Of

The affirmatives account of military presence obscures the

deterritorial functioning of modern militarismmade
preemptive, conflict overspills every semblance of locality
Massumi 15 (Brian, Prof of Communications @ U of Montreal, Ontopower:
War, Powers, and the State of Perception, ebook)
The possibility, evoked by Patakis statement, of operationalizing the elided present of attention at political ground
zero must be understood against the backdrop of the realignment of military doctrine over the last twenty years on

Full-spectrum force is the extension of military afairs to

grey areas involving non- traditional Operations Other Than War (OOTW), in
full-spectrum force.

the words of Harlan Ullman and James Wade, the authors of Shock and Awe, one of the classic statements of the

This expansion of the compass of military

operation beyond the classical battleeld to areas formerly considered the
exclusive purview of civil institutions is a response to the blurring of
boundaries characterizing contemporary war, in which the archetype of
the enemy is no longer the uniformed soldier but the terrorist. The
assumed organization of the adversary, as another contemporary classic drives home (Arquilla and Ronfeldts
Networks and Netwars, 2001), is then no longer the identiable regular army and its
centralized state scafolding but the difuseness of the network. On this ,
even the second-terrn Obama, on the eve of the U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan, remained
in syncopated lockstep with his predecessor in the White House : For the
doctrine (Ulhnan and Wade 1996, 18).

foreseeable future the most direct threat to America at home and abroad remains terrorism.. .. We have to develop
a strategy that matches this diffuse threat . to more effectively partner with countries where terrorist networks seek

The network is difuse because recessive. It melts into

the population. It is pervasive, unbounded and expanding (Arquilla and Ronfeldt
2001, 10). It insinuates itself across the technological and communicational
nerve paths of society. The attacks it enables irrupt without warning. They
rise up from within an unbounded eld, rather than striking out in a
determinable direction from a locatable base. The inltrating reach of netwar is
potentially coextensive with social and cultural space. This irrevocably blurs the boundaries
between the civil and military spheres. Other boundaries blur as a
consequence, for example, that between ofense and defense (Arquilla and
Ronfeldt 2001, 13). When the civil is no longer clearly demarcated from the
military, nor ofense from defense, it becomes impossible to say where the
exercise of force begins and ends. Military afairs bleed across the
spectrum. They span a continuum stretched between two poles or
extremes. At one end lies the traditional application of force on force
(Ullman and Wade 1996, xxiii, 21-22). This is the pole of traditional engagement on the
model of the battle, siege, or occupation. At the other pole lies soft power (Arquilla
and Ronfeldt 2001, 2). As a rst approximation, soft power can be understood as the military use
of information and disinformation, and of psyops or what used to be called
psychological warfare. Arquilla and Ronfeldt characterize soft power as epistemological warfare
a foothold (Obama 2014a).

because its business is what people know or think they know. Of course, epistemological warfare is nothing new. But

the paradigm has signicantly shifted. Traditionally , what is now called soft
power was a helper to hard power. It was secondary to force-on-force,
whose efectiveness it was meant to boost. It was an additive , like leavening.
Now on the other hand, according to Arquilla and Ronfeldt, all conflict is by nature
epistemological. Soft power, rather than an additive or booster, is a
baseline state. This is a necessary consequence of the full-spectrum
situation. War is no longer punctual, like a battle. Its on low boil all the

time. It is no longer localized, like an occupation. The heat is everywhere.

The denition of action underpinning the force-on-force of hard power is
fundamentally that of friction: matter on matter, metal on metal, projectile
against shielding, metal in flesh, flesh splayed, splashed on hard surfaces.
Force of attack against opposing force of resistance. The overall aim of forceagainst-force is attrition (Ullman and Wade 1996, xxiii, xxviii). It meets the enemy head-on
and wears down his capabilities across an extensive series of frictional
engagements. Its aims and means are painfully tangible. In the current
eld of conflict, this kind of punctual engagement has lost its centrality. It
has been replaced by waiting. Being in the thick of war has been watered
down and drawn out into an endless waiting, both sides poised for action.
The baseline state is now this always-on of low-boil poising for action. One
is always in the thin of it. When a strike of force-against-force comes, it
stands out against the background continuity of this thin condition, which Paul
Virilio presciently called the nonbattle years before it became the obsessive concern of leaders both
military and civilian (Virilio 1975). When it comes, the irruption of action is an
ebullition, a momentary boiling- over in this low-intensity broth of the
always-on conflict of the nonbattle. In the nonbattle, the relation between action and waiting has
been inverted. Waiting no longer stretches between actions. Action breaks into
waiting. Soft power is how you act militarily in waiting, when you are not
yet tangibly acting. It is a way of preventing the wait itself from being an
attrition, or even a way of turning it to advantage. In the condition of
nonbattle, when you have nothing on which to act tangibly, there is still
one thing you can do: act on that condition. Act to change the conditions
in which you wait. After all, it is from these same conditions that any
action to come will have emerged. By acting on the wait-time conditions in
the intervals between boilings-over, you may well be able to reduce the
potential of an eventual attack, moderate its powers of attrition if it comes, or even better, induce it to take
tangible shape when and where you are ready for it. That way you have a chance of disabling it before it reaches its

or even in the case where it bursts forth at full strength, you can be reasonably condent that you
be able to respond to it with rapid and overwhelming counterforce . Thus
you take as your military eld of operation the environmental conditions
in which both combatants and the noncombatant population live, or what
Ullman and Wade call the total situation (1996, 9). The only way to act on the total
situation is to act on the conditions of emergence of the battle, prior to its
occurrence. These conditions concern threats that in the parlance of the doctrine of
preemption, which has come to dene the present era of conict as integrally as deterrence did the Cold War, are
not yet fully formed (see chapter 1). What is not yet fully formed is still in
potential. It may already be brewing like a recipe for disaster, or
ominously looming like an unclear, almost-present threat. It carries an
irreducible degree of indeterminacy. That measure of indeterminacy makes it
as intangible as it is ominous. Its a tall order: you must act totally on
the intangibles of the situations conditioning . The ultimate boundary blurred is between
full magnitude,
will

the tangible and the intangible, the corporeal and the incorporeal. Because to act on the former you have to act on

There are two ways to act totally and intangibly on a situation. The rst is by
transposing your action from the spatial axis of the battle, siege, or occupation
to come, onto a time axis. You operate in and on the interval in which
what is not yet fully formed is already imperceptibly brewing. You can act
on that almost-present in order to influence the active form of its nextawaited emergence. Preemption is proaction: action on the conditions of
action, prior to its actually taking shape. The second way to act totally and
the latter.

is to act on perception. It is perception which prepares a body for action and

By modulating perception, you can already modulate subsequent
action-reaction. This in fact makes perception a royal road to the almostpresent. The two ways of acting intangibly with a view to the total situation are convergent. It was perceptions
intangibly on a situation
reaction.

powers of proaction that motivated Arquilla and Ronfeldts characterization of contemporary war as
epistemological. But it is a mistake to take too cognitive an approach. The move into perception is accompanied in
the contemporary theater of war with a correlative move toward the capabilities-centered approach much touted

you move into

perception in order to operate not at the level at which actions are
deliberatively decided, but at the level at which the very capacity for
action is forming. Operating on the level at which decisions have been
made focuses on the properly cognitive aspect of knowledge: its
informational contents, their availability, reliability and manipulability,
their actual usability. Operating on the level at which the capacity for
action is in the making is a very diferent proposition. It focuses on a predecision process occurring in an interval of emergence antecedent to both
informed knowing and deliberative action. This is a point before knowability and action-ability have diferentiated from one another. At that point, a modulation
by Donald Rumsfeld and his fellow neocons (Rumsfeld 2002b). In this approach,

of perception is directly and immediately a change in the parameters of what a body can do, both in terms of how it

This antecedent level of capacitation or

potentialization is proto-epistemologicaland already ontological, in that
it concerns changes in the bodys degree and mode of enablement in and toward its total
situation or life environment. Any application of force at this level is an
ontopower: a power through which being becomes. An ontopower is not a force
against life, as any force-against-force must inevitably be at its point of application. It is a positive force.
It is positively productive of the particular form a life will take next. It
conditions lifes nextness. It is a force of life. The Force to Own Time Ullman and Wade are
unambiguous about the fact that operating on this level is indeed an exercise of force,
even though its object is intangible. It is not a lesser force, even though it
is exerted in the thinness of nonbattle. It is, they say, more than an
application of forcea surplus of force (Ullman and Wade 1996, xxvii). It exceeds the
parameters of tangible applications of battle-force and of the known contents of
life upon which those applications bear and to which they add a hard permutation through their
action of attrition. The productive force of the nonbattle returns to the
level of conditioning at which the parameters for attritional force are set .
can act and what it will know.

There is always a follow-up action-reaction to an exercise of force-against- force. There is a second-next enveloped

What is conditioned is a forward series of potential

repetitions. There is a power of potential continuation, a power of a continuum, wrapped up in each exercise
in the next, and a third in that.

of force-against-force. The power of the continuum is an excess over any next, immanent in each one. Nonbattle

This is what makes an exercise of ontopower a

surplus of force- or a surplus-value of force. The relation of nonbattle force to the force-against-force is
force takes this excess as its eld.

analogous to the relation discovered by Marx between money as a means of payment and money as capital. Capital
is the driving force of the series of payment exchanges: money in the making; money beyond money. At each
payment, a punctual return is made to capital. Prot is fed back into investment, replenishing the forward-driving
force of capital. Money loops from its punctual exercise as means of payment into a feeding of the conditions of its
own continuing. This excess of forward-driving force over any given payment- engagement is surplus-value, as
distinguished from prot. Surplus-value is not the amount fed back. That is prot. Surplus-value is different from
prot. It is not quantitative. It is processual. It is the processual quality from which quantities of money are
generated in forward- driving fashion. It is the ever-nextness of proliferating quantities of economic value. Surplusvalue is realized punctually in the explicit act of exchange, in such a way as to cyclically exceed any such exchange.
Value beyond value, immeasurably on the make .4 Nations make war the same way they make wealth (Cebrowski

nonbattle force is at the same time forward-driving

and cyclic. At each frictional engagement, it feeds back into itself toward
the conditioning of what will come next. It is the ever-nextness of actual
and Garstka 1998).5 Like capital,

military value as realized punctually in explicit acts of war. Force- beyond-force,

intangibly on the make. The force-beyond-force is the processual quality of conflict
from which tangible military outcomes are generated. Ullman and Wade do not
hesitate to link the force-beyond-force, as processual quality of war, to time.6 This is not, they say, a force to

Recent
military thinking has revolved around the concept of rapid dominance .
Rapid means the ability to move quickly before an adversary can react
overcome resistance. Rather, it is the force to own time (Ullman and Wade 1996, xxvii, 53).

