1ac heg Advantage Scenario 1 is Leadership



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Northwestern Debate Institute

2011 File Title


***1AC Heg Advantage***

Scenario 1 is Leadership----


Nations are challenging the US in space—increasing space missile defense protects space assets and maintains hegemony while avoiding an EMP attack
Lambakis 7—Steven Lambakis, senior analyst in spacepower and policy studies at the National Institute for Public Policy, February 1, 2007, “Missile Defense From Space” Hoover Institution, Policy Review No. 141, online: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6124

National economic and commercial interrelationships thrive on the flow of invisible ones and zeros through space channels, so that timely, agile intercontinental trade is now taken for granted. U.S. and coalition forces routinely leverage earth-circling platforms to enhance military capabilities: the Global Positioning System for improved navigation and precision timing, reconnaissance and early warning sensors, and high-bandwidth communications. Space, moreover, is an open arena, a global commons increasingly used by many countries for military purposes. The proliferation of space technologies offers foreign governments and nonstate entities unparalleled opportunities to enhance diplomatic and military influence over the U.S. and strike with strategic effect. Potential enemies of the United States today have improved “vision” over the U.S. homeland and battlefield activities, a better sense of direction and geographic position, and an improved ability to mobilize forces and coordinate activities. With battle space now reaching up to at least 22,000 miles above the Earth — the orbital altitudes for early warning and communications satellites — protecting ourselves from future attacks will depend mightily on space power. But the country lacks a unified, coherent approach to expanding the use of space to improve combat effectiveness, a problem that is compounded by a politically charged debate over weapons in space.1 Critics contend that weapons in space would destabilize existing security relationships, precipitate an arms race, undermine U.S. foreign policy, and seed anti-American coalitions. Not only are such criticisms based on questionable assumptions,2 but they also have not persuaded the country to forgo the advantages of space weapons. The most one could say at this stage is that the American people are indifferent, noncommittal, and confused. Given the unpredictable global threats we expect to face, it makes sense to explore taking combat missions to space. Yet given the efficiencies space offers, and given the unpredictable, catastrophic, and global nature of threats we expect to face, it makes sense to explore the possible benefits of taking other combat missions to space. Once the benefits of active space defense programs and operations are made plain, the support of the American people will be forthcoming. There are several space combat mission areas of interest to the future defense of the United States, including space control,3 offensive strike,4 and ballistic missile defense. Each combat mission offers very different operational and strategic possibilities, and each should be evaluated separately and judged independently. Recognizing that weapons that leverage Earth orbits can make different contributions to national defense strategy, lumping them together in order to draw a general conclusion about the prudence of deploying “weapons in space” makes little sense. Our progress in this area will depend greatly on our ability to mature our rhetoric so that we can make meaningful distinctions. So I will focus here on the possible advantages of adding a space-based layer leveraging hit-to-kill interceptors to the newly deployed U.S. missile defense system. Highly effective missile defenses would appear to offer a very significant payoff over the long term when one takes threat and national vulnerability to catastrophic attack into consideration.5 Missile defense The ballistic missile threat to the United States, its deployed forces, and allies and friends has been well defined.6 This is a threat we downplay at our peril. Nations such as North Korea and Iranwhich also have significant programs to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponsas well as nonstate groups can pose significant, even catastrophic, dangers to the U.S. homeland, our troops, and our allies. Russia and China, two militarily powerful nations in transition, have advanced ballistic missile modernization and countermeasure programs. Indeed, despite the reality that trade relations with China continue to expand, its rapid military modernization represents a potentially serious threat. Whether these nations become deadly adversaries hinges on nothing more than a political change of heart in their respective capitals. The intelligence community’s ability to provide timely and accurate estimates of ballistic missile threats is, by many measures, poor. Our leaders have been consistently surprised by foreign ballistic missile developments. Shortened development timelines and the ability to move or import operational missiles, buy components, and hire missile experts from abroad mean the United States may have little or no warning before it is threatened or attacked. There is no escaping the uncertainty we face. And the stakes couldn’t be higher. A ballistic missile delivering a nuclear payload to an American city would be truly devastating. For comparison, the Insurance Information Institute estimates total economic loss so far from Hurricane Katrina at more than $100 billion. By some calculations, it is going to take New Orleans 25 years to recover fully, and the cost of rebuilding the city is predicted to be as high as $200 billion. The direct cost to the New York City economy following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was between $80 billion and $100 billion. These figures do not include indirect costs or the incalculable human losses. Now just imagine the costs imposed by a ballistic missile nuclear strike against a U.S. city. The economic toll from a single nuclear attack against a major city, which would involve extensive decontamination activities and impact the national economy, could rise above $4 trillion.7 The economy could also be devastated by the electromagnetic pulse generated by a high-altitude nuclear explosion. The resulting electromagnetic shock would fry transformers within regional electrical power grids.8 The interdependent telecommunications (including computers), transportation, and banking and financial infrastructures that people and businesses rely on would be significantly damaged. Such an event would leave us, in some cases, with nineteenth-century technologies. This situation could jeopardize the very viability of society and the survival of the nation. Moreover, the paralysis leaders would experience would leave the country and its allies exposed to highly lethal twenty-first century threats. The blackmail possibilities of these weapons are as mind-numbing as they are terrifying.

