AFF

Background about the CAT

In April 2018, President Trump issued a national security presidential memorandum replacing a
January 2014 presidential policy directive which specified the goals and requirements of the
arms sales process. You can view the new presidential memo here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/national-security-presidential-memorandum-
regarding-u-s-conventional-arms-transfer-policy/

This policy change is frequently called the “Conventional Arms Transfer Policy.”
This brief from the Arms Control Association provides a succinct overview regarding how these
changes will influence arms sales: https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2018-06/trump-
favors-arms-industry-effort-loosen-export-controls

Special thanks for the following students from the MPP lab:

Finn

Vlada

Jason

Yenni

Aaron

Jack

Mina

Olivia

Parks
1AC Cards
 Instability Advantage
Trump’s conventional arms transfer policy will greatly expand the pace of arms
exports while gutting oversight – ensures weapons flow to dangerous actors
and HR violators
Brian Chang, 12/20/17, Just Security, “By weakening arms export controls, trump’s national
security strategy will create national and global insecurity,”
https://www.justsecurity.org/49873/weakening-arms-export-controls-trumps-national-security-
strategy-create-national-global-insecurity/, mm
The Trump Administration’s newly launched National Security Strategy will draw a lot of critiques of Trump’s foreign policy
worldview and prescriptions, but not of its implications for arms control or human rights. One important aspect of the 67-page
strategy document that is unlikely to get the sustained attention it deserves is how the Trump administration’s
proposals
to weaken arms export controls will lead to national and international insecurity, and contribute
to violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. The Trump administration’s policy of
increasing arms exports and its attempts to rewrite US arms export regulations and processes, are a scandal that has not received
the attention it deserves in the present news cycle. Trump’s
National Security Strategy could result in the
transfer of arms to autocratic regimes that use them to violate human rights, or the diversion of
arms to actors that might use them against US security forces, or those of US allies. Individual sales
proposals and policy reform proposals over the past year have been troubling enough, but the National Security Strategy confirms
that these were not exceptions, but part of a broader policy of encouraging the export of US military equipment to strengthen the
US defense industrial base, which does not give adequate consideration to potential impacts on human rights or national and
international security. In the first 11 months of 2017, the Trump administration notified Congress of arms transfers valued at $80.7
billion, which is almost double the amount the Obama administration sold in the same period in 2016 ($58.6b). This included
approvals of arms transfers that the Obama administration had previously blocked on human rights grounds after much effort by
advocacy groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Military aircraft and bombs have been sold to air forces
that face credible allegations of unnecessarily bombing civilians, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Nigeria. The Trump
administration has also proposed to or has already sold guns to countries with problematic human
rights records including Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Turkey, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia
and the Philippines. Very few of these irresponsible arms deals have received widespread public attention or pushback. Given
the Trump administration’s stated National Security Strategy of encouraging arms exports and weakening export controls, these
sales are likely to be the mere first rumblings of an avalanche of arms sales to rogue actors and
human rights violators. Too little attention has been focused on the Trump administration’s review of US arms export
controls, which is primarily focused on promoting the competitiveness of the US defense industry by “removing unreasonable
constraints on the ability of [US] companies to compete,” according to National Security Council (NSC) sources. Another justification
for the review is to “strengthen the defense capabilities of US allies” which is driven by the desire to create “high-quality American
jobs,” although arms control advocates have shown that investments in defense creates less jobs than investments in health care,
clean energy, education or even tax cuts. Although the NSC pays lip service to the importance of ensuring that arms export controls
are not removed at the expense of US foreign policy interests, the review is clearly supported by lobbyists for the defense industry
and gun manufacturers. Trump has also personally linked arms sales with trade imbalances, most recently signaling to Vietnam that
he wants them to buy more US arms to reduce the US.-Vietnam trade deficit. The Trump administration’s review of US arms export
controls includes proposals to weaken specific export controls over a diverse array of weaponry ranging from small arms to drones.
In short, the Trump administration intends to change export regulations so that gun manufacturers can export without adequate
background checks on the countries or security forces purchasing them, even as we mourn the victims of gun violence linked to the
inadequacy of background checks here in the US. It has been reported that the Trump administration intends to shift some
gun and small arms sales from the US Munitions List to the Commerce Control List soon, with reports
indicating that the administration is close to finalizing proposed new rules. Although advocacy and reporting
on this proposal have been hindered by a lack of transparency, this has not stopped a small group of dedicated arms control
advocates from highlighting that the anticipated changes
are likely to remove Congressional notification
requirements for arms sales, remove State Department oversight that ensures these exports
take into account national security, foreign policy and human rights considerations, and
ultimately make it much easier for small arms manufacturers to obtain licenses to sell abroad,
with less accountability if the guns end up in the wrong hands. Of arguably greater concern than the rollbacks
of individual export controls described above, the Trump administration has signaled its intent to revise the
International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the principal, overarching regulation governing arms exports. While public details
remain scarce, pro-arms export officials from the NSC and State Department are emphasizing “export competitiveness” as the
principal motive behind the review, a motive confirmed by the National Security Strategy. Arms
control advocates are
particularly concerned that the result of this rewrite could be that vetting criteria mandating
consideration of human rights concerns will be eliminated and replaced with vetting criteria
emphasizing the desirability of arms exports. The consequences of poorly regulated arms flows
are devastating, with tens of thousands of people dying each year due to the widespread availability of
weapons on black markets. In Iraq alone, poorly regulated US arms transfers ended up providing ISIS with the weapons to commit
mass atrocities in Iraq and Syria, while also supplying paramilitary militias with the weapons to abduct, “disappear,” torture and
execute thousands of mainly Sunni men and boys. US-made weapons are also being used to enforce the Saudi-led siege of Yemen,
where thousands of civilians are being needlessly starved and bombed, in flagrant disregard of international and US arms export
control law. The Trump administration should be fighting to end the bloodshed in Yemen and US complicity in human rights
violations by threatening to end arms sales to members of the Saudi-led coalition, rather than threatening to weaken human rights
provisions in the oversight of arms exports.

This policy shift will trigger arms races and interstate conflicts
John Haltiwanger, 9/30/17, Newsweek, “trump will fuel war across world by increasing US
global arms sales,” https://www.newsweek.com/trump-will-fuel-war-across-world-increasing-
us-global-arms-sales-674586, mm

President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to roll back restrictions on U.S. arms sales abroad, despite the
fact he's already selling record numbers of weapons to other countries. Trump is planning to make these
changes via an executive order or memorandum at some point this fall, Politico reports. In doing so, experts worry the Trump
administration will both intensify existing conflicts and spark new ones across the globe. "The
transfer of arms and the process of arms racing has been a long-standing reason that conflicts
begin, spread, and escalate," Dr. Brandon Valeriano, Donald Bren Chair of Armed Politics at Marine Corps University, tells
Newsweek. "New weapons give states the confidence they might not otherwise have to launch or exacerbate ongoing antagonisms
and hatreds. This new expansion of our effort to promote the transfer of arms will have devastating effects on the international
community and will be the root of the evil that will spread throughout the system," Valeriano adds. But the Trump administration is
seemingly more concerned with the economic benefits of increasing arms sales than the overall impact it might have on the wider
world. "Thepresence of weapons almost always exacerbates conflict, particularly in places of
existing conflict or rising tension... The Trump administration is sending a clear signal that profit, not people, is what
matters most to this government," says Allison Pytlak, a program manager in the disarmament program of the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom. "The implications will be felt by the people living in countries and cities that are
already drowning in weapons." The National Security Council confirmed to Politico Trump has "undertaken a review of our policy on
arms sales and wherever possible is working to remove unreasonable constraints on the ability of our companies to compete."
Generally, the president wants to make it easier for American arms manufacturers to sell to international buyers and is also looking
at revamping export regulations on drone technology. On the latter point, some experts say Trump might be onto something. "An
increased willingness by the United States to export drones to responsible countries can help advance US security goals of building
the capacity of allies and partners, and in a way that enhances interoperability with the United States military," says Dr. Michael C.
Horowitz, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. "U.S. exports also make it more likely that countries will
use their drones in a way that complies with the law of war, due to the training and support that goes along with U.S. drone
exports." Thus, there is arguably at least some merit in increasing drone exports. From a broader standpoint, however, reducing
restrictions on arms exports overseas is a slippery slope. The U.S. has long been the world's number one exporter of arms and
Trump has built on this precedent in a massive way since entering the White House. The Obama administration was hardly reserved
when it came to international arms deals, but Trump is poised to outsell his predecessor on a historic scale, according to recent data
on weapons sales. In the first eight months of 2017, Trump almost doubled the total value of U.S. arms sales (to $48 billion) than
under Obama during the same period in 2016. Moreover, Trump could be complicit in war crimes due to some of the arms sales he's
already made. In Yemen, for example, it was recently discovered a U.S.-made bomb was used by the Saudi-led coalition in a strike
last month that killed civilians, including children. It's possible this bomb was sold via deals made under Obama, but the larger point
is Trump's apparent determination to sell more and more arms arguably increases the probability he'll be linked to atrocities
committed by other countries. "In the context of horrific human rights abuses in the Middle East region, we're very concerned about
the possibility of easing restrictions on U.S. weapons sales overseas," Raed Jarrar, Amnesty International's advocacy director for the
Middle East and North Africa, tells Newsweek. "There is damning evidence that many recipients of U.S. weapons in the Middle East -
- such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel -- are already involved in serious violations of human rights and international law. A
decision to reduce restrictions on global arms sales by the U.S. will be "perceived by foreign
governments as a green light to continue, if not increase, their disregard to human rights," Jarrar
adds. This is precisely why there are restrictions on arms sales in the first place -- to avoid inflaming conflicts, limit the potential for
human rights violations and keep weapons out of the hands of dictators. "Arms should only be given to those states that are
responsible, careful, and judicious in their use of weapons. Are we convinced that we can trust those that will receive these weapons
to be as precise and careful?" says Valeriano. In the past, arms the U.S. has sold to foreign governments have also ended up in the
hands of terrorists -- including ISIS -- because America didn't have stricter regulations and safeguards in place. In this sense, rolling
back restrictions is arguably very dangerous. Trump's plan to ease restrictions could certainly create more jobs domestically, but is it
worth the chaos it could potentially induce abroad? The concerns surrounding this move are compounded by the fact the Trump
administration is also dropping record numbers of bombs on targets in the Middle East, which has led to a marked increase in
civilian casualties compared to during Obama's tenure.

We control multiple internal links to global instability – blowback,

entanglement and regional conflicts
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute-, Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm
Though arms sales are of marginal value to national security and the pursuit of national interests, their negative consequences are
varied and often severe. Arms sales can spawn unwanted outcomes on three levels: blowback against the
United States and entanglement in conflicts; regional consequences in the buyer’s neighborhood, such as the
dispersion of weapons and increased instability; and consequences for the buyer itself, such as increased levels of
corruption, human rights abuses, and civil conflict. Effects on the United States. Though the goal of arms sales is to promote
American security and U.S. interests abroad, at least two possible outcomes can cause serious consequences for the United States.
The first of these — blowback — occurs when a former ally turns into an adversary and uses the weapons against the United States.
The second — entanglement — is a process whereby an arms sales relationship draws the United States into a greater level of
unwanted intervention. Blowback. The fact that the United States has sold weapons to almost every
nation on earth, combined with frequent military intervention, means that blowback is an
inescapable outcome of U.S. arms sales policy. American troops and their allies have faced
American-made weapons in almost every military engagement since the end of the Cold War,
including in Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria. And even where the United States has not
yet engaged in combat, American arms sales have bolstered the military capabilities of
adversaries once counted as friendly. Blowback can occur in at least three ways. First, a
previously friendly regime becomes unfriendly. For example, the United States sold billions of dollars in weapons to
the Shah of Iran during the 1970s in the hopes that Iran would provide a stabilizing influence on the Middle East. The sales included
everything from fighter jets for air campaigns to surface-to-air missiles to shoot down enemy fighters.70 After the 1979 revolution,
however, Iran used those weapons in its war with Iraq and enabled the new Iranian regime to exert its influence in the region.
Panama, the recipient of decades of American military assistance, as well as host to a major military base and 9,000 U.S. troops, was
a similar case. In 1989, Gen. Manuel Noriega — himself a CIA asset for more than 20 years — took power and threatened U.S.
citizens, prompting a U.S. invasion that featured American troops facing American weapons.71 Blowback
also occurs when
the United States sells weapons to nations (or transfers them to nonstate actors) that, though not allies, simply
did not register as potential adversaries at the time of the sale. The United States, for example, sold surface-
to-air missiles, towed guns, tanks, and armored personnel carriers to Somalia during the 1980s. Few officials would have imagined
that the United States would find itself intervening in Somalia in 1992, or that the United States and its allies would provide billions
in weapons and dual-use equipment to Iraq in an effort to balance against Iran, only to wind up confronting Iraq on the battlefield to
reverse its annexation of Kuwait.72 And
finally, blowback can occur when U.S. weapons are sold or stolen
from the government that bought them and wind up on the battlefield in the hands of the
adversary. For example, the Reagan administration covertly provided Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen, who were fighting the
Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s; they in turn sold them off eventually to Iran and North Korea, among others. More recently,
the Islamic State managed to capture from the Iraqi government a stunning number of Humvees and tanks the United States had
sold to Iraq to rebuild its military capabilities after the 2003 invasion, as well as enough small arms and ammunition to supply three
divisions of a conventional army.73 These
examples of blowback demonstrate how difficult it can be to
forecast the long-term outcomes of arms sales and how obvious it is that selling weapons carries
a number of risks. Predicting what exactly will happen is hard, but predicting that arms sales to clients with
red flags are likely to end badly is quite easy. Iraq was a fragile state ravaged by a decade’s worth of American
intervention and rife with terrorism and civil conflict; to transfer such large quantities of weapons to its military and police force
under such conditions was to invite disaster. Entanglement. Arms sales raise the risk of entanglement in two
ways. First, they can represent early steps down the slippery slope to unwise military
intervention. Consider a case like the Syrian civil war or the many cases during the Cold War in which the United States wanted
to support rebels and freedom fighters against oppressive governments.74 In the majority of those cases, American leaders were
wary of intervening directly. Instead, the United States tended to rely on money, training, and arms sales. But
by taking
concrete steps like arms sales to support rebel groups, Washington’s psychological investment
in the outcome tends to rise, as do the political stakes for the president, who will be judged on whether his efforts at
support are successful or not. As we saw in the Syrian civil war, for example, Barack Obama’s early efforts to arm Syrian rebels were
roundly criticized as feckless, increasing pressure on him to intervene more seriously.75 History does not provide much guidance
about how serious the risk of this form of entanglement might be. During the Cold War, presidents from Nixon onward viewed arms
sales as a substitute for sending American troops to do battle with communist forces around the world. The result was an
astonishing amount of weaponry transferred or sold to Third World nations, many of which were engaged in active conflicts both
external and internal. The risk of superpower conflict made it dangerous to intervene directly; accordingly, the Cold War-era risk of
entanglement from arms sales was low.76 Today, however, the United States does not face nearly as many constraints on its
behavior, as its track record of near-constant military intervention since the end of the Cold War indicates. As a result, the risk of
arms sales helping trigger future military intervention is real, even if it cannot be measured precisely. The
second way in
which arms sales might entangle the United States is by creating new disputes or exacerbating
existing tensions. U.S. arms sales to Kurdish units fighting in Syria against the Islamic State, for example, have ignited tensions
between the United States and its NATO ally Turkey, which sees the Kurds as a serious threat to Turkish sovereignty and stability.77
Meanwhile, ongoing arms sales to NATO nations and to other allies like South Korea and Taiwan have exacerbated tensions with
Russia, China, and North Korea, raising the risk of escalation and the possibility that the United States might wind up involved in a
direct conflict.78 Regional Effects. Arms sales do not just affect the recipient nation; they also affect the
local balance of power, often causing ripple effects throughout the region. Though advocates of arms
sales trumpet their stabilizing influence, as we have noted above, arms sales often lead to greater tension, less
stability, and more conflict. Because of this — and the complementary problem of weapons dispersion — the regional
impact of arms sales is less predictable and more problematic than advocates acknowledge.
Instability, Violence, and Conflict. First, arms sales can make conflict more likely.79 This may occur because
recipients of new weapons feel more confident about launching attacks or because changes in
the local balance of power can fuel tensions and promote preventive strikes by others. A study of
arms sales from 1950 to 1995, for example, found that although arms sales appeared to have some restraining
effect on major-power allies, they had the opposite effect in other cases, and concluded that “increased arms transfers
from major powers make states significantly more likely to be militarized dispute initiators.”80
Another study focused on sub-Saharan Africa from 1967 to 1997 found that “arms transfers are significant and positive predictors of
increased probability of war.”81 Recent history provides supporting evidence for these findings: since 2011, Saudi Arabia, the
leading buyer of American weapons, has intervened to varying degrees in Yemen, Tunisia, Syria, and Qatar. Second, arms sales
can also prolong and intensify ongoing conflicts and erode rather than promote regional
stability. Few governments, and fewer insurgencies, have large enough weapons stocks to fight for long without resupply.82 The
tendency of external powers to arm the side they support, however understandable strategically, has the
inevitable result of allowing the conflict to continue at a higher level of intensity than would
otherwise be the case. As one study of arms sales to Africa notes, “Weapons imports are essential additives in this recipe for
armed conflict and carnage.”83 Third, this dynamic appears to be particularly troublesome with respect to
internal conflicts. Jennifer Erickson, for example, found that recipients of major conventional weapons are 70 percent more
likely to engage in internal conflicts than other states. Though halting arms sales alone is not a panacea for peace and stability, arms
embargoes can help lessen the destructiveness of combat in both civil and interstate wars simply by restricting access to the means
of violence.84 Finally, because
of their effects on both interstate and internal conflict, arms sales can
also erode rather than promote regional stability. As noted in the previous section, where the United States seeks
to manage regional balances of power, arms sales often create tension, whether because the American role in the region threatens
others or because American clients feel emboldened. The
Middle East, for example, has seesawed between
violence and tense standoffs for the past many decades, at first because of Cold War competition and more
recently because of the American war on terror. The notion that increased U.S. arms sales since 9/11 made the Middle East more
stable is far-fetched to say the least. Similarly, though many argue that American security commitments to countries like Japan,
Taiwan, and South Korea have produced greater stability, there is a strong case to be made that the opposite is now true. American
support of South Korea has driven North Korea to develop nuclear weapons; the presence of U.S. missile defense systems in South
Korea has aggravated China, and American support of Taiwan produces continual tension between the two powers.85 Dispersion.
The United States uses a number of procedures to try to ensure that the weapons it sells actually go to authorized customers and to
monitor the end use of the weapons so that they do not wind up being used for nefarious purposes. The Department of State even
compiles a list of banned countries, brokers, and customers. But most of these tools have proved ineffectual.86 Programs like Blue
Lantern and Golden Sentry aim to shed light on the service life of American weapons sold abroad through end-use monitoring.87
While the description of U.S. end-use monitoring (“pre-license, post-license/pre-shipment, and post-shipment”) sounds
comprehensive, it’s actually anything but. In fiscal year 2016, the agency in charge of approving and monitoring arms sales, the
Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), authorized 38,398 export-license applications — down more than 50 percent from
2012 after the government shifted some weapons to the Department of Commerce’s purview.88 To oversee more than 35,000
export licenses annually, the DDTC has a full-time staff of only 171 people. The Blue Lantern program is executed by embassy staff in
recipient countries but administered back in Washington by only nine State Department employees and three contractors.89 Twelve
people can’t possibly track everything that happens to billions of dollars’ worth of advanced weaponry transferred to dozens of
countries abroad each year. Nor is the process designed to correct problems. On one hand, end-use violations can result in
individuals and companies being prevented from making future purchases. On the other hand, there
is no evidence that
end-use monitoring has changed the pattern of American arms sales in any way. The United States in
truth has little or no control over what happens to the weapons it sells to other nations. The result is that year after year weapons of
all kinds end up falling into the hands of unreliable, risky, or just plain bad actors, at which point they’re used in ways neither the
United States nor its customers intended. American weapons have frequently wound up being used against Americans in combat.
And even more often, local and regional actors, including criminal gangs, have employed them in their own conflicts. In civil wars,
regime collapse, or other extreme cases, factions steal weapons and use them for their own purposes, as ISIS did in Iraq.90 Iraq, as
previously noted, provides an excellent case study in the inability of the United States to prevent dispersion. As part of U.S. efforts to
rebuild Iraq’s military and security capabilities after the 2003 invasion, the United States sent Iraq roughly $2.5 billion worth of
American weapons through 2014, including everything from small arms to “armored personnel carriers, military helicopters,
transport aircraft, anti-tank missiles, tanks, artillery and drones.” 91 Despite the presence of thousands of U.S. troops in-country and
the very close relationship between those troops and their Iraqi counterparts, many of those weapons went missing. Between 2003
and 2008 alone, 360,000 out of 1 million small arms disappeared, along with 2,300 Humvees. A sizable chunk of this weaponry
would later end up in the hands of ISIS. The Iraqi army, trained and equipped by the American military, dissolved when faced by ISIS
and left their weapons behind for the terrorist group to pick up and use for conquering and holding territory. A UN Security Council
report found that in June 2014 alone “ISIS seized sufficient Iraqi government stocks from the provinces of Anbar and Salah al-Din to
arm and equip more than three Iraqi conventional army divisions.”92 Data collected by Conflict Armament Research in July and
August of 2014 showed that 20 percent of ISIS’s ammunition was manufactured in the United States — likely seized from Iraqi
military stocks.93 In short, dispersion enabled the spread of ISIS and dramatically raised the costs and dangers of confronting the
group on the battlefield. Regime Effects. Finally,
arms sales can also have deleterious effects on recipient
nations — promoting government oppression, instability, and military coups. As part of the war on drugs,
America inadvertently enabled the practice of forced disappearances. In the cases of Colombia, the Philippines, and Mexico,
American weapons feed a dangerous cycle of corruption and oppression involving the police, the military, and political leaders.94
Though the United States provides weapons to Mexico ostensibly for counternarcotics operations, the arms transferred to the
country often end up being used by police to oppress citizens, reinforcing the “climate of generalized violence in the country [that]
carries with it grave consequences for the rule of law.”95 Similarly, in Colombia and the Philippines the United States has supplied
arms in an effort to support governments against external threats or internal factions and to combat drug trafficking, but with mixed
results. A study of military aid to Colombia found that “in environments such as Colombia, international military assistance can
strengthen armed nonstate actors, who rival the government over the use of violence.”96 Recent research reveals that
American assistance programs, like foreign military officer training, can increase the likelihood of military
coups. U.S. training programs frequently bought by other nations, most notably International Military Education and Training
(IMET), gave formal training to the leaders of the 2009 Honduran coup, the 2012 Mali coup, and the 2013 Egyptian coup.97 In these
cases, the training that was supposed to stabilize the country provided military leaders with the tools to overthrow the government
they were meant to support.

Every sale matters – only a dramatic reduction in exports can reduce the
probability of instability and war
A. Trevor Thrall and Jordan Cohen, 4/5/19, Defense One, “the false promises of trump’s arms
sales,” https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/04/false-promises-trumps-arms-
sales/156071/, mm

U.S. export deals are undermining regional stability and sending jobs abroad. President Trump’s love of arms
sales is clear for all to see. On his first trip abroad as a public servant, the new president proudly announced a mammoth arms deal
with Saudi Arabia, later crowing that the deal would lead to one million new American jobs. Last July, his
administration
released a new Conventional Arms Transfer policy that aims to streamline and supercharge arms
exports through a whole-of-government strategy. The results so far, according to figures from a new report from the Security
Assistance Monitor, have been $82.2 billion in arms sales in 2017 and another $78 billion in 2018. Unfortunately, Trump’s promises
about the benefits of arms sales are mostly empty, while the dangers are all too real. Advocates of arms exports
have
long argued that such sales are critical for promoting regional stability in trouble spots around
the world. But American arms exports to the Middle East are doing the exact opposite. Arms export
data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show that the U.S. share of arms sales to the Middle East has
steadily increased over the past 15 years, yet with conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and throughout North Africa, the region is as unstable as
ever. American arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have already enabled those nations to carry out a bloody
and catastrophic war in Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians, displaced most of the population, and put millions more at
risk of starvation and disease. By continuing to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia even after attempts in the U.S. Senate to halt them, the
Trump administration will encourage more Saudi intervention, further destabilizing the region. And
though presidents
tout export of arms as a good way to strengthen allies, the truth is that the United States
doesn’t just sell weapons to responsible nations such as Italy, the United Kingdom, and Belgium. Vast
amounts of U.S. weapons are shipped to risky customers: fragile states like Turkey, nations
embroiled in conflicts like Saudi Arabia, and oppressive governments with horrendous human rights records like
Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Since 2001, the U.S. government has notified the public of
arms sales totaling over $560 billion to 167 countries. Each of these sales adds a varying degree
of risk to the United States regarding potential blowback, entanglement, dispersion, and
increasing instability throughout the world.

Arm sales substantially increase the probability of instability and war – rigorous
academic studies prove
A. Travor Thrall, 7/2/18, [associate professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at
George Mason], Cato Institute, “Arms Sales: Pouring Gas on the Fires of Conflict,”
https://www.cato.org/blog/arms-sales-pouring-gas-fires-conflict, mm

Do arms sales cause war? Or do wars cause arms sales? Critics of arms sales often argue that selling weapons abroad fuels
conflict. And indeed, one can point to one or more sides using American weapons in many recent conflicts including Syria, Yemen,
and Iraq. Skeptics argue, on the other hand, that weapons don’t start the fire and that conflicts would arise whether or arms
exporters like the United States sell weapons abroad. The debate has important implications for foreign policy. If selling or
transferring weapons abroad makes conflict more likely, or intensifies conflicts already in process, then the United States should
rethink its long-held policy of selling weapons to pretty much any nation that wants them. If, on the other hand, arms sales have no
impact on conflict or make conflict less likely, then the Trump administration’s intention of expanding arms sales should be seen as a
positive move. As it turns out, several academic
studies have looked at this question. The primary
conclusion of these works is that although arms sales do not create conflicts out of thin air, they do make conflict
more likely when the conditions for conflict are already present. The basic logic behind this conclusion is
fairly straightforward and has been noted in the academic literature for some time. In a 1998 article, “Arms Transfer Dependence
and Foreign Policy Conflict,” David Kinsella argues that states that enjoy a steady flow of arms – especially from
multiple countries – tend to pursue more aggressive foreign policies. The increase in the recipient’s military
capability makes victory in a potential conflict more likely, which in turn raises the likelihood that the state will start disputes,
demand concessions from its neighbors in those disputes, and to escalate to conflict if negotiations fail to produce the desired
outcome. Using case studies from Israel, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and Somalia Kinsella finds that, when a
country has more than one weapons supplier, arms sales drastically increase the chances of conflict. In their 2002 article, “The Arms
Trade and the Incidence of Political Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1967-97,” Cassady Craft and Joseph Smaldone identify another
mechanism by which arms sales can fuel conflict. They find that autocratic
governments importing weapons are
more likely to use those weapons to oppress/mistreat/kill their own citizens since they now have a
greater coercive capability. But despite the straightforward logic behind the arms sales/conflict connection, most work on
the topic to date has relied on case studies, which are wonderful for highlighting potential causal mechanisms but not much use for
establishing whether those mechanisms hold across the time and space. Until
recently there had not been any work
using statistical methods that would allow scholars to state with confidence which direction the causal
mechanism actually flows – that is, do arms sales precede conflict or do impending conflicts lead to increased arms sales?
Happily, the most recent article on arms sales by Oliver Pamp and his colleagues in the January 2018 issue of
the Journal of Peace Research entitled, “The Build-Up of Coercive Capacities: Arms Imports and the Outbreak of Violent Intrastate
Conflict,” usesa simultaneous equations model to overcome this problem. Looking at the relationship
between arms sales and the outbreak of civil conflicts, the authors confirm the general thrust of previous
research, concluding that: “…while arms imports are not a genuine cause of intrastate conflicts,
they significantly increase the probability of an onset in countries where conditions are
notoriously conducive to conflict. In such situations, arms are not an effective deterrent but rather spark conflict
escalation.” This new confidence in the arms sales/conflict connection should compel serious revision to American arms sales
policies. Since 2002 the United States has sold over $286 billion dollars of weapons to 167 countries. These exports have gone to
numerous countries where the conditions were or remain ripe for conflict. U.S. arms transfers to an unstable Iraq preceded the
emergence of the Islamic State, but wound up helping amplify the Islamic State’s military capability when it took vast quantities of
American weapons from defeated Iraqi army units. U.S. arms sales over the past decade also helped prepare Saudi Arabia to launch
its disastrous intervention in Yemen and enabled the Nigerian government to unleash more effective violence on its own citizens,
just to list a few examples. Academic research often gets a bad rap in policy making circles. In the case of arms sales and arms
transfers, however, the scholarly literature has correctly pointed out the serious risks involved.
If the United States is
serious about preventing conflict and managing regional stability in trouble spots around the
globe, it would do well to stop pouring gas on the fire.

We control magnitude – arms sales are responsible for half of annual global
killings
Kevin Clarke, 3/21/17, American Magazine, “master of wars: US arms sales lead a world of
conflict,” https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2017/03/21/master-wars-us-arms-
sales-lead-world-conflict, mm
On March 8, the Trump administration reversed a decision made by its predecessor to suspend guided munitions sales to Saudi
Arabia. The Obama administration had grown weary of gruesome headlines generated by what critics described as indiscriminate
use of U.S.-made weapons by Saudi coalition forces in operations over Yemen. A mostly Arab coalition pulled together by the Saudi
kingdom has been supporting Yemeni government forces against Iran-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen for three years. The
conflict, described as a “quagmire” by a former State Department official, has led to more than 10,000 noncombatant fatalities,
according to the United Nations. Yemen now teeters on the edge of famine as the ongoing conflict disrupts what was already a
barely functioning state. Critics wonder if the Trump administration’s reversal signals a more tolerant attitude in Washington toward
the possibility of collateral damage in the various conflicts that U.S. weapons sales help sustain. Restored sales to the Saudis will
represent just a fraction of total U.S. arms transfers this year. The United States is well-known as the world’s biggest spender
on arms and weapons systems. Catholic bishops have regularly denounced as a moral scandal a defense budget measured each year
in the hundreds of billions; $657 billion is the anticipated request for 2018, a 10 percent increase over 2017 spending. Less noticed is
the nation’s status as the world’s top merchant of arms and the government’s role as facilitator in that market. With a
33 percent share—roughly $38 billion in 2016—the United States dominates an annual global weapons export market that has
topped $100 billion. “The
USA supplies major arms to at least 100 countries around the world—
significantly more than any other supplier state,” Aude Fleurant, director of the Arms and Military Expenditure
Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) reported in a press release in February. In a historic address
in Washington on Sept. 24, 2015, Pope Francis told Congress: Being at the service of dialogue and peace...means being truly
determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world…. Here we have to ask
ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the
answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and
culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade. The pope’s address drew ovations in Washington.
That year the United States once again led the world in arms transfer agreements, signing deals for about $40 billion, according to a
congressional study—half of all sales that year in the global arms bazaar. In fact repeated moral denunciation of arms transfers has
done little to restrain the lucrative trade. SIPRI reports that global arms transfers last year reached a volume not
seen since the end of the Cold War. Russian provocations in Ukraine and the continuing threat posed by ISIS have
proved significant drivers of U.S. weapons sales. The ISIS boom, in fact, has propelled Middle Eastern states to top spots among U.S.
arms customers, despite historically low prices for oil, which had been a significant drag on arms sales. U.S. and European arms
merchants have been the primary source for weapons bound for the Middle East, a volume of arms transfers that has almost
doubled over the last five years, Sipri researchers say. While
big weapons sales attract headlines, the world’s
small arms trade supports about half of all global killing annually, according to an analysis by the Geneva
Declaration on Armed Violence and Development. The United States is no slouch in that department either, ranking as both the
world’s top exporter and top importer of small arms, according to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey. At a conference on March 2
at the United Nations reflecting on Pope Francis’ message for the 50th World Day of Peace, Marie Dennis, co-president of Pax Christi
International, argued that the arms trade is one powerful component of a geopolitical infrastructure that helps drive conflict. The
event was sponsored by the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations. Ms. Dennis said more intellectual and
financial investment is needed to develop effective nonviolent approaches to peacekeeping and peacebuilding. “Repeatedly since
1945 the U.N. has been confronted with an enormous challenge, facing complex and dangerous situations with relatively
underfunded or underdeveloped nonviolent strategies,” she said. “At the moment of crisis—in Aleppo or Mosel, Rwanda or the
Balkans, the Philippines, Haiti or South Sudan—we have time and again opened a toolbox that is flush with military might, but
woefully underinvested in the tools of active nonviolence.” The two-year-old U.N. Arms Trade Treaty represents a first, multilateral
effort to restrain the global arms trade, perhaps setting the stage to address that imbalance. But the major arms exporters Russia
and China have refused to sign on, and the United States, though a signatory, has yet to ratify the treaty and is unlikely to do so
anytime soon. Persisting
global insecurity and the big profits generated by the ongoing arms market
surge suggest progress on arms trade restraint will be hard-won in the near term.

Small Arms and Light Weapons magnify this impact – they are ‘slow motion
weapons of mass destruction’
(William Hartung, 7-12-2019, "American Weapons Cause Chaos All Over the World," No
Publication, https://warisboring.com/american-guns-cause-chaos-all-over-the-world/)//VP
Yes, those massive sales of tanks, helicopters, and fighter aircraft are indeed a grim wonder of the modern world and never receive
the attention they truly deserve. However,
a potentially deadlier aspect of the U.S. weapons trade receives
even less attention than the sale of big-ticket items: the export of firearms, ammunition and
related equipment. Global arms control advocates have termed such small arms and light weaponry — rifles,
automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and handguns — “slow motion weapons of mass
destruction” because they’re the weapons of choice in the majority of the 40 armed conflicts
now underway around the world. They and they alone have been responsible for nearly half
of the roughly 200,000 violent deaths by weapon that have been occurring annually both in
and outside of official war zones. And the Trump administration is now moving to make it far easier for U.S. gun
makers to push such wares around the world. Consider it an irony, if you will, but in doing so, the president who has staked his
reputation on rejecting everything that seems to him tainted by Pres. Barack Obama is elaborating on a proposal originally
developed in the Obama years. The crucial element in the new plan: to move key decisions on whether or not to export guns and
ammunition abroad from the State Department’s jurisdiction, where they would be vetted on both human rights and national
security grounds, to the Commerce Department, whose primary mission is promoting national exports. The Violence Policy Center, a
research and advocacy organization that seeks to limit gun deaths, has indicated that such a move would ease the way for more
exports of a long list of firearms. Those would include sniper rifles and AR-15s, the now-classic weapon in U.S. mass killings like the
school shootings in Parkland, Florida and Newtown, Connecticut. Under the new plan, the careful tracking of whose hands such gun
exports could end up in will be yesterday’s news and, as a result, U.S. weapons are likely to become far more accessible to armed
gangs, drug cartels, and terrorist operatives. Pres. Donald Trump’s plan would even eliminate the requirement that Congress be
notified in advance of major firearms deals, which would undoubtedly prove to be the arms loophole of all time. According to
statistics gathered by the Security Assistance Monitor, which gathers comprehensive information on U.S. military and police aid
programs, the State Department approved$662 million worth of firearms exports to 15 countries in 2017. The elimination of
Congressional notifications and the other proposed changes will mean that countries like Mexico, The Philippines,
Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, as well as various Central American nations, will have
far easier access to a far wider range of U.S. firearms with far less Congressional oversight. And that, in
turn, means that U.S.-supplied weapons will play even more crucial roles in vicious civil wars like
the one in Yemen and are far more likely to make their way into the hands of local thugs, death
squads, and drug cartels. And mind you, it isn’t as if U.S. gun export policies were enlightened before the Trump era. They
were already wreaking havoc in neighboring countries. According to a report from the Center for American Progress, an
astonishing 50,000 U.S. guns were recovered in criminal investigations in 15 Western
Hemisphere nations between 2014 and 2016. That report goes on to note that 70 percent of the guns recovered
from crime scenes in Mexico that are sent to U.S. authorities for tracing are identified as being of U.S. origin. The comparable figures
for Central America are 49 percent for El Salvador, 46 percent for Honduras and 29 percent for Guatemala. While Trump rails —
falsely — against a flood of criminals washing across the U.S.-Mexico border, he conveniently ignores this country’s export of
violence in the other direction thanks to both legal and illegal transfers of guns to Mexico and Central America. The United
States has, in short, already effectively weaponized both criminal networks and repressive
security forces in those countries. In other words, it’s played a key role in the killing of
significant numbers of innocent civilians there, ratcheting up the pressure on individuals,
families, and tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who have then headed for the United States looking for a safer, better
life. Trump’s new proposal would potentially make this situation far worse and his “big, fat, beautiful wall” would have to grow
larger still. In the past, congressional awareness of foreign firearm deals has made a difference. In September 2017, under pressure
from Senators Patrick Leahy and Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, the Trump administration reversed itself and blocked a sale of
1,600 semiautomatic pistols to Turkey because of abuses by the personal security forces of that country’s president, Recep Erdogan.
Similarly, Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat, persuaded the Obama administration to halt a deal that would have sent 26,000 assault
rifles to The Philippines, where security forces and private death squads, egged on by Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, were gunning down
thousands of people suspected of, but not charged with or convicted of, drug trafficking. As The Washington Post columnist Josh
Rogin has noted, under the new Trump rules, it will be nearly impossible for members of Congress to intervene in such a fashion to
stop similar deals in the future. On the implications of the deregulation of firearms exports, Cardin has spoken out strongly. “The
United States,” he said, “should never make it easier for foreign despots to slaughter their civilians or
for American-made assault weapons to be readily available to paramilitary or terrorist groups … The administration’s proposal
makes those scenarios even more possible. The United States is, and should be, better than this.” The Trump
plan is, however, good news for hire-a-gun successors to Blackwater, the defunct private contractor whose personnel killed 17
civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in a notorious 2007 incident. Such firms would be able to train foreign military forces in the use
of firearms without seeking licenses from the State Department, allowing them to operate in places like Libya that might otherwise
have been off-limits.

And arms sales create power imbalances – states will proliferate nuclear
weapons to equalize the playing field
Charles D. Ferguson, 2010, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Next customer, please: The risk
in conventional arms sales along with. Nuclear energy deals,” 66(6), p. 36-42, mm
At the same time as major powers are saying that they want to rein in nuclear proliferation, they are
offering both nuclear energy programs and conventional weapons to client states. Military arms sales may shore up
certain countries’ defenses, but such sales may also stimulate conventional arms races and conventional
force imbalances may serve as a rationale for states to acquire nuclear weapons as great
equalizers. More nuclear weapons in more states could increase the likelihood of losing control
of these weapons to terrorists, criminals, or other malicious actors. This author evaluates nuclear energy
deals that could result in changing security perceptions and shifting security alliances, and writes that such evaluations are
important in the context of global security. Military and nuclear suppliers have incentives to sell conventional arms and nuclear
technologies to clients, he writes, but both suppliers and clients need to be aware of the potential security
consequences. A conventional or nuclear arms race may not result in armed conflict, but would divert scarce resources—
especially in the developing world—from the civilian economy. “The sharing of civilian nuclear [technology] will be one of the
foundations of a pact of confidence which the West must forge with the Islamic world,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared
after signing a peaceful nuclear energy cooperation agreement with Algeria in December 2007 (Agence France Presse, 2008). In the
following three years, Sarkozy went on to tout the benefits of nuclear energy across the Arab world by reaching out to Algeria,
Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. But at the same time, France is offering to sell these
countries military equipment and is trying to forge closer military ties with some through military bases and exercises. France is not
alone in pursuing nuclear technology cooperation even as it promotes military relationships and sells armaments. Russia and the
United States have also taken advantage of renewed interest in nuclear power and worries about military threats. While the major
powers do not intend to increase threats in politically volatile regions, these nuclear and military sales could inadvertently fuel fears.
Faced with increasing economic competition in nuclear, defense, and other industries, major powers are doing what comes
naturally: seeking customers. Global
security, however, may suffer at the expense of a market mentality—
that is, by stimulating conventional arms races, which may lead to war, or by increasing the
rationale among client states for nuclear weapons to counter conventional force imbalances.
More nuclear weapons in more states could increase the likelihood of losing control of these weapons to terrorists, criminals, or
other malicious actors. Thus, it is worth evaluating the potential security consequences of increased sales of conventional arms
along with nuclear energy technologies. Military needs meet energy needs The connection between military partnerships and
nuclear energy aid dates to the earliest years of atomic energy. President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program, which
began in 1953, was designed to win clients for US nuclear technologies and score a political advantage over Moscow. But in 1955,
the Soviet Union followed suit with similar offers to its clients (Sexton, 1955). In fact, many former Warsaw Pact countries received
nuclear power assistance from the Soviet Union. The recipients of both the Soviet and US programs often benefited from military
partnerships with these two major nuclear suppliers. Today, for example, half of the 28 NATO countries have peaceful nuclear power
programs; of these 14 programs, all have received help from either the US or the Soviet Union and now Russia. Also, other major
non-NATO US allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan rely on nuclear power to generate significant portions of their electricity
and have benefited significantly from peaceful nuclear energy cooperation with the US. Partnerships with the US and the Soviet
Union offered security benefits from the 1950s to the end of the Cold War. States within a military union pooled resources for
common defense. Nuclear-armed members could extend their nuclear deterrents to non-nuclear armed members, thereby reducing
the incentive for further nuclear weapons programs within a union. Indeed, many European states had explored these programs but
refrained from pursuing them due to the perceived effectiveness of security assurances, the enactment of the 1970 Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, and the economic costs. Since the official dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, several former Warsaw Pact
states have joined NATO, thereby receiving US assurances of nuclear deterrence. And while the US and Russia are no longer
enemies, political tension still exists between them. But the likelihood of thermonuclear war between the US and Russia has
substantially decreased. Today, instead of two superpower-backed military blocs competing against each other, we
have a
more complex security environment with growing global security concerns about nuclear
proliferation and terrorism. And while Russia and the United States are still major providers of commercial nuclear
technologies, as well as major sellers of conventional arms (the United States led the world in arms sales with about $100 billion in
arms deliveries between 2001 and 2008), other states are now competing in these two lucrative fields (Grimmett, 2009). France,
Japan, and South Korea have emerged in the past decade as leaders in the construction of nuclear reactors and provision of nuclear
energy services. All three states have leveraged the nuclear technology assistance that they have received from the United States.
While Japan and South Korea are not major arms suppliers, France has ranked in the top five global weapons suppliers during the
past decade, along with the United Kingdom and Germany. Global marketplace While
many countries across the globe
are buying arms, the major recipients of these sales have been countries with growing nuclear
power programs or a renewed interest in nuclear power. From 2001 to 2008, of the total $377.5 billion in arms
deliveries worldwide, $116.9 billion worth of arms went to the top 10 recipients, which have or want to have nuclear power
programs (Grimmett, 2009). These recipients from greatest to least were: Saudi Arabia, China, India, Egypt, Israel, the UAE, Taiwan,
South Korea, Pakistan, and Malaysia. Of these, China, India, Taiwan, South Korea, and Pakistan have nuclear power programs and
want to increase their numbers of nuclear plants. The remaining recipients— Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, the UAE, and Malaysia—
have all expressed interest in acquiring their first nuclear plants. Major arms sales to most of these states have preceded by decades
the renewed interest in nuclear power plants. Thus, interest in acquiring nuclear power or fears about neighboring states’ nuclear
programs cannot account for all arms purchases. Just in the past decade, arms sales worldwide have substantially increased. From
2001 to 2004, there were $156.1 billion worth of global arms transfers, and in comparison, from 2005 to 2008, there were $221.4
billion worth of arms transfers (Grimmett, 2009). While many sales were to countries without little or no interest in acquiring
nuclear power programs, sales to, for example, Middle Eastern states, many of which have recently expressed strong interest in
peaceful nuclear power, have ramped up significantly. From 2001 to 2004, these states accounted for 42.4 percent ($33.9 billion) of
all sales to the developing world, and from 2005 to 2008, their proportional purchases rose to 54.6 percent ($83.3 billion)
(Grimmett, 2009). Similar trends have been evident in recent years in Southeast Asia and South Asia, where interest is growing in
expanding or starting nuclear power programs. Faced with simultaneous increases in purchases of conventional weapons and
interest in nuclear power, leaders of states in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South Asia will have to make tough decisions
about how to respond to these events. As the following overview of recent developments in these regions indicates, these leaders
are acquiring conventional weapons usually to deter their neighbors from conventional or nuclear attack, and sometimes for power
projection to control strategic bodies of water, such as the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea. The latter
development could lead to greater probability of conventional armed conflict. And disparities
in conventional military
strength could increase neighboring states’ rationales for acquiring nuclear weapons.

Proliferation ensures multiple scenarios for global war – Optimist Theory is

wrong
Kroenig, 14 – Associate Professor and International Relations Field Chair, Department of
Government, Georgetown (Matthew, February. “The History of Proliferation Optimism:
Does It Have a Future?” Journal of Strategic Studies Vol 38, Issue 1-2.
http://www.matthewkroenig.com/The%20History%20of%20Proliferation%20Optimism_
Feb2014.pdf)
First and foremost, proliferation optimists present an oversimplified view of nuclear
deterrence theory. Optimists argue that since the advent of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), any
nuclear war would mean national suicide and, therefore, no rational leader would ever
choose to start one. Furthermore, they argue that the requirements for rationality are not high. Rather, leaders must
value their own survival and the survival of their nation and understand that intentionally launching a nuclear war would
threaten those values. Many analysts and policymakers attempt to challenge the optimists on their own turf and question
whether the leaders of potential proliferant states are fully rational.34 Yet, these debates overlook the fact that, apart from the
optimists, leading nuclear deterrence
theorists believe that nuclear proliferation contributes to
a real risk of nuclear war even in a situation of MAD among rational states.35 Moreover,
realizing that nuclear war is possible does not depend on peculiar beliefs about the possibility of escaping MAD.36 Rather, as
we will discuss below, these theorists understand that some risk of nuclear war is necessary in order for
deterrence to function. To be sure, in the 1940s, Viner, Brodie, and others argued that MAD rendered war among
major powers obsolete, but nuclear deterrence theory soon advanced beyond that simple understanding.37 After all, great
power political competition does not end with nuclear weapons. And nuclear-armed states
still seek to threaten nuclear-armed adversaries. States cannot credibly threaten to launch a
suicidal nuclear war, but they still want to coerce their adversaries. This leads to a
credibility problem: how can states credibly threaten a nuclear-armed opponent? Since the
1960s, academic nuclear deterrence theory has been devoted almost exclusively to answering this question.38 And their
answers do not give us reasons to be optimistic. Thomas Schelling was the first to devise a rational means
by which states can threaten nuclear-armed opponents.39 He argued that leaders cannot
credibly threaten to intentionally launch a suicidal nuclear war, but they can make a ‘threat
that leaves something to chance’. 40 They can engage in a process, the nuclear crisis, which increases the risk of
nuclear war in an attempt to force a less resolved adversary to back down. As states escalate a nuclear crisis
there is an increasing probability that the conflict will spiral out of control and result
in an inadvertent or accidental nuclear exchange. As long as the benefit of winning the
crisis is greater than the incremental increase in the risk of nuclear war, however, threats to
escalate nuclear crises are inherently credible. In these games of nuclear brinkmanship, the state that is
willing to run the greatest risk of nuclear war before backing down will win the crisis, as long
as it does not end in catastrophe. It is for this reason that Thomas Schelling called great power politics in the
nuclear era a ‘competition in risk taking’. 41 This does not mean that states eagerly bid up the risk of nuclear
war. Rather, they face gut-wrenching decisions at each stage of the crisis. They can quit the crisis to avoid nuclear war, but
only by ceding an important geopolitical issue to an opponent. Or they can the escalate the crisis in an attempt to prevail, but
only at the risk of suffering a possible nuclear exchange. Since 1945 there were have been 20 high stakes nuclear crises in
which ‘rational’ states like the United States run a frighteningly-real risk of nuclear war.42 By asking whether states
can be deterred, therefore, proliferation optimists are asking the wrong question. The
right question to ask is: what risk of nuclear war is a specific state willing to run against a
particular opponent in a given crisis? Optimists are likely correct when they assert that a nuclear-armed Iran
will not intentionally commit national suicide by launching a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear attack on the United States or Israel.
This does not mean that Iran will never use nuclear weapons, however. Indeed, it is almost inconceivable to think that a
nuclear-armed Iran would not, at some point, find itself in a crisis with another nuclear-armed power. It is also inconceivable
that in those circumstances, Iran would not be willing to run some risk of nuclear war in order to achieve its objectives. If a
nuclear-armed Iran and the United States or Israel were to have a geopolitical conflict in the future, over the internal politics of
Syria, an Israeli conflict with Iran’s client Hizballah, the US presence in the Persian Gulf, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz,
or some other issue, do we believe that Iran would immediately capitulate? Or is it possible that Iran would push back,
possibly brandishing nuclear weapons in an attempt to coerce its adversaries? If the latter, there is a risk that proliferation to
Iran could result in nuclear war and proliferation optimists are wrong to dismiss it out of hand. An optimist might
counter that nuclear weapons will never be used, even in a crisis situation, because states
have such a strong incentive, namely national survival, to ensure that nuclear weapons are not used. But this
objection ignores the fact that leaders operate under competing pressures. Leaders in
nuclear-armed states also have strong incentives to convince their adversaries that nuclear
weapons might be used. Historically we have seen that leaders take actions in crises, such as
placing nuclear weapons on high alert and delegating nuclear launch authority to
low-level commanders, to purposely increase the risk of nuclear war in an attempt to
force less-resolved opponents to back down. Moreover, not even the optimists’ first principles about the
irrelevance of nuclear posture stand up to scrutiny. Not all nuclear wars would be equally devastating.43
Any nuclear exchange would have devastating consequences no doubt, but, if a crisis were
to spiral out of control and result in nuclear war, any sane leader would rather face a
country with five nuclear weapons than one with 5,000. Similarly, any sane leader would be willing to run
a greater risk of nuclear war against the former state than against the latter. Indeed, scholars have demonstrated that states
are willing to run greater risks and are, therefore, more likely to win nuclear crises when they enjoy nuclear superiority over
their opponents.44 Proliferation optimists might
be correct that no rational leader would choose
to launch a suicidal nuclear war, but, depending on the context, any sane leader would
almost certainly be willing to risk one. Nuclear deterrence theorists have also proposed a second scenario
under which rational leaders would be willing to instigate a nuclear exchange: limited nuclear war.45
For example, by launching a single nuclear weapon against a small city, a nuclear-armed state
could signal its willingness to escalate a crisis, while leaving its adversary with enough left to lose to deter the
adversary from launching a full-scale nuclear response. In a future crisis between China and the United States, for example,
China could choose to launch a nuclear strike on a US military base in East Asia to demonstrate its seriousness. In that
situation, with the continental United States intact, would Washington choose to launch a full-scale nuclear war on China that
could result in the destruction of many American cities? Or would it back down? China might decide to strike after calculating
that Washington would prefer a humiliating retreat over a full-scale nuclear war. If
launching a limited nuclear
war could be a rational strategic move under certain circumstances, it then follows that the
spread of nuclear weapons increases the risk of nuclear use. To be sure, some strategic thinkers,
including Henry Kissinger, advocated limited nuclear war as a viable strategy only to recant the position later due to fears of
uncontrollable escalation. Yet, this does not change the fact that leading nuclear deterrence
theorists
maintain that limited nuclear war is possible among rational leaders in a MAD world.46
 Influence Adv
Trump’s CAT policy is a key part of his ‘America first’ agenda – this will lead to
the rapid and uncontrolled diffusion of advanced weapons systems
Shimon Arad, 9/28/18, War on the Rocks, “Trump’s Arms Exports Policy: Debunking Key
Assumptions,” https://warontherocks.com/2018/09/trumps-arms-exports-policy-debunking-
key-assumptions/, mm

