IMPACTS

African War Deutsch..........................................................1 AIDS Muchiri ....................................................................2 Being Zimmerman .............................................................3 Biodiversity Diner..............................................................4 Bioweapons Ochs...............................................................5 Bioweapons Steibruner.......................................................6 Central Asian Instability Starr.............................................7 Chinese Economic Collapse Mead 98 .................................8 Credit Liquidation Bailey ...................................................9 Dehumanization Berube ...................................................10 Dehumanization Montagu and Matson..............................11 Democratization Muravchik .............................................12 Dollar Collapse Mead 04..................................................13 European War Glaser .......................................................14 Extinction Outweighs All Ochs ........................................15 Federalism Calabresi ........................................................16 Food Prices Tampa Tribune..............................................17 Free Trade Good Spicer....................................................18 Free Trade Good Copley News Service ............................19 Genetic Diversity Fowler and Mooney..............................20 Global Economic Collapse Bearden..................................21 Global Economic Collapse Lewis .....................................22 Global Economic Collapse Lopez 98 ................................23 Global Economic Collapse Mead 92.................................24 Global Economic Collapse Mead 98.................................25 Global Warming Bad Milbrath .........................................26 Global Warming Good (CO2 Fertilization) Idso and Idso..27 Global Warming Good (Ice Age) Business Wire...............28 Growth Good Silk ............................................................29 India-Pakistan Nuke War Caldicott...................................30 Infectious Diseases South China Morning Post .................31 Infectious Diseases Steinbruner ........................................32 International Law Malaysian Medical Association ............33 Judicial Deference Bad Kellman.......................................34 Kashmir Conflict Fai........................................................35 Korean War Africa News .................................................36 Leadership Ferguson ........................................................37 Leadership Khalilzad........................................................38 Liberty Petro....................................................................39 North Korean Regime Collapse Bennett and Hachigian.....40 North-South Disparities Lown ..........................................41 Nuclear Terrorism - Beres ...................................................42 Nuclear Terrorism Easterbrook.........................................43 Nuclear War Extinction Ross .......................................44 Ocean Destruction Craig ..................................................45 Overpopulation Ehrlich and Ehrlich..................................46 Peace Process Good Slater................................................47 Presidential Power Bad Forrester......................................48 Presidential Power Good Paul...........................................49 Prolif Bad Utgoff .............................................................50 Quebec Secession Lamont................................................51 Racism Barndt .................................................................52 Racism Williams (1/2)......................................................53 Racism Williams (2/2)......................................................54 Russian Accidental Launch PR Newswire.........................55 Russian Civil War David..................................................56 Russian Economic Collapse David ...................................57 Secession Gottlieb............................................................58 Soil Erosion Ikerd ............................................................59 Space Colonization Daily Record .....................................60 Space Colonization Tumlinson .........................................61 Stock Market Collapse Mead 98.......................................62 Taiwan Conflict Johnson..................................................63 Taiwanese Independence Bad Hsiung...............................64 Terrorism Alexander ........................................................65 Unemployment Mead 94 ..................................................66 US Economic Collapse Mead 04 ......................................67 US Economic Collapse Mead 98 ......................................68 US key to Global Economy Mead 04................................69 US-China War Straits Times ............................................70 US-Russia Relations Newsweek .......................................71 US-Russian Nuclear War Caldicott...................................72 US-Sino Relations Conable and Lampton .........................73 Water Shortages NASCA .................................................74 Water Shortages Weiner...................................................75 WTO Good Copley News Service ....................................76

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EVAZON Grayson

African War Deutsch

Large-scale African conflict will draw in outside powers and escalate to nuclear war
Deutsch 02 Founder of Rabid Tiger Project (Political Risk Consulting and Research Firm focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe)
[Jeffrey, SETTING THE STAGE FOR WORLD WAR III, Rabid Tiger Newsletter, Nov 18, http://www.rabidtigers.com/rtn/newsletterv2n9.html]

and Sierra Leone,

a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa. Civil wars in the Congo (the country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and domestic instability in Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to "national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew. We've got all too many rabid tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishy-washy in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown. Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very few countries in Africa are beholden to any
The Rabid Tiger Project believes that particular power. South Africa is a major exception in this respect - not to mention in that she also probably already has the Bomb. Thus, outside powers can more easily find client states there than, say, in Europe where the political lines have long since been drawn, or Asia where many of the countries (China, India, Japan) are powers unto themselves and don't need any "help," thank you. But an

Thus, an African war can attract outside involvement very quickly. Of course, a proxy war alone may not induce the Great Powers to fight each other. African nuclear strike can ignite a much broader conflagration, if the other powers are interested in a fight. Certainly, such a strike would in the first place have been facilitated by outside help - financial, scientific, engineering, etc. Africa is an ocean of troubled waters, and some people love to go fishing.

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EVAZON Grayson

AIDS Muchiri
African AIDS will spread globally causing human extinction
Muchiri 00, Staff Member at Ministry of Education in Nairobi
[Michael Kibaara, Will Annan finally put out Africas fires? Jakarta Post, March 6, LN]
The executive director of UNAIDS, Peter Piot, estimated that Africa would annually need between $ 1 billion to $ 3 billion to combat the disease, but currently receives only $ 160 million a year in official assistance.

World Bank President James Wolfensohn lamented that Africa was losing teachers faster than they could be replaced, and that AIDS was now more effective than war in destabilizing African countries. Statistics show that AIDS is the leading killer in sub-Saharan Africa,

surpassing people killed in warfare. In 1998, 200,000 people died from armed conflicts compared to 2.2 million from AIDS. Some 33.6 million people have HIV around the world, 70 percent of them in Africa, thereby robbing countries of their most productive members and decimating entire villages. About

13 million of the 16 million people who have died of AIDS are in Africa, according to the UN. What barometer is used to proclaim a holocaust if this number is not a sure measure? There is no doubt that AIDS is the most serious threat to humankind, more serious than hurricanes, earthquakes, economic crises, capital crashes or floods. It has no cure yet. We are watching a whole continent degenerate into ghostly skeletons that finally succumb to a most excruciating, dehumanizing death. Gore said that his new initiative, if approved by the U.S. Congress, would bring U.S. contributions to fighting AIDS and other infectious diseases to $ 325 million. Does this mean that
the UN Security Council and the U.S. in particular have at last decided to remember Africa? Suddenly, AIDS was seen as threat to world peace, and Gore would ask the congress to set up millions of dollars on this case. The hope is that Gore does not intend to make political capital out of this by painting the usually disagreeable Republican-controlled Congress as the bad guy and hope the buck stops on the whole of current and future U.S. governments' conscience. Maybe there is nothing left to salvage in Africa after all and this talk is about the African-American vote in November's U.S. presidential vote. Although the UN and the Security Council cannot solve all African problems, the AIDS challenge is a fundamental one in that it threatens to wipe out [humanity] man. The challenge is not one of a single continent alone because Africa cannot be quarantined. The trouble is that AIDS has no cure -- and thus even the West has stakes in the AIDS challenge. Once sub-Saharan Africa is wiped out, it shall not be long before another continent is on the brink of extinction. Sure as death, Africa's time has run out, signaling the beginning of the end of the black race and maybe the human race. Gender paraphrased

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EVAZON Grayson

Being Zimmerman
Loss of Being obliterates the value of life and is a fate worse than nuclear annihilation
Zimmerman 94 Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University
[Michael E., Contesting earths future, p. 119-120]
Heidegger asserted that human self-assertion, combined with

the eclipse of being, threatens the relation between being and human Dasein. Loss of this relation would be even more dangerous than a nuclear war that might bring about the complete annihilation of humanity and the destruction of the earth. This controversial claim is comparable to the Christian teaching that it is better to forfeit the world than to lose ones soul by losing ones relation to God. Heidegger apparently thought along these lines: it is possible that after a nuclear war, life might once again emerge, but it is far less likely that there will ever again occur an ontological clearing through which such life could manifest itself.

Further, since modernitys one-dimensional disclosure of entities virtually denies them any being at all, the loss of humanitys openness for being is already occurring. Modernitys background

mood is horror in the face of nihilism, which is consistent with the aim of providing material happiness for everyone by reducing nature to pure energy. The unleashing of vast quantities of energy in nuclear war would be equivalent to modernitys slowmotion destruction of nature: unbounded destruction would equal limitless consumption. If humanity avoided nuclear war only to survive as contented clever animals, Heidegger believed we would exist in a state of ontological damnation: hell on earth, masquerading as material paradise. Deep ecologists might agree that a world of material human comfort purchased at the price of everything wild would not be a world worth living in, for in killing wild nature, people would be as good as dead. But most of them could not agree that the loss of humanitys relation to being would be worse than nuclear omnicide, for it is
wrong to suppose that the lives of millions of extinct and unknown species are somehow lessened because they were never disclosed by humanity.

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EVAZON Grayson

Biodiversity Diner
Biodiversity loss will cause planetary extinction
Diner 94 Judge Advocate Generals Corps of US Army
[David N., Military Law Review, Winter, 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161, LN] bg
No species has ever dominated its fellow species as man has. In most cases, people have assumed the God-like power of life and death -- extinction or survival -- over the plants and animals of the world. For most of history, mankind pursued this domination with a single-minded determination to master the world, tame the wilderness, and exploit nature for the maximum benefit of the human race. n67

In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why should the world be concerned now? The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct. No one knows how many [*171] species the world needs to support human life, and to find out -- by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. n68 2. Ecological Value. --

Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, n69 erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services -- pollution control, n70 oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation. n71 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. n72 Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. n73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined, and mankind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew n74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. n75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. n76 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. n77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both

Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." n79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, [hu]mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.
trends carry serious future implications.

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EVAZON Grayson

Bioweapons Ochs
Use of bioweapons will destroy life on the planet the impact outweighs nuclear war and all other harms
Ochs 02 MA in Natural Resource Management from Rutgers University and Naturalist at Grand Teton National Park
[Richard, BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS MUST BE ABOLISHED IMMEDIATELY, Jun 9, http://www.freefromterror.net/other_articles/abolish.html]
Of all the weapons of mass destruction, the genetically engineered

biological weapons, many without a known cure or vaccine, are an extreme danger to the continued survival of life on earth. Any perceived military value or deterrence pales in comparison to the great risk these weapons pose just sitting in vials in laboratories. While a "nuclear winter," resulting from a massive exchange of nuclear weapons, could also kill off most of life on earth and severely compromise the health of future generations, they are easier to control. Biological weapons, on the other hand, can get out of control very easily, as the recent anthrax attacks has demonstrated. There is no way to guarantee the security of these doomsday weapons because very tiny amounts can be stolen or accidentally released and then grow or be grown to horrendous proportions. The Black Death of the Middle Ages would be small in comparison to the potential damage bioweapons could cause. Abolition of chemical weapons is less of a
priority because, while they can also kill millions of people outright, their persistence in the environment would be less than nuclear or biological agents or more localized. Hence, chemical weapons would have a lesser effect on future generations of innocent people and the natural environment. Like the Holocaust, once a localized chemical extermination is over, it is over. With nuclear and biological weapons, the killing will probably never end. Radioactive elements last tens of thousands of years and will keep causing cancers virtually forever. Potentially worse than that,

bio-engineered agents by the hundreds with no known cure could wreck even greater calamity on the human race than could persistent radiation. AIDS and ebola viruses are just a small example of recently emerging plagues with no known cure or vaccine. Can we imagine hundreds of such plagues? HUMAN EXTINCTION IS NOW POSSIBLE. Ironically, the Bush administration has just changed the U.S. nuclear doctrine to allow nuclear retaliation against threats upon allies by "patriotism" needs to be redefined to make humanitys survival primary and absolute. Even if we lose our cherished freedom, our sovereignty, our government or our Constitution, where there is life, there is hope. What good is anything else if humanity is extinguished? This concept should be promoted to the

conventional weapons. The past doctrine allowed such use only as a last resort when our nations survival was at stake. Will the new policy also allow easier use of US bioweapons? How slippery is this slope? Against this tendency can be posed a rational alternative policy. To preclude possibilities of human extinction,

center of national debate.. For example, for sake of argument, suppose the ancient Israelites developed defensive bioweapons of mass destruction when they were enslaved by Egypt. Then suppose these weapons were released by design or accident and wiped everybody out? As bad as slavery is, extinction is worse. Our generation, our century, our epoch needs to take the long view. We truly hold in our hands the precious gift of all future life. Empires may come and go, but who are the honored custodians of life on earth? Temporal politicians? Corporate competitors? Strategic brinksmen? Military gamers? Inflated egos dripping with testosterone? How can any sane person believe that national sovereignty is more important than survival of the species? Now

that extinction is possible, our slogan should be "Where there is life, there is hope." No government, no economic system, no national pride, no religion, no political system can be placed above human survival. The egos of leaders must not blind us. The adrenaline and

vengeance of a fight must not blind us. The game is over. If patriotism would extinguish humanity, then patriotism is the highest of all crimes.

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EVAZON Grayson

Bioweapons Steibruner
Bioweapons use risks extinction nuclear war cant compare
Steinbruner 98 Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution
[John D., Biological weapons: A plague upon all houses, Foreign Policy, Dec 22, LN]
More than 70 years later, revulsion persists and the Geneva Protocol has been strengthened, but the sense of recognized that, as

threat of biological warfare has intensified. It is widely potential instruments of destruction, biological agents are inexpensive, readily accessible, and unusually dangerous. Of the thousands of pathogens that prey upon human beings, a few are now known to have the potential for causing truly massive devastation , with mortality levels conceivably exceeding what chemical or even nuclear weapons could produce. Nature provides the prototypes without requiring any design bureau or manufacturing
facility. Medical science provides increasingly useful information, which by its very nature is conveyed in open literature. A small home-brewery is all that would be required to produce a

At least 17 countries are suspected of conducting biological weapons research - including several, such as Iran and Iraq, that are especially hostile to the United States. It is a considerable comfort and undoubtedly a key to our survival that, so far, the main lines of defense against this threat
potent threat of major proportions. have not depended on explicit policies or organized efforts. In the long course of evolution, the human body has developed physical barriers and a biochemical immune system whose sophistication and effectiveness exceed anything we could design or as yet even fully understand. But evolution is a sword that cuts both ways:

New diseases emerge, while old diseases mutate and adapt. Throughout history, there have been epidemics during which human immunity has broken down on an epic scale. changing conditions have enhanced the potential for widespread contagion. The rapid growth rate of the total world population, the unprecedented freedom of movement across international borders, and scientific advances that expand the capability for the deliberate manipulation of pathogens are all cause for worry that the problem might be greater in the future than it has ever been in the past. The threat of infectious pathogens is not just an issue of public health, but a fundamental security problem for the species as a whole. In recent years, this Concern about the use of biological weapons rose with revelations that Iraq had deployed anthrax weapons during the Gulf War and that the Aum Shinrikyo sect apparently had attempted to attack the Imperial Palace in Tokyo with botulinum toxin, the first putative episode of actual use since World War II. In

An infectious agent believed to have been the plague bacterium killed an estimated 20 million people over a four-year period in the fourteenth century, including nearly one-quarter of Western Europe's population at the time. Since its recognized appearance in 1981, some 20 variations of the HIV virus have infected an estimated 29.4 million worldwide, with 1.5 million people currently dying of AIDS each year. Malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera - once thought to be under control - are now making a comeback. As we enter the twenty-first century,

realization has begun to seep into international security deliberations. An unintended outbreak of a virus resembling ebola among monkeys at a research installation in Reston, Virginia, in 1989 raised awareness of the natural threat, and several authoritative reports have since called for substantial improvements in global disease surveillance.

reaction to these events, the United States has strengthened legal authority to preempt terrorist threats, has established more extensive regulations for handling hazardous biological agents, and has created for the first time special military units continuously prepared to respond to domestic incidents. Internationally, negotiations are under way to strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972 - now the central international legal instrument for preventing the hostile use of pathogens - and President Bill Clinton has pledged to complete an agreement by 1998. But these efforts are merely tentative first steps toward dealing with a problem that vitally affects the entire human population. Ultimately the world's military, medical, and business establishments will have to work together to an unprecedented degree if the international community is to succeed in containing the threat of biological weapons. Although human

are alive, weapons are not. Nuclear and chemical weapons do not reproduce themselves and do not independently engage in adaptive behavior; pathogens do both of these things. That deceptively simple observation has immense implications. The use of a manufactured weapon is a singular event. Most of the damage occurs immediately. The aftereffects, whatever they may be, decay rapidly over time and distance in a reasonably predictable manner. Even before a nuclear warhead is detonated, for instance, it is possible to estimate the extent of the subsequent damage and the likely level of radioactive fallout. Such predictability is an essential component for tactical military planning. The use of a pathogen, by contrast, is an extended process whose scope and timing cannot be precisely controlled. For most potential biological agents, the predominant drawback is that they would not act swiftly or decisively enough to
be an effective weapon. But for a few pathogens - ones most likely to have a decisive effect and therefore the ones most likely to be contemplated for deliberately hostile use - the risk runs in the other direction.

pathogens are often lumped with nuclear explosives and lethal chemicals as potential weapons of mass destruction, there is an obvious, fundamentally important difference: Pathogens

A lethal pathogen that could efficiently spread from one victim to another would be capable of initiating an intensifying cascade of disease that might ultimately threaten the entire world population. The 1918 influenza epidemic demonstrated the potential for a global contagion of this sort but

not necessarily its outer limit.

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EVAZON Grayson

Central Asian Instability Starr

Central Asian instability will trigger security competition that risks nuclear war
Starr 01 Chair of Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at John Hopkins University
[S. Frederick, The War Against Terrorism and U.S. Bilateral Relations with the Nations of Central Asia, Testimony before Senate Subcommittee on Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus, Dec 13, http://www.cacianalyst.org/Publications/Starr_Testimony.htm]

Central Asian states. Quite the contrary. For a decade they have faced not only the dangers arising posed by certain groups in Russia, notably the military and security forces, who are not yet reconciled to the loss of empire. This imperial hangover is not unique to Russia. France exhibited the same tendencies in Algeria, the Spanish in Cuba and Chile, and the British when they burned the White House in 1812. This imperial hangover will eventually pass, but for the time being it remains a threat. It means that the Central Asians, after cooperating with the US, will inevitably face redoubled pressure from Russia if we leave abruptly and without attending to the long-term security needs of the region. That we have looked kindly into Mr. Putins soul does not change this reality. The Central Asians face a similar danger with respect to our efforts in Afghanistan. Some Americans hold that we should destroy Bin Laden, Al Queda, and the Taliban and then leave the post-war stabilization and reconstruction to others. Such a course run s the danger of condemning all Central Asia to further waves of instability from the South. But in the next round it will not only be Russia that is tempted to throw its weight around in the region but possibly China, or even Iran or India. All have as much right to claim Central Asia as their backyard as Russia has had until now. Central Asia may be a distant region but when these nuclear powers begin bumping heads there it will create terrifying threats to world peace that the U.S. cannot ignore. This prospect, along with the unresolved problem of Russias imperial hangover, is the reality that the Central Asian
However, this does not mean that US actions are without risk to the from Afghanistan but also the constant threat states must face if the US precipitously withdraws from their region once the military campaign has achieved its goals. It requires that the United States develop and implement a longer-term strategy for regional security in Central Asia of a sort which, until this moment, has existed only in fragmentary form, if at all. Such a strategy is essential for the viability and sustainability of the states of Central Asia. No less, it is essential for the United States own long-term interest in helping build a stable world. What, then, are the elements of such a post-war strategy for Central Asia? The question demands the most serious attention of this sub-committee and of the American government as a whole. At the risk of simplification, I would suggest that it must contain three elements, pertaining to (1) security, (2) politics, and (3) economics. The basic truth upon which any security policy for Central Asia must be grounded is that

no single country, or pair of countries, can provide an adequate security environment for the Central Asian region. Bordered by nuclear states and formidable regional powers, all of which have close historic and cultural ties with the region, Central Asia cannot depend for its security on any one of them without imperiling the security of all the others.

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EVAZON Grayson

Chinese Economic Collapse Mead 98

Chinese economic collapse will trigger nuclear war
Mead 98, Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at Council on Foreign Relations
[Walter Russell, Rule 1: Dont Panic. Rule 2: Panic first. Esquire, Oct, ProQuest]

Few Americans understand just how explosive the situation in China is. As the country undergoes the biggest economic revolution in world history, it is also in
for the wildest ride in world history on the roller coaster of revolutionary capitalism. State-owned rust-bucket industries from Maoist times are slowly collapsing, putting heavy demands on the

if these industries lay off workers faster than the private economy can find them jobs, China faces mass unrest in the big cities. This is what the Chinese government fears most, and it has good reason. Already, millions of Chinese, uprooted from the rural areas where they were born, are flooding into the coastal cities,
national treasury. Yet China's banks-which may have the worst balance sheets in the world would go bankrupt if the state cut off subsidies to the indebted state industries. And looking for work. Many of them are young men-the most volatile group in any society. And in China today, they are especially volatile. Thanks to the government's one-child policy, many Chinese families have aborted female fetuses to ensure that their one child is a boy. This preference has led to no boys being born for every loo girls. Here's a Chinese nightmare: millions of young, poorly educated men who have no jobs and no girlfriends. based its whole plan on exportled growth working far into the future; with the failure of that strategy China's economy must slow dramatically.

It's almost unthinkable that China can escape a prolonged Asian slowdown. China has also To survive, the Chinese government will have to play the nationalist card, taking a tougher foreign-policy line on issues like Taiwan and whipping up public support by talking about foreign (read: American) threats to China. Alternatively, China could fall apart as it did earlier in the twentieth century, going through a period of civil war and anarchy-in a country with nuclear weapons-before a new and probably very unpleasant government establishes control.

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EVAZON Grayson

Credit Liquidation Bailey

Credit liquidation will trigger world war and extinction
Bailey 90 Former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs under Reagan
[Norman A., The World Economy in the 1990s, World and I, Issue 1, p. 31]
The question is not whether human life will be transformed-it will be. Nor is it whether that transformation will be good or evil-it will be both, as it always is. The question, how will we get there:

Will we mindlessly follow the historical pattern of a violent collapse of the inflationary credit pyramid build up over the past thirty years, condemning an entire generation to the miseries, uncertainties, and dangers of another Great Depression? Or will we find the collective will and wisdom to manage our affairs well enough to avoid a repetition of that terrible time? The thirties, after all, began three months after the inception of the Great Depression and ended four months after start of World War II. This was not a coincidence. Tens of millions were killed and maimed in the Second World War. If another historical credit-liquidation cycle is allowed to take place in the usual chaotic fashion, the chances of another global armed conflict will be greatly increased-this time, not only would hundreds of millions (rather than tens of millions) be killed or wounded, but the very hopes and the future of [hu]mankind, as such, might well be destroyed in the process. Gender paraphrased

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EVAZON Grayson

Dehumanization Berube
Dehumanization destroys the value to wife and outweighs all calculable impacts
Berube 97 Professor of Communication Studies and Associate Director of NanoScience and Technology Studies at University of South Carolina
[David M., NANOTECHNOLOGICAL PROLONGEVITY: The Down Side, http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/faculty/berube/prolong.htm]
This means-ends dispute is at the core of Montagu

and Matson's treatise on the dehumanization of humanity. They warn[s]: "its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record -- and its potential danger to the quality of life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.... Behind the genocide of the holocaust lay a dehumanized thought; beneath the menticide of deviants and dissidents... in the cuckoo's next of America, lies a When we calculate the actual losses and the virtual benefits, we approach a nearly inestimable value greater than any tools which we can currently use to measure it. Dehumanization is nuclear war, environmental apocalypse, and international genocide. When people become things, they become dispensable. When people are dispensable, any and every atrocity can be justified. Once justified, they seem to be inevitable for every epoch has evil and dehumanization is evil's most powerful weapon.

dehumanized image of man... (Montagu & Matson, 1983, p. xi-xii). While it may never be possible to quantify the impact dehumanizing ethics may have had on humanity, it is safe to conclude the foundations of humanness offer great opportunities which would be foregone.

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EVAZON Grayson

Dehumanization Montagu and Matson

Dehumanization outweighs all its the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse
Montagu and Matson 83 Esteemed Scientist and Writer; and Professor of American Studies at University of Hawaii
[Ashley and Floyd, The dehumanization of man, http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:hnDfqSFkJJwJ:www.cross-x.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-939595.html+montagu+matson+dehumanization&hl=en]

The contagion is unknown to science and unrecognized by medicine (psychiatry aside); yet its wasting symptoms are plain for all to see and its lethal effects are everywhere on display. It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natual calamity on record -- and its potential damage to the quality of human life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason, this sickness of the soul might well be called the Fifth Hourseman of the Apocalypse. Its more conventional name, of course, is dehumanization.

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Democratization Muravchik
Continued democratization is essential to avert nuclear war
Muravchik 01 Resident Scholar at American Enterprise Institute
[Joshua, Democracy and nuclear peace, Jul 11, http://www.npec-web.org/syllabi/muravchik.htm]

The greatest impetus for world peace -- and perforce of nuclear peace -- is the spread of democracy. In a famous article, and subsequent book, Francis Fukuyama argued that democracy's extension was leading to "the end of history." By this he meant the conclusion of man's quest for the right social order, but he also meant the "diminution of the likelihood of large-scale conflict between states." (1) Fukuyama's phrase was intentionally provocative, even tongue-in-cheek, but
he was pointing to two down-to-earth historical observations: that democracies are more peaceful than other kinds of government and that the world is growing more democratic. Neither point has gone unchallenged. Only a few decades ago, as distinguished an observer of international relations as George Kennan made a claim quite contrary to the first of these assertions. Democracies, he said, were slow to anger, but once aroused "a democracy . . . . fights in anger . . . . to the bitter end." (2) Kennan's view was strongly influenced by the policy of "unconditional surrender" pursued in World War II. But subsequent experience, such as the negotiated settlements America sought in Korea and Vietnam proved him wrong. Democracies are not only slow to anger but also quick to compromise. And to forgive. Notwithstanding the insistence on unconditional surrender, America treated Japan and that part of Germany that it occupied with extraordinary generosity. In recent years a burgeoning literature has discussed the peacefulness of democracies. Indeed the

proposition that democracies do not go to war with one another has been described by one political scientist as being "as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international relations." (3) Some of those who find enthusiasm for democracy off-putting have challenged this proposition, but their challenges have only served as empirical tests that have confirmed its robustness. For example, the academic Paul Gottfried and the

columnist-turned-politician Patrick J. Buchanan have both instanced democratic England's declaration of war against democratic Finland during World War II. (4) In fact, after much procrastination, England did accede to the pressure of its Soviet ally to declare war against Finland which was allied with Germany. But the declaration was purely formal: no fighting ensued between England and Finland. Surely this is an exception that proves the rule. The strongest exception I can think of is the war between the nascent state of Israel and the Arabs in 1948. Israel was an embryonic democracy and Lebanon, one of the Arab belligerents, was also democratic within the confines of its peculiar confessional division of power. Lebanon, however, was a reluctant party to the fight. Within the councils of the Arab League, it opposed the war but went along with its larger confreres when they opted to attack. Even so, Lebanon did little fighting and soon sued for peace. Thus, in the case of Lebanon against Israel, as in the case of England against Finland, democracies nominally went to war against democracies when they were dragged into conflicts by authoritarian allies. The political scientist Bruce Russett offers a different challenge to the notion that democracies are more peaceful. "That democracies are in general, in dealing with all kinds of states, more peaceful than are authoritarian or other nondemocratically constituted states . . . .is a much more controversial proposition than 'merely' that democracies are peaceful in their dealings with each other, and one for which there is little systematic evidence," he says. (5) Russett cites his own and other statistical explorations which show that while democracies rarely fight one another they often fight against others. The trouble with such studies, however, is that they rarely examine the question of who started or caused a war. To reduce the data to a form that is quantitatively measurable, it is easier to determine whether a conflict has occurred between two states than whose fault it was. But the latter question is all important. Democracies may often go to war against dictatorships because the dictators see them as prey or underestimate their resolve. Indeed, such examples abound. Germany might have behaved more cautiously in the summer of 1914 had it realized that England would fight to vindicate Belgian neutrality and to support France. Later, Hitler was emboldened by his notorious contempt for the flabbiness of the democracies. North Korea almost surely discounted the likelihood of an American military response to its invasion of the South after Secretary of State Dean Acheson publicly defined America's defense perimeter to exclude the Korean peninsula (a declaration which merely confirmed existing U.S. policy). In 1990, Saddam Hussein's decision to swallow Kuwait was probably encouraged by the inference he must have taken from the statements and actions of American officials that Washington would offer no forceful resistance. Russett says that those who claim democracies are in general more peaceful "would have us believe that the United States was regularly on the defensive, rarely on the offensive, during the Cold War." But that is not quite right: the word "regularly" distorts the issue. A victim can sometimes turn the tables on an aggressor, but that does not make the victim equally bellicose. None would dispute that Napoleon was responsible for the Napoleonic wars or Hitler for World War II in Europe, but after a time their victims seized the offensive. So in the Cold War, the United States may have initiated some skirmishes (although in fact it rarely did), but the struggle as a whole was driven one-sidedly. The Soviet policy was "class warfare"; the American policy was "containment." The so-called revisionist historians argued that America bore an equal or larger share of responsibility for the conflict. But Mikhail Gorbachev made nonsense of their theories when, in the name of glasnost and perestroika, he turned the Soviet Union away from its historic course. The Cold War ended almost instantly--as he no doubt knew it would. "We would have been able to avoid many . . . difficulties if the democratic process had developed normally in our country," he wrote. (7) To render judgment about the relative peacefulness of states or systems, we must ask not only who started a war but why. In particular we should consider what in Catholic Just War doctrine is called "right intention," which means roughly: what did they hope to get out of it? In the few cases in recent times in which wars were initiated by democracies, there were often motives other than aggrandizement, for example, when America invaded Grenada. To be sure, Washington was impelled by self-interest more than altruism, primarily its concern for the well-being of American nationals and its desire to remove a chip, however tiny, from the Soviet game board. But America had no designs upon Grenada, and the invaders were greeted with joy by the Grenadan citizenry. After organizing an election, America pulled out. In other cases, democracies have turned to war in the face of provocation, such as Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to root out an enemy sworn to its destruction or Turkey's invasion of Cyprus to rebuff a power-grab by Greek nationalists. In contrast, the wars launched by dictators, such as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, North Korea's of South Korea, the Soviet Union's of Hungary and Afghanistan, often have aimed at conquest or subjugation. The big exception to this rule is colonialism. The European powers conquered most of Africa and Asia, and continued to hold their prizes as Europe democratized. No doubt many of the instances of democracies at war that enter into the statistical calculations of researchers like Russett stem from the colonial era. But colonialism was a legacy of Europe's pre-democratic times, and it was abandoned after World War II. Since then, I know of no case where a democracy has initiated warfare without significant provocation or for reasons of sheer aggrandizement, but there are several cases where dictators have done so. One interesting piece of Russett's research should help to point him away from his doubts that democracies are more peaceful in general. He aimed to explain why democracies are more peaceful toward each other. Immanuel Kant was the first to observe, or rather to forecast, the pacific inclination of democracies. He reasoned that "citizens . . . will have a great hesitation in . . . . calling down on themselves all the miseries of war." (8) But this valid insight is incomplete. There is a deeper explanation. Democracy is not just a mechanism; it entails a spirit of compromise and self-restraint. At bottom, democracy is the willingness to resolve civil disputes without recourse to violence. Nations that embrace this ethos in the conduct of their domestic affairs are naturally more predisposed to embrace it in their dealings with other nations. Russett aimed to explain why democracies are more peaceful toward one another. To do this, he constructed two models. One hypothesized that the cause lay in the mechanics of democratic decision-making (the "structural/institutional model"), the other that it lay in the democratic ethos (the "cultural/normative model"). His statistical assessments led him to conclude that: "almost always the cultural/normative model shows a consistent effect on conflict occurrence and war. The structural/institutional model sometimes provides a significant relationship but often does not." (9) If it is the ethos that makes democratic states more peaceful toward each other, would not that ethos also make them more peaceful in general? Russett implies that the answer is no, because to his mind a critical element in the peaceful behavior of democracies toward other democracies is their anticipation of a conciliatory attitude by their counterpart. But this is too pat. The attitude of live-and-let-live cannot be turned on and off like a spigot. The citizens and officials of democracies recognize that other states, however governed, have legitimate interests, and they are disposed to try to accommodate those interests except when the other party's behavior seems threatening or outrageous. A different kind of challenge to the thesis that democracies are more peaceful has been posed by the political scientists Edward G. Mansfield and Jack Snyder. They claim statistical support for the proposition that while fully fledged democracies may be pacific, Ain th[e] transitional phase of democratization, countries become more aggressive and war-prone, not less." (10) However, like others, they measure a state's likelihood of becoming involved in a war but do not report attempting to determine the cause or fault. Moreover, they acknowledge that their research revealed not only an increased likelihood for a state to become involved in a war when it was growing more democratic, but an almost equal increase for states growing less democratic. This raises the possibility that the effects they were observing were caused simply by political change per se, rather than by democratization. Finally, they implicitly acknowledge that the relationship of democratization and peacefulness may change over historical periods. There is no reason to suppose that any such relationship is governed by an immutable law. Since their empirical base reaches back to 1811, any effect they report, even if accurately interpreted, may not hold in the contemporary world. They note that "in [some] recent cases, in contrast to some of our historical results, the rule seems to be: go fully democratic, or don't go at all." But according to Freedom House, some 62.5 percent of extant governments were chosen in legitimate elections. (12) (This is a much larger proportion than are adjudged by Freedom House to be "free states," a more demanding criterion, and it includes many weakly democratic states.) Of the remaining 37.5 percent, a large number are experiencing some degree of democratization or heavy pressure in that direction. So the choice "don't go at all" (11) is rarely realistic in the contemporary world. These statistics also contain the answer to those who doubt the second proposition behind Fukuyama's forecast, namely, that the world is growing more democratic. Skeptics have drawn upon Samuel Huntington's fine book, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Huntington says that the democratization trend that began in the mid-1970s in Portugal, Greece and Spain is the third such episode. The first "wave" of democratization began with the American revolution and lasted through the aftermath of World War I, coming to an end in the interwar years when much of Europe regressed back to fascist or military dictatorship. The second wave, in this telling, followed World War II when wholesale decolonization gave rise to a raft of new democracies. Most of these, notably in Africa, collapsed into dictatorship by the 1960s, bringing the second wave to its end. Those who follow Huntington's argument may take the failure of democracy in several of the former Soviet republics and some other instances of backsliding since 1989 to signal the end of the third wave. Such an impression, however, would be misleading. One unsatisfying thing about Huntington's "waves" is their unevenness. The first lasted about 150 years, the second about 20. How long should we expect the third to endure? If it is like the second, it will ebb any day now, but if it is like the first, it will run until the around the year 2125. And by then--who knows?--perhaps mankind will have incinerated itself, moved to another planet, or even devised a better political system. Further, Huntington's metaphor implies a lack of overall progress or direction. Waves rise and fall. But each of the reverses that followed Huntington's two waves was brief, and each new wave raised the number of democracies higher than before. Huntington does, however, present a statistic that seems to weigh heavily against any unidirectional interpretation of democratic progress. The proportion of states that were democratic in 1990 (45%), he says, was identical to the proportion in 1922. (13) But there are two answers to this. In 1922 there were only 64 states; in 1990 there were 165. But the number of peoples had not grown appreciably. The difference was that in 1922 most peoples lived in colonies, and they were not counted as states. The 64 states of that time were mostly the advanced countries. Of those, two thirds had become democratic by 1990, which was a significant gain. The additional 101 states counted in 1990 were mostly former colonies. Only a minority, albeit a substantial one, were democratic in 1990, but since virtually none of those were democratic in 1922, that was also a significant gain. In short, there was progress all around, but this was obscured by asking what percentage of states were democratic. Asking the question this way means that a people who were subjected to a domestic dictator counted as a non-democracy, but a people who were subjected to a foreign dictator did not count at all. Moreover, while the criteria for judging a state democratic vary, the statistic that 45 percent of states were democratic in 1990 corresponds with Freedom House's count of "democratic" polities (as opposed to its smaller count of "free" countries, a more demanding criterion). But by this same count, Freedom House now says that the proportion of democracies has grown to 62.5 percent. In other words, the "third wave" has not abated. That Freedom House could count 120 freely elected governments by early 2001 (out of a total of 192 independent states) bespeaks a vast transformation in human governance within the span of 225 years. In 1775, the number of democracies was zero. In 1776, the birth of the United States of America

brought the total up to one. Since then, democracy has spread at an accelerating pace, most of the growth having occurred within the twentieth century, with greatest momentum since 1974.

