1ac heg Advantage Scenario 1 is Leadership

Uniqueness

Initial reports on the new missile suggest it could reshape conflicts at sea, but U.S. weapons experts told FoxNews.com that it's no game-changer, nor a revolutionary threat to America's aircraft carriers -- which are the center of U.S. Pacific defense strategy.

"Some have called it a game-changer. I would dispute that claim," said Toshi Yoshihara, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

When complete, the Dong Feng 21D -- a version of which was displayed last year in a Chinese military parade -- would give China the ability to reach and hit U.S. aircraft carriers well before the U.S. can get close enough to the mainland to hit back.

A nuclear bomb could theoretically sink a carrier, too, assuming its sender was willing to raise the stakes to atomic levels. The conventionally armed DF 21D's uniqueness is its ability to hit a powerfully defended moving target with pinpoint precision.

"The emerging Chinese anti-ship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post-Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection -- and deliberately designed for that purpose," said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the nonpartisan, Washington-based Center for a New American Security.

Yesterday, following news that Iran plans to triple its output of higher-grade uranium, the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany issued a joint statement calling for Iran to provide more information about its nuclear intentions and that the country’s nuclear drive is causing “deep concern” to a number of world powers. Meanwhile, the United States issued sanctions on Iran’s police chief and three government entities it says are involved in the brutal repression of Iranian citizens.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Heritage’s James Phillips writes that Iran’s uranium enrichment program has increased by 84 percent since 2009, according to a new study by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, and author Greg Jones projects that Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to fuel a nuclear weapon in about 62 days if it chose to do so.

According to unconfirmed reports, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has acquired two missile warheads capable of being armed with a nuclear weapon. And a recently leaked U.N. report described suspected ballistic missile technology exchanges between North Korea and Iran, with the technology transiting through an unnamed neighboring country, which several U.N. diplomats, under the condition of anonymity, have identified as China.

Apart from Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, the country is also fomenting political unrest in the Middle East. Heritage’s Peter Brookes wrote in March of news that NATO forces in April seized 50 Iranian rockets destined for the Taliban in support of its expected spring offensive. The weapons could have been used to target U.S. and coalition forces as well as terror weapons against population centers.

The Berlin-based daily Die Welt published a news story on May 13 citing “Western security sources” who reported that Venezuela’s authoritarian strongman Hugo Chavez secretly met in February 2011 with the chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Air Force, Amir al-Hadschisadeh.

The central question that must be asked with increased urgency is: To what lengths will Chavez go to demonstrate the operational commitment of his alliance with Iran? Is this alliance one of rhetorical convenience filled with venom and bluster but little concrete action? Or is it an increasingly cooperative and operational venture that aims at accumulating military power, sharing resources (including access to uranium), and exploiting petroleum ties that will, as Chavez routinely promises, “hasten the end of U.S. imperialism”?

The Inter-Services Public Relations said the test of the missile Raad was successful.The Raad, meaning thunder in Arabic, which was tested for the first time in August 2007, can be launched from combat aircraft.

Egypt, which is engaged in a clandestine effort to acquire WMD and ballistic missile technologies. Egypt has been a primary destination for North Korea’s ballistic missile exports and has received shipments of Scud B and C mis-siles, as well as No Dong missiles.40 Inspections by the IAEA have uncovered plutonium traces at Egyptian nu- clear facilities, increasing international concern about clandestine nuclear development efforts on the part of the Mubarak regime.41 The IAEA has also criticized Cairo for failing to declare certain nuclear materials and sites, one of which was a facility for separating plutonium that could be used in an atomic weapon.42