The Trump administration recently released its new Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) policy designed to
increase the already well-established U.S. dominance of the global arms market. Increasing arms exports is seen
as an important part of the administration’s aim to strengthen America’s economy and security. Traditionally, U.S. arms exports
have been used as tools of power and influence, giving it political leverage over clients. Paradoxically, however, the emphasis placed
on the economic utility of arms sales by the Trump administration is increasing the bargaining power of clients, thereby reducing
U.S. political sway. The leverage of client states and the U.S. arms industry is leading the administration to release advanced military
capabilities earlier than it would have done otherwise and to play down human rights considerations raised by Congress. Ironically,
additional economic and security steps being taken by the Trump administration may be undermining some of the intended benefits
of the new CAT policy. The president’s economic protectionist agenda, including the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum
supposedly because of national security considerations, could undermine U.S. defense sales by driving up prices or by prompting
retaliation from affected arms clients. Political tensions between Washington and some its allies and partners – especially in NATO
— may also be encouraging them to find ways to decrease their dependence on American-made subsystems and to increase
defense industrial cooperation between them to the exclusion of the United States. This could potentially reduce future U.S. arms
and subsystem sales to these countries and increase competition with them for global markets. The
first CAT policy was
introduced by President Jimmy Carter on May 19, 1977. Its underlying principle was that arms transfers
were to be treated with a strong presumption of denial “as an exceptional foreign policy implement” with “the
burden of persuasion … on those who favor a particular sale, rather than those who oppose it.” To further this policy of self-imposed
restraint, Carter instituted a ceiling on the total dollar value of American arms transfers to all but a few traditional allies. He pledged
that the United States would not be the first supplier to introduce into Third World areas “newly developed, advanced weapons
systems which could create a new or significantly higher combat capability.” In implementing this policy, Carter issued the so-called
“leprosy letter,” instructing American diplomats abroad to refrain from assisting the U.S. arms industry in its efforts to secure foreign
buyers. In April, the Trump administration launched the fifth iteration of the CAT policy, designed to
increase the exports of U.S. arms as an integral part of its “America First” policy agenda. The
present version of the CAT policy prioritizes arms transfers as an important tool of American foreign policy and, in stark
contrast to the vision of Carter, is predicated on a strong assumption of approval and the active
advocacy of the U.S. government and its diplomats with foreign leaders and governments to buy American-made arms. The Trump
administration presents its new arms policy as a response to the ongoing strategic competition between the great powers. Its
argument is that the new CAT policy will enable Washington to preserve international peace by strengthening the military
capabilities of its allies and partners, while reducing the need for American boots on the ground; maintaining its influence over the
policies and actions of client states in key regions around the world; strengthening the U.S. military by increasing interoperability
with allies and partners; supporting the defense industry; promoting new innovation; and maintaining American jobs. The new
policy also refers to the need for an assessment of the risks that arms transfers may pose to human rights violations, to technology
transfer issues and/or U.S. nonproliferation objectives. The Nervous U.S. Domination of the Arms Market The United States
dominates the growing global arms market and according to data gathered by the authoritative Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (SIPRI), its lead is expanding. The United States accounted for 34 percent of total arms exports between 2013 and
2017, ranking it significantly higher than its main competitors Russia (22 percent), France (6.7 percent), Germany (5.8 percent),
China (5.7 percent), and Britain (4.8 percent). In FY 2018, the value of signed arms deals continued to increase, reaching over $46
billion, exceeding the $41 billion figure of FY 2017. Undergirding this policy is Trump’s vision that economic security is national
security. The defense and aerospace industry is America’s second-largest gross exporter. The industry contributes approximately $1
trillion annually to the U.S. economy and employs around 2,500,000 people. On average, 30 percent of the industry’s annual
revenue is through arms exports, which reduces the need for domestic investment, reduces the cost-per-unit for the U.S. military,
and enables an increase of investments in innovation, thereby retaining America’s technological lead. However, a number of trends
combine to make Washington nervous about its lead in global arms sales. The first is a growing effort by other technologically
innovative arms exporters to compete with the United States for markets. Arms sales by Britain, France, Spain, China, and Russia
have reduced America’s potential share of the important markets of the Middle East (49 percent of the U.S. arms exports between
2013 and 2017) and Asia. To a certain extent, the people behind the new CAT policy believe that the strict and rigid regulatory and
procedural frameworks that governed the arms exports processes have undermined the U.S. competitiveness in the global arms
market and the implementation of the new policy is anticipated to increase sales. A second trend is the deliberate policy of client
states to diversify their arms purchases. The Arab Sunni states, for example, have in the last couple of years spent tens of billions of
dollars on European or Russian arms rather than on U.S.-made weapon systems. Even a country like Egypt, which has received nearly
$80 billion in military and economic aid over the past 30 years, has tapped from its reserves and loans from Gulf states and from
suppliers in order to purchase at least $13 billion worth of arms since 2013 from France, Russia, and Germany rather than from the
United States. The new CAT policy aims to encourage allies and partners to buy U.S.-made arms, including by increasing
competitiveness by dropping surcharges on products and lowering the costs of transportation. A third trend is the growing demands
of client states for more substantial offsets and localization of production and maintenance, including the transfer of technology.
Thus, for example, under its Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia wants to eventually subject foreign military contracts to a 50 percent
localization rule, based on a partnership model that includes the sharing of technologies and skills. The Middle East’s growing
armored vehicles market, which is expected to reach more than $31 billion by 2021, is an example of a growing demand for the
transfer of technical knowledge which is used to strengthen an indigenous defense sector that has already begun to export its own
products. Some Western European countries are more forthcoming on this issue than the United States. However, some U.S.
companies have begun forming subsidiaries abroad. Mobilizing the Whole Arms Exports “Ecosystem” In essence, the
new CAT
policy is designed to improve the “mechanics” of the administration’s arms exports system. As
explained by Deputy Director for the Regional Security and Arms Transfers Laura Cressey: In sum, what we’re trying to do in this —
in this whole-of-government effort looking at the arms transfer process really from soup to nuts is trying to ensure that once we
have decided that a transfer of a defense capability to a partner is in the national security interest of the United States, that we are
able to effectively compete and efficiently deliver the equipment to our partner as quickly as possible. This effort is promoted by
active leadership advocacy, including by the president himself, and by hands-on marketing efforts by senior officials participating in
international arms-shows and by American diplomats around the globe. Additionally, the administration is actively engaging with the
U.S. arms industry, including it in the interagency process of implementing the new CAT policy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s
new Defense and Aerospace Export Council submitted, during the planning phase of the new CAT policy, 30 recommendations on
how to improve the arms exports decision processes. Congress is also being engaged by the administration and concerns being
raised, especially over possible human rights violations of client states, are being addressed at the highest levels of the
administration. Along with the reduction of surcharge and transportation costs, a number of additional steps are being taken in
order to increase competitiveness. These include helping allies and partners to identify their critical needs and expediting the
transfer of these capabilities. Furthermore, help for smaller allies to finance the purchase of American weapons through payment
schemes may be offered. The administration is also engaging with industry to develop a strategy to deal with the issue of offset
demands from clients while being able to effectively compete for sales. Debunking Key Assumptions Though impressive in ambition,
expectation, and design, the new CAT policy is premised on a number of underlying assumptions that need to be examined. First,
there are those that believe that the implementation of the new CAT policy should lead to a linear increase in annual arms exports.
As Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson recently projected about the level of arms
exports for 2019, “the CAT policy will have been in place, we’ll have gained those efficiencies and feedback from industry and
partners … so I would anticipate that would increase sales, one would think.” However, the annual worth of arms exports tends to
be uneven and dependent on what clients are seeking to buy. The sale of major and expensive weapon systems, such as warplanes,
can single-handedly boost the worth of arms exports for any given year. The highest recorded year of arms sales was FY 2012
totaling $69.1 billion, but this included a single $29 billion deal for the sale of 84 F-15s to Saudi Arabia. According to the figures of
the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, in FY 2014 arms exports totaled $34.2 billion, FY 2015 totaled $47 billion, FY 2016 totaled
$33.6 billion, FY 2017 totaled $41.9 billion, while FY 2018 has so far totaled $46.9 billion. Large-scale sales of major weapon systems
create capacity limits in consecutive years. For example, the surge in the sale of advanced fighter jets to the Gulf countries during
the Obama presidency will slow down the future sale of these high-priced items in the years to come, affecting overall totals of
annual sales. Principally, the periodic military needs of clients are going to play a far larger role in determining whether the United
States is going to increase foreign arms sales in the coming years than the governmental streamlining of organizations and
procedures. Moreover, as noted above, some of Washington’s major clients, such as the Gulf states and India have a deliberate
policy of diversifying their arms imports. A streamlined U.S. approach to arms exports makes little difference to deliberate arms
diversification strategies adopted by client countries. At its core, a policy of diversification is designed to increase leverage on the
United States, to retain freedom of action, and to hedge against possible negative U.S. regional policies and to push up the quality of
the capabilities being offered. Therefore, easing U.S. defense export regulations or reducing surcharge rates will not necessarily
make much difference to the choices that these countries will make regarding the purchase of American versus non-American-made
weapon systems. A case in point that highlights the potency of self-serving strategic considerations on the negotiation of arms deals
is Qatar. Following the severing of diplomatic ties with Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates in June 2017,
Qatar negotiated arms deals with multiple exporters in an attempt to overcome its regional isolation and broaden its international
support and partnerships. It signed deals with the U.S. for 36 F-15s ($6.2 billion) and precision-guided munitions, with Britain for 24
Eurofighters ($6.7 billion), with Italy for helicopters ($3 billion) and for warships ($5 billion). In addition, it has negotiated deals with
its regional partner Turkey ($700 million) as well as with Norway ($1.9 billion). The perception of favorable U.S. long-term regional
policies by clients around the world is far more likely to increase arms sales than the enhanced processes incorporated into the new
CAT policy. Additionally, arms sales figures may be affected by other administration policy initiatives outside of CAT, such as
President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Ironically, the imposition of these tariffs supposedly based on
national security considerations could undermine U.S. defense sales by driving up prices or from retaliation from affected arms
clients. The administration also uses export rules to improve its commercial competition over other exporters dependent on U.S.
components. This is pushing traditional U.S. arms production partners to become increasingly wary of continued cooperation and
potentially reducing future profits from the sale of U.S. subsystems to allies and partners. A case in point is the U.S. refusal to
authorize the sale of parts for the sale of the French SCALP cruise missile to Egypt. The French government is now seeking to reduce
its reliance on U.S.-made components in its weapon systems in order to increase their exportability, potentially increasing future
competition and reducing U.S. revenues in the future. From a European perspective, the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s
commitment to NATO’s mutual defense provision, as well as his rebukes over their financial commitments to the alliance are
unsettling, especially in light of Russia’s resurgent challenges in Eastern Europe. As the French Armed Forces Minister, Florence
Parly, recently said: Can we always count, in every place and in every circumstance, on American support?…Listen to the statements
of the U.S. president, read his tweets: The message sent is clear and without ambiguity…We have to count on ourselves … build a
European strategic autonomy. On the industrial front, this push for more strategic autonomy has already prompted some European
countries to increase their independence in major weapon system projects, including the development of a next-generation fighter
jet that will compete with the F-35, and a new tank, potentially reducing markets for the U.S. fighter. This brings us to another set of
assumptions to do with leverage: Presently, the global arms market, with the availability of comparable U.S., European, Russian, and
Chinese weapon systems, is a “buyers’ market.” The prominence placed by the Trump administration on the economic value of arms
sales reduces U.S. leverage over affluent clients. Presently, the administration continues to certify arms exports for Saudi Arabia’s
Yemen campaign in spite of opposition from Congress, out of fear that a cutoff of support could jeopardize $2 billion in weapon sales
to the U.S.’s Gulf allies. The United States is not alone in feeling the might of the “buyers’ market.” After nixing a planned delivery of
400 laser-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia because of it’s Yemen campaign, Spain reversed its decision once more. Canceling the
delivery might have jeopardized a Saudi order of five Spanish corvettes worth $2 billion, with thousands of jobs at stake. In addition,
Germany has approved the delivery of weapon systems to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in spite of a coalition deal
between Germany’s ruling parties not to sell weapons to any of the sides involved in the fighting in Yemen. The desire to increase
revenues from arms exports in the present “buyers’ market” is leading the Trump administration to consider the release of
previously denied advanced capabilities for export. A prime example is the administrations push to redefine the categorization of
unmanned aerial aircrafts to increase America’s share of the global market, that is expected to grow in worth from about $6 billion
in 2015 to $12 billion in 2025. Easing previous restrictions, the administration has also recently given permission to market armed
drones to India as well as to certain countries in Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The Trump administration is also reported to be
considering the sale of the F-35 to the Gulf states even though this has been a denied capability given America’s commitment to
Israel’s qualitative military edge. All told, in
the booming “buyers’ arms market” the presumption of
approval policy is likely to increase the diffusion of progressively more advanced U.S. military
technologies and capabilities around the globe. Given the circumstances of reverse leverage, the
influence of the U.S. over the use of the arms it exports is unlikely to be substantial. The United
States has truly made an about face from the policy of Jimmy Carter.

Trump’s ‘America First’ policies undermine soft power – diminishes the

effectiveness of hegemony
Joseph Nye, 5/6/19, Project Syndicate, “American soft power in the age of trump,”
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/american-soft-power-decline-under-trump-by-
joseph-s-nye-2019-05, mm

US President Donald Trump’s administration has shown little interest in public diplomacy. And yet
public diplomacy – a government’s efforts to communicate directly with other countries’ publics – is one of the key
instruments policymakers use to generate soft power, and the current information revolution
makes such instruments more important than ever. Opinion polls and the Portland Soft Power 30
index show that American soft power has declined since the beginning of Trump’s term. Tweets can
help to set the global agenda, but they do not produce soft power if they are not attractive to others. Trump’s defenders
reply that soft power – what happens in the minds of others – is irrelevant; only hard power, with its military and
economic instruments, matters. In March 2017, Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, proclaimed a “hard power budget” that
would have slashed funding for the State Department and the US Agency for International Development by nearly 30%.
Fortunately, military leaders know better. In 2013, General James Mattis (later Trump’s first Secretary of Defense)
warned Congress, “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.” As Henry
Kissinger once pointed out, international order depends not only on the balance of hard power, but
also on perceptions of legitimacy, which depends crucially on soft power. Information revolutions always
have profound socioeconomic and political consequences – witness the dramatic effects of Gutenberg’s printing press on Europe in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One can date the current information revolution from the 1960s and the advent of “Moore’s
Law”: the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles roughly every two years. As a result, computing power increased
dramatically, and by the beginning of this century cost 0.1% of what it did in the early 1970s. In 1993, there were about 50 websites
in the world; by 2000, that number surpassed five million. Today, more than four billion people are online; that number is projected
to grow to 5-6 billion people by 2020, and the “Internet of Things” will connect tens of billions of devices. Facebook has more users
than the populations of China and the US combined. In such a world, the power to attract and persuade
becomes increasingly important. But long gone are the days when public diplomacy was mainly conducted through radio
and television broadcasting. Technological advances have led to a dramatic reduction in the cost of processing and transmitting
information. The result is an explosion of information, which has produced a “paradox of plenty”: an abundance of information leads
to scarcity of attention. When the volume of information confronting people becomes overwhelming, it is hard to know what to
focus on. Social media algorithms are designed to compete for attention. Reputation becomes even more important than in the
past, and political struggles, informed by social and ideological affinities, often center on the creation and destruction of credibility.
Social media can make false information look more credible if it comes from “friends.” As US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report
on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election showed, this enabled Russia to weaponize American social media.
Reputation has always mattered in world politics, but credibility has become an even more
important power resource. Information that appears to be propaganda may not only be scorned, but may also turn out to
be counterproductive if it undermines a country’s reputation for credibility – and thus reduces its soft power. The most effective
propaganda is not propaganda. It is a two-way dialogue among people. Russia and China do not seem to comprehend this, and
sometimes the United States fails to pass the test as well. During the Iraq War, for example, the treatment of prisoners at Abu
Ghraib in a manner inconsistent with American values led to perceptions of hypocrisy that could not be reversed by broadcasting
pictures of Muslims living well in America. Today, presidential “tweets” that prove to be demonstrably false undercut America’s
credibility and reduce its soft power. The effectiveness of public diplomacy is measured by minds changed (as reflected in interviews
or polls), not dollars spent or number of messages sent. Domestic or
foreign policies that appear hypocritical,
arrogant, indifferent to others’ views, or based on a narrow conception of national interest can undermine
soft power. For example, there was a steep decline in the attractiveness of the US in opinion polls conducted after the invasion
of Iraq in 2003 . In the 1970s, many people around the world objected to the US war in Vietnam, and America’s global standing
reflected the unpopularity of that

Specifically, Trump’s arms sales tank soft power through its support of
autocratic and violent regimes
The Soufan Center 4-16-2019 (No Author Given, “INTELBRIEF: MORE ARMS, MORE
PROBLEMS,” 4-16-2019, https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-more-arms-more-problems/)

Under the Trump administration, the U.S. has unquestionably downgraded the importance of
‘soft power’ and diplomacy with respect to support for international treaties and organizations,
international human rights, and the promotion of freedom and democracy. Washington is
simultaneously solidifying its position as the leading global arms dealer. The U.S. supplies some
of the world’s most odious autocratic regimes with advanced weapon systems and munitions. A
recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is the latest research detailing
the scale of the issue. From 2014 to 2018, the U.S. was the world’s top exporter of weapons,
from advanced fighter jets to missiles and bombs. The U.S. now accounts for 36% of the total
volume of arms exports, up from 30% during the previous four-year time period (2009-2013).
SIPRI measures arms sales by volume and does so in four-year blocks to more accurately evaluate the accuracy of emerging trends.
Following the U.S., the next four largest arms exporters were Russia, France, Germany, and China, respectively. The
destination for these sales has primarily been countries in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is now
the world’s largest importer of weapons, with an astonishing 192% increase in imports
between 2009-2013 and 2014-2018, the last two SIPRI reporting periods. These weapons are
used to continue Riyadh’s disastrous war in Yemen. The U.S. is directly supporting that war through
intelligence sharing and arms sales. The bombs dropped on Yemeni schools and hospitals by Saudi
planes likely came from the U.S., which in turn bears responsibility for the civilian casualties. Additionally, Riyadh wants to
build up its military to counter Iran’s influence in the region, a goal shared by the Trump administration. The gap between Iran’s
military capabilities and that of other Gulf countries is widening due to strict sanctions on Iranian arms imports and the steady
increase in imports by rivals such as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. In Egypt, President al-Sisi has solidified his autocratic
grip on power and has compiled a robust arsenal to use against the persistent insurgent threat posed by the so-called Islamic
State affiliate in the Sinai, as well as against any other insurgency. Between 2014-2018, Egypt became the world’s third largest
importer of weapons. Egypt has cracked down on even the slightest hint of dissent, from journalists and activists to non-
governmental organizations. The U.S. has long been a primary arms supplier to Egypt, regardless of its
history of authoritarian leaders, choosing a foreign policy posture more concerned with stability
than the promotion of democracy and human rights. Al-Sisi, and Mubarak before him, relied on
U.S. weapons imports to maintain the government’s control over the population. Moscow, Paris, and
Berlin have also been major suppliers of weapons to Cairo. The Trump administration has been vocal in its
determination to increase arms sales to the highest bidder. Arms sales to countries like Saudi Arabia are
assessed as a positive indicator of national power and influence. Recent congressional votes to curtail the sale of weapons in support
of the war in Yemen are essential steps but likely will not have any near-term practical impact. The total quantity of arms sales has
not approached peak-Cold War-era levels, and regions once plagued with persistent high arms imports like Africa, and Latin America
have seen decreases, overall. But the
increases to the MENA region are dramatic and show no sign of
abating, as countries continue to spend vast sums of money on expensive military hardware.

The link is reverse causal - Reducing arms sales bolsters soft power through
effective dialogue and diplomacy
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute-, Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm
So far we have argued that arms sales lack a compelling strategic justification, amplify risks, and generate a host of unintended
negative consequences. These factors alone argue for significantly curtailing the arms trade. But the case for doing so is made even
stronger by the fact that greatly reducing arms sales would also produce two significant benefits for the
United States that cannot otherwise be enjoyed. The first benefit from reducing arms sales would be
greater diplomatic flexibility and leverage. Critics might argue that even if arms sales are an imperfect tool, forgoing
arms sales will eliminate a potential source of leverage. We argue that, on the contrary, the diplomatic gains from
forgoing arms sales will outweigh the potential leverage or other benefits from arms sales. Most
importantly, by refraining from arming nations engaged in conflict, the United States will have the
diplomatic flexibility to engage with all parties as an honest broker. The inherent difficulty of
negotiating while arming one side is obvious today with respect to North and South Korea. After
decades of U.S. support for South Korea, North Korea clearly does not trust the United States. Similarly, U.S. attempts to
help negotiate a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians have long been complicated
by American support for Israel. To stop arming one side of a contentious relationship is not to suggest that the United
States does not have a preferred outcome in such cases. Rather, by staying out of the military domain the United
States can more readily encourage dialogue and diplomacy. Forgoing arms sales is likely to be a
superior strategy even in cases where the United States has an entrenched interest. In the case
of Taiwan, for example, though it is clear that Taiwan needs to purchase weapons from other countries to provide for its
defense, those weapons do not have to be made in the United States. Having Taiwan buy from other suppliers
would help defuse U.S.-China tensions. Even if Taiwan’s defenses remained robust, China would clearly prefer a
situation in which American arms no longer signal an implicit promise to fight on Taiwan’s behalf. This could also promote more
productive U.S.-China diplomacy in general, as well as greater stability in the Pacific region. Most important, breaking off arms
sales would also reduce the likelihood of the United States becoming entangled in a future
conflict between Taiwan and China. The second major benefit of reducing arms sales is that it
would imbue the United States with greater moral authority. Today, as the leading arms-dealing
nation in the world, the United States lacks credibility in discussions of arms control and
nonproliferation, especially in light of its military interventionism since 2001. By showing the
world that it is ready to choose diplomacy over the arms trade, the United States would provide
a huge boost to international efforts to curtail proliferation and its negative consequences. This
is important because the United States has pursued and will continue to pursue a wide range of
arms control and nonproliferation objectives. The United States is a signatory of treaties dealing
with weapons of mass destruction, missile technology, land mines, and cluster munitions, not to
mention the flow of conventional weapons of all kinds. The effectiveness of these treaties, and
the ability to create more effective and enduring arms control and nonproliferation frameworks,
however, depends on how the United States behaves.

Soft power is key to hegemony

Jon Clifton, 2/28/19, Gallup, “US leadership has an image problem. Should we care?”
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/247019/leadership-image-problem-care.aspx, mm

Gallup's latest numbers show the image of U.S. leadership abroad is not good right now. Its approval
rating is basically unchanged from the all-time low set last year. Maybe this isn't entirely a bad thing. Doing what's right isn't always
popular. President Donald Trump's America First foreign policy wasn't designed to win friends around the globe. Trump believes that
the U.S. has been wronged in most international agreements. He notably pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade
agreement, the Paris Climate Accord and the Iran nuclear deal. He's renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and
started trade wars with China, the EU and other long-standing trade partners. He criticized NATO allies and opened a direct dialogue
with North Korea. These actions were intended to benefit America, not make the country more popular. But should we really
care what the world thinks of the U.S.? If you subscribe to the concept of soft power, yes, we
should. Where hard power is reflected in America's ability to impose its economic and military might
on others, soft power is the type that makes people in other countries want to align their interests
with the U.S. -- not because they have to, but because they want to. Scholars have shown quantitatively that
this type of influence exists. Researchers at Dartmouth and the University of Sydney looked at the relationship
between countries' voting patterns at the United Nations and their citizens' attitudes about U.S. foreign policy. They found that
"public opinion about U.S. foreign policy in foreign countries does affect their policies toward
the U.S." This suggests that America's recent unpopularity may be making it harder to lead
globally. But it might affect more than foreign countries' policies toward the U.S. Newer research at Berkeley indicates soft power
may even negatively affect trade. The researcher found that America's recent unpopularity abroad is costing the country billions of
dollars in global trade.

Hegemony prevents great-power conflict — multipolar revisionism fragments

the global order and causes nuclear war.
Brands & Edel, 19 — Hal Brands; PhD, Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns
Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Charles Edel; PhD, Senior Fellow and Visiting Scholar at the United States
Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. (“The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order;” Ch. 6: Darkening Horizon;
Published by Yale University Press; //GrRv)

Each of these geopolitical challenges is different, and each reflects the distinctive interests, ambitions, and history of the
country undertaking it. Yet there is
growing cooperation between the countries that are
challenging the regional pillars of the U.S.-led order. Russia and China have
collaborated on issues such as energy, sales and development of military technology, opposition to additional
U.S. military deployments on the Korean peninsula, and naval exercises from the South China Sea to the Baltic. In Syria, Iran
provided the shock troops that helped keep Russia’s ally, Bashar al-Assad, in power, as Moscow
provided the air power and the diplomatic cover. “Our cooperation can isolate America,” supreme leader Ali
Khamenei told Putin in 2017. More broadly, what links these challenges together is their opposition to
the constellation of power, norms, and relationships that the U.S.-led order entails, and in
their propensity to use violence, coercion, and intimidation as means of making that opposition
effective. Taken collectively, these challenges constitute a geopolitical sea change from the post-Cold
War era.

The revival of great-power competition entails higher international tensions than the world has known for
decades, and the revival of arms races, security dilemmas, and other artifacts of a more
dangerous past. It entails sharper conflicts over the international rules of the road on issues
ranging from freedom of navigation to the illegitimacy of altering borders by force, and intensifying
competitions over states that reside at the intersection of rival powers’ areas of interest. It
requires confronting the prospect that rival powers could overturn the favorable regional balances
that have underpinned the U.S.-led order for decades, and that they might construct rival
spheres of influence from which America and the liberal ideas it has long promoted would be excluded. Finally, it
necessitates recognizing that great-power rivalry could lead to great-power war, a prospect that seemed
to have followed the Soviet empire onto the ash heap of history.

Both Beijing and Moscow are, after all, optimizing their forces and exercising aggressively
in preparation for potential conflicts with the United States and its allies; Russian doctrine
explicitly emphasizes the limited use of nuclear weapons to achieve escalation dominance in a war with
Washington. In Syria, U.S. and Russian forces even came into deadly contact in early 2018. American
airpower decimated a contingent of government-sponsored Russian mercenaries that was attacking a base at which U.S.
troops were present, an incident demonstrating the increasing boldness of Russian operations and the corresponding
potential for escalation. The world has not yet returned to the epic clashes for global dominance that characterized the
twentieth century, but it has returned to the historical norm of great-power struggle, with all the
associated dangers.

Those dangers may be even greater than most observers appreciate, because if today’s great-power competitions are still most
intense at the regional level, who is to say where these competitions will end? By all appearances, Russia
does not
simply want to be a “regional power” (as Obama cuttingly described it) that dominates South Ossetia and
Crimea.37 It aspires to the deep European and extra-regional impact that previous incarnations
of the Russian state enjoyed. Why else would Putin boast about how far his troops can drive into Eastern Europe?
Why else would Moscow be deploying military power into the Middle East? Why else would it be
continuing to cultivate intelligence and military relationships in regions as remote as Latin America?

Likewise, China is today focused primarily on securing its own geopolitical neighborhood, but its
ambitions for tomorrow are clearly much bolder. Beijing probably does not envision itself fully overthrowing
the international order, simply because it has profited far too much from the U.S.-anchored global economy. Yet China has
nonetheless positioned itself for a global challenge to U.S. influence. Chinese military forces are
deploying ever farther from China’s immediate periphery; Beijing has projected power into the
Arctic and established bases and logistical points in the Indian Ocean and Horn of Africa. Popular
Chinese movies depict Beijing replacing Washington as the dominant actor in sub-Saharan Africa—a fictional representation
of a real-life effort long under way. The Belt and Road Initiative bespeaks an aspiration to link China to
countries throughout Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe; BRI, AIIB, and RCEP look like the
beginning of an alternative institutional architecture to rival Washington’s. In 2017, Xi Jinping told the Nineteenth
National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party that Beijing could now “take center stage in
the world” and act as an alternative to U.S. leadership.38
These ambitions may or may not be realistic. But they demonstrate just how significantly the world’s leading authoritarian
powers desire to shift the global environment over time. The revisionism we are seeing today may therefore be
only the beginning. As China’s power continues to grow, or if it is successful in dominating the
Western Pacific, it will surely move on to grander endeavors. If Russia reconsolidates control over the
former Soviet space, it may seek to bring parts of the former Warsaw Pact to heel. Historically, this has been a
recurring pattern of great-power behavior—interests expand with power, the appetite grows
with the eating, risk-taking increases as early gambles are seen to pay off.39 This pattern is precisely
why the revival of great-power competition is so concerning—because geopolitical revisionism by unsatisfied
major powers has so often presaged intensifying international conflict, confrontation, and even war.
The great-power behavior occurring today represents the warning light flashing on the dashboard. It tells us there may be
still-greater traumas to come.

The threats today are compelling and urgent, and there may someday come a time when the balance of power has shifted so
markedly that the postwar international system cannot be sustained. Yet that moment of failure has not yet arrived, and so the
goal of U.S. strategy should be not to hasten it by giving up prematurely, but to push it off as far into the future as possible.
Rather than
simply acquiescing in the decline of a world it spent generations building, America should
aggressively bolster its defenses, with an eye to preserving and perhaps even selectively
advancing its remarkable achievements.
 Plan
The President of the United States should issue a Presidential Policy Directive to
establish a default “no sale” approach for Direct Commercial Sales and Foreign
Military Sales of arms from the United States where sales are only authorized if
the following three conditions are met: 1) there is a direct threat to American
national security; (2) there is no other way to confront that threat other than
arming another country; and (3) the United States is the only potential supplier
of the necessary arms.
 Solvency
The plan dramatically reduces arms sales while still allowing for narrow
instances of strategic and limited export agreements
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute], Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm

The United States should reorient its arms sales policy to ensure that sales provide strategic
benefits and to avoid producing negative unintended consequences. At a practical level, this
means reducing arms sales dramatically, especially to nations with high risk factors for negative outcomes. Officials
should look for other ways to conduct foreign policy in situations where arms sales have been common tactics — such as when the
United States negotiates access to military bases or seeks cooperation in the war on terror. The arms sales process
should also be revised in order to ensure that all sales receive more thorough scrutiny than has
been the case to date. To implement this new vision for arms sales we recommend the following
steps: Issue an Updated Presidential Policy Directive on Arms Sales — Most importantly, the
president should issue a new Presidential Policy Directive reorienting U.S. arms sales policy so
that the new default policy is “no sale.” The only circumstances in which the United States
should sell or transfer arms to another country are when three conditions are met: (1) there is a
direct threat to American national security; (2) there is no other way to confront that threat
other than arming another country; and (3) the United States is the only potential supplier of
the necessary weapons. The reasoning behind this recommendation is threefold: first, as noted, the
United States enjoys such a high level of strategic immunity that there is currently no direct
security rationale for arms sales to any nation. Second, even if one believes that the United
States has an interest in helping other nations defend themselves against internal enemies (e.g., Iraq,
Afghanistan) or external ones (e.g., South Korea, Taiwan, NATO countries), there are other ways the United States
can help instead of supplying weapons. Finally, by halting the sales of weapons the United
States will decrease the risk of entanglement in conflicts that do not directly involve American
security. It will also improve the diplomatic flexibility of the United States to play the role of honest broker and to exert moral
leverage on dueling parties.

US action is key to global modeling – it is the largest producer

Andrew Feinstein, 2012, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, p. 531, mm

While 2010 saw the opening of negotiations on the ATT, it also marked a high point in
revelations of arms trade corruption. The reality is that there will be no change in the way in
which the arms trade operates unless the biggest producer and consumer of weapons, the USA,
is willing to change. Is it feasible for a President in modern-day America to lessen the unaccountability, the deception and the
iron-like grip on power and influence that the political, military and economic interests of the military-industrial-Congressional
complex exercise? Or are we destined to continue living in a world dominated by the interest of this largely unelected and deeply
flawed iron triangle? During
the course of the twentieth century, the trade in arms made viable and
fueled conflicts that cost the lives of 231 million people. The first decade of the twenty-first
century has, if anything, been more violent. A basic commitment to universal human rights,
equality and justice, to the belief that it is better to save a life by feeding a hungry stomach than to take a life by producing another
deadly weapon, demands that this trade, one of the most destructive and corrupting in human
history, cannot be allowed to continue in its largely unregulated, unscrutinized current form.

U.S. leadership is key to shrinking the global arms trade – solves long-term fill-
in
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute-, Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm

This is not to say that unilateral American action will put an end to the problems of the global
arms trade. States would still seek to ensure their security and survival through deterrence and
military strength. Other weapons suppliers would, in the short run, certainly race to meet the
demand. But history shows that global nonproliferation treaties and weapons bans typically
require great-power support. In 1969, for example, Richard Nixon decided to shutter the
American offensive-biological-weapons program and seek an international ban on such
weapons. By 1972 the Biological Weapons Convention passed and has since been signed by 178
nations.98 In 1991 President George H. W. Bush unilaterally renounced the use of chemical
weapons. By 1993 the United States had signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, which now
has 192 signatories.99 Both of these efforts succeeded in part because the United States took
decisive early action in the absence of any promises about how others would respond.100
Without U.S. leadership, any effort to limit proliferation of major conventional weapons and
dangerous emerging technologies is likely to fail.
Instability Adv Extensions
 UQ – ATI/CAT – Reduces Oversight
Small arms exports likely to suppress human rights – most small arms lack
congressional oversight.
Abramson 18 (Jeff Abramson is a non-resident senior fellow for arms control and
conventional arms transfers at the Arms Control Association, June 2018, “Firearm Export Rule
Change Draws Criticism”, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-06/news/firearm-export-rule-
change-draws-criticism)//FD
With proposed rule changes affecting U.S. firearms exports, the Trump administration is drawing criticism from domestic gun control
advocates and taking a further step to promote weapons sales, a hallmark of this presidency. The proposed changes, announced
May 14 and published in the Federal Register on May 24, are open for public comment for 45 days. If implemented,
licensing for the export of nonautomatic and semiautomatic firearms and their ammunition will
move to the Commerce Department from the State Department, which administers the U.S.
Munitions List. Critics say the change will loosen U.S. control over such exports to the benefit of U.S. gun manufacturers.
“Small arms and light weapons are among the most lethal weapons that we and other countries
export because these are the weapons that are most likely to be used to commit atrocities and
suppress human rights, either by individuals, nonstate groups, or governmental security and
paramilitary forces,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said on May 15. Mike Miller, acting deputy assistant secretary of
state for political-military affairs, said on May 22 that the change is justified because the weapons involved are “widely available,
generally in retail outlets.” He noted that the categories of firearms moved to Commerce “will remain subject to export licensing
requirements” and asserted that “these changes do not decontrol export of firearms and ammunition.” In 2017 the administration
notified Congress of more than $660 million of proposed firearms sales regulated under the munitions list, according to the Security
Assistance Monitor. Some of those sales involved fully automatic weapons that will remain on the Munitions List, making it difficult
to estimate the retail value of items moving to licensing at Commerce. Nonetheless, many industry groups welcomed the changes.
President Donald Trump has frequently touted the economic benefits of arms sales. In April, the administration issued a
conventional arms transfer policy that emphasized the economic value of the defense industry broadly and promised the
executive branch would “advocate strongly” on behalf of U.S. companies. (See ACT, May 2018.) Miller
said that “he wouldn’t necessarily pin [the proposed regulation changes] directly” to the new conventional arms transfer policy, but
others including Democratic lawmakers have pointed to gun manufacturers and their supporters
as the driving force behind the proposed rules. “I encourage the American people and relevant
stakeholders to weigh in with the administration and speak out against the forces really driving
this policy change—the gun lobby,” said Cardin. Local news media in Connecticut and Florida reported that Sen.
Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Reps. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) also criticized the president for aligning with gun
manufacturers. A number of gun control advocates also oppose the proposed change, including Robin Lloyd, director of government
affairs at Giffords, the gun safety group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and her husband, retired U.S. Navy
Captain Mark Kelly. “It’s clear the administration will do anything to appease the gun lobby, even if it means putting profits over the
safety of people around the world,” Lloyd said. Efforts to revise the U.S. Munitions List have been ongoing
for decades, but early in the Obama administration, the Export Control Reform Initiative was launched, based on a review that
found the United States was “trying to control too much.” Seeking to “strengthen the United States’ ability to counter threats such
as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” the administration made changes to 18 of the 21 categories of major weapons
and technology controlled under the munitions list, moving many items to the Commerce Control List, with an idea of building
higher fences around fewer items. Changes
to the first three categories, which cover close-assault
weapons and combat shotguns, guns and armaments, and their ammunition and ordnance,
were considered by the Obama administration, but never published. The Obama-era delay can be
attributed in part to the frequent national attention drawn to firearms by mass shootings in the United States and a presidency
more inclined to support gun control efforts. On
May 15, Cardin called the decision to move forward with
changes “politically tone deaf as our nation reckons with a gun violence epidemic.” In
September 2017, Cardin, joined by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
sent a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressing concerns about the possible transfer
to Commerce control, pointing to congressional action in 2002 that required firearms sales
valued at $1 million or more be notified to Congress, a much lower dollar threshold than for
other weapons. Items moved over to Commerce control would no longer be subject to such
notification. With the rule release, Cardin and others reiterated their concern regarding loss of
congressional oversight and broader worries about how firearms fuel conflict.
 AT SQ Restrictions Solve
Current checks fail – the US exports arms to almost everyone
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 6/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute]Cato Institute, “a new framework for assessing the risks from US arms sales,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/new-framework-assessing-risks-us-arms-sales,
mm

On paper, the United States appears to have a robust procedure in place to assess arms sales.
Since 1976, the Arms Export Control Act has required that the executive branch conduct a risk assessment for large government-to-
government sales of major conventional weapons (commercial sales of many small and light weapons are covered by different
rules). Once a foreign government decides it would like to buy an American system, it submits a letter of request. The request kicks
off an extensive process that runs through a variety of offices at the Departments of Defense and State, as well as other agencies.
The Country Team Assessment is the American government’s official risk assessment and is intended to determine: how the
[weapon] will be used, how it contributes to the defense and security goals of the partner nation and of the US, how it will change
the partner country’s military capabilities, how the partner country will protect and safeguard sensitive technology, and the partner
nation’s human rights record. Once approved, the matter is turned over to Congress, which serves as an emergency brake for this
process. Absent sufficient congressional opposition in the form of a veto-proof resolution of disapproval, the sale is made. In
reality, the outcome of this process is almost inevitably the same: approval. Though the United States
won’t sell its latest technology to everyone, it will sell most things to just about anyone. Although a full explanation
of this is beyond the scope of our work, three possible reasons are worth noting. First, the benefits of arms
sales are obvious and immediate, while the negative consequences are often less obvious, tend
to emerge much later, and often receive little media coverage. Second, there is no constituency
in Washington opposing arms sales. Presidents see them as a foreign policy tool, Congress sees them as economically
beneficial benefiting its constituents economically, and the defense industry provides financial encouragement all around through
campaign donations. Finally,
the United States has been the world’s leading arms exporter for so long
that the presumption that arms sales work seems to have become ingrained in the national
security bureaucracy.

Trump is rolling back export restrictions

Brian Chang, 12/20/17, Just Security, “by weakening arms export controls, trump’s national
security strategy will create national and global insecurity,”
https://www.justsecurity.org/49873/weakening-arms-export-controls-trumps-national-security-
strategy-create-national-global-insecurity/, mm

The Trump Administration’s newly launched National Security Strategy will draw a lot of critiques of Trump’s foreign policy
worldview and prescriptions, but not of its implications for arms control or human rights. One important aspect of the 67-page
strategy document that is unlikely to get the sustained attention it deserves is how the Trump administration’s proposals to
weaken arms export controls will lead to national and international insecurity, and contribute to
violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. The Trump administration’s policy of
increasing arms exports and its attempts to rewrite US arms export regulations and processes, are a scandal that has not received
the attention it deserves in the present news cycle. Trump’s
National Security Strategy could result in the
transfer of arms to autocratic regimes that use them to violate human rights, or the diversion of
arms to actors that might use them against US security forces, or those of US allies. Individual sales
proposals and policy reform proposals over the past year have been troubling enough, but the National Security Strategy confirms
that these were not exceptions, but part of a broader policy of encouraging the export of US military equipment to strengthen the
US defense industrial base, which does not give adequate consideration to potential impacts on human rights or national and
international security. In the first 11 months of 2017, the Trump administration notified Congress of arms transfers valued at $80.7
billion, which is almost double the amount the Obama administration sold in the same period in 2016 ($58.6b). This included
approvals of arms transfers that the Obama administration had previously blocked on human rights grounds after much effort by
advocacy groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Military aircraft and bombs have been sold to air forces
that face credible allegations of unnecessarily bombing civilians, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Nigeria. The Trump
administration has also proposed to or has already sold guns to countries with problematic human rights records including Mexico,
Honduras, El Salvador, Turkey, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines. Very few of these irresponsible arms deals have
received widespread public attention or pushback. Given the Trump administration’s stated National Security Strategy of
encouraging arms exports and weakening export controls, these sales are likely to be the mere first rumblings of an avalanche of
arms sales to rogue actors and human rights violators. Too little attention has been focused on the Trump administration’s review of
US arms export controls, which is primarily focused on promoting the competitiveness of the US defense industry by “removing
unreasonable constraints on the ability of [US] companies to compete,” according to National Security Council (NSC) sources.
Another justification for the review is to “strengthen the defense capabilities of US allies” which is driven by the desire to create
“high-quality American jobs,” although arms control advocates have shown that investments in defense creates less jobs than
investments in health care, clean energy, education or even tax cuts. Although the NSC pays lip service to the importance of ensuring
that arms export controls are not removed at the expense of US foreign policy interests, the review is clearly supported by lobbyists
for the defense industry and gun manufacturers. Trump has also personally linked arms sales with trade imbalances, most recently
signaling to Vietnam that he wants them to buy more US arms to reduce the US.-Vietnam trade deficit. The
Trump
administration’s review of US arms export controls includes proposals to weaken specific export
controls over a diverse array of weaponry ranging from small arms to drones. In short, the Trump
administration intends to change export regulations so that gun manufacturers can export without adequate background checks on
the countries or security forces purchasing them, even as we mourn the victims of gun violence linked to the inadequacy of
background checks here in the US. It has been reported that the Trump administration
intends to shift some gun
and small arms sales from the US Munitions List to the Commerce Control List soon, with reports
indicating that the administration is close to finalizing proposed new rules. Although advocacy and reporting on this proposal have
been hindered by a lack of transparency, this has not stopped a small group of dedicated arms control advocates from highlighting
that the anticipated changes are likely to remove Congressional notification requirements for arms sales, remove State Department
oversight that ensures these exports take into account national security, foreign policy and human rights considerations, and
ultimately make it much easier for small arms manufacturers to obtain licenses to sell abroad, with less accountability if the guns
end up in the wrong hands. Of arguably greater concern than the rollbacks of individual export controls described above, the
Trump administration has signaled its intent to revise the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the
principal, overarching regulation governing arms exports. While public details remain scarce, pro-arms export officials from the NSC
and State Department are emphasizing “export competitiveness” as the principal motive behind the review, a motive confirmed by
the National Security Strategy. Arms control advocates are particularly concerned that the result of this rewrite could be that vetting
criteria mandating consideration of human rights concerns will be eliminated and replaced with vetting criteria emphasizing the
desirability of arms exports. The
consequences of poorly regulated arms flows are devastating, with
tens of thousands of people dying each year due to the widespread availability of weapons on
black markets. In Iraq alone, poorly regulated US arms transfers ended up providing ISIS with the weapons to commit mass
atrocities in Iraq and Syria, while also supplying paramilitary militias with the weapons to abduct, “disappear,” torture and execute
thousands of mainly Sunni men and boys. US-made weapons are also being used to enforce the Saudi-led siege of Yemen, where
thousands of civilians are being needlessly starved and bombed, in flagrant disregard of international and US arms export control
law. The Trump administration should be fighting to end the bloodshed in Yemen and US complicity in human rights violations by
threatening to end arms sales to members of the Saudi-led coalition, rather than threatening to weaken human rights provisions in
the oversight of arms exports.
 Link – Arms Sales -> Instability/War
Trump’s CAT eliminates oversight and increases SALW exports – that fuels
global conflcits
William Hartung, 7/15/18, The Hill, “Trump’s arms export rules will undermine US security and
risk human rights abuses,” https://thehill.com/opinion/international/397096-trumps-arms-
export-rules-will-undermine-us-security-promote-human, mm

One major flaw in the new plan is that it would eliminate notifications to Congress of exports of
firearms and related equipment worth $1 million or more. Statistics gathered by the Security Assistance
Monitor have documented that the State Department approved $662 million worth of firearms exports to 15 countries in 2017,
including to places like Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey where there
is a
risk that these weapons will be used to abuse human rights, fall into the hands of criminal gangs,
or fuel devastating conflicts like the Saudi/UAE-led intervention in Yemen. Absent notification, Congress and the public
would have little ability to debate, much less block, any of these problematic exports. The administration rule has tried to obscure
the true danger of its approach by suggesting that the bulk of the guns that are being removed from State Department oversight and
licensing are commercially available. For many of the firearms being deregulated, this claim is dubious. More importantly, many of
the guns involved are military-grade, including sniper rifles. Others, like the AR-15, have been used in tragic incidents of gun violence
such as the Parkland, Florida school shootings. Finally, in some cases, as with sniper rifles, these weapons could end up being used
against U.S. troops involved in overseas operations. The Violence Policy Center has compiled a lengthy list of military firearms and
other especially dangerous weapons that would be subjected to far looser restrictions under the proposed administration plan. The
firearms slated for deregulation are the primary tools in many of the world’s most deadly
conflicts, and have rightly been described as “slow motion weapons of mass destruction.” They
should be subjected to more rigorous scrutiny, not less. In addition, the proposed rule would make it easier for private military
contractors like the firm formerly known as Blackwater to train foreign security forces without a license, even for destinations like
Libya and China that raise significant security concerns. In another particularly unwise change, many companies that engage in
firearms manufacturing would no longer have to register with the State Department, which will make it much harder to track their
activities and prevent illegal sales or exports to security forces or non-state groups that will use the weapons they make to do
grievous harm to civilians. This relaxation of the monitoring of manufacturing activities will apparently extend to open source 3-D
printing, meaning that anyone could post non-proprietary instructions for to use this process to produce untraceable hand guns and
semi-automatic firearms without have to register with State or seek an export license from Commerce. This will
be an
invitation to arms proliferation on a scale not yet seen. Congress should address the 3-D printing issue alongside
efforts to block the Trump administration’s proposed changes in firearms export regulations. The proposal would also lift the
obligation of U.S. arms exporting firms to report political contributions to foreign officials and fees paid to marketing agents in
potential recipient countries. This would seriously hinder U.S. law enforcement agencies’ ability to root out corruption and illegal
transfers, which have long plagued the global trade in small arms and light weapons. Last but certainly not least, taking dangerous
firearms off of the U.S. Munitions List, as the new proposal would do, would mean that they are no longer described as “defense
articles.” As a result, they would likely fall outside the jurisdiction of a web of carefully constructed laws that impose specific human
rights criteria on the export of such weapons. The
concerns outlined here underscore the risks inherent in
the Trump administration’s firearms deregulation scheme. The bottom line is that implementing
these rules as written would lead to additional unnecessary deaths, bolster repressive regimes, and
make it easier for terrorists and criminal gangs to inflict violence on innocent individuals. For all of
these reasons, the new rule should be rejected. At a minimum, Congress should move to restore the most important elements of the
current regulatory scheme, including notification of major firearms exports and limits on the deregulation of military-grade firearms
and guns most likely to be used in mass killings.

The US regularly exports weapons to countries engaged in conflicts – key source

of instability
CIVIC and the Stimson Center, 1/10/18, [This report is a joint initiative of the Center for
Civilians in Conflict and the Stimson Center], “With Great Power: Modifying US Arms Sales to
Reduce Civilian Harm,” https://www.stimson.org/sites/default/files/file-
attachments/ArmsSales_WithGreatPower_FINAL.pdf, mm
The global arms trade reached an estimated total value of $91.3 billion in 2015 (the last year when complete data was available).1
While the United States is not the only country that sells conventional arms through government-to-government and
commercial transactions, it holds an unrivaled dominance measured in global market share. According to the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the total value of international US arms exports delivered in 2016 was
close to $10 billion, or 29 percent of the total global export market.2 The US has maintained an average of 33 percent market share
in international arms exports between 2011 and 2015, followed most closely by Russia (25 percent) and China (5.9 percent).3 These
figures do not include transfer agreements, estimated at $40.2 billion, or over 50% of the global total, when last measured in 2015.4
All reporting indicates that the US will remain the market leader in 2017.5 Of
the 82 countries identified by the Uppsala
Conflict Data Program as
a party or secondary party to an armed conflict in 2016, the US delivered
major military items (measured in Foreign Military Sales) to at least 62 of them; in 34 countries where conflict took
place, the US delivered arms in 27.6 Meanwhile, in 2016, armed conflict in as many as 34 countries killed an estimated 102,000
people and caused an unquantified level of damage to civilian infrastructure, including homes, schools, and hospitals.8 Although no
single weapon or technology caused this level of death and destruction, the global arms trade has a direct bearing
on the effects of war on civilians. In the 2017 United Nations report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, the
UN Secretary-General called specific attention to the relationship between arms proliferation and human suffering in war, noting
that “high levels of arms and ammunition in circulation, combined with poor controls on them, contribute to insecurity and facilitate
violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”9 Research by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC)
confirms that “when conventional arms are poorly regulated and widely available, the humanitarian consequences are
grim: violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, restricted medical and humanitarian assistance, prolonged
armed conflicts, and high levels of armed violence and insecurity...even after wars have ended.”10 Of mounting concern are the
effects of explosive weapons used in urban areas, as seen in recent military campaigns in Iraq and Syria. According to data collected
by Action on Armed Violence, civilians represent approximately 92 percent of those reported killed and injured when security forces
employ explosive weapons in populated areas.11 Analysts estimate that explosive weapons led to the death of 32,000 civilians in
2016 alone.12 While improvised explosives caused much of this damage, civilians also suffered the effects of commercially available
“smart” and “dumb” bombs, missiles, and mortars that were dropped, launched, or shot from the ground, air, and sea. In addition to
civilian deaths and injuries, these weapons cause high levels of forced displacement and critical damage to essential civilian
infrastructure, including hospitals, sanitation systems, and transportation systems essential for food security. With
its outsized
influence on the trade and use of arms worldwide, the US has the ability, the opportunity, and
the responsibility to shape the arms trade to reduce harm to civilians. Moreover, ensuring that US-made
and -sold weapons are deployed as intended, within the bounds of international humanitarian and human rights law, is also a core
US national security interest. The 2014 US Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, enshrining 20 years of bipartisan policy on arms
transfers13 recalls that, “In the hands of hostile or irresponsible state and non-state actors … weapons can exacerbate international
tensions, foster instability, inflict substantial damage, enable transnational organized crime, and be used to violate universal human
rights.”14

Small arms and light weapons magnify the link – responsible for half of all
violent deaths each year
William Hartung, 8/15/18, Informed Consent, “How trump is turning US diplomats into arms
merchants to the world,” https://www.juancole.com/2018/08/turning-diplomats-
merchants.html, mm
Yes, those massive sales of tanks, helicopters, and fighter aircraft are indeed a grim wonder of the modern world and never receive
the attention they truly deserve. However, a potentially deadlier aspect of the U.S. weapons trade receives even less attention than
the sale of big-ticket items: the export of firearms, ammunition, and related equipment. Global arms control advocates
have termed such small arms and light weaponry — rifles, automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and handguns
— “slow motion weapons of mass destruction” because they’re the weapons of choice in the
majority of the 40 armed conflicts now underway around the world. They and they alone have been
responsible for nearly half of the roughly 200,000 violent deaths by weapon that have been occurring
annually both in and outside of official war zones. And the Trump administration is now moving to make it far easier
for U.S. gun makers to push such wares around the world. Consider it an irony, if you will, but in doing so, the
president who has staked his reputation on rejecting everything that seems to him tainted by Barack Obama is elaborating on a
proposal originally developed in the Obama years. The crucial element in the new plan: to move key decisions on whether or not to
export guns and ammunition abroad from the State Department’s jurisdiction, where they would be vetted on both human rights
and national security grounds, to the Commerce Department, whose primary mission is promoting national exports. The Violence
Policy Center, a research and advocacy organization that seeks to limit gun deaths, has indicated that such a move would ease the
way for more exports of a long list of firearms. Those would include sniper rifles and AR-15s, the now-classic weapon in U.S. mass
killings like the school shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Newtown, Connecticut. Under the new plan, the careful tracking of whose
hands such gun exports could end up in will be yesterday’s news and, as
a result, U.S. weapons are likely to become
far more accessible to armed gangs, drug cartels, and terrorist operatives. President Trump’s plan
would even eliminate the requirement that Congress be notified in advance of major firearms
deals, which would undoubtedly prove to be the arms loophole of all time. According to statistics gathered by the Security
Assistance Monitor, which gathers comprehensive information on U.S. military and police aid programs, the State Department
approved $662 million worth of firearms exports to 15 countries in 2017. The elimination of Congressional notifications and the
other proposed changes will mean that countries like Mexico, the Philippines, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as
various Central American nations, will have far easier access to a far wider range of U.S. firearms with far less Congressional
oversight. And that, in turn, means that U.S.-supplied weapons will play even more crucial roles in
vicious civil wars like the one in Yemen and are far more likely to make their way into the hands of local thugs, death squads,
and drug cartels. And mind you, it isn’t as if U.S. gun export policies were enlightened before the Trump
era. They were already wreaking havoc in neighboring countries. According to a report from the Center for
American Progress, an astonishing 50,000 U.S. guns were recovered in criminal investigations in 15 Western Hemisphere nations
between 2014 and 2016. That report goes on to note that 70% of the guns recovered from crimes in Mexico are of U.S. origin. The
comparable figures for Central America are 49% for El Salvador, 46% for Honduras, and 29% for Guatemala.

U.S. exports undermine regional stability – vast amounts of weapons are

shipped to risky customers
A. Trevor Thrall, and Jordan Cohen, 4-5-2019, "The False Promises of Trump’s Arms Sales,"
Defense One, https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/04/false-promises-trumps-arms-
sales/156071/

U.S. export deals are undermining regional stability and sending jobs abroad. President Trump’s love of arms
sales is clear for all to see. On his first trip abroad as a public servant, the new president proudly announced a mammoth arms deal
with Saudi Arabia, later crowing that the deal would lead to one million new American jobs. Last July,
his administration
released a new Conventional Arms Transfer policy that aims to streamline and supercharge
arms exports through a whole-of-government strategy. The results so far, according to figures
from a new report from the Security Assistance Monitor, have been $82.2 billion in arms sales in
2017 and another $78 billion in 2018. Unfortunately, Trump’s promises about the benefits of arms sales are mostly
empty, while the dangers are all too real. MOST READ 1 How We Tamed the F-35’s Spiraling Costs — and Created a
Model for Controlling Waste 2 Russia, China Offer Challenges in the Arctic 3 Sexual Assault Allegation Surfaces About Nominee for
Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman SUBSCRIBE Receive daily email updates: Subscribe to the Defense One daily. Be the first to receive
updates. Top of Form Bottom of Form ADVERTISEMENT Advocates of
arms exports have long argued that such
sales are critical for promoting regional stability in trouble spots around the world. But
American arms exports to the Middle East are doing the exact opposite. Arms export data
from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show that the U.S. share of arms
sales to the Middle East has steadily increased over the past 15 years, yet with conflicts in
Syria, Yemen, and throughout North Africa, the region is as unstable as ever. American arms
sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have already enabled those nations to carry
out a bloody and catastrophic war in Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians, displaced
most of the population, and put millions more at risk of starvation and disease. By continuing to sell
weapons to Saudi Arabia even after attempts in the U.S. Senate to halt them, the Trump administration will encourage more Saudi
intervention, further destabilizing the region. And though presidents tout export of arms as a good way to strengthen allies, the
truth is that the United States doesn’t just sell weapons to responsible nations such as Italy, the United Kingdom, and Belgium.
Vast amounts of U.S. weapons are shipped to risky customers: fragile states like Turkey,
nations embroiled in conflicts like Saudi Arabia, and oppressive governments with horrendous
human rights records like Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Since 2001, the
U.S.government has notified the public of arms sales totaling over $560 billion to 167 countries.
Each of these sales adds a varying degree of risk to the United States regarding potential
blowback, entanglement, dispersion, and increasing instability throughout the world. Related:
Pentagon’s Focus On China and Russia Expected to Alter US Arms Sales DON'T MISS Related: Trying to Kill the Iran Deal Could End Up
Saving It Related: White House Proposes Loan Fund to Help Allies Buy US Arms Finally, Trump’s claims about the economic benefits
of arms sales ring the hollowest of all. For starters, not only won’t arms sales create a million new American jobs, but a great number
of the jobs created by arms sales will go to citizens of the purchasing nations. As the Security Assistance Monitor report notes, the
number of licenses granted to weapons manufacturers outside the United States doubled from 2017 to 2018. As a result, more than
one-quarter of all U.S. arms “sales” last year were deals to permit the manufacturing of U.S.-designed weapons under license — that
is, they created jobs in other nations instead of the United States. The report also finds that the Trump administration has sharply
increased the number of deals in which foreign countries produce U.S.-developed weaponry under coproduction agreements,
further reducing the number of U.S. jobs tied to arms sales. Weakening the economic rationale even further is the fact that in order
to seal major deals, American defense contractors have to offer massive discounts, or offsets, to the purchasing nations in the form
of coproduction arrangements or technology transfer. In 2014, for example, these offsets equaled roughly one-third of the value of
total U.S. arms sales. These offsets mean not only that American arms sales are less profitable than they appear on paper, but also
that they lead to fewer jobs created in the United States than many, including the president, would like to think. Trump’s big Saudi
arms deal, for example, would likely lead to somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 jobs, or less than two-tenths of one percent of
the American labor market. The unpleasant truth is that the underwhelming economic benefits cannot justify Washington’s love of
arms sales. Arms
sales simply do not benefit the U.S. economy nearly as much as Trump likes to claim.
Meanwhile, a large percentage of American arms sales goes to countries with horrible human
rights records, to nations where arms are at risk of finding their way into the wrong hands, and
to nations embroiled in dangerous and destabilizing conflicts. Given this, it is long past time to
rethink American arms sales policy.

