Inherency 15 Inherency Energy Dept Blocking 16

No Impact – US Russian War

No risk of Russian-US war – 3 reasons.

Yet the probability of a frontal confrontation and a new Cold War remains very remote for at least three reasons. First, despite the erosion, the countries geopolitical assets are still very weighty, as the bedrock issues of anti-terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, and energy will continue to force them to seek common ground and at least limited partnership.[17] Second, the restorationist foreign policy notwithstanding, the three basic elements of the 1992-1993 national consensus on the foreign policy and defense doctrine remain largely the same. Russia is to stay a nuclear superpower and the regional superpower, but it seems to have settled for the role of one of the world’s great states, rather than a global superpower engaged in a worldwide competition with the United States. While these desiderata will continue to cause occasional sparring with the United States, they are no longer dedicated to the attainment of goals inimical to the vital interests of the United States and are not likely to ignite a relentless antagonistic struggle to the bitter end. Lastly, despite the muscular rhetoric emanating of late from the Kremlin, unlike the Soviet Union twenty years ago and China today, Russia is not a revisionist power. It does not seek radically to reshape the geopolitical balance of forces in its favor. Moscow may rail at the score, but it is unlikely to endeavor to change the rules of the game. For that, one needs a different ideology and, as a result, a different set of priorities. Yet even in today’s Russia flush with petrodollars, the share of GDP devoted to defense (around 3 percent) is not only at least ten times smaller than in the Soviet Union, but also below the 1992-1997 average in a Russia that inherited an empty treasury from the Soviet Union and that was, like every revolutionary government, unable to collect taxes. Calculated in purchasing power parity, Russia’s defense expenditures in 2005 ($47.77 billion) were less than one-eleventh of what the U.S. spent ($522 billion).[

No Impact – Prolif

Much of the literature on deterrence emphasizes the problem of achieving the credibility on which deterrence depends and the danger of relying on a deterrent of uncertain credibility. One early solution of the problem was Thomas Schelling's notion of "the threat that leaves something to chance." 23 No state can know for sure that another state will refrain from retaliating even when retaliation would be irrational. No state can bet heavily on another state's common sense. Bernard Brodie put the thought more directly, while avoiding the slippery notion of rationality. Rather than ask what it may be rational or irrational for governments to do, the question he repeatedly asked was this: How do governments behave in the presence of awesome dangers? His answer was, very carefully. To ask why a country should carry out its deterrent threat if deterrence fails is to ask the wrong question. The question suggests that an aggressor may attack believing that the attacked country may not retaliate. This invokes the conventional logic that analysts find so hard to forsake. In a conventional world, a country can sensibly attack if it believes that success is possible. In a nuclear world, a would-be attacker is deterred if it believes that the attacked may retaliate. Uncertainty of response, not certainty, is required for deterrence because, if retaliation occurs, one risks losing so much. In a nuclear world, we should look less at the retaliator's conceivable inhibitions and more at the challenger's obvious risks. One may nevertheless wonder whether retaliatory threats remain credible if the strategic forces of the attacker are superior to those of the attacked. Will an unsuccessful defender in a conventional war have the courage to unleash its deterrent force, using nuclear weapons first against a country having superior strategic forces? Once more this asks the wrong question. The would-be attacker will ask itself, not whose forces are numerically superior, but whether a grossly provocative act might bring nuclear warheads down on itself. When vital interests are at stake, all of the parties involved are strongly constrained to be moderate because one's immoderate behavior makes the nuclear threats of others credible. With deterrent forces, the question is not whether one country has more than another but whether it has the capability of inflicting "unacceptable damage" on another, with "unacceptable" sensibly defined. Given second-strike capabilities, it is not the balance of forces but the possibility that they may be used that counts. The balance or imbalance of strategic forces affects neither the calculation of danger nor the question of whose will is the stronger.

Proliferation won’t escalate.

Waltz ’03 [Kenneth, Emeritus Professor of IR at Berkeley, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, p. 27-9]

An opponent who attacks what is unambiguously mine risks suffering great distress if I have second-strike forces. This statement has important implications for both the deterrer and the deterred. Where territorial claims are shadowy and disputed, deterrent writs do not run. As Steven J. Rosen has said, "It is difficult to imagine Israel committing national suicide to hold on to Abu Rudeis or Hebron or Mount Hermon." 27 Establishing the credibility of a deterrent force requires moderation of territorial claims on the part of the would-be deterrer. For modest states, weapons whose very existence works strongly against their use are just what is wanted. In a nuclear world, conservative would-be attackers will be prudent, but will would-be attackers be conservative? A new Hitler is not unimaginable. Would the presence of nuclear weapons have moderated Hitler's behavior? Hitler did not start World War II in order to destroy the Third Reich. Indeed, he was dismayed by British and French declarations of war on Poland's behalf. After all, the western democracies had not come to the aid of a geographically defensible and militarily strong Czechoslovakia. Why then should they have declared war on behalf of an indefensible Poland and against a Germany made stronger by the incorporation of Czechoslovakia's armor? From the occupation of the Rhineland in 1936 to the invasion of Poland in 1939, Hitler's calculations were realistically made. In those years, Hitler would have been deterred from acting in ways that immediately threatened massive death and widespread destruction in Germany. And, even if Hitler had not been deterred, would his generals have obeyed his commands? In a nuclear world, to act in blatantly offensive ways is madness. Under the circumstances, how many generals would obey the commands of a madman? One man alone does not make war. To believe that nuclear deterrence would have worked against Germany in 1939 is easy. It is also easy to believe that in 1945, given the ability to do so, Hitler and some few around him would have fired nuclear warheads at the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union as their armies advanced, whatever the consequences for Germany. Two considerations work against this possibility: the first applies in any world; the second in a nuclear world. First, when defeat is seen to be inevitable, a ruler's authority may vanish. Early in 1945, Hitler apparently ordered the initiation of gas warfare, but his generals did not respond. 28 Second, no country will press a nuclear nation to the point of decisive defeat. In the desperation of defeat, desperate measures may be taken, and the last thing anyone wants to do is to make a nuclear nation desperate. The unconditional surrender of a nuclear nation cannot be demanded. Nuclear weapons affect the deterrer as well as the deterred.

