Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File
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- 2. Empirically, heg doesn’t solve conflict Hachigan
- 3. Burden sharing solves conflicts best – deterrence Posen
AT: Hegemony1. Heg is unsustainable for many reasons; be skeptical about their authors, who blindly assume heg is sustainable Pape, 9 (Robert A., Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, “Empire Falls,” 1/22/09, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20484) AMERICA IS in unprecedented decline. The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq War, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-account balances and other internal economic weaknesses have cost the United States real power in today’s world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration years as the death knell for American hegemony. Since the cold war, the United States has maintained a vast array of overseas commitments, seeking to ensure peace and stability not just in its own neighborhood—the Americas—but also in Europe and Asia, along with the oil-rich Persian Gulf (as well as other parts of the world). Simply maintaining these commitments requires enormous resources, but in recent years American leaders have pursued far more ambitious goals than merely maintaining the status quo. The Bush administration has not just continued America’s traditional grand strategy, but pursued ambitious objectives in all three major regions at the same time—waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking to denuclearize North Korea and expanding America’s military allies in Europe up to the borders of Russia itself. For nearly two decades, those convinced of U.S. dominance in the international system have encouraged American policy makers to act unilaterally and seize almost any opportunity to advance American interests no matter the costs to others, virtually discounting the possibility that Germany, France, Russia, China and other major powers could seriously oppose American military power. From public intellectuals like Charles Krauthammer and Niall Ferguson to neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Robert Kagan, even to academicians like Dartmouth’s William Wohlforth and Stephen Brooks, all believe the principal feature of the post-cold-war world is the unchallengeable dominance of American power. The United States is not just the sole superpower in the unipolar-dominance school’s world, but is so relatively more powerful than any other country that it can reshape the international order according to American interests. This is simply no longer realistic. 2. Empirically, heg doesn’t solve conflict Hachigan and Sutphen 2008 (Nina and Monica, Stanford Center for International Security, The Next American Century, p. 168-9) In practice, the strategy of primacy failed to deliver. While the fact of being the world’s only superpower has substantial benefits, a national security strategy based on suing and ratiaing primacy has not made America more secure. America’s military might has not been the answer to terrorism, disease, climate change, or proliferation. Iraq, Iran, and North Korea have become more dangerous in the last seven years, not less. Worse than being ineffective with transnational threats and smaller powers, a strategy of maintaining primacy is counterproductive when it comes to pivotal powers. If America makes primacy the main goal of its national security strategy, then why shouldn’t the pivotal powers do the same? A goal of primacy signals that sheer strength is most critical to security. American cannot trumpet its desire to dominate the world military and then question why China is modernizing its military. 3. Burden sharing solves conflicts best – deterrence Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 07 (Barry R., “The Case for Restraint,” http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=331) The United States must also develop a more measured view of the risks of nuclear proliferation. Without the promiscuous use of preventive war, it will not be possible to stop all possible new nuclear weapons programs. Nuclear weapons are no longer mysterious, but neither are they easy to get. It is costly and technically difficult to produce fissionable material in quantities sufficient for nuclear weapons, and only a few countries can do it. It has taken a good bit of time for those smaller states who wished to develop nuclear weapons to get them. Though an imperfect regime, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency do provide obstacles to the development of nuclear weapons, and some early warning that mischief is afoot. Good intelligence work can provide more warning, and well-crafted intelligence operations could presumably slow the diffusion of nuclear know-how, and even the progress of national nuclear programs, if need be. It is worthwhile to keep proliferation relatively costly and slow because other states require time to adapt to such events, and extra time would be useful to explain to new nuclear powers the rules of the game they are entering. U.S. policymakers feel compelled to trumpet that all options, including force, are on the table when dealing with “rogue” state proliferators. True enough: The United States is a great military power and on vital security matters its forces can never be off the table. But preventive war must never become either a casual or a default policy choice. It has serious and probably enduring political costs, which the United States need not incur. Deterrence is still a better strategy. The United States is a great nuclear power and should remain so. Against possible new nuclear powers such as North Korea or Iran, U.S. capabilities are superior in every way. In contrast to the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union, where neither country would have survived a nuclear exchange, it is clear which nation would survive such an exchange between the United States and North Korea or Iran. Indeed, these states should be made to worry that they will be vulnerable to preemptive nuclear attacks by the United States in the unhappy event that they attempt to make nuclear threats over important issues. Similarly, new nuclear states ought not to be encouraged through loose talk to believe that they can give nuclear weapons to others to use on the United States and somehow free themselves of the risks of U.S. retaliation. Clear deterrent statements and strong nuclear forces are preferable to preventive war, because deterrence is both a more credible and more sustainable policy. Directory: files -> documents documents -> North Mankato Taylor Library documents -> In the Red and Brown Water documents -> - documents -> I. Disaster Summary Sheet II. 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