DeDevelopment Neg cfjmp lab’s DeDev File Uniqueness

Diversionary conflict theory proves

The stabilizing effects of our presence in Asia, our continuing commitment to Europe, and our position as defender of last resort for Middle East energy sources and supply lines could all be placed at risk. In such a scenario there are shades of the 1930s, when global trade and finance ground nearly to a halt, the peaceful democracies failed to cooperate, and aggressive powers led by the remorseless fanatics who rose up on the crest of economic disaster exploited their divisions. Today we run the risk that rogue states may choose to become ever more reckless with their nuclear toys, just at our moment of maximum vulnerability. The aftershocks of the financial crisis will almost certainly rock our principal strategic competitors even harder than they will rock us. The dramatic free fall of the Russian stock market has demonstrated the fragility of a state whose economic performance hinges on high oil prices, now driven down by the global slowdown. China is perhaps even more fragile, its economic growth depending heavily on foreign investment and access to foreign markets. Both will now be constricted, inflicting economic pain and perhaps even sparking unrest in a country where political legitimacy rests on progress in the long march to prosperity. None of this is good news if the authoritarian leaders of these countries seek to divert attention from internal travails with external adventures. As for our democratic friends, the present crisis comes when many European nations are struggling to deal with decades of anemic growth, sclerotic governance and an impending demographic crisis. Despite its past dynamism, Japan faces similar challenges. India is still in the early stages of its emergence as a world economic and geopolitical power.

Diversionary War True--Empirics

Empirics Prove—Cold War

A. Saddam Hussein and the Iraq war

Kanat 11 [Kilic Bugra Kanat is "Leadership Style And Diversionary Theory Of Foreign Policy: The Use Of Diversionary Strategies By Middle

Eastern Leaders During And In The Immediate Aftermath Of The Gulf War" (2011).Political Science - Dissertations.Paper 104. http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1103&context=psc_etd] JAKE LEE

