Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

Hollow Forces Adv. – Impact – Prolif

Prolif is the most probably scenario for extinction – we should do everything possible to prevent it.
Miller`2 (James D. Miller, professor of economics, Smith College, NATIONAL REVIEW, January 23, 2002, p. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-miller012302.shtml)KM

The U.S. should use whatever means necessary to stop our enemies from gaining the ability to kill millions of us. We should demand that countries like Iraq, Iran, Libya, and North Korea make no attempt to acquire weapons of mass destruction. We should further insist on the right to make surprise inspections of these countries to insure that they are complying with our proliferation policy. What if these nations refuse our demands? If they refuse we should destroy their industrial capacity and capture their leaders. True, the world's cultural elites would be shocked and appalled if we took preventive military action against countries that are currently doing us no harm. What is truly shocking, however, is that America is doing almost nothing while countries that have expressed hatred for us are building weapons of mass destruction. France and Britain allowed Nazi Germany's military power to grow until Hitler was strong enough to take Paris. America seems to be doing little while many of our foes acquire the strength to destroy U.S. cities. We can't rely upon deterrence to prevent an atomic powered dictator from striking at us. Remember, the Nazi's killed millions of Jews even though the Holocaust took resources away from their war effort. As September 11th also shows, there exist evil men in the world who would gladly sacrifice all other goals for the opportunity to commit mass murder. The U.S. should take not even the slightest unnecessary chance that some dictator, perhaps a dying Saddam Hussein, would be willing to give up his life for the opportunity to hit America with nuclear missiles. Once a dictator has the ability to hit a U.S., or perhaps even a European city, with atomic weapons it will be too late for America to pressure him to give up his weapons. His ability to hurt us will effectively put him beyond our military reach. Our conventional forces might even be made impotent by a nuclear-armed foe. Had Iraq possessed atomic weapons, for example, we would probably have been unwilling to expel them from Kuwait. What about the rights of those countries I have proposed threatening? America should not even pretend to care about the rights of dictators. In the 21st century the only leaders whom we should recognize as legitimate are those who were democratically elected. The U.S. should reinterpret international law to give no rights to tyrants, not even the right to exist. We should have an ethically based foreign policy towards democratic countries. With dictatorships, however, we should be entirely Machiavellian; we should deal with them based upon what is in our own best interests. It's obviously in our self-interest to prevent as many dictators as possible from acquiring the means to destroy us. We shouldn't demand that China abandon her nuclear weapons. This is not because China has proved herself worthy to have the means of mass annihilation, but rather because her existing stockpile of atomic missiles would make it too costly for us to threaten China. It's too late to stop the Chinese from gaining the ability to decimate us, but for the next ten years or so it is not too late to stop some of our other rivals. If it's politically impossible for America to use military force against currently non-hostile dictators then we should use trade sanctions to punish nations who don't agree to our proliferation policy. Normal trade sanctions, however, do not provide the punishing power necessary to induce dictators to abandon their arms. If we simply don't trade with a nation other countries will sell them the goods that we used to provide. To make trade sanctions an effective weapon the U.S. needs to deploy secondary boycotts. America should create a treaty, the signatories of which would agree to: · only trade with countries which have signed the treaty, and · not trade with any country which violates our policy on weapons proliferation. I believe that if only the U.S. and, say, Germany initially signed this treaty then nearly every other country would be forced to do so. For example, if France did not sign, they would be unable to trade with the U.S. or Germany. This would obviously be intolerable to France. Once the U.S., Germany and France adopted the treaty every European nation would have to sign or face a total economic collapse. The more countries which sign the treaty, the greater the pressure on other countries to sign. Once most every country has signed, any country which violated America's policy on weapons proliferation would face almost a complete economic boycott. Under this approach, the U.S. and Germany alone could use our economic power to dictate the enforcement mechanism of a treaty designed to protect against Armageddon. Even the short-term survival of humanity is in doubt. The greatest threat of extinction surely comes from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. America should refocus her foreign policy to prioritize protecting us all from atomic, biological, and chemical weapons.

