Hegemony Good Practice

Hegemony of 100

7 Week Juniors – HPSW

HegemonyHegemony Bad - Defense2AC/1NC Hegemony Defense.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................3Ext 1. Limited Influence...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................6Ext 4. No Transition Wars...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................7No Great Power Wars.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................8

Heg Inevitable 1NC............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................9

Heg Dead – 1NC................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................10Heg Dead – Fiscal Overstretch...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................12Heg Dead – Dollar............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................13Heg Dead – Military Weakness..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................15

Hegemony Bad - OffenseHeg Unsustainable – 1NC.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................16Ext. Heg Unsustainable..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................18Ext. Heg Unsustainable – Counterbalancing........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................19

Hegemony Bad – War....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................20Heg Bad – Terrorism......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................22Ext. Heg Causes Terrorism..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................23Heg Bad – Prolif................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................25Ext. Heg Causes Prolif....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................26Heg Bad – China................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................29Ext. Heg Causes War With China...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................30AT: Heg Good – China.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................31Heg Bad – Interventionism..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................32Ext. Heg Causes Interventionism..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................34Hegemony Bad – Economy..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................35AT: Heg Good – Economy/Free Trade....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................36AT: Heg Promotes Democracy...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................37Heg Bad – Disease............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................39

Offshore Balancing 1NC................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................40Offshore Balancing Good – Solves War..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................41Offshore Balancing Good – General.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................42Offshore Balancing Good – Middle East.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................43Offshore Balancing Good – War.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................44Multipolarity Inevitable................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................45AT: Obama Changes Hegemony.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................47

Hegemony Good - Uniqueness Internal Links – Human Rights Credibility Kt Heg............................................................................................................................................................................................................................50Heg Sustainable – General...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................51AT: Decline Inevitable 2AC..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................55Heg Sustainable – Latent Power................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................57Heg Sustainable – China................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................58Heg Sustainable – Obama.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................59Heg Sustainable – AT: Financial Crisis....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................60Heg Sustainable – AT: Counterbalancing...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................62Heg Sustainable – AT: Counterbalancing – China..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................63Heg Sustainable – AT: Counterbalancing – China/Russia..............................................................................................................................................................................................................64Heg Sustainable – AT: Counterbalancing – Russia............................................................................................................................................................................................................................65Heg Sustainable – AT: Counterbalancing – Venezuela, Iran, Russia..........................................................................................................................................................................................66Heg Sustainable – AT: Iraq...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................67AT: Counterbalancing – Too Costly..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................68AT: Counterbalancing – Benevolent Heg...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................69AT: Counterbalancing – Too Far Ahead.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................70AT: Iraq Kills Heg.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................71AT: Multipolarity Inevitable........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................72Offshore Balancing Fails...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................73

1Michael, Sam & Megan

Hegemony of 100


HegemonyHegemony Good - Authors/Scenarios Heg Impact Authors – Khalilzad................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................75Heg Impact Authors – Ferguson................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................76Heg Impact Authors – Kagan......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................77Heg Impact Authors – Thayer....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................79Heg Impact Authors – Brookes..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................80Heg Impact Authors – Lieber......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................81

Heg Good – Transition Wars.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................82Heg Good – Decline Reintervention...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................84Heg Good – Prolif Shell..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................85Ext. Heg Solves Terrorism............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................86Heg Good – Terrorism Shell........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................87Ext. Heg Solves Terrorism............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................88AT: Heg Causes Terrorism...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................89Heg Good – Democracy.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................90Ext. Heg Solves Democracy..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................91Heg Good – Economy.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................92Ext. Heg Solves Economy..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................93Heg Good – China War...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................94Decline Causes Asian Instability................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................95A2: Heg Bad – Intervention.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................96


Hegemony of 100


2AC/1NC Hegemony Defense1. Heg fails – it’s ineffective at maintaining U.S. interestsLayne, 6 – Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute, (Christopher, Financial Times" America cannot rely on power alone," August 24th, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f7bb5fb2-330c-11db-87ac-0000779e2340.html)

Hegemony, however, is not omnipotence. There are several reasons why the US can successfully apply its power to some objectives but not to others.

First, the US is better at deterrence - preventing other states from attacking the US or its allies militarily - than it is at "compellence"- using its power coercively to force other states to adopt policies that run counter to their preferences and to act in accordance with

Washington's dictates. The fact that compellence is difficult explains why the US has been unsuccessful in persuading Iran and North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons programmes.Second - as the Iraq morass illustrates - in "asymmetric" conflicts such as insurgencies, outside forces are at a big political and psychological disadvantage notwithstanding their superiority in conventional military power over indigenous fighters. The US should have learnt from its own Ã‚Âexperience in Vietnam (or the French experiences in Indochina and Algeria) that there are good reasons why big states lose small wars (as Professor Andrew Mack of the University of British Columbia put it in a widely cited article).In these wars, the balance of motivation invariably lies with the insurgents who, instead of needing to prevail militarily, need only to survive and prolong the

conflict sufficiently to chip away at the outside power's political will. As counter-insurgent wars drag on, and the costs rise, political debate in the external power inevitably focuses on why it should continue to expend blood and treasure in a war that is not vital to security. Also, in such conflicts, occupying powers invariably find themselves on the wrong side of one of the most powerful forces in international politics: nationalism. In Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington's ability to attain its objectives is also limited by the religious and cultural divides separating the Islamic world from the west.

Third, America's own ideological militancy, rooted in the Wilsonian tradition of liberal internationalism, hamstrings the effectiveness of US diplomacy by dividing the world neatly into good guys and bad guys - or, as the Bush administration would have it, between "good" and "evil". One reason why the US has failed in the Middle East is because of its refusal to engage in direct diplomacy with Syria and Iran - both of which have important stakes in the outcome of security issues in the Middle East, including those involving Israel's relations with the Palestinians and with Hizbollah in Lebanon.Ending evil may be a worthy ambition for ministers of the cloth, but it is a foolish one for ministers of state. There is much more to diplomacy than simply talking to one's friends. The art of diplomacy lies in dealing with those who are rivals and adversaries, and finding ways of resolving outstanding differences. By preferring regime change to diplomatic engagement with "evil" states such as Iran and Syria, the US has tied its own hands in exercising hegemonic power to resolve - or at least ameliorate - the conflicts in the Middle East.

Finally, America's hegemonic power often seems illusory because it is applied to unattainable objectives such as nation-building and promotion of democracy. US neo-conservatives and liberal imperialists alike seem to think that the world is a piece of clay and that the US can mould other nations and cultures in its own image. It is naive to think that America's democratic values can be transplanted to flourish in countries that have no indigenous democratic tradition and that lack the social, economic and political foundations on which America's domestic political system rests. Although the US has failed repeatedly in such efforts, it keeps trying - most recently in Iraq (and Afghanistan). In both countries it is failing yet again.

Although the US remains dominant in international politics, its power is not infinite. What is needed in Washington is the wisdom to differentiate between those foreign policy goals that are attainable and those that are not. The US must be careful not to overreach itself, and Washington needs to understand that a wise grand strategy must balance ends and means, and distinguish between desirable objectives and attainable ones.

If the US is to be perceived as powerful rather than powerless, it must refrain from intervening abroad in pursuit of unrealisable goals, and will have to learn that the intricacies of international politics cannot be reduced to a simplistic Manichean struggle between good and evil.


Hegemony of 100


2AC/1NC Hegemony Defense 2. The transition to multipolarity is inevitable – There will be a fundamental redistribution of powerFinancial Times, 09 (Quentin Peel, The World in 2009, “Risks rise in shift to a Multipolar World”, January 27th, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c76ec956-ec79-11dd-a534-0000779fd2AC.html)

If the consequences of a prolonged economic recession are unpredictable, the “multipolar” look of the future world order seems most likely. Apart from the US and China, one pole in the world will be Europe. That could aggravate

transatlantic tensions. Japan, India, Russia and Brazil are all likely to be players at the top table. Less certain will be the influence of individual countries in the Middle East, Africa and the rest of Latin America.The Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialised nations, and G8 including Russia, are likely to be early casualties of the economic crisis. Without China and India at the table, older industrialised nations cannot handle the global crisis. Some sort of new structure of global governance will be essential to reflect redistribution of power, and provide a form of guidance and regulation.It will not be an easy transition, nor a soft landing. “Historically, emerging multipolar systems have been more unstable than bipolar or unipolar ones,” the NIC report says. “Despite the recent financial volatility...we do not believe that we are headed toward a complete breakdown of the international system, as occurred in 1914-18 when an earlier phase of globalisation

came to a halt. However, the next 20 years of transition...are fraught with risks.”

3. US no longer has the ability to maintain forward deployments around the globe – economic capacity preventsPape, 9 – Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago (Robert, National Interest Online, “Empire Falls,” January 22nd, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20484)

Today, the cold-war framework of significant troop deployments to Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf is coming unglued. We cannot afford to keep our previous promises. With American forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and mounting

troubles in Iran and Pakistan, the United States has all but gutted its military commitments to Europe, reducing our troop levels far

below the one hundred thousand of the 1990s. Nearly half have been shifted to Iraq and elsewhere. Little wonder that Russia found an opportunity to demonstrate the hollowness of the Bush administration’s plan for expanding NATO to Russia’s borders by scoring a quick and decisive military victory over Georgia that America was helpless to prevent. If a large-scale conventional war between China and Taiwan broke out in the near future, one must wonder whether America would significantly shift air and naval power away from its ongoing wars in the Middle East in order to live up to its global commitments. If the United States could not readily manage wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time, could it really wage a protracted struggle in Asia as well? And as the gap between America’s productive resources and global commitments grows, why will others pass up opportunities to take advantage of America’s overstretched grand strategy?

Since the end of the cold war, American leaders have consistently claimed the ability to maintain a significant forward-leaning military presence in the three major regions of the globe and, if necessary, to wage two major regional wars at the same time. The harsh reality is that the United States no longer has the economic capacity for such an ambitious grand strategy. With 30 percent of the world’s product, the United States could imagine maintaining this hope. Nearing 20 percent, it cannot.


Hegemony of 100


2AC/1NC Hegemony Defense4. No impact to the transition – international order accommodates rising powers and nuclear weapons prevent warIkenberry 08 professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University (John, The Rise of China and the Future of the West Can the Liberal System Survive?, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb)

Some observers believe that the American era is coming to an end, as the Western-oriented world order is replaced by one increasingly dominated by the East. The historian Niall Ferguson has written that the bloody twentieth century witnessed "the descent of the West" and "a reorientation of the world" toward the East. Realists go on to note that as China gets more powerful and the United States' position erodes, two things are likely to happen: China will try to use its growing influence to reshape the rules and institutions of the international system to better serve its interests, and other states in the

system -- especially the declining hegemon -- will start to see China as a growing security threat. The result of these developments, they predict, will be tension, distrust, and conflict, the typical features of a power transition. In this view, the drama of China's

rise will feature an increasingly powerful China and a declining United States locked in an epic battle over the rules and leadership of the international system. And as the world's largest country emerges not from within but outside the established post-World War

II international order, it is a drama that will end with the grand ascendance of China and the onset of an Asian-centered world order. That

course, however, is not inevitable. The rise of China does not have to trigger a wrenching hegemonic transition . The U.S.-Chinese

power transition can be very different from those of the past because China faces an international order that is fundamentally different from those that past rising states confronted. China does not just face the United States; it faces a Western-centered system that is open, integrated, and rule-based, with wide and deep political foundations. The nuclear revolution, meanwhile, has made war among great powers unlikely -- eliminating the major tool that rising powers have used to overturn international systems defended by declining hegemonic states. Today's Western order, in short, is hard to overturn and easy to join. This unusually durable and expansive order is itself the product of farsighted U.S.

leadership. After World War II, the United States did not simply establish itself as the leading world power. It led in the creation of universal institutions that not only invited global membership but also brought democracies and market societies closer together. It built an order that facilitated the participation and integration of both established great powers and newly independent states. (It is often forgotten that this postwar order was designed in large part to reintegrate the defeated Axis states and the beleaguered Allied states into a unified international system.) Today, China can gain full access to and thrive within this system. And if it does, China will rise, but the Western order -- if managed properly -- will live on.


Hegemony of 100


Ext 1. Limited InfluenceUS power has eroded – US has limited influence and its security guarantees are no longer credibleKato 08 bureau chief of the American General Bureau of the Asahi Shimbun. (Yoichi, Return from 9/11 PTSD to Global Leader, The Washington Quarterly, Volume 31, Number 4, Autumn 2008

The execution of the Iraq war, and of the broader war on terrorism for that matter, has damaged Washington's capacity for leadership to a great extent. The most damaging aspect is the notion that the United States bullies the world to meet its own interests while disregarding those of other states or regions. The administration has become a prisoner to the newly emergent threats that it faces. It is therefore encouraging to see the emergence of a new strategic discussion within the United States that recognizes the fact that nonstate actors such as al Qaeda "do not pose an existential threat" to the United States.4 Al Qaeda rejects the expansion of U.S. values, especially in the Middle East, and has proven that it can inflict enormous pain on the United States and its friends and allies and disrupt regions and the globe through terrorist

attacks. Yet, it possesses neither the strategic vision nor the capability to topple the existing world order and U.S. predominance. Overreactions based [End Page 167] on the overestimation of such threats were the fundamental reasons underlying the failure of the current U.S. strategy. A calm and objective reassessment of the threats and challenges must be the first step toward restoration of the U.S. reputation. Moreover, the challenges facing the United States do not come only from Islamic extremism or the Middle East. Various challenges in the Asia-Pacific region,

especially the rise of China, must also be addressed. The failure of the Iraq war and the war on terrorism has had an enormous impact on U.S. standing in the Asia Pacific. It has reduced U.S. influence among the policy elites and the general publics of nations throughout the region. The United States is now often perceived as a not-so-capable and sometimes insecure country despite its powerful hard-power economic and military assets.


http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu:2048/journals/washington_quarterly/v031/31.4.kato.html#f4

Hegemony of 100


Ext 4. No Transition Wars

Multipolarity solves and the transition will be peaceful – resource scarcity and shared threats create incentives for cooperationNowak 08 spokesman of the executive board of the Alfred Herrhausen Society, the international forum of Deutsche Bank. (Wolfgang, RISE OF THE REST The Challenges of the New World Order, 10/02/2008)

Who are the decisive powers in this new world order? The United States, Russia, India, China, Brazil and the European Union surely count among them.

Interestingly, these countries are growing ever closer together. The current financial crisis has shown how deep their ties have already become. Other similarities are likewise revealing. With the exception of Europe, each of these countries contains within it aspects of the so-called first, second and third worlds. In the megalopolis Mumbai, for example, Asia’s largest slum sits adjacent a thriving economic hub. A person driving across Russia encounters areas of both staggering wealth and miserable poverty. Even in the United States, the richest

country in the world, some of its population struggles to earn a decent living. These countries are neither enemies of one another, nor are they friends; they are "frenemies," competitors for the world’s scarce resources. These countries assure their people that they can shape the coming global order and provide for their future welfare, but their respective visions of the future can differ greatly. A potential "clash of futures" looms on the horizon of the multipolar world. Not all "frenemies" are

democracies in the Western sense. The successes of Singapore and China, as well as of the Gulf states, prove that states need not be democratic to guarantee their people a high standard of living. But, that need not be cause for pessimism. Within the new nondemocratic world powers, productive elites are replacing parasitic elites. Where the former get the upper hand, they produce a system more free and just than the one they inherited. Their goal is to develop the economy and correct social inequalities. They know that where there are slums there will be "failing

cities" and "failing states." New alliances that set countries against one another will not be able to solve the challenges of the 21st century. New forms of international cooperation, consultation, and compromise will have to play a central role in a multipolar world. It is absurd that Italy belongs to the G-8, but not China or Brazil. And what sort of meaning can a global security council

have when India, Brazil, and the European Union are left out, while France and Great Britain are permanent members? Needed are new forms of international governance: in a world with diminishing resources and accelerating climate change, states might be tempted to pursue their own

interests in order to gain short-term advantages. The challenge will be to devise a new international framework and an organized balance of interests. Only a common future -- "change through rapprochement" not a "clash of futures" -- can bring us further. Certainly, the past ten years provide much cause for pessimism. In order for the next ten years to be a success, we will need to be fortified by a credible, if skeptical, optimism.


Hegemony of 100


No Great Power WarsGreat power war is obsolete – cooperation is more likely than competitionDeudney and Ikenberry 09 Professor of Political Sceince at Johns Hopkins and Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University (Daniel and John, The Myth of the Autocratic Revival :Why Liberal Democracy Will Prevail, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb)

This bleak outlook is based on an exaggeration of recent developments and ignores powerful countervailing factors and forces. Indeed, contrary to what the revivalists describe, the most striking features of the contemporary international landscape are the intensification of economic globalization, thickening institutions, and shared problems of interdependence. The overall structure of the international system today is quite unlike that of the nineteenth century. Compared to older orders, the contemporary liberal-centered international order provides a set of constraints and opportunities -- of pushes and pulls

-- that reduce the likelihood of severe conflict while creating strong imperatives for cooperative problem solving. Those

invoking the nineteenth century as a model for the twenty-first also fail to acknowledge the extent to which war as a path to conflict resolution and great-power expansion has become largely obsolete . Most important, nuclear weapons have transformed great-power war from a routine feature of

international politics into an exercise in national suicide. With all of the great powers possessing nuclear weapons and ample means to rapidly expand their deterrent forces, warfare among these

states has truly become an option of last resort. The prospect of such great losses has instilled in the great powers a level of caution and restraint that effectively precludes major revisionist efforts. Furthermore, the diffusion of small arms and the near universality of nationalism have severely limited the ability of great powers to conquer and occupy territory inhabited by resisting populations (as Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and now Iraq have demonstrated). Unlike during the days of empire building in the nineteenth century, states today cannot translate great asymmetries of power into effective territorial control; at most, they can hope for loose hegemonic

relationships that require them to give something in return. Also unlike in the nineteenth century, today the density of trade, investment, and production networks across international borders raises even more the costs of war. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan, to take one of the most plausible

cases of a future interstate war, would pose for the Chinese communist regime daunting economic costs, both domestic and international. Taken together, these changes in the economy of violence mean that the international system is far more primed for peace than the autocratic revivalists acknowledge. The autocratic revival thesis neglects other key features of the international system as well. In the nineteenth century, rising states faced an international environment in which they could reasonably expect to translate their

growing clout into geopolitical changes that would benefit themselves. But in the twenty-first century, the status quo is much more difficult to overturn. Simple comparisons between China and the United States with regard to aggregate economic size and capability do not reflect the fact that the United States does not stand alone but rather is the head of a coalition of liberal capitalist states in Europe and East

Asia whose aggregate assets far exceed those of China or even of a coalition of autocratic states. Moreover, potentially revisionist autocratic states, most notably China and Russia, are already substantial players and stakeholders in an ensemble of global institutions that make up the status quo, not least the UN Security Council (in which they have permanent seats and veto power). Many other global institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are configured in such a way that rising states

can increase their voice only by buying into the institutions. The pathway to modernity for rising states is not outside and against the status quo but rather inside and through the flexible and accommodating institutions of the liberal international order. The fact that these autocracies are capitalist has profound implications for the nature of their international interests that point toward integration and accommodation in the future. The domestic viability of these regimes hinges on their ability to sustain high economic growth rates, which in turn is crucially dependent on international trade and investment; today's autocracies may be illiberal, but they remain fundamentally dependent on a liberal international capitalist system. It is not surprising that China made major domestic changes in order to join the WTO or that Russia is seeking to do so now. The dependence of autocratic capitalist states on foreign trade and investment means that they have a fundamental interest in maintaining an open, rule-based economic system. (Although these autocratic states do pursue bilateral trade and investment deals, particularly in energy and raw materials, this does not obviate their more basic dependence on and commitment to the WTO order.) In the case of China, because of its extensive dependence on industrial exports, the WTO may act as a vital bulwark against protectionist tendencies in importing states. Given their position in this system, which so serves their interests, the autocratic states are unlikely to become champions of an alternative global or regional economic order, let alone spoilers intent on seriously damaging the existing one. The prospects for revisionist behavior on the part of the capitalist autocracies are further reduced by the large and growing social networks

across international borders. Not only have these states joined the world economy, but their people -- particularly upwardly mobile and educated elites -- have increasingly joined the world community. In large and growing numbers, citizens of autocratic capitalist states are participating in a sprawling array of transnational educational, business, and avocational networks. As individuals are socialized into the values and orientations of these networks, stark "us versus them" cleavages become more difficult to generate and sustain. As the Harvard political scientist Alastair Iain Johnston has argued, China's ruling elite has also been socialized, as its foreign policy establishment has internalized the norms and practices of the international diplomatic community. China, far from cultivating causes for territorial dispute with its neighbors, has instead sought to resolve numerous

historically inherited border conflicts, acting like a satisfied status quo state. These social and diplomatic processes and developments suggest that there are strong tendencies toward normalization operating here. Finally, there is an emerging set of global problems stemming from industrialism and economic globalization that will create common interests across states regardless of regime type. Autocratic China is as dependent on imported oil as are democratic Europe, India, Japan, and the United States, suggesting an alignment of interests against petroleum-exporting autocracies,

such as Iran and Russia. These states share a common interest in price stability and supply security that could form the basis for a revitalization of

the International Energy Agency, the consumer association created during the oil turmoil of the 1970s. The emergence of global warming and climate change as significant problems

also suggests possibilities for alignments and cooperative ventures cutting across the autocratic-democratic divide. Like the United States, China is not only a major contributor to greenhouse gas accumulation but also likely to be a major victim of climate-induced desertification and coastal flooding. Its rapid industrialization and consequent pollution means that China, like other developed countries, will increasingly need to import technologies and innovative solutions for environmental management. Resource scarcity and environmental deterioration pose global threats that no state will be able to solve alone, thus placing a further premium on political

integration and cooperative institution building. Analogies between the nineteenth century and the twenty-first are based on a severe mischaracterization of the actual conditions of the new era. The declining utility of war, the thickening of international transactions and institutions, and emerging resource and environmental interdependencies together undercut


Hegemony of 100

7 Week Juniors – HPSW scenarios of international conflict and instability based on autocratic-democratic rivalry and autocratic revisionism. In fact, the conditions of the twenty-first century point to the renewed value of international integration and cooperation.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Inevitable 1NCHeg is sustainable – US has dominance in all areas of power and its not going anywhereBrooks and Wohlforth 08 Associate Professor of Government in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College and Professor of Government in the Dartmouth College Department of Government (Stephen and William, World Out of Balance, pg 27- 31)

“Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power; nothing,” historian Paul Kennedy observes: “I have returned to all of the comparative defense spending and military personnel statistics over the past 500 years that I compiled in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, and no other nation comes close.” Though assessments of U.S. power have changed since those words were written in 2002, they remain true. Even when capabilities are

understood broadly to include economic, technological, and other wellsprings of national power, they are concentrated in the United States to a degree never before experienced in the history of the modern system of states and thus never contemplated by balance-of-power theorists. The United spends more on defense than all the other major military powers combined, and most of those powers are its allies. Its massive investments in the human, institutional, and technological requisites of military power, cumulated over many decades, make any effort to match U.S. capabilities even more daunting that the gross spending numbers imply. Military research and development

(R&D) may best capture the scale of the long-term investment that give the United States a dramatic qualitative edge in military capabilities. As table 2.1 shows, in 2004 U.S. military R&D expenditures were more than six times greater than those of Germany, Japan, France, and

Britain combined. By some estimates over half the military R&D expenditures in the world are American. And this disparity has been sustained

for decades: over the past 30 years, for example, the United States has invested over three times more than the entire European Union on military R&D. These vast commitments have created a preeminence in military capabilities vis-à-vis all the other major powers that is unique after the seventeenth century.

While other powers could contest U.S. forces near their homelands, especially over issues on which nuclear deterrence is credible, the United States is and will long remain the only state capable of projecting major military power globally. This capacity arises from “command of the commons” – that is, unassailable military dominance over the sea, air, and space. As Barry Posen puts it,

Command of the commons is the key military enabler of the U.S global power position. It allows the United States to exploit more fully other sources of power, including its own economic and military might as well as the economic and military might of its allies. Command of the commons also helps the United States to weaken its adversaries, by restricting their access to economic, military, and political

assistance….Command of the commons provides the United States with more useful military potential for a hegemonic foreign policy than any other offshore power has ever had. Posen’s study of American military primacy ratifies Kennedy’s emphasis on

the historical importance of the economic foundations of national power. It is the combination of military and economic potential that sets the United States apart from its predecessors at the top of the international system. Previous leading states were either great commercial and naval powers or great military powers on land, never both. The British Empire in its heyday and the United States during the Cold War, for example, shared the world with other powers that matched or exceeded them in some areas. Even at the height of the Pax Britannica, the United Kingdom was outspent, outmanned, and outgunned by both France and Russia. Similarly, at the dawn of the Cold War the United States was dominant economically as well as in air and naval capabilities. But the Soviet Union retained overall military parity, and thanks to

geography and investment in land power it had a superior ability to seize territory in Eurasia. The United States’ share of world GDP in 2006, 27.5 percent, surpassed that of any leading state in modern history, with the sole exception of its own position after 1945 (when

World War II had temporarily depressed every other major economy). The size of the U.S economy means that its massive military capabilities required roughly 4 percent of its GDP in 2005, far less than the nearly 10 percent it averaged over the peak years of the Cold War, 1950-70, and the burden borne by most of the major powers of the past. As Kennedy sums up, “Being Number One at great cost is one thing; being the world’s single superpower on the cheap is astonishing.”


Hegemony of 100


Heg Dead – 1NC

Heg is overOmestad 08 Former Associate Editor of Foreign Policy, Winner of the Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Journalism(Thomas, Is America Really on the Decline? US News and World Report, 10/29)

This time, however, might not turn out as well for America , some analysts worry, because th e trends eroding America's preeminence run deeper . " It's not simply that we've run into a rough patch, shaking our self-confidence," warns Andrew Bacevich, an international

affairs specialist at Boston University and author of this year's The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. "It's different this time." T hat there is some sort of big change is widely accepted, even mainstream. Defense Secretary Robert Gates now speaks of a "multipolar world ." In its 2007 annual survey, the International Institute for Strategic Studies referred to "the profound loss of authority suffered by

the United States since its invasion of Iraq." Diminished dominance. Yet more troubling was the vista painted by Thomas Fingar, the U .S. intelligence community's top analyst. Foreshadowing a conclusion of a coming report called "Global Trends 2025," he said in September that "American dominance will be much diminished over this period of time" and "will erode at an accelerating pace with the partial exception of

the military." In future competition , he added, the military will be "the least significant" factor . Fingar labeled U.S. pre-eminence

since World War II a "truly anomalous situation." Indeed, shifts in economic and military power -- played out slowly, over decades and

centuries-- are the norm , as Yale historian Paul Kennedy pointed out in his 1988 work, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Some analysts conclude

that if the reality of America's power position has changed, so must American attitudes . " We should disenthrall ourselves from the idea that the well-being and security of the United States can only be attained by seeking to maintain primacy," says Bacevich. In

any case, the new financial shock is rattling a load-bearing pillar of American strength--its role as global financial superpower, including its privileged position as issuer of the world's favored reserve currency, the U.S. dollar . The

dollar's special role has been critically important. It allows the federal government to affordably cover budget and current account deficits. The Feds are selling about half the new national debt to foreign investors, including governments like China's and sovereign wealth funds like those in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait. That has bridged the yawning U.S. fiscal gap, financing, in effect, global military activities and domestic spending without sparking inflation or driving up the interest cost of such monumental borrowing. It has also allowed Americans to maintain a notoriously low net savings rate. Critics point to the hazards inherent in racking up some $10 trillion in public debt--exacerbated now by fresh doubts over American solvency. Says historian

Kennedy, "T he crisis will confirm in the minds of Asians not to be so fiscally dependent on Uncle Sam ." Those foreign investors , suggests Chas. W. Freeman Jr., a former U.S. diplomat in China and Saudi Arabia and president of the Middle East Policy Council, will conclude, "We're not going to finance your improvidence indefinitely ." One other vulnerability also looms larger than in the past: energy imports. When Jimmy Carter was urging energy conservation in 1980, the United States imported 37 percent of oil consumed; last year, it was 58

percent. Something else is different about the current debate over U.S. decline. Without any contraction of its daunting military firepower or the size of its economy, other nations are bound to assume more influential positions . The world geopolitical map is being redrawn: Several powers are rising, some rapidly. China takes top billing on the list . Back when economic reforms began in 1978, China contributed but 1 percent of the world's GDP and its trade. Last year, it reached 5 percent of world GDP and 8

percent of trade. China's growth has hummed along at nearly 10 percent annually--for three decades. That is three times the global average. China's "peaceful rise," as officials call the strategy, aims to restore China to the status it had enjoyed for many centuries: the world's largest economy. A recent Goldman Sachs report has bumped up the time by which China's economy is expected to surpass America's in size to

2027. China's growth is fueling a rapid expansion of military capabilities and, in effect, promoting a model competing with that of the United States -- authoritarian capitalism. At the same time, India, the world's most populous democratic state, has also found a surer path to prosperity that is broadening its influence and enabling a military buildup. Along with the economic recovery of Japan and the growth of what used to be called the "tigers" of South Korea and Southeast Asia, predictions of a "Pacific century " or an Asian one look more plausible. Asia is returning to its historical norms, Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, argues in his book The New Asian Hemisphere.

"The era of Western domination has run its course ," he writes. There are shifts elsewhere, too. The once slumbering giant of South

America, Brazil, is overcoming its past weaknesses. Russia is undergoing a resurgence of uncertain duration, courtesy of massive

sales of oil and natural gas. Its invasion of neighboring Georgia and support for separatist regions there may mark a new period of strategic challenges to the West. Meanwhile, the European Union, in fits and starts, continues to evolve into a more coherent force in global Omestad continues…


Hegemony of 100


Heg Dead – 1NC Omestad continued…affairs that , as a 27-nation collective, already presents the world's largest economy . Biggest loser. The world's energy suppliers- - especially those along the Persian Gulf-- are also gaining strength. Flynt Leverett, director of the New America Foundation's Geopolitics of Energy Initiative, calls the flood of money from oil consumers to producers "arguably the greatest transfer of wealth from one group of

countries to another." The "big loser," he says, is the United States. The Gulf Arab states , as a group, may emerge as the world's most important investor . As well, Iran and its regional ambitions will get plenty of sustenance . But the rise of other

powers doesn't tell the whole geopolitical story. They are forging connections without U.S. involvement and, in some cases, with the likely aim of blunting U.S. influence. The maneuvering reflects the sort of games nations have virtually always played. When one country's overweening power ignites concern, some of the others search for ways to counterbalance it. That can happen frontally, through political-military alliances or,

more gingerly, in a nonconfrontational mode dubbed "soft balancing." For instance, Russia, China, and the four Central Asian states have formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group with a decidedly non-U.S. approach to world affairs -- no

hectoring about human rights and democracy there. And though the United States, with its tight alliances, is East Asia's leading protecting power, it is not part

of a new regional grouping that is becoming more influential. China is reaching deeply into Africa, the Middle East, and even Latin America with trade deals, energy investments, and aid with few strings attached. Russia, too, is using arms sales and energy commerce to revive old connections in the developing world. It s outreach, especially in Latin America, appeals to left-leaning governments aloof from Washington. For the first time since the Cold War, a Russian naval fleet is heading into Latin American waters for exercises with

Venezuela. Parag Khanna, an analyst with the New America Foundation, sees the unipolar moment giving way to a different global game. In The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, he predicts a "geopolitical marketplace" in which developing countries are courted by and align flexibly with one of the new "Big Three": the United States, the European Union, and China. Others anticipate an

even more complex diffusion of global power. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Bush administration official, argues that the new era will devolve into "nonpolarity," in which nation-states lose influence and a fractious assortment of nonstate players wield more clout. These include a variety of regional and global organizations, nongovernmental

groups, foundations, multinational corporations, and even unsavory militias, drug cartels, and terrorist networks. The erosion of U.S. global standing--at least in the eyes of the world--has been hastened by a foreign policy routinely portrayed overseas as one of arrogance and hubris . The charge of U.S. unilateralism--stoked above all by a costly and unresolved war of choice in Iraq--has fortified a troubling

caricature of America as a militaristic and hypocritical behemoth that frittered away the outpouring of global goodwill after 9/11. The damage to America's reputation has weakened its "soft power"--the attractiveness abroad of its society and politics. Reports of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo and what many see as encroachments on America's civil liberties in the

name of fighting terrorism have taken a toll . It was, seemingly, with some glee that the German magazine Der Spiegel ran a cover story this fall titled

"The Price of Arrogance" and depicting the Statue of Liberty with its flame extinguished. The world supply of deference to the lone superpower is flagging-- a likely drag on the next presidency. The go-it-alone instincts of the Bush administration--though tempered in

its second term--came into play on issues from climate change to international justice to arms control. Old allies felt a cool wind from Washington. Grand ambitions for a democratic Middle East went unfulfilled . The Americans championed the war on terrorism with a "with us or against us"

zeal. Fairly or not, friends and foes alike saw a lecturing, moralistic American style of leadership . It sat badly. "We exited the

Cold War with amazing prestige and an automatic followership," says Freeman. "Nobody will charge a hill with us anymore." There have been other body blows to American prestige. The inability to bring closure to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (especially the

lengthy bungling of the Iraq occupation), the initial feeble response to Hurricane Katrina, and the regulatory laxity and greed that underlie this year's financial crisis all served to cloud the picture of American pre-eminence . Chinese students are questioning whether they should study American-style business. Mahbubani, the Singaporean analyst and former diplomat, marvels at "a new level of incompetence in America that is puzzling the world."


