Saudi Relations DA

**1NC**
Despite tensions, Trump is defending and sustaining the US-Saudi alliance.
MICHAEL SINGH DECEMBER 10, 2018 Michael Singh is managing director of the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy. He served as senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council
from 2007–2008. THE UNITED STATES, SAUDI ARABIA, AND THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE POST-KHASHOGGI
ERA https://warontherocks.com/2018/12/the-united-states-saudi-arabia-and-the-middle-east-in-the-
post-khashoggi-era/

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi has sparked a sudden soul-searching in Washington about the U.S.-Saudi
partnership. Riding a wave of congressional anger, a bill that would end American support for the Saudi-
led military campaign in Yemen overwhelmingly surmounted the hurdle required to advance to debate,
attracting strong bipartisan support. Another bill wending its way through Congress would place strict
conditions on the sale of offensive weaponry to Saudi Arabia, the largest purchaser of American arms.
The Trump administration, for its part, has imposed sanctions on 17 Saudis reportedly involved in
Khashoggi’s murder and barred 21 from entering the United States. Yet the administration has
otherwise been stalwart in its defense of the U.S.-Saudi partnership, lauding the kingdom as a “pillar of
stability”and vowing to oppose congressional efforts to curtail the relationship or punish Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

Arms sales are a critical component of the US-Saudi security relationship

Omar Mohamed 7/19/17, Strategic Analyst- GCC Foreign Policy-Gulf Military Balance, University of
Exeter, "The Special Partnership: Considering U.S.-Saudi Relations Through the Alliance Politics
Literature", https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/36607/1/OMAR%2C%20Mohammed
%2020175.pdf

Arms transfers between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia represent a major component of the security
partnership. U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia touch on both the economic and security dimensions of the
bilateral partnership. Alliance politics literature highlights that partners whose strategic interest revolve
around the areas of defence and security are more likely to have enduring relationships . To help secure
U.S. defence assurances, Saudi Arabia has pursued complex and lucrative arms deals, which have
cemented long-term commitment to the security partnership . For the United States, arms transfers to
Saudi Arabia help shore up Saudi Arabia’s defensive capabilities, while providing a reliable market for
defence exports.

US-Saudi relations key to combat terrorism – Saudi Arabia is a unique and capable
ally.
Dr. Saad Alsubaie is a Faculty Member at CGSC-MNG and Distinguished International Security Fellow at
the National Council on US-Arab Relations, Washington DC. March 21 2018 The US-Saudi relations: New
challenges and opportunities https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-
east/2018/03/21/The-US-Saudi-relations-New-challenges-and-opportunities.html

The major themes of President Trump’s Middle East policy are eradicating terrorism, confronting the
danger from Iran, and revitalizing partnerships with stable regional partners. Saudi Arabia appears to be
the most reliable and suitable partner for implementing this policy. In addition to being a long-standing
traditional partner, Saudi Arabia shares the US concerns on the threat posed by Iran. However, the key
asset that distinguishes Saudi Arabia from other regional partners is its unique status in the Islamic
world. Being the birthplace of Islam, Saudi Arabia possesses a legitimate influence on the war of
extremist ideas. Moreover, it has an unrivaled diplomatic influence within the Islamic world . This was
evident during President Trump’s very first international trip to the kingdom, where he laid the
foundation for cooperation with fifty-five Muslim-majority countries. During the same visit, President
Trump attended the inauguration of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, which aims to
expose and refute extremist ideology. Located in the central part of the Islamic world, as President
Trump describes it, “this groundbreaking new center represents a clear declaration that Muslim-
majority countries must take the lead in combatting radicalization.” The Saudi efforts to combat
terrorism are not limited to curbing the extremist ideologies. In 2015, Saudi Arabia formed an Islamic
Military Counter Terrorism Coalition , which consists of 41 partner nations. The mission of this coalition is
to combat terrorism ideologically, financially, and militarily. Moreover, the kingdom is an active member
of the US-led international coalition against ISIS. This coalition has defeated ISIS territorially in Iraq.
However, the US, Saudi Arabia, and their allies in the region still have a long way to go to eradicate
terrorism.

Terrorism goes nuclear – causes retaliation – extinction

Peter Hayes PhD from Berkeley, Director of the Nautilus Institute and Honorary Professor at the Centre
for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney 2018 –"NON-STATE TERRORISM AND
INADVERTENT NUCLEAR WAR", NAPSNet Special Reports, January 18, 2018,
https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/non-state-terrorism-and-inadvertent-nuclear-war/

Nuclear terrorism post-cold war: trigger for inadvertent nuclear war? The possible catalytic effect of nuclear terrorism on
the risk of state-based nuclear war is not a simple linkage. The multiple types and scales of nuclear terrorism may affect
state-nuclear use decisions along multiple pathways that lead to inadvertent nuclear war. These include:
Early warning systems fail or are “tripped” in ways that lead to launch-on-warning Accidental nuclear
detonation, including sub-critical explosions. Strategic miscalculation in crisis, show of force Decision-making failure (such
as irrational, misperception, bias, degraded, group, and time-compressed decision-making) Allied or enemy choices (to seek
revenge, to exploit nuclear risk, to act out of desperation ) Organizational cybernetics whereby a nuclear command-
control-and communications (NC3) system generates error, including the interplay of national NC3 systems in what may be termed the meta-
NC3 system. Synchronous and coincident combinations of above.[4] Exactly
how, where, and when nuclear terrorism may
“ambush” nuclear armed states already heading for or on such a path to inadvertent nuclear war
depends on who is targeting whom at a given time , either immediately due to high tension, or generally due to a structural
conflict between states. Nuclear armed states today form a complex set of global threat relationships that are not distributed uniformly across
the face of Earth. Rather, based on sheer firepower and reach, the nine nuclear weapons states form a global hierarchy with at least four tiers,
viz: Tier 1: United States, clear technological supremacy and qualitative edge. Tier 2: Russia, China, global nuclear powers and peers with the
United States due to the unique destructive power of even relatively small nuclear arsenals, combined with global reach of missile and bomber
delivery systems, thereby constituting a two-tiered global “nuclear triangle” with the United States. Tier 3: France, UK, NATO nuclear sharing
and delivery NATO members (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey) and the NATO and Pacific nuclear umbrella states (Japan,
South Korea, Australia) that depend on American nuclear extended deterrence and directly and indirectly support US and US-allied nuclear
operations even though they do not host nor deliver nuclear weapons themselves. Tier 4: India, Pakistan, Israel, DPRK. The first two tiers
constitute the global nuclear threat triangle that exists between the United States, Russia, and China, forming a global nuclear “truel.” Each of
these states targets the others; each represents an existential threat to the other; and each has a long history of mutual nuclear threat that is
now a core element of their strategic identity. Tier three consists of states with their own nuclear force but integrated with that of the United
States (even France!) that expand the zone of mutual nuclear threat over much of the northern and even parts of the southern hemisphere;
and states that host American nuclear command, control, communications, and intelligence systems that support US nuclear operations and to
whom nuclear deterrence is “extended” (if, for example, Australia’s claim to having an American nuclear umbrella is believed). The fourth tier is
composed of smaller nuclear forces with a primarily regional reach and focus. Between most of these nuclear armed states and across the tiers,
there are few shared “rules of the road.” The more of these states that are engaged in a specific conflict and location, the more unpredictable
and unstable this global nuclear threat system becomes, with the potential for cascading and concatenating effects. Indeed, as the number of
nuclear states projecting nuclear threat against each other increases, the notion of strategic stability may lose all meaning. The
emergence of a fifth tier—of non-state actors with the capacity to project nuclear threat against nuclear-
armed and nuclear umbrella states (although not only these states)—is a critically important possible catalytic
actor in the new conditions of nuclear threat complexity that already exist today . Such a layer represents
an “edge of chaos” where the attempts by nuclear armed states to exert absolute “vertical” control over
the use of nuclear weapons confront the potential of non-state entities and even individuals (insiders) to
engage in “horizontal” nuclear terrorism, presenting radically different control imperatives to the standard paradigm of
organizational procedures, technical measures, and safeguards of various kinds. This tier is like the waves and tides on a beach that quickly
surrounds and then causes sand castles to collapse. In 2010, Robert Ayson reviewed the potential linkages between inter-state nuclear war and
non-state terrorism. He concluded: “…[T]hese two nuclear worlds—a non-state actor nuclear attack and a
catastrophic interstate nuclear exchange —are not necessarily separable. It is just possible that some sort of
terrorist attack, and especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of events leading to a
massive exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states that possess them .”[5] How this
linkage might unfold is the subject of the next sections of this essay. Are non-state actors motivated and able to attempt nuclear terrorism? A
diverse set of non-state actors have engaged in terrorist activities—for which there is no simple or consensual
definition. In 2011, there were more than 6,900 known extremist, terrorist and other organizations
associated with guerrilla warfare, political violence, protest, organized crime and cyber-crime . Of these,
about 120 terrorist and extremist groups had been blacklisted by the United Nations, the European Union and six major countries.[6] Some
have argued that the technical, organizational, and funding demanded for a successful nuclear attack,
especially involving nuclear weapons, exceeds the capacity of most of the non-state actors with terrorist
proclivities. Unfortunately, this assertion is not true, especially at lower levels of impact as shown in Figure 1; but
even at the highest levels of obtaining authentic nuclear weapons capabilities , a small number of non-
state actors already exhibit the motivation and possible capacity to become nuclear-armed. Ellingsen
suggests a useful distinction that nuclear terrorists may be impelled by two divergent motivations, as shown in Figure 2, creating
“opportunistic” and “patient” profiles.[7] The requirements for an opportunist non-state nuclear terrorist tend towards immediate use and the
search for short-term payoffs with only tactical levels of commitment; whereas the patient non-state nuclear terrorist is able and willing to
sustain a long-term acquisition effort to deal a strategic blow to an adversary in a manner that could be achieved only with nuclear weapons. In
turn, many factors will drive how a potential nuclear terrorist non-state organization that obtains nuclear weapons or materials may seek to
employ them, especially in its nuclear command-and-control orientations. Blair and Ackerman suggest that the goals, conditions, and capacity
limitations that shape a possible nuclear terrorist’s posture lead logically to three types of nuclear terrorist nuclear command-and-control
postures, viz: pre-determined (in which the leadership sends a fire order to a nuclear-armed subordinate and no change is entertained and no
capacity to effect change is established in the field, that is, the order is fire-and-forget); assertive (in which only the central command can issue
a nuclear fire order, central control is maintained at all times, with resulting demanding communications systems to support such control); and
delegative (in which lower level commanders control nuclear weapons and have pre-delegated authority to use them in defined circumstances,
for example, evidence of nuclear explosions combined with loss-of-connectivity with their central command).[8] An example of such delegative
control system was the November 26, 2008 attack on Mumbai that used social media reporting to enable the attacking terrorists to respond to
distant controller direction and to adapt to counter-terrorist attacks—a connectivity tactic that the authorities were too slow to shut down
before mayhem was achieved.[9] Logically, one might expect nuclear terrorists oriented toward short-term, tactical goals to employ pre-
determined nuclear command-and-control strategies in the hope that the speed of attack and minimum field communications avoids discovery
and interdiction before the attack is complete; whereas nuclear terrorists oriented toward long-term, strategic goals might employ more pre-
delegative command-and-control systems that would support a bargaining use and therefore a field capacity to deploy nuclear weapons or
materials that can calibrate actual attack based on communications with the central leadership with the risk of interdiction through surveillance
and counter-attack. These differing strategic motivations, timelines, and strategies in many respects invert those of nuclear weapons states that
rely on large organizations, procedures, and technical controls, to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used without legitimate
authorization; and if they are used, to minimize needless civilian casualties (at least some nuclear armed states aspire to this outcome). The
repertoire of state-based practices that presents other states with credible nuclear threat and reassures
them that nuclear weapons are secure and controlled is likely to be completely mismatched with the
strengths and strategies of non-state nuclear terrorists that may seek to maximize civilian terror , are
not always concerned about their own survival or even that of their families and communities-of-origin,
and may be willing to take extraordinary risk combined with creativity to exploit the opportunities for
attack presented by nuclear weapons, umbrella, and non-nuclear states, or their private adversaries . For
non-state actors to succeed at complex engineering project such as acquiring a nuclear weapons or nuclear threat capacity demands substantial
effort. Gary Ackerman specifies that to have a chance of succeeding, non-state actors with nuclear weapons
aspirations must be able to demonstrate that they control substantial resources, have a safe haven in
which to conduct research and development , have their own or procured expertise, are able to learn
from failing and have the stamina and strategic commitment to do so, and manifest long-term planning
and ability to make rational choices on decadal timelines. He identified five such violent non-state
actors who already conducted such engineering projects (see Figure 3), and also noted the important
facilitating condition of a global network of expertize and hardware . Thus, although the skill, financial,
and materiel requirements of a non-state nuclear weapons project present a high bar, they are
certainly reachable. Figure 3: Complex engineering projects by five violent non-state actors & Khan network Source: G. Ackerman,
“Comparative Analysis of VNSA Complex Engineering Efforts,” Journal of Strategic Security, 9:1, 2016, at:
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol9/iss1/10/ Along similar lines, James Forest examined the extent to which non-state actors can pose a
threat of nuclear terrorism.[10] He notes that such entities face practical constraints, including expense, the obstacles to stealing many
essential elements for nuclear weapons, the risk of discovery, and the difficulties of constructing and concealing such weapons. He also
recognizes the strategic constraints that work against obtaining nuclear weapons, including a cost-benefit analysis, possible de-legitimation that
might follow from perceived genocidal intent or use, and the primacy of political-ideological objectives over long-term projects that might lead
to the group’s elimination, the availability of cheaper and more effective alternatives that would be foregone by pursuit of nuclear weapons,
and the risk of failure and/or discovery before successful acquisition and use occurs. In the past, almost all—but not all—non-state terrorist
groups appeared to be restrained by a combination of high practical and strategic constraints, plus their own cost-benefit analysis of the
opportunity costs of pursuing nuclear weapons. However, should some or all of these constraints diminish, a rapid non-state nuclear
proliferation is possible. Although
only a few non-state actors such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State have exhibited such
underlying stamina and organizational capacities and actually attempted to obtain nuclear weapons-related skills, hardware,
and materials, the past is not prologue. An incredibly diverse set of variously motivated terrorist groups
exist already, including politico-ideological, apocalyptic-millenarian, politico-religious, nationalist-
separatist, ecological, and political-insurgency entities , some of which converge with criminal-military
and criminal-scientist (profit based) networks; but also pyscho-pathological mass killing cults, lone wolves, and
ephemeral copy-cat non-state actors. The social, economic, and deculturating conditions that generate
such entities are likely to persist and even expand. In particular, rapidly growing coastal mega-cities as part of rapid global
urbanization offer such actors the ability to sustain themselves as “flow gatekeepers,” possibly in alliance with global criminal networks,
thereby supplanting the highland origins of many of today’s non-state violent actors with global reach.[11] Other contributing factors
contributing to the supply of possible non-state actors seeking nuclear weapons include new entries such as city states in search of new security
strategies, megacities creating their own transnationally active security forces, non-states with partial or complete territorial control such as
Taiwan and various micro-states, failing states, provinces in dissociating, failing states that fall victim to internal chaos and the displacement
effects of untrammeled globalization, and altogether failed states resulting in ungoverned spaces. To this must be added domestic terrorist
entities in the advanced industrial states as they hollow out their economies due to economic globalization and restructuring, adjust to cross-
border migration, and adapt to cultural and political dislocation. In short, the prognosis is for the fifth tier of non-state actors to beset the other
four tiers with intense turbulence just as waves on a beach swirl around sandcastles, washing away their foundations, causing grains of sand to
cascade, and eventually collapsing the whole structure. Observed non-state nuclear threats and attacks In light of the constraints faced by non-
state terrorist actors in past decades, it is not surprising that the constellation of actual nuclear terrorist attacks and threats has been relatively
limited during and since the end of the Cold War. As Martha Crenshaw noted in a comment on the draft of this paper: We still don’t know why
terrorists (in the sense of non-state actors) have not moved into the CBRN [chemical,biological, radiological or nuclear ] domain. (Many people
think biosecurity is more critical, for that matter.) Such a move would be extremely risky for the terrorist actor, even if the group possessed
both capability (resources, secure space, time, patience) and motivation (willingness to expend the effort, considering opportunity costs). So far
it appears that “conventional” terrorism serves their purposes well enough. Most of what we have seen is rhetoric, with some scattered and
not always energetic initiatives.[12] Nonetheless, those that have occurred demonstrate unambiguously that such threats and attacks are not
merely hypothetical, in spite of the limiting conditions outlined above. One survey documented eighty actual, planned attacks on nuclear
facilities containing nuclear materials between 1961-2016[13] as follows: 80 attacks in 3 waves (1970s armed assaults, 1990s thefts, post-2010,
breaches) High threat attacks: 32/80 attacks posed substantial, verified threat of which 44 percent involved insiders. All types of targets were
found in the data set—on reactors, other nuclear facilities, military bases leading Gary Ackerman and to conclude: “Overall, empirical evidence
suggests that there are sufficient cases in each of the listed categories that no type of threat can be ignored.”[14] No region was immune; no
year was without such a threat or attack. Thus, there is a likely to be a coincidence of future non-state threats and attacks with inter-state
nuclear-prone conflicts, as in the past, and possibly more so given the current trend in and the generative conditions for global terrorist activity
that will likely pertain in the coming decades. Of these attacks, about a quarter each were ethno-nationalist, secular utopian, or unknown in
motivation; and the remaining quarter were a motley mix of religious (11 percent), “other” (5 percent), personal-idiosyncratic (4 percent),
single issue (2 percent) and state sponsored (1 percent) in motivation. The conclusion is unavoidable that there a non-state nuclear terrorist
attack in the Northeast Asia region is possible. The following sections outline the possible situations in which nuclear terrorist attacks might be
implicated as a trigger to interstate conflict, and even nuclear war. Particular
attention is paid to the how nuclear
command, control and communications systems may play an independent and unanticipated role in
leading to inadvertent nuclear war, separate to the contributors to inadvertency normally included such as degradation of
decision-making due to time and other pressures; accident; “wetware” (human failures), software or hardware failures; and
misinterpretation of intended or unintended signals from an adversary . Regional pathways to interstate nuclear
war At least five distinct nuclear-prone axes of conflict are evident in Northeast Asia. These are: US-DPRK
conflict (including with United States, US allies Japan, South Korea and Australia; and all other UNC
command allies. Many permutations possible ranging from non-violent collapse to implosion and civil war, inter-Korean war, slow
humanitarian crisis. Of these implosion-civil war in the DPRK may be the most dangerous, followed closely by an altercation at the Joint Security
Area at Panmunjon where US, ROK, and DPRK soldiers interact constantly. China-Taiwan
conflict, whereby China may use
nuclear weapons to overcome US forces operating in the West Pacific , either at sea, or based on US (Guam, Alaska) or
US allied territory in the ROK, Japan, the Philippines, or Australia); or US uses nuclear weapons in response to Chinese attack on Taiwan.
China-Japan conflict escalates via attacks on early warning systems, for example, underwater hydrophone systems
(Ayson-Ball, 2011). China-Russia conflict, possibly in context of loss-of-control of Chinese nuclear forces in a
regional conflict involving Taiwan or North Korea . Russia-US conflict, involving horizontal escalation from
a head-on collision with Russian nuclear forces in Europe or the Middle East; or somehow starts at sea (mostly likely seems
ASW) or over North Korea (some have cited risk of US missile defenses against North Korean attack as risking Russian immediate
response). Combinations of or simultaneous eruption of the above conflicts that culminate in nuclear war
are also possible. Other unanticipated nuclear-prone conflict axes (such as Russia-Japan) could also emerge with little warning.
Precursors of such nuclear-laden conflicts in this region also exist that could lead states to the brink of nuclear war and demonstrate that
nuclear war is all too possible between states in this region. Examples include the August 1958 Quemoy-Matsu crisis, in which the United States
deployed nuclear weapons to Taiwan, and the US Air Force has only a nuclear defense strategy in place to defend Taiwan should China have
escalated its shelling campaign to an actual attack; the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when a US nuclear armed missile was nearly fired
from Okinawa due to a false fire order; the March 1969 Chinese-Soviet military clash and resulting consideration of nuclear attacks by both
sides; and the August 1976 poplar tree crisis at Panmunjon in Korea, when the United States moved nuclear weapons back to the DMZ and the
White House issued pre-delegated orders to the US commander in Korea to attack North Korea if the tree cutting task force was attacked by
North Korean forces. Loss-of-control of Nuclear Weapons As is well known, nuclear armed states must routinely—and in the midst of a crisis—
ensure that their nuclear weapons are never used without legitimate authority, but also ensure at the same time that they are always available
for immediate use with legitimate authority. This “always-never” paradox is managed in part by a set of negative and positive controls, reliant
upon procedural and technical measures, to maintain legitimate state-based command-and-control (see Figure Four). Figure Four: Controls and
Measures on Nuclear Weapons Use Source: Virginia Tech Applied Research Corporation, Nuclear Command, Control, and Stability Framework,
December 29, 2016, at: https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/48707/Nuclear%20Command%20Control%20and%20Stability
%20Assessment_Final%20report_29Dec15%20rev2.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y In this framework, Jerry Conley has produced a taxonomy of
nuclear command-and-control structures that embody varying notional national “command-and-control” orientations (also referred to as
stability points or biases). Each nuclear armed state exhibits a distinct preference for technical and procedural measures to achieve negative
and positive control of nuclear weapons. The way that a state constructs its control system varies depending on its size, wealth, technology,
leadership, and strategic orientation, lending each state a unique use propensity affected by the information processing and transmission
functions of the nuclear command-and-control system, that in part determines the use or non-use decisions made by the leaders of nuclear
armed states. The resulting ideal nuclear command-and-control state structures are shown in Table 1. Table 1: Ideal Nuclear command-and-
control structures Wealthy A nuclear program that has economic resources to research, expand, and bolster itself with both experienced
people and technical innovations. Poor A nuclear program that does not have sufficient economic resources to properly research, expand, and
bolster itself and relies on procedures instead of technology and experience. Complex A nuclear program that has the material resources and
personnel to support a wide range of controls and redundancies. Simple A nuclear program that has minimal material resources or personnel to
adequately support a robust and redundant C2 structure. Centralized A nuclear program that maintains authority and control of its nuclear
armament as a singular capability through a defined chain of command. Decentralized A nuclear program that distributes authority of its
nuclear armament to a network of commanders or individuals who operate as independent decision makers with minimal oversight. Civilian A
nuclear program that is governed by an elected, non-military government that maintains authority and control over the nuclear arsenal through
a defined chain of authority. Military A nuclear program that is governed by a weak civilian government and/or the military maintains control
and authority over the nuclear arsenal. Source: Virginia Tech Applied Research Corporation, Nuclear Command, Control, and Stability
Framework, December 29, 2016, at: https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/48707/Nuclear%20Command%20Control%20and
%20Stability%20Assessment_Final%20report_29Dec15%20rev2.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y These ideal types are summarized with respect
to the defining axes of control measure in Figure Five. Figure Five: State nuclear weapons control biases by NC3 type Note: according to
dominant characteristic shown in orange circle; also, real states may exhibit more than one characteristic Source: Virginia Tech Applied
Research Corporation, Nuclear Command, Control, and Stability Framework, December 29, 2016, at:
https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/48707/Nuclear%20Command%20Control%20and%20Stability%20Assessment_Final
%20report_29Dec15%20rev2.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y In Northeast Asia, a four-way nuclear threat system exists that has a three world-
class nuclear armed states, the United States, Russia and China, interacting with a fourth tier, barely nuclear armed state, the DPRK. In this
quadrilateral nuclear standoff, the DPRK’s simple NC3 system likely is an amalgam of a poorly resourced, militarized, and personalized
leadership—which may lead it to oscillate between procedural and technical measures as the basis of control, with a primary emphasis on
positive use control, not negative control to avoid unauthorized use. China’s large, centralized NC3 system co-mingles nuclear and conventional
communications between national commanders and deployed nuclear forces and may emphasize negative more than positive use controls to
ensure Party control. Russia’s highly centralized, complex NC3 system relies on legacy technology and limited economic base for modernization.
It too may be more oriented towards negative controls in peacetime, but have the capacity to spring almost instantly to primary reliance on
positive controls in times of crisis or tension. The US NC3 system is large, complex and based on wealth and technological prowess. It is under
civilian, not military control, at least in principle and in peacetime, and is redundant, diverse, and relatively resilient. Non-state nuclear attack as
trigger of inter-state nuclear war in Northeast Asia The
critical issue is how a nuclear terrorist attack may “catalyze”
inter-state nuclear war, especially the NC3 systems that inform and partly determine how leaders respond to nuclear threat. Current
conditions in Northeast Asia suggest that multiple precursory conditions for nuclear terrorism already exist or exist
in nascent form. In Japan, for example, low-level, individual, terroristic violence with nuclear materials, against nuclear facilities, is real. In
all countries of the region, the risk of diversion of nuclear material is real, although the risk is likely higher due to volume and laxity of security
in some countries of the region than in others. In all countries, the risk of an insider “sleeper” threat is real in security and nuclear agencies, and
such insiders already operated in actual terrorist organizations. Insider corruption is also observable in nuclear fuel cycle agencies in all
countries of the region. The threat of extortion to induce insider cooperation is also real in all countries. The possibility of a cult attempting to
build and buy nuclear weapons is real and has already occurred in the region.[15] Cyber-terrorism against nuclear reactors is real and such
attacks have already taken place in South Korea (although it remains difficult to attribute the source of the attacks with certainty). The stand-off
ballistic and drone threat to nuclear weapons and fuel cycle facilities is real in the region, including from non-state actors, some of whom have
already adopted and used such technology almost instantly from when it becomes accessible (for example, drones).[16] Two other broad risk
factors are also present in the region. The social and political conditions for extreme ethnic and xenophobic nationalism are emerging in China,
Korea, Japan, and Russia. Although there has been no risk of attack on or loss of control over nuclear weapons since their removal from Japan in
1972 and from South Korea in 1991, this risk continues to exist in North Korea, China, and Russia, and to the extent that they are deployed on
aircraft and ships of these and other nuclear weapons states (including submarines) deployed in the region’s high seas, also outside their
territorial borders. The
most conducive circumstance for catalysis to occur due to a nuclear terrorist attack might
involve the following nexi of timing and conditions: Low-level, tactical, or random individual terrorist attacks for
whatever reasons, even assassination of national leaders, up to and including dirty radiological bomb attacks, that
overlap with inter-state crisis dynamics in ways that affect state decisions to threaten with or to use
nuclear weapons. This might be undertaken by an opportunist nuclear terrorist entity in search of rapid and high political impact.
Attacks on major national or international events in each country to maximize terror and to de-legitimate national leaders
and whole governments. In Japan, for example, more than ten heads of state and senior ministerial international meetings are held each year.
For the strategic nuclear terrorist, patiently acquiring higher level nuclear threat capabilities for such attacks
and then staging them to maximum effect could accrue strategic gains. Attacks or threatened attacks ,
including deception and disguised attacks, will have maximum leverage when nuclear-armed states are near or on
the brink of war or during a national crisis (such as Fukushima), when intelligence agencies, national leaders, facility operators,
surveillance and policing agencies, and first responders are already maximally committed and over-extended. At this point, we note an
important caveat to the original concept of catalytic nuclear war as it might pertain to nuclear terrorist threats or attacks. Although an attack
might be disguised so that it is attributed to a nuclear-armed state, or a ruse might be undertaken to threaten such attacks by deception, in
reality a catalytic strike by a nuclear weapons state in conditions of mutual vulnerability to nuclear retaliation for such a strike from other
nuclear armed states would be highly irrational. Accordingly, the
effect of nuclear terrorism involving a nuclear
detonation or major radiological release may not of itself be catalytic of nuclear war—at least not intentionally–
because it will not lead directly to the destruction of a targeted nuclear-armed state . Rather, it may be catalytic
of non-nuclear war between states, especially if the non-state actor turns out to be aligned with or sponsored by a state (in many Japanese
minds, the natural candidate for the perpetrator of such an attack is the pro-North Korean General Association of Korean Residents, often
called Chosen Soren, which represents many of the otherwise stateless Koreans who were born and live in Japan) and a further sequence of
coincident events is necessary to drive escalation to the point of nuclear first use by a state. Also, the catalyst—the non-state actor–is almost
assured of discovery and destruction either during the attack itself (if it takes the form of a nuclear suicide attack then self-immolation is
assured) or as a result of a search-and-destroy campaign from the targeted state (unless the targeted government is annihilated by the initial
terrorist nuclear attack). It follows that the
effects of a non-state nuclear attack may be characterized better as a
trigger effect, bringing about a cascade of nuclear use decisions within NC3 systems that shift each state
increasingly away from nuclear non-use and increasingly towards nuclear use by releasing negative controls and
enhancing positive controls in multiple action-reaction escalation spirals (depending on how many nuclear armed states are party to an inter-
state conflict that is already underway at the time of the non-state nuclear attack); and/or by inducing concatenating nuclear attacks across
geographically proximate nuclear weapons forces of states already caught in the crossfire of nuclear threat or attacks of their own making
before a nuclear terrorist attack.[17] An example of a cascading effect would be a non-state attack on a key node of linked early warning
systems that is unique to and critical for strategic nuclear forces to be employable, or the effect of multiple, coincident and erroneous sensor
alerts of incoming attacks (as occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis with radar in Florida monitoring Soviet missiles in Cuba that mistakenly
fused an erroneous reading of a missile trajectory with a real observation of a Soviet satellite that happened to be passing overhead). An
example of a concatenating effect would an attack that leads a nuclear weapons state to target two other
states forces because it cannot determine whose forces attacked its own. This circumstance might arise if key anti-
submarine forces or an aircraft carrier battle group were attacked and it was impossible to determine in a given waterway or area of ocean
whose submarines were present or responsible for the attack, leading the attacked state to destroy all the submarines presenting on-going
threat to its strategic forces. As we noted above, a terrorist nuclear shock may take various forms and appear in different places. Ever since an
extortion attempt in Boston in 1974 based on the threat of nuclear detonation, the threat of an improvised nuclear device has been credible.
For such a threat to be credible, a non-state terrorist entity must release a plausible precursor such as nuclear material or warhead design
information, or stage an actual demonstration attack that makes it plausible that the attacker controls a significant quantity of fissile material
(most likely plutonium, or simply radioactive materials suitable for a radiological device that might be used to draw in first responders and then
detonate a warhead to maximize damage and terror). Such an attack might be combined with a separate attack on critical infrastructure such as
a cyberattack. The attacker might retain sufficient material for bargaining and insurance should the initial attack fail. Given the need to adapt to
circumstances, such an attacker is likely to be patient and strategic, in the terms defined earlier, and to have extensive organizational and
communication capacities; and to be able to operate at multiple targeted sites, possibly in multiple countries. Given its patience and stamina,
such an attacker would select a highly symbolic target such as a high level meeting. Such a case would present the targeted state with an
exquisite dilemma: bargaining and negotiation with the non-state actor threatening such an attack may be justified given the explicit and
plausible nature of the threat, which may be politically impossible while making counter-terrorism operations very risky and only possible with
extreme caution. And, such an attacker might well issue a false statement about state-sponsorship to invoke third parties in ways that vastly
complicate the response to the threat. If the attacker is less capable and driven for immediate political or other returns, then it may be satisfied
with highly delegated delivery with no recall option, and no use of communications to minimize the risk of discovery or interdiction. Such an
attacker is also less likely to wait for the circumstances in which inter-state nuclear war is more likely due to inter-state tension; and also less
likely to seek third party effects beyond the damage to the immediate target and resulting terror. Should surveillance indicate that an
improvised nuclear device is in motion, then an all-out search to interdict the attackers and to retrieve the device or materials would likely
ensue. In these two instances of credible threat of non-state nuclear attack, the insider versus outsider perpetrator factor will affect
significantly how the attack affects possible inter-state conflicts. In Kobe’s terms, if the perpetrator is confirmed to be an outsider, then a
country-of-origin suspicion matrix may cast suspicion onto another state as possible sponsor. For an attack threatened in China, the linkage
might be back to Russia, the United States, or North Korea. For an attack threatened in Russia, the linkage might be back to the United States,
China, or North Korea. For an attack threatened in North Korea, the linkage might be back to the United States, China, or Russia. And for an
attack threatened in one of the umbrella states in the region, South Korea and Japan, such an attack might be linked to each other, as well as to
China, North Korea, or Russia. In each case, the shadow of suspicion and possible accusations could tilt decision-making processes in one or
more of these states and ways that could worsen pre-existing views about the nuclear use propensity of an opposing nuclear armed state.
Should an actual nuclear attack occur, the situation is even more complex and problematic. Such an attack might be purely accidental, due to
hardware, software, or human error while nuclear materials or weapons are in transit. In principle, this limits the site of such an event to the
nuclear weapons states or their ships and aircraft as neither South Korea nor Japan host nuclear weapons today. If an insider is involved, then
the perpetrator may be identified quickly, and whether there is a linkage with another state may become evident (depending on nuclear
forensics as well as insight obtained from surviving attackers). If an outsider is the perpetrator, then the suspicion matrix will come into play
again, with possibly severe effects on inter-state tension due to accusation, suspicion, and fear of follow-on attacks. During the attack,
especially if it is a hostage-taking type of attack, the identity of the perpetrator may be unknown or ambiguous, and maintaining this ambiguity
or even opacity as to the attacker may be deliberate—as was the case with the 2008 Mumbai attack in which the controller tried to ensure that
all the attackers were killed in the course of the twelve separate but coordinated attacks across the city over four days. Although much progress
has been made in establishing local nuclear forensics capability in Japan,[18] China, and South Korea, there is no certainty that it is sufficiently
developed to identify the perpetrator of an act of nuclear terrorism, especially if there is a state sponsor and deception involved. Conclusion
We now move to our conclusion. Nuclear-armed
states can place themselves on the edge of nuclear war by a
combination of threatening force deployments and threat rhetoric. Statements by US and North
Korea’s leaders and supporting amplification by state and private media to present just such a lethal
combination. Many observers have observed that the risk of war and nuclear war , in Korea and globally, have
increased in the last few years—although no-one can say with authority by how much and exactly for what reasons. However,
states are restrained in their actual decisions to escalate to conflict and/or nuclear war by conventional deterrence,
vital national interests, and other institutional and political restraints, both domestic and international. It is not easy, in the real world, or
even in fiction, to start nuclear wars .[19] Rhetorical threats are standard fare in realist and constructivist accounts of inter-state nuclear
deterrence, compellence, and reassurance, and are not cause for alarm per se. States will manage the risk in each of the threat relationships
with other nuclear armed states to stay back from the brink, let alone go over it, as they have in the past. This argument was powerful and to
many, persuasive during the Cold War although it does not deny the hair-raising risks taken by nuclear armed states during this period. Today,
the multi-polarity of nine nuclear weapons states interacting in a four-tiered nuclear threat system means that the practice of sustaining
nuclear threat and preparing for nuclear war is no longer merely complicated, but is now enormously complex in ways that may exceed the
capacity of some and perhaps all states to manage, even without the emergence of a fifth tier of non-state actors to add further
unpredictability to how this system works in practice. The possibility that non-state actors may attack without advance
warning as to the time, place, and angle of attack presents another layer of uncertainty to this
complexity as to how inter-state nuclear war may break out. That is, non-state actors with nuclear weapons or threat
goals and capacities do not seek the same goals, will not use the same control systems, and will use
radically different organizational procedures and systems to deliver on their threats compared with nuclear armed states. If
used tactically for immediate terrorist effect, a non-state nuclear terrorist could violently attack nuclear
facilities, exploiting any number of vulnerabilities in fuel cycle facility security, or use actual nuclear materials and even warheads against
military or civilian targets. If a persistent, strategically oriented nuclear terrorist succeed in gaining credible
nuclear threat capacities, it might take hostage one or more states or cities. If such an event coincides
with already high levels of tension and even military collisions between the non-nuclear forces of nuclear armed states, then a
non-state nuclear terrorist attack could impel a nuclear armed state to escalate its threat or even military
actions against other states, in the belief that this target ed state may have sponsored the non-state
attack, or was simply the source of the attack, whatever the declared identity of the attacking non-state entity. This
outcome could trigger these states to go onto one or more of the pathways to inadvertent nuclear
war, especially if the terrorist attack was on a high value and high risk nuclear facility or involved the seizure and/or use of fissile material.
Some experts dismiss this possibility as so remote as to be not worth worrying about. Yet the history of
nuclear terrorism globally and in the Northeast Asian region suggests otherwise. Using the sand castle metaphor,
once built on the high tide line, sand castles may withstand the wind but eventually succumb to the tide once it
reaches the castle—at least once, usually twice a day. Also, theories of organizational and technological failure point
to the coincidence of multiple, relatively insignificant driving events that interact or accumulate in ways
that lead the “metasystem” to fail, even if each individual component of a system works perfectly. Thus, the potential
catalytic effect of a nuclear terrorist incident is not that it would of itself lead to a sudden inter-state
nuclear war; but that at a time of crisis when alert levels are already high, when control systems on nuclear forces have
already shifted from primary emphasis on negative to positive control , when decision making is already
stressed, when the potential for miscalculation is already high due to shows of force indicating that first-use is nigh,
when rhetorical threats promising annihilation on the one hand, or collapse of morale and weakness on the other invite counter-vailing threats
by nuclear adversaries or their allies to gain the upper hand in the “contest of resolve,” and when organizational cybernetics may be in play
such that purposeful actions are implemented differently than intended, then
a terrorist nuclear attack may shift a
coincident combination of some or all of these factors to a threshold level where they collectively lead
to a first-use decision by one or more nuclear-armed states. If the terrorist attack is timed or happens to coincide with
high levels of inter-state tension involving nuclear-armed states, then some or all of these tendencies will likely be in play anyway—precisely
the concern of those who posit pathways to inadvertent nuclear war as outlined in section 2 above.
 Uniqueness
US will stand by Saudi Arabia now – Trump has explicitly demonstrated continued
support.
Alex Ward Updated Nov 20, 2018, 2:50pm EST Why the US won’t break up with Saudi Arabia over
Jamal Khashoggi’s murder An expert explains the seemingly everlasting history of the US-Saudi alliance.
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/18/17990546/trump-jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-history-murder

