NHS Debate

afghan coin 1ac

Contention One is Inherency

No clear endgame has been defined in Afghanistan troop reductions this summer are largely superficial Foust 3/8Military analyst specializing in Afghanistan and Asia, has written for NYT, Reuters, The Christian Science Monitor,
and Columbia (Josh, The Numbers Game in Afghanistan, lexis) This week, Defense Secretary Bob Gates made a surprise trip to Afghanistan. His first meetings were dominated by the latest row over civilian casualties more than 200 civilians have been killed in the past few weeks, many at the hands of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). But there was a bigger reason behind Gates visit: to evaluate the wars progress. At first glance, the news out of Afghanistan appears to be upbeat: the wars progress has been so encouraging, Gates told reporters, that the July 2011 drawdown might actually happen sort of. The actual numbers of troops sent home, he explained, will probably be small, since there needs to be a sizable U.S. presence left over to combat the insurgency in the south and east of the country. The number of U.S. troops in the country will peak this year. And there
is a growing body of statistics to back up what these troops have accomplished: USA Today reports that nearly 900 Taliban commanders have been killed or captured in the last 10 months; thousands of weapons, including

The numbers sound impressive, but they also raise substantial questions. One is what ISAF hopes to achieve by arresting or killing the mid-level leaders of the insurgency. Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, thinks this effort could be a key to success there because of how it might degrade the insurgencys effectiveness. We will see the strategic effectiveness of those efforts, or lack thereof when the fighting in Afghanistan picks up again in the spring and summer, he explained. But it remains unclear what ISAF means when it designates someone a commander that is, what number of fighters that leader is responsible for and what the strategic effect of taking him off the battlefield will be. The Afghan Ministry of Defense recently estimated that there are upwards of 30,000 Taliban fighters active in Afghanistan. Did the 900 recently killed or detained commanders play an important role within the insurgency, and does removing such a modest number really affect the our efforts there? The other numbers ISAF touts raise similar questions. Are we really changing the equation when we impound a few hundred RPG rounds in a country awash in weapons? And does our seizing of 10,000 pounds of opium in a country that produces almost 8 million pounds per year really amount to a significant achievement? From a distance, it is difficult to understand what the massive escalation of U.S. troops was meant to accomplish. Its important to remember that there will never be as many U.S. troops in that country as there are now. And this is still winter, when violence traditionally abates as Taliban fighters vacation in Pakistan. Yet the violence, mostly in the south, where the surge was concentrated, has never been stronger. According to statistics compiled by Indicium Consulting, the first two months of 2011 were 60 percent more violent than the same period in 2010 (again, concentrated in the south). A recent Washington Post story noted that violence in the east of Afghanistan, which also received a big share of surge troops, is up 21 percent. There are other discouraging indicators. Incidents involving improvised explosive devices known as IEDs, which are the biggest killer of U.S. troops and Afghan civilians, have not been retarded by the surge. Wired recently reported that the number of IED explosions have remained more or less constant since June 2010 despite the so-called winter lull in Taliban fighting.
rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), have been seized; and nearly 10,000 pounds of opium have been impounded. Afghan civilian casualties touted in 2009 as the primary indicator of success in the counterinsurgency are at an all-time high. Worse still, there is mounting evidence that both ISAF and the Afghan government are

its difficult to reconcile the official reports of successful operations the growing number of detained or killed Taliban commanders, escalating opium seizures, and so on with the larger statistical picture of the war. Some analysts have tried to explain away the more discouraging indicators as the last gasp of a dying movement (essentially accusing the Taliban of throwing a mortar tantrum because theyre losing). But the latest Afghan surge of troops is now more than a year old, if judged from when Marines were first deployed in December 2009. This stands in stark contrast to the Iraq surge: At the eight-month mark in September 2007, General David Petraeus reported to Congress that there was a noticeable and substantial reduction in violence (pdf). There is no similar trend in Afghanistan. One is left to conclude that either the statistics we use to gauge our effectiveness in the war in Afghanistan are meaningless (because we are actually winning the fight) or that the leaders in the military are spinning the numbers to paint a different reality than the one unfolding on the ground. Neither scenario inspires much confidence in our ability to accurately define or declare victory in this war.
actively working to suppress reporting on civilian casualties. In fact,

NHS Debate afghan coin 1ac Its safe to say were losing tactical gains are outweighed by strategic losses and COIN epic fails Cohen 2/9Senior Fellow @ American Security Project, Prof IR @ Columbia, served @ the DOS, Senior Researcher @ New
America Foundation (Michael, Deck Chairs on the Titanic, Foreign Policy) Over the past two weeks, as the world's attention has been focused on pro-democracy demonstrations in Egypt, the tale of woe emanating from Afghanistan has only grown worse. As if right on cue, President Hamid Karzai announced at the recent security conference in Munichthat provincial reconstruction teams -- a key element of the U.S. military's counterinsurgency strategy -- are undermining his governing authority and should be winded down by 2014. But this latest Karzai salvo is the mere tip of the iceberg. Although Gen. David Petraeus and other administration officials have tried to spin recent military gains as a reason for optimism, by President Barack Obama's own criteria for success, the United States is failing badly in Afghanistan. Back in December 2009, when Obama announced his plans for escalation in Afghanistan, he identified three key elements of
the mission: militarily breaking the Taliban's momentum and increasing Afghanistan's capacity to secure itself independently; helping the Afghan government take advantage of improved security to improve governance; and

On nearly all these fronts the U.S. mission is showing very little progress. The military repeatedly claims it is regaining the momentum from Taliban insurgents. And though it appears the Taliban have been weakened by an uptick in U.S. military engagement, the facts also suggest a more complicated reality. According to the well-respected Afghan NGO Safety Office (ANSO), 2010
finally, forging a strong partnership between the United States and Pakistan. was the most violent year of the war. The organization claims the evidence is "indisputable" that security conditions in the country are worsening. Only four provinces, according to ANSO are considered to have "low insecurity," and across Afghanistan civilian casualties are up -- as is U.S. and NATO loss of life. Indeed, there were more than 1,430 insurgent incidents in January 2011, an 80 percent increase over the same period last year.

But even if one accepts Petraeus's claims that America has "got our teeth in the enemy's jugular now," the rest of the story is more uniformly negative. Improvements in Afghanistan's security forces are sketchy at best. A new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction describes a devastating tale of "poor planning" and weak management that is undermining ambitious U.S. training goals for Afghan security forces. Training of the Afghan police isn't much better. A recent survey of police mentoring in Afghanistan concluded that "corruption among the Afghan police was effectively universal," and even by NATO's own data, attrition rates for the Afghan police, though improved, are still above 50 percent. How about the aforementioned Hamid Karzai? Here again the story is not good. Karzai finally begrudgingly agreed last month to seat the newly elected Afghan parliament -- four months after a fraud-scarred election. But he did so only after "intense pressure" from the international community . Hopes that Karzai would move "in a new direction," as
Obama said at West Point, have not materialized -- and economic and political corruption, as well as poor governance, remains a fundamental part of life in Afghanistan. With Karzai's government showing such little improvement, relations between Kabul and the U.S. government have become increasingly frayed. Across the border in Pakistan, things aren't much better. The United States has just this week suspended all high-level dialogue with Pakistan over the continued detainment of an U.S. diplomat, Raymond Davis, who is being held in violation of his diplomatic immunity by Pakistani authorities. It's indicative of the cloud of suspicion that

