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Airpower creates a mentality of casualty aversion that increases intervention—this destroys U.S. credibility



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Airpower creates a mentality of casualty aversion that increases intervention—this destroys U.S. credibility

Lieutenant Colonel Richard A. Lacquement, Jr., U.S. Army, Director of Military Strategy at the U.S. Army War College, professor of strategy and policy on the faculty of the Naval War College, M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College, M.A. in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, M.P.A., Ph.D. in International Relations from Princeton University, strategist in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2004, “THE CASUALTY-AVERSION MYTH,” Naval War College Review, Winter 2004, Vol. LVII, No. 1, http://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/82192134-8122-404a-a139-2fcc2de2fe38/Casualty-Aversion-Myth,-The---Lacquement,-Richard- //vkoneru



Evocations of the casualty-aversion assertion by national leaders can, as we have seen, cause serious problems. They can embolden adversaries and cause themto overestimate the strategic value of inflicting casualties. They can undermine the deterrent effect of American threats that otherwise might have averted the use of force. Casualty aversion can also give the impression that the United States is trying to shift to allies casualty risks that it is unwilling to accept itself. Technology has significant drawbacks here; the technology/casualty trade-off debate has been a long one.Again, it is perfectly laudable to pursue methods that minimize casualties; arguing the converse would be ludicrous.More important, however, are the strategic effectiveness and opportunity costs that accrue from the use of various military instruments in singular, sequential or synchronized ways. The casualty-aversion issue can become a surrogate for decades-old interservice arguments between airpower and ground-power advocates. Such often-misdirected disputes focus on the special interests and constituencies of particular means at the expense of national strategic ends. That an option is ostensibly cheaper should not relieve it from the ultimate tests of military effectiveness in achieving national ends. The conviction that technology can ormust substitute for risk to human life has a pernicious tendency to distort the consideration of risks and rewards. Cheaper, less risky means may also make more likely the use of force in situations of marginal importance—in which the prestige and effectiveness of the United States and its allies may require escalation to achieve success.50

Air power collapses deterrence

Jeffrey Record, Professor of International Security Studies at the Air War College and former professional staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, senior fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Hudson Institute, and the BDM International Corporation, 2k, “FAILED STATES AND CASUALTY PHOBIA,” http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/occppr18.htm



The strategic consequences of elite casualty phobia as well as its implications for the military ethic have been treated elsewhere. Suffice to say here that they are averse and include: political vacillation in war-threatening crises, degraded military effectiveness, lowered deterrence, discouraged friends and allies, and a morally compromised professional military ethos—and above all politically inconclusive uses of force. In the short run it is always less risky to treat the symptoms of aggression rather than its political sources. Yet casualty phobia encourages strategically indecisive, even half-baked, uses of force. A refusal to take advantage of the opportunity of war to use the force necessary to topple the regimes of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, both of whom senior American policy makers publicly compared to Adolph Hitler, simply invited more war later. To be sure, in both the Gulf War and the War Over Kosovo, U.S. political objectives were limited, and did not include enemy regime overthrow. Yet, surely, the exclusion of regime change was driven mainly by fear of the anticipated risks and costs involved.
Air power trades off with ground power

Jeffrey Record, Professor of International Security Studies at the Air War College and former professional staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, senior fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Hudson Institute, and the BDM International Corporation, 2k, “FAILED STATES AND CASUALTY PHOBIA,” http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/occppr18.htm



The argument here is not that the United States can or should rely from now on primarily, even exclusively, upon air power to do its military business; rather it is that the political attractiveness of air power to a casualty-phobic national leadership is likely to reduce National Command Authority consideration of ground combat options in a crisis. This will be true especially in small-war circumstances, which rarely include the presence of first-order strategic interests. Admittedly, an air-option-only approach to dealing with small wars would be a mistake. Aside from conveying reluctance of political will to adversaries and allies alike, the military effectiveness of such an approach would be inherently circumscribed by air power’s own limitations. Air power’s record as a tool of political coercion is not impressive in the absence of other factors at play, including the presence of ground forces. And as the war against Serbia demonstrated, air power can influence but not control events on the ground. Withholding ground forces simply because of fear of casualties renders the United States a one-armed superpower. It also reduces air power’s potential effectiveness because the very presence of U.S. ground forces, even if not actually committed to combat, forces the enemy to concentrate his ground forces, thereby increasing their vulnerability to air attack.
More funding to the aerospace industry allows them more influence in congress