President Donald Trump will stand by Saudi Arabia despite mounting evidence that its leadership was
behind dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder last month. In a statement on Tuesday, the
president said that “the United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure
the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region.” Last week, the CIA reportedly
concluded Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of the journalist, who was a
US resident, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But Trump and members of his administration
continue to back Riyadh because they don’t want to jeopardize billions of Saudi dollars flowing into the
US economy through weapons purchases and investments. This isn’t that surprising — for decades, the
US has quietly looked away from Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses for material gain. Trump, however,
is making this subtext explicit in a way that no administration has before.

Trump’s commitment to current US policy is holding the US-Saudi relationship

together for now.
Elizabeth Allan, 6-8-2019, a first-year student at Yale Law School, MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern
Studies from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, The Yemen Resolution
and the Historical U.S.-Saudi Security Relationship, Lawfare, https://www.lawfareblog.com/yemen-
resolution-and-historical-us-saudi-security-relationship

As this history demonstrates, the

fact that Congress and the president are at odds over U.S. security policy
toward Saudi Arabia is not a new development in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. In the current dispute, Congress is
leveraging several old tools for influencing security policy—including opposition to arms sales under the AECA and restrictions on foreign
assistance—and previously unused tools, such as the War Powers Resolution.

Congress’s specific objections to the U.S.-Saudi security relationship reflect contemporary concerns over
the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Beyond Yemen, however, several structural factors complicate traditional pillars of the U.S.-Saudi
security alliance, including concerns that Saudi Arabia’s actions are undermining regional security, growing scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s
internal politics (for example, its human rights track record), and the U.S.’s increased capacity to
produce domestic oil (although Saudi Arabia remains important to global energy markets). Those in support of continuing the
relationship emphasize that, although the Saudi-U.S. partnership is far from perfect, it has strategic benefits, particularly in counterterrorism,
opposition to Iran, and maintenance of regional stability against a more chaotic alternative.

Ultimately, congressional supporters and skeptics must cooperate with the executive branch to change
U.S. security strategy, and the Trump administration has consistently indicated that it has no intention
of turning away from the U.S.-Saudi alliance. As long as this remains administration policy, Congress may
use various legislative tools to chip away at U.S. security support for the kingdom—but there is unlikely
to be a fundamental realignment in the U.S.-Saudi security relationship.
Saudi Arabia is secure in the relationship now because of Trump’s continuing arms
sales.
Sheren Khalel in Washington Published date: 10 June 2019 17:01 UTC | Last update: 3 weeks 4 days
ago How a history of US-Saudi ties turned into billion-dollar arms deals
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hold-us-saudi-relations-are-heading-major-change-experts-say

But for now, Saudi Arabia appears comfortable under the Trump administration's protection, Binder
said, citing the emergency declaration as a "perfect example" of how the president has shielded the Gulf
country from accountability. Jeff Abramson, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, a non-
partisan group focused on effective arms control policies, agreed. "Clearly the US is not buying the
influence they think they are, given Saudi [Arabia]'s behaviour in Yemen," Abramson told MEE in a
phone interview.

Trump is protecting the stability of the US-Saudi relationship now

Steven Wright Jan 8 2019 The United States and Saudi Arabia: Troubled times ahead? 2019 could
mark the beginning of a new era in US-Saudi relations shaped not by the president but Congress.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/united-states-saudi-arabia-troubled-times-
190104092436711.html

Trump sees relations with Saudi Arabia from a transactional perspective and seeks to benefit from them
in three ways: Saudi arms purchases, which he can brandish to his electorate; Saudi support for the so-
called "deal of the century", which he wants to claim as his big foreign policy achievement; and Saudi
participation in the anti-Iran axis, which helps him undo Obama's legacy. He pays little attention to the
traditional pillars of US-Saudi relations, including defence cooperation, intelligence-sharing
arrangements, and oil production. Given the fact that the US overtook Saudi Arabia as the world's
largest producer of oil, the president is well aware that Riyadh has little sway over global oil prices on its
own. The benefit he sees in maintaining good relations with Riyadh and specifically MBS have so far
provided some cover for the young crown prince amid mounting condemnation of his foreign policy
blunders. Yet this could change.

Security relationship between US and Saudi Arabia is solid now.

Christopher M. Blanchard Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs Updated September 21, 2018 Saudi
Arabia: Background and U.S. Relations https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33533.pdf

Saudi Arabia’s armed forces have relied on U.S. arms sales, training, and service support for decades.
Congress has broadly supported U.S. arms sales to the kingdom, while seeking to maintain Israel’s
qualitative military edge (QME) over potential Arab adversaries and expressing concern about the merits
or terms of individual sales cases in some instances. Some Members of Congress have at times
expressed concern about the potential for U.S. arms sales to contribute to or help drive arms races in
the Gulf region and broader Middle East and about Saudi use of U.S. origin weaponry in Yemen. At
present, congressional majorities appear to back continued sales to U.S. partners in the Gulf region,
including Saudi Arabia, as a means of improving interoperability, reducing the need for U.S.
deployments, deterring Iran, and supporting U.S. industry.
Now is a key time in the US-Saudi relationship – Congress will determine the direction.
Steven Wright Jan 8 2019 The United States and Saudi Arabia: Troubled times ahead? 2019 could
mark the beginning of a new era in US-Saudi relations shaped not by the president but Congress.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/united-states-saudi-arabia-troubled-times-
190104092436711.html

This year marks an auspicious anniversary in US foreign policy history. Fifty years ago, in 1969, US
President Richard Nixon outlined the "Nixon Doctrine" which was a new foreign policy strategy that saw
the United States place emphasis on friendly nations receiving support for assuming responsibility for
their own and their regions' security. This led to the subsequent "twin pillars" regional security strategy
in the Gulf, which established Iran and Saudi Arabia as policemen of the Gulf region to act as bulwarks of
stability, with primary emphasis being on Iran. They were to counter the regional spread of socialism
under the influence of the USSR and secure the free flow of oil from the Gulf to global markets. When, a
decade later, an Islamic revolution toppled the conservative Iranian regime, Saudi Arabia remained the
sole pillar of US strategic interest in the region and for the following four decades remained its key
regional partner. But as we approach its 50th anniversary, this special relationship started to unwind in a
dramatic manner. In 2018, concerns were steadily mounting over the role of Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in a range of controversial foreign policy missteps - from the Yemen
conflict to the blockade of neighbouring Qatar and the near-collapse of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
MBS was increasingly seen as impulsive and reckless, and his fitness for the throne is increasingly
questioned. His move to centralise power, which broke with the traditional collective decision-making
and balance of power in the House of Saud, raised concerns over the potential for internal instability
and his ability to deliver on Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia's landmark economic development programme.
After the premeditated killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul,
these concerns in Congress reached unprecedented levels. There has been bi-partisan support for taking
action against Riyadh, with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham going as far as declaring MBS guilty of
Khashoggi's murder and calling for his replacement. So, will 2019 mark the start of a new dynamic in US-
Saudi relations? The answer to this question will largely depend on the US Congress.

Trump is embracing strong US-Saudi relationship, despite tensions.

CFR, 2018 Backgrounder by CFR.org Editors Last updated December 7, 2018 U.S.-Saudi Arabia
Relations https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-saudi-arabia-relations

The Trump administration has generally embraced the new Saudi leadership. Saudi actions in 2018,
however, brought to the fore questions about U.S. support for the kingdom. Late this year, U.S.
lawmakers and human rights groups called on the administration to penalize Riyadh for the murder of
Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate. In
November, the U.S. Treasury Department levied sanctions against seventeen Saudi officials suspected of
being involved. However, President Trump dismissed proposals to cut arms sales to the kingdom and
backed bin Salman’s assertions that he did not order the killing, despite the reported conclusions of the
CIA.
 Links – Arms sales key to relations
Arms sales are integral to US-Saudi relations.
Michael Knights, a senior fellow with The Washington Institute, visited Yemen and the Gulf coalition
states four times this year to observe military operations on multiple fronts. Also available in ‫العربية‬
November 5, 2018 POLICYWATCH 3036 U.S.-Saudi Security Cooperation (Part 1): Conditioning Arms
Sales to Build Leverage https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/u.s.-saudi-security-
cooperation-part-1-conditioning-arms-sales-to-build-lev

The U.S.-Saudi strategic relationship is built on a simple premise: Washington provides physical security
for the Saudi state, while Riyadh serves as a cooperative counterterrorism partner and an apolitical,
responsive supplier to global energy markets. Arms sales are integral to this relationship: the task of
maintaining the large Saudi military binds Washington and Riyadh together, while the kingdom’s
massive purchases of U.S. armaments and related services strengthen the American defense industry
and general economy. Traditionally, the relationship was also based on the expectation that the United
States would take the lead on foreign and security policies to protect Saudi Arabia. Under the Obama
administration, however, this formula was replaced by a partner-based approach that encouraged the
kingdom to develop more forces capable of providing security on their own. Riyadh subsequently begun
to take unforeseen unilateral action on its self-perceived security interests, leading to crises such as the
brutal war in Yemen, the isolation of Qatar, the abduction of Lebanese prime minister Saad al-Hariri, and
the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. These developments have heightened the sentiment
within Congress that U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia should be reviewed—an attitude that
will likely grow stronger after the November 6 midterm elections. The push for such scrutiny will
become particularly urgent if the parties involved in the Yemen war fail to establish the lasting ceasefire
called for by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis last week.