last month there were reports that Washington plans to offer Islamabad a new set of inducements to remove the Afghan Taliban safe havens in Pakistan. But nine years of enticements from the Obama and Bush administrations have failed to convince Islamabad to abandon the Taliban as a strategic ally -- and there is little reason to believe that a new offering of American baubles and assurances will soften Pakistani intransigence. These tales of unmet strategic objectives represent a fundamental failure of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. Yet this has not stopped U.S. policymakers from continuing to make grandiose claims of progress. In Obama's recent State of the Union address, he said that the fight is being "taken" to the enemy, words that dovetailed with those of his commanding general in Afghanistan, whose recent assessment to troops claimed the mission in Afghanistan is making "impressive progress" and has inflicted "enormous losses" on Taliban fighters. The statements by Obama and Petraeus are now typical fare from the U.S. government: They offer glowing optimism about recent military gains, but make no mention of the larger strategic obstacles that imperil success in Afghanistan. However , without tangible improvement in creating a capable and effective Afghan security force; without a competent and legitimate central government able to provide good governance to its people; without a choking-off of the supply of arms and fighters from across the border in Pakistan, the tactical gains being made by U.S. troops cannot be sustained and, quite simply, the war in Afghanistan cannot be won. All the elements of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan -- political, diplomatic, and military -- must be working if the effort is to be successful, not just the latter. But instead of recognizing these failures and
continues to darken U.S.-Pakistan relations. Indeed, shifting course, there is abiding resistance to any change among policymakers. Proposals to begin the process of political reconciliation with the Taliban are pushed aside because on the ground, after all, the insurgents are back on their heels. So why negotiate?

NHS Debate

afghan coin 1ac

Thus the plan

THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD INITIATE A PHASED WITHDRAWAL OF ITS NON-SPECIAL FORCES OPERATIONS PRESENCE IN AFGHANISTAN WELL CLARIFY

NHS Debate

afghan coin 1ac

Contention Two is the War

Initially note forward deployed counter-insurgency presence promotes anti-americanism Simon and Stevenson in 09Senior Fellow @ Council on Foreign Relations AND Prof Strategic Studies @ Naval War
College (Steven AND Jonathan, Afghanistan: How Much is Enough? Survival, Volume 51, Issue 5 October 2009 , pages 47 67) To be sure, the re-Talibanisation of Afghanistan would be undesirable in a number of ways. It would, for example, render Afghanistan more cooptable by al-Qaeda. It would also consign some Afghans, particularly women, to oppression and human-rights violations at the hands of the Taliban. But US failure to execute an ambitious counter-insurgency and state-building policy runs a prohibitive risk of playing into al-Qaeda's hands . Among the most cherished aspects of al-Qaeda's strategy is the 'management of savagery' , which constitutes the title of an important jihadist manual - subtitled 'the most important stage through which the umma will pass' - propagated under the pseudonym 'Abu Bakr al-Naji' via the Internet beginning in 2004. In essence, the strategy calls for a war of attrition in which Muslims bleed and gradually enervate the United States and its allies by repeatedly drawing them into military conflict. 27 Such designs raise the question of
whether the United States, having intervened full-bloodedly in Afghanistan, will likewise occupy and attempt to reshape every underdeveloped country in which jihadists establish a presence. This sort of project would surely be impracticable. Yet given al-Qaeda's transnational cast and noted adaptability, jihadists under its influence will almost inevitably rise to political prominence elsewhere. In this light, it is unclear where US-led intervention

within the operational environment of Afghanistan and Pakistan themselves, the alternative to a minimalist approach is likely to be not the controlled and purposeful escalation envisaged by the current policy but rather a pernicious spiral with an indeterminate outcome. If the United States continues to respond to the threat of al-Qaeda by deepening intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Qaeda and the Taliban will rejoin with heightened terrorist and insurgent operations that bring further instability. Indeed, that appears to be happening. In August 2009, as US ground commanders requested more troops, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on CNN described the situation in Afghanistan as 'serious and deteriorating' and the Taliban as having 'gotten better, more sophisticated, in their tactics'.28 The United States' next logical move would be to intensify pressure, raising civilian casualties, increasing political pressure on the Kabul and Islamabad regimes, and ultimately weakening them, which would only help al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In fact, some evidence of this dynamic has already materialised, as the Pakistani government has faced difficulties in dealing with hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis displaced by the military
might end, and how Washington could carry the burden of the Afghanistan precedent. Finally, campaign, undertaken at Washington's behest, in the Swat Valley. Certainly worries about Islamabad's ability to handle the Taliban on its own are justi fied. Some Taliban members are no doubt keen on regime change in favour of jihadists, as noted by Bruce Riedel, who headed up the Obama administration's 60-day policy review.29 But Pakistan's military capabilities should not be given short shrift. The Pakistani army, however preoccupied by India, is seasoned and capable, and able to respond decisively to the Taliban should its activities reach a critical level of destabilisation. Inter-Services Intelligence, devious though it may be, would be loath to allow the

Al-Qaeda's attrition strategy has a political as well as an operational dynamic: if the United States and its allies are continually goaded into drawing Muslim blood, more Muslims will be antagonised and therefore become ripe for recruitment. American strategist Jeffrey Record, a professor at the US Air War College, has argued that barbarism in waging war makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a democracy like the United States to keep its democratic credentials intact, and thus is hardwired to fail. Citing the French experience in Algeria and both the French and the
transfer of nuclear weapons to the Taliban. Moving forward American campaigns in Vietnam, Record notes that 'the stronger side's vulnerability to defeat in protracted conflicts against irregular foes is arguably heightened if it is a democracy'. This is because citizens of democracies tend to find military escalation - encompassing higher casualties, rising brutality and the near-inevitable erosion of democratic practices - increasingly intolerable and often reach their limit before victory can be secured.30 It follows that the most difficult challenge to sustaining a maximalist US policy, leaving aside substantive questions of strategy, is that of keeping the American people on board. The US government can sustain a deployment of some 75,000 troops, the funding it requires, and the public's tolerance for steady casualties for only a finite - and dwindling - period. If the US deployment in Iraq were reduced by two-thirds over the next year, the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan would still be about 125,000. To support that number, US military practices would require a force twice as large to be perpetually either preparing to deploy or recovering from deployment. That would mean one half of US ground forces would be indefinitely committed to Iraq and Afghanistan, while Afghanistan becomes the largest recipient of US foreign aid. An effort on that scale would garner majority US domestic support only if the public sees likely victory and Congress, the White House and the Beltway punditry line up decisively behind the policy. The emerging trends are pointing in the contrary direction. As monthly and annual US casualties in Afghanistan reached historical peaks in August 2009, and the Afghan national election loomed, a poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post indicated that most Americans did not support an extended US military commitment in Afghanistan.31 Congressional Democrats are balking at anticipated requests for more troops.32 And even conservative columnists, like the influential George F. Will, have turned

Overall, increasingly strong perceptions of the Karzai government as inept and corrupt are making prospects that the United States could enlist it as an effective counter-insurgency partner and lend it the legitimacy required to rebuild the country seem more and more baseless. The upshot is that only if the United States establishes a well-calibrated limited policy now will it have the political flexibility to sustain it over the longer-term and thereby to effectively contain the jihadist threat in Central As ia. If, on the other
against a maximalist Afghanistan policy.33 hand, the Obama administration promises more than it can deliver in Afghanistan, a reprise of Vietnam may occur: once failure becomes clear, domestic support will evaporate, the administration will be compelled to