That this momentum has slackened somewhat since its pinnacle in 1989, destined to be remembered as one of the most revolutionary years in all history, was inevitable. So many peoples were swept up in the democratic tide that there was certain to be some backsliding. Most countries' democratic evolution has included some fits and starts rather than a smooth progression. So it must be for the world as a whole. Nonetheless, the overall trend remains powerful and clear. Despite the backsliding, the number and proportion of democracies stands higher today than ever before. This progress offers a source of hope for enduring nuclear peace. The danger of nuclear war was radically reduced almost overnight when Russia abandoned Communism and turned to democracy. For other ominous corners of the world, we may be in a kind of race between the emergence or growth of nuclear arsenals and the advent of democratization. If this is so, the greatest cause for worry may rest with the Moslem Middle East where nuclear arsenals do not yet exist but where the prospects for democracy may be still more remote.

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Dollar Collapse Mead 04

Dollar collapse will ensure a US-China war
Mead 04 Senior Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations
[Walter Russell, America's STICKY Power, Foreign Policy, Mar/Apr, Proquest]
Similarly, in the last 60 years, as foreigners have acquired a greater value in the United States-government and private bonds, direct and portfolio private investments-more and more of them have acquired an interest in maintaining the strength of the U.S.-led system. A collapse of the U.S. economy and

the ruin of the dollar would do more than dent the prosperity of the United States. Without their best customer, countries including China and Japan would fall into depressions. The financial strength of every country would be severely shaken should the United States collapse. Under those circumstances, debt becomes a strength, not a weakness, and other

countries fear to break with the United States because they need its market and own its securities. Of course, pressed too far, a large national debt can turn from a source of strength to a crippling liability, and the United States must continue to justify other countries' faith by maintaining its long-term record of meeting its financial obligations. But, like Samson in the temple of the Philistines, a collapsing U.S. economy would inflict enormous, unacceptable damage on the rest of the world. That is sticky power with a vengeance. The United States' global economic might is therefore not simply, to use Nye's formulations, hard power that compels others or soft power that attracts the rest of the world. Certainly,

the U.S. economic system provides the United States with the prosperity needed to underwrite its security strategy, but it also encourages other countries to accept U.S. leadership. U.S. economic might is sticky power. How will sticky power help the United States address today's

challenges? One pressing need is to ensure that Iraq's econome reconstruction integrates the nation more firmly in the global economy. Countries with open economies develop powerful tradeoriented businesses; the leaders of these businesses can promote economic policies that respect property rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Such leaders also lobby governments to avoid the isolation that characterized Iraq and Libya under economic sanctions. And looking beyond Iraq, the allure of access to Western capital and global markets is one of the few forces protecting

China's rise to global prominence will offer a key test case for sticky power. As China develops economically, it should gain wealth that could support a military rivaling that of the United States; China is also gaining political influence in the world. Some analysts in both China and the United States believe that the laws of history mean that Chinese power will someday clash with the reigning U.S. power. Sticky power offers a way out. China benefits from participating in the U.S. economic system and integrating itself into the global economy. Between 1970 and 2003, China's gross domestic product grew from an estimated $106 billion to more than $1.3 trillion. By 2003, an estimated $450 billion of foreign money had flowed into the Chinese economy. Moreover, China is becoming increasingly dependent on both imports and exports to keep its economy (and its military machine) going. Hostilities between the United States and China would cripple China's industry, and cut off supplies of oil and other key
the rule of law from even further erosion in Russia. commodities. Sticky power works both ways, though. If China cannot afford war with the United States, the United States will have an increasingly hard time breaking off commercial relations with China.

In an era of weapons of m ass destruction, this mutual dependence is probably good for both sides. Sticky power did not prevent World War I, but economic interdependence runs deeper now; as a result, the "inevitable" U.S.-Chinese conflict is less likely to occur.

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European War Glaser

European war will escalate and go nuclear the US will be drawn in
Glaser 93 Professor of Public Policy at University of Chicago
[Charles L., International Security, Summer, p. 8-9]
However, although the lack of an imminent Soviet threat eliminates the most obvious danger,

U.S. security has not been entirely separated from the future of Western Europe. The ending of the Cold War has brought many benefits, but has not eliminated the possibility of major power war, especially since such a war European war could threaten U.S. security. The United States could be drawn into such a war, even if strict security considerations suggested major power war could escalate to a nuclear war that, especially if the United States joins, could include attacks against the American

could grow out of a smaller conflict in the East. And, although nuclear weapons have greatly reduced the threat that a European hegemon would pose to U.S. security, a sound case nevertheless remains that a it should stay out. A

homeland. Thus, the United States should not be unconcerned about Europes future.

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Extinction Outweighs All Ochs

Survival outweighs all freedom and other abstract concepts are meaningless in the absence of life
Ochs 02 MA in Natural Resource Management from Rutgers University and Naturalist at Grand Teton National Park
[Richard, BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS MUST BE ABOLISHED IMMEDIATELY, Jun 9, http://www.freefromterror.net/other_articles/abolish.html]
Against this tendency can be posed a rational alternative policy. To preclude possibilities of human extinction,

"patriotism" needs to be redefined to make humanitys survival primary and absolute. Even if we lose our cherished freedom, our sovereignty, our government or our Constitution, where there is life, there is hope. What good is anything else if humanity is extinguished? This concept should be promoted to the center of national debate.. For

example, for sake of argument, suppose the ancient Israelites developed defensive bioweapons of mass destruction when they were enslaved by Egypt. Then suppose these weapons were released by design or accident and wiped everybody out? As bad as slavery is, extinction is worse. Our generation, our century, our epoch needs to take the long view. We truly hold in our hands the precious gift of all future life. Empires may come and go, but who are the honored custodians of life on earth? Temporal politicians? Corporate competitors? Strategic brinksmen? Military gamers? Inflated egos dripping with testosterone? How can any sane person believe that national sovereignty is more important than survival of the species?

Now that extinction is possible, our slogan should be "Where there is life, there is hope." No government, no economic system, no national pride, no religion, no political system can be placed above human survival. The egos of leaders must not blind us. The adrenaline and vengeance of a fight must

not blind us. The game is over. If patriotism would extinguish humanity, then patriotism is the highest of all crimes.

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Federalism Calabresi
Federalism is essential to prevent warfare
Calabresi 95 Associate Professor at Northwestern University School of Law
[Steven G., A GOVERNMENT OF LIMITED AND ENUMERATED POWERS: IN DEFENSE OF UNITED STATES v. LOPEZ, Michigan Law Review, Dec, 94 Mich. L. Rev. 752, LN]

federalism is a big part of what keeps the peace in countries like the United States and Switzerland. It is a big part of the reason why we do not have a Bosnia or a Northern Ireland or a Basque country or a Chechnya or a Corsica or a Quebec problem. 51 American federalism in the end is not a trivial matter or a quaint historical anachronism. American -style federalism is a thriving and vital institutional arrangement - partly planned by the Framers, partly the accident of history - and it prevents violence and war. It prevents religious warfare, it prevents secessionist warfare, and it prevents racial warfare. It is part of the reason why democratic
Small state majoritarianism in the United States has not produced violence or secession for 130 years, unlike the situation for example, in England, France, Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, or Spain.

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that is more important or that has done more to promote peace, prosperity, and freedom than the federal structure of that great document. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that should absorb more completely the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court. So far, I have

focused on the advantages of American-style small-state federalism in defusing centrifugal devolutionary tendencies, alleviating majority tyranny, and accentuating crosscutting social cleavages. But what about the advantages of international federalism; what are the ad- [*771] vantages of consolidating states into larger federal entities, as happened in North America in 1787 or in Europe in 1957? A first and obvious advantage is that consolidation reduces the threat of war. Because war usually occurs when two or more states compete for land or other resources, a reduction in the number of states also will reduce the likelihood of war. This result is especially true if the reduction in the number of states eliminates land boundaries between states that are hard to police, generate friction and border disputes, and that may require large standing armies to defend. In a brilliant article, Professor Akhil Amar has noted the importance of this point to both to the Framers of our Constitution and to President Abraham Lincoln. 52 Professor Amar shows that they believed a Union of States was essential in North America because otherwise the existence of land boundaries would lead here - as it had in Europe - to the creation of standing armies and ultimately to war. 53 The Framers accepted the old British notion that it was Britain's island situation that had kept her free of war and, importantly, free of a standing army that could be used to oppress the liberties of the people in a way that the British navy never could. These old geostrategic arguments for federalist consolidation obviously hold true today and played a role in the forming of the European Union, the United Nations, and almost every other multinational federation or alliance that has been created since 1945. Sometimes the geostrategic argument is expanded to become an argument for a multinational defensive alliance, like NATO, against a destabilizing power, like the former Soviet Union. In this variation, international federalism is partly a means of providing for the common defense and partly a means of reducing the likelihood of intra-alliance warfare in order to produce a united front against the prime military threat. Providing for the common defense, though, is itself a second and independent reason for forming international federations. It was a motivation for the formation of the U.S. federation in 1787 and, more recently, the European Union. A third related advantage is that international federations can undertake a host of governmental activities in which there are significant economies of scale. This is one reason why federations can provide better for the common defense than can their constituent parts. Intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered aircraft [*772] carriers and submarines, and B-2 stealth bombers tend to be expensive. Economies of scale make it cheaper for fifty states to produce one set of these items than it would be for fifty states to try to produce fifty sets. This is true even without factoring in the North American regional tensions that would be created if this continent had to endure the presence of fifty nuclear minipowers, assuming that each small state could afford to own at least one Hiroshima-sized nuclear bomb. Important governmental economies of scale obtain in other areas, as well, however, going well beyond national defense. For example, there are important economies of scale to the governmental provision of space programs, scientific and biomedical research programs, the creation of transportation infrastructure, and even the running of some kinds of income and wealth redistribution programs. A fourth and vital advantage to international federations is that they can promote the free movement of goods and labor both among the components of the federation by reducing internal transaction costs and internationally by providing a unified front that reduces the costs of collective action when bargaining with other federations and nations. This reduces the barriers to an enormous range of utility-maximizing transactions thereby producing an enormous increase in social wealth. Many federations have been formed in part for this reason, including the United States, the European Union, and the British Commonwealth, as well as all the trade-specific "federations" like the GATT and NAFTA. A fifth advantage to international federations is that they can help regulate externalities that may be generated by the policies and laws of one member state upon other member states. As I explain in more detail below, these externalities can be both negative and positive, 54 and, in both situations, some type of federal or international action may sometimes be appropriate. A wellknown example of a problematic negative externality that could call for federal or international intervention occurs when one state pollutes the air or water of another and refuses to stop because all the costs of its otherwise beneficial action accrue to its neighbor. 55 [*773] Sixth and finally, 56 an advantage to international federation is that it may facilitate the protection of individual human rights. For reasons Madison explained in the Federalist Ten, 57 large governmental structures may be more sensitive than smaller governmental structures to the problems of abuse of individual and minority rights. 58 Remote federal legislatures or courts, like the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court, sometimes can protect important individual rights when national or local entities might be unable to do so. 59 As I have explained elsewhere, this argument remains a persuasive part of the case for augmented federal powers. 60 Some of the best arguments for

federalism helps prevent bloodshed and war. It is no wonder, then, that we live in an age of federalism at both the international and subnational level. Under the right circumstances, federalism can help to promote peace, prosperity, and happiness. It can alleviate the threat of majority tyranny - which is the central flaw of democracy. In some situations, it can reduce the visibility of dangerous social fault lines, thereby preventing bloodshed and violence. This necessarily brief comparative, historical, and empirical survey of the world's experience with federalism amply demonstrates the benefits at least of American-style small-state federalism. 61 In light of this evidence, the United States would be foolish indeed to abandon its federal system. [*774]
centripetal international federalism, then, resemble some of the best arguments for centrifugal devolutionary federalism: in both cases - and for differing reasons -

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Food Prices Tampa Tribune

Rising food prices will kill billions
Tampa Tribune 96
[Paul Power Jr., Grain shortage growing problem, Jan 20, LN]

There are more people in this world than ever, but less grain to feed them. That's kindled fears of a world food crisis, a problem Florida may
help prevent. Poor weather, drought, political unrest and economic shifts have decreased planting, pushing world grain reserves to record lows. Meanwhile, the world's population grew by 100 million, to 5.75 billion in 1995 - a record increase. Now, miners in West Central Florida are digging out phosphate more quickly, so it can be used to make fertilizer. Analysts are warning about the increasing possibility of flood or drought in the world's food-producing regions. That can push food prices much higher, both here and abroad, and even cause famine in the poorest countries. U.S. food prices may rise more than 4 percent this year, ahead of the rate of inflation. "Conditions today indicate that there is at least some vulnerability in the food supply," said Sara Schwartz, an agricultural economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Corn and soybean production plunged last year in the United States, she said. Wet weather slowed grain planting in the United States and Canada. Elsewhere, drought and civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa cut production to 20 percent below normal. The European Union has less than one quarter of the grain reserves it held in 1993. The amount of corn expected to be available in the United States by summer - when corn is harvested - was trimmed by crop forecasters this week to 507 million

a global scale, food supplies - measured by stockpiles of grain - are not abundant. In 1995, world production failed to meet demand for Pinstrup-Andersen, director of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C. As a result, grain stockpiles fell from an average of 17 percent of annual consumption in 1994-1995 to 13 percent at the end of the 1995-1996 season, he said. That's troubling, Pinstrup-Andersen noted, since
the third consecutive year, said Per 13 percent is well below the 17 percent the United Nations considers essential to provide a margin of safety in world food security. During the food crisis of the early 1970s, world grain stocks were at 15 percent.

bushels, the lowest in 20 years. On

"Even if they are merely blips, higher international prices can hurt poor countries that import a significant portion of their food," he said. "Rising prices can also quickly put food out of reach of the 1.1 billion people in the developing world who live on a dollar a day or less."

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Free Trade Good Spicer

Protectionist trade blocs will prompt a global nuclear war
Spicer 96, Former Member of British Parliament
[Michael, The Challenge from the East and the Rebirth of the West, p. 12]
The choice facing the West today is much the same as that which faced the Soviet bloc after World War II: between meeting head-on the challenge of world trade with the adjustments and the benefits that it will bring, or of attempting to shut out markets that are growing and where a dynamic new pace is being set for innovative productions. The problem about the second approach is not simply that it wont hold: satellite technology alone will ensure that consumers will begin to demand those goods that the East is able to provide most cheaply. More fundamentally, it

will guarantee the emergence of a fragmented world in which natural fears will be fanned and inflamed. A world divided into rigid trade blocs will be a deeply troubled and unstable place in which suspicion and ultimately envy will possibly erupt into a major war. I do not say that the converse will necessarily be true, that in a free trading world there will be an absence of all strife. Such a proposition would manifestly be absurd. But to trade is to become interdependent, and that is a good step in the direction of world stability. With nuclear weapons at two a penny, stability will be at a premium in the years ahead.

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Free Trade Good Copley News Service

Free trade is key to avert nuclear annihilation
Copley News Service 99
[Dec 1, LN]

For decades, many children in America and other countries went to bed fearing annihilation by nuclear war. The specter of nuclear winter freezing the life out of planet Earth seemed very real. Activists protesting the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle apparently have forgotten that threat. The truth is that nations join together in groups like the WTO not just to further their own prosperity, but also to forestall conflict with other nations. In a way, our planet has traded in the threat of a worldwide nuclear war for the benefit of cooperative global economics. Some Seattle protesters clearly
fancy themselves to be in the mold of nuclear disarmament or anti-Vietnam War protesters of decades past. But they're not. They're special-interest activists, whether the cause is environmental, labor or paranoia about global government. Actually, most of the demonstrators in Seattle are very much unlike yesterday's peace activists, such as Beatle John Lennon or philosopher Bertrand Russell, the father of the nuclear disarmament movement, both of whom urged people and nations to work together rather than strive against each other. These and other war protesters would probably approve of 135 WTO nations sitting down peacefully to discuss economic issues that in the past might have been settled by bullets and bombs.

As long as nations are trading peacefully, and their economies are built on exports to other countries, they have a major disincentive to wage war.

That's why bringing China, a budding superpower, into the WTO is so important. As exports to the United States and the rest of the world feed Chinese prosperity, and that prosperity increases demand for the goods we produce, the threat of hostility diminishes. Many anti-trade protesters in Seattle claim that only multinational corporations benefit from global trade, and that it's the everyday wage earners who get hurt. That's just plain wrong. First of all, it's not the military-industrial complex benefiting. It's U.S. companies that make high-tech goods. And those companies provide a growing number of jobs for Americans. In San Diego, many people have good jobs at Qualcomm, Solar Turbines and other companies for whom overseas markets are essential. In Seattle, many of the 100,000 people who work at Boeing would lose their livelihoods without world trade. Foreign trade today accounts for 30 percent of our gross domestic product. That's a lot of jobs for everyday workers.

Growing global prosperity has helped counter the specter of nuclear winter. Nations of the world are learning to live and work together, like the singers of anti-war songs once imagined. Those who care about world peace shouldn't be protesting world trade. They should be celebrating it.

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Genetic Diversity Fowler and Mooney

Loss of genetic diversity will cause global extinction
Fowler and Mooney 90 Senior Officer at UN Food and Agriculture Organization; and Staff Member at Rural Advancement Fund International
[Cary and Pat, Shattering: food, politics, and the loss of genetic diversity, p. ix]
While many may ponder the consequences of global warming, perhaps

the biggest single environmental catastrophe in human history is unfolding in the garden. While all are rightly concerned about the possibility of nuclear war, an equally devastating time bomb is ticking away in the fields of farmers all over the world. Loss of genetic diversity in agriculturesilent, rapid, inexorableis leading to a rendezvous with extinctionto the doorstep of hunger on a scale we refuse to imagine. To simplify the environment as we have done in agriculture is to destroy the complex interrelationships that hold the natural world together. In reducing the diversity of life, we narrow our options for the future and render our own survival more precarious.

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Global Economic Collapse Bearden

Economic collapse will trigger a global nuclear war that causes extinction
Bearden 00 Director of Association of Distinguished American Scientists
[T. E., The Unnecessary Energy Crisis: How to Solve It Quickly, Space Energy Access Systems, http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisis-Bearden.htm]

nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.

History bears out that desperate

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Global Economic Collapse Lewis

Economic collapse will spark neocolonial wars that destroy the planet
Lewis 00 Instructor in American Studies Program at University of Colorado-Boulder
[Chris H., The Paradox of Global Development and the Necessary Collapse of Global Industrial Civilization, Jun, http://www.cross-x.com/archives/LewisParadox.pdf]

instead of allowing underdeveloped countries to withdraw from the global economy and the [US] United States, Europe, and Japan and others will fight neo-colonial wars to force these countries to remain within this collapsing global economy. These neocolonial wars will result in mass-death, suffering, and even regional nuclear wars. If First World countries choose military confrontation and political repression to maintain the global economy, then we may see mass- death and genocide at a global scale that will make the deaths of World War II pale in comparison. However, these neo-colonial wars, fought to maintain the developed nations' economic and political hegemony, will cause the final collapse of global industrial civilization. These wars will so damage the complex economic and trading networks and squander material, biological, and energy and human resources that they will undermine the global economy and its ability to support the Earth's six to eight billion people. This would be the worst-case scenario for the collapse of global civilization. This is the kind of global nightmare world that would have been created by a full-scale global nuclear war during the days of the Cold War. A civilization that prepared for such a global holocaust cant
Of course, most critics would argue, probably correctly, that undermine the economies of the developed world, entirely be trusted to manage a soft landing after the collapse of global industrial civilization. This is the nightmare that haunts many concerned intellectuals, who really understand the brutality and inhumanity demonstrated by 20th century global industrial civilization. Recent estimates suggest that more people were killed in this century by other people, over 160 million, than all the people killed by other people in recorded history.

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Global Economic Collapse Lopez 98

Economic collapse will spawn regional wars around the globe, fuel weapons proliferation, and ensure US intervention in numerous foreign conflicts
Lopez 98, Freelance Journalist and Frequent Author on International Economic Issues
[Beranrdo V., Global Recession phase two Catastrophic, BusinessWorld, September 10, p. 12, LN] bg

global recession will spawn wars of all kinds. Ethnic wars can easily escalate in the grapple for dwindling food stocks as in India-Pakistan-Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Indonesia. Regional conflicts in key flashpoints can easily erupt such as in the Middle East, Korea, and Taiwan. In the Philippines, as in some Latin American countries, splintered insurgency forces may take advantage of the economic drought to regroup and reemerge in the countryside. Unemployment worldwide will be in the billions. Famine can be triggered in key Third World nations with India, North Korea, Ethiopia and other African countries as first candidates. Food riots and the breakdown of law and order are possibilities. Global recession will see the deferment of globalization, the shrinking of international trade - especially of
What would it be like if global recession becomes full bloom? The results will be catastrophic. Certainly, high-technology commodities such as in the computer, telecommunications, electronic and automotive industries. There will be a return to basics with food security being a prime concern of all governments, over industrialization and trade expansions. Protectionism will reemerge and trade liberalization will suffer a big setback. The WTO-GATT may have to redefine its provisions to adjust to the changing times. Even the World Bank-IMF consortium will experience continued crisis in dealing with financial hemorrhages. There will not be enough funds to rescue ailing economies. A few will get a windfall from the disaster with the erratic movement in world prices of basic goods. But the majority, especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), will suffer serious shrinkage. Mega-mergers and acquisitions will rock the corporate landscape. Capital markets will shrink and credit crisis and spiralling interest rates will spread internationally. And environmental advocacy will be shelved in the name of survival. Domestic markets will flourish but only on basic commodities. The focus of enterprise will shift into basic goods in the medium term. Agrarian economies are at an advantage since they are the food producers. Highly industrialized nations will be more affected by the recession. Technologies will concentrate on servicing domestic markets and the agrarian economy will be the first to regrow. The setback on research and development and high-end technologies will be compensated in its eventual focus on agrarian activity. A return to the rural areas will decongest the big cities and the ensuing real estate glut will send prices tumbling down. Tourism and travel will regress by a decade and airlines worldwide will need rescue. Among the indigenous communities and agrarian peasantry, many will shift back to prehistoric subsistence economy. But there will be a more crowded upland situation as lowlanders seek more lands for production. The current crisis for land of indigenous communities will worsen. Land conflicts will increase with the indigenous communities who have nowhere else to go either being massacred in armed conflicts or dying of starvation. Backyard gardens will be precious and home-based food production will flourish. As unemployment expands, labor will shift to self-reliant microenterprises if the little capital available can be sourced. In the past, the US could afford amnesty for millions of illegal migrants because of its resilient economy. But with unemployment increasing, the US will be forced to clamp down on a reemerging illegal migration which will increase rapidly. Unemployment in the US will be the hardest to cope with since it may have very little capability for subsistence economy and its agrarian base is automated and controlled by a few. The riots and looting of stores in New York City in the late '70s because of a state-wide brownout hint of the type of anarchy in the cities. Such looting in this most affluent nation is not impossible. The weapons industry may also grow rapidly because of the ensuing wars. Arms escalation will have primacy over food production if wars escalate. The US will depend increasingly on weapons exports to nurse its economy back to health. This will further induce wars and conflicts which will aggravate US recession rather than solve it. The US may depend more and more on the use of force and its superiority to get its ways internationally.

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Global Economic Collapse Mead 92

Even a slowdown in the global economy will trigger a nuclear World War 3
Mead 92 Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at Council on Foreign Relations
[Walter Russell, Depending on the kindness of strangers, New Perspectives Quarterly, Summer, p. 28, Academic Search Elite]
If so, this new failure--the failure to develop an international system to hedge against the possibility of worldwide depression--will open their eyes to their folly. Hundreds of millions--

billions--of people around the world have pinned their hopes on the international market economy. They and their leaders have embraced market principles--and drawn closer to the West--because they believe that our system can work for them. But what if it can't? What if the global economy stagnates--or even shrinks? In that case, we will face a new period of international conflict: South against North, rich against poor. Russia, China, India--these countries with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to world order than Germany and Japan did in the '30s.

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Global Economic Collapse Mead 98

Economic collapse will trigger a nuclear world war
Mead 98 Senior Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations
[Walter Russell, Market free fall's threat to peace, Baltimore Sun, Aug 25, LN]
Forget suicide car bombers and Afghan fanatics. It's the financial markets, not the terrorist training camps that pose the biggest immediate threat to world peace. How can this be? Think about the mother of all global meltdowns: the Great Depression that started in 1929. U.S. stocks began to collapse in October, staged a rally, then the market headed south big time. At the bottom, the Dow Jones industrial average had lost 90 percent of its value. Wages plummeted, thousands of banks and brokerages went bankrupt, millions of people lost

the biggest impact of the Depression on the United States -- and on world history -- wasn't money. It was blood: World War II, to be exact. The Depression brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany, undermined the ability of moderates to oppose Joseph Stalin's power in Russia, and convinced the
their jobs. There were similar horror stories worldwide. But Japanese military that the country had no choice but to build an Asian empire, even if that meant war with the United States and Britain. That's the thing about depressions. They aren't just bad for your 401(k). Let the world economy crash far enough, and the rules change. We stop playing ''The Price Is Right'' and start up a new round of ''Saving Private Ryan.'' The current depression isn't as bad as the Great Depression -- yet -- and it may not ever get there. But try telling that to the Asians. The Thai stock market has lost about 90 percent of its value. Tens of millions of people from Moscow to Malaysia have watched their savings disappear, wages fall and hopes for the future wither and die. Guess who they blame. It's all a U.S. plot, say many ordinary Asians and a disquieting number of Asian politicians. Asia was getting too rich and powerful. The United States therefore engineered this crisis. And now that many Asian currencies have declined, and many Asian companies are for sale cheap, the United States will buy up Asia for pennies on the dollar. This is paranoid, but not totally dumb. The economic crisis we see today does result, in part, from U.S. policy. Not that we were plotting cleverly to make Asia poor. Actually, the U.S. government wants Asia to get rich -- and the quicker the better. The United States feels much like Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare's play. Seeing Cassius with his ''lean and hungry'' look, Caesar instinctively says, ''Would he were fatter!'' Ever since all the other great economic powers were either defeated or ruined by World War II, America has borrowed its foreign policy from the witch in Hansel and Gretel: Fatten them up. Not that we wanted to eat them. We wanted to fight communism. We figured that only poor countries went Red, so the best way to win the Cold War was to make workers around the world too rich to rebel. This worked, more or less. When the Soviet Union collapsed seven years ago, we fine-tuned our policy but made no basic changes. The goal changed from defeating communism to promoting democracy, but the basic reasoning stayed the same: Fattening them up keeps the United States prosperous and the world at peace. That simple idea is the real core of U.S. foreign policy -- plus maintaining a military strong enough to scare off the lean and hungry guys who can't or won't climb on the chow wagon. If there's a better way to run a world, nobody's pointed it out to the foreign-policy establishment. There's only one problem: The United States has a goal, but it doesn't have a plan. The economic ideas that the Washington policy establishment thought would guarantee growth in Asia and elsewhere used to work. Now, suddenly, they don't -- and neither Washington nor anybody else knows what to do. Our biggest blunder? To think that the export-oriented growth strategies pioneered by Japan, Taiwan and South Korea would keep working forever. The United States both directly and indirectly through intermediaries like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank encouraged developing countries everywhere in the world to learn from and imitate the examples of the early Asian tigers. Use your low wages, lax regulations and low taxes to lure foreign investment, we told them, and save money yourselves. Then put all that money into factories aimed at producing goods for export to the Unite States and Europe. We never stopped to think that what worked brilliantly for a handful of countries might not work as well if everybody tried it. It's a little like traffic. If a few people decide to take the freeway, they save time. But if everybody tries to crowd onto the same freeway at the same time, they get caught in a monstrous traffic jam and nobody gets anywhere. This is happening in Asia today. The Japanese, the South Koreans, the Taiwanese and the people of Hong Kong were all doing 70 miles an hour on the export freeway toward growth. The Thais, the Malays, the Indonesians and the Chinese saw how well they were doing and headed for the on ramps in their millions and billions. Now the Indians, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Vietnamese are trying to crowd onto the freeway -- even as the traffic jams congeal. Unfortunately, as horns honk and tempers fray, the United States, like a deranged traffic helicopter overhead, is still urging more countries to get on the freeway -- and advising those stuck on the freeway to stay where they are. Those billions of drivers stuck in that traffic are pounding their steering wheels and cursing their fate. They are also cursing that damned helicopter, which keeps issuing cheery, out-of-touch little updates even as the traffic gets worse. None of this is all our fault, and some isn't our fault at all. We advised the Russians to privatize their economy; we didn't tell them to hand it over to the Mafia. We told the Asian nations to chase export-led growth, but we never said anything about turning their banks into Ponzi schemes. As we move forward from here, the United States has two facts to face. First, we still want to fatten them up. ''Let me have men about me that are fat;/Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights,'' said Caesar. He was right. If the Russians get rich, they'll settle down, and we can all stop worrying about all those nuclear weapons. If the Chinese and their neighbors get rich, they will buy more goods from us, settle the quarrels they have among themselves more peacefully and not think we are out to destroy them. The second fact is a bit uglier: We don't actually know how to make the world economy grow. Our old methods have stopped working; no obvious new miracle cures have appeared. The United States and the world must now pass through a dangerous and possibly prolonged era when the world economy urgently needs fixing, and nobody knows what to do. There are no guarantees in this world. Maybe we'll find a workable solution in time, and the global economy will start to right itself. Maybe

we won't find a solution, the meltdown will spread and we'll slide into war-spawning depression.

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Global Warming Bad Milbrath

Warming will trigger climatic oscillations that kill billions and collapse the global economy
Milbrath 94 Director of Research Program in Environment and Society at SUNY-Buffalo
[Lester W., Climate and chaos: Societal impacts of sudden weather shifts, The Futurist, May/Jun, ProQuest]

Climate modelers have been cautiously predicting that the earth will gradually warm in the years ahead, producing similarly gradual changes in climatic patterns. For instance, the middle of North America will slowly grow arid. Comforted by the concept of gradual change, most economists confidently predict that market
economic systems will readily adjust and that no precautionary action by government to forestall climate change will be required. A few scientists claim that there is no threat at all of global warming. But are either of these predictions likely to come true? If not, what more realistic scenario can we consider? In the summer of 1993, nature's lessons on the consequences of human impact on climate systems became insistently harsher. A stalled high-pressure system over the eastern United States brought torrential rains and flooding to the Midwest, while the southeast suffered from heat and drought. Crop losses in both areas were enormous, and other economic losses were far larger--not to mention the loss of many lives. Climatic aberrations elsewhere around the globe were equally catastrophic, with floods also reported in Nepal, Bangladesh, and India. Why did the high-pressure system stall in the American East? Climatologists' best guess is that warming sea-surface temperature led to changes in ocean currents, which led to a changed direction of the jet stream, which stalled the high-pressure zone, which led to flooding and drought, which led to huge societal disruption and loss. This unpredicted set of events has made many people doubt that science, technology, and markets can ensure a good and secure future. Three unspoken premises underlie the overall vulnerability of our society. These are the premise of continuity, the premise that nature can be controlled, and the premise of first-order consequences. The premise of continuity holds that patterns characteristic of physical and social systems in the past will continue into the future. Economic thinking abhors uncertainty about the future. If people do not have some confidence that the future will basically be like the past, investors will not invest, lenders will not lend, and people will not start businesses. The economic growth that all governments covet cannot be realized in an aura of uncertainty. Confidence that climatic patterns will be much as they were in the past is the most fundamental of all premises of continuity. If climate behavior leads economic actors to doubt that planetary systems will behave as they have in the past, economic activity is bound to decline. The second premise holds that nature can be controlled, and it arises from the seeming success of science and technology in controlling nature. For example, people built huge and lengthy levees along the Mississippi River believing they could confine it to its normal banks. Farms, businesses, homes, and even cities were built in the flood plain under the illusion that they were secure. When unexpectedly high waters arrived, these human intrusions on nature were doubly vulnerable, bringing loss of life and devastating property losses when the levees were breached. Recent experiences with weather-induced disasters suggests that people will rebuild in these vulnerable locations, rationalizing that the disaster was only an aberration and that the climate will return to its "regular" pattern. The third premise--that the visible, first-order consequences of our actions are all that we need to consider in making decisions--is another mindset that makes us vulnerable. When parents decide to have another child, they think almost exclusively of the impact it will have on their own lives in the near future. Only rarely do people consider second-, third-, and fourth-order consequences, such as the impact another human would have on natural systems. The same could also be said about decisions to use energy, consume resources, or dispose of wastes, all of which have distant consequences. Yet, the patterns of global life systems are being changed by the cumulative consequences of these individual decisions, a phenomenon sometimes called "the tyranny of small decisions." Other phenomena of modern thinking lead us to ignore long-term consequences and blind us to our own best interests. The "cult of the individual" places extraordinary emphasis on the rights of the individual, which encourages persons to pursue wealth and freedom at the expense of the larger society and the environment. Curiously, his phenomenon of "every man for himself" may also be related to a feeling of anomie, the perception that social, economic, and political problems are so huge and intractable that no effective course of action is available. Individual action is perceived as having little or no effect, and group action is seen as too overwhelmingly difficult. Yet, there is no escaping the first law of thermodynamics, which tells us that everything has to go somewhere. Everything is connected to everything else. We can never do merely one thing; we must constantly keep asking, "And then what?" Societal vulnerabilities are rooted in our way of thinking. Yet, collectively, we are unable to critically evaluate the validity of these beliefs. Many criticisms of these premises have been inserted into public discourse, but it seems that most people aren't listening. It is probable, then, that global society will not undertake effective collective action to prevent any further distress of global life systems. Instead, we must expect that the human population will continue its swift growth. At its present rate of growth, it will double in 40 to 50 years. This pressure will force people to build dwellings and cities in vulnerable places. Reacting to the pressure for meaningful employment and the consumption of goods by their growing populations, governments will force higher and higher levels of economic throughput, thus accelerating production of greenhouse gases. Higher throughput will also produce greater amounts of industrial and consumer wastes that will injure the planet's life systems. At the very time when more and more people will look to life systems for sustenance, their actions will reduce the productive capability of these systems and their ability to absorb wastes. As this scenario plays out,

it is improbable that the climate system will not change at all or that it will gradually change to a new pattern and settle down, as is assumed in most current economic thinking. The most-probable climate scenario is for even more chaos. Many meteorologists and climatologists already perceive the climate system as chaotic. If humans increasingly perturb that system, we could expect it to become even more chaotic. But how chaotic will it become, what kinds of chaos might we expect, and how long will it last? No one

knows the answers to those questions. From chaos theory, we do suspect that systems which become extremely chaotic may collapse or shift to a new pattern--one that may or may not be stable. The climatic catastrophes of recent years do suggest one possible scenario of climate behavior. Frequent, unexpected climatic disasters may be interspersed into "normal" climate patterns. The resulting loss of life and property could reduce the human propensity to multiply and to increase economic throughput. Experiencing these losses may lead people to lose faith in the premise of continuity. This will retard economic growth despite the desperate efforts of governments to promote it. Another scenario suggests that

there could be an extended period, perhaps a decade or two, when there is oscillation-type chaos in the climate system. Plants will be especially vulnerable to oscillating chaos, since they are injured or die when climate is too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet. And since plants make food for all other creatures, plant dieback would lead to severe declines in agricultural production. Farm animals and wildlife would die in large numbers. Many humans also would starve. Several years of climatic oscillation could kill billions of people. The loss of the premise of continuity would also precipitate collapse of world financial markets. That collapse would lead to sharp declines in commodity markets, world trade, factory output, retail sales, research and

development, tax income for governments, and education. Such nonessential activities as tourism, travel, hotel occupancy, restaurants, entertainment, and fashion would be severely affected.

