Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010 Pointer/Gordon/Watts/Samuels Turkey Neg

A2: Perm

For the government itself, and for those who support the essentials of its long-standing, bipartisan foreign policy, weaponitis has an irresistible virtue: in a society deeply alarmed by the possibility of nuclear war, it diverts attention from Third World U.S. military interventionism and toward the far less important nuclear arms competition. Arms control plays a particularly important role in this process, as we noted in Chapter 9. It is a widely popular, seemingly progressive, and highly visible activity that the state can use to show its commitment to reducing the nuclear danger. The executive branch manages the negotiation process and the information flow about it. The Soviets can be blamed for problems even when the Americans are balking. Years can be spent working out treaties on minor issues such as the Euromissiles, with tremendous public relations bonanzas at the end if the efforts succeed. And all the while Soviet and American leaders can bomb Third World countries, support unstable dictatorships, arm belligerents, pursue foreign policy as usual, and still receive relatively good press on the nuclear question because of their "commitment to arms control." This manipulation cleverly coopts the peace movement's critique of the arms race into a slick government public relations tool. It is an effective way to manage an issue that could explode into serious popular dissent and unrest if the public grasped where the real hazards lie. For American politicians, particularly in the large political center, arms control is a uniquely comfortable politics. It provides a popular, nearly risk-free agenda for "addressing" the nuclear problem. Liberal arms control supporters earn much political support this way, even from progressives, while countenancing and sometimes actively encouraging military interventions in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Cambodia, and the Persian Gulf in a time of enormous public concern about war and peace. The downside of weaponitis for the politicians is an occasional peace movement victory, perhaps the scaling back or someday even the cancellation of a weapons system, and a few arms control treaties concluded under public pressure. In most cases the actual result is programs to build enormously costly nuclear systems with a cleaner political bill of health, such as the purportedly stabilizing Midgetman missile to "replace" the MXs not built, or the variety of conventional and nuclear arms destined to "compensate" for the Euromissiles banned under INF. These are all small potatoes. They do not greatly affect American foreign policy or American power in the world.

A2: Perm

Even calls for nuclear peace link back to the disease that is “weaponitis” because of the belief that weapons still matter.

Schwartz and Derber 90 (William and Charles, Professors at Yeshiva U and Boston College, Nuclear Seduction) PR

The real threat of the anti-nuclear war movement has always been that it might politicize and encourage a mass revolt against American militarism in the Third World. This could well occur if the U.S. population realized that the victims include not only Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Lebanese, Libyans, Grenadans, Angolans, and so on, but potentially themselves and their families as well. As long as concerned citizens busy themselves with learning MX missile throw weights and Pershing II flight times, demonstrating at nuclear weapons bases, and pressuring Congress about Star Wars, this threat is coopted. These functions of weaponitis have not gone completely unnoticed within the anti-nuclear weapons movement. Activist Tom Atlee observes that weapons systems and arms control proposals—technically complex and easily multiplied year after year—are ideal for keeping the opposition busily ineffective. He asks, "Could it be that our friends in the Military Industrial Complex Establishment (let's call them MICE, shall we?) long ago figured out how to keep us (in the peace movement) hopping around on their playing field, dutifully following their game plan—without us realizing we were being manipulated?" The method is simple. "The MICE entice us into debates about weapons systems…. The catch is that even when we 'win' one of these debates, the MICE always come up with new weapons systems … for us to argue about. And since it takes the American public months or years just to figure out what each debate is about, the MICE have plenty of time to start a new development before the old one runs out of steam. So we never catch up to the MICE…. It is their game and they rig it in their favor." Writing in mid-1986, Atlee catalogs some of the recent acts of this political drama. "To counter our predeployment opposition to Euromissiles, the MICE came up with the zero/zero [theater nuclear forces arms control proposal] option…. Brilliantly the MICE framed the debate—and we obliged, arguing the faults of zero/zero." After the Soviets rejected it and walked out of the talks, "we peace people, without realizing what a trap we were walking into, tried to make 'Reagan's lack of [arms control] talks' an election issue. Reagan let the issue blossom and then invited the Soviets back to talk. Perfect: if they agreed, he'd be a peacemaker; if they turned him down, that just proved they were the bad guys. And so it goes." Similarly, "let's suppose that the MX is, at this point, nothing more than a decoy. Let's suppose that the MICE know the MX is a losing proposition—but also know that by holding it up and shaking it, they can get us to shoot at it, thus absorbing our energy." Then comes the next act: Star Wars. "Right on cue, we are flocking to the microphones and mimeograph machines and, backed by panels of impressive scientists, we're telling how it can't work without even noticing that the MICE have led us into another canyon ambush." Atlee is aware that "our whole focus on arms control ties us into the MICE's game plan." He notes a Washington Postreport that Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle "favors talking to the Soviets, in part because negotiations help maintain political support for military spending in the West." These talks simply become another forum for enticing the peace movement into endless (and largely ineffective) antiweapons campaigns. Atlee concludes: "This stage on which we dance is filled with trap doors, shadow projections, fleeting mirages and colored curtains that rise and fall at the bidding of the MICE. They even control the audience lights and sound system. We just dance."^[43] The peace movement obligingly dances in part because of a sincere belief that the weapons matter, but also, one must admit, because it too enjoys definite functions of weaponitis. The same depoliticization of the nuclear issue that shields the state and mainstream politicians from criticism of America's behavior in the world offers similar advantages to an opposition movement seeking wide public support, including that of the elites. Each new nuclear monster such as MX is a fat easy target. Large segments of the population, the media, and the Congress can be mobilized against these monsters. Funds can be raised; elections can be affected. The nuclear freeze drew the support of three-quarters of the population and the U.S. House of Representatives. The idea that bloated nuclear arsenals must be reduced is attractive and saleable; in many circles the arms race is now a dirty word. Changing strategy to highlight political questions about American foreign policy, many fear, might undermine a remarkably comfortable position for an opposition mass movement in American politics—meaning fewer members, less money, less favorable press. Attracting support for the movement, some activists told us, is the necessary first step in galvanizing public opposition to the nuclear threat. If weapons are powerful mobilizing symbols, they are also a valid strategy for opposing nuclear war. Many believe that giving up a focus on weapons would mean abandoning the entire effort to avert a cataclysm. As one European peace researcher and activist told us in response to the argument that the weapons themselves do not much matter, "You are analytically correct, but politically I am not so sure." That seems an unrealistic fear. The real triumph of the anti-nuclear war movement was awakening people to the nuclear danger by relentlessly showing how destructive nuclear war would be. That educational task could have been accomplished without promoting the theory that the nuclear danger comes chiefly from the arms race. This "weapons strategy" was a political choice. The American people could have understood and acted on the "nuclear war is unwinnable and must never be fought" message even if they had not been bombarded as well by the "arms race is the problem" message.

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