1NC vs. Kirito

TInterpretation -- Oceans are the water column that lies above the continental shelfMarBEF 13 (Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning, funded by the European Union, “open oceans,” http://www.marbef.org/wiki/open_oceans, accessed 7/7/14)

The open oceans or pelagic ecosystems are the areas away from the coastal boundaries and above the seabed. It encompasses the entire water column of the seas and the oceans and lies beyond the edge of the continental shelf. It extends from the tropics to the polar regions and from the sea surface to the abyssal depths. It is a highly heterogeneous and dynamic habitat. Physical processes control the biological activities and lead to substantial geographic variability in production.

Violation – the plan develops Ports, not the Earth’s oceans. LII No date (Legal Information Institute, citing US Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 1, § 26, “18 U.S. Code § 26 - Definition of seaport,” http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/26, accessed 7/3/14)

As used in this title, the term “seaport” means all piers, wharves, docks, and similar structures, adjacent to any waters subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, to which a vessel may be secured, including areas of land, water, or land and water under and in immediate proximity to such structures, buildings on or contiguous to such structures, and the equipment and materials on such structures or in such buildings.

And, Coasts are part of the land next to the water, but not part of the ocean itself Random House Dictionary, 2014 (via dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coast)

coast [kohst] noun 1. the land next to the sea; seashore: the rocky coast of Maine.

Standards – 1 – Limits – the topic is already massive – exploration and development mean the Aff can do anything – if we allow the Aff to “explore or develop” anywhere the topic would be unmanageable

2 – Topic Education – they shift the focus of debates to port and coastal development instead of genuine ocean development, which kills predictable clash and core topic learning

3 – Extra Topicality – it’s not okay for the Aff to develop both the ocean and a port. If we win that they are distinct then it’s not within the scope of Aff topical fiat

Topicality is a voting issue for competitive equity and jurisdiction

K1. The affirmative subscribes to the idea that the ocean can be developed by humanity – this logic is grounded in a technological ontology rooted in western metaphysics. This logic is not only flawed, it eradicates alternative forms of knowledge that are key to solvency.

LaDelle McWhorter 1992, Professor of Philosophy at Northeast Missouri State, Heidegger and the Earth, ed: McWhorter.

What it most illustrative is often also what is most common. Today, on all sides of ecological debate we hear, with greater and greater frequency, the word management. On the one hand, business people want to manage natural resources so as to keep up profits. On the other hand, conservationists want to manage natural resources so that there will be plenty of coal and oil and recreational facilities for future generations. These groups and factions within them debate vociferously over which management policies are the best, that is, the most efficient and manageable. Radical environmentalists damn both groups and claim it is human population growth and rising expectations that are in need of management. But wherever we look, wherever we listen, we see and hear the term management. We are living in a veritable age of management. Before a middle class child graduates from high school she or he is already preliminarily trained in the arts of weight management, stress management, and time management, to name just a few. As we approach middle age we continue to practice these essential arts, refining and adapting our regulatory regimes as the pressures of life increase and the body begins to break down. We have become a society of managers - of our homes, careers, portfolios, estates, even of our own bodies - so is it surprising that we set ourselves up as the managers of the earth itself? And yet, as thoughtful earth-dwellers we must ask, what does this signify? In numerous essays - in particular the beautiful 1953 essay, "The Question Concerning Technology" - Heidegger speaks of what he sees as the danger of dangers in this, our age. This danger is a kind of forgetfulness – a forgetfulness that Heidegger thought could result not only in nuclear disaster or environmental catastrophe, but in the loss of what makes us the kind of beings we are, beings who can think and who can stand in thoughtful relationship to things. This forgetfulness is not a forgetting of facts and their relationships; it is a forgetfulness of something far more important and far more fundamental than that. He called it forgetfulness of 'the mystery.’ It would be easy to imagine that by 'the mystery' Heidegger means some sort of entity, some thing, temporarily hidden or permanently ineffable. But 'the mystery is not the name of some thing; it is the event of the occurring together of revealing and concealing. Every academic discipline, whether it be biology or history, anthropology or mathematics, is interested in discovery, in the 'revelation of new truths" Knowledge, at least as it is institutionalized in the modern world is concerned, then, with what Heidegger would call revealing, the bringing to light, or the coming to presence of things. However, in order for any of this revealing to occur, Heidegger says, concealing must also occur. Revealing and concealing belong together. Now, what does this mean? We know that in order to pay attention to one thing, we must stop paying close attention to something else. In order to read philosophy we must stop reading cereal boxes. In order to attend to the needs of students we must sacrifice some of our research time. Allowing for one thing to reveal itself means allowing for the concealing of something else. All revealing comes at the price of concomitant concealment. But this is more than just a kind of Kantian acknowledgment of human limitation. Heidegger is not simply dressing up the obvious, that is, the fact that no individual can undergo two different experiences simultaneously His is not a point about human subjectivity at all. Rather, it is a point about revealing itself. When revealing reveals itself as temporally linear and causally ordered, for example, it cannot

simultaneousy reveal itself as ordered by song and unfolding dream. Furthermore, in revealing, revealing itself is concealed in order for what is revealed to come forth. Thus, when revealing occurs concealing occurs as well. The two events are one and cannot be separated. Too often we forget. The radiance of revelation blinds us both to its own event and to the shadows that it casts, so that revealing conceals itself and its self-concealing conceals itself, and we fall prey to that strange power of vision to consign to oblivion whatever cannot be seen. Even our forgetting is forgotten, and all races of absence absent themselves from our world. The noted physicist Stephen Hawking, in his popular book A Brief History of Time, writes, "The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe.,'5 Such a theory, many people would assert, would be a systematic arrangement of all knowledge both already acquired and theoretically possible.lt would be a theory to end all theories, outside of which no information, no revelation could, or would need to, occur. And the advent of such a theory would be as the shining of a light into every corner of being. Nothing would remain concealed. This dream of Hawking's is a dream of power; in fact, it is a dream of absolute power, absolute control. It is a dream of the ultimate managerial utopia. This, Heidegger would contend, is the dream of technological thought in the modern age. We dream of knowing, grasping everything, for then we can control, then we can manage, everything. But it is only a dream, itself predicated, ironically enough, upon concealment, the self-concealing of the mystery. We can never control-the mystery the belonging together of revealing and concealing. In order to approach the world in a manner exclusively technological, calculative, mathematical, scientific , way we must already have given up (or lost, or been expelled by, or perhaps ways of being such as we are even impossible within) other approaches or modes of revealing that would unfold into knowledges of other sorts. Those other approaches or paths of thinking must already have been obliterated; those other knowledges must already have concealed themselves in order for technological or scientific revelation to occur. The danger of a managerial approach to the world lies not then in what it knows nor in its planetary on into the secrets of galactic emergence or nuclear fission – but in what it forgets, what it itself conceals. It forgets that any other truths are possible, and it forgets that the belonging together of revealing with concealing is forever beyond the power of human management. We can never have, or know, it all; we can never manage everything.

1.5 Hegemony and Technological thought are synonymous- they cannot exist without one anotherBurke, 07 (Anthony Burke- Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at UNSW, Sydney. Ontologies of War: Violence, Existence and Reason Theory & Event - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2007. As the hegemon, we cannot place our influence over others. Technological advances will lead to militarization and our heg cannot solve for the wars. 2007) By itself, such an account of the nationalist ontology of war and security provides only a general insight into the perseverance of military violence as a core element of politics. It does not explain why so many

policymakers think military violence works. As I argued earlier, such an ontology is married to a more rationalistic form of strategic thought that claims to violent means to political ends predictably and controllably, and which, by doing so, combines military action and national purposes into a common -- and thoroughly modern

-- horizon of certainty. Given Hegel's desire to decisively distil and control the dynamic potentials of modernity in thought, it is helpful

to focus on the modernity of this ontology -- one that is modern in its adherence to modern scientific models of truth, reality and technological progress, and in its insistence on imposing images of scientific truth from the physical sciences (such as mathematics and physics) onto human behaviour, politics and society. For example, the military theorist and historian Martin van Creve-ld has argued that one of the reasons

Clausewitz was so influential was that his 'ideas seemed to have chimed in with the rationalistic, scientific, and technological outlook associated with the industrial revolution'.54 Set into this

epistemological matrix, modern politics and government engages in a sweeping project of mastery and control in which all of the world's resources -- mineral, animal, physical, human -- are made part of a machinic process of which war and violence are viewed as normal features. These are the deeper claims and implications of Clausewitzian strategic reason. One of the most revealing contemporary examples comes from the writings (and actions) of

Henry Kissinger, a Harvard professor and later U.S. National Security Adviser and Secretary of State. He wrote during the Vietnam war that after 1945 U.S. foreign policy was based 'on the assumption that technology plus managerial skills gave us the ability to reshape the international system and to bring about domestic transformations in emerging countries' . This 'scientific revolution' had 'for all practical purposes, removed technical limits from the exercise of power in foreign policy'.55 Kissinger's conviction was based not merely in his pride in the vast military

and bureaucratic apparatus of the United States, but in a particular epistemology (theory of knowledge). Kissinger asserted that the West is 'deeply committed to the notion that the real world is external to the observer, that knowledge consists of recording and classifying data -- the more accurately the better'. This, he claimed, has since the Renaissance set the West apart from an 'undeveloped' world that contains 'cultures that have escaped the early impact of Newtonian thinking' and remain wedded to the 'essentially pre-Newtonian view that the real world is almost entirely internal to the observer'.56 At the same time, Kissinger's hubris and hunger for control was beset by a corrosive anxiety: that, in an era of nuclear weapons proliferation and constant military modernisation, of geopolitical stalemate in Vietnam, and the emergence and militancy of new post-colonial states, order and mastery were harder to define and impose. He worried over the way 'military bipolarity' between the superpowers had 'encouraged political multipolarity', which 'does not guarantee stability. Rigidity is diminished, but so is manageability...equilibrium is difficult to achieve among states widely divergent in values, goals, expectations and previous experience' (emphasis added). He mourned that 'the greatest need of the

contemporary international system is an agreed concept of order'.57 Here were the driving obsessions of the modern rational statesman based around a hunger for stasis and certainty that would entrench U.S. hegemony:

For the two decades after 1945, our international activities were based on the assumption that technology plus managerial skills gave us the ability to reshape the international system and to bring about domestic transformations in "emerging countries". This direct "operational" concept of international order has proved too simple. Political multipolarity makes it impossible to impose an American design. Our deepest challenge will be to evoke the creativity of a pluralistic world, to base order on political multipolarity even though overwhelming military strength will remain with the two superpowers.58

Kissinger's statement revealed that such cravings for order and certainty continually confront chaos, resistance and uncertainty: clay that won't be worked, flesh that will not yield, enemies that refuse to surrender. This is one of the most powerful lessons of the Indochina wars, which were to continue in a phenomenally destructive fashion for six years after Kissinger wrote these words. Yet as his sinister, Orwellian exhortation to 'evoke the creativity of a pluralistic world' demonstrated, Kissinger's hubris was undiminished. This is a vicious, historic irony: a desire to control nature, technology, society and human beings that is continually frustrated, but never abandoned or rethought. By 1968 U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the rationalist policymaker par excellence, had already decided that U.S. power and technology could not prevail in Vietnam; Nixon and Kissinger's refusal to accept this conclusion, to abandon their Cartesian illusions, was to condemn hundreds of thousands more to die in Indochina and the people of Cambodia to two more decades of horror and misery.59 In 2003 there would be a powerful sense of déja vu as another Republican Administration crowned more than decade of failed and destructive policy on Iraq with a deeply controversial and divisive war to remove Saddam Hussein from power. In this struggle with the lessons of Vietnam, revolutionary resistance, and rapid geopolitical transformation, we are witness to an enduring political and cultural theme: of a craving for order, control and certainty in the face of continual uncertainty. Closely related to this anxiety was the way that Kissinger's thinking -- and that of McNamara and earlier imperialists like the British Governor of Egypt Cromer -- was embedded in instrumental images of technology and the machine: the machine as both a tool of power and an image of social and political order. In his essay 'The Government of Subject Races' Cromer envisaged effective imperial rule -- over numerous societies and billions of human beings -- as best achieved by a central authority working 'to ensure the harmonious working of the different parts of the machine'.60 Kissinger analogously invoked the virtues of 'equilibrium', 'manageability' and 'stability' yet, writing some six decades later, was

anxious that technological progress no longer brought untroubled control: the Westernising 'spread of technology and its associated rationality...does not inevitably produce a similar concept of reality'.61 We sense the rational policymaker's frustrated desire: the world is supposed to work like a machine, ordered by a form of power and governmental reason which deploys machines and whose desires and processes are meant to run along ordered, rational lines like a machine. Kissinger's desire was little different from that of Cromer who, wrote Edward Said: ...envisions a seat of power in the West and radiating out from it towards the East a great embracing machine,

sustaining the central authority yet commanded by it. What the machine's branches feed into it from the East -- human material, material wealth, knowledge, what have you -- is processed by the machine, then

converted into more power...the immediate translation of mere Oriental matter into useful substance.62 This desire for order in the shadow of chaos and uncertainty -- the constant war with an intractable and volatile matter -- has deep roots in modern thought, and was a major impetus to the development of technological reason and its supporting theories of knowledge.

2. The rise of the technology of modernity results in an alienating relationship to the world – this destroys life’s meaningDreyfus 92

[professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, PhD from Harvard (Hubert L, "Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism, Technology, Art and Politics" Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, Charles Guignon, Ed., Cambridge University Press, 1992, )]

Kierkegaard thought that the answer to nihilism was to make one's own individual absolute commitment. If you can commit yourself unconditionally -- in love for instance -- then that becomes a focus for your whole sense of reality. Things stand out or recede into insignificance on the basis of that ultimate concern. One does not discover a significance that is already there. There is no basis for this commitment in the cosmos. Indeed, such a commitment is exactly the opposite of belief in an objective truth. You are called by some concrete concern -- either a person or a cause --

and when you define yourself by your dedication to that concern, your world acquires seriousness, and significance. The only way to have a meaningful life in the present age, then, is to let your involvement become definitive of reality for you, and what is definitive of reality for you is not something that is in any way provisional -- although it certainly is vulnerable. That is why, once a society like ours becomes rational and reflective, such total commitments begin to look like a kind of dangerous dependency. The committed individual is identified as a workaholic or a woman who loves too much. This suggests that to be recognized and appreciated individual commitment

requires a shared understanding of what is worth pursuing. But as our culture comes more and more to celebrate critical detachment, self-sufficiency, and rational choice, there are fewer and fewer shared commitments. So, commitment itself beings to look like craziness. Thus Heidegger comes to see the recent undermining of commitment as due not so much to a

failure on the part of the individual, as to a lack of anything in the modern world that could solicit commitment from us and sustain us in it . The things that once evoked commitment --gods, heroes, the God-man, the acts of great

statesmen, the words of great thinkers -- have lost their authority. As a result, individuals feel isolated and alienated. They feel that their lives have no meaning because the public world contains no guidelines.

3. The alternative is to embrace meditative thought to break open new ways of relating to the worldMcWhorter 09 (Ladelle McWhorter, Heidegger and the Earth: Essays in Environmental Philosophy 2nd, expanded edition, “Guilt as Management Technology: A Call to Heideggerian Reflection,” p. 8-9)

Heidegger's work is a call to reflect, to think in some way other than calculatively , technologically, pragmatically. Once we begin to move with and into Heidegger's call and begin to see our trying to seize control and solve problems as itself a problematic approach, if we still believe that thinking's only real purpose is to function as a prelude to action , in attempting to think we will only twist within the agonizing grip of paradox, feeling pure frustration, unable to conceive of ourselves as anything but paralysed. However, as so many peoples before us have known, paradox is not only a trap; it is also a scattering point and a passageway.

Paradox invites examination of its own constitution (hence of the patterns of thinking within which it occurs) and thereby breaks a way of thinking open , revealing the configurations of power that propel it and hold it on track. And thus it sometimes makes possible the dissipation of that power and the deflection of thinking into new paths and new possibilities. If we read him seriously and listen genuinely, Heidegger

frustrates us. At a time when the stakes are so very high and decisive action is so loudly and urgently called for, when the ice caps are melting and the bird flu is spreading and the president is selling off our national wilderness reserves to private contractors for quick private gain, Heidegger apparently calls us to do nothing. When things that matter so much are hanging in the balance, this frustration quickly turns to anger and disgust and even furor. How dare this man, who might legitimately be accused of having done nothing right himself at a crucial time in his own nation's history, elevate quietism to a philosophical principle? Responsible people have to act, surely, and to suggest anything else is to side with the forces of destruction and short-sighted greed. If we get beyond the revulsion and anger that Heidegger's call may initially inspire and actually

examine the feasibility of response, we may move past the mere frustration of our moral desires and begin to undergo frustration of another kind, the philosophical frustration that is attendant on paradox. How is it possible, we ask, to choose, to will, to do nothing? Heidegger is not consecrating quietism. His call places in question the bimodal logic of activity and passivity; it points out the paradoxical nature of our passion for action, our passion for maintaining control . What is the origin of that drive? Is that drive itself really

under our control? Is it something we choose and will, or it is something whose origins and meanings transcend us? The call itself suggests that our drive for acting decisively and forcefully is part of what must be thought through, that the narrow option of will versus surrender is one of the power configurations of current thinking that must be allowed to dissipate.

CPThe United States federal government should devolve port dredging authority to the private sector. Dredging should be transferred to private ownership – empirics prove solves betterEdwards '5 Chris is the Director of Tax Policy at the Cato Institute (Cato Institute, "Privatize the Army Corps of Engineers", October 2005, http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0510-27.pdf)

Reform Options To solve these problems, the civilian activities of the Corps should be transferred to state,

local, or private ownership. A rough framework for reform might be: • Privatize: port dredging, hydroelectric dams, beach

replenishment, and other activities that could be supported by user fees and revenues. • Transfer to lower governments: levees, municipal water and sewer projects, recreational areas, locks, channels, and other waterway infrastructure. Such reforms

could accompany broader reforms to U.S. ports and waterways. For example, U.S. ports are owned by state and local governments and are dredged by the Army Corps . But ports could be privatized, and they could purchase dredging services in the market place. The harbor maintenance tax could be repealed, and ports could recover dredging costs from port users . For example, if the $286 million Delaware River dredging project made sense, it could be funded by the refineries and other industries along the river that would be the beneficiaries. In Britain , 19 ports were privatized in 1983 to form Associated British Ports. ABP and a subsidiary UK Dredging sell port and dredging services in the marketplace. They earn a profit , pay taxes, and return dividends to shareholders. 11 Two-thirds of British cargo goes through privatized ports, which are highly efficient. In the U nited S tates, there are complaints that governments are not investing enough in port facilities and dredging to the detriment of U.S. international trade. If ports were privatized, they could invest and expand as needed to relieve congestion and accommodate larger ships.

DALandrieu will lose the Race now – Venezuela blocking and strong opponents. Results in a GOP-controlled Senate. By James Varney 8/10, 2014 http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/08/must_louisianas_2014_senate_ra.html “Must Louisiana's 2014 Senate race end in a runoff?: James Varney”

Conventional wisdom holds Louisiana's Senate race this November will be decided in a runoff. Is it possible the conventional wisdom is wrong?

The latest Real Clear Politics polling average in the race has Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, leading incumbent Sen.