Arms sales are critical to the US-Saudi relationship

Time, 2018 What Makes the U.S.-Saudi Relationship So Special? Weapons, Oil and 'An Army of
Lobbyists' https://time.com/5428669/saudi-arabia-military-relationship/

The 75-year alliance between the two nations has been built on a simple arrangement: American
demand for Saudi oil and Saudi demand for American firepower. It is a relationship that is not easily
unwound as a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators found out earlier this year when they moved to cut off
military assistance to the Saudis in their war against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The United Nations has said
that more half of the more than 10,000 people who have been killed in the three-year old war are
civilians, and the lives of millions are potentially at risk from famine. The U.S. government has provided
intelligence, munitions and midair refueling to Saudi warplanes since operations kicked off in 2015.
Attempts by American lawmakers to stop that aid have thus far failed. Saudi Arabia has spent at least
$5.8 million on lobbying Congress this year, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive
Politics, a government watchdog. But recently filed documents detailing expenses and reimbursements
put the actual number closer to $9 million, said Lydia Dennett, investigator with the Project on
Government Oversight. “The Kingdom has a veritable army of lobbyists and PR firms working to
promote their interests in a wide variety of ways,” she said.
Reduction in arms sales confirms Saudi’s fear of abandonment and destroys US
credibility
Yoel Guzansky fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, Tel Aviv University 2013 One Year
of the Arab Spring: Global and Regional Implications, and The Gulf States: Between Iran and the West –
Middle East Quarterly¶ Spring 2013, pp. 59-64 http://www.meforum.org/3512/saudi-arabia-pakistan-
nuclear-weapon

The United States is still Saudi Arabia's most effective security support, but if Washington distances
itself from regional matters, the gradual entrance of new players into the Gulf is inevitable.¶ The question of Saudi
acquisition of a nuclear deterrent is more relevant than ever when both enemies and friends of the United States are looking at a possible
regional drawdown on Washington's part as well as a lack of support for the pro-Western regimes that remain in place. If the U.S. government
provides Riyadh with formal security guarantees, it would be natural for it to demand that the kingdom forego its strategic goals. But
Riyadh's inclusion under a U.S. defense umbrella is not a given and depends both on the quality
of relations between the two countries and other Saudi considerations. Riyadh remain s skeptical over
Washington's willingness to come to its aid and may thus seek to purchase a nuclear deterrent , which would provide it
with more freedom vis-à-vis its stronger ally. Under present circumstances, it is not unreasonable for Riyadh to rely on other states for its
defense in addition to Washington for the simple reason that it has done so in the past. Likewise, it is more than likely that the Saudis will not
act transparently because they have acted in secret previously. ¶ After Iran, Saudi Arabia is the number one candidate
for further nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Open source evidence remains circumstantial, but perhaps more than
any other regional player, Riyadh has the requisite ideological and strategic motives as well as the financial
wherewithal to act on the option.¶ The kingdom may conclude that its security constraints as well as the
attendant prestige and influence generated by having a bomb outweigh the political and economic costs
it will pay. The difficulty in stopping Tehran's dogged quest for a nuclear capability coupled with Riyadh's
doubts about the reliability of Washington is liable to encourage Riyadh to shorten timetables for
developing an independent nuclear infrastructure, as well as to opt to purchase a turnkey nuclear
system, an off-the-shelf product, or to enter into a security compact of one sort with another power.
Sunni-majority Pakistan has emerged as the natural candidate for such an arrangement.¶ Heavy U.S.
pressure is likely to be brought to bear on the Saudis not to acquire nuclear capabilities. Indeed, it seems
that, at present, the price Riyadh is likely to pay should it acquire military nuclear capabilities might
outweigh the advantages of such a move. But strategic interest, motivated by considerations of survival, could
have the upper hand. Should it seem that the kingdom's vital security interests are threatened, it
may prefer to take a series of steps, including obtaining a nonconventional arsenal, to reduce risks and
ensure the continuity of the House of Saud.

Arms transfers now are assuring Saudi Arabia.

Andrea Shalal journalist from Reuters 2018 “Lockheed lauds U.S. arms sales push, sees foreign sales
rising”, Reuters, April 24th, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-airshow-
lockheed/lockheed-lauds-u-s-arms-sales-push-sees-foreign-sales-rising-idUSKBN1HV2RA Top U.S. weapons maker
Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) welcomed a push by U.S. President Donald Trump to speed up approvals of arms sales,

saying it would reassure allies who had been frustrated by bureaucratic delays in the past. The Trump
administration last week rolled out an overhaul of U.S. arms export policy aimed at expanding sales to
allies, saying it would bolster the American defense industry and create jobs at home. Rick Edwards, executive vice
president of Lockheed Martin International, told Reuters the initiative should help speed up progress on foreign weapons sales that have already helped fuel his
company’s growth in recent years. “It will reassure some of our allies that we’re going to move the process faster ,” he
said in an interview on the eve of the ILA Berlin Air Show. “ They get frustrated with how long it takes to get through all the
wickets.”

Arms sales key to assurances and Middle East power projection

Arnett 16 USAF Major Rob Arnett, former Foreign Policy Advisor Fellow at the State Department.
Thesis for the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base. June
2016. “The Role of Ethics in International Arms Transfers”
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1030402.pdf

The United States approved the Saudi Arabian F-15 SA sale in order to modernize the Saudi Royal Air
Force, demonstrate the strength of the bilateral security relationship, and increase regional burden
sharing through interoperability. Like Pakistan in the previous chapter, Saudi Arabia already operated a
fleet of older model F-15 fighter aircraft. Thus, the sale would augment and improve existing Saudi
fighter aircraft capability. Due to regional instability caused by Iraq and Iran, the United States assessed
that modernizing the Saudi Royal Air Force was a legitimate security need.

The United States also agreed to the sale to demonstrate its commitment to Saudi Arabia as a security
partner in the Middle East. Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro stated, “This sale will send a
strong message to countries in the region that the United States is committed to stability in the Gulf and
broader Middle East.”18 Reading between the lines, the sale was an overt signal to let Iranian political
leadership know the United States supported Saudi Arabia in the regional power struggle. The decision
to approve the sale reassured other Arab states in the Gulf and opened the door for wider defense
cooperation opportunities with the United States.

Finally, the United States approved the sale in hopes of improving interoperability with the Saudi Royal
Air Force to enable regional burden sharing. Simply put, the USAF was overextended in the Middle East
and in need of capable partners to help secure the region. Improving the Saudi air force was a way for
America to reduce the strain on the USAF and share the burden of maintaining regional security.

Arm sales key to US-Saudi relations.

Thrall & Dorminey 2018 March 2018, “Risky Business: The Role of Arms Sales in U.S. Foreign Policy”
Cato Institute. www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-sales-us-foreign-
policy

Few tools have been used in pursuit of so many foreign policy objectives as arms sales. The United
States has sold weapons to its NATO allies to ensure their ability to defend Western Europe; to friendly
governments around the world facing insurgencies and organized crime; to allies in the Pacific (buffering
them against China’s rising military power); and to both Israel and many of its Arab neighbors in efforts
to maintain regional stability and influence over Middle Eastern affairs. The United States has used arms
sales, as well as the threat of denying arms, in efforts to influence human rights policies, to help end
conflicts, to gain access to military bases, and to encourage fair elections. Since 9/11, the new central
focus of U.S. weapons sales has been to bolster the global war on terror.36 Despite their many uses,
arms sales impact foreign affairs through two basic mechanisms. The first involves using arms sales to
shift the balance of power and capabilities between the recipient and its neighbors, thereby helping
allies win wars or deter adversaries, promote local and regional stability, or buttress friendly
governments against insurgencies and other internal challenges.37 During the Cold War, American arms
sales became part of a broader strategy to deter the Soviet Union from invading Western Europe. In the
wake of the 9/11 attacks, the United States sold weapons to Afghanistan and Iraq to bolster their ability
to defeat the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the Islamic State. By selling advanced weaponry to Taiwan, Japan,
South Korea, and Australia, the United States hoped to balance rising Chinese power and promote
regional stability. Although the specific objectives differ, at root the causal mechanism is the same: using
arms sales to shift the balance of power in a direction more favorable to American interests.38 The
second mechanism involves using arms sales to generate leverage over the conduct of other nations. As
the producer of the world’s most advanced and sought-after weaponry, the United States can dictate, at
least to some degree, the conditions under which it will agree to sell certain weapons. 39 As Andrew
Shapiro puts it, “When a country acquires an advanced U.S. defense system, they are not simply buying
a product to enhance their security, they are also seeking a relationship with the United States… This
engagement helps build bilateral ties and creates strong incentives for recipient countries to maintain
good relations with the United States.”
 A2 – Relations are resilient
Now is a new time in US-Saudi relationship; and it could break despite past resilience.
John Hannah is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, focusing on U.S.
strategy. Trump Should Salvage U.S.-Saudi Relations Like it or not, Washington’s ties with Riyadh still
matter. MARCH 27, 2019, 1:41 PM https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/27/trump-should-salvage-u-s-
saudi-relations/

It’s true that there’s a lot of ruin in U.S.-Saudi ties. The relationship has endured oil boycotts, the 9/11
attacks (15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals), and more than 70 years of constant clashing of
cultures and values. The national interests that have bound Washington and Riyadh together through
the decades, despite their deep differences, remain formidable. But real changes are now afoot in the
underlying dynamics of the relationship. They should at minimum give pause to anyone who blithely
assumes that there’s no amount of public derision that the United States could heap on the kingdom
that might put the broader U.S.-Saudi partnership at risk, and the Trump administration should take
notice.

Relations are in flux and on shaky ground; plan could collapse resilience.
John Hannah is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, focusing on U.S.
strategy. Trump Should Salvage U.S.-Saudi Relations Like it or not, Washington’s ties with Riyadh still
matter. MARCH 27, 2019, 1:41 PM https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/27/trump-should-salvage-u-s-
saudi-relations/

The only point being that the decades-old assumptions that have governed the U.S.-Saudi relationship,
while largely still valid, may be on increasingly shaky ground. Before the Senate passed a resolution
earlier this month to end all U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut
confidently reassured his colleagues, “The Saudis won’t go somewhere else.” The suggestion that they
might turn to another great power for weapons, he claimed, “is belied by how this alliance has worked
for years and the complication of the Saudis turning around and choosing to go to another partner.”
While I’d still bet that Murphy is more right than wrong on this issue, if only due to the immediacy of the
Iranian threat for Riyadh, I increasingly lack his sense of certitude. Saudi Arabia, U.S. foreign policy, and
the global balance of power are all now in flux in ways that are quite unprecedented.
 I/L – US-Saudi relations key to counter-terror
US-Saudi relations key to fight terrorism.
Arab News 9/20/18, "US highlights Saudi Arabia’s key role in global fight against terrorism",
www.arabnews.com/node/1374946/saudi-arabia

The US State Department has praised Saudi Arabia for its efforts to combat terrorism , describing the
Kingdom as an active and key member in the global coalition to defeat Daesh. “Saudi Arabia has
continued to maintain a strong anti-terrorism relationship with the United States and has supported the
strengthening of bilateral cooperation between the two countries ,” the State Department noted in its
annual report on the global state of terrorism. It also highlighted the joint strategic vision between the
two countries and a number of new initiatives to counter terrorist messages and disrupt the financing
of terrorism launched last year during US president Donald-Trump’s visit to the Kingdom. The report
said Saudi Arabia has implemented systems to follow UN Security Council sanctions on groups and
individuals linked to Daesh and Al Qaeda, and has expanded existing counterterrorism programs and
projects to rehabilitate terrorist fighters who leave extremist groups. It has also adopted laws to
counter the financing of terrorist groups. The State Department pointed out that the Kingdom has
achieved a high level of accuracy in its counterterrorism operations, and has carried out a number of
arrests and disrupted active terrorist cells throughout the country. The report referred to terrorist plans
that were thwarted in the Kingdom, noting the efforts being made in legislation, law enforcement and
border security, as well as the country’s positive contribution as a member of the Financial Action Task
Force for the Middle East and North Africa, a regional body that imposes financial sanctions on
individuals and groups that help to fund terrorism. "The Kingdom has maintained strict control over the
banking sector and tightened sanctions on the financing of terrorism," the report said. It also pointed
out that the Kingdom provided 100 million euros ($117 million) to fight terrorism in the Sahel countries
in Africa, as the Kingdom is a founding member of the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum.

Strong US-Saudi cooperation is most effective at countering terror

Daniel L. Byman Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy 20 16 "The U.S.-Saudi
Arabia counterterrorism relationship," Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/the-u-s-
saudi-arabia-counterterrorism-relationship/

I argue that Saudi Arabia has made considerable progress on counterterrorism in the last 15 years but
still has a long way to go. Before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and really until Al Qaeda
began to attack the Kingdom directly in May 2003, Saudi Arabia was often uncooperative on
counterterrorism and more part of the problem than part of the solution. Since 2003, the Saudi regime
has emerged as a vital counterterrorism partner, and several important successes against Al Qaeda in
particular are due in large part to Saudi cooperation. Complicating this picture, however, is that much
of Saudi ‘support’ for terrorism involves actors outside the Saudi government: the regime has at times
supported, at times deliberately ignored, and at still other times cracked down on these actors. Some of
these figures are important for regime legitimacy, and it is difficult for the regime to openly oppose
them. As a result, the Saudi Kingdom still spews out material that is anti-Semitic, sectarian, glorifies
several conflicts in which jihadists play an active role, and otherwise contributes to a climate of
radicalization. Washington’s ability to influence the Kingdom is limited, however, given the Saudi
domestic sensitivities of these issues. In the end, policymakers would do well to remember that Saudi
Arabia is a key partner but not a friend: the United States and Saudi Arabia share many common
interests, but they do not share common values or a common worldview.

US-Saudi cooperation is key to counter-terrorism.

VOA News, US, Saudi Arabia Have Leverage on Each Other; Using It Has Costs October 16, 2018 09:33
PM https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-saudi-arabia-have-leverage-each-other-using-it-has-costs

U.S. officials now regard Saudi cooperation on counter-terrorism as invaluable given the human
intelligence Saudi operatives provide by exploiting an unrivaled network of tribal and family connections
to infiltrate militant strongholds. Tipoffs from Riyadh helped foil a planned suicide bomb attack on a
plane over Detroit in 2009 and revealed a bomb disguised as a printer cartridge loaded in Dubai onto a
plane bound for Chicago in October 2010. Because such cooperation is in both nations’ interest, it is
unlikely Washington would jeopardize it by an unduly harsh reaction to Khashoggi’s disappearance.
 Extension – Nuclear terrorism impacts
Nuclear terrorism is high risk – causes nuclear war and turns all impacts
Irma Arguello and Emiliano J. Buis, 2018, Arguello is founder and chair of the NPSGlobal Foundation,
and head of the secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean Leadership Network. She holds a
degree in physics, a Master’s in business administration, and completed graduate studies in defense and
security. Arguello previously worked on nuclear projects for the Argentine National Atomic Energy
Commission. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Fissile Materials Working Group, and a
Chatham House Associate Fellow. Since 2010, she has participated in all the official non-governmental
events at the Nuclear Security Summits. Buis is a lawyer specializing in international law. He holds a PhD
from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), a Master’s in Human and Social Sciences from the University
of Paris/Panthéon-Sorbonne, and a postgraduate diploma in national defense from the National Defense
School. Currently he is a professor in international law at UBA, and co-director of the UNICEN Center for
Human Rights in Azul. He is also a researcher and professor at the NPSGlobal Foundation. “The global
impacts of a terrorist nuclear attack: What would happen? What should we do?” Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists. [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2018.1436812?
scroll=top&needAccess=true]/mnw

Though hard to accept, the detonation of a nuclear device – by states or non-state actors – is today a
plausible scenario. And while much of the world’s focus has been on the current nuclear weapons arsenals possessed by states – about
14,550 warheads, all of which carry the risk of intentional or unintentional use – the threat of nuclear terrorism is here and
increasing. For more than a decade, Al Qaeda, Aum Shinrikyo, and other terrorist groups have expressed
their desire to acquire fissile material to build and detonate an improvised nuclear bomb. None of them
could fulfill that goal – so far. But that does not mean that they will not succeed in the future. Making
matters worse, there is evidence of an illicit market for nuclear weapons-usable materials. There are sellers in
search of potential buyers, as shown by the dismantlement of a nuclear smuggling network in Moldova in 2015. There certainly are
plenty of sites from which to obtain nuclear material. According to the 2016 Nuclear Security Index by the Nuclear Threat
Initiative, 24 countries still host inventories of nuclear weapons-usable materials, stored in facilities with
different degrees of security . And in terms of risk, it is not necessary for a given country to possess nuclear weapons, weapons-usable
materials, or nuclear facilities for it to be useful to nuclear terrorists: Structural and institutional weaknesses in a country may make it favorable
for the illicit trade of materials. Permeable boundaries, high levels of corruption, weaknesses in judicial systems, and consequent impunity may
give rise to a series of transactions and other events, which could end in a nuclear attack. The
truth is that, at this stage, no
country in possession of nuclear weapons or weapons-usable materials can guarantee their full
protection against nuclear terrorism or nuclear smuggling. Because we live in a world of growing insecurity, where explicit
and tacit agreements between the relevant powers – which upheld global stability during the postCold War – are giving way to increasing
mistrust and hostility, a question arises: How would our lives be affected if a current terrorist group such as the Islamic State (ISIS), or new
terrorist groups in the future, succeed in evolving from today’s Manchester style “low-tech” attacks to a “high-tech” one, involving a nuclear
bomb, detonated in a capital city, anywhere in the world? We attempted to answer this question in a report developed by a high-level
multidisciplinary expert group convened by the NPSGlobal Foundation for the Latin American and Caribbean Leadership Network. We found
that there would be multiple harmful effects that would spread promptly around the globe (Arguello and Buis 2016); a more detailed analysis is
below, which highlights the need for the creation of a comprehensive nuclear security system. The
consequences of a terrorist
nuclear attack A small and primitive 1-kiloton fission bomb (with a yield of about one-fifteenth of the one dropped on
Hiroshima, and certainly much less sophisticated; cf. Figure 1), detonated in any large capital city of the developed world,
would cause an unprecedented catastrophic scenario. An estimate of direct effects in the attack’s
location includes a death toll of 7,300-to-23,000 people and 12,600-to-57,000 people injured, depending
on the target’s geography and population density. Total physical destruction of the city’s infrastructure, due to the blast
(shock wave) and thermal radiation, would cover a radius of about 500 meters from the point of detonation (also known as ground zero), while
ionizing radiation greater than 5 Sieverts – compatible with the deadly acute radiation syndrome – would expand within an 850-meter radius.
From the environmental point of view, such an area would be unusable for years. In addition, radioactive fallout would expand in an area of
about 300 square kilometers, depending on meteorological conditions (cf. Figure 2). But
the consequences would go far beyond
the effects in the target country, however, and promptly propagate worldwide. Global and national
security, economy and finance, international governance and its framework, national political systems,
and the behavior of governments and individuals would all be put under severe trial. The severity of the effects
at a national level, however, would depend on the countries’ level of development, geopolitical location, and resilience. Global security and
regional/national defense schemes would be strongly affected. An
increase in global distrust would spark rising tensions
among countries and blocs, that could even lead to the brink of nuclear weapons use by states (if, for
instance, a sponsor country is identified). The consequences of such a shocking scenario would include a decrease
in states’ self-control, an escalation of present conflicts and the emergence of new ones, accompanied
by an increase in military unilateralism and military expenditures. Regarding the economic and financial
impacts, a severe global economic depression would rise from the attack, likely lasting for years. Its
duration would be strongly dependent on the course of the crisis. The main results of such a crisis would include a 2 percent fall of growth in
global Gross Domestic Product, and a 4 percent decline of international trade in the two years following the attack (cf. Figure 3). In the case of
developing and less-developed countries, the economic impacts would also include a shortage of high-technology products such as medicines,
as well as a fall in foreign direct investment and a severe decline of international humanitarian aid toward low-income countries. We
expect
an increase of unemployment and poverty in all countries. Global poverty would raise about 4 percent
after the attack, which implies that at least 30 million more people would be living in extreme poverty, in
addition to the current estimated 767 million. In the area of international relations, we would expect a breakdown of key doctrines involving
politics, security, and relations among states. These
international tensions could lead to a collapse of the nuclear
order as we know it today, with a consequent setback of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation
commitments. In other words, the whole system based on the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty would be put under severe trial. After the
attack, there would be a reassessment of existing security doctrines, and a deep review of concepts such as nuclear deterrence, no-firstuse,
proportionality, and negative security assurances. Finally,
the behavior of governments and individuals would also
change radically. Internal chaos fueled by the media and social networks would threaten governance at
all levels, with greater impact on those countries with weak institutional frameworks. Social turbulence would
emerge in most countries, with consequent attempts by governments to impose restrictions on personal freedoms to preserve order – possibly
by declaring a state of siege or state of emergency – and legislation would surely become tougher on human rights. There would also be a
significant increase in social fragmentation – with a deepening of antagonistic views, mistrust, and intolerance, both within countries and
towards others – and a resurgence of large-scale social movements fostered by ideological interests and easily mobilized through social media.
Prevention, preparedness, response Given the severity of the impacts, no country in possession of nuclear weapons or weapons-usable
materials can guarantee its full protection against nuclear terrorism or nuclear smuggling for proliferation purposes. Nor is it realistic to
conceive of full compensation to others in the international community, if a catastrophic event happens because of any country’s acts or
omissions. Therefore, we consider that prevention is the only acceptable way forward to preserve global
stability. Consequently, it is essential for countries to make every effort to prevent nuclear terrorists from fulfilling their goals. It is true that
the “primitivism” of currently active terrorist organizations gives a certain space to do what is necessary to enhance the current nuclear security
effort concerning prevention and response. However,
the perception of the “low likeliness” of a nuclear terrorist
attack neutralizes the required sense of urgency in decision-making. Being in fact a “high-risk” scenario ,
it is imperative that governments consider this reality when setting priorities and making decisions
about nuclear security.

Even conventional terror triggers nuclear retaliation

Elizabeth Borgwardt, 3-31-2016, a history professor at Washington University "9/11: What Would
Trump Do? " POLITICO Magazine. Accessed 6-1-2019
[https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/donald-trump-2016-terrorist-attack-foreign-policy-
213784]/mnw
“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.

Nuclear terror causes retaliation – extinction

Ayson 10 - Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand
at the Victoria University of Wellington (Robert, July. “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging
Catalytic Effects.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 33, Issue 7. InformaWorld.)

