West Coast Publishing Ocean 2014 affirmative page

Topic Wording

Ben Menzies, Whitman College

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its non-military exploration and/or development of the Earth’s oceans.

This year’s National Forensics League policy debate topic focuses our attention on the science and economics of managing the world’s oceans. The oceans cover over 70% of the Earth and over 65% of the Earth’s population lives within 100 kilometers of the ocean, making it vital to human life on Earth. As the human population continues to expand, the number of people depending on the ocean as a source of subsistence will also continue to grow, and the attendant stress on the ocean, the human race’s most valuable natural resource, will require careful management and intelligent policy. Therefore, the time is long past due to debate about oceans.

Oceans are crucial to nearly every part of human life, making for one of the broadest topics in recent memory. Oceans provide the food that we eat, are the backbone of the environment in which we live, house huge reserves of critical natural resources and millions of living species, are the means by which goods in the global economy travel, and have been both the focus and backdrop for hundreds of conflicts between nations throughout history. Are you ready for debates about human food consumption, about oil and natural gas production, or about environmental protection? This introduction will help you plumb the depths of the oceans topic – itself almost as large and mysterious at first glance as the ocean itself. Afterwards, you should be prepared to “explore” and “develop” your own arguments about policies surrounding the oceans.

The United States federal government

As with all policy debate resolutions in recent memory, this topic begins by focusing on the federal government of the United States as the relevant actor. As the head of government in the United States, the federal government exercises ultimate control over much of American law and policy and has a hand in nearly every element of policymaking. When most thinkers and policy analysts write about policymaking, they usually focus on the government in Washington, D.C. when they make their recommendations, making it a good starting point for controversy.

The inclusion of the federal government in the resolution ensures lively debate over the necessity of federal action. Many states have jurisdiction over parts of either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans and handle much of the work of managing marine resources. While the federal government can establish the kind of unified policy, states often act as “laboratories of innovation” that can pioneer new programs that are ultimately more successful than the federal government. On the other hand, arguably only the federal government can foster the kind of international cooperation that most literature recommends as necessary in dealing with the inherently international problems surrounding the ocean.

The term “federal government” is somewhat ambiguous in the context of ocean policy. While the federal government operates a host of policies related to the ocean, none of them are unified in a single process. Indeed, most federal policy on oceans proceeds through the somewhat ad-hoc process of executive agencies making policy. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration implements most federal ocean policy, but, unlike other comparable agencies, was never authorized by congressional legislation. At least a dozen different federal agencies exercise jurisdiction over various parts of ocean policy. Due to this confusing legal situation, the Obama Administration created a National Ocean Council through executive order tasked with streamlining existing ocean policies in a National Ocean Policy. Although that process is ongoing, the sheer number of federal agencies tasked with managing the oceans could potentially give affirmative teams broad latitude in determining what part of the federal government would carry out their plan. Similarly, many negative teams will have a host of specific agency counterplans that could compete through disadvantages to specific federal agencies. Indeed, even a variety of courts-centered plans and counterplans appear possible, as the language of the resolution does little to indicate that new laws must be passed.

In short, the oceans topic will be very concerned with who actually implements the mandates of any affirmative. Whether it is federal versus state, one agency versus another, or legislation versus court ruling, teams on both sides must be prepared to debate the details of policy implementation.

Should

On its face, the meaning of “should” seems clear. In common use, it is “used to express obligation or duty.” Therefore, “should” expresses the notion that a given actor ought to perform a particular action. Crucially, “should” does not suggest that the action in question will occur. It merely ought to take place; this is no guarantee that it actually will. What we term “fiat” originates from this word in the resolution. “Fiat” is a Latin verb that is usually construed as meaning “Let it be done.” Although that is not technically correct, the English perhaps better encapsulates the relevant concept: when teams draw upon the notion of “fiat,” they suggest that we imagine “if” a plan were to “be done.” What does this mean for policy debate? Simply that affirmative cases need not prove that the plan would happen, merely that it should. In other words, the affirmative need not prove that the federal government would choose to endorse their plan today, but rather only must prove that if the federal government were to adopt the affirmative plan, the results would be good. This permits us to bracket questions of mere feasibility as well as most (but not all) questions of the plan’s passage and implementation (while affirmatives need not prove that the government would endorse their plan, they still must prove that it would be effective and functional if it were endorsed). Thus, the point of an affirmative case is to prove that the federal government should endorse their plan, i.e., that the affirmative plan is the best possible course of action. In recent decades, many have also endorsed the logic of “negative fiat” as extending to counterplans advocated by a negative team as a means by which the affirmative’s “should” statement can still be disproven. Hence, if a negative team proves that a different actor or a different courts of action alone would be superior to the plan’s action occurring, the negative can be considered to have proven that the plan “should not” occur.