Dreazen 11 (Yochi J. Dreazen, a senior correspondent for National Journal Group covering military affairs and national security, 02-25-11, “Tanker Fight Highlights Washington's Expensive Influence Game,” http://www.nationaljournal.com/tanker-fight-highlights-washington-s-expensive-influence-game-20110225)
The Air Force’s surprise decision to give Boeing a multi-billion dollar contract for new airborne refueling tankers capped a years-long fight between Boeing and EADS North America that was notable for the ferocity of the two companies’ lobbying efforts and the vast sums of money they were willing to spend along the way. Both companies are veterans of Washington’s influence game, where large firms hire armies of lobbyists to press their case on Capitol Hill and donate significant sums of money to lawmakers who sit on key panels like the Senate Armed Services Committee or the House Appropriations Committee. Defense firms are particularly skilled and aggressive players, and Boeing and EADS appear to have pulled out all of the stops in their fight to win the tanker contract, which could eventually be worth more than $100 billion. Last year, Boeing spent more than $17.8 million on lobbying expenditures, the most of any firm in the defense aerospace industry, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. EADS spent just $3.2 million in 2010, according to the center. The Air Force has been trying to award the contract since 2001, but a surreal mix of outright criminality, corruption, and government incompetence derailed the two prior attempts to finalize a deal to replace the military’s aging fleet of tankers, which are used to refuel jets, bombers, and other planes in mid-flight. The fight to determine which company would make the next-generation tanker has been one of Washington's longest-running—and most contentious—lobbying wars. Both companies have bought large quantities of ads on the Washington Metro and in publications that target Capitol Hill. In its public messaging and private lobbying, Boeing has made the case that EADS enjoys an unfair advantage because it receives large subsidies from European governments. EADS had countered by arguing that it makes a superior plane that could carry more fuel than Boeing’s model. The decision to give Boeing the tanker contract was made in the halls of the Pentagon, not on Capitol Hill, so Boeing’s extensive political contributions don’t mean that the company was able to somehow buy the contract. But the donations could pay clear dividends in the coming weeks as the tanker fight shifts to Congress, which will have to sign off on the Boeing contract, as well as on any follow-on deals to purchase additional planes from the firm. The statistics from the Center for Responsive Politics provide vivid evidence of how the two firms began to sharply increase their lobbying expenditures in 2007, when the Air Force opened the troubled program to new bids. The contract was initially awarded to a joint bid from EADS and Northrop Grumman in 2008, but Boeing successfully appealed the decision to the Government Accountability Office, setting off nearly three more years of heated—and expensive—debate on Capitol Hill. Boeing, for instance, saw its political expenses jump from $10.6 million in 2007 to more than $17.5 million in 2008, while EADS increased its own spending from $2.48 million in 2007 to more than $4.52 million in 2008, according to the center. Much of the money has gone to a veritable who’s who of well-connected retired lawmakers. EADS employs former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. and former House Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La. Boeing’s lobbyists include former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and Tony Podesta, whose brother John helped run the Obama administration’s transition effort and maintains close ties to the White House. Boeing and EADS have also worked to steer money to individual lawmakers from the states that stood to gain the most jobs depending on which firm won the massive tanker contract. In the run-up to Thursday’s decision, Boeing had promised to create thousands of new jobs in California, Washington state, and Kansas, while EADS said it would build a sprawling new factory in Alabama that would provide a much-needed economic jolt to areas still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina. In the last election cycle, Boeing’s political action committee spent more than $2.9 million, mainly in support of candidates for federal office, while EADS spent just under $300,000, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. The money was carefully targeted. Much of EADS’ money went to lawmakers from Alabama like Republican Rep. Jo Bonner ($10,000) and Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright ($3,000), who was defeated. Alabama lawmakers have long been EADS’ strongest allies on Capitol Hill because of the company’s promise to build a new plant in the state. Boeing, for its part, has shunted money to lawmakers from Kansas, Washington, and California. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who released a statement shortly after the decision was announced praising Boeing’s successful fight against an “illegally subsidized foreign competitor,” has received $103,560 from people and PACs associated with the company, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who preempted the Pentagon’s announcement on Thursday by releasing an early press release celebrating Boeing’s win, received $19,750 from PACs associated with Boeing over the same time period, according to the Center. The military’s decade-long push to replace its tankers will now move to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers will have to decide whether to ratify Boeing’s award, rescind it, or divide it between the two companies. EADS is also considering whether to formally appeal the Air Force decision. The uncertainty means that the tanker fight is far from over—and that the two companies are likely to continue flooding Capitol Hill with both money and lobbyists.
Increased industry funding lets them lobby for offensive space mil – they will get it and start an arms race