But these two nuclear worlds—a non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear
exchange—are not necessarily separable. It is just possible that some sort of terrorist attack, and
especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of events leading to a massive exchange
of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states that possess them. In this context, today’s and
tomorrow’s terrorist groups might assume the place allotted during the early Cold War years to new
state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who were seen as raising the risks of a catalytic nuclear war
between the superpowers started by third parties. These risks were considered in the late 1950s and
early 1960s as concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a
considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially plausible situation where an act of nuclear
terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist
nuclear attack on the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could
plausibly be brought into the picture, not least because they seem unlikely to be fingered as the most
obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too responsible to be
involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well.
Some possibilities, however remote, do suggest themselves. For example, how might the United States
react if it was thought or discovered that the fissile material used in the act of nuclear terrorism had
come from Russian stocks,40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear
laxity? The correct attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be a case of
science fiction given the observation by Michael May et al. that while the debris resulting from a nuclear
explosion would be “spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity makes it detectable,
identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of information can be obtained from its analysis: the efficiency
of the explosion, the materials used and, most important … some indication of where the nuclear
material came from.”41 Alternatively, if the act of nuclear terrorism came as a complete surprise, and
American officials refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at all)
suspicion would shift immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United
Kingdom and France, and probably Israel and India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with
a very short list consisting of North Korea, perhaps Iran if its program continues, and possibly Pakistan.
But at what stage would Russia and China be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game of nuclear
Cluedo? In particular, if the act of nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in
Washington’s relations with Russia and/or China, and at a time when threats had already been traded
between these major powers, would officials and political leaders not be tempted to assume the worst?
Of course, the chances of this occurring would only seem to increase if the United States was already
involved in some sort of limited armed conflict with Russia and/or China, or if they were confronting
each other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the present
time. The reverse might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in Russia or China during a
period of heightened tension or even limited conflict with the United States, could Moscow and Beijing
resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a possible perpetrator
or encourager of the attack? Washington’s early response to a terrorist nuclear attack on its own soil
might also raise the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear aided) confrontation with Russia and/or
China. For example, in the noise and confusion during the immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear
attack, the U.S. president might be expected to place the country’s armed forces, including its nuclear
arsenal, on a higher stage of alert. In such a tense environment, when careful planning runs up against
the friction of reality, it is just possible that Moscow and/or China might mistakenly read this as a sign of
U.S. intentions to use force (and possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation, the temptations
to preempt such actions might grow, although it must be admitted that any preemption would probably
still meet with a devastating response. As part of its initial response to the act of nuclear terrorism (as
discussed earlier) Washington might decide to order a significant conventional (or nuclear) retaliatory or
disarming attack against the leadership of the terrorist group and/or states seen to support that group.
Depending on the identity and especially the location of these targets, Russia and/or China might
interpret such action as being far too close for their comfort, and potentially as an infringement on their
spheres of influence and even on their sovereignty. One far-fetched but perhaps not impossible scenario
might stem from a judgment in Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the terrorist
action resided somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in connection with what Allison claims is the
“Chechen insurgents’ … long-standing interest in all things nuclear.”42 American pressure on that part of
the world would almost certainly raise alarms in Moscow that might require a degree of advanced
consultation from Washington that the latter found itself unable or unwilling to provide.  There is also
the question of how other nuclear-armed states respond to the act of nuclear terrorism on another
member of that special club. It could reasonably be expected that following a nuclear terrorist attack on
the United States, bothRussia and China would extend immediate sympathy and support to Washington
and would work alongside the United States in the Security Council. But there is just a chance, albeit a
slim one, where the support of Russia and/or China is less automatic in some cases than in others. For
example, what would happen if the United States wished to discuss its right to retaliate against groups
based in their territory? If, for some reason, Washington found the responses of Russia and China deeply
underwhelming, (neither “for us or against us”) might it also suspect that they secretly were in cahoots
with the group, increasing (again perhaps ever so slightly) the chances of a major exchange. If the
terrorist group had some connections to groups in Russia and China, or existed in areas of the world
over which Russia and China held sway, and if Washington felt that Moscow or Beijing were placing a
curiously modest level of pressure on them, what conclusions might it then draw about their culpability
 Impact Module – Saudi Proliferation
The plan undermines US assurances to Saudi Arabia ― causes proliferation
Jerome Kahan Director of Regional Studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, member of the Council on
Foreign Relations and the International Institute of Strategic Studies 2016, Security Assurances for the
Gulf States: A Bearable Burden?”, Middle East Policy, Volume 23, Number 3, Fall 2016,

The uncertain and dangerous environment in the Middle East demands that the GCC states remain
convinced that the United States will indeed stand behind our security assurances, including our
extended-deterrence and nuclear-umbrella guarantees. We should recognize that “in today’s
international environment ‘deterrence’ should mean convincing the adversary not to attack because he
will calculate that any such attempt would likely fail to achieve its political or military objectives and
therefore not be worth the investment or the risk.”35At the same time, we must accept that it is very
demanding to reassure our Gulf allies we will honor our extended deterrence commitment — by being
both willing and able to come to their aid if they are threatened — whereas even a small chance of U.S.
intervention would tend to have the effect of deterring adversarial actions.36 This proposition is
especially apt if we have to reassure these states that our “nuclear umbrella” will safeguard their
security by deterring potential nuclear-armed adversaries, thus obviating their need to acquire such
weapons.37 Special attention should be paid to ensuring the Saudis trust this assurance and do not
move to acquire their own nuclear weapons, even if Iran becomes nuclear-armed. To make our
assurance more credible, we should reaffirm our nuclear guarantee to Gulf-state leaders in future high-
level summits, hold institutionalized exchanges on deterrence and refrain from major reductions in our
nuclear forces that might be seen as making our commitment less viable.38 Additionally, the United
States should assure the Gulf allies that we will not allow our nuclear forces to be lowered to levels that
cannot support our nuclear assurances, nor adopt a nuclear no-first-use policy.

Saudi proliferation causes escalation and war

Eric Edelman et al. 2011 ― Eric Edelman, Roger Hertog Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at
the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies; Andrew Krepinevich, president and chief operating officer
of Solarium LLC, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; Evan Braden,
Senior Fellow and the Director of Research and Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments, 2011. “The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran”, Foreign Affairs, January 2011, Available Online at:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/persian-gulf/2011-01-01/dangers-nuclear-iran There are still
rumors that Riyadh and Islamabad have had discussions involving nuclear weapons , nuclear technology, or security
guarantees. This “Islamabad option” could develop in one of several different ways. Pakistan could sell operational nuclear weapons

and delivery systems to Saudi Arabia, or it could provide the Saudis with the infrastructure, material, and
technical support they need to produce nuclear weapons themselves within a matter of years, as opposed to a decade or
longer. Not only has Pakistan provided such support in the past, but it is currently building two more heavy-water reactors for plutonium production and a second
chemical reprocessing facility to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. In other words, it might accumulate more fissile material than it needs to maintain even
a substantially expanded arsenal of its own. Alternatively, Pakistan might offer an extended deterrent guarantee to Saudi Arabia and deploy nuclear weapons,
delivery systems, and troops on Saudi territory, a practice that the United States has employed for decades with its allies. This arrangement could be particularly
appealing to both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It would allow the Saudis to argue that they are not violating the NPT since they would not be acquiring their own
nuclear weapons. And an extended deterrent from Pakistan might be preferable to one from the United States because stationing foreign Muslim forces on Saudi
territory would not trigger the kind of popular opposition that would accompany the deployment of U.S. troops. Pakistan, for its part, would gain financial benefits
and international clout by deploying nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia, as well as strategic depth against its chief rival, India. The Islamabad option raises a host of
difficult issues, perhaps the most worrisome being how India would respond. Would it target Pakistan’s weapons in Saudi Arabia with its own conventional or
nuclear weapons? How would this expanded nuclear competition influence stability during a crisis in either the Middle East or South Asia? Regardless of India’s
reaction, any decision by the Saudi government to seek out nuclear weapons, by whatever means, would
be highly destabilizing. It would increase the incentives of other nations in the Middle East to pursue
nuclear weapons of their own. And it could increase their ability to do so by eroding the remaining barriers to nuclear proliferation: each
additional state that acquires nuclear weapons weakens the nonproliferation regime, even if its particular method of acquisition only circumvents, rather than
violates, the NPT. n-player competition Were Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear weapons, the Middle East would count three
nuclear-armed states, and perhaps more before long. It is unclear how such an n-player competition would unfold because most analyses of nuclear deterrence are
be more
based on the U.S.- Soviet rivalry during the Cold War. It seems likely, however, that the interaction among three or more nuclear-armed powers would

prone to miscalculation and escalation than a bipolar competition. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union only needed
to concern themselves with an attack from the other. Multi- polar systems are generally considered to be less stable than

bipolar systems because coalitions can shift quickly, upsetting the balance of power and creating
incentives for an attack. More important, emerging nuclear powers in the Middle East might not take
the costly steps necessary to preserve regional stability and avoid a nuclear exchange. For nuclear-armed states,
the bedrock of deterrence is the knowledge that each side has a secure second-strike capability, so that no state can launch an attack with the expectation that it
can wipe out its opponents’ forces and avoid a devastating retaliation. However, emerging
nuclear powers might not invest in
expensive but survivable capabilities such as hardened missile silos or submarine- based nuclear forces.
Given this likely vulnerability, the close proximity of states in the Middle East, and the very short flight
times of ballistic missiles in the region, any new nuclear powers might be compelled to “launch on
warning” of an attack or even, during a crisis, to use their nuclear forces preemptively. Their governments might
also delegate launch authority to lower-level commanders, heightening the possibility of miscalculation and escalation. Moreover, if early warning systems were not
integrated into robust command-and-control systems, the risk of an unauthorized or accidental launch would increase further still. And without sophisticated early
warning systems, a nuclear attack might be unattributable or attributed incorrectly. That is, assuming that the leadership of a targeted state survived a first strike, it
might not be able to accurately determine which nation was responsible. And this
uncertainty, when combined with the pressure to
respond quickly, would create a significant risk that it would retaliate against the wrong party,
potentially triggering a regional nuclear war.

Results in global nuclear proliferation and extinction

John Bolton and Edward Markey 2012"How an Obama shift helps unstable regimes get nuclear
weapons," http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0210/How-an-Obama-shift-helps-
unstable-regimes-get-nuclear-weapons)

In 2009, in a burst of nonproliferation enthusiasm, the Obama administration insisted that a

nuclear cooperation agreement with
the United Arab Emirates, signed by the Bush administration, be reopened to include a legally binding commitment by
the UAE not to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium and to open its nuclear sites to intrusive international inspections.
The State Department trumpeted this new set of conditions as the “gold standard” for future agreements . But
the Obama administration is now poised to send this “gold standard” to the trash heap. On Jan. 11, senior Obama administration officials
informed lawmakers that instead of requiring the highest nonproliferation standards from every future nuclear trade partner, they would
impose no standard, undertaking instead a “case-by-case” approach. This may expedite the profitability of such agreements for the nuclear
industry, but will do so at the expense of US and world security. The nuclear industry bizarrely argues that relaxing nonproliferation standards
would actually advance US nonproliferation policy because more deals would provide new opportunities for the US to influence nuclear
decision-making in partner countries. But this assertion ignores the fact that any decision to clandestinely acquire nuclear weapons will
certainly not be taken in consultation with the US. Instead,
the far more likely result of jettisoning the “gold standard”
will be throwing open the doors to the spread of nuclear weapons. America will likely soon find itself in the
inadvertent business of helping a multitude of countries pursue their deadly nuclear ambitions. Equally troubling, the Obama administration
appears to have no red lines on who would qualify for that “help.” It is already actively engaged in nuclear trade talks with South Korea,
Vietnam, and Jordan. South Korea is demanding that we allow it to make nuclear fuel in its new trade agreement. Not surprisingly, Jordan is
complaining that if the US allows South Korea make nuclear fuels, it would be unfair not to allow Jordan to do so as well. Meanwhile, if
Washington does not require Jordan to meet the same nonproliferation conditions of the UAE deal, the UAE has a legal right under the terms of
its agreement to drop these key nonproliferation provisions. It’s
a nuclear house of cards, set to collapse at the first
rumble from one of these nations. And of course, the whole world is watching, including Saudi Arabia, which is loathe
to see Iran’s nuclear program mature further without acquiring the same capabilities. Iran’s belligerent threats to shut the Strait of Hormuz in
response to global sanctions aimed at thwarting its reported bid to acquire nuclear weapons demonstrates what happens when a “peaceful”
nuclear program turns out to be not so peaceful. Under the outdated legislation governing nuclear agreements, there is little that Congress can
currently do to reject or modify even the most egregious deals made the White House. It is a strange approach indeed to national security to
require Congressional approval for agreements involving cars, yarn, and peaches but not for those concerning nuclear matters. There is an easy
fix: Bipartisan legislation by Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) of Florida and Howard Berman (D) of California makes reasonable
modifications to current law to give Congress more power to reject nuclear cooperation agreements that don’t include the UAE’s “gold
standard” commitments. If a country agrees to the gold standard, the existing expedited process for Congressional approval remains in place.
But if a country decides to retain the options of enrichment and reprocessing, the agreement must first be approved by Congress. It is alarming
that precisely when the global nonproliferation regime is breaking down , and as North Korea, Iran, and Syria set a model for
other regimes dreaming of their own nuclear weapons, the Obama administration would further undermine the already weak, eroding
restraints on the spread of these instruments of unparalleled terror and destruction . The money to be made
from surrendering America and the world to the ambitions of nuclear-armed regimes will be long
forgotten when the tragic consequences of these deals become a reality.
 Extension – Saudi Proliferation
US security commitments are the critical factor in determining the transition from a
civilian to a military nuclear program
Yoel Guzansky 2015, senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, “Could the
Iran Deal Drive Saudi Arabia to Go Nuclear?” http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.667189

Once these hurdles have been passed, thesuccessful pursuit of a civilian program will itself achieve a number of aims. It will,
for example, provide the Kingdom with the desired prestige that accompanies such technological achievement and will place
it on par (in respect to the UAE) or ahead of not just Iran, but the rest of its Arab neighbors in the ‘competition’ for a nuclear program.
Although these factors have been addressed in connection to a militarized program, a triumphant civilian nuclear program can serve a similar
purpose. It would also satisfy Saudi Arabia's economic goals, specifically those connected to the increased production of electricity and the
desire to reduce reliance on oil as its primary energy source.

This leaves the security concern as the primary factor that could motivate Saudi Arabia to pursue a
military program. Even in this regard, and despite the rhetoric expressed by Saudi officials, there are a number of conditions
that may prevent it, even under increasingly threatening circumstances and even if Riyadh ultimately developed a sufficient amount of
technological know-how. The first is the pressure that the United States will certainly exert to prevent Saudi Arabia from
acquiring a nuclear capability, even after the United States and Iran conclude a final agreement. At this point, the Kingdom would likely have to
choose between pursuing its own underdeveloped deterrence strategy or utilizing the U.S. security guarantee. In addition, Saudi Arabia is a
signatory to the NPT and subject to the norms that accompany its membership in the international community. Although it has certainly
engaged in covert behavior in the past—the aforementioned acquisition of the Chinese missiles is probably the best example—its behavior
generally does not suggest any interest in blatantly defying international treaties or inviting sanctions, whether they be political or economic.

However, particularly if
Saudi Arabia determines that the U.S. security umbrella is questionable, there is no
guarantee that it will refrain from pursuing its own nuclear weapons program should Iran successfully acquire
nuclear weapons capability, thereby altering the regional balance of power.46 The fact is that, if the Saudi leadership perceives
that its essential security interests are threatened and its stability endangered, it may decide that prompt action
is the best possible course to minimize risks and ensure the continuity of its rule. A U.S. Congressional report on this topic
points out that the Kingdom “will not hesitate to aggressively bypass or risk alienating the United States in order
to protect Saudi interests.”47 Considering its current lack of technological knowledge, this has the potential to turn Saudi Arabia into
the first state in the nuclear club to acquire nuclear capability rather than develop it.

Saudi prolif spills over – goes global, goes global and collapses US credibility
Richard Russell 2005 Weapons Proliferation and War in the Greater Middle East: Strategic Contest, p.
118
The easing of a Saudi nuclear weapons program’s opacity could occur gradually over time – after it is
firmly established and protected from potential preventive or preemptive strikes – behind the scenes in
diplomatic exchanges and in subtle public references. The Saudis would want to plant in the minds of
potential rivals the suggestion that Riyadh is not to be diplomatically and militarily intimidated or
coerced. Recent leaks to the media of unconfirmed reports of Saudi-Pakistani nuclear cooperation, in
fact, work toward this end. A Saudi nuclear deterrent could more blatantly be revealed in the midst of a
future Gulf military crisis, perhaps one involving military posturing by Iran against the Gulf states. Eithier
way, public awareness of a Saudi nuclear deterrent will put the West, and particularly the United States,
in an awkward position. The United States would lose some prestige in light of a security partner
choosing a policy course in direct opposition to the American policy to contain and stem the
international proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Washington in the
aftermath of revelations of a Saudi nuclear deterrent would be under strong domestic and international
pressure to take measures to show its displeasure with Riyadh. The United States, however, must avoid
steps that would completely rupture American-Saudi security ties: both Washington and Riyadh share
the grand strategic interest of seeing that no one power ever grows to dominate the Gulf. The United
States needs to recognize that Saudi Arabia will continue to be a major player in the regional
competition for power in the greater Middle East region. More broadly, the recognition of a Saudi
nuclear deterrent would be a major blow against international proliferation regimes. The global
community would be forced to see that despite the best of intentions and efforts, the “nuclear genie”
will not be put back into its bottle The West and the United States will have to face the fact that
weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles will be an ever-present reality of the post-11
September world. Despite the arguments from some quarters that the proliferation of nuclear weapons
will enhance international security by bolstering deterrence and lessening the chances for inter-state
war, prudent statecraft would assume that deterrence in practice is unlikely to be as effective as
envisioned in theory.
 A2 Saudi Arabia can’t proliferate
Pakistan gives nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia
Sarah Burkhard researcher at the Institute for Science and International Security, et.al. 2017 Erica
Wenig, researcher at the Washington Institute, David Albright, founder of the Institute for Science and
International Security “Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Ambitions and Proliferation Risks”, Institute for Science
and International Security, March 30th, 2017, Available Online at: https://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-
reports/documents/SaudiArabiaProliferationRisks_30Mar2017_Final.pdf
Allegations about Saudi Arabia’s past and possibly on-going nuclear relationship with Pakistan arose many times during our review of open sources. Experts and
media reports frequently noted that Saudi
Arabia’s route to nuclear weapons may be via Pakistan . For years, there has been
speculation that Pakistan
would sell or otherwise make available to the Kingdom nuclear weapons in a time
of need.165 The two countries have a history of cooperation, as aid flowed from Saudi Arabia to
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Saudi Arabia financially backed Pakistan’s nuclear weapons
program in the 1970s, and Prince Sultan toured the country’s uranium enrichment facility in 1999 . Although
such nuclear cooperation discussions cannot be excluded, a clear, binding agreement to provide nuclear weapons appears not to have been made, at least from
Pakistan’s perspective, according to knowledgeable government officials interviewed about this issue. As a result, we view the scenario of Saudi Arabia receiving
nuclear weapons from Pakistan as highly unlikely, particularly given the impact such a sale could have on Pakistan’s reputation and international relations.
Academics have also tried to discredit this theory, citing recent improvement in Pakistan-Iran relations and Pakistan’s recent refusal to support the Kingdom’s
military action in Yemen.166 However, nuclear cooperation cannot be excluded, some of which could be substantial . In
August 2016, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman visited Islamabad and met with Pakistan’s defense minister in a likely effort to strengthen defense
ties.167 Although it is unknown if Mohamed bin Salman and Pakistani officials discussed nuclear cooperation, the Crown Prince may have sought to renew closer
nuclear relations with a nuclear-armed partner due to Saudi Arabia’s concern over Iran’s pursuit of atomic weapons. The Institute did receive information from a
Western government that a nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia was mentioned in the Pakistani parliament in 2014 or 2015. We could not confirm this
information. A concern remains that Saudi Arabia may plan, or has undertaken, to receive nuclear assistance from
Pakistan. This assistance could involve Pakistan supplying sensitive equipment, materials, and
technology used in enrichment or reprocessing . An unanswered question is whether Pakistan and Saudi Arabia may be cooperating on
sensitive nuclear technologies in Pakistan. In an extreme case, Saudi Arabia may be financing, or will finance, unsafeguarded

uranium enrichment activities in Pakistan in return for nuclear material for use later in a civil or military
program.

Saudi Arabia will get nuclear weapons from North Korea

Zachary Keck , Research Assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs 2015 ― The Ultimate Nightmare: North Korea Could Sell Saudi Arabia Nuclear
Weapons”, National Interest, June 22nd, 2015, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-ultimate-
nightmare-north-korea-could-sell-saudi-arabia-13162?page=2%2C1 Accessed 8-28-2018)

But while Saudi

Arabia couldn’t purchase a nuclear weapon from Pakistan, it might have more luck with North Korea. In fact, there are
a number of compelling reasons to believe North
Korea might be amenable to such a request. Most obviously, North Korea
has a troubling history of proliferating nuclear technology, including to the Middle East. There have long been
persistent (albeit largely unconfirmed) rumors that North Korea has provided Iran with nuclear technology, and Pyongyang also helped Syria build a nuclear reactor
(which Israel destroyed in airstrikes in 2011). More generally, North
Korea has a long track record of selling advanced military
technology like ballistic missiles to numerous pariah nations. Moreover, Saudi Arabia would be an extremely valuable patron
for North Korea. Currently, Kim Jong-un is trying to improve the economy especially for North Korean elites in order to shore
up support for his rule. This effort has been made extremely difficult by the more hardline stance China has taken against North Korea ever since Xi
Jinping came to power in 2012. Pyongyang has been scrambling to find suitable replacements for China, but so far it has had little luck. Russia appears to want to
improve ties with North Korea, but its growing financial woes will limit its ability to provide North Korea with enough economic assistance to offset the loss of
Chinese aid. Meanwhile, South Korea appears intent on limiting its economic relationship with North Korea absent significant concessions from Pyongyang on the
latter’s nuclear program. Saudi Arabia would face none of these constraints. Unlike South Korea, Saudi Arabia is not overtly threatened by
North Korea’s nuclear program. And unlike Russia, it does not face enormous financial difficulties. In fact, Saudi Arabia is awash in petrodollars,
boasting the third largest foreign currency reserves in the world after only China and Japan. Although it has been using these to soften the impact of lower oil prices,
it still has $708 billion in FX reserves, more than enough to provide significant support for North Korea. Saudi
Arabia could also provide North
Korea with other kinds of valuable assistance . For instance, foreign workers make up over half of Saudi
Arabia’s labor force, and North Koreans working in Saudi Arabia could provide the Hermit Kingdom with
another significant source of hard currency . Indeed, this is one of the Kim regime’s favorite tactics for skirting international sanctions. As
the Asan Institute of Policy Studies has explained : “Earnings are not sent back as remittances, but appropriated by the state and transferred back to the country in
the form of bulk cash, in clear violation on UN sanctions.” Some estimate that as many as 65,000 North Koreans are working abroad in 40 different countries, and
that this number has doubled or even tripled since Kim Jong-un took power. Yet, according to Asan, Saudi Arabia doesn’t even rank in the top ten nations in terms of
North Korean laborers. Changing that would be a huge boon to the Kim regime. Finally, besides hard cash, North
Korea faces a chronic energy
shortage, with China accounting for nearly 90 percent of North Korea’s energy imports in recent years. Saudi oil and natural gas could
significantly reduce North Korea’s reliance on China for its energy needs, while also helping to stimulate
the North Korean economy.
 Impact Module – Afghanistan stability
US-Saudi relations are key to stop terrorism, contain Iran, and maintain stability in
Afghanistan and Pakistan
Steve LeVine 2011 ForeignPolicy.com, Jan/Feb, Foreign Policy, “FRENEMIES FOREVER” proquest

Besides, Saudi Arabia isn't just a giant gas station with a flag. Saudi help is now essential for numerous
top-shelf U.S. priorities, from containing Iran to countering terrorism to extricating U.S. troops from
Afghanistan and keeping Pakistan stable. Only Saudi Arabia, with its carefully cultivated, behind-the-
scenes links to countries and leaders who do not trust Washington, can play this role. In some ways,
what we're seeing is just a revival of old ties. For nearly five decades after President Franklin D.
Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz aboard a U.S. destroyer in the Suez Canal in 1945, the relationship
pivoted on oil, but also on a mutual distrust of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet empire broke up in
1991, that logic fell apart too, and the alliance struggled for a new rationale, fitfully working together to
contain Iraq and Iran, the region's chief troublemakers, but finding few other shared interests.
Cooperation against terrorism languished. Saudi royals funneled money to militants in Afghanistan, the
Middle East, and the former Yugoslavia. Across the Muslim world and in mosques in Europe and the
United States, Saudibacked Wahhabi madrasas preached anti-American vitriol. U.S. officials investigating
the 1996 Khobar Towers attack, in which 19 Americans were killed, complained of being stonewalled by
their Saudi counterparts. And we all know where Osama bin Laden grew up. September 11 marked a
breaking point. U.S. public opinion turned sharply against the kingdom because of the large number of
Saudi terrorists involved in the attack, and members of President George W. Bush's administration
bristled at the lack of investigative cooperation from Riyadh. Meanwhile, the Saudis tired of Washington
taking them for granted as allies. The final straw for Riyadh was fury at Bush's perceived coddling of
Israel and inaction in the face of Palestinian deaths. By the summer of 2002, a distinct chill had set in.
Then, in 2003 and 2004, the two countries were brought together again after al Qaeda's Saudi branch
launched a series of attacks on oil installations, government facilities, and foreign compounds in Riyadh
and other cities - an audacious attempt to deepen the split between the royal family and the United
States. After a bruising crackdown that included gun battles in the streets, Saudi security forces
eventually triumphed, and the remnants of the militants fled south to Yemen. The Saudis poured money
and security help into Yemen, with which the kingdom shares a 930-mile border. So did the United
States. But Yemen struggled to deal with an influx of battle-hardened radicals from Afghanistan, Iraq,
Somalia, and elsewhere. The wake-up call came in August 2009, when an al Qaeda suicide bomber tried
to kill the Saudi counterterrorism chief. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. Prince Nayef then had his agents
infiltrate Yemeni tribes that protect the militants, a turning point that helped uncover the details of an
October 2010 bomb plot, when al Qaeda's Yemen branch attempted to send explosive packages through
FedEx and ups to the United States. Without Saudi Arabia's insistent calls to the cía, U.S. officials
concede, there is almost certainly no chance the bombs would have been detected. Beyond al Qaeda,
the United States and Saudi Arabia share a host of common enemies, most notably the Saudis' Persian
Gulf rival Iran. When the United States invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, it also
removed a Sunni shield against Iranian radicalism. U.S. troops now fill that role, but ineffectively. Tehran
has won much influence within Iraq, and its sway over Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza is
increasing. Now, with U.S. forces gradually drawing down in Iraq, Washington wants Saudi Arabia to
carry a larger portion of the burden. Riyadh appears more than happy to help America "cut off the head
of the snake," as the Saudi king was quoted saying in a WikiLeaked cable. In October, the State
Department authorized the largest arms sale in U.S. history, a $60 billion Saudi purchase of 154 new and
upgraded F- 15 fighter jets, 190 helicopters, advanced radar equipment, and satellite-guided bombs.
Saudi diplomats are also playing an invaluable role in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, and
Syria, working to mediate between the various warring factions and carrying private messages from
Washington to U.S. adversaries like Hamas and the Taliban.

