Arctic Oil/Gas Aff Inherency
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- Relations inevitable, but effectiveness key --- need to mend relations over the Arctic
- Plan key to de-escalating permanent damage to our relations
- It outweighs all other disputes—including the Northwest Passage
- Plan is a mutual win for the U.S. and Canada ---- fixes diplomatic escalation
- Beaufort directly affects U.S.-Canada overall security cooperation --- specifically Afghanistan
- Canadian contributions to Afghanistan are vital to the long-term growth and stability of the state
- Now is the brink for instability—have to cement gains in human security before troop withdrawal in 2014
- Afghanistan instability will cascade to nuclear war
Canadian Relations1ACCanada relations are on the brink now—status quo concessions like Keystone are inadequateClark ’12 (Campbell, “What will U.S.-Canada relations look like in the next four years?”, The Globe and Mail, 11-7-2012, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-election/what-will-us-canada-relations-look-like-in-the-next-four-years/article5035946/) Is there room for a reset of U.S.-Canadian relations in Barack Obama’s second term?¶ The relationship has been managed on a low boil for the last four years, as Stephen Harper’s government has tried to blunt Buy American measures and convinced the Americans to launch a nuts-and-bolts Beyond the Border initiative to speed cross-border trade and traffic. Most disputes have been wrestled down to minor differences. But there’s been no grand plan like the Free Trade Agreement of the 1980s, the NAFTA of the 1990s or even the linking of highway systems in the Eisenhower years. A U.S. President focused on a slow economy at home found time for only one bilateral visit to Canada, early in his days in office.¶ Now the question north of the border is whether Mr. Obama’s re-election opens the door for renewal in Canada-U.S. relations, or just four more years.¶ Mr. Harper’s first priority will be to renew the campaign to have the Obama Administration approve the Keystone XL pipeline extension to carry Alberta bitumen to Gulf Coast refineries.¶ Some, like Stephen Blank, an American who is the Fulbright visiting research chair at the University of Ottawa, said he doesn’t believe Mr. Harper will have to push too hard – the President’s refusal, he believes, was about local U.S. politics.¶ “There’ll be an XL pipeline under Mr. Obama, I don’t think there’s any question,” Mr. Blank said.¶ Mr. Harper’s natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, said in a CBC Television interview Tuesday night that he thinks that approval for the pipeline will come “sooner rather than later.”¶ But Mr. Blank said he believes that’s not enough. The United States and Canada must come to grips with their extensive economic integration by planning to build infrastructure together – not just bridges but roads, railways, energy grids, and more, he said. But he’s pessimistic: Politicians on both sides of the border don’t want to admit the importance of those things, he said. “This is a huge issue of North American competitiveness.”¶ There was one clear election victory for the Canadian government on a bridge: In Michigan, voters rejected a state-wide initiative, Proposition 6, that would have slowed the building of a new Windsor-Detroit bridge. But that’s a bridge that Ottawa will pay for.¶ The approval of a Keystone XL pipeline could remove an irritant, but Queen’s University political scientists Kim Nossal doubts that it will be the start of a grand new re-boot in Canada-U.S. relations.¶ There’s little sign Mr. Obama would say any legacy politics in North American matters. Mr. Harper, he said, appears to have settled on the idea that the best it can do with the Obama Administration is manage the relationship, keep disputes from flaring up, and make incremental advances.¶ “He looks at that thickening border, he tries to move as much as he can in things like the Beyond the Border initiative,” Mr. Nossal said. But he said Mr. Harper will know that any grander-scale initiative to deal with North American integration will never overcome the U.S. obsession with border security.¶ “It’s the usual stuff of U.S.-Canadian relations, but I don’t think there is any willingness on the part of the Harper government to go very far – and say, ‘Let’s start a new North American initiative,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a re-boot with Obama.” The other question, Mr. Nossal said, is whether the U.S. is at the top of Mr. Harper’s priorities any more.¶ Though the U.S. economy is still deeply tied to Canada’s, the prospects for economic growth seem increasingly linked to other places. The fact that Mr. Harper is in India right now while the U.S. picks a president is a ready symbol of how Canada’s foreign focus has changed, to Asia, to China, and to emerging markets.¶ In 2006, Mr. Harper came to office overtly planning to warm relations with the U.S. When Mr. Obama was first elected, Mr. Harper moved quickly to propose a continental alliance on energy and the environment. But more recently, Mr. Nossal noted, Mr. Harper used the rejection of Keystone XL to advocate for the Northern Gateway pipeline so Canada can ship bitumen to Asia. He has spent energy and political capital developing ties in Asia.