Syria, which maintains biological and chemical weapons capabilities and possesses a large inventory of surface- to-surface ballistic missile systems, could deliver con- ventional and unconventional warheads to neighboring countries in the Middle East.35 Syria has also shown more than a passing interest in acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, as evidenced by the construction the Al-Kibar reactor site, which was subsequently destroyed by an Is- raeli Air Force strike in September 2007. The Central In- telligence Agency (CIA) has estimated that Damascus possesses hundreds of free-rocket-over-ground (FROG) missiles, Scud missiles, and SS-21 short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs).36 Syria also maintains the indigenous capability to manufacture liquid-fuel Scuds.37 In Septem- ber 2003 testimony before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, then- Under Secretary of State John Bolton outlined that Syria “is fully committed to expanding and improving its CW [chemical weapons] program” and “is continuing to de- velop an offensive biological weapons capability.”38 Syr- ia’s mobile missile force is capable of targeting much of Israel, as well as parts of Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey, and it has “developed a longer-range missile – the Scud-D – with assistance from North Korea” while simultane- ously pursuing “both solid- and liquid-propellant mis- sile programs.”39

Despite China’s support to the North, it seems clear that the potential for Pyongyang to provide weapon-usable nuclear substances or atomic equipment to foreign nations continues to be a worry and poses “new challenges to international non-proliferation efforts”. Besides the US, Israel and other nations have also accused North Korea of illicitly aiding Syria in building an atomic reactor that was demolished in a 2007 Israeli air strike. The International Atomic Energy Agency is probing this matter. There is enough evidence to suggest that Pyongyang’s uranium enrichment programme is “primarily for military purposes”. If peace is to prevail in East Asia, Pyongyang must abandon its uranium enrichment programme and all aspects of its nuclear programme should be placed under international monitoring. How to check Pyongyang from being a proliferator remains a huge challenge for the international community.

Meanwhile, the response from Iran, as expected, was of denial. It rejected charges of missile cooperation with North Korea. Slamming the expert panel’s findings as “fabrications”, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast argued that Iran’s own missile capabilities are so advanced that it does not need outside help. He said: “Iran’s (missile) technology and capability are advanced enough that we don’t need other countries to provide us technology or components. …We have repeatedly rejected reports on the exchange of ballistic missile technology or parts with any country.” However, an independent assessment made by the US intelligence analysts suggests that Russia has also supported entities in China and North Korea to help Iran move towards self-sufficiency in the production of ballistic missiles. Indeed, Tehran’s collaboration with Pyongyang on missile development was evident during an October 2010 North Korean military parade which showcased a new Nodong missile warhead. The warhead possessed “a strong design similarity with the Iranian Shahab 3 triconic warhead.”

There are many gaps and weaknesses in international transportation and cargo regimes and Pyongyang has taken advantage of these shortcomings to transport its weapons to customers. Indeed, Pyongyang has specialised in setting up fraudulent firms and offshore banking operations, and has been employing people with fake names to cloak the identities of blacklisted firms and officials to undertake its illegal operations. For example, the expert panel report found that the sanctioned Korea Mining Development Trading Corp. has four fake names identified by the UN sanctions committee as well as 12 other identities that were not designated.

In November 2010, North Korea allowed the US nuclear weapons expert, Siegfried Hecker, to view the approximately 2,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges at its previously secret facility. Hecker and many other specialists assert that “it is highly likely” that there are other uranium enrichment-related plants in North Korea that have not been revealed. In May 2011, the US special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, was dispatched to Seoul for talks with the South Korean officials on North Korea’s requests for food assistance as well as respite from the current nuclear impasse. Though Bosworth did not comment on the expert panel report, he condemned North Korea’s uranium programme.
North Korea isn’t yet must be addressed

Bolton 7-14-11 – John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, “North Korea edges toward next nuke test,” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/14/north-korea-edges-toward-next-nuke-test/

A real strategy, which we need much sooner than later, would require understanding that the DPRK and Iranian threats, including cyberwarfare, are two sides of the same coin, not unrelated outbreaks of nuclear contagion. The United States must take both seriously, reversing our present course of ignoring both.