Hegemony of 100


Heg Dead – Fiscal OverstretchSpending overstretch and increases in operational costs ensure the demise of American power and military presenceFlournoy and Brimley 08 president and cofounder of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and a former principal deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration and a fellow at CNAS (Michele and Shawn, The Defense Inheritance: Challenges and Choices for the Next Pentagon Team The Washington Quarterly Volume 31, Number 4, Autumn 2008)

The next president will simultaneously face enormous budgetary pressures due to slowing economic growth; the spiraling costs of mandatory spending programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as baby boomers begin to retire; and growing public and congressional intolerance for increases in the federal deficit.17 Because defense expenditures represent about one-half of U.S. discretionary spending, it will likely be in the crosshairs of those looking to cut federal spending to pay for

entitlements, cut the deficit, or both. Additionally, alarm bells are ringing throughout the U.S. defense community as the realization sinks in that the Defense Department is facing the makings of a "perfect storm." Runaway operations and maintenance costs due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; soaring personnel obligations; enormous reset, recapitalization, and modernization needs; intentional growth in the size of the Army and Marine Corps; and the eventual decline of wartime supplemental spending will all combine to require the Pentagon and Congress to make some very difficult choices.18 Defense procurement expert John

Christie points out that "[g]rowth rates for unit costs of major weapons systems are greater than those for total defense procurement, total defense spending, and the gross domestic product." If these historic trends are not addressed, he argues, U.S. armed forces will eventually cease to be "a significant influence in world events because of shrinking force structure."19 Put another way, the Pentagon risks its very relevance by continuing to spend more and more acquisition dollars for fewer and fewer systems. To take but three examples, the costs of the Army's "Future Combat Systems" family of armored vehicles have escalated 54 percent to $131 billion since its inception; the Air Force's F-22A Raptor tactical fighter unit costs have escalated 177 percent while the number to be purchased has decreased by 71 percent; and before the recent decision to cut the program, the Navy had underestimated the cost of its planned purchase of 10 advanced DDG-1000 [End Page 62] destroyers by 60 percent, from $17.4 billion to $28 billion.20 The Defense Department cannot afford to continue hemorrhaging taxpayer dollars because of its broken acquisition system.


http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu:2048/journals/washington_quarterly/v031/31.4.flournoy.html#f20




Hegemony of 100


Heg Dead – Dollar

Hegemony has collapsed – Failing dollar provesHedges, 09 – Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute, Lecturer in the Council of the humanities, Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University, 2002 Pulitzer Prize Winner, B.A. Colgate University, M.S. Harvard University (Chris, TruthDig, “The American Empire is Bankrupt,” June 14th, 2009, http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/20090614_the_american_empire_is_bankrupt/)

This week marks the end of the dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency. It marks the start of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signals the last gasp of the American imperium. That’s over. It is not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful.Barack Obama, and the criminal class on Wall Street, aided by a corporate media that continues to peddle fatuous gossip and trash talk as news while we

endure the greatest economic crisis in our history, may have fooled us, but the rest of the world knows we are bankrupt. And these nations are damned if they are going to continue to prop up an inflated dollar and sustain the massive federal budget deficits, swollen to over $2 trillion, which fund America’s imperial expansion in Eurasia and our system of casino capitalism. They have us by the throat. They are about to squeeze.There are meetings being held Monday and Tuesday in Yekaterinburg, Russia, (formerly Sverdlovsk) among Chinese President Hu Jintao,

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The United States,

which asked to attend, was denied admittance. Watch what happens there carefully. The gathering is, in the words of economist Michael Hudson, “the most important meeting of the 21st century so far.”

It is the first formal step by our major trading partners to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If they succeed, the dollar will dramatically plummet in value, the cost of imports, including oil, will skyrocket, interest rates will climb and jobs will hemorrhage at a rate that will make the last few months look like boom times. State and federal services will be reduced or shut down for lack of funds. The United States will begin to resemble the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe. Obama, endowed by many with the qualities of a savior, will suddenly look pitiful, inept and weak. And the rage that has kindled a handful of shootings and hate crimes in the past few weeks will engulf vast segments of a disenfranchised and bewildered working and middle class. The people of this class will demand vengeance, radical change, order and moral renewal, which an array of proto-fascists, from the Christian right to the goons who disseminate hate talk on Fox News, will assure the country they will impose.

The U.S. no longer has a lead in competitiveness – countries are not investing in the dollar.Hudson, 09 – President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City (Michael, Global Research, “De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire,” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13969)

For starters, the six SCO countries and BRIC countries intend to trade in their own currencies so as to get the benefit of mutual credit that the United States until now has monopolized for itself. Toward this end, China has struck bilateral deals with Argentina and Brazil to denominate their trade in renminbi rather than the dollar, sterling or euros,3 and two

weeks ago China reached an agreement with Malaysia to denominate trade between the two countries in renminbi.[4]

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad explained to me in January that as a Muslim country, Malaysia wants to avoid doing anything that would facilitate US military action against Islamic countries, including Palestine. The nation has too many dollar assets as it is, his colleagues explained. Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan of the People's Bank of China wrote an official statement on its website that the goal is now to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations.”5 This is the aim of the discussions in Yekaterinburg.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Dead – Dollar The Unipolar era is over – De-dollarizationHudson, 09 – President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City (Michael, Global Research, “De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire,” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13969)

An era therefore is coming to an end. In the face of continued US overspending, de-dollarization threatens to force countries to return to the kind of dual exchange rates common between World Wars I and II: one exchange rate for commodity trade, another for capital movements and investments, at least from dollar-area economies. Even without capital controls, the nations meeting at Yekaterinburg are taking steps to avoid being the unwilling recipients of yet more dollars. Seeing that US global hegemony cannot continue without spending power that they themselves supply, governments are attempting to hasten what Chalmers Johnson has called “the sorrows of empire” in his book by that name – the bankruptcy of the US financial-military world order. If China, Russia and their non-aligned allies have their way, the United States will no longer live off the savings of others (in the form of its own recycled dollars) nor have the money for unlimited military expenditures and adventures. US officials wanted to attend the Yekaterinburg meeting as observers. They were told No. It is a word that Americans will hear much more in the future.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Dead – Military WeaknessHegemony is dead – overambitious military goals and economic weaknessPape, 9 – Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago(Robert, National Interest Online, “Empire Falls,” January 22nd, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20484)

AMERICA IS in unprecedented decline. The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq War, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-account balances and other internal economic weaknesses have cost the United States real power in today’s world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration years as the death knell for American hegemony.Since the cold war, the United States has maintained a vast array of overseas commitments, seeking to ensure peace and stability not just in its own neighborhood—the Americas—but also in Europe and Asia, along with the oil-rich Persian Gulf (as well as other parts of the world). Simply maintaining these

commitments requires enormous resources, but in recent years American leaders have pursued far more ambitious goals than merely maintaining the status quo. The Bush administration has not just continued America’s traditional grand strategy, but pursued ambitious objectives in all three major regions at the same time—waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking to denuclearize North Korea and expanding America’s military allies in Europe up to the borders of Russia itself.For nearly two decades, those convinced of U.S. dominance in the international system have encouraged American policy makers to act unilaterally and seize almost any opportunity to advance American interests no matter the costs to others, virtually discounting the possibility that Germany, France, Russia, China and other major powers could seriously oppose American military power. From public intellectuals like Charles Krauthammer and Niall Ferguson to neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Robert Kagan, even to academicians like Dartmouth’s William Wohlforth and Stephen Brooks, all believe the principal feature of the post-cold-war world is

the unchallengeable dominance of American power. The United States is not just the sole superpower in the unipolar-dominance school’s world, but is so relatively more powerful than any other country that it can reshape the international order according to American interests. This is simply no longer realistic.For the past eight years, our policies have been based on these flawed arguments, while the ultimate foundation of American power—the relative superiority of the U.S. economy in the world—has been in decline since early on in the Bush administration. There is also good reason to think that, without deliberate action, the fall of American power will be more precipitous with the passage of time. To be sure, the period of U.S. relative decline has been, thus far, fairly short. A healthy appreciation of our situation by American leaders may lead to policies that could mitigate, if not rectify, further decline in the foreseeable

future. Still, America’s shrinking share of world economic production is a fact of life and important changes in U.S. grand strategy are necessary to prevent the decline in America’s global position from accelerating.Although the immediate problems of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, al-Qaeda’s new sanctuary in western Pakistan, Iran’s continued nuclear program and Russia’s recent military adventure in Georgia are high-priority issues, solutions to each of them individually and all of them collectively will be heavily influenced by America’s reduced power position in the world. Most important, America’s declining power means that the unipolar world is indeed coming to an end, that major powers will increasingly have the strength to balance against U.S. policies they oppose and that the United States will increasingly face harsh foreign-policy choices. Like so many great powers that have come and gone before, our own hubris may be our downfall.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Unsustainable – 1NCHeg will inevitably collapse – attempting to hold on makes the decline worsePape 09 professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago (Robert, Empire Falls, National Interest, 1/22)

Clearly, major shifts in the balance of power in the international system often lead to instability and conflict. And America’s current predicament is far more

severe. This time, our relative decline of 32 percent is accompanied, not by an even-steeper decline of our near-peer competitor, but rather

by a 144 percent increase in China’s relative position. Further, the rapid spread of technology and technological breakthroughs means that one great discovery does not buoy an already-strong state to decades-long predominance. And with a rising China—with raw resources of population, landmass and increasing adoption of leading technology—a true peer competitor is looming. America’s current, rapid domestic economic decline is merely accelerating our own downfall. The distinct quality of a system with only one superpower is that no other single state is powerful enough to balance against it. A true global hegemon is more powerful still—stronger than all second-ranked powers acting as members of a counterbalancing coalition seeking to contain the unipolar leader. By these standards, America’s relative decline is fundamentally changing international politics, and is fundamentally different from Russia circa 1850 and Great Britain circa 1910. In current-U.S.-dollar terms—the preferred measure of the unipolar-dominance

school—the United States has already fallen far from being a global hegemon and unipolarity itself is waning, since China will soon have as much economic potential to balance the United States as did the Soviet Union during the cold war. At the beginning of the 1990s, the United States was indeed not only stronger than any other state individually, but its power relative to even the collective power of all other major states combined grew from 1990 to 2000. Although the growth was small, America almost reached the crucial threshold of 50 percent of major-power product necessary to become a true global hegemon. So it is understandable that we were lulled into a sense of security, believing

we could do as we wished, whenever and wherever we wished. The instability and danger of the cold war quickly became a distant memory. Near the time of the Iraq War, it would have required virtually every major power to actively oppose the United States in order to assemble a counterbalancing coalition that could approximate America’s potential power. Under the

circumstances, hard, military balancing against the United States was not a serious possibility. So, it is not surprising that major powers opted for soft-balancing measures—relying on institutional, economic and diplomatic tools to oppose American military power. And yet we are beginning to see “the conflict of history” repeat itself. Even with less relative power, in the run-up to the Iraq War, people grossly underrated the ability of

Germany, France, Russia and China, along with important regional powers like Turkey, to soft balance against the United States; for

instance, to use the United Nations to delay, complicate and ultimately deny the use of one-third of U.S. combat power (the Fourth Infantry Division) in the opening months of the Iraq War. This is not yet great-power war of the kind seen in centuries past, but it harkens the instability that future

unilateral efforts may trigger. The balance of world power circa 2008 and 2013 shows a disturbing trend. True, the United States remains stronger than any other state individually, but its power to stand up to the collective opposition of other major powers is falling precipitously. Though these worlds depict potential power, not active counterbalancing coalitions, and this type of alliance may never form,

nonetheless, American relative power is declining to the point where even subsets of major powers acting in concert could produce sufficient military power to stand a reasonable chance of successfully opposing American military policies. Indeed, if present trends continue to 2013 and beyond, China and Russia, along with any one of the other major powers, would have sufficient economic capacity to mount military opposition at least as serious as did the Soviet Union during the cold war. And it is worth remembering that the Soviet Union never had more than about half the world product of the United States, which China alone is likely to reach in the coming decade . The faults in the arguments of the unipolar-dominance school are being brought into sharp relief. The world is slowly coming into balance. Whether or not this will be another period of great-power transition coupled with an increasing risk of war will largely depend on how America can navigate its decline. Policy makers must act responsibly in this new era or risk international opposition that poses far greater costs and far greater dangers. A COHERENT grand strategy seeks to balance a state’s economic resources and its foreign-policy commitments and to sustain that balance over time. For America, a coherent grand strategy also calls for rectifying the current imbalance between our means and our ends, adopting policies that enhance the former and modify the latter. Clearly, the United States is not the first great power to suffer long-term decline—we should learn from history. Great powers in decline seem to almost instinctively spend more on military forces in order to shore up their disintegrating strategic positions, and some like Germany go even further, shoring up their security by adopting preventive military strategies, beyond defensive alliances, to actively stop a rising competitor from becoming dominant. For declining great powers, the allure of preventive war—or lesser measures to “merely” firmly contain a rising power—has a more compelling logic than many might assume. Since Thucydides, scholars of international politics have famously argued that a declining hegemon and rising challenger must necessarily face such intense security competition that hegemonic war to retain dominance over the international system is almost a foregone conclusion. Robert Gilpin, one of the deans of realism who taught for decades at Princeton, believed that “the first and most attractive response to a society’s decline is to eliminate the source of the problem . . . [by] what we shall call a hegemonic war.” Yet, waging war just to keep another state down has turned out to be one of the great losing strategies in history. The Napoleonic Wars, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, German aggression in World War I, and German and Japanese aggression in World War II were all driven by declining powers seeking to use war to improve their future security. All lost control of events they thought they could control. All suffered ugly defeats. All were worse-off than had they not attacked. As China rises, America must avoid this great-power trap. It would be easy to think that greater American military efforts could offset the consequences of China’s increasing power and possibly even lead to the formation of a multilateral strategy to contain China in the future. Indeed, when China’s economic star began to rise in the 1990s, numerous voices called for precisely this, noting that on current trajectories China would overtake the United States as the world’s leading economic power by 2050.8 Now, as that date draws nearer—indeed, current-dollar calculations put the crossover point closer to 2040—and with Beijing evermore dependent on imported oil for continued economic growth, one might think the case for actively containing China is all the stronger. Absent provocative military adventures by Beijing, however, U.S. military efforts to contain the rising power are most likely doomed to failure. China’s growth turns mainly on domestic issues—such as shifting the workforce from rural to urban areas—that are beyond the ability of outside powers to significantly influence. Although China’s growth also depends on external sources of oil, there is no way to exploit this vulnerability short of obviously hostile alliances (with India, Indonesia, Taiwan and Japan) and clearly aggressive military measures (controlling the sea-lanes from the Persian Gulf to Asia) that

together could deny oil to China. Any efforts along these lines would likely backfire—and only exacerbate America’s problems, increasing the risk of counterbalancing. Even more insidious is the risk of overstretch. This self-

reinforcing spiral escalates current spending to maintain increasingly costly military commitments, crowding out productive investment for future growth. Today, the cold-war framework of significant troop deployments to Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf

is coming unglued. We cannot afford to keep our previous promises. With American forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and mounting troubles in Iran and Pakistan, the United States has all but gutted its military commitments to Europe, reducing our troop levels far below the one hundred thousand of the 1990s. Nearly half have been shifted to Iraq and elsewhere.

Pape continues…


Hegemony of 100


Heg Unsustainable – 1NCPape continued…Little wonder that Russia found an opportunity to demonstrate the hollowness of the Bush administration’s plan for expanding NATO to

Russia’s borders by scoring a quick and decisive military victory over Georgia that America was helpless to prevent. If a large-scale conventional war between China and Taiwan broke out in the near future, one must wonder whether America would significantly shift air and naval power away from its ongoing wars in the Middle East in order to live up to its global commitments. If the United States could not readily manage wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time, could it really wage a protracted struggle in Asia as well? And as the gap between America’s productive resources

and global commitments grows, why will others pass up opportunities to take advantage of America’s overstretched grand strategy? Since the end of the cold war, American leaders have consistently claimed the ability to maintain a significant forward-leaning military

presence in the three major regions of the globe and, if necessary, to wage two major regional wars at the same time. The harsh reality is that the United States no longer has the economic capacity for such an ambitious grand strategy. With 30 percent of the world’s product, the United States could imagine maintaining this hope. Nearing 20 percent, it cannot. Yet, just withdrawing American troops from Iraq is not enough to put America’s grand strategy into balance. Even assuming a fairly quick and problem-free drawdown, the risks of instability in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region are likely to remain for many years to come. Further, even under the most optimistic

scenarios, America is likely to remain dependent on imported oil for decades. Together, these factors point toward the Persian Gulf remaining the most important region in American grand strategy. So, as Europe and Asia continue to be low-order priorities, Washington must think

creatively and look for opportunities to make strategic trades. America needs to share the burden of regional security with its allies and continue to draw down our troop levels in Europe and Asia, even considering the attendant risks. The days when the United States could effectively solve the security problems of its allies in these regions almost on its own are coming to an end. True, spreading defense burdens more equally will not be easy and will be fraught with its own costs and risks. However, this is simply part of the price of America’s declining relative power. The key principle is for America to gain international support among regional powers like Russia and China for its vital national-security objectives by adjusting less important U.S. policies. For

instance, Russia may well do more to discourage Iran’s nuclear program in return for less U.S. pressure to expand NATO to its borders. And of course America needs to develop a plan to reinvigorate the competitiveness of its economy. Recently, Harvard’s Michael Porter issued an economic blueprint to renew America’s environment for innovation. The heart of his plan is to remove the obstacles to increasing investment in science and technology. A combination of targeted tax, fiscal and education policies to stimulate more productive investment over the long haul is a sensible domestic component to America’s new grand strategy. But it would be misguided to assume that the United States could easily regain its previously dominant economic position, since the world will likely remain globally competitive. To justify postponing this restructuring of its grand strategy, America would need a firm

expectation of high rates of economic growth over the next several years. There is no sign of such a burst on the horizon. Misguided efforts to extract more security from a declining economic base only divert potential resources from investment in the economy, trapping the state in an ever-worsening strategic dilemma. This approach has done little for great powers in the past, and America will likely be no exception when it comes to the inevitable costs of desperate policy making. The United States is not just declining. Unipolarity is becoming obsolete, other states are rising to counter American power and the United States is losing much of its strategic freedom. Washington must adopt more realistic foreign commitments.


Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg UnsustainableHeg is unsustainable – stats provePape 09 professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago (Robert, Empire Falls, National Interest, 1/22)

T HE EROSION of the underpinnings of U.S. power is the result of uneven rates of economic growth between America, China and other states in the world. Despite all the pro-economy talk from the Bush administration, the fact is that since 2000, U.S. growth rates are down almost 50 percent from the Clinton years. This trajectory is almost sure to be revised further downward as the consequences of the financial crisis in fall 2008 become manifest. As Table 3 shows, over the past

two decades, the average rate of U.S. growth has fallen considerably, from nearly 4 percent annually during the Clinton years to just over 2 percent per year under Bush. At the same time, China has sustained a consistently high rate of growth of 10 percent per year—a truly stunning performance. Russia has also turned its economic trajectory around, from year after year of losses in the 1990s to

significant annual gains since 2000. Worse, America’s decline was well under way before the economic downturn, which is likely to only further weaken U.S. power. As the most recent growth estimates (November 2008) by the IMF make clear, although all major countries are suffering economically, China and Russia are expected to continue growing at a substantially greater rate than the United States. True, the United States has not lost its position as the most innovative country in the world, with more

patents each year than in all other countries combined. However, the ability to diffuse new technology—to turn chalkboard ideas into mass-

produced applications—has been spreading rapidly across many parts of the globe, and with it the ultimate sources of state power—productive capacities. America is losing its overwhelming technological dominance in the leading industries of the knowledge economy. In past eras—the “age of iron” and the “age of steel”—leading states retained their technological advantages for many decades.4 As Fareed Zakaria describes in his recent book, The Post-American World, technology and knowledge diffuse more quickly

today, and their rapid global diffusion is a profound factor driving down America’s power compared to other countries. For instance, although the United States remains well ahead of China on many indicators of leading technology on a per capita basis, this grossly under-weights the size of the knowledge economy in China compared to America. Whereas in 2000, the United States

had three times the computer sales, five times the internet users and forty times the broadband subscribers as China, in 2008, the Chinese have caught or nearly caught up with Americans in every category in the aggregate.5 The fact that the United States remains ahead of

China on a per capita basis does matter—it means that China, with more than four times the U.S. population, can create many more knowledge workers in the future. So, how much is U.S. decline due to the global diffusion of technology, U.S. economic weaknesses under Bush or China’s superior economic performance? Although precise answers are not possible, one can gain a rough weighting of the factors behind America’s shrinking share of world production by asking a few simple counterfactual questions of the data. What would happen if we assumed that the United States grew during the Bush years at the same rate as during Clinton’s? What would have happened had the world continued on its same trajectory, but we assume China did not grow at such an astounding rate? Of course, these are merely thought experiments, which leave out all manner of technical problems like “interaction effects.” Still, these back-of-the-

envelope approximations serve as useful starting points. The answers are pretty straightforward. Had the American economy grown at the (Clinton) rate of 3.7 percent per year from 2000 to 2008 instead of the (Bush) rate of 2.2 percent, the United States would have had a bigger economy in absolute

terms and would have lost less power relative to others. Assuming the rest of the world continued at its actual rate of growth, America’s share of world product in 2008 would h;ave risen to 25.2 percent instead of its actual 23.1 percent.6 When compared to the share of gross world product lost by the United States from 2000 to 2008—7.7 percent—the assumed marginal gain of 2.1 percent of world product amounts to some

27 percent of the U.S. decline. How much does China matter? Imagine the extreme case—that China had not grown, and the United

States and the rest of the world continued along their actual path of economic growth since 2000. If so, America’s share of world product in 2008 would be 24.3 percent, or 1.2 percent more than today. When compared to the share of world product lost by the United States

from 2000 to 2008—7.7 percent—the assumed marginal gain of 1.2 percent of world product accounts for about 15 percent of the U.S.

decline. These estimates suggest that roughly a quarter of America’s relative decline is due to U.S. economic weaknesses (spending on the Iraq War, tax cuts, current-account deficits, etc.), a sixth to China’s superior performance and just over half to the spread of technology to the rest of the world. In other words, self-inflicted wounds of the Bush years significantly exacerbated America’s decline, both by making the decline steeper and faster and crowding out productive investment that could have stimulated innovation to improve matters. All of this has led to one of the most significant declines of any state since the mid-nineteenth century. And when one examines past declines and their consequences, it becomes clear both that the U.S. fall is remarkable and that dangerous instability in the international system may lie ahead. If we end up believing in the wishful thinking of unipolar dominance forever, the costs could be far higher than a simple percentage drop in share of world product. THE UNITED States has always prided itself on exceptionalism, and the U.S. downfall is indeed extraordinary. Something fundamental has changed. America’s relative decline since 2000 of some 30 percent represents a far greater loss

of relative power in a shorter time than any power shift among European great powers from roughly the end of the Napoleonic Wars to World War II. It is one of the largest relative declines in modern history. Indeed, in size, it is clearly surpassed by only one other great-power decline, the unexpected internal collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991


Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Unsustainable – CounterbalancingUnipolarity is impossible – rising powersLayne 06 Associate Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University(Christopher, “The Peace of Illusions” 149-150)

Although balance-of-power theorists were off with respect to the timing, now, even if somewhat belatedly, new great powers indeed are emerging, and the unipolar era’s days are numbered. In its survey of likely international developments up until 2020, the National Intelligence Council’s report, Mapping the Global Future,

notes: The likely emergency of China and India as new major global players – similar to the rise of Germany in the 19th century and

the United States in the early 20th century – will transform the geopolitical landscape, with impacts potentially as dramatic as those of previous two centuries. In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the American Century, the early 21st century may be seen as the time when some in the developing world led by China and India came into their own. In a similar vein, a study by the Strategic Assessment Group

concludes that already both China (which, according to Mapping the Global Future, by around 2020, will be “by any measure a first rate military power”) and the European Union (each with a 14 percent share) are approaching the United States (20 percent) in their respective shares of world power. Although the same study predicts the EU’s shares of world power will decrease somewhat between now and 2020, China and

India are projected to post significant gains. In other words, the international system today already is on the cusp of multipolarity and is likely to become fully multipolar between now and 2020. It is unsurprising that, as balance-of-power theory predicts, new great powers are rising. The potential for

successful counterhegemonic balancing always exists in a unipolar system, because hegemony is not the equivalent of what used to be called “universal empire.” A unipolar system still is made up of sovereign states, and even if none of them have the short-term capacity to counterbalance the hegemon, invariably some of these states – which I term “eligible states – have the potential to do so. Differential economic

growth rates determine which actors in the international system are eligible states. The distribution of power in the international system is never static, because some states are gaining relative power while others are losing it. A hegemon’s grip on preponderance begins to loosen when the relative power gap between itself and some of the other starts narrowing appreciably. When that gap closes enough, an inflection point is reached where the hegemon’s hard-power capabilities no longer are an effective entry barrier to others’ emergence as peer competitors. As Gilpin puts it, “The critical significance of the differential growth of power among states is that it alters the cost of changing the international system and therefore the incentives for changing the international system.” The redistribution of power in the international system caused by differential growth rates invariably has important geopolitical consequences:

time and again relative “economic shifts heralded the rise of new Great Powers which one day would have a decisive impact on the military/territorial order.” In a unipolar world, eligible states have real incentives to transform their latent capabilities into actual hard power. Given the anarchic nature of the international political system, eligible states can gain security only by building themselves into counterweights to the hegemon’s power. In this sense, unipolar systems contain the seeds of their own demise, because the hegemon’s unchecked power, in itself, stimulates eligible states, in self-defense, to emerge as great powers. The emergence of new great powers erodes the hegemon’s relative power, ultimately ending its dominance. Thus, from the standpoint of balance-of-power theory, “unipolarity appears as the least stable of international

organizations.” The two prior unipolar moments in international history – France under Louis XIV and mid-Victorian Britain- suggest that hegemony prompts the near-simultaneous emergence of several new great powers and the consequent transformation of the international system from unipolarity to multipolarity.


Hegemony of 100


Hegemony Bad – War

Hegemony causes war – imperial aspirations produce geopolitical backlashLayne, 03 – Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute, (Christopher, The American Conservative "The Cost of Empire" October 3rd, http://www.amconmag.com/article/2003/oct/06/00007/)

Perhaps the proponents of America’s imperial ambitions are right and the U.S. will not suffer the same fate as previous hegemonic powers. Don’t bet on it. The very fact of America’s overwhelming power is bound to produce a geopolitical backlash—which is why it’s only a short step from the celebration of imperial glory to the recessional of imperial power. Indeed, on its

present course, the United States seems fated to succumb to the “hegemon’s temptation.” Hegemons have lots of power and because there is no countervailing force to stop them, they are tempted to use it repeatedly, and thereby overreach themselves. Over time, this hegemonic muscle-flexing has a price. The cumulative costs of fighting —or

preparing to fight—guerilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asymmetric conflicts against terrorists (in the Philippines, possibly in a failed Pakistan, and elsewhere), regional powers (Iran, North Korea), and rising great powers like China could erode America’s relative power—especially if the U.S. suffers setbacks in future conflicts, for example in a war with China over Taiwan.

The pursuit of primacy causes global savage wars for peace – it makes conflict inevitable.Layne, 7 –Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute, (Christopher, "The Case Against the American Empire," American Empire: A Debate, Published by Routledge, ISBN 0415952034, p. 54-55)

In this chapter, I argue that primacy and empire is a strategy that will lead to bad consequences for the United States. Rather than bringing the United States peace and security, the pursuit of primacy and empire will result in a geopolitical backlash against the United States. It already has. The 9/11 attacks were a violent reaction against America’s primacy—and specifically against its imperial ambitions in the Middle East. Similarly, the quagmire in Iraq also is a direct consequence of U.S. imperial aspirations. And it will not end there. Because it is premised on the belief that the United States must embark on assertive policies to bring about regime change by imposing democracy abroad, the pursuit of primacy and empire will drag the United States into otherwise avoidable wars—

what one proponent of the strategy has termed "savage wars for peace." Looking ahead, if the United States continues to follow its current strategy of primacy and empire, it almost certainly will find [end page 54] itself on a collision course with Iran (and possibly North Korea and Syria) and—more importantly—China.


Hegemony of 100


Hegemony Bad – WarHeg causes war – it puts the U.S. on a collision course with other rising powersLayne, 7 –Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute, (Christopher, "The Case Against the American Empire," American Empire: A Debate, Published by Routledge, ISBN 0415952034, p. 54-55)

Contrary to what its proponents claim, in at least three respects, primacy causes insecurity for the United States. First, even before 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, the heavy hand of U.S. primacy pressed down on the Middle East, as the United States sought to establish political, military, and cultural ascendancy in the region. Terrorist groups like al Qaeda are a form of blow-back against long-standing U.S. policies in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf—including American

support for authoritarian regimes in the region, and uncritical support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. America’s current strategy of primacy and empire also means that the United States is on a collision course with China and Iran. In both cases, the logic of U.S. strategy suggests that preventive and preemptive options are on the table to thwart the rise of a prospective peer competitor (China) and a regional rival (Iran). Tensions with China and Iran also are being fueled by the liberal—Wilsonian— thrust of American strategy that challenges the legitimacy of nondemocratic regimes while aggressively aiming at the promotion of democracy abroad.

Heg causes geopolitical backlash – drags the U.S. into asymmetric conflictsLayne, 7 –Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at The Independent Institute, (Christopher, "The Case Against the American Empire," American Empire: A Debate, Published by Routledge, ISBN 0415952034, p. 54-55)

The American Empire rests on two foundations. One is the faux realism of primacy. The other is Wilsonian ideology. The apostles of Empire argue that by maintaining American primacy, and by exporting democracy abroad, the United States can attain peace and security. As I have argued elsewhere, however,

the peace promised by the American Empire is a peace of illusions.135

Primacy is a strategy that causes insecurity because it will lead to a geopolitical backlash against the United States.

In time, this will take the form of traditional great power counterbalancing against American primacy. The emergence of new great powers during the next decade or two is all but certain. Indeed, China already is on the cusp of establishing itself as a peer competitor to the United States. The U.S. grand strategy of maintaining its global primacy has put the United States on the road to confrontation with a rising China, and with Iran. In the short term, primacy has triggered asymmetric [end page 93] responses—notably terrorism—in regions like the Middle East where America’s geopolitical presence is resented.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Bad – Terrorism

Heg causes terrorismLayne 06 Associate Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University(Christopher “The Peace of Illusions” (p. 190-191)

The events of 9/11 are another example of how hegemony makes the United States less secure than it would be if it followed an offshore balancing strategy. Terrorism, the RAND Corporation terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman says, is "about power: the pursuit of power, the acquisition of power, and use of power to achieve political change."86 If we step back for a moment from our horror and revulsion at the events of September 11, we can see that the attack was in keeping with the Clausewitzian paradigm of war: force was used against the United States by its adversaries to advance

their political objectives. As Clausewitz observed, "War is not an act of senseless passion but is controlled by its political object."88 September 11 represented a violent counterreaction to America's geopolitical-and cultural-hegemony. As the strategy expert Richard K. Betts

presciently observed in a 1998 Foreign Affairs article: It is 'hardly likely that Middle Eastern radicals would be hatching schemes like the destruction of the World Trade Center if the United States had not been identified so long as the mainstay of Israel, the shah of Iran, and conservative Arab regimes and the source of a cultural assault on Islam.89 U.S. hegemony fuels terrorist groups like al Qaeda and fans Islamic fundamentalism, which is a form of "blowback" against America's preponderance and its world role.90 As long as the United States maintains its global hegemony-and its concomitant preeminence in regions like the Persian Gulf-it will be the target of politically motivated terrorist groups like al Qaeda. After 9/11, many foreign policy analysts and pundits asked the question, "Why do they hate us?" This question missed the key point. No doubt, there are Islamic fundamentalists who do "hate" the United States for cultural, religious, and ideological reasons. And even leaving aside American neoconservatives' obvious relish for making it so, to some extent the war on terror inescapably has overtones of a "clash of

civilizations:' Still, this isn't-and should not be allowed to become-a replay of the Crusades. Fundamentally 9/11 was about geopolitics, specifically about U.S. hegemony. The United States may be greatly reviled in some quarters of the Islamic world, but were the United States not so intimately involved in the affairs of the Middle East, it's hardly likely that this detestation would have manifested itself in something like 9/11. As Michael Scheurer, who headed the CIA analytical team monitoring Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, puts it, "One of the greatest dangers for Americans in deciding how to confront the Islamist threat lies in continuing to believe-

at the urging of senior U.S. leaders-that Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than for what we do."91 It is American policies-to be

precise, American hegemony-that make the United States a lightning rod for Muslim anger

Nuclear WarSID – AHMED 04 Political Analyst [Mohamed, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm]

A nuclear attack by terrorists will be much more critical than Hiroshima and Nagazaki, even if -- and this is far from certain – the weapons used are less harmful than those used then, Japan, at the time, with no knowledge of nuclear technology, had no choice

but to capitulate. Today, the technology is a secret for nobody. So far, except for the two bombs dropped on Japan, nuclear weapons have been used only to threaten. Now we are at a stage where they can be detonated. This completely changes the rules of the game. We have reached a point where anticipatory measures can determine the course of events. Allegations of a terrorist connection can be used to justify anticipatory measures, including the invasion of a sovereign state like Iraq. As it turned out, these allegations, as well as the allegation that Saddam was harbouring WMD, proved to be

unfounded. What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative

features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another,

this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers..


http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm

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Ext. Heg Causes Terrorism

Terrorists aren’t deterred by military power because it falls out of asymmetric power calculations Eland 08 senior fellow at the Independent Institute(ivan, Mediterranean Quarterly Volume 19, Number 3, Summer 2008, Back to the Future: Rediscovering America’s Foreign Policy Traditions

During the Cold War, at least a plausible argument could be made for some [End Page 94] US intervention overseas to counter Soviet encroachment. But the Cold War is long over, the Soviet rival is in the dustbin of history, and the gains from interventionism have been drastically reduced while the costs have

skyrocketed. The only type of attack that cannot be deterred by the US nuclear arsenal is that from terrorists — as was demonstrated on 9/11. Retaliation for US interventionism in the Arab-Muslim world is al Qaeda’s primary motive for attacking the United States. Specifically, Osama bin Laden’s biggest gripes are with US — that is, non-Muslim — occupation of Muslim lands and meddling in their politics by supporting

corrupt dictators and Israel. Because conventional and nuclear military power have very little utility in stopping terrorist attacks and because the United States has an open society, with thousands of miles of borders and many possible targets, homeland security efforts will likely have only limited effect. Naturally, in the short term, the utmost effort should be made

to capture or kill bin Laden and eradicate al Qaeda, but in the long term the only way to effectively deal with anti – United States terrorism is to reduce the motivation of terrorists to attack America in the first place. Poll after poll in the Muslim world indicates that Muslims like US political and economic freedoms, technology, and even culture but hate US meddling in their world. Thus, practicing military restraint, rather than interventionism, would make Americans safer at home. Protecting its citizens and property should be the first goal of any government, but the US quest for an informal global empire actually

undermines this objective. Empire does not equal security — in fact, it sabotages it.