¶ “I think the Harper government is looking elsewhere,” Mr. Nossal said. Relations inevitable, but effectiveness key --- need to mend relations over the ArcticBurney and Hampson ’12 – senior strategic adviser at Norton Rose Canada (Derek H. Burney and Fen Osler Hampson, “How Obama Lost Canada”, Foreign Affairs, 6-21-2012, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137744/derek-h-burney-and-fen-osler-hampson/how-obama-lost-canada?page=2) Permitting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline should have been an easy diplomatic and economic decision for U.S. President Barack Obama. The completed project would have shipped more than 700,000 barrels a day of Albertan oil to refineries in the Gulf Coast, generated tens of thousands of jobs for U.S. workers, and met the needs of refineries in Texas that are desperately seeking oil from Canada, a more reliable supplier than Venezuela or countries in the Middle East. The project posed little risk to the landscape it traversed. But instead of acting on economic logic, the Obama administration caved to environmental activists in November 2011, postponing until 2013 the decision on whether to allow the pipeline.¶ Obama’s choice marked a triumph of campaign posturing over pragmatism and diplomacy, and it brought U.S.-Canadian relations to their lowest point in decades. It was hardly the first time that the administration has fumbled issues with Ottawa. Although relations have been civil, they have rarely been productive. Whether on trade, the environment, or Canada’s shared contribution in places such as Afghanistan, time and again the United States has jilted its northern neighbor. If the pattern of neglect continues, Ottawa will get less interested in cooperating with Washington. Already, Canada has reacted by turning elsewhere -- namely, toward Asia -- for more reliable economic partners. Economically, Canada and the United States are joined at the hip. Each country is the other’s number-one trading partner -- in 2011, the two-way trade in goods and services totaled $681 billion, more than U.S. trade with Mexico or China -- and trade with Canada supports more than eight million U.S. jobs. Yet the Obama administration has recently jeopardized this important relationship. It failed to combat the Buy American provision in Congress’ stimulus bill, which inefficiently excluded Canadian participation in infrastructure spending.¶ What’s more, by engaging in protectionism, Washington has violated the substance and spirit of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the trade bloc formed in 1994 among Canada, the United States, and Mexico. As a result, NAFTA, which was initially intended as a template for broader trade expansion by all three partners, has languished while each country has negotiated a spaghetti bowl of bilateral trade agreements with other countries. Trilateral economic summits among the NAFTA partners have become little more than photo-ops accompanied by bland communiqués. Bilateral meetings between U.S. and Canadian leaders, which were a regular feature of the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush eras, have also mostly fallen by the wayside. Meanwhile, the United States demanded upfront concessions from Canada as the price of entry to negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional free-trade group, while preserving massive agriculture subsidies of its own. The protracted wrangling over a seat at the table does not augur well for meaningful progress.¶ After years of procrastination, Canada finally secured an agreement for a new Detroit-Windsor bridge -- over which 25 percent of trade between Canada and the United States crosses -- but only after it offered to cover all of the initial costs. The U.S. share is to be repaid over time by the tolls collected, but any shortfalls will rest with Canadian taxpayers. Canada was essentially forced to hold negotiations with Michigan; the U.S. federal government observed quietly from the sidelines.¶ The United States’ mistreatment of Canada extends beyond economic issues. Washington has also failed to trust and respect its loyal ally. To name one small but telling example, when Canada ran for a nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2010, the United States offered little support. For whatever reason, Portugal was a more compelling choice.¶ One would also think the United States and Canada could find common ground on security, economic, and environmental issues in the Arctic, an area of shared sovereignty and responsibility. Yet there has been little more than senseless bickering and public spats between Ottawa and Washington on who should attend what meeting of Arctic states. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for example, went out of her way to rake Canada over the coals for hosting a meeting of Arctic coastal nations in March 2010 and failing to invite other countries with “legitimate interests” in the region. But she was also taking a jab at Canada’s long-standing claims to the waters of the Arctic archipelago, including the Northwest Passage, which the United States rejects. While Canada and the United States squabble, Russia and China are aggressively asserting their own interests in the region. Beaufort key to relations—affects nearly all other U.S.