Mary Landrieu, D-La., by a point. That's a very vulnerable position for a well-funded, experienced incumbent to occupy less than 100 days before an election. To be sure, that number isn't close to the final word. For one thing, it is somewhat skewed by a Republican-leaning poll that

puts Cassidy up by 6 points - an unlikely edge - and for another polls are notoriously fickle measurements. It raises the specter, however, that a unified Republican challenge to Landrieu could put the GOP over the 50 percent threshold in November. How likely is that - the Republicans getting their act together and settling on one candidate - to happen? Any honest answer would be, not very. That's not necessarily a bad thing; the GOP infighting during the six years and counting of the Obama administration has

had positive aspects, too, even as it presents a delightfully chaotic surface to its political adversaries. Yet , absent a game-changer for the Landrieu campaign, the outlook has to be gloomy. That's because it's also unlikely any Republican divisions would linger beyond the November election, making the opponent Landrieu would face in the December runoff even more daunting. Evidence of GOP coalescence came Thursday with an endorsement of Cassidy from Rep. Paul Hollis, R-Covington. Hollis' was always a long-shot candidacy, but the tone of his endorsement after dropping out reflects the same themes Landrieu will confront when the battlefield thins. "And by beating Mary Landrieu, Louisiana voters will fire Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and remove a sworn enemy of the energy industry from power," Hollis wrote. "That will open the door to building the Keystone Pipeline, bringing equity to offshore drilling revenue sharing and stopping President Obama's activist bureaucrats from (causing) havoc on oil and gas. In other words, finally accomplishing what Mary Landrieu has long promised - and failed - to do." Hollis, as noted, will bring but a fraction into the Cassidy fold. But then every additional vote and every additional dollar shoved behind the brick in the fireplace helps. The larger question is what will happen with retired USAF Col. Rob Maness. Having been on the campaign trail for a year and having raised well over $1 million, it's no longer accurate for Maness to bill himself as the "non-politician" running for Louisiana's Senate seat. But those same accomplishments that undermine his claim reinforce the fact the GOP's Pelican State votes remain fractured. Both the Cassidy and Maness

camps jumped on news Landrieu had helped table sanctions against Venezuelan thugs who have tried to crush

opposition to the failed authoritarian regime in Caracas. Landrieu blocked the legislation, which apparently had bipartisan support, even after her office was assured the measure would have no impact on Citgo, the wholly-owned Venezuelan subsidiary that operates a Louisiana refinery. Landrieu's step not only seemed to put her on the side of Venezuelan strongpersons, but also as a follower of the line pushed by the lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs. As the Politico story outlining Landrieu's moves noted, the Democratic-connected lobbying outfit has contributed more than $75,000 to Landrieu campaigns over the years. Maness seems legit in his claim he is in the race to win it. His campaign has not flagged in determination or effort, but his candidacy remains well behind Cassidy's late in the game. The Maness folks have a point arguing their surge makes the state GOP's unusual decision to back Cassidy officially more than a month ago look even more like a milquetoast establishment move. But it's not clear at this stage Maness can do much more than force a runoff - a runoff that, depending on the partisan breakdown in the Senate following other key races, could enable Landrieu to rake in millions more in outside cash if her victory would block a GOP Senate takeover. Thus, Maness appears to control the date of the race (and the conventional wisdom). He has been unequivocal in saying he will fully back any Republican in a runoff, but does there come a point where a futile effort to reach that runoff endangers the GOP's chances of winning the seat? Hollis seems to think so. "Mary Landrieu and her allies will try to return to the same playbook that has saved vulnerable Democrats in the past," he wrote. "By running divide and conquer campaigns, Democrats saved Harry Reid and Clair McCaskill (D-Mo.) from what looked like sure defeat. They would love to provoke and capitalize on Republican infighting to do the same here for Mary Landrieu this year." Reid and McCaskill also benefited from opponents less sharp than Cassidy or Maness. So, increasingly, Hollis' analysis looks like Landrieu's only chance

Louisiana is the key state and referendum on Landreiu’s ability to deliver for the state, plan ensures she canYork 4-2

Byron is a Columnist for the Washington Examiner, “Louisiana Senate race a battle of pork, policies and political legacies,” http://washingtonexaminer.com/louisiana-senate-race-a-battle-of-pork-policies-and-political-legacies/article/2546656 ,kk

The conventional wisdom is that the Senate race between three-term Democrat Mary Landrieu and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy will be about Obamacare. Will Landrieu's vote for the president's national health care scheme -- the decisive vote, as Republicans often point out -- finally end a storied Louisiana political career?¶ There's no doubt Obamacare will play a big role in the campaign. It's hugely unpopular here in Louisiana — 33 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove in a recent poll — and Landrieu, as much as any other Democrat, is responsible for it.

Cassidy and outside conservative groups are pounding her on the issue every day.¶ But even more than Obamacare, the Louisiana Senate race will be a test of the old proposition that elections are won by bringing home the bacon. Landrieu has always argued that she "delivers" for Louisiana, and in the coming campaign she'll cite the millions and millions of federal dollars she has brought to the state. On the other side, Cassidy believes the political debate has moved into what one aide called a "post-pork paradigm" — an era in which voters choose lawmakers based on policy, not goodies from Washington. In Cassidy's view, Louisianans are eager to move the Senate beyond the old D.C. way of doing things.¶ Sign Up for the Byron York newsletter!¶ More than Obamacare, more than anything else, that is the fight — plain old pork vs. the post-pork paradigm — that will determine who is the

next senator from Louisiana, and possibly which party controls the Senate in 2015 and beyond.¶ Forgive us our debts¶ One key test could come in St. Tammany Parish, the New Orleans suburb on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. It's mostly white and heavily Republican, but Landrieu managed to pull nearly 37 percent of the vote in her last election in 2008, the year of the Obama sweep. Before that, in 2002, she could only manage about 32 percent. This time around, a lot of politicos will be watching Landrieu's performance in the parish, and in the larger area known as the Northshore, as a critical indicator of whether Landrieu can pull enough suburban votes to go along with the margin of victory she will undoubtedly rack up in New Orleans, where her brother Mitch Landrieu was recently re-elected mayor with strong African-American support.¶ It's no accident that St. Tammany is feeling a lot of Landrieu love these days. "The St. Tammany Parish school district is getting $67.8 million in disaster loans and accumulated interest for Hurricane Katrina forgiven by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Sen. Mary Landrieu's office announced Monday," the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported last December. "The announcement follows FEMA's earlier decision to cancel a $9.9 million loan for the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office and a $14.5 million loan to the St. Tammany Parish government." Landrieu, it turns out, inserted a loan forgiveness provision into the 2013 Homeland Security Appropriations bill -- a move that will likely mean future forgiveness for even more Katrina loans.¶ When I stopped by the office of St. Tammany Parish President Pat Brister at the government center in Mandeville recently, she was thankful — very thankful — for Landrieu's help. Brister, who is not only a Republican but a former chairman of the Louisiana GOP, was so grateful that a few months ago she introduced Landrieu at a fundraiser. "I thanked her profusely for it," Brister recalled. "I was happy to do it, because I think she's done a lot."¶ And not just on loan forgiveness. "She has gotten us quite a bit of road money, the RESTORE Act," Brister added, referring to another piece of post-Katrina legislation. "It really does help us. I thanked her for it; it was her efforts that led to that."¶ Brister is a conservative Republican who has a lot of good things to say about the state's Democratic senator. In fact, she said so many good things about Landrieu that I asked directly: "Do you support her?"¶ Brister paused. "I support her," she said of Landrieu. "I'm not endorsing her. There's a big difference. I am not endorsing her, but I support her effort on behalf of citizens that I represent." Brister said she also supports Cassidy's efforts, but added, "I'm not endorsing him, either."¶ So the Republican president of a very Republican parish — and a former state party chief, too — is not going to endorse the Republican candidate in a hugely important statewide race? "That is what I anticipate," Brister said. "As parish president I don't think I can do that. We have voters that I represent who would find that offensive, on either side."¶ Brister also said a number of critical things about Landrieu, hitting not just the Obamacare vote but Landrieu's support of President Obama's far-reaching regulatory proposals, as well as his judicial nominees. "He calls on her, and she votes," Brister said of the president and Landrieu. With a president as unpopular as Barack Obama

is in Louisiana, that's a problem.¶ And that makes Brister's decision not to endorse Landrieu's Republican opponent all the more striking. A solid majority of Brister's constituents will vote against Landrieu; it would be easy for her to side with them. But she won't, and that is a big plus for Landrieu. And it's all the power of bringing home the bacon.¶ Brister isn't the only example. One of Louisiana's more powerful economic players is Bollinger Shipyards, run by CEO Boysie Bollinger, who has for years been a major Republican donor. In 2014, however, Bollinger has decided to endorse Mary Landrieu. And it is perhaps no accident that last fall the Coast Guard awarded Bollinger a $250 million contract to build six new cutters. Landrieu got that into the 2013 Homeland Security bill, too.¶ And then there is the energy industry. Any Louisianan who follows politics even a little knows Landrieu has recently become chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. While Republicans hope to use the new position against Landrieu — is she going to cave in to the environmental extremists in her party? — the fact is, the chairmanship offers her the chance to grant tax breaks and all sorts of other favors to business in her state.

Shipping and trade are a key in Louisiana Info Louisiana ‘14

“Louisiana Economy,” http://doa.louisiana.gov/about_economy.htm kk

The main elements of the Louisiana economy are: the production of minerals, particularly oil and natural gas, but also sulphur, lime, salt and lignite; petroleum refining; chemical and petrochemical manufacturing; tourism; forestry; pulp,

plywood and papermaking; agriculture and food processing; commercial fishing; shipping and international trade; shipbuilding, and general manufacturing

Coastal states are key to Midterms – coastal liberals and empiricsNew Republic, 14 – (“How the Democrats Can Avoid Going Down This November”, New Republic, 4/27/14, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117520/how-democrats-can-avoid-going-down-2014-midterm-election)//EX

A decade ago, Obama memorably rebutted the trope that the United States could be neatly cleaved into a red and a blue America that pits coastal liberals against inland traditionalis ts. But in one very measurable and consequential sense, there are two Americas. There is the America that votes in presidential elections , which has helped Democrats win the popular vote in five out of the last six cycles and supports the view that Hillary Clinton can continue that streak should she run. Then there is the America that votes more regularly, casting ballots in both presidential and midterm years , which led to the Republican wave in 2010 and gives its party’s leaders reason to be so sanguine about their odds this time around.

