Notes I tried my best to compile and clean-up. Here’s a car: Case

Internal Link

Base Key

Base key but support not resilient –most robust theory proves the link true

Trump is only concerned with retaining the support of his Republican base --- if it starts to abandon him his approval rating will plummet further

Trump’s base is key

It shouldn’t matter how the president is perceived by his political base. But it means everything in reality: As long as Trump retains significant grass-roots Republican support, just 20 or 25 percent, members of Congress won’t break with him en masse. Doing so would spell political suicide for them in 2018, through primary challenges and/or Republicans bass fishing instead of voting during the midterm elections (the same may happen if this Congress can’t pass tax reforms). Republican support for Trump hovers at around 80 percent right now, with somewhere between a quarter and half of that hard core support.

They’re the last line of defense against his total collapse – but could flip

Inside Washington, Donald Trump's 4-month-old presidency appears to spin in a perpetual state of crisis and chaos, achieving few tangible successes and beset by weekly distractions. But in far and wide pockets of the country, where legions of loyal Trump supporters remain, a very different picture is being discerned. They see a media corps obsessed with a Russia investigation despite no evidence of a crime, all too easily swallowing an excuse for Hillary Clinton's loss. They see a Democratic Party lurching further to the left and practicing pure obstructionism to appease its inflamed base. They see a coterie of prosperous, smug elites stationed in power centers and unable to comprehend the everyday hardships spoken to by this president. And they see all of them hellbent on taking down Trump, whatever the cost to the country. U.S. News conducted email interviews with more than a dozen readers who defended Trump in their reactions to previous stories. These folks are angry, distrustful and sometimes intemperate, reflecting similar characteristics of the commander in chief. Some are true believers who salute all of Trump's actions, no matter how contentious or disputed. Others are clear-eyed about the president's flaws, but are more disturbed by the drumbeat of a contemptuous opposition. Not all of them consider themselves conservatives; some even voted for former President Barack Obama – twice. Given the current polls showing Trump's subpar popularity, members of this group are clearly the minority, but they also constitute the president's last line of defense as he toils in a capital that becomes more hostile by the day.

Only the conservative base matter & it outweighs every turn – Size, media, & money generate intensity & focus that opposition can’t match

A2: Base Support Resilient

Base support not resilient – Trump’s only maintaining their support BECAUSE he’s refusing to alienate them with liberal concessions on conservative policy issues

Aside from hatred of the press, the other thing I've found that binds Trumpites together is a fear of decline. It's often noted that Trump supporters are wealthier than the working-class they claim to speak for, but that's beside the point. These are concerned citizens who have a patriotic dislike of unemployment or Islamist terrorism. They voted for Trump because he promised to restore the nation's greatness, by building a wall and locking jobs inside. From this point-of-view, conservatives are keeping faith with Trump because Trump is keeping faith with them. His list of executive orders is a wish list for the right: reverse Obamacare's spiraling costs, start planning for a border wall, reduce regulations, etc. His Supreme Court pick is a younger Antonin Scalia. The whiteness, maleness and conservatism of his Cabinet proves he's not making any concessions to political correctness.

They’re watching the White House closely for signs of liberal accommodation

Conservative supporters need constant reassurance – The plan breaks their faith

This week, some Trump die-hards passed around a column by conservative commentator Kurt Schlichter headlined: “Trump Can’t Let His Real or His Fake Friends Turn Him into Schwarzenegger Part 2.” Schlichter, in an interview, said conservatives are fundamentally distrustful of Republican politicians who had often misled them. He urged the president to take some immediate actions, however small, to put his supporters at ease. “You’ve got to understand the base. It’s like dating a girl whose father cheated on her mother. She’s always going to be suspicious,” he said. “He’s got to constantly provide wins because he’s got an emotionally damaged base that’s been abused.”

The base is key to Trump – He can’t split their support, threshold is low

Politically, such a move would present a sharp reversal from the promises Trump made in the campaign to the anti-establishment voters who carried him to victory last November. More than most presidents, Trump has to rely on his base for political capital. Unlike Barack Obama, whose personal popularity saw him through political setbacks, or even George W. Bush, whose own promises of a more "humble" foreign policy fell by the wayside after 9/11, Trump has no personal-popularity margin for error.