Exports cause instability – weapons each terrorists, criminal and corrupt

governments
Colby Goodman and Rachel Stohl, 9/25/17, [Goodman is the director of the Security
Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy; Stohl is the director of the
Conventional Defense Program at the Stimson], Defense News, “five dangers of giving the
commerce department oversight of firearms exports,”
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/09/25/five-dangers-of-giving-the-
commerce-department-oversight-of-firearms-exports-commentary/, mm

U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Buy American” agenda is taking a potentially deadly turn, with the administration expected to
issue new regulations that would make it easier for U.S. firearms and related ammunition to reach terrorists,
criminal organizations and corrupt and abusive foreign security forces. The Trump administration’s
proposed regulations would likely transfer responsibility for reviewing licenses to export certain
types of weapons — including assault-style rifles and pistols and armor-piercing sniper rifles — from the State Department
to the Commerce Department. Although not as eye catching as an F-35, these small arms are often called “the
real weapons of mass destruction.” Responsible for up to 1,000 deaths a day, these weapons
also threaten U.S. service members around the world. The proposal has raised significant concerns, including
from U.S. law enforcement agencies that have fiercely opposed the transfer of these items because of the increased risk that they
may land in the hands of unintended end users. There
are five key dangers of shifting oversight of firearms
exports to the Commerce Department. First, there is an increased risk of exports to
unauthorized end users and conflict zones. Under the Commerce Department system, companies can generally use
several broad license exemptions to export military equipment without U.S. government approval. When the U.S. government shifts
oversight of firearms exports to companies, it loses the ability to identify key warning signs, including risky middlemen, unusual
routes and mismatched weapons systems, of a possible diversion of U.S. guns to terrorists, criminals or conflict zones. Without U.S.
oversight, the government also couldn’t stop the sale of firearms to foreign security force units accused of serious human rights
violations or corruption. Second,
a shift to the Commerce Department could compromise the United
States’ ability to investigate and prosecute arms smugglers. The Trump administration’s proposal would likely
eliminate the current requirement that individuals receive government approval before attempting to broker a deal to non-NATO
countries for firearms controlled by the Commerce Department. The proposal might also remove the requirement that companies
first register with the U.S. government before engaging in arms exports, which U.S. law enforcement has used to build investigations
against illegal arms traffickers. Furthermore, the proposal could create greater legal ambiguity about restrictions on firearms exports
and, thus, impede U.S. law enforcement’s efforts to prosecute cases of illegal arms trafficking. Indeed, if an arms exporter can show
that a reasonable person would be confused by U.S. regulations, the illegal exporter could escape prosecution. Third, the
proposal risks losing key legal restrictions on dangerous arms transfers. Commerce Department
regulations, unlike the State Department’s, are not tied to all federal laws that regulate security assistance, including the commercial
export of defense articles to foreign governments that support terrorism, violate internationally recognized human rights norms or
interfere with humanitarian operations as well as country-specific controls imposed on nations of concern, such as China. A shift to
the Commerce Department would likely complicate, if not end, State Department reviews of a recipient's human rights violations, as
the State Department bureau in charge of human rights may face greater difficulties in pressing for restraint on risky firearms
exports. Such a shift would thereby dilute the State Department’s ability to prevent high-risk transfers. Fourth, the Trump
proposal risks eroding global norms on firearms exports. Over the past two decades, through bilateral and
multilateral agreements, the United States has successfully encouraged governments around the world to adopt better laws and
policies to stop irresponsible and illegal arms transfers. Many of these agreements note the need to review export licenses on a
case-by-case basis, highlight the importance of brokering registration and licensing and contain other key controls. If the United
States decides to reduce or remove some of these controls, many other countries may choose to do so as well, particularly if it
allows them to better compete with the United States. Finally, a shift would likely result in less transparency in
arms sales. The proposal could eliminate both Congress’s and the public’s view of U.S. firearms sales authorizations and
deliveries around the world because the Commerce Department’s annual reports cover only about 20 countries. Furthermore, there
are no public end-use reports on arms exports authorized by the Commerce Department such as those for exports authorized by the
State Department. The reports are useful to identify key trafficking patterns that can help avoid risky arms transfers. Although the
Commerce Department maintains a regulatory process for exports, its oversight is notoriously less robust than the State
Department’s. Indeed, Congress has limited the executive branch’s authority to transfer military equipment to the Commerce
Department to only those articles that do not have “substantial military utility.” While
firearms might not appear to
hold the destructive power of many other conventional weapons systems, their potential impact
can be devastating. As such, they deserve greater, not less, scrutiny when making export
decisions.
 I/L – Blowback
Arms exports trigger instability through blowback
Holden, Paul. 2017, Indefensible : Seven Myths that Sustain the Global Arms Trade, Zed
Books, p. 58-64, mm

The first and probably best known way in which arms get into the wrong hands is through what is known as
‘blowback’: when a onetime ally to whom you have provided weapons becomes an enemy. With that switch, enemies are able
to turn the weapons supplied against their one-time ally turned enemy. There are many examples of blowback, but
none is more obvious than the serious mess that has been the US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the early
1980s, Iraq, under the dictatorial leadership of Saddam Hussein, launched a war against Iran. Iran had recently undergone a
revolution that had replaced the Shah of Iran (a long-time US and European ally, despite his dictatorial rule) with a religious clique,
the Ayatollahs, that promised to convert Iran to Muslim orthodoxy. Iran declared the US ‘enemy number one’. While the US was not
above supplying weapons to Iran (the Iran-Contra affair exposed how the US had set up an enterprise to supply arms to Iran to
secure the release of hostages and fund right-wing paramilitaries in Nicaragua 1 ), it generally tilted its support towards Iraq. This
support was both financial and material. In 1989, FBI agents raided the Atlanta offices of the Italian Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
(BNL), based on a tip-off from two insiders. 2 It soon emerged that the bank had been systematically supplying loans to the regime
of Saddam Hussein. Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, tasked with investigating the matter, revealed that BNL had been Iraq’s
largest source of loans from 1985 to 1989. This was done with the complicity of the CIA and Washington. Remarkably, the loans had
been guaranteed under the cover of the Commodity Credit Corporation, a US government agricultural loan facility. When Iraq
defaulted on the loans, it was the US taxpayer that paid the bill. 3 The loans that had been granted to Saddam Hussein fueled an
enormous program to buy weapons, mostly from European suppliers, which was supported and aided by the CIA and Washington;
the program was given legal force by a National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) signed by Ronald Reagan that stated it was US
policy to ensure Iraq won the war with Iran. Howard Teicher, a member of the US National Security Council in charge of Political-
Military Affairs from 1982 to 1987 revealed in an affidavit that in 1995, Pursuant to the secret NSDD, the United States actively
supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing US military intelli- gence and
advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry
required. 4 Between 1979 and 1985, when reliable data ceases, Iraq increased its expenditure on weapons from 6.9% of its GDP to
27.5%. 5 During the early 1980s, Iraq became the world’s biggest importer of major weapons systems, only falling behind India in
1986 and 1987. The Stockholm Peace Research Institute could identify twenty-six different countries supplying weapons to Iraq at
the time. 6 The two largest suppliers of Iraq’s major weapons systems during the Iran‒ Iraq war were France (accounting for 28%)
and the Soviet Union (47%). 7 Thus, with direct funding from Washington, not only was Saddam Hussein getting his hands on
buckets of weapons, but he was buying a good portion of them from the US’ Cold War enemy, the USSR. A unilateral US arms
embargo placed on Iraq during the war meant that the US could not supply weapons directly (hence the convoluted system
described above). But it made every effort to ensure that Iraq could import as many ‘dual-use’ items from the US as possible. ‘Dual-
use’ items are items that have both military and civilian applications. Included in the designation of ‘dual-use’ items were biological
materials that could be used in chemical and biological warfare. In the early 1990s, the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing
and Urban Affairs released a report confirming that The United States provided the Government of Iraq with ‘dual use’ licensed
materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programs, including: chemical warfare
agent precursors, chemical war- fare agent production facility plans and technical drawings (provided as pesticide production facility
plans); chemical warhead filling equipment; biological warfare related materials; missile fabrication equipment; and, missile-system
guidance equipment. 8 The list of biological material the US provided was shocking, including anthrax, botulinium, E.Coli as well as
human and bacterial DNA. 9 There is credible evidence that when the US invaded Iraq in 1991, US troops were exposed to the very
agents that the US had supplied, over and above fighting against the weapons whose acquisition the US had helped to fund and
arrange. 10 In the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, the world was witness to another type of blowback: namely, when an ally
is provided arms but fails to stop those arms being stolen by enemies. Between 2003 and 2014, Iraq received weapons to the
equivalent value of $4.115bn (not all of which were bought: many of the weapons that were delivered took the form of aid
transfers); of which $2.487bn, or more than 50%, came from the US. 11 Amongst the items delivered are armored personnel
carriers, military helicopters, transport aircraft, anti-tank missiles, tanks, artillery and drones. 12 Between 2006 and 2009, for
example, SIPRI reports that the US handed the Iraqi army 8,500 advanced armored personnel carriers. 13 These figures also ignore
the mountains of light weapons imported into the country; between 2003 and 2008, the US supplied over 1 million small arms (rifles
and handguns) to the Iraqi military and police, 360,000 of which simply went missing. 14 The story comes full circle in 2014:
blowback in the form of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS – also sometimes referred to as ISIL or Daesh). Since 2013, ISIS,
a hardline Islamist militant group that has attracted global approbation for its brutal tactics— including mass executions of captured
minority groups and beheadings of journalists— has gained control of significant portions of Iraq and Syria. Originally armed with
weapons sourced from an overly well-stocked region, with Syrian and Iraqi stores particularly lucrative sources, ISIS has overrun
much of the northern quadrant of Iraq bordering Kurdistan. 15 The Iraqi army, which was supposed to have been well trained and
armed, melted in the face of the ISIS onslaught; illustrating yet again that no amount of material and technical training can fix that
which is badly governed. These military successes, in particular the capture of Iraq’s second city of Mosul, allowed ISIS to acquire
even more significant stockpiles of weapons, creating a feedback loop in which ISIS uses existing weapons to acquire even more,
some of which had been provided to the Iraqi army by the US. 16 The size of the seizures has been astonishing: a 2014 UN Security
Council Report noted that in June 2014 alone ISIS seized sufficient Iraqi government stocks from the provinces of Anbar and Salah al-
Din to arm and equip more than three Iraqi conventional army divisions. 17 Reviewing the evidence, the same report provided a
chilling summary of the range of weapons ISIS has at its disposal: From social media and other reporting, it is clear that ISIL assets
include light weapons, assault rifles, machine guns, heavy weapons, including possible man-portable air defense systems
(MANPADS) (SA-7), field and anti-aircraft guns, missiles, rockets, rocket launchers, artillery, aircraft, tanks (including T-55s and T-72s)
and vehicles, including high-mobility multi- purpose military vehicles. 18 Hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons they use have
been instrumental in their rapid advance. 19 This is particularly true of military infantry fighting vehicles— Humvees and mine-
protected vehicles— and long-range howitzers that inflict frightening damage on civilian populations. When the US recently
launched airstrikes against ISIS fighters who had surrounded tens of thousands of civilians on a barren mountainside, it was largely
targeting weapons (in particular mortars) that the US had itself made available in the region. The seizure of US weapons, which ISIS
mixes with arms acquired via other means elsewhere (often smuggled in through routes that traverse Turkey 20 ), has not only
further destabilized Iraq, but fed further violence and devastation into the deadly Syrian conflict. Recent media reports indicate that
some of the US-seized weapons and armor— Humvees in particular— have been seen in the hands of ISIS near Aleppo: a full 200
miles outside of Iraq. 21 In
a region where tensions are rife, where violence is endemic and a peaceful
solution a long way off, and where predicting the political future is almost impossible, there
remains one constant: if people want to fight wars, they have more than enough arms to do so
for the foreseeable future. Indeed, in 2014 the London-based Conflict Armament Research published a report based on
spent ammunition found in ISIS-controlled areas. It found that ISIS had been using ammunition from at least twenty-one different
countries manufactured over seventy years. Nearly 20% of the ammunition discovered was supplied by the US in the 2000s. 22
There is, of course, a caveat: after a while, the seized weapons systems will cease to be functional without maintenance and a ready
supply of spares. It
seems obvious that this requires the US, in particular, to put in place stringent
measures to stop such spares finding their way to fighters whose stated aim is to attack US
interests throughout the region. And yet, as we have seen in the last chapter, the US is now doing the
exact opposite by radically revising and liberalizing its Munitions Control list. Whether or not this leads
to further blowback is unclear, but, considering the past, shouldn’t the emphasis be on caution rather than profits?

US arm sales lead to future blowback- Iran use US given arms against US- arms
end up in crime groups- enables endless fighting
THRALL AND DORMINEY 18 a senior fellow for the Cato’s Institute’s Defense and Foreign Policy Department, with
expertise in international security and the politics of American national security –a policy analyst in defense and foreign policy
studies at the Cato Institute. (Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, “A New Framework For Assessing the Risks From U.S. Arms
Sales”, June 13, 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/a-new-framework-for-assessing-the-risks-from-u-s-arms-
sales//MK)

Americans weapons end up being used against American interests. After the Iranian Revolution
in 1979, the revolutionary government took possession of billions of dollars’ worth of American fighter jets and other

weapons, an arsenal that Iran has used to exert itself ever since. A more common example is when American troops end
up fighting other forces armed with American-made weapons that the United States had
willingly provided, as happened in Somalia in 1991 with weapons provided during the Cold War. Arms sales and transfers can also harm
the regions into which American weapons flow. Another danger is dispersion — when weapons sold to a foreign government end up in

the hands of criminal groups or adversaries. This risk is highest with sales or transfers to fragile states that are unprepared, unwilling, or too
corrupt to protect their stockpiles adequately. For instance, despite America’s efforts to train and equip the Iraqi army, ISIL fighters in 2014 captured three Iraqi army divisions’

.
worth of American equipment, including tanks, armored vehicles, and infantry weapons. American arms sales can also prolong and intensify interstate conflicts Although the

sending weapons can also encourage the recipients

goal might be to alter the military balance of a conflict to facilitate a speedy end,

to continue fighting even with no chance of success, leading to more casualties. Finally, U.S. weapons
sales in the name of battling terrorism and insurgency undermine U.S. national security when they are made to
corrupt regimes and to nations with a history of human right violations. American firepower can enhance regime security
and enable oppressive governments to mistreat minority groups and wage inhumane actions against insurgents or terrorist groups. Currently,
Saudi Arabia is waging war in Yemen using primarily American weapons, which the United States has continued to provide even though the Saudis have been cited repeatedly
for human rights violations and targeting civilian populations. In countries where serious corruption is endemic, American weapons can be diverted from their intended
 as a result of military and police corruption, the small arms and
recipients and wind up in the wrong hands. For example,

light weapons that the United States sends to Mexico and to several other Latin American countries in support of
the war on drugs often facilitate the very crimes they were meant to stop.
 I/L – Refugee Flows
Arms sales fuel conflicts and refugee flows – the U.S. is uniquely responsible
William Hartung, 4/17/18, Medium, “how war and weapons trading are fueling the global
refugee crisis,” https://medium.com/@williamhartung55/how-war-and-weapons-trading-are-
fueling-the-global-refugee-crisis-1132c31cf1f3, mm

Few would argue that the

world faces a refugee crisis, but not nearly enough is being done to prevent
the creation of new refugees or to help those already displaced from their homes. And while statistics can’t fully capture
the human suffering involved, it is sobering to learn that the United Nations reports that over 20 million people have been driven
from their countries by war, famine, and poverty, with over 40 million more displaced within their own nations. There is no science
involved in figuring out which factors have the most impact on creating the massive flow of refugees that characterize our world, but
one thing is clear — war is a major driver of this humanitarian catastrophe. According to the most recent report
by the United Nations refugee agency, more than half of the world’s refugees come from three countries that have been the sites of
brutal, multi-year conflicts — Syria, Afghanistan, and South Sudan. War is a direct cause of displacement, but it also increases the
risks of famine and disease, which also play a major role in driving people from their home communities. There is plenty of blame to
go around for this dismal state of affairs, from the role of Russia and Iran in propping up the murderous Assad regime in Syria, to
internal factions in South Sudan, to the Taliban and the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan. But this article will focus on the role
of the United States, not because it is the worst or only culprit, but because there is — or should be — a better chance at changing
misguided policies in a democracy than there is in undemocratic regimes. The United States is currently involved in eight wars — in
Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Niger, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Together, these conflicts have generated millions of refugees,
and displaced millions more within their home countries. U.S. military intervention isn’t necessarily the primary cause of the refugee
flow in all cases, but it has generally made matters worse — in some cases much worse. If the United States wants to make a
constructive contribution to stemming worldwide refugee flows, we need to rethink our all-war-all-the-time foreign policy. So far,
Donald Trump hasn’t started any new wars, but his administration has doubled down on the wars he inherited, dropping more
bombs, launching more drone strikes, and causing more civilian casualties. We can only hope that Trump and his new “war cabinet”
of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo (yet to be confirmed as Trump’s Secretary of State) don’t get us involved in yet another conflict, in
Iran, North Korea, or elsewhere. The recent U.S., French, and U.K. cruise missile strikes on Syria are a case in point of what’s wrong
with the current foreign policies of the United States and its allies. The Assad regime’s chemical attacks on its own population are
horrific, but raining more bombs on Syria — however accurate the strikes may or may not be — is no solution to the suffering of the
Syrian people. But there was a groundswell of support in the media and some segments of the public to “do something” about
Assad’s attack. And as Emma Ashford of the Cato Institute noted in an op-ed in the New York Times, all too often “doing something”
is defined narrowly to mean taking military action. According to this militarized logic, diplomacy — which is practically a dirty word in
Trump World — doesn’t count. This is odd given the utter failure of the United States’ post-9/11 wars to achieve their stated
objectives, but old, bad ideas die hard. If President Trump were truly concerned with the fate of the Syrian people, there are a
number of non-military steps that would do far more to help them than lobbing yet more bombs and missiles at their country. For
starters, he could agree to admit significant numbers of Syrian refugees into the United States, rather than blocking virtually all of
them — according to a recent report on NPR, the Trump administration has let in a grand total of 11 Syrian refugees this year. The
United States could also increase its funding for U.N. humanitarian efforts on behalf of refugees. There’s plenty of money to be had
if the administration chose to spend even a little bit less on the Pentagon and related agencies, which will receive $700 billion this
year, and more on non-military tools of foreign policy. The
global arms trade is on the rise, and the United
States is by far the dominant supplier, as has been the case for 25 of the last 26 years. And the United States
has supplied weapons to over 60 countries involved in conflicts large and small. Even more impressive — if
that’s the right word for it — is the Cato Institute’s finding that the U.S. has provided weaponry to 85% of the world’s nations during
this century. This is not a recipe for peace or conflict reduction. The most egregious case of the use and abuse of U.S.-supplied arms
is the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led war in Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians through Saudi air strikes and put millions at risk of
famine and fatal disease due to a blockade that has limited the availability of food, medicine, and clean water. Most of Yemen’s
displaced people are still in the country, as the Saudi-led coalition has made it extremely difficult for them to leave. An
unintended consequence of U.S. arms sales that has also contributed greatly to the refugee
crisis is the leakage of U.S.-supplied arms to non-state actors like ISIS and the Taliban, and the wide dispersal
of Libya arms caches throughout North Africa after the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime. Reducing conflict and its crushing human
consequences will not be easy. But the first step is putting more energy into resolving conflicts than is currently being poured into
fighting them with bombs and troops or fueling them through weapons trafficking. As noted above, opening our doors to many
more refugees and generously funding humanitarian aid efforts should be another pillar of a new approach. Stopping wars will
require beefing up diplomacy, not proposing deep cuts in the State Department, denigrating career diplomats, and failing to even
appoint ambassadors to key nations. It will also require working closely with allies and listening to the concerns of current and
potential adversaries, as was done in the negotiation of the landmark deal to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons capability. And finally, we
need a new arms transfer policy that curbs shipments to human rights abusers and war zones —
not through lip service, but through actual reductions in sales. All of the above may seem like a pipe dream under the “America
First” approach of the current administration. But administrations change, as does Congress, and if large numbers of people don’t
demand an end to our policy of perpetual war and a resurgence of diplomacy, it will never happen. It’s time to get to work towards
building a better world, however long it may take to get there.
 2AC MPX Mod – Democracy/Poverty/Structural Violence
Arms sales contribute to global inequality and diminish democratic institutions
Andrew Feinstein, 2012, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, p. 524-525, mm

An inestimably large amount of public money is expended on the arms trade. This is not only in
direct government expenditures, which totals trillions of dollars a year, but in massive state subsidization of R&D,
export and other incentives, wastage on unnecessary weapons systems, overspending by contractors and bailouts of badly run
companies. Even the jobs produced by the trade cost significantly more to create and sustain than jobs in any other sector, with
larger amounts of public money spent on them. Almost any other form of job creation would be more cost-effective. In addition,
the socio-economic opportunity costs of the arms trade, especially but by no means exclusively
in developing countries, are immeasurable. South Africa’s experience was stark but not uncommon. In the late
2000s, as developed countries were forced to cut back their public spending to pay for the bailout of
banks and the economic consequences of their hubristic investment strategies, defense-related spending was among
the least affected. Instead, benefits to the poorest, education, health and public services were
hit the hardest. Moreover, the manner in which the arms trade operates has an even more
fundamental consequences: the diminution of democracies where they exist, and the
entrenchment of undemocratic, often barbarous states, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. The opaque way in which arms
deals are concluded, habitually among a small clique of people who share a narrow self-interest, makes it impossible for the public
to adjudicate whether huge amounts of their money are being used in the best possible way. The close relationship
between governments and contractors, and the national security ‘imperative’, even undermines meaningful judicial
oversight. This is made worse by the difficulty of substantive media and civil society scrutiny. National security concerns, while
sometimes legitimate, are often used to hide information about malfeasance that would in no way undermine security. Legislation
overseeing the trade is inadequate and in many countries non-existent. Debate about such legislation is seldom meaningfully
entertained. All of this makes our hard-won democracies less transparent, accountable and honest. And it
results in citizens being unable to determine whether decisions are being made in the national interest, or in some other, narrower
interest.

That exacerbates human insecurity – outweighs on magnitude

Holden, Paul. 2017, Indefensible : Seven Myths that Sustain the Global Arms Trade, Zed
Books, p. 35-38, mm
In this chapter we have tackled the issue of security in a very traditional sense, namely as a measure of protection against military
violence. This is, arguably, the way that many people understand the concept of security: keeping the country safe from invasion or
violence. But there is a strong and emerging trend towards considering security in a much broader— and much more useful— way.
Driving this thinking is the adoption of a paradigm that goes by the name of ‘human security’. Human security is defined by the
United Nations as ‘the right of all people to live in freedom and dignity, free from poverty and despair’. Underpinning this is the
recognition that ‘all individuals, in particular vulnerable people, are entitled to freedom from fear and freedom from want, with an
equal opportunity to enjoy all their rights and fully develop their human potential’. 58 When security is thought about in this way—
and it is hard to argue that a population that is chronically malnourished is not at risk— the type of threats that need to be
addressed changes drastically. Instead of just focusing on threats from war or conflict, human security requires us to look at all the
various risks that are faced in the world today that undermine human dignity, drive poverty and put billions of people in a constant
state of emergency of survival. Some of these risks include access to clean water, food security, climate change, health pandemics,
violent multinational organized crime and repressive states that use their monopoly of violence to terrorize their own populations.
There is little doubt that, when considered in this light, the world suffers a serious human security
deficit. Global disease, poverty and hunger, for example, devastate lives in many parts of the world. It is
estimated that 1.5 million children under five die each year of vaccine-preventable diseases, 59 while 3.1 million children a year die
from malnutrition. 60 Some national leaders recognize this. An interesting example is Ethiopia, long one of the poorest and most
conflict-ridden countries in the world. Following a devastating border war with neighboring Eritrea in 1998‒2000, and facing security
threats from its other neighbors, Somalia and Sudan, the Ethiopian govern- ment published its national security policy white paper in
2002. 61 Decrying what it called ‘jingoism with an empty stomach’, Ethiopia put economic development at the centre of its national
security plan, with military spending (capped at 2% of GDP but in practice lower) as subordinate to that goal. Meanwhile, the
world stands on the brink of one of the biggest global catastrophes in human history, in the form of
climate change. With no substantial change in the way things are done around the world, and no effort made to tackle global
greenhouse gas emissions, it is predicted that the earth’s temperature will rise by 3.7 to 4.8 degrees Celsius by 2100. 62 The
consequences of this would be devastating, threatening human— and national and international— security in
numerous ways: • • • Increased drought in many parts of the world, leading to severe water shortages. Greatly reduced global
agricultural yields from increased heat and reduced rainfall, as global food demand increases. A major spread of tropical diseases
such as malaria to new parts of the world, potentially leading to millions of additional deaths. A major increase in the prevalence and
severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and flooding, with the potential to devastate low-lying and coastal regions, a
phenomenon that is already observable today. In the extreme, low-lying areas and small island states becoming completely
uninhabitable. Vast refugee flows resulting from the above developments. Increased internal and international tensions over water
resources and increasingly scarce fertile land. Mass extinction of species and loss of biodiversity, with severe consequences for
humans through the food chain. 63 But even rises of less than 2 degrees Celsius, a level considered increasingly difficult to achieve,
would lead to many severe conse- quences of the type listed above; the more action is taken to reduce emissions,
the lower the likely temperature rise, and the less probable the most dangerous impacts
become. Where, you might ask, does military spending fit into this? In two key ways. First, military
expenditure is massive, and fails to substantially tackle any of these major threats to human
security. If only a fraction of military spending was focused on broader human security goals, the improvement in the security
profile of billions of people around the world would be tremendous. The second way in which spending on weapons contributes
to human security should also be obvious: the goals of freedom from want and fear are most likely to be achieved in democratic
states that are accountable to their populations. But, as we’ve discussed in detail above, huge
amounts of global military
spending is directed towards maintaining dictatorships or repressive regimes. This is not just a problem
of the developing world. The majority of military purchases by repressive regimes are from the world’s
biggest arms dealers: the permanent members of the UN Security Council. And even in democracies, military spending that is
tainted by corruption poses a major threat to good governance, and can, in the worst case scenarios, create the mechanisms by
which democracy gets replaced by oligarchy and repression (this is discussed in detail in Myth 5). Considering this, perhaps it is time
to recognize one powerful fact: even
a small reduction in defense spending, one that sees resources properly
devoted to the human security dangers faced by the majority of the world’s population, could
actually make the world
safer, healthier, more prosperous and more secure.
 2AC MPX Mod – Middle East
Arms sales destabilize the Middle East – creates spiraling security dilemmas
that culminate in conflict
Perry Cammack and Michele Dunne, 10/23/18, [Cammack is a nonresident fellow in the
Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Dunne is an expert on
political and economic change in Arab countries], Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,,
“Fueling Middle East Conflicts - or Dousing the Flames,”
https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/10/23/fueling-middle-east-conflicts-or-dousing-flames-
pub-77548, mm

Beyond direct military involvement, outside actors also intervene indirectly through arms sales and security
assistance, which can seem an appealing way to influence the contours of a conflict without deploying troops or undertaking military
action. Moreover, for leading exporters, including the United States and its European allies as well as Russia and China, arms sales
can generate significant economic benefits, and they have become a diplomatic priority as well as a factor in the political fortune of
leaders in exporting countries. The Middle East is the most militarized region in the world. Although numbering less than 6 percent
of the world’s population and contributing less than 5 percent of its GDP, it accounted for nearly one-third of the world’s arms
imports between 2013 and 2017—more than doubling its share compared to the previous five-year period.11 Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
and the United Arab Emirates were three of the four top arms importers in the world (with Algeria and Iraq also in the top ten)
between 2013 and 2017. All three have intervened militarily in neighboring countries (Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Yemen, Egypt in
Libya) since 2013. Turkey and Israel (also a significant exporter) were in the world’s top twenty arms importers, while Iran imported
much fewer arms (primarily from Russia and China) due to international sanctions.12 Meanwhile, the United States was
the world’s largest arms exporter between 2013 and 2017, comprising some 34 percent of the global total, followed by
Russia, France, Germany, China, and the United Kingdom. The United States and the UK were the major suppliers to Saudi Arabia,
while the United States and France have supplied Egypt as well as the UAE. Germany has diminished its sales to Arab states,
although it remains a major supplier to Israel.13 The April 2018 U.S. presidential memorandum to streamline
procedures for conventional arms transfers issued by Donald Trump is unabashed regarding the economic advantages of arms
exports; its first paragraph hails “a dynamic defense industrial base, which currently employs more than 1.7 million people.”14
French President Emmanuel Macron also has pushed aggressively for arms sales to the Middle East, despite growing criticism of
potential abuses related to the technology provided.15 In addition to the economic benefits, advocates of arms exports in
democratic countries argue that arms sales and security assistance programs can help to professionalize developing militaries, and in
this way can produce a moderating influence on recipient nations.16 U.S. officials also tout the need to improve allied states’
capabilities to enhance the possibility of joint operations with U.S. forces. But is there evidence that the increased
provision of arms has helped to stabilize the Middle East, or even to provide victory for key allies?
Unfortunately, the brutality of contemporary Middle Eastern wars suggests that this flood of
weapons has poured fuel on the fire and made conflicts lengthier as well as deadlier. First, arms
sales to belligerents in a conflict are seldom a decisive factor, but rather invite a counterreaction
by opposing states, thereby feeding civil wars rather than extinguishing them. U.S. and European supply
to the Saudi-Emirati intervention in Yemen has coincided with Iran’s increased support for its Houthi partners.17 The provision of
weapons by the United States and several Gulf states to Syrian rebels initially helped to tip the balance against the Syrian army. But
this same support also encouraged Iran to escalate its support, and once it became clear that the Obama administration would not
take direct military action against the Syrian armed forces, Russia seized an opening to intervene and defeat those same rebels,
thereby decisively changing the contours of the conflict. Even
worse, arms provided to militaries in fragile or
highly corrupt states can slip into the hands of terrorists, militias, and other nonstate actors.
Although the Houthi rebels have reportedly received Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles, many of their ballistic missile stocks are
composed of Russian and North Korean weapons originally provided to the Yemeni army and seized during Houthi advances in 2013
and 2014.18 A comprehensive survey by Conflict Armament Research of 40,000 combat items recovered from Islamic State fighters
in Syria and Iraq suggests that more than 50 percent of their weapons were originally produced by Russia and China (many of them
for the Syrian and Iraqi armies), and 30 percent originated from Warsaw Pact–era Eastern Europe. Three percent of weapons and 13
percent of ammunition were NATO caliber, presumably seized from the Iraqi armed forces during the Islamic State’s advances in
2014.19 In one case, an advanced anti-tank guided weapon was reportedly manufactured in Europe, sold to the United States,
supplied to a party in Syria, and transferred to the Islamic State in Iraq, where it was recovered—all within two months of leaving the
factory.20 Unfortunately, the
advanced weapons systems being sold to authoritarian Arab
governments today may be used by insurgent fighters in future wars.

Conflict would escalate to global nuclear war

Steinbach 18
(John, 6-30, https://www.globalresearch.ca/israeli-weapons-of-mass-destruction-a-threat-to-peace-israel-s-nuclear-arsenal/4365)

Meanwhile,.the existence of an arsenal of mass destruction in such an unstable region in turn has serious implications for future
arms control and disarmament negotiations, and even the threat of nuclear war. Seymour
Hersh warns, “Should war
break out in the Middle East again or should any Arab.nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear
escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort would now be a strong probability.”(41) and Ezar Weissman,
Israel’s current President said “The nuclear issue is gaining momentum(and the) next war will not be conventional. (42) Russia and
before it the Soviet Union has long been a major(ifnot.the major) target of Israeli nukes. It is widely reported that .the principal
purpose of Jonathan Pollard’s spying for Israel was to furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other super sensitive data relating
to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy. (43) (Since launching its own satellite in 1988, Israel no longer needs U S. spy secrets.) Israeli nukes
aimed at the Russian heartland seriously complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and, at the very least, the
unilateral possession of nuclear weapons by Israel is enormously destabilizing. and dramatically
lowers the threshold for their actual use if not for all out nuclear war. In the words of Mark Gaffney, “... if
the familar pattern(Israel refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not reversed, soon- for whatever reason-
the deepening Middle East conflict could trigger a world conflagration.” (44)
 Middle East ext – Arms Sales -> Instability
Arms Sales increase instability in the Middle East
The Guardian ’15 (Peter Beaumont, “The $18bn arms race helping to fuel Middle East
conflict”, 4/23/15, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/23/the-18bn-arms-race-
middle-east-russia-iran-iraq-un)//JH
Last week France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, disclosed progress in talks to sell Rafale fighter jets to the UAE, one of the
Middle East’s biggest and most aggressive arms buyers. States in the Middle East are now more prepared to
use the weapons they are buying. With conflicts raging in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, and with
Egypt also battling Islamist extremists in the Sinai, the signs that Russia is preparing to increase
its own arms sales – and to the Gulf states’ biggest rival, Iran – are raising fears that tensions will be stoked
further still. In particular, Saudi Arabia and Iran are facing off in the conflict in Yemen where, despite
the announcement by Riyadh on Tuesday that it had halted its month-long bombing campaign, jets continued to strike
Houthi rebel positions close to the capital Sanaa, around the third city Taez, and in the central town of Yarim. According to the
New York Times, defence industry officials have notified Congress that they are expecting
additional requests from Arab states fighting Isis – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt – for
thousands of new US-made weapons, including missiles and bombs, to rebuild depleted arms
stockpiles. Ironically, among the key weapons suppliers in the arms race are permanent members of the UN security council who
have been at the centre of two unconventional arms control initiatives – disarming the Syrian government’s stockpiles of chemical
weapons and negotiating for a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. The scale
of the arms race was revealed this
year in reports published by IHS Jane’s Global Defence Trade Report and the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). They showed how Saudi Arabia had become the world’s largest
importer of weapons and fourth largest military spender and that other Middle East states were sharply increasing their arms
purchases. Adding to the concern is the fact that the spending spree on arms comes against the background of a marked increase in
military interventions by countries in the region since the Arab spring in 2011. Saudi Arabia has intervened in Bahrain (at the request
of that kingdom’s ruler during the so-called Pearl revolution), in Yemen in 2009 and again in Yemen this year. In addition, a
new
Saudi-led and largely Sunni military alliance – announced this year and dubbed the “Arab Nato” –
appears primarily designed as a new foil to Iran in the widening proxy conflict between Riyadh
and Tehran. And among those concerned by Saudi’s new military assertiveness - on the back of its arms
buying spree - was the Iraqi prime minister, Abadi. “The dangerous thing is, we don’t know what the Saudis
want to do after [their intervention in Yemen],” Abadi told US reporters last week. “Is Iraq within their
radar? That’s very, very dangerous. The idea that you intervene in another state unprovoked just for regional
ambition is wrong. Saddam has done it before. See what it has done to the country.”
 2AC MPX Mod – Taiwan
US-Taiwan relationship angers China – arms sales only add fuel to the fire
Horton 7-9-19 – Contributing journalist based in Taipei, Taiwan (Chris Horton, New York
Times, “Taiwan Set to Receive $2 Billion in U.S. Arms, Drawing Ire from China,”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/world/asia/taiwan-arms-sales.html)//AL

The United States has tentatively approved the sale of $2 billion in military hardware to Taiwan,
demonstrating support for its unofficial ally in a move likely to exacerbate deteriorating ties
between Washington and Beijing. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, part of the United
States Defense Department, notified Congress of two proposed arms sales on Monday. The first
notification included 108 M1A2T Abrams tanks, as well as Hercules armored vehicles and heavy equipment transporters. The second included more
than $220 million in Stinger antiaircraft missiles. The
tentative approvals come as relations between the United
States and China are already being tested by a trade war and the decoupling of technology
supply chains. The armaments would provide Taiwan with greater deterrence capabilities
against the growing military threat from China, experts said. “These tanks and missiles will provide the Taiwan army
with a modern capability to deter and complicate the operational planning of the People’s Liberation Army forces that coerce and threaten Taiwan,”
Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, said in a statement on Monday. “They will also offer new opportunities to
engage in cooperation with the United States in both the deployment and operations phases.” United States lawmakers have 30
days to object to the sale, but they are considered unlikely to do so. The approvals come as
Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, prepares for a trip this week to North America, a visit that
could further anger Beijing. The Taiwanese government said her first stop would be New York.
The United States broke formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan’s government in 1979 in order to establish relations with China’s Communist

government, which claims the self-governing island as its territory and has threatened to unify it
with the mainland by force. Shortly after the end of the formal alliance, along with the American military presence there, Congress
passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires that the United States provide Taiwan with weapons of a defensive nature to deter an attack from
China. In 1982, the United States broadened its support with a document known as the Six Assurances, the first of which stated that Washington would
not set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan. Chang
Tun-han, a spokesman for Ms. Tsai, welcomed the news of
the tentative arms sales approvals on Tuesday. “The American government continues to take concrete actions to fulfill its
commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances, assisting Taiwan in strengthening its defensive capabilities,” Mr. Chang said in a
At a regularly scheduled news briefing in Beijing on Tuesday,
statement. “We express our deepest gratitude.”

Geng Shuang, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, expressed opposition to the sales,
saying they could harm relations between China and the United States.

And, U.S.-China war escalates and goes global – Taiwan is the cause
Talmadge 18 [Caitlin, Associate Professor of Security Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School
of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, “Beijing’s Nuclear Option: Why a U.S.-China War
Could Spiral Out of Control,” accessible online at
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-10-15/beijings-nuclear-option, published
Nov/Dec 2018] // BBM

As China’s power has grown in recent years, so, too, has the risk of war with the United States. Under President Xi Jinping,
China has increased its political and economic pressure on Taiwan and built military installations on coral reefs in the South China Sea, fueling
Washington’s fears that Chinese expansionism will threaten U.S. allies and influence in the region. U.S.
destroyers have transited the Taiwan Strait, to loud protests from Beijing. American policymakers have wondered aloud
whether they should send an aircraft carrier through the strait as well. Chinese fighter jets have intercepted U.S. aircraft in the skies above the South China Sea. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald

Trump has brought long-simmering economic disputes to a rolling boil. A war between the two countries remains unlikely, but the
prospect of a military confrontation—resulting, for example, from a Chinese campaign against Taiwan—no
longer seems as implausible as it once did. And the odds of such a confrontation going nuclear are higher
than most policymakers and analysts think. Members of China’s strategic community tend to dismiss such concerns. Likewise, U.S. studies of a potential war with China often exclude nuclear
weapons from the analysis entirely, treating them as basically irrelevant to the course of a conflict. Asked about the issue in 2015, Dennis Blair, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific, estimated

If deployed against China, the Pentagon’s preferred style of

the likelihood of a U.S.-Chinese nuclear crisis as “somewhere between nil and zero.” This assurance is misguided.

conventional warfare would be a potential recipe for nuclear escalation. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States’ signature
approach to war has been simple: punch deep into enemy territory in order to rapidly knock out the opponent’s key military assets at minimal cost. But the Pentagon developed this formula in wars against

China, by contrast, not only has nuclear weapons; it has also intermingled them with
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Serbia, none of which was a nuclear power.

its conventional military forces, making it difficult to attack one without attacking the other. This
means that a major U.S. military campaign targeting China’s conventional forces would likely also threaten
its nuclear arsenal. Faced with such a threat, Chinese leaders could decide to use their nuclear weapons
while they were still able to. As U.S. and Chinese leaders navigate a relationship fraught with mutual suspicion, they must come to grips

with the fact that a conventional war could skid into a nuclear confrontation. Although this risk is not high in absolute terms, its

consequences for the region and the world would be devastating. As long as the United States and China continue to
pursue their current grand strategies, the risk is likely to endure. This means that leaders on both sides should dispense with the illusion that they
can easily fight a limited war. They should focus instead on managing or resolving the political, economic, and military tensions that might lead to a conflict in the first place. A NEW KIND OF THREAT There are
some reasons for optimism. For one, China has long stood out for its nonaggressive nuclear doctrine. After its first nuclear test, in 1964, China largely avoided the Cold War arms race, building a much smaller and
simpler nuclear arsenal than its resources would have allowed. Chinese leaders have consistently characterized nuclear weapons as useful only for deterring nuclear aggression and coercion. Historically, this
narrow purpose required only a handful of nuclear weapons that could ensure Chinese retaliation in the event of an attack. To this day, China maintains a “no first use” pledge, promising that it will never be the
first to use nuclear weapons. The prospect of a nuclear conflict can also seem like a relic of the Cold War. Back then, the United States and its allies lived in fear of a Warsaw Pact offensive rapidly overrunning
Europe. NATO stood ready to use nuclear weapons first to stalemate such an attack. Both Washington and Moscow also consistently worried that their nuclear forces could be taken out in a bolt-from-the-blue
nuclear strike by the other side. This mutual fear increased the risk that one superpower might rush to launch in the erroneous belief that it was already under attack. Initially, the danger of unauthorized strikes
also loomed large. In the 1950s, lax safety procedures for U.S. nuclear weapons stationed on NATO soil, as well as minimal civilian oversight of U.S. military commanders, raised a serious risk that nuclear escalation
could have occurred without explicit orders from the U.S. president. The good news is that these Cold War worries have little bearing on U.S.-Chinese relations today. Neither country could rapidly overrun the
other’s territory in a conventional war. Neither seems worried about a nuclear bolt from the blue. And civilian political control of nuclear weapons is relatively strong in both countries. What remains, in theory, is

one other
the comforting logic of mutual deterrence: in a war between two nuclear powers, neither side will launch a nuclear strike for fear that its enemy will respond in kind. The bad news is that

trigger remains: a conventional war that threatens China’s nuclear arsenal. Conventional forces
can threaten nuclear forces in ways that generate pressures to escalate—especially when ever more
capable U.S. conventional forces face adversaries with relatively small and fragile nuclear arsenals, such as China. If U.S.

operations endangered or damaged China’s nuclear forces, Chinese leaders might come to think that
Washington had aims beyond winning the conventional war—that it might be seeking to disable or
destroy China’s nuclear arsenal outright, perhaps as a prelude to regime change. In the fog of war, Beijing might reluctantly
conclude that limited nuclear escalation—an initial strike small enough that it could avoid full-scale U.S. retaliation—was a viable option to defend
itself. STRAIT SHOOTERS The most worrisome flash point for a U.S.-Chinese war is Taiwan. Beijing’s long-term objective of

reunifying the island with mainland China is clearly in conflict with Washington’s longstanding desire to
maintain the status quo in the strait. It is not difficult to imagine how this might lead to war. For example, China could
decide that the political or military window for regaining control over the island was closing and launch an attack,
using air and naval forces to blockade Taiwanese harbors or bombard the island. Although U.S. law does not require Washington
to intervene in such a scenario, the Taiwan Relations Act states that the United States will “consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or

Were Washington to intervene on Taipei’s

embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.”

behalf, the world’s sole superpower and its rising competitor would find themselves in the first great-
power war of the twenty-first century. In the course of such a war, U.S. conventional military operations would
likely threaten, disable, or outright eliminate some Chinese nuclear capabilities—whether doing so was Washington’s stated objective or not. In fact, if the
United States engaged in the style of warfare it has practiced over the last 30 years, this outcome would be all but guaranteed. Consider submarine warfare.

China could use its conventionally armed attack submarines to blockade Taiwanese harbors or bomb the island, or to attack
U.S. and allied forces in the region. If that happened, the U.S. Navy would almost certainly undertake an
antisubmarine campaign, which would likely threaten China’s “boomers,” the four nuclear-armed ballistic
missile submarines that form its naval nuclear deterrent. China’s conventionally armed and nuclear-armed submarines share the same shore-based
communications system; a U.S. attack on these transmitters would thus not only disrupt the activities of China’s attack submarine force but also
cut off its boomers from contact with Beijing, leaving Chinese leaders unsure of the fate of their naval
nuclear force. In addition, nuclear ballistic missile submarines depend on attack submarines for protection, just as lumbering bomber aircraft rely on nimble fighter jets. If the United States started
sinking Chinese attack submarines, it would be sinking the very force that protects China’s ballistic missile submarines, leaving the latter dramatically more vulnerable. Even more dangerous, U.S.
forces hunting Chinese attack submarines could inadvertently sink a Chinese boomer instead. After all, at least some Chinese attack submarines might be
escorting ballistic missile submarines, especially in wartime, when China might flush its boomers from their ports and try to send them within range of the continental United States. Since correctly identifying
targets remains one of the trickiest challenges of undersea warfare, a U.S. submarine crew might come within shooting range of a Chinese submarine without being sure of its type, especially in a crowded, noisy
environment like the Taiwan Strait. Platitudes about caution are easy in peacetime. In wartime, when Chinese attack submarines might already have launched deadly strikes, the U.S. crew might decide to shoot

first and ask questions later.Adding to China’s sense of vulnerability, the small size of its nuclear-armed
submarine force means that just two such incidents would eliminate half of its sea-based deterrent.
Meanwhile, any Chinese boomers that escaped this fate would likely be cut off from communication with onshore commanders,

left without an escort force, and unable to return to destroyed ports. If that happened, China would essentially have no naval nuclear deterrent.
The situation is similar onshore, where any U.S. military campaign would have to contend with China’s growing land-based conventional ballistic missile force. Much of this force is within range of Taiwan, ready to

victory would hinge on the ability to degrade this conventional ballistic missile force. And once again, it
launch ballistic missiles against the island or at any allies coming to its aid. Once again, U.S.

would be virtually impossible to do so while leaving China’s nuclear ballistic missile force unscathed.
Chinese conventional and nuclear ballistic missiles are often attached to the same base
headquarters, meaning that they likely share transportation and supply networks, patrol routes, and other
supporting infrastructure. It is also possible that they share some command-and-control networks, or that the United States would be unable to distinguish between the
conventional and nuclear networks even if they were physically separate. To add to the challenge, some of China’s ballistic missiles can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead, and the two versions are

sending manned
virtually indistinguishable to U.S. aerial surveillance. In a war, targeting the conventional variants would likely mean destroying some nuclear ones in the process. Furthermore,

aircraft to attack Chinese missile launch sites and bases would require at least partial control of the
airspace over China, which in turn would require weakening Chinese air defenses. But degrading China’s
coastal air defense network in order to fight a conventional war would also leave much of its nuclear force without
protection. Once China was under attack, its leaders might come to fear that even intercontinental ballistic missiles located deep in the country’s interior were vulnerable. For years, observers have
pointed to the U.S. military’s failed attempts to locate and destroy Iraqi Scud missiles during the 1990–91 Gulf War as evidence that mobile missiles are virtually impervious to attack. Therefore, the thinking goes,

Chinese intercontinental
China could retain a nuclear deterrent no matter what harm U.S. forces inflicted on its coastal areas. Yet recent research suggests otherwise.

ballistic missiles are larger and less mobile than the Iraqi Scuds were, and they are harder to move without detection. The United States is
also likely to have been tracking them much more closely in peacetime. As a result, China is unlikely to view a failed Scud hunt in Iraq nearly 30 years ago as reassurance that
its residual nuclear force is safe today, especially during an ongoing, high-intensity conventional war. China’s vehement criticism of a U.S. regional missile defense system designed to guard against a potential
North Korean attack already reflects these latent fears. Beijing’s worry is that this system could help Washington block the handful of missiles China might launch in the aftermath of a U.S. attack on its arsenal.
That sort of campaign might seem much more plausible in Beijing’s eyes if a conventional war had already begun to seriously undermine other parts of China’s nuclear deterrent. It does not help that China’s real-

the favored U.S. strategy

time awareness of the state of its forces would probably be limited, since blinding the adversary is a standard part of the U.S. military playbook. Put simply,

to ensure a conventional victory would likely endanger much of China’s nuclear arsenal in the process, at sea and on land.
Whether the United States actually intended to target all of China’s nuclear weapons would be incidental. All
that would matter is that Chinese leaders would consider them threatened. LESSONS FROM THE PAST At that point, the
question becomes, How will China react? Will it practice restraint and uphold the “no first use” pledge once its nuclear forces appear to be under attack? Or will it use those weapons while it still can, gambling
that limited escalation will either halt the U.S. campaign or intimidate Washington into backing down? Chinese writings and statements remain deliberately ambiguous on this point. It is unclear which exact set of
capabilities China considers part of its core nuclear deterrent and which it considers less crucial. For example, if China already recognizes that its sea-based nuclear deterrent is relatively small and weak, then

wartime developments that could shift

losing some of its ballistic missile submarines in a war might not prompt any radical discontinuity in its calculus. The danger lies in

China’s assumptions about U.S. intentions. If Beijing interprets the erosion of its sea- and land-based nuclear
forces as a deliberate effort to destroy its nuclear deterrent, or perhaps even as a prelude to a nuclear attack, it might see limited nuclear
escalation as a way to force an end to the conflict. For example, China could use nuclear weapons to
instantaneously destroy the U.S. air bases that posed the biggest threat to its arsenal. It could also launch

a nuclear strike with no direct military purpose—on an unpopulated area or at sea—as a way to signal that the United States
had crossed a redline. If such escalation appears far-fetched, China’s history suggests otherwise.
In 1969, similar dynamics brought China to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. In early March
of that year, Chinese troops ambushed Soviet guards amid rising tensions over a disputed border area. Less than two weeks later, the two countries were fighting an undeclared border war with heavy artillery and

The conflict quickly escalated beyond what Chinese leaders had expected, and before the end
aircraft.

of March, Moscow was making thinly veiled nuclear threats to pressure China to back down. Chinese leaders initially dismissed these
warnings, only to radically upgrade their threat assessment once they learned that the Soviets had privately discussed nuclear attack plans with other countries. Moscow never intended to follow through on its
nuclear threat, archives would later reveal, but Chinese leaders believed otherwise. On three separate occasions, they were convinced that a Soviet nuclear attack was imminent. Once, when Moscow sent

Increasingly fearful, China test-fired

representatives to talks in Beijing, China suspected that the plane transporting the delegation was in fact carrying nuclear weapons.

a thermonuclear weapon in the Lop Nur desert and put its rudimentary nuclear forces on alert—a dangerous step in itself, as
it increased the risk of an unauthorized or accidental launch. Only after numerous preparations for Soviet nuclear attacks that never came did Beijing finally agree to negotiations. China is a different country today

the 1969 conflict offers important lessons. China started a war in which it
than it was in the time of Mao Zedong, but

believed nuclear weapons would be irrelevant, even though the Soviet arsenal was several orders of magnitude larger than China’s, just as the U.S. arsenal
 Once the conventional war did not go as planned, the Chinese reversed their
dwarfs China’s today.

assessment of the possibility of a nuclear attack to a degree bordering on paranoia. Most worrying, China
signaled that it was actually considering using its nuclear weapons, even though it had to expect devastating
retaliation. Ambiguous wartime information and worst-case thinking led it to take nuclear risks it would have considered unthinkable only months earlier. This pattern could unfold again today.
 2AC MPX Mod – Terrorism
Arms sales increase the risk of terrorism
Southall 17 – he is a paediatrician who is an expert in international maternal and child hospital healthcare. He has written
extensively in medical journals about the adverse effects of the arms trade on resource poor countries. He founded the charity
Maternal and Childhealth Advocacy International in 1995. June 6, 2017 https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/06/06/david-southall-
ending-the-international-arms-trade-could-reduce-terrorism-and-prevent-the-death-of-civilians-in-the-uk-and-abroad/(PA)

Discussions about how to prevent the worsening acts of global terrorism continue. However, as recent events such as
the terrorist attack on London Bridge and Manchester Arena show , current measures are largely ineffective. The actions of
individuals willing to kill themselves by perpetrating such acts of terrorism have created an almost impossible barrier to effective security. Most
terrorist acts cause the death and injury of civilians. The
effects of armed conflict and the international arms trade
on the health of civilians has been widely discussed in medical journals, but little changes, except
perhaps the increased effectiveness of traded weapons in killing and injuring the greatest number
of people (mostly civilians). In recent years the increased targeting of healthcare workers and facilities by armed factions using
both legally and illegally bought weapons has been well documented. On a recent visit to Saudi Arabia, the US President Donald Trump secured a
sale involving major weapons worth US$110 billion, he said: “One of the things that we will discuss is the purchase of lots of beautiful military
equipment because nobody makes it like the United States. And for us that means jobs, and it also means frankly great security back here, which we
want.” Thisinappropriate description of weapons neglects to refer to the effect that these weapons
have on civilians in countries such as Yemen, where currently there are hundreds of thousands of
starving children, where health facilities and hospitals have been directly targeted and are hardly functioning, where there is now a massive
cholera outbreak, and where unimaginable suffering is currently happening on a daily basis. It is perhaps unsurprising that the “war on terror” is
being lost by rich countries who parade certain human rights values, but by selling weapons allow these values to be ignored in the pursuit of
money and power. I have worked in the war zones of Pakistan and Afghanistan for more than 20 years and local health workers have frequently
informed me that the sale of arms by the USA, UK, and other European countries to potentially fragile countries, particularly in the Middle East
and South Asia, has created resentment and concern. Whilst a
direct link between some of the acts of terrorism
committed against Western countries and the lucrative arms trade can never be proven, it is plausible that it could
be one of the responsible factors. According to the latest data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the USA was
the largest exporter of major conventional weapons in the period 2011-15, accounting for 33% of the global volume of weapons sold. The Middle
East was the main destination of US weapons, accounting for 41% of US arms exports. In SIPRI’s latest data, in 2014, the global sale of US and UK
major conventional weapons amounted to US$ 218 billion and US$ 42 billion respectively. The Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers
(NISAT) describes the role of small arms and light weapons in armed violence. Their analyses show that rich countries lead
the world in exporting these weapons to fragile states and often to both sides in individual
conflicts. With regard to the export of only one category of small arms, namely “bombs, grenades, ammunition, mines and others,” in 2015
the UK and the US exported US$48.5 million and US$901.3 million worth of such weapons respectively to Middle Eastern countries. And both the
UK and USA exported such weapons to Israel as well as to Israel’s potential enemies in the region. It
is not wrong, in my opinion,
for countries to make weapons purely for their own defence. However, I think that the sale of
weapons to other countries where armed conflict is already ongoing or where the potential for
conflict is likely, in order to make vast amounts of money, is immoral, unacceptable, and
inevitably will lead to dangerous reactions, one of which might be acts of terrorism. The problem,
however, is that politicians fear that they will not be re-elected if they stop arms trading, even though most of the profit doesn’t benefit their
country, but rather the rich and powerful shareholders of the companies who make them and their employees. Health professionals witness at
first hand the appalling injuries and suffering created by “beautiful military equipment.” Advocacy by them to help stop the arms trade might have
some influence on the politicians involved in this lucrative business. A decision by rich countries to cease arms trading could help to reduce
radicalization and terrorism in countries suffering the consequences of armed conflict. This is surely worth considering as a matter of urgency,
alongside enhanced security activity and other measures.

