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Case Answers

Energy Dominance

China GoodChinese soft power is net better than U.S. leadership under Trump—and leads to Asian economic integration lifting people out of povertyEleanor Albert, 02-09-2018, "China’s Big Bet on Soft Power," Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-big-bet-soft-power/ceng NCC Packet 2019

China is a powerful international actor as the world’s most populous country and its second-largest economy. The country also invests

significantly in modernizing its military. With signs that the U nited S tates will retreat from a leadership role under the Trump administration, China has positioned itself as a champion of globalization and economic integration , perhaps signaling a desire to step in as a greater international leader . It is doing this by doubling

down on soft power, a measure of a country’s international attractiveness and its ability to influence other countries and publics. But what exactly are China’s means of exerting influence? In the last decade, the Chinese government has committed to boosting its appeal abroad . Beijing has been developing an international media network and establishing cultural study centers around the world. While debate abounds over whether promoting China’s traditions, values, language, and culture can win it more friends, vast funds are backing programs to enhance the country’s image. Despite its efforts, China has yet to see a significant return on its investment. When did China start investing in soft power? Chinese officials and academics expressed the importance of China’s culture in the 1990s and early 2000s, but soft power was explicitly referenced in national government policy for the first time at the Seventeenth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2007. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao said, “The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will definitely be accompanied by the thriving of Chinese culture.” This formulation, tying culture to the country’s place on the world’s stage, echoed other core

principles from Chinese leadership, such as China’s “peaceful rise” and its vision of a “harmonious society.” These ideas intended to counter narratives from the West that China’s emergence was a threat to the existing international order. Hu’s successor, Xi Jinping, said in 2014, “We should increase China’s soft power , give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s message to the world,” calling for a stronger national effort to link China’s popularity and likeability to its meteoric rise. Soft power, a term coined by Harvard University scholar Joseph S. Nye Jr. in 1990, is the means by which a country gets other countries to “want what it wants.” Nye emphasized that a country’s perceived legitimacy, attractiveness of ideology and culture, and societal norms play an important role in shaping international politics. Under Xi’s leadership, China has pushed the notions of the “Chinese Dream” and “China Model” without providing clear definitions. The funds China steers toward its soft power campaign are hard to pinpoint due to the country’s limited transparency but experts place estimates in the billions of dollars. U.S. sinologist David Shambaugh of

George Washington University says that China spends approximately $10 billion a year. What are its soft power tools? China is attempting to export its approach to development, which has lifted hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty. The Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI , described by leaders as a vehicle for soft power, calls for spurring regional connectivity. It seeks to bring together the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road through a vast network of railways, roads, pipelines, ports, and telecommunications infrastructure that will promote economic integration from China, through Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, to Europe and beyond. To finance a share of these international projects, China contributed $50 billion [PDF] to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank upon its founding, half of the bank’s initial capital. Beijing also pledged $40 billion for its Silk Road Fund, $25 billion for the Maritime Silk Road, and another $41 billion to the New Development Bank (established by BRICS states: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Separately, Beijing has also implemented aid programs that do not conform to international development assistance standards: its aid typically focuses on South-South partnerships in the developing world; comes without conditionality; is predominantly bilateral; and includes not only grants and interest-free and concessional loans, but also other forms of official government

funding. A number of training programs have supported public health, ag riculture, and governance . Chinese aid programs, though growing, are a fraction of what large donors like the United States, European Union institutions, and Japan offer. Beijing’s leaders have also turned to more traditional tools of soft power: promoting Chinese language, educational exchanges, media expansion, and pop culture icons. Confucius institutes: China opened the first Confucius Institute in 2004 in Seoul, South Korea. As of January 2018, there were more than five hundred institutes scattered around the world. The centers, nonprofit organizations affiliated with China’s ministry of education, provide Mandarin language courses, cooking and calligraphy classes, and celebrations for Chinese national holidays. The institutes echo cultural associations like the United Kingdom’s British Councils, France’s Alliance Française, Germany’s Goethe Institute, and Spain’s Cervantes Institute. The Confucius Institute partners with universities, typically with a minimum of $100,000 in annual support for programming, while Confucius Classrooms are established with primary and secondary institutions. Educational exchanges: China has become a top destination for international students. It ranked third among the world’s most popular study destinations in 2017, according to the Institute of International Education. The majority of international students pursue self-funded courses of study; however, the China Scholarship Council provides student financial aid to not only Chinese students going abroad, but also to foreigners coming to China. More than 440,000 international students from 205 countries studied in China in 2016. They came primarily from South Korea, the United States, Thailand, Pakistan, and India, based on

statistics from the China Scholarship Council, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Education. Still, only two of the country’s esteemed schools are ranked among the world’s top fifty higher educational institutions: Peking University and Tsinghua University. The image of Chinese schools suffers from a combination of skepticism over educational quality and pedagogic methods that often emphasize rote memorization over independent thought development as well as concern over censorship by academics and university leadership of topics particularly relating to individual freedoms and democracy, and Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang, to avoid crackdown from the party. International media: Beijing has thrown its weight behind its foreign language news outlets to establish greater control over narratives about China. This allows Beijing to reach a broader audience for not only high-profile summits between Chinese leaders and their foreign counterparts but also for China’s more underreported activities around the world. The government’s primary news agency, Xinhua, has grown to 170 foreign bureaus and has plans to reach 200 by 2020. China Daily and the Global Times publish English language editions available worldwide. CCTV, the state television broadcasting news service, rebranded itself as China Global Television Network in December 2016 and broadcasts six channels, two in English and others in Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish, with reporting teams in more than seventy countries. China Radio International broadcasts 392 hours of programming a day in thirty-eight languages from twenty-seven overseas bureaus. The media firm covertly runs a network of more than thirty radio stations in fourteen countries through front companies to mask its influence, according to a November 2015 Reuters investigation. Chinese diaspora communities, which total approximately fifty million people and are primarily in Southeast Asia, are just as much a target audience for China’s media expansion as foreigners. Chinese athletic performances are a projection of power as well. Hosting the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing put the country on display. China took home seventy-one medals at the 2016 summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro compared to thirty-two in the 1984 Los Angeles games. In addition, Chinese firms have courted Hollywood’s film industry, though there are signs of this interest cooling off. Dalian Wanda, one of the world’s largest media companies, closed a series of deals in 2016 with U.S. film studios and cinema chains, including a partnership with Sony Pictures and the acquisition of Legendary Entertainment, the production house behind hits like “Godzilla,” “Jurassic World,” and “Interstellar.” U.S. studios look to China for much-needed investment and an entry into China’s desirable movie market. By the end of 2017, a handful of deals between Chinese firms and Hollywood studios have been scrapped—a trend that experts say indicates China may slow its investments in the American film industry. Still, Chinese firms are seizing on the opportunity to have a more direct hand in shaping China’s external image and U.S. producers have grown wary of making films that cast China in a negative light, primarily out of a desire to tap into Chinese distribution markets. Though China’s film industry may be internationalizing and diversifying, Chinese films still have limited distribution and box office success in external markets, raising questions about the broad appeal of such cultural products. Does China convey soft power through unofficial channels? China also wields soft power through other societal and cultural channels, including literature, art, film, music, scholars, and sports figures. Celebrities like film director Zhang Yimou, actor Jackie Chan, pianist Lang Lang, professional athletes Yao Ming and Li Na, ballet dancer Tan Yuanyuan, and pop singer Jane Zhang are unofficial cultural ambassadors. Pandas, too, have become a cultural icon and zoo exchanges with the animals dubbed “panda diplomacy.” Some cultural figures, like artist Ai Weiwei, have powerful platforms and are often critical of government policies. Other rising musical icons, like the Higher Brothers, a hip-hop group hailing from the capital of Sichuan province, are gaining a following far from China, despite the Chinese government’s recent ban of hip-hop culture and actors with tattoos from media appearances. Is its soft power effective? Soft power by nature is difficult to measure. In the case of

the ambitious BRI, China’s neighbors and partners have so far responded by taking a cautious approach [PDF]. Many business and government leaders view BRI as an economic opportunity to stimulate growth across Asia and beyond ; the continent’s infrastructure needs are expected to exceed $1.5 trillion a year to sustain development through 2030, according to a 2017 Asian Development Bank report. Economic wellbeing is a powerful incentive for countries desperate for development, but Chinese financing and construction does not translate directly into Beijing’s ability to exert influence in recipient countries. For example, local communities in South and Southeast Asian countries like Myanmar and Sri Lanka have expressed resentment toward China’s growing presence; even in Pakistan where the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has been broadly endorsed, some lawmakers fear that such projects may jeopardize national interests. In spite of the risks, regional actors are often induced by short-term economic benefits needed to fuel growth, though they remain guarded about bending to Beijing’s strategic preferences. While there are few quantifiable metrics to gauge influence, experts often refer to public opinion polls that assess global perceptions of China. By these benchmarks, China’s efforts seem to have had little effect in boosting its favorability. In Africa, opinion poll respondents typically hold more favorable views of China than in other parts of the world, according to surveys conducted by Pew Research Center and Afrobarometer [PDF], a Pan-African research network. Countries like Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, and Niger have some of the highest views of China’s influence, often ranging above 75 percent. In Latin and South American nations, the majority of respondents often view China favorably, but the margins are less substantial. For example, Chile and Peru held positive views with 66 percent and 60 percent of respondents seeing China favorably in 2015, while Argentine and Mexican respondents stood at 53 percent and 47 percent, respectively. Countries that have held highly positive views of China over time include Pakistan and Russia. Other neighbors hold more varied perceptions. On average, 64 percent of Indonesian respondents viewed China favorably between 2005 and 2015. Over the same period, opinions of China in Japan dropped significantly. In western democratic countries like Germany and the United States, a clear trend has emerged: despite the government’s efforts, favorable opinions of China have declined since 2011. What are the

limitations of China’s soft power? China’s soaring economy has elevated the country as a model to be emulated , but there are multiple strains that threaten to undermine its image. Environmental pollution and degradation, food safety issues, overcapacity of state-owned enterprises, and Xi’s exhaustive anticorruption campaign are likely to dissuade others from following China’s example. China’s soft power campaign is limited by the dissonance between the image that China aspires to project and the country’s actions, experts say. Rising nationalism, assertiveness vis-à-vis territorial disputes, crackdowns on nongovernmental organizations, censorship of domestic and international media, limits to the entry of foreign ideals, and political repression constrain China’s soft power. “If China’s narratives don’t address the country’s shortcomings, it becomes very hard to sell the idea of China as a purveyor of attractive values,” says CFR Senior Fellow Elizabeth C. Economy. Chinese culture and ideas have the potential to appeal worldwide, but only when there is “honesty in the depiction,” Economy adds. Moreover, other experts have warned of the rise of authoritarian influence, dubbed “sharp power.” Authors of a 2017 report

from the National Endowment for Democracy described the concept as “principally not about attraction or even persuasion; instead, it centers on distraction and manipulation.” Reports of entrenched Chinese influence in Australian and New Zealand politics, as well as attempts to pierce German business and political circles, triggered alarms across Western democracies in late 2017. Ultimately, China’s tightening authoritarian political system is the biggest obstacle to the positive image the country and government yearn for. “So long as [China’s] political system denies, rather than enables, free human development, its propaganda efforts will face an uphill battle,” wrote David Shambaugh in Foreign Affairs in 2015. Without the free exchange of ideas and the ability of Chinese citizens to engage in open debate, the gap between the government’s portrayal and China’s reality will likely grow. “China will find it hard to win friends and influence nations so long as it muzzles its best advocates,” writes the Economist.

Debris ThumperDebris kills the project Anzaldua et al 2014 (Al Anzaldua, former US State Dept diplomat, masters in Latin American studies, David Dunlop, chair of the National Space Society international committee, MA in science education, U of Illinois, and Brad Blair, former NASA researcher for space resource economic analysis, ME in mineral economics from Colorado school of Mines, 9-22-2014, "The Space Review: Are solar power satellites sitting ducks for orbital debris?," http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2602/1 LAO) NCC Packet 2019

Orbital debris, by threatening our satellites and related spacecraft, is also threatening to shred the very fabric of modern life. Satellites are intimately involved with our everyday activities. Anyone using Google maps, checking the weather forecast, watching TV, listening to the radio, flying on a plane, using an ATM while traveling, accessing certain Internet sites, taking a cruise, or calling on a cell phone makes

use of satellite technology. The risk to future developments Worse yet, future space technologies and missions are threatened. For example, Solar Power Satellites (SPS) for terrestrial use, an energy technology with enormous potential to improve lives, is also at stake. In 2009, retired astrophysicist Donald Kessler, who started NASA’s work on orbital debris more than 30 years ago, stated, “large structures such as those considered… for building solar power stations in Earth orbit could set up a situation where a single satellite failure could lead to cascading failures of many satellites.”9 Solar power satellites are not the only future spacecraft that will be threatened. Bigelow Aerospace plans to have its BA 330 habitats serve as crew habitats in orbit starting as early as 2016.10 Add to this the untold satellites and other spacecraft scheduled to go into Earth orbits well into the future. Risk reduction strategies But would a hyper-modular system, such as proposed by John C. Mankins, also be vulnerable? Mankins admits that

micrometeoroids and orbital debris might impact the SPS and cause damage, but then he argues, “Fortunately, with a hyper-modular architecture such as SPS-ALPHA11 there are no ‘single’ points of failure. Impacts will cause damage, but it will be mostly

inconsequential and will only occasionally require repairs.”12 This statement bears skeptical examination. Much shrapnel debris exists below current detection limits , so quantification of risk remains problematic . Further studies of risk and greater detection capacity are needed to reduce uncertainty and to encourage potential investors that the risks to capital invested in solar power satellites (SPS) are acceptable. Admittedly, the hyper-modularity of the SPS-ALPHA system would mitigate damage from orbital debris. But Mankins proposes multiple SPS-ALPHAs to solve our energy concerns, each measuring approximately three by five kilometers.13 These

structures would be very l arge targets—“sitting ducks,” in the case of a Kessler-type runaway debris growth in GEO—and the damage would likely go beyond “inconsequential.” Even if the satellite remained structurally intact, maintenance costs would sharply rise. Keep in mind also that to build such a large SPS in the first place, many SPS module-carrying spacecraft would have first to pass through shrapnel-cluttered LEO bands before carrying modules to GEO for construction by telerobotically operated spacecraft.14 Perhaps SPS-ALPHAs require, not only hyper-modularity, but hyper-permeability, such that the modular elements can each separately move to avoid debris. Ideally, the modules would describe an array of SPS-ALPHA elements flying in precise formation and with the ability to self-adjust to avoid danger, reminiscent of a school of fish avoiding the lunge of a predator. Large debris collisions make spacecraft-killing shrapnel Large debris, i.e. larger than ten centimeters in diameter and one kilogram in mass, can range in size all the way up to nine-ton rocket bodies and five-ton satellites. These multi-ton bodies make up much of the mass of approximately 6,300 tons of orbital debris, with approximately 2,200 tons in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) alone, and collisions among them are the source of millions of shrapnel fragments.15 For example, China in 2007 intentionally destroyed its Fengyun-1C weather satellite, and in 2009 the non-functioning Russian Cosmos 2251 satellite collided with the American Iridium

33 satellite. One-third of all orbital shrapnel can be traced to just these two collisions.16 Worse yet, orbital shrapnel smaller than ten centimeters and one kilogram is currently untrackable , and because of the high collisional velocities, even shrapnel as small as five millimeters can take out a spacecraft.17

Coop FailsCooperation won’t moderate China’s behavior.Sterner 15 (Eric Sterner is a fellow at the George C. Marshall Institute. He held senior staff positions for the U.S. House Science and Armed Services committees and served in DoD and as NASA’s associate deputy administrator for policy and planning. “Op-ed | China, Talk and Cooperation in Space” 8/6/2015 https://spacenews.com/op-ed-china-talk-and-cooperation-in-space/) NCC Packet 2019

How might cooperation with China benefit the United States? Some hold that cooperation in space helps promote cooperation on Earth. Writing in SpaceNews in 2013, Michael Krepon argued “The more they cooperate in space, the less likely it is that

their competition on Earth will result in military confrontation. The reverse is also true.” That sentiment is widespread and flows from the nobility of exploration. If only it were so. Unfortunately, a country’s space behavior appears to have little affect on its terrestrial actions . Russia’s multidecadal human spaceflight partnership with the United States did not prevent it from invading and destabilizing Ukraine when it moved toward a closer relationship with the European Union, many of whose members are Russian partners in the International Space Station. Space cooperation has not, and will not, prevent the continued worsening of the security environment in Europe , which flows from Russian behavior on Earth, not in space. Space cooperation with China is similarly unlikely to moderate its behavior. Tensions in Asia derive from China’s insistence on pressing unlawful territorial claims in the Pacific, most recently by transforming disputed coral reefs into would-be

military bases. Ironically, civilian space technology has proved critical in documenting these aggressive moves. To further demonstrate the civil space cooperation does not promote cooperation on Earth, we need look no further than recent history. The NASA administrator’s visit to China in the fall of 2014 nearly coincided with China’s hacking of NOAA, with whom Beijing has a “partnership” in studying climate change. Military confrontation flows from the interaction of hard power in pursuit of competing national interests. Space coop eration falls into the realm of soft power . It has value in strengthening relationships among like-minded states with similar interests. China’s aggressiveness toward its neighbors , its human rights record and its cyberattacks on the United States strongly demonstrate that it and the U nited S tates are not of like minds . This is not the result of insufficient space cooperation, but of divergent national interests. The United States is a status quo power; China is not.