-Canada Arctic issues Lewis-Koskinen ’10 – program associate at SeaWeb (Simone, Teaching Assistant at American University¶ External Affairs Intern at Consortium for Ocean Leadership¶ Research Intern at Oceans Research, “U.S. - Canada Dispute Over Offshore Territory”, ICE Case Studies, No. 228, December 2010) The Beaufort Sea dispute is a conflict between the United States (U.S.) and Canada concerning the delineation of the international maritime boundary between the Yukon and Alaska. The conflict exemplifies the “Great Arctic Race," a multinational competition over the last remaining unclaimed territories in the Arctic. The previously impenetrable Arctic region is rapidly melting, providing new opportunities and renewed interest. Arctic territorial disputes are becoming increasingly prevalent and relevant as scientists uncover vast reserves of untapped resources and melting sea ice provides greater access to shipping routes. As the impetus to assert sovereignty over Arctic territories continues to grow, opportunities for conflict and cooperation among Arctic nations will further develop.¶ The Arctic nations are comprised of both littoral and non-littoral states, including Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States, so designated by their political, cultural, and economic ties to the region. However, only the U.S., Canada, Russia, Norway and Denmark possess jurisdictional claims to the Arctic seabed based on their geographical coastlines. As two of the five littoral Arctic states, both Canada and the U.S. may legally lay claim to portions of the Arctic Ocean, including control over shipping access and natural resource extraction in the Beaufort Sea. ¶ The conflict is fundamentally defined by the existing political framework and driven by commercial interest. As the conflict evolves, the changing political and resource realities in the Beaufort Sea will shape the future relations between Canada and the U.S. The Beaufort Sea is home to a wealth of natural resources, both of biological importance and economic significance. Notably, the extractive and navigational industries have a vested interest in securing use and access rights to the area. The principle industries involved include Shipping, Oil & Gas, and Seafood.¶ Within the past few years, warming induced melting sea ice has begun to antagonize the conflict, fostering a sense of gravity and urgency. The conflict lay dormant while resources lay trapped beneath impenetrable Arctic conditions. As the ice sheets gradually recede, technology advances and extractive capabilities develop, both Canada and the U.S. grow anxious to exploit the projected economic potential of the region. The accelerated rate of warming has both expedited the conflict and raised the stakes as Canada and the U.S. each vie to claim their sovereign rights. Plan key to de-escalating permanent damage to our relationsHuebert ‘9 – associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary (Rob, UNITED STATES ARCTIC POLICY:¶ THE RELUCTANT ¶ ARCTIC POWER, University of Calgary School of Public Policy SPP Briefing Papers Focus on the United States, Volume 2, Issue 2, May 2009, http://policyschool.ucalgary.ca/sites/default/files/research/sppbriefing-huebertonline.pdf) The Beaufort Sea dispute centres on how the United States and Canada divide their territorial¶ seas and the EEZ. Based on differing interpretations of an 1825 treaty between the UK and¶ Russia, the United States draws the boundary at a 90° angle to the coastline, while Canada¶ extends the land boundary as its maritime boundary. This difference has created a disputed¶ zone of 6,250 square miles, resembling a triangle, segments of which both countries have¶ offered for lease to private companies — Canada did so in the 1970s, and the United States¶ continues to do so now. Off the record, some officials suggest that the two sides have¶ unofficially agreed not to accept any bids, but it is not possible to confirm this. The US States¶ Geological Survey suggests there is a high probability that gas fields exist in the disputed zone,¶ and a lower probability that oil fields exist. ¶ This particular dispute could easily escalate. Any suggestion that Canada “surrender” part of its¶ maritime claim undoubtedly would cause an outcry among Canadians, regardless of the merits¶ of the case, and any issue that involves the apparent loss of Canadian Arctic sovereignty to the¶ United States — even technically a boundary dispute — would be difficult for any Canadian¶ government to handle. A US government that was perceived to compromise US energy security¶ also would face domestic difficulties. It outweighs all other disputes—including the Northwest PassageCrist ‘7 – program associate at the Wilson Center (Ken, “Canada and the Arctic: The Issue of Northern Sovereignty”, The Wilson Center, 12-11-2007, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/canada-and-the-arctic-the-issue-northern-sovereignty) Despite the environmental risks, economic development in the Arctic is expected to move forward. Huebert noted that several major oil companies believe that the Arctic may hold up to 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves. Attempts to gain control over these resources, maintained Huebert, could lead to international disputes