Trump will lash-out ensuring global war – goes nuclear

Blair et al 16 (*Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of the National Interest, *Gwenda Blair, a lecturer at Columbia University Graduate
School of Journalism, *Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and a global research professor at New York University, *Martha
Stout is an American psychologist and author. She completed her professional training in psychology at the McLean Psychiatric
Hospital and obtained her Ph.D. at Stony Brook University, *Ambassador Dennis Ross is a long-time U.S. Mideast negotiator,
*Stephen Sestanovich is a professor at Columbia University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, *Aaron David
Miller is vice president for new initiatives and a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
*John Gartner is a private-practice psychologist, part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical
School, *Michael D’Antonio, recipient of the Alicia Patterson Fellowship, the First Amendment Award, *Andrew J. Bacevich, Sr. is an
American historian specializing in international relations, security studies, American foreign policy, and American diplomatic and
military history. He is a Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee School
of Global Studies, *Elizabeth Borgwardt is a history professor at Washington University, *Paul Pillar is nonresident senior fellow at
the Brookings Institution and at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. From 2000 to 2005, as the national
intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, he was in charge of the analysis of those regions for the CIA and all other
American intelligence agencies, *Joseph Burgo has been a practicing psychotherapist and psychoanalyst for more than thirty year,
*Stephen Kinzer is a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, *Mary Dudziak is professor
of law at Emory University and chair in American law and governance at the Library of Congress, *Stanley Renshon is a political
science professor at the City University of New York, is a certified psychoanalyst, *W. Keith Campbell is the head of the Department
of Psychology at the University of Georgia, “9/11: What Would Trump Do?”,
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/donald-trump-2016-terrorist-attack-foreign-policy-213784, March 31, 2016,
Ak.)

It’s the totally unthinkable question that Americans find themselves confronting this week: What would President Donald
Trump do in a genuine national crisis? After a series of overseas terror attacks and some startling statements about
nuclear weapons and torture, the world’s attention has turned to Trump’s foreign policy—an area where he has few
advisers, no experience and a tendency to fire off answers and deal with the fallout later. The
reality of a Trump candidacy has begun to set in: If Trump is elected and a major national crisis hits, he’ll be the one with his hands
on the button. He’ll be at the head of the table in the Situation Room. His decisions would steer America’s immediate response and
could set the course of American policy for years. What’s hard to project with a normal politician is nearly impossible to guess with
Trump. He has no foreign policy or public service experience, which means there’s no official record to consult, and his public
statements, while extreme, have been vague. The saber-rattling statements that excite his supporters also suggest he has disregard
for linchpins of the global order like NATO, the Geneva Conventions and the hard-won global nuclear-weapons limits. Politico
Magazine asked foreign policy and counterterrorism experts, historians, Trump biographers, even psychologists to take a serious
guess at how he’d handle the days after a terrorist attack in the United States—all based on what they know about Trump the
candidate and what he’ll be facing if he gets elected. The responses were at times surprising, and at times unsettling. Some focused
on Trump’s apparent hesitancy about sending troops into combat, and predicted he’d act more like President Barack Obama than
President George W. Bush. Others looked at his immigration rhetoric and foresaw a country newly divided, with patrols stalking
Muslim neighborhoods and religious hatreds bubbling to the surface. One biographer, familiar with Trump’s primal response to any
perceived insult, drew a frightening picture of a quickly escalating set of attacks and responses, with major cities caught in the
crossfire. But, then again, another predicted that Trump would simply withdraw to his Twitter account, riding out the threat with a
lot of talk and little action. *** “Heinvites President Vladimir Putin to the White House … announces that
America is withdrawing from NATO and … visits Tehran to open up a new American embassy.” Jacob
Heilbrunn is editor of the National Interest. Donald Trump has already made it clear that he regards much of the global
order that was established by Harry S. Truman and Dean Acheson after World War II as impotent and obsolete. Almost as soon
as he’s sworn the oath to serve as commander-in-chief, Trump will go to work to create a new one based on the exercise of
American military power and cooperation with Washington’s traditional adversaries such as Russia. So the real question may be this:
How would a9/11 event accelerate his already existing efforts to upend the American national
security establishment? Following the attack, President Trump builds upon his initial attempts to restore relations with
Russia, which included nuclear arms-control negotiations. He now invites President Vladimir Putin to the White House—complete
with a state dinner in his honor. Trump, the consummate dealmaker, says that it’s imperative to let bygones be bygones in the
interest of a united front with Russia to defeat the Islamic peril. At the same time, Trump
announces that America is
withdrawing from NATO and concedes Russia’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. England,
which has already withdrawn from the European Union, joins the U.S-Russia alliance. In following this course, Trump
invokes World War II to declare that he’s simply following in Franklin Roosevelt’s footsteps. All of this is music to the
Kremlin’s ears, which has consistently bemoaned the fact that the Obama administration has spurned its offers of cooperation.
British, Russian and American warplanes bomb targets in Syria and Iraq that served as staging grounds for the Islamic State’s assault
on America. In addition, Trump pivots from America’s traditional alliance with Saudi Arabia to working with Iran; to
general astonishment, he visits Tehran to open up a new American embassy. Trump says that the only predictable thing about his
presidency is that he will always seek to be unpredictable. Domestically, Trump takes a hard line, arguing that it’s time to
take the handcuffs off the FBI and CIA. He embarks upon a program to place American Muslims in camps, a
program overseen by the Justice Department as it was during the Roosevelt administration in World War II, when Japanese-
Americans were interned. The Washington Post and New York Times editorial pages denounce Trump’s new policy, but it meets with
general approbation among the American population, a number of Democratic
Senators and Congressmen in
swing states sign off on the measure, and the Supreme Court upholds it in an 8-1 decision. With his
decisive moves, Trump enrages liberal and conservative elites but his approval ratings soar to over 80 percent in numerous polls.
The era of Trump has begun. *** “Tweet after tweet congratulating himself on foreseeing the attack and ridiculing the terrorists’
masculinity, their intelligence, their family members, their ethnic identity and/or religion” Gwenda Blair is author of The Trumps:
Three Generations That Built an Empire. Twitter would be Trump’s front-line counter-attack. Tweet after tweet congratulating
himself on foreseeing the attack and ridiculing the terrorists’ masculinity, their intelligence, their family members, their ethnic
identity and/or religion—along with any civil libertarian or moderate voices asking for caution, consultation with allies, or more
operational and regional intelligence before initiating counter-offensives against targets either inside or outside the United States.
Next would be live streamed appearances on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. in which Trump denounced the terrorists, their supporters, and
any opposition to the use of any and all tactics against captured terrorist suspects. Then he would change into Donald Trump
Menswear 100% silk PJs with gold-embroidered POTUS seal on front pocket, stretch out on a super-luxury top-grain leather Trump
Home Furnishings chaise, chow down on a prime-cut Trump steak, and turn on WWE. In the event the attacks continued, he might
be moved to more action. Potential steps might include curfews, quarantines and/or internment in certain
communities, required loyalty oaths for government employees, teachers, uniformed services, etc., civil defense drills in
schools, factories, offices, and other large installations such as airports, train stations, subway systems, and the adoption and
frequent testing of alerts through texts and loudspeakers. *** “There would be no rallying around the idea of America and what it
stands for because Americans will be fighting about just that” Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and a global research
professor at New York University. It’s not an easy thing to say, but America
was fortunate that 9/11 happened
when it did. The United States was in great shape back then, as was its economy. There was no
serious social discontent bubbling beneath the surface, and inequality was nowhere near the wedge issue it is today.
Washington’s alliances around the world were strong back then, and China was still weak. Washington
even had decent relations with Moscow—and they improved after the tragedy. So when 9/11 happened, the entire
country—and the world—rallied around the president. That’s a far cry from where the United States is today. And let’s be
honest—Trump in the White House during a real national security crisis is as close to a near-dystopian
America as can be imagined. If terrorists were to hit the United States, America’s political response would be closer to what France
went through following its November attacks, with Trump playing the reactionary role called for France’s ex-President Nicolas
Sarkozy. He’d push for overall surveillance and monitoring of Muslims in the United States. I’d imagine there
would be house arrests and deportations for many. And while some Americans would cheer this knee-jerk response,
most will be horrified to find themselves living in a country where nothing more than your religion makes you suspect. Europe will
be horrified as well, and won’t be near the steadfast ally it was in 2001. There would be no rallying around the idea of America and
what it stands for because Americans will be fighting about just that. *** “A president with that personality would experience a
large terrorist event as an enormous narcissistic injury … and his rage would be white-hot” Martha Stout is a psychologist
and author of The Sociopath Next Door. As a psychologist who has spent her career studying human personality and its variations, I
can tell you that personalities don’t have an off switch, not even for dire emergencies. If we suffered another brutal terrorist attack, I
fear that President Trump would exhibit the same bombast, rage and impulsivity that he has shown in the
campaign trail and imperil his fellow human beings, perhaps with even more lasting effects than those of the disaster itself. The
personality that underlies Trump’s observable behaviors—a demeanor of personal superiority, a focus on being admired, immediate
heated anger when challenged, an emphasis on unlimited success, and an apparent expectation of automatic compliance—would be
problematic in a U.S. president at any time, and plainly dangerous should our nation experience another terrorist atrocity. A
president with such a personality would experience a large terrorist event as an attack on him personally, an enormous
“narcissistic injury”—what psychologists call a perceived threat to self-worth—and his rage would be white-hot. The anger
we have seen directed at protesters during Trump rallies would be multiplied by an unknowable factor. That whisper in the ear from
an aide, telling him that an event had occurred, would instantly evoke a need for reprisal, a desire to attack and to do so
right away, using airstrikes, boots on the ground, torture in interrogations and any other
“powerful” tactic that occurred to him. If there is a positive thread in this psychologically predicted scenario, it is that such a huge
perceived injury to Trump’s sense of self-worth would compel him to focus utterly on the source of that injury. He would be single-
mindedly intent on destroying the terrorists and would have no tolerance for those who might wish to refashion the country’s pain
and anger into a willingness to attack a different target. In the aftermath of our waking nightmare in 2001, we might have benefited
from some portion of that single-mindedness. Still, with a President Trump, the surge of bigotry and the resulting deportation and
internment efforts would do their own inestimable damage. Given a re-terrorized nation, Trump’s famous skill at
gaining allegiance from people through their heightened fears might very well sway Congress and result in
the actual implementation of some of his ideas: a wholesale military response, a lockdown of Muslim
communities, and attempts to deport large groups of people. With an unapologetically self-involved and rage-prone
commander-in-chief—which is what we evidently would be getting with a President Trump—nothing would be off the table.
*** “We must also hope that a President Trump, unlike candidate Trump, would show some signs of awareness of the nature of the
threat” Ambassador Dennis Ross is a long-time U.S. Mideast negotiator and author of the recently published Doomed to Succeed:
The US-Israeli relationship from Truman to Obama. If such an attack takes place, it would be clear that Trump’s ill-considered
readiness to stop Muslims from gaining entry to the country has not worked—no surprise here, as he is playing to the ISIS playbook
that seeks polarization and needs the image of a war on Muslims to attract followers. The fact that Trump has little use for our
alliances like NATO also means in the first instance, his response would likely be to go it alone. But against whom? Did the attackers
come from ISIS and had they gone to Syria? Was al Qaeda competing with ISIS to show it remains relevant and capable of producing
larger mass casualty acts of terror than ISIS? Should it be ISIS, we know from candidate Trump that when it comes to ISIS he will
listen to the military. But the military has not been notably more inclined than President Obama to commit forces on the ground.
However, should ISIS prove to be responsible for a 9/11 type attack—and clearly the events in Brussels show its leaders are trying—
we will need a far more dramatic effort against them on the group to demonstrate they are losing, and will lose further from any
such attacks. Perhaps Trump, who has made it clear he is reluctant to use ground forces, will call for carpet-bombing as a
punishment for ISIS. That will shift the onus onto us without removing ISIS from Mosul or Raqqa—the key symbols of their success to
date. In the aftermath of a 9/11 type attack we need to inflict real and symbolic setbacks on ISIS to blunt its appeal and to restore
confidence among our own citizenry and that of those very Sunnis we would want to partner with us. Are they likely to partner with
us if we can’t offer unmistakable signs of success and of our resolve? They won’t take a new president’s word for it—or buy his
“believe me” declarations. Will Trump change and see the value of working with others? Let’s hope so, but there is little in his
posture to date that suggests he will do so. We must also hope that a President Trump, unlike candidate Trump, would show some
signs of awareness of the nature of the threat. Show some signs of awareness that actually having alliances like NATO helps with
partners, helps with intelligence, and helps legitimize our actions. A President Trump will need to frame the challenge clearly and
spell out the mission and objective in a way that does not walk away from the values that we embody. And a President Trump would
have to show he will act not impulsively but effectively, recognizing that a longer-term strategy for the Middle East will be necessary,
a strategy that is designed to shore up the state system. That system is under attack and restoring it is necessary to prevent ISIS or
its successors from having the operational space in which to thrive and develop. Withdrawing from the Middle East will only foster a
vacuum that allows the most extreme forces to emerge and pose more threat to states in the region. Candidate Trump’s instinct
toward isolation can hardly be reassuring in this regard. *** “Let us imagine that when the new president enters the Situation Room
to talk over the latest disaster, he’s got Steve Hadley and Eric Edelman and Meghan O’Sullivan around the table” Stephen
Sestanovich is a professor at Columbia University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In the national-security
business, we are often asked to think the unthinkable—nuclear war, chaos, pestilence. Contemplating a Donald Trump presidency
should be all in a day’s work. Even so, I find myself wanting to dodge the worst-case scenario. Perhaps this unlikely chief executive
will prepare for his day of reckoning by surrounding himself with solid advisers and by tending, however belatedly, to America’s
most important global relationships? It’s not absurd to hope that long before taking office President Trump will have reached out to
the Republican foreign-policy establishment and that, by playing on personal ambition and patriotism, he will have convinced those
who hoped to work for President Rubio or President Jeb Bush to serve him instead. Nor is it absurd to think that, before a new 9/11,
he will have realized that the United States cannot get much done in the world unless key allies are with us. So let us imagine that
when the new president enters the Situation Room to talk over the latest disaster, he’s got Steve Hadley and Eric Edelman and
Meghan O’Sullivan around the table. (And maybe vice president Condi Rice ready to fly off to Brussels to represent him at the next
day’s emergency session of NATO.) Like I say, none of this is absurd. But I don’t expect it. Whatever you think of the results, the
Republican Party’s A-team was across the table from George W. Bush on September 11, 2001. On September 11, 2017, by contrast,
we are likely to have a foreign-policy line-up that reflects the party’s nervous breakdown in the 2016 campaign. The administration
will be thinly staffed and often inexperienced, divided against itself, suspicious of the professional bureaucracy, struggling to develop
coherent policies, and never sure what the president wants. Donald Trump’s own ideas and instincts have to be part of the picture
we draw in our minds of how the United States would respond to a major new terrorist attack. But the mind of the president is not
the only thing to worry about. When one of the central institutions of the American political system simultaneously cracks up and
wins the White House, the country’s ability to formulate and implement effective policy will inevitably be damaged. The same will be
true of our ability to call on support from others. On September 10, 2001, no one thought that America was in a profound internal
crisis, much less fighting for its political sanity. Apart from kooks, no one thought America deserved—or was somehow asking—to be
attacked. No one doubted the value of being our friend. In 2017, in the early days of a Trump administration, all this will have
changed. A president who has made hostility to Muslims and other minorities his calling card, who has suggested NATO may be
“obsolete,” who boasts that we have our own problems to solve, may find the rest of the world ready to let us do so. Around the
table in the Sit Room, no one may say this to the boss. But everyone will know it. *** “I’m betting the Trumpian response would be a
lot closer to what Barack Obama might do than Bush 43” Aaron David Miller is vice president for new initiatives and a distinguished
scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His most recent book is The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t
Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President. Politics during a presidential campaign is about telling folks what they’d like to
hear; governing is about what they’re likely to get. And Donald Trump the candidate operates in a fantasy world on foreign policy
bringing to the debate on America’s role in the world a fantastical mix of isolationist and muscular nationalist rhetoric. Meanwhile
back on planet earth, Donald Trump as president will confront the same gap between words and deeds that faced his predecessors
and the constraints that impinge on any president at home and abroad. I fear the unpredictability of a Trump presidency. (I can
barely utter those words in close proximity.) Still if I had to wager, I’d bet that in Trump’s case—as for most bullies, and this one
highly inexperienced in foreign policy—risk aversion rather than risk readiness will prevail in response to an ISIS style Paris or
Brussels attack in the United States. I know it’s going to come as a shocker, but I’m betting the Trumpian response would be a lot
closer to what Barack Obama might do than Bush 43. We’ve seen that movie before Iraq; Patriot Act; waterboarding, torture; tens of
thousands of ground forces deployed; trillions expended. Outside of the torture he’s endorsed, Trump has opposed wasting money
in the Middle East nation-building; sending large numbers of U.S. troops, etc. I’d expect more air and missile strikes, maybe more
special operators to Iraq and Syria in a stepped up campaign to deprive ISIS of territory. Where I do worry greatly is what Trump
might do on the domestic side in the wake of such an attack—his rhetoric on Arab and Muslim Americans, and policies on
surveillance and immigration. Remember Denzell Washington in “The Siege” where the U.S. military takes over New York City and
rounds up thousands of Arab and Muslims Americans? There’s a Constitution and institutions in this country that will prevent him
from going as far as that, but Trump has so far proved to be a divider not a uniter or a reassurer. In the wake of a significant terror
attack by, say, ISIS, we need a president who’s tough and wise and who can bring us together not drive us apart; and not play into or
fuel the inevitable anger and fear that’s going to be directed at Muslims. Lee Atwater said it best. There’s this small boat which
includes a small group of individuals who have the character and stature to be president. That applies doubly during a crisis. And
Trump’s not in it. *** “Trump, a thin-skinned malignant narcissist who can leave no slight unavenged … is the candidate most likely
to overreact to a terrorist event” John Gartner is a private-practice psychologist, part-time assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns
Hopkins University Medical School and author of In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography. Trump, a thin-skinned
malignant narcissist who can leave no slight unavenged, no matter how slight (God help us if Kim Jong-un makes fun of his hands), is
the candidate most likely to overreact to a terrorist event or threat in an impulsive, misguided and heavy-handed way that would
win us enemies and influence people around the world to hate us. For example, his proposal to “register” all Muslims in America will
humiliate a proud people and radicalize scores of young people. Malignant narcissists are not your garden-variety narcissists. They
combine narcissism with paranoia, anti-social traits and a propensity for aggression. Trump sees threats where they don’t exist—like
Mexican immigrants who “might be ISIS”—and feels no compunctions about breaking rules, such as those against torture or
collective punishment, to lash out at those imaginary threats. The Geneva Convention is for politically correct suckers. The law of the
jungle, not the rule of law, is the organizing principle of malignant narcissists. And if
they can’t rule the jungle they’ll
burn it down. Malignant narcissism is an untreatable personality disorder, for the simple reason that no one can ever tell the
malignant narcissist he is wrong. Anyone who questions a malignant narcissist’s judgment is immediately dismissed as an idiot or
attacked as a threat. Anyone who questions their ruthless tactics is belittled as soft and naive. It’s not accidental that Trump has said
“my primary consultant is myself.” The appeal of narcissistic leaders is real and understandable. In America we’ve had a history of
charismatic hypomanic narcissists, warm narcissists if you will, like TR and FDR, who were positive forces of nature, leading the
country out of hard times by using their larger than life personalities to inspire a faith in America that made us feel larger against our
enemies, while single handedly pushing the nation in a more progressive direction that broadened democracy to include the needs
and voices of the many. But even malignant narcissists, who concentrate all the power in themselves, can lend strength, inspire
confidence and chart a collective direction for their country. Hitler
took a dispirited defeated nation in the
throws of depression and with the promise to make Germany great again turned it into a world power. But the
downsides are unimaginable: Hitler also replaced democracy with dictatorship, tolerance with genocide,
and sowed the seeds of his nations destruction with his ruthless will to conquer. In short, a president Trump is
one of the biggest threats imaginable to our national security. His need to appear strong will make us weak. A malignant narcissist is
much like a malignant tumor. Sooner or later it will kill the body politic. *** “The nihilistic Trump, who regards human
beings as brutish children, might well react to a terror attack like a brutish child” Michael D’Antonio is author of more than a dozen
nonfiction books, including Mortal Sins and Never Enough, Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success. Within moments of our first
meeting, Donald Trump told me that if he is guided by any principle it is this: “If you hit me, I’ll hit back, ten times
harder.” (I came to think of this as the Trump Rule of Ten.) In subsequent meetings he added to what might be called a personal
philosophy with references to how much he enjoyed conflict—“I always loved to fight”—and his belief that people are
“inherently dishonest.” Add Trump’s frequent references to the viciousness that dwells in the human heart and his belief that
character is fixed at roughly age six, and you can imagine of way Trump could respond to a terror attack on America. The nihilistic
Trump, who regards human beings as brutish children, might well react to a terror attack like a brutish child. President Trump
would pressure intelligence agencies to immediately identify the source of the attack. Civil liberties
may be suspended in the emergency pursuit of information, suspects and conspirators. Those taken into custody would be
tortured, if Trump deemed it necessary. Speed would be an important part of the Trump response to terror, so we
should not expect much deliberation or consultation with Congress or allies. And given his penchant for
disproportional warfare, he would order a massive military response just as soon as he felt confident about a
target. In such a scenario, the destruction of an office tower in New York would be answered with the
annihilation of a city controlled by those Trump deemed to have sponsored the attack. To get a sense of how this might
work, imagine the Bush administration’s tragedy in Iraq carried out in a matter of weeks, not years. If the
targets of such a crude and violent response follow the established script, they would then attack the
West on a scale that would make Brussels, and Paris, and San Bernardino seem like rehearsals.
As the fight escalates, according to the Trump Rule of Ten, Americans would truly experience the terror the attackers intend. If the
actions of the President Trump that I describe above seem too awful to consider, hope resides in the idea that much of what the
man says and does is, to echo a term he recently used on CNN, “show business.” If this is true, then we might discount the bellicose
rhetoric and the marginal figures he has named as advisers. However, this wish, that Trump doesn’t mean what he says, is a poor
foundation on which to place our confidence in the future. We shouldn’t have to guess about our president’s temper. *** “As a self-
professed America Firster, Trump seemingly thinks of statecraft in terms of profit-and-loss. Yet with apologies to Clausewitz,
international politics is not the continuation of business by other means” Andrew Bacevich is author of the new book America’s War
for the Greater Middle East: A Military History, to be published on April 5. Unmoored to principles and precedents, possessing a
remarkably shallow grasp of history, Donald Trump is unlikely to demonstrate much by way of the cool calculation that successful
crisis management requires. True, the actual exercise of power can educate, as it did in the case of John F. Kennedy, for example. By
the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK’s “pay any price, bear any burden” inclinations had given way to let’s make a deal: my nukes
in exchange for yours and let’s not do this again. Whether Trump is similarly educable stands as an open question. Confronted with
some unexpected threat, would he pause to evaluate the precipitating factors? Kennedy did, and it served him well. Or would he
give in to an impulse to lash out? That describes the George W. Bush administration’s response to 9/11. To put it another way,
would intellect or emotion shape Trump’s approach to making decisions? More than anything else, of course, Trump prides himself
in being the dealmaker par excellence. Yet based on his recent pronouncements—casually proposing to revive the practice of
torture, for example, or speculating that Japan and South Korea might consider acquiring nuclear weapons—he appears all but
incapable of appreciating the possibility of adverse second order consequences. True, for anyone running for president, a certain
amount of shooting from the hip is to be expected. Trump is hardly the only candidate making bold statements—carpet bomb ISIS,
move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on day one. But in most cases such promises are offered less as a serious basis for
action than as a way of currying favor with particular constituencies. In Trump’s case, unfortunately, it’s hard to tell if he’s striking a
pose or making statements that he intends to be taken seriously. (To be fair, it’s just as hard to interpret various off-the-wall
statements made by Trump’s immediate rival Ted Cruz). As a self-professed America Firster, Trump seemingly thinks of statecraft in
terms of profit-and-loss. Yet with apologies to Clausewitz, international politics is not the continuation of business by other means.
The object of the exercise is not simply to gain some immediate advantage at the expense of others, but to enhance the freedom,
abundance, and security enjoyed by the American people while at the same time promoting conditions that others—allies and
adversaries alike—find tolerable. Surrounding himself with advisers who are somewhat more—what’s the word? seasoned? sane?—
might encourage Trump to curb his wilder inclinations. But who in their right mind would sign up to serve in his administration?
Probably people who think like Trump. Now there’s a scary prospect. *** “A
9/11-style attack on U.S. soil would
mean that any remaining restraints to the use of weapons of mass destruction … would likely be
swiftly swept aside” Elizabeth Borgwardt is a history professor at Washington University and the author of The Nuremberg
Idea, forthcoming from Knopf. Donald Trump’s March 21 interview with the Washington Post editorial board should make every
potential voter’s blood run cold. After noting that ISIS should be knocked out flat, yet indicating that large numbers of U.S. troops
should not be involved, Mr. Trump suggested that it was better to be “unpredictable” in the face of U.S.
enemies, before twice dodging a question about whether he would advocate the use of tactical nuclear weapons against ISIS. (To
be fair, the interview transcript indicates that much more time was spent discussing Mr. Trump’s hand size than anything to do with
nuclear weapons.) All this was before the attacks in Belgium; my sense is that a 9/11-style attack on U.S. soil would mean that any
remaining restraints to the use of weapons of mass destruction—including nuclear weapons—would likely be swiftly
swept aside. General Douglas MacArthur had notoriously floated the idea of using nuclear weapons against China in the Korean
conflict (1950-53) when he was concerned about Chinese moves to support North Korean aggression. In posthumously published
interviews, MacArthur said that he could have won the war in ten days: “I would have dropped 30 or so atomic bombs … strung
across the neck of Manchuria. For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the North.” Part of
MacArthur’s logic was that the United States would have needed to fight communist China eventually, so it would be best to nuke
them while they were still weak, recovering from World War II and the Chinese Revolution (1949), as opposed to fighting them later
after they had become much stronger. “That makes sense to me!” opined a Trump backer with whom I recently spoke on this topic.
And yet, I offered, most Americans today are probably pretty happy that we didn’t use nuclear weapons against China in the Korean
war, or would be if they knew anything about that historical interlude. “I guess,” he said. “But why
not press your
advantage when you have one?” I offer this example because my sense is that in a putative Trump
administration, “the gloves would be off” and all barriers—including public opinion—to the first use of
various kinds of weapons of mass destruction would likely be at an all-time low. Bruce Cumings, the leading U.S. historian
of Korea, has commented on the MacArthur incident in an analysis from back in 2004. Cumings noted that “MacArthur sounds like a
warmongering lunatic” for advocating the use of nuclear weapons, but also explained that, astonishing as it might seem, the general
actually had some support for his outlandish proposal. Cumings also noted that MacArthur’s conduct, quite appropriately,
contributed to the celebrated war hero’s dismissal by President Truman. But that was then. *** “Trump’s
foreign policy
inexperience and the proven tendency of one thing to lead to another in military interventions could easily mean a
protracted U.S. involvement in a ground war in Syria” Paul Pillar is nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution and at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. From 2000 to 2005, as the national intelligence officer
for the Near East and South Asia, he was in charge of the analysis of those regions for the CIA and all other American intelligence
agencies. In a Trump presidency, the potentially moderating influence of the national security establishment will be far less powerful
than Trump’s own ideas and the political demands of a scared, fired-up public in the aftermath of a terrorist attack like 9/11. If we
know one thing about Trump, it’s his talent for providing an outlet for cruder, simpler and more emotional demands of the general
public—and we will likely see that talent in his counterterrorism policies in the days following an attack on the scale of 9/11. Trump’s
statements about the use of torture have been specific enough that after an attack he would feel almost obliged to re-institute it in
the military and intelligence agencies if he had not done so already. There would be significant resistance to doing so, of course, and
given how the issue has been viewed and discussed in the past couple of years it may seem unlikely that Trump would succeed in
making this change. But current public and congressional views of the issue are much different from the views that prevailed in the
immediate aftermath of 9/11. In the aftermath of another 9/11-type attack, public moods and thus tolerance of torture are likely to
revert to what they were back then. Assuming any connection at all could be made between the attack and a foreign location—such
as the ISIL-controlled enclave in Syria—a Trump administration would launch a major military assault on the ostensibly relevant
foreign targets. Although some of Trump’s statements during the campaign suggest an aversion to large ground wars and to
anything that smacks of nation-building, the subsequent political and operational momentum may overtake the aversion. Trump’s
foreign policy inexperience and the proven tendency of one thing to lead to another in military interventions could easily mean a
protracted U.S. involvement in a ground war in Syria. President Trump’s relations with allies and other foreign states in the
aftermath of an attack would resemble the “for us or for the terrorists” attitude of the George W. Bush administration but with the
addition of a generous dose of Trumpian bombast. There would be much wincing in foreign capitals as governments tried to strike a
balance between supporting an America that had just been attacked and not appearing to be bullied by the man in the White House.
The rest of what would be a distinctively Trump response to an attack would be felt domestically. This would be the occasion for a
President Trump to do whatever he had not already done in restricting immigration. Beyond that, candidate Trump has given us
little specific to go on, but it is likely that the status of Muslims in America and their relations with fellow citizens would become as
delicate and fraught as they ever have been. Islamophobia will likely surge and relationships between Muslim communities and
police will likely worsen. A President Trump would be more likely to exacerbate than to smooth the fears and suspicions involved.
*** “As president, Mr. Trump would indeed project strength … But he would be incapable of … thoughtful self-restraint” Joe Burgo is
the author of several books, including The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me
Age. If he were president, Mr. Trump would respond to a 9/11-type terrorist attack much as he has responded to personal attacks
throughout the campaign. He would be preoccupied with his self-image and the need to come across as a “winner” and not a “loser”
upon the world stage. On some level, he would experience the attack as an assault on his own stature, a blow to his grandiose self-
image, and would likely respond with reflexive violence, as he usually does when attacked. In this case, rather than verbal assaults, it
might involve massive “carpet bombings” without adequate intelligence, and an immediate declaration of war. In times of crisis,
frightened citizens need their president to project an image of strength and confidence; at the same time, they need him to remain
thoughtful and not respond in a reactionary, thoughtless way that might make matters worse. As president, Mr. Trump would
indeed project strength by presenting himself as a take-charge strongman who knows how to deal with terrorists. But he would be
incapable of the kind of thoughtful self-restraint we need from our president in a time of crisis: For Trump, an attack requires an
immediate and overwhelming assault on the perceived source of the attack. When Megyn Kelly criticized him, he responded with
outsized contempt, indignation and blame, the “weapons” he consistently uses to annihilate his enemies. It’s frightening to imagine
what he would do to annihilate the source of a terrorist attack were he to have a nuclear arsenal at his disposal. *** “Trump has
given no suggestion that he would be more prudent [than Bush]. Nor, for that matter, has Ted Cruz” Stephen Kinzer is a visiting
fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. His books include All the Shah's Men: An American Coup
and the Roots of Middle East Terror and Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future. Even imagining the craziness that might seize
President Trump in the wake of a terror attack is frightening. Most likely, his response would be at least as irrational as what George
W. Bush did after 9/11. Bush took radical steps that ultimately harmed the United States far more profoundly than the attack itself.
Trump has given no suggestion that he would be more prudent. Nor, for that matter, has Ted Cruz. More interesting is the effect
that Trump’s rhetoric might have in attracting an attack. Wise terror strategists—and there evidently are some—realize that over-
reaction to an attack on the United States would be in their interest. A crackdown that restricted the civil liberties of American
Muslims would allow militants to paint the United States as a relentless enemy of Islam. So would an American military assault in the
Middle East, especially if it were carried out with ground troops. These would be godsends to terrorist recruiters. If the next
American president projects an air of measured calm, and does not seem ready to lash out wildly if provoked by a terror attack, such
an attack will be less likely. But if President Trump were in power, setting off a bomb on the Washington Mall
would be a great temptation. Terror groups in the Middle East, especially ISIS, are eager to bait
the United States into
another self-defeating disaster like the Iraq War. Trump seems ready to be baited—so why not try? *** “If history is
any lesson, Trump would alienate American allies … undermining U.S. efforts to work together with other countries to combat
transnational terrorism” Mary Dudziak is professor of law at Emory University and chair in American law and governance at the
Library of Congress. In light of Donald Trump’s tendency to react to problems by blaming minority groups, including Muslims, and
promoting torture, we might expect more of the same, perhaps at a greater volume, than we’ve seen so far. That would serve
Trump and the nation poorly. The way the United States treats minority groups has had an impact on U.S. foreign relations in the
past, and would be a problem in a Trump presidency. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was just one president who had to confront
the impact of prejudice against African Americans, and civil rights-related unrest, on America’s image around the world. When white
mobs protested the integration of nine African American students at Little Rock, Arkansas’ Central High School in 1957, it became a
major international story. American discrimination was condemned around the world. It was also used against American interests,
as the Soviet Union featured U.S. racism as a principal theme in its anti-U.S. propaganda. Eisenhower had not supported judicial
action to integrate schools; but prodded by his secretary of state and others, he sent federal troops to Little Rock. One of the
reasons for his turnabout was his hope to restore the global image of American democracy, and keep American racism from harming
the nation’s Cold War mission. The Trump campaign has already generated international criticism for its hostility to Muslims and
Mexican immigrants. His inflammatory calls for the use of torture would damage U.S. credibility on human rights. If history is any
lesson, Trump would alienate American allies with these policies, undermining U.S. efforts to work
together with other countries to combat transnational terrorism. *** “There would be no telegraphing of policy
decisions to allow those responsible to adjust. And there would be public justifications about ‘limits’ and ‘proportionality’” Stanley
Renshon is a political science professor at the City University of New York, is a certified psychoanalyst and the author of 15 books,
most recently National Security in the Obama Administration: Reassessing the Bush Doctrine. Trump would be angry, much as
George W. Bush was after the 9 /11 attacks, but much less methodical. He would order all available assistance to the victims, take to
the airwaves to assure the American people that the attack would not go un-avenged and then proceed to do something dramatic,
public and lethal. There would be with Mr. Trump no publically drawn red lines that he takes pride later in not crossing. There would
be no telegraphing of policy decisions to allow those responsible to adjust. And there would be public justifications about “limits”
and “proportionality.” Atminimum, the response would involve dramatic airstrikes against previously off-
limit targets—oil rigs, training grounds and even targets within urban areas, if necessary—and ramped-up
commando raids against those enemies and their supporters, primarily in Syria, but world-wide as well. If the attacks
were committed by immigrants or Americans, I wouldn’t rule out his asking Congress for much tighter controls on
immigration and even the loss of legal status and citizenship for any supporters found to be involved. The
intended message would be stark: attack us and you and those who support you will pay an unbearable price. This rough response
would very likely provide some comfort to Americans, as George W. Bush’s strikes against the Afghan government and his
subsequent strategy of preemptive attacks against imminent threats did after 9/11. It would also signal to America’s allies and
opponents that Mr. Trump’s view that the United States should fight back against being taken advantage of were not mere words,
but reflected a real emotional conviction. Though kumbaya internationalists might think differently, this might have a sobering and
therefore salutary effect on both free-riding allies and ever-watchful enemies. That said, an important question that will follow is
this: after his display of resolve and revenge, what better policies will he put into to place, domestically and with our allies abroad, to
lessen the risks of further attacks going forward? That, not his first and understandable impulse, will be a true measure of his
presidency and his maturity as a leader and a president. *** “Trump appears to employ a much more externalizing
style. … When he is threatened his primary response seems to be to fight back” W. Keith Campbell is the head of the Department
of Psychology at the University of Georgia In the case of threat, people have two general patterns of responding—externalizing and
internalizing. Externalizing involves responding boldly and aggressively to the source of the threat;
internalizing involves responding by turning inward, including feeling depressed or blaming oneself for the threat. Trump appears to
employ a much more externalizing style. (A caveat: My answer is highly speculative and based on general psychological models and
my observations of Donald Trump on the campaign trail alone.) When he is threatened his primary response seems to be to fight
back. He does this even in the case of threats that seem purely adolescent—when the size of his fingers were challenged, for
example. If, in fact, his aggressive style applies to threats to himself, the next question is whether that style would apply to threats
beyond him. We saw a recent incident where supporters of an opposing campaign used Trump’s wife in a hostile campaign message.
Trump’s response on Twitter was to make what appeared to be a veiled threat against the opposing candidate’s wife. So, in this case
he acted aggressively against a threat to his wife. It is plausible, then, that he would act in the same way if America were attacked or
threatened and he were president. His reaction would be to attack the source of the threat. We saw that with his Brussels response,
when he immediately called for tougher border control and anti-terror measures. Both internalizing and externalizing have a place in
good leadership. Internalizing can be seen as thoughtful but also feckless. Externalizing can be seen as strong but also impulsive.
Outside forces know that if they provoke an externalizing leader they are likely in for a fight. Ideally, this will lead to less provocation
(this is part of the “peace through strength” model). But while this approach works well when dealing with other nations, it
is less
certain when dealing with nationless terrorists who might actually be looking to provoke an
aggressive military response.
 Terrorism ext – Reducing Sales Solves
Reducing arms sales could reduce terrorism.
Southall 17 – he is a paediatrician who is an expert in international maternal and child hospital healthcare. He has written
extensively in medical journals about the adverse effects of the arms trade on resource poor countries. He founded the charity
Maternal and Childhealth Advocacy International in 1995. June 6, 2017 https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/ending-the-
international-arms-trade-could-reduce-terrorism-and-prevent-the-death-of-civilians-says-expert/(PA)

A decision by rich countries to cease arms trading “could help to reduce radicalization and
terrorism in countries suffering the consequences of armed conflict,” argues David Southall, a paediatrician and
expert in international maternal and child hospital healthcare in The BMJtoday. Whilst a direct link between some of the
acts of terrorism committed against Western countries and the lucrative arms trade can never be proven, “it
is plausible that it could be one of the responsible factors,” he adds. Southall has worked in the war zones of Pakistan and Afghanistan for more

than 20 years and believes that the sale of weapons to other countries where armed conflict is already
ongoing or where the potential for conflict is likely, in order to make vast amounts of money, “is
immoral, unacceptable, and inevitably will lead to dangerous reactions, one of which might be
acts of terrorism.”
 2AC MPX Mod – Ukraine
US arms sales increase tensions with Russia – stopping arms sales are the only
way to avoid great power war
Carpenter 9-10-18 – Senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute
and a contributing editor at TAC (Ted Galen Carpenter, American Conservative, “Washington
Quietly Increases Lethal Weapons to Ukraine,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/washington-quietly-increases-lethal-weapons-
ukraine)//AL

For all of the loose (frequently hysterical) talk in Congress, the foreign policy community, and the news media about President Donald Trump’s alleged eagerness to appease

U.S. policy remains as confrontational as ever toward Russia. Among other actions, the
Vladimir Putin,

Trump administration has involved U.S. forces in NATO military exercises (war games) in Poland
and other East European countries on Russia’s border, as well as in naval maneuvers in the Black
Sea near Russia’s sensitive naval base at Sevastopol. Washington has even sent U.S. troops as
participants in joint military exercises with Ukrainian forces—an act that Moscow considers
especially provocative, given its tense relations with Kiev. On no issue is the administration’s risky course more
evident than its military policy toward Ukraine. Recent measures are certain to provoke Moscow further, and entangle the
United States to an unwise extent with an extremely murky, ideologically troubling Ukrainian
regime. Secretary of Defense James Mattis acknowledges that U.S. instructors are training
Ukrainian military units at a base in western Ukraine. Washington also has approved two
important arms sales to Kiev’s ground forces in just the past nine months. The first transaction
in December 2017 was limited to small arms that at least could be portrayed as purely defensive weapons. That agreement included the
export of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems, ammunition, and associated parts and accessories, a sale valued at $41.5 million. A transaction

in April 2018 was more serious. Not only was it larger ($47 million), it included far more lethal
weaponry, particularly 210 Javelin anti-tank missiles—the kind of weapons that Barack Obama’s administration had declined to give
Kiev. Needless to say, the Kremlin was not pleased about either sale. Moreover, Congress soon

passed legislation in May that authorized $250 million in military assistance, including lethal
weaponry, to Ukraine in 2019. Congress had twice voted for military support on a similar scale during the last years of Obama’s administration, but the
White House blocked implementation. The Trump administration cleared that obstacle out of the way in December 2017 at the same time that it approved the initial small-

path is now open for a dramatic escalation of U.S.

weapons sale. The passage of the May 2018 legislation means that the

military backing for Kiev. On September 1, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker
disclosed during an interview with The Guardian that Washington’s future military aid to Kiev
would likely involve weapons sales to Ukraine’s air force and navy as well as the army. “The Javelins are
mainly symbolic and it’s not clear if they would ever be used,” Aric Toler, a research scholar at the Atlantic Council, asserted. One could well dispute his sanguine conclusion, but

even Toler conceded: “Support for the Ukrainian navy and air defence would be a big deal. That would be far more significant.” Volker’s cavalier attitude about U.S. arms sales to

a government locked in a crisis with Russia epitomizes the arrogance and tone-deaf nature of the views that too many U.S. foreign policy officials exhibit regarding the sensitive

Ukraine issue. “We can have a conversation with Ukraine like we would with any other country about what do they need. I think that there’s going to be some discussion about

naval capability because as you know their navy was basically taken by Russia [when the Soviet Union dissolved]. And so they need to rebuild a navy and they have very limited

air capability as well. I think we’ll have to look at air defence.” One suspects that Americans would be incensed at comparable actions by Moscow if the geo-strategic situations

were reversed. Imagine if Russia (even a democratic Russia) had emerged from the wreckage of the Cold War as the undisputed global superpower, and a weakened United
States had to watch as the Kremlin expanded a powerful, Russian-led military alliance to America’s borders, conducted alliance war games within sight of U.S. territory,

interfered in Canada’s internal political affairs to oust a democratically elected pro-American government, and then pursued growing military ties with the new, anti-U.S.

government in Ottawa. Yet that would be disturbingly similar to what Washington has done regarding NATO policy and U.S. relations with Ukraine. Moreover, although Kiev’s

cheerleaders in the Western (especially U.S.) media like to portray Ukraine as a beleaguered democracy that plays the role of David to Russia’s evil Goliath, the reality is far

murkier. Putin’s government overstates matters when it alleges that Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution was a U.S.-orchestrated coup that brought outright fascists to power in

Kiev. Nevertheless, that version contains more than a little truth. Prominent, powerful U.S. figures, most notably the late Senator John McCain and Assistant Secretary of State

for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, openly sided with demonstrators seeking to unseat Ukraine’s elected government. Indeed, Nuland was caught on tape with

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt scheming about the desired composition of a new government in Kiev. It is unfair to portray Ukraine’s current administration led by

President Petro Poroshenko as a neo-fascist regime. Post-revolution elections appear to have been reasonably free and fair, and there are major factions that are committed to

genuine democratic values. But Ukraine also is hardly a model of Western-style democracy. Not only is it
afflicted with extensive graft and corruption, but some extreme nationalist and even neo-Nazi
groups play a significant role in the “new” Ukraine. The notoriously fascist Azov Battalion, for example, continues to occupy a
prominent position in Kiev’s efforts to defeat separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region. Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of

the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic in the pro-Russia rebel-occupied city of Donetsk,
was assassinated on September 1 and officials there and in Russia are blaming Kiev. The
Ukrainian government has denied involvement. Other ultranationalist factions act as domestic militias that attempt to intimidate more
moderate Ukrainians. Even the Poroshenko government itself has adopted troubling censorship measures

and other autocratic policies. Officials in both the Obama and Trump administration have taken
a much too casual attitude toward U.S. cooperation with extremist elements and a deeply
flawed Ukrainian government. Both the danger of stoking tensions with Moscow and becoming
too close to a regime in Kiev that exhibits disturbing features should caution the Trump
administration against boosting military aid to Ukraine. It is an unwise policy on strategic as well
as moral grounds. Trump administration officials should refuse to be intimidated or stampeded
into forging a risky and unsavory alliance with Kiev out of fear of being portrayed as excessively “soft” toward Russia. Instead,
the president and his advisers need to spurn efforts to increase U.S. support for Ukraine. A good place
to start would be to restore the Obama administration’s refusal to approve arms sales to Kiev. Washington must not pour gasoline on a

geo-strategic fire that could lead to a full-blown crisis between the United States and Russia.

Nuclear war – we’re on the brink now

Burns 19 [Robert Burns, National Security Writer at The Associated Press, 4-14-2019, "The chill
in US-Russia relations has some worried about stumbling into a military conflict," Military Times,
https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2019/04/14/the-chill-in-us-russia-relations-has-
some-worried-about-stumbling-into-a-military-conflict/ - CC]

WASHINGTON — It has the makings of a new Cold War, or worse. The deep chill in U.S.-Russian
relations is stirring concern in some quarters that Washington and Moscow are in danger of
stumbling into an armed confrontation that, by mistake or miscalculation, could lead to nuclear war. American and
European analysts and current and former U.S. military officers say the nuclear superpowers need to talk more. A foundational
arms control agreement is being abandoned and the last major limitation on strategic nuclear
weapons could go away in less than two years. Unlike during the Cold War, when generations
lived under threat of a nuclear Armageddon, the two militaries are barely on speaking terms.
"During the Cold War, we understood each other's signals. We talked," says the top NATO commander in
Europe, U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, who is about to retire. "I'm concerned that we don't know them as well
today." Scaparrotti, in his role as Supreme Allied Commander Europe, has met only twice with Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of
the Russian general staff, but has spoken to him by phone a number of other times. "I personally think communication is a very
important part of deterrence," Scaparrotti said, referring to the idea that adversaries who know each other's capabilities and
intentions are less likely to fall into conflict. "So, I think we should have more communication with Russia. It would ensure that we
understand each other and why we are doing what we're doing." He added: "It doesn't have to be a lot." The United States
and Russia, which together control more than 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, say that
in August they will leave the 1987 treaty that banned an entire class of nuclear weapons. And there
appears to be little prospect of extending the 2010 New Start treaty that limits each side's strategic nuclear weapons. After a
period of post-Cold War cooperation on nuclear security and other defense issues, the
relationship between Washington and Moscow took a nosedive, particularly after Russian forces
entered the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2008. Tensions spiked with Russia’s annexation
of the Crimea in 2014 and its military intervention in eastern Ukraine. In response, Congress in
2016 severely limited military cooperation with Russia. The law prohibits "military-to-military cooperation" until
the secretary of defense certifies that Russia "has ceased its occupation of Ukrainian territory" and "aggressive activities." The law
was amended last year to state that it does not limit military talks aimed at "reducing the risk of conflict." Relations frayed even
further amid U.S. allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, although President Donald Trump has
doubted Russian complicity in what U.S. intelligence agencies assert was an effort by Moscow to boost Trump’s chances of winning
the White House. After a Helsinki summit with Putin in July, Trump publicly accepted the Kremlin leader’s denial of interference.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview Friday that Russian behavior is to blame for
the strained relationship. "It's very difficult for us to have normal relationships with a country that has not behaved normally over
the last few years," Dunford said. "There are major issues that affect our bilateral relationship that have to be addressed, to include
where Russia has violated international laws, norms and standards." Dunford said he speaks regularly with Gerasimov, his Russian
counterpart, and the two sides talk on other levels. "I'm satisfied right now with our military-to-military communication to maintain
a degree of transparency that mitigates the risk of miscalculation," he said. "I think we have a framework within to manage a crisis,
should one occur, at the senior military-to-military level." James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral who was the top NATO commander
in Europe from 2009 to 2013, says the West must confront Russia where necessary, including on its interventions in Ukraine and
Syria. But he believes there room for cooperation on multiple fronts, including the Arctic and arms
control. "We are in danger of stumbling backward into a Cold War that is to no one's
advantage," he said in an email exchange. "Without steady, political-level engagement between
the defense establishments, the risk of a true new Cold War rises steadily." No one is predicting a
deliberate Russian act of war in Europe, but the decline in regular talks is a worry to many. Moscow says it is ready to talk. "Russia
remains open for interaction aimed at de-escalating tension, restoring mutual trust,
preventing any misinterpretations of one another's intentions, and reducing the risk of
dangerous incidents," the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement last week in response to NATO's 70th
anniversary celebration. Sam Nunn, who served in the Senate as a Democrat from Georgia from 1972 to 1997, argues that dialogue
with Russia is too important to set aside, even if it carries domestic political risk. "You can't call time out," he said in an interview.
"The nuclear issues go on, and they're getting more dangerous." Nunn co-wrote an opinion piece with former Secretary of State
George Shultz and former Defense Secretary William Perry arguing that the U.S. and its allies and Russia are caught in a "policy
paralysis" that could lead to a military confrontation and potentially the first use of nuclear weapons since the U.S. bombed Japan in
August 1945. "A bold policy shift is needed," they wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, "to
support a strategic re-engagement with Russia and walk back from this perilous precipice.
Otherwise, our nations may soon be entrenched in a nuclear standoff more precarious,
disorienting and economically costly than the Cold War." A group of U.S., Canadian, European and Russian
security experts and former officials in February issued a call for talks with Russia on crisis management. "The risks of mutual
misunderstanding and unintended signals that stem from an absence of dialogue relating to
crisis management ... are real," the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group said in a statement.
It said this could lead to conventional war with Russia or, in a worst case scenario, “the
potential for nuclear threats, or even nuclear use, where millions could be killed in minutes.”
 2AC MPX Mod – Yemen
US Arms Sales directly contribute to the Yemen crisis – 10,000 people have died and 27 million
are on the brink of famine
Zavis and Ahmed 17 - Former writer and editor on the Los Angeles Times' Foreign Desk and
recipient of the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Award – Special Correspondent
from Sana (Alexandra Zavis and Zayd Ahmed, LA Times, “U.S. Arms sold to Saudis are killing
civilians in Yemen. Now the Trump administration is set to sell them more,”
https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-yemen-us-arms-2017-story.html)//AL

At least 140 people perished here in the Yemeni capital last fall when a Saudi Arabian-led
military coalition carried out a pair of airstrikes on a funeral. Human rights groups labeled the
attack a possible war crime and said the bombs used were manufactured in the United States.
The attack, one of the deadliest for civilians in the coalition's relentless air war against Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, helped
persuade the Obama administration in December to block the sale of precision-guided
munitions to the Saudi military until it addresses problems with its targeting. But the hold was
lifted last month, when President Trump announced a $110-billion package of proposed military
sales to the kingdom, part of an effort to shore up a regional alliance against a resurgent Iran.
The decision has left many among Yemen's increasingly desperate population feeling
abandoned and betrayed. "There is nothing in this world that I hate more than Americans," Ali Mohammed Murshed, a 32-year-old
deliveryman in Sana, said as he paused to take in the reception hall's charred and mangled frame on his way to visit a friend. Murshed used to rent a
house nearby, but fled with his family to an in-law's home after their windows were blown out in the attack. "With all the arms they have given to Saudi
Arabia, the Saudis have achieved nothing after more than two years but killing civilians and destroying infrastructure," he complained bitterly. The

State Department says the arms package, announced during Trump's recent visit to the Saudi
capital, Riyadh, will help a key Middle East ally defend itself against "malign Iranian influence"
and contribute to counter-terrorism operations across the region. In addition to replenishing the kingdom's
dwindling supply of precision-guided bombs, the administration is offering howitzer artillery pieces, Blackhawk helicopters and the antimissile system
known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD. The
Saudis say they need the weaponry to defend
themselves against Yemeni rebels, who they charge are being armed by Shiite Muslim Iran in a
bid to increase its clout against the region's Sunni monarchies. The rebels, known as Houthis, surged out of their
northern strongholds in September 2014 and seized control of Yemen's capital with the help of rogue elements of the armed forces loyal to the
country's deposed strongman, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Six months later, Saudi Arabia assembled a military coalition to restore power to the internationally
recognized president, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who set up a parallel government in Yemen's southern port city of Aden. The Houthis have lobbed
thousands of mortar shells and rockets into Saudi territory in response to the coalition's campaign and claimed to have aimed a ballistic missile at
Riyadh the day before Trump arrived. (The strike was not successful.) "We don't want people to think we are purchasing weapons to have influence,"
said a high-ranking Saudi defense official who was not authorized to discuss the deal publicly. "We respect the sovereignty of countries. But if there is a
Although all sides in the war stand accused of abuses, United
threat to our borders, we need to defend ourselves."