EMP crushes commercial sats

Sirak 4 [Michael, JDW staff reporter, “US vulnerable to EMP attack,” 7/26, Jane’s, http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdw/jdw040726_1_n.shtml]

An EMP attack, for example, could place the nation's electrical grid "in danger of fundamental collapse", said commission chairman William Graham, who served as scientific advisor to US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. The overall effects could be long lasting and difficult to recover from, he added. An EMP strike would also be likely to knock out non-hardened satellites in low-Earth orbit "within days or weeks", he said, noting that commercial satellites are especially vulnerable.
Commercial satellite transparency solves extinction

Wright – ’01, Editor @ Slate, Time, and the New Republic

Donald Rumsfeld, Space Cowboy, Wednesday, May 16, 2001, http://www.slate.com/id/106180/



People sometimes call outer space a "sanctuary," referring to the absence, thus far, of weapons in space. (Brookings Institution analyst Michael E. O'Hanlon used this very word in the New York Times article by James Dao that accurately described Rumsfeld's bureaucratic overhaul as a move to militarize space.) I don't generally go in for mushy, inspiring rhetoric, but I do think that in this case some uplifting imagery may be in order. The evolving web of surveillance satellites could come to constitute a precious, even sacred, celestial membrane that, by discouraging aggression in a nuclear age, saves the human species from itself.

Second, Brilliant Pebbles maintain space dominance and boost war-fighting capability

Kleinberg 7—Howard Kleinberg, MS in Security Studies and member of the graduate faculty of the Department of Public & International Affairs, “On War in Space”, August 2, 2007, Taylor and Francis, Volume 5, Issue 1, pg 1-27