Afghan collapse triggers nuke war and global instability

Stuart Kenny 2016 “Instability in Afghanistan: Why Afghanistan matters and what Australia can do to
address the causes of instability” http://www.defence.gov.au/ADC/Publications/IndoPac/Kenny
%20Afghanistan%20IPSP.pdf

Afghanistan’s geostrategic importance Afghanistan’s neighbourhood has become a region influenced by multipolar
competition between regional and great powers, including India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed regional states that are strategic
competitors. At the same time, there are indications of growing competition between China and India over their respective interests in
Afghanistan. There is evidence of an emerging ‘New Great Game’ between China and India in the region, which is aimed at increasing their respective influence as
aspirational regional powers, and increasing their access to trade and energy resources.19 China has significant economic interests in both Afghanistan and
Pakistan, already investing over US$5 billion in Afghanistan for access to the Aynak copper mine and several oil fields.20 China’s security and economic interests in
Pakistan are significant.21 China’s key economic interest in Pakistan is the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which travels through the western part of
Pakistan, adjacent to areas in which the terrorist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is active. An unstable Afghanistan would therefore adversely impact this corridor,
giving Beijing reason to support a stable security situation in Afghanistan. China’s shared border with Afghanistan and concerns regarding the spill-over of Islamic
extremism from the restive Afghan-Pakistan frontier into China’s Muslim-majority state of Xinjiang also add to Beijing’s interest in the future of Afghanistan. Iran

also shares a border with Afghanistan and is a key stakeholder in its future .22 The two nations share a long history
extending back to the influence of the Persian Empire, which resulted in shared linguistic ties and a significant Shia Muslim minority via the Persian-speaking
Hazaras. Until the 1857 Treaty of Paris, Afghanistan’s western city of Herat was part of Iran. During the rule of the Taliban, Iran provided arms and training to the
Hazaras and Tajiks in an attempt to halt the spread of the Taliban to North and North Western Afghanistan. Tehran
is concerned that increased
instability in Afghanistan has the potential to adversely impact its security and economy.23 The success of the
Taliban is seen to have direct implications on Iran’s Baloch rebellion and its potential to cause an influx of refugees into Iran. Economically, Iran views Afghanistan as
a possible link between India and Iran. Iran has partnered with India in developing a significant transport corridor from Afghanistan to its port of Chabahar, thus
weakening Afghanistan’s reliance on Pakistan for external access and, as a result, providing economic benefits to Tehran. Iran, like the US, does not want to see the
Taliban controlling Afghanistan.24 However, Tehran’s Afghanistan policy is sometimes at odds with that of Washington, particularly in its traditional area of
influence in the west and south of Afghanistan. Iran is also in competition with Pakistan for influence in Afghanistan. While Islamabad wants a pro-Pakistan,
Pashtun-dominated government, Tehran wants a government which will not challenge its interests and which will ‘preserve its influence in western Afghanistan’.25
The interests and competition of these regional powers in
Afghanistan place it in an important geostrategic position to
influence the stability and security of the greater South and Central Asia regions . As Australia has an increasing
interest in the Indian Ocean, via its Indo-Pacific strategic setting, the effects of Afghanistan on South Asia should be the focus of Australia’s national interest.
Therefore, the remainder of this section of the paper will focus on the importance of Afghanistan on the current and future situation in South Asia and its
importance to Australia. 3 Why Afghanistan matters to South Asia stability The direct influence of Afghanistan’s stability on the
security of Pakistan is a critical strategic concern to the international community.26 Pakistani stability is important for
four main reasons. It is located at the crossroads of South and Central Asia and can influence the global energy supply artery in the Indian
Ocean through its ports at Gwadar and Karachi. It has a large and youthful population of over 170 million people who could pose a humanitarian crisis in the event
of state failure. It is also nuclear armed and has a history of actively pursuing its national security interests through the use of proxy groups.27 Therefore, any

failure of or destabilisation within the Pakistan state has the potential to have a knock-on effect on
South Asian stability, with ramifications further afield. Success by the Taliban and its affiliates in Afghanistan may embolden anti-
state forces in Pakistan, particularly Tehreek- e-Taliban Pakistan, which may in turn threaten the stability of or, in the most extreme case, lead to
the failure of Pakistan’s government.28 The longstanding rivalry between Pakistan and India , and their respective
influence in Afghanistan, also has the potential to impact on regional stability in South Asia.29 The corrosive impact of this rivalry has been acknowledged by
President Ghani, who recently claimed that ongoing violence and instability in Afghanistan is a result of a ‘proxy war between
India and Pakistan’.30 Afghanistan is simply another theatre in which Indo-Pakistan regional rivalry is played out. Maximising its own influence in
Afghanistan is seen by New Delhi as a component of its desire to ‘maintain dominance over Pakistan in South Asia’.31 Pakistan in turn views Afghanistan as a critical
element in its defence against an expansive India.32 To increase its influence in Afghanistan, New Delhi signed a Strategic Partnership agreement with Kabul in
October 2011.33 This partnership is focused on Indian assistance to the reconstruction of Afghanistan in the areas of education, politics, economic issues and trade.
The agreement also addresses security issues, although it is not a security alliance. India has not committed to deploying any security forces into Afghanistan;
however, it has agreed to provide security force training for the ANSF in India. The partnership has also offered significant economic opportunities to both
nations.34 For example, an Indian mining company has received concessions to develop a large block in the Afghan iron ore deposit at Hajigak. India has also
granted Afghanistan preferred trading status for its food exports, so that India is one of the few trading partners with which Afghanistan has a positive trade
balance. India is the fourth largest donor to Afghanistan, having given over US$2 billion to Afghanistan through aid and development projects to develop its
economic capacity with roads, power, education and agriculture.35 India sees a
secure and stable Afghanistan as a key component of
the region, which will be vital to India’s access to the energy resources and markets in Central Asia.36 The Strategic Partnership has
provided India with an opportunity to develop a greater role in regional affairs, thereby enhancing its status as a rising regional power.
 Impact Mod – Russia War
Collapsed alliance creates multiple scenarios for Mideast instability; and Russia will fill
in
James Phillips 2018 Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation Full Investigation Needed
Before U.S. Takes Action on the Khashoggi Crisis https://www.heritage.org/middle-
east/commentary/full-investigation-needed-us-takes-action-the-khashoggi-crisis
The U.S. Response The Trump administration must make it clear to the Saudis that a failure to come clean on the Khashoggi affair could severely undermine Saudi-American ties. It should
disabuse Riyadh of any notion that the White House is willing or able to protect Saudi Arabia from congressionally-imposed sanctions, if the Saudis continue to stonewall international efforts
to get to the bottom of the matter. In this context, Thursday’s announcement that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had cancelled his participation in next week’s Saudi investment summit
is an appropriate and necessary signal. The U.S. cannot turn a blind eye to state-sponsored murder or allow it to pass without consequences. As a matter of principle, Washington should
support free speech, a free press, and respect for the rule of law. It cannot give Saudi Arabia a free pass. If guilt is established, then it must hold the Saudis accountable. There must be real
consequences for such a horrific act. Saudi officials found responsible for criminal acts should be removed from their positions and prosecuted. But until guilt has been established through a

Washington should not overreact by

full investigation, it would be premature for U.S. officials to impose punitive measures against Saudi Arabia.

torpedoing the alliance, which could trigger even more dangerous actions by Saudi Arabia and play
into the hands of U.S. adversaries, such as Iran, Russia, and China . If proven to have occurred, it is likely
the murder of Khashoggi was motivated by a sense of insecurity and vulnerability. Washington must
take care that its response does not exacerbate that insecurity, leading Riyadh to take further steps that
undermine American interests. In any event, the U.S. should try to insulate vital bilateral security
cooperation from the fallout of the Khashoggi affair. The worst possible outcome would be a rush to
judgement which destroys an important long-term partnership, pushes Saudi Arabia into the arms of
Russia or China, and undermines efforts to contain Iran, defeat ISIS, and stabilize the volatile Middle
East.

Russia fill-in results in military and diplomatic challenges the US led global order
Paul Stronski & Richard Sokolsky 17, 12-14-2017, "The Return of Global Russia: An Analytical
Framework," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/12/14/return-of-global-russia-analytical-framework-pub-75003

Russia’s increasing global activism poses a major challenge to the U.S.-led international order and to the
key pillars that sustain it. Moscow’s key priorities are to weaken Euro-Atlantic security, political, and
economic institutions and to undermine European unity and U.S. global influence. Russia’s attempt to
sway the U.S. election was probably meant to discredit and undermine public confidence in the U.S.
political system and electoral process, as well as to tarnish the country’s image globally. The current U.S.
political crisis leaves a weakened Trump administration unable to develop—let alone advance—
coherent foreign or domestic policy agendas. The state of U.S. politics has benefitted the Kremlin, and
the administration’s delays in developing new U.S. policies in various regions creates vacuums of
retreating Western power that Russia, China, or other states can use to their advantage. At the same
time, Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election has made it far more difficult for the Trump
administration to take actions to improve U.S.-Russian relations. Russian global activism without
exception has one common feature: Russia has not established the underlying conditions that it has
been trying to capitalize on. Rather, Moscow has opportunistically exploited conditions that are either
indigenous to their respective countries and regions or products of local dissatisfaction with the West
writ large or the West’s own unfinished business. For example, Russia’s ability to increase its
penetration of and influence over European national governments, economies, and societies going
forward will hinge to a great extent on whether these governments and the EU are successful in
addressing the economic, political, and sociocultural problems that have given rise to pro-Russian
populist, nationalist, and anti-establishment sentiments. Washington’s ability to positively affect these
dynamics in Europe is marginal at best, although it could easily exacerbate existing problems and hand
Moscow greater opportunities to undermine the European order—with short-sighted trade and climate
change policies and reckless anti-EU rhetoric.

US-Russia war goes nuclear – hybrid tactics.

Malcolm Davis 17. Senior Analyst, ASPI; PhD in Military Strategic Studies, University of Hull. , “Russia,
military modernisation and lowering the nuclear threshold.” Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
January. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/russia-military-modernisation-lowering-nuclear-threshold/.

Three developments suggest a willingness by Russia to use nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear
attacks in a manner that lowers the threshold of nuclear war. First, the concept of preventative de-
escalation is important. A recent IISS analysis explained de-escalation in which limited nuclear war could
be used to:¶ ‘…de-escalate and terminate combat actions on terms acceptable to Russia through the
threat of inflicting unacceptable damage upon the enemy. Such limited nuclear use may deter both
nuclear and conventional aggression.’¶ Second, the integration of conventional pre-nuclear and nuclear
forces reinforces Russia’s coercive power against NATO in the pre-war ‘Phase Zero’ in a future regional
crisis—for example, in the Baltics. And third, the Russians are clearly conscious of that coercive power
given their recent nuclear signaling that suggests Russia continues to see such weapons as a means of
national strength. Russia has undertaken sabre rattling through simulated nuclear strikes in large-scale
exercises and aggressive probing of NATO airspace with nuclear-capable bombers. It has demonstrated
the dual-role Kalibr NK sea-launched cruise missile in deadly strikes against Syria, and deployed dual-role
Iskander short-range ballistic missiles into Kaliningrad in a manner that was highly threatening to NATO.
That has been backed by public statements which reinforce Russia’s nuclear weapons capability and
even explicit nuclear threats to NATO states, notably Denmark.¶ Russian nuclear forces are being swiftly
upgraded with the focus on ICBM modernisation, based on introducing the SS-27 ‘Yars’ road-mobile
missile, and from 2018 the silo-based RS-28 ‘Sarmat’ heavy ICBM. Yars and Sarmat replace much of
Russia’s aging Soviet strategic rocket forces with significantly more capable delivery systems. Russia’s
Navy is transitioning to modern Sineva and Bulava sea-launched ballistic missiles, on the modern Borei
class SSBNs, while the Russian Air Force is restarting the Tu-160 Blackjack production line to produce the
updated Tu-160M2 bomber that eventually will be complemented by the ‘PAK-DA’ advanced bomber
sometime in the 2020s.¶ The strategic nuclear force modernisation is important but it’s the integration
of Russia’s conventional pre-nuclear forces with its large ‘non-strategic nuclear forces’ that’s of greatest
significance. That’s shaping Russian thinking on the use of nuclear weapons, particularly during Hybrid
Warfare, in a way that makes the risk of a crisis with Russia much more dangerous. Russia is
increasingly focusing on the use of its nuclear forces to enhance its ability to undertake military
adventurism at the conventional level in a manner that’s highly threatening to NATO. However the
reliance on nuclear signaling, the changing operational posture of dual-role forces and concepts like
’preventative de-escalation’, increases the risk of miscalculation in a crisis that could lead to an
escalation through the nuclear threshold.

That outweighs.
Steven STARR 17. Director, University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program; senior
scientist, Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — U.S. Leaders
Reject Nuclear Winter Studies.” Federation of American Scientists. January 9.
https://fas.org/2017/01/turning-a-blind-eye-towards-armageddon-u-s-leaders-reject-nuclear-winter-
studies/.

The peer-reviewed
Now 10 years ago, several of the world’s leading climatologists and physicists chose to reinvestigate the long-term environmental impacts of nuclear war.

studies they produced are considered to be the most authoritative type of scientific research, which is subjected to
criticism by the international scientific community before final publication in scholarly journals. No serious errors were
found in these studies and their findings remain unchallenged. Alan Robock et al., “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and
current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 112 (2007). Owen Brian Toon et al., “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences
of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 7 (2007). Michael Mills et al., “Massive global ozone loss predicted following
regional nuclear conflict,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105, no. 14 (2008). Michael Mills et al., “Multidecadal global cooling and
unprecedented ozone loss following a regional nuclear conflict,” Earth’s Future 2. Alan Robock et al., “Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
7 (2007). Working at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers, and the Department of

these scientists used state-of-the-art computer modeling to evaluate the

Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UCLA,

consequences of a range of possible nuclear conflicts. They began with a hypothetical war in Southeast Asia, in which a total of 100 Hiroshima-size atomic
bombs were detonated in the cities of India and Pakistan. Please consider the following images of Hiroshima, before and after the detonation of the atomic bomb, which had an explosive
power of 15,000 tons of TNT. The detonation of an atomic bomb with this explosive power will instantly ignite fires over a surface area of three to five square miles. In the recent studies, the
scientists calculated that the blast, fire, and radiation from a war fought with 100 atomic bombs could produce direct fatalities comparable to all of those worldwide in World War II, or to
those once estimated for a “counterforce” nuclear war between the superpowers. However, the long-term environmental effects of the war could significantly disrupt the global weather for at
least a decade, which would likely result in a vast global famine. The scientists predicted that nuclear firestorms in the burning cities would cause at least five million tons of black carbon
smoke to quickly rise above cloud level into the stratosphere, where it could not be rained out. The smoke would circle the Earth in less than two weeks and would form a global stratospheric
smoke layer that would remain for more than a decade. The smoke would absorb warming sunlight, which would heat the smoke to temperatures near the boiling point of water, producing
ozone losses of 20 to 50 percent over populated areas. This would almost double the amount of UV-B reaching the most populated regions of the mid-latitudes, and it would create UV-B
indices unprecedented in human history. In North America and Central Europe, the time required to get a painful sunburn at mid-day in June could decrease to as little as six minutes for fair-
skinned individuals. As the smoke layer blocked warming sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface, it would produce the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1,000 years. The
scientists calculated that global food production would decrease by 20 to 40 percent during a five-year period following such a war. Medical experts have predicted that the shortening of
growing seasons and corresponding decreases in agricultural production could cause up to two billion people to perish from famine. The climatologists also investigated the effects of a nuclear
war fought with the vastly more powerful modern thermonuclear weapons possessed by the United States, Russia, China, France, and England. Some of the thermonuclear weapons
constructed during the 1950s and 1960s were 1,000 times more powerful than an atomic bomb. During the last 30 years, the average size of thermonuclear or “strategic” nuclear weapons has

decreased. Yet today,each of the approximately 3,540 strategic weapons deployed by the United States and Russia is seven to
80 times more powerful than the atomic bombs modeled in the India-Pakistan study. The smallest strategic nuclear weapon has an
explosive power of 100,000 tons of TNT, compared to an atomic bomb with an average explosive power of 15,000 tons of TNT. Strategic nuclear weapons produce

much larger nuclear firestorms than do atomic bombs. For example, a standard Russian 800-kiloton warhead, on an average day,
will ignite fires covering a surface area of 90 to 152 square miles. A war fought with hundreds or thousands of U.S. and
Russian strategic nuclear weapons would ignite immense nuclear firestorms covering land surface areas of many
thousands or tens of thousands of square miles. The scientists calculated that these fires would produce up to 180 million tons of
black carbon soot and smoke, which would form a dense, global stratospheric smoke layer. The smoke would remain
in the stratosphere for 10 to 20 years, and it would block as much as 70 percent of sunlight from reaching the surface of the Northern
Hemisphere and 35 percent from the Southern Hemisphere. So much sunlight would be blocked by the smoke that the noonday sun would resemble a full moon at midnight. Under

such conditions, it would only require a matter of days or weeks for daily minimum temperatures to fall below
freezing in the largest agricultural areas of the Northern Hemisphere, where freezing temperatures would occur every day for a period of between
one to more than two years. Average surface temperatures would become colder than those experienced 18,000 years ago at

the height of the last Ice Age, and the prolonged cold would cause average rainfall to decrease by up to 90%.
Growing seasons would be completely eliminated for more than a decade; it would be too cold and dark to grow food
crops, which would doom the majority of the human population.
 Extension - Russia
Russia would be anxious to fill in upon a break in US-Saudi alliance
David Messler - Dec 03, 2018, 5:00 PM CST Putin Looks To Capitalize On Waning U.S.-Saudi Relations
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Putin-Looks-To-Capitalize-On-Waning-US-Saudi-
Relations.html

You may have read in a recent article where I opined about what their likely response might be when
confronted with the decision to retain their previous captive market in Europe with low prices, or
whisper sweet-nothings in the ear of the Saudis. Here is a key quote from that article, if somehow you
missed it. “Russia is harder to forecast because of the political element’s influence, but on the balance, I
think political goals will win the day. Putin would like to blunt U.S. influence in the MEA region and may
use the price of oil to achieve this goal, even at the cost of some of their European sales. The Russians
also have competing goals, maintaining their traditional European markets and buddying up to the
Saudis. Trying to strike this balance will probably result in support for the oil price.” Events have over-
taken and ratified the latter view- of filling a vacuum in current U.S.-Saudi relations, as evidenced by the
display between the two men in Argentina. The current gnashing of American political teeth over MbS'
little indiscretion in Turkey, creates an ideal opportunity for the old Russian spook. Ripping a page from
what I would be willing to bet is lesson #1 in the KGB operations manual, “Never waste a crisis”, Putin is
just making sure that MbS knows that if the Americans continue to snub him, he has a friend in Russia.
There is no downside in this transaction for Putin, as there is in America. After all enemies of Putin has
been known to occasionally…be taken off the board, so-to-speak. These guys have more in common
than meets the eye.

Russia waiting to fill in if decline in US-Saudi relations

Linda S. Heard is an award-winning British political columnist and guest television commentator with a
focus on the Middle East. Trump shouldn’t ruin US-Saudi relations Oct 22 2018
https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/trump-shouldnt-ruin-us-saudi-relations-1.2292607

Moscow and Beijing are waiting in the wings to replace Washington as Riyadh’s strategic partners and
arms suppliers. Unlike the CEOs of Western companies and investment houses that lemming-like are
riding on the same high horse by dropping out of “Davos in the Desert’, a Saudi economic forum
scheduled to kick off today, their Russian and Chinese counterparts have no desire to dampen their
financial prospects.
 Impact Module – Oil
Collapse of US-Saudi alliance causes them to cut oil exports – that risks the global
economy
Robert Rapier 2018 “Saudi Arabia Proves That Oil Is Power”, 10-24-18,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/10/24/saudi-arabia-proves-that-oil-is-
power/#3b613fd342e8) According to the 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, in 2017 Saudi
Arabia produced 12 million barrels of oil per day. That accounted for 12.9% of the world's oil
production, which is in the range of the world's two other major oil production superpowers -- Russia
and the U.S. However, there is an important distinction when it comes to Saudi Arabia. In Russia, oil
production is concentrated among a dozen or so companies. In the U.S., thousands of companies acting
in their own self-interest produce oil. But in Saudi Arabia, all of the oil production is controlled by Saudi
Aramco, the state-owned oil company and reportedly the most profitable company in the world. Given
that Saudi Arabia's share of oil production is well beyond the spare production capacity of the world's
most important commodity, Saudi Arabia has incredible economic power. All Saudi Arabia would have
to do is withhold three or four million barrels of oil per day from the market, and prices would quickly
rise above $100/barrel. Some analysts have floated the idea of oil prices getting as high as $200 or
even $400/bbl in the event of a disruption in Saudi's petroleum output. That may seem preposterous,
but keep in mind that during the 1973 oil embargo, oil prices quadrupled in about six months. Prices
like that would quickly push the global economy into recession, as it helped do in 1973. That is the
power Saudi Arabia holds. Consider the oil price movements since 2014. Oil prices plunged because
Saudi Arabia sought to win market share back from the shale oil producers. So, OPEC flooded the
market with oil, which sent prices down by over 70%. Then, when they decided that experiment wasn't
working, Saudi Arabia convinced OPEC and Russia to cut oil production to support prices. Oil prices
doubled. Just this week oil prices fell by 5% after Saudi Arabia said it would cover any supply disruptions
from the sanctions on Iran's petroleum exports. No other entity in the world has as much power to
move the oil markets. Saudi Arabia could quickly bring the global economy to its knees . Thus, as the
world debates a harsh punishment for Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi earlier
this month, they really hold the trump card. $100 billion in potential arms sales is small potatoes
considering the havoc Saudi Arabia could unleash if it decided to use oil as an economic weapon. This
is just one price we pay for our dependence on oil. Global economic security will continue to depend
strongly on the cooperation of Saudi Arabia.