Nations officials attribute most of the heavy civilian toll to the air campaign waged by Saudi
Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies. The fighting has killed more than 10,000 people, destroyed
vital infrastructure and pushed what was already the Arab world's poorest nation to the brink of
a humanitarian catastrophe. Nearly a quarter of Yemen's 27 million people are "one step away
from famine," U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council last month. The
economy is collapsing; government employees have not been paid for months; prices for food
and fuel have skyrocketed; half the country's health facilities are closed and a raging cholera
epidemic is killing hundreds. "This is not an unforeseen or coincidental result of forces beyond
our control," O'Brien said. "It is a direct consequence of actions of the parties and supporters of
the conflict."
Influence Adv Extensions
 UQ – ATI/CAT – Reduces Influence
Conventional arms transfer policy ignores human rights concerns and falsely
promises jobs – no specific laws – offsets give jobs away
Hartung 18(William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center
for International Policy and the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of
the Military-Industrial Complex, 04/19/18, Trump’s arms sales policy puts contractors above
common sense, https://thehill.com/opinion/international/384014-trumps-arms-sales-policy-
puts-contractors-above-common-sense)//FD

In a move that poses grave risks to U.S. security, the Trump administration’s newly released
conventional arms transfer policy will put jobs and the interests of arms manufacturers ahead of
safety, security, and human rights in its decisions on who the United States should arm. This bias
should come as no surprise given President Trump’s penchant for promoting U.S. weapons sales and touting the jobs that they
create. From calling foreign leaders to urge them to speed up purchases of U.S. combat aircraft to using a White House meeting with
the Saudi crown prince to brag about which states would gain jobs from specific sales to Riyadh, President Trump seems to be
obsessed with the alleged economic benefits of the weapons trade. Given its numerous mentions of creating jobs, making life easier
for weapons contractors, and bolstering the U.S. defense industrial base, one might think the Trump administration’s new directive
is a statement of economic policy rather than a carefully crafted expression of national security concerns. It’s
not that human
rights considerations are completely absent in the new policy statement, but the document sets
an extremely low bar. The directive calls for observing existing law regarding human rights
and arms transfers, without pointing to specific sections of the law or how they will be
interpreted. Thankfully, the Trump policy statement indicates that the U.S. will not sell weapons
to nations that may use them to commit genocide or otherwise violate the laws of war. But this
is hardly a ringing endorsement of making human rights a major factor in arms sales decisions,
and it is a far cry from the multiple mentions of human rights in the Obama administration
directive that it will replace. The Trump administration’s arms export approach doesn’t just differ from the Obama
administration’s in the way it is described. There is already concrete evidence that human rights are taking
a back seat to commercial concerns and a desire to curry favor with questionable allies. Early
on, the Trump administration reversed human rights-based suspensions of sales to Saudi Arabia,
Bahrain, and Nigeria that had been imposed during the Obama era. The Saudi case is a litmus
test of whether human rights and broader security concerns will have any role at all in the
Trump administration’s approach to arms trading. The United States has long been a top
supplier of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, and it has continued to do so during that nation’s brutal
intervention in Yemen. Fighting in Yemen has gone on for over three years and resulted in thousands of civilian casualties
through air strikes, not to mention putting millions of Yemenis at risk of famine and fatal disease. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) has rightly
pointed out that Saudi actions in Yemen “look like war crimes,” which should be reason enough for the Trump administration to stop
selling arms that can be used to prosecute the war in Yemen, even by the standards of its own, watered-down policy statement.
Arms sales decisions should be about security, not jobs. But
if jobs are going to be introduced as a reason to
trade in weapons, we should at least have a little truth in advertising. As economists at the
University of Massachusetts have demonstrated, weapons manufacturing is the least effective
way to create jobs. Exporting virtually any other product would have a greater economic
payoff. In addition, most new arms deals involve so-called “offsets” — agreements to steer
business to the recipient nation in exchange for their purchase of U.S. weapons. For example,
F-35 combat aircraft being sold in Japan will be assembled there, not in the United States.
Trump’s CAT will decimate our soft power
Christina Arabia, 7/15/19, Lawfare, [director of the security assistance monitor program at the
Center for International Policy], “
Disappearing transparency in U.S. arms sales,”
https://www.lawfareblog.com/disappearing-transparency-us-arms-sales, mm

At the beginning of this year, the Trump administration notified Congress of its plans to loosen the regulatory
controls on some U.S. firearms exports and transfer jurisdiction of these exports to the Commerce Department. This move
means that Congress will lose its oversight role on important and deadly U.S. weapons, which in the past had allowed them to stop
certain problematic exports to Turkey and the Philippines. If anything, U.S. weapons exports deserve higher scrutiny, rather than
being treated as mere business transactions and reduced to a streamlined export process similar to that of tractor exportation.
Controversies surrounding the recipients, use and diversion of arms sales are by no means a new phenomenon. What makes
Trump’s policies and abuse of power so dangerous is the new precedent his administration has set allowing the executive branch to
make foreign policy decisions unilaterally. In effect, arms
sales are now driving U.S. foreign policy instead of
being used as a tool for it. The repercussions from this reversal could be disastrous. On top of
eroding American values and diminishing U.S. credibility among its partners, some countries have
learned how to leverage our own “tool” against us. Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia have used their
geostrategic position to extract American arms, manipulate the terms of U.S. arms sales, and
play the United States against other powers all while their human rights violations continue
unabated. And it’s not just foreign governments that are finding it increasingly easy to manipulate U.S. foreign policy; the Trump
administration’s policies allow the U.S. defense industry, already highly adept at playing this game, to maximize its profits at the
expense of conflict and turmoil around the world.

The new policy ensures arms will be sent to HR violators

Stohl 18 (Rachel Stohl (@rachelstohl) is the managing at the Stimson Center and directs the
Center’s Conventional Defense Program, 4/30/18, https://www.justsecurity.org/55496/trump-
administrations-weapons-export-policies-stress-benefit-u-s-economy/)
The new CAT policy outlines the purpose of arms sales, and places a keen emphasis on the anticipated economic benefits of
weapons transfers. As the policy asserts, the purpose of arms transfers (under the Trump administration) is to help the United
States: “maintain a technological edge over potential adversaries; strengthen partnerships that preserve and extend our global
influence; bolster our economy; spur research and development; enhance the ability of the defense industrial base to create jobs;
increase our competitiveness in key markets; protect our ability to constrain global trade in arms that is destabilizing or that
threatens our military, allies, or partners; and better equip our allies and partners to contribute to shared security objectives and to
enhance global deterrence.” These priorities sound reasonable in theory, but the
arms trade does not work like the
trade in cars or bananas. A focus on short-term economic benefits overlooks the realities of
the global arms trade, in which the wares being sold and transferred endure long after the
transfer is completed and can be used to promote or undermine U.S. interests. Recent
transfers of weapons and vehicles supplied to the Iraqi military, which were then seized by ISIS
and used against U.S. troops and interests is but one in a long book of cautionary tales. Although
the policy reflects themes contained in the 2014 CAT policy, albeit with a significant bent towards economic security as the frame,
there is one significant addition. Notably, the
policy includes an explicit reference to reducing the risk of
civilian harm that might stem from the transfer and use of conventional weapons, stating that it is the policy of the
executive branch to “facilitate ally and partner efforts, through United States sales and security
cooperation efforts, to reduce the risk of national or coalition operations causing civilian harm.”
This represents the first such mention of civilian harm in a policy related to arms transfers. The
implementation of this will be highly scrutinized, however, as we have already seen significant civilian harm from U.S. weapons
transferred to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen, for example, among other transfers of concern. The policy contains criteria to guide
U.S. arms transfer decisions, which remain largely consistent with the criteria captured in the 2014 CAT policy. They include U.S.
national security, U.S. economic security and innovation, relationship with allies and partners, human rights and international
humanitarian law, and non-proliferation. Where these criteria differ from previous policy pronouncements
is again in the framing, with the Trump administration focusing on the benefits, rather than the
risks, of arms exports. Perhaps the most consequential effect of this approach is that the Trump
administration will no longer require the past behavior of a recipient State to be factored into
arms transfer decisions, which seemingly disregards statutory requirements to factor the past
behavior of a recipient State into an arms transfer decision. Indeed, the 2018 CAT policy
eliminates a decision-making criterion from the 2014 policy that examined a recipient State’s
record of behavior on human rights, counterterrorism, and the potential for misuse. Rather, the
policy focuses on the potential future risk of a transfer. Past behavior is therefore overlooked if governments
promise to try harder not to intentionally cause harm. In effect, the message is that as long as future
transgressions are not intentional, if a transfer is in the economic interest of the United States,
potential risks can easily be overlooked.
 AT “Trump Can’t Wield Soft Power”
Trump can wield soft power
Andras Simonya, 1/2/17, the hill, “trump can surprise world by using hard and soft power
equally,” https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/312399-trump-can-surprise-
world-by-using-hard-and-soft-power, mm

It has been suggested that Donald Trump will be a president who will focus on "hard power" to underpin his
foreign policy goals rather than focusing on "soft power," which was Obama's preference. Both approaches are one-
sided, though, and both are wrong. The United States cannot just use this or that; it needs to use both. Hard or soft, it's about
power, period. Time and again, we must remember how communism was defeated by a combination of hard and soft power tools,
the attraction of Western freedoms, and a steadfast NATO, the U.S.-led Western military alliance. While taking a strong stance on
security and defense, Trump needs deploy American soft power institutionally in his foreign policy. It is wrong to
think that the Russian "attacks" on the West are just temporary or tactical. They are strategic, long-term and disruptive. Russia
seems to have mastered our abilities of the past, studied it well, combined it with new technologies and made it highly effective.
Expelling Russian diplomats and "experts" is hardly the right response — it is benign, soft and short-term; too little, too late. Russian
President Vladimir Putin laughs at it. The grossly underestimated Russians have designed a sophisticated toolbox of mixed power,
with multiple tools and the ability and infrastructure to deploy them. They have a design for each country: The one for the United
States is different from the one for Hungary and still different from the ones designed for France or Germany. But at all times, Russia
has also combined the two ends of the spectrum of power, like RT (its government-sponsored foreign TV network) and the invasion
of Ukraine simultaneously. While the Russian population is living in a stagnant society both in terms of its economic situation and in
terms of democracy and the rule of law, Putin has not ceased to spend money on, and use, the external factors of big-power politics.
The Obama administration was wrong about its perception of the world: The idea that goodwill and goodness will be rewarded and
reciprocated by goodwill and goodness. This has led the West as a whole down a wrong path; a dead-end street. It's time to make a
U-turn. The successes of Russia are in part the result of its sophistication but also a result of the naivete of our democratic and
liberal societies, the misguided priorities of mainstream liberals in America and Europe. I have no idea what the real Trump foreign
policy will be. At this point, I come down on the side of those who suggest that yes, the president-elect should keep the world
guessing, and should not reveal his intentions. He should also rethink possibilities and opportunities and regroup the tools in
America's toolbox. I am indeed worried about the idea of a grand bargain in the relationship between Russia and the West. Russian
history, and indeed Putin's own personal history, suggests that this is a bad idea. Putin needs to be told in no uncertain terms that
it's future aggressions in Europe will be pushed back by military force. We will not tolerate its interference into our democracies. It
should also be made clear that we are for cooperation, when certain conditions are met, and that we will make every effort to figure
out how to do this. But then, the two aspects of power politics need to be locked in tight — not as a matter of
choice, but rather of neccesity. Trump will also have to make it very clear that Russian communication has no free reign in our
societies. No, Putin cannot interfere in our election process. RT and Russian social media cannot spread lies and propaganda in our
midst, while our communication in Russia is hampered and restricted and journalists with dissenting views are constantly harassed.
Before he announces his policies toward Russia, Trump should also put together a high-powered team to rethink how best to make
use of the combined power toolbox. He of all politicians is well positioned to put communication to use for the advancement of
American and thus Western interests. He is a master communicator, and what worked in the election campaign (no, it
wasn't beautiful, but it was effective) should now be used in his international efforts. But this is no longer a one-
man show. He will need to involve players from a vast field. I remember the enormous success of Nancy Brinker, former U.S.
ambassador to Hungary, who used her Susan G. Komen breast cancer organization to promote her country and American values
while working with the Hungarians on hard military cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan. She remains highly popular in Hungary.
That's the way to do it. No, this is not a return to the past, but we can learn a lot from it. It is well-known how American rock-'n'-roll
culture, Levi's blue jeans, and cultural and scientific contacts were part of the "war effort" during the Cold War. So even if he doesn't
know it, the president-elect is actually trying to work out a detente with the Russians. But then his friend, former Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger, should tell him why detente worked: only because the "three baskets" (strategic-military, economic and human-
cultural) were working hand in hand. President-elect Donald Trump
should now surprise the world and embrace
the combination of hard and soft power, and use it in his usual, hardheaded manner.
 AT “Arms Sales k2 Influence”
Export controls are weak – can’t influence how other countries use our arms
Holden, Paul. 2017, Indefensible : Seven Myths that Sustain the Global Arms Trade, Zed
Books, p. 57-58, mm
Many weapons last a long time. If well-maintained, a gun can carry on shooting for years, sometimes decades. Small arms and light
weapons (SALW) are particularly long-lived, but many mechanical weapons systems are built to withstand hard conditions, neglect,
and wear and tear. Unexploded munitions from World War I battlefields were still killing French and Belgian farmers into the 21st
century. Kalashnikovs and mortars from the 1960s can still function if they are given a basic service and cleaning. Thus, if arms are to
be supplied to an ally there needs to be a reasonable likelihood that the receiver will remain an ally for many decades to come, and
won’t be tempted to sell them on to a less reliable customer— perhaps when the ally wants to refurbish its armory with newer
weapons and discard its old stock. There also needs to be enough capacity in the recipient state to make sure that arms are used as
intended, and not passed on or ‘lost’ by its military personnel. Unfortunately, too
often the long-term security
interests of the supplier country take a backseat to the interests of the defense companies
and/or special interests looking to see weapons sold. The consequences— fighting enemies
armed with weapons you supplied— can be severe. Despite the repeated claims that strong
export controls in places like the US and Europe prevent weapons getting into questionable
hands, the historical experience shows that the controls are often weakly enforced. Once you
sift through the sordid history of double-dealing and deadly conflict, it becomes clear that there
are multiple avenues by which arms can get into the wrong hands. You may be asking: ‘but what about that
Arms Trade Treaty we heard about? Didn’t this take care of these issues?’ Unfortunately, no. The Treaty, discussed at the end of the
chapter, is full of holes, watered down after years of negotiation into a tool that will achieve little good, and maybe even more bad.

Arms sales won’t influence other states or promote American influence – can’t
control how other states act
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute-, Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm

Attempts to manage the balance of power and generate influence around the world are heavily
contingent on a number of factors, most of which lie outside American control. Upon closer review,
most of the benefits of arms sales are less certain and less compelling than advocates claim. The hidden assumption
underlying the balance of power strategy is that the United States will be able to predict accurately
what the impact of its arms sales will be. If the goal is deterrence, for example, the assumption is that an arms sale
will be sufficient to deter the adversary without spawning an arms race. If the goal is to promote stability, the assumption is that an
arms sale will in fact reduce tensions and inhibit conflict rather than inflame tensions and help initiate conflict. These assumptions,
in turn, depend on both the recipient nation and that nation’s neighbors and adversaries acting in ways that don’t make things
worse. As it turns out, these are often poor assumptions. Although arms sales certainly enhance the military capability of
the recipient nation, the fundamental problem is that arms sales often initiate a long chain of
responses that the United States generally cannot control. The United States, after all, is not the only country
with interests in regional balances, especially where the survival and security of local actors is at stake. The United States is
neither the only major power with a keen interest in critical regions like Asia and the Middle
East, nor the only source of weapons and other forms of assistance. Nor can it dictate the perceptions,
interests, or actions of the other nations involved in a given region. For example, though a nation receiving arms from the United
States may enjoy enhanced defensive capabilities, it is also likely to enjoy enhanced offensive capabilities. With these, a nation’s
calculations about the potential benefits of war, intervention abroad, or even the use of force against its own population may shift
decisively. Saudi Arabia’s recent behavior illustrates this dynamic. Though the Saudis explain their arms purchases as necessary for
defense against Iranian pressure, Saudi Arabia has also spent the past two years embroiled in a military intervention in Yemen.
Likewise, arms sales can heighten regional security dilemmas. Neighbors of nations buying major
conventional weapons will also worry about what this enhanced military capability will mean. This raises the chances that they too
will seek to arm themselves further, or take other steps to shift the balance of power back in their favor, or, in the extreme case, to
launch a preventive war before they are attacked. Given
these dynamics, the consequences of arms sales to
manage regional balances of power are far less predictable and often much less positive than
advocates assume.54 This unpredictability characterizes even straightforward-seeming efforts to manage the balance of
power. The most basic claim of arms sales advocates is that U.S. arms sales to friendly governments and allies should make them
better able to deter adversaries. The best available evidence, however, suggests a more complicated reality. In
a study of
arms sales from 1950 to 1995, major-power arms sales to existing allies had no effect on the
chance that the recipient would be the target of a military attack. Worse, recipients of U.S. arms that were
not treaty allies were significantly more likely to become targets.55 Nor is there much evidence that arms sales can
help the United States promote peace and regional stability by calibrating the local balance of
power. On this score, in fact, the evidence suggests that the default assumption should be the opposite. Most scholarly work
concludes that arms sales exacerbate instability and increase the likelihood of conflict.56 One study, for example, found that during
the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet arms sales to hostile dyads (e.g., India/Pakistan, Iran/Iraq, Ethiopia/Somalia) “contributed to hostile
political relations and imbalanced military relationships” and were “profoundly destabilizing.”57 There is
also good reason
to believe that several factors are making the promotion of regional stability through arms sales
more difficult. The shrinking U.S. military advantage over other powers such as China and the
increasingly competitive global arms market both make it less likely that U.S. arms sales can
make a decisive difference. As William Hartung argued as early as 1990, “the notion of using arms transfers to maintain a
carefully calibrated regional balance of power seems increasingly archaic in today’s arms market, in which a potential U.S. adversary
is as likely to be receiving weapons from U.S. allies like Italy or France as it is from former or current adversaries.”58 In sum, the
academic and historical evidence indicates that although the United States can use arms sales to
enhance the military capabilities of other nations and thereby shift the local and regional
balance of power, its ability to dictate specific outcomes through such efforts is severely
limited.

Arms sales aren’t key – empirical studies prove

A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute-, Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm

Arms for (Not That Much) Influence. Successful

foreign policy involves encouraging other nations to
behave in ways that benefit the United States. As noted, the United States has often attempted to
use arms sales to generate the sort of leverage or influence necessary to do this. History reveals,
however, that the benefits of the arms for influence strategy are limited for two main reasons.
First, the range of cases in which arms sales can produce useful leverage is much narrower than
is often imagined. Most obviously, arms sales are unnecessary in situations where the other country
already agrees or complies with the American position or can be encouraged to do so without such incentives.
This category includes most U.S. allies and close partners under many, though not all, circumstances.
Just as clearly, the arms for influence strategy is a nonstarter when the other state will never agree
to comply with American demands. This category includes a small group of obvious cases such as Russia, China, Iran,
and other potential adversaries (to which the United States does not sell weapons anyway), but it also includes a much larger group
of cases in which the other state opposes what the United States wants, or in which complying with U.S. wishes would be politically
too dangerous for that state’s leadership.59 In addition, there are some cases in which the United States itself would view arms sales
as an inappropriate tool. The Leahy Law, for example, bars the United States from providing security assistance to any specific
foreign military unit deemed responsible for past human rights abuses.60 More broadly, arms sales are clearly a risky choice when
the recipient state is a failed state or when it is engaged in a civil conflict or interstate war. Indeed, in such cases it is often unclear
whether there is anyone to negotiate with in the first place, and governments are at best on shaky ground. At present the United
States bars 17 such nations from purchasing American arms. As long as these nations are embargoed, arms sales will remain an
irrelevant option for exerting influence.61 Apart from these cases, there
is a large group of nations with tiny
defense budgets that simply don’t buy enough major conventional weaponry to provide much
incentive for arms sales. On this list are as many as 112 countries that purchased less than $100 million in arms from the
United States between 2002 and 2016, including Venezuela, Jamaica, and Sudan. Lest this category be dismissed because it includes
mostly smaller and less strategically significant countries from the American perspective, it should be noted that each of these
countries has a vote in the United Nations (and other international organizations) and that many of them suffer from civil conflicts
and terrorism, making them potential targets of interest for American policymakers looking for international influence. By definition,
then, the arms-for-influence strategy is limited to cases in which a currently noncompliant country might be willing to change its
policies (at least for the right price or to avoid punishment). The
second problem with the arms for influence
strategy is that international pressure in general, whether in the form of economic sanctions, arms sales and
embargoes, or military and foreign aid promises and threats, typically has a very limited impact on state
behavior. Though again, on paper, the logic of both coercion and buying compliance looks straightforward, research shows that
leaders make decisions on the basis of factors other than just the national balance sheet. In particular, leaders tend to respond far
more to concerns about national security and their own regime security than they do to external pressure. Arms
sales, whether
used as carrots or sticks, are in effect a fairly weak version of economic sanctions, which research has
shown have limited effects, even when approved by the United Nations, and tend to spawn a host of unintended
consequences. As such, the expectations for their utility should be even more limited.62 A recent study regarding the impact of
economic sanctions came to a similar conclusion, noting that, “The economic impact of sanctions may be pronounced … but other
factors in the situational context almost always overshadow the impact of sanctions in determining the political outcome.”63 The
authors of another study evaluating the impact of military aid concur, arguing that, “In general we find that military aid does not
lead to more cooperative behavior on the part of the recipient state. With limited exceptions, increasing levels of U.S. aid are linked
to a significant reduction in cooperative foreign policy behavior.”64 Perhaps the most explicit evidence of the difficulty the United
States has had exerting this kind of leverage came during the Reagan administration. Sen. Robert Kasten Jr. (R-WI) signaled the
concern of many when he said, “Many countries to whom we dispense aid continue to thumb their noses at us” at the United
Nations, and Congress passed legislation authorizing the president to limit aid to any state that repeatedly voted in opposition to the
United States at the UN.65 In 1986, the Reagan administration began to monitor voting patterns and issue threats, and, in roughly
20 cases in 1987 and 1988, it lowered the amount of aid sent to nations the administration felt were not deferential enough. An
analysis of the results, however, found no linkage between changes in American support and UN voting patterns by recipient states.
The authors’ conclusion fits neatly within the broader literature about the limited impact of sanctions: “The resilience of aid
recipients clearly demonstrates that their policies were driven more powerfully by interests other than the economic threat of a
hegemon.”66 The U.S. track record of generating influence through arms sales specifically is quite
mixed. U.S. arms sales may have improved Israeli security over the years, for example, but American attempts to pressure Israel
into negotiating a durable peace settlement with the Palestinians have had little impact. Nor have arms sales provided the United
States with enough leverage over the years to prevent client states such as Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, and Morocco from invading
their neighbors. Nor have arms sales helped restrain the human rights abuses of clients like Chile or Libya, or various Middle Eastern
client states. Although
the United States has used the promise of arms sales or the threat of
denying arms successfully from time to time, the failures outnumber the victories. The most
rigorous study conducted to tease out the conditions under which arms for influence efforts are successful is a 1994 study by John
Sislin.67 Collating 191 attempts between 1950 and 1992, Sislin codes 80 of those attempts (42 percent) successful. Sislin’s analysis is
incomplete, however, since he looks only at the immediate benefits of arms sales and does not consider the long-term
consequences. Furthermore, a close look at the supposedly successful attempts reveals that many of them are cases in which the
United States is in fact simply buying something rather than actually “influencing” another nation. Thirty of the cases Sislin coded as
successful were instances of the United States using arms to buy access to military bases (20 cases) or to raw materials (5 cases) or
to encourage countries to buy more American weapons (5 cases).68 Without those in the dataset, the U.S. success rate drops to 31
percent. Finally, the conditions for successful leverage seeking appear to be deteriorating. First, Sislin’s study found that American
influence was at its height during the Cold War when American power overshadowed the rest of the world. With the leveling out of
the global distribution of power, both economic and military, the ability of the United States to exert influence has waned,
regardless of the specific tool being used. Second, as noted above, the U.S. share of the global arms market has declined as the
industry has become more competitive and, as a result, American promises and threats carry less weight than before. As William
Hartung noted, “The odds [of] buying political loyalty via arms transfers are incalculably higher [worse] in a world in which there are
dozens of nations to turn to in shopping for major combat equipment.”69
 AT “Arms Sales k2 Influence” – AT Sislin Study

Sislin’s study is flawed – incorrect coding, limited research design, and short
time horizons all reduce the validity of the study
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute-, Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm

The U.S. track record of generating influence through arms sales specifically is quite mixed. U.S.
arms sales may have improved Israeli security over the years, for example, but American attempts to pressure Israel into negotiating
a durable peace settlement with the Palestinians have had little impact. Nor have arms sales provided the United States with enough
leverage over the years to prevent client states such as Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, and Morocco from invading their neighbors.
Nor have arms sales helped restrain the human rights abuses of clients like Chile or Libya, or various Middle Eastern client states.
Although the United States has used the promise of arms sales or the threat of denying arms successfully from time to time, the
failures outnumber the victories. The
most rigorous study conducted to tease out the conditions under which
arms for influence efforts are successful is a 1994 study by John Sislin.67 Collating 191 attempts
between 1950 and 1992, Sislin codes 80 of those attempts (42 percent) successful. Sislin’s analysis is
incomplete, however, since he looks only at the immediate benefits of arms sales and does not
consider the long-term consequences. Furthermore, a close look at the supposedly successful
attempts reveals that many of them are cases in which the United States is in fact simply buying
something rather than actually “influencing” another nation. Thirty of the cases Sislin coded as
successful were instances of the United States using arms to buy access to military bases (20 cases) or
to raw materials (5 cases) or to encourage countries to buy more American weapons (5 cases).68
Without those in the dataset, the U.S. success rate drops to 31 percent. Finally, the conditions
for successful leverage seeking appear to be deteriorating. First, Sislin’s study found that
American influence was at its height during the Cold War when American power overshadowed the rest of the
world. With the leveling out of the global distribution of power, both economic and military, the
ability of the United States to exert influence has waned, regardless of the specific tool being used. Second, as
noted above, the U.S. share of the global arms market has declined as the industry has become more competitive and, as a result,
American promises and threats carry less weight than before. As William Hartung noted, “The odds [of] buying political loyalty via
arms transfers are incalculably higher [worse] in a world in which there are dozens of nations to turn to in shopping for major
combat equipment.”69
 Link – Arms Sales Decrease Soft Power
Arm Sales hurts U.S soft power- U.S losing soft power through money
prioritization over human rights-
Rebecca 18 (Morin, Rebecca, “Rubio: U.S. Risks ‘credibility On Human Rights’ With Weak Response To Khashoggi
Disappearance,” December 09, 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/16/rubio-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-credibility-
903828// MK)

Sen. Marco Rubio warned Tuesday that “there isn’t enough money in the world to purchase
back our credibility on human rights” if the U.S. government fails to punish Saudi Arabia over its alleged involvement in the disappearance of Washington Post columnist
Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia is a longstanding U.S. partner on key Middle East issues, including national and regional security, as well as a top purchaser of American-made defense equipment. But Rubio (R-Fla.)

told CNN’s “New Day” that the U.S. ought to prioritize human rights over a $110 billion arms deal with the Saudi government. “I can
tell you that human rights is worth blowing that up and luring someone into a consulate where they’re murdered, dismembered and disposed of is a big deal,” Rubio, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, said. “It’s a human being whose life was taken by a direct act of a foreign government by luring him into a diplomatic facility in a third country.” Khashoggi is a Saudi journalist who had been living in
exile in the United States and has been critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other members of the Saudi royal family. He was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 to
obtain an official document required for his planned marriage. President Donald Trump last week said he does not want to cancel an arms deal with Saudi Arabia over concerns that such a move could negatively
impact the U.S. economy. Trump signed a memorandum in May, 2017, outlining intent from the Saudi government to buy nearly $110 billion in arms over the next 10 years. In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes”
that aired Sunday, the president did say that there will be “severe punishment” over Khashoggi’s disappearance. But in a brief exchange with reporters on Monday, Trump said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia’s King
Salman, who Trump said “firmly denied any knowledge of” Khashoggi’s disappearance. “I don’t want to get into his mind, but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers, who knows?” the
president said. “We’ll try getting to the bottom of it very soon. His was a flat denial.” Rubio said that he realizes that selling weapons to another country also gives us leverage, as buyers have to rely on the U.S. to

There isn’t enough money in the world to

maintain the weapons. Still, he said, the benefits of prioritizing defense sales do not outweigh the human rights costs. “

purchase back our credibility on human rights and the way nations should conduct themselves,”
Rubio said. “We lose our credibility and our moral standing to criticize [Russian President Vladimir] Putin for

murdering people, [Syrian President Bashar] Assad for murdering people, [Nicolás] Maduro in Venezuela for
murdering people, we can’t say anything about that if we allow Saudi Arabia to do it and all we do is a
diplomatic slap on the wrist.

Trump’s CAT policy decimates soft power by empowering HR violators

Guay 18 - Clinical Professor of International Business at the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University
(Terrence Guay, “Arms sales to Saudi Arabia give Trump all the leverage he needs in Khashoggi affair,” October 19, 2018,
https://theconversation.com/arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-give-trump-all-the-leverage-he-needs-in-khashoggi-affair-104998//
MK)

During the trip, he reportedly struck a bargain with Saudi

It’s no surprise, then, that he made his first foreign trip as president to Saudi Arabia in May 2017.

Trump wouldn’t lecture his kingdom on human rights, and Saudi Arabia would buy
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman:

more American weapons. Unfortunately, Trump’s claim to have secured $110 billion in arms sales has not materialized. Although the Saudis signed numerous letters of intent and
interest, some of which had been approved by the Obama administration, no new contracts have resulted, due mainly to lower oil prices and the Saudis’ costly war in Yemen. So in the Khashoggi affair, it appears
that Trump is eager to keep to his end of the bargain. He has avoided criticizing the Saudi government over its alleged role in Khashoggi’s disappearance to curry favor with the monarchy over arms sales. Even in
the face of Turkish reports that Saudi agents tortured Khashoggi and dismembered his body and U.S. intelligence supporting those allegations, Trump has preferred to blame “rogue killers” for any crime. In
defending this course of action, Trump claimed that “if they don’t buy [weapons] from us, they’re going to buy it from Russia or they’re going to buy it from China or they’re going to buy it from other countries.”
Smoke billows from a 2015 Saudi-led airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen. AP Photo/Hani Mohammed US leverage While it’s true that Russia and China are indeed major exporters of armaments, the claim that U.S. weapons
can easily be replaced by other suppliers is not – at least not in the short term. First, once a country is “locked in” to a specific kind of weapons system, such as planes, tanks or naval vessels, the cost to switch to a
different supplier can be huge. Military personnel must be retrained on new equipment, spare parts need to be replaced, and operational changes may be necessary. After being so reliant on U.S. weapons
systems for decades, the transition costs to buy from another country could be prohibitive even for oil-rich Saudi Arabia. The second problem with Trump’s argument is that armaments from Russia, China or
elsewhere are simply not as sophisticated as U.S. weapons, which is why they are usually cheaper – though the quality gap is quickly decreasing. To maintain its military superiority in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia
has opted to purchase virtually all of its weapons from American and European companies. That is why the U.S. has significant leverage in this aspect of the relationship. Any Saudi threat to retaliate against a ban
on U.S. arms sales by buying weapons from countries that have not raised concerns about the Khashoggi disappearance would not be credible. And is probably why, despite worries in the White House, such a
threat has not yet been made. In many ways, Saudi Arabia is locked in to buying U.S. weapons such as missiles for F-15 fighters. AP Photo/Scott Applewhite Selling ideals for short-term gains Since the end of World

the U.S.
War II, the U.S. has developed a global reputation as a moral authority championing human rights. Yes, there have been many times when realpolitik took priority. But despite these moments,

managed also to maintain its authority by advocating respect for human rights as a global norm
during the Cold War, and within many repressive regimes ever since. With Khashoggi, Trump is choosing to give up that mantle
completely by showing his priority is purely economic, regardless of the impact on the United
States’ global reputation. Such a bald-faced strategy, in my view, sells American values short and weakens U.S. global
credibility

Trump’s Arm Sales Policy destroys soft power

Thompson 18 an American activist and disbarred attorney (Jack Thompson, “ Trump’s Middle East Policy,” October 2018,
https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/bitstream/handle/20.500.11850/292962/CSSAnalyse233-
EN.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y//MK)
Donald Trump’s Middle East policy represents a significant change from that of Barack Obama. The president is seeking to bolster
Israel and Saudi Arabia, in particular, and to isolate Iran. This agenda has emerged in piecemeal fashion rather than as part of a coherent strategy – and there are few indications
that administration officials have considered the long-term implications of their approach. By Jack Thompson Barack Obama formulated a Middle East strategy designed to

The United States needed to rest an exhausted military,

repair the damage done during George W. Bush’s presidency.

replenish its soft power, and create political space for addressing long-standing challenges. To this
end, he reduced troop levels in Iraq, avoided new large-scale military interventions, asked allies to take more responsibility for regional security, and mostly sought to address
problems through diplomacy. He used a combination of engagement and sanctions to induce Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program, and sought to broker peace between the
Israelis and Palestinians along lines endorsed by the international community – including a two-state solution, flexibility on the status of East Jerusalem, and pausing the
expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory. To the dismay of allies such as Saudi Arabia, Obama also encouraged democratic reforms in the region, though

inconsistently and with little success, and avoided overtly favoring either side of the Sunni-Shia divide. Just as he promised during the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump
has taken a different approach. Certainly, there are aspects of continuity. The president has encouraged allies to accept more of the regional security burden, resisted the

temptation to send large numbers of troops to Syria and other hotspots, and – like Obama – tolerated Saudi Arabia’s intervention in
Yemen. Yet in key respects, he has departed from the policies of his predecessor. Relations with Riyadh have improved notably, whereas during Obama’s presidency the US
and Saudi governments were frequently at odds. Similarly, improving ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which suffered during Obama’s tenure,
has been a priority. Trump has withdrawn from the 2015 deal designed to curtail Iran’s nuclear weapons program – formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,

Trump has shown no interest in promoting political reform or

or JCPOA – and reinstated sanctions on Tehran. Finally,

bolstering democratic norms – as he demonstrated soon after taking office with his so-called Muslim travel ban. To the extent that there is a
discernable pattern, it would appear that the president is promoting a bloc led by Saudi Arabia,

US arms sales causes lost credibility- Arms sales exacerbate hypocrisy- Arms
sales led to anti-Untied States sentiments causing an increase risk of terrorism
Liu 18- a staff writer for “The Hoya” (Victoria Liu, “LIU: Moral and Strategic Failures in Saudi Arabia,” November 12,
2018, https://www.thehoya.com/liu-moral-strategic-failures-saudi-arabia//MK)
Among the 81 airstrikes in Yemen that violated the international humanitarian law according to U.K. newspaper The Independent, 23 were carried out by the Saudi-led coalition
: Our
with U.S. manufactured arms, according to Human Rights Watch. The United States is funding the most severe and destructive humanitarian crisis in the world

country loses legitimacy as an exemplar of human rights when it actively enables suffering in
one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia also exacerbate double
standards in U.S. foreign policy. The United States applies harsh metrics to foreign policy
opponents when determining their military legitimacy but maintains favorable attitudes toward
its allies and friends. By supporting Saudi Arabia in Yemen while criticizing Russia’s support for the Assad regime’s campaign in Syria’s civil war, the
United States is demonstrating incredible hypocrisy. Both nations’ actions are foreign assistance
to dangerous regional actors in domestic conflicts: Double standards hurt U.S. credibility and
undermine the country’s international image. Continuing arms sales to Saudi Arabia also drags the United
States into a dangerous quagmire wherein it is held responsible for the kingdom’s regional
actions — especially its military interventions. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia have already led to anti-
United States sentiments. In war-ridden Yemen, the slogan “USA Kills Yemeni People” appears
on some billboards and walls. Anti-Americanism in an unstable Yemen could be gravely
dangerous to U.S. security. Political instability and terrorism are strongly correlated, according to
research by then-University of Maryland doctoral candidate and current Stockton University associate professor Susan Fahey in her 2010 dissertation. In politically vulnerable
Houthi rebels and terrorist organizations manipulate anti-U.S. rhetoric to advance their
Yemen,

causes. Trump has repeatedly emphasized the importance of these arms deals for creating jobs. Yet, in reality, these deals have minimal effects on employment. Arms
deals, compared to investment in education, health care and the green economy, are the least efficient way to create jobs, according to a 2011 study conducted by economics
professor Robert Pollin and research fellow Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the University of Massachusetts. The study found that spending $1 billion on the military only generates
11,200 jobs, compared to 26,700 in education, 17,200 in health care and 16,800 for the green economy. The United States currently uses arms sales as singularly-focused
financial transactions. Instead, these deals should be used as an effective political instrument. The Trump administration should shift arms sales from unconditional transfers to
conditional deals. Tying conditions to arms sales effectively conveys U.S. expectations of its allies and clients. Canada is currently considering Bill C-47, which creates a

The United States

framework to control arms brokers and requires the foreign minister to consider certain criteria before issuing export or brokering permits.

should follow a similar path in adopting an objective list of standards that countries must follow
to gain export permits. In the context of the Yemeni civil war, the United States should suspend arms sales to constrain Saudi Arabia’s action. Specifically, the
United States should pressure the Saudis to immediately implement a ceasefire and set a negotiation timetable for Saudi Arabia to work out a political solution with Houthis in
Yemen. At the same time, a ceasefire would allow Yemeni civilians to gain access to humanitarian assistance. In so doing, United States could regain the
moral high ground by properly responding to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
 Link – Saudi Sales Hurt Heg
Arms Sales hurt US heg – Saudi Arabia proves
Lam 4-19-19 – Contributing Writer (Sophia Lam, The Gate, “Ending US Arms Sales to Saudi
Arabia,” http://uchicagogate.com/articles/2019/4/9/ending-us-arms-sales-saudi-arabia/)//AL

Many supporters of arms sales, including the current US government, are concerned about
protecting US influence and stabilizing the Saudi-Iranian relationship. They argue that cutting
arms sales would reduce the US’ presence, embolden Iran and allow the Yemen conflict to
further spiral out of control. Iran is backing Houthi rebels that are fighting against Saudi Arabia.
If the US scales back its commitments to Saudi Arabia, Iran could expand its regional influence
and its purportedly violent tendencies. However, as mentioned earlier, it is important to note that US arms sales are
themselves perpetuating the conflict by injecting weapons of war into Yemen. Saudi Arabia is
the medium through which myriad parties acquire arms. Ending the arms sales will mitigate
Saudi Arabia and Iran’s thirsts for power by constraining the conflict’s capacity for violence. While
the US government suggests that arms sales incline Saudi Arabia to cooperate with the US’ agenda, the reverse is true. Rather than the United States
gaining leverage through arms sales, Saudi Arabia has gained more power instead. Patricia Sullivan of Foreign Policy Analysis writes that, empirically,
states that receive military aid are less cooperative than states that do not. States that receive
military aid are willing to take advantage of their leverage because the US often refrains from holding allied states
completely accountable to their commitments or to American principles. Khashoggi’s murder casts a long shadow in that

regard: Trump has chosen to turn a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s blatant disregard for civil liberties in the professed service of
protecting America’s economy. Though not anywhere near as powerful as the US, Saudi Arabia has escaped the Khashoggi

situation with its US arms deals intact. The United States continues to play a preeminent role in
Saudi weapons acquisitions. European countries have reduced their arms sales in response to
Khashoggi’s death while the United States has increased sales. There are multiple actors in the international game
but the US has the biggest muscles to flex, economically and diplomatically speaking. Nearly all of

Saudi Arabia’s weapons have American parts or are maintained by American technicians. Saudi
Arabia cannot find an easy replacement for its US weapons imports: it would take decades for
Saudi Arabia to implement different systems and the transition costs of such a switch would be
monumental. By ending arms sales, the United States can assert its sway over Saudi Arabia: if Saudi
weapons and systems are so reliant on US assistance, perhaps the Saudis should be compelled to comply with new US terms; Such a move

would help change the narrative that the US will never use its military aid leverage over other
countries. If the United States suspended arms sales to Saudi Arabia, other major arms
exporters might either take similar measures or continue to follow their own preexisting
scalebacks.
 I/L – Soft Power k2 Heg
Soft power boosts hegemony – creates a multiplier effect for hard power
Daniel Drezner, 2019, (prof. at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts), presented
at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, “Power: A Temporal View,”
https://ndisc.nd.edu/assets/313840/power_paper.pdf, mm
Another way in which liberals believe in the temporal expansion of power is through the concept of “soft power.” As Nye (2004)
defines it, soft power is the product of several components, including the execution of wise
policies. For Nye, successful policies beget even more attractive forms of power, getting others to want what the actor wants.
This is in sharp contrast to realism’s balance-of-power dynamic. Furthermore, Nye (2011, p. 21) argues that soft power
can build off of hard power capabilities. Soft power has a multiplier effect in Nye’s rubric,
extending the temporal reach of hard power: “the resources often associated with hard power behavior can also
produce soft power behavior depending on the context and how they are used. Command power can create resources that in turn
can create soft power at a later phase—for example, institutions that will provide soft power resources in the future.” All
of the
liberal paradigm’s explications of power either implicitly or explicitly assume increasing returns
and an increasing temporal reach of power exercised today.
 AT – “Won’t Sell to HR Violators”
A loophole in the CAT allows arms sales to the worst HR violators
Alex Emmons, 7/20/18, The Intercept, “how a one-word loophole will make it easier for the
US to sell weapons to governments that kill civilians,”
https://theintercept.com/2018/07/20/trump-conventional-arms-transfer-policy/, mm

ARMS CONTROL EXPERTS are raising concerns about a possible loophole in the Trump administration’s new
arms export policy, arguing that it gives the administration further cover to sell weapons to
some of the world’s worst human rights violators. When it was issued in April, the Trump administration’s
Conventional Arms Transfer policy was widely panned by critics for prioritizing the profits of weapons companies ahead of
transparency and human rights concerns. The White House was blunt about its intentions, promising that the executive branch
would “advocate strongly on behalf of United States companies.” But one
change in particular may make it easier
for American companies to sell weapons to governments that routinely kill civilians in conflicts
by discounting killings that the governments claim are unintentional. The change could have a significant
impact on sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — the top two U.S. weapons clients — both of which are engaged in a
destructive bombing campaign in Yemen. The loophole hinges on the insertion of one word in a section that is
otherwise identical to the Obama administration’s conventional arms policy, which was issued in 2014. While the previous policy
prohibited arms transfers to countries that perpetrate “attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians,” the Trump
administration policy bars such transfers to countries that commit “attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians”.
The release of the new policy was followed by a two-month public comment period that ended last month. On Monday, the State
Department issued a fact sheet on the policy’s implementation, which promised it would energize a “whole-of-government effort to
expedite transfers that support [the administration’s] essential foreign policy and national security objectives.” Colby Goodman, a
researcher on arms sales and director of the Security Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy, said arms
control groups had objected to the word “intentional,” but no change was reflected in the guidelines released
Monday. “Depending on how this policy is implemented, this focus could make it harder for those in the U.S. government [with]
legitimate human rights concerns to block or modify some proposed U.S. arms sales,” Goodman told The Intercept. The
loophole is particularly significant in light of the destructive Saudi and Emirati-led bombing
campaign in Yemen, where civilian deaths are routinely termed inadvertent or unintentional. Throughout its three-year
bombing campaign, the Saudi and UAE-led coalition has repeatedly bombed civilian targets, striking homes, markets, food sources,
and even schools, hospitals, and water infrastructure. These attacks have become so common that human rights groups have called
for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia. Both the Obama and Trump administrations have resupplied the coalition through arms sales,
content with coalition claims that the strikes are unintentional mistakes. Under Obama’s 2014 policy, the U.S. rebuffed human rights
groups and sold the coalition more than $20 billion in weapons. As part of an effort to push back against criticism, Saudi Arabia and
the UAE formed a body called the “Joint Incidents Assessment Team” in 2015 to investigate civilian deaths. But rather than holding
the coalition accountable, the body frequently parrots its rhetoric that strikes are unintentional mistakes, according to Kristine
Beckerle, Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch. “‘I didn’t mean to’ is not a sufficient excuse for the Yemenis still grieving [for]
their loved ones killed or wounded — they deserve accountability, compensation,” Beckerle told The Intercept. “Even if the coalition
didn’t intend to bomb a wedding, a home, a hospital, it doesn’t necessarily follow the strike was lawful, that an individual didn’t
commit a war crime — there’s a lot more to the laws of war than that.” In 2016, for example, the JIAT found that a strike against a
residential complex in western Yemen had been “unintentional.” Later that year, it found that the bombing of a Médecins Sans
Frontières-run hospital was an “unintentional error,” despite the fact the buildings were clearly marked as MSF medical facilities.
And last year, after the coalition bombed a water factory in Yemen’s Hajjah directorate, the JIAT found that “the bomb went off
course and fell on the factory unintentionally.” The
Trump administration’s policy may help the U.S. facilitate
further arms sales by relying on the pretext that these types of bombings, though recurrent, are
unintentional. “Those hoping this administration might learn lessons from the past about how U.S. weapons ended up being
misused, or show proper restraint in sales to countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have nothing to cheer in the new policy or
its implementation plan to date,” said Jeff Abramson, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association. In May, shortly after the
coalition bombed a wedding party in North Yemen, the State Department briefed Senate staff about another possible multibillion
dollar sale of air-to-ground munitions to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The sale is currently being held up by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.,
over concerns about civilian casualties.
Loopholes ensure that we sell weapons to HR violators
Michael Selby-Green, 7/25/18, Business Insider, “experts fear US arms sales to human rights
abusers will become easier thanks to a ‘loophole’ in Trump’s new policy,”
https://www.businessinsider.com/loophole-could-make-us-arms-sales-to-human-rights-
abusers-easier-2018-7,, mm

Arms control experts have voiced concerns over possible loopholes in President Trump's new arms
export policy, which they argue may make it easier for US companies to sell weapon to governments that violate human rights,
The Intercept reported. In April the Trump Administration issued its new Conventional Arms Transfer
policy. The new rules were criticised by human rights groups and arms control advocates, including Amnesty International and the
Arms Control Association, for prioritising a relaxed arms sales regime over transparency and human rights. The White House said it
would "advocate strongly on behalf of United States companies." The Intercept reported. The policy change could ease the
path of arms transfers from the United States to, in particular, its two largest weapons customers, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates. Both are pursuing an ongoing bombing campaign in Yemen which has so far killed over 5,000 civilians. The
loophole could be created by a one-word change from Obama's Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, issued in
2014. The old policy prohibited arms transfers to countries that commit "attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians,"
whereas the Trump administration's new policy bars transfers that are "intentionally" directed against civilian objects or civilians. A
two-month consultation period followed the release of the new policy in April, which ended last month. On Monday the State-
department published a statement that said the policy would energise a "whole-of-government effort to expedite transfers that
support [the administration's] essential foreign policy and national security objectives." Colby Goodman, an arms sales researcher
and director of the Security Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy told The Intercept that arms groups had
objected to the word "intentional," but no changes had been made. "Depending on how this policy is implemented, this focus could
make it harder for those in the U.S. government [with] legitimate human rights concerns to block or modify some proposed U.S.
arms sales," he said. The current administration's new wording could help the US sell arms to countries that
repeatedly kill civilians, by relying on the argument that the civilian casualties are unintentional. One Trump aide, speaking
in April on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the Trump adminstration has been aiming to reduce human rights
restrictions which have led to a "veto" over some arms deals. Despite concerns from Amnesty International and other groups over
the new policy, the Obama administration also supported arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, selling $20 billion worth of
weapons in the face of opposition from human rights groups and under the pretext that civilian casualties in Yemen were
unintentional. "Those hoping this administration might learn lessons from the past about how U.S. weapons ended up being
misused, or show proper restraint in sales to countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have nothing to cheer in the new policy or
its implementation plan to date," Jeff Abramson, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association told The Intercept.
 AT Alt Cause – ATT Withdrawal
The plan fulfils the spirit of the treaty – overcomes lack of ratification
Pablo Olabuenaga, 5/8/19, Just Security, “why the arms trade treaty matters - and why it
matters that the US is walking away,” https://www.justsecurity.org/63968/why-the-arms-trade-
treaty-matters-and-why-it-matters-that-the-us-is-walking-away/, mm

It was not surprising or unexpected when President Donald Trump announced that the United States would
“withdraw” from the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in an April 26 address to the National Rifle Association (NRA). To a roaring crowd, he
declared: “Under my administration, we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone. We will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on
your second amendment freedom. I’m officially announcing today that the United States will be revoking the effect of America’s signature from this
badly misguided treaty.” If anything, Trump’s
announcement is congruent with his administration’s foreign
policy approach, which has consistently attacked multilateralism and challenged international law. Examples of this pattern of conduct are the
withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in June 2017; the withdrawal from UNESCO in October 2017; pulling out from the negotiations on the Global
Compact on Migration in December 2017; the unilateral military attacks, together with France and the United Kingdom, against Syria in violation of the
UN Charter in April 2018; pulling out of the U.N.’s Human Rights Council in June 2018; the withdrawal of both the Optional Protocol of the 1961 Vienna
Convention of Diplomatic Relations and of the 1955 Treaty of Amity with Iran in October 2018; the withdrawal in February from the Intermediate-range
Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia; or the recent decision to revoke the entry visa to the U.S. of Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court. In the case of U.S. withdrawal from the ATT, in addition to the political considerations associated with it, the decision is
based on a clear misconception of what the treaty is and what it does. To better understand the gravity of this misguided decision, it is important to
take a look at the history behind the treaty and at its content, especially its object and purpose. Before the ATT entered into force on Dec. 24, 2014,
there were more international laws in the world regulating the trade of bananas than the arms trade. For many years, civil society had recognized this
deficiency and called for global action. In 1997, for example, a group of 19 eminent persons and institutions that had received the Nobel Prize for Peace
— including Dr. Oscar Arias Sánchez, former President of Costa Rica; Desmond Tutu; José Ramos Horta and Amnesty International — launched and
International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers. This initiative made its way to the U.N. a few years later via the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica in
New York. The lack of an international global framework for the trade in arms was profoundly worrisome given the immense volume of the global trade
in conventional arms and its potential effect in the disruption of peace and sustainable development. Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had
indicated that: “The world is overarmed and peace is underfunded. Military spending is on the rise. Today, it is well above $1 trillion a year. Let us look
at Africa alone. Between 1990 and 2005, 23 African countries lost an estimated $284 billion as a result of armed conflicts, fueled by transfers of
ammunition and arms — 95 per cent of which came from outside Africa. And globally, 60 years of United Nations peacekeeping operations have cost
less than six weeks of current military spending.” After years of informal discussions, and with mounting pressure from civil society, the U.N. initiated a
process to negotiate the first global international agreement to regulate the licit trade in arms, finally putting an end to this important gap in
international law. This process was long and complicated, as are most multilateral processes at the U.N. It included the establishment of a Group of
Governmental Experts (GGE) in 2008, whose mandate was to examine the feasibility, scope and draft parameters for a comprehensive, legally binding
instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms. This was followed by the
establishment, in 2009, of an open-ended working group of the General Assembly to consider the report of the GGE and the recommendation of an
international instrument on the matter. After this, the decision was made to establish a preparatory committee, which had two sessions in 2010 and
2011, respectively, followed by the U.N. Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, held in 2012. Then, the Final U.N. Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty
was convened in 2013, since no agreement could be reached the year before. The final treaty text had to be adopted by consensus, according to the
Rules of Procedure of the Conference agreed to by the preparatory committee. During the first Conference, both Russia and the U.S. indicated that they
were not ready to adopt the draft text put forward by Argentinian President Roberto García Moritán. As a consequence, the General Assembly
convened the Final Conference, where general agreement, including by Russia and the U.S., grew around the draft text prepared by Australian
President Peter Woolcott. However, on the last day of the Final U.N. Conference (March 28, 2013), Syria, Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea (DPRK), blocked the adoption of the treaty by consensus. Therefore, on April 1, 2013, a draft resolution was submitted to the General Assembly
for the adoption of the treaty. The resolution was co-sponsored by 64 U.N. member States, including the U.S. The ATT was consequently adopted by
the U.N. General Assembly on April 2, 2013, with 154 votes in favor and only 3 against (DPRK, Iran and Syria), and with 23 abstentions. To this date, the
treaty has 130 signatories and 101 States Parties. I had the opportunity to serve in the Mexican delegation throughout the negotiation process, starting
with the negotiation and adoption of General Assembly resolution 64/48 in 2009, and through the adoption of the treaty in 2013. I can attest to the
hard work and effort that it took both Amb. García Moritán and Amb. Woolcott, as well as all delegations, to come together on an issue that has an
inherent trend to polarization and that touches upon very sensitive issues for States including concerns about their own security and stability. From the
Mexican perspective, this is a particularly important legal instrument given the great challenges and threats posed by the illicit trade of arms that flows
mostly from the U.S. border into Mexico, fueling organized crime. To exemplify this, the negotiations coincided with the exposure of the highly
controversial U.S. Fast and Furious operation, where the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF),
allowed illegal gun sales in an attempt to track the sellers and buyers, who were believed to be connected to Mexican drug cartels. As Roberto
Dondisch, chief negotiator of the Mexican delegation, has written elsewhere (‘El Tratado de Comercio de Armas, un éxito de la diplomacia mexicana’ in
México y el Multilateralismo del Siglo XXI), the U.S. and Mexico always kept a very close relationship throughout the negotiations. Despite having
substantial differences in our approaches to certain aspects of the treaty, we always maintained the utmost respect in our exchanges and we worked
hand in hand towards bridging those differences in favor of achieving a meaningful legal instrument. The fact that both teams — led by Dr. Dondisch on
the Mexican side, and by Amb. Thomas Countryman, who left the State Department in January 2017, on the U.S. side — overcame what initially were
perceived as irreconcilable positions and ended up cosponsoring the draft resolution through which the ATT was adopted by the General Assembly,
proves that where there is a will, there is a way. What does the ATT do? As indicated by its name, the Arms Trade Treaty regulates the international licit
trade of arms. Its object and purpose, which is clearly spelled out in Article 1, is the following: “The object of this Treaty is to: Establish the highest
possible common international standards for regulating or improving the regulation of the international trade in conventional arms; Prevent and
eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and prevent their diversion; for the purpose of: Contributing to international and regional peace, security
and stability; Reducing human suffering; Promoting cooperation, transparency and responsible action by States Parties in the international trade in
conventional arms, thereby building confidence among States Parties.” Other relevant aspects of the treaty to be highlighted are: i) its scope includes
small arms and light weapons; ii) State Parties have the obligation to establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of
ammunition/munitions; iii) the treaty establishes a system to conduct an assessment, including the consideration of possible mitigation measures,
before authorizing an export of weapons; iv) it includes measures to prevent the diversion of arms, and v) it includes a yearly reporting mechanism of
authorized or actual exports and imports of conventional arms. In a nutshell, the ATT sets out global standards to conduct legal and rightful activities in
a transparent manner. This, in turn, helps to identify where and how arms are diverted into the illicit market and raises the bar regarding accountability
for irresponsible transfers of arms. What does the ATT not do? It is not a disarmament treaty nor a treaty for the reduction of arsenals; it does not
prohibit the international trade in arms, and; it does not regulate, in any way, internal transactions, in particular the acquisition of arms by civilians.
Contrary to what Trump has declared, the treaty explicitly reaffirms “the sovereign right of any State to regulate and control conventional arms
exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or constitutional system.” In other words, the ATT is absolutely silent on controls, regulations,
limitations, rights or obligations regarding the domestic sale of arms. Therefore, claiming that the ATT breaches sovereign rights of States, specifically
the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution, is not a matter of misinterpretation: It is simply not true. It is also very important to understand what
is the extent of the legal obligations arising from signing the ATT. A signatory to an international treaty is not a State Party. According to Article 18 of
the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) of 1969, a State that has signed a treaty has the obligation to refrain from acts which would defeat
the object and purpose of said treaty. No more and no less. The signature does not unfold the totality of the rights and obligations established in the
treaty. This would only happen if the State became a party, having expressed its consent to be bound, namely through ratification, acceptance,
approval or accession. It is also worth noting that there is no such thing as a revocation of signature of treaties in the VCLT. However, the obligation not
to defeat the object and purpose of a treaty arising from its signature lasts until the State has made its intention clear not to become a party to the
treaty, which presumably will be the case of the ATT (as of the time of writing of this essay, no notification in this regard has been deposited by the U.S.
before the U.N. Treaty Section, which serves as depositary of the Treaty). The adoption of the ATT was widely praised, and rightly so. Following the
adoption of the ATT, the U.N. issued a press release stating: “To a burst of sustained applause, the General Assembly today voted overwhelmingly in
favour of a “historic”, first-ever treaty to regulate the astonishing number of conventional weapons traded each year, making it more difficult for them
to be diverted into the hands of those intent on sowing the seeds of war and conflict.” The President of the Final UN Conference, Amb. Woolcott,
wrote: “The UN had not seen success in negotiating a multilateral arms control agreement since the 1990s. The adoption of the Treaty by an
overwhelming majority of States in the UN General Assembly is a major achievement for the United Nations and for multilateralism. When the Treaty’s
regular Conference of States Parties takes hold, it will underscore that the discussion and scrutiny of the international arms trade have firmly found a
place on the multilateral agenda.” (Introduction to the book Weapons and international law: The Arms Trade Treaty, 2015) Finally, In the preface to the
book Le Traite sur le Commerce des Armes by Loïc Simonet, Dr. Óscar Arias wrote: “…I am both proud and deeply relieved that as I write these words in
October 2014, we have defied the odds. We have made history. The Arms Trade Treaty was adopted on 2nd April 2013 by a large majority of the UN
General Assembly. (…) As we look back on our history of violence, we took a powerful step towards peace. For the first time in history, a legally binding
instrument established a common regulatory framework for international transfers of conventional arms, and therefore set up universal legal standards
for the arms trade, on one of the few areas of global commerce which had escaped any control until now. The treaty has the power to reduce human
suffering and contribute to international peace, security and stability. To be honest, it is an achievement I never expected to witness. I never thought
that an idea that first took shape so many years ago would become a part of international law in my lifetime.” Given the great difficulties it
encompassed as well as the great real impact it can have on the ground in reducing human suffering, the adoption of the ATT was indeed a historical
achievement of the international community. It also reaffirmed the relevance of the United Nations and multilateral diplomacy, in particular in an area
as controversial as the regulation of conventional arms, and in which no progress had been registered for so many years. According to Amnesty
International, more than 500 people die every day from gun violence, 44 percent of all killings globally involve gun violence, and there were over 1
million firearm-related deaths globally between 2012 and 2016. In contrast, military expenditure is on the rise. According to the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the U.S. continues to be the top global exporter of arms and the 13th global importer (with Saudi Arabia
holding the first position), with a total military expenditure in 2018 of $6.5 billion. This is more than 120 times the U.N. budget for the period 2018-
2019. It is for these reasons that the recent announcement to “revoke” the U.S. signature of the ATT is so troubling. The
world is in dire
need of an effective implementation of the only global legally binding instrument that regulates the international trade in arms.
And for that to happen, it is key to have on board the largest exporter in the world, if not as a