Trump base starting to have doubts – maintain support but its fragile– they could flip

Impact

Diversionary War

Trump only cares about his ratings and would be willing to start a war to maintain his political survival

He now perceives of himself in his latest reality show called The American Presidency. Everything he does he does to improve his ratings.

Trump keeps making pronunciamentos and his staff keeps responding “You can't do that.” ( declare martial law in South Chicago and send in the National Guard for example). To which Donald Trump keeps asking “Why can't I?”

No incumbent American president has ever lost a reelection campaign — not once- while and when American troops were involved in a shooting war. (This is why George W Bush started the war in Iraq.)

So yeah, Donald Trump could conceivably start a war for no other purpose than to ensure his reelection in 2020.

If Trump’s popularity declines, he’ll lash out & start a war

At least one elected Democrat is already pushing this message. At last Saturday’s Congressional Progressive Caucus retreat in Baltimore, Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state raised the issue in a room full of liberal lawmakers planning their political strategy. “There’s another thing that’s going to throw us off message, and that’s if we have any kind of an attack or a war,” she said. “I just want us to be thinking about that because there are lots of things that are happening right now that you could argue are setting us up for an attack. I believe that’s true of the executive orders, and we know what happened after 9/11, and we have to be thinking about what is our jiu-jitsu move to actually prepare the stage so that if something does happen it’s clear who created that and who created the environment for that to happen.” After the attacks on the the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, congressional Democrats almost uniformly rallied around President George W. Bush, authorizing the Republican’s use of military force in Afghanistan. Representative Barbara Lee, whom Jayapal calls “a great hero of mine,” was the lone “no” vote in Congress. It was a period of intense nationalism and jingoism, and it’s easy to imagine Trump trying to exploit a similar sentiment in the service of his authoritarian agenda—or simply to improve his dismal poll numbers. “I mean, I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” Jayapal told her colleagues, “but I really do believe that war is a great way to get your poll numbers up. We just need to be thinking about what happens when that comes forward and how we prepare the stage right now with our message so that the blame goes exactly where the blame should be and we don’t all have to rally around in patriotism.”

Syria establishes the brink – It smooths the way for Trump to escalate future conflicts - tying popularity to military action

Congress erred by doing nothing when Obama waged war illegally in Libya. It will compound that error if there are no consequences now for Trump. Every legislator who has expressed the belief that it would be illegal to strike Syria without their permission should start acting like they meant what they said. Given what recent presidents have been permitted, impeachment over this matter alone would understandably lack popular legitimacy. But I wouldn’t mind if anti-war legislators created a draft document titled “Articles of Impeachment,” wrote a paragraph about this strike at the top, and put Trump on notice that if he behaves this way again, a coalition will aggressively lobby their colleagues to oust him from office. The alternative is proceeding with an unbowed president who is out of his depth in international affairs, feels entitled to wage war in ways even he once called illegitimate, and thinks of waging war as a way presidents can improve their popularity.

Or as Trump himself once put it: Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.

Today, Trump is desperate. He is flailing from failure to failure in domestic policy, with dismal approval ratings and no clear way to increase them—except by trying to exploit the American public’s historic tendency to rally around a president at war. There has never been a stronger case for preemptively reining in a president’s ability to unilaterally launch military strikes on foreign countries that are not attacking us.

Diversionary War – China/Iran

Further declining approval risks diversionary war with China and Iran

Donald Trump ignited controversy last year by nominating Rex Tillerson, then-CEO of Exxon-Mobil, for Secretary of State. Now that Tillerson has been confirmed, observers are waiting to see how the new Secretary accommodates himself to the role. Tillerson is a career businessman, but this does not imply that we have no clues as to how he might behave in the international arena. Indeed, his tenure at Exxon-Mobil included some curious ventures into disputed international waters.

As the Wall Street Journal has noted, Tillerson was previously involved in disputes between China and its neighbors in the South China Sea. Exxon-Mobil signed an oil exploration and production agreement with Vietnam in 2009 while Tillerson was the company’s CEO. Some of the blocks allocated to Exxon lay in waters claimed by both China and Vietnam. In 2014, some of those blocks were the subject of a serious confrontation between China and Vietnam when a Chinese rig began drilling in the disputed area. The decision to operate in such conditions suggests that Tillerson is willing to tolerate an elevated level of risk, as a more cautious CEO might have steered the corporation away from drilling under such potentially risky conditions.

