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AT: Modeling Adv.—AT: Soft Power (3/3)
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AT: Modeling Adv.—AT: Soft Power (3/3)Soft power is dependent on soft power—strong US military prevents a decline of US soft power Niaz, ’10 [Ilhan Niaz, Faculty member of the Department of History at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, “The mirage of soft power in a globalised world,” DAWN.com, 1/10/10, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/in-paper-magazine/encounter/the-mirage-of-soft-power-in-a-globalised-world-010.] Historically, a country’s soft power is a consequence of it having, or having had at some time in the past, great amount of hard power. The global penetration of the English language, for instance, is part of the British imperial legacy, which includes the birth and rise of the United States of America, and the resultant dynamism of the North Atlantic economy. The popular appeal of Marxism-Leninism and the proliferation of fashionably leftist third world bourgeoisie was a direct effect of the Soviet Union’s astonishing transition from the feudal age to the space age in less than 40 years (1922-1957). Before the Second World War various race theories were propagated and accepted as legitimate hypotheses. The relatively benign civilising mission of the British in India subscribed to the same pseudoscientific social Darwinism that animated the genocidal fury of Nazi Germany, the relentless aggression of Imperial Japan or the crased greed that killed millions in Belgian controlled Congo. Differences of degree granted, superior technological, military and economic power justified exploitation and oppression. It was America’s hard power that won the west from the Native Americans and Mexicans though the American pursuit of living space at the expense of its less powerful neighbours might be romanticised in countless Hollywood westerns. The ease with which the Ottoman Caliphate was disposed of by the Turkish nationalists, much to the chagrin of idealistic Pan-Islamists in British India, demonstrates yet again the illusory nature of soft power and its necessary dependence on hard power. Historically, therefore, power is power. A vast empire that possesses a sound economy, a powerful military, a competent administrative elite and a pragmatic leadership with enough political will to deal effectively with challenges, can also enjoy cultural prestige and charisma. Depending on the duration and success of that empire, its intellectual and cultural legacy may well outlast its physical dominion. This, however, does not alter the terms of causation for the imperial legacy is an effect of hard power control. Hard power key to global cooperation over important issues—soft power irrelevant Niaz, ’10 [Ilhan Niaz, Faculty member of the Department of History at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, “The mirage of soft power in a globalised world,” DAWN.com, 1/10/10, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/in-paper-magazine/encounter/the-mirage-of-soft-power-in-a-globalised-world-010.] The events and trends of the contemporary era should serve as a powerful corrective to the soft-power-hearts-and-minds approach. Take globalisation of communications, which brings people into intense, often unwanted, contact with other cultures, worldviews and tendencies. By doing so, conflict is stimulated and a possibility for greater mutual understanding is opened up. Which way people jump depends on the hard power configuration that prevails at the time. If a dialogue is initiated, its terms are modified by the hard power balance. Just because kung fu movies are popular in the West and McDonalds in the East does not mean that the US and China will agree on military procurement and investment, energy policy or the environment. It is the Chinese accumulation of hard power, particularly in the military and economic spheres — ICBMs, submarines, massive foreign exchange reserves that incidentally help the US finance its over-consumption and trade surpluses — that worries western governments and some of China’s neighbours. The 2008 Beijing Olympics was the soft power fruit of hard power seeds carefully nurtured over decades of market socialism. The popularity of American fast food or pop music or political theories does not translate into agreement with its strategic policies. During the Shah’s rule in Iran perhaps half a million Iranians were sent to study in the US and many of these American-educated men and women became the spearhead of the 1979 revolution. In Pakistan, democratic governments have traditionally been more hostile to US policies in the region than non-democratic dispensations due to the overwhelming public antipathy towards the American government. AT: Modeling Adv.