In 1990, the Iraqi economy was undergoing a huge crisis, and the society was heading toward ¶ turmoil. The Iran – Iraq War, which lasted for eight years, had socially and economically devastated ¶ both countries. Saddam Hussein‘s attempt to repair the economy had failed, which led to the rise of ¶ social resentment against the regime in Baghdad. Finally, the end of the Cold War and the fall of ¶ communist totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe countries, which ¶ had been the natural allies of the Iraqi regime for decades, had brought anxiety to ―the strong man ¶ of Baghdad.‖ ¶ The Iran-Iraq War was the bloodiest and longest war of the twentieth century.42 Almost one million ¶ people died and the war did not bring any substantial gain for either party. It was also one of the ¶ costliest conflicts of the twentieth century in terms of the impact that it had on the economies of the ¶ parties (Alnasrawi, 1986: 869). Cities in both Iraq and Iran were destroyed and social services in both ¶ countries were disrupted. In Iraq, Basra and in particular the oilfields around the city were destroyed. ¶ In addition, the industrial plants and infrastructures of Khur al-Zubair and Fao were seriously ¶ damaged (Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett, 1990: 21). According to Alnasrawi, after the war, Iraq ¶ experienced one of the worst economic crises of its history. Alnasrawi stated, ―Its oil exporting ¶ capacity from the southern fields was destroyed, its infrastructure was seriously damaged, a major ¶ 42 The relationship between Iran and Iraq had never been stable. Saddam Hussein had always considered Iran to be Iraq‘s most dangerous neighbor. In 1979, the revolution took place in Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini became its leader. Saddam Hussein was already worried by the rise of Shi‘a ideology and he tried to prevent the spread of revolutionary ideologies among Iraqi Shi‘a groups. He believed that with a sudden attack he could win a quick victory which would garner him immense political capital within Iraq and the Arab world. ¶ 129 | P a g e ¶ segment of the its labor force had been drafted into military service and a large number of foreign ¶ workers had to be imported, its development plans were disorganized and lacking in investment ¶ funds, its foreign debt was high and its service was a major drain on a declining level of oil income, ¶ progress along the path of industrialization and diversification was blunted, its reliance on food ¶ imports increased, and inflation was rampant‖ (Alnasrawi, 1992: 336). During the war and in its ¶ aftermath, Saddam Hussein unsuccessfully tried to repair this devastated economy by implementing ¶ economic reforms, including liberalization of the economic sector and privatization.43 ¶ One of the most acute problems in the Iraqi economy in the early 1990s was the foreign debt. ¶ Before the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq was debt-free with the accumulation of 35 billion dollars in foreign ¶ reserves. However, most of these reserves were exhausted in the first years of the war (Sanford, ¶ 2003: 14). With the prolongation of the war, Iraq began to borrow huge sums of money from ¶ Western and Arab countries, most of which were spent on purchasing arms and military equipment. ¶ 44 After the eight-year war with Iran, Iraq had the third largest debt of any country in the world ¶ (Musallam, 1996: 85). Iraq‘s estimated foreign debt in 1990 was 80 billion dollars and Western ¶ estimates put the cost of reconstruction at 230 billion dollars (Freedman and Karsh, 1993: 39). ¶ According to estimates, even if all oil revenues had been directed to the reconstruction effort, it ¶ would have taken almost twenty years to repair the damage. Meanwhile, the interest on the debts ¶ was also mounting and foreign companies and governments were reluctant to extend any more ¶ 43 For the economic consequences of the Iran- Iraq War, see Alnasrawi 1986, Alnasrawi 1992, Gause, 2002, Lawson, 1992, Chaudhry, 1991. ¶ 44 Iraq‘s estimated arm purchases during the war were between 52 and 102 billion dollars (Sanford, 2003: 14). The estimated overall cost of the war for Iraq was 452 billion dollars (Alnasrawi, 1992; Mofid 1990: 53). According to Mofid, this number does not include ―inflationary costs, the loss of services and earnings by the many hundred thousands of people killed, the depletion of natural resources, the postponement of crucial