Even if terrorist resentment is inevitable – US policy magnifies the effect by catalyzing local issues into general Anti-Americanism Posen 07 Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT and Director of the MIT Security Studies Program(Barry R. “The Case for Restraint” The American Interest, November/December)

Al-Qaeda and other similar, but less ambitious, groups have also professionalized the training of their soldiers and terrorist operatives. They

learn from one another, adapt to local circumstances, and profit from the more general availability of weaponry. The ease of international travel and trade allows human and material resources to be shifted rapidly from place to place. This turns U.S. interventions into opportunities for transnational anti-system groups like al-Qaeda to assist local resistance movements and to harness the power of nationalism and politicized religion to their more diffuse but still distinctly anti-American agenda.

Hegemony causes terrorism – it feeds the rise of violent organizationsPosen, 7 – Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(Barry R., “The Case For Restraint,” The American Interest, Volume 3, Number 2, November/December, Available Online at http://www.the-american-interest.com/ai2/article.cfm?Id=331&MId=16)

Today the most imminent U.S. security problem has to do not with conquest or intimidation but safety. Here, at least,

the consensus view is correct. The main discrete threat is al-Qaeda, but if the foregoing analysis is right, there are deeper forces feeding that organization than its interpretation of religious texts. These forces could give rise to other violent organizations. In other words, al-Qaeda is not the problem, but a particularly threatening example of a condition of global disorder and disaffection capable of giving rise to numerous such groups, Islamist and otherwise. This condition is the problem, which American power and actions over the years have done a good deal, albeit inadvertently, to cause, but cannot now easily or by themselves redress.


Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Causes TerrorismObama can’t change the perception of the US as imperialistic – rooted military traditions will continue to fuel the Middle Eastern crisis and terrorismEland, 9 – Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute, Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, B.A. Iowa State University, M.B.A. in Economics and Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Washington University, (Ivan, The Independent Institute, “Obama v. Osama”, June 5th, http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2513)

“Obama has followed the footsteps of his predecessor in increasing animosity toward Muslims and increasing enemy fighters and establishing long-term wars. So the American people should get ready to reap the fruits of what the leaders of the White House have planted throughout the coming years and decades.”Obama has pledged to fulfill the Bush administration’s agreement with Iraq that the United States will withdraw all U.S. forces from there by the end of 2011.

However, because the United States has had difficulty leaving the Persian Gulf, Korean peninsula, and Europe after conflict or Cold War ended, the Islamic world cannot be blamed for taking a “seeing is believing” attitude toward this promise. In addition, instead of winding down Bush’s nation-building quagmire in Afghanistan and focusing on neutralizing al Qaeda, Obama is escalating this un-winnable war. The war in Afghanistan has already fueled dangerous Islamist militancy in Pakistan and had helped al Qaeda find more recruits.Unfortunately, Obama is not the only person in the United States who fails to understand this key cause of anti-U.S. terrorism originating from the Islamic world. The foreign policy establishment—both Democratic and Republican elements—

believes that the United States must solve all of the Islamic/Arab world’s problems to turn things around there. For example, the establishment New York Times, in a news article on Obama’s Cairo speech, pontificated: For Mr. Obama to win favor, . . . he needs to address the challenges facing the Arab world, from poverty and inadequate education systems to limits on democracy and human rights.

That is exactly wrong and a complete misunderstanding of the roots of the basic problem. The imperial mentality of solving all such problems got the United States into its current riff with the Islamic world. To get rid of this dangerous source of friction, the United States should just stop meddling in that part of the world.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Bad – ProlifHeg cause prolif – multipolarity will solve itWeber et al 07 Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for International Studies at the University of California-Berkeley(Steven with Naazneen Barma, Matthew Kroenig, and Ely Ratner, Ph.D. Candidates at the University of California-Berkeley and Research Fellows at its New Era Foreign Policy Center, [“How Globalization Went Bad,” Foreign Policy, Issue 158, January/February,)

Axiom 3 is a story about the preferred strategies of the weak. It's a basic insight of international relations that states try to balance power. They

protect themselves by joining groups that can hold a hegemonic threat at bay. But what if there is no viable group to join? In today's unipolar world, every nation from Venezuela to North Korea is looking for a way to constrain American power. But in the unipolar world, it's harder for states to join together to do that. So they turn to other means. They play a different game. Hamas, Iran, Somalia,

North Korea, and Venezuela are not going to become allies anytime soon. Each is better off finding other ways to make life more difficult for

Washington. Going nuclear is one way. Counterfeiting U.S. currency is another. Raising uncertainty about oil supplies is perhaps the most obvious

method of all. Here's the important downside of unipolar globalization. In a world with multiple great powers, many of these threats would be

less troublesome. The relatively weak states would have a choice among potential partners with which to ally, enhancing their

influence. Without that more attractive choice, facilitating the dark side of globalization becomes the most effective means of constraining American power. SHARING GLOBALIZATION'S BURDEN The world is paying a heavy price for the instability created by the combination of globalization and unipolarity,

and the United States is bearing most of the burden. Consider the case of nuclear proliferation. There's effectively a market out there for proliferation, with its own supply (states willing to share nuclear technology) and demand (states that badly want a nuclear

weapon). The overlap of unipolarity with globalization ratchets up both the supply and demand, to the detriment of U.S. national security. It has become fashionable, in the wake of the Iraq war, to comment on the limits of conventional military force. But much of this analysis is overblown. The United States may not be able to stabilize and rebuild Iraq. But that doesn't matter much from the perspective of a government that thinks the Pentagon has it in its sights. In Tehran, Pyongyang, and many other capitals, including Beijing, the bottom line is simple: The U.S. military could,

with conventional force, end those regimes tomorrow if it chose to do so. No country in the world can dream of challenging U.S.

conventional military power. But they can certainly hope to deter America from using it. And the best deterrent yet

invented is the threat of nuclear retaliation. Before 1989, states that felt threatened by the United States could turn to the Soviet Union's nuclear umbrella for protection. Now, they turn to people like A.Q. Khan. Having your own nuclear weapon used

to be a luxury. Today, it is fast becoming a necessity. North Korea is the clearest example. Few countries had it worse during the Cold War. North Korea was surrounded by feuding, nuclear armed communist neighbors, it was officially at war with its southern neighbor, and it stared

continuously at tens of thousands of U.S. troops on its border. But, for 40 years, North Korea didn't seek nuclear weapons. It didn't need

to, because it had the Soviet nuclear umbrella. Within five years of the Soviet collapse, however, Pyongyang was pushing ahead full steam on plutonium reprocessing facilities. North Korea's founder, Kim II Sung, barely flinched when former U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration readied war plans to strike his nuclear installations preemptively. That brinkmanship paid off. Today North Korea is likely a nuclear power, and Kim's son rules the country with an iron fist. America's conventional military strength means a lot less to a nuclear North Korea.

Saddam Hussein's great strategic blunder was that he took too long to get to the same place. How would things be different in a multipolar world? For starters, great powers could split the job of policing proliferation, and even collaborate on some particularly hard cases. It's often forgotten now that, during the Cold War, the only state 'with a tougher nonproliferation policy than the United States was the Soviet Union. Not a single country that had a formal alliance with Moscow ever became a nuclear power. The Eastern bloc was full of countries with advanced technological capabilities in every area except one— nuclear

weapons. Moscow simply wouldn't permit it. But today we see the uneven and inadequate level of effort that non-superpowers devote to stopping proliferation. The Europeans dangle carrots at Iran, but they are unwilling to consider serious sticks. The Chinese refuse to admit that there is a problem. And the Russians are aiding Iran's nuclear ambitions. When push comes to shove, nonproliferation today is almost entirely America's burden.

Proliferation leads to nuclear warUtgoff 02, Deputy Director of the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses., Survival, vol. 44, no. 2, Summer 2002, pp. 85–102 “Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions”

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.


Hegemony of 100



Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Causes ProlifRogue states are a self-fulfilling prophecy – states proliferate because they are afraid of the US.Layne 07 Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute [Christopher “American Empire: A Debate” (p 133)]

Long before Saddam Hussein came down the pike, “regime change” has been a favored tool of American foreign policy . Here,

however, U.S. grand strategy tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it causes states that might not otherwise have done so to become threats. That is, Wilsonianism causes the United States to be more, not less, insecure than it would be if its external ambitions were modest. When , by asserting the universal applicability of its own ideology,

the United States challenges the legitimacy of other regimes – by labeling them as outposts of tyranny or members of an axis of evil – the effect is to increase those states’ sense of isolation and vulnerability. With good reason, such states fear that their survival could be at risk. Iran is a good example. Given that states – and regimes – are highly motivated to survive, it’s no surprise that others respond to American policy by adopting strategies that give them a chance to do so – like acquiring WMD capabilities and supporting terrorism. One thing is for sure: because of its Wilsonian foundations, the American Empire is a recipe for confrontation and antagonism with “others.”


Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Causes Prolif

The pursuit of hegemony creates a cycle of interventionism that dramatically increases WMD proliferation and risks catastrophic conflict.Eland, 2 – Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute [Ivan, “The Empire Strikes Out: The "New Imperialism" and Its Fatal Flaws,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 459, November 26, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa459.pdf)

The answer is probably no. Over the long run the strategy of empire will likely prove unsustainable and ultimately self-defeating. Certainly, the United States currently has the world’s most powerful military, and it spends much more on its defense than all its rivals

combined. But it costs far more for the United States—a relatively secure nation separated from most of the world by two vast oceans—to project its power across the seas than it does for states located on other landmasses to project their power regionally. In other words, proximity matters, which raises what John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago has called the “stopping power of water,” the belief that “the presence of oceans on much of the earth’s surface makes it impossible for any state to achieve global

hegemony.” 89 What’s more, the strategy of empire necessarily leads to a devaluation of other states’ sovereignty. That’s

because accepting the principle of noninterference is an impediment to a dominant state seeking to make other nations conform to its will. State sovereignty also allows for the formation of multiple loci of power and the prospect of power balancing, which are things an empire cannot accept if it is committed to maintaining supremacy. The echo of Rome is clear. As political scientist Frank Russell once wrote: “Rome . . . never was interested . . . in preserving a balance of power. A balance of power system is essentially a device for keeping the power of different states within limits by a system of checks and balances. Rome certainly was not interested in a balance of power for the very reason she was interested in a monopoly of power.” 90 From this perspective, the strategy of empire is unlikely to function if all sorts of states are allowed to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a deterrent against the power projection of the United States. The logic of empire therefore dictates that as few states as possible should be allowed to gain a defensive footing with the United States. In practice this idea will bring preventative efforts, including war, to make sure WMD proliferation is stopped at all costs. In its National Security Strategy, the Bush administration notes: “These weapons may . . . allow [end page 13] these states to attempt to blackmail the United States and our allies to prevent us from deterring or repelling the aggressive behavior of rogue states. Such states also see these weapons as their best means of overcoming the conventional superiority of the United States.” 91 In his June 2, 2002, speech to West Point’s graduating class, President Bush laid out his vision of a future in which the United States more or less monopolizes global military power through preemption if necessary: “America has, and intends to keep, [its] military strengths beyond challenge,” said Bush, and “we have to be ready for preemptive action” because “if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too

long.” 92 (Although the president used the word “preemptive,” which means taking military action before an imminent attack by an adversary, in many cases the United States might launch a preventive attack to stop an incipient threat before it is even realized, for example, before a nation working on WMD, such as Iraq, obtains them.) That approach is consistent with the strategy of empire. But supporting preventative or preemptive action could shift the rules of the world order against peace and stability. 93 Indeed, if other nations, such as India and Pakistan, adopted preemption as their official policy, the risk of nuclear war could actually rise. “One of the reasons there is not a constant state of war,” says a skeptical Bush administration official, “is that we all expect certain rules. We just have to be careful that if we create exceptions to those rules, the exceptions justify it—lest we establish precedents that others will emulate.” 94 “There’s no question that great powers like the United States [can] launch preventative wars or preemptive strikes whenever they conclude it’s in their interests,” adds Mearsheimer. But the “$64,000 question is whether or not it makes sense to stand on the rooftops and announce loudly to the world that this is your doctrine. I think it would be better not to do that. I favor the Teddy

Roosevelt approach to foreign policy: Speak softly and carry a big stick.” 95 The strategy of empire, however, is to speak loudly (extended

deterrence) and cut up and scatter Washington’s inadequate stick all over the place. That’s a blueprint for trouble if there ever was one. It will also increase the likelihood of war. That’s because the doctrine of prevention or preemption is predicated on the “ideology of the offensive,” which says that striking early is less difficult than striking later. The Bush administration’s National Security Strategy boldly asserts that “our best defense is a good offense.” 96

Consequently, offense-minded states are apt to be war-prone because they believe the prospects for victory are very favorable to them. What’s more, offense-minded states have a tendency to incite security dilemmas, whereby the efforts of weaker states to increase their relative security undermines, or appears to undermine, the security of the offense-minded state, thus triggering a spiral of security competition that can culminate in confrontation or war. 97 For example, as China’s economy grows, it may want more ability to control its security environment within East Asia. The expansion of Chinese influence in that region may run afoul of a United States, which has a defense perimeter that is far forward and a military doctrine that is very preventive or preemptive.

Eland continues…


Hegemony of 100


Hegemony Bad – Prolif Eland continued…The other major problem with the doctrine of prevention or preemption is that in the absence of actual aggression against the United States, how will Washington prove that an attack might have happened? Surely some foreign and domestic critics will discount the threat afterward. Inevitable mistakes will lead to recrimination and suspicions about America’s motives. And other states will worry that the doctrine could be used against them. 98

Hence there is a paradox. The doctrine of prevention or preemptive intervention could actually create a greater incentive for other states to try to acquire WMD secretly as an insurance policy against American military might, which could in turn spur even more U.S. prevention or preemption. (Yet as President Clinton [end page 14] found out in 1998 during Operation Desert Fox, preventive attacks on installations associated with those superweapons often founder on a lack of intelligence on the location of such

clandestine small mobile, or deeply buried facilities.) The unintended consequence of interventionism, in other words, could be more interventionism. Failed states are already an example of those self-reinforcing phenomena. Failed states matter to today’s advocates of empire because the existence of such states raises the specter that interventionist foreign policies in one place can have a deadly price tag made possible by individuals willing to take advantage of the situation in another place. Accordingly, the security threat posed by failed states is really a second-order issue; that is, the danger posed by failed states is a consequence of something other than state failure per se. The primary danger is from an interventionist foreign policy that makes enemies who are resourceful and willing move into and exploit failed states. The very problem of failed states, in other words, shows, not that interventionism necessarily solves problems, but that interventionism can create altogether new ones.Nevertheless, today’s advocates of empire are unable to break out of their consolidating logic. Thus, the fact that so many people in the Muslim world dislike America’s meddling is not seen as an argument for rethinking U.S. policy or assuming a lower profile. Instead, those advocates see it as an argument for deeper involvement; that is, for ramping up U.S. economic aid, promulgating foreign educational and health care programs, telling other states and aspiring states who their leaders should be, and launching wars to transform countries like Iraq “into a beacon of hope.” 99 Yet it was such nation building that led to the

attack on U.S. forces in Somalia. Thus, like the proverbial man who finds himself stuck in a hole, today’s advocates of empire recommend more digging. But digging will neither get the man out of the hole nor make the United States safer. America and its citizens will become an even greater lightning rod for the world’s political malcontents. As former

Reagan adviser and Cato Institute senior fellow Doug Bandow warns: “With the growing ability of small political movements and countries to kill U.S. citizens and to threaten mass destruction, the risks of foreign entanglements increase. . . . In coming years, the United States could conceivably lose one or more large cities to demented or irrational retaliation for American intervention.” 100 The strategy of empire could make the United States less secure in another

major way as well—by dispersing and overtasking its military personnel and equipment. In fact, a recent top-secret Pentagon war game, code named Prominent Hammer, has revealed that, even now, expanding the campaign against terrorism to a country like Iraq would place severe strains on personnel and cause deep shortages of certain critical weapons.According to the New York Times, “The war game measured how the strains of new commitments to domestic defense, the demands of long-term deployments in places like the Balkans and South Korea, southwest Asia and the Sinai, and the stress of ongoing operations in Afghanistan, would affect the military’s ability to wage and win a new regional war.” 101 The conclusion was that the American military would be stretched very thin. The Joint Chiefs of Staff subsequently recommended postponing an attack against Iraq.

And over the longer term there is the issue of being ready to fight a major theater war if necessary. Empires get into trouble because they get bogged down fighting protracted small wars in the hinterland, garrisoning myriad outposts, and accumulating manifold security and treaty commitments they are obliged to honor. 102 The strategic implications are potentially enormous. One of the primary reasons Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeased Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938 was that much of Britain’s strength was diffused throughout its far-flung empire; that is, London was not in a position to rebuff a rising Nazi Germany early on because Britain was overstretched. 103 According to British historian P. M. H. Bell: [end page 15]


Hegemony of 100


Heg Bad – China ShellUS primacy ensures conflict with ChinaLayne 07 Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute (Christopher “American Empire: A Debate” (p 75)]

So what should the United States do about China? If the United States per sists with its strategy of primacy, the odds of a Sino- American conflict are high. Current American strategy commits the United States to maintaining the geopolitical status quo in East Asia, a status quo that reflects American primacy. The United States' desire to preserve the status quo, however, clashes with the ambitions of a rising China. As a rising great power, China has its own ideas about how East Asia's political and security order should be orga nized. Unless U.S. and Chinese interests can be accommodated, the potential for future tension—or worse—exists. Moreover, as I already have demonstrated, the very fact of American primacy is bound to produce a geopolitical backlash—with China in the vanguard—in the form of counter-hegemonic balancing. Nevertheless, the United States cannot be completely indifferent to China's rise.

Nuclear WarStraits Times 00 [“Regional Fallout: No one gains in war over Taiwan,” Jun 25, LN]

THE high-intensity scenario postulates a cross-strait war escalating into a full-scale war between the US and China. If Washington were to conclude that splitting China would better serve its national interests, then a full-scale war becomes unavoidable. Conflict on such a scale 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? 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. Gen Ridgeway recalled that the biggest mistake the US made during the Korean War was to assess Chinese actions according to the American way of thinking. "Just when everyone believed that no sensible commander would march south of the Yalu, the Chinese troops suddenly appeared," he recalled. (The Yalu is the river which borders China and North Korea, and the crossing of the river marked China's entry into the war against the Americans). "I feel uneasy if now somebody were to tell me that they bet China would not do this or that," he said in a recent interview given to the Chinese press.


Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Causes War With ChinaSecurity guarantees ensure war with ChinaCarpenter 08 vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute(Ted, Galen, Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America, Introduction Aug 15, CATO)

Such dubious security obligations are not confined to Eastern Europe. Indeed, the commitment that is potentially the most dangerous is Washington’s willingness to protect Taiwan’s de facto independence. That policy could easily lead to armed conflict with China. Under President Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan has repeatedly engaged in actions to emphasize a national identity separate from China and to seek greater international recognition for its existence as an independent state—initiatives that Beijing considers extremely provocative. Yet even if the new government in Taipei proves to be more cautious than Chen’s administration, China is unlikely to tolerate indefinitely an upstart secessionist island barely 100 miles off its coast, especially when the overwhelming majority of

mainlanders consider Taiwan to be Chinese territory. As China’s economic and military strength grows, Beijing’s leaders are almost certain to become more insistent about reunification. An armed clash between the mainland and Taiwan is all too likely at some point, and those analysts who assume that economic ties between those two entities—and between China and the United States—will be sufficient to prevent a crisis are being too optimistic. Washington’s willingness to defend Taiwan is a high-stakes gamble with a decidedly unfavorable risk-reward calculation.

Hegemony puts us on a collision course with China – absent a shift in grand strategy, conflict is certain.Layne, 7 –Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and Research Fellow with the Center on Peace

and Liberty at The Independent Institute, (Christopher, "The Case Against the American Empire," American Empire: A Debate, Published by Routledge, ISBN 0415952034, p. 73-74)

To be sure, the United States should not ignore the potential strategic ramifications of China’s arrival on the world stage as a great power. After all, the lesson of history is that the emergence of new great powers in the international system leads to conflict, not peace. On this score, the notion—propagated by Beijing—that China’s will be a “peaceful rise” is just as fanciful as claims by American policy-makers that China has no need to build up its military capabilities

because it is unthreatened by any other state. Still, this does not mean that the United States and China inevitably are on a collision course that will culminate in the next decade or two in a war. Whether Washington and Beijing actually come to blows, however, depends largely on what strategy the United States chooses to adopt toward China, because the United States has the “last clear chance” to adopt a grand strategy that will serve its interests in balancing Chinese power without running the risk of an armed clash with [end page 73] Beijing. If the United States continues to aim at upholding its current primacy, however, Sino-American conflict is virtually certain.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Heg Good – China

US isn’t key to contain china – regional powers can do itEland 06 Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute and Ph.D. in national security policy from George Washington University. (Ivan, Is Future Conflict with China Unavoidable, Independent Institute Working Paper Number 63, Jan18)

Yet every adverse development in the world—particularly in East Asia—does not pose a threat to U.S. security. China may continue to enjoy rapid economic growth and become more assertive. Unlike in the 1930s, however, when Imperial Japan was

expanding throughout East Asia, other counterweights to a rising great power exist in the region today. Prior to World War II, European empires—French, British, and Dutch—with colonial possessions in East Asia were overstretched and in decline. Although the vast distances of the Pacifi c

Ocean separated the United States and Japan, the United States was the only power that could counter the potential Japanese hegemon. Now, however, if containing China becomes necessary (and it may not), India, Russia, and Japan might cooperate or form an alliance to do so. India and Russia have capable nuclear arsenals, and Japan has the wealth and technological capability to become a capable counterweight to China. Those three larger powers might be assisted by smaller, wealthy nations such as Australia, Taiwan, and South Korea. Those Asian countries might form the first line of defense against a rising China, thus allowing the United States to take advantage of the large Pacifi c moat separating China from the American homeland. Such vast separation over water should make China and the United States less threatening to each other because traversing a large body of water to invade another country is diffi - cult. Th e large physical separation over water between Japan and the United States did not prevent World

War II because of the aforementioned power vacuum in East Asia, but that power vacuum no longer exists with all the powerful and wealthy counterweights to a rising China.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Bad – InterventionismHegemony causes continuous interventions and overextensionLayne 06 Associate Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University[Christopher “The Peace of Illusions” (p. 152-153)]

There is another road to U.S. overextension: the United States could succumb-and, arguably, has-to the "hegemon's temptation." The

hegemon's temptation is caused by the imbalance of power in its favor. Conscious both of its overwhelming military superiority and of the

fact that no other great powers are capable of restraining its ambitions, a hegemon easily is lured into overexpansion. When it comes to hard power, hegemons have it, and seldom can resist flaunting it-especially when the costs and risks of doing so appear to be low.72

Thus, we should expect a unipolar hegemon to initiate many wars and to use its military power promiscuously. From

this perspective, it is not surprising that since the cold war the United States has-in addition to Afghanistan and Iraq-intervened in such peripheral places as Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo while simultaneously extending its military reach into Central Asia, the Caucasus region, and East Central Europe (all areas never previously viewed as ones where the United States had

important interests). The very nature of hegemonic power predisposes dominant powers to overexpand in order to maintain their leading position in the international system. As Gilpin observes, a hegemon earns its prestige-others' perceptions of the efficacy of its hard power capabilities-by using military power successfully to impose its will on others. When a hegemon wields its military power conspicuously, others

are put on notice that the prudent course of action is to accommodate its dominance rather than challenging it. In effect, hegemons believe that the frequent use of force has a potent deterrent, or dissuasive, effect on other states. Clearly, U.S. policymakers believe this to be the case. Thus, after extolling the displays of America's military virtuosity in Afghanistan and Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared that those wars should be a warning to other states: "If you put yourself in the shoes of a country that might decide they'd like to make mischief, they

have a very recent, vivid example of the fact that the United States has the ability to deal withthis."74 There is, of course, a paradox to the hegemon's temptation: overexpansion leads to "imperial overstretch" and counterhegemonic balancing-the combined effect of which is hegemonic decline. Strategically, hegemons usually end up biting off more than they can chew.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Bad – Interventionism Continuous interventions cause extinctionValenzeula 03 [Manuel “Perpetual War, Perpetual Terror” November 27th (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Valenzuela_Perpetual-War-Terror.htm)]

The Pentagon is the Department of War, not Defense. It is in business to kill, kill, and kill some more. Without war, violence and weapons

there is no Pentagon. And so to survive, to remain a player, wars must be created, weapons must be allocated, profits must be made and

the Military Industrial Complex must continue exporting and manufacturing violence and conflict throughout the globe. And, as always, in the great tradition of the United States, enemies must exist. Indians, English, Mexicans, Spanish, Nazis, Koreans,

Communists and now the ever-ambiguous Terrorists. The Cold War came to an end and so too the great profits of the MIC. Reductions in the Pentagon budget threatened the lifeblood of the industry; a new enemy had to be unearthed. There is no war – hence no profit – without evildoers, without terrorists lurching at every corner, waiting patiently for the moment to strike, instilling fear into our lives, absorbing our attention. We are told our nation is in imminent danger, that we are a mushroom cloud waiting to happen. And so we fear, transforming our mass uneasiness into nationalistic and patriotic fervor, wrapping ourselves up in the flag and the Military Industrial Complex. We have fallen into the mouse trap, becoming the subservient slaves of an engine run by greed, interested not in peace but constant war, constant killing and constant sacrifice to the almighty dollar. Brainwashed to believe that War is Peace we sound the drums of war,

marching our sons and daughters to a battle that cannot be won either by sword or gun. We are programmed to see the world as a conflict between "Us" versus "Them", "Good" versus "Evil," that we must inflict death on those who are not with us and on those against us. The MIC prays on our human emotions and psychology, exploiting human nature and our still fragile memories of the horrors of 9/11,

manipulating us to believe that what they say and do is right for us all. We unite behind one common enemy, fearing for our lives, complacent and obedient, blindly descending like a plague of locusts onto foreign land, devastating, usurping, conquering and devouring those who have been deemed enemies of the state, those who harbor and live among them, "evil ones," "evildoers" and "haters of freedom," all for the sake of profit and pillage, ideology and empire. Power unfettered and unleashed, our freedoms die and are released The so-called "War on Terror" is but a charade, a fear-engendering escapade, designed to last into perpetuity, helping guarantee that the Military Industrial Complex will grow exponentially in power. It is a replacement for a Cold War long ago since retired and unable to deliver a massive increase in defense spending. Terrorists and the countries that

harbor them have replaced the Soviet Union and Communists as enemy number one. With a war that may go on indefinitely, pursuing an enemy that lives in shadows and in the haze of ambiguity, the MIC will grow ever more powerful, conscripting hundreds of thousands of our youth, sending them to guide, operate and unleash their products of death. Rumblings of bringing back the draft are growing louder, and if you think your children and grandchildren will escape it, think again. In a war without end, in battles that do not cease, the MIC will need human flesh from which to recycle those who perish and fall wounded. Empire building needs bodies and drones to go with military might, instruments of death need trigger fingers and human brains, and, with so many expendable young men and women being conditioned in this so-called "war on terror," MIC will continue its reprogramming of citizen soldiers from peaceful civilians to warmongering killing machines. After all, "War is Peace." Yet the Department of War, ever steadfast to use its weaponry, fails to realize that no amount of money will win this war if the root causes of terrorism are not confronted as priority number one. If you get to the roots, you pull out the

weed. If not, it grows back again and again. But perhaps a perpetual war is what MIC has sought all along. A lifetime of combat, a lifetime of profit, a lifetime of power. Assembly lines of missiles, bombs, tanks and aircraft operate without pause, helping expand a sluggish economy and

the interests of the Pax Americana. Profit over people, violence before peace, the American killing machine continues on its path to human extinction, and it is the hands and minds of our best and brightest building and creating these products of decimation. While we look over our shoulders for terrorists and evildoers, the world ominously looks directly at us with both eyes intently focused on the armies of the "Great Satan" and the "Evil Empire," not knowing which nation will be attacked or on whom

the storm of satellite-guided-missiles will rain down on next. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In becoming pre-emptive warmongers, we are also becoming victims of our own making, helping assure a swelling wrath of revenge, resentment and retaliation against us. If we kill we will be killed, if we destroy we will be destroyed. The MIC

is leading us down a steep canyon of fury, making us a pariah, a rogue country in the eyes of the world. We are becoming that which we fear most, a terrorist state. As political scientist and ex-marine C. Douglas Lummis has said, "Air bombardment is state terrorism, the terrorism of the rich. It has burned up and blasted apart more innocents in the past six decades than have all the anti-state terrorists who have ever lived. Something has benumbed our consciousness against this reality." Today we are seen, along with Israel, as the greatest threats to world peace. When hundreds of thousands throughout the planet call Bush "the world’s number one terrorist," that less than admirable distinction is automatically imputed onto the nation as a whole and the citizens in particular. This can be seen in the world’s perception and treatment of us today.


Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Causes InterventionismHeg causes interventionism – empirically provenCarpenter 08 vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute(Ted, Galen, Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America, Introduction Aug 15, CATO)

The third major defect in the current U.S. security strategy is the increased willingness to intervene militarily in murky, often

internecine, conflicts. That is not entirely a new phenomenon. One of the worst strategic blunders in American history, the Vietnam war, was such an intervention. During the early 1980s, U.S. leaders committed a similar blunder (albeit, thankfully, on a much smaller scale) by sending troops into Lebanon when that country was in the midst of civil war. A decade later, American military personnel died in Somalia in pursuit of an amorphous mission with little or no strategic value. The United States intervened in two civil wars in the Balkans, which may ultimately lead to greater, rather than diminished, instability in that region. And, of course, Washington invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq and continues to militarily occupy both countries. The initial operation in Afghanistan at least made sense from a security standpoint. Not only were the perpetrators of the horrific 9-11 terrorist attacks holed up in that country, but Afghanistan’s Taliban government had given al Qaeda safe haven, despite the organization’s repeated attacks on American interests. Ousting that regime was entirely justified, but instead of simply turning over control of Afghanistan to a post-Taliban government with a firm warning not to tolerate the operations of anti-American terrorists, Washington stayed on in that country and has

pursued an increasingly illdefined, open-ended nation-building mission. The intervention in Iraq is an even worse case of sloppy strategic thinking. In marked contrast to the rather strong case for invading Afghanistan, Iraq posed no credible military threat to the United States. The Bush administration decided to remove Saddam Hussein from power with the naive expectation that the transition to a friendly, democratic government would be quick and easy and that Iraq would become a secular democratic model that would transform

politics throughout the Middle East, thereby ‘‘draining the swamp’’ of popular support for radical Islamic terrorism. It would be difficult to conceive of a more misguided venture. Instead of a rapid and inexpensive U.S. success, the occupation of Iraq is now in its sixth year with no end in sight. It has already consumed more than $500 billion in direct costs (and perhaps another $1 trillion in indirect costs) and taken the lives of more than 4,000 American soldiers—plus thousands more who have been physically maimed. That enormous price has

been paid for the dubious achievement of enabling a sectarian Shiite government, heavily influenced by Iran, to gain a tenuous hold on power. The crazy-quilt pattern of U.S. security pledges and military interventions is strong evidence of a foreign policy elite that is intellectually unable to establish priorities or even to develop an analytical framework for assessing strategic choices. Yet it is imperative to have such a framework within which to examine calls to make security commitments or embark on military ventures. Without it, the United States will persist in a promiscuous security policy, putting the lives and fortunes of the American people at risk even when there is no compelling reason to do so.


Hegemony of 100


Hegemony Bad – Economy

Hegemony causes economic collapse – current economic crisis provesEland, 9 – Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute, Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, B.A. Iowa State University, M.B.A. in Economics and Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Washington University,(Ivan, The Independent Institute, “How the U.S. Empire Contributed to the Economic Crisis”, May 11th, http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2498)

A few—and only a few—prescient commentators have questioned whether the U.S. can sustain its informal global empire in the wake of the most severe economic crisis since World War II. And the simultaneous quagmires in Iraq and

Afghanistan are leading more and more opinion leaders and taxpayers to this question. But the U.S. Empire helped cause the meltdown in the first place.War has a history of causing financial and economic calamities. It does so directly by almost always causing inflation—that is, too much money chasing too few goods. During wartime, governments usually commandeer resources from the private sector into the government realm to fund the fighting. This action leaves shortages of resources to make consumer goods and their components, therefore pushing prices up. Making things worse, governments often times print money to fund the war, thus adding to the amount of money chasing the smaller number of consumer goods. Such “make-believe” wealth has funded many U.S. wars.For example, the War of 1812 had two negative effects on the U.S. financial system. First, in 1814, the federal government allowed state-chartered banks to suspend payment in gold and silver to their depositors. In other words, according Tom J. DiLorenzo in Hamilton’s Curse, the banks did not have to hold sufficient gold and silver reserves to cover their loans. This policy allowed the banks to loan the federal government more money to fight the war. The result was an annual inflation rate of 55 percent in some U.S. cities.The government took this route of expanding credit during wartime because no U.S. central bank existed at the time. Congress, correctly questioning The Bank of the United States’ constitutionality, had not renewed its charter upon expiration in 1811. But the financial turmoil caused by the war led to a second pernicious effect on the financial system—the resurrection of the bank in 1817 in the form of the Second Bank of the United States. Like the first bank and all other government central banks in the future, the second bank flooded the market with new credit. In 1818, this led to excessive real estate speculation and a consequent bubble. The bubble burst during the Panic of 1819, which was the first recession in the nation’s history. Sound familiar?Although President Andrew Jackson got rid of the second bank in the 1830s and the U.S. economy generally flourished with a freer banking system until 1913, at that time yet another central bank—this time the Federal Reserve System—rose from the ashes.