At the same time, Tillerson’s comments during his confirmation hearing suggest an amateurish understanding of the finer points of U.S.-China relations. Tillerson infamously suggested the U.S. prevent China from accessing the disputed South China Sea islands, an action that would undoubtedly be seen as an act of war. The White House and State Department quietly walked those comments back, giving the impression that Tillerson’s statements were not a reflection of new U.S. policy, but rather the dangerous ramblings of an inexperienced nominee. Suffice it to say that the combination of high-risk tolerance and an extremely shallow understanding of Asian geopolitics do not bode well for U.S.-China relations.

Nevertheless, Tillerson will not be the primary figure responsible for U.S. policy towards China. The general trend in recent years has been the increasing centralization of decision-making in the executive branch. The Obama administration was renowned for allowing most cabinet secretaries little room to operate on their own. The Trump administration may very well continue this trend. Tillerson was reportedly not even informed about the extremely controversial immigration ban, although handling its inevitable fallout certainly fell under the purview of the State Department. It is hard to foresee how the internal dynamics and palace politics of the Trump White House will influence China policy at this stage.

It is more important to consider the administration’s interests and general U.S. interests if we want to predict how the U.S. will manage its relationship with China over the next four years. Unfortunately, it seems that the administration will have incentives to provoke a foreign crisis to distract from its domestic failures unless it miraculously improves its approval ratings. (Absent a major terrorist attack, it will not.) China and Iran are the two obvious targets of such a diversionary strategy. This means that, regardless of the U.S.’s long-term strategic interests, domestic politics may cause the administration to behave aggressively towards China.

One could argue that there are important ways in which U.S. interests might diverge from the interests of the Trump administration. If one believes that the U.S. is interested in preventing the hindrance of trade and ensuring peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific, then Trump’s incentives to deal belligerently with China would contradict those interests. The administration’s lack of polish and refusal to abide by basic diplomatic protocol will likely undermine U.S. ideological hegemony in the region. These facts are no doubt deeply troubling to liberal foreign policy professionals at the Brookings Institution.

That said, the atmosphere in Washington has been gradually tilting in favor of confrontation with China for years now. A declining power like the United States has every incentive to confront its rising challenger sooner rather than later, assuming it is unwilling to allow a transfer of power. China’s military capabilities and international influence grow with each passing year. U.S. military planners understand this fact well, and there are few (if any) members of the U.S. foreign policy elite who are willing to give up U.S. hegemony in Asia without a fight.

Trump’s belligerence towards China is not a radical departure from the preceding administration; it is a change in tone, not a change in underlying attitude. The Obama administration did not take such an aggressive position on Taiwan, but it was Obama’s White House that reignited security competition with China after the relatively placid Bush years. We would do well to remember that Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, was one of the preeminent architects of “assertive” U.S. policy in the Asia-Pacific. The ascension of a right-wing buffoon to the presidency did not seem to radically alter the established trend of deteriorating U.S.-China relations.

However, two important things have changed. The first of these factors is perceived legitimacy. Donald Trump’s aggressive, toddler-like demeanor has the potential to aggravate and alienate U.S. allies. There are massive material incentives for many allies to continue cooperating with the United States, but the perception of being bullied and humiliated by Trump will generate domestic pressure to push back against certain U.S. interests. Trump’s recent childish behavior on a diplomatic call with Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s Prime Minister, seems to have ruffled feathers. Outside the region, European Council President Donald Tusk made headlines by describing Trump’s America as a threat to Europe. These reflect a potential shift in the diplomatic atmosphere that may make it harder for certain leaders to publicly support U.S. policy.

The second factor is the likelihood of a thaw in U.S.-Russian relations. Rex Tillerson, reportedly has a good personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, and he may have an important role in managing U.S.-Russian relations. The U.S. has already eased some sanctions on Russia. Trump has made no secret of his admiration for Putin and willingness to work with Russia in Syria. There will be significant internal pushback on these issues, including from powerful agencies like the CIA. Nevertheless, a U.S.-Russia thaw poses serious risks for China. Simultaneous U.S. belligerence toward Russia and China under the Obama administration pushed both countries closer together, but a U.S.-Russian détente could undermine those ties. Tripolarity is notoriously unstable, and there are obvious incentives for two powers to ally themselves against the third.