Billions of unemployed people would drastically reduce their consumption, and modern society's vaunted economic system would collapse like a house of cards.

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Global Warming Good (CO2 Fertilization) Idso and Idso

Unchecked rise of CO2 is essential to avert destruction of the biosphere
Idso and Idso 01 President; and Vice President of Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
[Sherwood and Keith, The Importance of Knowledge to Environmental Policy, CO2 Science Magazine, May 2, http://www.co2science.org/edit/v4_edit/v4n18edit.htm]
Clearly, the hearts of these gentlemen are in the right place; but without a knowledge of all the pertinent facts, their prescription for the planet could well be way off base and, in fact, prove our downfall and that of the rest of the biosphere as well. It thus behooves us to seriously consider the findings of Tilman et al. (2001), reported just four days later in the pages of Science, which Leo and Gergen had obviously not the advantage of seeing when they composed their essays. In an analysis of the global environmental impacts of agricultural expansion that will likely occur over the next 50 years, which was based upon projected increases in population and concomitant advances in technological expertise, the group of ten respected researchers

concluded that the task of meeting the doubled global food demand they calculated to exist in the year 2050 will likely exact an environmental toll that "may rival climate change in environmental and societal impacts." What are the specific problems? For starters, Tilman and his colleagues note that "humans currently appropriate more than a third of the production of terrestrial ecosystems and about half of usable freshwaters, have doubled terrestrial nitrogen supply and phosphorus liberation, have manufactured and released globally significant quantities of pesticides, and have initiated a major extinction event." Now, think of doubling those figures. In fact, do even more; for the scientists calculate global nitrogen fertilization and pesticide production will likely rise by a factor of 2.7 by the year 2050. In terms of land devoted to agriculture, they calculate a less ominous 18% increase over the present. However, because developed countries are expected to withdraw large areas of land from farming over the next 50 years, the net loss of natural ecosystems to cropland and pasture in developing countries will amount to about half of all potentially suitable remaining land, which would, in the words of Tilman et al., "represent the worldwide loss of natural ecosystems larger than the United States." Looking at it another way, the scientists say this phenomenon "could lead to the loss of about a third of remaining tropical and temperate forests, savannas, and grasslands." And in a worrisome reflection upon the consequences of these changes in land use for global
biodiversity, they note that "species extinction is an irreversible impact of habitat destruction." These findings should come as no surprise to readers of CO2 Science Magazine, for we have dealt with them editorially many times (1 Oct 1999, 1 Feb 2000, 15 Nov 2000, 21 Feb 2001). Hence, we are in full agreement with Tilman et al. when they say "an environmentally sustainable revolution, a greener revolution, is needed." In fact,

something far above humanitys normal ability to devise and execute will be required to avert the impending catastrophe; for as Tilman and his associates rightly conclude, "even the best available technologies, fully deployed, cannot prevent many of the forecasted problems."

Here, then, is the real and truly inescapable problem facing the world and every living thing therein: where will we find the food and water needed to sustain our growing populations? We are going to need much more of both of these precious commodities if we are ever going to make it through even the first half of the current century without self-destructing and taking most of the rest of the biosphere with us. So we ask Mr. Leo and Mr. Gergen the very same questions they posed in their essays. Do you "care about saving the planet" and doing those things that will not "darken the prospects for mankind"? If you were sincere in your writing, and we believe you were, you will carefully consider a fact that is hardly ever mentioned in the international debate over anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and that is, that

if there is any one thing that is known about carbon dioxide and global change with any certainty, it is that more CO2 in the air substantially enhances the growth of plants and the efficiency with which they utilize water. Doubling the atmospheres CO2 concentration, for example, typically increases crop productivity by 30 to 40%, while it increases plant water use efficiency even more, making it possible to produce considerably greater quantities of food with little to no increase in the amount of water used. And in natural ecosystems, where water and other resources are often limiting, the positive effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment can be even larger. The enormity of the environmental problems we will surely face in trying to feed the world of tomorrow including our children and grandchildren and all the rest of the biosphere demands that we ask ourselves
if we are ready to "risk the environment," as Mr. Gergen puts it, by using up nearly every bit of land and water on the face of the globe to meet caloric and nutritional needs, while polluting the

allow the ongoing rise in the airs CO2 concentration to continue to bring about the only "environmentally sustainable revolution," to borrow an appropriate phrase from Tilman and company, that can go above and beyond what mans technological genius has the capacity to do and provide the extra productivity and efficiency edge the biosphere will surely need to meet the food security challenges of the coming half-century. Industrialized societys
rest of the planet and leaving next to nothing of value for nature, or if we will stubbornly take an "unnatural stand," as Mr. Leo describes it, and not "exhalations" of carbon dioxide are truly a godsend; for if we will let them, they can be the basis of Tilman et al.s "greener revolution." Its as natural as breathing; and for vegetation, thats exactly what it is. Through the pores in their leaves, earths plants breathe in the CO2 humanity releases to the atmosphere and it becomes the basic building block of everything they produce. Ask your children about the process. They learn it in grade school. Plants love CO2. Its good for them. And whats good for plants is good for everything else, humankind included. In the end, however much we may try to ignore these facts, we cannot deny that we possess this knowledge. And we now possess the additional knowledge that we desperately need what

more CO2 can do for us, that its absolutely essential, in fact, to avert a catastrophic breakdown of the biosphere over the next half-century, as we reported for the first we turn our backs on carbon dioxide, which could truly be a savior for the planet, and crucify CO2 upon the cross of a counterfeit and misguided environmentalism, the people of the earth will do just that, they will perish, and not many years hence.

time last year in Technology (Idso and Idso, 2000) see our Journal Review Will There Be Enough Food? and as Tilman et al. have now confirmed in Science. And having this knowledge, we are morally obligated to act upon it. Mr. Gergen says "strong leaders must summon us to the mountaintop." He is right. But we must know what mountain to climb, and thats where a knowledge of the pertinent facts becomes so important; for if we cannot see the truth, as the proverb rightly says, "where there is no vision, the people perish." And if

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Global Warming Good (Ice Age) Business Wire

Global warming is essential to prevent an extinction-causing ice age
Business Wire 91
[Study: global warming may be beneficial, Feb 14, LN]

Global warming may be needed in order to prevent the next ice age, which is long overdue on nature's timetable, according to a study produced by the National Center for Policy Analysis. ''The costs of global warming are being exaggerated and the benefits are being ignored,'' said the study's author, Kent Jeffreys, who is director of environmental studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington. Drawing on scientific evidence which Jeffreys says has been overlooked in the global warming policy debate, the study says that: -- In the past two to three million years, the earth's temperature has gone through at least 17 climate cycles, with ice ages lasting about 100,000 years interrupted by warm periods lasting about 10,000 years. -- Since the current warm period is about 13,000 years old, the next ice age is long overdue. -- During the coldest period of the last ice age, about 25,000 years ago, most
of North America was completely covered by ice. ''The natural temperature of the earth is cold, not warm,'' said Jeffreys. ''The warm temperature we now enjoy has existed only 10 percent of the time over the last three million years and only 2 percent of the time over the last 15 million years.'' Jeffreys said there is no hard evidence that we are experiencing a global But it

warming. may be just what is needed. ''Enhancing the greenhouse effect may be necessary for our survival,'' he said. The study said that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the use of carbon-based fuels may have other benefits for the planet. According to Jeffreys: -- Humans contribute the long-term trend is toward less CO2. -- If the long-term trend continues, and there is no scientific reason why it should not, the earth will eventually become a lifeless planet.

only 5 percent of the CO2 in the atmosphere, while nature contributes 95 percent. -- Throughout the earth's 4.5 billion year history there have been wide swings in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, but

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Growth Good Silk

Growth checks war, prevents environmental destruction, and stops the spread of AIDS
Silk 92 Distinguished Professor of Economics at Pace University
[Leonard, Dangers of Slow Growth, Foreign Affairs (America and the World), p. 167, LN] bg
In the absence of such shifts of human and capital resources to expanding civilian industries, there are strong economic pressures on arms-producing nations to maintain high levels of military production and to sell weapons, both conventional and dual-use nuclear technology, wherever buyers can be found.

Without a revival of national economies and the global economy, the production and proliferation of weapons will continue, creating more Iraqs, Yugoslavias, Somalias and Cambodias -- or worse. Like the Great Depression, the current economic slump has fanned the firs of nationalist, ethnic and religious hatred around the world. Economic hardship is not the only cause of these social and political pathologies, but it aggravates all of them, and in turn they feed back on economic development. They also undermine efforts to deal with such global problems as environmental pollution, the production and trafficking of drugs, crime, sickness, famine, AIDS and other plagues. Growth will not solve all those problems by itself. But economic growth -- and growth alone -- creates the additional resources that make it possible to achieve such fundamental goals as higher living standards, national and collective security, a healthier environment, and more liberal and open economies and societies.

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India-Pakistan Nuke War Caldicott

Indo-Pak nuclear war will escalate globally and destroy the planet
Caldicott 02, Founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility
[Helen, The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bushs Military-Industrial Complex, p. X]
The

use of Pakistani nuclear weapons could trigger a chain reaction. Nuclear-armed India, an ancient enemy, could respond in kind. China, India's hated foe, could react if India used her nuclear weapons, triggering a nuclear holocaust on the subcontinent. If any of either Russia or America's 2,250 strategic weapons on hair-trigger alert were launched either accidentally or purposefully in response, nuclear winter would ensue, meaning the end of most life on earth.

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Infectious Diseases South China Morning Post

Infectious diseases risk global extinction
South China Morning Post 96
[Kavita Daswani, Leading the way to a cure for AIDS, Jan 4, LN]

There is a much more pressing medical crisis at hand the possibility of a virus deadlier than HIV. If this makes Dr Ben-Abraham sound like a prophet of doom, then he makes no apology for it. AIDS, the Ebola outbreak which killed more than 100 people in Africa last year, the flu epidemic that has now affected 200,000 in the former Soviet Union they are all, according to Dr Ben-Abraham [president of the American Cryogenics Society], the "tip of the iceberg". Two decades of intensive study and research in the field of virology have convinced him of one thing: in place of natural and man-made disasters or nuclear warfare, humanity could face extinction because of a single virus, deadlier than HIV. "An airborne virus is a lively, complex and dangerous organism," he said. "It can come from a rare animal or from anywhere and can mutate constantly. If there is no cure, it affects one person and then there is a chain reaction and it is unstoppable. It is a tragedy waiting to happen." That may sound like a far-fetched plot for a Hollywood film, but Dr Ben -Abraham said history has already proven his
Despite the importance of the discovery of the "facilitating" cell, it is not what Dr Ben-Abraham wants to talk about. one he believes the world must be alerted to: theory. Fifteen years ago, few could have predicted the impact of AIDS on the world. Ebola has had sporadic outbreaks over the past 20 years and the only way the deadly virus - which turns internal organs into liquid - could be contained was because it was killed before it had a chance to spread. Imagine, he says, if it was closer to home: an outbreak of that scale in London, New York or Hong Kong. It could happen anytime in the next 20 years - theoretically, it could happen tomorrow. The shock of the AIDS epidemic has prompted virus experts to admit "that something new is indeed happening and that the threat of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent", said Joshua Lederberg of the Rockefeller University in New York, at a recent conference. He added that the problem was "very serious and is getting worse". Dr Ben-Abraham said: "Nature isn't benign.

The survival of the human species is not a preordained evolutionary programme. Abundant sources of genetic variation exist for viruses to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system." He cites the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak as an example of how viruses have outsmarted human intelligence. And as new "mega-cities" are being developed in the Third World and rainforests are destroyed, disease-carrying animals and insects are forced into areas of human habitation. "This raises the very real possibility that lethal, mysterious viruses would, for the first time, infect humanity at a large scale and imperil the survival of the human race," he said. Quals added

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Infectious Diseases Steinbruner

Infections disease spread risks global extinction
Steinbruner 98 Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution
[John D., Biological weapons: A plague upon all houses, Foreign Policy, Dec 22, LN]

a key to our survival that, so far, the main lines of defense against this threat have not depended on explicit policies or organized the human body has developed physical barriers and a biochemical immune system whose sophistication and effectiveness exceed anything we could design or as yet even fully understand. But evolution is a sword that cuts both ways: New diseases emerge, while old diseases mutate and adapt. Throughout history, there have been epidemics during which human immunity has broken down on an epic scale. An infectious agent believed to have been the plague bacterium killed an estimated 20 million people over a four-year period in the fourteenth century, including nearly one-quarter of Western Europe's population at the time. Since its recognized appearance in 1981, some 20 variations of the HIVvirus have infected an estimated 29.4 million worldwide, with 1.5 million people currently dying of aids each year. Malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera-once thought to be under control-are now making a comeback. As we enter the twenty-first century, changing conditions have enhanced the potential for widespread contagion. The rapid growth rate of the total world population, the unprecedented freedom of movement across international borders, and scientific advances that expand the capability for the deliberate manipulation of pathogens are all cause for worry that the problem might be greater in the future than it has ever been in the past. The threat of infectious pathogens is not just an issue of public health, but a fundamental security problem for the species as a whole.
efforts. In the long course of evolution,

It is a considerable comfort and undoubtedly

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International Law Malaysian Medical Association

International law is essential to avert planetary extinction
Malaysian Medical Association 02
[11TH SEPTEMBER - DAY OF REMEMBRANCE, Sep 6, http://www.mma.org.my/current_topic/sept.htm]

Our world is increasingly interdependent and the repercussions of the actions of states, non-state actors and individuals transcend national boundaries. Weapons of mass destruction, landmines, small arms and environmental damage have global consequences, whether they be deadly armed conflict, nuclear testing or climate change from global warming. The risk of nuclear war continues to threaten human survival.
The casualties resulting from even a single explosion would overwhelm the medical facilities in any city in the world. The use of nuclear weapons is morally indefensible, and the International Court of Justice has declared their use and threatened use illegal. Yet, nuclear weapons remain part of the military strategy of many nations. Nuclear war must be prevented. Nuclear weapons must be eliminated. Ongoing violations of the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian and human rights law and increasing poverty and preventable disease continue to fuel violence. World military expenditure, estimated at US$839 billion in 2001, prevents governments from meeting the social needs of their citizens and the global proliferation of armaments has

call on all governments to place their foreign and domestic policies and their behaviour under the scrutiny of international law and international institutions. Each government must take primary responsibility for ending its own contribution to the cycle of violence. As citizens, we are expected to abide by the law. We expect no less from governments. This is a necessary part of honouring the lives of so many men, women and children whose deaths are commemorate. At a time when global problems should be solved by cooperating and complying with multilateral legally-binding treaties, and by embracing the rule of law as valuable instruments for building common security and safe-guarding the long-term, collective interests of humanity, there are unmistable signs that powerful states are taking unilateral action, setting aside international treaties, and undermining international law. The principle of the rule of law implies that even the most powerful must comply with the law, even if it is difficult or costly or when superior economic, military and diplomatic power may seem to make compliance unnecessary. The destruction of the symbols of American economic power and military might on 11th September is a salutary reminder that military
caused unspeakable carnage. We power, including the possession of nuclear weapons, does not deter terrorists or confer security or invulnerability. It has prompted the Bush administration to declare "war on terror" and convinced it that a military response is the best way to fight terrorism on a global scale, without considering alternative, more effective ways of combating terrorism, such as addressing the root causes of terrorism. The greatest betrayal of those who died on 11th September 2001 would be to not recognise that there are non-violent ways of resolving conflict. This is a difficult, uncertain

our collective survival depends upon forging cooperative, just and equitable relationships with each other; in rejecting violence and war; and in pursuing non-violent resolutions to conflict. The alternative is a world perpetually divided, continually at war, and possibly destroying itself through environmental degradation or the use of weapons of m ass destruction.
path to take, whereas violence and war are easy, predictable options. The lesson of 11th September is that

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Judicial Deference Bad Kellman

Continued judicial deference to military risks nuclear winter
Kellman 89 Professor of Law at DePaul University
[Barry, Judicial abdication of military tort accountability: but who is to guard the guards themselves? Duke Law Journal, 1989 Duke L.J. 1597, LN]

In this era of thermonuclear weapons, America must uphold its historical commitment to be a nation of law. Our strength grows from the resolve to subject military force to constitutional authority. Especially in these times when weapons proliferation can lead to nuclear winter, when weapons production can cause cancer, when soldiers die unnecessarily in the name of readiness: those who control military force must be held accountable under law. As the
Supreme Court recognized a generation ago, []the Founders envisioned the army as a necessary institution, but one dangerous to liberty if not confined within its essential bounds. Their fears were rooted in history. They knew that ancient republics had been overthrown by their military leaders. . . . . . . . We cannot close our eyes to the fact that today the peoples of many nations are ruled by the military. We should not break faith with this Nation's tradition of keeping military power subservient to civilian authority, a tradition which we believe is firmly embodied in the Constitution.[] Our fears may be rooted in more recent history. During the decade of history's largest peacetime military expansion (1979-1989), more than 17,000 service personnel were killed in training accidents. 2 In the same period, virtually every facility in the nuclear bomb complex has been revealed [*1598] to be contaminated with radioactive and poisonous materials; the clean-up costs are projected to exceed $ 100 billion. 3 Headlines of fatal B-1B bomber crashes, 4 the downing of an Iranian passenger plane, 5 the Navy's frequent accidents 6 including the fatal crash of a fighter plane into a Georgia apartment complex, 7 remind Americans that a tragic price is paid to support the military establishment. Other commentaries may distinguish between the specific losses that might have been preventable and those which were the random consequence of what is undeniably a dangerous military program. This Article can only repeat the questions of the parents of those who have died: "Is the military accountable to anyone? Why is it allowed to keep making the same mistakes? How many more lives must be lost to senseless accidents?" 8 This Article describes a judicial concession of the law's domain, ironically impelled by concerns for "national security." In three

recent controversies involving

weapons testing, the judiciary has disallowed tort accountability for serious and unwarranted injuries. In United States v. Stanley, 9 the Supreme Court ruled that an Army sergeant, unknowingly drugged with LSD by the Central Intelligence Agency, could not pursue a claim for deprivation of his constitutional rights. In Allen v. United States, 10 civilian victims of atmospheric atomic testing were denied a right of tort recovery against the government officials who managed and performed the tests. Finally, in Boyle v. United Technologies, 11 the Supreme Court ruled that private weapons manufacturers enjoy immunity from product liability actions alleging design defects. A critical analysis of these decisions reveals that the judiciary, notably the Rehnquist Court, has abdicated its responsibility to review civil matters involving the military security establishment. 12 [*1599] Standing at the vanguard of "national security"

elevate the task of preparing for war to a level beyond legal accountability. They suggest that determinations of both the ends and the means of national security are inherently above the law and hence unreviewable regardless of the legal rights transgressed by these determinations. This conclusion signals a dangerous abdication of judicial responsibility. The very underpinnings of constitutional governance are threatened by those who contend that the rule of law weakens the execution of military policy. Their argument -- that because our
adversaries are not restricted by our Constitution, we should become more like our adversaries to secure ourselves -- cannot be sustained if our tradition of adherence to the rule of law is to be maintained. To the contrary, the judiciary must be willing to demand adherence to legal principles by assessing responsibility for weapons decisions. This Article posits that judicial abdication in this field is not compelled and certainly is not desirable. The three opinions would suggest.

law, 13 these three decisions

legal system can provide a useful check against dangerous military action, more so than these The judiciary must rigorously scrutinize military decisions if our 18th century dream of a nation founded in musket smoke is to remain recognizable in a millennium ushered in under the mushroom cloud of thermonuclear holocaust.

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Kashmir Conflict Fai

War over Kashmir will cause global nuclear winter
Fai 01 Executive Director of Kashmiri American Council
[Ghulam Nabi, The most dangerous place, Washington Times, Jul 8, LN]

The most dangerous place on the planet is Kashmir, a disputed territory convulsed and illegally occupied for more than 53 years and sandwiched between nuclear-capable India and Pakistan. It has ignited two wars between the estranged South Asian rivals in 1948 and 1965, and a third could trigger nuclear volleys and a nuclear winter threatening the entire globe. The United States would enjoy no sanctuary.

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Korean War Africa News

Korean war will destroy the planet
Africa News 99
[Pat Fungamwango, Third world war: Watch the Koreas, Oct 25, LN]

If there is one place today where the much-dreaded Third World War could easily erupt and probably reduce earth to a huge smouldering cinder it is the Korean Peninsula in Far East Asia. Ever since the end of the savage three-year Korean war in the early 1950s, military tension between the hardline communist north and the American backed South Korea has remained dangerously high. In fact the Koreas are technically still at war. A foreign
visitor to either Pyongyong in the North or Seoul in South Korea will quickly notice that the divided country is always on maximum alert for any eventuality. North Korea or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has never forgiven the US for coming to the aid of South Korea during the Korean war. She still regards the US as an occupation force in South Korea and wholly to blame for the non-reunification of the country. North Korean media constantly churns out a tirade of attacks on "imperialist" America and its "running dog" South Korea. The DPRK is one of the most secretive countries in the world where a visitor is given the impression that the people's hatred for the US is absolute while the love for their government is total. Whether this is really so, it is extremely difficult to conclude. In the DPRK, a visitor is never given a chance to speak to ordinary Koreans about the politics of their country. No visitor moves around alone without government escort. The American government argues that its presence in South Korea was because of the constant danger of an invasion from the north. America has vast economic interests in South Korea. She points out that the north has dug numerous tunnels along the demilitarised zone as part of the invasion plans. She also accuses the north of violating South Korean territorial waters. Early this year, a small North Korean submarine was caught in South Korean waters after getting entangled in fishing nets. Both the Americans and South Koreans claim the submarine was on a military spying mission. However, the intension of the alleged intrusion will probably never be known because the craft's crew were all found with fatal gunshot wounds to their heads in what has been described as suicide pact to hide the truth of the mission. The US mistrust of the north's intentions is so deep that it is no secret that today Washington has the largest concentration of soldiers and weaponry of all descriptions in south Korea than anywhere else in the World, apart from America itself. Some of the armada that was deployed in the recent bombing of Iraq and in Operation Desert Storm against the same country following its invasion of Kuwait was from the fleet permanently stationed on the Korean Peninsula. It is true too that at the moment the North/South Korean border is the most fortified in the world. The border line is littered with anti-tank and anti-personnel landmines, surface-to-surface and surfaceto-air missiles and is constantly patrolled by warplanes from both sides. It is common knowledge that America also keeps an eye on any military movement or build-up in the north through spy satellites. The

DPRK is said to have an estimated one million soldiers and a huge arsenal of various weapons. Although the DPRK regards herself as

a developing country, she can however be classified as a super-power in terms of military might. The DPRK is capable of producing medium and long-range missiles. Last year, for example, she test-fired a medium range missile over Japan, an action that greatly shook and alarmed the US, Japan and South Korea. The DPRK says the projectile was a satellite. There have also been fears that she was planning

to test another ballistic missile capable of reaching North America. Naturally, the world is anxious that military tension on the Korean Peninsula must be defused to avoid an apocalypse on earth. It is therefore significant that the American government
announced a few days ago that it was moving towards normalising relations with North Korea.

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Leadership Ferguson
Collapse of US hegemony will create a global power vacuum that ensures multiple nuclear wars and economic depression
Ferguson 04 Senior Fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution
[Niall, A World Without Power, Foreign Policy, Jul/Aug, Academic Search Elite]
Critics of U.S. global dominance should pause and consider the alternative.

China, not the Muslim world--and certainly not the United Nations. Unfortunately,

If the United States retreats from its hegemonic role, who would supplant it? Not Europe, not the alternative to a single superpower is not a multilateral utopia, but the anarchic

nightmare of a new Dark Age. We tend to assume that power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. In the history of world politics, it seems, someone is always the hegemon, or bidding to become it. Today, it is the United States; a century ago, it was the United Kingdom. Before that, it was
France, Spain, and so on. The famed 19th-century German historian Leopold von Ranke, doyen of the study of statecraft, portrayed modern European history as an incessant struggle for mastery, in which a balance of power was possible only through recurrent conflict. The influence of economics on the study of diplomacy only seems to confirm the notion that history is a competition between rival powers. In his bestselling 1987 work, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, Yale University historian Paul Kennedy concluded that, like all past empires, the U.S. and Russian superpowers would inevitably succumb to overstretch. But their place would soon be usurped, Kennedy argued, by the rising powers of China and Japan, both still unencumbered by the dead weight of imperial military commitments. In his 2001 book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, University of Chicago political scientist John J. Mearsheimer updates Kennedy's account. Having failed to succumb to overstretch, and after surviving the German and Japanese challenges, he argues, the United States must now brace for the ascent of new rivals. "[A] rising China is the most dangerous potential threat to the United States in the early twenty-first century," contends Mearsheimer. "[T]he United States has a profound interest in seeing Chinese economic growth slow considerably in the years ahead." China is not the only threat Mearsheimer foresees. The European Union (EU) too has the potential to become "a formidable rival." Power, in other words, is not a natural monopoly; the struggle for mastery is both perennial and universal. The "unipolarity" identified by some commentators following the Soviet collapse cannot last much longer, for the simple reason that history hates a hyperpower. Sooner or later, challengers will emerge, and back we must go to a multipolar, multipower world. But what if these esteemed theorists are all wrong? What if the world is actually heading for a period when there is no hegemon? What if, instead of a balance of power, there is an absence of power? Such a situation is not unknown in history. Although the chroniclers of the past have long been preoccupied with the achievements of great powers--whether civilizations, empires, or nationstates--they have not wholly overlooked eras when power receded. Unfortunately, the world's experience with power vacuums (eras of "apolarity," if you will) is hardly encouraging. Anyone who dislikes U.S. hegemony should bear in mind that, rather than a multipolar world of competing great powers, a world with no hegemon at all may be the real alternative to U.S. primacy. Apolarity could turn out to mean an anarchic new Dark Age: an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic plunder and pillage in the world's forgotten regions; of economic stagnation and civilization's retreat into a few fortified enclaves. Why might a power vacuum arise early in the 21st century? The reasons are not especially hard to imagine. Powerful though it may seem--in terms of economic output, military might, and "soft" cultural power--the United States suffers from at least three structural deficits that will limit the effectiveness and duration of its quasiimperial role in the world. The first factor is the nation's growing dependence on foreign capital to finance excessive private and public consumption. It is difficult to recall any past empire that long endured after becoming so dependent on lending from abroad. The second deficit relates to troop levels: The United States is a net importer of people and cannot, therefore, underpin its hegemonic aspirations with true colonization. At the same time, its relatively small volunteer army is already spread very thin as a result of major and ongoing military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Finally, and most critically, the United States suffers from what is best called an attention deficit. Its republican institutions and political traditions make it difficult to establish a consensus for long-term nation-building projects. With a few exceptions, most U.S. interventions in the past century have been relatively short lived. U.S. troops have stayed in West Germany, Japan, and South Korea for more than 50 years; they did not linger so long in the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, or Vietnam, to say nothing of Lebanon and Somalia. Recent trends in public opinion suggest that the U.S. electorate is even less ready to sacrifice blood and treasure in foreign fields than it was during the Vietnam War. Those who dream the EU might become a counterweight to the U.S. hyperpower should continue slumbering. Impressive though the EU's enlargement this year has been--not to mention the achievement of 12-country monetary union-- the reality is that demography likely condemns the EU to decline in international influence and importance. With fertility rates dropping and life expectancies rising, West European societies may, within fewer than 50 years, display median ages in the upper 40s. Europe's "dependency ratio" (the number of nonworking-age citizens for every working-age citizen) is set to become cripplingly high. Indeed, Old Europe will soon be truly old. By 2050, one in every three Italians, Spaniards, and Greeks is expected to be 65 or older, even allowing for ongoing immigration. Europeans therefore face an agonizing choice between Americanizing their economies, i.e., opening their borders to much more immigration, with the cultural changes that would entail, or transforming their union into a fortified retirement community. Meanwhile, the EU's stalled institutional reforms mean that individual European nation-states will continue exercising considerable autonomy outside the economic sphere, particularly in foreign and security policy. China's coming economic crisis | Optimistic observers of China insist the economic miracle of the past decade will endure, with growth continuing at such a sizzling pace that within 30 or 40 years China's gross domestic product will surpass that of the United States. Yet it is far from clear that the normal rules for emerging markets are suspended for Beijing's benefit. First, a fundamental incompatibility exists between the free-market economy, based inevitably on private property and the rule of law, and the Communist monopoly on power, which breeds corruption and impedes the creation of transparent fiscal, monetary, and regulatory institutions. As is common in "Asian tiger" economies, production is running far ahead of domestic consumption--thus making the economy heavily dependent on exports--and far ahead of domestic financial development. Indeed, no one knows the full extent of the problems in the Chinese domestic banking sector. Those Western banks that are buying up bad debts to establish themselves in China must remember that this strategy was tried once before: a century ago, in the era of the Open Door policy, when U.S. and European firms rushed into China only to see their investments vanish amid the turmoil of war and revolution. Then, as now, hopes for China's development ran euphorically high, especially in the United States. But those hopes were dashed, and could be disappointed again. A Chinese currency or banking crisis could have earthshaking ramifications, especially when foreign investors realize the difficulty of repatriating assets held in China. Remember, when foreigners invest directly in factories rather than through intermediaries such as bond markets, there is no need for domestic capital controls. After all, how does one repatriate a steel mill? The fragmentation of Islamic civilization | With birthrates in Muslim societies more than double the European average, the Islamic countries of Northern Africa and the Middle East are bound to put pressure on Europe and the United States in the years ahead. If, for example, the population of Yemen will exceed that of Russia by 2050 (as the United Nations forecasts, assuming constant fertility), there must either be dramatic improvements in the Middle East's economic performance or substantial emigration from the Arab world to aging Europe. Yet the subtle Muslim colonization of Europe's cities--most striking in places like Marseille, France, where North Africans populate whole suburbs--may not necessarily portend the advent of a new and menacing "Eurabia." In fact, the Muslim world is as divided as ever, and not merely along the traditional fissure between Sunnis and Shiites. It is also split between those Muslims seeking a peaceful modus vivendi with the West (an impulse embodied in the Turkish government's desire to join the EU) and those drawn to the revolutionary Islamic Bolshevism of renegades like al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Opinion polls from Morocco to Pakistan suggest high levels of anti-American sentiment, but not unanimity. In Europe, only a minority expresses overt sympathy for terrorist organizations; most young Muslims in England clearly prefer assimilation to jihad. We are a long way from a bipolar clash of civilizations, much less the rise of a new caliphate that might pose a geopolitical threat to the United States and its allies. In short, each of the potential hegemons of the 21st century--the United States, Europe, and China--seems to contain within it the seeds of decline; and Islam remains a diffuse force in world politics, lacking the resources of a superpower. Suppose, in a worst-case scenario, that U.S. neoconservative hubris is humbled in Iraq and that the Bush administration's project to democratize the Middle East at gunpoint ends in ignominious withdrawal, going from empire to decolonization in less than two years. Suppose also that no aspiring rival power shows interest in filling the resulting vacuums--not only in coping with Iraq but conceivably also Afghanistan, the Balkans, and Haiti. What would an apolar future look like? The answer is not easy, as there have been very few periods in world history with no contenders for the role of global, or at least regional, hegemon. The nearest approximation in modern times could be the 1920s, when the United States walked away from President Woodrow Wilson's project of global democracy and collective security centered on the League of Nations. There was certainly a power vacuum in Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Romanov, Habsburg, Hohenzollern, and Ottoman empires, but it did not last long. The old West European empires were quick to snap up the choice leftovers of Ottoman rule in the Middle East. The Bolsheviks had reassembled the czarist empire by 1922. And by 1936, German revanche was already far advanced. One must go back much further in history to find a period of true and enduring apolarity; as far back, in fact, as the ninth and 10th centuries. In this era, the remains of the Roman Empire--Rome and Byzantium--receded from the height of their power. The leadership of the West was divided between the pope, who led Christendom, and the heirs of Charlemagne, who divided up his short-lived empire under the Treaty of Verdun in 843. No credible claimant to the title of emperor emerged until Otto was crowned in 962, and even he was merely a German prince with pretensions (never realized) to rule Italy. Byzantium, meanwhile, was dealing with the Bulgar rebellion to the north. By 900, the Abbasid caliphate initially established by Abu al-Abbas in 750 had passed its peak; it was in steep decline by the middle of the 10th century. In China, too, imperial power was in a dip between the T'ang and Sung dynasties. Both these empires had splendid capitals--Baghdad and Ch'ang-an--but neither had serious aspirations of territorial expansion. The weakness of the old empires allowed new and smaller entities to flourish. When the Khazar tribe converted to Judaism in 740, their khanate occupied a Eurasian power vacuum between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In Kiev, far from the reach of Byzantium, the regent Olga laid the foundation for the future Russian Empire in 957 when she converted to the Orthodox Church. The Seljuks--forebears of the Ottoman Turks--carved the Sultanate of Rum as the Abbasid caliphate lost its grip over Asia Minor. Africa had its mini-empire in Ghana; Central America had its Mayan civilization. Connections between these entities were minimal or nonexistent. This condition was the antithesis of globalization. It was a world broken up into disconnected, introverted civilizations. One feature of the age was that, in the absence of strong secular polities, religious questions often produced serious convulsions. Indeed, religious institutions often set the political agenda. In the eighth and ninth centuries, Byzantium was racked by controversy over the proper role of icons in worship. By the 11th century, the pope felt confident enough to humble Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV during the battle over which of them should have the right to appoint bishops. The new monastic orders amassed considerable power in Christendom, particularly the Cluniacs, the first order to centralize monastic authority. In the Muslim world, it was the ulema (clerics) who truly ruled. This atmosphere helps explain why the period ended with the extraordinary holy wars known as the Crusades, the first of which was launched by European Christians in 1095. Yet, this apparent clash of civilizations was in many ways just another example of the apolar world's susceptibility to long-distance military raids directed at urban centers by more backward peoples. The Vikings repeatedly attacked West European towns in the ninth century--Nantes in 842, Seville in 844, to name just two. One Frankish chronicler lamented "the endless flood of Vikings" sweeping southward. Byzantium, too, was sacked in 860 by raiders from Rus, the kernel of the future Russia. This "fierce and savage tribe" showed "no mercy," lamented the Byzantine patriarch. It was like "the roaring sea ... destroying everything, sparing nothing." Such were the conditions of an anarchic age. Small wonder that the future seemed to lie in creating small, defensible, political units: the Venetian republic--the quintessential city-state, which was conducting its own foreign policy by 840--or Alfred the Great's England, arguably the first thing resembling a nation-state in European history, created in 886. Could an apolar world today produce an era reminiscent of the age of Alfred? It could, though with some important and troubling differences. Certainly, one can imagine the world's established powers--the United States, Europe, and China--retreating into their own regional spheres of influence. But what of the growing pretensions to autonomy of the supranational bodies created under U.S. leadership after the Second World War? The United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (formerly the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) each considers itself in some way representative of the "international community." Surely their aspirations to global governance are fundamentally different from the spirit of the Dark Ages? Yet universal claims were also an integral part of the rhetoric of that era. All the empires claimed to rule the world; some, unaware of the existence of other civilizations, maybe even believed that they did. The reality, however, was not a global Christendom, nor an all-embracing Empire of Heaven. The reality was political fragmentation. And that is also true today. The defining characteristic of our age is not a shift of power upward to supranational institutions, but downward. With the end of states' monopoly on the means of violence and the collapse of their control over channels of communication, humanity has entered an era characterized as much by disintegration as integration. If free flows of information and of means of production empower multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations (as well as evangelistic religious cults of all denominations), the free flow of destructive technology empowers both criminal organizations and terrorist cells. These groups can operate, it seems, wherever they choose, from Hamburg to Gaza. By contrast, the writ of the international community is not global at all. It is, in fact, increasingly confined to a few strategic cities such as Kabul and Pristina. In short, it is the nonstate actors who truly wield global power--including both the monks and the Vikings of our time.

