Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File
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- AT: Russian Agression in the Caspian
- AT: Russia-China War
2. Won’t escalateAlexander K. Kislov, Professor and director of Peace and Research Institute (Moscow). 1993. Inadvertent Nuclear War. Pg. 239-240. A deliberate nuclear war between East and West is out of the question; but what about a war caused by chance factors? An accidental or unauthorized launching of a missile or even of several missiles (in itself highly improbable) is unlikely to bring about a full-scale nuclear war when neither side has any incentive for it. We assume a very small probability of a very limited (“automatic” or unauthorized) reaction and a close-to-zero probability of a very limited authorized ‘retaliation’; this is the maximal assumption that is possible if we want to remain realistic. AT: Russian Agression in the CaspianThe Caspian doesn’t need US help against Russia and Iran – empirically self-sufficient Paul Horsnell, Assistant Director for Research, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, 1/99. “Caspian Oil and Gas: A Game, if not a Great Game,” Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. http://www.oxfordenergy.org/comment.php?9901 Perhaps the major surprise to many observers concerned with the region since the fall of the Soviet Union, has been the robustness of the new Caspian states themselves. Most early analyses placed great stress on the competition for influence between Turkey and Iran, assuming that the new states would simply divide into blocks determined by the interaction of forces led by considerations of language groups and religion. Indeed, large sums of money were pumped into the area by concerned countries in explicit attempts to stop the formation of any area of direct Iranian influence. Other early analyses concentrated on the thesis of a fast return to complete hegemony by Russia, reinforced by the fact that all the transport, communication and economic logistics of the area had been carefully designed over the 75 years of the Soviet Union to run to the centre and not radially, and thus to frustrate the viability of independence and so dampen any centrifugal forces. In the event neither scenario has come true, the new states in many cases have been fast to exert independence and forge distinct national identities, and have proved extremely adept at playing other interests against each other, plying courses between Iran and Turkey, between the USA and Russia, and between China and the West. To give but one example, the composition of interests in Azeri oil consortia is no direct result of economic forces, but the result of a very deliberate weighing up of Azeri foreign policy interests. AT: Russia-China War1. Russia has no way to fight a war – any escalation is just an attempt to rebuild respect for the old soviet military Strategy Page February 21, 2008: The War with China. http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/russia/articles/20080221.aspx So far, the attempt at getting back into the superpower business isn't going so well. A flotilla of Russian warships conducting exercises in the Mediterranean were observed to be hesitant and uneasy as they went through their paces. These were crews and officers who were out of practice. One of the support ships broke down and had to be towed to port. The increased number of long range bomber flights are mostly for show. They serve little military purpose. It's all about rebuilding some respect for the Russian military. The government is making a lot of noise about rebuilding the armed forces, and another Cold War with the U.S., but this is all talk, to make the government appear like it's doing something. The military would need massive amounts of money (over $100 billion a year, for a decade or more) to restore any meaningful amount of military power. Nothing near that amount is forthcoming. The government is trying to get the population stirred up, so there is less resistance to the purchase of many expensive warplanes and ships. A lot of this necessary because China is buying less, and starting to offer their own stuff, often containing stolen Russian military technology, on the world market. China is threatening to offer its copy of the Su-27 (the J-11). Currently, half of Russian weapons export sales are Su-27s. The Chinese ignore Russian complaints about the stolen technology. To keep Russian weapons manufacturers in business, the Russian military has to buy more, to make up for the lost Chinese sales. Western firms are also going after the lucrative Indian arms market, which Russia has dominated for decades. Last year, Russia sold $7 billion worth of weapons overseas, and may have a hard time topping that this year. 2. No Russia-China war – working together to counterbalance the U.S. Ariel Cohen (senior research fellow in international policy at The Heritage Foundation) 2005: War Games: Russia, China Grow Alliance. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170287,00.html In foreign policy it’s critical to “know thine enemy.” So American policymakers should be aware that Russia and China are inching closer to identifying a common enemy — the United States.
Moscow and Beijing claim the maneuvers were aimed at combating terrorism, extremism and separatism (the last a veiled reference to Taiwan), but it’s clear they were an attempt to counter-balance American military might. Joint war games are a logical outcome of the Sino-Russian Friendship and Cooperation Treaty (search) signed in 2001, and reflect the shared worldview and growing economic ties between the two Eastern Hemisphere giants. As the Pravda.ru (search) Web site announced, “the reconciliation between China and Russia has been driven in part by mutual unease at U.S. power and a fear of Islamic extremism in Central Asia.” Relations between Russia and China have steadily improved since the mid-1980s. The recent military exercises may have helped renew a post-World War II alliance they forged against the U.S. It lasted several years before a bitter split, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (search) denounced dictator Joseph Stalin’s bloody purges and refused Chairman Mao (search) an honor to be a co-leader of the global communist movement. Today, Moscow and Beijing want to build a multi-polar world. That would require diluting American global supremacy and opposing the U.S. rhetoric of democratization. Both sides are willing to bend to reach those goals. China, for example, supported Russia’s heavy-handed tactics in Chechnya (search). Russia, in turn, supported China’s demands that Taiwan (search) reunite with the mainland. A sign of their newfound cooperation surfaced during the July 6 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (search) summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. China and Russia demanded the U.S. provide a timetable for withdrawing its troops and bases from central Asia.
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