Diversionary War – NoKo

Specifically Causes lashout and war with North Korea

A2: No Diversion Wars - Studies

general diversion war defense doesn’t apply - uniquely true and statistically significant when targeting rising powers like China or manifest different identities like Iran

Strong empirical support – only our studies account for interactions of domestic unrest and appropriate foreign targets – causes great power transition wars

Only our studies accounts for combo of internal factors AND external target – its quantitatively significant – indicts don’t apply

A2: No Diversion Wars – Trump

Specifically true for Trump - risk of miscalculation is high

The shock and awe with which the Trump administration initially took office has given way to an apparent lull, a period of seeming disorientation and grasping for direction. There are reports of a palace coup against Stephen Bannon and of an assertion of control by steadier hands. But make no mistake: this is a dangerous moment with a White House occupied by a president whose only qualification for election was a charismatic connection with a strategically located base swayed by nostalgic images of a once-and-future “great” America. It is dangerous because the president’s only real political capital is his charisma, and charismatic leaders must deliver heroic feats. With the morass on the domestic side, Trump has turned his limited attention span to international affairs, where the risks of miscalculation and violent death are much greater.

Insecurity drives Trump – Risks escalation of multiple hotspots

That lashout will be violent

In that regard, one could say that Trump’s psychological characteristics are consistent with a person with Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), which is characterized by a pattern of disregard for, or violation of, the rights of others. Also apparent in this disorder is a history of legal problems and of impulsive and aggressive behavior. Individuals with this disorder generally have no compunction in exploiting others in harmful ways for their own gain and pleasure. They frequently manipulate and deceive other people through a facade of wit and superficial charm, or even through intimidation and violence. What makes this disorder particularly dangerous is that among its other characteristics those who have it are often reckless and impulsive, and fail to consider the consequences of their actions. In addition, they are often aggressive and manifest a lopsided temper, lashing out with violence to what they perceive is a provocation. Robert Caro, President Lyndon Johnson’s great biographer, said, “Although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said … is that power always reveals.” Anyone who has observed Trump’s actions since assuming the presidency cannot fail but notice his increasingly impulsive decisions, his notable frustration at not receiving the response that he expected and a failure to admit that he has been wrong or apologizing when harming others. What we have is a situation where the most powerful person in the world is tainted by personality characteristics that could pose serious harm to global peace. The extent to which these harmful characteristics can be controlled may well decide the future of the world.

A2: Trump Restrained

Defense is wrong – no checks

China War

Nuclear war---Impact Defense doesn’t apply to Trump

Within months of taking office, President Donald Trump is likely to face one or more major international crises, possibly entailing a risk of nuclear escalation. Not since the end of the Cold War has a new chief executive been confronted with as many potential flashpoints involving such a potential for explosive conflict.

This proliferation of crises has been brewing for some time, but the situation appears especially ominous now given Trump’s pledge to bring American military force swiftly to bear on any threats of foreign transgression. With so much at risk, it’s none too soon to go on a permanent escalation watch, monitoring the major global hotspots for any sign of imminent flare-ups, hoping that early warnings (and the outcry that goes with them) might help avert catastrophe.

Looking at the world today, four areas appear to pose an especially high risk of sudden crisis and conflict: North Korea, the South China Sea, the Baltic Sea region, and the Middle East. Each of them has been the past site of recurring clashes, and all are primed to explode early in the Trump presidency.

Why are we seeing so many potential crises now? Is this period really different from earlier presidential transitions?

It’s true that the changeover from one presidential administration to another can be a time of global uncertainty, given America’s pivotal importance in world affairs and the natural inclination of rival powers to test the mettle of the country’s new leader. There are, however, other factors that make this moment particularly worrisome, including the changing nature of the world order, the personalities of its key leaders, and an ominous shift in military doctrine.