(xxv). The force-to-own-time operates in an interval smaller than the smallest perceivable. The target is

Even in the thick of things,

when conflict boils over and force-against- force is to be engaged , the force-toperception, always and at every band along the full spectrum (28).

own-time must still operate. It must squeeze into an interval smaller than the smallest perceivable between actions,
so as to condition the enemys reaction. This is the shock of shock and awe. The exercise of force-against-force is
qualitatively different from the force-to-own-time, but if its exercise is separated from the force-to-own-time it
rapidly loses its effectiveness. The force-to-own-time is infra-level force. It is infra-active because it occurs in a
smaller-than- smallest interval between actions. It is infra-perceptual because this same interval is also smaller than
the smallest perceivable. And it is infra-temporal because, being imperceptible, the interval of its exercise is an
offbeat of time, a missed step in the cadence of actions and reactions, an elided present between one moment and

In the thin of things, at the nonbattle end of the spectrum , the force-tostill operates to infra- condition action by controlling the enemys
perception in the interests of total situation control (Ullman and Wade 1996, 9,
54). In the absence of dramatic action spiking punctually from the baseline
of the nonbattle, the conditioning of the environment by the force-to-own-time
appears continuous. But this is only so because we are not paying
attention to paying attention. The ofbeat is still there. The baseline habit
of perception has not ceased contracting itself in us. It still inhabits us.
The pull of attention has not ceased to take hold of us. It still directs us to
a next perception, and through it to next action- reaction. The baseline of
war has accordioned into the baseline of perception. At the infra-level
where the two baselines converge, war at the macroscale of the battle,
siege, and occupation falls into absolute processual proximity with war at
the microscale of everyday civilian life. The Life Bare-Active The infra-interval is where
perception itself is in absolute processual proximity with the body. This raises the military (and
political) stakes inestimably. The automatism that attention possesses by virtue of its sharing a
the next.

own-time

nature with habit means that its operation rejoins the reex workings of body matter. It is our bodies that contract
habits, which are acquired reexes. The operation of attention occurs at a point of indistinction between emergent
perceptual experience and the autonomic mechanisms of the brain and nervous system. To a certain degree you
can bypass the shielding or immunizing effects of preoperative cultural conditioning as well as of personal histories,
dispositions, and allegiances, by plugging into the nervous system and approaching attention from that autonomic
angle. It is possible to nd tangible handles to leverage the intangible dimensions of the life of the body. It is
possible, within limits, to machine experience. The limits are due to the fact that the system of perception, like

By denition, in a
nonlinear system you cannot guarantee a one-to-one correspondence
between a given punctual input and an outcome. You do not cause an
efect. You efect a modulation. You can create resonance and interference
efects at the emergent level. The smaller-than-smallest interval of the
force-to-own-time vibrates with infra-level agitation. The innervated body
poises, in vital commotion. It reacts: habits are primed. It proacts: its
reacting is already a tensing and a tending to the future. The body is
attending in the instant to the immediacy of lifes unfolding. Everything hangs
in the balance. Except, far from equilibrium, the balance is of. Everything hangs
in the off-balance of the instant. The nature and duration of the agitation formatively
lling the instant inflects what follows. The object of full-spectrum power s
capital, essentially involves feedback and is thus, like an economy, nonlinear.

force-to-own-time is not bare life. It is not human life re-animalized, stripped of its human content, its vitality

is bare activity.7 This is

human life in the instants ofbeat. In that instant, a life is barely there,
reduced to the physical minimum, in absolute proximity with death. It

recoiled, bodily consumed in its infra-relation to itself. It is a life without

determinate content. In that imperceptible instant, what its content will be next is in the making. A
life is formatively barely there, tensely poised for what comes next. In that measureless instant, a
life is intensely barely there, regathering in an immediacy of its capabilities. This is not vitality
reduced to the minimum; this is life primed. This is also war. The life
primed may indeed be in proximity to death . Yet the body is already arcing toward a next
vital exercise of its capacity to act. Not re-animalization: re- animation: a stoking for the next step. This is a far cry
from a life reduced to brute matter. It is the embodied event of a life regathering in recoil. This is life self- enfolding
in affective vitality. The object of full-spectrum power is the affective body regathering in its capacities across a

full-spectrum power does not actually have an object.

leverages the
future, in the bare activity of action dawning . Shock, in the next instant, spills over into
stepped interval of change. Which is to say that

Rather than having an object, it nds a fulcrumif a fulcrum can be said to leverage time. It

action. Infra- agitation amplies, issuing in a macro-move. The actual resulting action does not exhaust the
commotion of bare activity preceding it. That infra-activity coincides with a recapacitation of the body poising it for

The unacted remainder of

capacitation constitutes a background modulation of the operational
parameters of the eld of potential action. It is by virtue of this
reconditioning of the pragmatic eld that the outcome is always in some
degree nonlinear. The conditioning interval of shock does not simply issue
an ensuing action. It sets that next actual action against an unexhausted
background of potential actions, many of which are in actuality mutually exclusive. The
outcome overall is a changed relation between the action that has actually
resulted and the newly modulated experiential eld from which it
emerged. It is ecological .8 The eld of potential action vibrates with the resonances and interferences of
any number of potential outcomes, only one of which eventuates.

poisings unperformed, unsatised in action. This ecological remainder of actionability accompanies the ensuing

The ecological relation between the action

and its dynamic background colors the actions afective tonality. The
bare-active poising is embodied in a posture, which, like a posture in the everyday
sense, complicates the action with the vaguely felt accompaniment of what has
been left unacted and will inect further actions coming after. It is through posture that the
agitation of shock and its poising commotion feeds forward through the
line of actual actions. Posture holds the arc of the action-line for the
present. It is the dynamic form of infra-agitations presently passing down the line: a dynamic holding pattern
action, retensing it even as it happens. Shock

of inections on-ow; a carrying-on of continuously modulated action capacity; a carriage of pragmatic potential .9

Less decisive than an action, more insistent than a state of rest, posture is
not exactly active or passive. More moving than passivity, less momentous
than activity, it registers the bare activity of an action, in infraaccompaniment to it. Posture as carriage is the dynamic sign of bare activity
uncoiling from the infra- interval into action, and carrying the intensity of
that passage across actions, under variation. Posture, as a sign, is indicative of a
continued ecological conditioning of the pragmatic eld. Carried with the conditioning is a continuing uncertainty.
The resonating and interfering remainder of capacitation owing down the line is as apt to remodulate on the y as

This poses a problem for the military

exercise of force- beyond-force. As a force-to-own-time, its avocation is to leverage
futurity by altering actions conditions of emergence . The fact that the outcome of
to follow the arc. A eld once inected may reinect.

shock it administers toward this end is complexa dynamic relation between a punctual action and its continuously
modulated background conditioningmeans that the future it inects retains a signicant degree of uncertainty.
Force-beyond-force must concern itself with managing uncertainty, not only that associated with preexisting eld
conditions into which it intervenes, but with its own future success. Strategies must be put in place to manage the
arc of the action-line to prevent it from drifting too far aeld or reaching a sudden turning point where it bifurcates

Military strategy crucially assumes

the task of shock management as a central feature of its ontopowerful
perceptual conduct of proto-epistemological warfare. The strategies are many. All
involve the use of force- against-force. The future is accessed by addressing perception, perception is
unexpectedly. A kind of shock therapy becomes necessary.

accessed by a call to attention, and the call to attention is by nature an administration of shock
especially considering that what qualies a call to attention as military is that ignoring it is not an option. It is

However softly administered, it does violence. It administers an

afective jolt. The ontopower of the force- to-own-time is an added value, a surplusvalue efect, of hard powers violence. It is force-against-force which gives
ontopower purchase. Battle and nonbattle go hand in fulcrum. Forceagainst-force is the realization of soft power , just as the economic act of purchase is
the realization of capital. Force-against-force and force- beyond-force, battle and
nonbattle, are processually wed. They are reciprocal functions. It is only at
the far ends of the spectrum of force that they seem to separate out. At
the far end of the spectrum, at the furthest extreme of the force-to-own-time, lies
soft power at its softest: the simple call to attention, administered by an
emission of signs, without explicit violent action. The call to attention suspends. It
interrupts habitual or conventional entraining of actions, if only for an
imperceptible afective interval, in order to inflect their direction. At its
softest, soft power exerts a deflecting force of interruption. It reorients
action potential. It suspends to divert, and diverts as a smaller- thansmallest step toward ecosystemic total situation control. The diversion
may involve traditional techniques designed to deceive, disguise, or
misinform (Ulhnan and Wade 1996, xxix). In this form, it is info-war understood in
the traditional sense of propaganda war (a subset of psyops).
forced.

Withdrawal doesnt reduce presence

Massumi 14 (Brian, Prof of Communications @ U of Montreal, The
Remains of the Day, On Violence Vol 1, 2013-2014)
The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan may be winding down. But the
preemptive military posture of the US has only spread . And nowhere has terrorist
threat stopped looming. Last month (July 2011) was the bloodiest for months for US military personnel in Iraq, and
terrorist attacks in Afghanistan picked up spectacularly with the assassinations of the governor of Kandahar

Even after the "withdrawal" of US troops from Iraq,

there will be a continuing US presence indenitely into the future , as Obama's
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates put it, in order to "ll the gap in Iraqi Security Force operations." This
continuing presence will be in the form of ve high-tech compounds outtted for drone operations and
province and the mayor of Kandahar city.

housing aircraft and armored vehicles for rapid- response forays. The withdrawal from Afghanistan will similarly

a permanent preemption-ready presence. That presence has

unprecedented reach. According to best estimates, the US preemptive
presence stretches across more than 750 bases around the world. The less
focused it becomes on outright invasion, the more spread-out and
tentacular it becomes. US special operations forces are now active in no
less than 75 countries around the world and carry out an average of 70 missions a day. The
number of countries "serviced" is slated to rise to 120 . A key to advisor to General
leave

Petraeus, the commander of US troops in Iraq, then Afghanistan, and now incoming CIA director, was recently

Preemption doesn't go
away. It spreads its tentacles. Things change. Boots on the ground may
recede as drones advance, following the rhythms of public opinion and the
electoral cycle of politicians' engrossment in domestic afairs. Nationbuilding might get backgrounded in favor of targeted assassination
campaigns. But the operative logic of preemption only becomes more
widespread and insidious. The more it changes, the more it stays the
same, ever-expanding. To the point that it can be said to become the
dominant operative logic of our times. Preemption octopuses on.
Ontopower rules.
quoted marvelling at the reach of this "almost industrial scale killing machine".