over unresolved land claims between Arctic nations in the near future. He warned that Canada and the United States could face a major conflict over control of part of the Beaufort Sea—an area believed to be rich in undiscovered oil and gas reserves—that could be more contentious than the ongoing bilateral dispute over the Northwest Passage. Both countries are currently preparing their case to settle a maritime boundary dispute that would decide which country controls offshore oil rights in the Beaufort Sea. In order for the United States to win its claim, the U.S. government must first follow Canada's lead and ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Failure to ratify the treaty would prevent the United States from asserting its rights over offshore areas. Regardless of whether or not the United States decides to ratify the treaty, Huebert maintained that Canada and the United States will most likely face tense bilateral negotiations over control of the mineral-rich portion of the Beaufort Sea in the near future: "We will see this issue escalate." "When it comes to Canada and the United States, each and every [Arctic] issue can be resolved," maintained Huebert. In the case of the Beaufort Sea dispute, Huebert pointed out that Canada and the United States could develop a "joint management scheme" over resources in the region that would allow both countries to prosper. Huebert noted that while resolving current international Arctic disputes will require a great amount of political will to successfully achieve, reaching major agreements is not out of the realm of possibility. In 1988, one such agreement was nearly struck that would have resolved many Arctic sovereignty issues between Canada and the United States and set international standards for Arctic shipping and construction. Although opposition from the U.S. State Department ultimately led to the agreement's demise, the fact that it was nearly negotiated successfully by both Canada and the United States offers hope that future bilateral or multilateral agreements can be reached. Huebert cautioned, however, that efforts to resolve Arctic disputes must begin now in order to avoid major international confrontations over Arctic land and resources: "The stakes are becoming very high and the longer the issues are allowed to fester the more difficult they will be to solve." Plan is a mutual win for the U.S. and Canada ---- fixes diplomatic escalationHuebert ‘9 – associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary (Rob, UNITED STATES ARCTIC POLICY:¶ THE RELUCTANT ¶ ARCTIC POWER, University of Calgary School of Public Policy SPP Briefing Papers Focus on the United States, Volume 2, Issue 2, May 2009, http://policyschool.ucalgary.ca/sites/default/files/research/sppbriefing-huebertonline.pdf) As mentioned earlier, Canada is on record as stating that it opposes the development of oil and¶ gas in the ANWR because of the risk that such action poses to the Porcupine caribou herd.¶ Should the US government ultimately decide to go ahead with the drilling, Canada will find itself¶ obligated to publicly oppose the US action. While it is doubtful that Canadian opposition would¶ have a significant impact on the US decision, it will be seen as an irritant in the relationship.¶ Far more important are the Beaufort Sea boundary issue and the status of the Northwest¶ Passage. The United States’ 2009 Arctic Region Policy has sharply narrowed the focus on both¶ issues. As for the Beaufort Sea, the new US policy, after explaining the US position on this¶ ongoing dispute, goes on to state the need to “[p]rotect United States interests with respect to¶ hydrocarbons reservoirs that may overlap boundaries to mitigate adverse environmental and¶ economic consequences related to their development.”¶ 22¶ This is something that was not¶ mentioned in previous policy statements. What this should tell Canadian officials is that the¶ United States has paid renewed attention to this issue.¶ A solution could be found, however, if the two states’ political leaders were willing to help¶ create a joint venture in the disputed zone. Since any oil and gas developed in the region would¶ be transported to the North American market under the terms of NAFTA, it is not an issue of¶ either side wanting the resources for itself. It is also important to note that the multinational¶ corporations developing these resources are already working on both sides of the border. If¶ Canada and the United States agreed to disagree about the formal border of the region, but also¶ agreed to the establishment of a joint venture to develop oil and gas in the disputed zone, a¶ potential political crisis could be averted. Both states have already stated that any development¶ must be conducted with the strongest environmental protection, so this should not be an issue.¶ What would remain would be a plan that equitably shares the economic returns of any¶ development. A joint management plan would give the companies the political stability they¶ need, and would allay any concerns Canada might have about “losing” either its sovereignty in¶ the Arctic or its energy security. All sides would emerge winners. Beaufort directly affects U.S.