These factors suggest that the United States should limit its Afghanistan/Pakistan policy to counter-terrorism and disown country-wide counterinsurgency and state-building in Afghanistan. At the
withdraw precipitously, and the United States will lose considerable traction in the region. same time, Washington must remain highly sensitive to the dynamic whereby decreased military activity in Afghanistan combined with robust operations in Pakistan could induce al-Qaeda to return to Afghanistan and render

the United States should seek to facilitate a glidepath to a substantial drawdown - and with it fewer casualties and lower expenditures in Afghanistan - over the next few years.
it a main threat once again. In that light, any abrupt wholesale American military withdrawal from Afghanistan would be too risky. Instead,

NHS Debate afghan coin 1ac Anti-americanism is the greatest internal link to global terrorism Afghanistan itself is unimportant Pena in 09Senior Fellow @ The Independent Institute (Charles, Can the U.S. Withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq?
http://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?eventID=145 ) Here are the issues. Number one, both Peter and Ivan have talked about this, the Taliban is not monolithic. We here in the United States tend to equate the Taliban with Al Qaeda. Theyre not one and the same. There are elements of the Taliban that would support Al Qaeda in wanting to attack the United States. There are other elements of the Taliban that are just interested in having a say in the government in Afghanistan. Weve got to stop treating them monolithically as a single threat as if somehow they are a threat to the United States of America proper. Theyre not. We have to be willing to live with less than perfect in terms of what happens in Afghanistan , and I also think that we have to be willing to concede at this point that whats left of Al Qaeda, whether theyre operating out of Pakistan or coming across the boarder periodically into Afghanistan. And by the way I saw a news report that supposedly even Bin Ladenassuming hes still alivefinds his
way across the border into Afghanistan periodically. Al Qaeda isnt the same Al Qaeda that existed, that attacked us on 9/11, and Bin Laden in particular does not have operational control over a group that has global reach

. Our larger problem is not Osama Bin Laden and what is left of Al Qaeda hiding out in Pakistan. Our larger problem is the ideology of radical Islam, which has seeped into the Muslim world in part because weve helped propagate that by our actions in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I would argue that whatever benefit there might be to getting Bin Laden at this point, and believe me I would love to be able to say that we got Osama Bin Laden, but strategically the costs required to try and get Bin Laden and contain Al Qaeda far outweigh any residual benefit at this stage. Bin Laden and the people surrounding him no longer represent operationally the real threat to the United States. The real threat is sort of everywhere within the Muslim world being fueled by ideology and anti-American sentiment. So this notion of denying Al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan, I think, is a pie-inthe-sky notion. Al Qaedathere will be some safe havens. Why? Because there will always be people who have sympathies and decide they want to support groups like Al Qaeda. The question is, are they local threats or global threats? As long as they are local threats, then those are threats that the Afghan government has to deal with and ones that we may have to live withagain, less than perfect. Its the global threat that Al Qaeda may represent that we have to worry about. I think we have to worry about that less now than we did eight years ago. I think we have to worry more that we are radicalizing Muslims around the world, as witnessed by the bombings in Madrid and London in particular. Our very presence in two Muslim countries at the moment, Iraq and Afghanistan, goes a long, long way to fueling that radicalism that its U.S. occupation that makes us a target . There may be a certain amount of anti-Western, anti-U.S. elements in radical Islamic ideology, but most of that is because were there in their territories, not necessarily that they want to come after the United States in the U.S.
that can attack the United States

And, terrorists are on the brink of procuring fissile material now Green in 11Correspondent for the VOA, has traveled extensively in Afghanistan and Central Asia, award winning journalism
on terrorism (J.J., Terrorists eye Russian nuclear stockpiles, WTOP news service) WASHINGTON - For decades, Russian authorities have proclaimed their nuclear weapons and fissile material are "safe." But an article in a scientific journal by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is stirring concerns that they may not be. The worry radiating through the international community is that terrorists may have friends who have access to fissile materials. "The insider threat remains a very serious problem," says Robert Berls, senior advisor of the Nuclear Material Security Program at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. He tells WTOP there is a concern the nuclear gatekeepers could look the other way. "You can have all the security you want -- the most sophisticated locks and security systems -- but if you have one person in a secure facility stealing materials then you got a very, very serious problem." And that is exactly what Alexander Bortnikov, the chief of the FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, has warned about. "We have information which indicates that terrorists are continuing to attempt to get access to nuclear materials (and) biological and chemical components," Bortnikov tells the Interfax and Itar-Tass news agencies Matthew Bunn, a principle investigator for Harvard University's Project on managing the Atom, says "the danger of nuclear terrorism is real enough to justify urgent action to reduce the risk." "Some terrorist groups are actively seeking nuclear weapons and the materials to make them. It is plausible that a technically sophisticated terrorist group could make a crude nuclear bomb if it acquired enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium"

NHS Debate afghan coin 1ac Terrorists dont need to be smart or even well planned one misstep is all great power war requires Ayson in 10Prof Strategic Studies and Director of Centre for Strategic Studies@ Victoria Univ. of Wellington (Robert, After a
Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7, July, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions, InformaWorld) But these two nuclear worldsa non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchangeare not necessarily separable. It is just possible that some sort of terrorist attack, and especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of events leading to a massive exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states that possess them. In this context, todays and tomorrows terrorist groups might assume the place allotted during the early Cold War years to new state possessors
of small nuclear arsenals who were seen as raising the risks of a catalytic nuclear war between the superpowers started by third parties. These risks were considered in the late 1950s and early 1960s as concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially plausible situation where an act of nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist nuclear attack on the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could plausibly be brought into the picture, not least because they seem unlikely to be fingered as the most obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too responsible to be

For example, how might the United States react if it was thought or discovered that the fissile material used in the act of nuclear terrorism had come from Russian stocks,40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be a case of science fiction given the observation by Michael May et al. that while the debris resulting from a nuclear explosion would be spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity makes it detectable, identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of information can be obtained from its analysis: the efficiency of the explosion, the materials used and, most important some indication of where the nuclear material came from.41 Alternatively, if the act of nuclear terrorism came as a complete surprise, and American officials refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at all) suspicion would shift immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United Kingdom and France, and probably Israel and India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with a very short list consisting of North Korea, perhaps Iran if its program continues, and possibly Pakistan . But at what stage would Russia and China be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game of nuclear Cluedo? In particular, if the act of nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in Washingtons
involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well. Some possibilities, however remote, do suggest themselves.

relations with Russia and/or China, and at a time when threats had already been traded between these major powers, would officials and political leaders not be tempted to assume the worst? Of course, the chances of this occurring would only seem to increase if the United States was already involved in some sort of limited armed conflict with Russia and/or China, or if they were confronting each other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the present time. The reverse might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even limited conflict with the

Washingtons early response to a terrorist nuclear attack on its own soil might also raise the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear aided) confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the noise and confusion during the immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear attack, the U.S. president might be expected to place the countrys armed forces, including its nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert. In such a tense environment, when careful planning runs up against the friction of reality, it is just possible that Moscow and/or China might mistakenly read this as a sign of U.S. intentions to use force (and possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation, the temptations to preempt such actions might grow, although it must be admitted that any preemption would probably still meet with a devastating response. As part of its initial response to the act of nuclear terrorism (as discussed earlier) Washington might decide to order a significant conventional (or nuclear) retaliatory or disarming attack against the leadership of the terrorist group and/or states seen to support that group. Depending on the identity and especially the location of these targets, Russia and/or China might interpret such action as being far too close for their comfort, and potentially as an infringement on their spheres of influence and even on
United States, could Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a possible perpetrator or encourager of the attack? their sovereignty. One far-fetched but perhaps not impossible scenario might stem from a judgment in Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the terrorist action resided somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in connection with what Allison claims is the Chechen insurgents long-standing interest in all things nuclear.42 American pressure on that part of the world would almost certainly raise alarms in Moscow that might require a degree of advanced consultation from Washington that the latter found itself unable or unwilling to provide.