This imperial metaphysics creates the conditions for

unbounded violence
Constantinou 12 (Marios, University of Cyprus, Venus Imperatrix: The
Moods of Empire, Parallax 18.4, p.1-5)
What is under examination is Empire as an afective disclosure. What kind
of world do imperial moods disclose? Being an affective intentionality without a subject,
Empire discloses projects, involvements and logics of taking care of
business which betray, as Michel Foucault has argued, a certain directionality of
biopower whose overall efect escapes anyones intention in particular.
Empire, then, is a state of mind, a fundamental mood; a mode of attunement
where the biopower of the imperial bourgeoisie of the 19th century which served as a strategy of its self-

evolved into a mood of global domination not only over

collaborative elites aspiring to partnership but also over peoples. The thrilling
constitution has by now

mood of postmodern biopower, namely, the mood of getting ready to be transgured was captured for a moment
by Helene Cixous: who knows who I shall be, a moment from now, in the fertile night of Empire?5

Empire is

the essential moodiness of Classical Imperialism , its clamorous self-duplicity disclosed

anew in relative autonomy, so to speak, from its original models. Living through a gestation process at the heart of
Central European Imperial metaphysics, Heidegger profoundly sensed both its disclosive and self-destructive
moods. Although the moral assessment and juridical indictment of Nazism has more or less been orderly
completed, Heideggers critical engagement with the neo-Roman foundations of Western imperialism remains, with
rare exceptions, obscurely silenced.6 However there are still sufficient (and original) grounds for questioning these

the inherently
biopolitical moods of Empire would co-exist and co-evolve with imperialist
terror; the existential withdrawal of a world that up until then was taken for
granted as inert raw material, a mere standing reserve. Heideggers Being and Time,
intellectual and affective tropes of Western imperialism. Heidegger anticipated that

along with his lectures on Parmenides, are in many respects masterful investigations of the neo-Roman tropes of
Empire. Heidegger remains, in my view, a forgotten but suggestive resource for a critical re-examination of the
current dispositions of Empire as an indeterminable biopolitical terrain. Heideggers lesson, with regard to the

the dual nature of imperial pacism: humanistic

and at the same time immanently related to war pathologies. Attuned to
Heideggers critique, one could note that what is despicable is its ignoble, unconfessed
and unconfessable violence which is philistine, cow hearted, lily-livered,
weak-kneed and, at the same time, beastly, ferocious and relentless.
Those who legitimize imperial peace commit the most contemptible form
of violence, perpetrating the most cowardly assault. In Heideggers sense, they
are the new arrivals of last men and women, evangelizing peace on
imperial terms. If there is a critical legacy for thought after the fascist disaster that is it: the
dual nature of the Empire of the last man and the unending completion of
an American ivf metaphysics. Upon reection, the moods of Empire disclose a
fundamental ambiguity, particularly its manipulative, double-eyed
biopolitical diplomacy. We are living through times when any reference to imperialism sounds like the
present engagement, is relevant to

idle talk of a bygone era that memory cannot recall. We cannot but test the principal axioms of the New

its master moods which neither disclose perpetual peace

nor perpetual war but an ambiguous demarcation between the two,
moving in and out of these states swiftly and without forewarning, hence
trivializing both. In other words, there is still something fraudulently Roman
about Empire its commanding gaze, moods and disciplines which
confers upon any concept of politics an empty resonance. The Third Reich
may be gone but the commanding logic of Roman interpellation as an
imperial perspective is still our enduring condition. According to Heidegger, in
Parmenides the dening feature of imperial actio proper alludes not to war but
to the logic of fallere; of bringing down to fall by deceptive circumvention, by
going around. In other words, commanding as a logic of imperial actio entails a
International Order against

constant surmounting, a deceptive outflanking, a circumspicio whose circular,

periscopic, all encompassing revolving gaze turns the enemys resistance
around.7 Ambiguity remains the privileged mood and disciplinary
pedagogy of our imperial postmodernity. This mood in the sense of
disposition ought then to be read in an extended Heideggerian sense which includes modes of
disposing order and methods of pacication that is, the biopolitical
sovereignty of an uncircumscribed imperium consisting of formal
commands, informal decrees and injunctions. The all-knowingness of ambiguous everyday
structures of groundless hearsay or idle talk, spying or curiosity, furnishes the global biopower of Empire with
average understandability, insatiably investigating and understanding everything, but learning nothing. This
commonsensical ambiguity of diaphanous publicity is the unsurpassable ontological structure of Empire as it
stands. Its forces of simulation reduce any possibility of counteraction to an already belated, collateral and
derivative status. So much for the ambiguous openness of Empire, Commonwealth and governance.

attuned into it!

We are all

We rise and fall together! Heideggers insights into the structure of imperial command can

afect as a hallmark of
command schematizes genealogically the intriguing self-duplicity of
biopower and its moodalities capable of de-powering resistance to it. The
be traced back to Nietzsches axiomatic style. Nietzsches account of

principal preoccupation of this intervention is to rethink the concept of Empire in terms of denable affects and

the aimless striving of the

will to will. Empire in this Nietzschean sense of decadence is both the commanding and
obeying party governing and opposing through NGOs, managing Right
and Left and embodying contradictory drives and articulations of afect.
effects: that is, by recollecting its luxurious yet bare will to biopower,

Survival is, paradoxically, anti-lifethe risk politics of the 1AC

is a life-denying attempt to insulate life from flux and
becoming. The desire to avoid all threats is a nihilistic impulse
which reduces humanity to bare biological preservation,
annulling life itself
Babich 94
/Babette E., Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, Nietzsche's Philosophy of
Science : Reecting Science On the Ground of Art and Life, SUNY Series, the Margins
of Literature, State University of New York Press Pg. 194-196/
Without Price: The Will to Truth as the Will to Life As we have seen, the democratic or (for Nietzsche, decadent)

The Will to Truth reigns in science

because the decadent moral ideal of its culture proclaims not merely a will
to life, but a will to life at any price. The motif of self-preservation, or survival
is, by its own denition, an insistent, desperate one. What is desired in the will to
life at any price is not at all life or living , per se. What is willed is much rather
simply the preservation of life, perhaps as little as possible, perhaps so that one
may have it for as long as possible, perhaps as painlessly as possible . 79
What is essential is merely that one "have" and not that one "live" life . Our
words betray our values. Thus we tend to say, "Life involves risk" as if it were
possible to exclude risk with a little care. This possibility is impossible.
Life is fundamentally risk. In what Anaximander expresses as the supreme principle of the cosmos
(which Schopenhauer understood so well), the contradictory heart of the living thing
sounds the promise of its evanescence.80 The longing for life at any rate,
at any price denies physiological nitude. And life is nothing but
physiological nitude. The desire for immortality manifests the nihilism of
a longing for life at any price, sans aucun risque. Because life cannot be held
in stock nor ultimately preserved, the will to life is fundamentally opposed
to the essence of life. It has been argued that for those seeking to
preserve life at all costs, it is not merely death that threatens. The
drive of scientic culture is expressed in the Will to Truth.

expenditure of life (as it can be found in those who endanger life by celebrating its joys or spending its
resources recklessly) is to be countered as well. The will to (preserve) life is
plainly aligned with morality. This opposition reveals two life-orientations. The rst
orientation that of saving or preserving life is consumptive and
acquisitive, expressing its own need and indigence, while the second the
literal spending of life is an expression of inherent power. The artist's
desire to create, to give, and to enjoy which also means to sufer life,
stands in contrast to the fearful, acquisitive longing for life . And here it should be
said that the "artist" in question is not the creative individual of paints and brushes nor a dancer nor even a
musician nor any kind of cultural architect. The meaning of art must be understood in terms of the grand style, a
matter more of character than mtier All of life manifests desire or Will to Power. That is, all life expresses Will to

decadent expression of the Will to Power

is radically diferent from the strong pessimism of the Will to Power that
is, as Nietzsche expresses it in 1886, "prompted by well-being, by overflowing health,
by the fullness of existence." The material acquisitiveness of a decadent
Will to Power battles emptiness on the unidimensional plain of fantasy in
its drive to possess. Nietzsche, describing the correspondence between the constant search and constant
boredom of modern culture, writes, "it is a tragic spectacle to see how the dance of its
thought rushes longingly toward ever-new forms, to embrace them, and
then, shuddering, lets them go suddenly as Mephistopheles does the seductive Lamiae."82
Power, even in its most decadent expression. Yet, a

This is more than an account of modern culture between the agitations of the mode, but it describes the broad

Driving this
blithe commitment to truth "at any price," what is then operative in this
life-preservative orientationthe need to preserve life ''at any price"is a
powerful thrust toward world appropriation.84 This drive can be understood as Nietzsche
compass of science in its endless project, the achievement of a "unied vision of the world."83

understands psychological and organic drives: "The course of logical ideas and inferences in our brain today
corresponds to a process and a struggle among impulses that are, taken singly, very logical and unjust. We
generally experience only the result of this struggle because this primeval mechanism now runs its course so
quickly and is so well concealed."85 We have seen that this primordial mechanism is the basis of perceptual and
conceptual (that is logical) knowledge. The working of this mechanism corresponds to Nietzsche's expression of the
Will to Power. This mechanism can now be dened. Elucidating the direction of the moral structure of science, desire
alone should be understood simply as will. Power (Macht) is correlative to desire: it is its articulation. But the Will to
Power as a concept goes beyond desire; it is equivalent neither to an unconditioned or indeterminate Wille,86 nor to
any kind of conatus. Thus, for Nietzsche, apart from a negative denition, the idea of power cannot be given an
eudaimonistic expression, because the positive signicance of power is to be found only in the activity or

itself. Where the end of

expressed power, where what is risked, is no more than a bid for more
power, an original (and reactive) lack is conrmed. The expression of power, then, has a
expression of power. The end of the active expression of power is power

double sense corresponding to the degree and type of power (that is, active or reactive). We may explicate this

the desire for power (impotence) and the desire of power (abundance). The rst
reactive expression of the Will to Power is from the side of a lack of power
and a need for power; this is neediness of desire: articulated want. The
second (active) expression of the Will to Power is from a superabundance
of power and a need for creative expression; this is the plenitude of
desire: articulated affirmation.
duality as