Perhaps the greatest overlapping yet differentiating aspect of space is that space is the ultimate high ground. Space overarches all things Earthbound, even the skies themselves. Objects in space are not limited in operation by terrestrial conditions or locations. Space affords a terrestrial field of view that is superior to any Earth-bound site, one that can be increased by height. Space affords a wider and more instantaneous perspective than those to be obtained from any other medium, granting the means to link the world together wherever the terrestrial endpoints may be. 36 It might be argued that air warfare theory presents a theoretical basis that is too recent in its innovation and too immature to compare with those of land or sea. The latter two media have been contested for millennia and by many nations worldwide, presenting an abundance of data and observations from which both practical and theoretical insights have and can be gleaned. 37 By contrast, airpower has had less than a century in which to build and expand upon its theoretical and experiential foundations. 38 Nevertheless, air warfare has grown and garnered both experience and significance that it arguably dominates warfare today. 39 Space shares more parallels with air than it does with any other medium. From the foregoing analysis, it can be seen that while naval warfare theory has a great many critical aspects in common with those of space warfare, most of the attributes of space warfare actually find greater commonality with those of air warfare. Given these fundamental differences in the nature and paradigms of naval warfare compared with that of space, theories of naval warfare provide an inadequate basis upon which to formulate a space warfare theory. Instead, it is airpower that provides the best point from which to derive space warfare theory. Having established airpower theory as the basis from which to derive space warfare theory, a more detailed understanding of airpower theory is necessary. This is best obtained by examining the works of such past luminaries as Giulio Douhet, Billy Mitchell, and John Boyd, as well as the more contemporary work of Robert Pape and John Warden. 40 From this literature, one aspect of airpower is its ability to address not only the battlefield in all its breadth and depth, but all of the enemy's territories and assets. This ability to reach “an enemy's entire country” 41 is one that is shared with, and indeed exceeded, by space power projection. Another important aspect of airpower is the necessity to obtain and retain control of, i.e. to dominate, the air or space over the enemy's forces and territories, as well as to successfully defend the skies over one's own. While it may be argued that national airspace is more static than space itself, the counter is that space dominance is much like air dominance, wherein orbital velocities and reach are exploited to establish and retain control over any or all of Earth orbital space. The next important concept is that of COGs, referring to those things that are of the greatest value to the enemy, the threat or loss of which would cripple either warfighting ability or control of government and that can be targeted with airpower. COGs are an enemy's “military, economic, political, and psychological levers of power.” 42 The key to this lies in understanding what it is that constitutes an enemy's COGs—whether they are strengths or weaknesses, and how best to attack them. 43 These may be battlefield military targets themselves, as Pape recommends, 44 or they may be civilian and industrial infrastructure, as has been claimed for the successful air war over Kosovo. 45 The means to successful targeting lies in understanding the nature and structure of the enemy, what is valued, and how the enemy operates as a society and as a military system, to know what to target and determine the best means by which to defeat the enemy. Means and targets must also be driven by national policy and goals, ranging in effects from minor denial to total collapse of the state itself. 46 An optimal airpower strategy is one in which the enemy's COGs and LOCs are targeted with the primary intention of inducing strategic paralysis, of severing the bonds between these critical nodes, and rendering the enemy unable to operate or control the elements under attack. Elements and networks worth attacking include military, industrial, infrastructural, and sometimes personnel targets. Such notions were first posited by Mitchell, but articulated in far more detail by Boyd and Warden. 47 While “Clausewitzian” attrition can also be brought into play, the most efficient use of resources is most often found in paralysis, the disabling of an enemy's ability to see, maneuver, coordinate, and fight, to the point of inducing the enemy to retreat or surrender. 48 The key lies in understanding the enemy, what he values most, and how to target those most valued assets or connections for maximum effect in disarming, paralyzing, or disheartening the enemy. All of these concepts apply to space given the global nature of space. For former combat pilot, air combat instructor, and air war strategist Boyd, the solution to victory was to act more quickly, both mentally and physically, than one's opponent. Boyd expressed this concept in a cyclical process he called the “Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) Loop.” 49 This principle could be applied not only to aerial combat, but to all types of warfighting. It is to this very process that space capabilities add enormous force- multiplier, time-reduction, and reaction-acceleration effects. Similarly, knowing what to target depends entirely upon the nature of the enemy faced in all its aspects, including the psychological and political as well as military. John Warden contends that this may be its leadership, at the center of the concentric layers of his “Five Rings” model, in which the structure of an enemy society consists of five rings, with its military forces constituting the outermost ring, and its leadership at the center. Kill the leadership, Worden contends, and the state's ability to fight collapses. 50 All of the aforementioned theories include the need for flexibility to adapt to changes in the enemy's behavior, as the latter can and will change with time over the course of any conflict. Direct combat can be conducted either by attacking the nodes themselves, or by attacking their LOCs. From this perspective, war in space can be conducted either by attacking the satellites or their links to each other, or their terrestrial nodes. Since these links are based on both their motion and electromagnetic communications, the former ties back to the satellites, while the latter can be affected either electromagnetically or via attacking their terrestrial nodes, primarily their data-link ground-stations. Since motion in space involves virtually unceasing motion and limited fuel, it then follows that physical combat in space would similarly be accomplished by “playing” with a vehicle's orbit, either by its striking its target directly after launch (a direct-ascent attack), or by “lurking” in a “parking” orbit, from which it would await the command to move to attack its target, as exemplified by the proposed Brilliant Pebbles orbiting missile defense weapon system. 51 Directed energy (DE) could change this aspect somewhat, but even so, the limited range and line-of-sight nature of DE would be constrained by having to wait for the DE platform to follow or alter its orbit to reach within striking distance of its intended target. Striking distance is almost a secondary factor, since orbital mechanics rule the motions, maneuvering, and resultant interactions of both spaceborne weapons and their spaceborne targets. Similarly, orbital mechanics limits the opportunities and distances at which space-based weapons can engage terrestrial targets (or vice-versa, for that matter.) Potential adversary states such as China, Russia, and Iran are fully cognizant of America's strengths in its space capabilities, which also constitute its equally critical strategic vulnerability in space, opening up a host of risks to the U.S. in the foreseeable future. As a result, U.S. vulnerabilities in space can and should be addressed to counter these threats, per airpower theory as well as doctrine. 52
Third, Space weapons enhance US tech superiority
Kleinberg 7—Howard Kleinberg, MS in Security Studies and member of the graduate faculty of the Department of Public & International Affairs, “On War in Space”, August 2, 2007, Taylor and Francis, Volume 5, Issue 1, pg 1-27