development projects or the cost of the delayed training and education of the young people. Finally, the figure does not include the cost of the welfare payments to the hundreds of thousands injured in the war, who are not able to contribute fully to the creation of wealth for the national economy‖ (1990: 53). ¶ 130 | P a g e ¶ credit to Iraq (Karsh and Rautsi, 2002: 202). In addition, the reflection of the deteriorating economic ¶ conditions in the GDP was staggering. The GDP per capita, which had been 4.083 dollars in 1980, ¶ plummeted to 1.537 dollars in 1988 (Alnasrawi 2002: 233 Cited in Sanford, 2003: 11) and inflation ¶ reached a record high of 400% in 1989 (Sanford, 2003: 17). ¶ As stated above, in order to solve these problems, Hussein adopted some market reforms, which ¶ included policies ―designed to encourage the growth of private enterprise and market based relations ¶ of production in the country‘s economic affairs‖ (Lawson, 1992: 157). After the first wave of ¶ privatization in 1985-86, the regime embarked on another series of economic reforms in 1987, ¶ which included selling state lands, farms and factories to the private sector, and encouraging private ¶ enterprise and deregulating of the labor market (Alnasrawi, 1992: 338). However, despite the new ¶ measures in 1990, the overall state of the economy was more worrisome to Saddam Hussein than it ¶ had been in 1988. Contrary to the expectations of Saddam Hussein‘s regime, the increasing ¶ privatization and market reforms brought ―high levels of inflation, unemployment, and shortages in ¶ basic goods, growing and highly visible economic inequality, and the emergence of a brisk black ¶ market in foreign currencies‖ (Chaudhry, 1991: 17). In fact, the social consequences of these ¶ reforms, such as increasing unemployment and declining living standards, which were not well-¶ calculated in advance, began to cause important social troubles for the regime. ¶ Among the economic problems in Iraq in 1990, the most distressing was the increasing ¶ unemployment. The privatization of the state-owned enterprises brought a huge wave of ¶ unemployment in Iraq. In the absence of any employment regulation in privatization, the first act of ¶ the entrepreneurs who bought state-owned businesses was to restructure employment. According to ¶ estimates, the owners of industries and agricultural businesses dismissed between 40 and 80 percent ¶ of their work forces (ibid). In addition, the labor unions were dissolved during the privatization ¶ 131 | P a g e ¶ program and the minimum wage was abolished (Chaudhry, 1994: 9). Most of the newly unemployed ¶ found themselves in an already competitive job market and without any social guarantees. ¶ Another major source of unemployment was the demobilization of Iraqi soldiers. Under the Ba‘ath ¶ government, the size of Iraq‘s army had increased by an incredible scale. It increased from six ¶ divisions in the mid 1960s to forty-four divisions during the eight-year war with Iran (al-Khafaji, ¶ 2000: 267). By 1988, the size of the armed forces in Iraq had reached 1 million, which constituted ¶ 22% of the labor force in the country (Alnasrawi, 1992: 337). In order to compensate for the ¶ civilian workforce‘s loss of Iraqis to the military, Iraq admitted large numbers of workers from other ¶ countries, particularly Egypt. In addition, ―under the laws of the Arab Cooperative Council, ¶ founded in 1988, Yemen, Egypt, and Jordan were permitted to export labor freely to Iraq‖ ¶ (Chaudhry, 1994: 9). After the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein‘s regime began to ¶ demobilize its soldiers because of the high cost of feeding one million soldiers and the possible ¶ danger of an armed insurrection by these ―free soldiers.‖ Demobilized soldiers began to return to ¶ their hometowns in the first months of 1989. As a first step to deal with the demobilization-related ¶ unemployment, the Iraqi government squeezed 2 million migrant workers and slashed the ¶ remittances they were allowed to send home (Freedman and Karsh, 1993: 39). However, this was ¶ not enough to secure jobs for the demobilized soldiers. The discharged men of Iraq desperate for ¶ jobs began to participate in street fights against Egyptian workers, which spread to various big cities ¶ in Iraq (Aburish, 2001: 261). The government‘s attempt to suppress these fights resulted in ¶ increasing reaction to the security forces and attacks on public buildings.