The alternative is to reject the metaphysics of presence

refuse to engage Empire on its own terms
Spanos 99 (William V., Prof of Literature @ Binghamton U, America's
Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire)
It will be the purpose of the remaining chapters of this book to analyze the
inadequacies of these "postmodern" discourses to the task of resisting the
discourse of the Pax Americana and to profer prologomemally an
alternative on the basis of this critical analysis . Here, it will suffice to suggest that these
oppositional discourses are, each in its own particular way, blinded by

their insights not only to precisely what, in the present historical

conjuncture, is strongest in the discourse of the dominant liberal/capitalist
culture of the post-Cold War period: its justication of global power on the
basis of an ontological representation of temporal history (being) that
ends in the triumph of the cultural, social, political, and especially
economic formations that are constructed on its foundation. In failing to
perceive what is strongest in the "triumphant" imperial discourse of
liberal/capitalist democracy, each of these oppositional discourses, in turn,
is also blinded to what is weakest and most vulnerable in it. I mean, to
repeat, the ontological contradiction what I have been calling the
specter at the enabling center of its "benign" global discourse: the
violent genocidal will to power that was the "end" of the (onto)logical
economy that justied America's intervention in Vietnam and its
indiscriminately murderous conduct of the war. All of which is to say, nally, that an
adversarial discourse that would be adequate to the task of resisting the
New World Order that, in Noam Chomsky's aptly ironic phrase, would be capable of "deterring
democracy" 67 would do well not simply to reconstellate and rethink "Vietnam" in the context of the
annunciation of the end of history, but, in doing so, to take its directives precisely from the spectral contradictions
(the radical differences) precipitated by the "fulllment" of the imperial logic of the American anthropologos in the
Vietnam War. In other words, the retrieval of the repressed history of the Vietnam War points to an adversarial

would refuse to engage its innitely more formidable antagonist

according to the terms prescribed by the latter's imperial problematic,
would not, that is, be answerable to the "truth" of its visibly invisible
metanarrative. It calls for the adoption of a strategy that exploits its
adversary's essential weakness: the powerful will to closure that hides
behind its tolerance of diference, its alleged pluralism. It calls, that is, for
an adversarial strategy that, like the strategy of the Vietnamese Other in
the face of the utterly predictable narrativity of the American invaders'
metaphysically structured discourse and practice, takes the form of an
itinerant spectrality. I mean a nomadic phantasmagoric absence, a mobile
nonpresent presence, a haunting invisibility, that reverses the panoptic
gaze of the dominant culture in transforming itself as seen into absent
see-er. In short, the retrieval of the repressed history of the Vietnam War
calls for a de-structive strategy that, like the Vietnamese Other vis-a-vis
"America," resists identication and thus frustrates the will to closure of
the triumphant culture and in so doing dis-integrates its discourse of
decidability and arrival, which is to say, disempowers and delegitimizes its
imperial power and legitimacy.
strategy that

Korea

1NC Dialogue Solves escalation UQ

Recent deal proves neither side with escalate they will
negotiate to reduce tensions.
Kim 8/31 [Duyeon Kim, associate in the Nuclear Policy Program and Asia Program
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Inter-Korean Deal: Defusing
Recent Tensions, August 31, 2015, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/08/31/inter-korean-deal-defusing-recenttensions/ifea]
What is the signicance of the deal? What does it mean for the future of crossborder relations, and will this agreement lead to an inter-Korean summit? The
latest deal is another indicator that the two governments can successfully
defuse standofs and avoid conflict through dialogue. It also reinforces the
view that while the Norths Kim family needs to sustain tension for
domestic legitimacy, it is not willing to risk inadvertent conflict.

1NC US-ROK alliance high

Squo solves concerns over basing relocation is making
progress.
Schoff 15 [James L. Schoff, Senior Associate Asia Program at Carnegie,
Strengthening U.S. Alliances in Northeast Asia, July 15, 2015, Carnegie Endowment
for Intentional Peace, Congressional Testimony,
http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/07/16/strengthening-u.s.-alliances-in-northeastasia/idhr]
Overall, the U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK alliances are in good shape today, thanks
in part to consistent bipartisan support from the U.S. government over the years
and careful attention paid most recently by both the Bush and Obama
administrations. Polls show broad support on each side of these two alliances, and
political change (back and forth) in all three countries over the last two decades has
not disrupted their relationships.1 In fact, the alliances are arguably as strong
as they have ever been.
Quick and robust U.S. support for Japan in the aftermath of its 2011 tsunami and nuclear crisis was the right thing to do not only
from a humanitarian perspective, but also from a U.S. strategic standpoint and as a close friend. Although current Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe often remarks that his partys return to power in late 2012 helped repair U.S.-Japan relations, the fact is that
alliance cooperation was solid during the last two years the Democratic Party of Japan was in power, and this emerging bipartisan
support for the relationship in Japan should be celebrated. It is a long-term asset for the alliance.
Acrimonious trade battles are largely a thing of the past (though not extinct), which has strengthened a sense of partnership. U.S.Japan cooperation initiatives in a variety of elds including energy, the environment, health, science and technology, and
development aid (including the recently established U.S.-Japan Development Dialogue2) have been a staple of the post-Cold War
period and deliver value to the allies and to the world. Bilateral defense cooperation continues to broaden and deepen in an
evolutionary manner, amidst a deteriorating security environment.
In recent years the allies have conducted more frequent and complex military exercises, updated bilateral planning, collaborated in
humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) operations including Pacic Partnership and Operation Damayan in the
Philippines (among others), established the Extended Deterrence Dialogue (EDD) to consider alliance responses to nuclear threats,
and announced new Guidelines for Bilateral Defense Cooperation in 2015 to adapt to modern security threats.3 In addition, the U.S.
and Japanese governments agreed on a plan to reduce the U.S. Marine presence in Okinawa and relocate the Futenma Marine Corps
Air Station for a more politically sustainable posture, receiving permission from the local governor to initiate the project (although
this relocation faces delays due to local political opposition and a new opposition-backed governor).

The U.S.-ROK alliance has weathered numerous North Korean acts of

belligerence and attempted intimidation in recent years, often emerging
stronger for the experience. The allies approved in 2013 a new coordinated plan
to respond to future North Korean provocations (enhancing deterrence) and added
new bilateral working groups in the areas of cyber and space security policy.4
Another important bilateral initiative the Extended Deterrence Policy Committee
began in 2010 for the same reason as the U.S.-Japan EDD (i.e., to discuss alliance
options with regard to the growing North Korean nuclear threat), and it has been an
important tool for facilitating bilateral communication on the topic and reassuring
Seoul of U.S. intentions and capabilities. The realignment of U.S. forces in
Korea has faced delays and hurdles in implementation much like the
situation in Japan but progress is being made and the allies signed a new
agreement last year on sharing the costs for maintaining the U.S.
presence through 2018.5

1NC NoKo war no escalation regime survival

Korean conflict wont escalate both sides have incentives to
de-escalate.
Jackson 8/24 [Van Jackson, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for a New American
Security and a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, Preparing for
the Next Korean War, The Diplomat, August 24, 2015,
http://thediplomat.com/2015/08/preparing-for-the-next-korean-war/]
Every Korea expert Ive ever met believes North Koreas primary goal is regime
survival. Yet most of these same experts believe that Kim Jong-un is capable
of anything and theres no telling what he might do. To put it politely, thats
cognitive dissonance. If we know North Korea seeks regime survival, then we
know something about what its keen to avoid. Even Kim Jong-un must
know there are certain actions that would end him and his regime
nuclear attacks, the destruction of Seoul, or a mass invasion of South
Korea. Kim Jong-un isnt a Millenarian or a Jihadi; his goal isnt suicide. So unless
we want to shrug our shoulders and say anything could happen, we should have
some modest condence that Kim wont pursue the extreme actions that
North Korean media routinely threaten. South of the DMZ, the incentives
to avoid a nuclear conflict are just as strong. For starters, 60 years of
restraint when faced with North Korean violence suggests that, in the
United States especially, there is a strong desire to avoid the risks of
escalation and conflict in general. Plus, no sitting presidentAmerican or
South Koreanwants to go down in history as the rst president to usher
in the era of nuclear warghting. The cost in lives would be abhorrent, and
theres a high risk that such a situation would rapidly erode the nuclear
nonproliferation regime. North Korea Cant Invade the South In June 1950, North
Korea launched a large-scale invasion of a South Korea with only a token
ability to resist and no meaningful U.S. military presence. This is the classic
scenario that experts and military planners often imagine when they think of
another Korean War. Yet theres now a heavily armed DMZreplete with a large
mineeld, no lessseparating the North and South, and the South Korean
military is better trained and equipped than any force North Korea could
muster. North Koreas air force and navy services are vastly inferior to the
technologically advanced South Korean military. And the U.S. military presence
in and commitment to South Korea is far more than symbolic. The point is
that no military leader would look at the military balance on the Korean
Peninsulaespecially not a leader in the North Korean Peoples Army (KPA)
and think that it makes sense for North Korea to invade South Korea.
The former might have cause for conflict, but waged asymmetrically, not
as a head-on frontal assault. Invasion of the South is militarily impossible.
This North-South military imbalance is worsened by a KPA that lacks the logistics
and sustainment capacity required of an invasion; the KPA is numerically large, but
regularly diverted from military tasks to perform agricultural and industrial labor
functions to support a moribund economy. The KPA isnt a force thats capable of a
long duration military campaign.

No chance of use- fear for regime survival

Thielmann 15 [GREG THIELMANN, SENIOR FELLOW, Arms Control Association,
Understanding the North Korean Nuclear Threat, May 12, 2015,
http://www.armscontrol.org/les/TAB_05_2015.pdf]
North Korea has or soon will have small numbers of nuclear warheads on
medium-range Nodong ballistic missiles capable of targeting cities in Japan and
throughout South Korea. However vulnerable, unreliable, or inaccurate these
missiles may be, their potential as nuclear weapons delivery vehicles will not be
lightly dismissed by governments in Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington. Security officials
in these governments will take into consideration that any military confrontations
with North Korea could conceivably lead to nuclear devastation. If current trend
lines continue, North Korea will probably be able to pose a genuine nuclear threat to
the U.S. mainland within a decade. Pyongyangs primary motivation for
developing such a capability would be to deter aggression against North
Korea rather than to facilitate its own aggression against others. The
regimes principal inhibition in the use of nuclear weapons will be not the
extent and quality of missile defenses arrayed against it, but the sure knowledge
that nuclear use would lead to the end of the Kim dynasty and the North
Korean state.

