Globalization has eradicated great power war, dedev reverses
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- 2AC – Democracy Impact
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2AC – Space ImpactGrowth gets us off the rock – solves inevitable extinction and sustainability Ashworth, ’10 (Stephen Ashworth is a long-standing Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society. He works in academic publishing in the Voltaire Foundation, part of Oxford University – Towards the Sociology of the Universe, part 2 – 18 December 2010 – http://www.astronist.demon.co.uk/space-age/essays/Sociology2.html) There are thus two plausible end-points to our current phase of growth: collapse back to a pre-industrial level (the supernova burns out), or continued growth taking us onto a sustainable level of technological maturity (the baby grows up). The difference between these two future courses is immense. In terms of population, the carrying capacity of Earth for human populations is greater than the current 6 or 7 billion, but not very much so, perhaps a few tens of billions (depending on the technologies available). Any retreat to medieval levels of technology would cut this figure by a factor of ten, probably down to less than a billion. But the carrying capacity of the Solar System is at least a million times greater than that of a high-tech Earth, and that of the Galaxy at least a billion times greater again than that of the Solar System. The present-day situation of human society is therefore that it finds itself at a cross-roads of unparalleled significance. If growth is not maintained, then, unless they can reignite that growth phase, our descendants are forever restricted to planet Earth. But must they necessarily fall back to a medieval or even more primitive level? Could industrial civilisation survive for a while in a zero-growth phase at around its present-day level of development, and if so, for how long? In any discussion of mankind and space, this is a key question which must be addressed. Certainly, pre-industrial civilisations have survived with little change over millennial timespans, but to what extent does industrial technology change this picture? And what about million-year timespans? The only types of industrial civilisation we have observed so far have been that based on capitalist economics, and that based on socialism, in which a political ideology takes over the role of capital. Capitalist societies would seem to be expansionary in their very nature: they are defined by the self-multiplying power of capital. But could a socialist society, one with a suitable ideology which was sufficiently severely imposed, preserve zero growth indefinitely? I think not, because societies evolve in an unpredictable manner. Governments which have tried to maintain control in, say, Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868) or Soviet Russia (1917-1989) have failed in their goals of stability (Japan) or planned growth (Russia), and modern liberal democracy works by limiting its ambitions and ceding much power to the economy at large. Even a global dictatorship, which unlike those two historical examples would by definition not face competition from abroad, would, I think, be unable to control all the disruptive political, technological and economic forces emerging unpredictably worldwide over centuries and millennia. The result would then be either the breakout of a new phase of growth, or decline and collapse. In view of the likelihood of long-term adverse climate change (whether triggered by industrial pollution, or asteroid impact, or an outbreak of super-vulcanism, or the return of ice-age conditions, or solar variations), and in addition the persistent threat of global high-tech conflict (whether spreading destruction by nuclear weapons, or computer viruses, or genetically engineered organisms, or microscopic or macroscopic robots), decline would be the more plausible outcome. Nevertheless, the question as to how long a global zero-growth industrial civilisation could survive in a stable state on one planet is an interesting one, though not one that is likely to attract unbiased analysis by modern sociology. What, however, if growth is maintained? Surely Earth will become overburdened and that growth will lead to environmental and social collapse? The point here is that, while the resources of Earth are limited, those of the Solar System are very much greater. Growth in population sizes and in the usage of energy and raw materials may therefore continue for a number of centuries into the future, provided that two conditions are met: * Material growth on Earth levels off; * Material growth in space and on other planets takes over the upward trend. Is this not equivalent to saying that Earth must settle down with a zero-growth society before space development begins? No, so long as the terrestrial and extraterrestrial economies are linked. While this remains true, it will be possible for investors on Earth to invest capital in extraterrestrial development, and receive dividends back from that development. While most Earth-dwelling people will remain on the mother planet, there will also be flows of people, goods and ideas between Earth and her colonies, which must also have a profound economic effect. A net inflow of value to Earth is in any case necessary in order that terrestrial investment in outer space does not merely produce inflation in the home economy. But that inflow need not be of material goods, and is more likely to consist of energy (solar power delivered on microwaves