Current U.S. space-based capabilities represent just such a strategic advantage over potential adversaries. However, this very advantage also constitutes both a critical dependency and a strategic vulnerability, given its lack of physical defenses. Loss of these space-based capabilities would result in U.S. strategic paralysis, in both military and economic terms. To achieve the greatest possible warfighting advantage, a third and final key derivation from the proffered space warfare theory is that U.S. space weapons should include not just the capability to conduct combat operations in space, but should also incorporate “overwhelmingtechnological advantages over opposing space weapons technologies, such as was the case with terrestrial weaponry in Desert Storm. Technological advantage is particularly critical in space warfare, for it is only with technology that space presence can even be achieved, let alone contested. This offset strategy would add greatly to the likelihood of success in the event of a conflict in space. Further, and also in line with the technological-superiority strategy described by Carter, Letter, and Smith above, is that technologically-advanced space weapons systems could deter future potential adversaries from actually developing and deploying them, decreasing the odds that such a conflict in space would ever take place. In the best case scenario, this could lead to the dissuasion of current and future enemies from having their own space weapons programs. The next-best result would be the delay or downgrading of weapons systems deployed by enemies. Even in the worst case, the dislocating effects and resultant combat advantages of superior U.S. space forces could result in enemies' use of less-than-optimal strategies or commission of outright errors in conducting space combat operations. Of course, superior technology will likely prove decisive in any actual space combat engagements, provided that the advantage is sufficient to counter any asymmetric strategies that might be employed by a less capable space adversary. For instance, a space power with both full Space Situational Awareness and space-based, global-coverage-enabling missile defenses could effectively detect and thwart any attempt by a lesser power to employ asymmetric attacks such as a direct ascent anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) or High-Altitude Nuclear Detonation, as well as its intended missile defense mission. 60

Only hegemony can prevent conflicts from escalating to nuclear use

Robert Kagan 7, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, August/September 2007, The Hoover Policy Review, online: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/8552512.html, accessed August 17, 2007



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.
Independently, China is rising and will attack US space assets—absent weaponization it will claim Taiwan and East Asian hegemony

Tellis 7—Ashley Tellis, PhD and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues, July 23, 2007, “China's Space Weapons” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, online: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/2007/07/23/china-s-space-weapons/v52