1NC NO Accidental Noko War - Chenoan

Accidental Korea war is unlikely no parties stand to benet
Cheonan sinking proves.
Farley 13 [Robert Farley is an assistant professor at the Patterson School of
Diplomacy and International Commerce, The Diplomat, April 5, 2013,
http://thediplomat.com/2013/04/north-korea-and-the-fallacy-of-accidental-wars/?
allpages=yes]
Accidental wars rarely happen. Historians have demonstrated that most wars
initially deemed accidental, (perhaps most notably the First World War), have in
actuality resulted from deliberative state policy, even if the circumstances of the
war were unplanned. While war seems discordant, it actually requires a great deal
of cooperation and coordination. Fundamentally, two parties have to agree to
conduct a war; otherwise, you have either a punitive raid or an armed surrender
negotiation.
Consequently, the baseline for evaluating the chances for accidental war on
the Korean Peninsula should be judged as quite low. South Korea, in all
likelihood, views the prospect of decisive victory against North Korea as
worse than the status quo. The United States has no interest in ghting a
war against the DPRK at the moment. For example, the sinking of the
Cheonan was obviously an act of war, but neither the United States nor
South Korea were interested in ghting a war on the terms ofered. While
we know less about the strategic calculus of North Korea, there is little reason to
think that North Korea was interested in war, either; it probed South
Korean capabilities and resolve, but did not press the issue in ways that
could have forced Seouls hand.
This said, there are conditions under which the chances for accidental wars increase. If the main parties do not
communicate well (or at all) with one another, they may misunderstand messages designed to convey commitment
or capability. Cultural differences can contribute to a lack of appreciation of how a potential foe thinks about the
costs and benets of war. Domestic conict invariably complicates foreign policy, as state leaders often act
according to a logic that places the dictata of their governing coalitions above foreign policy concerns. Finally,
leaders do not have full control over their military organizations; a rogue artillery commander, ghter pilot, or sub
skipper can effectively initiate hostilities on their own. All of these conditions can lead to situations in which states
commit what they believe is limited force in service of what they believe are limited objectives, but in actuality
threatens core interests of the enemy.
The potential for accidental war is highest in conditions where technology and doctrine overwhelmingly favor quick,
offensive action, and produce quick, decisive outcomes. Wars that could de-escalate following a border skirmish
and a few artillery duels can escalate beyond control if both sides understand the timing of offensive action to be
critical. Arguably, the conditions on the Korean Peninsula currently match this description. Although theres virtually
no scenario in which North Korea could win a war, if allowed to mobilize and launch well prepared, coordinate
offensive activities the DPRK could inict severe damage on the South Korean military and South Korean civilians.
Similarly, a pre-emptive U.S.-ROK assault on the North Korean military, or an attack launched in the very early
stages of a North Korean assault, could substantially undercut the power of North Koreas rst punch.
Such an operation would include a wide array of attacks, launched from sea, air, and land platforms, targeting North
Korean airelds, communication nodes, and logistic chokepoints. These attacks would attempt to eliminate North
Korean offensive capabilities, especially for direct attacks against the South (and presumably against Japan). The
ability of the DPRK to provide any defense against a committed air offensive is in deep question, despite a large air
force and an extensive SAM network. North Korea is the war that the U.S. Air Force (USAF) (and to a lesser extent,
the U.S. Navy) have been dreaming about ghting since the 1970s, and they remain well prepared to ght it. The
last major armored offensive to push forward under a condition of enemy air supremacy was the North Vietnamese
Easter Offensive of 1972, which ended in disaster; the North Koreans would operate under considerably greater
handicap.
The North Korean nuclear program exacerbates these difficulties. If the ROK and United States decided to launch a
preemptive strike, DPRK nuclear sites would be among their rst targets. The ability of U.S. and South Korean
intelligence to successfully identify these targets (and to assess their destruction at high levels of condence)
remains highly questionable, but North Korea might nevertheless decide that it needs to use the weapons in some
fashion in order to preserve the strategic and political balance. Whether the use of weapons would prevent regime
destruction is a different question entirely; the senior military and political leadership may assess the weapons as
regime saviors, even if a nuclear detonation would ensure the resolve of South Korea and the U.S. to end the DPRK.

Daryl Press and Keir Leiber sensibly warn about the potential that attacks against the North Korean leadership cadre
might have destabilizing effects. The U.S. may well refrain from launching attacks directly against the North Korean
leadership in order to maintain some rump level of communications, and to give the leadership a potential survival
strategy beyond nuclear escalation. Precedents for not directly attacking the leadership include Libya in 2011 and
Serbia in 1999. However, given the close ties between the Kim regime and the senior military leadership, and the
identication of the state itself with the Kim clan, there could be considerable temptation to strike.
These dynamics operate on the North Korean side, as well. Senior North Korean military officers are professionals;
they surely understand the power of the advanced American and South Korean military establishments, and
appreciate that pre-emption could prove disastrous to North Korean military prospects. The appropriate response to
concern about catastrophic defeat at the hands of the United States and South Korea would surely be to deescalate
the crisis, but DPRK domestic politics may, for the time, preclude that possibility.
Nevertheless, it is exceedingly difficult to believe that serious military professionals within the DPRK believe in the
possibility of victory against the United States. Motivated bias surely matters to decision-making, but just as surely
must have some limits.
Thus, if North Korea successfully convinces the U.S. and the ROK that war is inevitable, it is almost irresponsible for
the latter not to launch a pre-emptive attack that would disrupt North Korean preparations. Were a war to take
place without pre-emption, the political opposition in both countries would take the current leadership to task for
failing to take steps to destroy the DPRKs military at its stepping off points. The political implications of this logic
are obviously grim, and it should be clear that neither Seoul nor Washington believes, at this point, that war is
inevitable. At the same time, convincing North Korea that war is inevitable could have similar disastrous effects.
This is undoubtedly why the United States has responded in slow, measured fashion to North Korean provocations.

Again, few wars happen by accident; most take place because policymakers
want them, even if those policymakers operate with poor or incomplete
information about the prospects for success. Given the current balance of
capabilities on the Korean Peninsula, a full war seems exceedingly
unlikely, as none of the combatants stand to benet.

1NC No payload capacity

They dont have the delivery capability required to attack with
a nuclear weapon
Ji-Young 14 Park Ji-Young, Research Fellow and the Director of the Science &
Technology Policy Center at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, 2014 (North
Koreas nuclear weapons: Will it ever use them? NK News, October 21st,
http://www.nknews.org/2014/10/north-koreas-nuclear-weapons-will-it-ever-usethem/)
The probability of actual use of nuclear weapons against any country is
considered to be close to zero in a normal condition. A rst nuclear strike
would certainly lead to an end of North Koreas current regime at the
hands of the international community and no leadership would take the
risk. However, instability in the North Korean regime might worsen the nuclear
crisis. Kim Jong Un has been evaluated to be more unpredictable and unstable than
his father or grandfather. Any internal or external attempt at regime change might
increase the probability (of a nuclear calamity).
In the meanwhile, if we consider delivery capability , North Korea is not
capable of delivering its nuclear weapons over a long distance, and the
U.S. is not within the threat boundary. ROK and Japan are within the boundary
of short- and medium-range missiles or aircraft delivery. However considering that
North Korea has not conducted any test of a nuclear warhead and aircraft
delivery can be easily detected and shot down, the probability of success
in a nuclear strike would be very low .

AT Bioweapons
1. No facilities for bioweapon creation or deployment
No terrorist-run labs, no access to materials
Leitenberg 9 (Milton, Senior Research Scholar @ Center for International and Security

Studies @ Maryland U. since 1989, 1968, Leitenberg rst American recruited to

work at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Affiliated with
Swedish Institute of International Affairs and the Center for International Studies
Peace Program @ Cornell U., his rst paper dealing biological weapons was
published in 1967. At SIPRI, he was a member of the team that produced the sixvolume study, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare, published between
1971 and 1973. Since 1992, he has published thirty papers in the area of biological
weapons, 10/27/09, The Threat of Bioterrorism, Real and Imagined,
As for assistance from state-run BW programs to terrorist organizations seeking to develop or to produce biological agents or
weapons, there is no evidence whatsoever of any such activity. U.S. intelligence agencies have always considered the
likelihood of such assistance to be extremely low, and they expect the same to remain the case in the future. Finally, the history of
attempts by non-state actors to develop or use biological agents has been remarkably limited. Of these, the most significant were alQaida's effort in Afghanistan between 1997 and 2001 to obtain a pathogenic culture of B. anthracis and to initiate work with the
organism, and the so-called Amerithrax incidents in September and October 2001, when a purified, dry-powder preparation of B.
anthracis sent through the U.S. postal system killed five people. The barely initiated, rudimentary, and failed attempt by al-Qaida
is important because of the nature of the group: an international terrorist organization with a wide organizational
structure, demonstrated initiative, and a record of successful, albeit conventional, attacks. The Amerithrax attacks, on the other hand,
are significant for demonstrating the kind of attack a trained professional is capable of. But the identification of the perpetrator also
provided critical insight into both the likelihood of international terrorist organizations developing similar capabilities and how quickly
such a threat could emerge. Since the interruption of al-Qaida's BW project in December 2001, there are no indications that
the group has resumed those efforts. Accounts of al-Qaida offshoot groups in the United Kingdom, France, or Iraq producing ricin
are all spurious. There have also been no publicly identified indications that any other international terrorist group has
initiated the development of BW agents in the intervening years. It is also significant that al-Qaida's efforts to develop BW
were provoked by the severely overheated discussion in the United States about the imminent dangers of bioterrorism. A
message from Ayman al-Zawahiri to his deputy on April 15, 1999, noted, ''[W]e only became aware of them [BW] when the enemy drew
our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concerns that they can be produced simply with easily available materials." In terms of
bioterrorism perpetrated by a terrorist organization, the Amerithrax events are an outlier, as they almost certainly were carried out by a
U.S. scientist, fully trained, with access to pathogenic strains and optimum working conditions. A terrorist group has never
carried out a mass-casualty bioterrorist event. Yet thanks to the steady stream of prognostications that essentially explain to
terrorists why BW would be of great utility to them, such an event may well happen. Unfortunately, remarks of the same sort will almost
certainly continue to be made by those interested in keeping the level of government funding for biodefense high.