So what is left? Waning empires. Religious revivals. Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities. These are the Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might quickly find itself reliving. The trouble is, of course, that this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one than the Dark Age of the ninth

century. For the world is much more populous-roughly 20 times more--so friction between the world's disparate "tribes" is bound to be more frequent. Technology has transformed production; now human societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of fossil fuels that are known to be finite. Technology has upgraded destruction, too, so it is now possible not just to sack a city but to obliterate it. For more than two decades, globalization--the integration of world markets for commodities, labor, and capital--has raised living standards

The reversal of globalization--which a new Dark Age would produce--would certainly lead to economic stagnation and even depression. As the United States sought to protect itself after a second September 11 devastates, say, Houston or Chicago, it would inevitably become a less open society, less hospitable for foreigners seeking to work, visit, or do business. Meanwhile, as Europe's Muslim enclaves grew, Islamist extremists' infiltration of the EU would become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to the breaking point. An economic meltdown in China would plunge the Communist system into crisis, unleashing the
throughout the world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. centrifugal forces that undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. The wealthiest ports of the global economy--from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai-would become the targets of plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East. In Latin America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S. religious orders. In Africa, the great plagues of aids and malaria would continue their deadly work. The few remaining solvent airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? For all these reasons, the prospect of an apolar world should frighten us today a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of Charlemagne. If the United States retreats from global hegemony--its fragile self-image dented by minor setbacks on the imperial frontier--its critics at home and abroad must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony, or even a return to the good old balance of power. Be careful what you wish for. The alternative to unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be apolarity--a global vacuum of power. And far more dangerous forces than rival great powers would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder.

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Leadership Khalilzad
US leadership is essential to avert global nuclear war
Khalilzad 95 US Ambassador to Afghanistan and Former Defense Analyst at RAND
[Zalmay, Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War, Washington Quarterly, Spring, LN]
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is

a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.
the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because

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Liberty Petro
Violations of freedom must be resisted at all costs
Petro 74 Professor of Law at NYU
[Sylvester, Toledo Law Review, Spring, p. 480, http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200304/0783.html]
However, one may still insist, echoing Ernest Hemingway - "I believe in only one thing: liberty." And it is always well to bear in mind David Hume's observation: "It is seldom that liberty of

it is unacceptable to say that the invasion of one aspect of freedom is of no importance because there have been invasions of so many other aspects. That road leads to chaos, tyranny, despotism, and the end of all human aspiration. Ask Solzhenitsyn. Ask Milovan Dijas. In sum, if one believed in freedom as a supreme value and the proper ordering principle for any society aiming to maximize spiritual and material welfare, then every invasion of freedom must be emphatically identified and resisted with undying spirit.
any kind is lost all at once." Thus,

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North Korean Regime Collapse Bennett and Hachigian

Regime collapse will cause global nuclear war
Bennett and Hachigian 04 Senior Analyst and Director of Center for Asia Pacific Policy at RAND Corporation
[Bruce and Nina, Dont try regime change in North Korea, International Herald Tribune, January 31, LN] bg
Ideally, regime change in North Korea would mean a neat handover of power from Kim Jong Il to a cooperative, benign leader that the United States and its allies can work with. Or, it could lead to a quick and peaceful unification with South Korea, as happened inGermany.But realistically, these scenarios are extremely unlikely. Here are more likely scenarios following an attempt at regime change in North Korea: * War. pressure.

North Korea takes military action to avert regime collapse or to coerce an end to the international South Koreans fear this outcome the most, because their country could be ravaged in the process. If NorthKorea indeed has nuclear weapons, it might use them, perhaps killing millions of people in South Korea. Japan and possibly the United States would also be at risk. While South Korea and the United States would almost certainly win the resulting conflict, victory would require conquest and occupation of North Korea. In the process, South Korea could suffer such horrific casualties and economic damage that it would become incapable of functioning, let alone absorbing the North. The North Korean military, with a guerrilla culture and massive special forces, and a total military many times the size ofIraq's, could well become an insurgent force that would make the Iraqi insurgency look mild.* Civil War. Kim Jong Il's government collapses into factions and civil war breaks out. The loss of central control would leave North Korean weapons of mass destruction in the hands of unscrupulous domestic factions, which could use them in the civil war and try to sell them to third parties. The resulting flows of refugees and the spillover of conflict into China and South Korea could eventually force South Korea, the United States and even China to enter North Korea militarily to restore order.* A Worse Regime. A new regime takes over in North Korea that is weaker than Kim Jong Il's and even more nationalistic, and thus more likely to take a hard line in negotiations to appear in control. North Korean desperation and dysfunctionality would probably increase, and incentives for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction would be greater.

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North-South Disparities Lown

Wealth disparities will cause global nuclear war
Lown 96, Cofounder of IPPNW
[Bernard, Crude Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and the Terrorist Threat, http://www.ippnw.org/crudenukes.pdf] bg
Nuclear apartheid cannot endure.

The stimulus to proliferation derives largely from an inequitable world order and the growing economic divides between rich and poor countries. One fifth of the world lives on the edge of subsistence. At a time of potential abundance, more people are hungry than ever before.

We end the century with far more desperately poor, illiterate, homeless, starving, and sick than we began. Nowhere are the inequities more in evidence than in the health sector. Eight hundred million people are without any health care at all. One-third of the worlds population lives in countries whose health care expenditures are far less than $12 per person per year (the bare minimum recommended by the World Bank) while the industrialized North spends more than $1,000 for health per person annually. Recent UN figures indicate that from 1960 to 1990, per capita income rose eight-fold in the North while increasing only half as much in the deprived lands of the South. This divide is likely to widen further while accelerating over-consumption in the North and burgeoning population pressures in the developing countries. As vital raw materials, scarce minerals, fossil fuels, and especially water become depleted. Northern affluence will be sustained by imposed belt tightening of impoverished multitudes struggling for mere subsistence. This is an agenda for endless conflict and colossal violence. The global pressure cooker will further superheat by the ongoing worldwide information revolution that exposes everyone to the promissory note of unlimited consumption, there by instilling impatience and igniting embers of social upheaval. namely by

If desperation grows, the deprived will be tempted to challenge the affluent in the only conceivable way that can make an impact, going nuclear. Their possession enables the weak to inflict unacceptable damage on the strong. Desperation and hopelessness breed religious fundamentalism and provide endless recruits ready to wreak vengeance, if necessary by self immolation in the process of inflicting unspeakable violence on others. A nuclear bomb affords the cheapest and biggest bank for the buck. No blackmail is as compelling as holding an entire city hostage. No other destructive device can cause greater societal disruption or exact a larger human toll. Terrorists will soon raise their sights to vaporizing a metropolitan area rather than merely pulverizing a building.

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Nuclear Terrorism - Beres

Nuclear terrorism will trigger a global nuclear war
Beres 87, Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University
[Louis Ren, Terrorism and Global Security: The Nuclear Threat, p. 42-43]

Nuclear terrorism could even spark full-scale war between states. Such war could involve the entire spectrum of nuclear-conflict possibilities, ranging from a nuclear attack upon a non-nuclear state to systemwide nuclear war. How might such far-reaching consequences of nuclear terrorism
come about? Perhaps the most likely way would involve a terrorist nuclear assault against a state by terrorists hosted in another state. For example, consider the following scenario: Early in the 1990s, Israel and its Arab-state neighbors finally stand ready to conclude a comprehensive, multilateral peace settlement. With a bilateral treaty between Israel and Egypt already many years old, only the interests of the Palestiniansas defined by the PLOseem to have been left out. On the eve of the proposed signing of the peace agreement, half a dozen crude nuclear explosives in the one-kiloton range detonate in as many Israeli cities. Public grief in Israel over the many thousands dead ands maimed is matched only by the outcry for revenge. In response to the public mood, the government of Israel initiates selected strikes against terrorist strongholds in Lebanon, whereupon Lebanese Shiite forces and Syria retaliate against Israel. Before long, the entire region is ablaze, conflict has escalated to nuclear forms, and all countries in the area have suffered unprecedented destruction. Of course, such a scenario is fraught with the makings of even

a chain reaction of interstate nuclear conflict could ensure, one that would ultimately involve the superpowers or even every nuclear-weapons state on the planet. What, exactly, would this mean? Whether the terms of assessment be statistical or human, the consequences of nuclear war require an entirely new paradigm of death. Only such a paradigm would allow us a proper framework for absorbing the vision of near-total obliteration and the outer limits of human destructiveness. Any nuclear war would have effectively permanent and irreversible consequences. Whatever the actual extent of injuries and fatalities, such a war would entomb the spirit of the entire species in a planetary casket strewn with shorn bodies and imbecile imaginations.
wider destruction. How would the United States react to the situation in the Middle East? What would be the Soviet response? It is certainly conceivable that

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Nuclear Terrorism Easterbrook

Nuclear terrorism will prompt US nuclear retaliation killing hundreds of millions instantly
Easterbrook 01, Senior Editor of New Republic
[Greg, Americas New War: Nuclear Threats, Greenfield at Large, November 1, LN] bg
Well, what held through the Cold War,

when the United States and Russia had thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other, what held each side back was the fact that fundamentally they were rational. They knew that if they struck, they would be struck in turn. Terrorists may not be held by this, especially suicidal terrorists, of the kind that al Qaeda is attempting to cultivate. But I think, if I could leave you with one message, it would be this: that the search for terrorist atomic weapons would be of great benefit to the Muslim peoples of the world in addition to members, to people of the United States and Western Europe, because if an atomic warhead goes off in Washington, say, in the current environment or anything like it, in the 24 hours that followed, a hundred million Muslims would die as U.S. nuclear bombs rained down on every conceivable military target in a dozen Muslim countries.

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Nuclear War

Extinction Ross

Any use of nuclear weapons will escalate and cause extinction

Ross 03 Founder of NZ Nuclear-Free Peacemaking Association
[Larry, RACING TOWARD EXTINCTION, Dec 10, http://nuclearfree.lynx.co.nz/racing.htm]
We have greatly changed our environment with our new destructive tools -

nuclear weapons. They have given us a quantum leap in our ability to destroy ourselves and world. Given present trends, we will not adapt, but will continue on the present path to nuclear extinction. However, our brains provide the vital difference between

extinct species and us. They can tell us what we have created, and the probable results if we keep repeating our historically destructive behaviour - the thousands of wars in our history. Our unique insight allows us to change our behaviour so we don't repeat our traditional pattern of destruction with our new earth-destroying tools. We have even recognised the extreme risks to ourselves, by creating treaties committing us to vigorously pursue disarmament steps to abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us. Unfortunately, we have not observed these treaties. The essential question is: Will we use our brains constructively to solve this problem in time to save ourselves? It seems unlikely. We are using our brains to deny the terrifying reality, pretend there is no risk, or that it is insignificant. Many believe that nuclear weapons have been proven over 50 years to give us security. We tend to venerate our leaders, believe and obey them. Like the Germans did with Adolph Hitler, or Italians with Mussolini. Leaders are respected as rational, sensible, honest, moral Christians who could never do anything crazy. However President Bush - the world's most powerful man, and his allies and staff, have lowered the barriers against using nuclear weapons. They have developed new doctrines that allow them to use nuclear weapons in many more war situations and against non-nuclear states - not just in retaliation for a massive attack. The U.S. Congress and mass media have skirted this issue, so you may not know about this 'seismic' change in U.S. policy and its implications. People have forgot, or never learned, how nuclear weapons can destroy our world. Here is a chart with 6,000 dots divided into 100 squares. The one dot in the centre represents all the explosive power of allied bombs dropped in WWII - equal to 3,000,000 tons of TNT or 3 megatons. Millions were killed. We have enough for about 6,000 WWII's. The dots in just one of the 100 squares represent the firepower to kill all life on earth. We have made enough weapons to kill everyone on earth many times over. That is our dire situation today. We are not adapting to change our behaviour, but reinforcing old behaviour that leads to war? The nuclear arms race, accelerated by the vested interests of the military-industrial-political complex, and the phantom threats we invent to sustain it, is the major occupation of many top brains and huge resources today. It has huge momentum and power. It is embedded in U.S. society and some others. It is an accepted part of the culture.

This weapons culture and the new doctrines mean that nuclear weapons are no longer treated as a last resort. They can be used in addition to conventional weapons to achieve military goals. . The culture has programmed itself for self-destruction and now has the ideology to continue until they precipitate a nuclear holocaust which kills all life. The quantum any usage can kill millions, and quickly expand beyond any countries control, leading to a global nuclear war which ends humanity. We have radically altered our environment in so many other ways as well, that also threaten our existence in the longer term.

leap in destructive power has now been matched by this new will, or self-permission, to use these weapons. Laws, fears and reservations have been swept aside. Humanity seems to have accepted the new doctrines. Few seem concerned that

Population growth and our economic growth ideology augment the trends of climate change - global warming - pollution - dwindling natural resources - deforestation etc. To emphasise again, the biggest change we have made in our environment is the quantum leap in our ability to destroy ourselves. Our psychological and social climate makes it more probable. Most people are not aware of this huge change in our environment. Others just accept it. We have learned to live with and treat nuclear weapons as a normal part of the environment. Many feel that to question or oppose this situation is silly, disloyal or threatens the security we think nuclear weapons give us. Nine countries are dedicated to constantly developing their nuclear arsenals. That makes accidental or intentional usage more likely.

That the U.S. has said the nuclear barriers are down adds to the likelihood of nuclear weapons use by some other state. A probable escalation would follow.

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Ocean Destruction Craig

Ocean destruction will ensure planetary extinction
Craig 03 Associate Professor at Indiana University School of Law
[Robin Kundis, Taking Steps Toward Marine Wilderness Protection, McGeorge Law Review, Winter, 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155, LN]
Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. 856 Waste treatment is another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. 857 More generally, "ocean

ecosystems play a major role in the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." 858 In a very real and direct sense, therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to
support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable." 859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity. [*265] Most ecologists agree that the complexity of interactions and degree of interrelatedness among component species is higher on coral reefs than in any other marine environment. This implies that the ecosystem functioning that produces the most highly valued components is also complex and that many otherwise insignificant species have strong effects on sustaining the rest of the reef system. 860 Thus, maintaining and restoring the biodiversity of marine ecosystems is critical to maintaining and restoring the ecosystem services that they provide. Non-use biodiversity values for marine ecosystems have been calculated in the wake of marine disasters, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. 861 Similar calculations could derive preservation values for marine wilderness. However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and merit." 862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique in the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we kill ourselves, and we will take most of the biosphere with us. The Black Sea is almost

dead, 863 its once-complex and productive ecosystem almost entirely replaced by a monoculture of comb jellies, "starving out fish and dolphins, emptying fishermen's nets, and converting the web of life into brainless, wraith-like blobs of jelly." 864 More importantly, the Black Sea is not necessarily unique.

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Overpopulation Ehrlich and Ehrlich

Overpopulation will trigger nuclear war and extinction
Ehrlich and Ehrlich 90 Professors of Population Studies at Stanford University
[Paul and Anne, The population explosion, p. 174-175]

The population explosion contributes to international tensions and therefore makes a nuclear holocaust more likely. Most people in our society can visualize the horrors of a large-scale nuclear war followed by a nuclear winter. We call that possible end to our civilization the Bang. Hundreds of millions of people would be killed outright, and billions more would follow from the disruption of agricultural systems and other indirect effects largely caused the disruption of ecosystem services. It would be the ultimate death-rate solution to the population problem-a stunning contrast to the humane solution of
lowering the global birthrate to slightly below the death rate for a few centuries.

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Peace Process Good Slater

Breakdown of the peace process will trigger nuclear war
Slater 99 Professor of Political Science at SUNY-Buffalo
[Jerome, Tikkun, Mar/Apr, http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:WpQo7GAUjEkJ:www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/mode/printer_friendly/issue/tik9903/article/990312a.html]

potential consequences of a breakdown of the peace process, perhaps because in the worst case they are nothing short of apocalyptic. But the risks are real. Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, Syria has nerve gas mounted on ballistic missiles aimed at Israeli cities, and it is only a matter of time before other Arab states orfar worsefanatical terrorist groups obtain weapons of m ass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical, or biological. Here is the nightmare scenario: The intransigence of the Netanyahu government and its clear intention to continue to dominate the West Bank and deny the Palestinians true national citizenship and sovereignty lead to a resumption of sustained terrorism, this time with the tacit acquiescence or open support of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority and with the general support of the Palestinian population. Israel reacts with economic and military retaliation that creates widespread desperation among the Palestinians, and this results in the eclipse of Arafat by Hamas and other Palestinian extremists. The intifada resumes, this time not with stones but with guns and bombs. Israel responds with unprecedented repression, and the cycle of communal violence and counterviolence continues to escalate until Israel decides to reoccupy the West Bank and perhaps Gaza in order to crush the Palestinian movementmaybe even expelling large numbers of Palestinians into neighboring Arab states. An inflamed Arab world greatly increases its support of the new intifada or, worse, moderate governments that try to stand clear are overthrown and replaced by extremists in Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. In these circumstances, even if a general war in the Middle East could somehow be averted, there is likely to be escalating international terrorism against Israel and its supporterssooner or later including nuclear or other forms of mass terrorism.

There has been a kind of conspiracy of silence over the

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Presidential Power Bad Forrester

Overconcentration of power in the president risks global nuclear war
Forrester 89 Professor at Hastings College of Law
[Ray, Presidential Wars in the Nuclear Age: An Unresolved Problem, George Washington Law Review, Aug, 57 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1636, LN]

the basic theory of our Constitution--is that concentration of power in any one person, or one group, is dangerous to mankind. The Constitution, therefore, contains a strong system of checks and balances, starting with the separation of powers between the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court. The message is that no one of them is safe with unchecked power. Yet, in what is probably the most dangerous governmental
A basic theory--if not power ever possessed, we find the potential for world destruction lodged in the discretion of one person. As a result of public indignation aroused by the Vietnam disaster, in which tens of thousands lost their lives in military actions initiated by a succession of Presidents, Congress in 1973 adopted, despite presidential veto, the War Powers Resolution. Congress finally asserted its checking and balancing duties in relation to the making of presidential wars. Congress declared in section 2(a) that its purpose was to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations. The law also stated in section 3 that [t]he President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated. . . . Other limitations not essential to this discussion are also provided. The intent of the law is clear. Congress undertook to check the President, at least by prior consultation, in any executive action that might lead to hostilities and war. [*1638] President Nixon, who initially vetoed the resolution, claimed that it was an unconstitutional restriction on his powers as Executive and Commander in Chief of the military. His successors have taken a similar view. Even so, some of them have at times complied with the law by prior consultation with representatives of Congress, but obedience to the law has been uncertain and a subject of continuing controversy between Congress and the President. Ordinarily, the issue of the constitutionality of a law would be decided by the Supreme Court. But, despite a series of cases in which such a decision has been sought, the Supreme Court has refused to settle the controversy. The usual ground for such a refusal is that a "political question" is involved. The rule is well established that the federal judiciary will decide only "justiciable" controversies. "Political questions" are not "justiciable." However, the standards established by the Supreme Court in 1962 in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, to determine the distinction between "justiciable controversies" and "political questions" are far from clear. One writer observed that the term "political question" [a]pplies to all those matters of which the court, at a given time, will be of the opinion that it is impolitic or inexpedient to take jurisdiction. Sometimes this idea of inexpediency will result from the fear of the vastness of the consequences that a decision on the merits might entail. Finkelstein, Judicial Self-Limitation, 37 HARV. L. REV. 338, 344 (1924)(footnote omitted). It is difficult to defend the Court's refusal to assume the responsibility of decisionmaking on this most critical issue. The Court has been fearless in deciding other issues of "vast consequences" in many historic disputes, some involving executive war power. It is to be hoped that the Justices will finally do their duty here. But in the meantime the spectre of single-minded power persists, fraught with all of the frailties of human nature that each human possesses, including the President. World history is filled with tragic examples. Even if the Court assumed its responsibility to tell us whether the Constitution gives Congress the necessary power to check the President, the War Powers Resolution itself is unclear. Does the Resolution require the President to consult with Congress before launching a nuclear attack? It has been asserted that "introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities" refers only to military personnel and does not include the launching of nuclear missiles alone. In support of this interpretation, it has been argued that Congress was concerned about the human losses in Vietnam and in other presidential wars, rather than about the weaponry. Congress, of course, can amend the Resolution to state explicitly that "the introduction of Armed Forces" includes missiles as well as personnel. However, the President could continue to act without prior consultation by renewing the claim first made by President [*1639] Nixon that the Resolution is an unconstitutional invasion of the executive power. Therefore, the real solution, in the absence of a Supreme Court decision, would appear to be a constitutional amendment. All must obey a clear rule in the Constitution. The adoption of an amendment is very difficult. Wisely, Article V requires that an amendment may be proposed only by the vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress or by the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states, and the proposal must be ratified by the legislatures or conventions of three-fourths of the states. Despite the difficulty, the Constitution has been amended twenty-six times. Amendment can be done when a problem is so important that it arouses the attention and concern of a preponderant majority of the American people. But the people must be made aware of the problem. It is hardly necessary to belabor the relative importance of the control of nuclear warfare. A constitutional amendment may be, indeed, the appropriate method. But the most difficult issue remains. What should the amendment provide? How can the problem be solved specifically? The Constitution in section 8 of Article I stipulates that "[t]he Congress shall have power . . . To declare War. . . ." The idea seems to be that only these many representatives of the people, reflecting the public will, should possess the power to commit the lives and the fortunes of the nation to warfare. This approach makes much more sense in a democratic republic than entrusting the decision to one person, even though he may be designated the "Commander in Chief" of the military forces. His power is to command

There is a recurring relevation of a paranoia of power throughout human history that has impelled one leader after another to draw their people into wars which, in hindsight, were foolish, unnecessary, and, in some instances, downright insane. Whatever may be the psychological influences that drive the single decisionmaker to these irrational commitments of the lives and fortunes of others, the fact remains that the behavior is a predictable one in any government that does not provide an effective check and balance against uncontrolled power in the hands of one human. We, naturally, like to think that our leaders are above such irrational behavior.
the war after the people, through their representatives, have made the basic choice to submit themselves and their children to war. Eventually, however, human nature, with all its weakness, asserts itself whatever the setting. At least that is the evidence that experience and history give us, even in our own relatively benign society, where the Executive is subject to the rule of law. [*1640] Vietnam

and other more recent engagements show that it can happen and has happened here. But the "nuclear football"--the ominous "black bag" --remains in the sole possession of the President. And, most important, his decision to launch a nuclear missile would be, in fact if not in law, a declaration of nuclear war, one which the nation and, indeed, humanity in general, probably would be unable to survive.

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Presidential Power Good Paul

Strong presidency is essential to avert nuclear annihilation
Paul 98 Professor at University of Connecticut School of Law
[Joel R., The Geopolitical Constitution: Executive Expediency and Executive Agreements, California Law Review, Jul, 86 Calif. L. Rev. 671, LN]
Whatever the complexity of causes that led to the Cold War - ideology, economics, power politics, Stalin's personality, Soviet intrigue, or American ineptitude - the tension of the bipolar order

the immediacy of the nuclear threat, the need for covert operations and intelligence gathering, and the complexity of U.S. relations with both democracies and dictatorships made it impractical to engage in congressional debate and oversight of foreign policy-making. 136 The eighteenth-century Constitution did not permit a rapid response to twentieth-century foreign aggression. The reality of transcontinental ballistic missiles collapsed the real time for decision-making to a matter of minutes. Faced with the apparent choice between the risk of nuclear annihilation or amending the constitutional process for policy-making, the preference for a powerful executive was clear. 137 Early in the Cold War one skeptic of executive power, C.C. Rossiter, acknowledged that []the
seemed real, immutable, and threatening to the U.S. public. 135 The broad consensus of U.S. leadership held that steady increase in executive power is unquestionably a cause for worry, but so, too, is the steady increase in the magnitude and complexity of the problems the president has been called upon by the American people to solve in their behalf. They still have more to fear from the ravages of depression, rebellion, and especially atomic war than they do from whatever decisive actions may issue from the White House in an attempt to put any such future crises to rout....It is not too much to say that the

destiny of this nation in the Atomic Age will rest

in the capacity of the Presidency as an institution of constitutional dictatorship.[]

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Prolif Bad Utgoff

Wildfire prolif will trigger preemptive nuclear wars around the planet
Utgoff 02, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of Institute for Defense Analysis
[Victor A., Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions, Survival, Summer, p. 87-90] bg
Further, the large number of states that became capable of building nuclear weapons over the years, but chose not to, can be reasonably well explained by the fact that most were formally allied with either the United States or the Soviet Union. Both these superpowers had strong nuclear forces and put great pressure on their allies not to build nuclear weapons. Since the Cold War, the US has retained all its allies. In addition, NATO has extended its protection to some of the previous allies of the Soviet Union and plans on taking in more. Nuclear proliferation by India and Pakistan, and proliferation programmes by North Korea, Iran and Iraq, all involve states in the opposite situation: all judged that they faced serious military opposition and had little prospect of establishing a reliable supporting alliance with a suitably strong, nuclear-armed state. What would await the world if strong protectors, especially the United States, were [was] no longer seen as willing to protect states from nuclear-backed aggression? At least

a few additional states would begin to build their own nuclear weapons and the means to deliver

them to distant targets, and these initiatives would spur increasing numbers of the worlds capable states to follow suit. Restraint would seem ever less necessary and ever more dangerous. Meanwhile, more states are becoming capable of building nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Many, perhaps most, of the worlds states are becoming sufficiently wealthy, and the technology for building nuclear forces continues to improve and spread. Finally, it seems highly likely that at some point, halting proliferation will come to be seen as a lost cause and the restraints on it will disappear. Once that happens, regions might be able to hold the line for a time,

the transition to a highly proliferated world would probably be very rapid. While some the threats posed by wildfire proliferation in most other areas could create pressures that would finally

overcome all restraint. Many readers are probably willing to accept that nuclear proliferation is such a grave threat to world peace that every effort should be made to avoid it. However, every effort has not been made in the past, and we are talking about much more substantial efforts now. For new and substantially more burdensome efforts to be made to slow or stop nuclear proliferation, it needs to be established that the highly proliferated nuclear world that would sooner or later evolve without such efforts is not going to be acceptable. And, for many
reasons, it is not. First, nuclear weapons and delivery systems before any potential opponent does.

the dynamics of getting to a highly proliferated world could be very dangerous. Proliferating states will feel great pressures to obtain Those who succeed in outracing an opponent may consider preemptive nuclear war before the opponent becomes capable of nuclear retaliation. Those who lag behind might try to preempt their opponents nuclear programme or defeat the

opponent using conventional forces. And those who feel threatened but are incapable of building nuclear weapons may still be able to join in this arms race by building other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons. Second, as the world approaches complete proliferation, the hazards posed by nuclear weapons today will be magnified many times over. Fifty or more nations capable of launching nuclear weapons means that the risk of nuclear accidents that could cause serious damage not only to their own populations and environments, but those of others, is hugely increased. The chances of such weapons failing into the hands of renegade military units or terrorists is far greater, as is the number of nations carrying out hazardous manufacturing and storage activities. Worse still, in a highly proliferated world there would be more frequent opportunities for the use of nuclear weapons. And more frequent opportunities means shorter expected times between conflicts in which nuclear weapons get used, unless the probability of use at any opportunity is actually zero. To be sure, some theorists on nuclear deterrence appear to think that in any confrontation between two states known to have reliable nuclear capabilities, the probability of nuclear weapons being used is zero. These theorists think that such states will be so fearful of escalation to nuclear war that they would always avoid or terminate confrontations between them, short of even conventional war. They believe this to be true even if the two states have different cultures or leaders with very eccentric personalities. History and human nature, however, suggest that they are almost surely wrong. History includes instances in which states known to possess nuclear weapons did engage in direct conventional conflict. China and Russia fought battles along their common border even after both had nuclear weapons. Moreover, logic suggests that if states with nuclear weapons always avoided conflict with one another, surely states without nuclear weapons would avoid conflict with states that had them. Again, history provides counter-examples Egypt attacked Israel in 1973 even though it saw Israel as a nuclear power at the time. Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and fought Britains efforts to take them back, even though Britain had nuclear weapons. Those who claim that two states with reliable nuclear capabilities to devastate each other will not engage in conventional conflict risking nuclear war also assume that any leader from any culture would not choose suicide for his nation. But history provides unhappy examples of states whose leaders were ready to choose suicide for themselves and their fellow citizens. Hitler tried to impose a victory or destruction policy on his people as Nazi Germany was going down to defeat. And Japans war minister, during debates on how to respond to the American atomic bombing, suggested Would it not be wondrous for the whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower? If leaders are willing to engage in conflict with nuclear-armed nations, use of nuclear weapons in any particular instance may not be likely, but its probability would still be dangerously significant. In particular, human nature suggests that the threat of retaliation with nuclear weapons is not a reliable guarantee against a disastrous first use of these weapons. While national leaders and their advisors everywhere are usually talented and experienced people, even their most important decisions cannot be counted on to be the product of well-informed and thorough assessments of all options from all relevant points of view. This is especially so when the stakes are so large as to defy assessment and there are substantial pressures to act quickly, as could be expected in intense and fast-moving crises between nuclear-armed states. Instead, like other human beings, national leaders can be seduced by wishful thinking. They can misinterpret the words or actions of opposing leaders. Their advisors may produce answers that they think the leader wants to hear, or coalesce around what they know is an inferior decision because the group urgently needs the confidence or the sharing of responsibility that results from settling on something. Moreover, leaders may not recognize clearly where their personal or party interests diverge from those of their citizens. Under great stress, human beings can lose their ability to think carefully. They can refuse to believe that the worst could really happen, oversimplify the problem at hand, think in terms of simplistic analogies and play hunches. The intuitive rules for how individuals should respond to insults or signs of weakness in an opponent may too readily suggest a rash course of action. Anger, fear, greed, ambition and pride can all lead to bad decisions. The desire for a decisive solution to the problem at hand may lead to an unnecessarily extreme course of action. We can almost hear the kinds of words that could flow from discussions in nuclear crises or war. These people are not willing to die for this interest. No sane person would actually use such weapons. Perhaps the opponent will back down if we show him we mean business by demonstrating a willingness to use nuclear weapons. If I dont hit them back really hard, I am going to be driven from office, if not killed. Whether right or wrong, in the stressful atmosphere of a nuclear crisis or war, such words from others, or silently from within, might resonate too readily with a harried leader. Thus, both history and human nature suggest that nuclear deterrence can be expected to fail from time to time, and we are fortunate it has not happened yet. But the threat of nuclear war is not just a matter of a few weapons being used. It could get much worse. Once a conflict reaches the point where nuclear weapons are employed, the stresses felt by the leaderships would rise enormously. These stresses can be expected to further degrade their decision-making. The pressures to force the enemy to stop fighting or to surrender could argue for more forceful and decisive military action, which might be the right thing to do in the circumstances, but maybe not. And the horrors of the carnage already suffered may be seen as justification for visiting the most devastating punishment possible on the enemy. Again, history demonstrates how intense conflict can lead the combatants to escalate violence to the maximum possible levels. In the Second World War, early promises not to bomb cities soon gave way to essentially indiscriminate bombing of civilians. The war between Iran and Iraq during the 1980s led to the use of chemical weapons on both sides and exchanges of missiles against each others cities. And more recently, violence in the Middle East escalated in a few months from rocks and small arms to heavy weapons on one side, and from police actions to air strikes and armoured attacks on the other. Escalation

of violence is also basic human nature. Once the violence starts, retaliatory exchanges of violent acts can escalate to levels unimagined by the participants before hand. Intense

and blinding anger is a common response to fear or humiliation or abuse. And such anger can lead us to impose on our opponents whatever levels of violence are readily accessible. In sum,

widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot-outs will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed toward a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear six-shooters on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations. This kind of world is in no nations interest. The means for preventing it must be pursued vigorously. And, as argued above, a most powerful way to prevent it or slow its
emergence is to encourage the more capable states to provide reliable protection to others against aggression, even when that aggression could be backed with nuclear weapons. In other words, the world needs at least one state, preferably several, willing and able to play the role of sheriff, or to be members of a sheriffs posse, even in the face of nuclear threats.

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EVAZON Grayson

Quebec Secession Lamont

Secession of Quebec will embolden anti-US sentiments in Russia and prompt a nuclear attack by miscalculation
Lamont 94, President of American Trust for the British Library
[Lansing, Breakup: The Coming End of Canada and the Stakes for America, p. 237-239]

north of

Quebec's separation and the emergence to America's a fragmented Canada, neither event enhancing the continent's security; Canada's military inadequacies and an erosion of Canada-U.S. relations, which might send signals inviting aggression by the Western alliance's adversaries; or a political upheaval in the former Soviet Union, which would precipitate an international crisis. Any prolonged crisis, as security analysts know, involves not only heightened tensions and escalating suspicions but a shift in emphasis to preparing for a very rapid response if hostilities erupt. In such situations the usual safeguards are sometimes apt to be disregarded or even removed. That is why, with Canada's and Russia's future in doubt today, it is possible to imagine this scenario in the wake of Quebec's secession: Economic reform has collapsed throughout Russia. Widespread despair over soaring prices, injured pride over Russia's loss of stature, and disgust with
That prospect, however dim at the moment, could take on sharper tones in the context of these possible developments: Moscow's leadership boil over. A cabal of so-called "Reds" and "Browns"-unreconstructed former Communist officials and neo-Fascist militarists-sweeps the Yeltsin reformers from office. In the name of restoring social order and averting total economic ruin, the leaders of the coup establish an authoritarian provisional government backed by key elements of the disaffected military. The new government resents the Western Alliance for its Cold War triumph and humiliation of the Soviet Union, resents the infatuation with Western culture and consumer products. It especially resents the United States for having won the arms race and reduced Russia to a beggar nation, then acting niggardly in its response to Russian requests for massive economic aid.