B. Assad and Syria

Kanat 11 [Kilic Bugra Kanat is "Leadership Style And Diversionary Theory Of Foreign Policy: The Use Of Diversionary Strategies By Middle

Eastern Leaders During And In The Immediate Aftermath Of The Gulf War" (2011).Political Science - Dissertations.Paper 104. http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1103&context=psc_etd] JAKE LEE

There were important domestic challenges to Assad‘s rule in the last days of 1980s, including an ¶ ailing economy and growing social instability (Huber, 1992: 55). Moreover, changes in the ¶ international system and its repercussions for Syria were not helping the Assad regime either. The ¶ changes in Eastern and Central Europe and the fall of the Soviet Union affected politics and the ¶ economy in Syria. With the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein in 1990, Assad faced another ¶ major challenge. Throughout the 1980s, Assad had supported Iran in its war against Iraq and had ¶ been the archenemy of Saddam Hussein‘s regime. He had also been isolated from the Arab regional ¶ order because of this support. After the international reaction to the invasion and the deployment ¶ of American soldiers to the Gulf region, Assad rushed to bandwagon with the American-led ¶ international coalition despite the opposition of Arab and Syrian masses. Although Assad‘s regime ¶ was one of the most significant beneficiaries of the Gulf War in terms of economic and financial ¶ aid, it also faced a great deal of adverse effects from pursuing this foreign policy. ¶ The most important problem that the Assad regime was confronting in the first months of the ¶ 1990s related to the changes in the international system. The fall of the authoritarian regimes of ¶ Central and Eastern Europe, which had been natural allies and trade partners of Syria for decades, ¶ 226 | P a g e ¶ was a huge blow to the Assad regime. The wave of democratization and political openness in these ¶ countries was a major source of concern for the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East. Middle ¶ Eastern leaders were particularly worried about a possible domino effect that could destroy their ¶ rule. The fall of the communist regime in Romania and the execution of the toppled president ¶ Ceausescu and his wife particularly traumatized Hafiz Assad. The rise of similar mass movements ¶ could overthrow the regime in Syria and endanger his life and his family. Despite the high level of ¶ censorship and surveillance, the walls of Damascus began to be filled with graffitis that said ¶ ―Assadcescu‖ or ―every Ceausescu has his day‖ (Zisser, 2001: 48). In an editorial in Al Hayat of ¶ London during this time, Hafiz Assad was compared to Ceausescu and was called an ―Arab ¶ Ceausescu‖ (Pipes, 1991: 14). In addition, during these days he was feeling societal pressure from ¶ different segments of Syrian society, including new business class, who wanted to transform its ¶ economic power to a political one and the Sunni majority, whose members were asking for greater ¶ political inclusion (Robinson, 1998: 170). In order to stop a possible public reaction against his ¶ regime, Assad first tried to use his censorship mechanisms to stop dissemination of information ¶ about the incidents in Eastern Europe. Later, he made some important public appearances and ¶ underlined the differences between Romania and Syria and stressed that he would not share the ¶ same fate as Ceausescu of Romania. ¶ Thus, in a direct response to upheavals in Eastern Europe, Assad…stressed that ¶ Syria would not copy, and had never copied in the past, the examples of other ¶ countries. Changes in Eastern Europe were not going to compel Syria to alter its ¶ system, in as much as Syria had been ahead of these countries, implementing a multi-¶ party system and a mixed economy as early as 20 years previously. Freedom, Assad ¶ said, would have to be organized…(Bahout, 1994: 65) ¶ 227 | P a g e ¶ He also took some extra precautions, such as increasing surveillance and monitoring of political ¶ groups, in his well-controlled country in order to make sure that something of this magnitude would ¶ not take place within Syrian territories. ¶ The regime changes and people‘s movements in Central and Eastern Europe also brought some ¶ important changes in the relationships of these countries with Syria. For decades, many of these ¶ countries‘ foreign policies had been shaped by the principles and doctrines of the Warsaw Pact. In ¶ most of these countries‘ relations with Syria, they had followed a common foreign policy and had ¶ become natural allies of Syria. The members of the Warsaw Pact had particularly endorsed the ¶ position and policies of the Syrian government in Syria‘s confrontation with Israel. As a result, Syria ¶ had received a huge amount of armaments and financial and technical aid from these countries. In ¶ fact, during most of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had been ―the primary source of political, ¶ military, and economic assistance and support for the Syrians, and she had provided strategic ¶ backing in the face of possible Israeli or US attack on Syria‖ (Zisser, 2001: 45). The communist ¶ regimes in these countries had refused to extend and improve diplomatic relations with the state of ¶ Israel. After regime changes in these countries, the new leaders not only renounced ―ties with the ¶ friends of old regime, but …. they were also waiting in line to renew relations with Israel.‖ ¶ Moreover, ―adding insult to injury, new governments in Central Europe have atoned for past sins by ¶ turning confidential files over to Israel intelligence‖ (Pipes, 1991: 14). These changes constituted ¶ important strategic, political, and economic losses for the Syrian government. As Pipes mentioned, ¶ Assad stated several times that the biggest loser of the change in the international system were Syria ¶ and himself. In fact, a high ranking official in an interview pronounced that Syrians and the loyalists ¶ of the Assad regime regretted the fall of Soviet Union more than Russians or any other people ¶ living in communist countries (Pipes, 1996: 8). ¶ 228 | P a g e

2AC Growth Solves War

Growth prevents conflict

Reghr 13 [Ernie Reghr is Senior Fellow in Arctic Security at The Simons Foundation, 2-4-13, “Intrastate Conflict: Data, Trends and Drivers” http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Special-Feature/Detail/?lng=en&id=158597&tabid=1453496807&contextid774=158597&contextid775=158627] JAKE LEE