Trump may lift gold as new leaders carry risk

Just as the United States is going through a major political transition, so is the planet at large. The sole-superpower system of the post-Cold War era is finally giving way to a multipolar, if not increasingly fragmented, world in which the United States must share the limelight with other major actors, including China, Russia, India, and Iran. Political scientists remind us that transitional periods can often prove disruptive, as “status quo” powers (in this case, the United States) resist challenges to their dominance from “revisionist” states seeking to alter the global power equation. Typically, this can entail proxy wars and other kinds of sparring over contested areas, as has recently been the case in Syria, the Baltic, and the South China Sea.

This is where the personalities of key leaders enter the equation. Though President Obama oversaw constant warfare, he was temperamentally disinclined to respond with force to every overseas crisis and provocation, fearing involvement in yet more foreign wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. His critics, including Donald Trump, complained bitterly that this stance only encouraged foreign adversaries to up their game, convinced that the US had lost its will to resist provocation. In a Trump administration, as The Donald indicated on the campaign trail last year, America’s adversaries should expect far tougher responses. Asked in September, for instance, about an incident in the Persian Gulf in which Iranian gunboats approached American warships in a threatening manner, he typically told reporters, “When they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and make gestures that … they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water.”

Although with Russia, unlike Iran, Trump has promised to improve relations, there’s no escaping the fact that Vladimir Putin’s urge to restore some of his country’s long-lost superpower glory could lead to confrontations with Nato powers that would put the new American president in a distinctly awkward position. Regarding Asia, Trump has often spoken of his intent to punish China for what he considers its predatory trade practices, a stance guaranteed to clash with President Xi Jinping’s goal of restoring his country’s greatness. This should, in turn, generate additional possibilities for confrontation, especially in the contested South China Sea. Both Putin and Xi, moreover, are facing economic difficulties at home and view foreign adventurism as a way of distracting public attention from disappointing domestic performances.

China War – Timeframe

Escalates quickly

JAMES BROWN: Well, how do wars start? Generally there are multitudes of way. Miscalculations, deliberate provocations, over-confident players, militaries that jostle each other too aggressively or some sort of wildcard factor. STAN GRANT: Imagine this: A US fighter jet enters territory claimed by China and is shot down. History shows this scenario is not only possible but one that could quickly escalate. JAMES BROWN: US military assets and Chinese military assets operate in close proximity all the time, every day. Any time a US ship goes into the South China Sea, there is a Chinese ship shadowing it. In the air, Chinese and US planes have passed within tens of metres with each other. Now there are protocols to govern those interactions but there are pilots and ship captains who are known to be rogue operators. The US and China talk about this and there are always accidents that happen and miscalculations so it could escalate very quickly.

A2: No China War

Checks don’t apply – Trump will antagonize China ensuring conflict

US & China are on the brink

War goes nuclear – It’s probable

A2: No China War – Deterrence

No deterrence – Causes extinction

At the least, though, don’t nuclear weapons deter a nuclear attack? Do they? Obviously, NATO leaders didn’t feel deterred, for, throughout the Cold War, NATO’s strategy was to respond to a Soviet conventional military attack on Western Europe by launching a Western nuclear attack on the nuclear-armed Soviet Union. Furthermore, if U.S. government officials really believed that nuclear deterrence worked, they would not have resorted to championing “Star Wars” and its modern variant, national missile defense. Why are these vastly expensive — and probably unworkable — military defense systems needed if other nuclear powers are deterred from attacking by U.S. nuclear might? Of course, the bottom line for those Americans convinced that nuclear weapons safeguard them from a Chinese nuclear attack might be that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is far greater than its Chinese counterpart. Today, it is estimated that the U.S. government possesses over 5,000 nuclear warheads, while the Chinese government has a total inventory of roughly 300. Moreover, only about 40 of these Chinese nuclear weapons can reach the United States. Surely the United States would “win” any nuclear war with China. But what would that “victory” entail? An attack with these Chinese nuclear weapons would immediately slaughter at least 10 million Americans in a great storm of blast and fire, while leaving many more dying horribly of sickness and radiation poisoning. The Chinese death toll in a nuclear war would be far higher. Both nations would be reduced to smoldering, radioactive wastelands. Also, radioactive debris sent aloft by the nuclear explosions would blot out the sun and bring on a “nuclear winter” around the globe — destroying agriculture, creating worldwide famine, and generating chaos and destruction.