Economic decline causes global WMD conflict

Hutchinson 14 (Martin, Business and Economics Editor at United Press International, MBA from
Harvard Business School, former international merchant banker, 1-3-14, “The chilling echoes of 1914, a
century on” Wall Street Journal) http://online.wsj.com/articles/william-galston-secular-stagnation-may-
be-for-real-1409095263,

The years before 1914 saw the formation of trade blocs separated by high tariff barriers. Back then, the world
was dominated by several roughly equivalent powers, albeit with different strengths and weaknesses. Today, the world is similarly multi-polar.
The United States is in a position of clear leadership, but China is coming up fast. Europe is weaker than it was, but is still a force to be reckoned
with. Japan, Russia, Brazil, India are also too powerful to ignore. A hundred years ago, big international infrastructure projects such as the
Berlin-Baghdad Railway, and before it the Suez Canal, were built to protect favored trading. Today’s equivalent may be the bilateral mining
partnerships forged between, for instance, China and mineral-rich African states. Today, the World Trade Organization offers some defence
against tariffs. But protectionism
could be become entrenched if prolonged economic stagnation leads
countries to pursue their own narrow interests. Germany, Austria, Russia and France lost between 20 and 35 percent of
national output between 1913 and 1918, according to Angus Maddison’s data used in Stephen Broadberry’s “The Economics of World War One:
A Comparative Analysis”. British GDP declined in 1914 and 1915, but grew 15 percent over the four years, as did the U.S. economy. The 37
million military and civilian casualties may tell a more accurate story but if
history were to repeat itself, the global conflict
could be both more universal and more destructive. Nuclear weapons proliferate. Warped diplomatic
anger could lead to the deployment of chemical and biological devices. Electromagnetic pulses could
wipe out our fragile electronic networks. Like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that sparked World War One, the
catalyst for cataclysm might be something quite surprising. A global run on bank and other investment assets or an outbreak of hyperinflation,
maybe? These threats get more serious the more policymakers pump up equity, bond, property and banking
bubbles. If global wealth evaporates, or is proven to be an illusion, today’s largely cordial global entente
could be smashed with precipitous speed.
 Extension - Oil
US interests in the Middle East dependent on good relations with Saudi Arabia—oil
supply and conflict deterrence.
Anthony Cordesman the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS 20 18 3-22-2018, "Saudi Arabia is a
Critical American Security Partner in the Middle East," https://www.csis.org/analysis/saudi-arabia-
critical-american-security-partner-middle-east

our strategy in the Middle East is dependent on Saudi Arabia as our

Somewhere along the line, we seem to have forgotten that

most important single security partner. Israel’s security is certainly a key American concern, but it does not play an active role in most of
America’s ongoing military engagements in the region, in dealing with Iran, or in a direct fight against
violent extremist movements like ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Saudi Arabia’s role as a strategic partner has also been enhanced by the fact that Egypt and Algeria are focused on their own internal stability, and their roles in the region have sharply
diminished, and Iraq and Syria both must deal with major instability problems and are at war. Our European allies have declining power projection capabilities, and Turkey’s role in the region is
increasingly problematic.

Saudi Arabia needs the United States as much or more than the United States needs Saudi
It is certainly true that

Arabia. Saudi military forces are steadily improving, but it is the U.S. presence in the region that creates a balance of forces that
firmly deters Iran and has helped Saudi Arabia defeat its own terrorist threats from groups like Al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula. U.S. arms shipments, advisory efforts and exercises also play a critical role in improving Saudi forces.

Butthe United States needs Saudi Arabia as well. Saudi Arabia is now the most critical single security
partner in ensuring the stable flow of petroleum out of the Gulf region . While the United States is
largely eliminating its need for direct petroleum imports , it is steadily increasing its dependence on the
health and growth of the global economy and imports from Asian states like China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which are
critically dependent on Gulf petroleum exports. The end result is that U.S. strategic interests in the region continue to increase in spite of the steady cut in U.S. direct oil imports.

, ignoring the growing role Saudi Arabia has

This is why focusing on more U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Saudi investment in the United States

played in fight terrorism since 2003, downplaying the need to cooperate in checking Iran, and treating
the war in Yemen as is if Saudi Arabia does not face real threats, is not the way the United States should
deal with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s visit to the White House.
Saudi Arabia’s reform and economic development plans are critical to its stability and the region’s security. The Kingdom needs U.S. encouragement and an understanding that Saudi Arabia
cannot implement these plans effectively without outside support. The burden sharing argument has become absurd. Saudi Arabia cannot be treated as a source of ready money every time
the United States has a need.

Saudi Arabia is already spending more than 10 percent of its economy on security, which is at least three times the economic burden on the GDP that security spending places on the United
States. This spending is too high given the Kingdom’s other needs, and the United States should be focusing on better ways to make its security partnerships with Saudi Arabia, as well as the
other Gulf states and Jordan more efficient and less costly, not simply on getting Saudi Arabia to spend more.

Iran is all too real a threat. Effective joint action in dealing with Iran’s nuclear programs, its
At the same time,

ballistic and cruise missile programs, its asymmetric threats to Gulf shipping, and expending military
influence in the region are all critical common U.S. and Saudi priorities.

Without US-Saudi relations our oil system collapse

Fethi Özbey, 5-7-2019, writer for AA "ANALYSIS," Anadolu Agency,
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/analysis/analysis-the-problematic-nature-of-saudi-us-relations/1523961
(Occessed July 6th 2019): Oli

Indeed, many incidents in the shared history of the two are therefore merely reflective of this particular
nature of relations based on interests rather than common values. For example, when the monarchical
regime in Yemen collapsed in 1962 and the country spiraled into civil war, this posed a serious security
threat to the southern borders of Saudi Arabia. During this period, the involvement of Egypt in the
Yemeni civil war by sending troops under the command of Nasser increased the Saudis’ threat
sensitivity, and King Faisal made several attempts at persuading the U.S. administration to establish an
air base in Jizan to deter Egypt from conducting air strikes on Saudi villages. John F. Kennedy, accepting
the request for an air base, sent a letter to King Faisal in late 1962, assuring him that the United States
would do everything necessary to protect Saudi Arabia. The Americans agreed to establish a military
base in Jizan, but continued to keep the majority of their planes at the Dhahran airbase in the oil-rich
Eastern Province. For the United States, protecting oil fields was more important than protecting
Saudi Arabia's southern borders. The planes deployed to the base in Jizan in 1963 returned to Dhahran
again a year later, although the Yemeni crisis persisted well into the 1990s.These and similar other
incidents experienced in the relations between the two countries have strengthened the notion that the
U.S.'s main interest in the region is oil supplies and that the security of friendly regimes pales into
insignificance whenever it can supply oil from alternative sources.

US presence is key to prevent global oil shocks – US energy isn’t enough

Anand Toprani 5-15-19 (specialist in energy geopolitics and political economy. “OIL AND THE FUTURE
OF U.S. STRATEGY IN THE PERSIAN GULF”, https://warontherocks.com/2019/05/oil-and-the-future-of-u-
s-strategy-in-the-persian-gulf/)

Will the so-called “shale revolution” allow the United States to disengage from the Persian Gulf? A rich
body of scholarship argues that since the United States no longer depends on imports of Gulf oil, it can
extricate itself from the region militarily and even disengage politically with minimal negative
repercussions. The United States cannot, in fact, afford to radically downsize its footprint in the Persian
Gulf in the immediate future. The staggering growth in U.S. shale oil production in recent years should
not obscure the fact that the Gulf still possesses half of global reserves — something worth recalling in
the wake of the Trump administration’s decision to stop giving other countries waivers to purchase
Iranian oil. It is unclear which region besides the Gulf can quickly replace the 1.9 million barrels per day
Iran exported before the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions. It is unwise to think that U.S. oil exports can
stabilize global markets. Recent boasts of America’s “energy dominance” are beginning to ring hollow
due to fears that geological factors and the ebbing of cheap financing for small shale companies may
soon stall U.S. production growth. Small shale firms are losing ground to larger, vertically integrated
companies more interested in boosting profit margins than production rates. Until the world can make
the necessary transition to a post-hydrocarbon economy, preserving access to Gulf oil will remain one of
the pillars of U.S. predominance — even if the United States never consumes a single drop of oil from
the region. To understand why, we must grasp that the United States did not get involved in the Gulf
after World War II because it needed the region’s oil for U.S. consumption. Rather, the aim was to
guarantee access for U.S. allies and companies supplying foreign markets. Then, as now, energy
independence was of secondary importance — what mattered more was building an international
system that delivered widespread prosperity and security. Today, the question worth asking about U.S.
strategy in the Gulf is not whether Americans still need the region’s oil, but whether they are still willing
to serve as guarantors of the complex international oil market that, in many ways, underpins the
postwar international order.
 Impact Module – Iran
Saudi Arabia is a key ally in the Middle East to combat Iranian aggression, proxy wars,
and oil threats
Rebeccah Heinrichs, 10-23-18. Rebeccah L. Heinrichs is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute where she
specializes in nuclear deterrence and missile defense. Rebeccah serves as an adjunct professor at the
Institute of World Politics where she teaches nuclear deterrence theory. Hudson Institute. “Why
Breaking With Saudi Arabia Over Khashoggi Would Hurt America.” Accessed July 6th, 2019.
https://www.hudson.org/research/14636-why-breaking-with-saudi-arabia-over-khashoggi-would-hurt-
america //NR

If justice is to be had, if the moral decision is to be made about how the United States ought to respond, cooler heads must prevail. Insisting
that one must belong to a school of thought that prioritizes either morality or realism is a false choice. It is a false choice in the individual lives
of human beings and it’s a false choice in matters of foreign policy. There
is no foreign policy action or inaction void of a
moral decision or without moral consequence. None. Every action the United States takes is based on a complex set of
considerations about what is right and good. So those analysts who argue that we must take a colder, more transactional, amoral approach to
foreign policy are arguing in favor of actions that have moral consequence, or more likely, are immoral. Likewise, those banging their fists on
the table and shouting “Justice for Khashoggi!” could be rushing headlong into catastrophe that only creates greater injustice. Consider that the
United States’ strategic partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has arguably never been more
productive. The young prince bin Salman has committed to helping the Muslim nation that contains both Mecca
and Medina move towards a more just society and has already implemented modest but meaningful
reforms. Moreover, he has aided in Saudi’s recent softening of its stance towards Israel, stating that he
believes the Jewish people have a “right to their own land.” None of this should be overstated, and hopefulness for the
young prince to make good on his commitments should be tempered. But if the prince can be encouraged to make reforms incrementally and
with greater prudence and consistency, it could portend positive developments not only for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but also for the larger
Muslim world. Saudi Arabia is famously the largest customer of American foreign military sales. Unfortunately, this relationship is frequently
disparaged as based on greed and nothing more. No doubt American companies and therefore plenty of Americans benefit directly from selling
expensive military equipment and weapons to other nations. But the primary reason that the United States invests so heavily in
Saudi Arabia is because of its strategic importance. Saudi Arabia is a crucial counterweight to the Islamic
Republic of Iran. Iran is a sworn enemy of the United States and Israel. It is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in
Iraq, and for maiming countless other American warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iran regime oppresses its own people and fails to
invest in its own economy, because it has prioritized funding Bashar al Assad’s brutal civil war in Syria, enabling him to repeatedly use chemical
weapons on his own people. Iran is a constant destabilizing force, seeking to undermine the governments of
sovereign nations like Iraq and Yemen. Although Saudi rightly receives flak for its atrocious (and in many cases, avoidable)
civilian casualties in Yemen, that war only exists because Iran is funding and arming the Houthi rebels. It
is a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, in which Iran is the aggressor and Saudi is the defender .
Last, and certainly not least, Iran continues to fund and export terrorism in the Middle East and Europe. It is not too strong to say Saudi
Arabia is our most important strategic partner in mitigating and rolling back Iran’s power and malign
activities. While true that the United States is becoming energy independent, it is still inextricably tied to the global market and our Asian
allies remain reliant on Golf petroleum. The stability and diversification of the energy market is a critical factor in matters of war and peace.
Iran has repeatedly brandished its ability to affect the energy market by, for example, threatening to
close the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia leads the Gulf coalition in maritime security to keep critical shipping lanes open. And should
the United States and allies like Saudi Arabia lose control of the security of those shipping lanes, countries like Iran and its increasingly bold
partners — large nuclear powers China and Russia — would be greatly empowered to more effectively blackmail and coerce the United States
and our allies. Every government of every sovereign nation is primarily responsible for the care of its own people. The United States
government must weigh all of the above in order to determine what is the just thing to do for its own citizens first, and also what effect its
actions will have on its allies, and even the impact on humanity in general. Damaging
the U.S.-Saudi alliance will not decrease
human suffering, and will not increase justice or peace and stability for Americans or for our allies.
Heavy sanctions on the Saudi government, ending arms sales and military cooperation with Saudi, or
demanding the House of Saud remove bin Salman would play right into the hands of America’s enemies.
Doing the moral thing does not require the United States to advantage those who seek to harm us. Instead, once as many facts can be
concluded as possible (which will be quite difficult if Turkey can’t or won’t provide evidence that contradicts the Saudi version of what
happened), the United States should publicly condemn the extrajudicial killing of the Saudi dissident in the Saudi consulate. This should, ideally,
happen at the highest levels. President Trump or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should make clear that the United States encourages all
nations to make room for political dissent, to work towards more just judicial proceedings, and to respect the dignity of its citizens. Perhaps the
United States can impose targeted sanctions against specific Saudi officials if they are found to have ordered Khashoggi’s murder. Then, the
United States should be much more intentional about privately encouraging and supporting reforms inside Saudi Arabia and the way they fight
wars abroad. Partnering with Saudi Arabia is not “choosing among lesser evils.” Partnering with Saudi Arabia is about doing the most good, and
the unjust killing of a Saudi national does not change that.

Iran- US war guarantees escalation of all conflicts, draws in

proxies and Russia- China. Triggers Great power war.
Alex Ward, Staff writer for VOX 7-8-2019, ""A nasty, brutal fight": what a US-Iran
war would look like," Vox, https://www.vox.com/world/2019/7/8/18693297/us-iran-
war-trump-nuclear-iraq, (Ocessed July 8th, 2019)
A deadly opening attack. Nearly untraceable, ruthless proxies spreading chaos on
multiple continents. Costly miscalculations. And thousands — perhaps hundreds of
thousands — killed in a conflict that would dwarf the war in Iraq. Welcome to the
US-Iran war, which has the potential to be one of the worst conflicts in history.
Washington and Tehran remain locked in a months-long standoff with no end in
sight. The US has imposed crushing sanctions on Iran’s economy over its support for
terrorism and its growing missile program, among other things, after withdrawing
from the 2015 nuclear deal last year; Iran has fought back by violating parts of the
nuclear agreement and downing an American military drone. To hear President
Donald Trump tell it, that last incident brought the US within 10 minutes of
launching warplanes and dropping bombs on Iran. Had Trump gone through with
the planned strike, it’s possible both nations would now be engaged in a much more
violent, much bloodier struggle. Importantly, both country’s leaders say they don’t
want a war. But the possibility of one breaking out anyway shouldn’t be discounted,
especially since an Iranian insult directed at Trump last month led him to threaten
the Islamic Republic’s “obliteration” for an attack on “anything American.” In other
words, Tehran doesn’t have to kill any US troops, diplomats, or citizens to warrant a
military response — it just has to try. Which means the standstill between the US
and Iran teeters on a knife edge, and it won’t take much to knock it off. So to
understand how bad it could get, I asked eight current and former White House,
Pentagon, and intelligence officials, as well as Middle East experts, how a war
between the US and Iran might play out.
The bottom line: It would be hell on earth. “This would be a violent convulsion
similar to chaos of the Arab Spring inflicted on the region for years,” said Ilan
Goldenberg, the Defense Department’s Iran team chief from 2009 to 2012, with the
potential for it to get “so much worse than Iraq.” How the US-Iran war starts US-
imposed sanctions have tanked Iran’s economy, and Tehran desperately wants
them lifted. But with few options to compel the Trump administration to change
course, Iranian leaders may choose a more violent tactic to make their point.
Iranian forces could bomb an American oil tanker traveling through the Strait of
Hormuz, a vital waterway for the global energy trade aggressively patrolled by
Tehran’s forces, causing loss of life or a catastrophic oil spill. The country’s skillful
hackers could launch a major cyberattack on regional allies like Saudi Arabia or the
United Arab Emirates. Israel could kill an Iranian nuclear scientist, leading Iran
to strike back and drawing the US into the spat, especially if Tehran responds
forcefully. Or Iranian-linked proxies could target and murder American troops
and diplomats in Iraq. That last option is particularly likely, experts say. After all,
Iran bombed US Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 and killed more than 600
US troops during the Iraq War. Taking this step may seem extreme, but “Iran could
convince itself that it could do this,” Goldenberg, now at the Center for a New
American Security think tank in Washington, told me.
At that point, it’d be nearly impossible for the Trump administration not to respond
in kind. The recommendations given to the president would correspond to whatever
action Iran took. If Tehran destroyed an oil tanker, killing people and causing an oil
spill, the US might destroy some of Iran’s ships. If Iran took out another US military
drone, the US might take out some of Iran’s air defenses. And if Iranian-backed
militants killed Americans in Iraq, then US troops stationed there could retaliate,
killing militia fighters and targeting their bases of operation in return. The US could
even bomb certain training grounds inside Iran. It’s at this point that both sides
would need to communicate their red lines to each other and how not to cross
them. The problem is there are no direct channels between the two countries and
they don’t particularly trust each other. So the situation could easily spiral out of
control. Messaging “is often more important than physical action,” Jasmine El-
Gamal, formerly a Middle East adviser at the Pentagon, told me. “Action without
corresponding messaging, public or private, could most certainly lead to escalation
because the other side is free to interpret the action as they wish.” Which means
the initial tit-for-tat would serve as the precursor to much more bloodshed. “What
are we going to be wrong about?” You may have heard the phrase “the fog of
war.” It refers to how hard it is for opposing sides to know what’s going on in the
heat of battle. It’s particularly difficult when they don’t talk to one another, as is the
case with the US and Iran. Which means that the way the US and Iran interpret each
other’s next moves would mainly come down to guesswork. Eric Brewer, who spent
years in the intelligence community before joining Trump’s National Security
Council to work on Iran, told me that’s when the Pentagon and other parts of the
government rely heavily on their best-laid plans. The problem, he noted, is that
wars rarely play out as even the smartest officials think they will. A guiding question
for him, then, is “what are we going to be wrong about?” Here’s one scenario in
which the US might get something wrong — and open up the door to chaos: After
America launches its first set of retaliatory strikes, Iran decides to scatter its
missiles to different parts of the country. Now the Trump administration has to
figure out why Iran did that. Some people in the administration might think it’s
because Tehran plans to attack US embassies, troops, or allies in the region and is
moving its missiles into position to do so. Others might believe that it was merely
for defensive reasons, with Iran essentially trying to protect its missile arsenal from
being taken out by future US strikes. Without a clear answer, which interpretation
wins out comes down to which camp in the Trump administration is the most
persuasive. And if the camp that believes Iran is about to launch missile strikes
wins, they could convince the president to take preemptive action against Iran. That
could be a good thing if they were right; after all, they’d have made sure Iran
couldn’t carry out those planned attacks. But what if they were wrong? What if the
other camp guessed correctly that Iran was merely moving its missiles around
because it was scared the US would strike once more? In that case, the US would
have bombed Iran again, this time for essentially no reason — thus looking like the
aggressor. That could cause Iran to retaliate with a bigger attack, setting off a spiral
that could end in full-scale war. Iran could make a grave error too. Imagine Trump
sends thousands of troops, say 25,000, along with advanced warplanes to the
Middle East in the hope that they’ll deter Iran from escalating the conflict any
further. Tehran could just as easily read that buildup as preparation for a US
invasion. If that’s the case, Iranian forces could choose to strike first in an effort to
complicate the perceived incursion. Of course, cooler heads could prevail in those
moments. But experts say the political pressures on both Washington and Tehran
not to be attacked first — and not to be embarrassed or look weak — might be too
strong for the countries’ leaders to ignore. “Unintended civilian casualties or other
collateral damage is always possible, and it is not clear that this administration — or
any administration — understands what Iran’s own red lines are,” El-Gamal, now at
the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, told me. “As such, the greatest risk of
a full-blown war comes from one side miscalculating the other’s tolerance” for
conflict. If that proves true, and the US and Iran officially escalate their fighting to
more than a few one-off attacks, it’s war. What the US-Iran war might look like
At this point, it’s hard to be very precise about a hypothetical full-blown conflict. We
know it would feature a series of moves and countermoves, we know it’d be very
messy and confusing, and we know it’d be extremely deadly. But unlike with the
path to war, it’s less useful to offer a play-by-play of what could happen. So with
that in mind, it’s better to look at what the US and Iranian war plans would likely be
— to better understand the devastation each could exact. How the US might try
to win the war The US strategy would almost certainly involve using
overwhelming air and naval power to beat Iran into submission early on. “You don’t
poke the beehive, you take the whole thing down,” Goldenberg said. The US
military would bomb Iranian ships, parked warplanes, missile sites, nuclear facilities,
and training grounds, as well as launch cyberattacks on much of the country’s
military infrastructure. The goal would be to degrade Iran’s conventional forces
within the first few days and weeks, making it even harder for Tehran to resist
American strength. That plan definitely makes sense as an opening salvo, experts
say, but it will come nowhere close to winning the war. “It’s very unlikely that the
Iranians would capitulate,” Michael Hanna, a Middle East expert at the Century
Foundation in New York, told me. “It’s almost impossible to imagine that a massive
air campaign will produce the desired result. It’s only going to produce escalation,
not surrender.” It won’t help that a sustained barrage of airstrikes will likely lead to
hundreds of Iranians dead, among them innocent civilians. That, among other
things, could galvanize Iranian society against the US and put it firmly behind the
regime, even though it has in many ways treated the population horribly over
decades in power. There’s another risk: A 2002 war game showed that Iran could
sink an American ship and kill US sailors, even though the US Navy is far more
powerful. If the Islamic Republic’s forces succeeded in doing that, it could provide a
searing image that could serve as a propaganda coup for the Iranians. Washington
won’t garner the same amount of enthusiasm for destroying Iranian warships —
that’s what’s supposed to happen. Trump has already signaled he doesn’t want to
send ground troops into Iran or even spend a long time fighting the country. That
tracks with his own inclinations to keep the US out of foreign wars, particularly in
the Middle East. But with hawkish aides at his side, like National Security Adviser
John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, there’s a chance they could
convince him not to look weak and to go all-in and grasp victory. But the options
facing the president at that point will be extremely problematic, experts say. The
riskiest one — by far — would be to invade Iran. The logistics alone boggle the
mind, and any attempt to try it would be seen from miles away. “There’s no surprise
invasion of Iran,” Brewer, who is now at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies think tank in Washington, told me. Iran has nearly three times the amount
of people Iraq did in 2003, when the war began, and is about three and a half times
as big. In fact, it’s the world’s 17th-largest country, with territory greater
than France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal
combined. The geography is also treacherous. It has small mountain ranges along
some of its borders. Entering from the Afghanistan side in the east would mean
traversing two deserts. Trying to get in from the west could also prove difficult even
with Turkey — a NATO ally — as a bordering nation. After all, Ankara wouldn’t let
the US use Turkey to invade Iraq, and its relations with Washington have only
soured since. The US could try to enter Iran the way Saddam Hussein did during
the Iran-Iraq war, near a water pass bordering Iran’s southwest. But it’s swampy —
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet there — and relatively easy to protect. Plus, an
invading force would run up against the Zagros Mountains after passing through,
just like Saddam’s forces did. It’s for these reasons that the private intelligence firm
Stratfor called Iran a “fortress” back in 2011. If Trump chose to launch an
incursion, he’d likely need around 1.6 million troops to take control of the capital
and country, a force so big it would overwhelm America’s ability to host them in
regional bases. By contrast, America never had more than 180,000 service
members in Iraq. And there’s the human cost. A US-Iran war would likely lead to
thousands or hundreds of thousands of dead. Trying to forcibly remove the
country’s leadership, experts say, might drive that total into the millions. That helps
explain why nations in the region hope they won’t see a fight. Goldenberg, who
traveled last month to meet with officials in the Gulf, said that none of them wanted
a US-Iran war. European nations will also worry greatly about millions of refugees
streaming into the continent, which would put immense pressure on governments
already dealing with the fallout of the Syrian refugee crisis. Israel also would worry
about Iranian proxies targeting it (more on that below). Meanwhile, countries like
Russia and China — both friendly to Iran — would try to curtail the fighting and
exploit it at the same time, the Century Foundation’s Hanna told me. China depends
heavily on its goods traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, so it would probably call
for calm and for Tehran not to close down the waterway. Russia would likely
demand restraint as well, but use the opportunity to solidify its ties with the Islamic
Republic. And since both countries have veto power on the UN Security Council,
they could ruin any political legitimacy for the war that the US may aim to gain
through that body. The hope for the Trump administration would therefore be that
the conflict ends soon after the opening salvos begin. If it doesn’t, and Iran resists,
all that’d really be left are a slew of bad options to make a horrid situation much,
much worse. How Iran might try to win the war Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Vincent
Stewart left his post as the No. 2 at US Cyber Command earlier this year, ending a
decorated four-decade career. Toward the end of it, he spent his time at the
forefront of the military intelligence and cybersecurity communities. If anyone has
the most up-to-date information on how Iran may fight the US, then, it’s Stewart.
“The Iranian strategy would be to avoid, where possible, direct conventional force-
on-force operations,” he wrote for the Cipher Brief on July 2. “They would attempt
to impose cost on a global scale, striking at US interests through cyber operations
and targeted terrorism with the intent of expanding the conflict, while encouraging
the international community to restrain America’s actions.” In other words, Tehran
can’t match Washington’s firepower. But it can spread chaos in the Middle East and
around the world, hoping that a war-weary US public, an intervention-skeptical
president, and an angered international community cause America to stand down.
That may seem like a huge task — and it is — but experts believe the Islamic
Republic has the capability, knowhow, and will to pull off such an ambitious
campaign. “The Iranians can escalate the situation in a lot of different ways and in a
lot of different places,” Hanna told me. “They have the capacity to do a lot of
damage.” Take what it could do in the Middle East. Iran’s vast network of
proxies and elite units — like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — could be
activated to kill American troops, diplomats, and citizens throughout the region. US
troops in Syria are poorly defended and have little support, making them easy
targets, experts say. America also has thousands of civilians, troops, and
contractors in Iraq, many of whom work in areas near where Iranian militias operate
within the country. US allies would also be prime targets. Hezbollah, an Iran-
backed terrorist group in Lebanon, might attack Israel with rockets and start its own
brutal fight. We’ve heard this story before: In 2006, they battled in a month-long
war where the militant group fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israel, and Israeli
forces fired around 7,000 bombs and missiles into Lebanon. About 160 Israelis
troops and civilians died, according to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and
about 1,100 Lebanese — most of them civilians — perished, per Human Rights
Watch, a US-headquartered advocacy organization. It also reports about 4,400
Lebanese were injured, and around 1 million people were displaced. But that’s not
all. Iran could encourage terrorist organizations or other proxies to strike inside
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf nations. Its support for
Houthis rebels in Yemen would mostly certainly increase, offering them more
weapons and funds to attack Saudi Arabia’s airports, military bases, and energy
plants. Experts note that the Islamic Republic surely has sleeper cells in Europe and
Latin America, and they could resurface in dramatic and violent ways. In 1994, for
example, Iranian-linked terrorists bombed the hub of the Jewish community in
Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and injuring roughly 300 more.
That remains the largest terrorist attack in Latin America’s history, and the
possibility for an even bigger one exists. Last year, Argentina arrested two men
suspected of having ties with Hezbollah. But Chris Musselman, formerly the National
Security Council’s counterterrorism director under Trump, told me the US and its
allies may have the most trouble containing the proxy swarm in Western Africa.
“We could see a conflict that spread quickly to places the US may not be able to
protect people, and it’s a fight that we are grossly unprepared for,” he told me,
adding that there’s a strong Hezbollah presence in the region and American
embassy security there isn’t great. Making matters worse, he continued, the US
isn’t particularly good at collecting intelligence there, meaning some militants could
operate relatively under the radar. “This isn’t really a law enforcement function that
US can take on a global scale,” he said. It would require that countries unwittingly
hosting proxies to lead on defeating the Iranian-linked fighters, with US support
when needed. The chaos would also extend into the cyber realm. Iran is a major
threat to the US in cyberspace. Starting in 2011, Iran attacked more than 40
American banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. The attack made
it so the banks had trouble serving its customers and customers had trouble using
the bank’s services. In 2012, Iran released malware into the networks of Saudi
Aramco, a major oil company, which erased documents, emails, and other files on
around 75 percent of the company’s computers — replacing them with an image of
a burning American flag. In the middle of a war, one could imagine Tehran’s hackers
wreaking even more havoc. “I would expect them to have begun selected targeting
through socially-engineered phishing activities focused on the oil and gas sector,
the financial sector and the electric power grid in that order,” Stewart wrote. “There
may be instances now where they already have some persistent access. If they do, I
expect they would use it, or risk losing the access and employ that capability early
in the escalation of the crisis.” Recent reports indicate that Iranian cyberwarriors
have stepped up their online operations, with a particular emphasis on
preparing to attack US firms. Among other moves, they’re aiming to trick
employees at major businesses to hand over passwords and other vital information,
giving them greater access to a firm’s networks. “When you combine this increase
with past destructive attacks launched by Iranian-linked actors, we’re concerned
enough about the potential for new destructive attacks to continue sounding the
alarm,” Christopher Krebs, a top cybersecurity official at the Department of
Homeland Security, told Foreign Policy on July 1. All of this — proxies striking
around the world, cyberattacks on enterprise — would happen while Iran continued
to resist conventional American forces. In the Strait of Hormuz, for instance, Iranian
sailors could use speedboats to place bombs on oil tankers or place mines in the
water to destroy US warships. The Islamic Republic’s submarines would also play a
huge part in trying to sink an American vessel. And the nation’s anti-ship
missiles and drones could prove constant and deadly nuisances. Should US troops
try to enter Iranian territory on land, Iranian ground forces would also push back on
them fiercely using insurgent-like tactics while the US painfully marches toward
Tehran. Put together, Brewer notes succinctly, a US-Iran war would be “a nasty,
brutal fight.” Aftermath: “The worst-case scenarios here are quite serious”
Imagine, as we already have, that the earlier stages of strife escalate to a major
war. That’s already bad enough. But assume for a moment not only that the fighting
takes place, but that the US does the unlikely and near impossible: It invades and
overthrows the Iranian regime (which National Security Adviser Bolton, at least, has
openly called for in the past). If that happens, it’s worth keeping two things in mind.
First, experts say upward of a million people — troops from both sides as well as
Iranian men, women, and children, and American diplomats and contractors — likely
will have died by that point. Cities will burn and smolder. Those who survived the
conflict will mainly live in a state of economic devastation for years and some,
perhaps, will pick up arms and form insurgent groups to fight the invading US force.
Second, power abhors a vacuum. With no entrenched regime in place, multiple
authority figures from Iran’s clerical and military circles, among others, will jockey
for control. Those sides could split into violent factions, initiating a civil war that
would bring more carnage to the country. Millions more refugees might flock out of
the country, overwhelming already taxed nations nearby, and ungoverned pockets
will give terrorist groups new safe havens from which to operate. Iran would be on
the verge of being a failed state, if it wasn’t already by that point, and the US would
be the main reason why. To turn the tide, America may feel compelled to help
rebuild the country at the cost of billions of dollars, years of effort, and likely more
dead. It could also choose to withdraw, leaving behind a gaping wound in the center
of the Middle East. In some ways, then, what comes after the war could be worse
than the war itself. It should therefore not be lost on anyone: A US-Iran war would
be a bloody hell during and after the fighting. It’s a good thing neither Trump nor
Iran’s leadership currently wants a conflict. But if they change their minds, only
carnage follows. “The worst-case scenarios here are quite serious,” Hanna told me.
***Affirmative Answers***
 A2 Uniqueness
Saudi- US relations in trouble now – Congressional uproar is doing long term damage
John Hannah, March 27, 2019, "MSDI Lab Group 2019," Foreign Policy,
https://www.dropbox.com/home/MSDI%20Lab%20Group%2020195g, (Occessed July
8th 2019): Oli