Substantially

Ironically, the word “substantially” carries many different connotations in different contexts without ever being truly pinned down; you could say that it is quite insubstantial itself. Despite this, it is still crucial in the construction of a policy debate resolution. “Substantially” provides a check on the most minute affirmative plans, ensuring that affirmatives are committed to large-scale alterations of the status quo. This preserves the capacity for negative teams to predict and generate negative ground, as no negative team could predict or prepare arguments against, for instance, an affirmative that advocated remapping, through exploration, a single acre of ocean. Of course, such an action might be beneficial in some way – perhaps an earlier map of that region is slightly faulty – but no negative team could prove a credible disadvantage. Thus, affirmatives are necessarily compelled to make changes that meet some ill-defined threshold of degree that preserve the negative’s fair role.

Some teams attempt to define “substantially” in terms of a number value. For instance, a “substantial” amount might be taken to be anywhere from 10% to 90%. These definitions, however, merely prompt the question, “10% of what?” Should affirmatives have to increase the amount of money spent on exploration by 10%? Should the plan affect 10% of current development? These basic logical barriers plague numerical definitions of the word “substantial.” Moreover, most numerical definitions are taken from particular Supreme Court cases that have little relevance to ocean policy with no intent to define the word in a universal sense. Thus, numerical definitions are often of little help in shaping a debate topic.

Fortunately, many of these pitfalls can be overcome by offering a qualitative definition of “substantially.” Black’s Law Dictionary, for example, defines substantial as “without material qualification.” Under this definition, affirmative plans would have to defend a blanket increase in economic engagement. For example, the affirmative might increase funding for all engagement that exists now. These policies do not “materially qualify” their increase in engagement, which means they do not restrict themselves to only a certain, small sub-section of engagement policy. If your affirmative uses a material qualification, you might respond to this argument by pointing out the benefits for affirmative ground and fair debate of allowing affirmatives to materially qualify.

Increase

Increase can be thought of like a street sign that indicates either a left or right turn. In the same way, increase should be conceived of as a “directional” word. A common definition might be “make greater” and serves to set the direction of the topic as increasing exploration and/or development as opposed to decreasing it. Clever negatives may interpret the word “increase” to “increase” its meaning, i.e., to make it mean more than simple “making greater.” For example, would it be topical for the affirmative plan to advocate the federal government give money to non-governmental organizations involved in exploration of the Pacific Ocean floor, or does the government need to directly send submarines to map the ocean floor? Does increasing development require the affirmative to add on to existing programs, or does it allow, or even require, them to create a completely new program? Does an “increase” need to be immediate, or could the affirmative plan be accomplished through phased implementation, such as a tax credit that gradually increases with time? These questions will all be up for debate.

Its

“Its” is a possessive which connects with “The United States federal government.” It serves to limit the topic to a discussion of US ocean policy, as opposed to international or private efforts. For example, China engages in a great deal of both exploration and development of the oceans. The affirmative can only topically increase exploration or development done by the US government, not other actors. This also opens up possible counterplan ground for some affirmatives on the topic, to increase exploration or development using another agent.

In the context of ocean policy, “its” may also complicate notions of possession. After all, if the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offers grants to do research on the plate tectonics of the Atlantic Ocean, does the resultant “exploration” really belong to the United States federal government, or does the grant permit whatever organization performs the exploration to increase “its” own exploration? The question of how direct these increases must be will undoubtedly be raised, especially as affirmatives have incentive to detach the federal government from the action advocated as much as possible in order to avoid potential disadvantages to federal action.

Non-military

Non-military is a pretty straightforward adjective. Whatever the term “military” refers to, “non-military” would designate the opposite. Thus, whatever exploration or development is increased by the affirmative plan must not be military in nature. “Military” refers to the armed forces of the United States, typically conceived of as the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and the Coast Guard, all of which are housed within the Department of Defense.