A2: No China War – Escalation

Escalation to nuclear use is likely – NFU & “peaceful intent” wont solve

Iran War

Iran escalates to nuclear war

All such bewildering calculations, of course, must assume perfect rationality on all sides. If, for example, the new American president should cast all caution to the winds with his own first strike (a strike that would be defended by Washington, in law, as an allegedly legitimate expression of international law-enforcement, or "anticipatory self-defense"), the Iranian response, whether rational or irrational, could expectedly be "proportionate" – that is, comparably massive. In that prospectively escalatory case, any contemplated introduction of nuclear weapons into the ensuing conflagration might not necessarily be dismissed out of hand. At that point, moreover, any such introduction would have to originate from the American and/or Israeli side. This indisputable inference is "true by definition," "simply" because Iran would not yet have become an operationally nuclear power. In such circumstances, Trump, especially in view of his favored argumentum ad baculum stance in virtually all matters, might decide upon a so-called "mad dog" strategy vis-a-vis Iran. Here, the American president would display a last-resort dependence upon a strategy of pretended irrationality, or what I have called in my own latest books and monographs, the "rationality of pretended irrationality." Significantly, any such residual reliance, while intuitively sensible and apparently compelling, could still backfire, thereby opening up an "Armageddon path" to a now unstoppable escalation.

AT: No Iran War – Trump

Aggression fuels war with Iran

Picking Mattis signals Trump's intent to escalate military aggression towards Iran. During his tenure as head of Central Command from 2010 to 2013, Mattis pushed for the U.S. to take a more belligerent stance towards Iran. He proposed greater covert operations against the Iranian government and vocally opposed diplomatic efforts. When the Obama administration began negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program in 2013, they removed Mattis, an outspoken critic of the negotiations, from Central Command. During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly called for overturning the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran, which received approval from all five members of the UN Security Council in 2015. While the billionaire real estate mogul occasionally spoke against U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, Trump's selection of Mattis for Defense Secretary shows where his actual priorities lie: moves toward war with Iran and more U.S. involvement in the region.

Trump will aggressively attack Iran

Iran War – Extinction

Iran war tanks the global economy and causes extinction

Extinction

Despite the willingness of Iran's new President, Hassan Rouhani to make all reasonable concessions to US demands, Israeli pressure groups in Washington continue to demand an attack on Iran. But such an attack might escalate into a global nuclear war, with catastrophic consequences. As we approach the 100th anniversary World War I, we should remember that this colossal disaster escalated uncontrollably from what was intended to be a minor conflict. There is a danger that an attack on Iran would escalate into a large-scale war in the Middle East, entirely destabilizing a region that is already deep in problems. The unstable government of Pakistan might be overthrown, and the revolutionary Pakistani government might enter the war on the side of Iran, thus introducing nuclear weapons into the conflict. Russia and China, firm allies of Iran, might also be drawn into a general war in the Middle East. Since much of the world's oil comes from the region, such a war would certainly cause the price of oil to reach unheard-of heights,

North Korea War

North Korea causes a full-blown nuclear war – Trump’s strategy backfires

North Korea War – Extinction

Causes North Korean preemptive nuclear strikes – The timeframe is short, but solveable

President Donald Trump's tweets are adding fuel to a "vicious cycle" of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea's vice foreign minister told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Friday. The official added that if the U.S. shows any sign of "reckless" military aggression, Pyongyang is ready to launch a pre-emptive strike of its own. Vice Minister Han Song Ryol said Pyongyang has determined the Trump administration is "more vicious and more aggressive" than that of Barack Obama. He added that North Korea will keep building up its nuclear arsenal in "quality and quantity" and said Pyongyang is ready to go to war if that's what Trump wants. Tensions between Pyongyang and Washington go back to President Harry Truman and the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. But the heat has been rising rapidly since Trump took office in January. This year's joint war games between the U.S. and South Korean militaries are the biggest so far — the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier has been diverted back to the waters off Korea after heading for Australia, and U.S. satellite imagery suggests the North could conduct another underground nuclear test at any time. Pyongyang recently tested a ballistic missile and claims it is close to perfecting an intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear warhead that could attack the U.S. mainland. You wouldn't let a little thing like not having a corkscrew stop you from enjoying that bottle of wine you just bought, right? Watch these videos to see what lengths people will go to to open a bottle of wine in a pinch. Many experts believe that at its current pace of testing, North Korea could reach that potentially game-changing milestone within a few years — under Trump's watch as president. Despite reports that Washington is considering military action if the North goes ahead with another nuclear test, Han did not rule out the possibility of a test in the near future.