The U.S.-Saudi relationship is in real trouble. And things could get worse—even much
worse. Bipartisan majorities in Congress have already  made clear their desire to punish Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a long series of transgressions, including the
kingdom’s role in Yemen’s catastrophic civil war and the murder of dissident U.S.-
based journalist Jamal Khashoggi. These efforts will only intensify as the 2020 U.S.
presidential election cycle ramps up. For the ever-expanding list of Democratic
aspirants, the temptation to outdo each other in attacking President Donald Trump’s
close links to the kingdom’s leadership will be nearly irresistible. It’s a truism of U.S.
politics that there’s no downside to Saudi bashing. That’s doubly true today, with
the controversial Mohammed bin Salman at the helm, and with talk of the use
of bone saws on journalists, the detention and torture of U.S. citizens, and
the abuse of women’s rights activists dominating the headlines. Even if Congress
falls short of getting any new anti-Saudi legislation past the president’s veto, the
constant drip, month after month, of hearings, bills, and public criticism targeting
the kingdom risks doing serious long-term damage to the two countries’ strategic
relationship.

Relations are over: Human rights, Kashoggi, democratic values, and sanctions.
Michael H Fuchs is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and a
former deputy assistant secretary of state for east Asian and Pacific affairs, 10-19-
2018, "Khashoggi's fate is proof the US-Saudi relationship is over," Guardian,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/19/khashoggi-fate-us-saudi-
relationship
The US-Saudi relationship as we know it is over, and Khashoggi’s apparent murder
is helping wake everyone up to a relationship that soured long ago. It’s time to
finally ground any engagement with Saudi Arabia solely on genuine US interests in
regional peace and human rights. That means no more arms sales. No more taking
sides in a regional war between fundamentalist, repressive regimes. No more
support for the war in Yemen. US officials should trigger the Global Magnitsky
Human Rights Accountability Act to impose sanctions on MBS and Saudi leadership
for human rights violations. And when we need cooperation on counter-terrorism,
be transactional – and sanction Saudi officials if they don’t target terrorist funding
coming from within their country. At the end of the day, this is about more than the
US-Saudi relationship. It’s about whether or not America will stand up for
democratic values and human rights, including against the growing brazenness of
autocracies like Russia and China to reach beyond their borders to murder and
abduct critics. The United States must take a stand.
 Link defense
No link – Saudi Arabia cannot backlash because they don’t have the leverage or
economic security.
FRED KAPLAN OCT 12, 2018 11:50 AM Trump’s Saudi Delusions The president’s defense of arms sales
to the kingdom isn’t just immoral—it’s inaccurate. https://slate.com/news-and-
politics/2018/10/khashoggi-trump-defends-saudi-arms-sales.html

Trump pointed out, somewhat incongruously, in the same session with reporters, the U.S. economy is in
good shape right now. That being the case, why place the mercantilist rush of a few billion dollars in
arms contracts above U.S. interests and values? At this point in the two countries’ long “special
relationship,” the Saudis enjoy very little leverage. Bruce Riedel, a former career CIA analyst and now a
scholar at the Brookings Institution, said in an email Thursday evening that the Saudis are in no position
to retaliate to an arms sales ban by, say, reducing oil exports—which could raise gas prices, something
that Trump might fear in the weeks before midterms. The Saudis, Riedel said, “have serious cash flow
problems with a war that costs them $50 billion a year.” The crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, “is
shaking down his own businessmen because he needs the money.”
 Link turn – Plan helps relations
Plan solves relations – ends conflicts over Yemen that are harming relations
Weber 18 Emily Weber, M.A. candidate in International Affairs focusing on International Security
Studies and U.S. Foreign Policy at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.
11-20-2018. The United States Should End Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia. http://www.iar-
gwu.org/content/united-states-should-end-arms-sales-saudi-arabia /jh

U.S. supporters of arms deals with Saudi Arabia argue that the revenue generated from these sales are
too beneficial to end. However, the arms sales and continued conflict create larger and farther-reaching
costs. The U.S. government should redirect its involvement towards humanitarian actions in Yemen. This
policy would help to stabilize Yemen and enhance U.S. soft power in the region.

Additionally, the United States should focus on relieving the famine and disease ubiquitous throughout
the country. The danger from both Saudi forces and terrorist organizations makes aidwork nearly
impossible. The United States should try to create safe zones for aid organizations. These zones would
be in a few areas throughout the country providing food and medical care to civilians caught in the
crossfire. These areas would allow the United States to target aid depending on civilians’ changing
needs. Since the UN already provides designated refugee areas, safe zones could use existing UN aid
management infrastructure.

By limiting its interventions in Yemen to delivering humanitarian aid, the United States would create
more stabilization in the region and work more effectively to end the civil war. U.S. arms sales to Saudi
Arabia along with U.S.- led military interventions create chaos and unnecessarily involve the United
States in a proxy war. Ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia would improve relations with other countries in
the Middle East and would force other countries we consider our allies to ensure their actions were in
line with international and U.S. norms. Overall, this action would improve our entire strategy for
managing conflicts across the region.

This solves the strain between Congress and Trump which is in danger of collapsing
relations now – if not the collapse of relations is probably inevitable.
JORDAIN CARNEY - 07/07/19 05:47 PM EDT Meet the key Senate player in GOP fight over Saudi
Arabia https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/451534-meet-the-key-senate-player-in-gop-fight-over-
saudi-arabia

U.S.-Saudi relations have been strained for years on Capitol Hill. But growing civilian casualties in Yemen,
Khashoggi’s death and the Democratic takeover of the House have left lawmakers bristling to take more
legislative action. “There’s a number of different pieces of Saudi legislation floating around out there,
and Risch is aware of the kind of increasing restiveness of the committee members about it,” said Sen.
Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Trump’s praise late last week of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could
help build pressure in Congress for lawmakers to crack down on Saudi Arabia. Speaking at the Group of
20 summit, Trump called the crown prince a “friend of mine” and credited him with creating a
“revolution in a very positive way” within Saudi Arabia. Romney said the president’s remark “sends the
wrong message to the world.” “It’s past time for Congress & the administration to impose sanctions for
the murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” Romney added.
for oil prices, is up 28 percent and almost breached $70 a barrel for the first time
since November.

The plan key to changing Saudi behavior – turns all their impacts
Daniel Larison PhD in history from the University of Chicago 2018 10-11-2018, "Congress Should Cut
Off All Support to Saudi Arabia," American Conservative,
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/congress-should-cut-off-all-support-to-saudi-arabia/

The war is draining the kingdom’s coffers. And responsibility for the war is on Mohammed bin Salman,
who as defense minister has driven Riyadh into this quagmire. Shaking the arms relationship is by far the
most important way to clip his wings.

Congress now has the power to make a serious decision, halting arms sales and the logistics train for the
kingdom in the wake of the reported murder of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul, Turkey last week. The outrageous attack on Jamal deserves serious reaction, and given Trump’s
dereliction of duty on the matter, it is up to Congress to act. The president may try to override a Senate
arms stand-down but it would be a painful setback for the prince.

Congress ought to have cut off military support and arms sales to the Saudis long ago, and they should
certainly do so now. This would not only send a clear message to Riyadh that the blank check this
administration has given them is no more, but it would also make it practically impossible for the Saudis
to continue bombing Yemeni civilians. As Riedel says, “The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) is entirely
dependent on American and British support for its air fleet of F-15 fighter jets, Apache helicopters, and
Tornado aircraft. If either Washington or London halts the flow of logistics, the RSAF will be grounded.”
Supporters of the war on Yemen often say that U.S. military assistance is “modest” or “limited” as a way
of minimizing our government’s role, but they usually neglect to mention how critical it is to the
coalition’s operations. If the U.S. withdrew support from the Saudi coalition, they would not be able to
continue their war and would have to come to terms with the reality of failure. The longer that the U.S.
keeps propping up their war effort, the longer the war drags on needlessly and the more Yemeni
civilians suffer and die for no good reason.

US arms sales reduce cooperation and decreases relations --empirical analysis proves
Patricia Sullivan associate professor in the Department of Public Policy and the Curriculum in Peace,
War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Brock F. Tessman University of
Georgia AND Xiaojun Li Stanford University 2011 “US Military Aid and Recipient State Cooperation”,
http://plsullivan.web.unc.edu/files/2011/09/Sullivan_FPA_Military-Aid-Cooperation.pdf

We test seven hypotheses associated with three different theoretical models and find mixed results.
There is little evidence in favor of the Arms for Influence model: there is an inverse relationship between
absolute levels of US military aid and recipient state cooperation, and there is no relationship at all
between recipient state dependence on US aid and recipient state behavior. Thus, while the Lonely
Superpower hypothesis was on the right track by predicting an unorthodox relationship between aid
and cooperation, it did not perform as well as some of the Reverse Leverage hypotheses when it came
to explaining exactly what form such unorthodoxy would take. In several ways, the Reverse Leverage
model was quite accurate: (i) states receiving military aid from the United States exhibit lower levels of
cooperation than states that do not receive military aid, (ii) in the population of all states, higher levels
of military aid appear to produce more defiant behavior, and (iii) the United States does not punish
defiance with reductions in aid or reward greater cooperation with increases in military aid. Together,
these results suggest that US military assistance is allocated for reasons that are largely independent of
overall recipient state behavior toward the United States. The Reverse Leverage model contends that
military aid is delivered to states that the United States depends on for security reasons. Realizing their
leverage over Washington, states that receive high amounts of aid are actually more able to engage in
uncooperative behavior than are states that the United States does not depend so heavily upon. We
attempted to test for the effects of an aid recipient’s ‘‘security value’’ directly by comparing US allies to
nonallies. Consistent with the Reverse Leverage model, we find that states with a defensive alliance with
the United States are more likely to receive US military aid but less likely to respond to aid by increasing
their cooperation with American preferences. Of course, there are limitations in our data and research
design. We focus on a 15-year period (1990–2004) because the events data that play a crucial role in our
analysis are only available for these years. However, it would be helpful to examine a longer time span in
order to fully account for the long-term behavioral changes that states might make in response to US
military aid. Another limitation has to do with the specific bargain is reached between the United States
and the recipient of military aid. Many studies use vote congruence between a state and the United
States in the United Nations General Assembly as a measure of compliance. But U.N. votes may not
capture the influence of military aid because Washington can deliver assistance in return for
cooperation on a matter completely unrelated to the issues that come up for a vote in the UN during a
particular year. We attempt to deal with this drawback by looking at a broad measure of cooperation. In
fact, we use a dependent variable that ostensibly measures all cooperation and conflict with the United
States that recipient states engage in during any given year. However, this broad approach suffers from
the opposite of the problem associated with UN voting. It is possible that the specific kind of recipient
state cooperation that the United States sought to achieve through the delivery of military aid was in
fact present, but hidden among the ‘‘noise’’ of all the other foreign policy behavior the recipient state
engaged in that year. Despite its limitations, our study offers a novel approach to the foreign aid and
influence puzzle. And our results uncover interesting relationships that deserve greater theoretical and
empirical attention in future research. Clearly, the relationship between US military aid and recipient
state cooperation is far from straightforward. The bulk of our evidence pens a cautionary tale for
policymakers; although military assistance may achieve the specific goals for which it was allocated, it
appears to generate less cooperative behavior from recipient states overall. US military aid levels may
be more indicative of American dependence on recipient states than of US influence over client states.
Contrary to the vast majority of the existing literature on foreign aid, our results suggest military aid is
neither a carrot nor a stick; US assistance is given to countries that the United States depends on for
some foreign policy ‘‘good’’ and the United States will continue to provide such aid as long as that
‘‘good’’ is valued in Washington. With this knowledge, recipient state behavior is actually likely to be
increasingly uncooperative as levels of American dependency (and subsequent aid packages) increase.
 Relations resilient
US-Saudi relations are resilient –other major events have not collapsed relations
ABIGAIL TRACY OCTOBER 28, 2018 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/donald-trump-jamal-
khashoggi-saudi-arabia

Thomas Lippman, who served as the Middle East bureau chief for The Washington Post, put it more
succinctly. “The crown prince is clearly going to brazen it out. There is not going to be any fundamental
rupture in relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States,” he said. “I am not saying that people
are not upset about it. I am saying that on the scale of grievances that Saudi Arabia and the United
States have had over the past 75 years, this too shall pass.” Lippman, the author of Saudi Arabia on the
Edge, noted with dismay the limits of America’s historical memory, and the sins that are excused in the
name of global stability. “Nothing that happened to Jamal Khashoggi is in the same ballpark as the death
of the collective outrage in the United States over 9/11. And it did not lead to even a temporary rupture
of economic and strategic relations with Saudi Arabia.”

US-Saudi relations are resilient - too many common interests to break the relationship
CFR 2015. Council on Foreign Relations – Newsteam staff, independent organization, think tank, and
publisher, U.S.-Saudi Relations, 5/11/2015, http://www.cfr.org/saudi-arabia/us-saudi-relations/p36524
Modern Saudi Arabia traces its roots to an alliance between the Saud family and descendants of Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Abdul Wahab, a
prominent Hanbali Muslim cleric, who follow the most conservative school of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam. This pact has endured for centuries,
influencing the country's domestic and foreign policy. Saudi authorities ban women from driving cars and deny them other rights, and its
government champions its interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, by funding religious schools around the world. The United States,
first through its oil industry and then via government contacts, established a relationship with Saudi
Arabia's founder, King Abdulaziz, and his successors that evolved into a close alliance, despite a stark clash in values. U.S. businesses have
been involved in Saudi Arabia's oil industry since 1933, when Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) won a concession to explore in
eastern Saudi Arabia and discovered oil in 1938. U.S. companies were preferred to European drillers operating in Iraq
and Iran because Saudi Arabia's founder was wary of colonial powers that controlled much of the region at
the time. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's meeting with King Abdulaziz aboard the USS Murphy in Egypt in 1945
solidified the relationship. Saudi Arabia was officially neutral during World War II but allowed Allies to
use its airspace, according to Rachel Bronson, author of Thicker Than Oil: The U.S. and Saudi Arabia. The question of Israeli statehood was
discussed during the meeting, with King Abdulaziz voicing concerns that have continued to trouble the relationship. Since then, Saudi
Arabia has been Washington's closest Arab ally in the Middle East. Differences on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and
later on policies related to the Arab protest movements in 2011 and Iran, have strained ties over the years, but officials on both sides
have stressed the importance of the relationship and common interests. "When push comes to shove,
this relationship is unshakable," Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington (later named
foreign minister), told the Washington Post in March 2015.

US-Saudi relations resilient

Eldad Shavit and Yoel Guzansky INSS Insight No. 1121, December 24, 2018 The Future of Relations
between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and the Implications for Israel
https://www.inss.org.il/publication/future-relations-united-states-saudi-arabia-implications-israel/
The United States and Saudi Arabia will likely continue to see relations between them as a strategic
objective, and if relations between Washington and Riyadh survived the Saudi involvement in the
September 11 attacks, the two countries will presumably be able to overcome the current crisis as well.
In addition, in previous administrations and even more so at present, the issue of human rights has not
at the end of the day been a decisive factor in determining political policy. However, the level of
intimacy that has characterized these relations since early in the Trump administration and the depth of
the bilateral cooperation are expected to be affected by both the steps that the administration will take,
and even more, by Saudi Arabia's response to these steps. Aside from punitive measures already taken
toward a number of Saudis, it is doubtful that the administration will put the blame entirely on the
Crown Prince, but it has a number of options, some of which the lawmakers are eyeing, with respect to
the level of cooperation with the Saudi-led coalition is waging in Yemen, and with respect to the amount
and quality of weapons that the United States sells to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia won’t break the relationship – they believe it in their interest despite any
issues.
CALINE MALEK February 13, 2019 Why US-Saudi relations will stand the test of time
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1451671/saudi-arabia

DUBAI: Although US-Saudi relations may have been shaky in recent times, Prince Turki Al-Faisal,
chairman of the board at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, expressed optimism
about their future evolution. Appearing at the Milken Institute MENA Summit in Abu Dhabi on
Wednesday, Prince Turki spoke of the history of the relationship, which dates back to the 19th century.
“In perspective, they go back a long time and, in that time, we have had our ups and downs, and we
have agreed on some things and disagreed on others,” he said. “It’s one of those times when there has
been a lot of hype about the relationship, especially in the media and in the US following issues like (the
killing of Jamal) Khashoggi, the war in Yemen and others.”From a Saudi perspective, he argued that the
strategic interest of both countries would override whatever current issues have risen. “From that
context, the Kingdom’s steadfast and very rock-solid engagement with the US in the last 70-odd years
has weathered equally difficult times,” he said. “Not only on the Palestinian issue, the Ramadan War in
1973 and the oil embargo, but also 9/11 and Bin Laden, and yet, we’ve had a constant number of
American expatriates living in Saudi, from 25,000 to 30,000 over the years.”
 A2 Terror Internal
US-Saudi cooperation not key to counter-terror – any info they give us is only in their
own self interest
RICHARD SOKOLSKY and AARON DAVID MILLER OCTOBER 12, 2018 ATLANTIC The U.S.-Saudi
Relationship Is Out of Control https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/10/12/u.s.-saudi-relationship-is-
out-of-control-pub-77484

It is hard to assess the value of Saudi counterterrorism cooperation because most of it operates under a
cloak of secrecy. Whatever contributions Saudis make in intelligence sharing and law enforcement,
though, serve Saudi interests. They are not being proffered as favors to the United States. The same is
generally true for Saudi energy policy, where decisions on oil production and exports are largely driven
by market forces and the kingdom’s own needs.