GOP Congress passes immigration reformBolton 5/15

Alexander, Reporter, The Hill, “GOP: We'll move immigration reform if we take back Senate”, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/206177-gop-well-move-immigration-reform-if-we-take-back-senate

Senate Republicans say they'll try to pass immigration reform legislation in the next two years if they take back the Senate in November. ¶ The Republicans say winning back the Senate will allow them to pass a series of bills on their own terms that have a better chance of winning approval in the House. ¶

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a central member of the coalition that passed a comprehensive reform bill in the Senate last year, said he would craft a better legislative approach if Republicans control the upper c hamber in 2015. ¶ That would give his party a chance to pass immigration legislation before the presidential election, when Hispanic voters will be crucial to winning the White House. ¶ But Democrats are threatening that if the House does not pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year the issue will be dead in 2015 and 2016, sinking the GOP brand among Hispanics ahead of the 2016 election.¶ “I certainly think we can make progress on immigration particularly on topics like modernizing our legal immigration system, improving our mechanisms for enforcing the law and I think if you did those things you could actually make some progress on addressing those who are illegally,” Rubio said Wednesday evening of the prospects of passing immigration reform in 2015. ¶ He said the Senate next year should pass immigration reform through a series of sequential bills that build upon each other to

enact comprehensive reform. This approach would be more palatable in the House, he said. ¶ Rubio said he was not fully satisfied with the comprehensive bill that passed the Senate last year, adding Republicans would “absolutely” pass better legislation if they pick up six or more seats in the midterm election. ¶ Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is poised to take over as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he will vote to pass immigration legislation in the next Congress if Republicans ascend to the majority. ¶ “We’d start over again next year,” Grassley said, when asked about the next steps if Congress does not pass immigration reform by September.¶ “I’d make a decision about whether you could get more done by separate bills or a comprehensive bill,” he said.¶ Grassley said he may have supported the 2013 Senate immigration bill if it had tougher border security and interior enforcement provisions. ¶ “For that reason, not for the legal immigration stuff that’s in it,” he said, explaining why he voted against it.¶ Some Republicans, such as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), strongly oppose increasing legal immigration.¶ “Washington can’t rewrite the law of supply and demand: we can’t rebuild our middle class if we continue to bring in record numbers of new workers for companies to hire at the lowest available wage,” he said.¶ Only 14 Republicans voted for the Senate bill, which conservative critics panned for giving too much discretion to the Obama administration in deciding how its border security requirements would be met. ¶ Senate Republicans believe that House Republicans would be more likely to pass immigration reform if the midterm election shifts control of the upper chamber because it would be easier to negotiate a Senate-House compromise. ¶ House conservatives have opposed bringing immigration legislation to the House floor because they fear even a narrow bill could be used as a vehicle to jam the sprawling Senate bill through the House. That threat would be less dire if the Senate passed a series of smaller immigration reform bills. ¶ “It could pass if we break it down into smaller pieces,” said Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas). “[The House] has always been amenable to passing smaller bills on a step-by-step basis.”¶ Once Congress passes legislation to tighten border security and interior enforcement, it could pave the way for a deal legalizing an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, expanding work visas and enlarging the flow of legal immigration, Senate Republicans argue.

Expanding visas solves science diplomacyPickering and Agre 10- (former undersecretary of State from 1997 to 2000 and chairs the advisory council of the Civilian Research and Development Foundation, director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Thomas and Peter, Baltimore Sun, “Leverage Science Diplomacy Now to Boost U.S. Foreign Policy,” Baltimore Sun, Lexis)

In 1979, a science and technology agreement between the United States and China paved the way for bilateral scientific cooperation that continues to benefit American science and society more broadly. Now, science diplomacy may help America open a door toward improved relations with Pyongyang, too. In December, six Americans representing leading scientific organizations sat down with their North Korean counterparts. The meeting took place on the heels of U.S. Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth's first official bilateral meeting with North Korea. Science, an international enterprise that relies on a lively exchange of ideas and data, can help build trust and

expand understanding when government-to-government contacts may be strained. The North Korea visit, plus the first-ever U.S. science envoys, represent a fine beginning to a new era of international research cooperation. But the White House, the State Department and Congress must do far more to bolster science diplomacy. In particular, the U.S. government should quickly and significantly increase the number of H1-B visas being approved for specialized foreign workers such as doctors, scientists and engineers. Their contributions are critical to improving human welfare as well as our economy. Foreign scientists

working or studying in U.S. universities also become informal goodwill ambassadors for America globally - an important benefit in the developing world, where senior scientists and engineers often enter national politics. More broadly, we urgently need to expand and deepen links between the U.S. and foreign scientific communities to advance solutions to common challenges. Climate change, sustainable development, pandemic disease, malnutrition, protection for oceans and wildlife, national security and innovative energy technologies all demand solutions that draw on science and technology. Fortunately, U.S. technological leadership is admired worldwide, suggesting a way to promote dialogue with countries where we otherwise lack access and leverage. A June 2004 Zogby International poll commissioned by the Arab American Institute found that only 11 percent of Moroccans surveyed had a favorable overall view of the United States - but 90 percent had a positive view of U.S. science and technology. Only 15 percent of Jordanians had a positive overall view, but 83 percent registered admiration for U.S. science and technology.

Similarly, Pew polling data from 43 countries show that favorable views of U.S. science and technology exceed overall views of the United States by an average of 23 points. The recent mission to North Korea exemplified the vast potential of science for U.S. diplomacy. Within the scientific community, after all, journals routinely publish articles co-written by scientists from different nations, and scholars convene frequent conferences to extend those ties. Science demands an intellectually honest atmosphere, peer review and a common language for professional discourse. Basic values

of transparency, vigorous inquiry and respectful debate are all inherent to science. Nations that cooperate on science strengthen the same values that support peaceful conflict resolution and improved public safety. U.S. and Soviet nongovernmental organizations contributed to a thaw in the Cold War through scientific exchanges, with little government support other than travel visas.

Science diplomacy prevents ExtinctionFedoroff 8 - Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State and the Administrator of USAID (Nina, Testimony Before the House Science Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, 4/2, http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/rm/102996.htm

Science by its nature facilitates diplomacy because it strengthens political relationships, embodies powerful ideals, and creates opportunities for all . The global scientific community embraces principles Americans cherish:

transparency, meritocracy, accountability, the objective evaluation of evidence, and broad and frequently democratic participation. Science is inherently democratic, respecting evidence and truth above all. Science is also a common global language, able to bridge deep political and religious divides . Scientists share a common language. Scientific interactions serve to keep open lines of communication and cultural understanding. As scientists everywhere have a common evidentiary external reference

system, members of ideologically divergent societies can use the common language of science to cooperatively address both domestic and the increasingly transnational and global problems confronting humanity in the 21st century. There is a growing recognition that science and technology will increasingly drive the successful economies of the 21st century. Science and technology provide an immeasurable benefit to the U.S. by bringing scientists and students here, especially from developing countries, where they see democracy in action, make friends in the international scientific community, become familiar with American technology, and contribute to the U.S. and global economy. For example, in 2005, over 50% of physical science and engineering graduate students and postdoctoral researchers trained in the U.S. have been foreign nationals. Moreover, many foreign-born scientists who were educated and have worked in the U.S. eventually progress in their careers to hold influential positions in ministries and institutions both in this country and in their home countries. They also contribute to U.S. scientific and technologic development: According to the National Science Board’s 2008 Science and Engineering Indicators,

47% of full-time doctoral science and engineering faculty in U.S. research institutions were foreign-born. Finally, some types of science – particularly those that address the grand challenges in science and technology – are inherently international in scope and collaborative by necessity. The ITER Project, an international fusion research and development collaboration, is a product of the thaw in superpower relations between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan. This reactor will harness the power of nuclear fusion as a possible Testimony of Dr. Nina Fedoroff Page 3 new and viable energy source by bringing a star to earth. ITER serves as a symbol of international scientific cooperation among key

scientific leaders in the developed and developing world – Japan, Korea, China, E.U., India, Russia, and United States – representing 70% of the world’s current population.. The recent elimination of funding for FY08 U.S. contributions to the ITER project comes at an inopportune time as the Agreement on the Establishment of the ITER International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project had entered into force only on October 2007. The elimination of the promised U.S. contribution drew our allies to question our commitment and credibility in international cooperative ventures. More problematically, it jeopardizes a platform for reaffirming U.S. relations with key states. It

should be noted that even at the height of the cold war, the United States used science diplomacy as a means to maintain communications and avoid misunderstanding between the world’s two nuclear powers – the Soviet Union and the United States. In a complex multi-polar world, relations are more challenging, the threats perhaps greater, and the need for engagement more paramount. Using Science Diplomacy to Achieve National Security Objectives The welfare and stability of countries and regions in many parts of the globe require a concerted effort by the developed world to address the causal factors that render countries fragile and cause states to fail. Countries that are unable to defend their people against starvation, or fail to provide economic opportunity, are susceptible to extremist ideologies, autocratic rule, and abuses of human rights. As well, the world faces common threats, among them climate change, energy and water shortages, public health emergencies, environmental degradation, poverty, food

insecurity, and religious extremism. These threats can undermine the national security of the United States, both directly and indirectly. Many are blind to political boundaries, becoming regional or global threats. The United States has no monopoly on knowledge in a globalizing world and the scientific challenges facing humankind are enormous. Addressing these common challenges demands common solutions and necessitates scientific cooperation, common standards, and common goals. We