“The most robustly significant predictor of [armed] conflict risk and its duration is some indicator of economic prosperity. At a higher income people have more to lose from the destructiveness of conflict; and higher per-capita income implies a better functioning social contract, institutions and state capacity.”[3] This correlation between underdevelopment and armed conflict is confirmed in a 2008 paper by Thania Paffenholz[4] which notes that “since 1990, more than 50% of all conflict-prone countries have been low income states…. Two thirds of all armed conflicts take place in African countries with the highest poverty rates. Econometric research found a correlation between the poverty rate and likelihood of armed violence….[T]he lower the GDP per capita in a country, the higher the likelihood of armed conflict.” Of course, it is important to point out that this is not a claim that there is a direct causal connection between poverty and armed conflict. To repeat, the causes of conflict are complex and context specific, nevertheless, says Paffenholz, there is a clear correlation between a low and declining per capita income and a country’s vulnerability to conflict. It is also true, on the other hand, that there are low income countries that experience precipitous economic decline, like Zambia in the 1980s and 1990s, without suffering the kind of turmoil that has visited economically more successful countries like Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire. Referring to both Zambia and Nigeria, Pafenholz says these are cases in which “the social compact” has proven to be resilient. Both have formal and informal mechanisms that are able to address grievances in ways that allowed them to be aired and resolved or managed without recourse to violence. A brief review of literature on economics and armed conflict, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, indicates the complexity and imprecision behind the question, “does poverty cause conflict?” While many of the “world’s poorest countries are riven by armed conflict,” and while poverty, conflict and under-development set up a cycle of dysfunction in which each element of the cycle is exacerbated by the other, it is also the case that “conflict obviously does not just afflict the poorest countries” – as Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia demonstrate. “Many poor countries are not at war; shared poverty may not be a destabilizing influence. Indeed, economic growth can destabilize, as the wars in countries afflicted by an abundance of particular natural resources appear to show.”[5] Another review of the literature makes the general point that “the escalation of conflict during economic downturns is more likely in countries recovering from conflict, or fragile states.” That makes Africa especially vulnerable on two counts: economic deprivation and recent armed conflict are present in a relatively high number of states, making the continent especially vulnerable to economic shocks. As a general rule, “weak economies often translate into weak and fragile states and the presence of violent conflict, which in turn prevents economic growth.” One study argues that “the risk of war in any given country is determined by the initial level of income, the rate of economic growth and the level of dependency on primary commodity exports.” Changes in rates of economic growth thus lead to changes in threats of conflict. As unemployment rises in fragile states this can “exacerbate conflict due to comparatively better income opportunities for young men in rebel groups as opposed to labour markets.”[6] The concentration of armed conflict in lower income countries is also reflected in the conflict tabulation by Project Ploughshares over the past quarter century. The 2009 Human Development Index ranks 182 countries in four categories of Human Development – Very High, High, Medium, Low. Of the 98 countries in the Medium and Low categories of human development in 2009, 55 per cent experienced war on their territories in the previous 24 years. In the same period, only 24 per cent of countries in the High human development category saw war within their borders, while just two (5 per cent) countries in the Very High human development ranking had war on their territory (the UK re Northern Ireland and Israel). The wars of the recent past were overwhelmingly fought on the territories of states at the low end of the human development scale. A country’s income level is thus a strong indicator of its risk of being involved in sustained armed conflict. Low income countries lack the capacity to create conditions conducive to serving the social, political, and economic welfare of their people. And when economic inequality is linked to differences between identity groups, the correlation to armed conflict is even stronger. In other words, group based inequalities are especially destabilizing.[7] These failures in human security are of course heavily shaped by external factors, notably international economic and security conditions and the interests of the major powers (in short, globalization),[8] and these factors frequently combine with internal political/religious/ethnic circumstances that create conditions especially conducive to conflict and armed conflict.