The Russians, who have always regarded Canada as a less vehemently anti-Soviet balance against the United States in the continental partnership, particularly resent Canada's fracturing after Quebec's separation and the prospect of its pieces eventually attaching to the U.S. empire. Russian-North American relations move from tepid to subfreezing. The new hardliners running the Kremlin reassess Russia 's arsenal of Bear and Blackjack long-range bombers, its nearly 1,200 air-launchable cruise missiles. They reanalyze the strategic value of the Arctic, whose jigsawed desert of ice conceals not only an estimated 500 billion barrels of oil but lurking nuclear-armed submarines. Then, the Russians order a sequence of airborne reconnaissance missions to hard probe the Arctic and North American defenses. Somewhere on the eastern end of the Beaufort Sea, 30,000 feet above the approaching Parry Islands, a Russian Bear-H intercontinental bomber prepares to enter North American airspace clandestinely. The turboprop bomber , a bright red star on its side, has averaged 400 miles per hour since it left its base in Siberia and headed over the polar icecap. It carries inside its bulky frame eight AS-X-15 cruise missiles, each a little over 20 feet long, each packing a nuclear warhead with more than five times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. As it wings over Canadian territory, high enough so that air resistance is minimal, the Bear approximates the flight mode of a glider, moving silently through the ether except for short irregular bursts of acceleration from its engines. The bomber is some 200 miles off Canada's Arctic coast when the ultrasensitive radars of the North Warning System's CAM-M site at Cambridge Bay pick it up. CAM-M instantaneously relays the raw data on the unknown aircraft or "bogie" to NORAD's Region Operations Control Center (ROCC) at North Bay. In the operations room of the center's subterranean complex, 600 feet
deep in a Laurentian mountain, the "ass opers" (Air Surveillance Operators) start a 3112-minute sequence to establish whether the bogie is a military or civil aircraft, friend or foe, and the nature of its flight path and probable destination. The Bear does not respond to ROCC requests to identify itself. The ass opers within seconds have established some basic information on the bogie: military, unfriendly, Bear-Hotel class, and on a flight path pointing generally toward Winnipeg and Minneapolis. What the ass opers do not know is whether the Bear is carrying nuclear weapons, its intentions, and whether it is the vanguard of a possibly larger attack force. At the command post on the floor above the operations room, the commanding major general and two deputies quickly assess the ass opers' data and order fighter-interceptors to scramble from an airfield at Paved Paws' nearest Forward Operation Location. They also notify NORAD's central U.S. command post in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. A

pair of CF-18 Hornets, attached to the Alouettes, the 425th Tactical Fighter Squadron based in Bagotville, Quebec, race into the skies and somewhere above Victoria Island lock their radars onto the approaching Bear. One of the jets springs a fuel leak and turns back. The other, armed with six

AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles and a 20-millimeter rapid-fire cannon, intercepts the intruder and buzzes it at close range. The young francophone pilot gets no response to his repeated demands that the Russians confirm whether they are carrying a nuclear payload. He frantically radios his base command for instructions and zooms in for a closer look at the bomber, narrowly avoiding the Bear's tail on the pass. The Bear's pilot takes immediate evasive action, banking his plane steeply at the same time he finally identifies himself and his payload in angry, almost threatening

The Hornet pilot prepares to respond with a warning burst from his cannon. The fuming pilot of the Bear considers activating the ejector cartridges that would thrust a single silvery cruise into the blue, streaking along its computer-programmed flight path toward a NORAD target. Then discipline and cold sense reassert themselves. The Bear makes a shuddering 180-degree turn and heads homeward. The Hornet lingers several minutes to track the Bear's retreat before it, too, swings back toward its base. In a dangerously unpredictable, post-Cold War world, some arms experts believe the chances of a fatal miscalculation happening in the near future are better than 50 percent. The likelier prospect is that a fragmented Canada without Quebec would itself become a lost missile cruising aimlessly through the international sphere, its guidance system irreparably damaged, doomed to fizzle and fall into some purgatory reserved for nations that selfdestruct.
tones. For one fearful moment intruder and interceptor seem transfixed in uncertainty, hovering above the icy barrens of Victoria Island.

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Racism Barndt
We must take every action to breakdown racism failure risks annihilation
Barndt 91 Educator, Trainer, and Organizer in field of Racial Justice
[Joseph, Dismantling racism: the continuing challenge to White America, http://militantmoderate.debateaddict.com/forums/showthread.php?p=804#post804]
To study racism is to study walls. We have looked at barriers and fences, restraints and limitations, ghettos and prisons. The white people alike.

prison of racism confines us all, people of color and It shackles the victimizer as well as the victim. The walls forcibly keep people of color and white people separate from each other; in our separate prisons we are all prevented from achieving the human potential that God intends for us. The limitations imposed on people of color by poverty, subservience, and powerlessness are cruel, inhuman, and unjust; the effects of uncontrolled power, privilege, and greed, which are the marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us as well. But we have also seen that the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of freedom. Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. You and I are urgently called to join the efforts of those who know it is time to tear down once and for all, the walls of racism.

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EVAZON Grayson

Racism Williams (1/2)

Racism is worse than physical murder it destroys the spirit
Williams 87 Associate Professor of Law at City University of New York
[Patricia, Spirit-murdering the messenger: the discourse of finger-pointing as the laws response to racism, University of Miami Law Review, Sep, 42 U. Miami L. Rev. 127, LN]

The second purpose of this article is to examine racism as a crime, an offense so deeply painful and assaultive as to constitute something I call "spirit-murder." Society is only beginning to recognize that racism is as devastating, as costly, and as psychically obliterating as robbery or assault;
indeed they are often the same. Racism resembles other offenses against humanity whose structures are so deeply embedded in culture as to prove extremely resistant to being recognized as forms of oppression. 7 It can be as difficult to prove as [*130] child abuse or rape, where the victim is forced to convince others that he or she was not at fault, or that the perpetrator was not just "playing around." As in rape cases, victims of racism must prove that they did not distort the circumstances, misunderstand the intent, or even enjoy it. On October 29, 1984, Eleanor Bumpurs, a 270-pound, arthritic, sixty-seven year old woman, was shot to death while resisting eviction from her apartment in the Bronx. She was $ 98.85, or one month, behind in her rent. 8 New York City Mayor Ed Koch and Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward described the struggle preceding her demise as involving two officers with plastic shields, one officer with a restraining hook, another officer with a shotgun, and at least one supervising officer. All of the officers also carried service revolvers. According to Commissioner Ward, during the course of the attempted eviction Mrs. Bumpurs escaped from the restraining hook [*131] twice and wielded a knife that Commissioner Ward says was "bent" on one of the plastic shields. At some point, Officer Stephen Sullivan, the officer positioned farthest away from her, aimed and fired his shotgun. It is alleged that the blast removed half of her hand, so that, according to the Bronx District Attorney's Office, "[I]t was anatomically impossible for her to hold the knife." 9 The officer pumped his gun and shot again, making his mark completely the second time around. 10 In the two and one-half year wake of this terrible incident, controversy raged as to whether Mrs. Bumpurs ought to have brandished a knife and whether the officer ought to have fired his gun. In February 1987, a New York Supreme Court justice found Officer Sullivan not guilty of manslaughter. 11 The case centered on a very narrow issue of language pitted against circumstance. District Attorney Mario Merola described the case as follows: "Obviously, one shot would have been justified. But if that shot took off part of her hand and rendered her defenseless, whether there was any need for a second shot, which killed her, that's the whole issue of whether you have reasonable force or excessive force." 12 My intention in the following analysis is to underscore the significant task facing judges and lawyers in undoing institutional descriptions of what is "obvious" and what is not, and in resisting the general predigestion of evidence for jury consumption. Shortly after Mr. Merola's statement, Officer Sullivan's attorney, Bruce Smiry, expressed eagerness to try the case before a jury. 13 Following the heavily publicized attack in Howard Beach, however, he favored a bench trial. In explaining his decision to request a nonjury trial, he stated: I think a judge will be much more likely than a jury to understand the defense that the shooting was justified. . . . The average lay person might find it difficult to understand why the police were there in the first place, and why a shotgun was employed. . . . Because of the climate now in the city, I don't want people perceiving this as a racial case. 14 Since 1984, Mayor Koch, Commissioner Ward, and a host of [*132] other city officials repeatedly have described the shooting of Mrs. Bumpurs as completely legal. 15 At the same time, Commissioner Ward has admitted publicly that Mrs. Bumpurs should not have died. Mayor Koch admitted that her death was the result of "a chain of mistakes and circumstances" that came together in the worst possible way, with the worst possible circumstances. 16 Commissioner Ward admitted that the officers could have waited for Mrs. Bumpurs to calm down, and that they could have used teargas or mace instead of gunfire. According to Commissioner Ward, however, these observations are made with hindsight. As to whether this shooting of a black woman by a white police officer had racial overtones, he stated that he had "no evidence of racism." 17 Commissioner Ward pointed out that he is sworn to uphold the law, which is "inconsistent with treating blacks differently," 18 and that the shooting was legal because it was within the code of police ethics. 19 Finally, city officials have resisted criticism of the police department's handling of the incident by remarking that "outsiders" do not know all of the facts and do not understand the pressure under which officers labor. The root of the word "legal" is the Latin word lex, which means law in a fairly concrete sense -- law as we understand it when we refer to written law, codes, and systems of obedience. 20 The word lex does not include the more abstract, ethical dimension of law that contemplates the purposes of rules and their effective implementation. This latter meaning is contained in the Latin word jus, from which we derive the word "justice." 21 This semantic distinction is not insignificant. The word of law, whether statutory or judicial, is a subcategory of the underlying social motives and beliefs from which it is born. It is the technical embodiment of attempts to order society according to a consensus of ideals. When society loses sight of those ideals and grants obeisance to words alone, law becomes sterile and formalistic; lex is applied without jus and is therefore unjust. The result is compliance [*133] with the letter of the law, but not the spirit. A sort of punitive literalism ensues that leads to a high degree of thoughtless conformity. This literalism has, as one of its primary underlying values, order -- whose ultimate goal may be justice, but whose immediate end is the ordering of behavior. Living solely by the letter of the law means living without spirit; one can do anything as long as it comports with the law in a technical sense. The cynicism or rebelliousness that infects one's spirit, and the enthusiasm or dissatisfaction with which one conforms is unimportant. Furthermore, this compliance is arbitrary; it is inconsistent with the will of the conformer. The law becomes a battleground of wills. The extent to which technical legalism obfuscates and undermines the human motivations that generate our justice system is the real extent to which we as human beings are disenfranchised. Cultural needs and ideals change with the momentum of time; redefining our laws in keeping with the spirit of cultural flux keeps society alive and humane. In the Bumpurs case, the words of the law called for nonlethal alternatives first, but allowed some officer discretion in determining which situations are so immediately life endangering as to require the use of deadly force. 22 This discretionary area was presumably the basis for the claim that Officer Sullivan acted legally. The law as written permitted shooting in general, and therefore, by extension of the city's interpretation of this law, it would be impossible for a police officer ever to shoot someone in a specifically objectionable way. [*134] If our laws are thus piano-wired on the exclusive validity of literalism, if they are picked clean of their spirit, then society risks heightened irresponsibility for the consequences of abominable actions. Accordingly, Jonathan Swift's description of lawyers weirdly and ironically comes to life: "[T]here was a Society of Men among us, bred up from their Youth in the Art of proving by words multiplied for the Purpose, that White is Black and Black is White, according as they are paid. To this Society all the rest of the People are Slaves." 23 We also risk subjecting ourselves to such absurdly empty rhetoric as Commissioner Ward's comments to the effect that both Mrs. Bumpurs' death and racism were unfortunate, while stating "but the law says . . . ." 24 Commissioner Ward's sentiments might as well read: "The law says . . . and therefore the death was unfortunate but irremediable; the law says . . . and therefore there is little that can be done about racism." The law thus becomes a shield behind which to avoid responsibility for the human repercussions of both governmental and publicly harmful private activity. 25 A related issue is the degree to which much of the criticism of the police department's handling of this case was devalued as "noisy" or excessively emotional. It is as though passionate protest were a separate crime, a rudeness of such dimension as to defeat altogether any legitimacy of content. We as lawyers are taught from the moment we enter law school to temper our emotionalism and quash our idealism. We are taught that heartfelt instincts subvert the law and defeat the security of a well-ordered civilization, whereas faithful adherence to the word of law, to stare decisis and clearly stated authority, would as a matter of course lead to a bright, clear world like the Land of Oz, in which those heartfelt instincts would be preserved. Form is exalted over substance, and cool rationales over heated feelings. But we should not be ruled exclusively by the cool formality of language or by emotions. We must be ruled by our complete selves, by the intellectual and emotional content of our words. Governmental representatives must hear the full range of legitimate concerns, no matter how indelicately expressed or painful they may be to hear. [*135] But undue literalism is only one type of sleight of tongue in the attainment of meaningless dialogue. Mayor Koch, Commissioner Ward, and Officer Sullivan's defense attorneys have used overgeneralization as an effective rhetorical complement to their avoidance of the issues. For example, allegations that the killing was illegal and unnecessary, and should therefore be prosecuted, were met with responses such as, "The laws permit police officers to shoot people." 26 "As long as police officers have guns, there will be unfortunate deaths." 27 "The conviction rate in cases like this is very low." 28 The observation that teargas would have been an effective alternative to shooting Mrs. Bumpurs drew the dismissive reply that "there were lots of things they could have done." 29 Privatization of response as a justification for public irresponsibility is a version of the same game. Honed to perfection by President Reagan, this version holds up the private self as indistinguishable from the public "duty and power laden" self. Public officials respond to commentary by the public and the media as though it were meant to hurt private, vulnerable feelings. Trying to hold a public official accountable while not hurting his feelings is a skill the acquisition of which would consume time better spent on almost any conceivable task. Thus, when Commissioner Ward was asked if the internal review board planned to discipline Officer Sullivan, many seemed disposed to accept his response that while he was personally very sorry she had died, he could not understand why the media was focusing on him so much. "How many other police commissioners," he asked repeatedly, "have gotten as much attention as I have?" 30 Finally, a most cruel form of semantic slipperiness infused Mrs. Bumpurs' death from the beginning. It is called victim responsibility. 31 It is the least responsive form of dialogue, yet apparently the [*136] easiest to accept as legitimate. All these words, from Commissioner Ward, from the Mayor's office, from the media, and from the public generally, have rumbled and resounded with the sounds of discourse. We want to believe that their symmetrical, pleasing structure is the equivalent of discourse. If we are not careful, we will hypnotize ourselves into believing that it is discourse. In the early morning hours of December 20, 1986, three young black men left their stalled car on Cross Bay Parkway, in the New York City borough of Queens, and went to look for help. They walked into the neighborhood of Howard Beach, entered a pizzeria, ordered pizzas, and sat down to eat. An anonymous caller to the police reported their presence as "black troublemakers." A patrol car came, found no trouble, and left. After the young men had eaten, they left the pizzeria and were immediately surrounded by a group of eight to ten white teenagers who taunted them with racial epithets. The white youths chased the black men for about three miles, catching them at several points and beating them severely. One of the black men died as a result of being struck by a car as he tried to flee across a highway. Another suffered permanent blindness in one eye. 32 In the extremely heated public controversy that ensued, as much attention centered on the community of Howard Beach as on the assailants themselves. A veritable Greek chorus formed, comprised of the defendants' lawyers and resident after resident after resident of Howard Beach, all repeating and repeating and repeating that the mere presence of three black men in that part of town at that time of night was reason enough to drive them out. "They had to be starting trouble." 33 "We're a strictly white neighborhood." 34 "What were they doing here in the first place?" 35 [*137] Although the immensely segregationist instincts behind such statements may be fairly evident, it is worth making explicit some of the presuppositions behind such ululations. Everyone who lives here is white. No black could live here. No one here has a black friend. No white would employ a black here. No black is permitted to shop here. No black is ever up to any good. These presuppositions themselves are premised on lethal philosophies of life. "Are we supposed to stand around and do nothing while these blacks come into our area and rob us?" 36 one woman asked a reporter in the wake of the Howard Beach attack. A twenty year old, who had lived in Howard Beach all of his life, said, "We ain't racial. . . . We just don't want to get robbed." 37 The hidden implication of these statements is that to be safe is not to be sorry, and that to be safe is to be white and to be sorry is to be associated with blacks. Safety and sorrow, which are inherently alterable and random, are linked to inalterable essences. The expectation that uncertain conditions are really immutable is a formula for frustration; it is a belief that feeds a sense of powerlessness. The rigid determinism of placing in the disjunctive things that are not in fact disjunctive is a set up for betrayal by the very nature of reality. The national repetition that white neighborhoods are safe and blacks bring sorrow is an incantation of powerlessness. And, as with the upside-down logic of all irrational incantations, it imports a concept of white safety that almost necessarily endangers the lives as well as the rights of blacks. It is also an incantation of innocence and guilt, much related to incantations that affirmative action programs allow presumably "guilty" blacks to displace "innocent" whites. 38 (Even assuming that "innocent whites" were being displaced by blacks, does that make [*138] blacks less innocent in the pursuit of education and jobs? If anything, are not blacks more innocent in the scheme of discrimination?) In fact, in the wake of the Howard Beach incident, the police and the press rushed to serve the public's interest in the victims' unsavory "guilty" dispositions. They overlook the fact that racial slurs and attacks "objectif[y] people -- the incident could have happened to any black person who was there at that time and place. This is the crucial aspect of the Howard Beach affair that is now being muddied in the media. Bringing up [defendants' past arrest records] is another way of saying, 'He was a criminal who deserved it.'" 39 Thus, the game of victim responsibility described above is itself a slave to society's stereotypes of good and evil. It does no good, however, to turn race issues into contests for some Holy Grail of innocence. In my youth, segregation and antimiscegenation laws were still on the books in many states. During the lifetimes of my parents and grandparents, and for several hundred years before them, laws prohibited blacks from owning property, voting, and learning to read or write. Blacks were, by constitutional mandate, outlawed from the hopeful, loving expectations that being treated as a whole, rather than three-fifths of a human being can bring. When every resource of a wealthy nation is put to such destructive ends, it will take more than a few generations to mop up the mess. 40 [*139] We have all inherited that legacy, whether new to this world or new to this country. It survives as powerfully and invisibl y reinforcing structures of thought, language, and law. Thus, generalized notions of innocence and guilt have little place in the struggle for transcendence; there is no blame among the living for the dimension of this historic crime, this national tragedy. 41 There is, however, responsibility for never forgetting one another's histories, and for making real the psychic obliteration which lives on as a factor in shaping relations, not just between blacks and whites, 42 or blacks and blacks, 43 but also between whites and whites. Whites must consider how much this history has projected onto blacks the blame for all criminality, and for all of society's ills. It has become the means for keeping white criminality invisible. 44 The attempt to split bias from violence has been this society's most enduring and fatal rationalization. Prejudice does hurt, however, just as the absence of prejudice can nourish and shelter. Discrimination can repel and vilify, ostracize and alienate. White people [*140] who do not believe this should try telling everyone they meet that one of their ancestors was black. I had a friend in college who having lived her life as a blonde, grey eyed white person, discovered that she was one-sixteenth black. She began to externalize all the unconscious baggage that "black" bore for her: the self-hatred that is racism. She did not think of herself as a racist (nor had I) but she literally wanted to jump out of her skin, shed her flesh, and start life over again. She confided in me that she felt "fouled" and "betrayed." She also asked me if I had ever felt this way. Her question dredged from some deep corner of my suppressed memory the recollection of feeling precisely that, when at the age of three or so, some white playmates explained to me that God had mixed mud with the pure clay of life in order to make me. In the Vietnamese language, "the word 'I' (toi) . . . means 'your servant'; there is no 'I' as such. When you talk to someone, you establish a relationship." 45 Such a concept of "self" is a way of experiencing the other, ritualistically sharing the other's essence, and cherishing it. In our culture, seeing and feeling the dimension of harm that results from separating self from "other" requires more work. 46 Very little in our language or our culture encourages or reinforces any attempt to look at others as part of ourselves. With the imperviously divided symmetry of the marketplace, social costs to blacks are simply not seen as costs to whites, 47 just as blacks do not share in the advances whites may enjoy. [*141] This structure of thought is complicated by the fact that the distancing does not stop with the separation of the white self from the black other. In addition, the cultural domination of blacks by whites means that the black self is placed at a distance even from itself, as in the example of blacks being asked to put themselves in the position of the white shopkeepers who view them. 48 So blacks are conditioned from infancy to see in themselves only what others who despise them see. 49 It is true that conforming to what others see in us is every child's way of becoming socialized. 50 It is what makes children in our society seem so gullible, so impressionable, so "impolitely" honest, so blindly loyal, and so charming to the ones they imitate. 51 Yet this conformity also describes a way of being that relinquishes the power of independent ethical choice. Although such a relinquishment can have quite desirable social consequences, it also presumes a fairly homogeneous social context in which values are shared and enforced collectively. Thus, it is no wonder that western anthropologists and ethnographers, for whom adulthood is manifested by the exercise of independent ethical judgment, so frequently denounce tribal cultures or other collectivist ethics as "childlike." By contrast, our culture constructs some, but not all, selves to be the servants of others. Thus, some "I's" are defined as "your servant," some as "your master." The struggle for the self becomes not a true mirroring of self-in-other, but rather a hierarchically-inspired series of distortions, where some serve without ever being served, some master without ever being mastered, and almost everyone hides from this vernacular domination by clinging to the legally official definition of "I" as meaning "your equal." In such an environment, relinquishing the power of individual ethical judgment to a collective ideal risks psychic violence, an obliteration of the self through domination by an all powerful other. In such an environment, it is essential at some stage that the self be permitted to retreat into itself and make its own decisions with self-love and self-confidence. What links child abuse, the mistreatment of [*142] women, and racism is the massive external intrusion into psyche that dominating powers impose to keep the self from ever fully seeing itself. 52 Because the self's power resides in another, little faith is placed in the true self, that is, in one's own experiential knowledge. Consequently, the power of children, women and blacks is actually reduced to the "intuitive," rather than the real; social life is necessarily based primarily on the imaginary. 53 Furthermore, because it is difficult to affirm constantly with the other the congruence of the self's imagining what the other is really thinking of the self, and because even that correlative effort is usually kept within very limited family, neighborhood, religious, or racial boundaries, encounters cease to be social and become presumptuous, random, and disconnected. This peculiarly distancing standpoint allows dramas, particularly racial ones like Howard Beach, to unfold in scenarios weirdly unrelated to the incidents that generated them. At one end of the spectrum is a laissez faire response that privatizes the self in order to remain unassailably justified. At the other end is a pattern that generalizes individual or particular others into terrifyingly uncontrollable "domains" of public wilderness, against which proscriptive barriers must be built to protect the eternally innocent self. The prototypical scenario of the privatized response is as follows: Cain: Abel's part of town is tough turf. 54 [*143] Abel: It upsets me when you say that; you have never been to my part of town. As a matter of fact, my part of town is a leading supplier of milk and honey. 55 Cain: The news that I'm upsetting you is too upsetting for me to handle. You were wrong to tell me of your upset because now I'm terribly upset. 56 Abel: I felt threatened first. Listen to me. Take your distress as a measure of my own and empathize with it. Don't ask me to recant and apologize in order to carry this conversation further. 57 This type of discourse is problematic because Cain's challenge in calling Abel's turf "tough" is transformed into a discussion of the care with which Abel challenges that statement. While there is certainly an obligation to be careful in addressing others the obligation to protect the feelings of those others gets put above the need to protect one's own. The self becomes subservient to the other, with no reciprocity, and the other becomes a whimsical master. Abel's feelings are deflected in deference to Cain's, and Abel bears the double burden of raising his issue properly and of being responsible for its impact on Cain. Cain is rendered unaccountable for as long as this deflection continues because all the fault is assigned to Abel. Morality and responsiveness thus become dichotomized as Abel drowns in responsibility for valuative quality control, while Cain rests on the higher ground of a value neutral zone. Caught in conversations like this, blacks as well as whites will [*144] feel keenly and pressingly circumscribed. Perhaps most people never intend to be racist, oppressive, or insulting. Nevertheless, by describing zones of vulnerability and by setting up fences of rigidified politeness, the unintentional exile of individuals as well as races may be quietly accomplished. Another scenario of distancing self from the responsibility for racism is the invention of some great public wilderness of others. In the context of Howard Beach, the specter against which the self must barricade itself is violent: seventeen year old, black males wearing running shoes and hooded sweatshirts. It is this fear of the uncontrollable, overwhelming other that animates many of the more vengefully racist comments from Howard Beach, such as, "We're a strictly white neighborhood. . . . They had to be starting trouble." 58 These statements set up angry, excluding boundaries. They also

CONTINUED

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Racism Williams (2/2)

CONTINUED
imply that the failure to protect and avenge is bad policy, bad statesmanship, and an embarrassment. They raise the stakes beyond the unexpressed rage arising from the incident itself. Like the Cain and Abel example, the need to avenge becomes a separate issue of protocol and etiquette -- not a loss of a piece of the self, which is the real cost of real tragedies, but a loss of self-regard. By self-regard, I do not mean self-concept as in selfesteem; I mean that view of the self that is attained by the self stepping outside the self to regard and evaluate the self. It is a process in which the self is watched by an imaginary other, a self-projection of the opinions of real others, where "I" means "your master" and where the designated other's refusal to be dominated is felt as personally assaultive. Thus, the failure to avenge is felt as a loss of self-regard. It is a psychological metaphor for whatever trauma or original assault that constitutes the real loss to the self. 59 It is therefore more abstract, more illusory, more constructed, and more invented. Potentially, therefore, it is less powerful than "real" assault, in that with effort it can be unlearned as a source of vulnerability. This is the real message of the attempt to distinguish between prejudice and violence: names, as in the old "sticks and stones" ditty, [*145] although undeniably and powerfully influential, can be learned or undone as motivation for future destructive action. 60 As long as they are not unlearned, however, the exclusionary power of such free-floating emotions makes its way into the gestalt of prosecutorial and jury decisions and into what the law sees as crime, or as justified, provoked or excusable. 61 Law becomes described and enforced in the spirit of our prejudices. 62 The following passage is a description of the arraignment of three of the white teenagers who were involved in the Howard Beach beatings: The three defense lawyers also tried to case doubt on [the prosecutor's] account of the attack. The lawyers questioned why the victims walked all the way to the pizza parlor if, as they said, their mission was to summon help for their car, which broke down three miles away. . . . At the arraignment, the lawyers said the victims passed two all-night gas stations and several other pizza shops before they reached the one they entered. [*146] A check yesterday of area restaurants, motels and gas stations listed in the Queens street directory found two eating establishments, a gas station and a motel that all said they were open and had working pay phones on Friday night. A spokesman for the New York Telephone Company, Jim Crosson, said there are six outdoor pay telephones . . . on the way to the pizzeria. 63 In the first place, lawyers must wonder what relevance this has. Does the answer to any of the issues the defense raised serve to prove that these black men assaulted, robbed, threatened or molested these white men? Does it even prove that the white men reasonably feared such a fate? The investigation into the number of phone booths per mile does not reveal why the white men would fear the black men's presence. Instead, it is relevant to prove that there is no reason a black man should walk or just wander around the community of Howard Beach. This is not semantic detail; it is central to understanding burdensomeness of proof in such cases. It is this unconscious restructuring of burdens of proof into burdens of white over black that permits people who say and who believe that they are not racist to commit and condone crimes of genocidal magnitude. It is easy to rationalize this as linguistically technical, or as society's sorrow. As one of my students said, "I'm so tired of hearing the blacks say that society's done them wrong." Yet these gyrations kill with their razor-toothed presumption. Lawyers are the modern wizards and medicine people who must define this innocent murderousness as crime. Additionally, investigations into "closer" alternatives eclipse the possibility of other explanation. They assume that the young men were not headed for the subway (which was in fact in the same direction as the pizzeria), and further, that black people must have documented reasons for excursioning into white neighborhoods and out of the neighborhoods to which they are supposedly consigned. It is interesting to contrast the implicit requirement of documentation imposed on blacks walking down public streets in Howard Beach with the implicit license of the white officers who burst into the private space of Mrs. Bumpurs' apartment. In the Bumpurs case, lawmakers consistently dismissed the availability of less intrusive options as presumption and idle hindsight. 64 This dismissal ignored the fact that police officers have an actual burden of employing the least harmful alternatives. In the context of Howard Beach, however, such an analysis invents and imposes a burden on nonresidents to stay [*147] out of strange neighborhoods. It implies harm in the presence of those who do not specifically "own" something there. Both analyses skirt the propriety and necessity of public sector responsibility. Both redefine public accountability in privatized terms. Whether those privatized terms act to restrict or expand accountability is dichotomized according to the race of the actors. Finally, this factualized hypothesizing was part of a news story, not an editorial. "News," in other words, was reduced to hypothesis based on silent premises: they should have used the first phone they encountered; they should have eaten at the first "eating establishment;" they should have gone into a gas station and asked for help; surely they should have had the cash and credit cards to do any of the above or else not travel in strange neighborhoods. In elevating these to relevant issues, however, The New York Times did no more than mirror what was happening in the courtroom. In an ill-fated trip to the neighborhood of Jamaica, in the borough of Queens, Mayor Koch attempted to soothe tensions by asking a congregation of black churchgoers to understand the disgruntlement of Howard Beach residents about the interracial march by 1400 protesters through "their" streets. He asked them how they would feel if 1400 white people took to the streets of the predominantly black neighborhood of Jamaica. 65 This remark, from the chief executive of New York City, accepts and even advocates a remarkable degree of possessiveness about public streets. This possessiveness, moreover, is racially rather than geographically bounded. In effect, Koch was pleading for the acceptance of the privatization of public space. This is the de facto equivalent of segregation. It is exclusion in the guise of deep-moated private property "interests" and "values." In such a characterization, the public nature of the object of discussion, the street, is lost. 66 Mayor Koch's question suggests that 1400 black people took to the streets of Howard Beach. In fact, the crowd was integrated -- blacks, browns, and whites, residents and nonresidents of Howard Beach. Apparently, crowds in New York are subject to the unwritten equivalent of Louisiana's race statutes (which provide that 1/72 black [*148] ancestry renders a person black) and to the Ku Klux Klan's "contamination by association" standard ("blacks and white-blacks" was how one resident of Forsythe County, Georgia described an interracial crowd of protesters there). On the other hand, if Mayor Koch intended to direct attention to the inconvenience, noise, and pollution of such a crowd in those small streets, then I am sympathetic. My sympathy is insignificant, however, compared to my recognition of the necessity and propriety of the protestors' spontaneous, demonstrative, peaceful outpouring of rage, sorrow, and pain. If, however, Mayor Koch intended to ask blacks to imagine 1400 angry white people descending on a black community, then I agree, I would be frightened. This image would also conjure up visions of 1400 hooded white people burning crosses, 1400 Nazis marching through Skokie, and 1400 cavalry men riding into American Indian lands. These visions would inspire great fear in me, because of the possibility of grave harm to the residents. But there is a difference, and that is why the purpose of the march is so important. That is why it is so important to distinguish mass protests of violence from organized hate groups that openly threaten violence. By failing to make this distinction, Mayor Koch created the manipulative specter of unspecified mobs sweeping through homes in pursuit of vague and diffusely dangerous ends. From this perspective, he appealed to thoughtlessness, to the pseudoconsolation of hunkering down and bunkering up against the approaching hoards, to a glacially overgeneralized view of the unneighborhooded "public" world. Moreover, the Mayor's comments reveal that he is ignorant of the degree to which the black people have welcomed, endured, and suffered white marchers through their streets. White people have always felt free to cruise through black communities and to treat them possessively. Most black neighborhoods have existed only as long as whites have permitted them to exist. Blacks have been this society's perpetual tenants, sharecroppers, and lessees. Blacks went from being owned by others, to having everything around them owned by others. In a civilization that values private property above all else, this effectuates a devaluation of humanity, a removal of blacks not just from the market, but from the pseudospiritual circle of psychic and civic communion. As illustrated in the microcosm of my experience at the store, 67 this limbo of disownedness keeps blacks beyond the pale of those who are entitled to receive the survival gifts of commerce, the [*149] property of life, liberty, and happiness, whose fruits our culture places in the marketplace. In this way, blacks are positioned analogically to the rest of society, exactly as they were during slavery or Jim Crow. 68 There is a subtler level to the enactment of this dispossession. The following story may illustrate more fully what I mean: Not long ago, when I first moved back to New York after some twenty years, I decided to go on a walking tour of Harlem. The tour, which took place on Easter Sunday, was sponsored by the New York Arts Society, and except for myself, was attended exclusively by young, white, urban, professional, real estate speculators. They were pleasant looking, with babies strapped to their backs and balloons in their hands. They all seemed like very nice people. Halfway through the tour, the guide asked the group if they wanted to "go inside some churches." The guide added, "It'll make the tour a little longer, but we'll probably get to see some services going on . . . Easter Sunday in Harlem is quite a show." A casual discussion ensued about the time that this excursion might take. What astonished me was that no one had asked the people in the churches if they minded being stared at like living museums. I wondered what would happen if a group of blue-jeaned blacks were to walk uninvited into a synagogue on Passover or St. Anthony's of Padua in the middle of High Mass. Just to peer, not pray. My overwhelming instinct is that such activity would be seen as disrespectful. Apparently, the disrespect was invisible to this well-educated, affable group of people. They deflected my observations with comments such as, "We just want to look"; "No one will mind"; "There's no harm intended." As well intentioned as they were, I was left with the impression that no one existed for them whom their intentions could not govern. 69 Despite the lack of apparent malice in their demeanor, 70 it seemed to me that to live so noninteractively is a liability [*150] as much as a luxury. To live imperviously to one's impact on others is a fragile privilege, which depends ultimately on the inability of others to make their displeasure known. Reflecting on Howard Beach brought to mind a news story from my fragmentary grammar school recollections of the 1960's: a white man acting out of racial motives killed a black man who was working for some civil rights organization or cause. The man was stabbed thirty-nine times, a number which prompted a radio commentator to observe that the point was not just murder, but something beyond. What indeed was the point, if not murder? I wondered what it was that would not die, which could not be killed by the fourth, fifth, or even tenth knife blow; what sort of thing that would not die with the body but lived on in the mind of the murderer. Perhaps, as psychologists have argued, what the murderer was trying to kill was a part of his own mind's image, a part of himself and not a real other. After all, statistically and corporeally, blacks as a group are poor, powerless, and a minority. It is in the minds of whites that blacks become large, threatening, powerful, uncontrollable, ubiquitous, and supernatural. There are certain societies that define the limits of life and death very differently than our own. For example, death may occur long before the body ceases to function , and under the proper circumstances, life may continue for some time after the body is carried to its grave. 71 These non-body-bound, uncompartmentalized ideas recognize the power of spirit, or what we in our secularized society

might describe as the dynamism of self as reinterpreted by the perceptions of [*151] other. 72 These ideas comprehend the fact that a part

of ourselves is beyond the control of pure physical will and resides in the sanctuary of those around us. A fundamental part of ourselves and of our dignity is dependent upon the uncontrollable, powerful, external observers who constitute society. 73 Surely a part of socialization ought to include a sense of caring responsibility

for the images of others that are reposited within us. 74 Taking the example of the man who was stabbed thirty-nine times out of the context of our compartmentalized legal system, and considering it in the hypothetical framework of a legal system that encompasses and recognizes morality, religion, and psychology, I am moved to see this act as not merely body murder but spirit-murder as well. I see it as spirit-murder, only one of whose manifestations is racism -- cultural obliteration, prostitution, abandonment of the elderly and the homeless, and genocide are some of its other guises. others whose lives qualitatively depend on our regard, is that

I see spirit-murder as no less than the equivalent of body murder. One of the reasons that I fear what I call spirit-murder, or disregard for its product is a system of formalized distortions of thought. It produces social structures centered around fear and hate; it provides a tumorous outlet for feelings elsewhere unexpressed. 75 For example, when Bernhard Goetz shot four black

teenagers in a New York City subway, an acquaintance of mine said that she could understand his fear because it is a "fact" that blacks commit most crimes. What impressed me, beyond the factual inaccuracy of this statement, 76 was the reduction of Goetz' crime to "his fear," which I translate to mean her fear. The four teenage victims became all blacks everywhere, and "most crimes" clearly meant that most blacks commit crimes.