We have seen that war ultimately causes the creation of both economic problems and nefarious government financial institutions that cause those difficulties. And of course, the modern day U.S. Empire also creates such economic maladies and wars that allow those institutions to wreak havoc on the economy.The Fed caused the current collapse in the real estate credit market, which has led to a more general global financial and economic meltdown, by earlier flooding the market with excess credit. That money went into real estate, thus creating an artificial bubble that eventually came crashing down in 2008. But what caused the Fed to vastly expand credit?To prevent a potential economic calamity after 9/11 and soothe jitters surrounding the risky and unneeded U.S. invasion of Iraq, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan began a series of interest rate cuts that vastly increased the money supply. According to Thomas E. Woods, Jr. in Meltdown, the interest rate cuts culminated in the extraordinary policy of lowering the federal funds rate (the rate at which banks lend to one another overnight, which usually determines other interest rates) to only one percent for

an entire year (from June 2003 to June 2004). Woods notes that more money was created between 2000 and 2007 than in the rest of U.S. history. Much of this excess money ended up creating the real estate bubble that eventually caused the meltdown. Ben Bernanke, then a Fed governor, was an ardent advocate of this easy money policy, which as Fed Chairman he has continued as his solution to an economic crisis he helped create using the same measures.Of course, according to Osama bin Laden, the primary reasons for the 9/11 attacks were U.S. occupation of Muslim lands and U.S. propping up of corrupt dictators there. And the invasion of Iraq was totally unnecessary because there was never any connection between al Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein, and even if Saddam had had biological, chemical, or even nuclear weapons, the massive U.S. nuclear arsenal would have likely deterred him from using them on the United States.

So the causal arrow goes from these imperial behaviors—and blowback there from—to increases in the money supply to prevent related economic slowdown, which in turn caused even worse eventual financial and economic calamities. These may be indirect effects of empire, but they cannot be ignored. Get rid of the overseas empire because we can no longer afford it, especially when it is partly responsible for the economic distress that is making us poorer.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Heg Good – Economy/Free TradeCollapse of heg won’t hurt the economy – global commerce and trade will still continueLayne 06 Associate Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University (Christopher “The Peace of Illusions” (p. 177-178)

Advocates of hegemony (and selective engagement) also seem to have a peculiar understanding of international economics and convey the impression that international trade and investment will come to a grinding halt if the United States abandons its current grand strategy-or if a Eurasian great power war occurs. This is not true, however. If the United States abandons its current grand strategic role as the protector of international economic openness, international economic intercourse will not stop, even in time of great power war . 60 If the United States were to adopt an offshore balancing grand strategy; its own and global markets would adapt to the new political and strategic environment. Firms and investors would reassess the risks of overseas trade and investment, and over time investment and trade flows would shift in response to these calculations. Instead of being diminished, international trade and investment would be diverted to more geopolitically secure regions, and these "safe havens"-especially the United States-would be the beneficiaries. Finally, the assumption that a Eurasia dominated by a hegemon would be dosed economically to the United States is dubious. A Eurasian hegemon would have a stake in its own economic well-being (both for strategic and domestic political reasons), and it would be most unlikely to hive itself off completely from international trade.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Heg Promotes Democracy

Heg fails to promote democracy – empirically provenThe Palestinian Chronicle 8 (IStockAnalyst, Al Bawaba 8, “Robert Kagan’s Mythology of U.S. Exceptionalism,” December 8th, http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/2865093)

Kagan starts his arguments with a recognition that the world is "normal again", that history did not end as postulated by Fukuyama an idea that fully supported the jargon and rhetoric of U.S. exceptionalism, the "perfection of its institutions" and its indispensability. He is quite confident, and expresses it frequently through the work, that the U.S. remains the sole superpower, an argument based on.well, it's not defined, again it is presumed to be understood.

Does it matter that U.S. military technology is the most sophisticated (arguably what do we really know about Chinese advances in

technology?) when rag tag bands of militias can pin down the majority of active fighting forces in two desolate regions of the world (made desolate by ongoing imperial ambitions and occupation)? Does it matter that regardless of U.S. dominance in military and nuclear technology that other nations can just as readily inflict massive and catastrophic damage to the U.S. with their military and nuclear power (there will be no winners in another world war that is without limits)? Does it matter that the U.S. economy is built on a debt structure that is at the moment imploding on itself, while those of the elite who brought us to this position are the ones trying futilely to get us out of the mess? Does it matter that demographically the U.S. has one of the worst records of the developed nations in what are normally considered indicators of national well-being such as infant mortality rate, life span, poverty rates, income gaps.? Does it matter that the rest of the world has to continue to live with an arrogant egocentric nation whose rhetoric is far outweighed by its brutal tactics to remain in control? If that defines a superpower, then yes, the U.S. is the sole superpower.The underlying theme is stated quite clearly near the beginning,"Since democratic capitalism was the most successful model for developing societies, all societies would eventually choose that path."

Problems immediately arise, as noted above, with "democratic capitalism", with its assumption as being a "successful model", and eventually for it being a "chosen" path. How much choice is there when democratic governments around the world have been overthrown with great regularity: the Cuban freedom fighters and the Philippino freedom fighters were sidelined by the U.S. military after the Spanish-American war[2]; the democratic government of Mossadegh was overthrown by joint

manipulations of the CIA and British intelligence; the Italian and Greek popular movements towards social democracy were subverted; the Vietnam war would never have happened if the U.S. had allowed for a democratic vote sponsored by the UN on the joining of North and

South Vietnam; most of the democratic governments of Central America faced subversion and interference from CIA and other U.S. sponsored operatives, from Nicaragua and Guatemala through to Allende's overthrow and Pinochet's reign of

disappearances in Chile. While democracy withers on the vine in most areas of U.S. intervention (or survives in spite of it after millions of people in opposition to the elites are murdered by death squads, government operatives, or direct U.S. military action), the U.S. pours massive amounts of manure into areas that it sees as "strategic interests".


Hegemony of 100


AT: Heg Promotes DemocracyHeg fails to promote democracy – Middle EastThe Palestinian Chronicle 8 (IStockAnalyst, Al Bawaba 8, “Robert Kagan’s Mythology of U.S. Exceptionalism,” December 8th, http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/2865093)

The U.S. has supported some notable "autocrats" in its own endeavours to secure resources and markets for its corporate partners. Currently in the Middle East alone, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are bought off with massive aid programs and

petrodollar purchases of military goods that are essentially useless. U.S. military forces remain in Iraq regardless of the democratic wishes of the majority of the people who never wanted them there in the first place, who never hosted terrorists and only had the misfortune of living on huge pools of oil. Autocrats under the U.S. influence are frequent, ranging from Syngman Rhee (Korea), Suharto (Indonesia), Pinochet (Chile), Reza Pahlevi (Iran), to the current crop in Afghanistan, Iraq and the other Middle East countries listed above.

At the centre of Middle East non-democracies is the state of Israel while self-proclaiming its democratic nature it holds millions of Palestinians subject to harsh and internationally illegal treatment in various bantustan style regions. Several other factors play an important role here. The first is the unequivocal support of the U.S. for Israeli policy, a U.S. foreign policy destined to continue under Barak Obama. Secondly, the U.S. supports Israel with more than $3 billion in aid money per annum, allowing it to succeed financially while maintaining an ever tightening noose around the collective Palestinian neck. Finally, after the fully democratic elections in which Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian government, the election was denied by the U.S., Canada, and most European countries as invalid because Hamas was described as a terrorist organization. Government terror does not really bother the U.S. as they use it frequently themselves (think of carpet bombing, torture, extradition, cluster bombs, chemical weapons), while tending to ignore it when it occurs in countries where they either have no interest, or countries where a subservient government follows the accepted line.So far, not much "choice", not much democracy. As for capitalism, it does not require democracy to flourish, rather it tends to limit democracy to the elites capable of hanging onto power by using their wealth and power to pervert or subjugate a real democratic process. 'Finance capitalism' has a requirement for cheap politically ineffectual labour, has a requirement that many people are poor to produce wealth that others gather to themselves, and most obviously currently, has a requirement that the masses indebt themselves to the corporate wealthy who in turn seek succour from their buddies in government when times get rough. If the people truly had power, their would be a much more equitable distribution of wealth, much more in the way of services provided for the people, and more than likely, much more in the way of peaceful fair trade globalization initiatives that accounted for the environment, workers conditions, and care of the citizens of the producing countries.

.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Bad – Disease

Hegemony causes infectious disease spread Fidler 04 Professor of Law and Ira C. Batman Faculty Fellow, Indiana University School of Law Bloomington (David, “Fighting the Axis of Illness: HIV/AIDS, Human Rights, and U.S. Foreign Policy” Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol 17, Spring 04)

The hegemony and human rights dilemmas suggest that obstacles to strengthening the role of international human rights law in U.S. foreign policy on HIV/AIDS remain beyond the

Bush Administration’s neoconservatism. The HIV/AIDS problem illustrates the difficulty of fighting the axis of illness in a unipolar world. The Bush Administration argued in the National Security Strategy that it wanted to preserve and enhance U.S. hegemony, especially in the military realm, in order to deal effectively with threats to U.S. national security, such as the threat posed by the axis of evil.[198] Maintaining or enhancing U.S. political, military, and economic hegemony will, in all likelihood, make the axis of illness more rather than less dangerous. The United States has strong political, security, and economic interests in deepening and expanding international trade, commerce, and investment.[199] Pursuit of these interests will stimulate the microbial resilience, human mobility, and globalization risk factors behind the HIV/AIDS pandemic and other infectious disease threats. U.S. hegemony ensures that stimulation of these risk factors will occur without significant opposition and barriers.[200] The dominance of the Westphalian framework in U.S. foreign policy on global health means that the United States has less interest in, and less well-developed policies respecting, the risk factors of

social determinants of health and collective action problems. U.S. hegemony means that, without U.S. leadership in addressing these risk factors more forthrightly, public health capabilities within and among countries may not keep pace with the demands and dangers generated by accelerated microbial resilience, human mobility, and globalization

Disease spread will cause extinction Steinbruner 98 Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution [John D., “Biological weapons: A plague upon all houses,” Foreign Policy, Dec 22,A

It s a considerable comfort and undoubtedly a key to our survival that, so far, the main lines of defense against this threat 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. 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 mv 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, 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.


Hegemony of 100


Offshore Balancing 1NC

Refusing to allow the rise of new powers fails and ensures great power conflict – abandoning a strategy of hegemony would force smaller powers to take care of regional problems Schwarz and Layne 02 Editor of the Atlantic, Research Fellow with the Center on Peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute[Benjamin and Christopher “A New Grand Strategy” Atlantic Monthly, January 1st]

The rise of new great powers is inevitable, and America's very primacy accelerates this process. If Washington continues to follow an adult-supervision strategy, which treats its "allies" as irresponsible adolescents and China and Russia as future enemies to be suppressed, its relations with these emerging great powers will be increasingly dangerous, as they coalesce against what they perceive as an American threat. But that is not even the worst conceivable outcome. What if a sullen and resentful China were to align itself with Islamic fundamentalist groups? Such a situation is hardly beyond the realm of possibility; partners form alliances not because they are friends, or because they have common values, but because they fear someone else more than they fear each other. A strategy of preponderance is burdensome, Sisyphean, and profoundly risky. It is therefore time for U.S. policymakers to adopt a very different grand strategy : one that might be called offshore balancing. Rather than fear multipolarity, this strategy embraces it. It recognizes that instability – caused by the rise and fall of

great powers, great-power rivalries, and messy regional conflicts – is a geopolitical fact of life. Offshore balancing accepts that the U nited S tates cannot prevent the rise of new great powers , either within the present American sphere (the European Union, Germany,

Japan) or outside it (China, a resurgent Russia). Instead of exhausting its resources and drawing criticism or worse by keeping these entities weak, the U nited S tates would allow them to develop their militaries to provide for their own national and regional security. Among themselves, then, these states would maintain power balances, check the rise of overly ambitious global and regional powers, and stabilize Europe, East Asia, and the Persian Gulf. It would naturally be in their interests to do so. It's always safest and cheapest to get others to stabilize the turbulent regions of the globe. Historically, however, this has seldom been an option, because if one lives in a dangerous neighborhood, one must be prepared to protect oneself from troublemakers rather than relying on someone else to do so. In fact, the only two great powers in modern history that successfully devolved onto others the responsibility for maintaining regional stability are Britain during its great-power heyday (1700-1914) and the United States (until 1945). They were able to do so because they had moats – a narrow one for England, and two very big ones for the United States – that kept

predatory Eurasian great powers at bay. As offshore balancers, Britain and the United States reaped enormous strategic dividends. While they were shielded from threatening states by geography, London and Washington could afford to maintain militaries smaller than those of Continental powers,

and concentrate instead on getting rich. Often they could stay out of Europe's turmoil entirely, gaining in strength as other great powers fought debilitating wars. And even in wartime offshore balancers have enjoyed advantages that Continental powers have not. Instead of sending big armies to fight costly Continental wars, Britain, for instance, relied on its navy to blockade those states bidding for mastery of Europe and on its financial power to underwrite coalitions against them, and stuck its allies with the greater part of the blood price of defeating those powers that aspired to dominate the Continent. The United States, of course, followed a similar strategy during World War II. From 1940 to 1944 it confined its role in the European war to providing economic assistance and munitions to the Soviet Union and Britain and – after entering the war, in December of 1941 – to relatively low-cost strategic air bombardment of Germany, and peripheral land campaigns in North Africa and Italy. The United States was more than happy to delay the invasion of Europe until June of 1944. By then the Red Army – which inflicted about 88 percent of the Wehrmacht's casualties throughout the war –

had mortally weakened Germany, but at a staggering cost. Taken together, the experiences of Britain and America highlight the central feature of the offshore balancing strategy: it allows for burden shifting, rather than burden sharing. Offshore balancers can afford to be bystanders in the opening stages of conflict. Because the security of others is most immediately at risk, an offshore balancer can be confident that those others will attempt to defend themselves. Often they will do so expeditiously, obviating the offshore balancer's intervention. If, on the other hand, a predominant power seems to be winning, an offshore balancer can intervene decisively to forestall its victory (as Britain did against Philip II, Louis XIV, and

Napoleon). And if the offshore balancer must intervene, the state aspiring to dominance will already have been at least somewhat bloodied, and thus not as formidable as it was for those who had the geopolitical misfortune to constitute the first line of defense. The same dynamics apply – or would, if the United States gave them a chance – in regional conflicts , although not quite as dramatically. Great powers that border restive neighbors, or that are economically dependent on unstable regions, have a much larger interest than does the United States in policing those areas. Most regional power balances (the relative positions of, say, Hungary and Romania, or of one sub-Saharan state and another) need not concern the United States. America must intervene only to prevent a single power from dominating a strategically crucial area – and then only if the efforts of great powers with a larger

stake in that region have failed to redress the imbalance. So for an offshore balancing strategy to work, the world must be multipolar, that is, there must be several other great powers, and major regional powers as well, onto which the United States can shift the burden of maintaining stability in various parts of the world. For America the most important

grand-strategic issue is what relations it will have with these new great powers. In fostering a multipolar world – in which the foreign and national-security policies of the emerging great powers will be largely devoted to their rivalries with one another and to quelling and containing regional instability – an offshore balancing strategy is, of course, opportunistic and

self-serving. But it also exercises restraint and shows geopolitical respect. By abandoning the "preponderance" strategy's extravagant objectives, the U nited S tates can minimize the risks of open confrontation with the new great powers.


http://www.independent.org/

http://www.independent.org/research/copal/

Hegemony of 100


Offshore Balancing Good – Solves WarEven if wars do occur, offshore balancing prevents escalation and inter-regional conflict.Carpenter 02 Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute(Ted Galen, Fixing Foreign Policy: How the U.S. should wage the war on terror,” Reason, October 1)

Encourage multiple centers of power. Many officials appear afraid of a global environment with several economic and military great powers and an

assortment of mid-sized regional powers. But rather than resisting a return to a more historically normal condition of multipolarity – a process that is occurring gradually in any case, regardless of American preferences – Washington should accept that change and turn it to America’s advantage. The presence of other significant political and military players in the international system can provide us with important security buffers, especially if those players are stable and democratic. Ideally, such states would forge effective regional security organizations – a more

robust European Union, for example. In most cases, though, regional multipolarity would involve more-informal balance-of-power arrangements. Even that outcome would usually serve American interests. Indeed, the mere existence of multiple powers – even if some of them are not especially friendly to the United States – makes it less likely that a hegemonic threat comparable to the Soviet Union could arise again. Regional powers would be the principal firebreaks against disorder and aggression in their respective spheres of influence, a development that would provide significant indirect security benefits to the United States.

Regional balancing and favorable geography make the US a capable offshore balancerPosen 07 Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT and Director of the MIT Security Studies Program[Barry R. “The Case for Restraint” The American Interest, November/December]

We can well afford to think this way because extant threats to the United States are not threats to U.S. sovereignty. The country is in no danger of conquest or

intimidation from those more powerful. U.S. territorial integrity is secure. The power position of the United States is excellent; any power position that allows a country to even think about running the world ought to provide ample capability for defense. Protecting this power position is an important goal, but direct action is the wrong way to go about it. If regional powers grow strong enough to threaten their neighbors—and perhaps ultimately threaten the United States—local actors will wish

to balance that power. The United States should preserve an ability to help out if necessary, but it should be stingy in this regard. Others should get organized and dig into their own pockets before the United States shows up to help. U.S. command of the sea, air and space enables such assistance, but, coupled with a favorable geographic position, it also permits the United States

to wait. This capability should cast a stabilizing shadow in any case.


Hegemony of 100


Offshore Balancing Good – GeneralOffshore balancing deters wars and maintains US powerFouskas and Gokay 08 professor of international relations at the University of Piraeus and Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Director of European Studies Programme SPIRE, Keele University(Vassilis and Bulent, Mediterranean Quarterly An Agenda for the Next American President Mediterranean Quarterly - Volume 19, Number 3, Summer 2008, pp. 99-114)

In order to do the above in the domestic sphere, the United States must reshape its grand strategy accordingly. Christopher Layne, in his latest contribution,

The Peace of Illusions, argues in favor of a new US strategy based on “off-shore balancing.”12 So do John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their

various contributions. It is not a bad idea. China, Europe, and Russia can be balanced by the “American Colossus” — the phrase belongs to Niall Ferguson

— who, after all, needs time to recover from the global management of the world from 1941 to 2001. Balance Russia and China from the Pacific and Europe and Africa from the Atlantic and intervene only if or when a regional hegemon tends to rise, a hegemon who is threatening national security interests. This is not a return to isolationism, but a new challenge for managing the complexities of a multicentric and polyarchic world in the making. Washington can no longer act as the governing center of global capitalism, as Paul [End Page 112] Nitze’s famous National Security Council – 68 document envisaged back in

1950. The famous hub-and-spoke system of US global governance built in the 1940s and 1950s is in tatters, and the country should stop going to war in order to restore it; it is counterproductive and dangerous. Instead, the United States needs to substantiate an offshore balancing strategy by way of launching a new dialogue with the other major global centers: Europe, China and Southeast Asia, and Bolivarian Latin America. Who said that US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere is a given? After Hugo

Chavez, it becomes increasingly clear that Latin America, the workshop of US global hegemony as Greg Grandin put it, is not a poodle. The new president must think how to reshape a democratic partnership with the southern neighbors, before the case is lost. Further, it is not a given that a post-Castro/postcommunist Cuba will become a friendly “banana-boat.” History and realist theories teach us that one does not have to be a communist in order to be an enemy. Capitalist enemies exist too. In fact, both enemies and friends now are all capitalists, and they are even more dangerous if

you fail to address their concerns methodically, professionally, and in a timely manner. Such a well-thought-out strategy will give time to the United States to concentrate on rebuilding its domestic and near-abroad economic and social tissues, while reflecting upon, and refining, its off-shore oceanic strategy. Thousands of agencies would be assigned new tasks abroad, and some would be redeployed back home in order to focus on a different set of priorities drawn from economic and other social needs. Foot soldiers and most bases should come back home; this would result in enormous savings that could be invested productively. In brief, the contours of our proposal can be drawn from Layne’s work, as well as

from a Keynesian set of policy guidelines meant to boost aggregate demand management and resuscitate the US domestic economy on a solid neo-industrial and environmentally friendly base.


http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu:2048/journals/mediterranean_quarterly/v019/19.3.fouskas.html#f12

Hegemony of 100


Offshore Balancing Good – Middle EastOffshore balancing solves Middle Eastern instabilityMearsheimer, 8 – R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, B.A. from West Point, Ph.D. from Cornell University (John J., Newsweek, “Middle East: Know the Limits of U.S. Power,” November 29th, http://www.newsweek.com/id/171261)

The United States is in deep trouble in the Middle East. Despite Barack Obama's promises to withdraw from Iraq, the debacle there shows no sign of ending soon. Hamas rules in Gaza; Iran is quickly moving to acquire a nuclear deterrent. We need a radically different strategy for the region.Fortunately, there is a strategy that has proved effective in the past and could serve again today: "offshore balancing."

It's less ambitious than President Bush's grand plan to spread democracy throughout the Middle East, but it would be much better at protecting actual U.S. interests. The United States would station its military forces outside the region. And "balancing" would mean we'd rely on regional powers like Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia to check each other. Washington would remain diplomatically engaged, and when necessary would assist the weaker side in a conflict. It would also use its air and naval power to respond quickly to unexpected threats. But—and this is the key point—America would put boots on the ground only if the local balance of power seriously broke down and one country threatened to dominate the others.

Offshore balancing has been empirically effective at solving Middle Eastern conflict and terrorismMearsheimer, 8 – R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, B.A. from West Point, Ph.D. from Cornell University (John J., Newsweek, “Middle East: Know the Limits of U.S. Power,” November 29th, http://www.newsweek.com/id/171261)

Offshore balancing is nothing new: the United States pursued such a strategy in the Middle East quite successfully during much of the Cold War. America helped Iraq contain revolutionary Iran in the 1980s. Then, when Iraq's conquest of Kuwait in 1990 threatened to tilt things in Baghdad's favor, the United States assembled a multinational coalition to smash Saddam Hussein's military machine.The strategy has three particular virtues. First, it would significantly reduce the chances that we would get involved in another bloody and costly war like Iraq. America doesn't need to control the Middle East with its own forces; it merely needs to ensure that no other country does.Second, offshore balancing would ameliorate America's terrorism problem. Foreign occupiers generate fierce resentment. Keeping America's military forces out of sight would minimize the anger created by having them stationed on Arab soil.Third, offshore balancing would reduce fears in Iran and Syria that the United States aims to attack them and remove their regimes—a key reason these states are currently seeking weapons of mass destruction. Persuading Tehran to abandon its nuclear program will require Washington to address Iran's legitimate security concerns and to refrain from overt threats.A final, compelling reason to adopt this approach is that nothing else has worked. After the Gulf war, the Clinton administration

pursued a "dual containment" strategy: instead of using Iraq and Iran to check each other, the United States began trying to contain both. As a result, both came to view the United States as a bitter enemy. The policy also required the United States to deploy large numbers of troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which helped persuade Osama bin Laden to declare war on America.


Hegemony of 100


Offshore Balancing Good – WarOffshore balancing is comparatively superior – it captures the benefits of hegemony without the costs.Walt, 5 – Academic Dean and the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (Stephen M., "In the National Interest: A new grand strategy for American foreign policy," Boston Review, February/March, Available Online at http://bostonreview.net/BR30.1/walt.html)

The final option is offshore balancing, which has been America’s traditional grand strategy. In this strategy, the United States deploys its power abroad only when there are direct threats to vital American interests. Offshore balancing assumes that only a few areas of the globe are of strategic importance to the United States (that is, worth fighting and dying for). Specifically, the vital areas are the regions where there are substantial concentrations of power and wealth or critical natural resources: Europe, industrialized Asia, and the Persian Gulf. Offshore balancing further recognizes that the United States does not need to control these areas directly; it merely needs to ensure that they do not fall under the control of a hostile great power and especially not under the control of a so-called peer competitor. To prevent rival great powers from doing this, offshore balancing prefers to rely primarily on local actors to uphold the regional balance of power. Under this strategy, the United States would intervene with its own forces only when regional powers are unable to uphold the balance of power on their own.

Most importantly, offshore balancing is not isolationist. The United States would still be actively engaged around the world, through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the WTO and through close ties with specific regional allies. But it would no longer keep large numbers of troops overseas solely for the purpose of “maintaining stability,” and it would not try to use American military power to impose democracy on other countries or disarm potential proliferators. Offshore balancing does not preclude using power for humanitarian ends—to halt or prevent genocide or mass murder—but the United States would do so only when it was confident it could prevent these horrors at an acceptable cost. (By limiting military commitments overseas, however, an offshore-balancing strategy would make it easier for the United States to intervene in cases of mass

murder or genocide.) The United States would still be prepared to use force when it was directly threatened—as it was when

the Taliban allowed al Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan—and would be prepared to help other governments deal with terrorists that also threaten the United States. Over time, a strategy of offshore balancing would make it less likely that the United States would face the hatred of radicals like bin Laden, and would thus make it less likely that the United States would have to intervene in far-flung places where it is not welcome.

Offshore balancing is the ideal grand strategy for an era of American primacy. It husbands the power upon which this primacy rests and minimizes the fear that this power provokes. By setting clear priorities and emphasizing reliance on regional allies, it reduces the danger of being drawn into unnecessary conflicts and encourages other states to do more for us. Equally important, it takes advantage of America’s favorable geopolitical position and exploits the tendency for regional powers to worry more about each other than about the United States. But it is not a passive strategy and does not preclude using the full range of America’s power to advance its core interests.


Hegemony of 100


Multipolarity InevitableThe transition to multipolarity is inevitable – There will be a fundamental redistribution of powerFinancial Times, 09 (Quentin Peel, The World in 2009, “Risks rise in shift to a Multipolar World”, January 27th, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c76ec956-ec79-11dd-a534-0000779fd2AC.html)

If the consequences of a prolonged economic recession are unpredictable, the “multipolar” look of the future world order seems most likely. Apart from the US and China, one pole in the world will be Europe. That could aggravate

transatlantic tensions. Japan, India, Russia and Brazil are all likely to be players at the top table. Less certain will be the influence of individual countries in the Middle East, Africa and the rest of Latin America.The Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialised nations, and G8 including Russia, are likely to be early casualties of the economic crisis. Without China and India at the table, older industrialised nations cannot handle the global crisis. Some sort of new structure of global governance will be essential to reflect redistribution of power, and provide a form of guidance and regulation.It will not be an easy transition, nor a soft landing. “Historically, emerging multipolar systems have been more unstable than bipolar or unipolar ones,” the NIC report says. “Despite the recent financial volatility...we do not believe that we are headed toward a complete breakdown of the international system, as occurred in 1914-18 when an earlier phase of globalisation

came to a halt. However, the next 20 years of transition...are fraught with risks.”

Multipolarity is inevitable – there will be an international realignment in the coming decadesEngler, 09 – Senior Analyst at Foreign Policy in Focus, Author of How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy(Mark, Foreign Policy In Focus, “Empire Foreclosed,” April 17th, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6049)

Even if the United States weathers the crisis with its economy more or less intact, most political observers believe that its power will diminish in coming years, at least relative to that of other countries. "Multipolarity" has become the watchword of the day.

In a multipolar order, there will no longer be a sole superpower, the United States, calling the shots. Instead, America will have to function within a constellation of regional political and economic powerbrokers.

Even before the financial crisis, U.S. government intelligence sources predicted a significant international realignment over the next two decades. In early 2005, the National Intelligence Council released a 119-page report entitled

Mapping the Global Future. As Slate reported, the document argued that in the year 2020 "the United States will remain 'an important shaper of the international order' — probably the single most powerful country — but its 'relative power position' will have 'eroded.' The new 'arriviste powers' — not only China and India, but also Brazil, Indonesia, and perhaps others — will accelerate this erosion by pursuing 'strategies designed to exclude or isolate the United States' in order to 'force or cajole' us into playing by their rules."These predictions are proving to be well founded. According to the London Independent, the G20 summit put a version of a multipolar order on display; it was "a summit that show[ed] the new balance of power." There, "the voice of the United States

was one, albeit an influential one, among others…. By inclination or by necessity, the post-Bush United States seems to see its place in the world a little differently: less American exceptionalism, more consensus-seeking. In the G20, the presence of China, India and Indonesia, among others, gives a foretaste of a future world order." Standing out among other nations, "China made its shy debut as a rising power."


Hegemony of 100


Multipolarity InevitableThe U.S. should reject interventionist policies and accept a slow transition to multipolarity Engler, 09 – Senior Analyst at Foreign Policy in Focus, Author of How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy(Mark, Foreign Policy In Focus, “Empire Foreclosed,” April 17th, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6049)

A key step in moving toward a post-imperial foreign policy would be to abandon the idea that the United States is at its best when it intervenes, militarily or economically. The Obama White House is right to reject Bush administration militarism. But in crafting something different it should be conscientious to "first do no harm." Reviving a version of corporate globalization under the guise of a return to multilateralism would violate this dictum.As it considers alternatives, the Obama administration should recognize that some of the most dynamic democratic processes in the world have been taking place in Latin America, which has recently experienced a form of benign neglect. While this is a region traditionally regarded as the U.S. imperial backyard, it was often overlooked in the Bush years, when Washington focused on its engagements in the Middle East. The outcomes have been promising.In the past decade, Latin American voters have consistently beaten Prime Minister Brown to his insight about the dysfunction of the Washington Consensus. In country after country they have elected new leaders with mandates to break with the international financial institutions and to pursue new economic policies. As a result, even before the current crisis, countries such as Bolivia, which has one of the poorest populations in the hemisphere, have been devising more equitable ways of distributing natural resource wealth — and more democratic ways of involving historically marginalized indigenous populations in the political process. Countries like Argentina, which suffered tremendously under Washington-backed neoliberalism, have worked to develop alternative, regional financial structures to allow for greater independence.

To the extent that it allows such experiments to progress, an inward focus by the Obama administration on dealing with the domestic implications of the economic crisis would be welcome. In that case, whether the still-unrivaled U.S. economy, its cultural reach, and its worldwide network of military bases will continue to qualify it as an imperial power — or whether other language more accurately describes its sway within an emerging multipolar system — will remain open to debate. But we will have moved closer to the day when "enlightened" and "self-confident" foreign administrators, whether in pith helmets or cuff links, are permanently retired.

The unipolar era is over – China and Russia are helping transition to a multipolar world Hudson, 09 – President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City (Michael, Global Research, “De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire,” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13969)

What may prove to be the last rites of American hegemony began already in April at the G-20 conference, and became even more explicit at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 5, when Mr. Medvedev called for China, Russia and India to “build an increasingly multipolar world order.” What this means in plain English is: We have reached our limit in subsidizing the United States’ military encirclement of Eurasia while also allowing the US to appropriate our exports, companies, stocks and real estate in exchange for paper money of questionable worth."The artificially maintained unipolar system,” Mr. Medvedev spelled out, is based on “one big centre of consumption, financed by a growing deficit, and thus growing debts, one formerly strong reserve currency, and one dominant system of assessing assets and risks.”2 At the root of the global financial crisis, he concluded, is that the United States makes too little and spends too much. Especially upsetting is its military spending, such as the stepped-up US military aid to Georgia announced just last week, the NATO missile shield in Eastern Europe and the US buildup in the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Obama Changes Hegemony

Obama can’t change perceptions of US hegemony – power remains a central component of US foreign policyCalleo, 8 – Professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, B.A. and PhD. From Yale University(David P., Survival, Volume 50, Issue 5, p. 61-78, “The Tyranny of False Vision: America’s Unipolar Fantasy,” October)

It is tempting to believe that America's recent misadventures will discredit and suppress the country's hegemonic longings and that, following the presidential election of 2008, a new administration will abandon them. But so long as the nation's identity is intimately bound up with seeing itself as the world's most powerful country, hegemony is likely to remain the recurring obsession of its official imagination, the ideacutee fixe of its foreign policy. America's hegemonic ambitions have, after all, suffered severe setbacks before. Less than half a century has passed since the 'lesson of Vietnam'. But that lesson faded without forcing Americans to abandon the old fantasies of omnipotence. These merely went into remission, until the fall of the Soviet Union provided an irresistible occasion for their return. Arguably, the Soviet Union proved a greater danger to America's equilibrium in its collapse than in its heyday.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Obama Changes HegemonyThe U.S. is no longer a global hegemon – Even Obama can’t jump start our credibility again.Hadar, 9 – Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, Former Professor at American University, M.A. from Columbia University, Ph.D. in International Relations from American University (Leon T., The Daily Star, The CATO Institute, “The U.S. is no longer a global Hegemon,” http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9937)

Changes in the status and power of nations, just like changes in economic conditions, are not always immediately apparent.

There is, in the jargon of economics, a recognition lag between the time when an economic shock, such as a sudden boom or bust, occurs and the time when it is recognized by economists, central bankers and the government.Recognition lag explains why, for example, economists have only recently acknowledged the current economic recession - several months after it began. And recognition lag might well be why officials and pundits are now failing to recognize the detrimental impact of the combination of the Iraq war and the financial crisis on America's standing in the international system.Some attribute Washington's current difficulties in dictating global developments to the Bush administration's mismanagement of US diplomacy and national

security policy. The conventional wisdom is that a more visionary and competent Obama administration will be able to reassert America's global leadership role - especially in the Middle East.