Waiting passively for a third DPRK nuclear test is unacceptable, although that might be the only event to motivate Mr. Obama to pay at least lip service to combating Pyongyang’s continuing threat. By removing the public spotlight from the North - and its customers and suppliers - his administration has made it easier to evade existing sanctions and harder to impose new constraints absent another attention-riveting underground test. Moreover, Seoul is keenly aware of the North’s impending succession crisis and is likely prepared to take a much tougher line than in recent years.

At a minimum, therefore, we must press China and Russia far harder to quarantine North Korea’s trafficking in nuclear and missile technologies and materials. Unfortunately, the administration’s startling passivity means missing opportunities, which we will all regret very soon.

You wouldn’t know it from the Obama administration, but North Korea’s global threat continues to metastasize. South Korea recently concluded that extensive cyber-attacks against civilian and military targets in the South emanated from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Following China’s lead in information warfare, the North is creating yet another asymmetric military capability it can deploy against its adversaries and also peddle for hard currency to other rogue states and terrorists.

Although Pyongyang limited its targeting of this particular sortie to South Korea, the potential cyberwarfare battlefield is global and includes the United States, which already is the subject of extensive cyberprobing, exploitation and espionage by China. For a country perennially on the brink of starvation, North Korea’s military foray into cyberspace demonstrates its continuing malevolence.

The DPRK’s nuclear-weapons program has not rested on its laurels, either, with widely observed surface-level preparations for a possible third underground test well under way.

The North’s development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads is also advancing apace, as Russian missile designer Yuri Solomonov highlighted last month in a Kommersant interview. This is hardly surprisingly given Iran’s increasing long-range capabilities, the extensive Tehran-Pyongyang collaboration, and their programs’ common base in Soviet-era Scud missile technology.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan has released documents purportedly showing prior North Korean bribery of senior Islamabad officials to grease the transfer of nuclear or ballistic-missile technology. While their authenticity is disputed, the documents are part of Mr. Khan’s continuing campaign to prove he did not act solo in the world’s illicit nuclear-weapons bazaar.

Clearly, North Korea’s weapons programs are not decelerating even amid intensive preparations for a possible transition of power, following Kim Jong-il’s death, to a third member of the communist Kim dynasty. But faced with these challenges, the Obama administration has been not only publicly silent but essentially passive both diplomatically and intellectually. Only the Pentagon and the intelligence community, fortunately still implementing the Proliferation Security Initiative, have done much beyond noting pro forma that the troublemaking DPRK is still at it.

The statement by Gen. Ahmad Vahidi comes during 10 days of war games in Iran's latest show of military might and displays what Tehran claims is growing self-sufficiency in military and other technologies.

Vahidi said Iran's missile program is "indigenous" and has no reliance on foreign countries to meet its defense requirements. Iran is under four sets of U.N. sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel or atomic weapons.

Last week, Iran unveiled underground missile silos for the first time, making Iran's arsenal less vulnerable to any possible attack.

"The war games ... show Iran's great capability in designing, producing and using various kinds of missiles based on domestic knowledge. This showed that the sanctions imposed had no effect on Iran's missile program," Vahidi said in comments posted on sepahnews.com, the Guard's official website.

Iran has periodically boasted of what it calls homegrown advances in technological sectors such as its satellite program and other scientific work.
Status quo threats harder to respond to than previous threats

Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis 6 – Independent Working Group on Misile Defense, the Space Relationship and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 report, Washington D.C., August 28, 2006

Twenty-first century threats to the United States, its de- ployed forces, and its friends and allies differ fundamental- ly from those of the Cold War. An unprecedented number of international actors have now acquired – or are seeking to acquire – missiles. These include not only states, but also non-state groups interested in obtaining missiles with nucle- ar or other payloads. The spectrum encompasses the missile arsenals already in the hands of Russia and China, as well as the emerging arsenals of a number of hostile states.