Absent economic growth war is more likely

Strauss-Kahn 9 (Dominique, "Managing Director at the International Monetary Fund at the Global Creative Leadership Summit, Economic Stability, Economic Cooperation, and Peace—The Role of the IMF", September 23 2009, https://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2009/092309.htm)

Avoiding war As I noted, the crisis is not over. Indeed, its human and social costs might get worse before they get better. This is especially true in low-income countries. Here, we don’t just care about growth for growth’s sake, we also want to safeguard peace and prevent war. Indeed, when low-income countries were doing well over the past decade or so, the incidence of war declined significantly. The great fear is that this trend could be reversed. Wars might justifiably be called “development in reverse”. They entail huge economic costs and are the cause of great suffering. They lead to death, disability, disease, and displacement. One particular issue that causes great strain on the country itself and neighboring countries is the issue of refugees. Already, in the world today, there are about 9 million refugees and a further 14 million who are internally displaced—in each case, about half are in low-income countries. So this is a major risk factor. Wars also increase poverty. They reduce growth potential by destroying infrastructure and leading to a loss in financial and human capital. They divert resources toward violence, rent-seeking, and corruption. They weaken institutions. Most wars since the 1970s have been wars within states. It is hard to estimate the true cost of a civil war. Recent research suggests that one year of conflict can knock 2-2½ percentage points off a country’s growth rate. And since the average civil war lasts 7 years, that means an economy that is 15 percent smaller than it would have been with peace. The overall cost of a typical civil war, including forced migration and increased disease, amounts to around 250 percent of GDP on average. Of course, no cost can be put on the loss of life or the great human suffering that always accompanies war. The causality also runs the other way. Just as wars devastate the economy, a weak economy makes a country more prone to war. Economic factors matter more than many people think. The evidence is quite clear on this point—low income or slow economic growth increases the risk of a country falling into civil conflict. Poverty and economic stagnation lead people to become marginalized, lacking a stake in the productive economy. With little hope of employment or a decent standard of living, they might turn instead to violent activities, where income opportunities might be higher. Dependence on natural resources is also a risk factor—competition for control over these resources can trigger conflict and income from natural resources can finance war. And so we can see a vicious circle—war makes economic conditions and prospects worse, and weakens institutions, and this in turn increases the likelihood of war. Once a war has started, it’s hard to stop. And even if it stops, it’s easy to slip back into conflict. During the first decade after a war, there is a 50 percent chance of returning to violence, partly because of weakened institutions.

2AC Interdependence

Economic decline kills US interdependence

Royal ‘10[Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal, and Political Perspectives, pg 213-215]

However, if the expectations of future trade decline,particularly for difficult to replace item such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because ittriggers protectionist moves by interdependent states. Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favor. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg and Hess, 2002, p. 89)

AT: K-Wave

Reject the theory of K waves -- no theoretical or empirical correlations.

North 9 [Gary North is economic analyst, PhD in History, Austrian School, Remnant Review, formerly served as Research Assistant for Congressman Ron Paul, “The Myth of the Kondratieff Wave,” 6/27/09, http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north725.html] JAKE LEE

Kondratieff had at most two and a half cycles in his two papers. That number was available for only four data series. Of the 36 data series, he could find evidence of cycles in only 11 of them. The monetary series and the real series correlated in only 11 of 21 series, all short. Pugsley then cited extensively from an article by C. Van Ewijk of the University of Amsterdam (The Economist, Nov. 3, 1981). Van Ewijk noted that Kondratieff followed no consistent methodology in choosing the types of trend curves that he selected for different data sources. Kondratieff used various statistical techniques to smooth the curves to make them appear as long waves. "In case after case, no wave could be identified." He used price data, but these did not correlate with the actual economic output of the four economies that he studied. Then the waves that he presented were further "idealized" by whoever created the chart that has circulated ever since. Pugsley noted: "The upward movement of prices from 1933 to the present has already spanned fifty years, which is supposed to be the average length of a complete cycle." So far, price inflation has extended for about 75 years. Yet the deflationists are still predicting long-term, severe price deflation, and some of them invoke the Kondratieff wave to prove their assertion. Pugsley concluded: In not one case does the evidence corroborate the existence of the wave. Prices and output are not directly related — if anything they are inversely related. The forty-five to sixty-year period of the wave is only partially evident in the nineteenth century, and then only in the price series. Price moves in the twentieth century do not correspond to this periodicity, as claimed by long-wave proponents. There is absolutely no statistical correlation between series of real variables such as production and consumption, and monetary series such as prices and interest rates. Production and prices of the four countries studied do not statistically correlate; thus there is no wave operating coincidentally in the industrialized countries. In other words, Kondratieff's hypothesis is simply not supported by any evidence. The long wave exists only in the minds of a few misguided analysts, but not in the real world. It is pure hokum.