or lasers) and information (software and product development). But surely ultimately the limits of the Solar System will be reached, and the interplanetary civilisation have to settle down as a zero-growth society? Yes, granted. But this differs from a zero-growth planet Earth due to the immense size of the Solar System, which is larger than Earth by between four and six orders of magnitude, depending how far out one wants to go – to the distance of Mars, say, or to the Oort comet cloud far beyond Pluto. An interplanetary industrial civilisation is secure for the long term in a way that a monoplanetary one is not, because it is too large to form a unity, either politically or environmentally, and because it is forced to adapt to a wide range of hostile environmental conditions. It will therefore be secure against any conceivable environmental or military disaster, because such a disaster can only affect a single planet, or at most a limited region of the system. Climate change or world war on Earth has no effect on Mars, and vice versa. And with the majority of the population in orbiting artificial space colonies, even a major change in solar luminosity could be tolerated (though such a change is not expected to have a noticeable effect for hundreds of millions of years yet). With interplanetary civilisation, the social system as a whole can tolerate decline and collapse in particular locations, because they can then be recolonised from outside. Once humanity achieves interstellar status, this security factor is clearly vastly enhanced. However, in order for interplanetary growth to occur in the first place, an economic mechanism must be in place to drive it. The most suitable economic mechanism that has been demonstrated so far is capitalism. Its need for continuous expansion makes it highly appropriate as an economic system for a society colonising its local planetary system. 2AC – Democracy ImpactDecline in growth collapses global democracy Samuel P. Huntington, former director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard, University Professor and Chairman of the Harvard Academy of International and Area Studies, 1991, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, netLibrary, p. 293 (2) More specifically, a general international economic collapse on the 1929–30 model could undermine the legitimacy of democracy in many countries. Most democracies did survive the Great Depression of the 1930s. Yet some succumbed and presumably some would be likely to succumb in response to a comparable economic disaster in the future. (3) A shift to authoritarianism by any democratic or democratizing great power could trigger similar snowballing actions in other countries. A reversal of course in the direction of authoritarianism in Russia or the Soviet Union would have unsettling effects on democratization in other Soviet republics, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Mongolia, and possibly in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. It could send a message to would-be despots elsewhere: "You too can go back into business." The establishment of an authoritarian regime in India could have a significant demonstration effect on other Third World countries. (4) Even if a major country did not revert to authoritarianism, the shift to dictatorship by several newly democratic countries because they lacked many of the usual preconditions for democracy could possibly undermine democracy in other countries where those preconditions were strong. This would be reverse snowballing. Extinction Diamond ’95 (Larry, Hoover Institution senior fellow, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, December, A Report to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, “Promoting Democracy in the 1990s: Actors and Instruments, Issues and Imperatives,” http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/1.htm) OTHER THREATS This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness. LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically “cleanse” their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built. 2AC – Terrorism ImpactEconomic collapse leads to nuclear terrorismBremmer 9 (Ian, - President of the Eurasia Group, sr. fellow @ World Policy Institute, , 3/4/09, Foreign Policy, http://eurasia.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/04/the_global_recession_heightens_terrorist_risks) But there's another reason why the financial crisis heightens the risk of global terrorism. Militants thrive in places where no one is fully in charge. The global recession threatens to create more such places. No matter how cohesive and determined a terrorist organization, it needs a supportive environment in which to flourish. That means a location that provides a steady stream of funds and recruits and the support (or at least acceptance) of the local population. Much of the counter-terrorist success we've seen in Iraq's al Anbar province over the past two years is a direct result of an increased willingness of local Iraqis to help the Iraqi army and US troops oust the militants operating there. In part, that's because the area's tribal leaders have their own incentives (including payment in cash and weaponry) for cooperating with occupation forces. But it's also because foreign militants have alienated the locals. The security deterioration of the past year in Pakistan and Afghanistan reflects exactly the opposite phenomenon. In the region along both sides of their shared border, local tribal leaders have yet to express much interest in helping Pakistani and NATO