Doesnt culminate in extinction

Keller 3/7 (Rebecca Analyst at Stratfor, Post-Doctoral Fellow at University of
Colorado at Boulder, 2013, "Bioterrorism and the Pandemic Potential,"
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/bioterrorism-and-pandemic-potential)
It is important to remember that the risk of biological attack is very low and that, partly because viruses can mutate easily, the potential for natural outbreaks is unpredictable. The key is having the right tools in case of an outbreak,
epidemic or pandemic, and these include a plan for containment, open channels of communication, scientic research and knowledge sharing. In most cases involving a potential pathogen, the news can appear far worse than the
actual threat. Infectious Disease Propagation Since the beginning of February there have been occurrences of H5N1 (bird u) in Cambodia, H1N1 (swine u) in India and a new, or novel, coronavirus (a member of the same virus
family as SARS) in the United Kingdom. In the past week, a man from Nepal traveled through several countries and eventually ended up in the United States, where it was discovered he had a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, and
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report stating that antibiotic-resistant infections in hospitals are on the rise. In addition, the United States is experiencing a worse-than-normal u season, bringing more
attention to the inuenza virus and other infectious diseases. The potential for a disease to spread is measured by its effective reproduction number, or R-value, a numerical score that indicates whether a disease will propagate or
die out. When the disease rst occurs and no preventive measures are in place, the reproductive potential of the disease is referred to as R0, the basic reproduction rate. The numerical value is the number of cases a single case can
cause on average during its infectious period. An R0 above 1 means the disease will likely spread (many inuenza viruses have an R0 between 2 and 3, while measles had an R0 value of between 12 and 18), while an R-value of less
than 1 indicates a disease will likely die out. Factors contributing to the spread of the disease include the length of time people are contagious, how mobile they are when they are contagious, how the disease spreads (through the air
or bodily uids) and how susceptible the population is. The initial R0, which assumes no inherent immunity, can be decreased through control measures that bring the value either near or below 1, stopping the further spread of the
disease. Both the coronavirus family and the inuenza virus are RNA viruses, meaning they replicate using only RNA (which can be thought of as a single-stranded version of DNA, the more commonly known double helix containing
genetic makeup). The rapid RNA replication used by many viruses is very susceptible to mutations, which are simply errors in the replication process. Some mutations can alter the behavior of a virus, including the severity of
infection and how the virus is transmitted. The combination of two different strains of a virus, through a process known as antigenic shift, can result in what is essentially a new virus. Inuenza, because it infects multiple species, is
the hallmark example of this kind of evolution. Mutations can make the virus unfamiliar to the body's immune system. The lack of established immunity within a population enables a disease to spread more rapidly because the
population is less equipped to battle the disease. The trajectory of a mutated virus (or any other infectious disease) can reach three basic levels of magnitude. An outbreak is a small, localized occurrence of a pathogen. An epidemic
indicates a more widespread infection that is still regional, while a pandemic indicates that the disease has spread to a global level. Virologists are able to track mutations by deciphering the genetic sequence of new infections. It is
this technology that helped scientists to determine last year that a smattering of respiratory infections discovered in the Middle East was actually a novel coronavirus. And it is possible that through a series of mutations a virus like
H5N1 could change in such a way to become easily transmitted between humans. Lessons Learned There have been several inuenza pandemics throughout history. The 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic is often cited as a worst-case
scenario, since it infected between 20 and 40 percent of the world's population, killing roughly 2 percent of those infected. In more recent history, smaller incidents, including an epidemic of the SARS virus in 2003 and what was
technically dened as a pandemic of the swine u (H1N1) in 2009, caused fear of another pandemic like the 1918 occurrence. The spread of these two diseases was contained before reaching catastrophic levels, although the
economic impact from fear of the diseases reached beyond the infected areas. Previous pandemics have underscored the importance of preparation, which is essential to effective disease management. The World Health
Organization lays out a set of guidelines for pandemic prevention and containment. The general principles of preparedness include stockpiling vaccines, which is done by both the United States and the European Union (although the
possibility exists that the vaccines may not be effective against a new virus). In the event of an outbreak, the guidelines call for developed nations to share vaccines with developing nations. Containment strategies beyond vaccines
include quarantine of exposed individuals, limited travel and additional screenings at places where the virus could easily spread, such as airports. Further measures include the closing of businesses, schools and borders. Individual
measures can also be taken to guard against infection. These involve general hygienic measures -- avoiding mass gatherings, thoroughly washing hands and even wearing masks in specic, high-risk situations. However, airborne
viruses such as inuenza are still the most difficult to contain because of the method of transmission. Diseases like noroviruses, HIV or cholera are more serious but have to be transmitted by blood, other bodily uids or fecal matter.
The threat of a rapid pandemic is thereby slowed because it is easier to identify potential contaminates and either avoid or sterilize them. Research is another important aspect of overall preparedness. Knowledge gained from
studying the viruses and the ready availability of information can be instrumental in tracking diseases. For example, the genomic sequence of the novel coronavirus was made available, helping scientists and doctors in different
countries to readily identify the infection in limited cases and implement quarantine procedures as necessary. There have been only 13 documented cases of the novel coronavirus, so much is unknown regarding the disease. Recent
cases in the United Kingdom indicate possible human-to-human transmission. Further sharing of information relating to the novel coronavirus can aid in both treatment and containment. Ongoing research into viruses can also help
make future vaccines more efficient against possible mutations, though this type of research is not without controversy. A case in point is research on the H5N1 virus. H5N1 rst appeared in humans in 1997. Of the more than 600
cases that have appeared since then, more than half have resulted in death. However, the virus is not easily transmitted because it must cross from bird to human. Human-to-human transmission of H5N1 is very rare, with only a few
suspected incidents in the known history of the disease. While there is an H5N1 vaccine, it is possible that a new variation of the vaccine would be needed were the virus to mutate into a form that was transmittable between
humans. Vaccines can take months or even years to develop, but preliminary research on the virus, before an outbreak, can help speed up development. In December 2011, two separate research labs, one in the United States and
one in the Netherlands, sought to publish their research on the H5N1 virus. Over the course of their research, these labs had created mutations in the virus that allowed for airborne transmission between ferrets. These mutations
also caused other changes, including a decrease in the virus's lethality and robustness (the ability to survive outside the carrier). Publication of the research was delayed due to concerns that the results could increase the risk of
accidental release of the virus by encouraging further research, or that the information could be used by terrorist organizations to conduct a biological attack. Eventually, publication of papers by both labs was allowed. However, the

scientic community imposed a voluntary moratorium in order to allow the community and regulatory bodies to determine the best practices moving forward. This voluntary ban was lifted for much of the world on Jan. 24, 2013. On
Feb. 21, the National Institutes of Health in the United States issued proposed guidelines for federally funded labs working with H5N1. Once standards are set, decisions will likely be made on a case-by-case basis to allow research to
continue. Fear of a pandemic resulting from research on H5N1 continues even after the moratorium was lifted. Opponents of the research cite the possibility that the virus will be accidentally released or intentionally used as a
bioweapon, since information in scientic publications would be considered readily available. The Risk-Reward Equation The risk of an accidental release of H5N1 is similar to that of other infectious pathogens currently being studied.
Proper safety standards are key, of course, and experts in the eld have had a year to determine the best way to proceed, balancing safety and research benets. Previous work with the virus was conducted at biosafety level three
out of four, which requires researchers wearing respirators and disposable gowns to work in pairs in a negative pressure environment. While many of these labs are part of universities, access is controlled either through keyed entry
or even palm scanners. There are roughly 40 labs that submitted to the voluntary ban. Those wishing to resume work after the ban was lifted must comply with guidelines requiring strict national oversight and close communication
and collaboration with national authorities. The risk of release either through accident or theft cannot be completely eliminated, but given the established parameters the risk is minimal. The use of the pathogen as a biological
weapon requires an assessment of whether a non-state actor would have the capabilities to isolate the virulent strain, then weaponize and distribute it. Stratfor has long held the position that while terrorist organizations may have
rudimentary capabilities regarding biological weapons

the likelihood of a successful attack is very low.

Given that the

laboratory version of H5N1 -- or any inuenza virus, for that matter -- is a contagious pathogen, there would be two possible modes
that a non-state actor would have to instigate an attack. The virus could be rened and then aerosolized and released into a

There are
severe constraints that make success using either of these methods unlikely.
The technology needed to rene and aerosolize a pathogen for a biological
attack is beyond the capability of most non-state actors. Even if they were able to develop a weapon, other
factors such as wind patterns and humidity can render an attack
inefective. Using a human carrier is a less expensive method, but it requires that the
biological agent be a contagion. Additionally, in order to infect the large number of people necessary to start
an outbreak, the infected carrier must be mobile while contagious, something that
is doubtful with a serious disease like small pox. The carrier also cannot be visibly ill
populated area, or an individual could be infected with the virus and sent to freely circulate within a population.

because that would limit the necessary human contact. As far as continued research is concerned, there is a risk-reward equation to
consider. The threat of a terrorist attack using biological weapons is very low .
And while it is impossible to predict viral outbreaks, it is important to be able to recognize a new strain of virus that could result in
an epidemic or even a pandemic, enabling countries to respond more effectively. All of this hinges on the level of preparedness of
developed nations and their ability to rapidly exchange information, conduct research and promote individual awareness of the
threat.

AT Bioweapons Link
Fear of pandemic apocalypse whether bioterrorism or disease
is not a response to increased threat but to a shift in
subjectivity in the post-genomic era toward ever-present
catastrophe the circulation of narrative creates practices that
make it more likely as rhetorical critics, we should reject
them
Keranen 11 (Lisa, Department of Communication , University of Colorado Denver,
Concocting Viral Apocalypse: Catastrophic Risk and the Production of
Bio(in)security Western Journal of Communication, Volume 75, Issue 5)
The dominant critical read of the U.S.'s post-9/11 biodefense bonanza is
that it represents a dangerous extension of the War on Terror into a
technoscientic front that strips funding from crucial areas such as
malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS (Goldstein, 2003; Klotz & Sylvester, 2009).
Supporters counter that because it extends public health response capacity,
biodefense could potentially counter a host of naturally occurring outbreaks and
lead to new medical advances (Palmquist, 2008). Whether or not either or both of
these claims bears out upon empirical scrutiny, this paper locates the
biodefense buildup in a widespread vision of bio(in)security collectively
produced through representations of catastrophic viral apocalypse that, in
turn, licenses a proliferation of biological weapons agents in the name of
biodefense. Indeed, a collection of experts from security circles, the
pharmaceutical industry, the scientic community, citizen advocacy
groups, international policy circles, and even Hollywood haveacross a
variety of political, technical, and cultural frontspushed the guiding notion of
biological vulnerability that may in fact be promulgating bio(in)security in
order to justify and perpetuate its existence. In short, while these elite
decision-makers do not control the endless loop of Hollywood imagery and
simulated confabulations that lodge the germ threat so rmly in the
American psyche, they do confront such visions of viral apocalypse
through a series of technological xes that make germ work routine, and
which sustain biodefense writ large.
The rhetoric of biological threats as catastrophic risk that emerged out of the
midlate 1990s and intensied after the post-9/11 anthrax mailings thus signies a
reconguration of anxieties about emerging infectious disease to the
realm of national security, encouraging a robust biodefense. As
necessary as protections from epidemic may be, this development
nevertheless raises questions about the interlacing of national security and
public health. It also raises questions about which health risks merit largescale economic and cultural outlays. For instance, while acknowledged acts of
bioterrorism killed fewer than 10 people in the last 100 years, cell phonerelated
distractions are responsible for 2,600 annual deaths and 333,000 accidents with
moderate to severe injuries (Richtel, 2009). Routine medical errors kill tens of
thousands of citizens each year, food-borne pathogens cause more than 76 million
illnesses each year in the United States with 5,000 deaths (Institute of Medicine,
2009; Mead et al., 1999), while cancer and heart disease kill more than a million
(Goldstein, 2003). Yet, concerns about bioterrorism and possible pandemic
more than the more mundane and regularly occurring killersprompt