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Russian Accidental Launch PR Newswire

Russian accidental launch will trigger a global nuclear war that kills billions
PR Newswire 98
[NEJM Study Warns of Increasing Risk of Accidental Nuclear Attack; Over 6.8 Million Immediate U.S. Deaths Possible, Apr 29, LN]
Despite the end of the Cold War, American

and Russian nuclear arsenals remain on high-alert. That, when combined with significant deterioration in Russian control systems, produces a growing likelihood of an "accidental" nuclear attack, in which more than six million American[s] men, women, and children could die, according to a study published in the April 30 New England Journal of Medicine. The authors, physicians, public health

professionals, and nuclear experts, will hold press conferences on April 29 in seven U.S. Cities, including Boston, beseeching the U.S. Government to seek a bilateral agreement with the Russians that would take all nuclear missiles off high-alert as an "urgent interim measure" toward the only permanent solution: the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide. "It is politically and morally indefensible that American children are growing up with the threat of an accidental nuclear attack," says Lachlan Forrow, MD, principal author of the NEJM article, "'Accidental' Nuclear War: A Post-Cold War Assessment," and internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His study cites numerous instances of 'broken arrows' -- major nuclear accidents that could have killed millions and exposed millions of others to potentially lethal radiation from fallout if disaster had not been averted. "Nuclear weapons do not make us safer, their existence jeopardizes everything we cherish." Forrow adds, "We are calling upon the mayors and citizens of all U.S. and Russian cities to join us in appealing to Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin to end this threat by taking all weapons off high-alert status immediately." A strike on Boston would likely target Logan Airport, Commonwealth Pier, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University, resulting in 609,000 immediate fatalities, according to the researchers. Depending on wind patterns, says Dr. Forrow, hundreds of thousands of other Boston-area residents could be exposed to potentially lethal fallout. Launching nuclear missiles on false warning is the most plausible contemporary 'accident' scenario, according to the authors. More than mere conjecture, this scenario almost played out to horrifying results in 1995 when a U.S. scientific rocket launched from Norway led to activation of the nuclear suitcases carried by the top Russian command -- the first time ever in Soviet- Russian history. It took eight minutes for the Russian leadership to determine the rocket launch was not part of a surprise nuclear strike by Western nuclear submarines -- just four minutes before they might have ordered a nuclear response based on standard launch-on-warning protocols.

An 'accidental' nuclear attack would create a public health disaster of an unprecedented scale, according to more than 70 articles and speeches on the subject, cited by the authors and written by leading nuclear war experts, public health officials, international peace organizations, and legislators. Furthermore, retired General Lee Butler, Commander from 1991-1994 of all U.S. Strategic Forces under former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, has warned that from his experience in many "war games" it is plausible that such an attack could provoke a nuclear counterattack that could trigger full-scale nuclear war with billions of casualties worldwide.

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Russian Civil War David

Russian civil conflict will escalate to nuclear war
David 99 Professor of Political Science at John Hopkins University
[Steven R., Saving America from the Coming Civil Wars, Foreign Affairs , Jan/Feb, LN]

Conflicts fought within the borders of a single state send shock waves far beyond their frontiers. To begin with, internal wars risk destroying assets the United States needs. Were the Persian Gulf oil fields destroyed in a Saudi civil war, the American economy (and those of the rest of the developed world) would suffer severely. Internal wars can also unleash threats that stable governments formerly held in check. As central governments weaken and fall, weapons of mass destruction may fall into the hands of rogue leaders or anti-American factions. More directly, internal wars endanger American citizens living and traveling abroad.
Liberia will not be the last place America sends helicopters to rescue its stranded citizens. Finally, internal wars, when they erupt on U.S. borders, threaten to destabilize America itself. U.S. intervention in Haiti was spurred, in large part, by fear of the flood of refugees poised to enter the United States. All of these dangers are grave enough to warrant consideration; what makes them even more serious is the fact that their impact on America is largely unintended. Being unintended, the spill-off effects of civil wars are not easily deterred, which creates unique challenges to American interests. U.S. policymakers have traditionally tried to sway foreign leaders through a simple formula: ensure that the benefits of defying America are outweighed by the punishment that the United States will inflict if defied. That calculus, however, no longer applies when there is no single, rational government in place to deter. This raises the cost to America; if the United States (or any country) cannot deter a threat, it must turn to actual self-defense or preemption instead. Unlike deterrence, these strategies are enormously difficult to carry out and in some cases (such as preventing the destruction of the Saudi oil fields) would be impossible. Without deterrence as a policy option, Washington loses its most effective means of safeguarding its interests. Where are these new threats likely to crop up? And which should the United States be concerned with? Two criteria must guide policymakers in answering these questions. First is the actual likelihood of civil war in any particular state. American interests would be endangered by a war in Canada, but the prospect is so improbable it can safely be ignored. Second is the impact of a civil war on the United States; would it threaten vital American security and economic concerns? Future conflict in Sierra Leone may be plausible, but it would have such a negligible impact on the United States that it does not justify much attention. Only three countries, in fact, meet both criteria: Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Civil conflict in Mexico would produce waves of disorder that would spill into the United States, endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, destroying a valuable export market, and sending a torrent of refugees northward. A rebellion in Saudi Arabia could destroy its ability to export oil, the oil on which the industrialized world depends. And

internal war in

Russia could devastate Europe and trigger the use of nuclear weapons.

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Russian Economic Collapse David

Russian economic decline will trigger civil war and nuclear attacks against the US
David 99 Professor of Political Science at John Hopkins University
[Steven R., Saving America from the Coming Civil Wars, Foreign Affairs , Jan/Feb, LN]

If internal war does strike Russia, economic deterioration will be a prime cause. From 1989 to the present, the GDP has fallen by 50 percent. In a society
where, ten years ago, unemployment scarcely existed, it reached 9.5 percent in 1997 with many economists declaring the true figure to be much higher. Twenty-two percent of Russians live below the official poverty line (earning less than $ 70 a month). Modern Russia can neither collect taxes (it gathers only half the revenue it is due) nor significantly cut spending. Reformers tout privatization as the country's cure-all, but in a land without well-defined property rights or contract law and where subsidies remain a way of life, the prospects for transition to an American-style capitalist economy look remote at best. As the massive devaluation of the ruble and the current political crisis show, Russia's condition is even worse than most analysts feared. If conditions get worse, even the stoic Russian people will soon run out of patience. A future conflict would quickly draw in Russia's military. In the Soviet days civilian rule kept the powerful armed forces in check. But with the Communist Party out of office, what little civilian control remains relies on an exceedingly fragile foundation -- personal friendships between government leaders and military commanders. Meanwhile, the morale of Russian soldiers has fallen to a dangerous low. Drastic cuts in spending mean inadequate pay, housing, and medical care. A new emphasis on domestic missions has created an ideological split between the old and new guard in the military leadership, increasing the risk that disgruntled generals may enter the political fray and feeding the resentment of soldiers who dislike being used as a national police force. Newly enhanced ties between military units and local authorities pose another danger. Soldiers grow ever more dependent on local governments for housing, food, and wages. Draftees serve closer to home, and new laws have increased local control over the armed forces. Were a conflict to emerge between a regional power and Moscow, it is not at all clear which side the military would support. Divining the military's allegiance is crucial, however, since the structure of the Russian Federation makes it virtually certain that regional conflicts will continue to erupt. Russia's 89 republics, krais, and oblasts grow ever more independent in a system that does little to

With the economy collapsing, republics feel less and less incentive to pay taxes to Moscow when they receive so little in return. Three-quarters of them already have their own constitutions, nearly all of which make some claim to sovereignty. Strong ethnic bonds promoted by shortsighted Soviet policies may motivate nonRussians to secede from the Federation. Chechnya's successful revolt against Russian control inspired similar movements for autonomy and independence throughout the country. If these rebellions spread and Moscow responds with force, civil war is likely. Should Russia succumb to internal war, the consequences for the United States and Europe will be severe. A major power like Russia -even though in decline -- does not suffer civil war quietly or alone. An embattled Russian Federation might provoke opportunistic attacks from enemies such as China. Massive flows of refugees would pour into central and western Europe. Armed struggles in Russia could easily spill into its neighbors. Damage from the fighting, particularly attacks on nuclear plants, would poison the environment of much of Europe and Asia. Within Russia, the consequences would be even worse. Just as the sheer brutality of the last Russian civil war laid the basis for the privations of Soviet communism, a second civil war might produce another horrific regime. Most alarming is the real possibility that the violent disintegration of Russia could lead to loss of control over its nuclear arsenal. No nuclear state has ever fallen victim to civil war, but even without a clear precedent the grim consequences can be foreseen. Russia retains some 20,000 nuclear weapons and the raw material for tens of thousands more, in scores of sites scattered throughout the country. So far, the government has managed to prevent the loss of any weapons or much material. If war erupts, however, Moscow's already weak grip on nuclear sites will slacken, making weapons and supplies available to a wide range of anti-American groups and states. Such dispersal of nuclear weapons represents the greatest physical threat America now faces. And it is hard to think of anything that would increase this threat more than the chaos that would follow a Russian civil war. Lack of attention to the threat of civil wars by U.S. policymakers and academics has meant a lack of response and policy options. This does not mean,
keep them together. As the central government finds itself unable to force its will beyond Moscow (if even that far), power devolves to the periphery. however, that Washington can or should do nothing at all. As a first measure, American policymakers should work with governments of threatened states to prevent domestic conflict from erupting. Though the inadvertent side effects of internal conflicts cannot be deterred, the outbreak of civil war itself may be discouraged. Doing so may require unambiguous and generous American support for a regime that finds itself under assault. Or it may require Washington to ease out unsustainable leaders (the Philippines' Marcos or Indonesia's Suharto) once their time has clearly passed. Either way, the difficulties of preventing internal war pale in comparison to the problems of coping with its effects. The United States should take action now to prepare itself for civil war in key states. To respond to conflict in Mexico, Washington will need feasible evacuation plans for hundreds of thousands of Americans in that country. Contingency plans for closing the Mexican-American border should be considered. And the possibility of a Mexican civil war raises the issue of American intervention. How and where the United States would enter the fray would of course be determined by circumstances, but it is not premature to give serious thought to the prospect. To guard against a conflict in Saudi Arabia, the United States should lead the effort to reduce Western dependence on Saudi oil. This will require a mixed strategy, including the expansion of U.S. strategic oil reserves (which could be done now, while Saudi oil is cheap and available), locating new suppliers (such as the Central Asian republics), and reviving moribund efforts to find oil alternatives. None of this will be easy, especially in an era of dollar-a-gallon gasoline, but it makes more sense than continuing to rely on an energy source so vulnerable to the ravages of civil war. For Russia, America must reduce the chances that

civil conflict there will unleash nuclear weapons against the United States. First, Washington must do more to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons and fissionable material that could be lost, stolen, or used in the chaos of civil war. The Nunn-Lugar program, under which the United States buys Russian nuclear material to use and store in America, is a good start, but it must be accelerated. America should not worry about making a profit on the plutonium and enriched uranium it buys, but just get the goods out of Russia as fast as possible. Second, arms control initiatives that may have been unpalatable during the Cold War should now be reconsidered, given the risk of accidental or unauthorized launchings. American policymakers should contemplate agreements to reduce the total number of Russian (and American) nuclear weapons, to deprive the Russians of the ability to quickly launch a nuclear strike (for example, by contracting to store warheads away from missiles), and should intensify efforts to develop an effective defense against missile attacks.

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Secession Gottlieb
Secessionism will spark wars around the world that risk nuclear conflict
Gottlieb 93 Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at University of Chicago School of Law
[Gidon, Nation against state: a new approach to ethnic conflicts and the decline of sovereignty, p. 26-27]

Self-determination unleashed and unchecked by balancing principles constitutes a menace to the society of states. There is simply no way in which all the hundreds of peoples who aspire to sovereign independence can be granted a state of their own without loosening fearful anarchy and disorder on a planetary scale. The proliferation of territorial entities poses exponentially greater problems for the control of weapons of mass destruction and multiplies situations in which external intervention could threaten peace. It increases problems for the management of all global issues, including terrorism, AIDS, the environment, and population growth. It creates conditions in which domestic strife in remote territories can drag powerful neighbors into local hostilities, creating ever widening circles of conflict. Events in the aftermath of the breakup of the
Soviet Union drove this point home. Like Russian dolls, ever smaller ethnic groups dwelling in larger units emerged to secede and to demand independence. Georgia, for example, has to contend with the claims of South Ossetians and Abkhazians for independence, just as the Russian Federation is confronted with the separatism of Tartaristan. An

international system

made up of several hundred independent territorial states cannot be the basis for global security and prosperity.

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Soil Erosion Ikerd

Erosion of soil threatens life on the planet
Ikerd 99, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at University of Missouri
[John E., Foundational Principles: Soils. Stewardship, and Sustainability, Sep 22, http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/NCSOILS.html]

is the foundation for all of life, including humanity, that stewardship of soil is the foundation for agricultural sustainability, and that sustainability is the conceptual foundation for wise soil management. All living things require food of one kind or another to keep them alive. Life also requires air and water, but nothing lives from air and water alone. Things that are not directly rooted in the soil -- that live in the sea, on rocks, or on trees, for example -- still require minerals that come from the earth. They must have soil from somewhere. Living things other than plants get their food from plants, or from other living things that feed on plants, and plants feed on the soil. All life may not seem to have roots in the soil, but soil is still at the root of all life. First, I
am not a soil scientist. I took a class in soils as an undergraduate and have learned a good bit about soils from reading and listening to other people over the years. But, I make no claim to being an expert. So I will try to stick to the things that almost anyone might know or at least understand about soil. As I was doing some reading on the subject, I ran across a delightful little book called, "The Great Worlds Farm," written by an English author, Selina Gaye, somewhere around the turn of the century. The copyrights apparently had run out, since the book didnt have a copyright date. Back then people didnt know so much about everything, so they could get more of what they knew about a lot more things in a little book. The book starts off explaining how soil is formed from rock, proceeds through growth and reproduction of plants and animals, and concludes with cycles of life and the balance of nature. But, it stresses that all life is rooted in the soil. Initially molten lava covered all of the earths crust. So, all soil started out as rock. Most plants have to wait until rock is pulverized into small particles before they can feed on the minerals contained in the rock. Chemical reaction with oxygen and carbon dioxide, wearing away by wind and water, expansion and contraction from heating and cooling, and rock slides and glaciers have all played important roles in transforming the earths crust from rock into soil. However, living things also help create soil for other living things. Lichens are a unique sort of plant that can grow directly on rock. Their spores settle on rock and begin to grow. They extract their food by secreting acids, which dissolve the minerals contained in the rock. As lichens grow and die, minerals are left in their remains to provide food for other types of plants. Some plants which feed on dead lichens put down roots, which penetrate crevices in rocks previously caused by mechanical weathering. Growth or roots can split and crumble rock further, exposing more surfaces to weathering and accelerating the process of soil making. Specific types of rock contain limited varieties of minerals and will feed limited varieties of plants even when pulverized into dust. Many plants require more complex combinations of minerals than are available from any single type of rock. So the soils made from various types of rocks had to be mixed with other types before they would support the variety and complexity of plant life that we have come to associate with nature. Sand and dust can be carried from one place to another by wind and water, mixing with sand and dust from other rocks along the way. Glaciers have also been important actors in mixing soil. Some of the richest soils in the world are fertile bottomlands along flooding streams and rivers, loess hills that were blown and dropped by the wind, and soil deposits left behind by retreating glaciers. Quoting from the "Great Worlds Farm," "No soil is really fertile, whatever the mineral matter composing it, unless it also contains some amount of organic matter matter derived from organized, living things, whether animal or vegetable. Organic matter alone is not enough to make a fertile soil; but with less than one-half percent of organic matter, no soil can be cultivated to much purpose." After the mixed soil minerals are bound in place by plants, and successions of plants and animals added organic matter and tilth, the mixtures became what we generally refer to as soils. The first stages of soil formation are distinguished from the latter stages by at least one important characteristic. The dissolving, grinding, and mixing required millions of years, whereas, soil binding and adding organic matter can be accomplished in a matter of decades. Thus, the mineral fraction of soil is a "non-renewable" resource it cannot be recreated or renewed within any realistic future timeframe. Whereas, the organic fraction is a renewable or regenerative resource that can be recreated or renewed over decades, or at least over a few generations. Misuse can displace, degrade, or destroyed the productivity of both fractions of soils within a matter of years. And, once the mineral fraction of soil is lost, its productivity is lost forever. If there are to be productive soils in the future, we must conserve and make wise use of the soils we have today. The soil that washes down our rivers to the sea is no more renewable than are the fossil fuels that we are mining from ancient deposit within the earth. In spite of our best efforts, some quantity of soil will be lost at least lost to our use. Thus, our only hope for sustaining soil productivity is to conserve as much soil as we can and to build up soil organic matter and enhance the productivity of the soil that remains.

A foundation is "the basis upon which something stands or is supported" (Webster). The basic premises of this discourse on "foundational principles" is that soil

In times not too long past, the connection between soil and human life was clear and ever present. Little more than a century ago, most people were

farmers and those who were not lived close enough to a farm to know that the food that gave them life came from the soil. They knew that when the soil was rich, the rains came, and the temperature was hospitable to plants and animals, food was bountiful and there was plenty to eat. They knew that when droughts came, plants dried out and died, and the soil was bare, there was little to eat. They knew when the floods came, plants were covered with water and died, and the soil was bare; there was little to eat. They knew very well that their physical well being, if not their lives, depended on the things that lived from the soil. William Albrecht, a well known soil scientist at the University of Missouri during the middle of this century, hypothesized that people from different parts of the country had distinctive physical characteristics linked to the soils of the area where they grew up. He attributed those physical distinctions to differences in nutrient values of the foods they eat, which in turn depended on the make-up of the soils on which their foodstuffs were grown. Albrechts hypothesis was never fully tested. As people began to move from one place to another throughout their lives, and as more and more foodstuffs were shipped from one region of production to another for consumption, people no longer ate food from any one region or soil type. But its quite possible that when people lived most of their lives in one place, and ate mostly food produced locally, their physical makeup was significantly linked to the make up of local soils. Today, we eat from many soils, from all around the world. Even today there is a common saying that "we are what we eat." If so, "we actually are the soil from which we eat." The connection between soil and life is no longer so direct or so clear, but it is still there. Most urban dwellers also have lost all sense of personal connection to the farm or the soil. During most of this century many people living in cities either had lived on a farm at one time or knew someone, usually a close relative, who still lived on a farm -- which gave them some tangible connection with the soil. At least they knew that "land" meant something more than just a place to play or space to be filled with some form of "development." But these personal connections have been lost with the aging of urbanization. One of the most common laments among farmers today is that "people no longer know where their food comes from." For most, any real understanding of the direct connection between soil and life has been lost. It s sad but true. Whats even sadder is that many farmers dont realize the dependence of their own farming operation on the health and natural productivity of their soil. They have been told by the experts that soil is little more than a medium for propping up the plants so they can be fed with commercial fertilizers and protected by commercial pesticides until they produce a bountiful harvest. In the short run, this illusion of production without natural soil fertility appears real. As long as the soil has a residue of minerals and organic matter from times past, annual amendments of a few basic nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash, being the most common crop yields can be maintained. Over time, however, as organic matter becomes depleted, production problems appear and it becomes increasingly expensive to maintain productivity. As additional "trace elements" are depleted, soil management problems become more complex. Eventually, it will become apparent that it would have been far easier and less costly in the long run to have maintained the natural fertility of the soil. But, by then much of the natural productivity will be gone -- forever. In the meantime, many farmers will have little

all of life depends upon soil. All life requires food and there is simply no other source of food except living things that depend directly or indirectly on the soil. This is a foundational principle of natural science, of human health, and of social studies that should be taught at every level in every school in the world -- beginning in kindergarten and continuing through college. That we must have soil to live is as fundamental as the fact that we must have air to breath, water to drink, and food to eat. Its just less obvious.
sense of their ultimate dependence on the soil. Still,

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Space Colonization Daily Record

Extinction is inevitable by 2050 without space colonization
Daily Record 02
[Graham Brough, WOULD THE LAST PERSON TO LEAVE EARTH PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS; EXPERTS WARN WE NEED TO MOVE PLANET AS MODERN LIFE KILLS OURS, Jul 8, LN]

The Earth will be so gutted, wrecked, over-exploited and the barren seas so fished out that we will have to find a new planet - or even two - by 2050. Environmentalists at the World Wildlife Fund say we have just another half century of luxury living left before the Earth becomes a spent husk. By that time, we will either have to colonise space or risk human extinction as population and consumption expand. The worst culprits are Americans, who each consume more food and fuel per year than 25 Africans. With the chances of discovering another habitable planet still in the realms of science fiction, WWF says the only realistic chance for survival is to curb consumption. A new WWF report tomorrow will shame the Americans with a damning league table that shows how much land is needed to support a single American, European or African. It takes just over an acre of land to support a person from Burundi, one of Africa's poorest nations. A European needs 15 acres of land as his "footprint" on the globe. But a US citizen needs a staggering 30 acres, the highest consumer intake of any civilisation in the Earth's history . Critics say America is so devoted to conspicuous consumption, that space colonisation is more realistic than a lifestyle change.

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Space Colonization Tumlinson

Space colonization is key to avert extinction from war, famine, environmental collapse, and asteroids
Tumlinson 03 President of Space Frontier Foundation
[Richard, Future of NASA, FDCH Congressional Testimony, Oct 29, LN]

Our first possible choice, and the one lots of folks sometimes seem to believe is inevitable, is the worst. It's what might happen if we keep on rolling along and do nothing about conserving our natural resources or accessing new. The characterization we see in popular culture and films such as the Matrix, the Terminator series, and other dark dystopian images. It is an apocalyptic vision, the result of a time when all the world's cultures rush to create consumer societies such as those in Europe, Japan and the USA. Eventually our excesses exceed our limits and we end up with a polluted and stripped world whose environment collapses, bringing down whole societies, leading to war, famine, the end of global culture, and the dawn of a new dark age. Our second choice is to attempt to sustain the human race on this one world through rationing of resources - at the cost of personal freedom - as we anesthetize ourselves with virtual realities and sensory distortions. . . Under the heavy hand of global Big Brother, our lives, actions, and even our very thoughts will be monitored and controlled. Imagination and innovation will be seen as threats to order and safety. Risk will be avoided at all cost. Perhaps we will eventually become so physically and intellectually passive that we finally load ourselves into banks of virtual electronic realities and pass the eons in a bliss of pretend adventures and paradises uncounted, until some global catastrophe such as an asteroid strike sends us into oblivion. Or there's the third choice, opening the High Frontier of space and breaking out into the galaxy. Celebrating the spirit of exploration and individuality, we begin to truly explore and open the space around us to human settlement. Turning debates between free enterprise technologists and protectors of the Earth on their heads, we unleash the power of human imagination to create ways to harvest the resources of space, not only saving this precious planet, but also blazing a path to the stars. This is a tomorrow where life is exciting, new possibilities open up each day, and humanity spreads outwards, as the harbinger of life to worlds now dead. This future is characterized by new ideas and cultures spreading every where, the entire human race engaged in spreading life to the stars and a future that is ever expanding and hopeful. Opening the space frontier will also change what it means to be an American. The effect of the space frontier on America will be profound. Our pioneering past will at last have a direct link to our future. Our heritage will be connected with our tomorrow in a visible and exciting way. The paths blazed by Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Lewis and Clark will continue onward and upward across the stars. The spirit of family will be resurrected as the frontier ethics of hard work and familial support are reinforced through the simple need to survive and prosper in a hostile environment. Our relationship to the rest of the world will change, as we throw open the doors to a better tomorrow for all, and as we always do, offer to hold those doors open for all and everyone to follow. Opening the frontier will change what it means to be a human being. We will become a multi-planet species, assuring our survival, and that of the life forms for which we are responsible. And a child living in such times will know why they are alive, and be able to see an unending and ever opening panorama of possibility stretching out before them

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Stock Market Collapse Mead 98

Stock market collapse will cause global economic decline and nuclear war
Mead 98, Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at Council on Foreign Relations
[Walter Russell, Rule 1: Dont Panic. Rule 2: Panic first. Esquire, October, Academic Search Elite]
The global economic crisis of 1997-98 is indeed a historic event. there were an Economics Channel as there is a Weather Channel, frenetic newscasters would be interrupting regular programming right now to give us hourly updates on something they would be calling the storm of the century, an economic cataclysm as big as or bigger than the Great Depression of the thirties. The behavior of economic storms is as hard to predict as the course of a hurricane. Still, this storm already has a track record, and it's pretty damned

If

stock prices could easily fall by two thirds--that's 6,000 points on the Dow--and it could take stocks a decade or more to recover. Many investors could be destroyed; mass liquidation of mutual funds in a panic could wipe out some funds entirely. The carnage among "growth" funds and such high-flying sectors as Internet and technology companies would be appalling. In a real meltdown, the damage wouldn't be limited to the financial markets. Housing prices would plummet, leaving millions of highly leveraged home and apartment owners sitting on mortgages that are worth far more than their homes. Millions of people would lose their jobs, and tens of millions more would watch their wages drop as employers frantically tried to cut back their payrolls. Many cities would face bankruptcy as their tax revenues collapsed. All these things and more have already happened in many countries around the
chilling. If, God forbid, it reaches the United States, watch out. In a blow like this,
world. Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, South Africa--stock markets in these countries have fallen by as much as 90 percent, unemployment rates are exploding, and countless people face the loss of their businesses, jobs, and homes. Even starvation. Short of a massive asteroid strike from outer space, no natural disaster could destroy this much wealth or plunge this many people into misery. And more than a year after the crisis began, not one country where it has struck shows any signs of recovery. With Japan, the world's second-largest economy, and Russia, its second-largest nuclear power, firmly in its grip, the economic crisis now sweeping the planet may be the most important event--and the most dangerous--since the Second World War. This isn't just an economic meltdown in a few emerging markets. It's

a full-fledged crisis of the international economic system, one that could plunge the entire world into a major depression. More than that, it could challenge the strength of the international political system and test the leadership of the country that widely and imprudently bills itself the United States has been the leading advocate of deregulating the global economy and reducing the barriers to investment and trade. The

as "the only global superpower." Well, the only global superpower has recently made some very stupid mistakes. We put our confidence in two basic ideas that turned out to be wrong. The first is that rapid deregulation of the international financial system would promote growth without creating dangerous financial crises. The second idea is that the export-oriented development model pioneered by Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea would keep working forever. In fact, that economic strategy hit a wall ten years ago, and Japan's economy hasn't grown since. Now the problems have spread to the rest of Asia, halting the tigers in their tracks. Under presidents Bush and Clinton,