soldiers target local or foreign militants. For those with the power to either protect or betray the senior al-Qaeda leaders believed to be hiding in the region, NATO and Pakistani authorities have yet to find either sweet enough carrots or sharp enough sticks to shift allegiances. The slowdown threatens to slow the progress of a number of developing countries. Most states don't provide ground as fertile for militancy as places like Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen. But as more people lose their jobs, their homes, and opportunities for prosperity -- in emerging market countries or even within minority communities inside developed states -- it becomes easier for local militants to find volunteers. This is why the growing risk of attack from suicide bombers and well-trained gunmen in Pakistan creates risks that extend beyond South Asia. This is a country that is home to lawless regions where local and international militants thrive, nuclear weapons and material, a history of nuclear smuggling, a cash-starved government, and a deteriorating economy. Pakistan is far from the only country in which terrorism threatens to spill across borders. Nuclear war Hellman 8—professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford University. PhD from Stanford. (Martin, The Odds for Nuclear Armageddon, Spring 2008, http://www.nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf) The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the public’s mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article focuses primarily on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a catastrophe of immense proportions: “A 10-kiloton bomb detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever.” [Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The likelihood of such an attack is also significant. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has estimated the chance of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, “We would never accept a situation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a low-probability event, but we can’t live in a world where it’s anything but extremely low-probability.” [Hegland 2005]. In a survey of 85 national security experts, Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20 percent for the “probability of an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in the next 10 years,” with 79 percent of the respondents believing “it more likely to be carried out by terrorists” than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanisms for a full-scale nuclear war, the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce whichever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g., nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). 2AC – Prolif ImpactEconomic decline would spark fast and wildfire prolif globallyBURROWS & WINDHAM 94 – Economic Professors [William & Robert, Critical Mass, pgs. 491-492] Economics is in many respects proliferation's catalyst. As we have noted, economic desperation drives Russia and some of the former Warsaw pact nations to peddle weapons and technology. The possibility of considerable profits or at least balanced international payments also prompts Third World countries like China, Brazil, and Israel to do the same. Economics, as well as such related issues as overpopulation, drive proliferation just as surely as do purely political motives. Unfortunately, that subject is beyond the scope of this book. Suffice it to say that, all things being equal, well-off, relatively secure societies like today's Japan are less likely to buy or sell superweapon technology than those that are insecure, needy, or desperate. Ultimately, solving economic problems, especially as they are driven by population pressure, is the surest way to defuse proliferation and enhance true national security. Extinction Kroenig 12 – Matthew Kroenig is an Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University and a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations, May 26th, 2012, “The History of Proliferation Optimism: Does It Have A Future?” http://www.npolicy.org/article.php?aid=1182&tid=30 What’s Wrong with Proliferation Optimism? The proliferation optimist position, while having a distinguished pedigree, has several major flaws. Many of these weaknesses have been chronicled in brilliant detail by Scott Sagan and other contemporary proliferation pessimists.34 Rather than repeat these substantial efforts, I will use this section to offer some original critiques of the recent incarnations of proliferation optimism.¶ First and foremost, proliferation optimists do not appear to understand contemporary deterrence theory. I do not say this lightly in an effort to marginalize or discredit my intellectual opponents. Rather, I make this claim with all due caution and sincerity. A careful review of the contemporary proliferation optimism literature does not reflect an understanding of, or engagement with, the developments in academic deterrence theory over the past few decades in top scholarly journals such as the American Political Science Review and International Organization.35 While early optimists like Viner and Brodie can be excused for not knowing better, the writings of contemporary proliferation optimists ignore much of the past fifty years of academic research on nuclear deterrence theory.