State Party, at least as a responsible actor committed not to undermine the object and
purpose of the treaty, which has at its core international peace and security and, most importantly, the value of the human person.
Unfortunately, this political decision, based on false premises, and coupled with a consistent pattern of attacks on multilateral diplomacy, seems
anything but promising.
Solvency Extensions
 Solvency – General
The plan solves – sets a clear set of eligibility criteria for arms sales
Lawrence Korb, 3/27/05, Center for American Progress, “US should set example on limiting
arms exports,” https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2005/03/27/1382/us-
should-set-example-on-limiting-arms-exports/, mm

The US role in the global arms trade is dangerous for international security and poses a threat to
American people. Once US companies sell their arms abroad, the American people have little or
no control over how they are used and transferred. Our arms transfers have indirectly strengthened
violent groups and problematic regimes in Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti, and Liberia, contributing to
widespread human rights violations and instability. Many of the weapons used by the Taliban and Al Qaeda to
fight US troops during military operations in Afghanistan were originally sold to insurgents by the United States in the 1980s. For
its own security the United States needs to summon the courage to establish a clear set of eligibility
criteria for US arms sales and reinvigorate efforts to create international agreement.
 Solvency – Modeling
US action is key – promotes international cooperation and modeling
Rachel Stohl, 11/15/17, AIP Conference Proceedings, “understanding the conventional arms
trade,” https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.5009220, mm
Despite the many international, national, and NGO activities that have been undertaken regarding conventional arms control in
recent years, numerous challenges and obstacles remain in enhancing arms control measures. The first
challenge is the legitimacy of the weapons. Conventional weapons, unlike weapons of mass destruction, serve many purposes. They
provide for the national defense and support policing activities – and small arms are regularly and legitimately used for sport and
hunting activities. It is undesirable and unlikely to ban the majority of conventional weapons. The
challenge, then, is to limit
and constrain the trade in conventional weaponry to prevent destabilizing build-ups and misuse.
Because conventional arms serve legitimate purposes, a second challenge arises due to the role of arms producers and exporters.
Many countries produce weapons, but the role of the major weapons producers and exporters cannot be understated.
The United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France hold the lion’s share of the global arms market – with the United
States leading the way. Hesitance on their part to enhance conventional arms trade controls has
a significant impact on the will and capability of the entire international community to engage in
stricter arms trade practices. A third challenge to the development of stronger arms trade controls goes beyond great
power and major supplier concerns. Existing ideas and norms of state sovereignty, national self-defense, self-determination, and
territorial integrity have an impact on political will more generally in the international community. Many recent international
agreements on weapons control have, in fact, reiterated the norms of sovereignty, national self-defense, selfdetermination, and
territorial integrity, which are grounded in the UN Charter itself.13 Moreover, Article 223 of the Treaty of Rome, which established
the basis for the European Community and today’s European Union, specifies that national governments have exclusive control over
national arms industries, arms sales, and arms control decisions, providing additional hindrance to state interests in multilateral
arms trade controls in Europe.14 Ultimately, the fourth and perhaps the primary challenge facing arms control today is the sheer
complexity of the issue. The conventional arms trade is comprised of weapons both big and small and characterized by a multitude
of issues such as supply and demand. Many factors affect demand and sources of supply to provide the arms that states, non-state
actors, and individuals seek. It has become increasingly difficult to control the flow of weapons in a growing global economy, and
even more difficult to reach all relevant arms trade actors and limit or constrain their behavior. Today, cross-border mergers and
acquisitions spread weapons technology and governments become less able to control arms-producing corporations. Weapons are
increasingly assembled in more than one country, making it hard to control the end product. Moreover, developing countries have
improved their own weapons industries, lessening their reliance on traditional trading partners if avenues to arms are closed. In
addition, a growing illicit trade significantly hampers the development and implementation of arms control measures. Furthermore,
the economic benefits of arms sales are increasingly considered more important than the possible political consequences. Despite
the many challenges, there are also many prospects for the future of international arms trade controls.
The past several years have indicated that increased attention and activity has focused on better regulating the international arms
trade. Ideally, a more cooperative environment will emerge and states, NGOs, and relevant arms trade actors will work together to
find common ground and agree to certain limitations on the arms trade that will meet everyone’s needs in forums that are not
necessarily based on consensus rule. The international community may also continue to use economic tools such as development
assistance and trade, investment, and technology transfers as enticements when negotiating arms controls in the developing world,
and individual governments can also use persuasion, through political dialogue, to help enact arms controls in a bilateral
agreement.15 Moreover, other international, regional, and national measures
regarding the protection of
human rights, reform of security sectors, enhancement of the rule of law, and good governance
will also have an impact on the international arms trade as safer and more secure environments
emerge.16

The US will be modeled – wields outsized influence in the arms trade

CIVIC and the Stimson Center, 1/10/18, [This report is a joint initiative of the Center for
Civilians in Conflict and the Stimson Center], “With Great Power: Modifying US Arms Sales to
Reduce Civilian Harm,” https://www.stimson.org/sites/default/files/file-
attachments/ArmsSales_WithGreatPower_FINAL.pdf, mm
The global arms trade reached an estimated total value of $91.3 billion in 2015 (the last year when complete data was available).1
While the United States is not the only country that sells conventional arms through government-to-government and
commercial transactions, it holds an unrivaled dominance measured in global market share. According to the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the total value of international US arms exports delivered in 2016 was
close to $10 billion, or 29 percent of the total global export market.2 The US has maintained an average of 33 percent market share
in international arms exports between 2011 and 2015, followed most closely by Russia (25 percent) and China (5.9 percent).3 These
figures do not include transfer agreements, estimated at $40.2 billion, or over 50% of the global total, when last measured in 2015.4
All reporting indicates that the US will remain the market leader in 2017.5 Of
the 82 countries identified by the Uppsala
Conflict Data Program as
a party or secondary party to an armed conflict in 2016, the US delivered
major military items (measured in Foreign Military Sales) to at least 62 of them; in 34 countries where conflict took
place, the US delivered arms in 27.6 Meanwhile, in 2016, armed conflict in as many as 34 countries killed an estimated 102,000
people and caused an unquantified level of damage to civilian infrastructure, including homes, schools, and hospitals.8 Although no
single weapon or technology caused this level of death and destruction, the
global arms trade has a direct bearing
on the effects of war on civilians. In the 2017 United Nations report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, the
UN Secretary-General called specific attention to the relationship between arms proliferation and human suffering in war, noting
that “high levels of arms and ammunition in circulation, combined with poor controls on them, contribute to insecurity and facilitate
violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”9 Research by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC)
confirms that “when
conventional arms are poorly regulated and widely available, the humanitarian
consequences are grim: violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, restricted medical and
humanitarian assistance, prolonged armed conflicts, and high levels of armed violence and insecurity...even after wars have
ended.”10 Of mounting concern are the effects of explosive weapons used in urban areas, as seen in recent military campaigns in
Iraq and Syria. According to data collected by Action on Armed Violence, civilians represent approximately 92 percent of those
reported killed and injured when security forces employ explosive weapons in populated areas.11 Analysts estimate that explosive
weapons led to the death of 32,000 civilians in 2016 alone.12 While improvised explosives caused much of this damage, civilians also
suffered the effects of commercially available “smart” and “dumb” bombs, missiles, and mortars that were dropped, launched, or
shot from the ground, air, and sea. In addition to civilian deaths and injuries, these weapons cause high levels of forced
displacement and critical damage to essential civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, sanitation systems, and transportation
systems essential for food security. With
its outsized influence on the trade and use of arms worldwide,
the US has the ability, the opportunity, and the responsibility to shape the arms trade to reduce
harm to civilians. Moreover, ensuring that US-made and -sold weapons are deployed as intended, within the bounds of
international humanitarian and human rights law, is also a core US national security interest. The 2014 US Conventional Arms
Transfer Policy, enshrining 20 years of bipartisan policy on arms transfers13 recalls that, “In the hands of hostile or irresponsible
state and non-state actors … weapons can exacerbate international tensions, foster instability, inflict substantial damage, enable
transnational organized crime, and be used to violate universal human rights.”14
 Solvency – AT Circumvention
The plan won’t be circumvented – the presidential order mobilizes the
executive branch against any agents that would attempt to ignore the plan
Jon Woolley and Gerhard Peters, June 2017, [Woolley is a prof. Of political science at the
Univ. of CA, Santa Barbara; Peters is a prof. Of political science at Citrus College and co-director
of the American Presidency Project], Presidential Studies Quarterly, “The Contemporary
Presidency: Do Presidential Memo Orders Substitute for Executive Orders? New Data,” 47(2),
Wiley Online Library, mm

Large, complex administrative systems require effective signaling to efficiently coordinate

activity. Increased public signaling by the White House may be in part a device intended to inform
bureaucrats of administration priorities in an increasingly divided and contentious polity. For
that purpose, published memo orders may be useful. Public signaling about policy objectives through
memo orders may also have a positive effect of guiding attentive groups to engage in fire-alarm
monitoring to assist the White House in enforcing its goals. As administrative complexity increases, these may
be attractive strategies for the White House, but how this produces the temporal pattern we observe is not entirely clear. Beyond
partisan conflict and administrative complexity, Cohen (2008) argues that targeted communications has become more central to
presidential strategies during the relevant time period due to the rise of new media. It is possible that we should view these orders
not simply as reinforcing substantive policy, but as in part an element of a political communication strategy. This objective would be
shared across parties.
 Solvency – Presidential Directives – Force of Law
Presidential directives have the weight of law – Supreme Course precedent
proves
Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p.10, mm

If executive orders, proclamations, memoranda, and other unilateral presidential directives merely expressed the
president’s view, then they would be important but not necessarily determinative. However, these directives are not mere
statements of presidential preferences; rather, they establish binding policies and have the force
of law, ultimately backed by the full coercive power of the state. In Armstrong v. United States, 80 U.S. (13
Wall.) 154 (1871), the Supreme Court considered the legal status of a proclamation and decided that
such directives are public acts to which courts must ‘‘give effect.’’ In other words, in the eyes of
the judiciary, unilateral presidential directives are just as binding as laws. In 1960, Senator Robert Byrd
(D-WV) advised his colleagues, ‘‘Keep in mind that an executive order is not statutory law.’’46 Politically, that may be true, as
unilateral presidential directives represent the will only of the chief executive and lack the direct endorsement of congressional
majorities. But constitutionally
and legally, a unilateral presidential directive is as authoritative and
compulsory as a regular law, at least until such time as it is done away with by Congress, courts, or by a future unilateral
presidential directive.
 Solvency – Presidential Directives - AT Rollback (2AC Block)
Durable fiat prevents rollback – this is the only legitimate interpretation of fiat
and it’s key to aff ground otherwise every aff would lose to future governments
roll back the plan

Presidential directives are durable – decades of data prove

Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p.13,mm

Indeed, unilateral
presidential directives are fairly safe and durable means of policymaking.
According to one study, 40 percent of executive orders issued between 1959 and 1998 were still
in effect as of 2008, and the average executive order in that time remained unchanged for
twelve years.57 Altogether, the above figures suggest that executive orders and other directives give
presidents a means of unilateral policymaking that may be largely immune from the checks of
the other two branches. And that points to one of the ways in which unilateral presidential directives can be constitutionally troubling.
Unilateral presidential directives are arguably in tension with two of the most fundamental aspects of the U.S. constitutional architecture: the
separation of powers and checks and balances.58 Insofar as unilateral presidential directives enable the executive to legislate unilaterally, they violate a
strict separation of powers. And insofar as the other two branches have often been unable or unwilling to resist or reverse these executive edicts,
unilateral presidential directives also call into question the efficacy of traditional checks and balances. But despite these constitutional concerns—and
because courts have accepted and even affirmed them, and Congress seldom overrides them and usually passively acquiesces to them—unilateral

presidential directives are a legitimate and binding means of presidential policymaking.

The plan will be implemented as a presidential memo – means it won’t get

rolled back
Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p.8-9, mm

In addition to executive orders and proclamations, presidential

memoranda constitute a third, important type
of unilateral presidential directives. Like executive orders and proclamations, memoranda are written
documents via which the president directs governmental actions. In one notable memorandum, Bill Clinton
directed the secretary of health and human services to end the moratorium on funding research involving fetal tissue.37
Memoranda are very similar to executive orders, and hence also to proclamations. Phillip Cooper, a professor of public
administration, calls memoranda ‘‘executive orders by another name,’’ and in Lower Brule Sioux Tribe v. Deer, 911 F. Supp. 395,
D.S.D. (1995), a circuit court suggested that memoranda are legally interchangeable with executive orders.38
However, there is a key difference among these three types of unilateral presidential directives, as memoranda are not required be
published, while executive orders and proclamations are. According to the Senate report of 1974: ‘‘If a document is not specifically
designated as an ‘Executive Order’ or ‘Presidential Proclamation,’ the decision of whether or not it will be published as a part of the
public record is left to the discretion of the President and his advisers. If he wishes a document to have ‘general applicability and
legal effect,’ he will presumably have it published. If, however, the order is directed only to an official or an agency and does not
purport to regulate the conduct of private citizens, there is no legal necessity for its publication. Most executive directives fall into
this category.’’39 The Obama administration published most of its memoranda and also listed them on the White House Web site,
but earlier administrations have been less forthcoming.40 The
lack of publication and publicity mean that
memoranda may be more difficult for Congress or courts or future presidents to reverse.
Presidents are aware of this, and the number of memoranda has been increasing over the past
few presidencies.41
This is normal means – that’s how the last CAT was implemented
Justin Doubleday, 7/16/18, Inside defense, “White House approves action plan for new
conventional arms transfer policy,” https://insidedefense.com/insider/white-house-approves-
action-plan-new-conventional-arms-transfer-policy, mm

President Trump has approved an implementation plan to carry out the new conventional arms
transfer policy aimed at streamlining the international weapon sales process and boosting American jobs. Tina Kaidanow,
acting assistant secretary of state for the bureau of political-military affairs, confirmed the implementation plan had been approved
in a call with reporters from the Farnborough Airshow in the United Kingdom. Kaidanow is leading the U.S. delegation at the show.
In April, Trump signed a national security policy memorandum outlining a new arms transfer policy
that calls for the consideration of “economic security” when weighing the benefits of a potential weapon sale. The idea is to boost
American jobs and more aggressively advocate on behalf of the U.S. defense industry by competing for sales in key regions against
firms from China and Russia.
 Solvency – Presidential Directives – AT Rollback (Congress)
Congress won’t rollback the plan – decades of data are on our side
Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p.12-13, mm

However, the limits on unilateral presidential directives are less confining that one might think. First,
there is a great deal of leeway between the limits of the Constitution and the will of Congress. As long as a unilateral presidential

directive does not clearly violate the Constitution or a law, it is potentially legitimate. Second, while
the legislative and judicial branches can overturn unilateral presidential directives, they seldom do so. In
terms of the judiciary’s curtailment of unilateral presidential directives, Kenneth Mayer reports that ‘‘between 1789 and 1956, state and federal courts
overturned only 16 executive orders.’’50 The number overturned in more recent years has been correspondingly small: according to Terry Moe and
William Howell, of the roughly 4,000 executive orders issued between 1942 and 1996, only 86 were challenged in court, and presidents won in 86
percent of those few cases. The rare occasions when courts do overturn executive orders may be dramatic, but they are very much the exception
rather than the rule.51 By some accounts, even the Court’s decision in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), against Harry
Truman’s seizure of the steel industry was more of a fluke than a broad, principled curtailment of unilateral presidential action.52 It is not clear
whether several court decisions against George W. Bush’s directives for suspected terrorists detained in Guantanamo constitute a major rebuke or are
of more limited or narrow significance. Similarly, congressional attempts to reverse particular executive orders are
rare and seldom successful. According to Neil Kinkopf, a special assistant to the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice
under Clinton, ‘‘In the 25 years from January 1973 through the end of 1997, legislation to overturn an executive

order was introduced on 37 occasions.’’53 Moe and Howell report that only 3 of those 37 attempts were
successful.54 According to Mayer, ‘‘Congress [has] explicitly invalidated an executive order of any substance’’ only twice since 1970.55 And Adam
Warber finds that while Congress terminated 206 executive orders between 1936 and 2001, those

amounted to only 4.7 percent of all significant executive orders issued during that time.56

Congress won’t rollback the plan – unpopular directives by Bush prove

Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p.243-244,mm

As for the legislature, Congress has at times protested unilateral presidential directives, but it
has not done so consistently or successfully.58 Congress could speak out against a particular unilateral presidential
directive, it could use its power of the purse to block the implementation of a directive, it could reverse or nullify a directive, and it
could even pass legislation to curtail executive unilateralism more generally. Additionally, Congress could pass legislation to clarify
the many different types of presidential documents and require their regular publication, thereby possibly preventing executive
obfuscation by using memoranda and other directives in lieu of executive orders and proclamations. A Senate report of 1974 noted
that ‘‘the fundamental ambiguity and arbitrariness in the use of Executive orders remains one of the most troubling problems of
public administration yet to be resolved by Congress.’’59 In terms of the practice of presidents using different unilateral tools
instead of executive orders, the report stated that ‘‘remedial legislation to correct this recent practice of public administration
should be a priority for Congress.’’60 Nearly four decades later, Congress has yet to act on this priority. And it does not
appear that Congress will stand up to the president anytime soon.61 Consider the following account by the
renowned author Joan Didion of a congressional hearing during George W. Bush’s first term: when a former longtime member of the
House of Representatives, Lee Hamilton, suggested at a hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission could be put in effect by ‘‘executive order,’’ [there was] not only no polarization but
virtually no response, no discussion of why someone who had long resisted the expansion of executive power now seemed willing to
suggest that a major restructuring of the government proceed on the basis of the president’s signature alone. ‘‘And usually, given
my background, you’d expect me to say it’s better to have a statute in back of it,’’ he said. Was he suggesting a way to shortcut the
process on only minor points? Or, since he seemed to be talking about major changes, was he simply trying to guide the Senate to
the urgency of the matter? Such questions did not enter the discourse. There was only silence, general acquiescence, as if any
lingering memory of a separation of powers had been obliterated.62 This clearly demonstrates the fact that Congress is
simply not interested in reining in unilateral executive policymaking. The more recent examples of
Congress’s reactions to George W. Bush’s controversial directives for detainment and domestic spying underscore
the point, as Congress initially expressed outrage, then became silent, and eventually passed
legislation essentially to endorse the president’s action. As Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said in late 2007
regarding Bush’s order for domestic spying, ‘‘When the Congress of the United States is willing to roll over for an unprincipled
President, this is where you end up.’’63
 Solvency – Presidential Directives – AT Rollback (Courts)
Courts won’t rollback the plan – centuries of data are on our side
Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p.12, mm

However, the limits on unilateral presidential directives are less confining that one might think. First,
there is a great deal of leeway between the limits of the Constitution and the will of Congress. As long as a unilateral
presidential directive does not clearly violate the Constitution or a law, it is potentially
legitimate. Second, while the legislative and judicial branches can overturn unilateral presidential
directives, they seldom do so. In terms of the judiciary’s curtailment of unilateral presidential directives, Kenneth Mayer
reports that ‘‘between 1789 and 1956, state and federal courts overturned only 16 executive
orders.’’50 The number overturned in more recent years has been correspondingly small: according
to Terry Moe and William Howell, of the roughly 4,000 executive orders issued between 1942 and 1996,
only 86 were challenged in court, and presidents won in 86 percent of those few cases. The rare
occasions when courts do overturn executive orders may be dramatic, but they are very much the exception rather than the rule.51
By some accounts, even the Court’s decision in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), against Harry Truman’s
seizure of the steel industry was more of a fluke than a broad, principled curtailment of unilateral presidential action.52 It is not
clear whether several court decisions against George W. Bush’s directives for suspected terrorists detained in Guantanamo
constitute a major rebuke or are of more limited or narrow significance.

The courts won’t question presidential directives – centuries of acquiescence

Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p.243, mm
Even though it seems to go against the Madisonian system of the three branches having the motive and means to resist
encroachment upon their own constitutional purview, the other two branches largely accept the regular use of unilateral
presidential directives for important purposes. They could and should resist it, but they do not. There are likely a variety of
reasons for the interbranch acquiescence to executive unilateralism, but it nevertheless calls into question
the efficacy of the constitutional system.57 As we have seen, the judiciary began to accept executive orders and
proclamations in the early nineteenth century and has seldom questioned their propriety since
the early twentieth century. The court cases against Truman’s steel seizure, Clinton’s ban on replacing striking workers,
and Bush’s detention of suspected terrorists are the rare exceptions that prove the rule. Even with a more politicized
judiciary and more brazen unilateral presidential directives, it does not appear that courts will
significantly curtail executive unilateralism anytime soon.
 Solvency – Presidential Directives – AT Rollback (Executive)
Future presidents won’t roll back the plan – even ideological opposites will
preserve it to institutionalize strong executive power
Sharece Thrower, July 2017, (Ast. Prof. of political science at Vanderbilt), American Journal of
Political Science, “To Revoke or Not Revoke? The Political Determinants of Executive Order
Longevity,” 61(3), p. 654, mm
Consistent with previous arguments (Warber 2006),the results show presidents are more likely to revoke ex-ecutive orders issued by
ideologically opposed administrations. These findings are consistent with the idea that ideological drift can lead to policy
termination (Carpenter and Lewis 2004; Lewis 2002, 2003). Yet, no other studies have systematically applied this to presidential
unilateral-ism. Even further, this
study is the first to show the limitations of ideological drift by finding
that the strength of an executive order’s authority mitigates its risk of revocation. Put
differently, ideological targeting only occurs on executive orders based on weaker constitutional
author-ity. Presidents’ desire to maintain sources of institutional authority and political support
outweighs their tendency to revoke orders from political adversaries. This finding shows a
limitation to ideological drift and sheds light on which policies are more resilient, contributing to the
larger literature on policymaking and termination. Other studies of policy implements can examine these and other limitations of
ideological drift.

Presidential directive memos are particularly difficult for future presidents to

roll back
Jon Woolley and Gerhard Peters, June 2017, [Woolley is a prof. Of political science at the
Univ. of CA, Santa Barbara; Peters is a prof. Of political science at Citrus College and co-director
of the American Presidency Project], Presidential Studies Quarterly, “The Contemporary
Presidency: Do Presidential Memo Orders Substitute for Executive Orders? New Data,” 47(2),
Wiley Online Library, mm

An enduring assumption about presidents is that they seek to make innovations that will be
difficult for subsequent presidents to reverse. This, for example, provides a powerful explanation for
why presidents may choose to focus their attention on making policy changes through
regulations rather than orders. With regulations, responsibility for action is in administrative
agencies; regulations are far more difficult to reverse than presidential orders. But this interest does not
seem to speak very clearly to the overall increase in the volume of memo orders—even if memo orders are a more likely choice than
EOs to guide regulatory priorities. Because memo
orders take many forms and are not centrally
catalogued, it could be marginally more difficult for incoming presidents to efficiently identify
and reverse all of the objectionable actions of their predecessors taken through memo orders.
But, given the timing of the rise of memo orders, one would also need to argue that, as with the regulatory focus noted above, it
took some time for presidents to fully realize the benefits of this practice. The notion that innovation often occurs gradually is
certainly a familiar one.
 Solvency – Presidential Directives – AT Rollback (National
Security)
The national security nature of the directive ensures it will be upheld
Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p.187, mm

When national security is at stake and the president acts in his capacity as commander in chief,
Congress, courts, and the American people generally comply. (Harry Truman’s steel seizure is an important
exception to this rule, and I discuss it in the section on labor in this chapter.) And of course military matters often call for exigent
executive action. So it makes sense that presidents have often turned to unilateral directives for
national security and war. But this is especially so for presidents since FDR. Sometimes these directives are military orders, but
presidents have also frequently used executive orders, proclamations, memoranda, and other nonmilitary unilateral
directives to deal with war and national security.
 AT “Presidential Directive Spec”
The type of directive is irrelevant – they are all functionally the same
Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 5-6, mm

There are over two dozen different types of unilateral presidential directives. A study by the
Congressional Research Service (CRS) in 2007 identified twenty-seven distinct types: administrative orders, certificates, designations
of officials, executive orders, general licenses, homeland security presidential directives, interpretations, letters on tariffs and
international trade, military orders, thirteen different types of national security instruments, presidential announcements,
presidential findings, presidential reorganization plans, proclamations, and regulations.17 That list fails to mention presidential
determinations and memoranda, so the total number of types of unilateral presidential directives may be twenty-nine.18 But
the
different names do not always designate different ‘‘tools’’: many directives are very similar in
terms of their substance and authority, regardless of what the president decides to call them.19
And the definitions of many of these devices are ambiguous or even nonexistent.

Lack of consistency means it is best to interpret directives broadly

Graham Dodds, 2013, “Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American
Politics,” University of Pennsylvania Press, p.9-10,mm

The ambiguous number and nature of unilateral presidential directives, and the unclear relations among
them, can easily lead to confusion. For example, George H. W. Bush’s Executive Order 12,807 of 1992 was intended to direct the
Coast Guard to return Haitian refugees to Haiti. However, the order did not specifically mention Haitian refugees per se. That detail
was contained in a press release, which stated: ‘‘President Bush has issued an executive order which will permit the U.S. Coast Guard
to begin returning Haitians picked up at sea directly to Haiti.’’ In Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, 509 U.S. 155 (1993), the Supreme
Court ruled that the press release was a sufficient articulation of the policy, as if inexactitude in unilateral presidential directives
were to be expected and tolerated.43 Such
confusion can be compounded by the fact that presidents are
generally free to decide what to call a particular directive and can even create entirely new
types of directives if they want.44 Given the ambiguity among the different types of unilateral
presidential directives, it makes sense to construe the topic broadly, rather than to focus
narrowly on one particular type. This book focuses mostly on executive orders, proclamations, and memoranda. They
are arguably the most common, most important, and most accessible types of unilateral presidential directives, and they are similar
in their justifications and usage. Furthermore, I focus on nonmilitary directives, since military orders are a fairly discrete set of
unilateral presidential directives, and insofar as they are rooted in the president’s constitutional position as commander in chief,
they may be less constitutionally controversial. I also exclude presidential signing statements from my analysis, since they also
constitute a distinctly different type of unilateral presidential tool, and they differ from other directives in that they are less clearly
legally binding.45
AT DAs
 AT Assistance DA – Alt Causes
Old export policy is an alt cause to effective security assistance
Shapiro, 12 – Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. Prior to his swearing in on
June 22, 2009, Mr. Shapiro served as Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton. Before joining the State Department, he served from 2001 to 2009 as Senator Clinton’s
Senior Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor (Andrew J., “A New Era for U.S. Security Assistance,”
The Washington Quarterly 35.4 (2012): 23-35)//vivienne
Lastly, it is essential that the United States improve its ability to partner with allies through defense trade, while at the same time
protecting sensitive technologies. While there has been significant growth in defense trade during this administration, particularly
with emerging powers like India, there is room to do more. The United States must continue to expand defense trade with new
partners in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as with longstanding partners. However, U.S.
ability to partner with
countries and protect sensitive U.S. technologies, is put at risk by our antiquated and
unnecessarily complicated system of export controls and regulations. Spread across seven
primary departments, the current export control system operates under laws written in the
1970s and is designed to address the challenges of the Cold War. It causes significant ambiguity
and confusion for U.S. companies and leads to jurisdictional disputes between departments,
delaying clear license decisions for months and even years. This is bad for U.S. business, it is bad
for enforcing U.S. export control requirements, and it is bad for the ability to prosecute those
who violate U.S. export control laws.
 AT Assistance DA – Assistance Bad
Robust evidence proves security assistance programs fail – arms transfer will
only aggravate security threats
Christina Arabia, 7/15/19, Lawfare, [director of the security assistance monitor program at the
Center for International Policy], “
Disappearing transparency in U.S. arms sales,”
https://www.lawfareblog.com/disappearing-transparency-us-arms-sales, mm

In the nearly two decades since 9/11, the

United States has increasingly relied on security assistance
programs to train, advise and equip foreign military and police forces in an effort to fight threats before they reach
the United States. These programs, mainly funded by the State Department and implemented by the Defense Department,
have continued to expand in scope, cost and global reach under the assumption that the enhanced capabilities of foreign partners
would benefit U.S. national security. Between fiscal years 2001 and 2018, the United States spent about $310 billion through
security assistance and delivered more than $330 billion in U.S.-made weapons. But despite such staggering sums, there
is little
evidence that such programs have made the U.S. any safer. According to a 2016 RAND Corp. report, the
rapid and piecemeal expansion of Defense Department-funded security aid programs—referred to as “security
cooperation” or “building partner capacity” by the Pentagon—led to redundancies, limitations, gaps and
incoherent strategy. Problematic in their own right, these issues also hindered Congress from providing effective oversight.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in the aftermath of the attack that killed four U.S. troops in Niger in October 2017, when
it was revealed that a number of senators were completely unaware that the Defense Department had been conducting security
cooperation with Nigerien counterterrorism units. What’s more, there
is evidence that U.S. security assistance
programs are fraught with problems that, in some cases, have increased the threats that the
assistance was intended to combat—undermining U.S. goals in the process. In many countries, American
weapons have been used to commit serious human rights violations, increasing anti-American
sentiment around the world. They have contributed to the wasting of tens of billions of dollars worth of taxpayer money
as foreign governments use U.S. weapons improperly or divert them to U.S. adversaries. These
setbacks have prolonged U.S. military engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, putting more American lives at
risk. Many of these setbacks come from U.S. policies and programs that focus on containing
immediate security risks in fragile states yet fail to align those goals with critical long-term
strategies such as strengthening governance. The “quick-fix” nature of security assistance often
means that programs are not tailored to the country’s political context or the structure of its
security forces.

Security assistance through arms transfers creates a moral hazard that

increases internal state conflict
Tankel, 18 – Assistant Professor in the School of International Service at American University
and a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for New American Security (Stephen, “Policy
Roundtable: The Pros and Cons of Security Assistance,” The Future of Security Assistance,
November 20, https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-the-pros-and-cons-of-security-
assistance/)//vivienne
Andrew Boutton draws on academic research, including his own, to dig into why efforts to build partnership capacity
for internal defense — especially in the areas of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency —
have often failed to achieve their objectives. He assesses various explanations, including
selection bias, i.e., countries receiving assistance that were already beset by numerous
problems; technical issues with capacity-building programs themselves; and divergent threat
perceptions between the United States and partner countries. Boutton finds that although such variables do
matter — more in some instances than others — the
overriding challenge, at least in countries where
recipient regimes are riven by internal power struggles and institutions are underdeveloped, is
the creation of moral hazard. Specifically, leaders in these countries use assistance and cooperation
to coup-proof their regimes, believing that the United States will not abandon them despite
their bad behavior. In some cases, security assistance and cooperation can actually provoke or
increase internal violence as a result.

Empirics prove security assistance fails to stop terrorist and instability

Boutton, 18 – assistant professor of political science at the University of Central Florida. His
research interests include U.S. foreign policy, terrorism, counterinsurgency, and the politics of
international cooperation in weak and authoritarian regimes. He received his Ph.D. in
international relations from Pennsylvania State University in 2014. Prior to coming to UCF, he
spent a year as a fellow at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University
of Texas (Andrew, “Policy Roundtable: The Pros and Cons of Security Assistance,” The Dangers
of U.S. Military Assistance to Weak States, November 20, https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-
roundtable-the-pros-and-cons-of-security-assistance/)//vivienne

In the years since World War II, the United States has provided vast amounts of military assistance to
countries across the globe. These countries have varied in their levels of development and in their strategic importance to
the United States. The goal of many of these post-9/11 programs has been to enable recipient security
forces to combat domestic insurgents, control their territory, and withstand armed internal
challenges.5 The historical record reveals that U.S. capacity-building efforts have often resulted
in failure to achieve these goals. What explains this? Selection bias undoubtedly plays a minor role: Many
recipient countries were already experiencing persistent violence and serious political and
institutional dysfunction, which, if they persist, can create the impression that military assistance
is failing. Other explanations for these outcomes have emphasized technical and tactical problems with
capacity-building programs, which, while important, overlook more fundamental political obstacles.
More recent explanations for the negative consequences associated with military aid incorporate differences in threat perceptions
between the United States and host country,6 and the problems of preference divergence inherent in U.S.-client relationships.7 I
build on these observations to argue that in
some institutional contexts, U.S. military assistance will
provoke or escalate violence, even beyond what we might expect in the absence of external
assistance. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that in uncertain political environments
— where regimes are riven by internal power struggles and institutions are underdeveloped —
military aid can create a dangerous moral hazard.8 The provision of military assistance to
vulnerable leaders increases leaders’ incentives to coup-proof their regimes, while also creating
the perception that the United States will continue to assist them in dealing with the resulting
violence. This combination explains why capacity-building programs in weak states so often
yield such frustrating results. Coup-Proofing, Power Consolidation, and Violence Many of the top recipients of
U.S. military assistance — both historically and since 9/11 — have been institutionally weak and fragile.
Leaders in these countries are vulnerable to removal by government or military rivals, and a unified, competent military capable of
combating insurgents is also capable of overthrowing the leader. As a result, these
leaders have security priorities
that differ substantially from those of the United States.9 Rather than constructing competent
and professionalized militaries — which is the stated aim of much U.S. military assistance —
insecure leaders often seek to coup-proof their security forces in order to ensure their own
political and physical survival. Coup-proofing refers to a broad set of actions a leader takes to prevent a military coup.
Paranoid leaders will often meddle with their security forces. For instance, they may sacrifice competence
in favor of political allegiance in military promotions, removing qualified officers and stacking their security forces with family or
ethnic kin who are less competent but politically loyal.10 Another
typical action is to create bifurcated security
forces, in which smaller but politically reliable units tasked with regime protection receive
special treatment and U.S. military training,11 with the rest left to wither on the vine. This
reduces overall combat leadership and effectiveness, and also degrades morale among the rank-
and-file soldiers whose career prospects are blocked.12 Coup-proofed military forces are often unable or
unwilling to defend the regime,13 which explains why militaries in weak states so often fold in the face of far smaller insurgent
armies. Anotherform of coup-proofing involves the leader consolidating power around himself
and a small group of insiders. This entails denying the broader population access to political
power, using state resources for patronage instead of public goods,14 and governing through
exclusion by eliminating rivals or potential rivals from the regime and military through purges.
From the leader’s perspective, coup-proofing may appear to be the best strategy to retain power.15 However, these actions have
two important consequences that directly undermine the objectives of most U.S. military assistance programs. First, power
consolidation necessarily alienates powerful factions in society and key figures in the regime or
military. For example, if a leader purges the wrong military officer or attempts an ill-timed power
grab, it can provoke a backlash. The purged factions often respond by launching a rebellion, and
this dynamic has been shown to be an important cause of civil wars, particularly in Africa.16
Second, by dividing the security forces and degrading their leadership and morale, coup-
proofing impairs the regime’s ability to combat domestic insurgents. These actions thus produce the dual
effects of increasing the likelihood of domestic insurgency while decreasing the regime’s ability to effectively deal with it. Although
leaders have other, more peaceful options to insulate themselves from coups — such as the formation of inclusive power-sharing
agreements17 — the
provision of U.S. military assistance can induce overconfidence in the
recipient regime.18 This often causes leaders to opt for these more aggressive forms of coup-
proofing, gambling that the United States will continue providing aid to help quell the resulting
violence.
 AT Assistance DA – AT Allied Prolif
Even if the plan undermines certain security assurances – plenty of obstacles
prevent allies from going nuclear
Jeffrey Knopf, 2017, Contemporary Security Policy, “security assurances and proliferation risks
in the trump administration,” 38(1), JSTOR, mm
Assurance is partly a matter of perceptions. And the things U.S. presidents do and say can affect these perceptions. Because of the
institutional features of U.S. alliances, a
Trump administration cannot completely undermine U.S. security
assurances. But it could increase the doubts in the minds of key allies. Fortunately, security guarantees are not
the only factor that inhibits nuclear proliferation. Many research studies, including my own referenced above,
have found that security guarantees can contribute to state decisions to forswear nuclear weapons. But it is important not to
overstate the importance of security assurances. Even in cases where they were a major factor
is a country’s decision to renounce nuclear weapons, this does not mean that a weakening of
security guarantees would automatically reverse that decision. Once a state commits to a non-
nuclear course, multiple factors can come into play to reinforce that decision. Non-proliferation has
many causes, and a weakening of one cause does not diminish the impact of the other factors involved. There are several
considerations that could encourage states to remain non-nuclear. U.S. allies in Europe and the
Asia-Pacific that gave up potential nuclear weapons ambitions have all signed the nuclear non-proliferation
treaty (NPT) as non-nuclear weapon states. This creates a legal commitment they might not wish to
abrogate, for example because doing so would harm their reputations with respect to keeping their other
treaty commitments. In some cases, countries have also passed domestic laws that similarly commit them
to refrain from seeking nuclear weapons. The NPT also places peaceful nuclear activities under international
safeguards, which makes it harder for a state to develop a nuclear weapons capability without being
detected. Furthermore, some countries have internalized non-proliferation norms or embraced
identities as advocates for a nuclear-free world, and it will not be an easy or quick matter to rethink these
identities. Many countries also have strong domestic opinion against nuclear weapons (though
South Korea is a major exception here), and politicians who want to initiate a nuclear weapons program
will not necessarily be able to overcome these domestic constraints. Countries that explored
nuclear weapons development in the past only to give up this option will likely also have allowed aspects of
their relevant scientific expertise and technical infrastructure to atrophy, and it could take some time to
rebuild their capabilities. Finally, even in the face of doubts about the credibility of U.S. END, states
could conclude that the security risks of seeking an independent nuclear arsenal still outweigh
the benefits. In sum, even if President Trump ends up weakening U.S. security guarantees, this will
not immediately open the floodgates to a wave of new proliferation. Any moves by U.S. allies to consider
a nuclear weapons option will likely be slow and hesitant. This will leave time for another U.S. election cycle to come around and
perhaps produce another change of administration. If the president who succeeds Donald Trump is committed to non-proliferation,
she or he will likely enter office in circumstances in which it is still possible to repair the credibility of U.S. security guarantees and
prevent U.S. allies from going nuclear.
 AT Assistance DA – Turn - Alliances Bad
Burden sharing fails in practice – we shoulder most of the burden and it
encourages free riding
Barry Posen, Jan/Feb 2013, Foreign Affairs, (Posen is a Prof of Poli Sci at MIT), "Pull back: the
case for a less activist foreign policy," 92.1, Proquest

Another problematic response to the United States' grand strategy comes from its friends: free-riding. The
Cold War alliances that the country has worked so hard to maintain-namely, nato and the U.S.- Japanese security agreement-
have provided U.S. partners in Europe and Asia with such a high level of insurance that they have been able to steadily
shrink their militaries and outsource their defense to Washington. European nations have cut their military
spending by roughly 15 percent in real terms since the end of the Cold War, with the exception of the United Kingdom, which will
soon join the rest as it carries out its austerity policy. Depending on how one counts, Japanese defense spending has been cut, or at
best has remained stable, over the past decade. The government has unwisely devoted too much spending to ground forces, even as
its leaders have expressed alarm at the rise of Chinese military power-an air, missile, and naval threat.¶ Although these regions have
avoided major wars, the United States has had to bear more and more of the burden of keeping the
peace. It now spends 4.6 percent of its gdp on defense, whereas its European nato allies collectively spend 1.6 percent and Japan
spends 1.0 percent. With their high per capita gdps, these allies can afford to devote more money to their militaries, yet they have
no incentive to do so. And so while the U.S. government considers draconian cuts in social spending to restore the United States'
fiscal health, it continues to subsidize the security of Germany and Japan. This is welfare for the rich.¶ U.S. security
guarantees also encourage plucky allies to challenge more powerful states, confident that Washington will
save them in the end-a classic case of moral hazard. This phenomenon has caused the United States
to incur political costs, antagonizing powers great and small for no gain and encouraging them to seek
opportunities to provoke the United States in return. So far, the United States has escaped getting sucked into
unnecessary wars, although Washington dodged a bullet in Taiwan when the Democratic Progressive Party of Chen Shui-bian
governed the island, from 2000 to 2008. His frequent allusions to independence, which ran counter to U.S. policy but which some
Bush administration officials reportedly encouraged, unnecessarily provoked the Chinese government; had he proceeded, he would
have surely triggered a dangerous crisis. Chen would never have entertained such reckless rhetoric absent the long-standing backing
of the U.S. government.¶ The Philippines and Vietnam (the latter of which has no formal defense treaty with Washington) also seem
to have figured out that they can needle China over maritime boundary disputes and then seek shelter under the U.S. umbrella
when China inevitably reacts. Notonly do these disputes make it harder for Washington to cooperate
with Beijing on issues of global importance; they also risk roping the United States into conflicts over
strategically marginal territory.¶ Georgia is another state that has played this game to the United States' detriment.
Overly confident of Washington's affection for it, the tiny republic deliberately challenged Russia over control of the disputed region
of South Ossetia in August 2008. Regardless of how exactly the fighting began, Georgia acted far too adventurously given its size,
proximity to Russia, and distance from any plausible source of military help. This needless war ironically made Russia look tough and
the United States unreliable.¶ This dynamic is at play in the Middle East, too. Although U.S. officials have communicated time and
again to leaders in Jerusalem their discomfort with Israeli settlements on the territory occupied during the 1967 war, Israel regularly
increases the population and dimensions of those settlements. The United States' military largess and regular affirmations of
support for Israel have convinced Israeli hawks that they will suffer no consequences for ignoring U.S. advice. It takes two to make
peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the creation of humiliating facts on the ground will not bring a negotiated settlement any
closer. And Israel's policies toward the Palestinians are a serious impediment to improved U.S. relations with the Arab world.

Security assistance fails and increase the risk of nuclear war

Ted Carpenter, 7/14/19, (a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute), The National
Interest, “America should rethink its commitments to allies,”
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/america-should-rethink-its-commitments-allies-
66922, mm

Because the Cold War ended quietly, U.S. leaders concluded that extended deterrence had
worked well and that it would have general applicability in a different era and under different circumstances. That may be a
very faulty assumption. Although Kremlin officials apparently believed that the United States might risk even nuclear war to
defend a major strategic and economic prize like Western Europe, they may have far greater doubts whether Washington would
actually carry out a similar policy to shield small countries on Russia’s border. At
a minimum, the danger of
miscalculation is substantially greater. Extended deterrence also entails elevated risks for the
United States in its confrontations with North Korea and Iran. Although the evidence is not definitive, it is likely that Pyongyang
already has a small nuclear arsenal, and the North Korean regime certainly has worked diligently to build a reliable missile delivery
system. Iran’s program is not as advanced. Tehran has not conducted any nuclear tests (in contrast to North Korea’s multiple tests
since 2006), and the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which Tehran signed in 2015, put major limits on its
nuclear program. Washington’s withdrawal from that agreement angered the Iranian government, yet it is only now that Tehran
may have exceeded the limits the JCPOA set on uranium enrichment. Washington clearly is worried about the nuclear ambitions of
its two adversaries. Yet the chance that Pyongyang would launch a premeditated attack on the United States remains extremely
remote—and will continue to do so even if North Korea’s nuclear arsenal expands. Several experts have noted that nuclear weapons
may be the ultimate deterrent, but they are far less useful for intimidation, much less war fighting. Indeed, the latter applies only if a
country’s political leadership is willing to commit national and personal suicide. There is no evidence that North Korea’s leaders fit
that description, and the same is true of Iranian leaders. Even if Iran eventually builds a small nuclear arsenal, it is more likely for the
purpose of deterring any forcible regime-change ambitions that Washington might harbor than waging a suicidal war by attacking
the American homeland. The
risk factor rises, though, if the United States insists on continuing to shield
allies and clients in East Asia and the Middle East. Given the political division of the Korean Peninsula and the
tensions it has generated over the past seven decades, the danger of an armed conflict involving North Korea and its neighbors is
ever present. America becoming entangled in such a conflict because of its security guarantees to
Seoul and Tokyo is the one credible scenario that might culminate in a North Korean nuclear attack on
the United States. A similar risk is building in the Middle East, where the United States has foolishly injected itself into Iran’s
quarrels with both Israel and key Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia. Again, the likelihood of even a nuclear-armed Iran launching an
attack on the American homeland out of the blue is highly improbable. A war between Tehran and one or more of its adversaries
that spirals out of control and snares the United States because of Washington’s implicit security commitments to Israel and/or
Saudi Arabia is, unfortunately, a much greater danger. U.S.
leaders can retain a high level of confidence in the
reliability of direct deterrence. But extended deterrence in both East Asia and the Middle East entails an
already excessive—and rising—level of risk. Washington should inform its allies that it is no
longer willing to incur that risk. Those allies would then need to decide whether to build their own modest nuclear
deterrents as a more reliable insurance policy. (Indeed, one of the worst-kept secrets in international affairs is that Israel already has
such an arsenal.) In short, the United States needs to off-load the risks to countries that have more direct interests at stake in
deterring North Korea and Iran.

Security commitments incentive client states to act aggressively – creates a

moral hazard and causes conflict – empirical research proves
Neil Narang and Rupal Mehta, 2017, [Narang is a prof. of political science and UC-Santa
Barbara; Mehta is a prof. of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln], The Journal
of Conflict Resolution, “the unforeseen consequences of extended deterrence: moral hazard in a
nuclear client state,” Sage, mm
In this article, we address a long-standing question in the academic and policy communities about the role of nuclear umbrellas in
broader interstate relations. Specifically, we
examine how client states behave under the protection of a
nuclear patron by investigating two important dimensions of behavior: the initiation of
militarized disputes and bargaining outcomes short of war. We find that, although client states protected
under a nuclear umbrella are no more likely to initiate MIDs against a target state that escalate to war or the reciprocated use of
force, these states, nevertheless, appear more emboldened to initiate crises. However, these crises tend not to
escalate to higher levels of militarized conflict because target states appear to act in equilibrium: preferring to settle disputes
peacefully rather than resist militarily through costly fighting. We
find that client states protected under a
nuclear umbrella are more often the recipients of policy concessions from their targets
compared to states that lack protection under a nuclear umbrella. Together, these results
provide comprehensive support for our argument that there is some risk of moral hazard in a
client state protected under a nuclear umbrella, as clients appear more emboldened and more
successful at revising the status quo in expectation of a patron coming to their aid. The urgency
to understand the strategic consequences of nuclear umbrellas is perhaps most real today, as the
United States seeks to rebalance its overall security portfolio to the Asia-Pacific in anticipation of a rising China and to provide
additional assurances to its allies in the Middle East in light of potential proliferation challenges. And yet, we
have
surprisingly little evidence that such commitments are effective at reducing the risk of conflict on
net, given the widely presumed, but still untested, risk for moral hazard in the client state. Meanwhile, policymakers in the United
States and abroad continue to propose expanding the US nuclear umbrella while further reassuring allies covered within it. Our
research suggests that the expansion of the nuclear umbrella may perversely exacerbate the
concerns of potential targets and inadvertently destabilize the status quo by increasing the risk
of a crisis and the opportunity for bargaining to fail.
 AT Deterrence DA – Not Key
No link – reducing arms sales won’t disrupt deterrence
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute-, Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm
At the strategic level, the United States inhabits such an extremely favorable security environment in the post-Cold War world that
most arms sales do little or nothing to improve its security. Thanks to its geography, friendly (and
weak) neighbors, large and dynamic economy, and secure nuclear arsenal, the United States faces
very few significant threats. There is no Soviet Union bent upon dominating Europe and destroying the United States.
China, despite its rapid rise, cannot (and has no reason to) challenge the sovereignty or territorial integrity of the United States.
Arms sales — to allies or others — are unnecessary to deter major, direct threats to U.S.
national security in the current era.47 Nor are arms sales necessary to protect the United States
from “falling dominoes,” or the consequences of conflicts elsewhere. The United States enjoys what Eric
Nordlinger called “strategic immunity.”48 Simply put, most of what happens in the rest of the world is
irrelevant to U.S. national security. The United States has spent decades helping South Korea keep North Korea in
check, for example, but division of territory on the Korean peninsula does not affect America’s security. Likewise, civil wars in the
Middle East and Russia’s annexation of Crimea might be significant for many reasons, but those events do not threaten the ability of
the United States to defend itself. As a result, a decision to sell weapons to Ukraine, Taiwan, or South Korea could significantly affect
those nations’ security; doing so is not an act of ensuring U.S. national security.
 AT DIB DA – Foreign Sales Not Key
Foreign sales aren’t key to maintain the defense industrial base
Andrew Miller and Seth Binder, 5/10/19, War on the Rocks, “The case for arms embargoes
against uncooperative partners,” https://warontherocks.com/2019/05/the-case-for-arms-
embargoes-against-uncooperative-partners/, mm

Second, Rounds also overstates the costs of suspending arms transfers. He is particularly focused on the
potential for losing “access,” a term that encompasses relationships with the recipient country’s military leadership; insight into
their views, organization, and doctrine; and permission for the U.S. military to use that country’s bases and airspace. These are
legitimate concerns, but suspensions do not automatically compromise access. Egypt, for instance, never curtailed the U.S. military
ability to use the Suez Canal or Egyptian airspace while arms transfers were on hold. And, while intelligence about a foreign military
is valuable, we often have other, clandestine ways to acquire such information. Moreover, we should not conflate access with
influence. U.S. military officials had access to their Egyptian counterparts during the events of 2013, but those channels were of no
use in deterring Egypt’s military from removing the country’s democratically elected president. Nor has U.S access reduced civilian
casualties from Saudi-coalition bombing in Yemen. In these cases, access without influence does not absolve the United States of
complicity. The author’s other major
concern is that arms suspensions could result in the loss of arms
sales to strategic competitors like Russia or China. The jobs created by such sales are not trivial matters, but
studies have found that they do not provide the economic benefits or jobs that are often touted.
Nor are these sales necessary to maintain the military industrial base, which is powered by
billions of dollars each year from domestic purchases, except in rare cases. Fundamentally, the author’s implicit
argument — that if the United States reliably supplies weapons to strategically important countries, they won’t seek them
elsewhere — is suspect. Countries, including close partners like Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have long sought to diversify
their weapons stockpiles, and in an increasingly multipolar world, more countries are seeking to diversify their arms suppliers to
maintain their own independence. While U.S. arms will continue to compete with Russian or Chinese counterparts on a sale-by-sale
basis, it will become increasingly unrealistic to be the exclusive supplier of any partner country, irrespective of how reliable the
United States is.
 AT DIB DA – AT Economy/Growth I/L
The arms industry isn’t key to the economy – offsets and few domestic jobs
Jonathan Caverley, 4/6/18, [associate prof. Of strategy at the US Naval War College], War on
the Rocks, “America’s arms sales policy: security abroad, not jobs at home,”
https://warontherocks.com/2018/04/americas-arms-sales-policy-security-abroad-not-jobs-at-
home/, mm

Even if the Trump administration boosts sales against such headwinds, this will not create many additional jobs. Arms exports
are a surprisingly inefficient means of employing people at home. Using census data, the Commerce
Department estimates that a billion dollars of defense exports would “create or sustain” 3,918
jobs, considerably fewer than the 5,700 jobs per billion created by increased US exports more broadly. Doubling the United
States’ annual arms exports to $40 billion, a highly unrealistic goal, would thus create fewer than 80,000 new
jobs. There are other industries the United States can promote that will have larger effects on jobs. One reason defense
exports appear to be inefficient employment generators is that states that spend their own
money on buying American weapons also care about “jobs, jobs, jobs” for their own people, as
well as supporting their own aspirational defense industries. Most countries require “offsets,”
mandating that a percentage of any arms deal (often 50 to 100 percent) must be re-invested in the
importing state’s economy. Between 2013 and 2015, these offsets, had the work been performed in the United States,
would have created or sustained over 46,000 jobs. In publicizing a recent Saudi deal for 150 S-70 Black Hawk utility helicopters at
roughly $6 billion, Lockheed Martin predicted that it would “support” 900 jobs. But half those jobs would be in Saudi Arabia. Yet
another reason that arms exports are an inefficient employment mechanism: Any additional
U.S. market share is likely to be heavily subsidized. In 2016, the United States spent $10 billion buying weapons
for other countries, roughly 10 percent of the entire global arms export market, equivalent to Singapore’s or Algeria’s defense
budget. Moreover, over the past six years, the Defense Department waived another $16 billion in normally mandatory fees for
Foreign Military Sales — including $3.5 billion for a $15 billion Saudi agreement — largely to close deals that may have gone to other
suppliers. In
short, when it comes to boosting the domestic economy, arms sales contain relatively
little juice. And, as we shall see, it may not be worth the squeeze.