What constitutes “military” in this context, however, is not exactly clear. The terms “military” and “non-military” are not well established as adjectives pertaining to oceans policy or in law in general, as whether or not a given policy mechanism is “non-military” can generally be determined through context rather than explicit exclusion. While the topic clearly excludes affirmatives that directly employ military policies that increase military exploration, such as reconnaissance missions on the open sea, or military development, such as new fleets of ships, the extent to which the affirmative must not involve the military is difficult to determine. For instance, if an affirmative plan increases the development of shipping lane infrastructure that also allows for increasingly rapid naval response, would such “spillover” benefits prove the plan is non-topical? Would an affirmative that uses an agent within the Department of Defense to “non-military” ends be topical? These questions likely hint at the limits of the resolution that teams are likely to push.

Exploration

According to the leading definition from the President’s Panel on Ocean Exploration, which has been adopted by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, “Exploration is discovery through disciplined, diverse observations and the recording of findings.” Of course, this interpretation does not seem to give much guidance on what an increase in exploration would encompass as a policy. What it does suggest is that exploration inherently requires a focus on some new “discovery.” This suggests that much new research on the ocean could fall under the category of “exploration.” For instance, mapping ocean floors, increasing remote sensing, or researching ocean ecosystems could potentially involve discovering new observations about the ocean. A difficulty inherent in determining the topicality of a given action in relation to exploration is that the “discovery” would be difficult to describe beforehand, potentially making topicality a function of solvency.

And/or

And/or simply means that the affirmative plan may include either or both exploration and development. In other words, a plan is topical under three conditions:

1. 
   It increases exploration
   
2. 
   It increases development
   
3. 
   It increases both exploration and development
   

On the other hand, an affirmative is not topical if it neither increases exploration nor development. This is a topic broadening mechanism that ensures that the affirmative is not merely limited to exploration or development, and thus has very little utility in topicality debates. Although there are poor interpretations of “and/or” that have been misconstrued to suggest that the term actually means “both,” those arise out of misquotations of unrelated court cases that have little intent to define the term broadly. On its face, the term “and/or” is obviously distinct from “and,” which ensures that it means something different.

Development

Development is the other key term to the topic-specific mechanism. Compared to exploration, “development” is even less clearly defined in relevant literature. Although many technical notions of development exist, most are relevant only to other policy fields, such as international development, childhood development, or merely the development of policies. Little evidence exists of policies for “developing” oceans. On the other hand, due to the vagueness inherent in the term (merely signifying a change in most cases), many potential affirmatives are defined contextually as involving development. For instance, a tax incentive to drill for oil in the Outer Continental Shelf would be contextually defined as an instance of “development” even if the author never defined “development” in a broad sense. This grants affirmatives wide latitude in creating plans that do something about the ocean, while preventing most negative teams from constructing a persuasive topicality violation. Hence, most affirmatives on the topic will likely hinge on this word in the resolution as a catch-all for plans.

Of

Of is a preposition that relates the object that follows to the earlier terms “exploration and/or development.” This means that the exploration or development that the affirmative increases must be associated with the term that follows—“the Earth’s oceans.” Interestingly, the preposition chosen here to relate the direct object of the resolution to its indirect object is both vague and broad – the development or exploration must be “of” the oceans, rather than taking place “in” the ocean, “around” the ocean, or “toward” the ocean, all of which convey a significantly more definite sense. This indicates that affirmatives have broad latitude in determining how they will affect the ocean. It also means, however, that the affirmative must remember that any exploration or development must be “of” the ocean – not simply of maritime or ocean-related things.

The Earth’s oceans

This term refers to the large body of salt water that is connected and covers about 70% of the Earth’s surface. The term selected is probably the broadest term available, with “oceans” in the plural indicating both the mass noun referring to all the salt water body and the many individual notions regionalized into “Atlantic Ocean,” “Pacific Ocean,” et cetera. It is conceivable, however, that a topicality argument could persuasively argue that topical affirmatives must operate throughout the entirety of the Earth’s oceans rather than targeting a specific part of the ocean. Functioning as the indirect object of “exploration and/or development,” the term “the Earth’s oceans” also limits the topical action to being primarily concerned with the salt water body itself rather than affecting adjacent land or the atmosphere.

Conclusion

The oceans topic provides broad latitude for debate over a wide variety of problems facing management of the ocean. It is also likely to be one of the largest topics ever, with almost no limiting terms present in the resolution—indeed, arguably with the breadth of “development,” and “the Earth’s oceans,” almost any policy related to the ocean could be increased and be topical. This also ensures that this topic will be dynamic and require a large degree of attention to relevant topical literature.