Negotiations ThumperNegotiations take forever — tanks solvency.Cheng 9 – previously worked for 13 years as a senior analyst, first with Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), the Fortune 500 specialist in defense and homeland security, and then with the China Studies division of the Center for Naval Analyses, the federally funded research institute, has spoken at the National Space Symposium, National Defense University, the Air Force Academy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies, (Dean, Heritage Foundation's research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs, “Reflections on Sino-US Space Cooperation,” https://www.usafa.edu/app/uploads/Space_and_Defense_2_3.pdf NCC Packet 2019

Should the US and the PRC actively seek to cooperate , any ventures will first require extensive negotiations. As noted earlier, there has been only minimal interaction between American and Chinese space authorities. This means that there is not an extensive foundation of personal relationships or even negotiating experience on space issues between the two countries upon which to build . With neither institutional nor personal relations, the process is likely to be extremely lengthy . In particular, the absence of a legacy of interactions goes to the heart of the Chinese approach to negotiations. President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 and the subsequent establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979, for example, was the culmination of nearly twenty years of meetings in Geneva and Warsaw.20 “From the Chinese perspective, these [Ambassadorial] Talks and the events leading to the Talks established the boundaries within which the ultimate solutions were found. Like building a stone house, a solid foundation for the relationship had to be laid, if the relationship was to endure.”21 The absence of such a foundation means that any effort to foster cooperation in space arena, which touches on sensitive issues of national capabilities as well as being potentially highly technical, will also have to reconcile very different approaches to the process of negotiation.

“Top-Down” versus “Bottom-Up”

In this regard, American and Chinese negotiators tend to take very different approaches. Chinese negotiators in general seek first to establish sets of principles that will then govern all subsequent interactions.22 For example, in many international negotiations, the Chinese emphasize the importance of both sides starting from the “five principles of peaceful co-existence”:

• Mutual respect for territorial integrity

and sovereignty

• Mutual non-aggression

• Mutual non-interference in internal

affairs

• Equality and mutual benefit

• Peaceful coexistence23

This is in direct contrast to the American approach, in which negotiations begin by establishing specifics, “avoiding debates about generalities which can easily become entangled in political or philosophical differences.”24 In essence, Chinese negotiators tend to adopt a “top-down” approach, with senior leaders focusing on broad principles, whereas American negotiators more frequently adopt a “bottom-up” approach, with working level officials focusing on concrete measures.

Heg AnswersNo heg impactG. John Ikenberry 18, professor of Politics and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, “Why the Liberal World Order Will Survive”, Carnegie Ethics and International Affairs, https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/gji3/files/why_the_liberal_world_order_will_survive.pdf NCC Packet 2019

In this essay I look at the evolving encounters between rising states and the post-war Western international order. My starting point is

the classic “power transition” perspective. Power transition theories see a tight link between international order—its emergence, stability, and decline—and the rise and fall of great powers. It is a perspective that sees history as a sequence of cycles in which powerful or hegemonic states rise up and build order and dominate the global system until their power declines, leading to a new cycle of crisis and order building. In contrast, I offer a more evolutionary perspective, emphasizing the lineages

and continuities in modern international order. More specifically, I argue that although America’s heg emonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order —openness, rules, multilateral cooperation— are deeply rooted and likely to persist . This is true ev en though the orientation and actions of the Trump administration have raised serious questions about the U.S. commitment to liberal internationalism. Just as importantly, rising states (led by China ) are not engaged in a frontal attack on the American-led order. While struggles do exist over orientations, agendas, and leadership, the non-Western developing countries remain tied to the architecture and principles of a liberal-oriented global order. And even as China seeks in various ways to build rival regional institutions, there are stubborn limits on what it can do. Power

Transitions and International Order There is wide agreement that the world is witnessing a long-term global power transition. Wealth and power is diffusing, spreading outward and away from Europe and the United States. The rapid growth that marked the non-Western rising states in the last decade may have ended, and even China’s rapid economic ascendency has slowed. But the overall pattern of change remains: the “rest” are gaining ground on the “West.” While there is wide agreement that the world is witnessing a global power transition, there is less agreement on the consequences of power shifts for international order. The classic view is advanced by realist scholars, such as E. H. Carr, Robert Gilpin, Paul Kennedy, and William Wohlforth, who make sweeping arguments about power and order. These

hegemonic realists argue that international order is a by-product of the concentration of power . Order is created by a powerful state, and when that state declines and power diffuses, international order weakens or breaks apart. Out of these dynamic circumstances, a rising state emerges as the new dominant state, and it seeks to reorganize the international system to suit its own purposes. In this view, world politics from ancient times to the modern era can be seen as a series of repeated cycles of rise and decline. War, protectionism, depression, political upheaval—various sorts of crises and disruptions may push the cycle forward. This narrative of hegemonic rise and decline draws on the European and, more broadly, Western experience. Since the early modern era, Europe has been organized and reorganized by a succession of leading states and would-be hegemons: the Spanish Hapsburgs, France of

Louis XIV and Napoleon, and post-Bismarck Germany. The logic of hegemonic order comes even more clearly into view with Pax Britannica, the nineteenth-century hegemonic order based on British naval and mercantile dominance. The

decline of Britain was followed by decades of war and economic instability, which ended only with the rise of Pax Americana. For hegemonic realists, the debate today is about where the world is along this cyclical pathway of rise and decline. Has the United States finally lost the ability or willingness to underwrite and lead the post-war order? Are we in the midst of a hegemonic crisis and the breakdown of the old order? And are rising states, led by China, beginning to step forward in efforts to establish their own hegemonic dominance of their regions and the world? These are the lurking

questions of the power transition perspective. But does this vision of power transition truly illuminate the struggles going on today over international order? Some might argue no—that the United States is still in a position, despite its travails, to provide hegemonic leadership. Here one would note that there is a durable infrastructure (or what Susan Strange has called “structural power”) that undergirds the existing American-led order. Far-flung security alliances, market relations, liberal democratic solidarity, deeply rooted geopolitical alignments—there are many possible sources of American

hegemonic power that remain intact. But there may be even deeper sources of continuity in the existing system. This would be true if the existence of a liberal-oriented international order does not in fact require hegemonic

domination. It might be that the power transition theory is wrong: the stability and persistence of the existing post-war international order does not depend on the concentration of American power . In fact, international order is not simply an artifact of concentrations of power. The rules and institutions that make up international order have a more complex and contingent relationship with the rise and fall of state power . This is true in two respects. First, international order itself is complex: multilayered, multifaceted, and not simply a political formation imposed by the leading state. International order is not “one thing” that states either join or resist. It is an aggregation of various sorts of ordering rules and institutions. There are the deep rules and norms of sovereignty. There are governing institutions , starting with the United Nations. There is a sprawling array of international institutions, regimes , treaties, agreements, protocols, and so forth. These governing arrangements cut across diverse realms, including security and arms control, the world economy, the

environment and global commons, human rights, and political relations. Some of these domains of governance may have rules and institutions that narrowly reflect the interests of the hegemonic state, but most reflect negotiated outcomes based on a much broader set of interests. As rising states continue to rise, they do not simply confront an American-led order; they face a wider conglomeration of ordering rules, institutions, and arrangements; many of which they have long embraced . By separat ing “American hegemony ” from “the existing international order,” we can see a more complex set of relationships . The United States does not embody the international order; it has a relationship with it, as do rising states. The United States embraces many of the core global rules and institutions, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization. But it also has resisted ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (it being the only country not to have ratified the latter) as well as various arms control and disarmament agreements. China also embraces many of the same global rules and institutions, and resists ratification of others. Generally speaking, the more fundamental or core the norms and institutions are—beginning with the Westphalian norms of sovereignty and the United Nations system—the more agreement there is between the United States and China as well as other states. Disagreements are most salient where human rights and political principles are in play, such as

in the Responsibility to Protect. Second, there is also diversity in what rising states “want” from the international order. The struggles over international order take many different forms. In some instances, what rising states want is more influence and control of territory and geopolitical space beyond their borders. One can see this in China’s efforts to expand its maritime and political influence in the South China Sea and other neighboring areas. This is an age-old type of struggle captured in realist accounts of security competition and geopolitical rivalry. Another type of struggle is over the norms and values that are enshrined in global governance rules and institutions. These may be about how open and rule-based the system should be. They may also be about the way human rights and political principles are defined and brought to bear in relations among states. Finally, the struggles over international order may be focused on the distribution of authority. That is, rising states may seek a greater role in the governance of existing institutions. This is a struggle over the position of states within the global political hierarchy: voting shares, leadership rights,

and authority relations. These observations cut against the realist hegemonic perspective and cyclical theories of power transition. Rising states do not confront a single, coherent, hegemonic order.

The international order offers a buffet of options and choices. They can embrace some rules and institutions and not others. Moreover, stepping back, the international orders that rising states have faced in different historical eras have not all been the same order. The British-led order that Germany faced at the turn of

the twentieth century is different from the international order that China faces today. The contemporary international order is much more complex and wide-ranging than past orders. It has a much denser array of rules, institutions, and governance realms. There are also both regional and global domains of governance. This makes it hard to imagine an epic moment when the international order goes into crisis and rising states step forward—either China alone or rising states as a bloc—to reorganize and reshape its rules and institutions. Rather than a cyclical dynamic of rise and decline, change in the existing American-led order might best be captured by terms such as continuity, evolution, adaptation, and

negotiation. The struggles over international order today are growing, but it is not a drama best told in terms of the rise and decline of American hegemony.

No heg impact---best data concludes it’s not key to stabilityFettweis 17 (Christopher – Associate Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, “Unipolarity, Hegemony, and the New Peace,” Security Studies, 26:3, 423-451, 5-8-2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2017.1306394) NCC Packet 2019

Conflict and US Military Spending

How does one measure polarity? Power is traditionally considered to be some combination of military and economic strength, but despite scores of efforts, no widely accepted formula exists. Perhaps overall military spending might be thought of as a proxy for hard power

capabilities; perhaps too the amount of money the United States devotes to hard power is a reflection of the strength of the unipole. When compared to conflict levels, however, there is no obvious correlation , and certainly not the kind of negative relationship

between US spending and conflict that many hegemonic stability theorists would expect to see . During the 1990s, the United States cut back on defense by about 25 percent , spending $100 billion less in real terms in 1998 that it did in 1990.68 To those believers in the neoconservative version of hegemonic stability, this irresponsible “peace dividend” endangered both national and global security. “No serious analyst of American military capabilities doubts that the defense

budget has been cut much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace,” argued Kristol and Kagan at the time.69 The world grew dramatically more peaceful while the United States cut its forces , however, and stayed just as peaceful while spending rebounded after the 9/11 terrorist attacks . The incidence and magnitude of global conflict declined while the military budget was cut under President Clinton, in other words, and kept declining

(though more slowly, since levels were already low) as the Bush administration ramped it back up. Overall US military spending has varied during the period of the New Peace from a low in constant dollars of less than $400 billion to a high of more than $700 billion, but war does not seem to have noticed. The same nonrelationship exists between other potential

proxy measurements for hegemony and conflict: there does not seem to be much connection between warfare and fluctuations in US GDP , alliance commitments , and forward military presence. There was very little fighting in Europe when there were 300,000 US troops stationed there , for example, and that has not changed as the number of Americans dwindled by 90 percent . Overall, there does not seem to be much correlation between US actions and systemic stability. Nothing the United States actually does seems to matter to the New Peace. It is possible that absolute military spending might not be as important to explain the phenomenon as relative. Although Washington cut back on spending during the 1990s, its relative advantage never wavered. The United States has accounted for between 35 and 41 percent of global military spending every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union.70 The perception of relative US power might be the decisive factor in decisions made in other capitals. One cannot rule out the possibility that it is the perception of US power—and its willingness to use it—that keeps the peace. In other words, perhaps it is the grand strategy of the United States, rather than its absolute capability, that is decisive in maintaining stability. It is that to which we now turn. Conflict and US

Grand Strategy The perception of US power, and the strength of its hegemony, is to some degree a function of grand strategy. If indeed US strategic choices are responsible for the New Peace, then variation in those choices ought to have consequences for the level of international conflict. A restrained United States is much less likely to play the role of sheriff than one following a more activist approach. Were the unipole to follow such a path, hegemonic-stability theorists warn, disaster would follow. Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke for many when he warned that “outright chaos” could be expected to follow a loss of hegemony, including a string of quite specific issues, including new or renewed attempts to build regional empires (by China, Turkey, Russia, and Brazil) and the collapse of the US relationship with Mexico, as emboldened nationalists south of the border reassert 150-year-old territorial claims. Overall, without US dominance, today’s relatively peaceful world would turn “violent and bloodthirsty.” 71 Niall Ferguson foresees a post-hegemonic “Dark Age” in which “plunderers and pirates” target the big coastal cities like New York and Rotterdam, terrorists attack cruise liners and aircraft carriers alike, and the “wretchedly poor citizens” of Latin America are unable to resist the Protestantism brought to them by US evangelicals. Following the multiple (regional, fortunately) nuclear wars and plagues, the few remaining airlines would be forced to suspend service to all but the very richest cities.72 These are somewhat extreme versions of a central assumption of all hegemonic-stability theorists: a restrained United States would be accompanied by utter disaster. The “present danger” of which Kristol, Kagan, and their fellow travelers warn is that the United States “will shrink its responsibilities and—in a fit of absentmindedness, or parsimony, or indifference— allow the international order that it created and sustains to collapse.” 73 Liberals fear restraint as well, and also warn that a militarized version of primacy would be counterproductive in the long run. Although they believe that the rule-based order established by United States is more durable than the relatively fragile order discussed by the neoconservatives, liberals argue that Washington can undermine its creation over time through thoughtless unilateral actions that violate those rules. Many predicted that the invasion of Iraq and its general contempt for international institutions and law would call the legitimacy of the order into question. G. John Ikenberry worried that Bush’s “geostrategic wrecking ball” would lead to a more hostile, divided, and

dangerous world.74 Thus while all hegemonicstability theorists expect a rise of chaos during a restrained presidency, liberals also have grave concerns regarding primacy. Overall, if either version is correct and global stability is provided by US hegemony, then maintaining that stability through a grand strategy based on either

primacy (to neoconservatives) or “deep engagement” (to liberals) is clearly a wise choice.75 If, however, US actions are only tangentially related to the outbreak of the New Peace, or if any of the other proposed explanations are decisive, then the United States can retrench without fear of negative consequences. The grand strategy of the United States is therefore crucial to beliefs in hegemonic stability . Although few observers would agree on the details, most

would probably acknowledge that post-Cold War grand strategies of American presidents have differed in some important ways. The four administrations are reasonable representations of the four ideal types outlined by Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross in 1996.76