The character of this threat has also changed. Unlike the Soviet Union, these newer missile possessors do not attempt to match U.S. systems, either in quality or in quantity. In- stead, their missiles are designed to inflict major devasta- tion without necessarily possessing the accuracy associated with the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals of the Cold War.1

The warning time that the United States might have be- fore the deployment of such capabilities by a hostile state, or even a terrorist actor, is eroding as a result of several fac- tors, including the continued proliferation and widespread availability of technologies to build missiles and the result- ing possibility that an entire system might be purchased out- right. Would-be possessors do not have to engage in the pro- tracted process of designing and building a missile. They could purchase and assemble components, reverse-engineer a missile after having purchased a prototype, or immediately acquire a number of assembled missiles. Even missiles that are primitive by U.S. standards might suffice for a rogue state or terrorist organization seeking to inflict extensive damage upon the United States. As the Rumsfeld Commission point- ed out in its 1998 report:

Under some plausible scenarios – including re-bas- ing or transfer of operational missiles, sea- and air- launch options, and shortened development pro- grams that might include testing in a third country – or some combination of these – the United States might well have little or no warning before opera- tional deployment.2

The sanctions were imposed on Pyongyang by the UN after it conducted a series of nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. They ban all trade in nuclear and missile technology with North Korea.

They also imposed an arms embargo and subjected some North Korean individuals to travel bans and assets freezes. North Korea has twice tested nuclear devices and said in September last year that it had entered the final phase of uranium enrichment.

The country is believed to have enough plutonium to make about six bombs, but is not thought to have developed a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

The report was written by a UN panel of experts monitoring Pyongyang's compliance with the sanctions. It said that "prohibited ballistic missile-related items are suspected to have been transferred between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [North Korea] and the Islamic Republic of Iran", using regular scheduled flights on national carriers Air Koryo and Iran Air.

For arms and related material, "whose illicit nature would become apparent on any cursory physical inspection", Pyongyang appeared to prefer the use of chartered cargo flights, Reuters quoted it as saying. The flights would travel "from or to air cargo hubs which lack the kind of monitoring and security to which passenger terminals and flights are now subject".

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration continues to downplay Iran’s progress on the ballistic missile and nuclear fronts. It maintains that international sanctions have slowed the momentum of Iran’s military buildup, despite mounting contradictory evidence.

With intercontinental flight times measured in minutes, ballis- tic missiles are the surest and fastest way to destroy a distant city or military asset. They can give a state regional or even global prestige and are a potentially significant military weapon and tool of terror, especially if those missiles are married to weapons of mass destruction. Longer-range systems would give hostile rogue states a capability to vault over the oceans to strike Ameri- can cities and blackmail US leaders.

The international web of trading relationships in ballistic mis- siles and related technologies is extensive. Short-range ballistic missile systems are plentiful and available for sale on the in- ternational black market. Equally worrisome is the heightened interest in longer-range systems. For example, North Korea is developing an improved performance intermediate-range ballis- tic missile that can travel about 3,200 km. North Korea also has an intense development program to produce an ICBM. The Taepo Dong-2 ICBM may have a two-stage variant (and travel around 10,000 km) and a three-stage variant (15,000 km). The 4 July 2006 test of the Taepo Dong-2 failed moments after lift-off, demonstrating that the North Koreans have more work to do. There is every indication, however, they will continue to strive for a viable long-range strike capability in addition to producing and selling shorter-range systems that may be used to threaten its neighbors, such as Japan.

Having developed and deployed advanced ballistic missiles of all ranges and done extensive research on nuclear weapons, we are right- fully concerned, not only about the tremendous and devastating offensive potential of these foreign ballistic missile forces, but also about the willingness of these two governments to prolifer- ate ballistic missile technologies abroad and sell their expertise to other countries.

In other words, there are significant technological and politi- cal uncertainties to weigh as we consider how to proceed with the development of US missile defenses. How China and Russia will play in the use and proliferation of ballistic missiles is no small part of this consideration. How will our adversaries fight today and tomorrow and with what capabilities? How can we technologically and operationally defend ourselves against an array of ballistic missile threats? The truth is, we cannot know for certain, so we must be ready for many contingencies.