Lasker 8 (John Lasker, Inter Press Service News Agency, 2008 “Aerospace Lobby Wages Its Own Election Campaign” http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43804)
So does the AIA's talking point of "maintaining space leadership" mean developing and deploying weapons in space? Besides billions of Pentagon dollars being shoveled into the aerospace industry, it could be an undertaking that many experts fear would ignite this century's greatest arms race. The AIA does not specifically mention building a constellation of "killer satellites" to protect U.S. space assets, and they have no official policy on how to protect these assets. But is the writing on the proverbial cyberspace wall? "It's hard to imagine a more dramatic wake-up call for U.S. space security efforts than China's stunning anti-satellite demonstration in January 2007," states AIA on its web site. "A ground-based ballistic missile scored a direct hit on a defunct Chinese weather satellite, proving China's capability of destroying space-based equipment." "Some members of Congress, however, suggest that arms control treaties are the only answer to such threats," the group added, saying that it would work through its "National Security Space Committee" to "leverage the Chinese demonstration as an opportunity to educate members of Congress not only about our ever-increasing reliance on space-based assets but also on the vulnerabilities these assets face...[and] the need for sustained U.S. investment in national security space programmes."
China only develops aggressive space programs as countermeasures to US military space development – the aff increases tensions

Baohui Zhang, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Asia Pacific Studies at Lingnan University, JSTOR, 2011, The Security Dilemma in the U.S.-China Military Space Relationship, Vol. 51, No. 2 (March/April 2011) (pp. 311-332), http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/AS.2011.51.2.311, dk



China’s military space program and its strategies for space warfare have caused rising concerns in the United States. In fact, China’s military intentions in outer space have emerged as one of the central security issues between the two countries. In November 2009, after the commander of the Chinese Air Force called the militarization of space “a historical inevitability,” General Kevin Chilton, head of the U.S. Strategic Command, urged China to explain the objectives of its rapidly advancing military space program.1 Indeed, in the wake of China’s January 2007 anti-satellite (ASAT) test, many U.S. experts have attempted to identify China’s motives. One driver of China’s military space program is its perception of a forthcoming revolution in military affairs. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sees space as a new and critical dimension of future warfare. The comment by the commander of the Chinese Air Force captures this perception of the PLA.2 In addition, China’s military space program is seen as part of a broad asymmetric strategy designed to offset conventional U.S. military advantages. For example, as observed by Ashley J. Tellis in 2007, “China’s pursuit of counterspace capabilities is not driven fundamentally by a desire to protest American space policies, and those of the George W. Bush administration in particular, but is part of a considered strategy designed to counter the overall military capabilities of the United States.”3 Richard J. Adams and Martin E. France, U.S. Air Force officers, contend that “Chinese interests in space weapons do not hinge on winning a potential U.S.-Chinese ASAT battle or participating in a space arms race.” Instead, they argue, China’s military space program is driven by a desire to “counter the space-enabled advantage of U.S. conventional forces.”4 This perspective implies that given the predicted U.S. superiority in conventional warfare, China feels compelled to continue its offensive military space program. Inevitably, this perspective sees China as the main instigator of a possible space arms race, whether implicitly or explicitly. China’s interpretation of the revolution in military affairs and its quest for asymmetric warfare capabilities are important for understanding the 2007 ASAT test. This article suggests that the Chinese military space program is also influenced by the security dilemma in international relations. Due to the anarchic nature of the world order, “the search for security on the part of state A leads to insecurity for state B which therefore takes steps to increase its security leading in its turn to increased insecurity for state A and so on.”5 The military space relationship between China and the U.S. clearly embodies the tragedy of a security dilemma. In many ways, the current Chinese thinking on space warfare reflects China’s response to the perceived U.S. threat to its national security. This response, in turn, has triggered American suspicion about China’s military intentions in outer space. Thus, the security dilemma in the U.S.-China space relationship has inevitably led to measures and countermeasures. As Joan Johnson-Freese, a scholar at the Naval War College, observed after the January 2007 ASAT test, China and the U.S. “have been engaged in a dangerous spiral of action-reaction space planning and/or activity.”6 This article, citing firsthand Chinese military sources, identifies the major factors contributing to the security dilemma that is driving China’s military space program. The first is China’s attempt to respond to perceived U.S. military strategies to dominate outer space. Chinese strategists are keenly aware of the U.S. military’s plan to achieve so-called full-spectrum dominance, and the Chinese military feels compelled to deny that dominance. The second factor is China’s concern about U.S. missile defense, which could potentially weaken Chinese strategic nuclear deterrence. Many PLA analysts believe that a multilayered ballistic missile defense system will inevitably compromise China’s offensive nuclear forces. China’s response is to attempt to weaken the U.S. space-based sensor system that serves as the eyes and brains of missile defense. Thus, U.S. missile defense has forced China to contemplate the integration of nuclear war and space warfare capabilities. Because of the security dilemma, many experts in both China and the U.S. have expressed growing pessimism about the future of arms control. However, this article suggests that precisely because the current U.S.-China military space relationship is governed by the security dilemma, it is amenable to changes in the strategic environment that could extricate both from their mutual mistrust and the ongoing cycle of actions and counteractions. The current strategic adjustment by the U.S., efforts by the Obama administration to curb missile defense, and the fundamentally altered situation in the Taiwan Strait offer a window of opportunity for the two countries to relax the tensions in their space relationship. With the right strategies, China and the U.S. could slow the momentum toward a space arms race.