According to that logic, a charismatic and cosmopolitan President Barack Obama, by re-energizing the United States' diplomatic influence and emphasizing Washington's commitment to play the role of an honest broker, will revive the dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace process, overcome the many obstacles to a political settlement, and help bring peace to the Holy Land. (Some pundits seem to assume a similar peacemaking model can be implemented in other troubled regions as

well, such as South Asia and the Caucasus.) All that is lacking, supposedly, is enlightened leadership and American willpower.Such assumptions about US omnipotence are woefully out of touch with reality. The mess the Bush administration made in the Middle East, where US military power was overstretched to the maximum, coupled with the dramatic loss of American financial resources, has produced a long-term transformation in the balance of power in the region and worldwide. The confluence of these negative factors has significantly eroded Washington's diplomatic and political clout. The increasing wariness of the American public regarding new US military interventions, as a consequence of the Iraq war, will reinforce this trend.

This is not the first time there has been a lag between when an international crisis, such as a military conflict or a loss of geostrategic standing, takes place and the time when officials, pundits and the public recognize its effect on the global balance of power. In the aftermath of World War II, which devastated the military and economic power of Britain and France, the two leading imperial powers, officials and journalists continued to refer to those two declining nation-states as Great Powers. It was not until the late 1950s that the diminished status of Great Britain and France was widely recognized and the adjective "great" was finally dropped when the two countries were mentioned.

That the US has already been losing some of its leverage has been demonstrated by Washington's failure to contain the rising power of Iran and Tehran's growing influence through surrogates in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Notwithstanding strong opposition from Washington, Israel decided to open negotiations with Syria, while Hizbullah was once again invited to join the government in Lebanon.

While the US does not now occupy the same kind of drastically weakened geopolitical position that Britain and France did after World War II, we must recognize that it is no longer a global hegemon, as it was during the first decade or so after the end of the Cold War. Even the most visionary and competent US president will be that much more constrained in his ability to "do something" when an international crisis takes place.In 2000, the United States was at the apex of international power in a unipolar world, and the Israelis and the Palestinians were led by strong and more

moderate leaderships than today. Even at that time, Washington could not significantly advance an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. There is little reason to expect that Obama will be an exception, and an effective Holy Land peacemaker, in 2009. With an overstretched military and an economy in recession, the incoming president, like others in Washington, will be forced to recognize that reality sooner or later.


Hegemony of 100


***HEGEMONY GOOD***


Hegemony of 100


Internal Links – Human Rights Credibility Kt HegHuman rights credibility is key to hegRichardson 08 Governor of New Mexico, former candidate for democratic prez nomination (Bill, A New Realism A Realistic and Principled Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb)

To cope with this new world, we need a New Realism in our foreign policy -- an ethical, principled realism that harbors no illusions about the importance of a strong military in a dangerous world but that also understands the importance of diplomacy and multilateral cooperation. We need a New Realism based on the understanding that what goes on inside of other countries profoundly impacts us -- but that we can only influence, not control, what goes on inside of other countries. A New Realism for the twenty-first century must understand that to solve our own problems, we need to work with other governments that

respect and trust us. To be effective in the coming decades, America must set the following priorities. First and foremost, we must rebuild our alliances. We cannot lead other nations toward solutions to shared problems if they do not trust our leadership. We need to restore respect and appreciation for our allies -- and for the democratic values that unite us -- if we are to work

with them to solve global problems. We must restore our commitment to international law and to multilateral cooperation. This means respecting both the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and joining the International Criminal Court (ICC). It means expanding the United Nations Security Council to include Germany, India, Japan, a country from Latin America, and a country from Africa as permanent

members. We must be impeccable in our own respect for human rights. We should reward countries that live up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as we negotiate, constructively but firmly, with those who do not. And when genocide or other grave human rights violations begin, the United States should lead the world to stop them. History teaches that if the United States does not take the lead on ending genocide, no one else will. The norm of absolute territorial sovereignty is moot when national governments partner with those who rape, torture, and kill masses of people.

The United States should lead the world toward acceptance of a greater norm of respect for basic human rights --

and toward enforcing that norm through international institutions and multilateral measures. We need to start taking human rights in Africa particularly seriously, because the two worst genocides in recent history have taken place there, in Rwanda and now in

Darfur. We failed to stop the killing in Rwanda, and for years we have failed to stop the killing in Darfur. America must hold itself to a higher standard of leadership. The United States should have sent a special envoy as soon as the mass killings began in Darfur. We could still do more to mobilize multilateral pressure on the Sudanese government and on China, which has great influence over Sudan. It is shameful that the Bush administration continues to wring its hands over Darfur when it is within our power to do something


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – General Heg is sustainable due to our economy and military – and counterbalancing won’t happen – rising powers just balance against each otherKagan 08 Senior Associate @ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Robert, Make no mistake America is thriving, NYT Nov 1, 2008)

Yet the evidence of American decline is weak. Yes, as Zakaria notes, the world's largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore and the largest casino in

Macau. But by more serious measures of power, the United States is not in decline, not even relative to other powers . Its share of the global economy last year was about 21 percent, compared with about 23 percent in 1990, 22 percent in

1980 and 24 percent in 1960. Although the United States is suffering through a financial crisis, so is every other major economy. If the past is any guide, the adaptable American economy will be the first to come out of recession and may actually find its position in the global economy enhanced. Meanwhile, American military power is unmatched. While the Chinese and Russian militaries are both growing, America's is growing, too, and continues to outpace them technologically. Russian and Chinese power is growing relative to their neighbors and their regions, which will pose strategic problems, but that is because American allies, especially in Europe, have systematically neglected their defenses. America's image is certainly damaged, as measured by global polls, but the practical effects of this are far from clear. Is America's image today worse than it was in the 1960s and early 1970s, with the Vietnam War; the Watts riots ; the My Lai massacre; the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy; and Watergate? Does anyone recall that millions of anti-American protesters took to the streets in Europe in those years? Today, despite the polls, President Bush has managed to restore closer relations with allies in Europe and Asia, and the next president will be able to improve them even

further. Realist theorists have consistently predicted for the past two decades that the world would "balance" against the United States.

But nations such as India are drawing closer to America, and if any balancing is occurring, it is against China, Russia and Iran. Sober analysts such as Richard Haass acknowledge that the United States remains "the single most powerful entity in the world." But he

warns, "The United States cannot dominate, much less dictate, and expect that others will follow." That is true. But when was it not? Was there ever a time when the United States could dominate, dictate and always have its way? Many declinists imagine a mythical past when the world danced to America's tune. Nostalgia swells for the wondrous American-dominated era after World War II, but between

1945 and 1965 the United States actually suffered one calamity after another. The "loss" of China to communism; the North Korean invasion of South Korea; the Soviet testing of a hydrogen bomb; the stirrings of postcolonial nationalism in Indochina -- each proved a strategic setback of the first order. And each was beyond America's power to control or even to manage successfully. No event in the past decade, with the exception of Sept. 11, can match the scale of damage to America's position in the world. Many would say, "But what about Iraq?" Yet even in the Middle East , where America's image has suffered most as a result of that war, there has been no fundamental strategic realignment. Longtime American allies remain allies, and Iraq, which was once an adversary, is now an ally. Contrast this with the strategic setbacks the United States suffered during the Cold War. In the 1950s and 1960s, the pan-Arab nationalist movement swept out pro-American governments and opened the door to unprecedented Soviet involvement, including a quasi-alliance between Moscow and the Egypt of Gamal Abdel Nasser, as well as with Syria. In 1979, the central pillar of American strategy toppled when the pro-

American Shah of Iran was overthrown by Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution. That produced a fundamental shift in the strategic balance from which the United States is still suffering. Nothing similar has occurred as a result of the Iraq war. So perhaps a little perspective is in order. The danger of today's declinism is not that it is true but that the next president will act as if it is. The good news is that I doubt either nominee really will. And I'm confident the American people would take a dim view if he tried.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – General

No one can take our place and no one wants us gone Ajami 08 Majid Khadduri professor in Middle East Studies and Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University. (Fouad, Oct 29, The Resilience of American Power)

There can be no doubt that we were due for our moment of reckoning. But Edward Gibbon wannabes should proceed with caution. It is not yet time to pen The Decline and Fall of the American Empire. Rome was long dead and buried when Gibbon, working in London, published his first

volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776. The destiny of the American empire is still unfolding. The bailout package, a staggering $700 billion, is only 5 percent of our national output; the country could afford it. While some may

seek to write the obituaries of the American imperial republic, a survey of universities placing in the top 500 globally, conducted by Shanghai University, gave the United States a huge lead in such institutions: 159 versus 31 in Japan, 30 in China (the data include

Hong Kong and Taiwan), and 2 in India. For all the talk about the rise of China and India , these societies, long mired in poverty and squalor

and handicapped by dominant traditions of inequality and caste, are in no position to inherit the American place in the order of nations. They lack the openness of the United States, its sense of obligation to other lands, its willingness to defend the global order. After the partisanship in our country subsides, Americans know that the alternative to the American order in the world is not the hegemony of

China or Russia or India but rather outright anarchy. The Chinese, shrewd about the ways of the world, acknowledge this. They are content to work

and prosper, and move large numbers of their people out of poverty, under American primacy and tutelage. The Chinese hold well over a trillion

dollars in American treasury securities. They are not about to bring the house down. The Chinese know Asia's bloody history. American hegemony has been benign, and the alternatives to it are infinitely worse. Likewise in the volatile Persian Gulf: The commerce of that vital region and the traffic of its oil depend upon the American Navy. No one in that tinderbox wants a Pax Iranica, and the Indians and the Europeans are not contenders to assume what has been America's role.

Heg sustainable – small shifts in power are inevitableKennedy 08 J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History at Yale University (Paul “Is this the end of the American era?” Times of London, 10/12)

Well, slow down a minute. It is one thing to argue that the United States has been weakened by fiscal extravagance and

military overstretch. It is a separate thing to recall that, regardless of regime follies, from century to century economic and military balances do shift gradually from one country or part of the world to another. Right now both of those developments – American political incompetence and geopolitical shifts – have joined in time to make the world a less easy place for the United States. But one of the “rise and fall” lessons of history is that great powers (the Ottomans, the Hapsburgs, the British)

take an awful long time to collapse. They take knocks on the head, they suffer a defeat and humiliation here or there, plus a bankruptcy or two. But they hold on, a trifle diminished although not mortally wounded. Often they hold on because the rising powers don’t know how to replace them. They hold on, too, because they have massive resources. The Hapsburgs held on because they had an army that could operate in 14 languages. The British held on because of the City of London and a lot of useful naval bases. The

short-lived 20th-century empires – Nazi, Japanese, Soviet – had no such back-up systems. They came, they went. America’s back-up systems are enormous. It is a super-great-power, with about 20% of the world’s product, 50% of its military expenditures and most of its top research universities, massive R&D spending, a highly sophisticated services industry to complement its industrial base, an extremely strong demographic profile and the best agricultural acreage-to-population ratio among all the large nations. This is not an imperium that will tumble into the sand overnight.


http://www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/Geography/i/india/index.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375758119?ie=UTF8&tag=usncom-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0375758119

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johns_Hopkins_University

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_H._Nitze_School_of_Advanced_International_Studies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_H._Nitze_School_of_Advanced_International_Studies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majid_Khadduri

Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – GeneralDeclinists are wrong – US power is underestimatedOmestad 08 Former Associate Editor of Foreign Policy, Winner of the Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Journalism(Thomas, Is America Really on the Decline? US News and World Report, 10/29)

And yet, for all the deflating news, the time-tested ability of American society to assess and overcome problems should interject caution about proclaiming the American century over and done with. The restorative capacity of America, reasons Thérèse Delpech, a leading French strategic thinker, "is constantly underestimated abroad and even sometimes at home."

Those who contend American decline is being exaggerated--or not happening--say that the unipolar moment was never destined to last and that the degree of deference actually accorded to Washington in happier days was never as much as is portrayed. Take, for

instance, the disfavor visited on the United States because of its racial segregation and bigotry and a polarizing war in Vietnam. Nor are doubts about American competence a new factor. Blunders, errors of judgment, the warping of policy by partisan politics, and intemperate rhetoric all are recurring features of U.S. policymaking; nevertheless, American leadership persists. "The U.S. is no good at foreign policy," asserts Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. He likens the robustness of America's global standing to the muddling through of the comic bumbler

Mr. Magoo. "The Bush administration has danced with the world in the worst way," Mead says--but the damage is mostly reversible. " The fundamentals of America's power position in the world," he says, "are probably as strong as they were in 2001 ." Rising to the occasion. Further, the current credit crash follows in a long tradition of occasional panics and meltdowns in both the British Empire and the United States.

"Those crises haven't sunk us in 300 years," reasons Mead. " We seem to find a way to manage them ." Skeptics of U.S. decline believe that

other weaknesses are exaggerated and that the U.S. economy remains central. Says George Schwab, president of the New York-

based National Committee on American Foreign Policy, "When Wall Street coughs, the rest of the world catches a cold ." No other currency, including the euro and the Chinese renminbi, is yet ready to replace the dollar. The economic burdens of leadership are said to be manageable. U.S. defense expenditures today equal 4.2 percent of the nation's GDP, compared with 9 percent in the Vietnam War . Nor, in general, should the rise of others stir angst, say the anti-declinists. It reflects, by contrast, the near globalization

of the U.S.-initiated postwar system , whose very openness should accommodate the peaceful rise of newer powers. "It was American strategy to see them get stronger," says Robert Kagan , a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and author of The

Return of History and the End of Dreams. The interdependence woven into the existing system creates mutual vulnerabilities that might deter efforts to weaken the United States directly. John Bruton, the European Union ambassador in Washington, says, "If the West goes into decline, so do they." U.S. policy aims to make China a "responsible stakeholder." If China were to sell off its trove of U.S. public debt, it would undercut the value of its own assets. More likely, Beijing sees buying treasury bills as both a good investment and a way to balance a relationship in which it has to sell to the American market to make its long climb

out of poverty. "The Asians are not happy about America being so weakened," says Mahbubani. The anti-declinists , meanwhile, also count America's demographics as a key source of vigor. Through its acceptance of immigration and its higher birthrates, America's population is projected not only to grow but to avoid taking on the aging profiles of China, Russia, and Western Europe. Russia's population is shrinking by 720,000 people per year -- hardly the way to great-power status. China is also graying quickly, in part because of its one-child policy. They both face underdevelopment in their vast countrysides, ethnic tensions,

environmental constraints, and the perhaps inevitable return of political pressures for democratic change. Neither country will find that its path to restored greatness is clear and smooth . Nor, in the end, is America without geopolitical options.

It has forged a strategic tie to the South Asian giant of India that reflects democratic and multicultural affinities. But it is also a de facto hedge against the strengthening of still-authoritarian China. U.S. strategists welcome a closer relationship with moderate Brazi l , in part as more hedging, this time against anti-U.S. leaders in Latin America. Bush and a new set of more pro-American European leaders have been setting aside scraps over Iraq and other issues , and East European countries are looking to Washington for reassurance against a more assertive Russia . In East Asia, t he United States remains the ultimate balancer to China. "We are still the glue that holds things together, despite the opinion polls," reckons Kagan. Few doubt that

America's global position will experience "relative shifts," to use the diplomatic language of State's Cohen. But, he insists, "there is no other country's hand I'd rather play." Says a senior U.N. diplomat, "Bet against America at your peril." Even so, in the 21st century, it might be prudent to spread a few wagers on others as well.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – General

Heg is sustainable – qualitative and quantitative advantages in all areasJerusalem Post 08 (Amotz Asa-El, Middle Israel: Barack Obama and the decline of America, Nov 13)

Decline is by definition a relative term, and America's many eulogizers were never short of choices to anoint as Uncle Sam's successors. Two decades ago, when Japan was the eulogizers' toast, all were impressed, and rightly, with its foreign aid program, which by the late '80s reached

an annual $50 billion and surpassed America's. In the '60s it was Sputnik's launch into outer space, an achievement that shocked the West

and made many suspect that the Soviets had become scientifically superior to America. And now it is the so-called BRIC powers - Brazil, Russia,

India and China - that are turning America's eulogizers on with their new economic vitality. The Obama presidency will indeed be

measured by the state of the gap between America's clout and these emerging powers' sway. Yet this doesn't at all mean America is on its way out. THE SUBSTANCE of superpowers, scholars now agree, is first of all military reach. A superpower must by definition possess the capacity to arrive quickly anywhere with troops that can impose their government's will. That rules out, for now, Brazil, India and Japan, but Russia and China sure can throw their weight around, and this is while America's delivery in its two current wars has not been decisive.

Then there is the economy. As Kennedy concluded already before the USSR's downfall, superpowers must also be financially super. That obviously calls into question America's current condition, considering that its entire investment-banking industry is now lying in the middle of Wall Street as fallen and

broken as the Twin Towers on 9/12. Has the US lost its financial superpower status, as German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck argued

last month in the Bundestag? Is the American superpower itself history? Not quite. First of all, the economic crisis has not given rise to an alternative power; everyone is in it together. And if there is no rising alternative then there is no declining superpower, only a superpower in crisis. In fact, all the would-be successors have themselves been exposed as economically ill by the crisis, from China with its overproduction of cheap goods to Russia and its overreliance on extraction of raw materials, all of which now face drastically reduced demand . And that is also why the military abilities of Russia and China must also be seen in the light of their economic weaknesses. They too will need money should they fight long and distant wars, and the difference between them and America is that they will have even less of it. Beyond this, the

American superpower has advantages that transcend war and economics. Culturally, none of America's rivals offers even a fraction of its originality. The world still rotates around an axis made of American inventions, from the airplane, the motorcar and the computer to the motion picture, the skyscraper and spaceship. There is no sign for now of a Russian, Indian, Japanese or Chinese Alexander Graham Bell , Orville Wright, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Now add to this America's social power. America has just tapped into deep social aquifers in a way that none of its rivals will do any time soon. China distances its masses from civic leadership, Russia abandons millions to the devices of organized crime, Brazil has even more millions teeming in favelas, India still has pariahs who can only dream of American blacks' acceptance, and Europe keeps at arm's length vast immigrant populations. America, with all its problems, is socially healthier than all of them.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Decline Inevitable 2AC

Theoretical arguments about inevitable decline are bunk – they are just a self-fulfilling prophecy – we should still act to preserve US powerSchweller 01 Associate Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University (Randall, The Problem of International Order Revisited International Security 26.1)

First, although hegemonic decline may be inevitable, it is not self-evident that a policy of strategic restraint better serves the hegemon's long- run interests than simply taking advantage of its power position to grab immediate gains.

Indeed there is no a priori reason to conclude that instant post-war benefits (e.g., increases in the size of the new hegemon's

territorial boundaries, spheres of influence, colonial possessions, etc.) will not continue to accrue significant future gains and thereby better serve to arrest the pace of hegemonic decline than Ikenberry's alternative of a constitutional peace settlement. [End Page 173]

Because one can make an equally impressive logical case to support either position, theoretical arguments alone will not tell us whether the choice to transform is more likely to benefit the hegemon over the long run than is the decision to dominate. It is ultimately an empirical question. In practice, there has been a strong relationship between the growth in power of a state and its desire to

extend its territorial control, political influence, and domination of the international economy. 25 Great powers have tended to expand when they can. They have done so not necessarily to satisfy an innate lust for power, prestige, and glory--though history is replete with such cases--but rather because anarchy compels states to enhance their security and influence over others and their environment whenever it is possible and pragmatic for them to do so. 26 Hegemonic postwar junctures are precisely when great powers, especially the leading state, can be expected to expand, not bind, their power. Because nature and politics abhor a vacuum, the victors will move quickly to fill the political vacuums left behind by the defeated great powers. This is predictable behavior because, when presented with such an extraordinary opportunity to expand the state's territory and influence, political leaders "can be said to act under external compulsion rather than in accordance with their preferences": 27 That is, their actions are driven by irresistible temptation. Second,

even if decisionmakers believe that hegemonic decline is inevitable, there are plenty of reasons why they would not and should not act on that belief. First, leaders have few if any domestic incentives to abandon policies of autonomy and unilateralism in favor of multilateralism and self-restraint. The incentive structure of elites, even foreign policy ones, is primarily a function of domestic, not international, politics. No matter how much internationalists may champion multilateral solutions, elected officials must answer to a domestic audience, and unelected bureaucrats must serve and promote the autonomy and interests of the bureaucratic organization to which they belong. Second, Ikenberry's claim rests on an unrealistic assumption about the time horizons of democratic leaders. Even if we concede the

point that the creation of a constitutional order is a wise long-term investment for the new hegemonic [End Page 174] state, history records few decisionmakers who acted in such a farsighted manner. This is particularly true for leaders of democratic states, because the primary goal for most elected officials is to ensure reelection. Why, then, should we expect democratically elected policymakers of a newly hegemonic state to forgo immediate gains for long-run payoffs that may or may not be reaped decades later--long after they have left office? Finally, the

deliberate choice to restrain the exercise of power now because of the possibility (but not certainty) of exerting relatively less power later is like committing suicide for fear of death . The key question for postwar leaders is not whether but

when decline will come and how much deterioration can be expected. Had American policymakers, for example, been persuaded by the chorus of scholars in the 1970s to late 1980s proclaiming that U.S. power was in terminal decline, the Cold War might have continued for decades longer; and it surely would noth ave ended in total victory for the West. Thankfully,

instead of constraining American power and preparing for inevitable decline, the Reagan administration began ramping up U.S. power capabilities in the 1980s, arresting America's relative decline through bold policy choices. 28

Consequently, as Ikenberry himself acknowledges, "American power in the 1990s is without historical precedent" (p. 270). It is worth pointing out that even in the late 1980s, few if any foreign policy experts forecasted America's current supremacy in a unipolar world. This

predictive failure, however, is not proof of the impoverishment of international relations theories, as many have claimed. 29 The (painful for some) truth is that the future power position of the United States or any other country is simply beyond prediction. This is because the power trajectories of nations, especially powerful ones, are not structurally determined; they are the result of wise or imprudent policy choices. Hence it is impossible to tell whether the United States has currently reached its power zenith, or is only halfway there, or is anywhere in between. 30 What can be said is that if current U.S. policymakers [End Page 175] act on the belief that Pax Americana is an artificial moment, they run the risk of achieving a foolish, self-fulfilling prophecy. More to the matters at hand, after fifty-six years of American leadership of the free world and still counting, it would have been a terrible mistake for U.S. policymakers to have acted on this assumption of inevitable decline in 1945, in accordance with Ikenberry's prescription


http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu:2048/journals/international_security/v026/26.1schweller.html#FOOT30





Hegemony of 100


AT: Decline Inevitable 2ACMultipolarity is impossible to predictWohlforth 07 Olin Fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University (William, Unipolar Stability: The Rules of Power Analysis, A Tilted Balance, Vol. 29 (1) - Spring 2007)

Perceptions of rapid polarity shifts of this sort are not unusual. In the early 1960s, only a decade after analysts had developed the notion of bipolarity, scholars were already proclaiming the return of multipolarity as postwar recoveries in Europe and Japan took off. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, they again announced the advent of multipolarity. The most influential scholarly book on international relations of the past generation, Kenneth N. Waltz’s Theory of International Politics, was written in part to dispel these flighty views and show that bipolarity still endured. If one looks past the headlines to the deep material structure of the world, Waltz argued, one will see that bipolarity is still the order of the day. Yet in the early 1990s, Waltz himself proclaimed that the return of multipolarity was around the corner. Such perceived polarity shifts are usually accompanied by decline scares—concern that as

other powers rise, the United States will lose its competitive edge in foreign relations. The current decline scare is the fourth since 1945—the first three occurred during the 1950s (Sputnik), the 1970s (Vietnam and stagflation), and the 1980s (the Soviet threat and Japan as a potential

challenger). In all of these cases, real changes were occurring that suggested a redistribution of power. But in each case, analysts’ responses to those changes seem to have been overblown. Multipolarity—an international system marked by three or

more roughly equally matched major powers—did not return in the 1960s, 1970s, or early 1990s, and each decline scare ended with the United States’ position of primacy arguably strengthened. It is impossible to know for sure whether or not the scare is for real this time—shifts in the distribution of power are notoriously hard to forecast. Barring geopolitical upheavals on the

scale of Soviet collapse, the inter-state scales of power tend to change slowly. The trick is to determine when subtle quantitative shifts will lead

to a major qualitative transformation of the basic structure of the international system. Fortunately, there are some simple rules of power analysis that can help prevent wild fluctuations in response to current events. Unfortunately, arguments for multipolarity’s rapid return usually run afoul of them.

Err towards sustainability – declinists rise the bar too high and cherry-pick evidence – ev for decline is more visible and overstatedWohlforth 07 Olin Fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University(William, Unipolar Stability: The Rules of Power Analysis, A Tilted Balance, Vol. 29 (1) - Spring 2007)

The larger problem with conflating power-as-resources with power-as-influence is that it leads to a constant shifting of the goalposts. The better the United States becomes at acquiring resources, the greater the array of global problems it is expected to be able to resolve, and the greater the apparent gap between its material capabilities and the ends it can achieve. The result is an endless raising of the bar for what it takes to be a unipolar power. Samuel Huntington defined a unipolar state as one able “effectively

to resolve all important international issues alone, and no combination of other states would have the power to prevent it from doing so.” This is an extraordinary standard that essentially conflates unipolarity with universal empire. Great European powers did not lose great power status when they failed to have their way, in, for example, the Balkans in the nineteenth century. In turn,

the United States did not cease to be a superpower when it failed to overthrow Fidel Castro in the 1960s. The fact that Washington cannot prevent Hugo Chavez from thumbing his nose at US power is interesting and perhaps even important, but it does not have bearing on the

polarity of the international system. Defining power as the ability to solve whatever global problem is currently in the headlines virtually guarantees highly volatile prognostications about polarity. This sort of headline chasing led to talk of “empire”

in 2002 and 2003, just as it feeds today’s multipolar mania. Assessing active attempts by the United States to employ its power capabilities may well be the most misleading way to think about power. This approach inevitably leads to a selection bias against evidence of the indirect, “structural” effects of US power that are not dependent upon active management. Many effects that can be attributed to the unipolar distribution of power are developments that never occur: counter-balancing coalitions, Cold War-scale arms races, hegemonic rivalry for dominance, security dilemmas among Asian powers, and decisions by Japan and others to nuclearize. Clearly, assessing unipolarity’s potential effects involves weighing such non-events against the more salient examples in which active attempts to use power resources are stymied. But the selection bias goes much further. Not only are non-events downplayed in comparison to salient events that appear to demonstrate the powerlessness of the United States, but patterns of events that do go its way are often missed. Consider , for example, how often Washington’s failure to have its way in the United Nations is cited as compared to its experience in the IMF. And, even in the United Nations, a focus on highly contested issues, such as the

attempt at a second resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq, fails to note how the institution’s entire agenda has shifted to address concerns, such as terrorism, that are particularly important to the United States.


http://www.harvardir.org/symposia/72/


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – Latent PowerUS has large wellsprings of “latent power” it can tapWohlforth 07 Olin Fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University (William, Unipolar Stability: The Rules of Power Analysis, A Tilted Balance, Vol. 29 (1) - Spring 2007)

US military forces are stretched thin, its budget and trade deficits are high, and the country continues to finance its profligate ways by borrowing from abroad—notably from the Chinese government. These developments have prompted many analysts to warn that the United States suffers

from “imperial overstretch.” And if US power is overstretched now, the argument goes, unipolarity can hardly be sustainable for long. The problem with this argument is that it fails to distinguish between actual and latent power. One must be careful to take into account both the level of resources that can be mobilized and the degree to which a government actually tries to mobilize them. And how much a government asks of its public is partly a function of the severity of the challenges that it faces.

Indeed, one can never know for sure what a state is capable of until it has been seriously challenged. Yale historian Paul Kennedy coined the term “imperial overstretch” to describe the situation in which a state’s actual and latent capabilities cannot possibly match its foreign policy commitments. This situation

should be contrasted with what might be termed “self-inflicted overstretch”—a situation in which a state lacks the sufficient resources to meet its current foreign policy commitments in the short term, but has untapped latent power and readily available policy choices that it can use to draw on this power. This is arguably the situation that the United States is in today. But the US government has not attempted to extract more resources from its population to meet its foreign policy commitments. Instead, it has moved strongly in the opposite direction by slashing personal and corporate tax rates. Although it is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and claims to be fighting a global “war” on terrorism, the United States is not acting like a country under intense international

pressure. Aside from the volunteer servicemen and women and their families, US citizens have not been asked to make sacrifices for the sake of national prosperity and security. The country could clearly devote a greater proportion of its economy to military spending: today it spends only about 4 percent of its GDP on the military, as compared to 7 to 14 percent during the peak years of the Cold War.

It could also spend its military budget more efficiently, shifting resources from expensive weapons systems to boots on the ground. Even more radically, it could reinstitute military conscription, shifting resources from pay and benefits to training

and equipping more soldiers. On the economic front, it could raise taxes in a number of ways, notably on fossil fuels, to put its fiscal house back

in order. No one knows for sure what would happen if a US president undertook such drastic measures, but there is nothing in economics, political science, or history to suggest that such policies would be any less likely to succeed than China is to continue to grow rapidly for decades. Most of those who study US politics would argue that the likelihood and potential success of such power-generating policies depends on

public support, which is a function of the public’s perception of a threat. And as unnerving as terrorism is, there is nothing like the threat of another hostile power rising up in opposition to the United States for mobilizing public support. With latent power in the picture, it becomes clear that unipolarity might have more built-in self-reinforcing mechanisms than many analysts realize. It is often noted that the rise of a peer competitor to the United States might be thwarted by the counterbalancing actions of neighboring powers. For example, China’s rise might push India and Japan closer to the United States—indeed, this has already happened to some extent.

There is also the strong possibility that a peer rival that comes to be seen as a threat would create strong incentives for the United States to end its self-inflicted overstretch and tap potentially large wellsprings of latent power.



Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – ChinaChina’s rise makes heg sustainable – preserves dollar heg and prevents regionalizationYiwei 07 Assistant Dean at the Fudan University Institute of International Studies and Associate Professor at Fudan's Center for American Studies.(Wang, A, China's Rise, An Unlikely Pillar of US Hegemony, A Tilted Balance, Vol. 29 (1) - Spring 2007)

It is important to extend the discussion beyond platitudes regarding “US decline” or the “rise of China” and the invective-laden debate over threats and security issues that arises from these. We must step out of a

narrowly national mindset and reconsider what Chinese development means for the United States. One of the consequences of globalization has been that countries such as China, which depend on

exporting to US markets, have accumulated large dollar reserves. This has been unavoidable for these countries, as they must purchase dollars in order to keep the dollar strong and thus avoid massive losses. Thus, the United States is bound to bear a trade deficit, and moreover, this deficit is inextricably tied to the dollar’s hegemony in today’s markets. The artificially high dollar and the US economy at large depend in a very real sense on China’s investment in the dollar. Low US inflation and interest rates similarly depend on the thousands of “Made in China” labels distributed across the United States. As Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times, the situation is comparable to one in which “the American sells the house but the money to buy the house comes from China.” Former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers even affirms that China and the United States may be in a kind of imprudent “balance of financial terror.” Today, the US trade deficit with China is US$200 billion. China holds over US$1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves and US$350

billion in US bonds. Together, the Chinese and US economies account for half of global economic growth. Thus, a fantastic situation has arisen: China’s rise is actually supporting US hegemony. Taking US hegemony and Western preeminence as the starting point, many have concluded that the rise of China presents a threat. The premise of this logic is that the international system predicated on US hegemony and Western preeminence would be destabilized by the rise of a second major power. But this view is inconsistent with the phenomenon of one-way globalization. The so-called process of one-way globalization can

more truly be called Westernization. Today’s globalization is still in large part driven by the West, inasmuch as it is tinged by Western unilateralism and entails the dissemination of essentially Western standards and ideology. For example, Coca Cola has become a Chinese cultural icon, Louis Vuitton stores crowd high-end shopping districts in Shanghai, and, as gender equality progresses, Chinese women look to Western women for inspiration. In contrast, Haier, the best-known Chinese brand in the United States, is still relatively unknown, and Wang Fei, who is widely

regarded in China as the pop star who was able to make it in the United States, has less name-recognition there than a first-round American Idol cut. This sort of globalization must change; otherwise it will be replaced by a system marked by a number of autonomous, regional free trade areas. Regionalization, which is encouraged by cultural diversity and political ambitions in addition to economic reasons, is more efficient than globalization in coming to agreements and improving international competitiveness. Nascent free trade areas have already been established and have also promoted regional security integration goals. The effect of this has been that after the Cold War a once-united world has parted to follow separate paths. The World Social Forum’s slogan “Another World Is Possible” has been taken up by some Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia. Bolivia has proposed the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) in opposition to the

American Free Trade Zone. Thus, regionalization is a prominent trend in the post-Cold War world. The perception of globalization as a one-way process has generated a great deal of resistance, which has found an outlet in the creation of regional free trade areas and blocs. Because of this, global hegemony is becoming less and less feasible. If this trend of regionalization continues, the United States, while it will remain the preeminent North American power, will begin to have an increasingly less influential voice in world politics. The “concert of democracies,” NATO, or a trans-Atlantic free trade association (TAFTA) cannot fundamentally

reverse this trend. Thus, for the United States to remain powerful on a global scale, a more traditional international system must be preserved, as opposed to a system that emphasizes regional alternatives. China, because it is providing an additional focal point to the West in a globalizing world, is assuaging disgruntled anti-globalizationalists and thus, rather

paradoxically, supporting the traditional international order of a globally interconnected world and market, rather than a system of autonomous regional blocs. In this way, China is providing, rather than destabilizing, the foundations of US hegemony. A Policy of Mutual Cooperation As I have previously noted, if Chinese foreign policy in the short run seeks to prevent the rapid decline

of the United States, eventually the United States will not only give up its illusions of global grandeur, but will realize that China is an important player in the world order and indeed the one that can best guarantee the United States’ hold on power. The United States’ ultimate strategy should be one of cooperation with China in order to ensure that they both become strong regional powers. It should stop dealing with China in the same way that it dealt with Japan during the majority of the last century: as a rising power that threatens US hegemony and must be contained. So, when considering the risks and opportunities of Chinese development, one must consider not only strength

and intent, but global power structures and the macro-level implications of change in economic arenas. China presents a successful model for other developing countries to follow, not to fight but to embrace globalization in order to bring about a more just, reasonable, and harmonious international order and to

avoid isolation. Regionalization cannot be sustainable in the long run, and could result in a far more unstable world than one marked by a power-sharing arrangement between China and the United States. Thus, the greatest threat to the continuation of the stable world order of the present is not a rising China, but the failure of China to develop further. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson described the situation well: “the biggest risk we face is not that China will overtake the United States, but that China won’t move ahead with the reforms

necessary to sustain its growth and to address the very serious problems facing the nation.” And China intends to use reform and


Hegemony of 100

7 Week Juniors – HPSW liberalization to realize its peaceful rise. Despite regional quibbles and the occasional ruffled diplomatic feathers, it is China’s rise—

through peace and for peace—that promises to sustain US global hegemony.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – ObamaObama gives us breathing room to improve leadership The Canberra Times 08 (SEUMAS MILNE. Those who want real change will have to fight for it, 3/11)

Of course, whoever the president, the US will remain a global colossus, with a military presence in 130 of the world's 195 countries. But it is also a power in unmistakable relative decline and an Obama presidency offers the US a breathing space to re-order its relations with the rest of the world accordingly. The benefit of the doubt that will be given to Obama in the early period of a new administration in Europe that's likely to stretch to defence of the indefensible, as in the Clinton years potentially gives

the US extra room for manoeuvre. Economic failure may yet force military cutbacks, despite Obama's pledge to expand the armed forces.