On Jan. 11, 2007, a Chinese medium-range ballistic missile slammed into an aging weather satellite in space. The resulting collision not only marked Beijing's first successful anti-satellite (ASAT) test but, in the eyes of many, also a head-on collision with the Bush administration's space policies. As one analyst phrased it, U.S. policy has compelled China's leaders to conclude "that only a display of Beijing's power to launch . . . an arms race would bring Washington to the table to hear their concerns." This view, which is widespread in the U.S. and elsewhere, misses the point: China's ASAT demonstration was not a protest against the Bush administration, but rather part of a maturing strategy designed to counter the overall military superiority of the U.S. Since the end of the Cold War, Chinese strategists have been cognizant of the fact that the U.S. is the only country in the world with the capacity -- and possibly the intention -- to thwart China's rise to great power status. They also recognize that Beijing will be weak militarily for some time to come, yet must be prepared for a possible war with America over Taiwan or, in the longer term, over what Aaron Friedberg once called "the struggle for mastery in Asia." How the weaker can defeat the stronger, therefore, becomes the central problem facing China's military strategy. Chinese strategists have struggled to find ways of solving this conundrum ever since the dramatic demonstration of American prowess in Operation Desert Storm. And after carefully analyzing U.S. operations in the Persian Gulf, Kosovo and Afghanistan, they believe they have uncovered a significant weakness. The advanced military might of the U.S. is inordinately dependent on a complex network of space-based command, control, communications, and computer-driven intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that enables American forces to detect different kinds of targets and exchange militarily relevant information. This network is key to the success of American combat operations. These assets, however, are soft and defenseless; while they bestow on the American military definite asymmetric advantages, they are also the source of deep vulnerability. Consequently, Chinese strategists concluded that any effort to defeat the U.S. should aim not at its fundamental strength -- its capacity to deliver overwhelming conventional firepower precisely from long distances -- but rather at its Achilles' heel, namely, its satellites and their related ground installations. Consistent with this calculus, China has pursued, for over a decade now, a variety of space warfare programs, which include direct attack and directed-energy weapons, electronic attack, and computer-network and ground-attack systems. These efforts are aimed at giving China the capacity to attack U.S. space systems comprehensively because, in Chinese calculations, this represents the best way of "leveling the playing field" in the event of a future conflict. The importance of space denial for China's operational success implies that its counterspace investments, far from being bargaining chips aimed at creating a peaceful space regime, in fact represent its best hope for prevailing against superior American military power. Because having this capacity is critical to Chinese security, Beijing will not entertain any arms-control regime that requires it to trade away its space-denial capabilities. This would only further accentuate the military advantages of its competitors. For China to do otherwise would be to condemn its armed forces to inevitable defeat in any encounter with American power. This is why arms-control advocates are wrong even when they are right. Any "weaponization" of space will indeed be costly and especially dangerous to the U.S., which relies heavily on space for military superiority, economic growth and strategic stability. Space arms-control advocates are correct when they emphasize that advanced powers stand to gain disproportionately from any global regime that protects their space assets. Yet they are wrong when they insist that such a regime is attainable and, therefore, ought to be pursued. Weaker but significant challengers, like China, simply cannot permit the creation of such a space sanctuary because of its deleterious consequences for their particular interests. Consequently, even though a treaty protecting space assets would be beneficial to Washington, its specific costs to Beijing -- in the context of executing China's national military strategy -- would be remarkably high. Beijing's attitude toward space arms control will change only given a few particular developments. China might acquire the capacity to defeat the U.S. despite America's privileged access to space. Or China's investments in counterspace technology might begin to yield diminishing returns because the U.S. consistently nullifies these capabilities through superior technology and operational practices. Or China's own dependence on space for strategic and economic reasons might intensify to the point where the threat posed by any American offensive counterspace programs exceed the benefits accruing to Beijing's own comparable efforts. Or the risk of conflict between a weaker China and any other superior military power, such as the U.S., disappears entirely. Since these conditions will not be realized anytime soon, Washington should certainly discuss space security with Beijing, but, for now, it should not expect that negotiation will yield any successful agreements. Instead, the U.S. should accelerate investments in solutions that enhance the security of its space assets, in addition to developing its own offensive counterspace capabilities. These avenues -- as the Bush administration has correctly recognized -- offer the promise of protecting American interests in space and averting more serious threats to its global primacy.
The impact is global nuclear war and extinction

STRAITS TIMES, 2K [“No One Gains in War over Taiwan,” 6/25/00, Lexis]

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.


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