¶ In the 1940s, Viner, Brodie, and others argued that the advent of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) rendered war among major powers obsolete, but nuclear deterrence theory soon advanced beyond that simple understanding.36 After all, great power political competition does not end with nuclear weapons. And nuclear-armed states still seek to threaten nuclear-armed adversaries. States cannot credibly threaten to launch a suicidal nuclear war, but they still want to coerce their adversaries. This leads to a credibility problem: “how can states credibly threaten a nuclear-armed opponent? Since the 1960s academic nuclear deterrence theory has been devoted almost exclusively to answering this question.37 And, unfortunately for proliferation optimists, the answers do not give us reasons to be optimistic.¶ Thomas Schelling was the first to devise a rational means by which states can threaten nuclear-armed opponents.38 He argued that leaders cannot credibly threaten to intentionally launch a suicidal nuclear war, but they can make a “threat that leaves something to chance.”39 They can engage in a process, the nuclear crisis, which increases the risk of nuclear war in an attempt to force a less resolved adversary to back down. As states escalate a nuclear crisis there is an increasing probability that the conflict will spiral out of control and result in an inadvertent or accidental nuclear exchange. As long as the benefit of winning the crisis is greater than the incremental increase in the risk of nuclear war, threats to escalate nuclear crises are inherently credible. In these games of nuclear brinkmanship, the state that is willing to run the greatest risk of nuclear war before backing down will win the crisis as long as it does not end in catastrophe. It is for this reason that Thomas Schelling called great power politics in the nuclear era a “competition in risk taking.”¶ 40 This does not mean that states eagerly bid up the risk of nuclear war. Rather, they face gut-wrenching decisions at each stage of the crisis. They can quit the crisis to avoid nuclear war, but only by ceding an important geopolitical issue to an opponent. Or they can the escalate the crisis in an attempt to prevail, but only at the risk of suffering a possible nuclear exchange.¶ Since 1945 there were have been many high stakes nuclear crises (by my count, there have been twenty) in which “rational” states like the United States run a frighteningly-real risk of nuclear war.41 By asking whether states can be deterred or not, therefore, proliferation optimists ask the wrong question. The right question to ask is: what risk of nuclear war is a specific state willing to run against a particular opponent in a given crisis? Optimists are likely correct when they assert that Iran will not intentionally commit national suicide by launching a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear attack on the United States or Israel. This does not mean that Iran will never use nuclear weapons, however. Indeed, it is almost inconceivable to think that a nuclear-armed Iran would not, at some point, find itself in a crisis with another nuclear-armed power. It is also inconceivable that in those circumstances, Iran would not be willing to run any risk of nuclear war in order to achieve its objectives. If a nuclear-armed Iran and the United States or Israel have a geopolitical conflict in the future, over, for example, the internal politics of Syria, an Israeli conflict with Iran’s client Hezbollah, the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf, passage through the Strait of Hormuz, or some other issue, do we believe that Iran would immediately capitulate? Or is it possible that Iran would push back, possibly even brandishing nuclear weapons in an attempt to coerce its adversaries? If the latter, there is a real risk that proliferation to Iran could result in nuclear war.¶ An optimist might counter that nuclear weapons will never be used, even in a crisis situation, because states have such a strong incentive, namely national survival, to ensure that nuclear weapons are not used. But, this objection ignores the fact that leaders operate under competing pressures. Leaders in nuclear-armed states also have very strong incentives to convince their adversaries that nuclear weapons could very well be used. Historically we have seen that leaders take actions in crises, such as placing nuclear weapons on high alert and delegating nuclear launch authority to low level commanders, to purposely increase the risk of accidental nuclear war in an attempt to force less-resolved opponents to back down. 2AC – Resource Wars ImpactGrowth and trade solves resource scarcity Anderson, ’04 (Terry L., executive director of the Property and Environment Research Center, a think tank focusing on market solutions to environmental problems, HOOVER PRESS, “You Have to Admit It's Getting Better: From Economic Prosperity to Environmental Quality”, 2004) Lomborg (2001, 29) also indicates why this improvement is occurring. Trade and less costly transport effectively act to reduce risks and make local areas less vulnerable to natural resource exhaustion and depletion. This is a tremendously important insight. In a trading economy, production does not necessarily have to take place at the physical location of demand, but where it is most efficient. An implication is that as resource scarcity occurs and prices and costs rise in a trading world, production will shift to other locations with less scarcity and lower prices and costs. The effect is that each country can almost indefinitely postpone running into a wall imposed by resource scarcity, and all of the trading economies will benefit. Resource wars cause extinction Klare, ’06 (Michael, Professor of peace and world security studies @ Hampshire College, “The Coming Resource Wars,” TomPaine.com, Date: March 11, 2006, http://www.waterconserve.