NHS Debate afghan coin 1ac The plan solves withdrawal destroys support for Al-Qaedas ideological war globally Farrall in 09Senior CT intelligence agent (Leah, Al-Qaida prefers U.S. to stick around, November 12th, The Australian, lexis)
A key objective is the denial of al-Qa'ida access to sanctuary in Afghanistan -- a goal the Bush administration also shared. There has been vigorous debate within the US political establishment about what strategy will best achieve this goal. Counter-insurgency proponents argue for increased troop levels while others believe it can be achieved by a targeted counter-terrorism campaign with a lighter force footprint. Both of these approaches rest on the longstanding premise that al-Qa'ida wants another safe haven in Afghanistan. However, this premise is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of its strategic intentions. Afghanistan's value to alQa'ida is as a location for jihad, not a sanctuary. While calling for jihad to liberate occupied Muslim lands is a potent radicalisation tool, it only yields substantive benefits when there is such a conflict at hand. Before September 11, 2001, most volunteers at al-Qa'ida's camps in Afghanistan wanted training for armed jihad. Al-Qa'ida had problems with attrition of its members and trainees who left its camps to seek armed jihad elsewhere, usually in Chechnya. This was one of the driving reasons behind Osama bin Laden's decision to attack the US with the specific aim of inciting it to invade Afghanistan. For bin Laden, this created a new, exploitable jihad. Since the US invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq, al-Qa'ida has become the pre-eminent group fighting a self-declared jihad against an occupying force. These invasions allowed al-Qa'ida to exploit allegations that the US was intent on occupying Muslim lands. A withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan would undoubtedly hand al-Qa'ida and the Taliban a propaganda victory. However, a victory would deny al-Qa'ida its most potent source of power, influence, funding and recruits -- the armed jihad. Without a jihad to fight, al-Qa'ida would be left with only its franchises -- all of which are involved in deeply unpopular confrontations with government regimes in the Islamic world. Their indiscriminate acts of violence as well as hostility towards other Muslims not sharing their views have badly damaged alQa'ida's brand. This has driven al-Qa'ida to refocus on Afghanistan because jihad against an occupying force attracts a level of support and legitimacy that attacking Muslim governments does not. It provides additional justification for al-Qa'ida and those supporting it to continue striking US targets. A reorientation of US strategy away from counterinsurgency or a full or partial withdrawal of US troops is therefore not in al-Qa'ida's strategic interest. To keep the US engaged in Afghanistan, it will use a strategy it knows will work: terrorist attacks against the homeland. The recently uncovered
al-Qa'ida plot in New York City (where the city's subway system was reportedly the target) suggests it may have already adopted this strategy. More plots and attacks are likely to follow. Al-Qa'ida has an effective safe haven in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas from which to continue orchestrating attacks against the US. Although al-Qa'ida has suffered significant disruptions to its plots, these have not been caused by drone attacks in Pakistan. Rather they have come from law enforcement and intelligence action, usually in the countries it seeks to attack. Drone attacks have inconvenienced al-Qa'ida, but it has lost little more than a handful of its core members. Al-Qa'ida's organisational structure, a devolved network hierarchy, means that it has been able to absorb any losses and continue with only a minimal slowing of its operational tempo. Al-Qa'ida is also not short of trainees. An estimated 100-150 Westerners are believed to have undertaken training with the organisation in the past year. It is well placed to continue plotting attacks against the West, which it is

Al-Qa'ida also has another reason for attacking the US in order to keep it engaged in Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban is moving away from al-Qa'ida and redefining itself as a national liberation movement. For al-Qa'ida, Taliban statements condemning colonialism and inviting good relations with its neighbours put a question mark over their relationship. The solution is the same: to attack the US, forcing a surge in American troop numbers. This would tie the Afghan Taliban's hands. Taliban leader Mullah Omar's legitimacy would be jeopardised were he to
likely to have prioritised. publicly disassociate from al-Qa'ida and guarantee he would not again provide it sanctuary. His refusal to do so would then feed the justification for a counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, ensuring

Al-Qa'ida will continue to try to goad the US into staying involved in the conflict because the sustenance and empowerment the conflict gives al-Qa'ida far outweighs the benefits of a safe haven in Afghanistan. Until this is recognised, the strategies the US employs to protect itself from further attacks are likely to inspire more of them and, more importantly, sustain alQa'ida.
the US remains engaged in the conflict.

NHS Debate afghan coin 1ac Special forces and drone strikes are enough to prevent terrorism in Afghanistan itself The Afghanistan Study Group in 10 The Afghanistan Study Group, an ad hoc group of public policy practitioners,
former U.S. government officials, academics, business representatives, policy-concerned activists and association leaders concerned with the Obama administrations policy course in Afghanistan (Whats Wrong With The Current U.S Strategy, A New Way Forward: Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan, afghanistanstudygroup.com, august) Second, a U.S. drawdown would not make Al Qaeda substantially more lethal. In order for events in Afghanistan to enhance Al Qaedas ability to threaten the U.S. homeland, three separate steps must occur: 1) the Taliban must seize control of a substantial portion of the country, 2) Al Qaeda must relocate there in strength, and 3) it must build facilities in this new safe haven that will allow it to plan and train more effectively than it can today. Each of these three steps is unlikely, however, and the chances of all three together are very remote. For starters, a Taliban victory is unlikely even if the United States reduces its military commitment. The Taliban is a rural insurgency rooted primarily in Afghanistans Pashtun population, and its seizure of power in the 1990s was due to unusual circumstances that no longer exist and are unlikely to be repeated. Non-Pashtun Afghans now have ample experience with Taliban rule, and they are bound to resist any Taliban efforts to regain control in Kabul. Moreover, the U.S. military presence has helped the Taliban rally its forces, meaning that the group may well fragment and suffer a loss of momentum in the face of a U.S. drawdown. Surveys suggest that popular support for the Taliban among Afghans is in the single digits. Even with significantly reduced troop levels, we can build a credible defense against a Taliban takeover through support for local security forces, strategic use of airpower, and deployment in key cities without committing ourselves to a costly and counterproductive COIN (counterinsurgency) campaign in the south. And if power-sharing and political inclusion is negotiated, the relevance of the Taliban as an alternative to Kabul is likely to decline. And even if the Taliban were to regain power in some of Afghanistan, it would likely not invite Al Qaeda to reestablish a significant presence there. The Taliban may be reluctant to risk renewed U.S. attacks by welcoming Al Qaeda onto Afghan soil. Bin Laden and his associates may well prefer to remain in Pakistan, which is both safer and a better base from which to operate than isolated and land-locked Afghanistan. Most importantly, no matter what happens in Afghanistan in the future, Al Qaeda will not be able to build large training camps of the sort it employed prior to the 9/11 attacks. Simply put, the U.S. would remain vigilant and could use air power to eliminate any Al Qaeda facility that the group might attempt to establish. Bin Laden and his associates will likely have to remain in hiding for the rest of their lives, which means Al Qaeda will have to rely on clandestine cells instead of large encampments . Covert cells can be located virtually anywhere, which is why the outcome in Afghanistan is not critical to addressing the
threat from Al Qaeda. In short, a complete (and unlikely) victory in Afghanistan and the dismantling of the Taliban would not make Al Qaeda disappear; indeed, it would probably have no appreciable effect on Al Qaeda. At the same time, dramatically scaling back U.S. military engagement will not significantly increase the threat from Al Qaeda. Third, the current U.S. military effort is helping fuel the very insurgency we are attempting to defeat. An expanded U.S. presence has reinforced perceptions of the United States as a foreign occupier. Religious extremists have used the U.S. presence as an effective recruiting tool for