must increasingly harness the power of American ingenuity in science and Testimony of Dr. Nina Fedoroff Page 4 technology through strong partnerships with the science community in both academia and the private sector, in the U.S. and abroad among our allies, to advance U.S. interests in foreign policy. There are also important challenges to the ability of states to supply their populations with sufficient food. The still-growing human population, rising affluence in emerging economies, and other factors have combined to create unprecedented pressures on global prices of staples such as edible oils and grains. Encouraging and promoting the use of contemporary molecular techniques in crop improvement is an essential goal for US science diplomacy. An essential part of the war on terrorism is a war of ideas. The creation of economic opportunity can do much more to combat the rise of fanaticism than can any weapon. The war of ideas is a war about rationalism as opposed to irrationalism. Science and technology put us firmly on the side of rationalism by providing ideas and opportunities that improve people’s lives. We may use the recognition and the goodwill that science still generates for the United States to achieve our diplomatic and developmental goals. Additionally, the Department continues to use science as a means to reduce the

proliferation of the weapons’ of mass destruction and prevent what has been dubbed ‘brain drain’. Through cooperative threat reduction activities, former weapons scientists redirect their skills to participate in peaceful, collaborative international research in a large variety of scientific fields. In addition, new global efforts focus on improving biological, chemical, and nuclear security by promoting and implementing best scientific practices as a means to enhance security, increase global partnerships, and create sustainability.

Competiveness1. The Era of US Hegemony is at an end – collapse and transition to multipolarity

is inevitable – global economics and domestic politics prove Shweller 2010 Randall L. Schweller, Jan/Feb, ’10. Professor of Poli Sci @ Ohio State. Author of Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power, “Ennui Becomes Us,” The National Interest, Lexis. AD: 9.11.11 MJ]

The messiness of this state of affairs contradicts a rare consensus in the field of international relations that concentrated power in the hands of one dominant state is essential to the establishment and maintenance of

international order. According to the theory, the demand for international regimes is high but their supply is low because only the leadership of a hegemonic state can overcome the collective-action problems-mainly the huge start-up costs-associated with the creation of

order-producing global institutions. The current world has turned this logic on its head. The problem is the virtual absence of barriers to entry. Most new treaty-making and global-governance institutions are being spearheaded not by an elite club of great powers but

rather by civil-society actors and nongovernmental organizations working with midlevel states. Far from creating more order and predictability, this explosion of so-called global-governance institutions has increased the chaos, randomness, fragmentation, ambiguity and impenetrable complexity of international politics . Indeed, the labyrinthine structure of global governance is more complex than most of the problems it is supposed to be solving. And countries' views are more rigidly held than ever before. ALAS, AS entropy increases within a closed system, available or "useful" energy dissipates and diffuses to a

state of equal energy among particles. The days of unipolarity are numbered. We will witness instead a deconcentration of power that eventually moves the system to multipolarity and a restored balance. It will not, however, be a normal global transition. Great powers will not build up arms and form alliances. They will not use war to improve their positions in the international pecking order. They will not seek relative-power advantages. That is because they no longer have to obsess over how others are doing-much less over their own survival, which is essentially assured in today's world of unprecedented peace. States will instead be primarily concerned with doing well for themselves . What

they will do is engage in economic competition. The law of uneven economic growth among states and the diffusion of technology will cause a deconcentration of global power. Global equilibrium in this new environment is a spontaneously generated outcome among states seeking to maximize their absolute wealth, not military power or political influence over others. The pace of these diffusion processes has increased during the digital age because what distinguishes economies today is no longer capital and labor-now mere commodities-but rather ideas and energy. Information entropy is creating fierce corporate competition. Our creeping sameness hasn't led us to the mythical natural harmony of interests in the world that international liberalism seems to take for granted. To the contrary, it's a jungle out there. Global communication networks and rapid technological innovation have forced competitive firms to abandon the end-to-end vertical business model and adopt strategies of dynamic specialization, connectivity through outsourcing and process networks, and leveraged capability building across institutional boundaries. They have also caused public policies to converge in the areas of deregulation, trade liberalization and market liberalization. All of these trends have combined to create relentlessly intensifying competition on a global scale.4 So while we may indeed be looking more alike, what precisely are the traits that we share? Sameness in the "flat" world, where the main business challenge is not profitability but mere survival, breeds cutthroat competitors no more likely to live in harmony with each other than the unfortunate inhabitants of Hobbes's state of nature. So, instead of shooting wars and arms buildups, we will see intense corporate competition with firms engaging in espionage,

information warfare (such as the hiring of "big gun" hackers) and guerilla marketing strategies. IN TERMS of the global balance of power, the rapid diffusion of knowledge and technology is driving down America's edge in productive capacity and, as a consequence, its overall power position. Indeed, the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way-roughly from West to East-is without precedent in modern history in terms of size, speed and directional flow. If these were the only processes at work, then the future of international politics might well conform to the benign, orthodox liberal vision of a cooperative, positive-sum game among states operating within a system that places strict limits on the returns to power. But this is not to be because, in a break from old-world great-power politics, there will be no hegemonic war to wipe the international slate clean. We will therefore be stuck with the bizarre mishmash of global-governance institutions that now creates an

ineffectual foreign-policy space. Trying to overhaul existing institutions to accommodate rising powers and address today's complex issues is an impossible task. So while liberals are correct to point out that the boom in global economic growth over the past two decades has allowed countries to move up the ladder of growth and prosperity, this movement, combined with a moribund institutional superstructure, creates a destabilizing disjuncture between power and prestige that will eventually make the world more confrontational. The question arises, with hegemonic war no longer in the cards, how can a new international order that reflects these tectonic shifts be forged? Aside from a natural

disaster of massive proportions (a cure most likely worse than the disease itself), there is no known force that can fix the problem. HE PRIMARY cause of these tectonic shifts is American decline. Hegemonic decline is inevitable because unchecked power tends to overextend itself and succumb to the vice of imperial overstretch ; because the hegemon overpays for international public goods, such as security, while its free-riding competitors underpay

for them; and because its once-hungry society becomes soft and decadent, engaging in self-destructive hedonism and

overconsumption. In recent years, the America-in-decline debate of the 1980s and early 1990s has reemerged with a vengeance. Despite the fact that the United States is the lone superpower with unrivaled command of air, sea and space, there is a growing chorus of observers proclaiming the end of American primacy. Joining the ranks of these "declinists," Robert Pape forcefully argued

in these pages that "America is in unprecedented decline," having lost 30 percent of its relative economic power since 2000.5 To be sure, the macrostatistical picture of the United States is a bleak one. Its savings rate is zero ; its currency is sliding to new depths; it runs huge current-account, trade and budget deficits; its medium income is flat; its entitlement commitments are unsustainable ; and its once-unrivaled capital markets are now struggling to compete with Hong Kong and London . The staggering costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, combined with the financial bailout and stimulus packages doled out in response to the subprime-mortgage and financial-credit crises, have battered the U.S. economy, opening the door for peer competitors to make substantial relative gains. The current bear market ranks among the worst in history, with the Dow and S&P down almost 50 percent from their 2007 peaks. The major cause of our troubles, both in the short and long term, is debt: the United States is borrowing massively to finance current consumption. America continues to run unprecedented trade deficits with its only burgeoning peer competitor, China, which, based on current trajectories, is predicted to surpass the United States as the world's leading economic power by 2040. As of July 2009, Washington owed Beijing over $800 billion, meaning that every person in the "rich" United States has, in effect, borrowed about $3,000 from someone in the "poor" People's Republic of China over the past decade.6 But this devolution of

America's status is truly inevitable because of the forces of entropy. No action by U.S. leaders can prove a viable counterweight. AND AS power devolves throughout the international system, new actors will emerge and develop to compete with states as power centers. Along these lines, Richard Haass claims that we have entered an "age of nonpolarity," in which states "are being challenged from above, by regional and global organizations; from below, by militias; and from the side, by a variety of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and corporations." Of course, there is nothing especially new about this observation;

cosmopolitan liberals have been pronouncing (prematurely, in my view) the demise of the nation-state-the so-called "hollow state" and a crisis of state power-and the rise of nonstate actors for many decades. What is new is that even state-centric realists like Fareed Zakaria are now predicting a post-American world, in which international order is no longer a matter decided solely by the political and military power held by a single hegemon or even a group of leading states. Instead, the coming world will be governed by messy ad hoc arrangements composed of a la carte multilateralism and networked interactions among state and nonstate actors. One wonders what order and concerted action mean in a world that lacks fixed and predictable structures and relationships. Given the

haphazard and incomplete manner by which the vacuum of lost state power is being filled, why expect order at all? THE MACROPICTURE that emerges from these global trends is one of historically unprecedented change in a direction consistent with increasing entropy: unprecedented hegemonic decline; an unprecedented transfer of wealth, knowledge and economic power from West to East; unprecedented information flows; and an unprecedented rise in the number and kinds of important actors. Thus, the onset of this extreme multipolarity or multi-multipolarity will not herald, as some observers believe, a return to the past. To the contrary, it will signal that maximum entropy is setting in, that the ultimate state of inert uniformity and unavailable energy is coming, that time does have a direction in international politics and that there is no going back because the initial conditions of the system have been lost forever. If and when we reach such a point in time, much of international politics as we know it will have ended. Its deep structure of anarchy-the lack of a sovereign arbiter to make and enforce agreements among states-will remain. But increasing entropy will result in a world full of fierce international competition and corporate warfare; continued extremism; low levels of trust; the formation of nonstate identities that frustrate purposeful and concerted national actions; and new nongeographic political spaces that bypass the state, favor low-intensity-warfare strategies

and undermine traditional alliance groupings. Most important, entropy will reduce and diffuse usable power in the system, dramatically reshaping the landscape of international politics. The United States will see its

relative power diminish, while others will see their power rise. To avoid crises and confrontation, these ongoing tectonic changes must be reflected in the superstructure of international authority. Increasing entropy, however, means that the antiquated global architecture will only grow more and more creaky and resistant to overhaul. No one will know where authority resides because it will not reside anywhere; and without authority, there can be no governance of any kind. The already-overcrowded and chaotic landscape will continue to be filled with more meaningless stuff; and the specter of international cooperation, if it was ever anything more than an apparition, will die a slow but sure death.