But, as in the domestic arena, if expectations of change are dashed, the reaction may end up being all the sharper. What seems

certain is that Obama's election will be a catalyst that creates political opportunities both at home and abroad. The Obama campaign grew out of popular opposition to the Iraq War and its success has been based on the mobilisation of supporters who will

certainly want to go further and faster than their candidate. Economic conditions are also likely to demand a more decisive response. And even if conditions are very different from those which led to the New Deal of the 1930s not least the lack of a powerful labour movement

Obama could yet, like Roosevelt, be propelled by events to adopt more radical positions. In any case, if Obama is to begin to fulfill the confidence invested in him, hope will not be enough.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – AT: Financial CrisisFinancial collapse won’t constrain military spending – US military is not obsolete, it still provides stability. No one can take our place despite all our problemsCaryl 08 Newsweek Web Exclusive( Christian, Long Live U.S. Imperialism, Oct 31)

Conventional wisdom has it that the George Washington is soon to become an empty symbol. According to everyone from Hamas to Maureen

Dowd of The New York Times, the American Empire is over. The era of U.S. hegemony is done for, finito. The reason is simple enough: the financial and economic crisis is already tipping the United States into recession. The huge amounts of money now being spent on reviving the banking system will crimp America's leading role in the world. Whoever the next president is, he'll find it hard to push-through dramatic tax increases; and without additional revenue, the already huge U.S. budget deficit can only get bigger. Aircraft carriers like the George Washington cost $4.5 billion a pop, and keeping them afloat isn't much cheaper. In 2007, the Department of Defense budget was about $440 billion—and that didn't include

additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which add more to the bill. Surely the sheer lack of cash will end up restraining Washington's ambitions to remake the world. There's just one problem with this thesis: The United States was short on cash long before this latest crisis hit, but that didn't stop it from continuing to build up the world's most formidable military. (According to one estimate, the U.S. accounted for 47 percent of the world's defense spending in 2003.) Many people may not have noticed, but for the past few years the United States has paid for its policies by borrowing money from other countries—primarily Japan, China, and other East Asian economic giants who have America buy their stuff by loading themselves down with U.S. Treasury debt. This is something that those neo-conservative theoreticians who rejoiced at America's new spirit of foreign policy activism after 9/11 didn't like to talk about much. It's also one of many reasons why the

21st century usually turns out to be more complicated than talk of 19th-century statecraft and balance of power politics would allow. Today's great powers are economically linked in all sorts of ways that make big wars a lot less likely. So does that mean that the military factor is irrelevant in today's globalized world? Not at all. Let's go back to the USS George Washington. Since it arrived in Japan this September, it's the only one of the U.S. Navy's 11 carriers to be permanently stationed ("homeported") in a foreign country. Why is that? Just take a

look at the map. The George Washington is the biggest ship of the 50-some-odd vessels that make up America's Seventh Fleet , whose area of responsibility extends from the western Pacific to the Indian Ocean. That includes, for example, the Strait of Malacca . Every year a quarter of the world's oil sails through that narrow chokepoint from its source in the Persian Gulf to the economies of East Asia—one of the world's three major economic centers of gravity, along with the United States and the European Union. The problem with East Asia, though, is that none of its countries trust each other. If, let us say, the Seventh Fleet were to evaporate tomorrow, China would suddenly get very nervous about protecting what strategists call its "sea-line of communications." Four-fifths of China's entire supply of oil comes through the Strait of Malacca. Were China to beef up its military presence there, though, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—all dependent on the same oil—would immediately have to confront similar concerns. And because China hardly offers a model of transparent government, they would find themselves having to do a lot of guessing. Unpredictability is a very dangerous thing when the vital national interests of states are involved. Just to make it more interesting, China, for its part, has good historical reasons to worry about the motives of Japan,

while South Korea is intensely paranoid about both Japan and China. Like it or not, the Seventh Fleet is a powerful insurance policy that ensures more or less stable rules of the game. The same principle applies around the world. Just to cite one example, the Balkan Wars of the 1990s happened in the European Union's backyard, but they ended only when the United States—belatedly and reluctantly—applied its military leverage. It's entirely true that, as my colleague Fareed Zakaria has argued, America's pseudo-imperial role is being diluted as more and more countries embrace their own forms of market-oriented democracy, which helps them to build confidence in each other. That's a good thing and undoubtedly serves the cause of general stability. And I readily concede that America's intense belief in the rightness of its own system sometimes tempts it into destabilizing adventures. Yet, on balance, the world would still be a much more dangerous place without America around. In a world of intensifying competition for natural resources, trust is still the rarest commodity of all. U.S. influence will undoubtedly wane as

more and more countries build confidence in each other. But that's going to take a long time. No question about it, America is overstretched. As economic turbulence hits home, U.S. voters are already less inclined to pay for overseas adventures. Yet to an extent, they

don't have much choice. For the reasons I've described above, the world will probably need someone to play the role of arbiter, enforcer,

hegemon—call it what you will—for a long while to come. ("Hegemony," by the way, is a Greek word that means "leadership.") Americans may not want to play that role, and the rest of the world doesn't always like the United States when it does. Yet I don't see anyone around who's ready to take its place. The European Union? It can't even forge a common foreign policy, much less a strategy for regional security and defense. China? Many of its neighbors are unlikely to be enthusiastic. Russia? Give me a break. Both McCain and Obama have talked about the greater need for cooperation with U.S. allies and placed far less emphasis on Bush-style unilateralism. Both have talked about overarching challenges that unite the international community. And there's certainly a lot of work to be done in all these respects. But I have a feeling that someone, somehow, is going to go on paying for the Seventh Fleet.


http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-World-Fareed-Zakaria/dp/039306235X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225369744&sr=8-1

http://www.newsweek.com/related.aspx?subject=European+Union

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_malacca

http://www.newsweek.com/related.aspx?subject=U.S.+Seventh+Fleet

http://www.newsweek.com/related.aspx?subject=China

http://www.newsweek.com/related.aspx?subject=Japan

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12dowd.html?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12dowd.html?hp

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gQFU1mWdhswWYSNsvZiw4CfxFfGwD93ODH180

Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – AT: Financial Crisis

American economy is still the most powerful – other countries still rely on itTakadoro 08 Keio University Professor of International Political Science and Economics (Masayuki, Financial crisis marks end of US as hyper power, Mainchini, Nov 5)

Having said that, it is very difficult for me to imagine any alternative to the leadership of the U.S., which will play special roles in managing the globalized economy after the current financial crisis and economic slump that will inevitably follow it, unless

the world is divided into several spheres of influence. It is impossible for not only Japan but also China to sever their relations with the U.S. economy without triggering major economic dislocation. Viewing world order from a more comprehensive standpoint,

not only Japan but also Europe has no ability or coordinated will to replace Pax Americana. World order led by either Russia or China, even if possible, will not be attractive. Thus, Japan's basic approach should be to make clear both internally and externally that it will support moderate and sensible leadership by the U.S. while trying to enhance its own ability to act independently. This is not tantamount to blindly obeying the U.S. At this time of crisis, discord between nations could threaten not only the global economy but world order as a whole Japan now has a good chance to persuade Washington, which may be prepared to listen to the friendly counsel of its ally, to revert to sensible leadership as Japan's financial system is relatively stable and sound. A United States that behaves in an excessive manner is a threat to Japan, to the world and above all to the U.S. itself. However, a

shaky U.S. would also be a threat to Japan, which relies on it for national security and the international economic order it provides. While it is easy to criticize the United States, its sensible leadership is still the best hope for the world to create a liberal and open world order.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – AT: CounterbalancingOthers aren’t counterbalancing – they are siding with US to prevent the rise of other powersKagan 08 senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Robert, Why we need the 800-pound gorilla, National Post July 25, 2008)

As it happens, American predominance is unlikely to fade anytime soon, largely because much of the world does not really want it to. Despite the opinion polls, America's relations with both old and new allies have actually strengthened in recent years. China and Russia have been working together to balance against the United States. But there are obstacles to a lasting strategic alliance between the two powers. They have entered into an arms alliance, if not a formal strategic alliance, with Russia selling billions of dollars' worth of advanced military technology and weaponry to the Chinese for use against the United States in any conflict that may arise. They have strengthened the

Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an increasingly military as well as political institution. Yet they also remain traditional rivals. Russians continue to fear that the massive and productive Chinese population will quietly overrun Russia's sparsely populated Siberian and far eastern territory. China's manufacturing economy, meanwhile, is more dependent on the American market than is the oil-exporting Russia. Another problem for China and Russia is that the world's other great powers

-- the democratic powers of Europe, Japan, and India--are drawing closer to the United States geopolitically. The most striking change has

occurred in India, a former ally of Moscow that today sees good relations with the United States as essential to achieving its broader

strategic and economic goals. Japanese leaders came to a similar conclusion a decade ago. In the mid-1990s, the Japanese-American alliance was in

danger of eroding. But since 1997, the strategic relationship between the two countries has grown stronger, partly because of Japan's escalating concerns about China and North Korea, and partly as a means of enhancing Japan's own position in East Asia and the world. In Europe there is also an unmistakable trend toward closer strategic relations with the United States. A few years ago, Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac flirted with drawing closer to Russia as a way of counterbalancing American power. But now France, Germany, and the rest of Europe have been moving in the other direction. This is not out of renewed affection for the United States. It is a response to changing international circumstances and to lessons learned from the past. The more pro-American foreign policies of Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are not only a matter of their unique personalities but also reflect a reassessment of

French, German and European interests. Close but not uncritical relations with the United States, they believe, give a boost to European power and influence that Europe cannot achieve on its own. "If you asked me which of the [two] countries France will have closer relations with-- the United States or Russia," French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said, " 'the U.S.' would be my answer … The friendship between

Europe and the United States is a cornerstone of world stability, period." Even in the Middle East, where anti-Americanism runs hottest, the strategic

balance has not shifted very much. Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco continue to work closely with the United States, despite somewhat greater pressure emanating from Washington for political reform of these autocracies. So, too, do the nations of the Persian Gulf organized in the Gulf Cooperation Council, who are worried about Iran. Libya has moved from being squarely in the anti-American camp to a more ambiguous posture. Lebanon remains a battleground but is arguably closer to the United States today than it was when more fully under Syria's thumb a few years ago. Iraq has shifted from implacable anti-Americanism under Saddam Hussein to dependence on the United States. This favourable strategic balance could shift suddenly and dramatically. If Iran obtains a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it, that will transform the strategic equation in the region. In the meantime,

however, like Russia and China, Iran itself faces some regional balancing. An alliance of Sunni states worries about the expanding Iranian and

Shiite influence in the Middle East. Along with Israel, and backed by the American superpower, this anti-Iranian coalition seems stronger than any anti-American coalition Iran has been able to assemble. This lack of fundamental realignment in the Middle East contrasts sharply with the major strategic setbacks the United States suffered during the Cold War. In the 1950s and 1960s, the pan-Arab nationalist movement swept across the region and opened the door to unprecedented Soviet involvement, including a quasi-alliance between Moscow and the Egypt of Gamal Abdel Nasser, as well as Syria. In 1979, a key pillar of the American strategic position in the region toppled when the pro-American shah of Iran was overthrown by Ayatollah Khomeini's virulently anti-American revolution. That led to a fundamental shift in the strategic balance in the region from which the United States is still

suffering. Nothing similar has yet occurred as a result of the Iraq War. Meanwhile, the number of overseas American military bases continues to grow in the Middle East and elsewhere. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has built or expanded bases in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia; in Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Poland and Romania in Europe; as well as in the

Philippines, Djibouti, Oman, Qatar and of course, Iraq. Chinese strategists believe the present international configuration is likely to endure for some time, and they are probably right. So long as the United States remains at the center of the international economy, the predominant military power, and the leading apostle of the world's most popular political philosophy; so long as the American public continues to support American predominance, as it has consistently for six decades; and so long as potential challengers inspire more fear than sympathy among their neighbours, the structure of the international system should remain as it has been, with one superpower and several great powers.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – AT: Counterbalancing – ChinaChina’s wont catch up – haters use flawed statistical analysis and crappy measures of economic growthWohlforth 07 Olin Fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University (William, Unipolar Stability: The Rules of Power Analysis, A Tilted Balance, Vol. 29 (1) - Spring 2007)

When analysts forecast the coming of multipolarity, they often talk of how the rising BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) will alter the global

balance of power. If we carefully examine the numbers, what drives most of these projections is China. And if examined even more closely, we will likely see that one indicator alone is being used to project China’s rise: the growth of its gross domestic product (GDP). China’s

global clout will certainly rise with the relative size of its economy. But economic size is only one indicator of power, and it can be a misleading one. When a huge number of poor people are gathered together in one country, they can create a large economy that is much less capable of generating power than the raw numbers would suggest. After all, India is estimated to have had a

much larger economy than the British Isles when it was colonized in the nineteenth century. Studies of national power in the post-industrial age

find that what matters most today is not just economic size, but wealth and technological development. Indeed, even if China’s overall GDP did come to equal that of the United States, its per-capita GDP would still be only one-quarter that

of the United States. Current projections of China’s economic rise may well be overstated. Iraq aside, what is most responsible for the virtual shift to multipolarity is not a word but an acronym: PPP. PPP stands for the “purchasing power parity” estimate of countries’ exchange rates—the size of their economies in dollar terms. Although the prices of many manufactured products tend to be equalized by international trade, the price of labor is not, and therefore labor-intensive products and services tend to be relatively cheap in poor counties. PPP corrects for this discontinuity by using prices for a locally selected basket of goods to adjust the exchange rate for converting local currency into dollars. As University of Pennsylvania professor Avery Goldstein notes, “the World Bank’s decision in 1994 to shift to a PPP estimate for China’s economy was crucial in propelling perceptions of that country’s imminent rise to great power status.” Economists universally agree that,

properly applied, this method provides better estimates of comparative living standards. But forecasts about China’s rise should not be based on predictions of its living standards. They should discuss China’s presence as a great power in international politics—its ability to use

money to purchase goods and influence matters abroad. PPP clearly exaggerates this sort of power. No one knows how much to discount the PPP numbers for the purposes of making comparisons of national power. What is certain, economist Albert Keidel notes, is that one should not “use projections of national accounting growth rates from a PPP base. This common

practice seriously inflates estimates of China’s future economic size—exaggerating the speed with which China’s economy will overtake that of the United States in total size.” Projections must take into account the fact that growth will cause prices to converge with international norms, and thus the PPP to converge with the market exchange rate. Using such

a methodology, Keidel estimates that it will take until 2050 for China’s total economic size to equal the United States. National power is a complex phenomenon. We all know that relying on one simple indicator of power is not a good idea. Yet research by political scientists, psychologists, and historians continues to demonstrate that decisionmakers and analysts tend to break this basic rule. Projections of China’s rise are a case in point. Even setting aside the manifold challenges that this country faces on the road to superpowerdom—including a looming demographic crisis, a shaky financial system, and the political challenges inherent in a capitalist country ruled by a communist party—extrapolating its rise based on GDP and PPP estimates of its current size is a dubious analytical exercise.



Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – AT: Counterbalancing – China/RussiaRussia and China won’t balance the US – they’ll balance each other out of fearSummers 08 Former British Diplomat, Researcher at the Centre for East Asian Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong(“Are China-Russia ties cooling off?” 10-25)

There is evidence too of Russian concerns both over the balance within the SCO and that Russia's resource-rich east is being left too close to a rising China . Part of this jockeying for strategic influence is the very practical issue of access to the region's rich energy

and other natural resources, and Russia has sponsored an alternative central Asian organisation which does not include China, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. If one of the purposes of the SCO for Beijing is to enhance its strategic influence in central Asia, then this implicitly at least encroaches on an area that Moscow has traditionally seen as within its sphere of influence. Shortly after the Georgian incident, Russian

President Medvedev said that Russia should have a privileged sphere of influence in Asia , though it is not clear exactly where,

nor what the Chinese response to that statement has been. So any signs of a change in Russian policy towards its periphery do not only have the potential to affect states on its European borders, but could apply in a similar way to its eastern periphery . The geopolitics here are different: Nato does not impinge on Russia's eastern borders, there is no evidence that Moscow is currently concerned by a military

threat from China (or Japan for that matter) in the east, and it tolerated the US's post-9/11 presence in central Asia. China's economic interests, its soft power diplomacy, and its posited long-term eyeing up of the strategic vacuum in central Asia left by the USSR's

demise may at some point in the future prompt some pushback from a Russian government which appears to be looking to grow back into its role as a major global power. China's opposition to Russia's action in Georgia should therefore be seen against this backdrop. Future tension in Central Asia may not be limited to the part that borders Europe.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – AT: Counterbalancing – Russia

Russia can’t balance – military sucks, their population is declining, and others balance Bandow 08 Robert A. Taft Fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance(“The Russian Hangover” The National Interest Online 10-27)

Even then it was obvious that Russia’s offensive power was limited. Its conventional forces have improved over their nadir following the

dissolution of the Soviet Union, but the Russian military remains no match for that of the U nited S tates and only at great cost could

Moscow defeat a state with reasonably modern armed forces. Jane’s Strategic Advisory Services recently pointed to weaknesses exposed by the August war , concluding: “I mprovements in command, training levels and the employment of flexible, modern weapons

systems are required before the Russian military can face any opponents larger or better equipped than the Georgian military.” Moscow’s nuclear force, including a substantial number of tactical warheads, is its principal power tool. However, Russia could ill afford to use nuclear weapons as a substitute for inadequate conventional forces against any of the countries lining its border. Rather, Moscow has a deterrent that would turn any Western response into a dangerous game of geopolitical chicken. Yet relying on nuclear weapons to counter conventional intervention by other nations would be as dangerous for Moscow as for the United States or European states. Moreover, despite the nationalistic adrenaline rush following

Moscow’s triumph, Russia’s long-term prospects remain bleak . Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has suffered not just a birth dearth, but a sharp rise in mortality rates and drop in life expectancy , what Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise

Institute calls a “great leap backwards.” Russia’s population was 145 million in 2002, but fell to 142 million this year. The United Nations figures

that Russia’s population is going to drop another 10 million by 2020 . Obviously, demographic and health trends can change, but

Moscow’s problems are systematic and fundamental . Any turnaround likely will take years. As Eberstadt puts it, “this is not the portrait of a successfully and rapidly developing economy—much less an emerging economic superpower . ” A declining population will have serious geopolitical consequences as well. For instance, the relative depopulation of Siberia,

adjoining far more populous China, could leave Russia’s expansive eastern territory at risk. But we need not wait until 2020 for evidence

of Russian weakness. Economic uncertainty and falling energy prices have combined to deflate Russia’s pretensions of being a great power again. The stock market is down 70 percent from May , with one-time billionaire oligarchs scurrying to the

Kremlin begging for relief. The ruble has lost two year’s worth of appreciation as anxious citizens , so recently celebrating their new

prosperity, change their savings into dollars and euros. Heretofore abundant foreign exchange reserves have dissipated as oil prices have fallen by more than half and the government has attempted to prop up the ruble. Investment rating services are threatening to downgrade Russian debt. As its economy weakens, Russia is less able to threaten its neighbors and the West—by

cutting off energy shipments, for instance—should its demands not be met. Moreover, declining revenues will crimp the Kremlin’s plans to sharply enhance its military. Not only will there be less money available overall, but more funds will have to be plowed into business investment and social programs . Economic growth has been the foundation of Vladimir Putin’s popularity. He will be loath to risk

popular displeasure by allowing the economy to continue sinking. Indeed, Russia’s present financial difficulties are likely to force Moscow to accelerate economic integration with the West, which will force the Kremlin to moderate its foreign policy . Last year, then–President Putin issued an updated economic development strategy for 2020, which envisioned Russia as sporting one of the globe’s five largest economies and acting as an international financial center and technological leader. Those are challenging goals under any circumstances, but

almost certainly will be impossible to achieve without abundant Western investment, trade and c ooperation. The image of a new Russian colossus threatening neighbors, Western Europe and the U nited S tates never reflected reality. Moscow’s ambitions always were much more limited—ensuring border security and international respect, not reestablishing the Soviet empire. So, too, were its abilities limited, even before the ongoing economic crunch .


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – AT: Counterbalancing – Venezuela, Iran, RussiaOil prices are dominating oil exportersNYT 08 (“3 Oil-Rich Countries Face a Reckoning” 10-21)

As the price of oil roared to ever higher levels i n recent years, the leaders of Venezuela, Iran and Russia muscled their way onto the world stage, using checkbook diplomacy and, on occasion, intimidation. Now, plummeting oil prices are raising questions about whether the countries can sustain their spending — and their bids to challenge United States hegemony. For all three nations , oil money was a means to an ideological end . President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela used it to

jump-start a socialist-inspired revolution in his country and to back a cadre of like-minded leaders in Latin America who were intent on eroding once-dominant American influence. Iran extended its influence across the Middle East, promoted itself as the leader of the Islamic

world and used its petrodollars to help defy the West’s efforts to block its nuclear program. Russia, which suffered a

humiliating economic collapse in the 1990s after the fall of communism, recaptured some of its former standing in the world. It began rebuilding its military, wrested control of oil and gas pipelines and pushed back against Western encroachment in the former Soviet

empire. But such ambitions are harder to finance when oil is at $74.25 a barrel , its closing price Monday in New York, than when it is at $147, its price as recently as three months ago.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Sustainable – AT: IraqIraq doesn’t show decline – any other country would fail. Also Vietnam provesWohlforth 07 Olin Fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University (William, Unipolar Stability: The Rules of Power Analysis, A Tilted Balance, Vol. 29 (1) - Spring 2007)

But the example of Iraq exhibits a balance of power dynamic between states and non-state insurgents, not one between several different states. There is no reason to believe that China, Russia, India, or the European Union would perform any better if faced with the challenges that the US military confronts in Iraq. Some scholars argue that Iraq demonstrates new information about the state versus non-state balance. They contend that counterinsurgency campaigns have become much more difficult to execute than what used to be the case. But if this is so, then it applies to all the great powers, not just the United

States. According to numerous recent studies conducted by the US military and independent scholars, this argument is not correct. Insurgency has always been difficult to thwart. Once an insurgency takes root, governments rarely prevail. When they do—as in the case of Britain in South Africa at the turn of the last century and more recently, Russia in Chechnya—it is usually the result of deploying very large military forces willing to use

ferocious violence on a mass scale against innocent civilians. With a comparatively small force in a large and populous country, the United States’ inability to foster stability in Iraq is tragic, but not surprising. The bottom line is that the world did not suddenly become multipolar when the United States’ counterinsurgency in Vietnam failed. And simply because high-technology weaponry has not altered the centuries-old power balance between governments and armed insurgents, it does not necessarily follow that unipolarity is about to end.



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AT: Counterbalancing – Too CostlyCountries won’t balance – no economic capabilitiesNye, 08 – Professor at Harvard and Former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government (Joseph “Recovering American Leadership,” Survival, March 2008)

A number of realists have expressed concern about America’s staying power as well. Throughout history, coalitions of countries have arisen to balance dominant powers, and the search for new state actors that might challenge the United States and shift the balance of power is

well underway. Some see China as the new enemy; others envisage a Russia–China–India coalition. But even if China maintains its high growth rate of 9%, while the United States achieves only 2–3%, China will not equal the United States in per capita income (a measure of the sophistication of an economy) until near the end of the century. In contrast, Germany’s

industrial production had surpassed the United Kingdom’s well before open conflict between the two erupted in 1914. Others see India becoming a major challenger to the United States, but despite recent impressive growth, economically India lags behind China, and will have incentives to cooperate with the United States to balance rising Chinese power. Russia is sometimes cited as a great power, but its recent resurgence is based on a single commodity, energy, and it faces serious health and demographic problems. Others see a uniting Europe as a potential federation that will challenge the United States for primacy, but this forecast depends on a high degree of European political unity, a willingness of European populations to spend heavily on defence, and poor conditions in transatlantic relations. While realists raise an important point about the economic rise of new powers in the international arena, their quest to identify traditional challengers who will surpass the United States or form coalitions to balance American military power misses a larger point by ignoring the deeper changes that are occurring in the distribution and nature of power in this century.

No counter balancing – countries find it too costlyBrooks and Wohlforth, 08 – Associate professor of government at Dartmouth, Professor of government at Dartmouth (Stephen G., William C., “World out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy” Princeton University Press, 22-24)

In this chapter, we show that the theory does not predict and historical experience does not imply there will be efforts to counterbalance the United States today. Balance-of-power theory predicts that states try to prevent the rise of a hegemon. While scholars debate the historical evidence for this proposition, they fail to register a point important for constraints on U.S. power today: Even if a potential hegemon must be concerned about counterbalancing , the theory yields no such implication for one that has already established its material primacy. We argue that once a country achieves such a position, it has passed a threshold, and the effect of increasing power is reversed: the stronger the leading state and the more entrenched its dominance, the more unlikely and thus less constraining are counterbalancing dynamicsOur explanation for the absence of counterbalancing against the United States emphasizes a simple point: counterbalancing is and will long remain prohibitively costly for other major powers. Because no country comes close to matching the comprehensice nature of U.S. power, an attempt to counterbalance would be far more expensive than a similar effort in any previous international system. Matching U.S. capabilities could become even more formidably costly, moreover, if the United States decided to increase its defense expenditures (currently around 4 percent of GDP) to Cold War levels (which averaged 7.5 percent of GDP).General patterns of evidence since the advent of unipolarity are consistent with our argument and inexplicable in traditional balance-of-power terms. The principal change in alliances since the demise of the Soviet Union had been the expansion of NATO, and the biggest increases in defense spending have been

on behalf of the Pentagon. The other great powers have not attempted to constrain the United States by allying together: No counterhegemonic coalition has taken shape, and none is on the horizon. Nor have they balanced increases in U.S. military power through internal spending. Notwithstanding increased expenditures by a few great powers (notably China), in aggregate their commitments to defense have declined compared to the United States: the U.S. share of total defense spending by the major powers grew from 47 percent in 1991 to 66 percent in 2006. No major power has exhibited any propensity to use military capabilities directly to contain U.S. power. This is not the pattern of evidence balance-of-power theory predicts. Were the theory not already popular with scholars and pundits, nothing about the behavior of the major powers since 1991 would have called it to mind.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Counterbalancing – Benevolent HegNo counterbalancing – benevolent hegemonyHaas, 08 – CFR pres. (Richard, May/June, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080501faessay87304/richard-n-haass/the-age-of-nonpolarity.html)

The fact that classic great-power rivalry has not come to pass and is unlikely to arise anytime soon is also partly a result of the United States' behavior, which has not stimulated such a response. This is not to say that the United States under the leadership of George W. Bush has not alienated other nations; it surely has. But it has not, for the most part, acted in a manner that has led other states to conclude that the United States constitutes a threat to their vital national interests. Doubts about the wisdom and legitimacy of U.S. foreign policy are pervasive, but this has tended to lead more to denunciations (and an absence of cooperation) than outright resistance.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Counterbalancing – Too Far AheadNo balancing – The US is already too far aheadHaas, 08 – CFR pres. (Richard, May/June, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080501faessay87304/richard-n-haass/the-age-of-nonpolarity.html)

But this has not happened. Although anti-Americanism is widespread, no great-power rival or set of rivals has emerged to challenge the United States. In part, this is because the disparity between the power of the United States and that of any potential rivals is too great. Over time, countries such as China may come to possess GDPs comparable to that of the United States. But in the case of China, much of that wealth will necessarily be absorbed by providing for the country's enormous population (much of which remains poor) and will

not be available to fund military development or external undertakings. Maintaining political stability during a period of such dynamic but uneven growth will be no easy feat. India faces many of the same demographic challenges and is further hampered by too much bureaucracy and too little infrastructure. The EU's GDP is now greater than that of the United States, but the EU does not act in the unified fashion of a nation-state, nor is it able or inclined to act in the assertive fashion of historic great powers. Japan, for its part, has a shrinking and aging population and lacks the political culture to play the role of a great power. Russia may be more inclined, but it still has a largely cash-crop economy and is saddled by a declining population and internal challenges to its cohesion.


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AT: Iraq Kills Heg

Iraq doesn’t tank US predominanceKagan, 07 – a fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Robert, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) End of Dreams, Return of History, 7/19/07, Real Clear Politics http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/07/end_of_dreams_return_of_histor.html)

By the same token, foreign policy failures do not necessarily undermine predominance. Some have suggested that failure in Iraq would mean the end of predominance and unipolarity. But a superpower can lose a war -- in Vietnam or in Iraq -- without ceasing to be a superpower if the fundamental international conditions continue to support its predominance. So long as the United States remains at the center of the international economy and the predominant military power, so long as the American public continues to support American predominance as it has consistently for six decades, and so long as potential challengers inspire more fear than sympathy among their neighbors, the structure of the international system should remain as the Chinese describe it: one superpower and many great powers.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Multipolarity Inevitable

Predictions of hegemonic decline and multipolarity are flawedWohlforth, 07 – Olin Fellow in International Security Studies at Yale (William, “Unipolar Stability” Harvard International Review, Spring 07 http://www.harvardir.org/articles/1611/1/)

The larger problem with conflating power-as-resources with power-as-influence is that it leads to a constant shifting of the goalposts. The better the United States becomes at acquiring resources, the greater the array of global problems it is expected to be able to resolve, and the greater the apparent gap between its material capabilities and the ends it can achieve. The result is an endless raising of the bar for what it takes to be a unipolar power. Samuel Huntington defined a unipolar state as one able “effectively to resolve all important international issues alone, and no combination of other states would have the power to prevent it from doing so.” This is an extraordinary standard that essentially conflates unipolarity with universal

empire. Great European powers did not lose great power status when they failed to have their way, in, for example, the

Balkans in the nineteenth century. In turn, the United States did not cease to be a superpower when it failed to overthrow Fidel Castro in the 1960s. The fact that Washington cannot prevent Hugo Chavez from thumbing his nose at US power is interesting and perhaps

even important, but it does not have bearing on the polarity of the international system. Defining power as the ability to solve whatever global problem is currently in the headlines virtually guarantees highly volatile prognostications about polarity. This

sort of headline chasing led to talk of “empire” in 2002 and 2003, just as it feeds today’s multipolar mania. Assessing active attempts by the United States to employ its power capabilities may well be the most misleading way to think about power. This approach inevitably leads to a selection bias against evidence of the indirect, “structural” effects of US power that are not dependent upon active management. Many effects that can be attributed to the unipolar distribution of power are developments that never occur: counter-balancing coalitions, Cold War-scale arms races, hegemonic rivalry for dominance, security dilemmas among Asian powers, and decisions by Japan and others to nuclearize. Clearly, assessing unipolarity’s potential effects involves weighing such non-events against the more salient examples in which active attempts to use power resources are stymied.

Multipolarity is impossible to predict – the US will remain the unipolar power Wohlforth, 07 – Olin Fellow in International Security Studies at Yale (William, “Unipolar Stability” Harvard International Review, Spring 07 http://www.harvardir.org/articles/1611/1/)

The potential for the rise of a multipolar world order certainly seems far more plausible now than it did several years ago. In 2003, pundits considered the term “unipolar” to be too modest; only “empire” could capture the extraordinary position of power that the United States appeared to occupy. Indeed, in the eyes of the foreign policy commentariat, the United States has fallen from global empire to hapless Gulliver in a mere four years. When Charles Krauthammer—the columnist who originally coined the

term “unipolar moment”—has announced the end of unipolarity, it is hardly a leap to suggest that multipolarity is nigh. Perceptions of rapid polarity shifts of this sort are not unusual. In the early 1960s, only a decade after analysts had developed the notion of bipolarity, scholars were already proclaiming the return of multipolarity as postwar recoveries in Europe and Japan took off. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, they again announced the advent of multipolarity. The most influential scholarly book on international relations of the past generation, Kenneth N. Waltz’s Theory of International Politics, was written in part to dispel these flighty views and show that bipolarity still endured. If one looks past the headlines to the deep material structure of the world, Waltz argued, one will see that bipolarity is still the order of the day. Yet in the early 1990s, Waltz himself proclaimed that the return of multipolarity was around the corner. Such perceived polarity shifts are usually accompanied by decline scares—concern that as other powers rise, the United States will lose its competitive edge in foreign relations. The current decline scare is the fourth since 1945—the first three occurred during the 1950s (Sputnik), the 1970s (Vietnam and stagflation), and the 1980s (the Soviet threat and Japan as a potential challenger). In all of these cases, real changes were occurring that suggested a redistribution of power. But in each case, analysts’ responses to those changes seem to have been overblown. Multipolarity—an international system marked by three or more roughly equally matched major powers—did not return in the

1960s, 1970s, or early 1990s, and each decline scare ended with the United States’ position of primacy arguably strengthened. It is impossible to know for sure whether or not the scare is for real this time—shifts in the distribution of power are notoriously hard to forecast. Barring geopolitical upheavals on the scale of Soviet collapse, the inter-state scales of power tend to change slowly. The trick is to determine when subtle quantitative shifts will lead to a major qualitative transformation of the basic structure of the international system. Fortunately, there


Hegemony of 100

7 Week Juniors – HPSW are some simple rules of power analysis that can help prevent wild fluctuations in response to current events. Unfortunately, arguments for multipolarity’s rapid return usually run afoul of them.