U.S. presence and a more energetic counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan have reinforced a tacit alliance among different extremist groups whose agendas are not identical. The Taliban is itself a loose coalition of Pashtuns, many of whom are motivated
their cause. Efforts to limit civilian casualties and other forms of collateral damage have been only partially successful, leading additional Afghans to take up arms against us. Fourth, the expanded by local concerns rather than by any deep commitment to global jihad. Al Qaeda, by contrast, is a global network of radical Islamists seeking to topple governments throughout the Middle East. The Pakistani Taliban are a separate alliance of different Islamist groups challenging the authority of the Pakistani state. The Haqqani network in Waziristan is led by a local warlord who is strongly opposed to foreign interference but reportedly also a sometime ally of Pakistans Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI). Although cooperation among these disparate groups has increased in recent years, this development is largely a reaction to the increased foreign presence in the region and our efforts to convince the Pakistani government to take more aggressive action against these groups. Thus, our current strategy is helping drive these groups together, when our real aim should be to drive wedges between as many of them as possible and to win over those who do not share Al Qaedas anti-Western agenda or its commitment to global

keeping 100,000-plus U.S. troops in yet another Muslim country lends credence to jihadi propaganda about Americas alleged hostility to Islam. Their presence may actually be increasing the overall danger that we face back home. Anger at U.S. military action in the Af/Pak theater inspired Faisal Shahzad, a U.S. citizen, to attempt an unsuccessful car bomb attack in Times Square, and other home-grown terrorists appear to have been inspired by similar motivations.
jihad. Fifth,

Special forces create the perfect size footprint they reduce resentment and prevent escalation Cloud and Barnes in 10Staff Writers for the Los Angeles Times (David AND Julian, U.S. strategy in Afghanistan may
involve greater use of special operations forces, LA Times, June 29, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-us-afghan20100629,0,5498083.story) A successful effort would support the contention made by Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials who are skeptical of the military strategy in Afghanistan: Special operations troops, with their small footprint and skill at tracking and killing the enemy, can be more effective than conventional forces in the difficult conflict the U.S. faces in that country. Biden has argued for shrinking the U.S. effort and relying largely on special operations troops and airstrikes to disrupt the Taliban and Al Qaeda, officials say. President Obama has sided so far with those who favor using large numbers of U.S. troops as part of a far-reaching counterinsurgency effort, a point that he reiterated last week in naming Petraeus to replace Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as commander of the war in Afghanistan. But if the special operations effort is the most successful element of the war effort, Biden and those who agree with him could be in a stronger position to argue for shrinking the U.S. military presence when the strategy is reexamined, perhaps as soon as the December review Obama has promised.

NHS Debate

afghan coin 1ac

Contention Three is Iran

First withdrawal restarts diplomatic cooperation with Iran Mesevage in 09writer for American Academy for Diplomacy (Gabriel, A Limited Commitment in Afghanistan, lexis)
Special Representative Holbrooke should stress in talks to Afghan and Pakistani leadership that the US is committed to supporting both governments, and that the US military presence is temporary. Iran has a vested interest in an Afghan Government that can limit the flow of opium into Iran. Russia also has an interest in the success of the US against al Qaeda, as Russia struggles with international Islamist terrorists in Chechnya. Further, Russian cooperation is required in order to effectively supply American forces through the Central Asian states. However, both Iran and Russia are concerned about a permanent US presence in the region. Clearly communicating Americas commitment to a withdrawal would enable cooperation with Russia and enhance our diplomatic position in relation to Iran. The American presence in Afghanistan is viewed by Iran as a direct threat, and strengthens Iranian resolve to pursue a nuclear program. Direct talks with Iran communicating Americas promise not to establish permanent military bases in Afghanistan would enable progress on non-proliferation.

And thats key to US-Iran energy relations Sadjadpour in 08fellow at Carnegie (Karim, Iran: Is Productive Engagement Possible? October,
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/us_iran_policy.pdf) Energy With the worlds second-largest oil and natural gas reserves, Irans importance to the global energy market is self-evident. Yet a variety of factorsmismanagement, sanctions, and political tensionhave made Iran a perennial energy underperformer. Its oil outputaround 4.2 million barrels per day is far below the 6 million barrels it produced before the revolution , and though it has 15 percent of the worlds natural gas reserves, it accounts only 2 percent of world output. A U.S.Iranian energy relationship would be mutually advantageous. Energy cooperation between the two countries would decrease the political risk premium currently built into the price of oil. Increased Iranian supply to the market would also likely reduce the price; and the development of Iranian national gas reserves and pipelines would weaken the tremendous leverage Russia currently holds over Europe. From Tehrans perspective, there are economic imperatives to commence an energy relationship with the United States. Given the combination of heavily subsidized gasoline, rising domestic consumption, and stagnating or decreasing production due to infrastructure deterioration, Irans oil exports are projected to drop. If this trend continues increased consumption and decreased outputIran could conceivably become a net oil importer. Such a situation will eventually force painful decisions. The regime will have to cut gasoline subsidiesa difficult task, given its populist economic agendaor will need to change its policies and start attracting rather than repelling outside investment. Most likely it will need to do both. In this context, the foreign direct investment and technical expertise of U.S. energy companieswhich are currently prohibited from doing business with Iranwould prove invaluable.