Under George H. W. Bush, the United States followed the path of “selective engagement,” which is sometimes referred to as “balance-of-power realism”; Bill Clinton’s grand strategy looks a great deal like what Posen and Ross call “cooperative security,”

and others call “liberal internationalism”; George W. Bush, especially in his first term, forged a strategy that was as close to “primacy” as any president is likely to get; and Barack Obama, despite some early flirtation with liberalism, has followed a restrained realist path, which Posen and Ross label “neo-isolationism” but its proponents refer to as “strategic restraint.” 77 In no case did the various anticipated disorders materialize. As Table 2 demonstrates, armed conflict levels fell steadily, irrespective of the grand strategic path Washington chose. Neither the primacy of George W. Bush nor the restraint of Barack Obama had much effect on the

level of global violence. Despite continued warnings (and the high-profile mess in Syria), the world has not experienced an increase in violence while the United States chose uninvolvement . If the grand strategy of the United States is responsible for the New Peace, it is leaving no trace in the evidence. Perhaps we should not expect a correlation to show up in this kind of analysis. While US behavior might have varied in the margins during this period, nether its relative advantage over its nearest rivals nor its commitments waivered in any important way. However, it is surely worth noting that if trends opposite to those discussed in the previous two sections had unfolded, if other states had reacted differently to fluctuations in either US military spending or grand strategy, then surely hegemonic stability theorists would argue that their expectations had been fulfilled. Many liberals were on the lookout for chaos while George W. Bush was in the White House, just as neoconservatives have been quick to identify apparent worldwide catastrophe under President Obama.78 If increases in violence would have been evidence for the wisdom of hegemonic strategies, then logical consistency demands that the lack

thereof should at least pose a problem. As it stands, the only evidence we have regarding the relationship between US power and international stability suggests that the two are unrelated. The rest of the world appears quite capable and willing to operate effectively without the presence of a global policeman . Those who think otherwise have precious little empirical support upon which to build their case. Hegemonic stability is a belief, in other words, rather than an established fact, and as such deserves a different kind of examination.

US Cred is dead- and it isn’t all King Cheeto’s faultKEREN YARHI-MILO January 2, 2018, “After Credibility; American Foreign Policy in the Trump Era”, Foreign Affairs, YARHI-MILO is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, SECTION: Pg. 68, MJD NCC Packet 2019

But their view by no means represents the scholarly consensus. According to the political scientists Frank Harvey and John Mitton, for example,

a reputation for following through on threats significantly increases a state's coercive power. Focusing on U.S. interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq, they show that adversaries studied what the United States had said and how it had behaved in comparable situations to infer its resolve and to predict its likely actions. My work with the political scientist Alex Weisiger has shown that

countries that have backpedaled in past crises are much more likely to be challenged again, whereas countries with good reputations for resolve are much less likely to face military confrontations. Other studies have documented how states that break their alliance commitments develop a reputation for being unreliable and are less likely to earn trust in the future. A good reputation, this body of work demonstrates, remains crucial for successful diplomacy. BAD REPUTATION

Unfortunately, the reputation of the U.S. presidency has eroded in recent years. Trump deserves much of the blame-but not all of it. The United States' signaling reputation began to decline in the summer of 2013 , after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad breached U.S. President Barack Obama's "redline" on chemical weapons. In August 2012, Obama had stated that the mobilization or use of these weapons would "change [his] calculus" on Syria, a remark that many interpreted as a threat of military action. In August 2013, Assad launched a series of sarin gas attacks against rebel strongholds, killing 1,400 Syrians. Yet instead of responding with military strikes, Obama agreed to a Russian-brokered deal in which Assad pledged to dismantle his arsenal of chemical weapons. In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama defended his decision by saying that "dropping bombs on someone to prove that you're willing to drop bombs on someone is just about the worst reason to use force." But this was a straw man. Few analysts were suggesting that Obama should pursue a bad policy solely on reputational grounds; however,

there are political and strategic costs when the president makes a promise and then fails to act. If Obama had not intended to follow through on his threat, he should not have issued it in the first place. And ultimately, the diplomatic solution did not work: Assad has continued to use chemical weapons. Regardless of whether they supported or opposed Obama's decision not to intervene

more forcefully in Syria, Republicans and many Democrats believed that the redline episode had damaged the country's credibility. Hawks argued that to restore the United States' reputation for resolve, Washington should be more willing to use military force. But this was a misleading, and potentially dangerous, assessment of what needed fixing in U.S. foreign policy after Obama's departure.

Credibility requires consistency , not belligerency. The next president could have repaired the damage by demonstrating the

integrity of American assurances and threats. Instead, Trump has complicated the situation by showcasing both toughness, which may have some strategic advantages, and impulsivity, which undermines his credibility. By bombing Syria, reengaging in Afghanistan, and applying more pressure on North Korea, Trump may have gained a general

reputation for resolve and conveyed that he is more comfortable using military force than his predecessor. Yet the president's track record of flip-flopping on key campaign pledges, his bizarre and inaccurate outbursts on Twitter, his exaggerated threats, and his off-the-cuff assurances have all led observers to seriously doubt his words. The list of Trump's inconsistencies is long. After winning the 2016 race but before taking office, Trump spoke by phone with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan. This represented a major breach of protocol; in order to avoid angering China, no U.S. president or president-elect had spoken to the leader of Taiwan since 1979, when the United States broke off diplomatic relations with the island. After the call, Trump declared that he was considering abandoning the "one China" policy, the foundation of the U.S.-Chinese relationship for the past four decades. But in February 2017, he reconsidered and decided to uphold the policy after all. During the campaign, Trump threatened to launch a trade war with China and pledged to label Beijing a currency manipulator. He also implied that the United States should abandon its commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, suggesting that Japan and South Korea should develop their own nuclear weapons. He has subsequently backtracked on all these positions. The ongoing crisis with North Korea is the latest manifestation of the same pattern. At the beginning of his presidency, Trump described the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a "smart cookie" and said that he would be "honored to meet him." He has subsequently taken to referring to Kim as "Little Rocket Man," and in September, he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea. In other instances, Trump may have upheld his own signaling reputation at the country's expense. For example, Trump followed through on a campaign promise when he decided not to certify the Iran nuclear deal in October. Because he demonstrated consistency, this decision may have bolstered his personal signaling reputation. But by reneging on a formal U.S. commitment without presenting evidence that Iran was not abiding by the treaty, Trump also imperiled the general reputation of the United States. Such a move could undermine Washington's diplomatic clout in future negotiations.

If other countries believe that American political commitments cannot survive a transition of power, they will be less likely to make significant or painful concessions. Trump's earlier decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement presented a similar problem. Of course, any American president who wishes to change the status quo must wrestle with the dilemma of how to keep his own promises without jeopardizing the credibility of his country. But it is unclear that Trump has any concern for the larger reputational consequences of his decisions.

Resilient and inevitable Sagoff 8 Mark, Senior Research Scholar @ Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy @ School of Public Policy @ U. Maryland, Environmental Values, “On the Economic Value

of Ecosystem Services”, 17:2, 239-257, EBSCO NCC Packet 2019

What about the economic value of biodiversity? Biodiversity represents nature's greatest largess or excess since species appear nearly as numer ous as the stars the Drifters admired, except that "scientists have a better understanding of how many stars there are in the galaxy than how many species there arc on Earth ."70 Worldwide the variety of biodiversity is effectively infinite ; the myriad species of plants and animals, not to mention microbes that arc probably more important, apparently exceed our ability to count or identify them . The "next" or "incremental" thousand species taken at random would not fetch a market price because another thousand are immediately available , and another thousand after that. No one has suggested an economic

application, moreover, for any of the thousand species listed as threatened in the United States.77 To defend these species - or the next thousand or the thousand after that - on economic grounds is to trade

convincing spiritual, aesthetic, and ethical arguments for bogus, pretextual, and disingenuous economic ones.78 As David Ehrenfeld has written, We do not know how many [plant] species are needed lo keep the planet green and healthy, but it seems very unlikely to be anywhere near the more than quarter of a million we have now . Even a mighty dominant like the American chestnut, extending over half

a continent, all but disappeared without bring¬ing the eastern deciduous forest down with it. And if we turn to the invertebrates, the source of nearly all biological diversity, what biologist is willing t o find a value - conventional or ecological - for all 600,000-plus species of beetles?7* The disappearance in the wild even of agriculturally useful species appears to have no effect on production . The

last wild aurochs, the progenitor of dairy and beef cattle, went extinct in Poland in 1742, yet no one believes the beef industry is threatened. The genetic material of crop species is contained in tens of thousands of landraces and cultivars in use - rice is an example - and doe s not depend on the persistence of wild ancestral types. Genetic engineering can introduce DNA from virtually any species into virtually an y other - which allows for the unlimited creation of biodiversity . A neighbor of mine has collected about

4,000 different species of insects on his two-acre property in Silver Spring, Maryland. These include 500 kinds of Lepidoptera (mostly moths) - half the number another entomologist found at his residence.80

When you factor in plants and animals, the amount of "backyard biodiversity" in suburbs is astounding and far greater than you can imagine.8' Biodiversity has no value "at the margin" because nature provides far more of it than anyone could possibly administer . If one kind of moth flies off, you can easily attract hundreds of others.

Liberal Order Answersno impact to the liberal orderG. John Ikenberry 18, professor of Politics and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, “Why the Liberal World Order Will Survive”, Carnegie Ethics and International Affairs, https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/gji3/files/why_the_liberal_world_order_will_survive.pdf NCC Packet 2019

In this essay I look at the evolving encounters between rising states and the post-war Western international order. My starting point is

the classic “power transition” perspective. Power transition theories see a tight link between international order—its emergence, stability, and decline—and the rise and fall of great powers. It is a perspective that sees history as a sequence of cycles in which powerful or hegemonic states rise up and build order and dominate the global system until their power declines, leading to a new cycle of crisis and order building. In contrast, I offer a more evolutionary perspective, emphasizing the lineages

and continuities in modern international order. More specifically, I argue that although America’s hegemonic position may be declining, the liberal international characteristics of order —openness, rules, multilateral cooperation— are deeply rooted and likely to persist . This is true ev en though the orientation and actions of the Trump administration have raised serious questions about the U.S. commitment to liberal internationalism. Just as importantly, rising states (led by China ) are not engaged in a frontal attack on the American-led order. While struggles do exist over orientations, agendas, and leadership, the non-Western developing countries remain tied to the architecture and principles of a liberal-oriented global order. And even as China seeks in various ways to build rival regional institutions, there are stubborn limits on what it can do. Power

Transitions and International Order There is wide agreement that the world is witnessing a long-term global power transition. Wealth and power is diffusing, spreading outward and away from Europe and the United States. The rapid growth that marked the non-Western rising states in the last decade may have ended, and even China’s rapid economic ascendency has slowed. But the overall pattern of change remains: the “rest” are gaining ground on the “West.” While there is wide agreement that the world is witnessing a global power transition, there is less agreement on the consequences of power shifts for international order. The classic view is advanced by realist scholars, such as E. H. Carr, Robert Gilpin, Paul Kennedy, and William Wohlforth, who make sweeping arguments about power and order. These

hegemonic realists argue that international order is a by-product of the concentration of power . Order is created by a powerful state, and when that state declines and power diffuses, international order weakens or breaks apart. Out of these dynamic circumstances, a rising state emerges as the new dominant state, and it seeks to reorganize the international system to suit its own purposes. In this view, world politics from ancient times to the modern era can be seen as a series of repeated cycles of rise and decline. War, protectionism, depression, political upheaval—various sorts of crises and disruptions may push the cycle forward. This narrative of hegemonic rise and decline draws on the European and, more broadly, Western experience. Since the early modern era, Europe has been organized and reorganized by a succession of leading states and would-be hegemons: the Spanish Hapsburgs, France of

Louis XIV and Napoleon, and post-Bismarck Germany. The logic of hegemonic order comes even more clearly into view with Pax Britannica, the nineteenth-century hegemonic order based on British naval and mercantile dominance. The

decline of Britain was followed by decades of war and economic instability, which ended only with the rise of Pax Americana. For hegemonic realists, the debate today is about where the world is along this cyclical pathway of rise and decline. Has the United States finally lost the ability or willingness to underwrite and lead the post-war order? Are we in the midst of a hegemonic crisis and the breakdown of the old order? And are rising states, led by China, beginning to step forward in efforts to establish their own hegemonic dominance of their regions and the world? These are the lurking

questions of the power transition perspective. But does this vision of power transition truly illuminate the struggles going on today over international order? Some might argue no—that the United States is still in a position, despite its travails, to provide hegemonic leadership. Here one would note that there is a durable infrastructure (or what Susan Strange has called “structural power”) that undergirds the existing American-led order. Far-flung security alliances, market relations, liberal democratic solidarity, deeply rooted geopolitical alignments—there are many possible sources of American

hegemonic power that remain intact. But there may be even deeper sources of continuity in the existing system. This would be true if the existence of a liberal-oriented international order does not in fact require hegemonic

domination. It might be that the power transition theory is wrong: the stability and persistence of the existing post-war international order does not depend on the concentration of American power . In fact, international order is not simply an artifact of concentrations of power. The rules and institutions that make up international order have a more complex and contingent relationship with the rise and fall of state power . This is true in two respects. First, international order itself is complex: multilayered, multifaceted, and not simply a political formation imposed by the leading state. International order is not “one thing” that states either join or resist. It is an aggregation of various sorts of ordering rules and institutions. There are the deep rules and norms of sovereignty. There are governing institutions , starting with the United Nations. There is a sprawling array of international institutions, regimes , treaties, agreements, protocols, and so forth. These governing arrangements cut across diverse realms, including security and arms control, the world economy, the

environment and global commons, human rights, and political relations. Some of these domains of governance may have rules and institutions that narrowly reflect the interests of the hegemonic state, but most reflect negotiated outcomes based on a much broader set of interests. As rising states continue to rise, they do not simply confront an American-led order; they face a wider conglomeration of ordering rules, institutions, and arrangements; many of which they have long embraced . By separat ing “American hegemony ” from “the existing international order,” we can see a more complex set of relationships . The United States does not embody the international order; it has a relationship with it, as do rising states. The United States embraces many of the core global rules and institutions, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization. But it also has resisted ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (it being the only country not to have ratified the latter) as well as various arms control and disarmament agreements. China also embraces many of the same global rules and institutions, and resists ratification of others. Generally speaking, the more fundamental or core the norms and institutions are—beginning with the Westphalian norms of sovereignty and the United Nations system—the more agreement there is between the United States and China as well as other states. Disagreements are most salient where human rights and political principles are in play, such as

in the Responsibility to Protect. Second, there is also diversity in what rising states “want” from the international order. The struggles over international order take many different forms. In some instances, what rising states want is more influence and control of territory and geopolitical space beyond their borders. One can see this in China’s efforts to expand its maritime and political influence in the South China Sea and other neighboring areas. This is an age-old type of struggle captured in realist accounts of security competition and geopolitical rivalry. Another type of struggle is over the norms and values that are enshrined in global governance rules and institutions. These may be about how open and rule-based the system should be. They may also be about the way human rights and political principles are defined and brought to bear in relations among states. Finally, the struggles over international order may be focused on the distribution of authority. That is, rising states may seek a greater role in the governance of existing institutions. This is a struggle over the position of states within the global political hierarchy: voting shares, leadership rights,

and authority relations. These observations cut against the realist hegemonic perspective and cyclical theories of power transition. Rising states do not confront a single, coherent, hegemonic order.