Hegemony of 100


Offshore Balancing FailsGround presence is key to reassure our allies, sustain global coalitions, and deter potential adversaries.Crane 02 Research Fellow @ Strategic Studies Institute and Former Prof of History @ US Military AcademyConrad C. Crane, FACING THE HYDRA: MAINTAINING STRATEGIC BALANCE WHILE PURSUING A GLOBAL WAR AGAINST TERRORISM, SSI, May

Future Army missions like those in Bosnia and Kosovo should not be accepted lightly. However, there will be times even in the midst of the war against terrorism when national interests will require humanitarian assistance, nation-building, and secure peace operations that only American military forces can

provide. Effective and efficient peace-building efforts must remain an important element of any national security strategy. The current situation in Afghanistan highlights again that post-conflict societies can become breeding grounds for crime and terrorism if some sort of order is not imposed. Influential members of Congress have already called for American peacekeepers there, and major newspapers irrespective of their political inclinations are advocating a significant U.S. role in nation-building. One project they have proposed is the reconstruction of Afghanistan’s ring road, which is so vital to the restoration of trade. This task, especially in such a precarious security environment, is perfectly suited to the capabilities of the U.S. Army and its engineers.27 To prevent peacekeeping assignments from dragging on and tying up scarce assets, the Army and supporting agencies must

become better at nation-building. Though the Bush administration, as well as the Army leadership, remain reluctant to accept such a mission, long-term solutions to create a more stable world will require the United States to perform it. Only the Army not the Air Force, Navy, or Marines can really do it in an environment of questionable security. Success in stabilization operations and strategic success in the war against terrorism will be closely linked because of the cause-effect relationship that exists between them. The Army should be daunted by and prepare for the responsibilities it might assume to help stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan and other countries after bin Laden and his supporters are rooted out. This effort should be accompanied by the development of appropriate doctrine for such peace-building missions. Though the U.S. burden in these

operations can be lessened by relying as much as possible on allied participation, there is no substitute for the presence of ground forces from the most powerful nation in the world to reassure friends, sustain coalitions, and deter potential adversaries. If stability in a region such as the Balkans is determined to be a vital American interest, then it cannot be allowed to return to chaos because of the distractions of the war on terrorism. Months before September 11, the Center for Army Analysis predicted the United States would face a future of 25 to 30 ongoing SSCs each month.28 Though it discusses SSCs only briefly, the QDR Report does state DoD will ensure that it has sufficient numbers of specialized forces and capabilities to ensure that it does not overstress elements of the force when it is involved in smaller-scale contingencies. Achieving this goal will require modifying the AC Army force structure, and will almost certainly involve increasing its size. In a recent speech, Rumsfeld admitted that the existence of low-density, high-demand assets that have been so overworked by SSCs signified that our priorities were wrong, and we didn’t buy enough of what we need. He advocated adding them as part of his transformation efforts.29 There is no reason still to have such force shortfalls, and they must be addressed. Major

Combat Operations. The Army must also retain its ability to deter and fight other wars besides the global war on terrorism. Cross-border wars of aggression are not the most likely type of conflict predicted for the future, but they are certainly not impossible and clearly require forces ready to fight them. In fact, it is precisely because U.S. forces are so ready to fight them that they are so unlikely. Even in the war on terrorism, where major ground forces have initially had only limited utility, they will still be

essential if operations expand to take on other states that support terrorism and are more robust than Afghanistan. The most powerful military force on the planet remains a joint force based around a heavy corps, and these units must not be allowed to atrophy. Cross border incursions remain a threat in Asia and the Middle East. The Bush administration’s stern warning to Iraq not to take advantage of America’s concentration on terrorism would not be an effective deterrent without the joint force, including landpower , to back it up. The primary focus of the QDR Report is on dissuading and deterring potential adversaries from threatening the interests of America and its allies, and on winning wars if deterrence fails. The document’s new force-sizing paradigm still envisions swiftly defeating attacks in two theaters of operation in overlapping timeframes, but only one of those campaigns will involve a decisive defeat including the occupation of territory or a possible regime change.30 Combined with the perception of some Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) officials that the campaign in Afghanistan was won by airpower and allies, this new force-sizing construct has the potential to bring calls for a reduction of heavy land combat forces.31 Critics may accept the need to keep such forces for the decisive defeat, but will argue for Army force structure cuts in the allocation for the second conflict. However, the larger Army that fought and won Operation DESERT STORM is already long gone. The current active force is probably too small to fight a major land war against a state like Iraq without even more coalition landpower augmentation than was received in the Gulf War. Additionally, adequate funding must be found to

modernize the legacy forces which will have to fight near and mid-term wars.32 And the paradox of deterrence is that the weaker a nation’s armed forces are perceived to be, the more likely it is to have to employ them. In the long-run, taking risk in this mission area has the most significant impact on the ability of the United States to protect its interests and achieve the goals outlined in the QDR Report


Hegemony of 100


Offshore Balancing FailsTroops are key to deter rogue state aggression that will cause conflict and collapse hegemonyKagan 06 Military historian @ West Point, Resident scholar @ American Enterprise Institute

The new approaches that the administration has pursued in the traditional area of nuclear nonproliferation are also leading to disaster. North Korea has openly avowed its possession of nuclear weapons--violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty it signed--and is now testing missiles of

increasing range on which to place those weapons. The United States has been apathetic and helpless in the face of this growing threat, now made even worse with Pyongyang's recent claim to have conducted an underground nuclear test. Iran has violated international norms and agreements repeatedly in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. This is a particularly interesting case to test the virtues of new-think against the old. In traditional realpolitik terms, the United States should be in a good position to pressure the

Iranians to abandon their program. We have allies on both sides of Iran and hundreds of thousands of troops near both Iranian borders. We should have an enormous advantage. But the Bush administration does not think in terms of traditional power politics. Instead , we have declared our determination to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible, which, combined with internal collapses in both countries resulting in part from our flawed strategies, have given the Iranians leverage over us. Tehran holds Washington hostage by threatening to destabilize Iraq further, and the United States responds with fear and appeasement. Past as Future The result of all of this new-think is

impending disaster on many fronts. Iraq and Afghanistan are in danger of failing. North Korea already has nuclear weapons and will soon be able to deploy them against the continental United States. Iran is well on its way to nuclear capability. Somalia is falling into the hands of militant Islamists, and the situation there may well destabilize the entire region. Why are we doing so badly in the world? The answer is that the world did not change as much in 2001--or in 1991, for that matter--as many observers thought. Our enemies did not, in fact, abandon traditional power politics. Misconceived though it might have been, Saddam Hussein fought a conventional war in 2003. Even Osama bin Laden rallied his terrorists to fight as conventional soldiers in 2001, digging trenches and setting up machine guns as the Taliban lost a lopsided conventional campaign.

Iran maintains a large conventional army, which it has been modernizing as rapidly as possible. So does North Korea. Both are pursuing nuclear weapons in the most conventional way possible--not as terrorist-style suitcase bombs, but as Soviet-style missile-mounted warheads. Far from being impressed by our adoption of novel strategies--withdrawal from South Korea on the one hand and a small footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan on the other--the

Iranians have seized the advantage in a very traditional way. They have seen that we are bogged down and distracted, that our conventional forces are overstretched, and that the danger of a U.S. attack is therefore very small. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seizing the moment with traditional diplomatic delaying tactics while his scientists race to give him the weapons he desires. There is absolutely nothing novel in any of this. It

is time to wake up from the dream world of the 1990s. If history ended with the end of the Cold War, it has since started up again with a vengeance. Beyond al Qaeda, the United States today faces a host of traditional challenges. Large conventional militaries in Iran and North Korea support regimes seeking to develop nuclear arsenals. These threats can be deterred or defeated for certain only through the use or convincing threat of using conventional forces, because these regimes recognize no restraints on their behavior other than those imposed by superior power. The seizure of territory in Somalia by groups ideologically tied to our primary foe is reminiscent of Communist insurgencies in the Third World, which we fought during the Cold War with varying degrees of success. The insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan are unusual in some ways, but share common features with many other past insurgencies. Basic lessons from past counterinsurgencies should inform our approach to these challenges. Above all,

America's conventional military strength remains critical, traditional power politics continue to control the world, and the lessons of thousands of years

of human history still apply. In counterinsurgencies, the first requirement of success is the establishment of security throughout the country or region. This task is manpower-intensive and incompatible with a small footprint approach. Political, economic, and reconciliation tracks are not sustainable without security, as countless historical examples show. Success in Iraq--and Afghanistan--requires a heavier deployment of U.S. forces with orders not just to train indigenous

soldiers, but also to bring peace to those troubled lands. Military strength and the visible will to use it is also essential to persuading regimes like those in Tehran and Pyongyang to abandon programs they wish to pursue. We have been trying the diplomatic approach , unsupported by meaningful military threat, for nearly fifteen years with North Korea, and the result has been utter failure. A

similar approach in Iran will not be more successful. It may not be necessary to attack those two states to force them to give up their weapons of mass destruction programs, but there is no hope of convincing them to do so if they do not believe that we can and will defeat them. Nor is there any likelihood that a "small footprint" (almost a "no footprint") approach in the Horn of Africa will contain the Islamist threat there. The United States is at war, and the enemy is the same one we have been fighting for sixty years. A totalitarian regime controls North Korea. Totalitarian ideologues hold power in Iran, have just seized power in southern Somalia, and seek power throughout the Middle East. Their goals are subtly different, but they share several key features: the destruction of democracy, which they hate; the elimination of liberalism and religious toleration; and the destruction of

the United States. Victory will require a mobilization of America's military might and the willingness to use it. Adaptive and unpredictable enemies like al Qaeda will require us to change part of our approach and some of our forces constantly. Winning throughout the Muslim world will require economic, political,

and cultural initiatives alongside the use of military power. But nothing will be possible without adequate military force, which the United States is currently lacking. If we do not begin the necessary mobilization of our resources now, then our military power will become irrelevant, our strategies will fail, and our security will falter


Hegemony of 100


Heg Impact Authors – KhalilzadUS leadership solves nuke war, democracy, free trade, and conflicts globally Khalilzad 95 Defense Analyst at RAND, (Zalmay, “Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War” The Washington Quarterly, RETHINKING GRAND STRATEGY; Vol. 18, No. 2; Pg. 84)

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 the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because 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.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Impact Authors – FergusonCollapse of US hegemony causes a global power vacuum resulting in nuclear warFerguson 04 professor of history at New York University's Stern School of Business and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University (Niall, “A World without Power”, Foreign Policy )

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 Page 5 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 throughout the world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. 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 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


Hegemony of 100


Heg Impact Authors – KaganUS leadership prevents multiple scenarios for nuclear conflict – prefer it to all other alternativesKagan 07 Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [Robert “End of Dreams, Return of History” Policy Review (http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/8552512.html#n10)]

Finally, there is the United States itself. As a matter of national policy stretching back across numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican, liberal

and conservative, Americans have insisted on preserving regional predominance in East Asia; the Middle East; the Western Hemisphere; until recently, Europe; and now, increasingly, Central Asia. This was its goal after the Second World War, and since the end of the Cold War, beginning with the first Bush administration and continuing through the Clinton years, the United States did not retract but expanded its

influence eastward across Europe and into the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Even as it maintains its position as the predominant global power, it is also engaged in hegemonic competitions in these regions with China in East and Central Asia, with Iran in the Middle East and Central Asia, and with Russia in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The United States, too, is more of a traditional than a postmodern power, and though Americans are loath to acknowledge it, they generally prefer their global place as “No. 1” and are equally loath to relinquish it. Once having entered a region, whether for practical or idealistic reasons, they are remarkably slow to withdraw from it until they believe they have substantially transformed it in their own image. They profess indifference to the world and

claim they just want to be left alone even as they seek daily to shape the behavior of billions of people around the globe. The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying — its

regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic. It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and possibly beyond. Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed embargos, of the kind used in World War i and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way that is now impossible. Such order as exists in the world rests not only on the goodwill of peoples but also on American power. Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power. Even the European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power, for without it the European nations after World War ii would never have felt secure enough to reintegrate Germany. Most

Europeans recoil at the thought, but even today Europe’s stability depends on the guarantee, however distant and one hopes

unnecessary, that the United States could step in to check any dangerous development on the continent. In a genuinely multipolar world, that would not be possible without renewing the danger of world war. People who believe greater equality among nations would be preferable to the present American predominance often succumb to a basic logical

fallacy. They believe the order the world enjoys today exists independently of American power. They imagine that in a world where American power was diminished, the aspects of international order that they like would remain in place. But that’s not the way it works. International order does not rest on ideas and institutions. It is shaped by configurations of power.

Kagan continues…


Hegemony of 100


Heg Impact Authors – KaganKagan continued…The international order we know today reflects the distribution of power in the world since World War ii, and especially since the end of the Cold War. A different configuration of power, a multipolar world in which the poles were Russia, China, the United States, India, and Europe, would produce its own kind of order, with different rules and norms reflecting the interests of the powerful states that would have a hand in shaping it. Would that international order be an improvement? Perhaps for Beijing and Moscow it would. But it is doubtful that it would suit the tastes of enlightenment liberals in the United States and Europe. The current order, of course, is not only far

from perfect but also offers no guarantee against major conflict among the world’s great powers. Even under the umbrella of unipolarity, regional conflicts involving the large powers may erupt. War could erupt between China and Taiwan and draw in both the United States and Japan. War could erupt between Russia and Georgia, forcing the United States and its European allies to decide whether to intervene or suffer the consequences of a Russian victory. Conflict between India and Pakistan remains possible, as does conflict between Iran and Israel or other Middle Eastern

states. These, too, could draw in other great powers, including the United States. Such conflicts may be unavoidable no matter what policies the United States pursues. But they are more likely to erupt if the United States weakens or withdraws from its positions of regional dominance. This is especially true in East Asia, where most nations agree that a reliable American power has a stabilizing and pacific effect on the region. That is certainly the view of most of China’s neighbors.

But even China, which seeks gradually to supplant the United States as the dominant power in the region, faces the dilemma that an American withdrawal could unleash an ambitious, independent, nationalist Japan. In Europe, too, the departure of the United States from the scene — even if it remained the world’s most powerful nation — could be destabilizing. It could tempt Russia to an even more overbearing and potentially forceful approach to unruly nations on its periphery. Although some realist theorists seem to imagine that the disappearance of the Soviet Union put an end to the possibility of confrontation between Russia and the West,

and therefore to the need for a permanent American role in Europe, history suggests that conflicts in Europe involving Russia are possible even without Soviet communism. If the United States withdrew from Europe — if it adopted what some call a

strategy of “offshore balancing” — this could in time increase the likelihood of conflict involving Russia and its near neighbors, which could in turn draw the United States back in under unfavorable circumstances. It is also optimistic to imagine that a retrenchment of the American position in the Middle East and the assumption of a more passive, “offshore” role would lead to greater stability there. The vital interest the United States has in access to oil and the role it plays in keeping access open to other nations in Europe and Asia make it unlikely that American leaders could or would stand back and hope for the best while the powers in the region battle it out. Nor would a more “even-handed” policy toward Israel, which some see as the magic key to unlocking peace, stability, and comity in the Middle East, obviate the need to come to Israel ’s aid if its security became threatened. That commitment, paired with the American commitment to protect strategic oil supplies for

most of the world, practically ensures a heavy American military presence in the region, both on the seas and on the ground. The subtraction of American power from any region would not end conflict but would simply change the equation. In the Middle East, competition for influence among powers both inside and outside the region has raged for at least two centuries. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism doesn’t change this. It only adds a new and more threatening dimension to the competition, which neither a sudden end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians nor an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq would

change. The alternative to American predominance in the region is not balance and peace. It is further competition. The region and the states within it remain relatively weak. A diminution of American influence would not be followed by a diminution of other external influences. One could expect deeper involvement by both China and Russia, if only to secure their interests. 18 And one could also expect the more powerful states of the region, particularly Iran, to expand and fill the vacuum. It is doubtful that any American administration would voluntarily take actions that could shift the balance of power in the Middle East further toward Russia, China, or Iran. The world hasn’t changed that much. An American withdrawal from Iraq will not return things to “normal” or to a new kind of stability in the region. It

will produce a new instability, one likely to draw the United States back in again. The alternative to American regional predominance in the Middle East and elsewhere is not a new regional stability. In an era of burgeoning nationalism, the future is likely to be one of intensified competition among nations and nationalist movements. Difficult as it may be to extend American predominance into the future, no one should imagine that a reduction of American power or a retraction of American influence and global involvement will provide an easier path.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Impact Authors – ThayerUS hegemony solves all problemsThayer 06 Associate Professor in the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University [Bradley, In Defense of Primacy, The National Interest, December (lexis)]

THROUGHOUT HISTORY, peace and stability have been great benefits of an era where there was a dominant power--Rome, Britain or the United States today. Scholars and statesmen have long recognized the irenic effect of power on the anarchic world of

international politics. Everything we think of when we consider the current international order--free trade, a robust monetary regime, increasing respect for human rights, growing democratization--is directly linked to U.S. power. Retrenchment proponents seem to think that the current system can be maintained without the current amount of U.S. power behind it. In that they are dead wrong and need to be reminded of one of history's most significant lessons: Appalling things happen when international orders collapse. The Dark Ages followed Rome's collapse. Hitler succeeded the order established at Versailles. Without U.S. power, the liberal order created by the United States will end just as assuredly. As country and western great Ral Donner sang: "You don't know what you've got (until you lose it)."

Consequently, it is important to note what those good things are. In addition to ensuring the security of the United States and its allies, American primacy within the international system causes many positive outcomes for Washington and the world. The first has been a more peaceful world. During the Cold War, U.S. leadership reduced friction among many states that were historical antagonists, most notably France and West Germany. Today, American primacy helps keep a number of complicated relationships aligned--between Greece and Turkey, Israel and Egypt, South Korea and Japan, India and Pakistan, Indonesia and Australia. This is not to say it fulfills Woodrow Wilson's vision of ending all war. Wars still occur where Washington's interests are not seriously threatened, such as in Darfur, but a Pax Americana does reduce war's likelihood, particularly war's worst form: great power wars. Second, American power gives the United States the ability to spread democracy and other elements of its ideology of liberalism. Doing so is a source of much good for the countries concerned as well as the United States because, as John Owen noted on these pages in the Spring 2006 issue, liberal democracies are more likely to align with

the United States and be sympathetic to the American worldview.3 So, spreading democracy helps maintain U.S. primacy. In addition, once states are governed democratically, the likelihood of any type of conflict is significantly reduced. This is not because democracies do not have clashing interests. Indeed they do. Rather, it is because they are more open, more transparent and more likely to want to resolve things amicably in concurrence with U.S. leadership. And so, in general, democratic states are good for their citizens as well as for advancing the interests of the United States. Critics have faulted the Bush Administration for attempting to spread

democracy in the Middle East, labeling such an effort a modern form of tilting at windmills. It is the obligation of Bush's critics to explain why democracy is good enough for Western states but not for the rest, and, one gathers from the argument, should not even be attempted. Of course, whether democracy in the Middle East will have a peaceful or stabilizing influence on America's interests in the short run is open to question. Perhaps democratic Arab states would be more opposed to Israel, but nonetheless, their people would be better off. The United States has brought democracy to Afghanistan, where 8.5 million Afghans, 40 percent of them women, voted in a critical October 2004 election, even though remnant

Taliban forces threatened them. The first free elections were held in Iraq in January 2005. It was the military power of the United States that put Iraq on the path to democracy. Washington fostered democratic governments in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Caucasus. Now even the Middle East is increasingly democratic. They may not yet look like Western-style democracies, but democratic progress has been made in Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. By all accounts, the march of democracy has been impressive. Third, along with the growth in the number of democratic states around the world has been the growth of the global

economy. With its allies, the United States has labored to create an economically liberal worldwide network characterized by free trade and commerce, respect for international property rights, and mobility of capital and labor markets. The economic stability and prosperity that stems from this economic order is a global public good from which all states benefit, particularly the poorest states in the Third World. The United States created this network not out of altruism but for the benefit

and the economic well-being of America. This economic order forces American industries to be competitive, maximizes efficiencies and growth, and benefits defense as well because the size of the economy makes the defense burden manageable. Economic spin-offs foster the development of military technology, helping to ensure military prowess. Perhaps the greatest testament to the benefits of the economic network comes from Deepak Lal, a former Indian foreign service diplomat and researcher at the World Bank, who started his career confident in the socialist ideology of post-independence India. Abandoning the positions of his youth, Lal now recognizes that the only way to bring relief to desperately poor countries of the Third World is through the adoption of free market economic policies and globalization, which are facilitated through American primacy.4 As a witness to the failed alternative economic systems, Lal is one of the strongest academic proponents of American primacy due to the economic prosperity it provides.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Impact Authors – BrookesThe collapse of U.S. leadership will spark wars around the globeBrookes 06 senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation (Peter, “Why they need us: Imagine a world without America”, Heritage Foundation Commentary, july 4th)

The picture isn't pretty. Absent U.S. leadership, diplomatic influence, military might, economic power and unprecedented generosity, life aboard planet earth would

likely be pretty grim, indeed. Set aside the differences America made last century - just imagine a world where this country had vanished on Jan. 1, 2001. On security, the United States is the global balance of power. While it's not our preference, we are the world's "cop on the beat," providing critical stability in some of the

planet's toughest neighborhoods. Without the U.S. "Globo-cop," rivals India and Pakistan might well find cause to unleash the dogs of war in South Asia - undoubtedly leading to history's first nuclear (weapons) exchange. Talk about Fourth of July fireworks . . . In Afghanistan, al Qaeda would still be an honored guest, scheming over a global caliphate stretching from Spain to Indonesia.

It wouldn't be sending fighters to Iraq; instead, Osama's gang would be fighting them tooth and nail from Saudi Arabia to "Eurabia."

In Asia, China would be the "Middle Kingdom," gobbling up democratic Taiwan and compelling pacifist Japan (reluctantly) to join the nuclear weapons club. The Koreas might fight another horrific war, resulting in millions of deaths. A resurgent Russia, meanwhile, would be breathing down the neck of its "near abroad" neighbors. Forget the democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, Comrade! In Europe, they'd be taking orders from Paris or Berlin - if those rivals weren't at each other's throats again. In Africa, Liberia would still be under Charles Taylor's sway, and Sudan would have no peace agreement. And what other nation could or would provide freedom of the seas for commerce, including the shipment of oil and gas - all free of charge? Weapons of mass destruction would be everywhere. North Korea would be brandishing a solid nuclear arsenal. Libya would not have given up its weapons, and Pakistan's prodigious proliferator, A.Q. Khan, would still be going door to door, hawking his nuclear wares. Also missing would be other

gifts from "Uncle Sugar" - starting with 22 percent of the U.N. budget. That includes half the operations of the World Food Program, which feeds over 100 million in 81 countries. Gone would be 17 percent of UNICEF's costs to feed, vaccinate, educate and protect children in 157 countries - and 31 percent of the budget of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which assists more than 19 million refugees across the globe. In 2005, Washington dispensed $28 billion in foreign aid, more than double the amount of the next highest donor (Japan), contributing nearly 26

percent of all official development assistance from the large industrialized countries. Moreover, President Bush's five-year $15 billion commitment under the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the largest commitment by a single nation toward an international health initiative - ever - working in over 100 (mostly African) countries. The United States is the world's economic engine. We not only have the largest economy, we spend 40 percent of the world's budget on R&D, driving mind-boggling innovation in areas like information

technology, defense and medicine. We're the world's ATM, too, providing 17 percent of the International Monetary Fund's resources for nations in fiscal crisis, and funding 13 percent of World Bank programs that dole out billions in development assistance to needy countries


Hegemony of 100


Heg Impact Authors – Lieber

Withdrawal of US leadership causes multiple regional nuclear conflictsLieber 05 Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University (Robert J., The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century, p. 53-54)

Withdrawal from foreign commitments might seem to be a means of evading hostility toward the United States, but the consequences would almost certainly be harmful both to regional stability and to U.S. national interests. Although Europe would almost certainly not see the return to competitive balancing among regional powers (i.e., competition and even military rivalry between France and Germany) of the

kind that some realist scholars of international relations have predicted," elsewhere the dangers could increase. In Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would have strong motivation to acquire nuclear weapons – which they have the technological capacity to do quite quickly. Instability and regional competition could also escalate, not only between India and Pakistan, but also in Southeast Asia involving Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and possibly the Philippines. Risks in the Middle East would be likely to increase, with regional competition among the major countries of the Gulf region (Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq)

as well as Egypt, Syria, and Israel. Major regional wars, eventually involving the use of weapons of mass destruction plus human suffering on a vast scale, floods of refugees, economic disruption, and risks to oil supplies are all readily conceivable.

Based on past experience, the United States would almost certainly be drawn back into these areas, whether to defend friendly states, to cope with a humanitarian catastrophe, or to prevent a hostile power from dominating an entire region. Steven Peter Rosen has thus fit-tingly observed, "If the logic of American empire is unappealing, it is not at all clear that the alternatives are that much more attractive."2z Similarly, Niall Ferguson has added that those who dislike American predominance ought to bear in mind that the alternative may not be a world of competing great powers, but one with no hegemon at all. Ferguson's warning may be hyperbolic, but it hints at the perils that the absence of a dominant power, "apolarity," could bring "an anarchic new Dark Age 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."2


Hegemony of 100


Heg Good – Transition WarsThe transition away from American hegemony entails global chaos and conflict – other powers are incapable of maintaining stability Brzezinski 05 National Security Advisor in the Carter Administration, Professor of Foreign Policy @ Johns Hopkins University(Zbigniew "The Choice")

History is a record of change, a reminder that nothing endures indefinitely. It can also remind us, however, that some things endure for a long time, and when they disappear, the status quo ante does not reappear. So it will be with the current American global preponderance. It too, will fade at some point, probably later than some wish and earlier than m any Americans take for granted. The key question is: What will

replace it? An abrupt termination of American hegemony would without doubt precipitate global chaos, in which international anarchy would be punctuated by eruptions of truly massive destructiveness. An unguided progressive decline would have a similar effect, spread out over a longer time. But a gradual and controlled devolution of power could lead to an increasingly formalized global community of shared interest, with supranational arrangements increasingly assuming some of the special security roles of traditional

nation-states. In any case, the eventual end of American hegemony will not involve a restoration of multipolarity among the familiar major powers that dominated world affairs for the last two centuries. Nor will it yield to another dominant hegemon that would displace the United States by assuming a similar political, military, economic, technological, and sociocultural worldwide preeminence. The familiar powers of the last century are too fatigued or too weak to assume the role the United States now plays. It is noteworthy that since 1880, in a comparative ranking of world powers (cumulative1y based on their

economic strength, mi1itarybudgets and assets, populations, etc.), the top five slots at sequential twenty-year intervals have been shared by just seven states: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, and China. Only the United States, however, unambiguously earned inclusion among the top five in every one of the twenty¬ year

intervals, and the gap in the year 2000 between the top-ranked United States and the rest was vastly wider than ever before. The former major European powers – Great Britain, Germany, and France – are too weak to step into the breach. In the next two decades, it is quite unlikely that the European Union will become sufficiently united politically to muster the popular will to compete with the United States in the politico-military arena. Russia is no longer an imperial power, and its central challenge is to recover socioeconomically lest it lose its far eastern territories to China. Japan's population is aging and its economy has slowed; the conventional wisdom of the 1980s that Japan is destined to be the next "superstate" now has the ring of historical irony. China, even if it succeeds in maintaining high rates of economic growth and retains its internal political stability (both are far from certain), will at best be a regional power still constrained by an impoverished population, antiquated infrastructure, and limited appeal worldwide. The same is true of India, which additionally faces uncertainties regarding its long-term national unity. Even a coalition among the above – a most unlikely prospect, given their historical conflicts and clashing territorial claims – would lack the cohesion, muscle, and energy needed to both push America off its pedestal and sustain global stability. Some leading states, in any

case, would side with America if push came to shove. Indeed, any evident American decline might precipitate efforts to reinforce America's leadership. Most important, the shared resentment of American hegemony would not dampen the clashes of interest among states. The more intense collisions – in the event of America's decline – could spark a wildfire of regional violence, rendered all the more dangerous by the dissemination of weapons of mass destruction. The bottom line is twofold: For the next two decades, the steadying effect of American power will be indispensable to global stability, while the principal challenge to American power can come only from within – either from the repudiation of power by the American democracy itself, or from America's global misuse of its own power. American society, even though rather parochial in its intellectual and cultural interests, steadily sustained a protracted worldwide engagement against the threat of totalitarian communism and it is currently mobilized against international terrorism. As long as that commitment endures, America's role as the global stabilizer will also endure. Should that commitment fade – either because terrorism has faded, or because Americans tire or lose

their sense of common purpose – America's global role could rapidly terminate. That role could also be undermined and de1egitimated by the misuse of U.S. power. Conduct that is perceived worldwide as arbitrary could prompt America’s progressive isolation, undercutting not America's power to defend itself as such, but rather its ability to use that power to enlist others in a common effort to shape a more secure international environment


Hegemony of 100


Heg Good – Transition WarsThe overwhelming power of the US prevents great power conflictThayer 07 Associate Professor at Missouri State University [Bradley “American Empire: A Debate” (pg 41-42)]

A great amount of good comes from American dominance, although that good is little acknowledged, even by Americans. In this section, I will demonstrate the good that comes from the American Empire. Specifically, it provides stability, allows democracy to spread, furthers economic prosperity, and makes possible humanitarian assistance to countries beset by natural and other disasters. The United States has an opportunity to do an enormous amount of good for itself and the entire world. Realizing this good requires that Americans be bold, that they lead. In return, Americans enjoy the benefits that flow to a leader. But as professors teach in Economics 101, there is no free lunch. No one gets anything for free; everything has a cost. The American Empire is no exception. I want to make it clear that the benefits that the world and the United States enjoy come with a cost. Leadership requires that the United States incur costs and run risks not borne by other countries. These costs can be stark and brutal, and they have to be faced directly by proponents of the American Empire. It means that some Americans will die in the service of their country. These are the costs. They are considerable. Every American should be conscious of them. It is equally the case that Americans should be aware of the benefits they enjoy. I believe that the substantial benefits are worth the costs. Stability Peace, like good health, is not often noticed, but certainly is missed when absent. Throughout history, peace and stability have been a major benefit of empires. In fact, pax Romana in Latin means the Roman peace, or the stability brought about by the Roman Empire. Rome's power was so overwhelming that no one could challenge it successfully for hundreds of years. The result was stability within the Roman Empire. Where Rome conquered, peace, law, order, education, a common language, and much else followed. That was true of the British Empire (pax Britannica) too. So it is with the United States today. Peace and stability are major benefits of the American Empire. The fact that America is so powerful actually reduces the likelihood of major war . Scholars of international politics have found that the presence of a dominant state in international politics actually reduces the likelihood of war because weaker states, including even great powers, know that it is unlikely that they could challenge the dominant state and win. They may resort to other mechanisms or tactics to challenge the dominant coun try, but are unlikely to do so directly. This means that there will be no wars between great powers. At least, not until a challenger (certainly China) thinks it can overthrow the dominant state (the United States). But there will be intense security competition—both China and the United States will watch each other closely, with their intelligence communities increasingly focused on each other, their diplomats striving to ensure that countries around the world do not align with the other, and their militaries seeing the other as their principal threat. This is not unusual in international politics but, in fact, is its "normal" condition. Americans may not pay much attention to it until a crisis occurs. But right now states are competing with one another. This is because international politics does not sleep; it never takes a rest.

Abandoning our leadership role would be seen as a sign of weakness – only power prevents conflictsThayer 07 Associate Professor at Missouri State University [Bradley “American Empire: A Debate” (pg 41-42)]

Second, U.S. power protects the United States. That sentence is as genuine and as important a statement about international politics as one can make. International politics is not a game or a sport. There are no "time outs," there is no halftime and no rest. It never stops. There is no hiding from threats and dangers in international politics. If there is no diplomatic solution to the threats it confronts, then the conventional and strategic military power of the United States is what protects the country from such threats. Simply by declaring that the United States is going home, thus abandoning its commitments or making half pledges to defend its interests and allies, does not mean that others will respect its wishes to retreat. In fact, to make such a declaration implies weakness and emboldens aggression. In the anarchic world of the animal kingdom, predators prefer to eat the weak rather than confront the strong. The same is true in the anarchic realm of international politics. If the United States is not strong and does not actively protect and advance its interests, other countries will prey upon those interests, and even on the United States itself.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Good – Decline Reintervention American intervention is inevitable – it’s a question of whether it’s effectiveContinetti 08 Associate Editor of the Weekly Standard [Matthew “If we don't maintain world order, who will?” LA Times, March 4th (http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-antle-continetti4mar04,1,2482677.story?ctrack=4&cset=true)]

Today's prompt asks us, "Is interventionism an organic plank of conservatism, or is it the cancer that's destroying it?" I am going to take issue with the way the

question is framed. Not only is "interventionism" not "destroying" conservatism, there is also nothing particularly "conservative" about interventionism. For the United States, whether it likes it or not, periodically intervening in a world order that it has done so much to establish is the only game in town. The job of conservatives is to ensure that those interventions are aligned with American interests and ideals. The ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a belligerent Iran seeking nuclear weapons, an unresolved Korean peninsular

crisis, a rising China and an autocratic, aggressive Russia have made many Americans anxious about the world and our place in

it. But there is no escaping U.S. global involvement. Foreign policy writers Robert Kagan and Ivo Daalder calculate that the United States

intervened in other countries' affairs "with significant military force" every 18 months on average between 1989 and 2001. Since 2001, the United States has invaded Afghanistan and Iraq; sent troops to the Philippines and Liberia; and conducted missile strikes in Yemen,

Pakistan and Somalia. American military commitments extend from Colombia to Kosovo to Japan. Including proposed supplemental appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration has budgeted more than $600 billion in defense spending for fiscal year 2009. As is often pointed out, that amount is about the same as the combined defense budgets of the next 12 to 15 nations. These circumstances did not

spring up overnight, and they are not solely the product of President Bush and the neocons. Since the end of World War II, the United States has adopted an increasingly assertive foreign policy to first contain Soviet communism and then, once Soviet communism had been destroyed,

expand the sphere of liberal democratic nations. The net result of this foreign policy has been a richer, freer, more peaceful world. These are the fruits of American "interventionism." As the United States has adopted this new international role, however, the American people have also maintained their traditional ambivalence toward the rest of the world. We think most people are like ourselves and then become disappointed when they do not live up to U.S. standards. We are reluctant to deploy military force and eager to withdraw once those forces are deployed. We

grow frustrated with allies for not doing their "fair share" of maintaining global order. We often wish our problems would go away. They won't. Truth is, if the United States were to renege on its commitments and allow the international order that it has maintained for 60 years to fall apart, another order would take its place. The transition from one to another would be characterized by conflict. And the new order, once it was born, would not be pleasant. It would be less free, less prosperous and less peaceful than the world we know today. You can see what happens when Americans turn inward by reading the history of the 1970s. It is not a pretty sight. U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam marked the beginning of a period of global catastrophe, as the Soviet Union expanded its influence in Central Asia, Africa and Central America and the Iranian revolution provided the first state vehicle for jihadism's war on the West. These crises engendered others in the U.S. government and the global economy.