This prevents Iranian economic collapse the timeframe is 2014 Haddick in 08staff writer for The American (Robert, Closing Irans Oil Spigot, october)
Irans looming financial crisis In 2006, Iran was the fifth largest oil exporter in the world. How is it possible that by the middle of the next decade its exports could fall to zero? In a paper published in January 2007, Roger Stern, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, predicted that Iranian oil exports would drop to zero by 20142015. Stern estimated that Irans future investment in oil production capacity would be insufficient to offset the natural production decline of its existing oil fields . Meanwhile, domestic Iranian demand for oil products would continue its rapid growth. Stern predicted that as early as 2014, rising Iranian oil product consumption would surpass falling Iranian crude oil output, leaving no net oil output for the global export market. Irans oil income would have thus dried up. Irans looming oil export crisis is partially self-inflicted. Iran depends heavily on foreign expertise to boost production from existing fields and to develop new ones. However, the Iranian government prohibits foreign ownership in its oil sector. Sharing oil revenues with foreign oil development partners has been highly unpopular inside Iran and has made negotiations with potential development partners troublesome. Meanwhile, Iranian consumption of crude oil products has expanded at about a 4.9 percent compound annual rate this decade. Government subsidies have held the retail price of gasoline far below the market price, leading to a 10 percent per annum growth rate in Iranian gasoline consumption over the past six years. The rapid growth rate in gasoline consumption, combined with problems and mismanagement in Irans oil refining sector, has resulted in Iran importing roughly half of its daily gasoline requirement . The government recently responded to this drain on foreign exchange by imposing a rationing system on consumers. Although highly unpopular with the public, these measures may check for a time the growth of Irans oil product consumption. It has been over two years since Stern finished his paper and submitted it for peer review. Is his forecast holding up? Irans net oil exports slipped from an average of 2,469 thousand barrels per day in 2006 to 2,294 thousand barrels per day in 2007, a 7.1 percent decline. Iranian crude oil production averaged 4,028 thousand barrels per day in 2006, but decreased to 3,870 thousand barrels per day in May 2008, a 3.9 percent drop. We dont yet have data on Iranian oil consumption during 2008. But if the Iranian government wishes to maintain net oil exports, it will have to further tighten its gasoline rationing system, with all of the political risk that entails. Oil prospecting in Tehran In his paper, Stern discussed four scenarios for future Iranian oil exports. The key variable in these scenarios was what investment would occur in the Iranian oil sector in order to maintain or expand output. In what he regarded as the most likely scenario, Stern predicted that Iranian oil exports would drop to zero by 20142015, about nine years after he finished his study. Stern assumed that oil field projects scheduled to begin by 2008 would occur, but that no new significant project would start after that. Iranian production would hold up until 2010 or so, but net exports would then begin a steep decline. This should be a chilling prospect for the Iranian regime, and should provide an incentive for Irans leaders to become more open-minded about taking on foreign partners in the oil exploration business. And in spite of the difficulties and risks of operating in Iran, the sky-high price of crude oil should provide an
incentive for foreign partners to show up in Tehran, since there would be plenty of profit to go around. With global oil prices where they are, the sanctions imposed on Iran thus far by the U.N. Security Council, Europe, and the United States will not likely be sufficient to dissuade future investment in Irans oil sector.

NHS Debate afghan coin 1ac Leads to adventurism Khavand in 07Iranian economist, teaches at French universities (Fereydoun, Iran Must Reform Its Economy Or Face Social
Explosion, Iran Press Service, april) Ahmadi Nezhad and his team are in charge of the Iranian Government, have reached the conclusion that there is absolutely nothing they can do but to inject the oil dollars in what is called economy which in fact is not --. One interesting finding of the Majles Research Centre is that in the present year of 1386, budget allocated to development plans would drop by 60 per cent compared with last year, placing the growth rate of Iran at 4 or 5 per cent , a figure that is also artificial since it is due to the oil dollars. Even if we take that rate, it places Iran far behind the average growth rate of third world and developing nations. Iran is facing a stagflation situation. It seems that Mr. Ahmadi Nezhad has discovered all these problems and reached the conclusion that the easiest way out of explosion is multiplication of foreign conflicts. That explains his efforts to create new crisis with the international community, going as far as seeking a military conflagration in order to explain to his base that if I can not solve your problems if I can not improve your life, if I can not fulfill my promises, it is because the country is in a pre-war conditions, it is because the enemies of Iran and Islam do not want to see you happy and prosperous, as the beloved leader says. My guess is that to exit an explosive situation that is getting out of their control, the already tough language of Iranian leaders with the international community would get harsher; they would increase their regional and international adventurism. As to the question about where the train is heading, the answer is: to reforms or explosion. ENDS KHAVAND
IPS So, where Mr. Ahmadi Nezhads train that has no brake and no rear gear is heading for? F Kh In my view, during the 18 months Mr. they

Two impacts first, aggression and nuke war Ferguson in 06Prof History @ Harvard (Niall, The origins of the Great War of 2007 - and how it could have been prevented,
January, the telegraph) instability of the Gulf region grew. By the beginning of 2006, nearly all the combustible ingredients for a conflict - far bigger in its scale and scope than the wars of 1991 or 2003 - were in place. The first underlying cause of the war was the increase in the region' s relative importance as a source of petroleum . On the one hand, the rest of the world's oil reserves were being rapidly exhausted. On the other, the breakneck growth of the Asian economies had caused a huge surge in global demand for energy. It is hard to believe today, but for most of the 1990s the price of oil had averaged less than $20 a barrel. A second precondition of war was demographic. While European fertility had fallen below the natural replacement rate in the 1970s, the decline in the Islamic world had been much slower. By the late 1990s the fertility rate in the eight Muslim countries to the south and east of the European Union was two and half times higher than the European figure. This tendency was especially pronounced in Iran, where the social conservatism of the 1979 Revolution - which had lowered the age of marriage and prohibited contraception - combined with the high mortality of the Iran-Iraq War and the subsequent baby boom to produce , by the first decade of the new century, a quite extraordinary surplus of young men. More
With every passing year after the turn of the century, the than two fifths of the population of Iran in 1995 had been aged 14 or younger. This was the generation that was ready to fight in 2007. This not only gave Islamic societies a youthful energy that contrasted markedly with the slothful senescence of Europe. It also signified a profound shift in the balance of world population. In 1950, there had three times as many people in Britain as in Iran. By 1995, the population of Iran had overtaken that of Britain and was forecast to be 50 per cent higher by 2050. Yet people in the West struggled to grasp the implications of this shift. Subliminally, they still thought of the Middle East as a region they could lord it over, as they

The third and perhaps most important precondition for war was cultural. Since 1979, not just Iran but the greater part of the Muslim world had been swept by a wave of religious fervour, the very opposite of the process of secularisation that was emptying Europe's churches. Although few countries followed Iran down the road to full-blown theocracy, there was a
had in the mid-20th century. transformation in politics everywhere. From Morocco to Pakistan, the feudal dynasties or military strongmen who had dominated Islamic politics since the 1950s came under intense pressure from religious radicals. The

Islamism' was as potent as either of the extreme ideologies the West had produced in the previous century, communism and fascism. Islamism was anti-Western, anti-capitalist and anti-Semitic. A seminal moment was the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's intemperate attack on Israel in December 2005,
ideological cocktail that produced ' when he called the Holocaust a 'myth'. The state of Israel was a 'disgraceful blot', he had previously declared, to be wiped 'off the map'. Prior to 2007, the Islamists had seen no alternative but to wage war against their enemies

Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, craved a more serious weapon than strapped-on explosives. His decision to accelerate Iran's nuclear weapons programme was intended to give Iran the kind of power North Korea already wielded in East Asia: the power to defy the United States; the power to obliterate America's closest regional ally. Under different circumstances, it would not have been difficult to thwart Ahmadinejad's
by means of terrorism. From the Gaza to Manhattan, the hero of 2001 was the suicide bomber. Yet ambitions. The Israelis had shown themselves capable of pre-emptive air strikes against Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981. Similar strikes against Iran's were urged on President Bush by neo-conservative commentators throughout 2006. The United States, they argued, was perfectly placed to carry out such strikes. It had the bases in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. It had the intelligence proving Iran's contravention of the NonProliferation Treaty. But the President was advised by his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to opt instead for diplomacy. Not just European opinion but American opinion was strongly opposed to an attack on Iran. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 had been discredited by the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein had supposedly possessed and by the failure of the US-led coalition to quell a bloody insurgency. Americans did not want to increase their military commitments overseas; they wanted to reduce them. Europeans did not want to hear that Iran was about to build its own WMD. Even if Ahmad-inejad had broadcast a nuclear test live on CNN, liberals would have said it was a CIA con-trick. So history repeated itself. As in the 1930s, an anti-Semitic demagogue broke his country's treaty obligations and armed for war. Having first tried appeasement, offering the Iranians economic incentives to desist, the West appealed to international agencies - the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council. Thanks to China's veto, however, the UN produced nothing but empty resolutions and ineffectual sanctions, like the exclusion of Iran from the 2006 World Cup finals. Only one man might have stiffened President Bush's resolve in the crisis: not Tony Blair, he had wrecked his domestic credibility over Iraq and was in any case on the point of retirement - Ariel Sharon. Yet he had been struck down by a stroke as the Iranian crisis came to a head. With Israel leaderless,

As in the 1930s, too, the West fell back on wishful thinking. Perhaps, some said, Ahmadinejad was only sabre-rattling because his domestic position was so weak. Perhaps his political rivals in the Iranian clergy were on the point of getting rid of him. In that case, the last thing the West should do was to take a tough line; that would only bolster Ahmadinejad by inflaming Iranian popular feeling. So in Washington and in London people crossed their fingers, hoping for the deus ex machina of a home-grown regime change in Teheran. This gave the Iranians all the time they needed to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium at Natanz. The dream of nuclear non-proliferation, already interrupted by Israel, Pakistan and India, was definitively shattered. Now Teheran had a nuclear missile pointed at Tel-Aviv. And the new Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu had a missile pointed right back at Teheran. The optimists argued that the Cuban Missile Crisis would replay itself in the Middle East. Both sides would threaten war - and then both sides would blink. That was Secretary Rice's hope - indeed, her prayer - as she shuttled between the capitals. But it was not to be. The devastating nuclear exchange of August 2007 represented not only the failure of diplomacy, it marked the end of the oil age. Some even said it marked the twilight of the West. Certainly, that was one way of interpreting the subsequent spread of the conflict as
Ahmadinejad had a free hand. Iraq's Shi'ite population overran the remaining American bases in their country and the Chinese threatened to intervene on the side of Teheran.

10

NHS Debate Second competition causes Iran to close Hormuz spikes oil prices the risk is high STRATFOR in 08 (Global Intelligence Agency, Iran: The Threat to the Strait of Hormuz, July 1st,

afghan coin 1ac

http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/119249/analysis/iran_threat_strait_hormuz) The U.S. Fifth Fleet insisted June 30 that it would not allow Iran to shut the Strait of Hormuz following a thinly veiled threat June 28 by Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps, to do just that. This backand-forth rhetoric makes it worthwhile to examine Irans military capability along this vital international waterway. The Strait of Hormuz is 21 miles across at its narrowest. The shipping traffic corridor itself is a mere 6 miles wide, with 2 miles each for incoming and outgoing traffic, separated by a 2-mile buffer. More than 90 percent of all oil exported from the Persian Gulf, or nearly 17 million barrels per day (bpd), transits this outgoing lane. This is nearly two-fifths of the worlds oil supply. If the strait were closed, only about 3 million bpd of that could realistically be redirected through Saudi Arabia via a trans-Arabian pipeline. But there is no alternate route for the 18 percent of global liquefied natural gas volumes exported from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Effectively shutting Hormuz would thus have a very real impact on world energy markets, not to mention the already skittish equity markets. (click image to enlarge) Iran has multiple military options to exercise in any attempt to close down the strait. Tehrans military has been practicing just this since before the 1984-87 Tanker War, and it has worked extensively in recent years to refine its capabilities. While closing the waterway would be a complex and intricate operation for both Iran and the United States, the following snapshot provides a summary of how it would play out. Iran can use anti-ship missiles to this end in numerous ways. It has coastal missile batteries arrayed along its Persian Gulf coastline, along the strait itself and on islands near the major shipping lanes.
Equipped with missiles ranging from the obsolete Silkworm to the C-802 missile (one of which struck Israels INS Hanit in 2006), they probably all would be effective in engaging undefended and unescorted

missile boats also are stationed up and down the coast. They could swarm into the Persian Gulf and the strait in an attempt to sink commercial vessels and even U.S. warships further offshore, and continue to operate from islands and coves along the coast. Meanwhile, Irans three Russian-built Kilo-class submarines
supertankers. Iranian could put to sea and lurk quietly in the warm, acoustically challenging waters of the Persian Gulf. These subs could deploy naval mines and launch both anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. Mining is perhaps the single most likely tactic Iran would use. Tehran has amassed an arsenal of naval mines, and mining would be one of the most lasting and time-consuming tactics to counter. Iranian forces would use both surface

The architecture of any attack would be tailored by what Iran has observed and thinks it knows about U.S. situational awareness and standard operating procedures along its coast. If Tehran could effectively coordinate its forces, they might achieve some early successes in a surprise attack. But the U.S. Fifth Fleet carefully monitors
and submarine assets some more surreptitious, some less so to attempt to saturate the Gulf. Iranian naval activity, and any meaningful surge of Iranian forces to sea especially by its Kilos would be noted, putting U.S. forces on a heightened state of alert. (The U.S. Navy already is on its toes,

The more ambitious and broad the Iranian effort to shut the strait, the less likely preparations and early maneuvers would go unnoticed by the Fifth Fleet. Nevertheless, as soon as the first hits were detected and an attack recognized, further tanker traffic in the strait would be halted. U.S. fighters would be scrambled, establishing air superiority almost by default. It would be all downhill from there for Iran. It would take time maybe a day or two to
especially given recent incidents in the strait.) The Pentagon has lived and breathed this particular threat since at least the outbreak of the Tanker War in 1984, and has war-gamed it extensively. break out and tweak already written and regularly updated war plans and target sets. Some assets probably would be pulled from Iraq while reinforcements were organized stateside. It is a rare day when there is not a U.S. carrier strike group (CSG) at sea in the Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea. Much of the initial counterattack would likely come from the carrier air wing and the offensive punch of the CSG itself. Most coastal missile battery sites already have been pinpointed, and these would be among the first things destroyed in an impending U.S. counterattack. Many would be struck by Tomahawks, land-attack Harpoons and other standoff munitions. Any warships or subs left in port would be targeted at the pier, and the major ports would be monitored for ships returning to rearm and resupply. The Kilos would be relentlessly hunted down. As they are some of the most potentially dangerous Iranian assets in play, the U.S. Navy would be loath to miss an opportunity to eliminate them permanently.

The mines would be

more challenging and would take more time.