-Canada overall security cooperation --- specifically AfghanistanDorman and Kaufman ’11 – senior lecturer in the Defence Studies Department of the Strategic Studies Institute and professor of political science at Whittier College (Dr. Andrew M., previously taught at the Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich, and at the University of Birmingham. He has published widely and specializes in British defense and security policy, defense transformation, and European Security. Dr. Dorman is on the governing councils of the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association and the International Security and Arms Control Section of the American Political Science Association. He is also the Founding Chair of the APSA’s Kenneth N. Waltz Dissertation Prize and Editor of World Defence Systems. Dr. Dorman holds a masters’ degree and Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, and Dr. Joyce P., has taught primarily in the areas of International Relations and American Foreign Policy and is the creator and director of the International Negotiation Project (INP), a community assisted simulation of international negotiation and foreign policy decision making for high school students, The Future of Transatlantic Relations: Perceptions, Policy and Practice, Stanford University Press, 2011, pg. 45) The geographic dispersion of security concerns to places heretofore off the alliance’s radar screen may also hold unforeseen challenges for the trans-Atlantic partners. Canada, the US, and the EU have shown a heightened interest in the Arctic in recent years. This stems from the estimated 25 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas deposits that lie in the region, its potential as a route for maritime commerce, and its potential as a test-case for the international community’s willingness to tackle the threats posed by global warming. A maritime boundary dispute between Canada and the US in the Beaufort Sea, and its implications for the ownership of undersea resources, may become a serious bilateral irritant. Although policy-makers are loath to admit such linkages, a non-resolution of this dispute will be seen in Canada as a threat to national sovereignty—a perennial concern for any Canadian politician. Left unresolved, it may adversely affect the inclination of future Canadian governments to respond positively to American pleas to undertake or maintain commitments to international security operations such as Afghanistan. Canadian contributions to Afghanistan are vital to the long-term growth and stability of the stateBergen ’12 – research fellow at the CDGAI (Bob, Canada’s Afghan contribution needs to be seen in proper context, Canadian Defence and Global Affairs Institute, 2012, http://www.cdfai.org/bergenarticles/Canadas%20Afghan%20contribution%20needs%20to%20be%20seen%20in%20proper%20context.pdf) MacKay announced from Afghanistan where he was visiting Canadian troops and Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Canada will contribute $10 million toward the salaries of Afghan police officers through the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan. The enabling of officers’ salaries to be paid to them by LOTFA directly through banks would not be remarkable to Canadians to whom direct bank deposits are routine and the announcement made few headlines. Still, in a deeply-troubled state like Afghanistan, that was a crucial step toward building a paid professional police force and improving stability and security because it is widely acknowledged that the Afghan national police force is rife with corruption and incompetence. The $10 million builds upon $7 million previously committed by the Canadian International Development Agency and comes at a time when Canada is poised to double its cadre of civilian RCMP police trainers in Afghanistan from five to 10 in March 2007. Now the bad news: Largely ignored were announcements made at roughly the same time that Canada would be providing $1.75 million to UNICEF for Afghan women’s health and literacy and another $11.5 million over two years for provincial reconstruction. International Co-operation Minister Josée Vernier and Pubic Works and Government Services Minister Michael Fortier made the announcements in Montreal. The $11.5-million contribution to the Accelerated District Reconstruction program is part of a nearly $1billion 10-year Canadian commitment to stabilization, reconstruction, poverty reduction and improving Afghanistan’s governance. Unfortunately, the good news about Canada contributing to health and education programs, the building of roads, aqueducts, sanitation infrastructure, schools and clinics throughout Kandahar has been juxtaposed with reports based on excerpts from the Jan/Feb 2007 edition the America-centric journal Foreign Affairs. The article "Saving Afghanistan" by Barnett Rubin, a long-time critic of the American military’s conduct in Afghanistan, was seized upon as background context for an argument that Afghanistan is “sliding into chaos” and that a bad end looms over Canada’s Afghan mission. In fact, what U.S. scholar Rubin wrote about is what it would take to save Afghanistan and a key point he made was that the United States all but abandoned Afghanistan after it drove al-Qaeda and Taliban core leadership into Pakistan and failed to consolidate that tactical advance. NATO countries, including Canada, have leapt in to the