The international order offers a buffet of options and choices. They can embrace some rules and institutions and not others. Moreover, stepping back, the international orders that rising states have faced in different historical eras have not all been the same order. The British-led order that Germany faced at the turn of

the twentieth century is different from the international order that China faces today. The contemporary international order is much more complex and wide-ranging than past orders. It has a much denser array of rules, institutions, and governance realms. There are also both regional and global domains of governance. This makes it hard to imagine an epic moment when the international order goes into crisis and rising states step forward—either China alone or rising states as a bloc—to reorganize and reshape its rules and institutions. Rather than a cyclical dynamic of rise and decline, change in the existing American-led order might best be captured by terms such as continuity, evolution, adaptation, and

negotiation. The struggles over international order today are growing, but it is not a drama best told in terms of the rise and decline of American hegemony.

REMsREMs don’t actually matter; they aren’t really rare and there are a ton of alternative markets. Monopoly never happens.Jeremy Hsu, 5-31-2019, “Don’t Panic about Rare Earth Elements,” Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dont-panic-about-rare-earth-elements/. ZKMSU NCC Packet 2019

As trade tensions rise between the U.S. and China, rare earth minerals are once again in the political spotlight . Today Chinese mines and processing facilities provide most of the world's supply, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has hinted about using this as political leverage in trade negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. But in the long run, many experts say the global market involving

these materials would likely survive even if China completely stopped exporting them. The 17 rare earth elements, which cluster near the bottom of the periodic table, play a vital role in several industries: consumer electronics including Apple AirPods and iPhones, green technologies such as General Electric wind turbines and Tesla electric cars, medical tools including Philips Healthcare scanners, and military hardware such as F-35 jet fighters. The U.S. government lists them among minerals deemed critical to the country's economic and national security, and the Trump administration notably exempted rare earth elements from tariffs it imposed on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. On the other side of the trade conflict, Xi recently made a politically symbolic visit to one of China's main rare earth mining and processing facilities, and China used tariffs of its own to target a U.S. rare earth mine in

California. Such political posturing on both sides, however, may overemphasize the world's reliance on China's supply of rare earth elements . "Politicians get too alarmed or too wrapped up in the idea of political manipulation of markets," says Eugene Gholz, an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. "There's a big difference between individual companies making or losing money, and the large-scale ability to get political influence in this particular market." The "rare" in the name of this group of elements is actually somewhat misleading ; the U .S. Geological Survey describes them as "relatively abundant in the Earth's crust." But extraction is complicated by the fact that in the ground, such elements are jumbled together with many other minerals in different concentrations. The raw ores go through a first round of processing to produce

concentrates, which head to another facility where high-purity rare earth elements are isolated. Such facilities perform complex chemical processes that most commonly involve a procedure called solvent extraction, in which the dissolved materials go through hundreds of liquid-containing chambers that separate individual elements or compounds—steps that may be repeated hundreds or even thousands of times. Once purified, they can be processed into oxides, phosphors, metals, alloys and magnets that take advantage of these elements' unique magnetic, luminescent or electrochemical properties. The strong and lightweight nature of rare earth magnets, metals and alloys

have made them especially valuable in high-tech products. China currently has most of the world's separation facilities —but if it ever were to stop exporting the purified materials, other options exist . In the short term, U.S. companies that rely on these minerals would likely have inventory stockpile s for brief supply shortages , Gholz says, who served from 2010 to 2012 as senior

advisor to the Pentagon's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy. To stretch those stockpiles out, the overall market could prioritize rare earth elements for crucial applications such as military and medical technologies , while

forcing makers of headphones or golf bags to pay more. "I don't think there is an obvious supply gap or hole where someone will not be able to get a Prius or Tesla or whatever they're looking at," Gholz says. In the event of a longer Chinese supply interruption , the U.S. rare earths mine at Mountain Pass , Calif., would likely become the first place to step up production, Gholz explains. The mine's previous owner, Molycorp, spent approximately $1.5 billion building a new separation facility for producing rare earth concentrates. It did

not, however, complete the downstream processing needed to produce purified rare earth materials before the company went bankrupt in 2015 because of Chinese competition. The mine's new owner, MP Materials, plans to reactivate and complete the mothballed facility for fresh operation starting in 2020. Another alternative is Australian company Lynas Corp ., the world's only significant rare earths producer outside China. It currently operates a mine at Mount Weld in Australia, and sends ores to a separation facility in Malaysia that can purify the rare earth materials—but a complication has arisen from the fact that some ores contain radioactive thorium. Environmental concerns about low-level radioactive waste from the separation facility recently led Lynas to announce it will move some some of the "upstream" processing (which

involves the radioactivity) back to Australia, while keeping "downstream" processing in Malaysia. The company has also announced it will work with Texas-based Blue Line Corp. to build a new separation facility in the U.S. for operations starting in 2022 at the earliest.

China-us warNo US-China war – nor accidental escalationTimothy Heath 17, senior international defense research analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and member of the Pardee RAND Graduate School faculty, and William R. Thompson, Distinguished and Rogers Professor at Indiana University and an adjunct researcher at RAND, "U.S.-China Tensions Are Unlikely to Lead to War", National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/us-china-tensions-are-unlikely-lead-war-20411?page=0%2C1 NCC Packet 2019

Graham Allison's April 12 article, “ How America and China Could Stumble to War ,” explores how misperceptions and bureaucratic dysfunction could accelerate a militarized crisis involving the United States and China into an unwanted war. However, the article fails to persuade because it neglects the key political and geostrategic conditions that make war plausible in the first place. Without those conditions in place, the risk that a crisis could accidentally escalate into war becomes far

lower. The U.S.-China relationship today may be trending towards greater tension, but the relative stability and overall low level of hostility make the prospect of an accidental escalation to war extremely unlikely. In a series of scenarios centered around the South China Sea, Taiwan and the East China Sea, Allison explored how well-established flashpoints involving China and the United States and its allies could spiral into unwanted war. Allison’s article argues that given the context of strategic rivalry between a rising power and a status-quo power, organizational and bureaucratic misjudgments increase the likelihood of unintended escalation. According to Allison, “the underlying stress created by China’s disruptive rise creates conditions in which accidental, otherwise inconsequential events could trigger a large-scale conflict.” This argument appears persuasive on its surface, in no small part because it evokes insights from some of Allison’s groundbreaking work on the organizational pathologies that made the Cuban Missile Crisis so dangerous. However, Allison ultimately fails to

persuade because he fails to specify the political and strategic conditions that make war plausible in the first place. Allison’s analysis implies that the United States and China are in a situation analogous to that of the Soviet Union and the United States in the early 1960s. In the Cold War example, the two countries faced each other on a near-war footing and engaged in a bitter geostrategic and ideological struggle for supremacy . The two countries experienced a series of militarized crises and fought each other repeatedly through proxy wars. It was this broader context that made issues of

misjudgment so dangerous in a crisis. By contrast, the U.S.-China relationship today operates at a much lower level of hostility and threat. China and the U nited S tates may be experienc ing an increase in tensions , but the two countries remain far from the bitter , acrimonious rivalry that defined the U.S.-Soviet relationship in the early 1960s. Neither Washington nor Beijing regards the other as its principal enemy.

Today’s rivals may view each other warily as competitors and threats on some issues, but they also view each other as important trade

partners and partners on some shared concerns, such as North Korea, as the recent summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping illustrated. The behavior of their respective militaries underscores the relatively restrained rivalry . The military competition between China and the United States may be growing, but it operates at a far lower level of intensity than the relentless arms racing that typified the U.S.-Soviet standoff. And unlike their Cold War counterparts, U.S. and Chinese militaries are not postured to fight each other in major wars . Moreover, polls show that the people of the two countries regard each other

with mixed views —a considerable contrast from the hostile sentiment expressed by the U.S. and Soviet publics for each other. Lacking both preparations for major war and a constituency for conflict, leaders and bureaucracies in both countries have less incentive to misjudge crisis situations in favor of unwarranted escalation. To

the contrary, political leaders and bureaucracies currently face a strong incentive to find ways of defus ing crise

s in a manner that avoids unwanted escalation. This inclination manifested itself in the EP-3 airplane collision off Hainan Island in 2001, and in subsequent incidents involving U.S. and Chinese ships and aircraft, such as the harassment of the USNS Impeccable in 2009. This does not mean that there is no risk, however. Indeed, the potential for a dangerous militarized crisis may be growing. Moreover, key political and geostrategic developments could shift the incentives for leaders in favor of more escalatory options in a crisis and thereby make Allison’s scenarios more plausible. Past precedents offer some insight into the types of developments that would most likely propel the U.S.-China relationship into a hostile, competitive one featuring an elevated risk of conflict.

The most important driver, as Allison recognizes, would be a growing parity between China and the United States as economic, technological and geostrategic leaders of the international system . The United States

and China feature an increasing parity in the size of their economies, but the United States retains a considerable lead in virtually every other dimension of national power. The current U.S.-China rivalry is a regional one centered on the Asia-Pacific region, but it retains the considerable potential of escalating into a global, systemic competition down the road. A second important driver would be the mobilization of public opinion behind the view that the other country is a primary source of threat, thereby providing a stronger constituency for escalatory policies. A related development would be the formal designation by leaders in both capitals of the other country as a primary hostile threat and likely foe. These developments would most likely be fueled by a growing array of intractable disputes, and further accelerated by a serious militarized crisis. The cumulative effect would be the exacerbation of an antagonistic competitive rivalry, repeated and volatile militarized crisis, and heightened risk that any

flashpoint could escalate rapidly to war—a relationship that would resemble the U.S.-Soviet relationship in the early 1960s. Yet even if the relationship evolved towards a more hostile form of rivalry, unique features of the contemporary world suggest lessons drawn from the past may have limited applicability. Economic interdependence in the twenty-first century is much different and far more complex than in it was in the past. So is the lethality of weaponry available to the major powers . In the sixteenth century, armies fought with

pikes, swords and primitive guns. In the twenty-first century, it is possible to eliminate all life on the planet in a full-bore nuclear exchange. These features likely affect the willingness of leaders to escalate in a crisis in a manner far differently than in past rivalries. More broadly, Allison’s analysis about the “Thucydides Trap” may be criticized for exaggerating the risks of war. In his claims to identify a high propensity for war between “rising” and “ruling” countries, he fails to clarify those terms, and does not distinguish the more dangerous from the less volatile types of rivalries. Contests for supremacy over

land regions, for example, have historically proven the most conflict-prone, while competition for supremacy over maritime regions has, by contrast, tended to be less lethal . Rivalries also wax and wane over time, with varying levels of risks of war. A more careful review of rivalries and their variety , duration and patterns

of interaction suggests that although most wars involve rivalries, many rivals avoid going to war. Misperceptions and strategic accidents remain a persistent feature of international politics, and it may well be that that mistakes are more likely to be lethal in periods of adjustment in relative power configurations. Rising states do have problems negotiating status quo changes with states

that have staked out their predominance earlier. Even so, the probability of war between China and the United States is almost certainly far less than the 75 percent predicted by Allison. If the leaders of both countries can continue to find ways to dampen the trends towards hostile rivalry and maintain sufficient cooperation to manage differences, then there is good reason to hope that the risk of war can be lowered further still.

Geography Keck 13 (Zachary, Associate Editor of The Diplomat. He has previously served as a Deputy Editor for E-IR and as an Editorial Assistant for The Diplomat, "Why China and the US (Probably) Won’t Go to War", July 12, thediplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2013/07/12/why-china-and-the-us-probably-wont-go-to-war/) NCC Packet 2019

Geography is the less appreciated factor that will mitigate the chances of a U.S.-China war , but it could be nearly as important as nuclear weapons. Indeed, geography has a history of allowing countries to avoid the Thucydides Trap, and

works against a U.S.-China war in a couple of ways. First, both the United States and China are immensely large countries—according to the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. and China are the third and fourth largest countries in the world by area, at 9,826,675 and 9,596,961 square km

respectively. They also have difficult topographical features and complex populations. As such, they are virtually unconquerable by another power. This is an important point and differentiates the current strategic environment from historical cases where power transitions led to war. For example, in Europe where many of the historical cases derive from, each state genuinely had to worry that the other side could increase their power

capabilities to such a degree that they could credibly threaten the other side’s national survival. Neither China nor the U.S. has to realistically entertain such fears , and this will lessen their insecurity and therefore the security dilemma they operate within. Besides

being immensely large countries, China and the U.S. are also separated by the Pacific Ocean, which will also weaken their sense of insecurity and threat perception towards one another . In many of the violent power transitions of the past, starting with Sparta and Athens but also including the European ones, the rival states were located in close proximity to one another. By contrast, when great power conflict has been avoided , the states have often had considerable distance between them, as was the case for the U.S. and British power transition and the peaceful end to

the Cold War. The reason is simple and similar to the one above: the difficulty of projecting power across large distances—

particularly bodies of waters— reduces each side’s concern that the other will threaten its national survival and most important strategic interests. True, the U.S. operates extensively in China’s backyard, and maintains numerous alliances and partnerships with Beijing’s neighbors. This undeniably heightens the risk of conflict. At the same time, the British were active throughout the Western Hemisphere, most notably in Canada, and the Americans maintained a robust alliance system in Western Europe throughout the Cold War. Even with the U.S. presence in Asia, then, the fact that the Chinese and American homelands are separated by the largest body of water in the world is enormously

important in reducing their conflict potential, if history is any guide at least. Thus, while every effort should be made to avoid a U.S.-China war, it is nearly unthinkable one will occur.

China knows war is to costlyNicolai Fogth Gjøde Nielsen, 1-15-2019 "How China Avoids War in the South China Sea" National Interest. Accessed 8-15-2019 [https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-china-avoids-war-south-china-sea-41677]/mnw NCC Packet 2019

China is likely trying to gain enough influence in the region to challenge and push out the United States completely from the South China Sea.

Beijing does not try to provoke a war with its neighbors as it would be too costly and counterproductive. This is especially because the cost of a war with America and its East Asian allies would not be worth the potential territorial gains. Instead, China is operating from a rational standpoint and conducts its actions based on calculated consideration of the consequences . At the same time, it is increasingly evident that China is not interested in maintaining the pro-American current status quo in the regional balance of power.

China modernization isn’t for offensive use – it’s only to secure second-strike capabilitiesDavid Logan 17, PhD student in Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a Graduate Fellow and Deputy Director of the Strategic Education Initiative at Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies, "Hard Constraints on China’s Nuclear Forces", War on the Rocks, https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/china-nuclear-weapons-breakout/ NCC Packet 2019

Concerns of an Impending Chinese Breakout First, some commentators have argued that China may be currently developing a nuclear warfighting capability, or at least the nuclear arsenal to support one. A nuclear warfighting capability can refer to either a force designed to attack an adversary’s nuclear arsenal, or a nuclear force designed for use on the battlefield, though most commentators mean the latter when referring to China. These developments, they argue, could lead to China introducing nuclear weapons into an otherwise conventional conflict. Other observers have contended that China may attempt a “sprint to parity,” a rapid buildup in its strategic nuclear arsenal until it has roughly as many nuclear weapons as the United States (One scholar has even fantastically claimed, based on an analysis of the underground tunnel system designed to protect China’s missiles, that it may already possess more than 3,000 nuclear weapons). This would entail a dramatic expansion in the size of

China’s nuclear arsenal. China’s Current Nuclear Posture China’s nuclear forces and policies are constrained , first and

foremost, by the country’s distinctive approach to nuclear weapons . As Jeffrey Lewis has written,

Chinese leadership has historically believed that nuclear deterrence is largely unaffected by the size and configuration of the adversary’s nuclear arsenal , so long as the country can threaten a counterstrike of a few — or even one — nuclear warheads. Marshall Nie Rongzhen, a leading figure in China’s early

nuclear weapons program, called this “the minimum means of reprisal.” Recent research by Fiona Cunningham and M.