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=53710&keybold=water%20land%20conflict) "As famine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to abrupt climate change," the Pentagon report notes, "many countries' needs will exceed their carrying capacity" -- that is, their ability to provide the minimum requirements for human survival. This "will create a sense of desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggression" against countries with a greater stock of vital resources. "Imagine eastern European countries, struggling to feed their populations with a falling supply of food, water, and energy, eyeing Russia, whose population is already in decline, for access to its grain, minerals, and energy supply." Similar scenarios will be replicated all across the planet, as those without the means to survival invade or migrate to those with greater abundance -- producing endless struggles between resource "haves" and "have-nots." It is this prospect, more than anything, that worries John Reid. In particular, he expressed concern over the inadequate capacity of poor and unstable countries to cope with the effects of climate change, and the resulting risk of state collapse, civil war and mass migration. "More than 300 million people in Africa currently lack access to safe water," he observed, and "climate change will worsen this dire situation" -- provoking more wars like Darfur. And even if these social disasters will occur primarily in the developing world, the wealthier countries will also be caught up in them, whether by participating in peacekeeping and humanitarian aid operations, by fending off unwanted migrants or by fighting for access to overseas supplies of food, oil, and minerals. When reading of these nightmarish scenarios, it is easy to conjure up images of desperate, starving people killing one another with knives, staves and clubs -- as was certainly often the case in the past, and could easily prove to be so again. But these scenarios also envision the use of more deadly weapons. "In this world of warring states," the 2003 Pentagon report predicted, "nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable." As oil and natural gas disappears, more and more countries will rely on nuclear power to meet their energy needs -- and this "will accelerate nuclear proliferation as countries develop enrichment and reprocessing capabilities to ensure their national security." Although speculative, these reports make one thing clear: when thinking about the calamitous effects of global climate change, we must emphasize its social and political consequences as much as its purely environmental effects. Drought, flooding and storms can kill us, and surely will -- but so will wars among the survivors of these catastrophes over what remains of food, water and shelter. As Reid's comments indicate, no society, however affluent, will escape involvement in these forms of conflict. 2AC – Transition Wars DACollapse causes bloody transition wars Perry Anderson, Professor of Sociology at UCLA, Marxist Scholar, ’84 (In the tracks of historical materialism, p. 102-103) That background also indicates, however, what is essentially missing from his work. How are we to get from where we are today to where he point us to tomorrow? There is no answer to this question in Nove. His halting discussion of “transition” tails away into apprehensive admonitions to moderation to the British Labor Party, and pleas for proper compensation to capitalist owners of major industries, if these are to be nationalized. Nowhere is there any sense of what a titanic political change would have to occur, with what fierceness of social struggle, for the economic model of socialism he advocates ever to materialize. Between the radicalism of the future end-state he envisages, and the conservatism of the present measures he is prepared to countenance, there is an unbridgeable abyss. How could private ownership of the means of production ever be abolished by policies less disrespectful of capital than those of Allende or a Benn, which he reproves? What has disappeared from the pages of The Economics of Feasible Socialism is virtually all attention to the historical dynamics of any serious conflict over the control of the means of production, as the record of the 20th century demonstrates them. If capital could visit such destruction on even so poor and small an outlying province of its empire in Vietnam, to prevent its loss, is it likely that it would suffer its extinction meekly in its own homeland? The lessons of the past sixty-five years or so are in this respect without ambiguity or exception, there is no case, from Russia to China, from Vietnam to Cuba, from Chile to Nicaragua, where the existence of capitalism has been challenged, and the furies of intervention, blockade and civil strife have not descended in response. Any viable transition to socialism in the West must seek to curtail that pattern: but to shrink from or to ignore it is to depart from the world of the possible altogether. In the same way, to construct an economic model of socialism in one advanced country is a legitimate exercise: but to extract it from any computable relationship with a surrounding, and necessarily opposing, capitalist environment—as this work does—is to locate it in thin air Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.56 Mb. Share with your friends:
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