**1AC Port Security** Contention One – Terrorism

**1AC Port Security**

Contention One – Terrorism

DHS Implementation of Port Security Measures is inevitable but delay risks catastrophic WMD terror attacks

WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security will miss an initial deadline of July 12 to comply with a sweeping federal law meant to thwart terrorist attacks arriving by sea, frustrating border security advocates who worry that the agency has not done enough to prevent dangerous cargo from coming through the country’s ocean gateways, including the Port of Boston. Only a small fraction of all metal cargo containers have been scanned before arriving at US ports, and advocates for tighter port security say all maritime cargo needs to be scanned or manually inspected to prevent terrorists from using ships bound for the United States to deliver a nuclear bomb. The scenario might be straight out of a Hollywood script, but the threat of terrorism is not limited to airplanes, according to Homeland Security critics, including Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts. Markey accuses the agency of not making a good-faith effort to comply with a 2007 law he coauthored requiring all US-bound maritime shipments to be scanned before departing overseas docks. “We’re not just missing the boat, we could be missing the bomb,’’ the Malden Democrat said. “The reality is that detonating a nuclear bomb in the United States is at the very top of Al Qaeda’s terrorist targets.’’ Only about 5 percent of all cargo containers headed to the United States are screened, according to the government’s own estimate, with some shipments getting only a cursory paperwork review. Homeland Security officials argue that wider screening would be cost-prohibitive, logistically and technologically difficult, and diplomatically challenging. While acknowledging the threat as real, they are exercising their right under the 2007 law to postpone for two years the full implementation of the congressionally mandated scanning program. That would set the new deadline for July 2014. Critics say the consequences of delay could be catastrophic. Terrorists have long sought to obtain uranium or plutonium to construct a nuclear bomb, global security analysts say. Government officials, including President Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, have worried that terrorist cells could be plotting further devastation in the United States, perhaps through radioactive explosives called “dirty bombs.’’

Ports are the top target for terrorist attacks

Abt Associates Inc. 3 (Abt Associates Inc, April 30, “The Economic Impact of Nuclear Terrorist Attacks on Freight Transport Systems in an Age of Seaport Vulnerability”, http://www.abtassociates.com/reports/es-economic_impact_of_nuclear_terrorist_attacks.pdf, June 25, 2012, A.R.)

The catastrophic terrorists’ priority targets are the major U.S. population, commercial, government, and transportation centers. The top three are New York, Washington DC, and Los Angeles, as has been repeatedly demonstrated in the last decade before 9/11/2001. Clearly the centers of American Abt Associates Inc. Economic Impact of Nuclear Attacks on Freight Transport 3 economy, government, and urban society are targeted by the terrorists for strategic bombardment and destruction, and are likely to continue to be their targets for the foreseeable future. The aim points for nuclear weapons detonation, within the priority target cities, are either dockside at container ports (so they don’t risk inspection of container delivery vehicles after unloading), or the center of the most valuable targets accessible by container-bearing truck, such as the 14 th Street Bridge in DC, or midtown Manhattan.

Specifically for Al-Qaeda – maritime terrorism is its top priority – attacks are coming now

Walker 6/5 (Andrew, Maritime Security Analyst and graduate from Dalhousie University’s History and Political Science program, 5 June 2012, “Breaking The Bottleneck: Maritime Terrorism and “Economic Chokepoints (Part I)”, http://atlantic-council.ca/portfolio/breaking-the-bottleneck-maritime-terrorism-and-economic-chokepoints-part-1/ SC)

“Despite the inherent challenges, al-Qaeda can attack, has attacked, and will again attack maritime targets. Indications point to an acceleration of the pace of maritime terrorism, heralding a coming campaign. The propensity of al-Qaeda for patient and intricate preparation augurs a future sustained maritime terrorism campaign, rather than a continued irregular pattern of attacks” - (Ret) Captain Jim Pelkofski (Joint Operations Directorate at US Fleet Forces Command; Current Pentagon Force Protection Agency’s director of anti-terrorism and force protection) The American naval historian and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) claimed in his Influence of Sea Power on World History that strong naval and commercial fleets are essential to the nation’s military power. In a post September 11th society, governments have dedicated heavy resources to assessing the vulnerability of their homelands to acts of terrorism. The number of terrorist attacks in the maritime environment is proportionally small in comparison to the overall number. However, (Ret) Admiral Sir Alan West, The UK’s First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff deemed maritime terrorism “a clear and present danger” that may “potentially cripple global trade and have grave knock-on effects on developed economies.” The probability of a terrorist attack on a major North American port may be low for some security analysts, but given the catastrophic effect an attack via improvised explosive devices (IEDs), hijacking and using a ship as a weapon, or biological weapons could have on such “economic chokepoints,” significant focus must be placed on the subject.

Unconventional Terror attack inevitable

CBS News 9 (CBS News, February 11, “Study: WMD attack in US likely by 2013”, http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-4641534.html, June 25, 2012, A.R.)

