**Fiscal Discipline da 2
Download 0.63 Mb.
|
Econ Decline--TerrorContinued recession leads to terrorism and global upheavalNouraee, staff writer-Finalist for the Society of Professional Journalists’ Excellence in Journalism Award, 9 [Andisheh, “Is the global economic crisis going to lead to another world war?,” CL Atlanta News, http://clatl.com/atlanta/is-the-global-economic-crisis-going-to-lead-to-another-world-war/Content?oid=1278564, March 16, 2009]bg Unlike in the 1930s, the world’s top military powers get along pretty well these days. China and Russia are the only two military powers that pose a conventional threat to the U.S. or Western Europe. Fortunately, neither is interested in going to war with us. They are too economically dependent on exports to wealthy democracies to go to war with one. War is bad for business. Unfortunately, as we’ve all learned from 9/11 and the War On Terror™, 21st-century national security is a lot more complicated than tanks, planes, ships and lines on maps. The U.S.’ biggest national security concern isn’t that little Hitlers will start popping up because of the economic downturn. Instead, the U.S. is worried that the financial meltdown will create several more Afghanistans, Pakistans and Somalias — anarchic, failed states that become safe havens for terrorists, guerilla armies, drug dealers and pirates. Testifying in front of the House of Representatives last month, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said the global recession is actually a bigger threat to U.S. national security right now than al-Qaeda. Blair warns the financial mess has diminished the ability of several governments to maintain law and order within their borders. Countries with weak central governments are fertile territory for militants, terrorists and organized criminals. They’re also more likely to fall into regional or civil wars that can leave millions dead, injured and displaced from their homes. Historian Niall Ferguson echoes Blair’s worries in the current issue of Foreign Policy. He says the U.S. should quit fretting over the “Axis of Evil” and start worrying about what he calls an “Axis of Upheaval” — a collection of nations he worries could be the 21st century’s most violent places. Ferguson says his studies of 20th-century wars show they were more or less predictable. Find a faltering economy, a history of ethnic rivalry, and a history of colonialism, he says, and you’ll find war. Not shocking to anyone who has watched even one TV news program in the past decade, his Axis of Upheaval includes well-known hot spots like Somalia, Israel, Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Quite freakily, however, he also groups Russia, Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico into his axis. The sputtering world economy, he says, promotes disorder in places that were once relatively orderly. Ferguson worries the recession will cause the U.S. and Europe to turn inward and ignore these potential hot spots until it’s too late. Terror causes extinction Toon et al, chair of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at CU-Boulder, 7 [Owen B. Toon, , et al., April 19, 2007, “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism,” online: http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-1973-2007.pdf]bg To an increasing extent, people are congregating in the world’s great urban centers, creating megacities with populations exceeding 10 million individuals. At the same time, advanced technology has designed nuclear explosives of such small size they can be easily transported in a car, small plane or boat to the heart of a city. We demonstrate here that a single detonation in the 15 kiloton range can produce urban fatalities approaching one million in some cases, and casualties exceeding one million. Thousands of small weapons still exist in the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia, and there are at least six other countries with substantial nuclear weapons inventories. In all, thirty-three countries control sufficient amounts of highly enriched uranium or plutonium to assemble nuclear explosives. A conflict between any of these countries involving 50-100 weapons with yields of 15 kt has the potential to create fatalities rivaling those of the Second World War. Moreover, even a single surface nuclear explosion, or an air burst in rainy conditions, in a city center is likely to cause the entire metropolitan area to be abandoned at least for decades owing to infrastructure damage and radioactive contamination. As the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in Louisiana suggests, the economic consequences of even a localized nuclear catastrophe would most likely have severe national and international economic consequences. Striking effects result even from relatively small nuclear attacks because low yield detonations are most effective against city centers where business and social activity as well as population are concentrated. Rogue nations and terrorists would be most likely to strike there. Accordingly, an organized attack on the U.S. by a small nuclear state, or terrorists supported by such a state, could generate casualties comparable to those once predicted for a full-scale nuclear “counterforce” exchange in a superpower conflict. Remarkably, the estimated quantities of smoke generated by attacks totaling about one megaton of nuclear explosives could lead to significant global climate perturbations (Robock et al., 2007). While we did not extend our casualty and damage predictions to include potential medical, social or economic impacts following the initial explosions, such analyses have been performed in the past for large-scale nuclear war scenarios (Harwell and Hutchinson, 1985). Such a study should be carried out as well for the present scenarios and physical outcomes. 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 0.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
|