Not key – most jobs are created abroad

A. Trevor Thrall and Jordan Cohen, 4/5/19, Defense One, “the false promises of trump’s
arms sales,” https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/04/false-promises-trumps-arms-
sales/156071/, mm

Finally, Trump’s
claims about the economic benefits of arms sales ring the hollowest of all. For
starters, not
only won’t arms sales create a million new American jobs, but a great number of the
jobs created by arms sales will go to citizens of the purchasing nations. As the Security Assistance Monitor
report notes, the number of licenses granted to weapons manufacturers outside the United States doubled from 2017 to 2018. As a
result, more than one-quarter of all U.S. arms “sales” last year were deals to permit the
manufacturing of U.S.-designed weapons under license — that is, they created jobs in other
nations instead of the United States. The report also finds that the Trump administration has sharply
increased the number of deals in which foreign countries produce U.S.-developed weaponry
under coproduction agreements, further reducing the number of U.S. jobs tied to arms sales.
Weakening the economic rationale even further is the fact that in order to seal major deals,
American defense contractors have to offer massive discounts, or offsets, to the purchasing
nations in the form of coproduction arrangements or technology transfer. In 2014, for example, these
offsets equaled roughly one-third of the value of total U.S. arms sales. These offsets mean not only that American
arms sales are less profitable than they appear on paper, but also that they lead to fewer jobs
created in the United States than many, including the president, would like to think. Trump’s big Saudi arms
deal, for example, would likely lead to somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 jobs, or less than two-tenths of one percent of the
American labor market. The unpleasant truth is that the underwhelming economic benefits cannot justify
Washington’s love of arms sales. Arms sales simply do not benefit the U.S. economy nearly as much as Trump likes to
claim. Meanwhile, a large percentage of American arms sales goes to countries with horrible human rights records, to nations where
arms are at risk of finding their way into the wrong hands, and to nations embroiled in dangerous and destabilizing conflicts. Given
this, it is long past time to rethink American arms sales policy.
 AT Elections – Link Turn – Plan Unpopular
Cutting arms sales will trigger a national backlash – Trump takes the blame
since he passes the plan
William Hartung, 7/30/16, Mother Jones, “the us government is literally arming the world, and
nobody’s even talking about it,” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/tomdispatch-
dc-congress-defense-international-arms-business/, mm

Arms deals are a way of life in Washington. From the president on down, significant parts of the
government are intent on ensuring that American arms will flood the global market and companies like
Lockheed and Boeing will live the good life. From the president on his trips abroad to visit allied world leaders to the secretaries of
state and defense to the staffs of US embassies, American officials regularly act as salespeople for the arms firms. And the Pentagon
is their enabler. From brokering, facilitating, and literally banking the money from arms deals to transferring weapons to favored
allies on the taxpayers’ dime, it is in essence the world’s largest arms dealer. In a typical sale, the US government is involved every
step of the way. The Pentagon often does assessments of an allied nation’s armed forces in order to tell them what they “need”—
and of course what they always need is billions of dollars in new US-supplied equipment. Then the Pentagon helps negotiate the
terms of the deal, notifies Congress of its details, and collects the funds from the foreign buyer, which it then gives to the US supplier
in the form of a defense contract. In most deals, the Pentagon is also the point of contact for maintenance and spare parts for any
US-supplied system. The bureaucracy that helps make all of this happen, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, is funded from a
3.5 percent surcharge on the deals it negotiates. This gives it all the more incentive to sell, sell, sell. And
the pressure for yet
more of the same is always intense, in part because the weapons makers are careful to spread their
production facilities to as many states and localities as possible. In this way, they ensure that
endless support for government promotion of major arms sales becomes part and parcel of
domestic politics. General Dynamics, for instance, has managed to keep its tank plants in Ohio and Michigan running through
a combination of add-ons to the Army budget—funds inserted into that budget by Congress even though the Pentagon didn’t
request them—and exports to Saudi Arabia. Boeing is banking on a proposed deal to sell 40 F-18s to Kuwait to keep its St. Louis
production line open, and is currently jousting with the Obama administration to get it to move more quickly on the deal. Not
surprisingly, members of Congress and local business leaders in such states become strong
supporters of weapons exports.
 AT Fill-In DA – Diversification Inevitable
Diversification is inevitable – even are most reliable clients are turning to Russia
and China
Andrew Miller and Seth Binder, 5/10/19, War on the Rocks, “The case for arms embargoes
against uncooperative partners,” https://warontherocks.com/2019/05/the-case-for-arms-
embargoes-against-uncooperative-partners/, mm

Second, Rounds also overstatesthe costs of suspending arms transfers. He is particularly focused on
the potential for losing “access,” a term that encompasses relationships with the recipient country’s military leadership;
insight into their views, organization, and doctrine; and permission for the U.S. military to use that country’s bases and airspace.
These are legitimate concerns, but suspensions do not automatically compromise access. Egypt, for instance, never curtailed the
U.S. military ability to use the Suez Canal or Egyptian airspace while arms transfers were on hold. And, while intelligence about a
foreign military is valuable, we often have other, clandestine ways to acquire such information. Moreover, we should not conflate
access with influence. U.S. military officials had access to their Egyptian counterparts during the events of 2013, but those channels
were of no use in deterring Egypt’s military from removing the country’s democratically elected president. Nor has U.S access
reduced civilian casualties from Saudi-coalition bombing in Yemen. In these cases, access without influence does not absolve the
United States of complicity. The author’s other major concern is that arms suspensions could result in the loss of arms sales to
strategic competitors like Russia or China. The jobs created by such sales are not trivial matters, but studies have found that they do
not provide the economic benefits or jobs that are often touted. Nor are these sales necessary to maintain the military industrial
base, which is powered by billions of dollars each year from domestic purchases, except in rare cases. Fundamentally, the author’s
implicit argument — that if the United States reliably supplies weapons to strategically important
countries, they won’t seek them elsewhere — is suspect. Countries, including close partners like
Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have long sought to diversify their weapons stockpiles, and in an
increasingly multipolar world, more countries are seeking to diversify their arms suppliers to
maintain their own independence. While U.S. arms will continue to compete with Russian or
Chinese counterparts on a sale-by-sale basis, it will become increasingly unrealistic to be the
exclusive supplier of any partner country, irrespective of how reliable the United States is.
 AT Politics – Plan Popular
Congress supports reducing the executive’s authority to conduct arms sales
Elias Yousif, 7/9/19, The hill, “congress needs more authority in international arms sales,”
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/452290-congress-needs-more-authority-in-
international-arms-sales, mm

Lawmakers who are now working to retroactively block arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE
should consider adding caveats to the president’s emergency authority. The Saudi Arabia False
Emergencies (SAFE) Act, recently taken up by the Senate, is a good start, and a promising opening salvo for their recuperation of
authority over arms transfer decision-making. More importantly, the
bipartisan frustration with the president’s
insistence on sending weapons over the heads of lawmakers should catalyze a serious
conversation on how the sales process is vetted under the watchful gaze of the public eye, and just how much power should be
vested in the executive branch. Wednesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the president’s emergency declaration
that expedited arms shipments to the Gulf should serve as the new frontline in Congress’s tug of war with the White House.
Lawmakers should not only demand answers on this specific episode, but also draw a line in the sand for their own authority in the
broader arms sales process. Ultimately, in
an era of partisanship, enshrining a more direct role for
lawmakers in the arms sales process is a good opportunity for bipartisan consensus. With a
president who has shown norms to be insufficient a check on executive power, it is high time that lawmakers make a final stand for
their role as arbiters of the exports that enable warfare and conflict across the globe.
 AT Taiwan DA – AT UQ – Abandonment Inevitable
Calls for abandonment are increasing – the status quo Taiwan policy is
unsustainable
Gong Lin and Wenxing Zhou, August 2018, China Review, “Does Taiwan Matter to the United
States?” 18(3), Research Gate, mm

Although the status quo maintainers still belong to the mainstream in the United States, many
Americans have begun to rethink the Taiwan issue in U.S.-China relations. Among them some experts
argue for the policy of Taiwan abandonment with various degrees, either for the sake of U.S.-China cooperation (e.g.,
Owens, Gilley, Kent, Freeman), avoiding military conflict with China (Carpenter and Glaser), or acknowledgments of the greater
trend of China's eventual reunification (e.g., Shambaugh, Prueher, Swaine, Sutter, McDevitt, Brzezinski or Mearsheimer). Unlike
Washington's tacit acceptance of Taiwan's unification with the mainland for working with the PRC to counterbalance against the
Soviet Union in the 1970s and early 1980s, the argument that Taiwan has to or should be abandoned advocated openly in unofficial
views in recent years have [End Page 199] aroused more public attention and therefore more criticisms and reactions from status
quo maintainers and the "Cold War minders." It remains empirically underexplored to what extent these debates over Taiwan
abandonment will shape U.S. policy toward the Taiwan Strait. Drawing on interactions among Beijing, Washington and Taipei over
the past decades, the answer to the question is often a big yes, evidenced by policy adjustments following policy debates and their
impact on the future trend of U.S.-Taiwan relations. It is clear that arguments of Taiwan abandonment between 2009 and 2014 are
coincided with increasing U.S.-China cooperation and smoothly peaceful development of cross-Strait relations. The growing but
limited tensions in both U.S.-China relations and domestic politics of Taiwan in the late years of the Obama administration may have
increased the incentive and faith for Taiwan watchers in the United States who want to maintain the status quo and even play the
Taiwan card. This may explain the decreasing voice of Taiwan abandonment in the last couple of years of the Obama administration.
However, if cross-Strait relations continue deteriorating and kindle a new crisis in the near future or the mainland
loses patience in using peaceful means to resolve the Taiwan issue, it is safe to expect that voices of abandoning
Taiwan and avoiding war will rise. Meanwhile, it is also worthy to observe whether the "Cold War minders" would take the
opportunity to squeeze the space left over for strategic ambiguity, thus disturbing the current status quo. On the other hand, if—an
even bigger if under the DPP administration—the two sides of the Taiwan Strait move to negotiation on political integration based
on growing economic and social integrations in the future, both Taiwan abandoners and Taiwan card players are expected to make
bigger voices, as the status quo then will become less maintainable. Absent of these two scenarios, experts in the United States will
still remain divided with different degrees on the significance of Taiwan in the American global strategic chessboard, with views
driven mainly by national interest or moral value, or a combination of different dimensions of them. Taiwan abandonment and
Taiwan card manipulation as policy options or public debate issues will never vanish in American politics in the foreseeable future.
While the status quo maintainers still command the central position in the academic and policy
circles, Taiwan abandoners and card players will squeeze into the mainstream and exert their
respective influences in different periods of time. Under the unpredictable Trump administration, one
should never rule out the possibility of U.S. [End Page 200] Taiwan policy shifts from one view toward the
other. Given the relative decline of U.S. supremacy in Asia-Pacific, "it would be unsurprising if
Americans were to turn to a more non-interventionist foreign policy."68 According to Frank Klingberg, U.S.
foreign policy has oscillated between isolationism (introvert phase) and internationalism (extrovert phase), with 25 years as a circle.
He predicted in 1990 that the next introvert phase should begin to set in around 2014.69 It is too early to judge whether the
antiglobalization atmosphere in the United States and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president would affirm this interesting
forecast. It may be safer to say, however, the
significance of Taiwan for U.S. policy makers will continue to
decrease if the PRC and the United States increase their strategic cooperation in the future. Only
under this circumstance can the final resolution of the Taiwan issue free itself from external interference and influence.

Trump will play the Taiwan card to get concessions from China – abandonment
is inevitable
Gong Lin and Wenxing Zhou, August 2018, China Review, “Does Taiwan Matter to the United
States?” 18(3), Research Gate, mm
Indeed, U.S. policy to Taiwan has become less predictable since President Trump came to office. Many
uncertainties, such as the power struggle inside Trump's policy-making circle between the nationalists and internationalists and the
policy debates between the hardline and moderate Republicans, have resulted in the unpredictability of Trump's policy to Beijing as
well as Taipei. However, against the backdrop of the ongoing wide-range U.S. debates over Washington's China policy in academic
and policy circles over the policy of engagement and hedging, one cannot help but link the decisions on Taiwan with U.S. intentions
to balance against a rising China. In other words, the
Taiwan card will continue to be played by the Trump
administration. Meanwhile, it is not unlikely that President Trump may want to "make a deal" with
Beijing over Taiwan in exchange of economic gains as well as the Korean Peninsula issue about
which he is more concerned. As Raymond Burghardt indicated, the U.S. Taiwan policy might be negotiable with
Beijing and used as strategic leverage for economic interests.67 This worrisome speculation has
increased Taiwanese concern of being abandoned by Americans.
 AT Taiwan DA – AT “Arms Sales Deter China”
A nuclear war over Taiwan is coming now – only accommodation prevents
conflict
Charles Glaser, Spring 2015, (Glaser is a professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs
at George Washington University. He is also a fellow in the Kissinger Institute at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars). A US-China Grand Bargain? The Hard Choice Between
Military Competition and Accommodation. International Security, 39(4), p. 69-70, mm

Although a number of regional sovereignty and maritime disputes have the¶ potential to sour the U.S.-
China relationship and draw the United States into¶ crises that could escalate into larger wars,
the key danger appears to be¶ Taiwan’s status. China has long made clear that it considers unification a
paramount¶ political and national security goal.62 In contrast, at least until recently,¶ the disputes in the South China and East China
Seas seemed to be of secondary¶ importance, with the sovereignty disputes concerning islets and very small¶ islands that are
strategically unimportant and have uncertain and negotiable¶ economic value. The escalating troubles in the South China and East
China¶ Seas arguably reduce the special importance of Taiwan and weaken the case¶ for accommodation, which I address in a later
section.¶ The
most direct benefit of ending the U.S. commitment to Taiwan would be¶ a reduction
in the probability of war between the United States and China over¶ Taiwan’s status. Current U.S.
policy is designed to prevent Taiwan from declaring¶ independence and to make clear that the United States will not come to¶
Taiwan’s aid if it does. Nevertheless, theUnited States will find itself under¶ pressure to protect Taiwan no
matter what the source of a Chinese attack.¶ Whether Taiwan provoked an attack might be
unclear, which would increase¶ pressure for U.S. involvement. Moreover, the United States has
limited control¶ over Taiwan’s policy, which puts it in the unfortunate position of being hostage¶
to decisions made in Taipei. None of the above dangers is new, but others are. China’s improved military¶
capabilities may increase its willingness both to start and to escalate a Taiwan¶ crisis. Fifteen years
ago, China had little capability to invade or blockade¶ Taiwan. Today it can begin to imagine successfully invading
Taiwan, and its¶ capability will only increase with time.63 Much of the concern about China’s so-called
antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy focuses on its ability to reduce¶ the U.S. ability to come to Taiwan’s aid.64 In addition to its
improved conventional¶ capabilities, China
is modernizing its nuclear forces to increase their¶ survivability
and their ability to retaliate following a large U.S. counternuclear¶ attack.65 Arguably, the United States’
current ability to destroy most or¶ all of China’s nuclear force enhances its bargaining position in a severe crisis¶ or conventional war
over Taiwan. Consequently, China’s
nuclear modernization¶ may make China more willing to start a
crisis, less willing to make¶ compromises once conflict occurs, and more willing to escalate.

Deterrence won’t check a Taiwan conflict – escalates to nuclear war

Charles Glaser, Mar/April 2011, (Glaser is a professor in the Elliott School of International
Affairs at George Washington University. He is also a fellow in the Kissinger Institute at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars). Foreign Affairs, “will china’s rise lead to
war? EBSCOhost, mm

A crisis over Taiwan could fairly easily escalate to nuclear war, because each step along the way
might well seem rational to the actors involved. Current U.S. policy is designed to reduce the probability that Taiwan will
declare independence and to make clear that the United States will not come to Taiwan's aid if it does. Nevertheless, the United States

would find itself under pressure to protect Taiwan against any sort of attack, no matter how it
originated. Given the different interests and perceptions of the various parties and the limited control Washington has over Taipei's behavior, a
crisis could unfold in which the United States found itself following events rather than leading
them.¶ Such dangers have been around for decades, but ongoing improvements in China's military capabilities may
make Beijing more willing to escalate a Taiwan crisis. In addition to its improved conventional capabilities, China is
modernizing its nuclear forces to increase their ability to survive and retaliate following a large-
scale U.S. attack. Standard deterrence theory holds that Washington's current ability to destroy most
or all of China's nuclear force enhances its bargaining position. China's nuclear modernization might

remove that check on Chinese action, leading Beijing to behave more boldly in future crises than it has in past ones. A
U.S. attempt to preserve its ability to defend Taiwan, meanwhile, could fuel a conventional and
nuclear arms race. Enhancements to U.S. offensive targeting capabilities and strategic ballistic missile defenses might be interpreted by China
as a signal of malign U.S. motives, leading to further Chinese military efforts and a general poisoning of U.S.-Chinese relations.¶ Given such risks, the

United States should consider backing away from its commitment to Taiwan. This would remove
the most obvious and contentious flash point between the United States and China and smooth
the way for better relations between them in the decades to come. Critics of such a move argue that it would
result in not only direct costs for the United States and Taiwan but indirect costs as well: Beijing would not be satisfied by such appeasement; instead, it
would find its appetite whetted and make even greater demands afterward--spurred by Washington's lost credibility as a defender of its allies. The
critics are wrong, however, because territorial concessions are not always bound to fail. Not all adversaries are Hitler, and when they are not,
accommodation can be an effective policy tool. When an adversary has limited territorial goals, granting them can lead not
to further demands but rather to satisfaction with the new status quo and a reduction of tension.

China will inevitably try to seize Taiwan – causes nuclear war

Hugh White, 4/15/15, Strait Times, (Professor of strategic studies at the Australian National
University in Canberra), “The harsh reality that taiwan faces,”
http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/the-harsh-reality-that-taiwan-faces, mm

China's new leadership under President Xi Jinping seems increasingly impatient to resolve what it sees as
the last vestige of China's centuries of humiliation and increasingly confident of its growing power to act with impunity. Already
there are signs that its stance on Taiwan is hardening.¶ That, in turn, poses a huge potential
problem to the rest of the region and especially to Washington. The US has always declared its commitment to support
Taiwan if China tries to compel reunification. The credibility of this commitment has now grown even more important because
it is seen as a crucial test of America's ability to preserve the old US-led order in Asia in the face of China's relentless push for a bigger role. ¶ But the
stark reality is that these days, there is not much the US can realistically do to help Taipei stand up to serious pressure from
Beijing.¶ Back in 1996 when they last went toe-to-toe over Taiwan, the US could simply send a couple of aircraft carriers into

the area to force China to back off. Today the balance of power is vastly different: China can sink
the carriers, and their economies are so intertwined that trade sanctions of the kind the US used against
Russia recently are simply unthinkable.¶ This reality does not yet seem to have been understood in Taiwan. The overwhelming desire on the

island is to preserve its democracy and avoid reunification by preserving the status quo. But it understands that China's patience is not

inexhaustible - eventually China wants to get Taiwan back.¶ Taiwan also understands that it cannot stand up to the
mainland by itself, but it hopes that by slowly expanding its international status and profile within the status quo - without

seeking independence - it can build support among regional countries as well as from the US, which will help it resist

Beijing's ambitions for eventual reunification.¶ Alas, this seems an illusion. There is a real danger that the Taiwanese
overestimate the international support they can rely on if Beijing decides to get tough.¶ No one visiting Taipei can fail to
be impressed by what the Taiwanese have achieved in recent decades, not just economically but also politically, socially and culturally. But the harsh
reality is that no
country is going to sacrifice its relations with China in order to help Taiwan preserve
the status quo. China is simply too important economically, and too powerful militarily, for anyone to confront it on Taiwan's behalf, especially
when everyone knows how determined China is to achieve reunification eventually. ¶ Even more

worryingly, this reality does not yet seem to have sunk in in Washington, where leaders still talk

boldly about their willingness to stand by Taiwan without seriously considering what that might mean in practice. Any
US effort to support Taiwan militarily against China would be almost certain to escalate into a
full-scale US-China war and quite possibly a nuclear exchange. That would be a disaster for everyone, including, of
course, the people of Taiwan itself - far worse than reunification, in fact.
 AT Taiwan DA – Arms Sales Bad – Security Dilemma (2AC)
Taiwan creates a security dilemma that fuels conflict – accommodation is key
Charles Glaser, Mar/April 2011, (Glaser is a professor in the Elliott School of International
Affairs at George Washington University. He is also a fellow in the Kissinger Institute at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars). Foreign Affairs, “will china’s rise lead to
war? EBSCOhost, mm

Realist analyses of how power transitions will play out are based on the assumption that states
accurately perceive and respond to the international situations they face. Realist optimism in this
case thus rests on the assumption that U.S. leaders appreciate, and will be able to act on, the unusually high
degree of security that the United States actually enjoys. Should this assumption prove incorrect, and should
the United States exaggerate the threat China poses, the risks of future conflict will be greater.
Unfortunately, there are some reasons for worrying that the assumption might in fact be wrong.¶ For example, the popular belief
that a rising China will severely threaten U.S. security could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Should Washington fail to understand that Chinas growing military capabilities do not threaten vital U.S. interests, it may
adopt overly competitive military and foreign policies, which may in turn signal to China that the United States
has malign motives. Should China then feel less secure, it will be more likely to adopt competitive policies that
the United States will see as more threatening. The result would be a negative spiral driven not by the international
situation the states actually faced but by their exaggerated insecurities.¶ Moreover, states have often overestimated their
insecurity by failing to appreciate the extent to which military capabilities favored defense. Before World War I, Germany
exaggerated the ease of invasion and therefore believed that Russia's growing power threatened its survival. As a result, Germany
launched an unnecessary preventive war. During the Cold War, the United States exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet
Union, failing to appreciate that large improvements in Soviet forces left the key aspect of the American deterrent--a massive
retaliatory capability--entirely intact. This did not lead to war, thankfully, but it did increase the risks of one and led to much
unnecessary tension and expenditure. Washington will have to guard against making similar errors down the road as China's
conventional and nuclear forces grow and as clashes over secondary issues strain relations.¶ There has been no U.S. overreaction to
the growth in Chinas military capabilities yet, but the potential for one certainly exists. The current U.S. National Security Strategy,
for example, calls for the United States to maintain its conventional military superiority, but it does not spell out why this superiority
is required or what forces and capabilities this requires. For the foreseeable future, China will lack power-projection capabilities
comparable to those of the United States, but its military buildup is already reducing the United States' ability to fight along China's
periphery. This will soon raise questions such as precisely why the United States requires across-the-board conventional superiority,
what specific missions the U.S. military will be unable to perform without it, and how much the inability to execute those missions
would damage U.S. security. Without clear answers, the United States may well overestimate the implications of China's growing
military forces.¶ The danger of an exaggerated security threat is even greater in the nuclear realm. The Obama administration's 2010
Nuclear Posture Review holds that "the United States and China's Asian neighbors remain concerned about China's current military
modernization efforts, including its qualitative and quantitative modernization of its nuclear arsenal." The NPR, however, does not
identify just what danger China's military modernization poses. There is no prospect that any conceivable nuclear modernization in
the foreseeable future will enable China to destroy the bulk of U.S. nuclear forces and undermine the United States' ability to
retaliate massively. The most such modernization might do is eliminate a significant U.S. nuclear advantage by providing China with
a larger and more survivable force, thereby reducing the United States' ability to credibly threaten China with nuclear escalation
during a severe crisis.¶ The NPR says that the United States "must continue to maintain stable strategic relationships with Russia and
China," but China has always lacked the type of force that would provide stability according to U.S. standards. If the United States
decides that its security requires preserving its nuclear advantage vis-à-vis China, it will have to invest in capabilities dedicated to
destroying China's new nuclear forces. Such an effort would be in line with the United States' Cold War nuclear strategy, which
placed great importance on being able to destroy Soviet nuclear forces. This kind of arms race would be even more unnecessary now
than it was then. The United States can retain formidable deterrent capabilities even if China modernizes its arsenal, and a
competitive nuclear policy could well decrease U.S. security by signaling to China that the United States is hostile, thereby increasing
Chinese insecurity and damaging U.S.-Chinese relations.¶ There is no question that China's conventional and nuclear buildups will
reduce some U.S. capabilities that Washington would prefer to retain. But the United States should not rush to impute malign
motives to those buildups and should instead be sensitive to the possibility that they simply reflect China's legitimate desire for
security. When Donald Rumsfeld was U.S. secretary of defense, he said, apropos of China's increased defense spending, that "since
no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment? Why these continuing large and expanding arms
purchases?" The answer should have been obvious. If China were able to operate carrier battle groups near the U.S. coast and attack
the U.S. homeland with long-range bombers, Washington would naturally want the ability to blunt such capabilities, and if the
United States had a strategic nuclear force as vulnerable and comparatively small as China's (now somewhere between a tenth and a
hundredth the size of the U.S. force), it would try to catch up as quickly as it had the resources to do so. Those actions would not
have been driven by any nefarious plan to subjugate the world, and so far there are strong reasons to believe that the same holds
true for China's course.¶ In sum, China's
rise can be peaceful, but this outcome is far from guaranteed.
Contrary to the standard realist argument, the
basic pressures generated by the international system will
not force the United States and China into conflict. Nuclear weapons, separation by the Pacific Ocean, and
political relations that are currently relatively good should enable both countries to maintain high levels of security and avoid
military policies that severely strain their relationship. The United States' need to protect its allies in Northeast Asia complicates
matters somewhat, but there are strong grounds for believing that Washington can credibly extend its deterrent to Japan and South
Korea, its most important regional partners. The
challenge for the United States will come in making
adjustments to its policies in situations in which less-than-vital interests (such as Taiwan) might
cause problems and in making sure it does not exaggerate the risks posed by China's growing
power and military capabilities.

A power transition in Asia is inevitable – China’s rise can be peaceful, but failing
to resolve the security dilemma will cause an arms race and war
Adam Liff and John Ikenberry, Fall 2014, (Liff is an assistant professor at the school of global
and international studies at indiana university; Ikenberry is a professor of politics and
international affairs at princeton), Foreign Affairs, 39(2), Project Muse, mm

The Asia Pacific is a region in geopolitical transition. For decades, regional stability has been maintained primarily
through a U.S.-led alliance system. Since the turn of the millennium, however, the shifting political and economic terrain has
led many observers to expect an upsurge in military competition, arms races, and the possibility of
a catastrophic military conflict.¶ The rapid transformation of the region is not exclusively a story about China. Indeed,
the economies and militaries of the countries in Southeast Asia, as well as China’s large neighbors India and Russia, have also
experienced rapid growth. Meanwhile, U.S. allies South Korea and Australia are significantly strengthening their militaries and
becoming increasingly active players in regional security. For its part, Japan remains the world’s third-largest economy, has
considerable wealth and military capabilities, and has begun to gradually increase its defense spending. More generally, Japan’s
traditionally low-key security profile appears to be undergoing changes of potentially immense long-term significance.¶ Yet the
rapid rise of China, the resulting shift in the distribution of regional material capabilities, and uncertainty about
China’s future trajectory are arguably the main forces driving concerns about possible arms races, now
or in the [End Page 55] future. In 2010 China became the world’s second-largest economy. Its official defense spending has nearly
quintupled in nominal renminbi terms since 2002 and now ranks second only to that of the (globally distributed) U.S. military.
China’s defense spending remains largely constant as a percentage of its (rapidly growing) gross domestic product, though that long-
term trend has reversed itself for the last several years, including a twice-as-fast projected increase in 2014.5 Widespread concerns
about the objective reality of China’s rapidly increasing military capabilities are exacerbated by its low military transparency, which
deepens general uncertainty and specific worries about its capabilities and intentions.¶ China’s worsening relations with
its neighbors may exemplify the challenge that any state with such rapidly increasing material capabilities has in
signaling restraint. As China’s leaders state, Beijing may be modernizing its military forces primarily to compensate for
decades of neglect, and its leaders may sincerely view its policies toward its neighbors as reactive and
defensive. Yet the more important point is that regardless of China’s actual intentions, to other states the objective reality of
Beijing’s growing military power, coupled with its rapidly expanding military capabilities and recent policies vis-à-vis disputed
territory and features on its periphery, appear provocative and newly “assertive,” even aggressive.6 As a case in point,
however controversial and destabilizing, China’s vast claims over islands and features in the South and East China Seas predate its
current “rise” by decades. Yet as China’s military capabilities grow, Beijing is increasingly capable of asserting these claims in a
manner that it was unable to only a few years ago. Similarly, the growing frequency and geographical scope of its patrols and
exercises worsen tensions by creating far more opportunities for a clash or incident, as Chinese [End Page 56] vessels and aircraft
increasingly cross paths with foreign militaries in international waters.¶ A
decade ago, China’s leaders appeared far
more sensitive to the dilemma their country faces as a rising power; the slogan “peaceful rise”
and China’s engagement and reassurance of neighboring states of its peaceful intentions
encapsulated this self-awareness.7 At least seen from Beijing, China’s intentions may continue to be
“peaceful” and its military policy “defensive”—both now and in the future—as its leaders often assert. Yet its future
intentions are unknowable—even to the most prescient of Chinese leaders. Under anarchy and in the context of Beijing’s rapid
enhancement of military capabilities, this uncertainty can create or exacerbate regional instability. To
the extent that
China’s intentions are truly peaceful and defensive, if Beijing is unable to credibly convey them,
its rise is likely to increasingly elicit backlash and counterbalancing from its neighbors. The perhaps
unintended result will be to worsen, rather than enhance, China’s security—even to the point of self-encirclement.
The net result is high costs all around—in terms of wasteful military spending and an increasingly unstable region even if a military
conflict does not occur—that leave all parties worse off.¶ As
in any strategic interaction, it takes two to tango.
Indeed, the United States and its Asia Pacific security allies and partners are engaging in extensive efforts to
hedge against both uncertainty and Beijing’s specific policies by balancing against China.8 Despite severe domestic pressure to
reduce defense spending, Washington has enhanced what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called “forward-deployed” diplomacy,
strengthening security ties with and among its allies and partners and generally buttressing its military presence throughout the Asia
Pacific.9 Seen from Washington, the associated policies are, inter alia, a defensive reaction to China’s growing power and its policies.
They are intended to bolster the credibility of the long-standing role of the United States in the region as “resident power,” security
provider, and leader. Yet, regardless of Washington’s actual intentions, the associated policies and [End Page 57] rhetoric
may appear threatening to Beijing and, consequently, could trigger unwanted defensive
counterresponses.10¶ In short, at least on the surface, deepening political tensions and military competition unfolding
in the contemporary Asia Pacific appear to be driven largely by action-reaction dynamics emblematic of a structurally driven
security dilemma. Military competition, however, can have different causes and take different forms. To what extent is the
Asia Pacific experiencing a security dilemma?
 AT Taiwan DA - Ext – Security Dilemma -> Asian Arms Race
The US/China security dilemma will set off an arms race in Asia
Adam Liff and John Ikenberry, Fall 2014, (Liff is an assistant professor at the school of global
and international studies at indiana university; Ikenberry is a professor of politics and
international affairs at princeton), Foreign Affairs, 39(2), Project Muse, mm

The preceding empirical survey yields several preliminary conclusions. First, security
dilemma dynamics appear to be
important drivers of states enhancing military capabilities in the increasingly volatile Asia Pacific
region. This dynamic is unfolding between China on the one hand and the United States and several of
China’s neighbors on the other. The cases can be divided roughly into three categories based on the drivers of their military
capabilities enhancement measures vis-à-vis China. The first group of states—in declining order of severity of observable policy
responses—includes the United States, Australia, Japan, and Singapore. These states may also have long-standing interest-based
disputes with China—for example, Washington’s frictions with Beijing over the international status of Taiwan—but recent security
policy shifts and investments in enhancing military power also appear to be directly attributable to China’s growing military
capabilities and uncertainty about its strategic intentions. The second group of states have significantly enhanced their military
capabilities for reasons directly connected to both China’s military buildup in the abstract, and its more provocative behavior vis-à-
vis specific disputes over material/territorial interests seen by their leaders as de facto revisionist. The former is seen as posing a
more abstract threat, whereas the latter is perceived to be specific and imminent. Among the cases examined above, Japan (East
China Sea) also appears to fall into this second category most clearly. The third group consists of states whose efforts to enhance
their military capabilities seem driven primarily by perceived revisionist behavior vis-à-vis specific disputes over material/territorial
interests. Vietnam (South China Sea) falls most clearly into this category.¶ Second, not all action-reaction military competition in the
region is exclusively the result of security dilemmas. Direct conflicts over specific territorial/material interests are also important
drivers of mutual arming. Despite frequent overlap, the conceptual distinction of causal mechanisms has theoretical and practical
significance. For example, the mutual military buildups of [End Page 86] Vietnam and China seem to be driven primarily by a direct
clash of interests— over territorial disputes in the South China Sea—whereas the potential threat posed by China’s military buildup
to Australia is far more abstract. Accordingly, Canberra’s efforts to enhance its military capabilities are more suggestive of a
traditional security dilemma dynamic. Although in both cases the observable outcomes—mutual military buildups and tensions—are
similar, the core causal mechanism differs.¶ Third, even
in cases where available evidence suggests that
states’ actual intentions may be status quo, the other side may not recognize that fact, which in
turn exacerbates the security dilemma. Leaders from the three clearest candidates for security dilemmas with China—
the United States, Australia, and Japan—have repeatedly voiced concern about China’s lack of transparency regarding its military
spending, capabilities, and intentions. China’s leaders have repeatedly expressed a desire to enhance “strategic trust” and to
“reduce misunderstanding and suspicion.”125 Yet if China is a status quo power—setting aside the important and complicated issue
of its long-standing (and destabilizing) territorial sovereignty claims—its relative lack of military transparency appears to
unnecessarily exacerbate extant insecurities caused by its rapidly growing material capabilities and military power. Other states’
defensive reactions to this uncertainty in turn feed back and, by appearing threatening to Beijing,
further intensify the security dilemma. Ultimately, both sides end up even more insecure and worse
off.¶ Fourth, a significant amount of the action-reaction dynamic evident in the Asia Pacific—
particularly in those states already possessing advanced militaries—manifests not as surging defense spending or quantitative
personnel or arms buildups but as less easily measurable—but no less important— efforts to enhance military
capabilities. The region has yet to witness traditional, full-scale arms races. Increases to defense spending
appear roughly consistent with economic growth and seem sustainable, for now. At least outside China, leaders appear to have
judged that targeted measures, rather than reflexive, reciprocal buildups reminiscent of the dreadnought race of a century ago, are
more effective at enhancing military power in the twenty-first century. This trend is evident in the relatively efficient steps that the
United States and China’s neighbors have taken to shift their postures toward likely trouble spots, strengthen alliance coordination
and military interoperability, preposition military assets, expand joint exercises and force rotations, and so forth. [End Page 87]
States across the region are adopting these measures in a manner consistent with the security
dilemma logic.¶ Finally, perceived intentions are significant in determining the incidence and
intensity of security dilemmas. Even under anarchy, states’ military policy responses to others are
shaped not just by the other side’s objectively identifiable capabilities, but also by international
politics: the degree of mutual strategic (mis)trust, which in turn powerfully shapes how attempts
at reassurance (i.e., signaling status quo intentions) are perceived.
 AT Taiwan DA – Arms Sales Bad – US/China Relations (2AC)
Accommodation on Taiwan is key to US/Sino cooperation – that solves
warming, econ decline, and prolif
Bruce Gilley, January/February 2010, Foreign Affairs, “not so dire straits,” 89(1), EbscoHost,
mm
Taiwan has played a strategic role in U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s--first it served as a buffer against communist expansion out
of North Korea, and more recently it has been a bulwark against a rising China. It is strategically located along East Asian shipping
lanes and could provide another naval resupply site if China continues to limit U.S. naval visits to Hong Kong. Keeping Taiwan
within the U.S. orbit has served Washington's interests by demonstrating that the United States will continue to engage in
Asia, despite talk of a declining U.S. role in the region. The tragic result of this policy, however, has been that it has played into
Beijing's fears of encirclement and naval inferiority, which in turn has prompted China's own military
buildup.¶ Finlandization will allow Taiwan to break this cycle by taking itself out of the game and
moderating the security dilemma that haunts the Washington-Belling relationship. The cross-strait
freeze of 1995-2005 raised fears in Washington that Taiwan was becoming a strategic liability for the United States. Ma's policies
have momentarily resolved that concern. And if the United States uses the current opportunity to adjust its own policies and
support the détente, that concern could be rendered moot. This would make future provocations by either side less
likely.¶ Taipei's decision to chart a new course is a godsend for a U.S. administration that increasingly needs China's
cooperation in achieving its highest priority: maintaining the peaceful international liberal order. The
United States requires Beijing's support on a host of pressing world issues--from climate change
to financial stability and nuclear nonproliferation. William Stanton, Washington's de facto ambassador to
Taiwan, admitted as much in October 2009, declaring that "it's in everybody's interests, including Taiwan's as well, that the U.S. try
to have a cooperative relationship with China."¶ In recent years, the U.S.-Taiwanese relationship has been increasingly dictated by
the interests of narrow lobbies rather than grand strategy. The U.S. arms industry, the Taiwanese military, and Taiwanese
independence activists together make a formidable force. Before the current détente, Taiwan's staunch anticommunism and
adversarial policy toward China aligned well with Washington's own ideology and militarized approach to the Taiwan Strait. But the
recent evolution of tactical and strategic thinking in Taipei and Beijing has created a disjuncture. The adversarial status quo that the
United States has protected is no longer the status quo that the Taiwanese want protected.¶ Obviously, if Ma were to compromise
Taiwan's democratic institutions in pursuit of détente with China, Washington would have reason to complain. But if a democratic
Taiwan continues to move into Chinas orbit, Washington should follow the lead of the Taiwanese people in redefining their future.
In the past, U.S. "noninterference" meant maintaining the balance of power across the strait and challenging Beijing's provocations.
Today, it means reducing the militarization of the conflict and not interfering with Taiwan's Finlandization.¶ Even from a strictly
realist perspective, there
is no need for the United States to keep Taiwan within its strategic orbit,
given that U.S. military security can be attained through other Asian bases and operations.
Taiwan's Finlandization should be seen not as a necessary sacrifice to a rising China but rather as an alternative
strategy for pacifying China. Washington should drop its zero-sum view of the Taipei-Beijing relationship
and embrace the strategic logic underlying the rapprochement--in effect "losing China" a second time by allowing Taiwan
to drift into the PRC's sphere of influence.

Lack of US/Chinese cooperation makes global instability inevitable – causes war

The Atlantic Council 2013 (The Atlantic Council, September 2013, think tank in the field of
international affairs, http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/China-
US_Cooperation_Key_to_the_Global_Future_WEB.pdf)

The global future is likely to be increasingly volatile and uncertain. The rate of change is increasing, driven by the
accelerating pace of technological development, unprecedented urbanization and growth of the global middle class, and a wide range of challenges
beyond the control of any one country but potentially affecting the prosperity and security of all countries .
Disruptive change in one
geographic or functional area will spread quickly.. No country, and certainly not those with the
largest populations and largest economies, will be immune. Global challenges like climate
change, food and water shortages, and resource scarcities will shape the strategic context for all
nations and require reconsideration of traditional national concerns such as sovereignty and maximizing the
ability of national leaders to control their country’s destiny. What China and the United States do, individually and together, will have a major impact
on the future of the global system. As importantly, our individual fates will be inextricably linked to how that future plays out. The three illustrative
scenarios sketched out below underscore how critical the
future of the US-China relationship is to each country and
to the world. • Global Drift and Erosion (the present world trajectory): In a world in which nations
fail to resolve global problems and strengthen mechanisms of global cooperation, governments
gradually turn inward. Each nation seeks to protect and advance its own narrow national interests or to preserve an unsustainable status
quo that is rapidly changing in ways that erode the international order. The international community’s lack of ability to cooperate to meet global
challenges leads to international crises and instability. • Zero-Sum World: Unsustainable drift leads to a world of predominantly zero-sum competition
and conflict in the face of severe resource constraints. The result is economic crises and internal instability as well
as interstate confrontation. There is risk of military conflict between major powers, which increases global mistrust and uncertainty
and fosters an “each nation for itself” mentality that further undermines the ability of states to cooperate in the face of growing common challenges. •
Global Revitalization and Cooperation: To escape the perils of drift or zero-sum competition, leaders in countries with the most to lose work together to
manage and take advantage of global challenges and megatrends. Cooperation makes it possible to achieve win-win outcomes that avoid or mitigate
negative consequences of increased demand for resources and the impact of climate change as well as to harness new technologies to improve living
conditions through sustainable development. Cooperation creates and utilizes new transnational institutions to prevent conflict and enhance security
for all. China and the United States become more prosperous as we work together. 6 ATLANTIC COUNCIL
China-US Cooperation: Key to the Global Future The possible futures sketched out above (and developed at greater length below) are intended to
stimulate thinking about how current trends and uncertainties could lead to very different global and national outcomes. For many reasons, the

United States and China will have greater ability and incentives than other countries to cooperate in
determining and shaping developments over the next two decades. Indeed, it is very difficult to imagine a pathway to
“global revitalization and cooperation” in which China and the United States do not cooperate and provide critical international leadership. Many
factors will shape the future, some of which are beyond the control of any nation state, but China and the United States—and the character of the US-
China relationship—will be critical. The mutual dependence on each other’s economic performance and the success of the global economy as a whole
was demonstrated during the 2008 financial crisis that began in the United States but quickly spread around the world. US and Chinese leaders
recognized that they were in the “same boat” strategically and engaged in a closely coordinated response to the crisis, which played a key—if not
decisive—role in preventing the situation from becoming much worse. The
need for joint and coordinated responses to
economic crises and to mounting economic challenges and threats is certain to increase as
globalization continues and interdependence deepens.
 AT Taiwan DA – AT Democracy/ILO Impact
Plan results in peaceful Taiwanese integration – that triggers massive political
reforms in China – leads to gradual democratization
Bruce Gilley, January/February 2010, Foreign Affairs, “not so dire straits,” 89(1), EbscoHost,
mm

IN 1995, at the end of the first détente, Chen-shen Yen, a Taiwanese scholar and KMT adviser, wrote a paper in the Taiwanese
political journal Wenti yu Yanjiu explicitly extolling the logic of Finlandization (or fenlanhua in Chinese) for Taiwan.
By seeking Beijing's approval for an expanded international voice, maintaining a foreign policy that did not threaten China, and
choosing leaders who enjoyed Beijing's trust, Yen argued, Taiwan could do more to protect its internal autonomy and economic
prosperity than it could by challenging the rising superpower on its doorstep. Moreover, Taiwan's
long-term interests in
gaining true independence could only be achieved by democratization in China, which would be
more likely if Taiwan avoided stoking a military or ideological confrontation. His conclusion echoed that
of the Athenians in Thucydides' Melian dialogue: "Given the responsibility to protect its future existence," wrote Yen, "a civilized
country should adjust itself to external realities." It has taken over a decade for Yen's prescient views to gain currency, but they now
have widespread support.¶ Ma's pursuit of "total normalization" has enjoyed steady and rising popularity in Taiwan since he came to
office. It reflects a view that the militarized approach to the cross-strait conflict that has dominated both Taiwanese (and U.S.)
strategic thinking since the days of Chiang and Mao has not resolved the dispute and does not serve Taiwan's present needs. Just
as Finland, a small country, was able to pioneer a nonmilitarized alternative to the Cold War, so, too,
could Taiwan play that role in the brewing U.S.-Chinese cold war in Asia.¶ At present, a rising China
threatens the world primarily because there has been little in the way of domestic political
liberalization to keep Beijing's increasing economic and military power in check. Taiwan could play a far
greater role in China's liberalization if it were to become a Finlandized part of the region and its
officials were able to move across the strait even more freely than they do now. Already, prominent Chinese liberals, such
as Zhang Boshu of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, are arguing that the mainland should draw lessons
about political development from Taiwan. As Sheng Lijun of the National University of Singapore writes, "With the
Taiwan political challenge, Beijing will sooner or later have to improve its governance (including
democracy, human rights, and anti-corruption)." Taipei's experience with democratic reform
offers many lessons for Beijing--especially because the formerly authoritarian KMT's return to power in 2008 showed
that the CCP could one day hope to rule again even if the advent of democracy initially brought another party to power. ¶
Democratic reform in China will be encouraged both by popular pressure to emulate Taiwan (PRC
citizens have already enthusiastically adopted Taiwanese pop culture and business practices) and by the brute necessity
of managing the relationship in a way that meets the Taiwanese electorate's high expectations
of transparency and accountability. Some may call it appeasement, but if Taiwan uses appeasement to democratize and
pacify a rising China, it will be a worthy appeasement indeed.

Gradual transition key to prevent instability and total party collapse

Pei 2012
Minxin Pei, 11-15-2012, "China’s leaders must embrace democracy," The writer is a professor of
government at Claremont McKenna College Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d992eea-2e6f-
11e2-8f7a-00144feabdc0.html. NC
As the Chinese Communist party inaugurates its new leadership, a question on the minds of many Chinese and western observers is
whether the party will allow democratic reforms in China. The answer they get from the party this time, as on previous similar
occasions, is unambiguous: the CCP has no intention to give up power. In his opening speech to the 18th party congress last week,
Hu Jintao, the outgoing general secretary, dispelled any doubts about the party’s resolve to keep its political monopoly. He
pledged that the leadership would “never take the evil road of changing flags and banners” –
code for abandoning one-party rule While such a declaration must be taken seriously, it is
important also to remember that the CCP does not have the only say about China’s future. In
fact, its bravado notwithstanding, the party is facing unprecedented pressures from all
directions to relinquish its power through democratic reforms. The most important sign that one-party rule is
becoming more shaky is the return of the democracy debate. The intellectual recognition that the status quo is unsustainable is
always the first and vital step towards changing it. In the Chinese case, this intellectual awakening is driven by powerful trends in the
Chinese economy and society. Take, for example, China’s economic performance, which underpins the party’s rule. With its recent
slowdown, many people are struggling to identify the causes. One argument that has gained the most influence is that a pernicious
form of statist crony-capitalism has metastasised and is killing China’s economy. Statist crony-capitalism lies behind China’s assorted
economic ills: macroeconomic imbalances, discrimination against the private sector, over-regulation, financial repression and lack of
innovation. Statist crony-capitalism first emerged in the 1990s, when the CCP shifted from market-led reforms to a state-led
investment drive as the engine of growth. For a while, a set of one-off favourable factors, such as the demographic dividend (leading
to a high ratio of workers to non-workers), globalisation and a credit boom, delivered impressively high growth and concealed the
costs of this predatory system. The economic
slowdown now exposes the dark side of statist crony-
capitalism. A consensus is fast emerging in China: economic reform today requires political
reform, explicitly democratic reform first. Without empowering the people, the entrenched
groups – local governments, state-owned enterprises, central bureaucracies and families of the
ruling elites – will not cede their privileges willingly. If the desire to revive economic growth to stay in power is
not sufficient to motivate China’s new leadership to gamble with political reform, then the country’s escalating social tensions will
force their hands. Fuelled
by resentment against inequality, corruption and environmental
degradation, the Chinese citizenry, now far more urbanised and connected by modern
information technologies than before, has begun to challenge the party on a wide range of
public policy issues. The most recent large-scale environmental protests that forced the cancellation of mega-industrial
projects are only a harbinger of things to come. The 500-plus mass protest incidents occurring daily are another indicator of the
Jamil Anderlini’s gripping account of the rise and fall of Bo Xilai and his
restiveness of Chinese society.
family dynastyBased on international experience, the party is likely entering a period of crisis
before its ultimate exit from power. Since Portugal began its transition to democracy in 1974,
roughly 80 countries have made similar transitions from autocracy to varying forms of
democracy. To be sure, not all of the transitions have produced high-quality democracies. But the striking fact today is that only
a quarter of the countries (48 out of 195) in the world are governed by autocracies. Many factors were responsible for this political
revolution. For China, the most relevant are two: failure of one-party rule and the political consequences of economic development.
A one-party regime may be the most sophisticated form of autocracy. But even such regimes
cannot avert demise. Because of the rule of “adverse selection” (autocracies attract
opportunists and produce progressively weaker leaders due to over-bureaucratisation and risk-
aversion), one-party regimes degenerate through organisational decay. While democracies can
renew themselves through political “creative destruction”, one-party regimes cannot. That is
why the world’s oldest democracies are more than 200 years old while the longest-ruling one-
party regime – the Soviet Union – lasted only 74 years. Now at 63 years in power, the CCP will
soon be testing that limit. The political laws of modernisation are also stacked against the party. It becomes almost
impossible to maintain autocratic rule in non-oil based economies as per capita gross domestic product rises above a given level
(about $4,000-$6,000 in purchasing power parity). With its per capita GDP close to $8,400 in PPP, China is already an outlier. Of all
the autocracies or semi-autocracies with a higher per capita GDP than China, almost all are oil-based economies. The CCP may have
defied the odds so far, but cannot do so indefinitely. One
thing we have learnt from transitions to democracy
since 1974 is that regimes that initiate change before they totally lose credibility fare far better
than those that resist democratisation until the bitter end. This self-evident lesson ought to be
abundantly clear to China’s incoming leaders.
Instability and party collapse causes nuclear war
Yee & Storey 2 (Professor of Politics and International Relations at Hong Kong Baptist
University and Lecturer in Defence Studies at Deakin University, The China Threat: Perceptions,
Myths and Reality, pg. 5)

The fourth factor contributing to the perception of a China threat is the fear of political and
economic collapse in the PRC, result ing in territorial fragmentation, civil war and waves of
refugees pouring into neighbouring countries. Naturally, any or all of these scenarios would
have a profoundly negative impact on regional stability. Today the Chinese leadership faces a
raft of internal problems, including the increasing political demands of its citizens, a growing
population, a shortage of natural resources and a deterioration in the natural environment
caused by rapid industrialization and pollution. These problems are putting a strain on the
central government’s ability to govern effectively. Political disintegration or a Chinese civil war
might result in millions of Chinese refugees seeking asylum in neighbouring countries . Such an
unprecedented exodus of refugees from a collapsed PRC would no doubt put a severe strain on
the limited resources of China’s neighbours. A fragmented China could also result in another
nightmare scenario – nuclear weapons falling into the hands of irresponsible local provincial
leaders or warlords .12 From this perspective, a disintegrating China would also pose a threat
to its neighbours and the world.
 AT Terrorism DA – Not Key
No link – arms sales do not reduce the risk of terrorism
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute-, Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm

Nor does the threat of transnational terrorism justify most arms sales. Most fundamentally, the actual
threat from Islamist-inspired terrorism to Americans is extraordinarily low. Since 9/11, neither al Qaeda nor the
Islamic State has managed an attack on the American homeland. Lone wolf terrorists inspired by those groups have done so, but
since 9/11 those attacks have killed fewer than 100 Americans, an average of about 6 people per year. There is simply very little risk
reduction to be gained from any strategy. The idea that the United States should be willing to accept the significant negative effects
of arms sales for minimal counterterrorism gains is seriously misguided.49 Moreover, even if one believed that the benefits would
outweigh the potential costs, arms
sales still have almost no value as a tool in the war on terror for
several reasons. First, the bulk of arms sales (and those we considered in our risk assessment) involve major
conventional weapons, which are ill suited to combatting terrorism. Many U.S. arms deals since
9/11 have involved major conventional weapons systems such as fighter jets, missiles, and
artillery, useful for traditional military operations, but of little use in fighting terrorists. Insurgencies
that hold territory, like the Islamic State, are one thing, but most terrorist groups do not advertise their location, nor do they
assemble in large groups. Second, there
is little evidence from the past 16 years that direct military intervention
is the right way to combat terrorism. Research reveals that military force alone “seldom ends
terrorism.”50 This comports with the American experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the war on terror to date.
Despite regime change, thousands of air strikes, and efforts to upgrade the military capabilities of friendly governments, the United
States has not only failed to destroy the threat of Islamist-inspired terrorism, it has also spawned chaos, greater resentment, and a
sharp increase in the level of terrorism afflicting the nations involved.51 Given the experience of the United States since 2001,
there is little reason to expect that additional arms sales to countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar, or the
United Arab Emirates will reduce terrorism, much less anti-American terrorism specifically. Relatedly, many arms deals
since 9/11, made in the name of counterterrorism, were irrelevant to U.S. goals in the global war
on terror because they provided weapons to governments fighting terrorist groups only vaguely
(if at all) linked to al Qaeda or ISIS. Although selling weapons to the governments of Nigeria or Morocco or Tunisia might
help them combat violent resistance in their countries, terrorist groups in those countries have never targeted the United States. As
a result, such arms deals cannot be justified by arguing that they advance the goals of the United States in its own war on terror in
any serious way. Finally, arms
sales are completely useless to combat the largest terrorist threat to the
U.S. homeland — lone wolf attackers already living in the United States. As noted, none of the successful
attacks in the United States since 9/11 resulted from operations directed by al Qaeda or ISIS. And in fact only two foiled attempts
since then — the underwear bomber and the printer-bomb plot — can be ascribed to al Qaeda.52 Instead, in almost all cases,
persons already living in the United States, inspired by Islamist groups, decided to carry out attacks on their own. Clearly, arms sales
to foreign nations won’t help with that problem; rather, as many analysts have suggested, amplifying conflicts abroad may well
make the problem worse.53
 AT Terrorism DA – Link Turn: Wrong Hands
Loose export laws ensure terrorists acquire American-made arms
Daniel DePetris, 11/19/18, National Interest, “time to rethink America’s vast arms deals,”
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/time-rethink-americas-vast-arms-deals-36522, mm
Selling weapons is big business for the United States. The State Department cleared $75.9 billion in arms deals in fiscal year 2017, a
one-year record since the Defense Security Cooperation Agency started keeping tallies. President Donald Trump is a firm believer in
selling American weapons, aircraft, missiles, anti-air systems, and military technology to overseas buyers, both to grow America’s
domestic defense manufacturing workforce and to increase U.S. foreign policy leverage over the countries choosing to buy
American. The Cato Institute assessed that Washington has delivered a $197 billion worth of conventional
weapons platforms, equipment, and related training services to 167 countries between 2002–2016. What Trump
sees as good business, however, many Europeans see as a contributor to insecurity in conflict zones. This week, the European
Parliament passed a non-binding resolution all but condemning the United States for systemically violating end-user agreements and
making the world a more dangerous place. While Brussels also denounced European countries like Bulgaria and Romania for skirting
European Union arms export procedures, the bloc appeared to put most of the responsibility on Washington. In a particularly
pointed provision, the parliament called for an EU-side embargo on defense transfers to the United States. It’s a stunning rebuke
from Washington’s European allies, but a nevertheless understandable one given the vast
quantities of American
military equipment that have been seized by terrorist organizations on the battlefields of Iraq and
Syria. In fact, the Islamic State has been a prime benefactor of a loose U.S. arms export policy,
one that is more reflexive—and based on short-term considerations—than strategic. Who can forget the iconic image of the black-
clad, long-bearded Islamic State fighter doing doughnuts in a U.S.-manufactured humvee? Or pictures of ISIS militants posing in front
of U.S.-made personnel carrier looted from the Iraqi army? ISIS
has gotten its hands on so much U.S. weaponry
that Washington has been forced to bomb its own equipment to mitigate the damage. Former Iraqi
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi estimated the loss of 2,300 humvees from Iraqi government stocks during ISIS’s 2014 blitz into
Mosul. When Iraqi forces conducted a hasty retreat from Ramadi in 2015, ISIS overran army warehouses and bases, claiming what a
Pentagon spokesman at the time said was one hundred heavy vehicles and “maybe a half-dozen tanks.” The terrorist
organization even converted “Made in the USA” humvees into nearly impenetrable suicide car
bombs, a formidable foe to an Iraqi army suffering from demoralization, poor leadership and exhaustion. In Syria, American
arms destined for moderate opposition factions were forcibly seized by the very terrorist groups
the weapons were meant to combat. A 2017 report from Conflict Armament Research found multiple instances of U.S.-
purchased weapons from the Balkans being stolen, sold, or siphoned off to more radical groups. Anti-tank weapons made in Europe,
sold to America, and transferred to Syrian opposition forces were later discovered in the custody of ISIS. According to the report,
“Supplies of materiel into the Syrian conflict from foreign parties—notably the United States and Saudi Arabia—have indirectly
allowed IS to obtain substantial quantities of anti-armour ammunition. These weapons include ATGWs and several varieties of
rocket with tandem warheads, which are designed to defeat modern reactive armour.”
AT CPs
 AT Drone PIC – Can’t Solve Market (Timeframe)
We control timeframe – Trump’s ATI takes too long for benefits to kick in,
negotiations take years, and interoperability problems
Divis, 7/11 – Expert on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and reporter for Inside Unmanned Systems
(Dee Ann, “Enthusiasm Builds for U.S. Military Drone Exports After Rule Change,” Inside
Unmanned Systems, 2019, http://insideunmannedsystems.com/enthusiasm-builds-for-u-s-
military-drone-exports-after-rule-change/)//vivienne
Under the new U.S. policy drone sales can now to go through the direct commercial sales (DCS)
process instead of the more time-consuming foreign military sales (FMS) process. Under DCS, the
company negotiates its own deals with a potential customer and the government is not involved in the fulfillment of the contract,
according to a chart prepared by consulting firm LM Defense. Under FMS, the government negotiates the sale and gets involved in
the deal, assuming the risk of both parties delivering on their ends of the bargain. A second change is that drones with strike-
enabling technology, like laser target designators, will no be longer considered to be “armed” UAS. This should make them easier to
export, said Schwartz. The
new policies have yet to trigger sales, but this did not surprise either Schwartz or Zaloga.
Military UAS are expensive, negotiations can take years and now some countries have systems
from China in their inventory. “It’s going to take the U.S. a little while to get back in there and
convince them that they would be better off buying U.S. systems,” Zaloga said.
 AT Drone PIC – Strict Restrictions Key
Strict restrictions are key to mitigate drone prolif and conflict