This means 57 days until total economic collapse Black in 09NYT Bestselling investigative journalist (Edwin, Special report: Iran-Israel Nuclear Endgame now Much Closer
An Oil Supply at Risk, april, The Auto Channel News) Americas oil vulnerability has been back-burnered due to the economic crisis and the plunge in gasoline prices. However, the price of gasoline will not mitigate an interruption of oil flow. The price of oil does not impact its ability to flow through blocked or destroyed facilities. Indeed, an interruption would not restore prices to that of last summerwhich Russian and Saudi oil officials say is neededbut probably zoom the pump cost to $20 per gallon. American oil vulnerability in recent months has escalated precisely because of oils precipitous drop to $35 to $40 a barrel. At
that price, Americas number one supplier, Canada, which supplies some 2 million out of 20 million barrels of oil a day, cannot afford to produce. Canadian oil sand petroleum is not viable below $70 a barrel. Much of

Americas strategic petroleum reserve can only keep our country moving for approximately 57 days. The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has developed no plan or contingency legislation for an oil interruption, such as a surge in retrofitting Americas 250 million gas guzzling cars and truckseach with a ten year lifeor a stimulus of the alt fuel production needed to rapidly get off oil. Ironically, Iran has undertaken such a crash program converting some 20 percent of its gasoline fleet yearly to compressed natural gas (CNG) as a countermeasure to Western nuclear sanctions against the Tehran regime that could completely block the flow of gasoline to Iran. Iran has no refining capability.
Canadas supply progress has already been cancelled or indefinitely postponed.

11

NHS Debate afghan coin 1ac That causes global wars Green and Schrage in 09Senior Advisor and Japan Chair for the CSIS, Assoc. Prof @ Georgetown Univ. AND Business
specialist for the CSIS (Michael AND Steven, Its not just the economy, Asia Times) Facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, analysts at the World Bank and the US Central Intelligence Agency are just beginning to contemplate the ramifications for international stability if there is not a recovery in the next year. For the most part, the focus has been on fragile states such as some in Eastern Europe. However, the Great Depression taught us that a downward global economic spiral can even have jarring impacts on great powers. It is no mere coincidence that the last great global economic downturn was followed by the most destructive war in human history. In the 1930s, economic desperation helped fuel autocratic regimes and protectionism in a downward economic-security death spiral that engulfed the world in conflict. This spiral was aided by the preoccupation of the United States and other leading nations with economic troubles at home and insufficient attention to working with other powers to maintain stability abroad. Today's challenges are different, yet 1933's London Economic Conference, which failed to stop the drift toward deeper depression and world war, should be a cautionary tale for leaders heading to
next month's London Group of 20 (G-20) meeting. There is no question the US must urgently act to address banking issues and to restart its economy. But the lessons of the past suggest that we will also have to keep an eye on those fragile threads in the international system that could begin to unravel if the financial crisis is not reversed early in the Barack Obama administration and realize that economics and security are intertwined in most of

? Four areas in Asia merit particular attention, although so far the current financial crisis has not changed Asia's fundamental strategic picture. China is not replacing the US as regional hegemon, since the leadership in Beijing is too nervous about the political implications of the financial crisis at home to actually play a leading role in solving it internationally.
the critical challenges we face. A disillusioned rising power Predictions that the US will be brought to its knees because China is the leading holder of US debt often miss key points. China's currency controls and full employment/export-oriented growth strategy give Beijing few choices other than buying US Treasury bills or harming its own economy. Rather than creating new rules or institutions in international finance, or reorienting the Chinese economy to generate greater long-term consumer

The greater danger with China is not an eclipsing of US leadership, but instead the kind of shift in strategic orientation that happened to Japan after the Great Depression. Japan was arguably not a revisionist power before 1932 and sought instead to converge with the global economy through open trade and adoption of the gold standard. The worldwide depression and protectionism of the 1930s devastated the newly exposed Japanese economy and contributed directly to militaristic and autarkic policies in Asia as the Japanese people reacted against what counted for globalization at the time. China today is similarly converging with the global economy, and many experts believe China needs at least 8% annual growth to sustain social stability. Realistic growth predictions
demand at home, Chinese leaders are desperately clinging to the status quo (though Beijing deserves credit for short-term efforts to stimulate economic growth). for 2009 are closer to 5%. Veteran China hands were watching closely when millions of migrant workers returned to work after the Lunar New Year holiday last month to find factories closed and jobs gone. There were pockets of protests, but nationwide unrest seems unlikely this year, and Chinese leaders are working around the clock to ensure that it does not happen next year either. However, the economic slowdown has only just begun and nobody is certain how it will impact the social contract in China between the ruling communist party and the 1.3 billion Chinese who have come to see President Hu Jintao's call for "harmonious society" as inextricably

If the Japanese example is any precedent, a sustained economic slowdown has the potential to open a dangerous path from economic nationalism to strategic revisionism in China too. Dangerous states It is noteworthy that North Korea, Myanmar and Iran have all intensified their defiance in the wake of the financial crisis, which has distracted the world's leading nations, limited their moral authority and sown potential discord. With Beijing worried about the potential impact of North Korean belligerence or instability on Chinese internal stability, and leaders in Japan and South Korea under siege in parliament because of the collapse of their stock markets, leaders in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang have grown increasingly boisterous about their country's claims to great power status as a nuclear weapons state. The junta in Myanmar has chosen this moment to arrest hundreds of political dissidents and thumb its nose at fellow members of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Iran continues its nuclear program while exploiting differences between the US, UK and France (or the P-3 group) and China and Russia - differences that could become more pronounced if economic friction with Beijing or Russia crowds out cooperation or if Western European governments grow nervous about sanctions as a tool of policy. It is possible that the economic downturn will make these dangerous states more pliable because of falling fuel prices (Iran) and greater need for foreign aid (North Korea and Myanmar), but that may depend on the extent that authoritarian leaders care about the well-being of their people or face internal political pressures linked to the economy. So far, there is little evidence to suggest either and much evidence to suggest these dangerous states see an opportunity to advance their asymmetrical advantages against the international system.
linked to his promise of "peaceful development".

12

NHS Debate

afghan coin 1ac

Contention Four is Solvency

Every policy debate puts us one step closer to withdrawal if we as intellectuals dont take control of the war, the military will Cohen in 10Senior Fellow @ American Security Project, Prof IR @ Columbia, served @ the DOS, Senior Researcher @ New
America Foundation (Michael, Hard Is Not Hopeless: Affecting Outcomes in Afghanistan, July 30th, Democracy Arsenal an international relations blog published by the Center for American Progress and the Century Foundation's Security and Peace Initiative) Whether you like these alternatives or think they're all bunk the growing and long overdue intellectual ferment on Afghanistan is extraordinarily important. The more that the policy community can provide alternatives to the current COIN-focused course favored by the military the better the opportunity for an actual shift in strategy (ironically this is sort of what happened in Iraq in 2007 with the surge). Moreover, if and hopefully when the Administration shifts course on Afghanistan it will need the support of today's critics to counter what will almost certainly be pushback from the military. Coalescing around alternatives to the current strategy will give that effort more legitimacy and more traction. The notion that a critic of the current policy would throw up their hands and argue that all is lost; let's worry about stopping the next humanitarian intervention is both ill-advised and ill-informed. Thirdly, Rieff's "honorable" course glosses over the national security imperatives - not to mention moral
responsibility -- of getting Afghanistan right. Rieff, to his credit, has been a fervent opponent of humanitarian interventions and frankly with good reason. Often when the US intervenes militarily bad things happen,

). But the issue in Afghanistan is not whether we go in - it's how we get out. And how we leave Afghanistan matters a great deal. I fear that if we continue on the same course that we are currently headed the calls for withdrawal will increase and we will depart hastily from Afghanistan. That's why a national debate about Afghanistan right NOW is so important; because it will hopefully offer ideas for how we can get out while also leaving our interests protected and the Afghan state in as stable a place as possible.
particularly for the civilian population in the country where we determine our national interests are threatened. (The first Iraq War and I suppose Kosovo are obvious modern exceptions

13