AT: Resource Wars

No resource wars

Tetrais 12 (Bruno, Senior Research Fellow at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratgique (FRS), Past positions include: Director, Civilian Affairs Committee, NATO Assembly (1990-1993); European affairs desk officer, Ministry of Defense (1993-1995); Visiting Fellow, the Rand Corporation (1995-1996); Special Assistant to the Director of Strategic Affairs, Ministry of Defense (1996-2001), "The Demise of Ares: The End of War as We Know It?", Summer 2012, csis.org/files/publication/twq12SummerTertrais.pdf)

The Unconvincing Case for ‘‘New Wars’’ ¶ Is the demise of war reversible? In recent years, the metaphor of a new ‘‘Dark Age’’ or ‘‘Middle Ages’’ has flourished. 57 The rise of political Islam, Western policies in the Middle East, the fast development of emerging countries, population growth, and climate change have led to fears of ‘‘civilization,’’ ‘‘resource,’’ and ‘‘environmental’’ wars. We have heard the New Middle Age theme before. In 1973, Italian writer Roberto Vacca famously suggested that mankind was about to enter an era of famine, nuclear war, and civilizational collapse. U.S. economist Robert Heilbroner made the same suggestion one year later. And in 1977, the great Australian political scientist Hedley Bull also heralded such an age. 58 But the case for ‘‘new wars’’ remains as flimsy as it was in the 1970s.¶ Admittedly, there is a stronger role of religion in civil conflicts. The proportion of internal wars with a religious dimension was about 25 percent between 1940 and 1960, but 43 percent in the first years of the 21st century. 59 This may be an effect of the demise of traditional territorial conflict, but as seen above, this has not increased the number or frequency of wars at the global level. Over the past decade, neither Western governments nor Arab/Muslim countries have fallen into the trap of the clash of civilizations into which Osama bin Laden wanted to plunge them. And ‘‘ancestral hatreds’’ are a reductionist and unsatisfactory approach to explaining collective violence. Professor Yahya Sadowski concluded his analysis of post-Cold War crises and wars, The Myth of Global Chaos, by stating, ‘‘most of the conflicts around the world are not rooted in thousands of years of history they are new and can be concluded as quickly as they started.’’ 60¶ Future resource wars are unlikely. There are fewer and fewer conquest wars. Between the Westphalia peace and the end of World War II, nearly half of conflicts were fought over territory. Since the end of the Cold War, it has been less than 30 percent. 61 The invasion of Kuwait a nationwide bank robbery may go down in history as being the last great resource war. The U.S.-led intervention of 1991 was partly driven by the need to maintain the free flow of oil, but not by the temptation to capture it. (Nor was the 2003 war against Iraq motivated by oil.) As for the current tensions between the two Sudans over oil, they are the remnants of a civil war and an offshoot of a botched secession process, not a desire to control new resources.¶ China’s and India’s energy needs are sometimes seen with apprehension: in light of growing oil and gas scarcity, is there not a risk of military clashes over the control of such resources? This seemingly consensual idea rests on two fallacies. One is that there is such a thing as oil and gas scarcity, a notion challenged by many energy experts. 62 As prices rise, previously untapped reserves and non-conventional hydrocarbons become economically attractive. The other is that spilling blood is a rational way to access resources. As shown by the work of historians and political scientists such as Quincy Wright, the economic rationale for war has always been overstated. And because of globalization, it has become cheaper to buy than to steal. We no longer live in the world of 1941, when fear of lacking oil and raw materials was a key motivation for Japan’s decision to go to war. In an era of liberalizing trade, many natural resources are fungible goods. (Here, Beijing behaves as any other actor: 90 percent of the oil its companies produce outside of China goes to the global market, not to the domestic one.) 63 There may be clashes or conflicts in regions in maritime resource-rich areas such as the South China and East China seas or the Mediterranean, but they will be driven by nationalist passions, not the desperate hunger for hydrocarbons.

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