Taylor Fravel, based on reviews of Chinese doctrinal and academic writings and interviews with Chinese military and civilian experts, indicates that these fundamental views have not changed and that China is likely to continue adhering to its relatively restrained strategy of “assured retaliation.” In recent Track-1.5 and Track-2 dialogues between the United States and China, Chinese participants have said that China could

credibly threaten the United States with only “a few,” a “handful of,” or even “one” nuclear warhead. Designed to support more limited goals, China’s nuclear forces are generally believed to be smaller and less alerted than those of other states . The country has yet to develop an early warning system and some experts believe China would wait several days after suffering a nuclear strike before launching its own nuclear counterattack . Observers

believe Beijing does not mate its nuclear warheads to missiles in peacetime , instead storing them separately. According to the counting rules of the New START treaty, China has nearly zero deployed nuclear

weapons . China’s ongoing nuclear modernization program is indeed significantly changing the character and configuration of the country’s nuclear forces. But these changes appear to be driven by a desire to maintain the survivability of the country’s second-strike capability, not a fundamentally new view of nuc lear weapon s in Beijing . China has identified advancing U.S. capabilities in conventional prompt global strike and ballistic missile defense as serious threats to its nuclear forces. Regardless of whether these concerns are reasonable, they appear

sincere. By deploying more mobile missiles, China hopes to increase the survivability of its overall deterrent. By deploying SSBNs and equipping some of its land-based missiles with MIRV capability, it hopes to enhance its ability to penetrate U.S. missile defenses.

Space Dominance

china riseChinas rise will stay peacefulCharles Glaser, 12-16-2016, China's Rise Can Be Peaceful If the U.S. Doesn't Provoke It, NYT, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/14/can-trump-get-tough-with-china/chinas-rise-can-be-peaceful-if-the-us-doesnt-provoke-it, accessed 10-17-2018 {\\EP} NCC Packet 2019

China’s rise will continue to redefine international politics in East Asia. Contrary to many pessimistic assessments, China can rise peacefully. Its growing military and economic power pose major challenges to U.S. dominance in the region, but need not lead to conflict . However, China’s peaceful rise is far from assured. Both ambition and insecurity could lead China to challenge the status quo, generating an armed class with the United States. U.S. strategy must therefore strike a careful balance: its policies must effectively deter attacks against U.S. vital interests, while at the same time not posing a serious threat to China’s

security. Careful maintenance of the long-standing United States policy toward Taiwan is the best path forward. Even appearing to be moving toward supporting Taiwan’s independence would be seen by China’s leaders as a highly provocative act. China considers Taiwan to be part of its homeland and unification remains a key political goal for Beijing. The growing centrality of nationalism to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party makes Taiwan’s future essential to the regime’s survival. China has made clear that it will use force if Taiwan declares independence. Consequently, president-elect Trump’s telephone call with the leader of Taiwan and his seemingly cavalier attitude toward upending the United States’ long-standing Taiwan policy are deeply misguided. Shifts in U.S. policy that encourage Taiwan to believe that the United States will support its moves toward independence increase the probability of war. For example, the United States could change Taiwan’s expectations by revising the conditions under which it will come to Taiwan’s aid. The United States currently tries to constrain Taiwan by making its defense commitment conditional — the United States will respond only to unprovoked Chinese attacks; that is, it will not come to Taiwan’s defense if a Chinese attack is provoked by Taiwan’s declaration of independence. Eliminating or blurring this conditionality could embolden Taiwan. A variety of dangers could follow. If Taiwan declares independence, war between China and Taiwan is the likely outcome. Even moving too far in that direction could fuel a major crisis. And if the United States actually would come to Taiwan’s defense, then conventional war between China and the United States also becomes more likely. Conventional war between two nuclear powers increases the probability of nuclear war. Other paths to conflict could also result. In response to a newly provocative policy toward Taiwan, China might adopt still more assertive policies in the South China and East China Seas. The United States could then get drawn into conflict to protect a friend or ally. China might accelerate its buildup of conventional forces to further improve its ability to coerce Taiwan, which would intensify

military competition with the United States and strain political relations. If any change is in order, the United States should be moving in the opposite direction — reducing its commitment to Taiwan to improve U.S. relations with China. I have argued elsewhere that the United States should pursue a grand bargain with China: China would resolve its maritime disputes and officially accept the United States’ military presence and alliance commitments in East Asia; in turn, the United States would end its commitment to Taiwan. Although costly, among other reasons because Taiwan is a democracy , accommodation could increase U.S. security. But China’s growing assertiveness, especially in the South China Sea, has cast doubt on the wisdom of such a bargain — accommodating an expansionist state can be self-defeating. Down the road, the prospects for bargained mutual accommodation may be better. For the time being, careful maintenance of the long-standing United States policy toward Taiwan is the best path forward.

Chinas rise will stay peacefulCharles Glaser, 12-16-2016, China's Rise Can Be Peaceful If the U.S. Doesn't Provoke It, NYT, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/14/can-trump-get-tough-with-china/chinas-rise-can-be-peaceful-if-the-us-doesnt-provoke-it, accessed 10-17-2018 {\\EP} NCC Packet 2019

China’s rise will continue to redefine international politics in East Asia. Contrary to many pessimistic assessments, China can rise peacefully. Its growing military and economic power pose major challenges to U.S. dominance in the region, but need not lead to conflict . However, China’s peaceful rise is far from assured. Both ambition and insecurity could lead China to challenge the status quo, generating an armed class with the United States. U.S. strategy must therefore strike a careful balance: its policies must effectively deter attacks against U.S. vital interests, while at the same time not posing a serious threat to China’s

security. Careful maintenance of the long-standing United States policy toward Taiwan is the best path

forward. Even appearing to be moving toward supporting Taiwan’s independence would be seen by China’s leaders as a highly provocative act. China considers Taiwan to be part of its homeland and unification remains a key political goal for Beijing. The growing centrality of nationalism to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party makes Taiwan’s future essential to the regime’s survival. China has made clear that it will use force if Taiwan declares independence. Consequently, president-elect Trump’s telephone call with the leader of Taiwan and his seemingly cavalier attitude toward upending the United States’ long-standing Taiwan policy are deeply misguided. Shifts in U.S. policy that encourage Taiwan to believe that the United States will support its moves toward independence increase the probability of war. For example, the United States could change Taiwan’s expectations by revising the conditions under which it will come to Taiwan’s aid. The United States currently tries to constrain Taiwan by making its defense commitment conditional — the United States will respond only to unprovoked Chinese attacks; that is, it will not come to Taiwan’s defense if a Chinese attack is provoked by Taiwan’s declaration of independence. Eliminating or blurring this conditionality could embolden Taiwan. A variety of dangers could follow. If Taiwan declares independence, war between China and Taiwan is the likely outcome. Even moving too far in that direction could fuel a major crisis. And if the United States actually would come to Taiwan’s defense, then conventional war between China and the United States also becomes more likely. Conventional war between two nuclear powers increases the probability of nuclear war. Other paths to conflict could also result. In response to a newly provocative policy toward Taiwan, China might adopt still more assertive policies in the South China and East China Seas. The United States could then get drawn into conflict to protect a friend or ally. China might accelerate its buildup of conventional forces to further improve its ability to coerce Taiwan, which would intensify

military competition with the United States and strain political relations. If any change is in order, the United States should be moving in the opposite direction — reducing its commitment to Taiwan to improve U.S. relations with China. I have argued elsewhere that the United States should pursue a grand bargain with China: China would resolve its maritime disputes and officially accept the United States’ military presence and alliance commitments in East Asia; in turn, the United States would end its commitment to Taiwan. Although costly, among other reasons because Taiwan is a democracy , accommodation could increase U.S. security. But China’s growing assertiveness, especially in the South China Sea, has cast doubt on the wisdom of such a bargain — accommodating an expansionist state can be self-defeating. Down the road, the prospects for bargained mutual accommodation may be better. For the time being, careful maintenance of the long-standing United States policy toward Taiwan is the best path forward.

China Rise Inevitable (P.H. Yu, P.H. Yu is chairman of the Council of the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University, 5-8-18, “China’s rise will continue, whether the West likes it or not”, https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2145155/chinas-rise-will-continue-whether-west-likes-it-or-not, DA – 8-17-18)//CDS NCC Packet 2019

The global balance of power is shifting. As the United States retreats from global leadership, China is expanding its international influence . Now, many in the West fear a China-led attempt to overhaul the rules and norms that underpin the existing

world order. Are they right to be afraid? The re-emergence of China as a major regional and even world power certainly

poses profound challenges to the US-led international order created after the second world war. But the goal of Chinese leaders is not explicitly to upend that order, which did, after all, prove flexible enough to enable the impoverished China of the 1970s to become what it is today. Instead, the goal is to ensure that the existing order can adequately accommodate the interests and objectives of both

China and the US. China’s objectives are ambitious , to say the least. Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “reform and opening up” enabled an economic miracle that has lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty. President Xi Jinping’s task is not only to complete what Deng started, and eradicate poverty, but also to forge an economy that returns China to its position, held for most of recorded human history, as a

major world power. It is that vision – what Xi calls the “Chinese dream” – that really seems to unsettle the West, to the

point that some advocate a kind of coordinated containment strategy. But the fact is that China’s domestic economy , like that of the

US, is already strong enough to secure the country’s future influence . In that context, a backward-looking strategy of

rigid containment is bound to fail. Worse, it could drive China to mount a more fundamental challenge to the existing international order . The only way to preserve that order is thus to prove that it remains flexible enough to respond to China’s needs and aspirations. Of course, this is easier said than done, not least because the West already feels blindsided by the scope and pace of China’s rise. But, if the West was understandably unprepared for a development that is unprecedented in world history, its own complacency also played a major role. After the Soviet Union’s fall, Francis Fukuyama declared that the “end of history” – in the teleological Hegelian sense – had arrived. From then on, he argued, building a modern society would demand

a market economy and a democratic political system. In the ensuing decades – even as China grew and modernised – Western thinkers treated this self-indulgent delusion as an empirical certainty. They confirmed their biases – and obscured reality further – by relying on rigid and outdated academic models that were inadequate to explain China’s success. Increasingly, however, people are recognising reality. This was confirmed at a recent international conference in Beijing titled “China and the West: The Role of the State in Economic Growth”, organised by

Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Many participants agreed that China’s top-down decision-making structure, by enabling the government to invest in painful but needed reforms, confers a powerful development advantage. Some openly questioned the current US economic model, which is increasingly characterised by the monopolisation of resources and distortion of political decision-making by vested interests. The US economy is far from sound, no matter what the hype Yet this recognition may be part of the problem: though China continues to reassure the West that it is not nurturing imperial or expansionist

ambitions, Western political leaders remain dubious, if not outright suspicious. They fear being blindsided yet again and losing control of a system that they have painstakingly built in their own image. But China’s rise will continue, whether the West is ready or not. It might help if Western thinkers developed new analytical frameworks to help political leaders

better comprehend China’s development model. They can start by recognising that China’s economic model – which has proved effective in boosting growth and reducing poverty in a sustained way – is a genuine alternative to the Western approach. Refusing to acknowledge reality will only generate more tension – and more risk, because failing to accommodate China will

destabilise the rules-based order on which the world has come to rely. Instead of clinging to outdated assumptions and rigid ideas, the West should work with China to reform the existing global order in ways that benefit all . Otherwise, Western leaders’ worst fears will be realised.

China Rise peaceful(Eric Li, Eric Li is a venture capitalist and political scientist in Shanghai, 8-20-18, ”The Rise and Fall of Soft Power”,

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/20/the-rise-and-fall-of-soft-power/ NCC Packet 2019

Nearly two decades ago, Chinese grand strategist Zheng Bijian coi ned the term “peaceful rise ” to articulate China’s aspirations for itself. Over the years, the notion of peaceful rise has encountered much suspicion. Critics, for example, point to tensions in the

South China Sea to show that China’s intentions are not, in fact, peaceful. And Allison has warned that, whatever their intentions, the United States and China could still fall into a Thucydides trap, in which the strength of a rising power (China) strikes fear

in the incumbent power (the United States), resulting in war. In his recent book, Destined for War, Allison pointed out that most of the 16

such cases of a rising power in history resulted in bloodshed. However, stepping back, it is plain to see that China’s peaceful rise has already happened. It is a fact on the ground, as evidenced by the enormity of its economy, its trading volume, and, yes, its increasing military strength. Compared to the rise of other great powers in history—the Athenian Empire, the Roman Empire, the British

Empire, America’s manifest destiny, modern Germany, France, and Japan, all of which were accompanied by tremendous violence—China’s rise so far has been bigger and faster than them all. And yet, it has happened peacefully. No invasion of any other country, no colonization, no war . Yes, Allison may be right that the psychology of the Thucydides trap is still true. But

in substance, the world has already passed the point at which such a conflict could be contemplated responsibly. And that is perhaps why China is now refocusing from hard power to soft , even as the rest of the world has seemed to go in the opposite

direction. President Xi Jinping, for example, has called for “a community of shared destiny,” in which nations are allowed

their own development paths while working to increase interconnectedness. In the policy arena, such soft power mostly takes the form of the Belt and Road Initiative, which leverages China’s massive capital and capacity to drive infrastructure-led development in other countries to spur economic growth that would ultimately benefit China itself. It is a new potential soft power proposition: “You don’t have to want to be like us, you don’t have to want what we want; you can participate in a new form of globalization while retaining your own culture, ideology, and institutions.” This is, in many ways, the opposite of Nye’s formulation, with all the downfalls that approach entails: overreach, the illusion of universal appeals, and internal and external backlashes.

A2: MiningNo REM monopoly—other countries and WTO rulings Cheng 19 (Dean Cheng, research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs., China Is a Paper Tiger on Rare Earth Minerals, 6/13/19, https://www.heritage.org/asia/report/china-paper-tiger-rare-earth-minerals, Accessed: 9/28/19)//CH NCC Packet 2019

China has sought to use this position of market dominance for its benefit before . In 2010, a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels near the disputed Senkaku Islands . The captain of the fishing boat was detained and was scheduled to be put on trial. After strong Chinese protests, however, the Japanese government returned the captain without

trial. Despite the return, Beijing decided to prohibit the export of REMs to Japan . Officially, the Chinese claimed this was in order to ensure a sufficient domestic stockpile to supply Chinese industries, but it is broadly understood that this was a form of punishment in the wake of the fishing boat incident. This embargo , in turn, sent shock waves through not only the rare earths market but also among users of these metals , including defense industries . While this led to a short-term price spike and some dislocations, the longer-term effects demonstrated the reality of free markets . In the wake of the Chinese decision, many countries either reopened mines and facilities that had been closed (e.g., the Mountain Pass mine in the United States) or began to survey their own territories to identify new sources. In the years following the Chinese

move, Australia and the U.S. both substantially expanded their production of rare earth minerals, as did Brazil, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam. New reserves were also identified in India and Canada . Most recently, Japan discovered a major offshore deposit of rare earths that is estimated to be able to meet centuries of demand.4 Yen Nen Lee, “A Massive ‘Semi-Infinite’ Trove of Rare Earth Metals Has Been Found in Japan,” CNBC, April 12, 2018,

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/japan-rare-earths-huge-deposit-of-metals-found-in-pacific.html (accessed June 11, 2019). In addition, the World Trade Organization ( WTO) ruled against China’s actions , finding the embargo and quotas on sales to be in violation of WTO rules. By 2015, China ended its quotas, while still requiring an export license for rare earths. The result has been a decrease in rare earth prices and the shuttering, again, of a number of mines outside China. With this renewed threat, however, Beijing runs the real risk of creating permanent competitors . Doubts about the security and stability of supply chains originating in China are likely to be exacerbated, especially given the national security uses for rare earth minerals. As important, having identified new reserves, other states may be able to access alternatives far more quickly now than they could in 2010, thereby limiting even the mid- term volatility caused by any Chinese action.

