ) Retrenchment would be worse, resulting in economic instability Kagan, 2012

[Robert Kagan, writes a monthly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. He is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kagan served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988 as a member of the Policy Planning Staff, as principal speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. “Not Fade Away: The myth of American decline.” January 10, 2012. https://newrepublic.com/article/99521/america-world-power-declinism]

If we are serious about this exercise in accounting, moreover, the costs of maintaining this position cannot be measured without considering the costs of losing it. Some of the costs of reducing the American role in the world are, of course, unquantifiable. What is it worth to Americans to live in a world dominated by democracies rather than by autocracies? But some of the potential costs could be measured, if anyone cared to try. If the decline of American military power produced an unraveling of the international economic order that American power has helped sustain; if trade routes and waterways ceased to be as secure, because the U.S. Navy was no longer able to defend them; if regional wars broke out among great powers because they were no longer constrained by the American superpower; if American allies were attacked because the United States appeared unable to come to their defense; if the generally free and open nature of the international system became less so—if all this came to pass, there would be measurable costs. And it is not too far-fetched to imagine that these costs would be far greater than the savings gained by cutting the defense and foreign aid budgets by $100 billion a year. You can save money by buying a used car without a warranty and without certain safety features, but what happens when you get into an accident? American military strength reduces the risk of accidents by deterring conflict, and lowers the price of the accidents that occur by reducing the chance of losing. These savings need to be part of the calculation, too. As a simple matter of dollars and cents, it may be a lot cheaper to preserve the current level of American involvement in the world than to reduce it.

26

https://newrepublic.com/article/99521/america-world-power-declinism


ANSWERS TO: Epistemology Key

(_)

( ) Truth-claims about the world are inevitable – epistemological critique doesn’t change that. Houghton, 2008

[David Patrick Houghton, Department of Political Science at the University of Central Florida. “Positivism ‘vs’ Postmodernism: Does Epistemology Make a Difference?” International Politics, 2008, 45]

This essay takes issue with the position that epistemology matters in such a fundamental way. The reasoning offered is as follows: it is not clear whether there exists any real alternative to the kind of ‘observation’ beloved by positivists, denigrated by postpositivists, but engaged in by both. While doing empirical work does not make one an empiricist in the philosophical sense of that term, it is far from clear that the epistemological position one adopts has much effect on the kind of truth claims one makes. The adoption of postpositivist epistemologies has not meant that ‘anything goes’ in the new postpositivist scholarship; every example in the growing body of that literature, which illustrates (or is intended to illustrate) a theoretical point is drawn from experience and observation, and is surely ‘empirical’ in nature. This raises the question of whether it is possible to be genuinely postpositivist at all. I argue here that ultimately it is not, for observations cannot be plucked out of thin air; one’s truth claims about the world have to come from somewhere.

27


ANSWERS TO: Epistemology Key

( ) Such critiques doom IR to policy irrelevance – the focus of IR should be substantive and empirical claims, not meta-theoretical ones. Houghton, 2008


Writing in 1989, Thomas Biersteker noted that ‘the vast majority of scholarship in international relations (and the social sciences for that matter) proceeds without conscious reflection on its philosophical bases or premises. In professional meetings, lectures, seminars and the design of curricula, we do not often engage in serious reflection on the philosophical bases or implications of our activity. Too often, consideration of these core issues is reserved for (and largely forgotten after) the introductory weeks of required concepts and methods courses, as we socialize students into the profession’ (Biersteker, 1989). This observation — while accurate at the time — would surely be deemed incorrect were it to be made today. Even some scholars who profess regret at the philosophically self-regarding nature of contemporary of IR theory, nevertheless feel compelled to devote huge chunks of their work to epistemological issues before getting to more substantive matters (see for instance Wendt, 1999). The recent emphasis on epistemology has helped to push IR as a discipline further and further away from the concerns of those who actually practice IR. The consequent decline in the policy relevance of what we do, and our retreat into philosophical self-doubt, is ironic given the roots of the field in very practical political concerns (most notably, how to avoid war). What I am suggesting is not that IR scholars should ignore philosophical questions, or that such ‘navel gazing’ is always unproductive, for questions of epistemology surely undergird every vision of IR that ever existed. Rather, I would suggest that the existing debate is sterile and unproductive in the sense that the various schools of thought have much more in common than they suppose; stated more specifically, postpositivists have much more in common than they would like to think with the positivists they seek to condemn. Consequently, to the extent that there is a meaningful dialogue going on with regard to epistemological questions, it has no real impact on what we do as scholars when we look at the world ‘out there’. Rather than focusing on epistemology, it is inevitably going to be more fruitful to subject the substantive claims made by positivists (of all metatheoretical stripes) and postpositivists to the cold light of day. My own view, as the reader may have gathered already, is that the empirical claims of scholars like Der Derian and Campbell will not often stand up to such harsh scrutiny given the inattention to careful evidence gathering betrayed by both, but this is a side issue here; the point is that substantive theoretical and empirical claims, rather than metatheoretical or epistemological ones, ought to be what divides the international relations scene today.

28


ANSWE R S TO: Epistemology Key ( ) Every critique requires empirical, observational methods. Constant criticism by itself is a negative exercise that fails to generate any productive IR scholarship. Houghton, 2008


This is clear enough. But if we can never really know how reality is constituted, one obvious question that arises is why we should study IR at all. Here a postmodernist like Campbell would answer that the purpose of studying international politics — and indeed, all social and political phenomena — is not to uncover hidden or objective ‘truths’ about the world, since this is impossible; the purpose of political enquiry is to expose this very fact, to deconstruct the arguments, theories and ‘metanarratives’ of those who claim that they can understand reality, to expose the ‘sham’ of positivism and lay bare the values and biases upon which arguments in IR are typically based. One can also study the language used by policymakers themselves, and the way in which language is used to manipulate people’s perceptions of reality. The term ‘weapons of mass destruction’, for instance, is often used by Western politicians and the Western media to refer to Iran or Iraq’s weaponry, but we never hear US or British weapons referred to this way.¶ If this is all we can do as observers of the international scene, however, then we are essentially engaging in a negative, even nihilistic, exercise. If this were all that postmodernist IR were about, then it would surely constitute not a theory but an ‘anti-theory’. If taken as gospel, this would suggest that trying to construct theories about IR is a waste of time; we should deconstruct the work of others, illustrating its ‘flimsy’ basis. But this raises further questions. What happens when there is nothing left to deconstruct? Should the analyst pack up and go home? Granted, if members of the IR profession were to attempt deconstruct all the work that has been done since the turn of the 20th century, the exercise itself might take a whole century or more. But what then? Do we deconstruct the deconstructions?¶ In practice, of course, postmodernists do not simply deconstruct the work of others; they contribute to IR theory in a positive sense as well, by offering their own empirical claims. The interpretations of diplomatic history, which appear in Campbell’s Writing Security and Der Derian’s Anti-diplomacy, for instance, are both arguments about how each think the world actually is (Campbell, 1992; Der Derian, 1992). Der Derian employs what he regards as empirical evidence to illustrate his claim that three global forces (‘simulation, surveillance and speed’) have transformed IR. This evidence might be regarded as weak and impressionistic by some — he supports his truth claim about the prevalence of simulation partly by reference to works of fiction by Tom Clancy, for instance — but this is beside the point; the fact is that Der Derian makes claims about how he thinks the world is (Der Derian, 1990, 1992

29

Verbatim 4.6 - Web viewAmerican Dominance Good – Encourages Regional Cooperation 86. American Dominance Good – Global Stability87. American Dominance Good – Human Rights88

Documents