2. Even if the US declines, liberal international norms will survive – solves the impact

Ikenberry 11 – (May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, G. John, PhD, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, “The Future of the Liberal World Order,” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/

articles/67730/g-john-ikenberry/the-future-of-the-liberal-world-order?page=show)

For all these reasons, many observers have concluded that world politics is experiencing not just a changing of the guard but also a transition in the ideas and principles that underlie the global order. The journalist Gideon Rachman, for example, says that a cluster of liberal internationalist ideas -- such as faith in democratization, confidence in free markets,

and the acceptability of U.S. military power -- are all being called into question. According to this worldview, the future of international order will be shaped above all by China, which will use its growing power and wealth to push world politics in an illiberal direction. Pointing out that China and other non-Western states have weathered the recent financial crisis better than their

Western counterparts, pessimists argue that an authoritarian capitalist alternative to Western neoliberal ideas has already emerged . According to the scholar Stefan Halper, emerging-market states "are learning to combine market economics with traditional autocratic or semiautocratic politics in a process that signals an intellectual rejection of the Western economic

model." Today's international order is not really American or Western--even if it initially appeared that way. But this panicked narrative misses a deeper reality : although the United States' position in the global system is changing, the liberal international order is alive and well. The struggle over international order today is not about fundamental principles. China and other emerging great powers do not want to contest the basic rules and principles of the liberal international order; they wish to gain more authority and leadership within it. Indeed, today's power transition represents not the defeat of the liberal order but its ultimate ascendance . Brazil, China, and India have all become more prosperous and capable by operating inside the existing international order -- benefiting from its rules, practices, and institutions, including the World Trade

Organization (WTO) and the newly organized G-20. Their economic success and growing influence are tied to the liberal internationalist organization of world politics, and they have deep interests in preserving that system . In the meantime, alternatives to an open and rule-based order have yet to crystallize. Even though the last decade has brought remarkable upheavals in the global system -- the emergence of new powers, bitter

disputes among Western allies over the United States' unipolar ambitions, and a global financial crisis and recession -- the liberal international order has no competitors . On the contrary, the rise of non-Western powers and the growth of economic and

security interdependence are creating new constituencies for it. To be sure, as wealth and power become less concentrated in the U nited S tates' hands, the country will be less able to shape world politics. But the underlying foundations of the liberal international order will survive and thrive . Indeed, now may be the best time for the United States and its democratic partners to update the liberal order for a new era, ensuring that it continues to provide the benefits of security and prosperity that it has provided since the middle of the twentieth century.

3. No chance of transition wars Hass 10—president, CFR. DPhil, Oxford (Richard, The Weakest Link, http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/25/the-weakest-link.html)

That we should care so much about weak states marks a major change. Much of 20th-century history was driven by the actions of strong states—the attempts by Germany, Japan, and, in the century's second half, the Soviet Union to establish global primacy, and the corresponding efforts of the United States and a shifting coalition of partners to resist. Those struggles produced two world wars and a Cold War. In the 21st century the principal threat to the global order will not be a push for dominance by any great

power. For one thing, today's great powers are not all that great: Russia has a one-dimensional economy and is hobbled by corruption and a shrinking population; China is constrained by its enormous population and a top-heavy political system . Just as important, China and the other major or rising powers seek less to overthrow the existing global order than to shape it . They are more interested in integration than in revolution. Instead, the central challenge will be posed by weak states— Pakistan,

Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Haiti, Mexico, Congo, and others. What they have in common (in addition to the fact that many,

like Iraq, are located in the greater Middle East) are governments that lack the capacity, the will, or both to rule. They are unable to exercise what is expected of sovereign governments—namely, control over what goes on within their own

territory. In the past, this would have been mostly a humanitarian concern. But as we all know, thanks to globalization, people and things travel. Terrorists, diseases, illegal migrants, weapons of mass destruction—for all of them, international boundaries are often little

more than formalities. On the other hand, we cannot resolve these problems solely by using the U.S. military. As we learned in Iraq, replacing governments is easier sought than done, and in many cases there is no clear—much less preferable—alternative to the current authority. Even in a supporting role, foreign soldiers can provoke a nationalist backlash against the government they're trying to bolster, making the weak-state problem even worse. Nor is it always clear that doing more militarily will result in lasting improvements that are commensurate with the investment in blood and treasure. This could well be America's fate in Afghanistan.

4. Increased Global Competitiveness not key to heg,-desperate policy making failsRobert Pape. University of Chicago professor of Political Science and founder of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism.2009. [“Empire Falls”. The National Interest.] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_99/ai_n32148803/?tag=content;col1

The days when the United States could effectively solve the security problems of its allies in these regions almost on its

own are coming to an end. True, spreading defense burdens more equally will not be easy and will be fraught with its own costs and risks. However, this is simply part of the price of America's declining relative power.¶ The key principle is for America to gain international support among regional powers like Russia and China for its vital national-security objectives by adjusting less important U.S. policies. For instance, Russia may well do more to discourage Iran's nuclear program in return for less U.S. pressure to expand NATO to its borders.¶ And of course America needs to develop a plan to reinvigorate the competitiveness of its economy. Recently, Harvard's

Michael Porter issued an economic blueprint to renew America's environment for innovation. The heart of his plan is to remove the obstacles to increasing investment in science and technology. A combination of targeted tax, fiscal and education policies to stimulate more productive

investment over the long haul is a sensible domestic component to America's new grand strategy. But it would be misguided to assume that the United States could easily regain its previously dominant economic position , since the world will likely remain globally competitive . To justify postponing this restructuring of its grand strategy, America would need a firm expectation of high rates of economic growth over the next several years. There is no sign of such a burst on the horizon. Misguided effort s to extract more s ecurity from a declining economic base only divert potential resources from investment in the economy, trapping the state in an ever-worsening strategic dilemma . This approach has done little for great powers in the past, and America will likely be no exception when it comes to the inevitable costs of desperate policy making

5. Hegemony is the biggest internal link into economic decline- the US can no longer afford to be an empire

Bandow 10(Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, former special assistant to President Reagan, J.D. from Stanford University, April 19, 2010,

“Bankrupt Empire”, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/bankrupt-empire) //ZA

The United States government is effectively bankrupt. Washington no longer can afford to micromanage the world. International social engineering is a dubious venture under the best of circumstances. It is folly to attempt while drowning in red ink.

Traditional military threats against America have largely disappeared. There's no more Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact,

Maoist China is distant history and Washington is allied with virtually every industrialized state. As Colin Powell famously put it while Chairman of

the Joint Chiefs: "I'm running out of enemies. . . . I'm down to Kim Il-Sung and Castro." However, the United States continues to act as the globe's 911 number. Unfortunately, a hyperactive foreign policy requires a big military. America accounts for roughly half of global military outlays. In real terms Washington spends more on "defense" today than it during the Cold War, Korean War and Vietnam War. If Uncle Sam was a real person, he would declare bankruptcy. U.S. military expenditures are extraordinary by any measure. My Cato Institute colleagues Chris Preble and Charles Zakaib recently compared American and European military outlays. U.S. expenditures have been trending upward and now approach five percent of GDP . In contrast, European outlays

have consistently fallen as a percentage of GDP, to an average of less than two percent. The difference is even starker when comparing per capita GDP military expenditures. The U.S. is around $2,200. Most European states fall well below $1,000. Adding in non-Pentagon defense spending — Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Department of Energy (nuclear weapons) — yields American military outlays of $835.1 billion in 2008, which represented 5.9 percent of GDP and $2,700 per capita. Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations worries that the increased financial obligations (forget unrealistic estimates about cutting the deficit) resulting from health-care legislation will preclude maintaining such oversize expenditures in the future, thereby threatening America's "global standing." He asks: Who will "police the sea lanes, stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, combat terrorism, respond to genocide and other unconscionable human rights violations, and deter rogue states from aggression?" Of course, nobody is threatening to close the sea lanes these days. Washington has found it hard to stop nuclear proliferation without initiating war, yet promiscuous U.S. military intervention creates a powerful incentive for nations to seek nuclear weapons. Armored divisions and carrier groups aren't useful in confronting terrorists. Iraq demonstrates how the brutality of war often is more inhumane than the depredations of dictators. And there are lots of other nations capable of deterring rogue states. The United States should not attempt to do everything even if it could afford to do so. But it can't. When it comes to

the federal Treasury, there's nothing there. If Uncle Sam was a real person, he would declare bankruptcy. The current national debt is $12.7 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office figures that current policy — unrealistically assuming no new spending increases — will run up $10 trillion in deficits over the coming decade . But more spending — a lot more spending — is on the way. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain as active as ever, underwriting $5.4 trillion worth of mortgages while running up additional losses. The Federal Housing Administration's portfolio of insured mortgages continues to rise along with defaults. Exposure for Ginnie Mae, which issues guaranteed

mortgage-backed securities, also is jumping skyward. The FDIC shut down a record 140 banks last year and is running low on cash. Last year the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation figured its fund was running a $34 billion deficit. Federal pensions are underfunded by $1 trillion. State and local retirement funds are short about $3 trillion. Outlays for the Iraq war will persist decades after the troops return as the government cares for seriously injured military personnel; total expenditures will hit $2 trillion or more. Extending and expanding the war in Afghanistan will further bloat federal outlays. Worst of all, last year the combined Social Security/Medicare unfunded liability was estimated to be $107 trillion. Social Security, originally expected to go negative in 2016, will spend more than it collects this year, and the "trust fund" is an accounting fiction. Medicaid, a joint federal-state program, also is breaking budgets. At their current growth rate, CBO says that by 2050 these three programs alone will consume virtually the entire federal budget. Uncle Sam's current net liabilities