Going back even earlier in our history, when you look at America's failure to maintain the post-Versailles Treaty order that it had helped build following the World War I, you see the same pattern. Illiberalism was allowed to expand, the world economy tanked and more war followed. We know what happens when the United States decides to reject "interventionism." Let's not make the same mistakes again.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Good – Prolif ShellHeg solves prolif Rosen 03 Professor of National Security and Military Affairs at Harvard University (Stephen, “ An Empire, If you can keep it”, The National Interest, Spring)

Rather than wrestle with such difficult and unpleasant problems, the United States could give up the imperial mission, or pretensions to it, now. This would essentially mean the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the Middle East, Europe and mainland Asia.

It may be that all other peoples, without significant exception, will then turn to their own affairs and leave the United States alone. But those who are hostile to us might remain hostile, and be much less afraid of the United States after such a withdrawal. Current friends would feel less secure and, in the most probable post-imperial world, would revert to the logic of self-help in which all states do what they must to protect themselves. This would imply the relatively rapid acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran, Iraq and perhaps Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia and others. Constraints on the acquisition of biological weapons would be even weaker than they are today. Major regional arms races would also be very likely throughout Asia and the Middle East. This would not be a pleasant world for Americans, or anyone else. It is difficult to guess what the costs of such a world would be to the United States. They would probably not put the end of the United States in prospect, but they would not be small. If the logic of American empire is unappealing, it is not at all clear that the alternatives are that much more attractive.

Prolif causes nuclear war – deterrence failsLieber 07 Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University (Robert J. "Persistent Primacy and the Future of the American Era", APSA Paper 2007)

In addition to the threat posed by radical Islamist ideology and terrorism, the proliferation of nuclear weapons could become an increasingly dangerous source of instability and conflict. Over the longer term, and coupled with the spread of missile technology, there

is a likelihood that the U.S. will be more exposed to this danger. Not only might the technology, materials or weapons themselves be diverted into the hand of terrorist groups willing to pay almost any price to acquire them, but the spread of these weapons carries with it the possibility of devastating regional wars. In assessing nuclear proliferation risks in the late-Saddam

Hussein’s Iraq, in North Korea, and in Iran, some have asserted that deterrence and containment, which seemed to work during the Cold War,

would be sufficient to protect the national interests of the U.S. and those of close allies. Such views are altogether too complacent. The U.S.–Soviet nuclear balance took two decades to become relatively stable and on at least one occasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis of

October 1962, the parties came to the nuclear brink. Moreover, stable deterrence requires assured second strike capability, the knowledge that whichever side suffered an initial nuclear attack would have the capacity to retaliate by inflicting unacceptable damage upon the attacker, and the assumption that one’s adversary is a value-maximizing rational actor. A robust nuclear balance is difficult to achieve, and in the process of developing a nuclear arsenal, a country embroiled in an intense regional crisis may become the target of a disarming first strike or, on the other hand, may be driven by a use-it-or-lose it calculation. Even though American territory may not be at immediate risk within the next five to seven years, its interests, bases and allies

surely might be. And control by rational actors in new or recent members of the nuclear club is by no means a foregone conclusion. The late Saddam Hussein had shown himself to be reckless and prone to reject outside information that differed from

what he wished to hear. And Iranian President Ahmadinejad has expressed beliefs that suggest an erratic grip on reality or that call into question his own judgment. For example, he has invoked the return of the twelfth or hidden Imam, embraced conspiracy theories about

9/11, fostered Holocaust denial, and called for Israel to be wiped off the map


http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/1/1/0/5/pages211058/apsa07_proceeding_211058-8.html

Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Solves Prolif

Hegemony solves allied prolif, rogue state prolif and terrorismMandelbaum 05 Professor and Director of the American Foreign Policy Program at Johns Hopkins (Michael, The Case for Goliath: How America Acts As the World’s Government in the Twenty-First Century, p 189-191)

The greatest threat to their security that the members of the international system did face in the new century, one that the United States had devoted considerable resources and

political capital to containing and that a serious reduction in the American global rule would certainly aggravate, was the spread of nuclear weapons. Nuclear proliferation poses three related dangers. The first is that, in the absence of an American nuclear guarantee, major countries in Europe and Asia will feel the need to acquire their own nuclear armaments. If the United States withdrew from Europe and East Asia, Germany might come to consider it imprudent to deal with a nuclear-armed Russia, and Japan with a nuclear-armed China, without nuclear arms of their own. They would seek these weapons in order to avoid an imbalance in power that might work to their disadvantage. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by such affluent, democratic, peaceful countries would not, by itself, trigger a war. It could, however, trigger arms races similar to the one between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It would surely make Europe and East Asia less comfortable places, and relations among the countries of these regions more suspicious, than was the case at the outset of

the twenty-first century. The spread of nuclear weapons poses a second danger, which the United States exerted itself to thwart to the extent of threatening a war in North Korea and actually waging one in Iraq and that the recession of American power would increase: the possession of nuclear armaments by "rogue" states, countries governed by regimes at odds with their neighbors and hostile to prevailing international norms. A nuclear-armed Iraq, an unlikely development after the over-throw of Saddam Hussein's regime, or a nuclear-armed Iran, a far more plausible prospect, would make the international relations of the Persian Gulf far more dangerous. That in turn would threaten virtually every country in the world because so much of the oil on which they all depend comes from that region.' A nuclear-armed North Korea would similarly change the international

relations of East Asia for the worse. Especially if the United States withdrew from the region, South Korea and Japan, and perhaps ultimately Taiwan, might well decide to equip themselves with nuclear weapons of their own. A North Korean nuclear arsenal would pose yet a third threat: nuclear weapons in the hands of a terrorist group such as al Qaeda. Lacking the infrastructure of a sovereign state, a terrorist organization probably could not construct a nuclear weapon itself. But it could purchase either a full-fledged nuclear explosive or nuclear material that could form the basis for a device that, while not actually exploding,

could spew poisonous radiation over populated areas, killing or infecting many thousands of people.' Nuclear materials are potentially available for purchase not only in North Korea but elsewhere as well.

Heg solves prolifBrookes 08 Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at The Heritage Foundation. He is also a member of the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (Peter, Heritage, Why the World Still Needs America's Military Might, November 24, 2008

The United States military has also been a central player in the attempts to halt weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic

missile proliferation . In 2003, President Bush created the Proliferation Security Initiative ( PSI ), an initiative to counter the spread of WMD and their delivery systems throughout the world. The U.S. military's capabili ties help put teeth in the PSI , a voluntary, multilateral organization of 90-plus nations which uses national laws and joint military operations to fight proliferation. While many of the PSI's efforts aren't made public due to the potential for revealing sensitive intelligence sources and methods, some operations do make their way to the media. For instance, according to the U.S. State Department, the PSI stopped exports to Iran's missile program and heavy water- related equipment to Tehran's nuclear program, which many

believe is actually a nuclear weapons program. In the same vein, the United States is also devel oping the world's most prodigious- ever ballistic missile defense system to protect the American homeland, its deployed troops, allies, and friends, including Europe. While missile defense has its critics, it may provide the best answer to the spread of ballistic missiles and the unconventional payloads, including the WMD, they may carry. Unfortunately, the missile and WMD prolifera tion trend is not positive. For instance, 10 years ago, there were only six nuclear weapons states. Today there are nine members of the once-exclusive nuclear weapons club, with Iran perhaps knocking at the door. Twenty-five years ago, nine countries had ballistic missiles. Today, there are 28 countries with ballistic

missile arsenals of varying degrees. This defensive system will not only provide deter rence to the use of these weapons, but also provide policymakers with a greater range of options in pre venting or responding to such attacks, whether from a state or non-state actor. Perhaps General Trey Obering, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, said it best when describing the value of missile defense in countering the grow ing threat of WMD and delivery system prolifera tion: "I believe that one of the reasons we've seen the proliferation of these missiles in the past is that there has historically been no defense against them."


Hegemony of 100


Heg Good – Terrorism ShellHeg solves terrorismWalt 02 professor of international affairs at Harvard (Stephen, “American Primacy” http://www.nwc .navy.mil/press/review/2002/spring/art1-sp2.htm))

Perhaps the most obvious reason why states seek primacy—and why the United States benefits from its current position—is that international politics is a dangerous business. Being wealthier and stronger than other states does not guarantee that a state will survive, of course, and it

cannot insulate a state from all outside pressures. But the strongest state is more likely to escape serious harm than weaker ones are, and it will be better equipped to resist the pressures that arise. Because the United States is so powerful, and because its society is so wealthy, it has ample resources to devote to whatever problems it may face in the future. At the beginning of the Cold War, for example, its power enabled the United States to help rebuild Europe and Japan, to assist them in developing stable democratic orders, and to subsidize the emergence of an open international economic order.7 The United States was also able to deploy powerful armed forces in Europe and Asia as effective deterrents to Soviet expansion. When the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf increased in the late 1970s, the United States created its Rapid Deployment Force in order to deter

threats to the West’s oil supplies; in 1990–91 it used these capabilities to liberate Kuwait. Also, when the United States was attacked by the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in September 2001, it had the wherewithal to oust the network’s Taliban hosts and to compel broad international support for its campaign to eradicate Al-Qaeda itself. It would have been much harder to do any of these things if the United States had been weaker. Today, U.S. primacy helps deter potential challenges to American interests in virtually every part of the world. Few countries or nonstate groups want to invite the “focused enmity” of the United States (to use William Wohlforth’s apt phrase), and countries and groups that have done so (such as Libya, Iraq, Serbia, or the

Taliban) have paid a considerable price. As discussed below, U.S. dominance does provoke opposition in a number of places, but anti-American elements are forced to rely on covert or indirect strategies (such as terrorist bombings) that do not seriously threaten America’s dominant position. Were American power to decline significantly, however, groups opposed to U.S. interests would probably be emboldened and overt challenges would be more likely.

The US will respond to the next attack – and the world will end.CORSI 05 Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University [Jerome Corsi (Expert in Antiwar movements and political violence), Atomic Iran, pg. 176-178]

The United States retaliates: 'End of the world' scenarios The combination of horror and outrage that will surge upon the nation will demand that the president retaliate for the incomprehensible damage done by the attack. The problem will be that the president will not immediately know how to respond or against whom.The perpetrators will have been incinerated by the explosion that destroyed New York City. Unlike 9-11, there will have been no interval during the attack when those hijacked could make phone calls to loved ones telling them before they died that the hijackers were radical Islamic extremists.There will be no such phone calls when the attack will not have been anticipated until the instant the terrorists detonate their improvised nuclear device inside the truck parked on a curb at the Empire State Building. Nor will there be any possibility of finding any clues, which either were vaporized

instantly or are now lying physically inaccessible under tons of radioactive rubble.Still, the president, members of Congress, the military, and the public at large will suspect another attack by our known enemy –Islamic terrorists. The first impulse will be to launch a nuclear strike on Mecca , to

destroy the whole religion of Islam. Medina could possibly be added to the target list just to make the point with crystal clarity. Yet what would

we gain? The moment Mecca and Medina were wiped off the map, the Islamic world – more than 1 billion human beings in countless

different nations – would feel attacked. Nothing would emerge intact after a war between the United States and Islam. The apocalypse would be upon us.Then, too, we would face an immediate threat from our long-term enemy, the former Soviet Union. Many in the Kremlin would see this as an opportunity to grasp the victory that had been snatched from them by Ronald Reagan when the Berlin Wall came

down. A missile strike by the Russians on a score of American cities could possibly be pre-emptive. Would the U.S. strategic

defense system be so in shock that immediate retaliation would not be possible? Hardliners in Moscow might argue that there was never a better opportunity to destroy America. In China, our newer Communist enemies might not care if we could retaliate. With a population

already over 1.3 billion people and with their population not concentrated in a few major cities, the Chinese might calculate to initiate a nuclear blow on the United States. What if the United States retaliated with a nuclear counterattack upon China? The Chinese might be able to absorb the blow and recover. The North Koreans might calculate even more recklessly. Why not launch upon America the few missiles they have that could reach our soil? More confusion and chaos might only advance their position. If Russia, China, and the United States could be drawn into attacking one another, North Korea might emerge stronger just because it was overlooked while the great nations focus on attacking one another. So, too, our supposed allies in Europe might relish the immediate reduction in power suddenly inflicted upon America. Many of the great egos

in Europe have never fully recovered from the disgrace of World War II, when in the last century the Americans a second time in just over two decades had been forced to come to their rescue. If the French did not start launching nuclear weapons themselves, they might be happy to fan the diplomatic fire beginning to burn under the Russians and the Chinese.

Or the president might decide simply to launch a limited nuclear strike on Tehran itself . This might be the most rational option in the attempt to retaliate but still communicate restraint. The problem is that a strike on Tehran would add more nuclear devastation to the world calculation. Muslims around the world would still

see the retaliation as an attack on Islam, especially when the United States had no positive proof that the destruction of New York City had been triggered by radical Islamic extremists with assistance from Iran. But for the president not to retaliate might be unacceptable to the American people. So weakened by the loss of New York, Americans would feel vulnerable

in every city in the nation. "Who is going to be next?" would be the question on everyone's mind. For this there would be no effective answer. That the president might think politically at this instant seems almost petty, yet every president is by nature a politician. The political party in power at the time of the attack would be destroyed unless the president retaliated with a nuclear strike against somebody. The American people would feel a price had to be paid while the country was still capable of exacting revenge.


Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Solves TerrorismUS power projection is key to stopping terrorismBoot 03 senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations(Max, Weekly Standard, 5/3, Lexis)

A short pause to rest, regroup, and recharge is fine, even necessary. But turning away from the world's dangers for long would be a mistake, possibly a fatal one. The war against Islamist terrorism and against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is not over. Two battles have been won, but that is not enough. World War II was not finished after El Alamein and Midway, or even after D-Day and Iwo

Jima. Much remained to be done before the monstrous evils of fascism and Nazism were defeated. So it is today. In a world where North Korea may already have nuclear weapons, and Iran is less than two years away from having them; in a world where al Qaeda continues to plot, and states like Syria continue to support transnational terrorist groups; in a world where U.S. security depends on alliances with shaky dictatorships like Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia--in such a world, much remains to be done before Americans can feel safe. If we revert to our pre-9/11 passivity , if we return to the 1990s

policy of pretending globalization will solve all our problems, if we place our faith once again in accommodation and "stability," then we may awake before long to a disaster worse than 9/11. The horrors of the day are now receding into memory; if you do not wander down to Ground Zero, September 11, 2001, can seem almost as distant as December 7, 1941. It is for that very reason that we must keep our gaze resolutely focused on Ground Zero and our mind fully engaged to imagine worse horrors that may yet transpire. We must never forget, never forgive--and never flag in our determination to prevent a recurrence.


Hegemony of 100


AT: Heg Causes TerrorismTheir ev isn’t reverse causal – collapse of heg wont stop terrorLieber 05 Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University (Robert J., The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century, (p. 29))

Realist views tend to rest on certain general assumptions about the nature of world politics, for example, that states with the capacity to use WMD or who make these weapons available to terrorists can be reliably deterred. And in the case of Iraq, realists believed Saddam Hussein could have been dissuaded from attacking his neighbors and that even if he eventually acquired nuclear weapons, he could have been deterred by the overwhelming power of the United

States. Some in this group, in comparing the United States with other dominant powers of the past, invoke the examples of great empires that came to grief through imperial overreach or through causing other powerful states to form coalitions against them. And because of the emphasis on system-level explanations, some realists downplay the traits of especially violent and fanatical individual leaders or groups. However, as Richard Betts notes, although American primacy is one of the causes of the terror war "There is no reason to assume that terrorist enemies would let America off the hook if it retreated.

Their evidence only assumes a world where we are not a benevolent hegemon – Soft power solves any risk of a terrorist attackSteinberg, 08 – Dean of the Lyndon Johnson School of Public Affairs at Texas Austin (James, “Real Leaders Do Soft Power: Learning the Lessons of Iraq,” Washington Quarterly, Spring, 2008)

Third, the strategy undermined the U.S. global position by calling into question the legitimacy of U.S. leadership. This element of U.S. soft power is particularly critical in the face of terrorist threats, which compel the United States to push the envelope of preventive force. The world rallied to the United States after 9/11 and supported the invasion of Afghanistan because the Taliban's alliance with al Qaeda represented a clear and present danger. The argument

behind the necessity of dispatching Saddam, however, was more [End Page 160] remote. By acting without the support of others, the administration fueled a fear that the United States would act in an unconstrained fashion that would damage the interests of others and encourage other, more dangerous nations to follow a similar course. By lowering the substantive bar constraining the use of force in the absence of an imminent threat and rejecting the alternative that would put in place procedural checks, such as approval by the UN Security Council or a regional organization such as NATO, the invasion of Iraq unintentionally fueled a global public perception that both al Qaeda and the United States were threats to peace and stability. The administration believed that overwhelming U.S. military power freed the United States from having to seek the support of others because other countries would have no choice but to side with the world's sole superpower. Yet, those theorists got it backward. U.S. primacy makes it all the more important that the United States pay judicious attention to legitimacy and greater compliance with international law rather than it being an excuse to throw them overboard in the hubris of the moment.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Good – Democracy Heg key to promote democracyThayer 07 Associate Professor at Missouri State University [Bradley “American Empire: A Debate” (pg 42-43)]

The American Empire gives the United States the ability to spread its form of government, democracy, and other elements of its ideology of liberalism. Using American power to spread democracy can be a source of much good for the countries concerned as well as for the United States. This is because democracies are more likely to align themselves with the United States and be sympathetic to its worldview. In addition, there is a chance—small as it may be—that once states are governed democratically, the likelihood of conflict will be reduced further. Natan Sharansky makes the argument that once Arabs are governed democratically, they will not wish to continue the conflict against Israel." This idea has had a big effect on President George W. Bush. He has said that Sharansky's worldview "is part of my presidential DNA."" Whether democracy in the Middle East would have this impact is debatable. Perhaps democratic Arab states would be more opposed to Israel, but nonetheless, their people would be better off. The United States has brought democracy to Afghanistan, where 8.5 million Afghans, 40 percent of them women, voted in October 2004, even though remnant Taliban forces threatened them. Elections were held in Iraq in January 2005, the first free elections in that country's history. The military power of the United States put Iraq on the path to democracy.

Democracy has spread to Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Caucasus, and now even the Middle East is becoming increasingly demo cratic. They may not yet look like Western-style democracies, but democratic progress has been made in Morocco, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, the Palestinian Authority, and Egypt. The march of democracy has been impressive. Although democracies have their flaws, simply put, democracy is the best form of government. Winston

Churchill recognized this over half a century ago: "Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." The United States should do what it can to foster the spread of democracy throughout the world.

Nuclear WarDiamond 95, Senior researcher fellow at Hoover Institution (Larry, PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IN THE 1990s: ACTORS AND INSTRUMENTS, ISSUES AND IMPERATIVES)

The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically “cleanse” their own populations, and they are much

less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and

enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely

because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.


Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Solves DemocracyUS hegemony is essential to support democraciesDiamond 96 Senior researcher fellow at Hoover Institution (Larry, Orbis, “Beyond the Unipolar Moment: Why the United States Must Remain Engaged”, p. 405-413)

In the past, global power has been an important reason why certain countries have become models for emulation by others. The global power of the United States, and of its Western democratic allies, has been a factor in the diffusion of democracy around the world, and certainly is crucial to our ability to help popular, legitimate democratic forces deter armed threats to their overthrow, or to return to power (as in Haiti) when they have been overthrown. Given the linkages among democracy, peace, and human rights-as well as the recent finding of Professor Adam Przeworski (New York

University) that democracy is more likely to survive in a country when it is more widely present in the region-we should not surrender our capacity to diffuse and defend democracy. It is not only intrinsic to our ideals but important to our national security that we remain globally powerful and engaged-and that a dictatorship does not rise to hegemonic power within any major region.

Hegemony is key to democracy promotionMcFaul 04, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and associate professor of political science at Stanford University (Michael, “Democracy Promotion as a World Value”, Washington Quarterly, vol 28, no 1, p 147)

There is a genuine correlation between the advance of democracy as well as democratic norms worldwide and the growth of U.S. power. No country has done more to strengthen the norms and practices of democracy around the world than the United States. If Adolf Hitler had prevailed in World War II, democratic values would have survived, but few democratic regimes

would have remained. Similarly, if the Cold War had ended with U.S. disintegration, rather than Soviet dissolution, command economies run by one-party dictatorships would be the norm and democracy the exception. Thus, even good ideas need powerful actors to defend and advance them.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Good – Economy Primacy is key to the global economy and helping Third World countries Thayer 07 Associate Professor at Missouri State University [Bradley “American Empire: A Debate” (pg 43-44)]

Economic prosperity is also a product of the American Empire. It has created a Liberal International Economic Order (LIED)—a network of worldwide free trade and commerce, respect for intellectual property rights, mobility of capi¬tal and labor markets—to promote economic growth. The stability and prosperity that stems from this economic order is a global public good from which all states benefit, particularly states in the Third World. The American Empire has created this network not out of altruism but because it benefits the economic well-being of the United States. In 1998, the Secretary of Defense

Wil¬liam Cohen put this well when he acknowledged that "economists and soldiers share the same interest in stability"; soldiers create the conditions in which the American economy may thrive, and "we are able to shape the environment [of international politics] in ways that are advantageous to us and that are stabilizing to the areas where we are forward deployed , thereby

helping to promote investment and prosperity...business follows the flag." Perhaps the greatest testament to the benefits of the American Empire comes from Deepak Lal, a former Indian foreign service diplomat, researcher at the World Bank, prolific author, and now a professor who started his career confident in the socialist ideology of post-independence India that strongly condemned empire. He has abandoned the position of his youth and is now one of the strongest proponents of the American Empire. Lal has traveled the world and, in the course of his journeys, has witnessed great poverty and misery due to a lack of economic development. He realized that free markets were necessary for the development of poor countries, and this led him to recognize that his faith in socialism was wrong. Just as a conservative famously is said to be a liberal who has been mugged by reality, the hard "evidence and experi¬ence" that stemmed from "working and traveling in most parts of the Third World during my professional career" caused this profound change.' Lal submits that

the only way to bring relief to the desperately poor countries of the Third World is through the American Empire. Empires provide order, and this order "has been essential for the working of the benign processes of globalization, which promote prosperity."62 Globalization is the process of creating a common economic space, which leads to a growing integration of the world economy through the increasingly free movement of goods, capital, and labor. It is the responsibility of the United States, Lal argues, to use the LIEO to promote the well-being of all economies, but particularly those in the Third World, so that they too may enjoy economic prosperity.

Econ stagnation causes nuclear warMead 92 Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, (Walter Russell, World Policy Institute, 1992)

Hundreds of millions – billions – of people have pinned their hopes on the international market economy. They and their leaders have

embraced the international market economy – and drawn closer to the west – because they believe the 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: North against South, rich against poor. Russia, China, India – these countries with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to the world than Germany and Japan did in the ‘30s.


Hegemony of 100


Ext. Heg Solves EconomyHeg key to the economyBoot 06 senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (Max, “Power for Good; Since the end of the Cold War, America the Indispensable”, The Weekly Standard, Vol. 11 No. 28)

Mandelbaum also points to five economic benefits of American power. First, the United States provides the security essential for international commerce by, for instance, policing Atlantic and Pacific shipping lanes. Second, the United States safeguards the extraction and export of Middle Eastern oil, the lifeblood of the global economy. Third, in the monetary realm, the United States has made the dollar "the world's 'reserve' currency" and supplied loans to "governments in the throes of currency crises." Fourth, the United States has pushed for the expansion of international trade by midwifing the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and other instruments of liberalization. And fifth, by providing a ready market for goods exported by such countries as China and Japan, the United States "became the indispensable supplier of demand to the world."

Heg solves economic collapseMandelbaum 05 Professor and Director of the American Foreign Policy Program at Johns Hopkins (Michael, The Case for Goliath: How America Acts As the World’s Government in the Twenty-First Century, p. 192-195)

Although the spread of nuclear weapons, with the corresponding increase in the likelihood that a nuclear shot would be fired in anger somewhere in the world, counted as the most serious potential consequence of the abandonment by the United States of its role as the world's government, it was not the only one. In the previous period of American international reticence, the 1920s and 1930s, the global economy suffered serious damage that a more active American role might have mitigated. A twenty-first-century American retreat could have similarly adverse international economic consequences. The economic collapse of the 1930s caused extensive hardship throughout the world and led indirectly to World War II by paving the way for the people who started it to gain power in Germany and Japan. In retrospect, the Great Depression is widely believed to have been caused by a series of errors in public policy that made an economic downturn far worse than it would have been had governments responded to it in appropriate fashion. Since the 1930s, acting on the lessons drawn from that experience by professional economists, governments have taken steps that have helped to prevent a recurrence of the disasters of that decade.' In the face of reduced demand, for example, governments have increased rather than cut spending. Fiscal and monetary crises have evoked rescue efforts rather than a studied indifference based on the assumption that market forces will readily reestablish a desirable economic equilibrium. In contrast to the widespread practice of the 1930s, political authorities now understand that putting up barriers to

imports in an attempt to revive domestic production will in fact worsen economic conditions everywhere. Still, a serious, prolonged failure of the international economy, inflicting the kind of hardship the world experienced in the 1930s (which some Asian countries also

suffered as a result of their fiscal crises in the 1990s) does not lie beyond the realm of possibility. Market economies remain subject to cyclical downturns, which public policy can limit but has not found a way to eliminate entirely. Markets also have an inherent tendency to form bubbles, excessive values for particular assets, whether seventeenth century Dutch tulips or twentieth century Japanese real estate and Thai currency, that cause economic harm when the bubble bursts and prices plunge. In responding to these events, governments can make errors. They can act too slowly, or fail to implement the proper policies, or implement improper ones. Moreover, the global economy and the national economies that comprise it, like a living organism, change constantly and sometimes rapidly: Capital flows across sovereign borders, for instance, far more rapidly and in much greater volume in the early twenty-first century than ever before. This means that measures that successfully address economic malfunctions at one time may

have less effect at another, just as medical science must cope with the appearance of new strains of influenza against which existing vaccines are not effective. Most importantly, since the Great Depression, an active American international economic role has been crucial both in fortifying the conditions for global economic well-being and in coping with the problems that have occurred, especially periodic recessions and currency crises, by applying the lessons of the past. The absence of such a role could weaken those conditions and aggravate those problems. The overall American role in the world since World War II therefore has something in common with the theme of the Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life, in which the angel Clarence, played by Henry Travers, shows James Stewart, playing the bank clerk George Bailey, who believes his existence to have been worthless, how life in his small town of Bedford Falls would have unfolded had he never been born. George Bailey learns

that people he knows and loves turn out to be far worse off without him. So it is with the United States and its role as the world's government. Without that role, the world very likely would have been in the past, and would become in the future, a less secure and less prosperous place. The abdication by the United States of some or all of the responsibilities for international security that it had come to bear in the first decade of the twenty-first century would deprive the international system of one of its principal safety features, which keeps countries from smashing into each other, as they are historically prone to do. In this sense, a world without America would be the equivalent of a freeway full of cars without brakes. Similarly, should the American government abandon some or all of the ways in which it had, at the dawn of the new century, come to support global economic activity, the world economy would function less effectively and might even suffer a severe and costly breakdown. A world without the United States would in this way resemble a fleet of cars without gasoline.


Hegemony of 100


Heg Good – China WarHeg deters China/Taiwan warBrookes 08 Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at The Heritage Foundation. He is also a member of the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (Peter, Heritage, Why the World Still Needs America's Military Might, November 24, 2008

We know that China is undergoing a major military buildup , especially involving its power projection forces--i.e., air force, navy, and ballistic missile forces, all aimed at Taiwan. Indeed, today Beijing has the world's third largest defense budget and the world's fastest growing peacetime defense budget, growing at over 10 percent per year for over a decade. It increased its defense budget nearly 18 percent annually over the past two years. I would

daresay that military tensions across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China would be much greater today if not for an implied commitment on the part of the United States to prevent a change in the political status quo via military

means. China hasn't renounced the use of force against its neighbor and rival, Taiwan, a vibrant, free-market democracy. It is believed

by many analysts that absent American military might, China would quickly unite Taiwan with the main land under force of arms. In general, the system of military alliances in Asia that the United States maintains provides the basis for stability in the Pacific, since the region has failed to develop an overarching security architecture such as that found in Europe in NATO

ExtinctionStraits Times 00 [“Regional Fallout: No one gains in war over Taiwan,” Jun 25, LN]

THE high-intensity scenario postulates a cross-strait war escalating into a full-scale war between the US and China. If Washington were to

conclude that splitting China would better serve its national interests, then a full-scale war becomes unavoidable. Conflict on such a scale 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? 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.


Hegemony of 100


Decline Causes Asian Instability

Hegemony solves Asian stability White, 08 – Prof. of Strategic Studies at Australian National University; Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute (Hugh, “Why War in Asia Remains Thinkable”, http://www.iiss.org/conferences/asias-strategic-challenges-in-search-of-a-common-agenda/conference-papers/fifth-session-conflict-in-asia/why-war-in-asia-remains-thinkable-prof-hugh-white/ June 2)

It can help to start by thinking about the sources of the remarkable peace that has characterised East Asia in recent decades. As Rich Armitage said over lunch yesterday, it has been the best thirty to thirty-five years in Asia’s long history. The foundation of that peace has been a remarkable set of relationships between the US, China and Japan that arose at the end of the Vietnam War, and which I call the Post-Vietnam Order. The heart of that order was a posture of double assurance provided by the US to the other two powers. The US has simultaneously assured China about its security from Japan, and Japan about its security from China. Obviously, but crucially, US primacy was the absolute core of this order.


Hegemony of 100


A2: Heg Bad – InterventionUS form of heg is exercised without getting entangled – more power means we don’t need to interveneHurrell 06 Director of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.(Andrew, Hegemony, liberalism and global order: what space for would-be great powers? (p 1-19), International Affairs, Published Online: Jan 24 2006 12:00AM)

The contrast with the United States is instructive. Much is made of the unique position of the United States and the degree to which, unlike all other modern great powers, it faced no geopolitical challenge from within its region and was able to prevent, or more accurately contain, the influence of extraregional

powers. This is certainly true (even if the rise of the US to regional hegemony is often dated too early and its extent exaggerated). But the other important regional aspect of US power is the ability to avoid excessively deep entanglement or involvement and, for

the most part, to escape from ensnaring and diverting lower-level conflicts within its ‘backyard’. It has been able to take the region for granted and, for long periods, to avoid having a regional policy at all (as has arguably been the case since 2001). It is this fact that, perhaps counterintuitively, provides Brazil with some capacity to develop a relatively autonomous regional role. Second, attempts to develop a global role can easily stir the animosity, or at least raise the concerns, of regional neighbours. This has been particularly evident in the reactions of regional second-tier states to the attempt by India and Brazil to obtain permanent seats on the UN Security Council, and to Brazil’s more assertive regional policy within South America more generally, especially on

the part of Argentina. Third, the dominant power in the system may take the opportunity to exploit regional conflicts to its own advantage and to engage in offshore balancing in precisely the way in which neo-realist theory would predict. A similar, but less often noted, logic

applies to regional arrangements: the United States maximizes its power by promoting forms of regionalism so loosely institutionalized that they do not tie down or constrain the US but, at the same time, work to undercut or forestall the emergence of other, smaller regional groupings that could emerge as effective challengers to the US. This pattern has been visible in the cases of both the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas.

Heg decreases interventionismKristol and Kagan 02 Editor of the Weekly Standard, Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace[William and Robert “Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy” (http://www.wnyc.org/books/16811)]

It is worth pointing out, though, that a foreign policy premised on American hegemony, and on the blending of principle with material

interest, may in fact mean fewer, not more, overseas interventions than under the "vital interest" standard. Had the Bush Administration, for example, realized early on that there was no clear distinction between American moral concerns in Bosnia and America's national interest there, the United States, with the enormous credibility earned in the Gulf War, might have been able to put a stop to Milosevic's ambitions with a well-timed threat of punishing military action. But because the Bush team placed Bosnia outside the sphere of "vital" American interests, the resulting crisis eventually required the deployment of thousands of troops on the ground. The same could be said of American interventions in Panama and the Gulf. A passive world-view encouraged American leaders to ignore troubling developments which eventually metastasized into full blown threats to American security . Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein were given reason to

believe that the United States did not consider its interests threatened by their behavior, only to discover that they had been misled. In each case, a broader and more forward-leaning conception of the national interest might have made the later large and potentially costly interventions unnecessary


Hegemony Good Practice

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