large-scale funding and action; this imbalance is fueled, in part, through

viral apocalyptic imaginations.
This essay represents but a beginning inspection of how naturally occurring germs
and newly created biological agents are rising in prominence and symbolic power.
Future investigations of the rhetorical constitution, deployment, and operation of
perceived biological threats are needed. For instance, much work remains to
account for the evolution of viral apocalypse as a rhetorical form that cuts across
political, technical, and cultural domains. The visual imaginary of viral apocalypse in
particular deserves scholarly scrutiny, as does the technical and public framing of
biological risks across multiple time periods and contexts. Additionally, scholars
should explore the meanings and consequences of the rhetoric of public health
security. Indeed, the implications of biodefensive activities for research ethics,
genetic manipulation, health and safety, and global transparency and international
relations remain to be seen (and operate often under the radar), but deserve
intense discussion and scrutiny from scholars and broader global community. These
are but a few of the projects that scholars in communication and rhetoric can
undertake to help explain howand with what effectbiorisks are being generated,
understood, and activated in public and private life.
Citing Mitchell Dean, Scott (2006) maintains that scholars should analyze how
changing conceptions of risk become latched onto diferent political
programmes and social imaginaries that invest them with a specic ethos
(Dean as cited in Scott, 2006, p. 120). Scott concludes his essay concerning 9/11,
BigPharma, and bioterrorism with the hope that others will join me in exploring
rhetoric's interdependent and relative roles in the construction, functions, and
effects of risk across global socio-political contexts (p. 138). By supplying a
preliminary rhetorical history and example of biocriticism (Kernen, 2011a), this
essay has attempted precisely that task. Harkening back to Hay and Andrejevic's
(2006) notion of homeland insecurities, it contributes a biological component to
critical homeland security research and ends with an invitation for others to
contribute to this emerging vein of scholarship. If, indeed, biological threats are
multiplying both symbolically and materially, then rhetoricians and critical
communication scholars can at the very least play a more signicant part in
explaining how biodefense might be reproducing the very bio(in)security
that gives it meaning and power, hence generating a brave new world
wherein biological weapons agents are normalized and awaiting further
action.

Diplomacy

1NC Regionalism Wont Happen

Even if not, Enhanced regionalism wont happen too many
sources of conflict.
Lee 11 [Lee Shin-wha, Professor, Korea University, CFR, The East Asia Summit and
the Difficulty of Establishing a Security Regime in Northeast Asia, November 2011,
http://www.cfr.org/south-korea/east-asia-summit-difficulty-establishing-securityregime-northeast-asia/p26543]
The United States' membership in the East Asian Summit (EAS) may mark a new step in U.S. involvement in East Asia. But East
Asian regionalism does not currently provide an answer for how to
institutionalize security cooperation in Northeast Asia. In that region, the global
interests of the four major powersthe United States, China, Russia, and
Japanintersect in complicated ways with the divided Korean peninsula. The fourth trilateral summit
between South Korea, Japan, and China was held in Tokyo last May, and since 1997 the three countries have regularly met on the
sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. These meetings demonstrate the need for a region-specic
political dialogue and consultation, if not an independent institutional entity. The EAS and other ASEAN-led multilateral gatherings
are mainly centered on Southeast Asia and pay less attention to Northeast Asian concerns, such as the Six Party Talks on the North

it is unlikely that South Korea, Japan, and China will be

up to the task of efectively addressing the challenges unique to
Northeast Asia.
Northeast Asian leaders at the tripartite meeting have failed to prove that
subregional multilateral initiatives are more efective in addressing their
needs for enhanced cooperation in nance, trade, and environmental
protection, not to mention the absence of agreement on North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship and its military provocations
against South Korea. This lack of progress can be explained by several interrelated factors:
persistent nationalism and mutual mistrust caused by colonial history and
war, territorial disputes, ideological confrontation throughout the Cold
War period, U.S. engagement in the region based on a bilateral "hub-and-spoke" system, and the lack of
political will in facilitating multilateral cooperation. Political and security
matters are still perceived as contentious rather than cooperative.
Korean nuclear issue. However,

Alt cause FTAs

Dent 13 [Christopher M. Dent, Professor of East Asia's International Political
Economy at the University of Leeds, Paths ahead for East Asia and AsiaPacic
regionalism, International Affairs 89: 4 (2013) 963985]
In sum, what has developed in East Asia and the AsiaPacic so far is a dense region-wide
pattern of heterogeneous bilateral FTAs. Many observers make the mistake of equating this trend
with regionalism per se. In fact, a case can be made that FTA bilateralism has fractured trade
relations in both regions into a complex array of preferential trade
relationships that actually work against the development of regionalism
and regional community-building.26 Compliance with the various trade and
investment rules embodied in these bilateral agreements constitutes what
is often referred to as the spaghetti or noodle bowl problem for rms.27
Businesses have long complained about the tangled mess of rules caused by bilateral trade deals, and governments from the region
have sought to address it through proposed regional FTAs that aim to harmonize sets of bilateral deals into unied singular
agreements.

AT Disease
Natural pandemics dont cause extinction
Sandberg 6/11/14 (Anders, James Martin Research Fellow at University of Oxford, The ve biggest threats to
human existence, http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/11/the-ve-biggest-threats-tohuman-existence/)

natural pandemics are unlikely

to be existential threats : There are usually people resistant to the
pathogen, and the ofspring of survivors would be more resistant. Evolution
also does not favor parasites that wipe out their hosts, which is why syphilis
went from a virulent killer to a chronic disease as it spread in Europe .
Natural pandemics have killed more people than wars. However,

Pharma wont invest in solving their impacts

Sample 1/23/13 (Ian, Guardian Science Correspondent, Sally Davies is Britain's most senior medical adviser,
Antibiotic-resistant diseases pose 'apocalyptic' threat, top expert says,
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/23/antibiotic-resistant-diseases-apocalyptic-threat)
"In the past, most people haven't worried because we've always had new antibiotics to turn to," said Alan Johnson,

the development
pipeline is running dry . We don't have new antibiotics that we can rely on

consultant clinical scientist at the Health Protection Agency. "What has changed is that
in the immediate future or in the longer term."

Changes in modern medicine have exacerbated the problem by making

patients more susceptible to infections. For example, cancer treatments
weaken the immune system, and the use of catheters increases the chances of bugs entering the
bloodstream.
"We are becoming increasingly reliant on antibiotics in a whole range of areas of medicine. If we don't have new
antibiotics to deal with the problems of resistance we see, we are going to be in serious trouble," Johnson added.

The supply of new antibiotics has dried up for several reasons, but a major
one is that drugs companies see greater prots in medicines that treat
chronic conditions , such as heart disease, which patients must take for
years or even decades. "There is a broken market model for making new
antibiotics," Davies told the MPs.

No risk of zoonotic pandemics cant go airborne or spread

efectively, plus health infrastructure checks every disease in
history proves our impact
Orent 1/4/15 (Wendy Orent is the author of "Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's

Most Dangerous Disease" and "Ticked: The Battle Over Lyme Disease in the South.", Ignore predictions of lethal
pandemics and pay attention to what really matters, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-orent-pandemichysteria-20150104-story.html)

scientists understand that there are

signicant physical and evolutionary barriers to a blood- and fluid-borne
virus developing airborne transmission, as Garrett has acknowledged. Though Ebola virus has
The scientic world has changed since 2005. Now, most

been detected in human alveolar cells, as Vincent Racaniello, virologist at Columbia University, explained to me,
that doesn't mean it can replicate in the airways enough to allow transmission. Maybe the virus can get in, but
can't get out. Like a roach motel, wrote Racaniello in an email.

H5N1, we understand now, never went airborne because it attached only to cell
receptors located deep in human lungs, and could not, therefore, be
coughed or sneezed out. SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, caused local outbreaks after
multiple introductions via air travel but spread only sluggishly and mostly in hospitals .
Breaking its chains of transmission ended the outbreak globally . There
probably will always be signicant barriers preventing the easy

adaptation of an animal disease to the human species . Furthermore, Racaniello

insists that there are no recorded instances of viruses that have adapted to
humans, changing the way they are spread .
So we need to stop listening to the doomsayers, and we need to do it now.
Predictions of lethal pandemics have since the swine u asco of 1976, when President Ford
vowed to vaccinate every man, woman and child in the United States always been wrong . Fearmongering wastes our time and our emotions and diverts resources from
where they should be directed in the case of Ebola, to the ongoing tragedy in West Africa.
Americans have all but forgotten about Ebola now, because most people realize it isn't coming to a school or a
shopping mall near you. But Sierra Leoneans and Liberians go on dying.