No Impact – Europe

European war won’t happen.

Petty ’04 [Gary, UCG, “The World's Superpower Faces Powerful Challenges,” http://www.ucg.org/issues/gn50/superpower.htm]

Europe's old rivalries are being replaced by nations without borders. Professor Kupchan writes: "The European project has been an unqualified success. Not only has war among Europe's nations become unimaginable, but the borders among them are undefended and already being crossed without passport or customs control ...  "Opinion surveys reveal a clear preference among European publics for quickening the speed of integration. Almost half of those polled strongly identified as European, not just as citizens of a national state. And more than 70 percent support a common defense and security policy for the EU" (The End of the American Era, 2002, p. 136). The combined population and economic output of the European Union is greater than the United States, and almost 75 percent of European trade is among member states. This means that the EU can sustain a measure of self-sufficiency that has been the sole privilege of the United States.  

No Impact – Balkans

Balkans conflict won’t escalate.

Bandow ’99 [Doug, Senior Fellow of the CATO Institute, Mar 10, “The U.S. Role in Kosovo,” http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-db031099.html]

Most important, it would put U.S. troops at risk without any serious, let alone vital, American interest at stake. To paraphrase German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single healthy American rifleman. Yugoslavia obviously poses no direct threat to the U.S. or any U.S. ally.  Some argue that there are indirect dangers: failing to act risks another continental, if not global, conflict. Contended former German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel: "Everything must be done to insure that another awful conflagration does not explode in Europe."  It is a paranoid fantasy to imagine Serbia alone inaugurating such a conflict, however. Serbian legions will not be marching on Ankara, Athens, or Tirana, let alone Berlin, Moscow, or Paris. Only if other states joined in could the war become a serious one.  This was, of course, the same argument used for Western intervention in Bosnia. Yet the Yugoslavian civil war, running from Slovenia through Bosnia, lasted longer than World War I without expanding beyond Yugoslavia. The lesson is obvious: it is better for surrounding states to remain aloof rather than to intervene in ethnic strife, thereby building firebreaks to rather than transmission belts for war.  Even if the conflict in Kosovo spilled over into Albania and Macedonia, no major power would join the conflict, in stark contrast to World War I. The worst case would be a Greco-Turkish war, but both countries have made clear both privately and publicly that neither is interested in intervening in the Balkans. In fact, violence in Kosovo is the least likely spark for such a conflict. Should Ankara and Athens exchange blows, it is far more likely to occur over the Aegean islands, Cyprus, or territorial sea claims. Moreover, as noted earlier, NATO's intervention on behalf of the KLA would only energize advocates of a greater Albania.  The most important point, however, is that any resulting instability is a European, not an American, problem. The U.S. has a vital interest in preventing a hostile hegemonic power from dominating Europe. Washington does not have even a minor interest in preventing Europe from having to deal with the detritus in the Balkans left over from the Cold War. Instability on the periphery of Europe has other consequences--economic and cultural, for instance--but they are minimal. To call this a vital interest, as does the administration, suggests that it is incapable of setting priorities.  

The international community will check conflict escalation.

Wolff ’06 [Stefan, PhD & German political scientist, Ethnic Conflict, p. 138]

This link of prevention, management, and settlement is part of the reason why the international community has, since the end of the Kosovo conflict, been more successful in the western Balkans, and it contains important lessons. Success crucially depended on a number of factors—a developed institutional framework and a set of policies that enable decisions to be made quickly, to provide adequate funds and personnel, and to cooperate and coordinate activities are some of them. Another factor is the effectiveness of the policies employed: in the western Balkans, for example, EU-imposed conditionality is so much more effective vis-à-vis countries where the promise of closer association with, and potential accession to, the EU is credible and where both political elites and the general public are ready to make compromises in order to attain what many believe to be a panacea for all their problems. This leverage often does not exist elsewhere because there is no clear long-term commitment to a particular country or region, but rather an ad hoc and often belated response to an emerging crisis, a lack familiarity with, and sensitivity towards, the situation on the ground and no credible intelligence sources. Comparing the situation in Macedonia with that in Bosnia and Herzegovina or Rwanda in the early 1990s illustrates this point.

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