1NC A2- Rogue Actors Advantage
Current launch rates keep emissions low. A substantial increase would reverse gains, causing ozone depletion

Jeff Foust, editor and publisher of The Space Review, “Space and (or versus) the environment,” 6-5-2009, The Space Review (blog), http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1395/1


Right now, such emissions are insignificant. In a paper published earlier this year in the journal Astropolitics, researchers at the Aerospace Corporation, University of Colorado, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University noted that rocket launches worldwide deplete the ozone layer currently at a rate of 0.03%, a rate they described as “insignificant”. Different rockets, and different combinations of propellants, have varying contributions: solid-fuel rockets have a greater impact than liquid-propellant engines, and systems that use liquid oxygen (LOX) as an oxidizer (in combination with liquid hydrogen or kerosene) have a greater effect than hypergolics. The paper notes that the Ariane 5, which has solid-rocket boosters and a LOX/liquid hydrogen main engine, likely causes about 25 times the ozone loss as one of its biggest competitors on the commercial launch market, the Proton, which uses unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide—a combination that, ironically, is usually considered environmentally unfriendly given the propellants’ toxic nature.

While the current rate of ozone loss is considered insignificant, the paper examined what would happen if there was a sharp increase in launch rates. If launch rates doubled every decade, they found, rising emissions from rockets would offset the decline in other ozone-depleting substances by around 2035, causing ozone depletion rates to rise again. The effect would be sooner and sharper if launch rates tripled every decade. The authors conclude that, in such a scenario, there would be a move to regulate rocket emissions that could, in the worst case, sharply restrict launch activity.


Ozone key to life on Earth

Greenpeace, 1995 http://archive.greenpeace.org/ozone/holes/holebg.html

The ozone layer around the Earth shields us all from harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Without the ozone layer, life on earth would not exist. Exposure to increased levels of ultraviolet radiation can cause cataracts, skin cancer, and immune system suppression in humans as well as innumerable effects on other living systems. This is why Rowland's and Molina's theory was taken so seriously, so quickly - the stakes are literally the continuation of life on earth.
Middle East challenges put soft power on the brink now

Nye 3/13 (Joseph Nye, 3/13/11founder of the international relations theory neoliberalism, currently Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University, “Obama’s tightrope” http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2011/03/13/2003498044/1)
According to a US State Department official, the concept of “smart power” — the intelligent integration and networking of diplomacy, defense, development and other tools of so-called “hard” and “soft” power — is at the heart of US President Barack Obama’s foreign-policy vision. Currently, however, Obama’s smart-power strategy is facing a stiff challenge from events in the Middle East. If Obama fails to support the governments in Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or Yemen, he may jeopardize important foreign-policy goals such as Middle East peace, a naval base in the Persian Gulf, stability in oil markets or cooperation against al-Qaeda terrorists. On the other hand, if he merely supports such governments, he will antagonize those countries’ new information-empowered civil society, thus jeopardizing longer-term stability. Balancing hard-power relations with governments with soft-power support for democracy is like walking a tightrope. The Obama administration has wobbled in this balancing act, but thus far it has not fallen off. Because the Obama administration has used the term “smart power,” some people think that it refers only to the US, and critics complain that it is merely a slogan, like “tough love,” used to sugarcoat US foreign policy. However, smart power is by no means limited to the US. Combining hard and soft power is a difficult task for many states — but no less necessary for that. In fact, some small states have proven highly adept at smart-power strategies. Singapore has invested enough in its military defense to make itself seem as indigestible as “a poisoned shrimp” to neighbors that it wishes to deter. At the same time, it has combined this hard-power approach with attractive soft-power activities in ASEAN, as well as efforts to use its universities as hubs of regional non-governmental activities.


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