The United States can expect a terror attack using nuclear or more likely biological weapons before 2013, reports a bipartisan commission in a study briefed Tuesday to Vice President-elect Joe Biden. It suggests that the Obama administration bolster efforts to counter and prepare for germ warfare by terrorists. "Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing," states the report, obtained by The Associated Press. It is scheduled to be publicly released Wednesday.

WMD attack on Ports causes massive casualties

Frittelli 07 (Johnis also in, Science, and Industry Division Maritime Security: Potential Terrorist Attacks and protection priorities, CRS report to Congress, January 9, 2007http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA460683)

If human casualties are the principal objective, passenger vessels such as cruise ships and ferries, which together account for less than 4% of U.S. commercial vessel inventory, may be more attractive terrorist targets than cargo and other vessels. 10 Consistent with this reasoning, federal agencies reportedly concluded in 2004 that the Washington state ferry system had been under surveillance as a possible terrorism target. 11 A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) attack on a heavily populated U.S. port could inflict the greatest number of human casualties. The Defense Department’s Joint Task Force–Civil Support developed such a scenario in a 2005 exercise involving the smuggling and detonation of a 10-kiloton nuclear device in the port of Charleston, SC. 12
That guarantees escalation and global nuclear war

Hellman ‘8 (Martin E. Hellman* * Martin E. Hellman is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. His current project applies risk analysis to nuclear deterrence)

Nuclear proliferation and the specter of nuclear terrorism are creating additional possibilities for triggering a nuclear war. If an American (or Russian) city were devastated by an act of nuclear terrorism, the public outcry for immediate, decisive action would be even stronger than Kennedy had to deal with when the Cuban missiles first became known to the American public. While the action would likely not be directed against Russia, it might be threatening to Russia (e.g., on its borders) or one of its allies and precipitate a crisis that resulted in a full-scale nuclear war. Terrorists with an apocalyptic mindset might even attempt to catalyze a full-scale nuclear war by disguising their act to look like an attack by the U.S. or Russia.

A successful attack would shut down every US Port, halt all international trade and collapse the global economy

Konkel ‘5 (Todd Konkel, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, 2005 (Container Security: Preventing a Nuclear Catastrophe. http://www-irps.ucsd.edu/IPS/Container%20Security%20Preventing%20a%20Nuclear%20Catastrophe)

What, then, is the potential impact of an attack on a major U.S. port involving a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb? Without question, the damage would be devastating. Gal Luft and Anne Korin at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security describe a scenario where terrorists ram a cargo ship loaded with explosives, or possibly a WMD, into a major port or terminal. “Such an attack,” they state, “could bring international trade to a halt, inflicting multi-billion-dollar damage on the world economy.” 4 Robert Bonner, currently the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, painted a similarly bleak picture in August 2002: “There is virtually no security for what is the primary system to transport global trade. The consequences of a terrorist incident using a container would be profound . . . If terrorists used a sea container to conceal a weapon of mass destruction and detonated it on arrival at a port, the impact on global trade and the global economy could be immediate and devastating – all nations would be affected. No container ships would be permitted to unload at U.S. ports after such an event.”

Trade solves all conflict

Lak 11 (M., 12/8, PhD. Candidate in economics, “Because We Need Them...: German-Dutch relations after the occupation: economic inevitability and political acceptance”, http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/30641/Chapter%201%20Introduction.pdf, accessed 6/27) CGC

According to modern social scientists, it is not so much trade, but free trade that promotes peaceful relations between two countries. Interdependence can only lead to peace if a country‟s economic policy is directed towards ensuring that it can get what it needs from a 10 neighbouring country without resorting to violence. If two countries are mutually dependent, and there is free trade between them, waging war would not achieve anything. Trade alone is not enough, there has to be free trade. Free trade promotes peace „by removing an important foundation of domestic privilege – protective barriers to trade – that enhances the domestic power of societal groups likely to support war, reduces the capacity of free-trading interests to limit aggression in foreign policy, and creates a mechanism by which the state can build supportive coalitions for war [...] Free trade reduces military conflict in the international system by undermining the domestic political power of interests that benefit from conflict and by limiting the state‟s ability to enact commercial policies to build domestic coalitional support for its war machine‟.7 Free trade was exactly what was missing in Nazi Germany, just as any form of political influence by the citizens. Protectionism limited essential trade.

Economic collapse causes war – history proves

Royal 10 (Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, 2010, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises,” in Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215, June 27, 2012) ALK

Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defense behaviour of interdependent slates. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level. Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (19%) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (sec also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner, 1999). Separately. Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level. Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items 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 it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 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 favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession lends lo amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & I less. 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg. Hess. & Wccrapana. 2004). which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a silting government. "Diversionary theory' suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DcRoucn (1995), and Blomberg. Mess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DcRoucn (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Those studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.

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