US can meet production gaps in the event of an embargo—new production facilities and existing mines solve—Vincent 19, (James Vincent is a reporter for the Verge specializing in AI and Robotics. “Rare earth elements aren’t the secret weapon China thinks they are,” < https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/23/18637071/rare-earth-china-production-america-demand-trade-war-tariffs>. 5-23-2019.)//JSemr NCC Packet 2019

America’s trade war with China has been quietly escalating for years, but this week it took a turn for the disastrous.

Huawei, once the rising star of China’s tech industry, has been cut off from US suppliers, leaving the company effectively stunted. China is likely to respond somehow, but with a multitude of options on the table, many in the tech industry are now considering nightmare scenarios. One particularly chaotic option would be a ban on the export of rare earths — raw materia ls that are crucial for electronics. These elements are produced mostly in China, and used in the US for everything from electric cars to wind turbines, smartphones to missiles. Chinese state

media have backed the idea, calling America’s dependence on Chinese rare earths “an ace in Beijing’s hand .” President Xi Jinping hinted at that possibility when he visited a rare earth facility at the beginning of this week. (As a ministry spokesperson commented with what seemed like a nod and a wink: “It is normal that the top leader investigates relevant industrial policies. I hope everyone

can interpret it correctly.”) Rare earth elements are sometimes described as the “vitamins of chemistry,” as small doses produce powerful salutary effects. A sprinkle of cerium here and a pinch of neodymium there makes TV screens brighter, batteries last

longer, and magnets stronger. If China suddenly shut off access to these materials, it would be like rewinding the tech industry back a few decades. And no one wants to ditch their iPhone and go back to a BlackBerry. Experts in the field, though, are much less concerned about such a chilling scenario. They say that while a restriction on rare earth exports would have some immediate

adverse effects, the US and the rest of the world would adapt in the long run. “If China really cuts off supply entirely then there are short term problems,” Tim Worstall, a former rare earth trader and commodities blogger tells The

Verge. “But they’re solvable.” Far from being an ace in the hole, it turns out rare earths are more of a busted flush. The reasons for this are numerous, and span geography, chemistry, and history. But the most important factor is also the simplest to

explain: rare earths just aren’t that rare . A group of 17 elements, rare earths are what the USGS (United States

Geological Survey) describe as “moderately abundant.” That means they’re not as common as oxygen, silicon, and iron, which make up the vast majority of the Earth’s crust, but some are on a par with elements like copper and lead, which we don’t consider exotic or scarce. Significant deposits exist in China, but also Brazil, Canada, Australia, India, and the United States. The challenge with producing rare earths (and the reason

they were given their name) is that they’re rarely found in concentrated lumps. These are chemically sociable elements,

happy to bond with other compounds and minerals and tumble about in the dirt. This makes extracting rare earths from common

earth like convincing a drunk friend to leave a raucous party: a lengthy and harrowing procedure. As Eugene Gholz, a rare earth

expert and associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame puts it: “Once you take it out of the ground, the big challenge is chemistry not mining; converting the rare earths from rock to separated elements.” Unlike

convincing that drunk friend, though, this process involves a series of acid baths and unhealthy doses of radiation .

This is one of the reasons that countries like the US have been more or less happy to cede production of rare earths to China. It’s a messy, dangerous business, so why not let someone else do it? Other factors also helped, including lower labor costs and the existence of Chinese mines that produce rare earths as a byproduct. China’s sway in the rare earths market is a fairly recent state of affairs. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, the majority of the world’s supply was actually produced in America, from the Mountain Pass mine in California. The mine’s processing plant was shut down in 1998 after problems disposing of toxic waste water, and the whole site was mothballed in 2002. It’s only from the 1990s onward that China has shouldered the bulk of production, along with the associated environmental costs. (In 2010, the Chinese government estimated that the industry was producing 22.05 million tons of toxic waste each year.) An oft-referenced figure is that China now produces some 95 percent of the world’s rare earths, but Gholz says this statistic is “wildly out of date.” The USGS pegs China’s part as closer to 80 percent. That’s still a substantial chunk of the world’s supply, though, and with no doubt that these are important commodities, the question is: what happens if China does cut off the US? Luckily, we have a very good idea of what would

happen next because it’s already happened before. Back in 2010, China stopped exports of rare earths to Japan following a diplomatic incident involving a fishing trawler and the disputed Senkaku Islands. Gholz wrote a

report of the fallout from this incident in 2014, and found that despite China’s intentions, its ban actually had little effect. Chinese smugglers continued to export rare earths off the books; manufacturers in Japan found ways to use less of the materials; and production in other parts of the world ramped up to compensate. “The world is flexible,” says Gholz. “When you try to restrict supplies to politically influence another country, people don’t give up, they adapt.” He says that although his report examined the rare earth industry as it was in 2010, the “conclusions are pretty much the same” in

2019. If China did turn off the rare earth tap, there would be enough private and public stockpiles to supply essential sectors like the military in the short term. And while an embargo could lead to price rises for high-tech goods and dependent materials like oil (rare earths are essential in many refining processes), Gholz says it’s highly unlikely that you would be unable to buy your next smartphone because of a few missing micrograms of yttrium. “I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. It just doesn’t seem plausible,” he says. Even though a ban on rare earth exports is just speculation at this point, companies have begun to preempt any new Chinese restrictions. American chemical firm Blue Line Corp and Australian rare earth miner Lynas have already proposed new production facilities in the US, and rare earth stocks around

the world have surged in response to the threat . In the event of a ban, one of the most important backstops would be America’s Mountain Pass mine . Although the mine was closed after Chinese rare earths drove down prices, the facility is intact and resumed production last January. Recent estimates suggest it’s already supplying one-tenth of the world’s rare earth ores (though not their processing), and in the event of an embargo, it would be possible to bring Mountain Pass back up to speed. “By far the cheapest and fastest way to bring more material into the market — if there was a disruption — is just sitting there in California,” says Gholz. “It’s not like starting from scratch.” Worstall agrees: “Producing rare earth concentrate is near trivially simple,” he says. “I, or any other competent person, could produce that from a standing start within six months in any volume required.” The kicker, both say, is how much that process might cost. Especially as any refining and separation plants built in the US would have to meet far higher environmental standards. As we’re seeing with Huawei and other casualties of Trump’s trade war, the real question isn’t whether adaptation is possible in the future, it’s how much pain you can stomach in the present.

China won’t mine in space it breaks international treaties, but if they do they would do the same with the plan—Davies 16, (Rob Davies is a reporter for the Guardian. “Asteroid mining could be space’s new frontier: the problem is doing it legally,” < https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/06/asteroid-mining-space-minerals-legal-issues>. 2-6-16.)//JSemr NCC Packet 2019

When Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong hoisted the Stars and Stripes on the moon, the act was purely symbolic. Two years earlier, mindful of

Cold War animosity, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST) had decreed that outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, “ is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty ”. In other words no

country, not even the US, could own the moon or any other part of space, regardless of how many flags they erected there. Half a century on, though, the OST could prove the biggest obstacle to one of the most exciting new frontiers of space exploration: asteroid mining. The reason lawyers could soon be poring over that 48-year-old document is that space mining could become a reality within a couple of decades.

In what is being seen as a major breakthrough for this embryonic technology, the government of Luxembourg has thrown its financial muscle behind plans to extract resources from asteroids, some of which are rich in platinum and other valuable metals. It plans to team up with private companies to help speed the progress of the industry and draw up a

regulatory framework for it. One such firm, Deep Space Industries, wants to send small satellites, called Fireflies, into space from 2017 to prospect for minerals and ice. The satellites would hitch a ride on a rocket, and larger craft would then be used to harvest, transport and store raw materials. Metals such as nickel and iron , which are plentiful on Earth, could be processed while in orbit and used to build equipment or spacecraft . And it may eventually be possible to extract valuable minerals from asteroids cheaply enough for it to be worth bringing them back to Earth. Rival Planetary Resources has a slightly different plan, in which telescopes would be used to analyse asteroids before craft were sent to mine them. Its backers include Google co-founder Larry Page and billionaire

businessman Ross Perot, and it thinks it could be operating in space by 2025. One of the difficultie s facing these would-be space miners is cost, which is fittingly astronomical . Nasa’s Osiris-Rex expedition, which aims to bring just two kilos of asteroid material back to Earth by 2023, is set to cost $1bn. But Deep Space Industries thinks it can get the ball rolling by

putting three of its Fireflies in space for just $20m. The other obvious barrier is the technological progress that is still required if commercial asteroid mining is to become practically possible and economically viable . However,

considerable as these hurdles are, experts believe the legal component is the most pressing. Late last year, the US government made an attempt to update the law on space mining , producing a bill that allows companies to “possess, own, transport, use, and sell” extra-terrestrial resources without violating US law. The problem is that putting this into practice violates the OST. “The way a private company would enforce their right to mine is through a national court,” says

space law expert Dr Chris Newman of the University of Sunderland. “In making a ruling, that court would exercise sovereign rights, contravening the OST. We will only know how this would play out if it is tested in court.” US lawyer Michael Listner, who

founded thinktank Space Law and Policy Solutions, says the US law is incompatible with the OST and risks souring

international relations: “China and Russia will want in. If you have conflicts of law, things start getting dicey and that could lead to legal and political conflict.” Newman believes that one reason why Luxembourg has included plans for drawing up a regulatory framework is to show the world that work is under way on untangling such legal knots. “This is something for investors

to hang their hat on,” he says, “to give them confidence and say that there is a nascent legal framework.” But Dr Gbenga Oduntan, a space law expert at the University of Kent, warns that t he international community needs to get its act together quickly. “What we don’t want is a free-for-all over asteroids,” he says. “We need to come together and do that thinking,

because the law we have right now does not allow us to repatriate resources for commercial purposes .” One

way to do this, he suggests, is to draw on existing legislation such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs how nations use the ocean. Another option might be to revive the Moon Treaty of 1979, which deemed space to be the “common heritage of mankind” but failed to win support from any space-faring

nation. Such complex legal wrangles could indeed prove harder to overcome than other difficulties, such as the huge costs involved. But some experts believe that investing large amounts early on could create a space economy in which costs are forced down by collaboration. Ian Crawford, professor of planetary science at Birkbeck, London, says asteroid miners would most probably start off by mining water-ice, which can be broken down into hydrogen (for fuel)

and oxygen (for supporting life). It is much cheaper to produce water in space than to take it there, and this process could generate revenue and technical support from other players in the space game . Once companies had that revenue stream under their belts, they could start thinking more seriously about the more costly business of extracting minerals and bringing them back to Earth. “Eventually you can imagine the whole process supporting itself,” says Crawford. “The main hurdle is the initial investment, and it seems these companies think they can get started and jump over that hurdle.” But he agrees that the more pressing concern is the legal picture, which “badly needs to be updated”. Christopher Barnatt, professional futurist and author of The Next Big Thing: From 3D Printing to Mining the Moon, says history shows us that if governments such as Luxembourg’s get behind asteroid mining, the space industry will deliver on its promise. “With the moon landings, the aspiration was way ahead of the technology. [President] Kennedy had spoken to Nasa and they’d said it couldn’t be done. He thought it could. We’ve got evidence from throughout history that when we commit

ourselves to a broad goal, we can achieve it.” The ramifications could be huge, he believes, as progress in one technology spurs breakthroughs in another. “If you can use asteroids to make fuel, a lot of space exploration becomes cheaper. Then there’s progress in robotics and artificial intelligence... it all starts to make things possible.”

Alt CauseAlt cause—the space command makes offensive posture inevitable.Fritze, 19 – [John, staffwriter @ USA Today and White House coordinator. “Small step for Space Force: Trump moves closer to launching military branch focused on space”, (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/29/donald-trump-space-force-closer-reality-new-space-command/2149265001/)]//MM NCC Packet 2019

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump moved closer to launching his long-promised Space Force on Thursday as his administration embarked on the creation of a new space combatant command . Pointing to threats from China and Russia and the nation’s reliance on satellites for defense operations , Trump has pressed for a new branch of the military focused on space . While Space Force requires congressional approval, his administration has

moved ahead with a Space Command that will draw forces from other armed services. "Space Com will defend America's vital interest in space, the next war-fighting domain," Trump told reporters during an event in the Rose Garden. "The dangers to our country constantly evolve, and so must we." Trump said U.S. adversaries are weaponizing "Earth's orbits with new technology targeting American satellites." Led by Air Force Gen. John Raymond, the announcement of Space Command marks the first time the military has stood up

such an endeavor since it created U.S. Cyber Command in 2009. Trump, initially ridiculed for his emphasis on “Space Force”

during campaign rallies, has found some support for the idea among military and congressional leaders . China and Russia have explored military expansion into space and France announced its own space force last month. “To ensure the protection of America's interests in space, we must apply the necessary focus, energy and resources to the task, and that is exactly what Space Command will do,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told reporters this week. The Air Force, the newest of the armed services dating to 1947, currently

has the largest stake in space of the military branches. It already contains a Space Command, which it established in 1982. Military officials have previously said the new combatant command will lead combat missions and the Air Force command will train and equip forces. Trump wants to create the new branch by 2020.

Arms RaceNo space war impact – limited response and low credibility of attacksElbridge Colby, 1-27-2016, “From Sanctuary to Battlefield: A Framework for a U.S. Defense and Deterrence Strategy for Space,” CNAS, pg. 17-18, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/from-sanctuary-to-battlefield-a-framework-for-a-us-defense-and-deterrence-strategy-for-space. ZKMSU NCC Packet 2019

But such a threat is of substantially decreasing credibility . In today’s much different context, no one really believes that a limited space attack would necessarily or even plausibly be a prelude to total nuclear war . Would the United States respond with a major strategic strike if China or Russia , in the context of a regional conflict with the United States, struck discriminately at implicated U.S. space assets in the attempt to defang U.S. power projection, all while leaving the broader U.S. space architecture alone? Not only does such a massive response seem unlikely – it would be positively foolish and irresponsible . Furthermore, would other nations regard attacks on assets

the United States was actively employing for a local war as off limits to attack? Indeed, any reasonable observer would have to judge that such discriminate attacks on U.S. space assets would not necessarily be illegitimate, as, by the United States’ own admission, it relies greatly on its

space architecture for conventional power projection. Moreover, official U.S. statements on how the United States would respond to attacks on its space assets – to the limited extent such statements exist and the degree to which those given are clear – offer no indication it would respond massively to such strikes .53 Perhaps more to the point, senior responsible U.S. officials have telegraphed that the United States would indeed not necessarily respond massively to attacks against its space assets .54 In light of these factors, any U.S. space deterrence strategy that is predicated on an all-or-nothing retaliation to space attacks will become increasingly

incredible and thus decreasingly effective – and indeed might even invite an adversary’s challenge in order to puncture or degrade U.S. credibility .

No escalation from space war – resilience, deterrence and low level attacksCooper, 18 (Zack Cooper senior fellow for Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Thomas G. Roberts is a research assistant and program coordinator for the Aerospace Security Project at CSIS, "Deterrence in the Last Sanctuary," War on the Rocks, https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/deterrence-last-sanctuary/) NCC Packet 2019Until recently, resilience in space was largely an afterthought. It was assumed that a conflict in space would likely lead to or precede a major nuclear exchange. Therefore, the focus was on

cost-effective architectures that maximized satellite capabilities, often at the cost of resilience. Recently, however, some have hoped that new architectures could enhance resilience and prevent critical military operations from being significantly impeded in an attack .