United States was quick to take credit when the system was working; now that it could be melting down, the U.S. is sure to be stuck with the blame. All across Russia and Asia, hundreds of millions of people are blaming their economic woes on devious American or Jewish plots. Having watched this situation develop, I've got to admit, my feelings are mixed. I'm frightened by what may lie ahead, heartsick over the suffering of tens of millions of people who have already been forced back into poverty--and possibly starvation--by this economic crisis, and hopeful that the various International Monetary Fund plans and Japanese economic initiatives will solve the problem before the world economy goes down the tubes. But there's another part of me that is awestruck. I am astonished that what we thought was so substantial has turned out to be so flimsy I feel a little like a meteorologist in hurricane season, watching with fascination and dread as a nightmare assembles itself. It all began as a small cloud no bigger than a man's hand, quietly, the economic equivalent of a butterfly's wings in Beijing. There was a spot of trouble about the Thai baht--in itself, one of the world's more insignificant currencies. Pooh, pooh, said the experts as the rumors swirled. Thailand's a tiger: high savings rate, rapid economic growth, strong property market, strong banking sector. No problem, said the World Bank. Asia's cool, and Thailand's cool. The currency speculators thought differently. The baht had been linked to the dollar for more than a decade. Now that link looked weak. At 24 baht to the dollar, Thai exports looked expensive compared with products from places like China and Indonesia. Why not, a few speculators thought, bet against the baht for a while and see what happens? What happened next was spectacular. The Thai central bank spent billions of dollars in a hopeless effort to defend its currency. By July of last year, the baht had fallen below 32 to the dollar--and it was taking the Thai economy down with it. I visited Bangkok soon after the baht crash, and parts of the city already looked like a ghost town. Work had stopped on dozens of skyscrapers; cranes were beginning to rust, and plastic sheeting was blowing off the sides of half-finished buildings. I checked out one of Bangkok's newest and most exclusive shopping malls, filled with Gucci and Versace vendors for the new generation of Thai yuppies. A piano player in a booth over the escalators put out bad late-Elvis music as I cruised around the place. It looked like the sale of the century: Signs everywhere advertised 70 percent discounts. But nobody except me and the piano player was there to look at them. The mall was empty. The economists and the Asia experts were quick to reassure the world that the problem was limited to Thailand. Then a few rumors began to circulate about Malaysia. Ridiculous! the experts chorused together. Malaysia's economy wasn't weak like Thailand's, the experts pointed out. Malaysia wasn't corrupt, and the people were better educated. They were still giving speeches about how Malaysia would never go down when crash! the Malaysian ringgit joined the Thai bait on the ash heap of history. Malaysia's prime minister knew what to do: He blamed the Jews. They were jealous, it seems, of predominantly Muslim Malaysia's success. The next round of rumors concerned Indonesia. Once again, the pundits, diplomats,"and business leaders rallied as one. Too bad about the ringgit, said the experts. And sorry we were wrong about the. bait. But now we understand. Malaysia had an erratic, some would say megalomaniacal prime minister, too many expensive prestige projects, too much government interference with the credit system. And, of course, Thailand was more crooked than a Little Rock law firm. But Indonesia wasn't like that. Yes, there was corruption and injustice, but at least the Indonesian government--competent, thoughtful, focused on the economic fundamentals-got the macroeconomic policy right. Indonesia was no Thailand or Malaysia, they said. Let the bait and the ringgit sink to new lows; the rupiah was a stable currency supported by a sound economy. Then, of course, the rupiah crashed, going from about 2,500 to the dollar when I visited in August 1997 to as low as 16,000 in January. Crash! Bang! Thump! And just like that, the rupiah took the Indonesian government with it. This time, the blame was on the Chinese rather than the Jews, and panicky mobs rioted through the streets of Indonesia's cities, burning, looting, and raping. The Chinese minority--3 percent of the population controlling an estimated 70 percent of the economy--quickly moved to get as much money as possible out of the country, weakening the rupiah even further and making economic recovery virtually impossible. After Indonesia, the line changed. Southeast Asia, the experts suddenly discovered, had never really been much of an economic success. Those years when the World Bank, the IMF, and the economics profession joined hands to sing hymns of praise to Southeast Asian governments and their solid economic policies were forgotten immediately. Southeast Asia, we now suddenly discovered, was full of paper tigers. Water buffaloes with racing stripes. Bad governments, uneducated people, unsophisticated technological bases, poorly functioning financial markets. The crisis was therefore contained; there was no danger that it could spread from such tiny, badly managed economies to bigger, more important, and better-managed ones up north. Like, for example, South Korea, thank God. Crash! went the Korean won. I was there in January of this year; the won was in the toilet, the IMF was in charge of the economy, the demonstrators were in the streets, and I saw signs in Seoul store windows advertising something called an "IMF Sale": again, 70 percent off. Singapore, they then reassured us, was well managed. Crash! said the Singapore dollar. Hong Kong was much more dynamic than all those state-planned economies, they said. Crash/went Hong Kong's stock market. Japan's been a little sluggish, but it is fundamentally sound, chorused the experts; japan's got the largest reserves in the world. Crash! answered the yen. It was Lyndon Johnson's old nightmare: one Asian domino toppling after another--only it wasn't Communists pushing the dominoes over but investors. As the dominoes went down, the crisis shifted to the "Send in the Clowns" phase. Teams of IMF "experts" rushed into the capital cities to confer with political and business leaders. They then emerged for photo ops, brandishing what they said were recovery plans and multibillion-dollar bailouts. Sometimes within weeks, but certainly within months, they came crawling back. Sorry, the first bailout plan wasn't big enough, and the recovery plan isn't working. A few billion more, a few more tweaks to the plan, and then another photo op, followed in due course by new revelations that the bailout and the plan hadn't quite taken hold yet. The most significant thing that the world's leaders didn't understand is that the fabled Asian model of development wasn't all it was cracked up to be. When you are the first export-oriented economy in the world, you are competing with high-cost, inefficient Western producers. Your cheap workers and low taxes allow you to make goods at much less cost than the Germans and the Americans do; therefore, you can slightly underprice the competition and make tons of money. But as more countries jump on the bandwagon, the wagon slows under all the weight. The east-Asian countries began to compete not so much with the Germans and the Americans as with one another. The ultimate result: regional-recession. This is a development of historic importance. It means that Asia hasn't found the silver bullet to kill underdevelopment in a single generation, as everybody thought. The total cost of the crisis is impossible to estimate. But looking at the stock-market values and estimating the fall in property prices, the lost output, and the diminished purchasing power, total losses so far in Asia alone look like something on the order of $2 trillion and counting. Worse still, the crisis has spread beyond Asia. Russia stands on the brink of an economic abyss. Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and even Chile look ill. And a currency collapse in South Africa threatens to undermine the fragile democracy and hopes for prosperity throughout the region. Meanwhile, nobody is running this show. The people who should be in charge--the IMF, the U.S. Treasury, the World Bank--have been wrong, wrong, wrong. They didn't see the crisis coming. Once it started to develop, they were wrong about how far it would spread. As it spread, they were wrong about how bad it would be. And their efforts to fix the problem--by far the largest and most expensive financial bailout in world history--have so far been miserable failures. To date, the IMF alone has pumped tens of billions into the crisis and has exactly nothing to show for it. Throw in the World Bank, relief agencies, and various other governments from around the world, and we are looking, so far, at a total of something like $140 billion of good money thrown after bad since July 1997. Clearly, the IMF's program for Asia hasn't worked. If the economic crisis were a wildfire, it would be out of control. The firefighters don't have the equipment or the mar, power to contain it. Nineteen twenty-eight was a very good year. The American stock market was setting one record after another; millions of people who had never owned stocks were jumping into the market. As economic growth without inflation plowed on year after year, economists demonstrated that technology-driven increases in productivity had brought the economy into a "new era," one in which the wicked old business cycle, with its horrific busts and stock-market crashes, was a thing of the past. Prosperity wasn't limited to the United States. The international debt problem that had so vexed the earlier years of the decade had been solved. German inflation was over, and as prosperity swept through Europe, the ominous figure of Adolf Hitler had faded into the background. Democracy was putting down roots in Germany and the emerging markets of Eastern Europe. Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were modernizing their economies and political systems. With the creation of the "Little Entente," the Western security system was pushed eastward to roughly the boundaries envisioned this year with the expansion of NATO. The Baltic republics, freed from their long domination by Russia, were looking westward. Even perpetually unhappy Russia was looking better than usual. The privations and terroristic dictatorship of the civil-war era had settled down. Following Lenin's death, a new leadership had extended the New Economic Policy, allowing the return of independent business and foreign investment to Russia. There was a political and cultural thaw as well; it seemed to many people that Russia was abandoning its revolutionary dreams and was on its way back into the family of nations. Throughout the world, the same happy combination of increased prosperity and increased democracy seemed to be leading to an era of peace and economic integration. Foreign investment in China was bringing new technology and new hope to that ancient land. Japanese foreign policy was linked firmly to the Western Allies; the United States, Britain, and Japan were working together to maintain peace and stability in the Pacific. In Latin America, economic reform had strengthened democratic governments in many countries. Mexico's long era of revolutionary turbulence was over. Democratic governments in Argentina and Brazil were bringing those nations into the heart of the global economy. The international arms race was over. American diplomacy had led the way to radical international naval disarmament. The new World Court promised to impose justice on aggressors and give nations an alternative to war. In August 1928, diplomats from all over the world assembled in Paris to sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war forever. Five years later, it was all over. As the United States staggered through the worst depression in its history, the world economy went down the toilet, taking the world's political system with it. Stalin was firmly in power in Russia; Hitler had taken over Germany. In Japan, the militarists had emerged from obscurity to drive the peaceloving liberals from power. Dictatorships reigned across Eastern Europe and in Latin America as the world headed inexorably toward the most terrible war in its history. The Great Depression was simply the longest and worst in a long succession of economic panics and crashes that goes back as far as capitalism does. The Dutch tulip craze, the Mississippi Bubble in France, the South Sea Bubble in Britain, the panics of 1837, 1857, 1873, 1890, 1907--crises like these were recognized as normal, recurring aspects of the business cycle. But the Great Depression was too much. Every bank in the United States was forced to close in 1933; one out of every four workers lost his job; millions of people lost every penny they had saved through lifetimes of hard work. And on top of all that--World War II. After the. war, it was necessary to rebuild the international financial system from scratch, and the architects of the system believed that the price of regulation--slower growth, economic inefficiency--was worth paying. Anything to prevent another depression and to reduce the risk of new wars. The world economy, American officials and international bankers decided, should act more like a school bus and less like a sports car, and they developed a comprehensive regime of regulations designed to keep the global economy moving smoothly, if not always rapidly, ahead. But as the memory of the Depression gradually faded and as some of the controls developed after World War II became increasingly cumbersome, a shift in economic opinion octroi. Business leaders, economists, and politicians started to worry less about how safe the car was and focused on making it go faster. A largely unregulated international financial market was reborn in the late sixties, and gradually the entire system of capital controls, fixed currency rates, and other international regulations faded away. This process was driven less by economic philosophy than by greed. Private firms thought they could chase profits more efficiently if they weren't hampered by regulations and controls. Amazingly, as the regulations came off, we began, once again, to experience the kind of turmoil in capital markets that had been common before the thirties. The Third World debt crisis of the early eighties, the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis in the middle of the decade, the collapse of the Japanese bubble economy in 1990, the Mexican peso crisis of 1994, the bankruptcy of England's Barings Bank in 1995, and now the Asian meltdown are all examples of the kind of financial-market crash that was once common. While U.S. stocks have mostly gone up, the 500-point Dow crashes of 1987 and 1997 and the 300-point drop of early August show that our stocks, too, have become more volatile with the deregulation of financial markets. The faster capitalism goes, the more dangerous it gets. Yet ever since the end of the cold war, the United States has acted as if its agenda--peace and prosperity at home and abroad--were something simple and easy to create. Demolish a few made barriers here, open up a few stock markets to foreign investment there, prune back some budget deficits, and throw in a generous helping of deregulation. In other words, disable the brakes, grease the mack, jazz up the power supply, rip out the guardrails, and fire the safety inspector. For twenty-five years, the United States has been using its international influence to make the global economic system more and more like the laissez-faire free-rnarket system of the twenties, and now we've got what we wanted: a system that is free to grow rapidly. And--surprise, surprise--free to crash and bum. Worse still, we have an economic and political leadership that knows nothing about the dynamite with which it so ignorantly plays. Even as the Asian economy blows up under its feet, our leadership has been slow to realize the full nature of the political risks that exist. There are several billion people in Asia. Some of them know a great deal about technologies that would be useful in war. Until a few months ago, most of them expected to keep getting rapidly richer. Now the overwhelming majority face huge economic losses, and for most of them, hope is quickly disappearing. Anger will take its place, and it is all too likely that political leaders in Asia will seek to direct that anger outward-at the United States and its economic allies, who, after all, shaped the international economic system that produced this collapse. "The United States brought this crisis about," a Thai journalist told me last summer, "because it was afraid that Asia was growing too fast and would leave the United States behind." It does not,. frankly, take a rocket scientist to predict that this will all end in tears. Despite the horrors of the crisis and the danger ahead, one can take a perverse pleasure in the discomfiture of the Western ecoomic leadership. Ever since 'the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western economists and politicians have been too smug for words. Communism was dead; even the mild forms of socialism practiced in Western Europe looked pretty sickly. The secret to growth was simple: Get out of the way. If government would just let business get on with business, economies would grow and markets would boom. This wasn't just the secret to prosperity; it was the secret to history, too. Prosperity leads to democracy; democracy leads to peace. That has been the mantra of the American government since the end of the col&war. Both George Bush and Bill Clinton built their foreign policies around this simple and appealing set of ideas. Francis Fukuyama summed it up in his famous 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man. History was over, said Fukuyama, and America had won. There won't be any more world-wrenching depressions, any more bitter struggles between great ideologies; the chief activity of the twenty-first century will be shopping. I have always thought this was idiotic stuff,, and I've been honestly terrified to see the American political elite betting the ranch on it. Somehow, these people have gotten the idea in their heads that capitalism is safe, sane, and predictable. Even a quick look at history shows that that isn't true. Ever since capitalism began to form in early modern Europe, the Western world has seen one terrible convulsion after another: the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, the Napoleonic Wars, 1848 and the rise of Marxism, the Civil War in the United States, the Commune in Paris, World War I, the collapse of the great European empires, the rise of communism and fascism, World War II... That's not a quiet ride. A capitalist world isn't a rest home for lazy politicians and boneheaded social scientists. It's an exhilarating place where new technologies and new industries spring up overnight, new ideas sweep across the world, and individuals have the chance to remake the world and ride the cutting edge of change. But it's also a place of great, painful destruction. The old manufacturing economy in America had to die so that the new service economy could-be born. That messed up millions of lives: Fifty-year-old laid-off steelworkers in Pittsburgh couldn't start life anew as Web-site designers. Family farming as a way of life had to largely die out so that efficient agribusinesses could feed our enormous population with cheap food. Banking deregulation led to the S&L crisis. Downsizing restructured American corporations--and trashed American lives--even as new management techniques enhanced profitability. These economic disruptions are really peas under a mattress compared with the Great Depression and the upheaval in Asia today. But still, these events transformed American politics, bringing us Ronald Reagan and the destruction of the New Deal coalition. The economic crisis of 1997-98 will similarly reshape our future. Perhaps you would be Interested in seeing some pictures of how the world could look as the crisis moves on. Have a seat. There are three that I'd like to show you. The first picture is called American Recession. The long period of American economic expansion is probably over As Asians buy fewer U.S. goods and sell their own goods here for less and less,,American companies will have a harder and harder time making money. This puts pressure on earnings. As late as this summer, the stock prices of American companies assumed double-digit earnings growth as far as the eye could see; as people lose faith in that earnings story, stock prices will continue to trend lower. Under certain circumstances, that downward trend could accelerate into a crash. This probably won't happen right away. In fact, the Asian crisis could give the old bull one more run if Japanese capital flees that country's troubled banks and stock markets to seek refuge in the United States. We are presently well into the Greater Fool era of the bull market. That is, everybody knows that most stocks today are simply not worth the high prices they are fetching, but people continue to buy them. Not because they think that corporate earnings will reach the astronomical levels necessary to justify these stellar stock prices, but because you can always count on a bigger fool than you appearing in the market who will be willing to pay even more for those overvalued stocks than you just did. "Buy high, sell low" could be the Japanese national motto. And Japanese investors are perhaps the only people in the world today who would be willing to bring massive amounts of new capital into America's stock market. When that happens, watch out: Once the greatest fool of all has taken over the market, it's time to get out. Mass Japanese movement toward the U.S. market could be the trigger that first pushes the Dow up to genuinely insane levels and then causes a long-overdue--and long-term--crash. There is one other ugly problem facing our economy: the dollar. With our worldrecord trade deficits, the United States has become a debtor nation that needs to import foreign capital every year to balance its books. If the American stock market falls and investors lose faith that it will rise again quickly, many European investors are likely to take their money home. While the U.S. is nearing the end of a long expansion, Europe's economy is just starting up. Growth seems to be accelerating, in Germany, and countries like France, Italy, and Spain are also reporting good economic news. Furthermore, there is

If financial markets turn sour in the U.S., look for the rats--pardon me; our trusty NATO allies-to desert the sinking ship. A European flight from our stock market would accelerate the market's decline. This would also lead to a dollar crisis. Like the yen, the ringgit, the rupiah, and the bart, the dollar could sink to new lows as foreign capital flees the U.S. If our currency collapses in the midst of the crisis, look for a global depression on the scale of the one in the 1930s. And a major war is more than likely to follow. But enough about us. The real worries, are elsewhere--in, for example, China and Russia, two nuclear powers that had their doubts about the world system even before the global economic crisis threatened to crush them both. Next picture: China. Few Americans understand just how explosive the situation in China is. As the country undergoes the biggest economic revolution in word history, it is also in for the wildest ride in world
probably more long-term potential in European stocks now than in U.S. stocks. For twenty years, American companies have been growing leaner and meaner as management worked to unlock value and return it to shareholders. European companies are, generally speaking, at a much earlier stage in this process. history on the roller coaster of revolutionary capitalism. State-owned rust-bucket industries from Maoist times are slowly collapsing, putting heavy demands on the national treasury. Yet China's banks--which may have the worst balance sheets in the world--would go bankrupt if the state cut off subsidies to the indebted state industries. And if these industries lay off workers faster than the private economy can find them jobs, China faces mass unrest in the big cities. This is what the Chinese government fears most, and it has good reason. Already, millions of Chinese, uprooted from the rural areas where they were born, are flooding into the coastal cities, looking for work. Many of them are young men--the most volatile group in any society. And in China today, they are especially volatile. Thanks to the government's one-child policy, many Chinese families have aborted female fetuses to ensure that their one child is a boy. This preference has led to no boys being born for every 100 girls. Here's a

It's almost unthinkable that China can escape a prolonged Asian slowdown. China has also based its whole plan on the Chinese government will have to play the nationalist card, taking a tougher foreign-policy line on issues like Taiwan and whipping up public support by talking about foreign (read: American) threats m China. Alternatively, China could fall apart as it did earlier in the twentieth century, going through a period of civil war and anarchy--in a country with nuclear weapons--before a new and probably very unpleasant government establishes control.
Chinese nightmare: millions of young, poorly educated men who have no jobs and no girlfriends.

exportled growth working far into the future; with the failure of that strategy, China's economy must slow dramatically. To survive,

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Taiwan Conflict Johnson

Conflict over Taiwan will trigger a US-China nuclear war
Johnson 01 President of Japan Policy Research Institute
[Chalmers, The Nation, May 14, LN]
China is another matter. No sane figure in the Pentagon wants a war with China, and all serious US militarists know that China's minuscule nuclear capacity is not offensive but a deterrent against the overwhelming US power arrayed against it (twenty archaic Chinese warheads versus more than 7,000 US warheads). Taiwan, whose status constitutes the still incomplete last act of the Chinese civil war, remains the most dangerous place on earth. Much as the 1914 assassination of the Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo led to a war that no one wanted,

a misstep in Taiwan by any side could bring the United States and China into a conflict that neither wants. Such a war would bankrupt the United States, deeply divide Japan and probably end in a Chinese victory, given that China is the world's most populous country and would be defending itself against a foreign aggressor. More seriously, it could easily escalate into a nuclear holocaust. However, given the nationalistic challenge to China's sovereignty of any Taiwanese attempt to declare its independence formally, forward-deployed US forces on China's borders have virtually no deterrent effect.

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Taiwanese Independence Bad Hsiung

Taiwanese independence will trigger nuclear holocaust
Hsiung 01 Professor of Politics and International Law at NYU
[James, 21st Century World Order and the Asia Pacific , p. 359-360]
Admittedly, it is harmless for an analyst like Lind to be so oblivious of lessons from the past and of the reasons behind both the dogs barking and not barking. But decision-makers cannot afford such luxury. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapores Senior Minister, issued a grave warning presumably directed at all government leaders, including the United States, that

the Taiwan powder keg could ignite a conflagration that will engulf the entire region. It might even embroil the United States in a nuclear holocaust put it, Wed rather have it proven that we tried but failed [to stop it] even by force, than be accused [by our disgruntled compatriots and posterity] of not trying to stop Taiwan from going independent. Earlier, I raised the issue of stability within the U.S.-China-Japan triad, precisely with the U.S.-Japan alliance in view. Apparently, many in Japan have apprehensions about
the stability. Japanese Nobel laureate (for literature) Ohe Kenzaburo, for instance, once told a pen pal that he was fearful of the outcome of a conflict between the United States and China over

that nobody wants. Oftentimes, well-meaning analysts raise the question whether China, with its present military capability and modest defense expenditures (about U.S. $15 billion annually), can or cannot take Taiwan by force. But this is the wrong question to pose. As the late patriarch Deng Xiapoing

the question of Taiwan. Because of its alliance relationship, Japan would be embroiled in a conflict that it did not choose and that might escalate into a nuclear holocaust. From the ashes of such a nuclear conflict, he figured, some form of life may still be found in the combatant nuclear giants, China and the United States. But, Kenaburo rued, there would be absolutely nothing left in Japan or Taiwan in the conflicts wake. By now, I hope it is clear why stability in the U.S.-China-Japan triadic relationship is a sine qua non for geopolitical peace in the Asia Pacific region.

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Terrorism Alexander
Future terrorist attacks will cause extinction
Alexander 03, Director of Inter-University for Terrorism Studies
[Yonah, Washington Times , August 28, LN] bg Last week's brutal suicide bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem have once again illustrated dramatically that

the international community failed, thus far at least, to understand the magnitude and implications of the terrorist threats to the very survival of civilization itself. Even the United States and Israel have

for decades tended to regard terrorism as a mere tactical nuisance or irritant rather than a critical strategic challenge to their national security concerns. It is not surprising, therefore, that on September 11, 2001, Americans were stunned by the unprecedented tragedy of 19 al Qaeda terrorists striking a devastating blow at the center of the nation's commercial and military powers. Likewise, Israel and its citizens, despite the collapse of the Oslo Agreements of 1993 and numerous acts of terrorism triggered by the second intifada that began almost three years ago, are still "shocked" by each suicide attack at a time of intensive diplomatic efforts to revive the moribund peace process through the now revoked cease-fire arrangements [hudna]. Why are the United States and Israel, as well as scores of other countries affected by the universal nightmare of modern terrorism surprised by new terrorist "surprises"? There are many reasons, including misunderstanding of the manifold specific factors that contribute to terrorism's expansion, such as lack of a universal definition of terrorism, the religionization of politics, double standards of morality, weak punishment of terrorists, and the exploitation of the media by terrorist propaganda and psychological warfare.

Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have introduced a new scale of violence in terms of conventional and unconventional threats and impact. The internationalization and brutalization of current and future terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super Terrorism [e.g. biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber] with its serious implications concerning national, regional and global security concerns. Two myths in particular must be debunked immediately if an effective counterterrorism "best practices" strategy can be developed [e.g., strengthening international cooperation].

The first illusion is that terrorism can be greatly reduced, if not eliminated completely, provided the root causes of conflicts - political, social and economic - are addressed. The conventional illusion is that terrorism must be justified by oppressed people seeking to achieve their goals and consequently the argument advanced "freedom fighters" anywhere, "give me liberty and I will give you death," should be tolerated if not glorified. This traditional rationalization of "sacred" violence often conceals that the real purpose of terrorist groups is to gain political power through the barrel of the gun, in violation of fundamental human rights of the noncombatant segment of societies. For instance, Palestinians religious movements [e.g., Hamas, Islamic Jihad] and secular entities [such as Fatah's Tanzim and Aqsa Martyr Brigades]] wish not only to resolve national grievances [such as Jewish settlements, right of return, Jerusalem] but primarily to destroy the Jewish state. Similarly, Osama bin Laden's international network not only opposes the presence of American military in the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq, but its stated objective is to "unite funding, propaganda, training, weapons, operational command and control]

is that strong action against terrorist infrastructure [leaders, recruitment, will only increase terrorism. The argument here is that law-enforcement efforts and military retaliation inevitably will fuel more brutal acts of violent revenge. Clearly, if this perception continues to prevail, particularly in democratic societies, there is the danger it will paralyze governments and thereby encourage further terrorist attacks. In sum, past experience provides useful lessons for a realistic future strategy. The prudent application of force has been demonstrated to be an effective tool for short- and long-term deterrence of terrorism. For example, Israel's targeted killing of Mohammed Sider, the Hebron commander of the Islamic Jihad, defused a "ticking

all Muslims and establish a government that follows the rule of the Caliphs." The second myth

bomb." The assassination of Ismail Abu Shanab - a top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip who was directly responsible for several suicide bombings including the latest bus attack in Jerusalem disrupted potential terrorist operations. Similarly, the U.S. military operation in Iraq eliminated Saddam Hussein's regime as a state sponsor of terror. Thus,

it behooves those countries victimized by terrorism to understand a cardinal message communicated by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on May 13, 1940: "Victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory however long and hard the road may be: For without victory, there is no survival. "

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Unemployment Mead 94
High levels of unemployment risk nuclear war
Mead 94 Senior Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations
[Walter, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE SEMINAR AND NEWS CONFERENCE REGARDING G-7 JOBS CONFERENCE IN DETROIT, Federal News Service, Mar 11, LN]
Okay, well, as I listened to people talk this morning, I was very happy to hear that we're saying that unemployment is more than a national problem and more than a simple economic problem, that the question of mass unemployment concentrated primarily among younger people and having an inevitable consequence of falling wages and work opportunities for the general population is also, in the long run, a threat to the democratic legitimacy of Western governments. This is not simply a technocratic, economic problem that we want to adjust 2 percent here or 1 percent there. This really goes to the heart of the question of the long-term survival of a lot of the values that we have and a lot of the institutions that we care about. I'd like to add to that that unemployment is not unrelated to the question of world peace. We've had today hanging over us a couple of times mentions of hundreds of millions of people in developing countries who would like to join the advanced industrial democracies in their standards of living. We've spoken of the former communist states of Europe, all of whom are looking for a place at this table. Our modern economic system originated after the second world war with some very important insights, where people looked at

why did the world get into World War II. And a big answer was the mass unemployment of the '30s that led to fascism, that led to a climate of international confrontation, and ultimately led to war. And the idea that full employment was central to concept of building peace after the second world war. Today we tend to say that if you can get full employment at all it will follow free trade, if you -- you know, except for low interest rates and GATT there is we are talking about the viability of our democratic systems of government and we are talking about world peace when we are talking about unemployment. What is so interesting is the -- and alarming, is the enormous gap between the gravity and

essentially no Western program today for jobs. This is putting the cart before the horse in the view of the people who sort of originally designed the post-war system, where they said that free trade was actually a consequence of full employment rather than a cause of it. And I think you can still see that in that the ink is hardly dry on the Uruguay Round agreement when the United States and Japan are firing opening volleys in a trade war. So

intractability of the problem and the very small scale measures being proposed to deal with it. I suspect that we will see out of this job conference a very few recommendations coming forward on improving the efficiency of labor, sort of marginal improvements, and there will be essentially a throwing up of the hands in despair about this thing. All of us have spoken more or less this morning about the need for some kind of G-7 cooperation, international cooperation here. We've been talking about this for a long time, really since the Bretton Woods system broke down in the early 1970s. There have been a whole series of efforts to create some kind of international economic cooperation among the leading economies, and they have generally ended either in disaster or in platitude -- sometimes in both. I think there is a reason for this; the reason is the fallacy of composition, a fallacy of composition similar to the one that Keynes looked at, talking about how a nation can save itself into poverty, that when times are bad what makes sense for the individual household or firm is to cut back on expenses, to draw in your horns; if you're a firm to defray any new investments, and so on. This exacerbates the national problem as people stop consuming and investing. In the same way, when you have a difficult global economic climate, it makes sense for each country to try to bolster up its own finances, its own balance of trade. We've seen plenty of competitive devaluation. Indeed, here we are sitting in the international capital of competitive devaluation, widely considered in the '30s to be the most evil of all protectionist schemes, today endorsed and praised to the skies by people who enjoy reputations, even among financial journalists, if I can say so, as free traders. Competitive devaluation is a tariff, it is an attack on free trade. And yet somehow today this has become a normal part of international economic planning. What is needed? Just as Keynes argued that you needed a macroeconomic policy agency looking at what is good for the entire national economy, you also need to have agencies in the world economy, in the global economy, whose mandate is for the health of the overall global economy. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the EBRD, the Inter-American Development Bank can all, I think, play a constructive role in this, although they need to have somewhat larger resources and to take a broader view of their mandates in some cases. But I think we need to clearly get beyond this notion of ever six months finance ministers sit down and issue a platitudinous communique saying, you know, basically all bad things should be reduced and all good things should be increased, and then we all go home. If we can't provide institutional, ongoing agencies for international cooperation, then we might as well just write the whole thing off. People have spoken about ideas like a global central bank. I would simply like to suggest here, rather than prescribing a lot of things, that there are ways in which a more demand-oriented, expansionary-oriented program can also be a more market-driven program and can reduce trade tensions as well as employment tensions among advanced countries. To give you just a quick example, that instead of the advanced countries spending their time squabbling with each other over agricultural subsidies, it might be interesting to look at consumption subsidies for developing countries for hungry people, underfed people in the developing world. The same money now spent, essentially wasted, on agricultural subsidies for producers, if pumped onto the consumption side of the equation could reduce regulation, free up agricultural trade, and even potentially raise incomes of farmers in developed and developing countries. There are ways in which institutions with a global mandate and whose basic charter is concern for the health and growth of

the overall global economic system can relieve us of some of our problems and address even some of our particularly pressing political problems, such as the chaos and desperation that is threatening to turn Eastern Europe into an arena of, God forbid, nuclear war, but to make Yugoslavia, to make the Bosnian mess look like nothing, like an English soccer

riot.

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US Economic Collapse Mead 04

US economic collapse will ensure a US-China war
Mead 04 Senior Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations
[Walter Russell, America's STICKY Power, Foreign Policy, Mar/Apr, Proquest]
Similarly, in the last 60 years, as foreigners have acquired a greater value in the United States-government and private bonds, direct and portfolio private investments-more and more of them have acquired an interest in maintaining the strength of the U.S.-led system.

A collapse of the U.S. economy and the ruin of the dollar would do more than dent the prosperity of the United States. Without their best customer, countries including China and Japan would fall into depressions. The financial strength of every country would be severely shaken should the United States collapse. Under those circumstances, debt becomes a strength, not a weakness, and other countries fear to

break with the United States because they need its market and own its securities. Of course, pressed too far, a large national debt can turn from a source of strength to a crippling liability, and

a collapsing U.S. economy would inflict enormous, unacceptable damage on the rest of the world. That is sticky power with a vengeance. The United States' global economic might is therefore not simply, to use Nye's formulations, hard power that compels others or soft power that attracts the rest of the world. Certainly, the U.S. economic system provides the United States with the prosperity needed to underwrite its security strategy, but it also encourages other countries to accept U.S. leadership. U.S. economic might is sticky power. How will sticky power help the United States address today's challenges? One
the United States must continue to justify other countries' faith by maintaining its long-term record of meeting its financial obligations. But, like Samson in the temple of the Philistines, pressing need is to ensure that Iraq's econome reconstruction integrates the nation more firmly in the global economy. Countries with open economies develop powerful trade-oriented businesses; the leaders of these businesses can promote economic policies that respect property rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Such leaders also lobby governments to avoid the isolation that characterized Iraq and Libya under economic sanctions. And looking beyond Iraq, the allure of access to Western capital and global markets is one of the few forces protecting the

China's rise to global prominence will offer a key test case for sticky power. As China develops economically, it should gain wealth that could support a military rivaling that of the United States; China is also gaining political influence in the world. Some analysts in both China and the United States believe that the laws of history mean that Chinese power will someday clash with the reigning U.S. power. Sticky power offers a way out. China benefits from participating in the U.S. economic system and integrating itself into the global economy. Between 1970 and 2003, China's gross domestic product grew from an estimated $106 billion to more than $1.3 trillion. By 2003, an estimated $450 billion of foreign money had flowed into the Chinese economy. Moreover, China is becoming increasingly dependent on both imports and exports to keep its economy (and its military machine) going. Hostilities between the United States and China would cripple China's industry, and cut off supplies of oil and other key
rule of law from even further erosion in Russia. commodities. Sticky power works both ways, though. If China cannot afford war with the United States, the United States will have an increasingly hard time breaking off commercial relations with China.

In an era of weapons of m ass destruction, this mutual dependence is probably good for both sides. Sticky power did not prevent World War I, but economic interdependence runs deeper now; as a result, the "inevitable" U.S.-Chinese conflict is less likely to occur.

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US Economic Collapse Mead 98

US economic crisis will spiral into a global depression causing a world war and nuclear conflict in China
Mead 98, Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at Council on Foreign Relations
[Walter Russell, Rule 1: Dont Panic. Rule 2: Panic first. Esquire, Oct, ProQuest]

If there were an Economics Channel as there is a Weather Channel, frenetic newscasters would be interrupting regular programming right now to give us hourly updates on something they would be economic storms is as hard to predict as the course of a hurricane. Still, this storm already has a track record, and it's pretty damned chilling. If, God forbid, it reach es the United States, watch out. In a blow like this, stock prices could easily fall by two thirds--that's 6,000 points on the Dow--and it could take stocks a decade or more to recover. Many investors could be destroyed; mass liquidation of mutual funds in a panic could wipe out some funds entirely. The carnage among "growth" funds and such high-flying sectors as Internet and technology companies would be appalling. In a real meltdown, the damage wouldn't be limited to the financial markets. Housing prices would plummet, leaving millions of highly leveraged home and apartment owners sitting on mortgages that are worth far more than their homes. Millions of people would lose their jobs, and tens of millions more would watch their wages drop as employers frantically tried to cut back their payrolls. Many cities would face bankruptcy as their tax revenues collapsed. All these things and more have already happened in many countries around the world. Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia,
The global economic crisis of 1997-98 is indeed a historic event. calling the storm of the century, an economic cataclysm as big as or bigger than the Great Depression of the thirties. The behavior of South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, South Africa--stock markets in these countries have fallen by as much as 90 percent, unemployment rates are exploding, and countless people face the loss of their businesses, jobs, and homes. Even starvation. Short of a massive asteroid strike from outer space, no natural disaster could destroy this much wealth or plunge this many people into misery. And more than a year after the crisis began, not one country where it has struck shows any signs of recovery. With Japan, the world's secondlargest economy, and Russia, its second-largest nuclear power, firmly in its grip, the economic crisis now sweeping the planet may be the most important event--and the most dangerous--since the Second World War. This isn't just an economic meltdown in a few emerging markets. It's

strength of the international political system and test the the country that widely and imprudently bills itself as "the only global superpower." Well, the only global superpower has recently made some very stupid mistakes. We put our confidence in two basic ideas that turned out to be wrong. The first is that rapid deregulation of the international financial system would promote growth without creating dangerous financial crises. The second idea is that the export-oriented development model pioneered by Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea would keep working forever. In fact, that economic strategy hit a wall ten years ago, and Japan's economy hasn't grown since. Now the problems have spread to the rest of Asia, halting the tigers in their tracks. Under

a full-fledged crisis of the international economic system, one that could plunge the entire world into a major depression. More than that, it could challenge the leadership of the U S