exceed Americans' net worth. Yet the debt-to-GDP ratio will continue rising and could eventually hit World War II levels. Net interest is expected to more than quadruple to $840 billion annually by 2020. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says: "It's not something that is ten years away. It affects the markets currently." In March, Treasury notes commanded a yield of 3.5 basis points higher than those for Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. Moody's recently threatened to downgrade federal debt: "Although AAA governments benefit from an unusual degree of balance sheet flexibility, that flexibility is not infinite." In 2008, Tom Lemmon of Moody's warned: "The underlying credit rating of the U.S. government faces the risk of downgrading in the next ten years if solutions are not found to our growing Medicare and Social Security unfunded obligations." This is all without counting a dollar of increased federal

spending due to federalizing American medicine. The United States faces a fiscal crisis. If America's survival was at stake, extraordinary military expenditures would still be justified. But not to protect other nations, especially prosperous and populous states well able to defend themselves. Boot warns: "it will be increasingly hard to be globocop and nanny state at the same time." America should be neither. The issue is not just

money. The Constitution envisions a limited government focused on defending Americans, not transforming the rest of the world. Moreover, if Washington continues to act as globocop, America's friends and allies will never have an

incentive to do more. The United States will be a world power for decades. But it can no afford to act as if it is the only power. America must begin the process of becoming a normal nation with a normal foreign policy.

6. Economic collapse causes nuclear war, terrorism, and proliferationHarris and Burrows ‘9 (Mathew, PhD European History at Cambridge, counselor in the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and Jennifer, member of the NIC’s Long Range Analysis Unit “Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis” http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/twq/v32i2/f_0016178_13952.pdf)// ) mt

Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with

ample opportunity for unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so, history may be more instructive than ever.

While we continue to believe that the Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be drawn from that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the same

period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twenty-first as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which the potential for greater conflict could grow would seem to be even more apt in a constantly volatile economic environment as they would be if change would be steadier . In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues move up on the international agenda. Terrorism’s appeal will decline if economic growth continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced. For those terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the world’s most dangerous capabilities within their reach . Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a combination of

descendants of long established groups inheriting organizational structures, command and control processes, and training procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacks and newly emergent collections of the angry and disenfranchised that become self-radicalized, particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower in an economic downturn. The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S. military presence would almost certainly be the Middle East. Although Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries about a nuclear-armed Iran could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with external powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own nuclear ambitions. It is not clear that the type of stable deterrent relationship that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emerge naturally in the Middle East

with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an unintended escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not well established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals combined with

underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce inherent difficulties in achieving

reliable indications and warning of a n impending nuclear attack . The lack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel,

short warning and missile flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on preemption rather than defense, potentially leading to escalating crises. Types of conflict that the world continues to experience, such as over resources, could reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices . Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive countries to take actions to assure their future access to energy supplies . In the worst case, this could result in interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured access to energy resources, for example, to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval buildups and modernization efforts, such as China’s and India’s development of blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of regional naval capabilities could lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and

counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in a more dog-eat-dog world.

7. Many alt causes to deforestationGreenpeace, no date

(Greenpeace USA, “Solutions to Deforestation,” http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/forests/solutions-to-deforestation/, accessed 7-19-13, EB)

“Ending deforestation and protecting forests will not only preserve biodiversity and defend the rights of forest communities, it is also one of the quickest and cost effective ways of curbing global warming. Greenpeace is campaigning for zero deforestation, globally, by 2020. Drivers of Deforestation Drivers of deforestation vary from region to region-below are examples of human activity driving the destruction of the world’s natural forests. Agri-business- the largest driver of deforestation, in which vast areas of natural forest are burned or cleared in order to raise cattle or grow cash mono crops like palm oil and soy. Palm oil and soy are used in a wide array of products ranging from toothpaste, chocolate, animal feed and cosmetics. Industrial logging for timber , pulp and wood fiber to create building materials and consumer products like office paper, tissue, books, magazines and packaging. Mining for metals such as gold, copper, or aluminum clears large tracts of natural forests and contaminate forest eco-systems with their runoff. Road Building through forests fragments the landscape, endangers wildlife habitat and provides access points for illegal loggers and other business operations that encroach into the forest. Hydroelectric dams flood upstream forests, leading to widespread forest loss , habitat degradation and displacement of forest communities and wildlife.

8. Food insecurity doesn’t cause conflict – no correlation and alt causesMaxwell ’12 [Daniel Maxwell, Research Director for Food Security and Complex Emergencies; Professor; MAHA Director. 13-14 SEPTEMBER 2012. “Food Security and Its Implications for Political Stability: A Humanitarian Perspective.” http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/cfs_high_level_forum/documents/FS-Implications-Political_Stability-Maxwell.pdf]//JA

Several potential conclusions emerge from this discussion. First, the causal relationship between food security and political stability in humanitarian emergencies is complex and difficult to generalize that is to say that food insecurity can be caused by conflict/political instability, and political instability can be caused by food insecurity. Militarized conflict an extreme form of political instability has clearly been a major driver of humanitarian emergencies, particularly since the end of the cold war, with high levels of food insecurity a common consequence of these emergencies. However, at the same time, many of the local drivers of conflict have been related to control over land and other natural resources, which are ultimately linked to people s livelihoods and therefore to their food security (Alinovi, Hemrich, & Russo, 2008). In most of these

emergencies, it isn t really possible to specify the independent and dependent variables in the relationship .

The relationship can be understood in any given context, but it is circular and iterative, not linear. And, it should also be noted, that there isn t always any particularly demonstrable relationship between the two . Substantial levels of food insecurity can exist without there being any driver related to political instability, and without necessarily causing major political instability . Hence, a certain amount of caution is justified regarding any general theory of the link between the two.

Second, there are some common drivers of both political instability and food insecurity. Climate change is at least

partly implicated for both in the Darfur conflict, for example: as rainfall patterns changed, nomadic camel herders had to migrate farther and farther southwards to find dry season grazing and water, which brought them increasingly into conflict with other ethnic and livelihoods groups and made the lack of a designated homeland or Dar for the nomadic groups more evident (Young et al., 2005). Needless to say, the Darfur conflict was quickly politicized by other actors predominantly the ruling party in Khartoum for their own purposes, so it would be wrong to blame the

Darfur crisis predominantly on climate change. Nevertheless, it likely played a crucial underlying role. Increasing frequency of drought and climate variability is equally implicated in food security crises elsewhere. It seems unlikely that there will be any change in the foreseeable future in a number of drivers of food insecurity: the volatility of short-term weather impacts and medium-term climate change impacts, the volatility of global and local food prices, or the number of localized conflicts (ripe for manipulation the way Darfur or Somalia were). In other words, the number of localized food security crises is unlikely to decrease. This has major implications for both humanitarian preparedness and response and for policy makers worried more broadly about the implications for political stability, notwithstanding the caution raised above about generalizing the relationship between food insecurity and political stability. The social protection responses rolled out on a national scale in Ethiopia, and piloted in a number of other countries have certainly made progress in providing a safety net but the jury is still out on whether such programs actually offer a broadly accessible ladder out of poverty and chronic

food insecurity. It is likely that substantially more resources will be required to achieve the latter objective at scale, and the infrastructure and capacity needed for implementation are likely inadequate in the most affected countries .

Soil ErosionInstability in Japan now; DPJ victory and recent years of domestic political troubleSzechenyi 6/2/10, deputy director and fellow with the Office of the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Nicholas, “Political Turmoil in Japan”, http://csis.org/publication/political-turmoil-japan

Some observers interpreted the DPJ victory last summer as the dawn of a new era of political leadership after decades of nearly uninterrupted rule by the LDP. Today’s developments render such pronouncements premature. The current situation is more likely a prelude to a new era, a messy process of political realignment featuring successive coalition governments as a new generation attempts to coalesce around a set of core principles that can underpin a sustainable majority. Hatoyama campaigned on a platform of “change,” but when one considers the instability that has plagued Japanese domestic politics in recent years, thus far it appears the more things change the more they stay the same.

Japan doesn’t need the U.S. – Switching to NuclearCunningham 13—MA in Advanced International Studies from John Hopkins. [“The Geopolitical Implications of U.S. Natural Gas Exports,” The American Security Project, Nick Cunningham, March 2013, pp 8, accessed from Emory] // AG

However, there are reasons to believe the export opportunity is smaller than is commonly perceived. Several studies highlight the likelihood that allowing exports to proceed without any constraints will not lead to large export volumes.35

This is due to several reasons. First , Japan may return to nuclear power after an extensive safety review.36 This would make the supply crunch in Asia temporary, and weaker Japanese LNG demand in the future is likely to significantly reduce Asian LNG prices.