Boyle ’14- Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (Michael J. Boyle, FPRI, “The Race
for Drones” (2014) pg. 93-94)//YGS

First, the Obama Administration should rethink its plans to reclassify drones into categories under
the MCTR regime that would enable their widespread sale.90 Before agreeing to sell drones to the 66
states approved by the Pentagon, the United State should do a full strategic assessment to determine
whether the risk of selling drones, even to allies, outweighs the potential benefits to industry. It
should also restrict the sale of sophisticated high-end drones and those with long ranges or capability
of flying in high altitude. In addition, the United States should be careful to restrict or ban sales of
drones to states (like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and others) that are locked in intense geopolitical or
regional rivalries and will use them to test the nerves of their opponents. Second, if sales proceed,
the administration should consider applying strict end-user agreements that will regulate how the
drones may be used when purchased. This is important particularly when the purchased drones can
be put to multiple purposes. While enforcement of these agreements will be imperfect, and some
states may simply ignore some end-use restrictions, there is nevertheless a strong incentive for
prospective buyers seeking to maintain their access to U.S. technology to pay heed to them. Such a
step will not ensure that Chinese or Russian drones, for example, are not misused, but it may impose
a limit on the misuse of drones by states that would prefer to purchase the more sophisticated
American technology. The federal government should also improve its oversight mechanisms for the
sale and use of U.S. drones and ensure adherence to strict licensing and information sharing
requirements within the federal agencies responsible for the foreign sales.91 Third, the
administration should consider whether it has an opportunity to take a leading role in
establishing norms for the use and sale of drones abroad. The U.S. position, as the world’s
leading developer of drone technology, provides it with substantial leverage that it can use to
establish some new rules of the game which might limit the adverse effects of drones on the
webs of deterrent relationships that hold geopolitical and regional rivalries in place. One
option might be to back the development of an international regulatory mechanism, along
the lines of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which could
establish rules for how drones may be sold and used.92 Alternatively, the United States could
support the creation of a UN investigative body on drones which would help to collect
information on how drones are used and shame those who use them carelessly or cruelly.
But the United States should seize the opportunity to take a leading role in developing “rules
of the road” for drone use in order to stop conflict spirals from emerging from accidents or
drone misuse.
 AT Drone PIC – Regulations Fail
Regulations on drone sales are too lenient - drones fall into the hands of
dangerous governments.
Stone and Spetalnick ’18
(Mike Stone and Matt Spetalnick, staff writers at Reuters, March 20, 2018,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-arms-drones-exclusive/exclusive-trump-to-boost-
exports-of-lethal-drones-to-more-u-s-allies-sources-idUSKBN1GW12D)

Industry sources say other manufacturers

are considering expanding their product lines. The overall loosening
of drone export rules would also help producers such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General
Atomics and Lockheed Martin, two industry sources said. Shares of U.S. defense contractors gained on Tuesday after the
Reuters report. Kratos was up 2.7 percent, Textron rose 0.44 percent, Boeing increased 1.7 percent and Northrop and Lockheed
were both up nearly one percent in mid-afternoon trade. Company officials declined to comment ahead of the policy unveiling. The
smaller drones that meet the new export guidelines are expected to be much cheaper than high-
end models such as the Predator and Reaper, both made by General Atomics, which cost up to $17 million apiece according to
reports. While they are less destructive than the larger drones, their
firepower can destroy vehicles, small
structures and armed positions. U.S. officials contend that a more export-friendly approach will
not only help meet Trump’s 2016 campaign promise to bolster America’s “defense industrial
base” but also get foreign partners to take on more of their own defense costs. An increase in drones sales “could
put these weapons in the hands of governments that act irresponsibly with their neighbors and
against their own populations,” warned Jeff Abramson, a senior fellow with the Arms Control
Association, a non-partisan Washington-based organization focused on global weapons proliferation threats. Trump’s
predecessor, President Barack Obama, introduced revised rules in 2015 aimed at increasing military drone exports. But U.S.
manufacturers complained they were still too restrictive. with a payload of over 1,100 pounds (500 kg). However, the Trump
administration is seeking to renegotiate the MTCR accord to eventually make it easier to export the larger armed drones.
 AT Drone PIC – AT “Norms”
U.S. drone technology has fallen behind – countries like China have better
drones for cheaper.
Smith ’18
(Gina Smith, author and entrepreneur in the tech industry, January 14, 2018,
https://siliconangle.com/2018/01/14/trumps-new-policies-seal-us-drone-industrys-doom-make-us-less-
safe/)

President Donald Trump’s new drone technology plans and policies won’t be enough to restore U.S.
leadership in the sector, according to a former intelligence official who helped Ronald Reagan amp up critical American
missile defense technology during the Cold War. What’s more, the policies won’t help protect American lives
and interests from drone-based terrorist attacks, Michael Sekora, former director of Project Socrates, told
SiliconANGLE in an interview. The classified Defense Intelligence Agency tech initiative is often credited with transforming Reagan’s
stalled “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative vision into a multitiered technology that leapfrogged Soviet missile defense
technology in the late 1980s. Sekora’s commentary arrives in the wake of news this past week that yet another American drone
hardware effort is grounded: On Monday, GoPro Inc. became the third major American drone company to quit the drone hardware
business. Lily Robotics Inc. and 3D Robotics Inc. shuttered their respective drone hardware plans in 2017, citing hard competition
from Chinese drone behemoth, Dà-Jiāng Innovations. DJI controlled more than 70 percent of all commercial drone sales last year,
according to Federal Aviation Administration numbers released in November. Those losses are humbling, Sekora said, when you
consider that the U.S. all but created the drone sector and wielded near-monopoly control over it
for years after its first public use of military attack drones in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks. But U.S. monopoly control over drone tech evaporated a long time ago.
According to defense experts, some 90 nations now possess drone technology. And a third of those — including U.S.
rivals such as China, North Korea and Iran — now also have full-blown weaponized military drones. Worse, terrorist
organizations, rebel groups and other nonstate enemies have drones now, too, raising fears
about potential drone-based terror attacks. “Terrorist organizations have an interest in using drones, and we’ve
seen that overseas already with some frequency,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers at a Senate Homeland Security
hearing in September. “And the expectation is it’s coming here, too. Imminently.” Military technologists and various third parties are
working hard on technology to capture and destroy enemy UAVs, he said, but “it’s a challenge.” Big drones are findable via radar and
GPS detection, but it’s far more difficult to detect, defend against and destroy small consumer drones that rogue actors such as the
Islamic State, Hamas and Hezbollah now freely buy and customize to surveil and attack their enemies. Such drones, whether solo or
in swarms, are small, fly too low to be detected by radar and rarely rely on detectable GPS tech. The
Pentagon has
launched a $700 million program to address the menace of drones from the Islamic State and
other terrorist groups. It gathers U.S. military resources plus those from big defense contractors and Silicon Valley. But the
program is embryonic and still a long way from reality. As a stopgap, the Pentagon has been sending teams of tech experts to Syria,
Iraq and Afghanistan to train and otherwise help American troops defend against enemy drones. “These things are really small and
hard to detect, and if they swarm in groups, they can overload our ability to knock them all down,” J.D. Johnson, Raytheon Co.’s
head of army programs, said earlier this year. For instance, according to U.S. intelligence reports, IS has been using DJI’s tiny
Phantom drone to surveil its enemies or drop explosives on them (right). U.S. Central Command has been training Army troops on
third-party jamming technology such as national lab manager Battelle Memorial Institute’s DroneDefender (below). It’s a “point-
and-shoot rifle chassis” that can disrupt a UAV’s radio control signals or GPS system, which stops target drones in midflight and
forces them to land. It’s a good stopgap, but the U.S. is still a long way from having a foolproof drone terrorism defense plan. “I don’t
think (these technologies are) ready right now,” former U.S. Army Special Forces commander Michael Waltz told American
journalists earlier this year. “We
don’t have the technology –- the detection technology and the
countermeasure technology -– truly in place yet.” The threat of drone-based terror attacks is a
direct result of America’s lost leadership in the sector, because it no longer calls the shots on
drone technology. As a result, said Sekora, it has little influence over who gets to buy and sell it.
New policies are the answer, according to the Trump administration and the FAA, which recently broke out a spate of
new drone policies to make it easier for U.S. companies to build, test, license, fly and sell drones here and abroad. But
policies such as the FAA’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Pilot Program, which it unveiled last month with the
tagline, “Make aviation great again,” won’t win back American drone dominance nor keep American
enemies from droning up, said Sekora. “These policies won’t do it,” said Sekora, who is now president of the consulting
firm Quadrigy, which sells a third generation of Socrates TechSpace tools such as research and automated competitive analysis.
“They’re just the same old State Department-type policy statements written by committees of MBAs and private consultancies.
There’s nothing strategic about them.” Sure, deregulation will help line a few pockets, he added, “but in the end, such policies “treat
the symptoms, but not the disease.” That “disease,” he said, is the selfsame one Project Socrates identified four decades ago as the
main reason for America’s declining economic competitiveness. Project Socrates was set up in 1983 to identify the
reasons
behind America’s declining competitiveness against rivals such as Japan and the former Soviet Union. The main
culprit? A gradual American business shift from technology-based strategic planning to what Sekora calls
“financial-based strategic planning.” “When we applied that and other Socrates principles to “Star Wars,” American
missile technology suddenly was able to rapidly surpass Soviet technologies, said Sekora. A technology-based strategy plan required
then, as it does now, a fundamental business strategy paradigm shift: a concerted effort among government, industry and academia
to form the alliances needed to gain competitive advantage. Such a technology-first focus calls for American companies and
government to focus mainly on acquiring the best technologies, regardless of who builds them. Costs, profits and other financial
considerations take a backseat in such an arrangement. That’s the way American industry worked for generations, of course. But
after World War II, when a victorious America emerged as the world’s premier leader in countless industries, companies
stopped worrying about gaining competitive advantage through the best technologies and
forging the industry, academic and government alliances needed to get there. Instead, they began
making business decisions based on what would save or make the most money in the short term. Gradually, quarterly results,
budgets and profits became the filters through which all decisions were made. That’s sufficient when there’s no competition to
speak of, he said, but it’s a short-sighted approach in today’s crowded technology markets, many of which are now dominated by
China.” When we forced a switch back to a ‘best technology’ focus, ‘Star Wars’ tech leapt forward to surpass Soviet missile
defenses,” Sekora said. Returning to that tech-first focus may be the only way America can regain control and guidance of the
exploding commercial and military drone sectors, he said. Only
when the U.S. can call the shots in terms of
drone tech and who’s allowed to buy and sell it can it do anything about the drone terror threat.
Despite its apparent success, Pres. George H.W. Bush ended the Project Socrates initiative in 1991. Reports at the time said Bush
was violently opposed to any government policy or organization that interfered with American businesses. So Sekora and other
members of the team launched Quadrigy in Austin to continue work on Socrates and the automated tools it developed to help
industries, governments and academia develop deep, detailed tech-based strategies. But in 2002, Socrates and Sekora were back on
Capitol Hill. Adm. Craig Dorman (ret.), then chief scientist of the Navy, tapped Sekora to bring Socrates-style tech-based planning to
the military, beginning with the booming drone sector. Could Socrates help retain American control of the space? “We set out to
identify the nature of drone technologies and strategies that countries all over the world were already executing,” he said. The
resulting research “made clear to us that almost all countries would soon have UAVs, minimizing any competitive advantage the U.S.
enjoyed at the time,” said Sekora. And when anyone can buy or sell drones, he realized, terrorists and other nonstate actors would
be able to leverage their power, which would be a huge national security threat. “All
of this would soon have the
effect of immediately negating the strength of our drone-centered military strategies at home
and abroad,” Sekora said. “So we came up with a technology strategy for drone industry companies, academics and
government, which would enable the U.S. to maintain both control and a competitive advantage in UAVs for many years well past
2013,” he said. The plan relied on the creation of industrywide alliances among academia, government and drone suppliers.
Specifically, it suggested an alliance between the DoD and Ford Motor Co., which was working on drone sensor development.
Dorman, Sekora and the Quadrigy team pitched that technology-first drone strategy proposal to the Defense Department, but the
reception was cool. “Like a lot of people at the time, the
Defense Secretary was certain that the U.S. would
remain the leading developer, manufacturer and arbiter of drone tech because, he said, the barriers to
entry were too high for other nations,” he said. Moreover, the department resisted what it called “an unlikely and unprecedented
alliance between Ford, the government and industry,” saying that tactic “was way too aggressive.” After months of debate and
endless argument with the DOD, Sekora and Dorman finally gave up. Fast-forward 16 years, and their predictions have come true:
Today’s drone sector is dominated by China, and terrorist access to drones resulting from the
drone tech diaspora now constitutes a major national security threat. Time is running out for the
U.S. to regain leadership. The election of an outsider like Trump initially gave him hope that the U.S. would once again use
Socrates findings and tools to regain lost ground, but Sekora said Trump’s hiring strategy is a bad sign: “Almost without exception,
he only appoints people from the world of finance.” Public perception is a problem, too. Americans “can’t understand that a couple
of smart college grads with the right degrees and backing will never be able to outcompete China,” he said. “China is
executing a technology-first strategy that enables Chinese industry, academia and government
to work as a coherent team to systematically, offensively and defensively outmaneuver all the
fragmented players in America.” And “anyone who believes that China’s big gains are due to
cheap manufacturing and mere currency manipulation,” he added, “is terribly mistaken. China’s
rapid rise worldwide is 100 percent due to technology-based planning,” he said. “If you can’t see
that, you’re not paying attention.”

States will model how we use drones – ensures instability

Boyle ’14- Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (Michael J. Boyle, FPRI, “The Race
for Drones” (2014) 78-79)//YGS

The world is now approaching a similar point with drones as the race for this technology is resetting
the terms of global competition and quietly altering the rules of the game for many long-simmering
conflicts and rivalries. This is happening in part because few, if any, states will use drones in the way
that the United States currently does, as a way to ruthlessly target militant networks in ungoverned
territories. Rather, the proliferation of drones will also be accompanied by rapid adaption of drones
to new, and perhaps unforeseen, civilian and military uses, which will have three consequences for
the international system. First, the proliferation of drones will reset the rules and norms governing
surveillance and reconnaissance and invite new counter-measures that may paradoxically increase
uncertainty between regional rivals over the long run. Second, as a low-cost, apparently low-risk form
of technology, drones will become increasingly useful to governments in testing the strategic
commitments and the nerves of their rivals. Even today, a number of governments and rebel groups
facing regional rivalries have started to use drones in ways that chip away at the foundations of
previously stable deterrent relationships. Third, the worldwide proliferation of drones in contested
airspace, and the increasing risk that a drone will have an accident with a civilian aircraft, multiplies
the chances of a conflict spiral stemming from an accident or drone misuse. Given these risks, it is in
Washington’s interest to take a leading role in slowing the race for drones and developing new legal,
institutional and normative mechanisms to govern drone usage and sale in the future.

Even if U.S. tries to sell drones, nobody will buy them - China has won the
drone wars.
Weinberger ’18
(Sharon Weinberger, legal reporting fellow for Foreign Policy, May 10, 2018,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/10/china-trump-middle-east-drone-wars/)

Even with the Trump administration reforms, it may ultimately be too late to capture an export
market dominated by China, as well as Israel. “The Chinese have made a lot of inroads into the
market, and U.S. export policy has definitely helped them, because the U.S. has stayed out of a lot of potential
markets,” says Philip Finnegan, the director of corporate analysis at Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia. “While some areas
might be filled by Israeli manufacturers who are very active, the Middle East is one where the
Israelis aren’t active for obvious reasons. And so the Chinese have filled the void.” The CH-4, whose resemblance
to the iconic Predator is no accident, follows a long tradition of Chinese technology manufacturing, whether in cars or smartphones:
Make it look like a name-brand Western equivalent, but build it cheaper and good enough to get the job done. (Amusingly, a video
at the show advertising the CH-4 called it “one of the best” UAVs in the world, as in, not the best.) Analysts
have even
suggested, albeit without proof, that China pilfered U.S. technical information for its drone
program. China’s sales have been buoyed by developing countries looking to fight insurgencies,
and one of the factors driving recent buys, including Iraq’s, has been the war on the Islamic State ,
which has also proved an advertising boon to the Chinese. At the exhibit area for China’s Aerospace Long-March International Trade
Co., the maker of the CH-4, a video promoting the company’s drones featured extensive footage released by the Iraqi military
showing strikes on Islamic State fighters. The
Iraq military has already conducted at least 260 strikes against
Islamic State militants using the CH-4, with close to 100 percent accuracy, according to a Chinese-
language article. (A Jordanian military officer told Foreign Policy that his country’s CH-4s, which are armed with Chinese AR-1 anti-
tank missiles, similar to the American Hellfire, have not fired weapons in combat yet.) Since China
doesn’t disclose all of
its international customers, it’s hard to know the full extent of its sales, but a video on display at the exhibit
acknowledged Algeria, Nigeria, Jordan, Zambia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Turkmenistan,
Pakistan, and Myanmar as customers. Notably absent from that list is the United Arab Emirates,
which reportedly received its first CH-4 last year. FP reported last month that the UAE used its Chinese drone to
assassinate a Houthi leader in Yemen. While the Americans are just now moving forward with selling
armed drones, China has been going full steam ahead. The CH-4 — a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV — is
part of series of Rainbow drones produced by Aerospace Long-March International. While the CH-4 physically resembles the
American Reaper, it is not as capable. It does not, for example, have a satellite link, which means it must be operated within line of
sight, which limits its range and battlefield utility. China’s newest drone, the CH-5, will have a satellite link. Aerospace Long-March
International was also marketing smaller drones at SOFEX, including its CH-901, a minidrone that the company calls a “suicide UAV.”
While eager to sell its products, the company is also wary of scrutiny. Company representatives at the show declined to speak to a
reporter and refused to give business cards to another visitor, an American who introduced himself as a “policy advisor.” Another
Chinese company, called Shenzhen Precision Technology Co., based in Shenzhen City, was at SOFEX advertising its small combat
drone that can shoot grenades. The 35-kilogram vertical takeoff and landing drone can stay aloft for 20 minutes and has a range of 8
kilometers. Xue Kun, the company’s executive director, says it took him four years to design the drone, which he’s selling, along with
the ground station, for $300,000 each. He calls the concept an “air force in a truck,” because three can be loaded into a specially
designed carrying case attached to a vehicle. “If
you buy many, you can get a discount,” he says. “I can also
produce them locally, in your country.” He hasn’t sold any of his combat drones abroad yet —
he says they are used now only by Chinese police — but he hopes his attendance at SOFEX, his first opportunity to
display a mock-up of the drone at an international arms exhibition, would help drum up sales. Operating Chinese drones rather than
American ones offers both economic and political advantages for some countries. The
Chinese drones are much
cheaper — typically a quarter of the price of similar American systems. China also is less likely to
dictate how other countries use them, whereas U.S. exports can come with restrictions. The
problem with allowing allies to buy Chinese drones is not just financial. As Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow at the U.K.-based
International Institute for Strategic Studies, points out, when foreign countries buy American weapons, the U.S. government has the
ability to exercise some control over how that technology is used. “It’s a balancing act, and it’s very difficult to get right,” he says of
U.S. export law. The
Chinese approach to selling weapons, he says, is much more “transactional.”
Now that the export restrictions are being loosened, the United States does have the ability to
compete for more international sales, but the problem is that many countries have already
found what they need in Chinese drones. Now, Barrie says, those countries might simply ask themselves: ‘‘Is the
requirement fulfilled? This Chinese stuff is quite good.” And then, even when they buy more
drones, those countries may simply stick with China. “Once you open the door,” Barrie says,
“there’s no guarantee you can close it.”

Trump's drone sale policy is dangerous – easing restrictions undermines our

ability to set norms
Gormley ’18
(Dennis M. Gormley, a senior research fellow at the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security
Studies and has testified before Congress on national security issues, May 22, 2018, States News
Service. "NEW RULES ON ARMED DRONE SALES LIKELY TO BENEFIT MIDDLE EAST STATES".
States News Service, May 22, 2018)
Trump's expectations regarding armed drone sales will likely not include the sale of unmanned armed drones comparable to America's most
sophisticated drone General Atomics' MQ-9 Reaper, arguably the most feared and sophisticated drone in operation today. Rather, the
new
policy is likely to lower barriers to sales of smaller hunter-killer drones, which carry fewer missiles than the MQ-
9 Reaper and achieve shorter ranges as well. It is not yet clear whether smaller American hunter-killer drones will attract the large numbers of foreign
buyers that the Trump administration has in mind for its expanded sales of armed drones. Nevertheless, although hunter-killer
drones are
clearly less destructive than substantially larger MQ-9 drones, such hunter-killer systems can still
destroy military vehicles, protective structures and armed positions at a cost substantially lower
than the price of the MQ-9 Reaper (roughly $17 million dollars). It also appears possible that the
Trump administration will seek to weaken the longstanding principle of applying the Missile
Technology Control Regime's "strong presumption of denial," which automatically denies
approval of many drone sales in the absence of compelling security reasons. The current policy
prescribes that buyers use the weapons in strict accordance with international law. These most
sensible provisions could very well fall prey to the Trump administration's attempt to liberalize current

drone policies. The danger of liberalizing drone policy rules lies with the difficulty of avoiding
innocent civilian lives. A most telling and detailed analysis of this danger was published in the New York Times in November 2017. It found
that while the American-led coalition claimed that the ratio of civilian deaths to airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq was one for every 157 strikes,
the Times reporters found that the number of civilian deaths was one for every five airstrikes, or more than 31 times the Pentagon's claim. The Times
team noted that civilian casualties were at such a huge distance from official claims that "in terms of civilian deaths, this may be the least transparent
war in recent American history." In another example, the frequency with which innocent civilians are being
intentionally or unintentionally targeted in Yemen's civil war only seems to be expanding. On
April 22, 2018, an air-strike by a Saudi-led coalition killed more than 20 people at a wedding
party, most of them children. Tit for tat killings are routine in a seemingly never-ending war of
attrition between Iran-backed Houthis and Sunni Saudi Arabia. Easier access to armed drones
and a weakening of international norms of behavior are likely to increase the number of unintended civilian victims in Yemen
and other conflicts. Sadly, more than 10,000 people, including all too many children, have lost their lives in Yemen, while disease runs rampant. The

rapid development of UAV technology comes at no more critical a time than the present. The
need for developing international standards dealing with the export of such weapons systems is
imperative today. Such norms of behavior will become increasingly critical as drone technology
spreads not only to careful parties, but more importantly to countries willing to misuse such
unmanned systems. Such norms and standards may well not be full-proof, but they are, in any
event, essential.
 AT Drone PIC – Can’t Solve Stability
Regulating drones fails – armed drone exports will fuel global instability
Thrall & Dorminey ’18 – Thrall is an associate professor at George Mason
University’s Schar School of Policy and Government where he analyses the role of
arms sales in U.S. foreign policy, Dorminey writes at CATO about US defense
budget, defense politics, force structure, and involvement in the international
arms trade (A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 4-19-2018, "Trump’s New Arms Sales
Policy: What You Should Know," Cato Institute, https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-new-arms-
sales-policy-what-you-should-know)//VP

On April 19, 2018 the Trump administration released an updated version of the U.S. Conventional
Arms Transfer Policy, the primary document outlining the strategy and guidelines for American
arms sales abroad. Compared to the Obama- and Bush-era guidelines, the Trump administration’s policy
emphasizes the economic benefits from arms sales. As a result, the new policy is focused on
streamlining the arms sales process, loosening controls on what can be exported, and
encouraging the U.S. government to be more active in brokering deals. At a news briefing announcing
the new policy Peter Navarro, assistant to the president for trade and manufacturing policy, said that, “This will keep our defense
industrial base in the vanguard of emerging defense technologies while creating thousands of additional jobs with good wages and
generating substantial export revenues.” Though the consequences of this policy change will take years to unfold, there
are
several things we can already predict about the limits and dangers of the new policy. Below we list
the most important areas to watch and provide links to some of the best analysis available to date around the web. It’s all about
jobs, but it won’t create many. Ifthe administration’s primary goal is to enrich a few major defense
contractors, it may succeed. If, on the other hand, the goal is to create American jobs and
bolster the economy more generally, disappointment is inevitable. Jonathan Caverley, writing at War on the
Rocks, argues: Even if the Trump administration boosts sales against such headwinds, this will not create many
additional jobs. Arms exports are a surprisingly inefficient means of employing people at home. Using census data, the
Commerce Department estimates that a billion dollars of defense exports would “create or sustain” 3,918 jobs, considerably fewer
than the 5,700 jobs per billion created by increased US exports more broadly. Doubling the United States’ annual arms exports to
$40 billion, a highly unrealistic goal, would thus create fewer than 80,000 new jobs. There are other industries the United States can
promote that will have larger effects on jobs. Unleash the drones Until now the United States has kept a close hold on armed drones
like the Predator and Reaper, allowing China to meet most of the global demand. Under the
new policy the United
States will begin to sell some drones through the direct commercial sales process. In an oped for the
the Washington Post Michael C. Horowitz and Joshua A. Shwartz write: The new policy goes further than the Obama
administration’s 2015 guidance in a few ways. This means U.S. manufacturers can export more directly to other
countries and bypass the foreign military sales process, which entails more time-consuming involvement from the U.S. government.
Second, the
new rules reclassify drones with strike-enabling technology, like laser target
designators, as unarmed, which will make it easier to export them. Counterterrorism baked right in A
much less visible policy change with important ramifications is the move by the House Foreign Affairs Committee to amend the Arms
Export Control Act to include counterterrorism as an explicit strategic justification for weapon sales. As Caroline wrote for Ink Stick,
this seemingly subtle change in language expands the legal and institutional footprint of the
war on terror and does so despite the fact that most of the major conventional weapons for
sale by the U.S. aren’t much use for fighting terrorism or insurgencies. Every fed is now a salesperson
With this increased sales push, the Trump administration has established a new “whole of government” approach. From the same
Inkstick article, Caroline also notes, The change will effectively turn civil servants who had been third-party brokers between foreign
governments and American defense contractors into de facto salespeople. Officials talking up American defense products isn’t new,
but giving them the directive to increase “economic security” gives profit a greater emphasis — with the commander-in-chief and his
2017 sales pitches to the Saudis, for example, offering model behavior in this regard. Arms sales will now (likely) cost U.S. taxpayers
more money It’s still unclear how this strategy will be implemented at the guidance and framework level, but there are several
logical changes that could flow from a new emphasis on profit. This could include a transition from deals that use offsets as
incentives to increased use of Foreign Military Financing and other incentives that would shift the burden of incentives from industry
to the federal government. Caroline explained the implications of this change, writing, Currently, the majority of incentives to
foreign buyers of American weapons come in the form of offsets. These agreements are made once the US government has cleared
a sale and the company can liaise with whichever foreign government is purchasing the product. Offsets are meant to make the
deals more attractive, and can include anything from co-production to technology transfer to Foreign Direct Investments. This takes
a major cut out of any profit for the defense contractors, who shoulder most of the cost. In 2014 alone, contractors reported $20.5
billion in defense-related merchandise exports, with $13 billion worth of those sales including some kind of offset. The total value of
reported offset agreements for that year was $7.7 billion — over one-third the value of total defense exports for that year.
Obviously, this makes offsets an unattractive option for increasing economic security. The defense industry would prefer not to bear
that burden—so then how will diplomats sweeten the deal for interested buyers while still protecting profit margins? … Foreign
Military Financing…to the rescue? This type of financing comes directly out of the US federal budget—specifically out of the State
Department’s portion. The final budget omnibus that was signed into law in March settled on $6.1 billion to give freely to other
countries to purchase American weapons. That’s right—$6 billion of American taxpayer dollars this year alone will go towards
subsidizing the arsenals of other nations so that they too can “Buy American.” Foreign Military Financing had, until now, been on the
decline. From 1985 to 2015 the program decreased 50 percent in real terms. With this new economic security component to stated
guidance on arms sales, there is a very real possibility that Foreign Military Financing could continue to rise. Arms sales will continue
to be a risky business As we wrote in a Cato Policy Analysis published in March, the
United States has a poor track
record when it comes to assessing the potential risks from selling weapons abroad. Since 2002
the United States has sold over $300 billion worth of major conventional weapons to 167
countries including places with repressive governments, histories of human rights abuses, and
which are engaged in active conflicts. Unfortunately, despite the many negative unintended consequences that arms
sales can spawn, nothing in the Trump administration’s new policy suggests it will pay any more attention to these risks than
previous administrations. Given
the administration’s zeal to sell more weapons abroad, the most
likely outcome is even less sensitivity to downstream risks. Stay tuned.
 AT Drone PIC – Asia Turn
The export of U.S. drones destabilizes South-East Asia - leads to terrorism and
diplomatic feuds.
Sen ’15
(Dr. Joydeep Sen, expert in South Asian politics, covers South and South-east Asia for the Daily Brief,
March 13, 2015, https://dailybrief.oxan.com/Analysis/DB198258/South-east-Asia-drone-sales-
may-raise-terror-risks)
Despite these positives, South-east Asian UAV use presents a number of risks and difficulties: Policy lag. After
UAVs have been seen flying over unauthorised areas (such as over the royal palace in Phnom Penh in February and near the Kuala
Lumpur airport runway in early March), South-east Asian governments are beginning to consider measures
to regulate drone use. However, updating or devising relevant policies will be a slow and uneven
process, within which other risks could flourish. Terrorism. The policy lag may contribute to
terrorist attacks. There appears to be no notation or control of drones being brought into South-
east Asian countries for casual/leisure use. Tourists report having brought disassembled drones freely into
Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia. Potential terrorists could do likewise. Despite UAV's benevolent uses, Asian
defence officials also fear that UAVs could be used for regional terrorist attacks, particularly if
Islamic State group (ISG) members originally from South-east Asia return home from fighting in
the Middle East: Partly due to ISG's proven technological orientation, officials envision that former ISG
personnel will probably use UAVs for terrorism in the near future. UAVs can be modified to carry
explosives, raising fears that they could replace suicide bombers and be employed more easily
and more often. Exacerbating internal conflicts. Using drones to report information on various forms of internal conflict,
including large-scale demonstrations or insurgencies, is inherently sensitive. Governments with internal armed conflicts, such as
Myanmar, will oppose the use of drones for media coverage of such conflicts. Authoritarian governments, including Vietnam, will
probably attempt to control use of drones for reporting on anti-government activities. However, such control will be difficult to
achieve since drones can be used for multiple purposes and offer advantages to both sides of a conflict. Diplomatic spats. As the loss
of MH370 showed, South-east Asian governments have weak communication networks made worse
by mutual distrust, which also applies to communications with China (see SOUTH-EAST ASIA: MH370 exposes limits of
cooperation - May 28, 2014). Malfunctioning drones veering off course into foreign airspace/territory or
a miscalculation in the use of a UAV could spark significant diplomatic incidents, which could be
fatal in conflict areas. Armed drones sales. Thus far, South-east Asia has focused on unarmed UAVs. Armed drones are
significantly more expensive, and require more complex infrastructure, including vehicle and land systems and sophisticated radars.
South-east Asian countries with strong military modernisation programmes, particularly
Indonesia and Singapore, already have drone programmes, while other South-east Asian
defence ministries are considering them. It is into this context that the US may sell armed UAVs to South-east Asia.
The terms under which the United States lifted the ban on selling armed drones are that governments wishing to buy US armed
UAVs are required to: have the necessary funds for the drones (some cost over 20 million dollars); have the supporting
infrastructure to use the drones; and be allies or close security partners of the United States. As a close ally with significant financial
wealth, Singapore is the frontrunner to buy US-made armed UAVs first. While the Philippines is
also a close ally, it lacks equivalent financial resources. However, the Philippines might access reduced prices through the FMS
programme. US concern over Thailand's military coup (May 2014) makes sales of armed UAVs unlikely before the country returns to
democratic government. Sales of armed UAVs are unlikely to be made soon to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia or Myanmar, due to fears of
misuse and diplomatic fallout, and as these countries have relatively limited funds available. However, unarmed UAV sales are
possible. Indonesia may benefit from armed US UAV sales, although it would need to convince the US State Department that the
drones were not intended for use internally, for instance on Papuan separatists.
 AT Drone PIC – Arms Race Turn
U.S. drone sales lead to drone proliferation.
Zenko and Kreps ’14
(Micah Zenko and Sarah E. Kreps, senior fellow and political scientist for CFR, June 2014)

The Obama administration should pursue a strategy that places clear limits on its own
sale and use of armed drones lest these weapons proliferate and their use becomes
widespread. These are the central findings of a new report by CFR Douglas Dillon Fellow Micah Zenko and Stanton Nuclear
Security Fellow Sarah Kreps, published by the Center for Preventive Action (CPA). Although only five countries have developed

armed drones—the United States, Britain, Israel, China, and Iran—several other countries have announced their
own programs. "India reports that it will soon equip its drones with precision-guided munitions and hopes to mass-produce
combat drones to conduct targeted strikes in cross-border attacks on suspected terrorists. Rebuffed by requests to
procure U.S. armed drones, Pakistan said it will develop them indigenously or with
China's help to target the Taliban in its tribal areas." The report also notes that "Turkey has about twenty-four
types of drones in use or development, four of which have been identified as combat drones," while Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain,

Greece, and Sweden "have collaborated on the Neuron, a stealth armed drone that made its first demonstration flight in December

2012." Zenko and Kreps lay out several reasons why armed drones are unique in their ability to destabilize relations and intensify

conflict. Unmanned aircraft reduce the threshold for authorizing military action by
eliminating pilot casualty, potentially increasing the frequency of force deployment.
Because there is no onboard pilot, drones are less responsive to warnings that could
defuse or prevent a clash. Furthermore, countries may fire on a manned fighter plane,
mistaking it for an armed drone, which could increase the likelihood of conflict. In
addition, the proliferation of unmanned aircraft carries an increased risk of lethality
because "drones are, in many ways, the perfect vehicle for delivering biological and
chemical agents." The authors write that the Obama administration faces two broad policy
decisions: first, to determine the criteria and principles that would guide exports of
drones; and second, to cultivate a set of norms and practices to govern their use. "As the lead
user of drones, the United States has the unique opportunity to determine which countries acquire these systems and hold them

accountable for how they use those drones," Zenko and Kreps assert. U.S. drone exports should require
commitment to the following principles: Peacefully resolving all outstanding border or
maritime disputes; peacefully brokering domestic political disputes; protecting civilians
from harm caused by other weapons platforms; and protecting human rights. A set of
norms to govern the use of drones would require increased transparency on U.S. drone
strike practices and targeting decisions. "A guiding principle for how the United States
describes and clarifies its drone operations should be based on type and specificity of
information it wants to see used by other armed drone states." The report outlines other policy
recommendations for the Obama administration, including: Tasking the intelligence community to publish an unclassified survey of

the current and future trends of unmanned military technologies—including ground, sea, and autonomous systems—as they do for

ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Commissioning an unclassified study by a federally
funded research institution to assess how unmanned aerial systems have been employed
in destabilizing settings and identify the most likely potential future missions of drones
that run counter to U.S. interests. Directing administration officials to testify—for the
first time—before Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees hearings on the principles and
criteria that should guide armed and unarmed drone exports. Appointing a high-level panel of outside experts
to review U.S. government policies on targeting decisions and their transparency and
potential effect on emerging proliferators, and propose reforms based on the President's
Review Group on Intelligence and Communication Technologies.

Drone Proliferation Produces Spiraling Conflicts---Increasing War Likelihood

Boyle ’14- Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (Michael J. Boyle, FPRI, “The Race
for Drones” (2014) pg. 88-89)//YGS

The proliferation of drones to many states carries with it a second set of risks that have been
overlooked in much of the controversy over the U.S. drones program in Pakistan and Yemen. Even
if drones do not produce the illusion that war can be bloodless and easy, they may subtly change the
risk calculations and behaviors of states and produce incidents that lead to conflict spirals or outright
war. One way this might happen is that states begin to use drones to test the nerves, and strategic
commitments, of their potential rivals. Drones are a seductive way of doing this for two reasons.
First, because drones are not manned aircraft, states may calculate that their use is less consequential
and risky than manned aircraft. As David Hastings Dunn has pointed out, drones appear as a
disembodied threat, which seems to “enable their use with domestic political impunity, minimal
international response and low political risk and cost.”66 Second, because drones are often physically
small, states may calculate that drones may be able to evade detection in contested space, or at the
very least be able to evade being shot down. The result is that drones are a new form of technology,
particularly conducive to what Alexander L. George referred to as “salami tactics”—that is, small
steps used to probe or test deterrent relationships by violating commitments in a small but
measurable way.67 One example of such behavior occurred in fall 2013, when China surprised
everyone by deploying a drone over the contested Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea to test
Japan’s commitment to its control over the islands.68 Japan scrambled F- 15 fighters in response and
suggested that it might station Japanese personnel on the island in retaliation. The situation escalated
when China extended its air defense zone in ways that covered these islands and directly conflicted
with Japan’s self- declared air defense zone. Japan approved a plan to shoot down Chinese drones
that flew over the disputed islands, and China responded by declaring that such an act would
constitute “an act of war.”69 In January 2014, Japan announced plans to deploy three U.S.-made
Global Hawk drones by 2015-2016 in an attempt to counter China’s efforts to claim air and naval
dominance in the East China Sea and South China Sea.70 The result has been an unprecedented level
of tension in a relationship that has remained stable, and largely without such provocative incidents,
for decades. China’s assertiveness in this incident suggests that those who assumed that the country
would be restrained in its drone use for fear of escalation or international condemnation might be
mistaken.71 The apparent low-cost nature of the technology makes these kinds of probing attacks
seem more attractive even to a generally risk-averse government like China. Drones provide the
illusion of a controllable risk especially if a government can convince itself that the absence of human
casualties from a shoot-down of the drones makes the incident negligible. Yet apparently negligible
incidents sometimes have very real consequences. The risks of a conflict spiral arising from the
shoot-down of the drone or an accident of some kind in the East China Sea are real and potentially
dangerous, especially if either China or Japan see their national interests or pride at stake in such an
encounter. Now that China appears willing to throw its weight around more in the Asian region, its
use of drones may increase as a way of testing Japanese nerves and U.S. commitments to its allies.

Drone exports cause conflicts via miscalc and accidents

Boyle ’14- Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (Michael J. Boyle, FPRI, “The Race
for Drones” (2014) pg. 91)//YGS

Another reason to be concerned about the growing drone arms race is the danger of accidents and
the conflict spirals that can come from them. While drones are becoming more sophisticated, they
are still prone to frequent accidents. According to an estimate in 2010, the United States has
experienced at least 79 drone accidents costing at least $1 million each, as well 38 Predator and
Reaper drone crashes during combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.76 Drones such as the Pioneer
and Shadow drones have even higher rates of accidents.77 A later estimate in 2014 put the total
number of major drone crashes at over 400 since 2001.78 Although it is estimated that many of these
accidents are caused by human error, and that accident rate is declining, these rates are still much
higher than comparable manned aircraft.79 It is also probable that less sophisticated and robust
models sold by China and other new suppliers will have a higher rate of accident than the more
robust American models. Simply as a matter of probability, it is likely that drone accidents will
become more commonplace as more drones take to the skies in the future. Drone accidents are more
than just unfortunate for those who happen to be hurt by them when they fall from the skies. There
is a serious risk that drones may interfere with civilian aircraft and cause accidents with more
substantial loss of life. In 2004, a German UAV nearly crashed into an Ariana Airlines Airbus A300
carrying 100 people in the skies over Kabul.80 Over the last ten years, drones have been equipped
with anti-collision software designed to avert such crashes, but dangers remain. One estimate in 2012
found that at least seven U.S. Predator or Reaper drones have crashed overseas in the vicinity of
civilian airports.81 In September 2013, the United States was forced to move its drone operations
from Camp Lemonier in Djibouti due to concerns that drones would crash into passenger planes
from a nearby airport.82 As drones proliferate around the world, the dangers of conflict spirals from
accidents and collisions with civilian aircraft will multiply.
 AT Drone PIC – India Turn
Drone Sales to Indian throw the balance of power off, risking conflict
Global Times, 18 (Global Times, Loosening of US Arms Sales Spurs India to Challenge China, 2-1-
2018, accessed 7-12-2019, http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-
view/release/3/190320/china-concerned-by-easier-us-arms-sales-to-india.html) Kuchimanchi

India's need to purchase UAVs is spurred by concerns about regional power balance. Currently, India
has a large fleet of drones mainly with reconnaissance purposes. The Indian military has been craving bigger strike-
capable drones, mainly from the US and Israel. Wang said India has goals when it comes to purchasing
UAVs, as it hopes for high-level equipment, a characteristic of its recent national defense development. Media
reported that satellite images along with other reports suggest that Pakistan may be operating a
China-made strike-capable, multi-role Wing Loong I drone, capable of carrying out complex assault operations.
This may have alerted officials in New Delhi for the urgent need to acquire heavier armed drones as a
deterrent. "We have already taken notice of these reports. Be rest assured that necessary measures are being taken at the right
places," a top Indian military official told the Asian Age. Correspondingly, India's purchase of drones, especially from
the US, has been alarming to neighboring countries. Last June, the US State Department approved the sale of 22
General Atomics MQ-9B Sea Guardians to India, which caused Pakistan to express concern, saying it would result
in strategic imbalance in the region.

Drone exports to India cause instability with Pakistan

Carey, 18 – Reporter for Express in the UK (Joseph, "World War 3: Pakistan ‘WORRIED’
about India ‘PREDATOR DRONE technology’ as tensions rise," March 1,
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/925570/World-War-3-Pakistan-worried-India-predator-
drone-technology-border-tension)//vivienne

PAKISTAN has declared that it is “worried” about India’s “predator drone technology” as
tensions rise between the two South Asian along with the contested border known as the Line of Control (LoC), it has emerged.
Islamabad’s foreign office spokesman, Mohammad Faisal, issued the concern during a weekly media
briefing amid concerns New Delhi could utilise the technologies for surveillance and
reconnaissance. He said: “India’s development of drone technology is worrying when seen in the
larger context of its buildup and expansion of military capabilities in the conventional and non-conventional
domains, which are subjecting regional strategic stability to increasing strain.”
 AT Risk Assessment CP – Can’t Solve
Risk assessments won’t reduce dangerous arms sales – the government lacks
appropriate screening measures and will simply ignore the assessment
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3/13/18, [Thrall is an associate professor at the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason; Dorminey is a policy analyst at the
Cato Institute-, Cato Institute, “risky business: the role of arms sales in US foreign policy,”
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy, mm
In order to comply with the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), the U.S. government must generate a risk assessment in order to
confirm that sales are unlikely to produce unwanted outcomes. This requirement makes sense, because history shows that arms
sales can lead to a host of negative, unintended consequences. These consequences come in many forms, from those that affect the
United States, such as blowback and entanglement in foreign conflicts, to those that affect entire regions, such as instability and
dispersion, to those that affect the recipient regime itself, such as enabling oppression and increasing the likelihood of military
coups. Forecasting how weapons will be used, especially over the course of decades, is difficult, but history provides evidence of the
factors that make negative outcomes more likely. Sadly, however, even a
cursory review of American arms sales
over time makes it clear that neither the White House, nor the Pentagon, nor the State
Department — all of which are involved in approving potential sales — takes the risk assessment
process seriously. Historically, the United States has sold weapons to almost any nation that
wanted to buy them — suggesting that the risk assessment process is rigged to not find risk.
From 2002 to 2016, America delivered $197 billion in weapons to 167 states worldwide.6 Thirty-two of these countries purchased at
least $1 billion in arms. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was America’s biggest client, purchasing $25.8 billion worth of weapons —
including F-15s and a litany of helicopters, naval assets, and associated munitions. As shown in Table 1, the top 10 clients collectively
bought $124 billion in arms — accounting for roughly two-thirds of the value of America’s total global exports since 2002. Given
the amount of chaos, instability, and conflict in the world, it is difficult to imagine what sort of
process would assess as many as 167 of the world’s roughly 200 countries as safe bets to receive
American weapons. Moreover, the United States has a long history of selling weapons to nations
where the immediate risks were obvious. From 1981 to 2010, the United States sold small arms and light weapons to
59 percent and major conventional weapons to 35 percent of countries actively engaged in a high-level conflict. The United States
sold small arms to 66 percent and major conventional weapons to 40 percent of countries actively engaged in a low-level conflict.7
As one author noted, in 1994 there were 50 ongoing ethnic and territorial conflicts in the world and the United States had armed at
least one side in 45 of them. Since 9/11, the United States has sold weapons to at least two dyads in conflict: Saudi Arabia and
Yemen, and Turkey and the Kurds.8 To produce a risk assessment of American arms recipients since 2002, we consulted previous
research to identify the risk factors most commonly associated with both short- and long-term negative outcomes. Unfortunately,
there are no hard data on the precise relationship between many of these risk factors and the probability of negative outcomes. We
also lack data entirely for certain risk factors that we would otherwise have included. A nation’s previous use (and misuse) of
American weapons, for example, is clearly among the most important factors to assess. Neither the government nor academic
research, however, exists to inform such an assessment. As a result, we take a conservative approach, creating an index of overall
riskiness based on straightforward assumptions about the correlations between risk factors and negative outcomes on data that are
available, rather than attempting to make precise predictions about the impact of each specific risk factor, or speculating about the
impact of factors we cannot measure. The first risk factor we consider is the stability of the recipient nation. We assume that fragile
states with tenuous legitimacy and little ability to deliver services and police their own territory, or those that cannot manage
conflict within their borders, pose a greater risk for the dispersion and misuse of weapons. Research also indicates that military aid
can increase the likelihood of a military coup, an outcome even more likely in the case of a fragile state.9 To measure this factor, we
take the most recent score for each nation on the Fragile States Index, which determines a state’s vulnerability by looking at a range
of economic, political, and social factors.10 The second risk factor we look at is the behavior of the state toward its own citizens. We
assume that states that rank poorly on human rights performance or that regularly use violence against their own people pose a
greater risk of misusing weapons in the short or long term. To measure this we rely on two sources: Freedom House’s Freedom in
the World rankings, which assess “the condition of political rights and civil liberties around the world,”11 and the State
Department’s Political Terror Scale, which provides a more specific measurement of a state’s use of torture and violence against its
citizens.12 Finally, we consider the level of conflict, both internal and external, each state is engaged in. We assume that countries
dealing with widespread terrorism and insurgency, or actively engaged in an interstate conflict, also represent higher risks of
negative outcomes such as dispersion, blowback, entanglement, conflict, and human rights abuses. Though the United States may
have reasons to provide arms to nations engaged in such conflicts or dealing with terrorism, the risk of negative consequences
remains. To assess these factors, we rely on the Global Terrorism Index, which measures the scope of terrorism in a country, and the
UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset, published by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the Peace Research Institute Oslo, which
tracks each country’s involvement in wars as well as in smaller conflicts.13 To gauge the riskiness of selling weapons to a given
country, we combined its scores on these five metrics into a single risk index score. Since the measures all used different scales, we
first recoded each of them into three categories: low, medium, and high risk. For example, we coded “not free” countries as high risk
(3 points); “partly free” countries as medium risk (2 points); and “free” countries as low risk (1 point). The result was a risk index that
runs from 5 (countries scoring “low risk” on all measures) to 15 (countries scoring “high risk” on all measures). To facilitate our
reporting we then grouped the results into four risk categories. We gave the Highest Risk designation to the 5 countries that scored
as “high risk” on every measure. At the other end of the spectrum, the Lowest Risk category contains the 38 countries that rated as
“low risk” on all five measures. The categories between these two are Very Risky (64 countries) and Somewhat Risky (60 countries).
Table 2 reveals the distribution of countries across risk categories as well as the average total arms sales by category since 2002.
Three important observations immediately emerge from the analysis. First, there are a large number of risky customers in the world,
and the United States sells weapons to most of them. Thirty-five nations (21 percent) scored in the highest-risk category on at least
two metrics, and 72 (43 percent) were in the highest-risk category on at least one of the five measures. There simply are not that
many safe bets when it comes to the arms trade. Second, the data
provide compelling evidence that the United
States does not discriminate between high- and low-risk customers. The average sales to the riskiest
nations are higher than those to the least risky nations. Considering discrete components of the index, for example, the 22 countries
coded as “highest risk” on the Global Terrorism Index bought an average of $1.91 billion worth of American weapons. The 28
countries in active, high-level conflicts bought an average of $2.94 billion worth of arms. Applying our risk assessment framework to
the list of 16 nations currently banned from buying American weapons helps illustrate the validity of our approach. The average
score of banned nations is 11.6, with 12 nations scoring 10 or higher. The highest-scoring nations were Syria, Sudan, and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, with Iran, Eritrea, and the Central African Republic not far behind. Clearly these are nations to
which the United States should not be selling weapons. What is especially troubling is that the United States sold weapons to several
of these countries in the years right before sales were banned, when most of the risks were readily apparent. Moreover, America’s
customer list includes 32 countries with a risk score above the average of those on the banned list. This reinforces our concern that
the U.S. government does not block sales to countries that clearly pose a risk of negative
consequences. The third major observation is that this lack of discrimination is dangerous. As simple as it is, our risk
assessment is a useful guide to forecasting negative consequences. The five countries that scored as high risk on all five measures
provide a clear illustration of the risks of arms sales. This group, which purchased an average of $1.8 billion in U.S. weapons since
9/11, includes Libya, Iraq, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan. These five countries, recall, are classified by the
various metrics as: “terror everywhere,” “not free,” “most fragile,” “large impact from terrorism,” and as being involved in high-level
conflicts. These governments have used their American weapons to promote oppression, commit human rights abuses, and
perpetuate bloody civil wars. Within the Very Risky category, each country rated as “highest risk” on at least one measure, and 30
scored as “highest risk” on at least two measures. This group also represents the full range of unintended consequences from arms
sales. Afghanistan, Egypt, Somalia, and Ukraine fall into this category. This group collectively spent an average of $1.38 billion over
the time period. Since 9/11, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (which scored a 12) invaded Yemen, intervened in Tunisia and Syria, and
provoked a crisis with Qatar, while cementing a track record of human rights abuses and government oppression. Other states in
this category, such as Afghanistan (score of 14), have entangled the United States in counterproductive conflicts since 9/11 and
continue to do so today. Even arms sales to the less risky nations do not come without risk. For example,
the Somewhat Risky category includes the United Arab Emirates, which is involved in an active conflict in Yemen, as well as Georgia,
which has dangerous neighbors. Finally, the Lowest Risk category includes most of the NATO nations, Taiwan, South Korea, and a
range of other, mostly smaller nations with stable governments, such as Barbados and Grenada, located in friendly neighborhoods.
These countries pose little risk for problems like dispersion, destabilization, or misuse of weapons for oppression. In
some
cases, however, arms sales could alter regional balances of power in ways that increase tensions
and the chance of conflict. U.S. arms sales to NATO allies, as part of the European Reassurance Initiative, for example, have
upset Russian leaders.14 Similarly, arms sales to Taiwan, itself not a risky customer, have nonetheless raised tensions between China
and the United States.15 In short, even
a relatively simple risk assessment makes it clear that the policy of
the United States is to sell weapons to just about any nation that can afford them without much
concern for the consequences. Though the United States does limit its most advanced weapons to allies16 and maintains
a ban on the sale of materials related to weapons of mass destruction,17 the United States has sold just about everything else, in
many cases to countries embroiled in interstate and civil conflicts, to countries with horrendous human rights records, and to
countries that represent a risk for entangling the United States in unwanted conflicts.