Although resilience can be expensive, American investments in smaller satellites and more distributed space architectures could minimize adversary incentives to carry out first strikes in space . In the late 20th century, minor escalations against space systems were treated as major events, since they typically threatened the superpowers’ nuclear architectures. Today, the proliferation of counter-space capabilities and the wide array of possible types of attacks means that most attacks against U.S. space systems are unlikely to warrant a nuclear response . It is critical that policymakers understand the likely break points in any conflict involving space systems. Strategists should explore whether the characteristics of different types of attacks against space systems create different thresholds, paying particular attention to attribution, reversibility, the defender’s awareness of an attack, the attacker’s

ability to assess an attack’s effectiveness, and the risks of collateral damage (e.g., orbital debris). Competitors may attempt to use non-kinetic weapons and reversible actions to stay below the threshold that would trigger a strong U.S. response . The 2017 National Security Strategy warns: Any harmful interference with or an attack upon critical components of our space architecture that directly affects this vital U.S. interest will be met with a deliberate response at a time, place, manner, and domain of our choosing. In order to fulfill this promise, the United States will want to ensure that it has capabilities to respond both above and below various thresholds to ensure a full-spectrum of deterrence options for the full range of potential actors. In the first space age, the two superpowers had largely symmetric capabilities and interests in outer space (with a few notable exceptions). In the second space age, however, the space domain includes many disparate players with vastly different asymmetric capabilities and interests. The United States is more reliant on space than any other country in the world, but it also retains greater space capabilities than any of its competitors. Although the 2011 National Security Space Strategy states, “Space capabilities provide the United States and our allies unprecedented advantages in national decision-making, military operations, and homeland security,” this also means that that the United States has more to lose. From the dawn of the first space age, Americans understood the many benefits that could come from the peaceful uses of space and the great harm that could result from hostile uses of space. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy addressed the dilemma of how to reap the benefits of space without conflict, stating only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war… space can

be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours. For 60 years, space has

been the exception: the one domain that has remained free from the scars of war. By better understanding the dynamics of the second space age, we may be able to keep it that way.

Recon and intel gathering means no one will use weapons in space.Yoo, 18 (John Yoo OLC for the White House from 2001-2003, visiting fellow at the Stanford Hoover Institution, 10-15-2018, "Winning the Space Race," Hoover Institution, https://www.hoover.org/research/winning-space-race) NCC Packet 2019

Criticisms of space weapons overlook the place of force in international politics . Advances in space technology can have

greater humanitarian outcomes that outweigh concerns with space weapons themselves. Rather than increase the likelihood of war, space - based systems reduce the probability of destructive conflicts and limit both combatant and civilian casualties. Recon naissance satellites reduce the chances that war will break out due to misunderstanding of a rival’s deployments or misperception of another nation’s intentions. Space-based communications support the location of targets for smart weapons on the battlefield, which lower harm to combatants and civilians. Space-based weapons may bring unparalleled speed and precision to the strategic

use of force that could reduce the need for more harmful, less discriminate conventional weapons that spread greater destruction across a broader area. New weapons might bring war to a timely conclusion or even help nations avoid armed conflict in the first place. We do not argue that

one nation’s overwhelming superiority in arms will prevent war from breaking out, though deterrence can have this effect. At the very least, space weapons, like other advanced military technologies, could help nations settle their disputes without resort to wider armed

conflict , and hence bolster, rather than undermine, international security.

Empirics prove—we don’t escalate in response to attacks.Zarybnisky 18—(Lt Col USAF, PHD in Operations Research from MIT, MA national security studies from Naval War College). Zarybnisky, Eric J. 2018. “Celestial Deterrence: Deterring Aggression in the Global Commons of Space.” Naval War College Newport United States. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1062004.pdf. Accessed 8/23/19 NCC Packet 2019

While deterrence and the Cold War are strongly linked in the public’s mind through the nuclear standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, the fundamentals of deterrence date back millennia and deterrence remain s relevant . Thucydides alludes to the concept of deterrence in his telling of the Peloponnesian War when he

describes rivals seeking advantages, such as recruiting allies, to dissuade an adversary from starting or expanding a conflict.6F 6 Aggression in space was successfully avoided during the Cold War because both sides viewed an attack on military satellites as highly escalatory , and such an action would likely result in general nuclear war .7F 7 In today’s

more nuanced world, attacking satellites , including military satellites, does not necessarily result in nuclear war. For instance, foreign countries have used high powered lasers against American intelligence-gathering satellites8 and the United States has been reluctant to respond, let alone retaliate with nuclear weapons. This shift in policy is a result of the broader use of gray zone operations , to which countries struggle to respond while limiting escalation. Beginning with the fundamentals of deterrence illuminates how it applies to prevention of aggression in space. Deterrence requires that one group persuade an adversary that the cost of an action outweighs the perceived benefit.9F 9 Examining this definition highlights two main ways aggression in space can be deterred: by increasing the cost of an adversary’s action or by reducing the perceived

benefit.10F 10 A country wishing to prevent aggression could choose to use one or both tactics. However, the growing reliance on space assets diminishes the second possibility since reducing the perceived benefit of an attack in space would require a capability, either space- or terrestrial-based, to replace a damaged or destroyed satellite. Even if the expense of additional satellites could be reduced through disaggregation or larger block purchases, an adversary that can attack one satellite would likely have the capability to attack multiple satellites. Terrestrial options are problematic since replication of satellite functionality, such as intelligence collection over denied territory, is difficult to accomplish in other domains.

Current international self-defense policies in space are ambiguous, ineffective and risk all-out war – overwhelms AFF solvency Chow, Brian G., 2018, Chow is an independent policy analyst with over 25 years as a senior physical scientist specializing in space and national security. He holds a PhD in physics from Case Western Reserve University and an MBA with distinction and PhD in finance from the University of Michigan, “Space Arms Control: A Hybrid Approach.” Strategic Studies Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 2, 2018, pp. 107–132. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26430818, MJD NCC Packet 2019

Right of Self-Defense The international community is ambiguous whether a coumntry is allowed to tailgate any number of another country’s satellites. Also, the current US national security space strategy is ambiguous about preemptive self-defense , including when it faces a threat from space stalkers .39 Under these two dangerous ambiguities, China could reason that space stalkers would be the best type of ASATs to present the United States with two bad choices. First, the United States could preemptively destroy the space stalkers to save the

targeted satellites so as to maintain space support to military operations during crisis and war. However, without discussing and resolving these two ambiguities with the international community in peacetime, the United States could be condemned as the aggressor who fired the first shot, which led to a war in space possibly spreading to Earth—something both sides tried to avoid. Second, the United States could fight ineffectively without the support of some critical satellites. Facing these two bad choices, the United States might end up not intervening at all. This would be the perfect outcome for

China, as it prevented US intervention without firing a single shot. To attain space security in the emerging era, the world needs to remove these two ambiguities now. First, countries should agree and declare, in peacetime, that the country that positions real or plausible space stalkers to simultaneously threaten another country’s satellites is considered the aggressor. Second, the country whose satellites are under such a threat has the right of preemptive self-defense as a last resort to disable the threat . So, what should be the common understanding of the right to selfdefense under the charter as regards outer space? The self-defense doctrine for US policies in space and on Earth, as well as other nations’ policies, has long been strongly influenced by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.”40 Georgetown University professor of government and foreign service Anthony Arend stated, “Although the basic contours of Article 51 seem straightforward, its effect on the customary right of anticipatory self-defense is unclear.”41 There are two interpretations: restrictive and broad of “armed attack occurs” in Article 51. Legal scholars, who are proponents of a restrictive interpretation, allow self-defense only after attack has started. Other legal scholars take a broad view that the charter does not “impair the inherent right” embedded in the customary international laws, which allow anticipatory or preemptive self-defense if certain conditions are met. Typical conditions were suggested as far back as 1842 by US Secretary of State Daniel Webster in the Caroline case. Subsequently, jurists like Roberto Ago in 1980 came to a similar set of conditions: “necessity,” “proportionality,” and “immediacy.”42 The 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 confirmed the need of preemptive self-defense in specific situations and led to the 2002

US National Security Strategy: “For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack.”43 This premise should apply to preemptive self-defense against space stalkers as well because Ago’s three conditions are met.44 Thus, preemption against space stalkers would comply with the broad view of Article 51. However, for those insisting on its restrictive interpretation, the United States should respond that such an interpretation drafted in October

1945 understandably could not anticipate and counter the space stalker threat seven decades later. As quoted earlier, Russia and China observed that “the [United Nations] Charter was drafted before the space age” and that the “application of the provisions of the Charter” to “outer space development requires further elaboration and clarification .”45 Article 51 was designed against armed attack that takes time to prepare and gives warning by the massing of soldiers and weapon systems for an attack. The defender would have alternative responses, including the referral of the threat to the United Nations for peaceful resolution. Articles VI and VII of the Prevention Treaty also recommend “assistance of the executive organization of the Treaty, submitting relevant evidence for further consideration of the dispute, which includes

the claim that a violation of the Treaty is taking place.46 However, in the case of space stalkers, there is no time for referral and no means other than preemption to neutralize the imminent threat . In sum, the common understanding of the right to self-defense should include the preemption of space stalkers. Should Russia, China, and/or the United States reject such preemptive actions, they need to offer a viable alternative and explain why the alternative is more practical and effective than the one proposed here.

Solvency

Say NoChina says no---they’re locked into competitionTim Stickings, 19, 7-26-2019, "China admits space is the next frontier in 'international competition", [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7290205/China-admits-space-frontier-international-strategic-competition.html], AVD NCC Packet 2019

China has claimed that space is the next frontier in 'international strategic competition' and vowed to protect its national interests in space from being harmed by 'invaders', such as the U nited S tates. Beijing said on Wednesday that threats to China's space security were 'looming large' and safeguarding space security was key to its social prosperity and stability. China also admitted that its military power lagged 'far behind' the United States as it unveiled plans for a high-tech defensive force

in the country's first national defence white paper in seven years. China said in the document that Washington had greatly increased its military budget' and enhanced its presence in space. 'International strategic competition is on the rise , ' the report said, adding that Washington has been 'promoting unilateral policies, provoking and intensifying competition between major countries'. The wording is a clear reference to President Donald Trump and his 'America First' policy which has prompted tensions with China over trade policy. It also referred to Trump's plans for a military Space Force to defend America from advanced military threats. The official report, however, insisted that China would only use space peacefully. It elaborated: 'China is actively participating in international space cooperation, speeding up the development of relevant technologies and power, managing space-based information and resources, tracking and master the situation of space, safeguard the space assets, improving our abilities to safely enter and

leave as well as using space.' In the lengthy directive, Beijing defence chiefs also took aim at Washington for 'undermining global stability' and threatened to use force to reunify China and Taiwan. China's defence spending is second only to the United States but the report said the People's Liberation Army 'lags far behind the world's leading military

powers'. The plan also called for more cutting-edge technology in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to close the gap, including AI, cloud computing and 'intelligent' combat. U.S. President Trump wants an end to what he believes are unfair Chinese trade practices, including stealing intellectual property and unfairly subsidising its own industries. Beijing, in turn, wants greater access to U.S. markets. The trade war with China has seen Trump raise tariffs to 25 per cent on $200billion worth of Chinese

products. He has warned his opposite number, President Xi Jinping, that China 'will be hurt very badly' if it does not agree to a trade deal. War is evolving towards 'intelligent' combat, the Chinese defence paper said, citing a growing use of AI, big data, cloud computing and 'new and high-tech military technologies based on IT'. China's defence spending is second only to the United States, and it said earlier this year

it planned to raise it by 7.5 per cent in 2019, though the increase in expenditure has slowed as the economy has cooled in recent years. The PLA has been focused on catching up with technology used by armed forces in the U.S. and western Europe. It is reportedly building a third aircraft carrier as well as developing a new generation of destroyer vessels, stealth fighter jets and ballistic missiles.

There is immense competition which causes strategic ambiguity – US is taking a posture of offense based containment which spells distrust – uniqueness outweighs everything because of offensive space control – prefer this because it is about US violating arms control agreements which structures orbital politicsLee Billings, 8-10-2015, “War in Space May Be Closer Than Ever,” Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/war-in-space-may-be-closer-than-ever/. ZKMSU NCC Packet 2019

Meanwhile, shifts in U.S. policy are giving China and Russia more reasons for further suspicion . Congress has been pressing the U.S. national security community to turn its attentions to the role of offensive rather than defensive capabilities , even dictating that most of the fiscal year 2015 funding for the Pentagon’s Space Security and Defense Program go toward “development of offensive space control and active defense strategies and capabilities.” “ Offensive space control” is a clear reference to weapons . “Active defense” is much more nebulous, and refers to undefined offensive countermeasures that could be taken against an

attacker, further widening the routes by which space might soon become weaponized . If an imminent threat is perceived, a satellite or its operators might preemptively attack via dazzling lasers, jamming microwaves, kinetic bombardment or any other number of possible methods.

China says no – they want to be first to SBSPMike Consol 4-1-2019. ( Mike Consol. "Space-based solar: China aims to be first to launch orbiting solar farm capable of beaming electricity to earth-based power grids."

Institutional Real Estate, Inc.. Web. 4-1-2019. accessed 9-7-2019. &lt; https://irei.com/publications/article/space-based-solar-china-aims-first-launch-orbiting-solar-farm-capable-beaming-

electricity-earth-based-power-grids/ &gt;. Phops) NCC Packet 2019

China has announced plans to become the first nation to create a space-based solar energy farm that beams power to receiving stations on earth. Not only does the plan allow the space-based solar station to avoid cloud cover and other forms of inclement weather,

allowing it to collect the sun’s ray 24 hours per day, 365 days a year, it also gathers sunlight that is six-times as intense on earth-based solar farms. The plan, reported by China’s Science

and Technology Daily, calls for the first iteration of the plan to be a mid-sized solar power station to be orbiting 22,000 miles above the earth by 2021 and generating and transmitting power between 2021 and 2025. The solar energy

collected would be converted to electricity, then transmitted for use on earth via a laser beam or microwave. Assuming success, phase two will be a solar station capable of producing megawatts of power. That facility is scheduled for a 2030 construction date. Chinese researchers are also thinking in terms of building a space factory where robots and 3D printers will be used to build the power station in space. The point is to circumvent the need to launch

heavy components from earth. Li Ming, vice president of the China Academy of Space Technology, was quoted in the report claiming that he expects China to become the first country to build a space solar power station capable of delivering electricity to Earth , where it will be added to the electric grid. China is not alone in its ambitions. Last year, scientists from the California Institute of Technology said that they had created a prototype capable of harnessing and transmitting solar energy from space using lightweight tiles, according to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald. Scientists in Japan, India and European scientists are also working on ideas for solar-based power in space.