AT Water
Already lots of dams
Mukerjee 7/14 (Madhusree, Scientic American Contributor, The Impending Dam
Disaster in the Himalayas http://www.scienticamerican.com/article/the-impendingdam-disaster-in-the-himalayas/)
Earlier this year earthquakes in Nepal leveled thousands of buildings, killed upward
of 8,500 people and injured hundreds of thousands more. The magnitude 7.8 and
7.3 temblors also cracked or damaged several hydropower projects, underscoring
another imminent danger: dam bursts. More than 600 large dams have been
built or are in some stage of construction or planning in the geologically
active Himalayan Mountains, but many are probably not designed to
withstand the worst earthquakes that could hit the region, according to a
number of seismologists and civil engineers. Should any of the structures fail,
reservoirs as large as lakes could empty onto downstream towns and cities. A
collapse of Tehri Dam in the central Himalayas, which sits above a fault, would, for
instance, release a wall of water about 200 meters high, slamming through two
towns. In total, the ooding would affect six urban centers with a combined
population of two million.
More powerful earthquakes are indeed likely to strike the Himalayas in coming
decades, seismology models show. The Indian subcontinent is pushing under the
Tibetan Plateau at roughly 1.8 meters per century, but it regularly gets stuck; when
the obstruction gives way, a section of the Tibetan plate lurches a few meters
southward and releases the pent-up energy in an earthquake. The Nepal
earthquakes also destabilized the region to the west, notes Laurent Bollinger, a
seismologist at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission.
Destabilization makes a great earthquake, which is dened as having a magnitude
of 8.0 or higher, more likely to occur sooner rather than later. Other studies indicate
that the earthquakes released only a mere fraction of the stress of this fault line,
which is expected to readjust with quakes of equal or higher magnitude. Whether
they'll break now, in an 8 or wait another 200 years and then give way in an 8.7,
one cannot say, says seismologist Vinod K. Gaur of the CSIR Fourth Paradigm
Institute in Bangalore.
Such seismically active regions are exactly where hundreds of dams 15 meters
or higher are either under construction or being planned, most of them to
supply hydropower to India or China. Any dam being built during this
government-funded boom, as well as those already completed, must be able to
withstand the strong ground shaking of an extreme earthquake, says Martin Wieland
of the International Commission on Large Dams, a group of engineers that makes
recommendations for structural standards. Although every nation has its own
regulations, India and China are secretive about their dam designs when it
comes to public scrutiny. Independent engineers rarely are allowed to evaluate
the robustness of the structures, and when they are, the results can be unsettling.
For example, Probe International, a Canadian environmental research organization,
reports that designers for China's Three Gorges Dam used the most optimistic
interpretation possible of seismic shaking. Similarly Tehri Dam never underwent
realistic simulations, asserts Gaur, who served on its oversight committee, along
with civil engineer R. N. Iyengar, formerly of the Indian Institute of Science in
Bangalore. Government-affiliated scientists and engineers claim that Tehri Dam can
survive an 8.5 shock, but outside experts are not so sanguine. Any of hundreds of

dams could be in danger of bursting when the next big one hits. If that were to
happen during monsoon season, when the dams are full, the consequences could
be catastrophic.

Alt cause, Laos will destroy the Mekong Delta anyways they
see damming as an existential necessity
Parameswaran 14 (Prashanth, Diplomat Writer, Laos Dam Risks Damaging
Mekong River, Igniting Tensions With Vietnam http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/laosdam-risks-damaging-mekong-river-igniting-tensions-with-vietnam/)
A two-day meeting in Laos regarding the construction of a 260-megawatt
dam on the Lower Mekong River has predictably done little to close the
gap between the Lao government, which is intent on proceeding with the
project, and other parties that remain concerned over its environmental and
geopolitical impacts, Voice of America reported Tuesday.
The proposed Don Sahong hydropower project is critical part of the Lao
governments hopes to transform the country into the battery of Southeast Asia,
with revenues generated from exporting power to neighboring countries. But the
other three neighboring countries in the lower Mekong Thailand, Cambodia and
Vietnam have joined with rights groups in formally calling for a halt in construction
to allow for further impact studies. They argue that the proposed project would
dramatically alter the ow of the Mekong River and disrupt the migration of sh to
the detriment of downstream communities in neighboring countries.
The likely impacts from the Don Sahong dampose an unacceptable risk to food
security, lives and livelihoods and the health of millions of people, the Save the
Mekong Coalition wrote in the Vietnamese publication Thanh Nien News on Friday
ahead of the meeting.
Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam are all bound by a 1995 Mekong treaty to
hold inter-governmental consultations before constructing new dams, and the
recent meeting was part of this process. However, Laos continues to insist that it
only needs to notify its neighbors about its desire to build the dam, and it has
already begun constructing it.
Meanwhile, governments and groups from neighboring Thailand, Vietnam and
Cambodia have said that the trans-boundary impacts of the dams mean that the
wisdom of the project itself needs to be debated rst, or else the consultation
process itself would be of limited utility.
Construction has begun and decisions have already been made, prior to any
consultation taking place. The process will simply serve as a ritual or a rubber
stamp for the dam, Somkiat Khuenchiangsa, coordinator of the Thailand-based
Chiang Kong Conservation Group and the Mekong-Lanna Network on Cultural and
Natural Resources Conservation said in an op-ed to The Bangkok Post on December
11.
The effects of the Don Sahong dam on neighboring countries could be signicant.
The dam will block the only channel available for dry-season sh migration, leading
to the demise of important sheries and the potential extinction of critically
endangered Irrawaddy dolphins, which are also a big source of eco-tourism.
Disrupted sh migration patterns would be particularly devastating for Cambodia,
since more than 70 percent of protein consumed there comes from sh. The dam
would also affect the roughly 20 million residents of Vietnams Mekong Delta, which
accounts for more than a quarter of the countrys GDP. An expected drop in alluvium
would render soil unsuitable for cultivation, while drought and salination will be

more severe, potentially disrupting the livelihoods of millions and leading to an

employment and migration crisis for the Vietnamese government.
The dam will come like a hit to the back of the head. It will be a fatal blow, Dr.
Duong Van Ni from Can Tho University said.
The consequences could extend into the geopolitical arena as well. Carlyle Thayer, a
political scientist with the Australian-based University of New South Wales (and
Diplomat regular), told Voice of America that if the dam affects the livelihood of
farmers in the Mekong Delta as predicted, it could then generate bottom-up
pressure and affect bilateral relations between Laos and Vietnam.
Its going to test [Communist] party to party relations between Laos and Vietnam
quite severely. And also a bad time for Laos because Vietnam has got one more
year to the party congress and theres a plenum to do with pretty strident
nationalism in Vietnam, Thayer said.
Yet Lao officials have insisted on going forward with the dam. They say
that the Mekong River Commission cannot stop the country from pursuing
its right to hydropower, and that the Lao government and the dams
developers are working to address some of the environmental concerns
raised. However, critics remain unconvinced that the mitigation measures
proposed will be sufficient.
[T]he Lao government will not be deterred from its commitment to
develop clean, renewable hydropower, a source of national pride for the
Lao people and a sustainable source of electricity for the region, Viraphonh
Viravong, the countrys vice minister of energy and mines, wrote in an especially
strident op-ed in Thailands Nation newspaper in late October.

No risk of escalation No country in the region cares enough

to block the dams they just complain and use water control in
lieu of ghting
Sheikh 15 (Salman Ra, Pakistani academic and a regular contributor to Asia
Sentinel, The Race for Dams in the Great Himalaya
http://www.asiasentinel.com/society/race-dams-great-himalaya/2/)
The race for dams in the Himalayas afects all of the river systems flowing
out of the Tibetan glacier the Ganges, the Mekong, the Brahmaputra, the
Irrawaddy, the Yangtze and many more. The race could turn the region into a virtual
desert if it continues unabated, environmentalists say. During the past three
decades, tens of millions of people have been displaced in India and China due to
the construction of big dams such as the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River
in India and the Three Gorges on the Yangtze.
But geopolitics overshadows human misery and destruction of ecology.
Little attention is being paid to human and environmental factors. No
state has actually put forward any comprehensive plan for rehabilitation
of those who would be directly afected. Although some states such as India
have assured their citizens that large scale dislocations would not occur and that
many of the projects are merely run-off-the-river electricity generation units,
whenever people have been displaced due to the construction of hydro-electric
projects, dams and other such things, relocation fails due to one basic reason: they
are unable to adjust to the new locality they are shifted to.

Not only India but other Southeast Asian states have also repeatedly
voiced their concerns over Chinas massive dam projects. Construction in
China has been vociferously blamed for reduced water ow into and sudden
ooding of the Mekong River, which ows into Southeast Asia and is a source of life
for millions of people. As such, massive dam construction in the Tibetan region in
the great Himalayas is also regarded as having serious ramications for the lower
riparian states.
In response to such widespread concerns, the Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in late 2014 that the hydropower
stations China builds will not affect the ood prevention and ecological system of
downstream areas.
However, China is certainly not the only state involved in harnessing the
waters of the Himalayas. As a matter of fact, a number of regional states,
especially India, are also planning and or constructing hundreds of dams.
Not only is this a part of the strategy to meet national needs and to cater
for the ever growing populations needs, but it is also geostrategic necessity.
Control over the flow of water directly translates into a strategic asset
and can potentially be used as a weapon in the wake of war or as a threat
to deter any possible aggression from an adversary state.

No water conflict
Brahic 08

[Catherine, writer for New Sceintist peer reviewed journal, April 11, Is this the beginning of water
wars?, http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13655-is-this-the-beginning-of-water-wars.html]

As Barcelona runs out of water, Spain has been forced to consider

importing water from France by boat. It is the latest example of the
growing struggle for water around the world - the "water wars". Barcelona and
the surrounding region are suffering the worst drought in decades. There are several possible
solutions, including diverting a river, and desalinating water. But the city looks
like it will ship water from the French port of Marseilles. The water services authority in Marseille say that no
contracts have been signed, and would not say how much the water would cost, although it is unlikely to cost any

the amounts of water than have been

discussed are small - 25,000 cubic metres, less than what's needed to
grow an acre of wheat, and not enough to keep 30 Spaniards going for a year, based on their average
more than it costs the inhabitants of Marseilles. And

consumption. But the proposal is interesting because it turns a local drought into an international situation.

Climatologists predict that certain regions, the Mediterranean basin

among them, will increasingly sufer from water shortages as global
temperatures are pushed up by greenhouse gas emissions. Combined with
reports that water scarcity can escalate conflicts, the forecasts have
raised fears that climate change could bring about water wars. "People
will not go to war over water," says Mark Zeitoun, from the London School of Economics' Centre for
Environmental Policy and Governance in the UK. "But that's not to say water shortages will
not contributing to existing tensions." This is already happening. Zeitoun advises the
Palestinian authorities in their water negotiations with Israel. The latter controls 90% of the two territories' shared
water resources. "The fact that the Palestinians are deprived of their water doesn't help the situation," Zeitoun says.
Like Spain, the Palestinian authorities are considering their options, and like Spain one of them is to import water in this case from Turkey, a country which is already involved in its own water disputes with Syria and Iraq. The Tigris
and Euphrates rivers start in Turkey and supply Syria and Iraq. The Turkish government is building dams on those
rivers, reducing the ow downstream and stoking long-standing tensions with its neighbours. "Iraq desperately
needs that water," says Zeitoun.