breach, but Rubin argued that if America is to succeed in its war on terrorism, it must refocus its attention on securing Afghanistan and stabilizing it through reconstruction. Obviously Canada is not America and Canadians have different aims in Afghanistan, but that is precisely what the Canadian Forces are doing there. Rather than the American aim of destroying poppy fields that supply U.S. drug users with 14 per cent of their opium, for example, the Canadian Forces are involved in not only defeating the Taliban and its alQaeda supporters in the interest of security, but in infrastructure reconstruction that will enable the growth of alternative crops such as grapes and their delivery to markets. Now is the brink for instability—have to cement gains in human security before troop withdrawal in 2014Sharma ’12 – postgraduate student in Conflict Analysis and Peace Building at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (Bhaskar, “Stability in Afghanistan: The Challenges to Security”, Foreign Policy Journal, 12-18-2012, http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/12/18/stability-in-afghanistan-the-challenges-to-security/) The survival of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of western troops by 2014 is an issue that is being highly discussed around the world. The debate that arises from here is whether the process of peace building has reached a stage where the American forces and the ISAF can handover the responsibility of maintenance of security to the Afghan forces and expect a stable Afghanistan in future. The political stability and economic development that is essential to sustain a strong security force is also ambivalent. The long-drawn war on terror could not put up a very promising picture as the Haqqani Network, Hizb-e-Islami, and the Taliban are still trying to gain resurgence in most parts of the country in various levels, using diverse psychological and military strategies and tactics through sophisticated forms of network centric approaches. The critical elements for stability in Afghanistan is predominated by security, economic development, rule of law, and the regional context. The legitimacy of the Afghan government depends on its ability to provide the factors of security, development, and justice, which are interrelated and interdependent. The peace building process that includes the key element of state building faces serious challenges that include strong insurgencies, the opium economy, diminishing international aid in the future, a lag in stimulation of economic development, and the withdrawal of foreign troops leaving the security apparatus to the weak Afghan forces. The issue of liberal democratic government, the constitutional court system, and a free market economy, which are the foundations of a modern state, are still being questioned by Afghans, who consider it to be a Western ideological expansion, bringing a challenge to the state building and nation building process. Afghanistan instability will cascade to nuclear warHellman 10 – professor at Stanford University [Martin Hellman, “Could Afghanistan Lead to a Nuclear Disaster?”, Nuclear Risk, http://nuclearrisk.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/could-afghanistan-lead-to-a-nuclear-disaster/] While now a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Andrew Bacevich is also a West Point graduate and retired Army Colonel with service in Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. Bacevich has an uncanny ability to combine his academic and military perspectives to produce a brilliant, common sense approach to international issues, especially those involving war and peace. In this post, I recommend his most recent OpEd , which appeared today in the LA Times. In it, he relates Afghanistan to Kennedy’s disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion – an event that helped lay a foundation for 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis. While the linkage between Afghanistan and nuclear war is not the point of Bacevich’s OpEd, the danger should be obvious in light of what transpired in those fateful thirteen days of October 1962. But, just as almost no one saw how supporting the overthrow of Castro could lead to a nuclear war, almost no one today is concerned that the war in Afghanistan has a similar potential. The risk analysis approach that I have been advocating is helpful for illuminating that danger. Last May, as part of my Defusing the Nuclear Threat series at Stanford, former Director of Los Alamos Dr. Siegfried Hecker spoke on “The Greatest Nuclear Risks.” In that talk, he explained why he saw Pakistan as the greatest nuclear risk we face. The war in Afghanistan adds to an already unstable situation in nuclear-armed Pakistan. If that instability should lead to a coup by Taliban sympathizers within the Pakistani military, the risk becomes much clearer. To avoid disaster, we need to stop seeing dangers only in hindsight. We need to start thinking through the possible consequences of our actions, before they occur. If we do that, we can not only avert a nuclear disaster, but also build a better, safer world. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 2.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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