No Asian war- China creates stability Carlson ’13 (Allen Carlson is an Associate Professor in Cornell University’s Government Department. He was granted his PhD from Yale University’s Political Science Department. His undergraduate degree is from Colby College. In 2005 his Unifying China, Integrating with the World: Securing Chinese Sovereignty in the Reform Era was published by Stanford University Press. He has also written articles that appeared in the Journal of Contemporary China, Pacific Affairs, Asia Policy, and Nations and Nationalism. In addition, he has published monographs for the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the East-West Center Washington. Carlson was a Fulbright-Hays scholar at Peking University during the 2004-2005 academic year. In 2005 he was chosen to participate in the National Committee’s Public Intellectuals Program, and he currently serves as an adviser to Cornell’s China Asia Pacific Studies program and its East Asia Program. Carlson is currently working on a project exploring the issue of nontraditional security in China’s emerging relationship with the rest of the international system. His most recent publications are the co-edited Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods and Field Strategies (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and New Frontiers in China’s Foreign Relations (Lexington, 2011). China Keeps the Peace at Sea China Keeps the Peace at Sea Why the Dragon Doesn't Want War Allen Carlson February 21, 2013

At times in the past few months, China and Japan have appeared almost ready to do battle over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands --which are administered by Tokyo but claimed by both countries -- and to ignite a war that could be bigger than any since World War II. Although Tokyo and Beijing have been shadowboxing over the territory for years, the standoff reached a new low in the fall, when the Japanese government nationalized some of the islands by purchasing them from a private owner. The decision set off a wave of violent anti-Japanese demonstrations across China. In the wake of these events, the conflict quickly reached what political scientists call a state of equivalent retaliation -- a situation in which both countries believe that it is imperative to respond in kind to

any and all perceived slights. As a result, it may have seemed that armed engagement was imminent. Yet, months later, nothing has happened . And

despite their aggressive posturing in the disputed territory, both sides now show glimmers of willingness to dial down hostilities

and to reestablish stability . Some analysts have cited North Korea's recent nuclear test as a factor in the countries' reluctance to engage in military

conflict. They argue that the detonation, and Kim Jong Un's belligerence, brought China and Japan together, unsettling them and placing their differences in a scarier context. Rory Medcalf, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, explained that "the nuclear test gives the leadership in both Beijing and Tokyo a chance to focus on a foreign and security policy challenge where their interests are not diametrically at odds." The nuclear test, though, is a red herring in terms of the conflict over

the disputed islands. In truth, the roots of the conflict -- and the reasons it has not yet exploded -- are much deeper . Put simply, China cannot afford military conflict with any of its Asian neighbors. It is not that China believes it would

lose such a spat; the country increasingly enjoys strategic superiority over the entire region, and it is difficult to imagine that its forces would be beaten in a direct

engagement over the islands , in the South China Sea or in the disputed regions along the Sino-Indian border. However, Chinese officials see that even the most pronounced victory would be outweighed by the collateral damage that such a use of force would cause to Beijing's two most fundamental national interests -- economic growth and preventing the escalation of radical nationalist sentiment at home. These constraints, rather than any external deterrent , will keep Xi Jinping, China's new leader, from authorizing the use

of deadly force in the Diaoyu Islands theater. For over three decades , Beijing has promoted peace and stability in Asia to facilitate conditions amenable to China's economic development. The origins of the policy can be traced back to the late 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping repeatedly contended that to move beyond the economically debilitating Maoist period, China would have to seek a common ground with its neighbors. Promoting cooperation in the region would allow China to spend less on military preparedness, focus on making the country a more welcoming destination for foreign investment, and foster better trade relations. All of this would strengthen the Chinese economy. Deng was right. Today, China's economy is second only to that of the United States. The fundamentals of Deng's grand economic strategy are still revered in Beijing. But any war in the region would erode the hard-won, and precariously held, political capital that China has gained in the last several decades. It would also disrupt trade relations, complicate efforts to promote the yuan as an international currency, and send shock waves through the country's economic system at a time when it can ill afford them. There is thus little reason to think that

China is readying for war with Japan. At the same time, the specter of rising Chinese nationalism, although often seen as a promoter of conflict, further limits the prospects for armed engagement . This is because Beijing will try to discourage

nationalism if it fears it may lose control or be forced by popular sentiment to take an action it deems unwise. Ever since the Tiananmen Square massacre put questions about the Chinese Communist Party's right to govern before the population, successive generations of Chinese leaders have carefully negotiated a balance between promoting nationalist sentiment and preventing it from boiling over. In the process, they cemented the legitimacy of their rule. A war with Japan could easily upset that balance by inflaming nationalism that could blow back against China's leaders. Consider a hypothetical scenario in which a uniformed Chinese military member is killed during a firefight with Japanese soldiers. Regardless of the specific circumstances, the casualty would create a new martyr in China and, almost as quickly, catalyze popular protests against Japan. Demonstrators would call for blood, and if the government (fearing economic instability) did not extract enough, citizens would agitate against Beijing itself. Those in Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound in Beijing, would find themselves between a rock and a hard place. It is possible that Xi lost track of these basic facts during the fanfare of his rise to power and in the face of renewed Japanese assertiveness. It is also possible that the Chinese state is more rotten at the core than is understood. That is, party elites believe that a diversionary war is the only way to hold on to power -- damn the economic and social consequences. But Xi does not seem blind to the principles that have served Beijing so well over the last few decades. Indeed, although he recently warned unnamed others about infringing upon China's "national core interests" during a foreign policy speech to members of the Politburo, he also underscored China's commitment to "never pursue development at the cost of sacrificing other country's interests" and to never "benefit ourselves at others' expense or do harm to any neighbor." Of course, wars do happen -- and still could in the East China Sea. Should either side draw first blood through accident or an unexpected move, Sino-Japanese relations would be pushed into terrain that has not been charted since the middle of the last century. However, understanding that war would be a no-win situation, China has avoided rushing over the brink. This

relative restraint seems to have surprised everyone. But it shouldn't. Beijing will continue to disagree with Tokyo over the sovereign status of the islands, and

will not budge in its negotiating position over disputed territory. However, it cannot take the risk of going to war over a few rocks in

the sea. On the contrary, in the coming months it will quietly seek a way to shelve the dispute in return for securing regional stability, facilitating economic development, and keeping a lid on the Pandora's box of rising nationalist sentiment. The ensuing peace , while unlikely to be deep, or especially conducive to improving Sino-Japanese relations, will be enduring.

US already increasing Oil ProductionFloyd Norris, 1-25-2014, chief financial correspondent for NYT, 1/25/2014, “U.S. Oil Production Keeps Rising Beyond the Forecasts,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/business/us-oil-production-keeps-rising-beyond-the-forecasts.html?_r=0

OIL production in the United States rose by a record 992,000 barrels a day in 2013 , the International Energy Agency estimated this week. “We keep raising our forecasts, and we keep underestimating production,” said Lejla Alic, a Paris-based analyst with the agency. The increase left United States production at

7.5 million barrels a day , with both November and December production estimated to have been over eight million barrels a day. American consumption of oil also rose last year, by 390,000 barrels a day, or 2.1 percent, to 18.9 million barrels a day. The agency increased its estimate of American oil use in the final quarter of the year, although it lowered its estimate of the increase in some other countries, including China. Over all, world consumption rose 1.4 percent, making 2013 the first year since 1999 that the

use of oil in the United States rose more rapidly than in the rest of the world. The agency said that demand was strong in the petrochemical industry in the United States, which has benefited from the fact that rising supply has left American crude oil prices lower than those in many other countries. The agency estimated that demand for

gasoline in the United States rose as a result of increasing consumer confidence and more sales of sport utility vehicles. Despite the 2013 increases, oil use in most developed countries remains well below the levels of 2007 , the last pre- recession year. The United States is estimated to have used 8.5 percent less oil in 2013 than it did in 2007 , while demand is down by about 25 percent in Italy and Spain, European countries that were hard hit by the euro area’s problems. Germany stands out, with 2013 usage equal to that of 2007.

Solvency

Container shortage prevents exportsLutes, 2010 – Deputy Managing Director, Seaport Division, Port of Seattle, Washington (Phil, “Hearing on ‘Doubling U.S. exports: Are U.S. Seaports Ready for the Challenge?’” Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, Senate Committee on Finance, April 29, 2010, http://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/042910pltest.pdf)//MM

EXPORT CONTAINER SHORTAGE: 6 Let me turn to a very near term problem that, if resolved, could boost U.S. exports overnight – a shortage of empty containers for exports . As you know, consumers are simply not spending like

they did during the days of easy credit and the run-up in real estate prices. The number of containers loaded with imported goods moving through our ports has decreased dramatically. Ships loaded with import containers destined for the U.S. generate the supply of empty containers and vessel space for U.S. exports. Due to the substantial decline in imports, carriers have anchored ships, consolidated services and dropped port calls to offset losses. Ultimately, this translates to fewer opportunities for our exporters to move their products. In addition, the weak U.S. dollar has generated a surge in demand for U.S. exports when containers are in short supply. To compound matters, U.S. exports are typically two to three times heavier per container than imports. That means ships carrying exports can’t be loaded to full capacity, which diminishes the space available for exports. But even when robust imports provide a steady supply of containers for export cargo, it can be expensive to reposition those containers where they’re needed. That’s because imported goods, and the containers they’re in, move primarily to large metropolitan areas where there’s a high demand for imported apparel, footwear, electronics and machinery. In contrast, many U.S. exports tend to originate in rural areas. Products such as agricultural goods, minerals, timber and other natural resources

make up a large percentage of our export commodities. The container imbalance has become so extreme that there’s even a shortage of containers for exports originating near urban area ports. This short supply of containers, combined with constrained vessel capacity leads ocean carriers to make tough decisions when export demand is high. Carriers become very careful about how they manage this limited space. They are also careful about how they manage empty containers. Often, carriers are so eager to get containers back to Asia for the higher revenue imports, they actually load empties back on the ship at the expense of export loads. 7

Ports already have dredged enough to accommodate PanaMax ships.Leach 10

(Peter, http://www.joc.com/maritime/locked-growth, “Locked In for Growth” Feb. 1, twm)

Since the Panama Canal Authority announced plans in 2006 for a third set of locks that can handle ships twice as big as the current locks , the industry has been girding for the potential shift of trans-Pacific shipments to the U.S. East Coast. East Coast ports have spent billions of dollars to dredge channels deep enough to accommodate the big new ships capable of handling up to 12,500 TEUs that will transit the canal when the new locks open, expected in 2014. Ports and private terminal operators are rushing to expand capacity.