China Says no – They want SBSP dominance Eric Rosenbaum and,Donovan Russo 3-17-2019. ( Eric Rosenbaum,Donovan Russo. “China plans a solar power play in space that NASA abandoned decades ago.” CNBC. Web. 3-17-2019. accessed 9-7-2019. &lt;

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/15/china-plans-a-solar-power-play-in-space-that-nasa-abandoned-long-ago.html#targetText=The%20solar%20power%20station%20plans,plant%20in%20space%20by%202050. &gt;. Phops) NCC Packet 2019

China’s ambitions in space rival that of the U nited States. Its two main objectives were originally human spaceflight (accomplished in 2003) and a permanent Chinese space station, which is coming closer to

reality — it announced in early March that a manned space station similar to ISS is now on schedule for 2022, earlier than expected. As the two geopolitical foes increasingly turn their attention to a technological and military race beyond the earth’s atmosphere, space-based solar power projects are an overlooked, often criticized idea. But with China recently announcing that within the next decade it expects to finish the high voltage power transmission and wireless energy tests that would be needed for a space-based solar power system, the concept is likely to get renewed attention. All of the plans in the space race have potential implications for a

new military build-out in space of increasing relevance to the world’s powers. The Trump administration formalized plans in February for a branch of U.S. military known as the Space Force. The solar power station plans being contemplated by China include the launch of small- to medium-sized solar power projects in the stratosphere to generate electricity between 2021 and 2025, followed by a space-based solar power station that can generate at least a megawatt of electricity in 2030, and a commercial-scale solar power plant in space by 2050. This is not posturing; this is a real plan from serious organizations with revered scientists in China. They have a perfectly good technical plan, and they can do it by 2030. John Mankins PRESIDENT OF SPACE SYSTEMS AND

TECHNOLOGY FIRM ARTEMIS INNOVATION MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS “The dramatically stated interest on the part of the Chinese will do a lot to engender interest,” Mankins said. “Around a decade ago the Chinese started working seriously on this, and about five years ago they started coming to international meetings. Before that, they were in the dark. Now they are coming out of the shadows and talking much more openly about this.” He added, “There is absolutely progress from the Chinese at this point. This is not posturing; this is a real plan from serious organizations with revered scientists in China. They have a perfectly good technical plan, and they can do it by 2030,” Mankins said, describing a small-scale solar power project producing megawatts of electricity, but not a commercial-scale project able to produce gigawatts needed to compete with utilities. A space-based solar power station would capture the sun’s energy that never makes it to the planet and use laser beams to send the energy back to Earth to meet energy demand needs. China said in a recent announcement about the project that a big advantage of space-based solar power is its ability to offer energy supply on a constant basis and with greater intensity than terrestrial solar farms. One of the issues with renewable-energy projects like solar and wind power plants are their intermittency — that refers to the fact that the sun isn’t shining and the wind is not blowing 24-hours a day, limiting the periods of time during which these projects can be a source of power generation. A slide from a presentation Chinese scientists made in South Korea showing an early design idea for a solar power project in space that could beam energy back to the Earth. Mark Hopkins, National Space Society Space-based solar would not only offer a solution to intermittency, but also delivery. Today, utility power generation is regional, if not local, but electricity generated in space and near the equator could be beamed

almost anywhere across the globe, except for the poles. “You could beam electricity from Canada to the Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America from a satellite at equator,” Mankins said. Roughly one billion people live in the Americas. Hopkins said the current Chinese view is, “We want to be major dominant power in space solar power by 2050. This has the potential to really turn the geopolitics in our favor if we are a leader, so let’s look at it seriously .” Meanwhile,

the U.S. says, “Are you kidding? Let’s worry about something else.”

Say no – China works alone – 6 warrantsChoice, History of exclusion, overall relations, secrecy, anti-reciprocity, Cox

Johnson-Freese, Joan (2004) chair of the Naval War College’s National Security Decision Making Department "Space Wei Qi—The Launch of Shenzhou V," Naval War College Review: Vol. 57 : No. 2 ,

Article 7. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2268&context=nwc-review NCC Packet 2019

Working alone was in part a matter of choice , and in part the result of China’s early exclusion from cooperative American outreach programs for historical reasons ranging from Mao’s outrageous statements on the viability of nuclear war to the

Cultural Revolution, human rights, and Tiananmen Square. That exclusion has been perpetuated by a combination of factors, including

the overall status of U.S.-China political relations; the penchant of the Chinese for secrecy and their disinclination for reciprocal information sharing; the fact that the Chinese program was a completely military enterprise until 1998; and residual issues and

attitudes from the Cox Committee Report. Further, until recently there was a strong feeling that China did not have much to offer in terms of either money or space technology.

No SpilloverNo spillover---empirics, ideology, territory claimsEric R. Sterner, 15, 8-6-2015, Fellow at the George C. Marshall Institute. He held senior staff positions for the U.S. House Science and Armed Services committees and served in DoD and as NASA’s associate deputy administrator for policy and planning, "China, Talk and Cooperation in Space", [https://spacenews.com/op-ed-china-talk-and-cooperation-in-space/], AVD NCC Packet 2019

How might cooperation with China benefit the United States? Some hold that cooperation in space helps promote cooperation on Earth . Writing in SpaceNews in 2013, Michael Krepon argued “The more they cooperate in space, the less likely it is that their competition on Earth will result in military confrontation. The reverse is also true.” That sentiment is widespread and flows from the

nobility of exploration. If only it were so. Unfortunately , a country’s space behavior appears to have little affect on its terrestrial actions. Russia’s multidecadal human spaceflight partnership with the United States did not prevent it from invading and destabilizing Ukraine when it moved toward a closer relationship with the European

Union, many of whose members are Russian partners in the International Space Station. Space cooperation has not, and will not, prevent the continued worsening of the security environment in Europe, which flows from Russian behavior on Earth, not in space . Space cooperation with China is similarly unlikely to moderate its behavior. Tensions in Asia derive from China’s insistence on pressing unlawful territorial claims in the Pacific, most recently by transforming disputed coral reefs into would-be military bases. Ironically, civilian space technology has proved critical in documenting these aggressive moves. To further demonstrate

the civil space cooperation does not promote cooperation on Earth, we need look no further than recent history. The NASA administrator’s visit to China in the fall of 2014 nearly coincided with China’s hacking of NOAA, with whom Beijing has a “partnership” in studying climate change. Military confrontation flows from the interaction of hard power in pursuit of competing national interests. Space cooperation falls into the realm of soft power. It has value in strengthening relationships among like-minded states with similar interests . China’s aggressiveness toward its neighbors, its human rights record and its cyberattacks on the United States strongly demonstrate that it and the United States are not of like minds. This is not the result of insufficient space cooperation, but of divergent national interests. The United States is a status quo power;

China is not. A U.S.-China dialog on space matters can be valuable. Both countries have interests in collision avoidance, debris mitigation and promotion of the open language of science. Greater transparency into Chinese antisatellite

activities, of which there are many, would be welcome by many in the international community. There is, however, little compelling reason for those discussions to evolve into civil space cooperation. With that in mind, congressional oversight will be critical to ensure that the State Department’s “regular bilateral governmental consultations” do not take on a life of their own or create misguided momentum toward an institutional partnership of space programs. The Apollo 17 astronauts left a plaque on the moon

that read, “May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind.” It is not a sentiment China shares. Until Beijing subscribes to that philosophy, the U.S.-Chinese space agenda should remain in the realm of conversation and information exchanges, staying away from true cooperation.

SBSP FailsSBSP doesn’t work and won’t be adopted---configuration, cost and physicsEvan Long, 17, 12-12-2017, Associate Consultant at Bain & Company and Leader of the Stanford Space Initiative, "The Challenges of Space-Based Solar Power", [http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph240/long2/], AVD NCC Packet 2019

The Sun's rays contain approximately one kilowatt per square meter of energy when they reach the Earth's surface. This number varies by latitude and altitude; the Equator receives the most direct sunlight, where the poles receive very little, and a solar panel at sea level will produce measurably less energy than one positioned atop a nearby mountain. Thus, an optimally

positioned photovoltaic cell would be located several thousand feet about sea level in the tropics. Yet no matter how high a solar panel is placed , large improvements in power output still remain impossible by conventional means. The Earth's atmosphere diverts or absorbs the vast majority of photons and energy dispatched by our Sun, severely handicapping any terrestrial solar energy collection method. Numerous scientists, engineers, and environmentalists have proposed space-based solar power as an alternative to traditional terrestrial photovoltaic collection. See Fig. 1 for a basic schematic; the concept involves a large solar array in geostationary orbit, beaming energy to the ground via microwaves to a collector "rectenna." A pilot beam is also included to assist in the alignment of the satellite and collector. By placing the collector above the atmosphere, losses in solar energy due to atmospheric interference can be avoided. Moreover, the satellite's daily solar exposure time depends heavily on the orbit in which it is placed; a 24-hour daily exposure

time is possible with a satellite placed far enough from Earth, though this complicates transmission. Yet a space-based solar system also presents a massive array of challenges, in the areas of configuration, cost, and physics . We will explore

all three categories. Configuration Like any satellite, a space-based solar array could be placed in multiple orbits. Low earth orbit, commonly abbreviated LEO , is much easier to reach than other orbit types . A standard LEO altitude would be around 500 km. At this altitude, a satellite zips by at 7 km/s relative to observers on the ground, appearing for only six

minutes over the horizon. This makes it difficult to transfer to the ground whatever energy the satellite may have collected. Moreover, a satellite in LEO still spends a great deal of time in the Earth's shadow, nullifying a critical advantage of space-based power. Our 500 km orbit still spends about 38% of its time collecting no power, only a slight improvement over a terrestrial system. [1]

We may also consider a geostationary orbit. Geostationary orbits are significantly higher than LEO, about 42,000 km above

Earth's surface, about 6.5 times Earth's radius. Such orbits are harder to achieve , and a rocket than can carry some amount of payload to LEO is only capable of carrying a fraction of that to geostationary orbit. They have the significant advantage of being over a single point at all times, making energy transfer more simple, and their distance from the Earth means that they spend only about 1% of the time in

shadow. [2] It seems that the difficulty of access would be justified by the decreased technical complexity and additional power output. Cost The key barrier to implementation of space-based solar is the literally sky-high cost of launch. Unfortunately, information on the size and configuration of payload space on common rockets is not publicly

available, as it is competition-sensitive. However, we can assume that establishing any space-based solar platform would require numerous launches of moderate-sized rockets; these range from approximately $60 million per launch for a SpaceX Falcon 9 to $200 million for a United Launch Alliance Delta IV. Present electricity rates are on the order of $0.10 per kWh; the provider would have to sell between 0.6-2 gigawatt-hours of energy just to recoup the price of launch. This is prohibitive. Physics An estimation of the price of space-based solar energy relies on a better

understanding of the physics of light transmission through an atmosphere and the performance of terrestrial solar panels. Typical panels are collecting light about 29% of the time, due to day and night cycles, positioning, and weather. As noted above, a collection satellite in GEO is illuminated 99% of the time; our current factor of improvement is therefore 3.4. Moreover, with no atmosphere to interfere with light transmission from the sun, light intensity in orbit is 144% that available on Earth. Considering both duration and intensity, our total factor of improvement for light received per unit area is 4.9 2. [2] In other words, five square meters of a terrestrial panel produce the same energy as one in orbit. Given the costs, difficulty, and hazards of placing these panels in space, it is difficult to imagine widespread adoption given that the improvement is a factor of five - even before we consider losses from transmission to ground . Conclusion The factors outlined above make it clear that s pace-based solar power is not a n immediate solution to our energy challenges. High costs

and unproven technology (the microwave transmission system) stand in the way, and the increase in power generation is not nearly enough to justify the effort.

EfficiencySBSP efficiency is only 50%---weather, dishes and beamsTom Murphy, 12, 3-20-2012, Professor in the physics department at UCSD, and the Associate Director of CASS, the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, working on an ultra-precise test of General Relativity using the technique of lunar laser ranging, "Space-Based Solar Power", [https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/], AVD NCC Packet 2019

Power Transmission Now here’s the tricky part. Getting the power back to the ground is non-trivial. We are accustomed to using copper wire for power transmission. For the space-Earth interconnect, we must resort to electromagnetic means. Most discussions of electromagnetic power transmission centers on lasers or microwaves. I’ll immediately dismiss lasers as impractical for this purpose, because clouds block transmission, because converting the power into electricity is not as direct/efficient as it can be for microwaves, and because generation of laser power tends to be inefficient (my laser pointer is

about 2%, for instance, though one can do far better). So let’s go microwave ! For reasons that will become clear later, we want the highest frequency (shortest wavelength) we can get without losing too much in the atmosphere. Below is a plot generated from an interactive tool associated with the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (where I had my first Mauna Kea observing experience). This plot corresponds to a dry sky with only 2.0 mm of precipitable

water vapor. Even so, water takes its toll, absorbing/scattering the high-frequency radiation so that the fraction transmitted through the atmosphere is tiny. Only at frequencies of 100 GHz and below does the atmosphere become nearly transparent. But if we have 25 mm of precipitable water (and thick clouds have far more than this ), we get the following picture, which is already down to 75% transmission at 100 GHz. Our system is not entirely immune to clouds and weather . But we will go with 100 GHz and see what this gets us. Note that even though microwave ovens use a much lower frequency of 2.45 GHz (λ = 122 mm), the same dielectric heating mechanism operates at 100 GHz (peaking around 10 GHz). In order to evade both water absorption and dielectric heating, we would have to drop the frequency to the radio regime. At 100 GHz, the wavelength is about λ ≈ 3 mm. In order to transmit a microwave beam to the ground, one

must contend with the diffractive nature of electromagnetic radiation. If we formed a perfectly collimated (parallel) beam of microwave energy from a dish in space with diameter Ds—where the ‘s’ subscript represents the space segment—we might naively anticipate the perfectly-formed beam to arrive at Earth still fitting in a tidy diameter Ds. But no. Diffraction imposes an angular spread of about λ/Ds radians, so that the beam spreads to a diameter at the ground, Dg ≈ rλ/Ds, where r is the distance between transmitter and receiver (about 36,000 km in our case). We can rearrange this to say that the product of the diameters of the transmitter and receiver dishes must approximately equal the product of the propagation distance and the wavelength: DsDg ≈ rλ So? Well,

let’s first say that Ds and Dg are the same. In this case, we would require the diameter of each dish to be 330 m . These are gigantic, especially in space. Note also that really we need Dg = Ds + rλ/Ds to account for the original extent of the beam before diffraction spreads it

further. So really, the one on Earth would be 660 m across. Launching a microwave dish this large should strike anyone as prohibitively difficult , so let’s scale back to a more imaginable Ds = 30 m (still quite impressive), in which case our ground-based receiver must be 3.6 km in diameter! Now you can see why I wanted to keep the frequency high, rather than dipping into the radio, where dishes would need only

get bigger in proportion to the wavelength. Converting Back to Electrical Power At microwave frequencies, it is straightforward to directly rectify the oscillating electric field into direct current at something like 85% efficiency . The generation

of beamed microwave energy in space, the capture of the energy at the ground, then conversion to electrical current all take their toll, so that the end- to-end process may be expected to have something in the neighborhood of 50% efficiency .

TrumperAFF Fails- need a conducive political climate- Trump won’t cooperateKirk Nankivell, 12-31-2018, “Why the Future of Solar Power Is from Space”, Singularity Hub, 8-17-2019, https://singularityhub.com/2018/12/31/why-the-future-of-solar-power-is-from-space/, MJD NCC Packet 2019

The Future of Solar Energy SBSP’s ability to provide clean, reliable power for the planet 24/7 at a cheaper cost than any other energy source is real. It will take decades of investment, building, testing, and successful implementation before the system can begin to recoup its initial costs. Isaac Arthur explores this concept in this incredibly informative video, and looks beyond the next decade of where this

exponential technology can take us. Nonetheless, one key component to moving SBSP forward as the de facto energy source is the right political climate, including leaders to drive this innovation. Bruce Dorminey from Forbes sums up

this general sentiment to any future world leaders by stating: If President Trump were to champion space-based solar energy as a means of delivering unlimited, renewable electricity from Earth orbit, it’s arguable that his administration could leave the US and the world at large with a revolutionary new source of energy . Where Do We Go from Here? Politics aside, if we get SBSP (or nuclear fusion) successfully running in the next decade, some of these sci-fi concepts could become reality: Space elevators and space towers Orbital rings – utilizes space elevators to create a ring around the earth as a space station for cheap movement of cargo and space exploration Dyson spheres – a gigantic shell-like megastructure that encloses an entire star, capturing all its energy output Matrioshka brains – a layered Dyson sphere setup built to turn stars into massive computers by utilizing all the stars’ energy output Ringworlds – artificially-created colossal planets that utilize an entire

star You get the point… While there are still many unknown factors related to SBSP and its implementation in the coming years, one thing is certain: political implications in the energy sphere will be critical for SBSP to expand beyond the concept phase and into a new type of reliable renewable energy. Ushering this new phase of energy into the world would change society in profound ways.