presidents Bush and Clinton, nited tates has been the leading advocate of deregulating the global economy and reducing the barriers to investment and trade. The United States was quick to take credit when the system was working; now that it could be melting down, the U.S. is sure to be stuck with the blame. All across Russia and Asia, hundreds of millions of people are blaming their economic woes on devious American or Jewish plots. Having watched this situation develop, I've got to admit, my feelings are mixed. I'm frightened by what may lie ahead, heartsick over the suffering of tens of millions of people who have already been forced back into poverty--and possibly starvation--by this economic crisis, and hopeful that the various International Monetary Fund plans and Japanese economic initiatives will solve the problem before the world economy goes down the tubes. But there's another part of me that is awestruck. I am astonished that what we thought was so substantial has turned out to be so flimsy I feel a little like a meteorologist in hurricane season, watching with fascination and dread as a nightmare assembles itself. It all began as a small cloud no bigger than a man's hand, quietly, the economic equivalent of a butterfly's wings in Beijing. There was a spot of trouble about the Thai baht--in itself, one of the world's more insignificant currencies. Pooh, pooh, said the experts as the rumors swirled. Thailand's a tiger: high savings rate, rapid economic growth, strong property market, strong banking sector. No problem, said the World Bank. Asia's cool, and Thailand's cool. The currency speculators thought differently. The baht had been linked to the dollar for more than a decade. Now that link looked weak. At 24 baht to the dollar, Thai exports looked expensive compared with products from places like China and Indonesia. Why not, a few speculators thought, bet against the baht for a while and see what happens? What happened next was spectacular. The Thai central bank spent billions of dollars in a hopeless effort to defend its currency. By July of last year, the baht had fallen below 32 to the dollar--and it was taking the Thai economy down with it. I visited Bangkok soon after the baht crash, and parts of the city already looked like a ghost town. Work had stopped on dozens of skyscrapers; cranes were beginning to rust, and plastic sheeting was blowing off the sides of half-finished buildings. I checked out one of Bangkok's newest and most exclusive shopping malls, filled with Gucci and Versace vendors for the new generation of Thai yuppies. A piano player in a booth over the escalators put out bad late-Elvis music as I cruised around the place. It looked like the sale of the century: Signs everywhere advertised 70 percent discounts. But nobody except me and the piano player was there to look at them. The mall was empty. The economists and the Asia experts were quick to reassure the world that the problem was limited to Thailand. Then a few rumors began to circulate about Malaysia. Ridiculous! the experts chorused together. Malaysia's economy wasn't weak like Thailand's, the experts pointed out. Malaysia wasn't corrupt, and the people were better educated. They were still giving speeches about how Malaysia would never go down when crash! the Malaysian ringgit joined the Thai bait on the ash heap of history. Malaysia's prime minister knew what to do: He blamed the Jews. They were jealous, it seems, of predominantly Muslim Malaysia's success. The next round of rumors concerned Indonesia. Once again, the pundits, diplomats,"and business leaders rallied as one. Too bad about the ringgit, said the experts. And sorry we were wrong about the. bait. But now we understand. Malaysia had an erratic, some would say megalomaniacal prime minister, too many expensive prestige projects, too much government interference with the credit system. And, of course, Thailand was more crooked than a Little Rock law firm. But Indonesia wasn't like that. Yes, there was corruption and injustice, but at least the Indonesian government--competent, thoughtful, focused on the economic fundamentals--got the macroeconomic policy right. Indonesia was no Thailand or Malaysia, they said. Let the bait and the ringgit sink to new lows; the rupiah was a stable currency supported by a sound economy. Then, of course, the rupiah crashed, going from about 2,500 to the dollar when I visited in August 1997 to as low as 16,000 in January. Crash! Bang! Thump! And just like that, the rupiah took the Indonesian government with it. This time, the blame was on the Chinese rather than the Jews, and panicky mobs rioted through the streets of Indonesia's cities, burning, looting, and raping. The Chinese minority--3 percent of the population controlling an estimated 70 percent of the economy--quickly moved to get as much money as possible out of the country, weakening the rupiah even further and making economic recovery virtually impossible. After Indonesia, the line changed. Southeast Asia, the experts suddenly discovered, had never really been much of an economic success. Those years when the World Bank, the IMF, and the economics profession joined hands to sing hymns of praise to Southeast Asian governments and their solid economic policies were forgotten immediately. Southeast Asia, we now suddenly discovered, was full of paper tigers. Water buffaloes with racing stripes. Bad governments, uneducated people, unsophisticated technological bases, poorly functioning financial markets. The crisis was therefore contained; there was no danger that it could spread from such tiny, badly managed economies to bigger, more important, and better-managed ones up north. Like, for example, South Korea, thank God. Crash! went the Korean won. I was there in January of this year; the won was in the toilet, the IMF was in charge of the economy, the demonstrators were in the streets, and I saw signs in Seoul store windows advertising something called an "IMF Sale": again, 70 percent off. Singapore, they then reassured us, was well managed. Crash! said the Singapore dollar. Hong Kong was much more dynamic than all those state-planned economies, they said. Crash/went Hong Kong's stock market. Japan's been a little sluggish, but it is fundamentally sound, chorused the experts; japan's got the largest reserves in the world. Crash! answered the yen. It was Lyndon Johnson's old nightmare: one Asian domino toppling after another--only it wasn't Communists pushing the dominoes over but investors. As the dominoes went down, the crisis shifted to the "Send in the Clowns" phase. Teams of IMF "experts" rushed into the capital cities to confer with political and business leaders. They then emerged for photo ops, brandishing what they said were recovery plans and multibillion-dollar bailouts. Sometimes within weeks, but certainly within months, they came crawling back. Sorry, the first bailout plan wasn't big enough, and the recovery plan isn't working. A few billion more, a few more tweaks to the plan, and then another photo op, followed in due course by new revelations that the bailout and the plan hadn't quite taken hold yet. The most significant thing that the world's leaders didn't understand is that the fabled Asian model of development wasn't all it was cracked up to be. When you are the first export-oriented economy in the world, you are competing with high-cost, inefficient Western producers. Your cheap workers and low taxes allow you to make goods at much less cost than the Germans and the Americans do; therefore, you can slightly underprice the competition and make tons of money. But as more countries jump on the bandwagon, the wagon slows under all the weight. The east-Asian countries began to compete not so much with the Germans and the Americans as with one another. The ultimate result: regional-recession. This is a development of historic importance. It means that Asia hasn't found the silver bullet to kill underdevelopment in a single generation, as everybody thought. The total cost of the crisis is impossible to estimate. But looking at the stock-market values and estimating the fall in property prices, the lost output, and the diminished purchasing power, total losses so far in Asia alone look like something on the order of $2 trillion and counting. Worse still, the crisis has spread beyond Asia. Russia stands on the brink of an economic abyss. Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and even Chile look ill. And a currency collapse in South Africa threatens to undermine the fragile democracy and hopes for prosperity throughout the region. Meanwhile, nobody is running this show. The people who should be in charge--the IMF, the U.S. Treasury, the World Bank--have been wrong, wrong, wrong. They didn't see the crisis coming. Once it started to develop, they were wrong about how far it would spread. As it spread, they were wrong about how bad it would be. And their efforts to fix the problem--by far the largest and most expensive financial bailout in world history--have so far been miserable failures. To date, the IMF alone has pumped tens of billions into the crisis and has exactly nothing to show for it. Throw in the World Bank, relief agencies, and various other governments from around the world, and we are looking, so far, at a total of something like $140 billion of good money thrown after bad since July 1997. Clearly, the IMF's program for Asia hasn't worked. If the economic crisis were a wildfire, it would be out of control. The firefighters don't have the equipment or the mar, power to contain it. Nineteen twenty-eight was a very good year. The American stock market was setting one record after another; millions of people who had never owned stocks were jumping into the market. As economic growth without inflation plowed on year after year, economists demonstrated that technology-driven increases in productivity had brought the economy into a "new era," one in which the wicked old business cycle, with its horrific busts and stock-market crashes, was a thing of the past. Prosperity wasn't limited to the United States. The international debt problem that had so vexed the earlier years of the decade had been solved. German inflation was over, and as prosperity swept through Europe, the ominous figure of Adolf Hitler had faded into the background. Democracy was putting down roots in Germany and the emerging markets of Eastern Europe. Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were modernizing their economies and political systems. With the creation of the "Little Entente," the Western security system was pushed eastward to roughly the boundaries envisioned this year with the expansion of NATO. The Baltic republics, freed from their long domination by Russia, were looking westward. Even perpetually unhappy Russia was looking better than usual. The privations and terroristic dictatorship of the civil-war era had settled down. Following Lenin's death, a new leadership had extended the New Economic Policy, allowing the return of independent business and foreign investment to Russia. There was a political and cultural thaw as well; it seemed to many people that Russia was abandoning its revolutionary dreams and was on its way back into the family of nations. Throughout the world, the same happy combination of increased prosperity and increased democracy seemed to be leading to an era of peace and economic integration. Foreign investment in China was bringing new technology and new hope to that ancient land. Japanese foreign policy was linked firmly to the Western Allies; the United States, Britain, and Japan were working together to maintain peace and stability in the Pacific. In Latin America, economic reform had strengthened democratic governments in many countries. Mexico's long era of revolutionary turbulence was over. Democratic governments in Argentina and Brazil were bringing those nations into the heart of the global economy. The international arms race was over. American diplomacy had led the way to radical international naval disarmament. The new World Court promised to impose justice on aggressors and give nations an alternative to war. In August 1928, diplomats from all over the world assembled in Paris to sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war forever. Five years later, it was all over. As the United States staggered through the worst depression in its history, the world economy went down the toilet, taking the world's political system with it. Stalin was firmly in power in Russia; Hitler had taken over Germany. In Japan, the militarists had emerged from obscurity to drive the peaceloving liberals from power. Dictatorships reigned across Eastern Europe and in Latin America as the world headed inexorably toward the most terrible war in its history. The Great Depression was simply the longest and worst in a long succession of economic panics and crashes that goes back as far as capitalism does. The Dutch tulip craze, the Mississippi Bubble in France, the South Sea Bubble in Britain, the panics of 1837, 1857, 1873, 1890, 1907--crises like these were recognized as normal, recurring aspects of the business cycle. But the Great Depression was too much. Every bank in the United States was forced to close in 1933; one out of every four workers lost his job; millions of people lost every penny they had saved through lifetimes of hard work. And on top of all that--World War II. After the. war, it was necessary to rebuild the international financial system from scratch, and the architects of the system believed that the price of regulation--slower growth, economic inefficiency--was worth paying. Anything to prevent another depression and to reduce the risk of new wars. The world economy, American officials and international bankers decided, should act more like a school bus and less like a sports car, and they developed a comprehensive regime of regulations designed to keep the global economy moving smoothly, if not always rapidly, ahead. But as the memory of the Depression gradually faded and as some of the controls developed after World War II became increasingly cumbersome, a shift in economic opinion octroi. Business leaders, economists, and politicians started to worry less about how safe the car was and focused on making it go faster. A largely unregulated international financial market was reborn in the late sixties, and gradually the entire system of capital controls, fixed currency rates, and other international regulations faded away. This process was driven less by economic philosophy than by greed. Private firms thought they could chase profits more efficiently if they weren't hampered by regulations and controls. Amazingly, as the regulations came off, we began, once again, to experience the kind of turmoil in capital markets that had been common before the thirties. The Third World debt crisis of the early eighties, the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis in the middle of the decade, the collapse of the Japanese bubble economy in 1990, the Mexican peso crisis of 1994, the bankruptcy of England's Barings Bank in 1995, and now the Asian meltdown are all examples of the kind of financial-market crash that was once common. While U.S. stocks have mostly gone up, the 500-point Dow crashes of 1987 and 1997 and the 300-point drop of early August show that our stocks, too, have become more volatile with the deregulation of financial markets. The faster capitalism goes, the more dangerous it gets. Yet ever since the end of the cold war, the United States has acted as if its agenda--peace and prosperity at home and abroad--were something simple and easy to create. Demolish a few made barriers here, open up a few stock markets to foreign investment there, prune back some budget deficits, and throw in a generous helping of deregulation. In other words, disable the brakes, grease the mack, jazz up the power supply, rip out the guardrails, and fire the safety inspector. For twenty-five years, the United States has been using its international influence to make the global economic system more and more like the laissez-faire free-rnarket system of the twenties, and now we've got what we wanted: a system that is free to grow rapidly. And--surprise, surprise--free to crash and bum. Worse still, we have an economic and political leadership that knows nothing about the dynamite with which it so ignorantly plays. Even as the Asian economy blows up under its feet, our leadership has been slow to realize the full nature of the political risks that exist. There are several billion people in Asia. Some of them know a great deal about technologies that would be useful in war. Until a few months ago, most of them expected to keep getting rapidly richer. Now the overwhelming majority face huge economic losses, and for most of them, hope is quickly disappearing. Anger will take its place, and it is all too likely that political leaders in Asia will seek to direct that anger outward-at the United States and its economic allies, who, after all, shaped the international economic system that produced this collapse. "The United States brought this crisis about," a Thai journalist told me last summer, "because it was afraid that Asia was growing too fast and would leave the United States behind." It does not,. frankly, take a rocket scientist to predict that this will all end in tears. Despite the horrors of the crisis and the danger ahead, one can take a perverse pleasure in the discomfiture of the Western ecoomic leadership. Ever since 'the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western economists and politicians have been too smug for words. Communism was dead; even the mild forms of socialism practiced in Western Europe looked pretty sickly. The secret to growth was simple: Get out of the way. If government would just let business get on with business, economies would grow and markets would boom. This wasn't just the secret to prosperity; it was the secret to history, too. Prosperity leads to democracy; democracy leads to peace. That has been the mantra of the American government since the end of the col&war. Both George Bush and Bill Clinton built their foreign policies around this simple and appealing set of ideas. Francis Fukuyama summed it up in his famous 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man. History was over, said Fukuyama, and America had won. There won't be any more world-wrenching depressions, any more bitter struggles between great ideologies; the chief activity of the twenty-first century will be shopping. I have always thought this was idiotic stuff,, and I've been honestly terrified to see the American political elite betting the ranch on it. Somehow, these people have gotten the idea in their heads that capitalism is safe, sane, and predictable. Even a quick look at history shows that that isn't true. Ever since capitalism began to form in early modern Europe, the Western world has seen one terrible convulsion after another: the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, the Napoleonic Wars, 1848 and the rise of Marxism, the Civil War in the United States, the Commune in Paris, World War I, the collapse of the great European empires, the rise of communism and fascism, World War II... That's not a quiet ride. A capitalist world isn't a rest home for lazy politicians and boneheaded social scientists. It's an exhilarating place where new technologies and new industries spring up overnight, new ideas sweep across the world, and individuals have the chance to remake the world and ride the cutting edge of change. But it's also a place of great, painful destruction. The old manufacturing economy in America had to die so that the new service economy could-be born. That messed up millions of lives: Fifty-year-old laid-off steelworkers in Pittsburgh couldn't start life anew as Web-site designers. Family farming as a way of life had to largely die out so that efficient agribusinesses could feed our enormous population with cheap food. Banking deregulation led to the S&L crisis. Downsizing restructured American corporations--and trashed American lives--even as new management techniques enhanced profitability. These economic disruptions are really peas under a mattress compared with the Great Depression and the upheaval in Asia today. But still, these events transformed American politics, bringing us Ronald Reagan and the destruction of the New Deal coalition. The economic crisis of 1997-98 will similarly reshape our future. Perhaps you would be Interested in seeing some pictures of how the world could look as the crisis moves on. Have a seat. There are three that I'd like to show you. The first picture is called American Recession. The long period of American economic expansion is probably over As Asians buy fewer U.S. goods and sell their own goods here for less and less,,American companies will have a harder and harder time making money. This puts pressure on earnings. As late as this summer, the stock prices of American companies assumed double-digit earnings growth as far as the eye could see; as people lose faith in that earnings story, stock prices will continue to trend lower. Under certain circumstances, that downward trend could accelerate into a crash. This probably won't happen right away. In fact, the Asian crisis could give the old bull one more run if Japanese capital flees that country's troubled banks and stock markets to seek refuge in the United States. We are presently well into the Greater Fool era of the bull market. That is, everybody knows that most stocks today are simply not worth the high prices they are fetching, but people continue to buy them. Not because they think that corporate earnings will reach the astronomical levels necessary to justify these stellar stock prices, but because you can always count on a bigger fool than you appearing in the market who will be willing to pay even more for those overvalued stocks than you just did. "Buy high, sell low" could be the Japanese national motto. And Japanese investors are perhaps the only people in the world today who would be willing to bring massive amounts of new capital into America's stock market. When that happens, watch out: Once the greatest fool of all has taken over the market, it's time to get out. Mass Japanese movement toward the U.S. market could be the trigger that first pushes the Dow up to genuinely insane levels and then causes a long-overdue--and long-term--crash. There is one other ugly problem facing our economy: the dollar. With our worldrecord trade deficits, the United States has become a debtor nation that needs to import foreign capital every year to balance its books. If the American stock market falls and investors lose faith that it will rise again quickly, many European investors are likely to take their money home. While the U.S. is nearing the end of a long expansion, Europe's economy is just starting up. Growth seems to be accelerating, in Germany, and countries like France, Italy, and Spain are also reporting good economic news. Furthermore, there is probably more long-term potential in European stocks now than in U.S. stocks. For twenty years, American companies have been growing leaner and

If financial markets turn sour in the U.S., look for the rats--pardon me; our trusty NATO allies-to desert the sinking ship. A European flight from our stock market would accelerate the market's decline. This would also lead to a dollar crisis. Like the yen, the ringgit, the rupiah, and the bart, the dollar could sink to new lows as foreign capital flees the U.S. If our currency collapses in the midst of the crisis, look for a global depression on the scale of the one in the 1930s. And a major war is more than likely to follow. But enough about us. The real worries, are elsewhere--in, for example, China and Russia, two nuclear powers that had their doubts about the world system even before the global economic crisis threatened to crush them both. Next picture: China. Few Americans
meaner as management worked to unlock value and return it to shareholders. European companies are, generally speaking, at a much earlier stage in this process. understand just how explosive the situation in China is. As the country undergoes the biggest economic revolution in word history, it is also in for the wildest ride in world history on the roller coaster of revolutionary capitalism. State-owned rust-bucket industries from Maoist times are slowly collapsing, putting heavy demands on the national treasury. Yet China's banks--which may have the worst balance sheets in the world--would go bankrupt if the state cut off subsidies to the indebted state industries. And if these industries lay off workers faster than the private economy can find them jobs, China faces mass unrest in the big cities. This is what the Chinese government fears most, and it has good reason. Already, millions of Chinese, uprooted from the rural areas where they were born, are flooding into the coastal cities, looking for work. Many of them are young men--the most volatile group in any society. And in China today, they are especially volatile. Thanks to the government's one-

It's almost unthinkable that China can escape a prolonged Asian slowdown. China has also based its whole plan on exportled growth working far into the future; with the failure of that strategy, China's economy must slow dramatically. To survive, the Chinese government will have to play the nationalist card, taking a tougher foreign-policy line on issues like Taiwan and whipping up public support by talking about foreign (read: American) threats m China. Alternatively, China could fall apart as it did earlier in the twentieth century, going through a period of civil war and anarchy--in a country with nuclear weapons--before a new and probably very unpleasant government establishes control.
child policy, many Chinese families have aborted female fetuses to ensure that their one child is a boy. This preference has led to no boys being born for every 100 girls. Here's a Chinese nightmare: millions of young, poorly educated men who have no jobs and no girlfriends.

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US key to Global Economy Mead 04

US economic collapse will destroy the global economy
Mead 04 Senior Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations
[Walter Russell, America's STICKY Power, Foreign Policy, Mar/Apr, Proquest]
Similarly, in the last 60 years, as foreigners have acquired a greater value in the United States-government and private bonds, direct and portfolio private investments-more and more of them have acquired an interest in maintaining the strength of the U.S.-led system.

A collapse of the U.S. economy and the ruin of the dollar would do more than dent the prosperity of the United States. Without their best customer, countries including China and Japan would fall into depressions. The financial strength of every country would be severely shaken should the United States collapse. Under those circumstances, debt becomes a strength, not a weakness, and other a collapsing U.S. economy would inflict enormous, unacceptable damage on the rest of the world. That is sticky power with a

countries fear to break with the United States because they need its market and own its securities. Of course, pressed too far, a large national debt can turn from a source of strength to a crippling liability, and the United States must continue to justify other countries' faith by maintaining its long-term record of meeting its financial obligations. But, like Samson in the temple of the Philistines, vengeance.

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US-China War Straits Times

US-China war will go nuclear and destroy the planet
Straits Times 00
[Regional Fallout: No one gains in war over Taiwan, Jun 25, LN]

a full-scale war between the US and China. If Washington were to conclude that splitting China would embroil other countries far and near and -- horror of horrors -- raise the possibility of a nuclear war. Beijing has already told the US and Japan privately that it considers any country providing bases and logistics support to any US forces attacking China as belligerent parties open to its retaliation. In the region, this means South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and, to a lesser extent, Singapore. If China were to retaliate, east Asia will be set on fire. And the conflagration may not end there as opportunistic powers elsewhere may try to overturn the existing world order. With the US distracted, Russia may seek to redefine Europe's political landscape. The balance of power in the Middle East may be similarly upset by the likes of Iraq. In south Asia, hostilities between India and Pakistan, each armed with its own nuclear arsenal, could enter a new and dangerous phase. Will a full-scale Sino-US war lead to a nuclear war?
THE high-intensity scenario postulates a cross-strait war escalating into would better serve its national interests, then a full-scale war becomes unavoidable. Conflict on such a scale According to General Matthew Ridgeway, commander of the US Eighth Army which fought against the Chinese in the Korean War, the US had at the time thought of using nuclear weapons against China to save the US from military defeat. In his book The Korean War, a personal account of the military and political aspects of the conflict and its implications on future US foreign policy, Gen Ridgeway said that US was confronted with two choices in Korea -- truce or a broadened war, which could have led to the use of nuclear weapons. If the US had to resort to nuclear weaponry to defeat China long before the latter acquired a similar capability,

there is little hope of winning a war against China 50 years later, short of using nuclear weapons. The US estimates that China possesses about 20 nuclear warheads that can destroy major American cities. Beijing also seems prepared to go for the nuclear option. A Chinese military officer disclosed recently that Beijing was considering a review of its "non first use" principle regarding

nuclear weapons. Major-General Pan Zhangqiang, president of the military-funded Institute for Strategic Studies, told a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington that although the government still abided by that principle, there were strong pressures from the military to drop it. He said

military leaders considered the use of nuclear weapons mandatory if the country risked dismemberment as a result of foreign intervention. Gen Ridgeway said that should that come to pass, we would see the destruction of civilisation. There would be no victors in such a war. While the prospect of a nuclear Armaggedon over Taiwan might seem inconceivable, it cannot be ruled out entirely, for China puts sovereignty above everything else.

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US-Russia Relations Newsweek

US-Russian relations are essential to prevent a Russia-China nuclear war
Newsweek 95
[Michael Elliott, Why Russia still matters to America, May 15, LN]

"Russia," says Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, "is a big country." That it is; lop off the newly independent states born within the old Soviet husk and you've still got a lot left -- a highly educated work force sitting on top of some of the globe's most valuable resources. True, much of that vast territory has an awful climate (climate matters-for different reasons than Russia's, it explains why Australia will never be a great power). But unlike India and China, two other "giant" states, Russia will be able to husband its vast resources without the additional strain of feeding -- and employing-more than a billion souls. It also, of course, is the only country that can launch a devastating nuclear attack on the United States. That kind of power demands respect. And sensitive handling. Stephen Sestanovich, head Russia watcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, argues that present U.S. policy is geared too much to "dismantling Russian military might" -- a policy that, since it breeds Russian resentment of Western meddling, is self-defeating. "We have to reorient Russian power," says Sestanovich, "not eliminate it. Because we can't eliminate it." Indeed, Washington should prefer a strong Russia. A Russia so weak, for example, that it could not resist a Chinese land grab of its Far East without resorting to nuclear weapons is a 21st-century nightmare. All this implies a close U.S. -Russian relationship stretching into the future. American officials say it will be a "pragmatic" one, recognizing that Russian and U.S. national interests will sometimes collide. The danger, for the United States, is that a pragmatic relationship could be dominated by security issues. In Western Europe, some futurists say that in the coming decades Russia will talk to the United States about nuclear weapons but to the European Union about everything else-trade, economic development and the rest. Bullish forecasts: Talbott insists that won't happen. America has good reasons for wanting a relationship with Russia based on more than security. For Russia may one day be very rich, and flit is, American investors and exporters will want to share in its wealth. The last month has seen a rash of bullish forecasts on Russian economic growth. (Though be warned: in previous years such optimism has not lasted the fall. If you lived in Moscow, you'd think May was nice, too.)

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US-Russian Nuclear War Caldicott

US-Russian nuclear war ensures planetary extinction
Caldicott 02, Founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility
[Helen, The new nuclear danger, p. 7-12]

If launched from Russia, nuclear weapons would explode over American cities thirty minutes after takeoff. (China's twenty missiles are liquidfueled, not solid-fueled. They take many hours to fuel and could not be used in a surprise attack, but they would produce similar damage if launched. Other nuclear-armed nations, such as India

During these thirty minutes, the U.S. early-warning infrared satellite detectors signal the attack to the strategic air command in Colorado. They in turn notify the president, who has approximately three minutes to decide whether or not to launch a counterattack. In the counterforce scenario the US. government currently embraces, he does [the U.S.] launch[es], the missiles pass mid-space, and the whole operation is over within one hour. Landing at 20 times the speed of sound, nuclear
and Pakistan, do not have the missile technology to attack the U.S.) It is assumed that most cities with a population over 100,000 people are targeted by Russia. weapons explode over cities, with heat equal to that inside the center of the sun. There is practically no warning, except the emergency broadcast system on radio or TV, which gives the public only minutes to reach the nearest fallout shelter, assuming there is one. There is no time to collect children or immediate family members. The bomb, or bombs-because

most major

gouge out craters 200 feet deep and 1000 feet in diameter if they explode at ground level. Most, however, are programmed to produce an air burst, which increases the diameter of destruction, but creates a shallower crater. Half a mile from the epicenter all buildings will be destroyed, and at 1.7 miles only reinforced concrete buildings will remain. At 2.7 miles bare skeletons of buildings still stand, single-family residences have disappeared, 50 percent are dead and 40 percent severely injured.' Bricks and mortar are converted to missiles traveling at hundreds of miles an hour. Bodies have been sucked out of buildings and converted to missiles themselves, flying through the air at loo miles per hour. Severe overpressures (pressure many times greater than normal atmospheric have popcorned windows, producing millions of shards of flying glass, causing decapitations and shocking lacerations. Overpressures have also entered the nose, mouth, and ears, inducing rupture of lungs and rupture of the tympanic membranes or eardrums. Most people will suffer severe burns. In Hiroshima, which was devastated by a very small bomb-13 kilotons compared to the current iooo kilotons-a child actually disappeared, vaporized, leaving his shadow on the concrete pavement behind him. A mother was running, holding her baby, and both she and the baby were converted to a charcoal statue. The heat will be so intense that dry objects-furniture, clothes, and dry wood-will spontaneously ignite. Humans will become walking, flaming torches. Forty or fifty miles from the explosion people will instantly be blinded from retinal burns if they glance at the flash.

cities will be hit with more than one explosion-will

Huge firestorms will engulf thousands of square miles, fanned by winds from the explosion that transiently exceed 1000 miles

per hour. People in fallout shelters will be asphyxiated as fire sucks oxygen from the shelters. (This happened in Hamburg after the Allied bombing in WWII when temperatures within the shelters, caused by conventional bombs, reached 1472 degrees Fahrenheit.)" Most of the city and its people will be converted to radioactive dust shot up in the mushroom cloud. The area of lethal fallout from this cloud will depend upon the prevailing wind and weather conditions; it could cover thousands of square miles. Doses of 5000 rads (a rad is a measure of radiation dose) or more experienced by people close to the explosion-if they are still aliv-will produce acute encephalopathic syndrome. The cells of the brain will become so damaged that they would swell. Because the brain is enclosed in a fixed bony space, there is no room for swelling, so the pressure inside the skull rises, inducing symptoms of excitability, acute nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, severe headache, and seizures, followed by coma and death within twenty-four hours. A lower dose of 1000 rads causes death from gastrointestinal symptoms. The lining cells of the gut die, as do the cells in the bone marrow that fight infection and that cause blood clotting. Mouth ulcers, loss of appetite, severe colicky abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea occur within seven to fourteen days. Death follows severe fluid loss, infection, hemorrhage, and starvation. At 450 rads, 50 percent of the population dies. Hair drops out, vomiting and bloody diarrhea occurs, accompanied by bleeding under the skin and from the gums. Death occurs from internal hemorrhage, generalized septicemia, and infection. Severe trauma and injuries exacerbate the fallout symptoms, so patients die more readily from lower doses of radiation. Infants, children, and old people are more sensitive to radiation than healthy adults. Within bombed areas, fatalities will occur from a combination of trauma, burns, radiation sickness, and starvation. There will be virtually no medical care, even for the relief of pain, because most physicians work within The United States owns 103 nuclear power plants, plus many other dangerous radioactive facilities related to past activities of the cold war. A 1000kiloton bomb (1 megaton) landing on a standard iooo megawatt reactor and its cooling pools, which contain intensely radioactive spent nuclear fuel, would permanently contaminate an .' area the size of western Germany3 The International Atomic Energy Agency now considers these facilities to be attractive terrorist targets, ' post-September 11,2001. Millions

of decaying bodies-human and animal alike-will rot, infected with viruses and bacteria that will mutate in the radioactive-environment to become more lethal. Trillions of insects, naturally ' resistant to radiation-flies, fleas, cockroaches, and lice--will transmit disease from the dead to the living, to people whose

immune mechanisms have been severely compromised by the high levels of background radiation. Rodents will multiply by the millions among the corpses and shattered sewerage systems.

Epidemics of diseases now controlled by immunization and good hygiene will reappear: such as measles, polio, typhoid, cholera, whooping cough, diphtheria, smallpox, plague,
tuberculosis, meningitis, malaria, and hepatitis. Anyone who makes it to a fallout shelter and is not asphyxiated in it, will need to stay there for at least six months until the radiation decays sufficiently so outside survival is possible. It has been postulated that perhaps older people should be sent outside to scavenge for food because they will not live long enough to develop malignancies from the fallout (cancer and leukemia have long incubation periods ranging from five to sixty But any food that manages to grow will be toxic because plants concentrate radioactive elements.*/ Finally, we must examine the systemic global effects of a nuclear . , war. Firestorms will consume oil wells, chemical facilities, cities, and forests, covering the earth with a blanket of thick, black, radioactive , I I ' smoke, reducing sunlight to 17 percent of normal. One year or more ' ) , will be required for light and temperature to return to normalper- "r haps supranormal values, as sunlight would return to more than its , , usual intensity, enhanced in the ultraviolet spectrum by depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer. Subfreezing temperatures could destroy the biological support system for civilization, resulting in massive starvation, thirst, and hypothermia.5

To quote a 1985 SCOPE document published by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, "the total loss of human agricultural and societal support systems would result in the loss of almost all humans on Earth, essentially equally among combatant and noncombatant countries alike . . . this vulnerability is an aspect not currently

a part of the understanding of nuclear war; not only are the major combatant countries in danger, but virtually the entire human population is being held hostage to the large-scale use of nuclear weapons. . . .",! i The proposed START I11 treaty between Russia and America, even if it were implemented, would still allow 3000 to 5000 hydrogen bombs to be maintained on alert."he threshold for nuclear winter? One thousand loo-kiloton bombs blowing up loo cities7-a I c distinct possibility given current capabilities and targeting plans. On January 25,1995, military technicians at radar stations in northern Russia detected signals from an American missile that had just been launched off the coast of Norway carrying a US. scientific probe. Although the Russians had been previously notified of this launch, the alert had been forgotten or ignored. Aware that US. submarines could launch a missile containing eight deadly hydrogen bombs fifteen minutes from Moscow, Russian officials assumed that America had initiated a nuclear war. For the first time in history, the Russian computer containing nuclear launch codes was opened. President Boris Yeltsin, sitting at that computer being advised on how to launch a nuclear war by his military officers, had only a threeminute interval to make a decision. At the last moment, the US. missile veered off course. He realized that Russia was not under attack.' If Russia had launched its missiles, the US. early-warning satellites would immediately have detected them, and radioed back to Cheyenne Mountain. This would have led to the notification of the president, who also would have had three minutes to make his launch decision, and America's missiles would then have been fired from their silos. We were thus within minutes of global annihilation that day. ,' Today, Russia's early-warning and nuclear command systems are deteriorating. Russia's early-warning system fails to operate up to seven hours a day because only one-third of its radars are functional, and two of the nine global geographical areas covered by its missilewarning satellites are not under surveillance for missile detection.9 TO make matters worse, the equipment controlling nuclear weapons malfunctions frequently, and critical electronic devices and computers sometimes switch to combat mode for no apparent reason. According to the CIA, seven times during the fall of 1996 operations at some Russian nuclear weapons facilities were severely disrupted when robbers tried to "mine" critical communications cables for their copper!'" This vulnerable Russian system could easily be stressed by an internal or international political crisis, when the danger of accidental or indeed intentional nuclear war would become very real. And the U.S. itself is not invulnerable to error. In August 1999, for example, when the National Imagery and Mapping Agency was installing a new computer system to deal with potential Y2K problems, this operation triggered a computer malfunction which rendered the agency "blind" for days; it took more than eight months for the defect to be fully repaired. As the New York Times reported, part of America's nuclear early-warning system was rendered incompetent for almost a year." (At that time I was sitting at a meeting in the west wing of the White House discussing potentially dangerous Y2K nuclear weapons glitches. Several Pentagon officials blithely reassured me that everything would function normally during the roll-over. But in fact, their intelligence system had already been

Such a situation has the potential for catastrophe. If America cannot observe what the Russians are doing with their nuclear weapons-or vice versa-especially could mean that something as benign as the launch of a weather satellite could actually trigger annihilation of the planet. This situation became even more significant after the September 11 attack.
disabled.)

during a serious international crisis they are likely to err on the side of "caution," which

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US-Sino Relations Conable and Lampton

US-Sino relations are key to prevent multiple scenarios for nuclear conflict
Conable and Lampton 93 Chair; and President of National Committee on US-China Relations
[Barber B., Jr. and David M., China: the coming power; a troubled relationship, Foreign Affairs, Dec 92/Jan 93, LN]
Regionally American interests are both numerous and important. The two most protracted, economically distracting and politically explosive American military commitments in the post-World War II era were Korea and Vietnam. In both cases China figured prominently. The lesson is that regional stability requires workable U.S.-China relations. Competition between Beijing and Washington takes the form of exploiting indigenous regional conflicts by both powers, resulting in local problems that expand to suck both countries into a self-defeating vortex. The

most serious threats to American security and economic interests in Asia include armed conflict with nuclear potential between the two Koreas and between India and Pakistan; a deterioration of relations between Beijing and Taipei that could lead to economic or military conflict; a re-ignition of the Cambodian conflict; and a botched transition to Beijing's sovereignty in Hong Kong in 1997. None of these problems can be handled effectively without substantial SinoAmerican cooperation. Constructive relations with Beijing will not assure P.R.C. cooperation in all cases; needlessly bad relations will nearly ensure conflict. The
Republic of Korea's formal diplomatic recognition of Beijing last August, at the expense of Taipei, is just one indication of the increasing importance the region attaches to building positive ties to the P.R.C. In Cambodia, although there is not certainty that the 1991 peace agreement to have free and open elections in 1993 will be successful, progress to date could not have occurred without China's cooperation. Further, Beijing's somewhat improved relationship with Hanoi has made progress in Cambodia more likely. It has further reduced the level of conflict in the region to the point where in 1991 Washington was able to contemplate eventual normalization of relations with Hanoi. To China's southwest, Beijing is seeking to improve relations with New Delhi while maintaining its traditionally warm ties to Islamabad. China's apparent nuclear cooperation with Pakistan and recurring reports of pending and/or actual missile technology sales to Islamabad are contrary to the U.S. interests and are regionally destabilizing. Nonetheless closer Sino-Indian relations are a trend very much in the U.S. interest. In the Taiwan Strait relations

Beijing-Taipei relations easily could become one of the most serious problems in Sino-American relations. Recent Chinese protest over Washington's decision to sell F-16 fighter aircraft to Taiwan is just one indication of the conflict, contradictions and policy dilemmas that lie just below the surface. The P.R.C.'s incentive to continue a policy of moderation toward Taiwan would be greatly lessened by a deterioration of its relations with the United States. Worsening China-Taiwan relations would also adversely affect U.S. interests. First, many of
between Taipei and Beijing have their own dynamic and are not under Washington's control. Indeed Taiwan's firms -- with $ 3 billion plus investments in the mainland -- are exporting to the United States. If the American market dries up for Chinese exports some of Taiwan's investment in the P.R.C. will also vanish. Second, the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act charges the U.S. president with assuring that America helps maintain Taiwan's capacity to defend itself.

If U.S.-P.R.C. relations deteriorate one can expect more mainland hostility toward Taiwan, which will exacerbate the dilemmas facing Washington.

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Water Shortages NASCA

Looming global water shortages will trigger nuclear war and extinction
NASCA 04
[Water shortages only a matter of time, National Association for Scientific and Cultural Appreciation, http://www.nasca.org.uk/Strange_relics_/water/water.html]

Water is one of the prime essentials for life as we know it. The plain fact is - no water, no life! This becomes all the more worrying when we realise that the worlds supply of drinkable water will soon diminish quite rapidly. In fact a recent report commissioned by the United Nations has emphasised that by the year 2025 at least 66% of the worlds population will be without an adequate water supply. As a disaster in the making water shortage ranks in the top category. Without water we are finished, and it is thus imperative that we protect the mechanism through which we derive our supply of this life giving fluid. Unfortunately the exact opposite is the case. We are doing incalculable damage to the planets capacity to generate water and this will have far ranging consequences for the
not too distant future. The United Nations has warned that burning of fossil fuels is the prime cause of water shortage. While there may be other reasons such as increased solar activity it is clear that this is a situation over which we can exert a great deal of control. If not then the future will be very bleak indeed! Already the warning signs are there. The last year has seen devastating heatwaves in many parts of the world including the USA where the state of Texas experienced its worst drought on record. Elsewhere in the United States forest fires raged out of control, while other regions of the globe experienced drought conditions that were even more severe. Parts of Iran, Afgahnistan, China and other neighbouring countries experienced their worst droughts on record. These conditions also extended throughout many parts of Africa and it is clear that if circumstances remain unchanged we are facing a disaster of epic proportions.

The spectre of a world water shortage evokes a truly frightening scenario. In fact the United Nations disputes over water will become the prime source of conflict in the not too distant future. Where these shortages become ever more acute it could forseeably lead to the brink of nuclear conflict. On a lesser scale water, and the price of it, will acquire an importance somewhat like the current value placed on oil. The difference of course is that while oil is not vital for life, water most certainly is! It seems clear then that in future years countries rich in water will enjoy an importance that perhaps they do not have today. In these circumstances power shifts are inevitable, and this will undoubtedly create its own strife and tension. In the long term the implications do not look encouraging. It is a two edged sword. First the shortage of water, and then the increased stresses this will impose upon an already stressed world of politics. It means that answers need to be found immediately. Answers that will both ameliorate the damage to the environment, and also find new sources of water for future consumption. If not, and the problem is left unresolved there will eventually come the day when we shall find ourselves with a nightmare situation for which there will be no obvious answer.
Moreover it will be one for which there is no easy answer. warns that

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Water Shortages Weiner

Water shortages will trigger global nuclear war
Weiner 90 Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University
[Jonathan, The next 100 years: shaping the fate of our living earth, p. 214]
If we do not destroy ourselves with the A-Bomb and the H-Bomb, then

we may destroy ourselves with the C-Bomb, the change Bomb. And in a world as interlinked as ours, one explosion may lead to the other. Already in the Middle East, from Northern Africa to the Persian Gulf and from the Nile to the Euphrates, tensions over dwindling water supplies and rising populations are reaching what many experts describe as a flashpoint. A climate shift in that single battle-scarred nexus might trigger international tensions that will unleash some of the 60,000 nuclear warheads the world has stockpiled since Trinity.

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WTO Good Copley News Service

WTO facilitates cooperative dispute resolution and promotes peaceful interaction between nations necessary to avert nuclear annihilation
Copley News Service 99
[Dec 1, LN]

For decades, many children in America and other countries went to bed fearing annihilation by nuclear war. The specter of nuclear winter freezing the life out of planet Earth seemed very real. Activists protesting the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle apparently have forgotten that threat. The truth is that nations join together in groups like the WTO not just to further their own prosperity, but also to forestall conflict with other nations. In a way, our planet has traded in the threat of a worldwide nuclear war for the benefit of cooperative global economics. Some Seattle
protesters clearly fancy themselves to be in the mold of nuclear disarmament or anti-Vietnam War protesters of decades past. But they're not. They're special-interest activists, whether the cause is environmental, labor or paranoia about global government. Actually, most of the

demonstrators in Seattle are very much unlike yesterday's peace activists, such as Beatle John Lennon or philosopher Bertrand Russell, the father of the nuclear disarmament movement, both of whom urged people and nations to work together rather than strive against each other. These and other war protesters would probably approve of 135 WTO nations sitting down peacefully to discuss economic issues that in the past might have been settled by bullets and bombs. As long as nations are trading peacefully, and their economies are built on exports to other countries, they have a major disincentive to wage war. That's why bringing China, a budding superpower, into the WTO is so important. As exports to the United States and the rest of the world feed Chinese prosperity, and that

prosperity increases demand for the goods we produce, the threat of hostility diminishes. Many anti-trade protesters in Seattle claim that only multinational corporations benefit from global trade, and that it's the everyday wage earners who get hurt. That's just plain wrong. First of all, it's not the military-industrial complex benefiting. It's U.S. companies that make high-tech goods. And those companies provide a growing number of jobs for Americans. In San Diego, many people have good jobs at Qualcomm, Solar Turbines and other companies for whom overseas markets are essential. In Seattle, many of the 100,000 people who work at Boeing would lose their livelihoods without world trade. Foreign trade today accounts for 30 percent of our gross domestic product. That's a lot of jobs for everyday workers.

Growing global prosperity has helped counter the specter of nuclear winter. Nations of the world are learning to live and work together, like the singers of anti-war songs once imagined. Those who care about world peace shouldn't be protesting world trade. They should be celebrating it.

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