Aggression causes North Korea to respond with preemptive nuclear strikes; they’ve explicitly said so

Draws in Russia & China – Kills millions immediately & collapses relations with China

Just for fun, let's do a quick list as to why attacking North Korea is a very, very bad idea: 1. North Korea will respond, and it will almost certainly attack South Korea. While it is unclear who would win should conflict arise, North Korea's enormous army and possession of nuclear weapons means both sides would incur extreme losses if violence escalated. As the New York Times notes: In the event of war, North Korean plans are thought to call for nuclear attacks against major ports and air bases in South Korea and Japan, halting any American invasion before it could fully begin. In the meantime, nuclear and chemical strikes against major population centers would be intended to shock the world into capitulating. Missile defense would be of limited use against short-range rockets and of no use against North Korea’s hundreds of artillery pieces, many of which target Seoul, the South Korean capital. Not good. 2. Hitting North Korea would irreversibly damage relations with China. President Xi has already informed Trump that destabilizing the region with an attack would be a huge problem for China due to the number of refugees it would create, and they would seek retribution against American in one form or another. 3. An attack would almost certainly spur Russia to side with China and orchestrate a co-ordinated response that would play itself out elsewhere. It is not in the interests of the United States to fight a Cold (or real) war with Russia and China given both are geopolitical power houses with rapidly growing economies and militaries to match. It is clear that Trump's aggressive posture towards North Korea is a giant distraction from his rapid succession of domestic failures and plummeting poll numbers. He has bombed Afghanistan with the biggest non-nuclear weapon in America's arsenal and now sent war ships to threaten North Korea -- all of this after only three months in office. Creating conflict abroad is a classic technique used by strongmen (and women) throughout history, but rarely has it been as stupidly executed and poorly disguised. Trump is blundering full steam ahead into a quagmire he is not capable of comprehending let alone extricate the US from. He apparently only learned from the Chinese president that the situation in North Korea was "not so easy", and yet has gone ahead anyway with the proverbial nuclear option. As with everything Donald Trump related, this won't end well so let's hope cooler heads prevail and the international community comes together to put a stop to what could well be the beginnings of a global conflict we likely won't recover from.

Aggression causes all-out nuclear war – Timeframe is short

Attacks ensure use-it-or-lose-it pressure for preemptive strikes

China gets drawn in, causes global nuclear war

Draws in China

Escalates to nuclear war

Barring major changes in Trump’s Asia strategy, North Korea will likely keep developing its strategic deterrent. This will continue raising risks that conventional conflict on the Korean peninsula escalates rapidly to nuclear war. China is reacting deliberately to what it sees as provocative U.S. policies. President Xi wants a summit with Trump before July’s G20 summit. Chinese officials and analysts also say Xi wants to keep Sino-U.S. relations on a relatively even keel through this fall’s 19th Party Congress. The Congress will approve Xi’s second term as China’s top leader. Xi wants to be seen as a steady steward of Chinese interests in a global order still significantly influenced by Washington. Meanwhile, China may not mind if Trump renegotiates America’s economic relationships in Asia—especially to the extent this happens at the expense of U.S. allies. But if Trump keeps building what China sees as a more robust and ultimately offensive regional military posture, Beijing will respond. China will leverage its own economic and political ties to U.S. allies in Asia to constrain and undermine Trump’s strategy. Recently impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye will probably be replaced by a progressive figure espousing engagement with Pyongyang and more multilateral regional security approaches. This could position Beijing to contain and ultimately reverse U.S. THAAD deployments. Overall, Trump’s Asia strategy is unlikely to boost Sino-U.S. cooperation on regional security. Instead, it will almost certainly intensify Sino-U.S. security competition.

Turns Case

Groupthink means the impact turns the case – He can grind the government to a halt while precipitating foreign policy disasters