—AT: Future WeaponsImpacts inevitable –Robot prolif cannot be stopped Singer, ‘9 [P.W. Singer, Director of the 21st-Century Defense Initiative at Brookings, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, 2009, p. 109-110] “William James once said, ‘We are literally in the midst of an infinite.’ Today, there is an infinite going on in the world of war…. The challenge is that there are fewer things to look for and more information. The needle in the haystack is at the essence of counterinsurgency. Machines can filter down what we need to see. Instead of us telling machines where to go, it is increasingly machines telling us.” Noah Shachtman is the new breed of war correspondent. He’s quoting the nineteenth-century philosopher William James ,but doing so while talking about the next generation of robots, as we sit in a chic Manhattan Bar filled with rap stars and models. Describing his beat as “technology, national security, politics, and geek culture,” Shachtman writes for the New York Times and is contributing editor at Wired, the digital world’s most popular magazine. He also runs Danger Room, the blog focusing on “what’s next in national security.” In the course of his reporting, Shachtman has done everything from sneaking into Los Alamos nuclear lab to riding out on missions in Iraq with an EOD team and their robots. Based on these experiences, he is emphatic that we’ve only seen the start of the robotics trend in war. "In both war and police actions, you will see more and more of robots in all shapes and sizes .... There is a huge growth curve, with no signs of slowing down. To see having one [robot) in every squad isn't all that crazy. And that is before you get into the sexy, futuristic stuff." For military robotics in the next decade, "there is zero chance of the field not increasing exponentially." Robot soldiers key to more humane war Singer, ‘9 [P.W. Singer, Director of the 21st-Century Defense Initiative at Brookings, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, 2009, p. 393-4] Technology is often described as a way to reduce war’s costs and passions, and thus its crimes. The poet John Donne (of “No man is an island” fame), for example, told in 1621 how the invention of better cannons would help limit the cruelty and crimes of war, “and the great expense of bloud is avoyed.” Yet the improvement of guns from the 1600s onward certainly didn’t reduce the flow of “bloud” or end war crimes. However, many today hope that robotics just may well be the one technology that proves Donne right. As one retired army officer explained, “Warfare on some levels will never be moral, but it can be more moral.” An army brigade commander in Iraq, for example, told me how footage from a drone showed one of his troops guarding an enemy detainee. The soldier, not knowing the drone was overhead, gave a quick look to the right and left, to see if anyone was watching down the street, and then “gave the detainee a good, swift kick to the head.” The officer recalls that everyone in the command post then turned and “looked at the old man [him] to see how he would react.” While the omnipresence of cameras might mean more second-guessing along the lines of Monday morning quarterbacking, it also changes the context in which decisions about war, and also abuses in war, are made. That commander knew about his soldier doing wrong and put a stop to it. Whereas a U.S. Army survey found that 45 percent of soldiers wouldn't report a fellow soldier they saw injuring or killing a civilian noncombatant, robots don't care about their buddies and always report what they see. At a broader level, any nation or would-be criminal pondering a war crime will know that, with so many machines around them recording data, they are more likely to be caught and cover-ups will be harder to pull off. Robots prolif key to decreasing civilian casualties in war Singer, ‘9 [P.W. Singer, Director of the 21st-Century Defense Initiative at Brookings, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, 2009, p. 394-5] With the humans not facing risk, they also have the ability to take their time, with a "slow, methodical approach" that can lessen the likelihood of civilians be killed. Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch told how "the single most distinguishing weapons I have seen in my career were Israeli UAVs." He described that, unlike jet fighters that had to swoop in fast and make decisions on what targets to bomb in a matter of seconds, the UAVs he observed during the 2006 Lebanon; could loiter over a potential target for minutes or even hours, and pick and choose what to strike or not. In Vietnam, an amazing fifty thousand rounds of ammunition were expended for every enemy killed. Robots, on the other hand, might "come closer to the motto of 'one shot, one kill.’ “As a report on the SWORDS 'says, the operator "can coolly pick out targets as if playing a video game." Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 157.71 Kb. Share with your friends:
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