Hollow Forces Adv. – Impact – Prolif

Proliferation ensures nuclear war and extinction

Utgoff 2002 (Victor A., Deputy Director of the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of the Institute for Defense Analysis, Survival Vol 44 No 2 Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions, p. 87-90)KM

Many readers are probably wilting to accept that nuclear proliferation is such a grave threat to world peace that every effort should be made to avoid it. However, every effort has not been made in the past, and we are talking about much more substantial efforts now. For new and substantially more burdensome efforts to be made to slow or stop nuclear proliferation, it needs to be established that the highly proliferated nuclear world that would sooner or later evolve without such efforts is not going to be acceptable. And, for many reasons, it is not. First, the dynamics of getting to a highly proliferated world could be very dangerous. Proliferating states will feel great pressures to obtain nuclear weapons and delivery systems before any potential opponent does. Those who succeed in outracing an opponent may consider preemptive nuclear war before the opponent becomes capable of nuclear retaliation. Those who lag behind might try to preempt their opponent's nuclear programme or defeat the opponent using conventional forces. And those who feel threatened but are incapable of building nuclear weapons may still be able to join in this arms race by building other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons. Second, as the world approaches complete proliferation, the hazards posed by nuclear weapons today will be magnified many times over. Fifty or more nations capable of launching nuclear weapons means that the risk of nuclear accidents that could cause serious damage not only to their own populations and environments, but those of others, is hugely increased. The chances of such weapons falling into the hands of renegade military units or terrorists is far greater, as is the number of nations carrying out hazardous manufacturing and storage activities. Increased prospects for the occasional nuclear shootout Worse still, in a highly proliferated world there would be more frequent opportunities for the use of nuclear weapons. And more frequent opportunities means shorter expected times between conflicts in which nuclear weapons get used, unless the probability of use at any opportunity is actually zero. To be sure, some theorists on nuclear deterrence appear to think that in airy confrontation between two states known to have reliable nuclear capabilities, the probability of nuclear weapons being used is zero." These theorists think that such states will be so fearful of escalation to nuclear war that they would always avoid or terminate confrontations between them, short of even conventional war. They believe this to be true even if the two states have different cultures or leaders with very eccentric personalities. History and human nature, however, suggest that they are almost surely wrong. History includes instances in which states known to possess nuclear weapons did engage in direct conventional conflict. China and Russia fought battles along their common border even after both had nuclear weapons. Moreover, logic suggests that if states with nuclear weapons always avoided conflict with one another, surely states without nuclear weapons would avoid conflict with states that had them. Again, history provides counter-examples. Egypt attacked Israel in 1973 even though it saw Israel as a nuclear power at the time. Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and fought Britain's efforts to take them back, even though Britain had nuclear weapons. Those who claim that two states with reliable nuclear capabilities to devastate each other will not engage in conventional conflict risking nuclear war also assume that any leader from any culture would not choose suicide for his nation. But history provides unhappy examples of states whose leaders were ready to choose suicide for themselves and their fellow citizens. Hitler tried to impose a 'victory or destruction' policy on his people as Nazi Germany was going down to defeat.} And Japan's war minister, during debates on how to respond to the American atomic bombing, suggested 'Would it not be wondrous for the whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower''- If leaders are willing to engage in conflict with nuclear-armed nations, use of nuclear weapons in any particular instance may not be likely, but its probability would still be dangerously significant. In particular, human nature suggests that the threat of retaliation with nuclear weapons is not a reliable guarantee against a disastrous first use of these weapons. While national leaders and their advisors everywhere are usually talented and experienced people, even their most important decisions cannot be counted on to be the product of well-informed and thorough assessments of all options from all relevant points of view. This is especially so when the stakes are so large as to defy assessment and there are substantial pressures to act quickly, as could be expected in intense and fast-moving crises between nuclear-armed states.' Instead, like other human beings, national leaders can be seduced by wishful thinking. They can misinterpret the words or actions of opposing leaders. Their advisors may produce answers that they think the leader wants to hear, or coalesce around what they know is an inferior decision because the group urgently needs the confidence or the sharing of responsibility that results from settling on something. Moreover, leaders may not recognise clearly where their personal or party interests diverge from those of their citizens. Under great stress, human beings can lose their ability to think carefully. They can refuse to believe that the worst could really happen, oversimplify the problem at hand, think in terms of simplistic analogies and play hunches. The intuitive rules for how individuals should respond to insults or signs of weakness in an opponent may too readily suggest a rash course of action. Anger, fear, greed, ambition and pride can all lead to bad decisions. The desire for a decisive solution to the problem at hand may lead to an unnecessarily extreme course of action. We can almost hear the kinds of words that could flow from discussions in nuclear crises or war. 'These people are not willing to die for this interest'. 'No sane person would actually use such weapons'. 'Perhaps the opponent will back down if we show him we mean business by demonstrating a willingness to use nuclear weapons'. 'If I don't hit them back really hard, I am going to be driven from office, if not killed'. Whether right or wrong, in the stressful atmosphere of a