Relations with Saudi Arabia not critical – args are hype or just inaccurate.
Daniel R. DePetris fellow at Defense Priorities, a nonpartisan foreign-policy organization focused on
promoting security, stability and peace. Dec 6 2018 Three Ways to Rethink the U.S.-Saudi Arabian
Alliance Another look at the purpose and benefits of the alliance is overdue.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/three-ways-rethink-us-saudi-arabian-alliance-38052

For decades, the American people have been sold by their leaders the idea that U.S.-Saudi ties being
indispensable to the security of the U.S. homeland and a vital facet of promoting peace in the Middle
East. With a few notable exceptions—Harvard University Professor Stephen Walt and former U.S.
Ambassador to Riyadh Chas Freeman among them—the foreign policy intelligentsia and commentariat
have eagerly served as the messenger of this hypothesis. U.S. administrations across the political divide
have reflexively viewed the Saudis as integral to containing Iranian power in the Middle East, stabilizing
energy prices during gluts in the energy market, and providing America with instrumental information
on terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Most of these arguments, however, are
hyped, exaggerated, and inaccurate. Riyadh’s behavior is as clear an indication as any that, far from
being the amazing ally the foreign policy establishment frequently claims, the Kingdom is at best a
nettlesome, half-hearted partner on very specific issues of common interest.

Saudi Arabia is only self-interested and is not a useful security partner

Daniel R. DePetris fellow at Defense Priorities, a nonpartisan foreign-policy organization focused on
promoting security, stability and peace. Dec 6 2018 Three Ways to Rethink the U.S.-Saudi Arabian
Alliance Another look at the purpose and benefits of the alliance is overdue.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/three-ways-rethink-us-saudi-arabian-alliance-38052

Nothing could be further from reality. Saudi Arabia is not an ally the United States can depend on, nor
has it proven to be an especially helpful security partner either. Saudi Arabia, rather, is a nation with its
own unique set of national interests, some of which align with America but many of which do not. The
sooner the Trump administration sees the U.S.-Saudi relationship for what it is—and equally important,
what it is not—the sooner Washington can undertake the strategic reassessment that is urgently
required and long past due.
Saudi Arabia is not a useful stabilizing force for the US in the Middle East.
Daniel R. DePetris fellow at Defense Priorities, a nonpartisan foreign-policy organization focused on
promoting security, stability and peace. Dec 6 2018 Three Ways to Rethink the U.S.-Saudi Arabian
Alliance Another look at the purpose and benefits of the alliance is overdue.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/three-ways-rethink-us-saudi-arabian-alliance-38052

Moreover, the Kingdom’s role as a force multiplier for the United States is also vastly overstated. The
facts belie the idea of Riyadh as a stabilizing force in the Middle East. Since Mohammed bin Salman was
named Defense Minister in 2015 and ascended to second-in-line to the throne in 2017, Saudi Arabia has
been as destabilizing to the region’s security and politics as its Iranian archenemy. In fact, Saudi foreign
policy under the reign of Crown Prince Mohammed has been an unending series of humanitarian
debacles punctuated by strategic recklessness.

The relations wont work

Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky (Writers for CNN), 11-13-2018, "The
US-Saudi relationship: Much less than meets the eye," CNN,
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/13/opinions/us-saudi-relationship-less-than-meets-
the-eye-miller-sokolsky/index.html (Occessed July 8th, 2019)
(CNN) Among the most magical urban myths floating around the Trump
administration is that Saudi Arabia is America's strategic partner and the
relationship is simply too big to fail. Sadly, that relationship is already failing.
Indeed, under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known
as MBS), Saudi Arabia has willfully pursued policies that have undermined both
American interests and values. Worse still, the Trump administration envisions a
role for Saudi Arabia in its Middle East strategy that can only disappoint. In recent
weeks, Turkish authorities have accused the Saudi regime of responsibility for the
murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside Saudi Arabia's
consulate in Istanbul. The Saudi government has blamed rogue operatives for the
killing and dismissed a number of high-ranking officials.
 Impact defense - Nuclear terror
No nuclear terror attack
* fear of backlash from supporters, internal division, and international retaliation = deterrence

McIntosh & Storey 18 (Christopher McIntosh is visiting assistant professor of political studies at
Bard College, Ph.D. in 2013 from The University of Chicago, specializing in international relations and has
an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown & Ian Storey is a fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for
Politics and Humanities at Bard College, Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago;
Between Acquisition and Use: Assessing the Likelihood of Nuclear Terrorism, International Studies
Quarterly, 19 April 2018, sqx087, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqx087)
Our approach offers a point of departure for strategically assessing the options, likely responses, and potential outcomes that could arise from the different paths
available to a nuclear-armed non-state group. Too often analysts treat the decision by such groups to use nuclear weapons as if it occurs in a vacuum. In practice,
terrorist groups face many short-term and long-term considerations. They are influenced by factors both external and
internal to their organization. These include the potential for backlash among supporters, internal factionalization

over nuclear strategy and doctrine, and an overwhelming response by the target state and the
international community.
Moreover, we suggest a way to bring the recursivity of strategic choice into the account of terrorist organizational decision-making. These organizations must
consider the long-term effects of a nuclear attack. An attack occurs in the context of an ongoing campaign by a well-established organization. Opportunity

costs exist because escalating to nuclear attack forecloses future options. As well, conducting an attack may
not only preclude other strategies, but the continued existence of the group itself. This changes the
game significantly. In most cases, a nuclear attack must present not just an effective option for the moment, but the only strategic option worth pursuing
going forward.

Once we take these considerations into account, the

detonation of a nuclear weapon generally appears the least
strategically advantageous option for non-state groups. Indeed, the factors presented here are analytically
independent, adaptable, and scalable to particular threat contexts . We can therefore use our framework to study the
opportunities and constraints faced by specific future groups. It should therefore assist in the process of planning responses to potential nuclear acquisition by
terrorist groups.

Successive governments have now identified nuclear terrorism as a critical concern in the formulation of security policy. This line of thinking
systematically underspecifies, or simply misunderstands, key considerations that terrorist organizations
take into account. These include the group's organizational survival, opportunity costs, and the
conflation of victory with the end of hostilities . Each factor presents strong disincentives to immediate
nuclear attack. A nuclear-armed terrorist group is exceedingly dangerous, but for different reasons than normally assumed. The options available to the
group that fall short of detonation or attack remain considerable, albeit less spectacular and immediate.

Just as scholars like Bunn et al. (2015) are careful to do, political
actors and analysts should resist uncritically deploying the
term “nuclear terrorism” in an umbrella fashion . This point goes beyond even the attempts at disaggregating “use” presented here. The
threat of an attack involving an improvised nuclear device is vastly different than that of a “dirty bomb,” and both have little in common with the threat posed by an
attack on a nuclear facility. Each deserves separate consideration when formulating policy, even if measures taken to address these concerns, such as controlling
nuclear leakage, ultimately overlap. If any of the acquisition or threat scenarios we explore come to fruition, then potential target states will need strategies that
potentially employ positive, as well as negative, incentives to lessen the attractiveness of nuclear attack. As we argue, a crisis involving a nuclear-armed terrorist
group will be a negotiation—regardless of what the target state chooses to label it. Far from demonstrating weakness, employing threats while dangling the
possibility of political concessions can widen internal divisions, heightening the overall organizational costs of escalating violence (Toros 2008; Cronin 2009).

Finally, efforts designed to improve intelligence capabilities both prior to and post-attack remain vital.
Signature analysis as a forensic measure has shown promise as a way of identifying the origin of nuclear
material—in some cases it can identify whether or not it was provided by a state (Kristo and Tumey
2013). These efforts would be improved with a more widespread international commitment via the IAEA
to placing signature markers in weapons and weaponizable material (Korbatov et al. 2015, 70; Findlay
2014, 6).

Ultimately, when it comes to the threat of a nuclear attack by a terrorist, presumption should lie squarely
on the side of skepticism rather than inevitability . While some terrorist organizations have some incentives for nuclear acquisition,
paradoxically and thankfully, the most strategic uses of a nuclear weapon fall well short of actual nuclear attack .
From a scholarly perspective, as well as a political one, we need to start to think through how states would act in a world with nuclear-armed non-state actors. In
doing so, we should avoid assumptions that fit neither with known nuclear strategy nor the empirical behavior of non-state organizations. Like most clichés, the
post–Cold War trope that the threat of attack is higher now than it was during the US-USSR arms race (Litwak 2016) obscures much more than it reveals.

No escalation – attack induces international cooperation, not retaliation

McIntosh & Storey 18 (Christopher McIntosh is visiting assistant professor of political studies at
Bard College, Ph.D. in 2013 from The University of Chicago, specializing in international relations and has
an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown & Ian Storey is a fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for
Politics and Humanities at Bard College, Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago;
Between Acquisition and Use: Assessing the Likelihood of Nuclear Terrorism, International Studies
Quarterly, 19 April 2018, sqx087, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqx087)

Externally, in a world post-nuclear attack, international cooperation would be instant and deep. One of the only
international treaties to even define a terrorist in international law post-2001 has been the Nuclear Terrorism Convention (Edwards 2005). A
nuclear attack
would be far outside the norm of international politics . It would disrupt the dominance of state-actors
and likely stimulate unparalleled cooperation to apprehend the responsible parties to prevent future
attacks. Moreover, many large terrorist organizations require (some) tacit acquiescence by a host state. Even those with hostile host states have territory where
they remain relatively unaffected by local governments (Korteweg 2008). Post-nuclear attack, these host states face an enormous

incentive to find the actors responsible before the target state does. After an attack, regimes would find it
difficult to claim that they “didn't know” or “couldn't stop them.” Claims of corruption or ineffective institutions would be
unlikely to find much sympathy. Faced with potential organizational extinction itself, a host state/government will

likely be much less committed to the survival of the terrorist group . This is likely to vary significantly from how they might
otherwise behave after a more conventional attack. For these states, there would be a real fear of “Talibanization” and ruthless attempts at regime change post-
attack.

From the perspective of the group, it would know that it could be facing a unified international community and the removal of tacit state support. It would take a
particularly confident leadership to presume it could continue to function post-attack without massive disruptions. Most
strategic actors are risk-
averse when facing the potential of complete elimination. There is little reason to believe terrorist
groups would act any differently.

No nuke terror.
Mueller ’18 (John Mueller – PhD in Political Science @ UCLA, Adjunct Professor of Political Science and
Woody Hayes Senior Research Scientist at Ohio State University and a Senior Fellow at the Cato
Institute, “Nuclear Weapons Don’t Matter,” 15 October 2018,
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-10-15/nuclear-weapons-dont-matter?
fa_package=1123220)

As for nuclear terrorism, ever since al Qaeda operatives used box cutters so effectively to hijack commercial airplanes, alarmists
have warned that radical Islamist terrorists would soon apply equal talents in science and engineering to make and
deliver nuclear weapons so as to destroy various so-called infidels. In practice, however, terrorist groups have
exhibited only a limited desire to go nuclear and even less progress in doing so. Why? Probably because
developing one’s own bomb from scratch requires a series of risky actions, all of which have to go
right for the scheme to work. This includes trusting foreign collaborators and other criminals; acquiring
and transporting highly guarded fissile material; establishing a sophisticated, professional machine shop ;
and moving a cumbersome, untested weapon into position for detonation. And all of this has to be done
while hiding from a vast global surveillance net looking for and trying to disrupt such activities.

Terrorists are unlikely to get a bomb from a generous, like-minded nuclear patron, because no country
wants to run the risk of being blamed (and punished) for a terrorist’s nuclear crimes. Nor are they likely
to be able to steal one. Notes Stephen Younger, the former head of nuclear weapons research and development at Los Alamos
National Laboratory: “All nuclear nations take the security of their weapons very seriously.”

The grand mistake of the Cold War was to infer desperate intent from apparent capacity. For the war on terrorism, it has
been to infer desperate capacity from apparent intent.
 Impact defense – Saudi prolif

No Saudi proliferation--NPT, inspections, consistently supports weapons bans and

restrictions, lacks sufficient resources for weapons-grade enrichment, and no sharing
Mark Hibbs & Michael Young, March 08, 2018 Hibbs is a Senior fellow in Carnegie’s nuclear program.
Young is the editor of Diwan and a senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Center. “Does Saudi Arabia
Intend to Develop a Nuclear Weapons Capability?” Carnegie Middle East Center, http://carnegie-
mec.org/diwan/75723

Saudi Arabia has done things that suggest it doesn’t want nuclear weapons. It is a party to the nuclear
So far,

Non-Proliferation Treaty and has a comprehensive inspection agreement with the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA). Last year it voted for the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty at the United Nations . The Saudis

Because of Riyadh’s enmity

have informed the IAEA, the United States, Russia, and others that they want to build nuclear power plants to generate electricity, advance their technology basis, and reduce their dependence on fossil fuels.

toward Tehran, there is concern it might, like Iran, try to secretly enrich uranium or to build that could be used for power

nuclear weapons Unlike Iran, the Saudi nuclear infrastructure is rudimentary , with no clear path to an
.

enrichment capacity. For security and commercial reasons, none of the countries enriching uranium to make

will share their tech

nuclear fuel likely nology.

No Saudi prolif - no method to acquire

Ian Stewart and Dominic Williams 2015 Senior Research Fellows in the Department of War
Studies at King’s College London. “Is Saudi Arabia trying to get nuclear weapons?”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/11617339/Is-Saudi-Arabia-
trying-to-get-nuclear-weapons.html

Perhaps the main strategic driver relates to the P5+1’s nuclear negotiations with Iran . Saudi Arabia is one
of Iran’s main regional competitors and there have long been concerns that if Iran acquired nuclear
weapons other countries in the region would follow . Iran is not on the brink of acquiring nuclear
weapons, however, and the negotiations currently taking place with a deadline of mid-summer could leave
Iran even further from nuclear weapons than it has been for the last several years . In this context, it is
important to note that the Saudi leadership has generally expressed approval for a nuclear deal with Iran . If the
negotiations with Iran have triggered a renewed interest in nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia, it is perhaps more likely that the
Saudi royals are seeking to use their apparent interest in acquiring them in order to influence the
negotiations rather than seeking nuclear weapons for their own use. It is also possible that Saudi’s calculus
regarding nuclear weapons has changed for other reasons. One possible reason for this could be changes in the country’s leadership. King
Salman’s enthronement has brought changes to the country’s approach to foreign policy and the appointment of the his son as defence
minister has resulted in the country taking unusually bold action against Iran-backed forces in Yemen. It cannot be ruled out that the new
leadership, unafraid of bold policy choices in pursuit of the country’s international security goals, could also decide to acquire nuclear weapons.
Even if Saudi was to decide to do so, however, it is far from clear that the country is capable of acquiring
nuclear weapons. After all, the country’s own nuclear infrastructure is nascent and orientated towards
civil purposes. More plausibly, following a deal between the P5+1 and Iran, Saudi Arabia could seek to exercise the same right to enrich
uranium that Iran claims for its own program as part of a nuclear hedging strategy. Supplier restraint in relation to transfers of
enrichment technology mean that it is unlikely that Saudi could buy such a capability outright. The
country does have some of the prerequisite industry to embark on an indigenous effort, however, which
would be a longer term proposition (likely lasting some decades). The second possibility would be for
Saudi to acquire weapons ‘off the shelf’ from Pakistan . The likelihood of this scenario is difficult to quantify: certainly,
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have a unique relationship. However, would Pakistan be willing to proliferate? Pakistan is still
struggling to overcome the damaged international reputation it suffered as a result of the actions of
AQ Khan, who passed on the country’s uranium enrichment and possibly nuclear weapons designs to at
least three countries include Libya, Iran and North Korea. Pakistan has enacted a systematic export controls to
prevent such a recurrence (although there is some question about how well this system functions as it is understood that no licences
for authorised transfers of any nuclear technology have been granted). It is also likely that Chinese pressure would restrain
Pakistan from transferring nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia: China is currently subject to intense
diplomatic pressure over its decision to sell nuclear reactors to Pakistan . Should an egregious nuclear
transfer take place from Pakistan, the prospects of such civil nuclear cooperation, which is important to
Pakistan’s own development, would be bleak. Finally, there are also practical hurdles over transferring
nuclear weapons from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia (perhaps the least of which is the US 5th fleet).

No Saudi prolif – international pressure and tech deficiencies

Rizwan ASGHAR, a Pakistani investigative journalist, political scientist, nuclear security expert, and
military and defence analyst, 2015 “The nuclear debate,” The News International, August 11, 2015,
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print/55830-the-nuclear-debate
One must agree with Dr Lewis that Zakaria uses ‘terrible indicators’ of a country’s ability to produce weapons-grade nuclear material. A
country’s ability to build a car does not tell a lot about its ability to procure uranium enrichment. The
truth that keeps getting
ignored by Dr Lewis is that nuclear weapons are certainly not homemade toys which a country like Saudi
Arabia can build any time. Saudi Arabia, with unimpressive scientific and technological performance, cannot even enrich
enough weapons-grade uranium or plutonium for a single nuclear device in the next five years, not to
mention the acquisition of a credible nuclear-arms capability . Dr Lewis remains unable to build up a
strong and affirmative case in support of his stance that Saudi Arabia can acquire a nuclear weapon any time
soon. It is definitely true that Saudi Arabia has repeatedly declared its intentions to go nuclear if Iran does.
Posturing aside, even Saudi Arabia knows they do not have the ability to get nuclear weapons. There is
a long way between the motivations to acquire nuclear weapons and actually make it possible. And all
the available evidence suggests that Saudi Arabia will not be able to travel long distance and actually
become a nuclear power within a decade. That is the very reason why Saudi Arabia has always
supported the idea of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East. The country acceded to the Nuclear Non-
proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1988 as a non-nuclear weapons state and has never expressed its intentions to withdraw
from the treaty. In order to bolster his case, Dr Lewis gives examples of how Pakistan and India succeeded in building
nuclear weapons but he conveniently forgets that it took these countries more than two decades to acquire
nuclear capability. In these times, when there is a strong global support for a worldwide ban on nuclear
weapons, the international community and the UN S ecurity Council would never allow Saudi Arabia to go
ahead with unchecked pursuit of nuclear weapons for so long . After King Abdullah’s death, the autocratic
government of Saudi Arabia has almost paralysed itself through internal power struggles and family feuds.
The country needs support from the international community to resolve the rapidly worsening conflict
in Yemen. The Arab media is already rife with speculations about the future of the ruling al-Saud brotherhood if the Islamic State succeeds
in redrawing the Middle East map by fully occupying post-Al Assad Syria. Against this backdrop, any move to the effect of
isolating their country should be the last thing on the agenda of risk-averse royals in Riyadh. Contrary
to Dr Lewis egregious claims, Saudi Arabia’s investment in its civil nuclear industry is not going to enable
it to acquire nuclear weapons because the money is being spent to fulfil the country’s domestic energy
needs. And even if Saudi Arabia, through some miracle, becomes a nuclear-weapons state overnight, it
does not have the required nuclear infrastructure and scientific expertise to be able to maintain and
use these weapons. The fact is that some analysts are raising the spectre of further nuclear proliferation in
the Middle East as part of a media campaign to build up public opinion in favour of a US attack on Iran .
These analysts claim that Iran’s success in building nuclear weapons could trigger an arms race in the Middle East. But the US is selling F-15 jet
fighters, Black Hawks and weapons of immense destructive capacity to other countries in the Middle East, besides Israel itself.

None of the defense to Saudi prolif assumes a breakdown in relations – they’ll

proliferate if they have to
Jeffrey Lewis Adjunct Professor and Director of East Asia Non-Proliferation Program at CNS 2015
“Sorry, Fareed: Saudi Arabia Can Build a Bomb Any Damn Time It Wants To”,
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/12/sorry-fareed-saudi-arabia-can-build-a-bomb-any-damn-time-it-
wants-to/

Fareed Zakaria
has written a predictably buzzy article suggesting that , whatever Saudi officials might say, Riyadh is
simply too backward to build a nuclear weapon . “Whatever happens with Iran’s nuclear program,” Zakaria writes, “10 years
from now Saudi Arabia won’t have nuclear weapons. Because it can’t.” While I don’t think it is terribly likely that Saudi Arabia will choose to
build nuclear weapons, I think it
is deeply misguided to conclude that Saudi Arabia (or pretty much any state)
cannot do so. Simply put, Zakaria is wrong — and it’s not all that hard to demonstrate why. Zakaria isn’t explicit about
what he believes to be the technical requirements for building a nuclear weapon, but he clearly thinks it
is hard. Which was probably true in 1945 when the United States demonstrated two different routes to atomic weapons.
Since then, however, the technologies associated with producing plutonium and highly enriched
uranium have been developed, put to civilian use, and spread around the globe . The fact that most
states don’t build nuclear weapons has a lot more to do with restraint than not being able to figure it
out. Zakaria’s argument that Saudi Arabia can’t build nuclear weapons is pretty shallow and relies largely on two assertions: a flip comment
about Saudi Arabia lacking even a domestic automotive industry, and a superficially data-driven claim about Saudi Arabia’s “abysmal” math and
science ranking. First, automobile production is a terrible indicator of whether a state can build a nuclear weapon. The technologies are really
not at all similar — or at least they don’t have to be. India, Pakistan, and North Korea all succeeded in building nuclear weapons despite not
having much of an auto industry at home. And the Soviets were really good at building nuclear weapons, even though their cars famously
sucked. And, anyway, Saudi Arabia is investing in a domestic auto industry. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry is hoping the Meeya will be
on the market by 2017. So, there’s that. More importantly, Saudi
Arabia is investing in a civil nuclear industry . “Where
would Saudi Arabia train the scientists to work on its secret program?” Zakaria wonders. Oh, I don’t know, how
about the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy? Somehow Zakaria never mentions that Saudi Arabia is
building a dedicated city for training nuclear scientists. I can’t predict whether this investment will pay off, but then again neither can Zakaria —
if he even knows it exists. Zakaria is also skeptical because, he writes, Saudi Arabia “ranks 73rd in the quality of its math and science education,
according to the World Economic Forum — abysmally low for a rich country. Iran, despite 36 years of sanctions and a much lower per capita
GDP, fares far better at 44.” Abysmally low for a rich country? Perhaps. But for a nuclear weapons state? Not nearly. Let’s do what he should
have done and make a little table using his own data. Here is a list of selected countries — in bold if they currently possess nuclear weapons —
by “Quality of Math and Science Education.” (Again, this is his data. Don’t blame me!) [Chart Omitted] Using Zakaria’s own measure, Saudi
Arabia would hardly be the least nerdy country to acquire a nuclear weapon. Now, obviously I’d prefer to have historical data. But I strongly
suspect that China’s and India’s rankings weren’t nearly so high in 1964 and 1974 when they conducted their first nuclear tests. The point is
this: You don’t need to be a rich country, or have a great education system, to build a bomb. This should be no surprise. Did
I mention
that we just celebrated the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear explosion, Trinity? Seventy years. What
other 70-year-old technology do we believe remains impossible for non-European countries to acquire,
even after several have done so? You know what else was invented in the 1940s? Microwave ovens,
solid-body electric guitars, and the Slinky. I don’t mean “acquire” in terms of buying a nuclear weapon off the shelf — I agree
with Zakaria that is a nutty idea. And I don’t mean purchasing a turn-key infrastructure to produce plutonium, as Syria did from North Korea, or
highly enriched uranium as Libya did from Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan. No, I mean building a bomb from scratch. The
fancy machine tools,
materials, and components that were good enough to build the nuclear weapons of the 1970s are
widely available now. My favorite example is that one of the machine tools linked to the A.Q. Khan network was a used Denn machine
tool. If you go to the Denn website, they tell you what their machine tools can be used for: everything from armaments to kitchenware. And, be
still Fareed Zakaria’s fluttering heart, auto parts. (Flow forming machines make sweet rims.) Talk about dual use! The
United States was
deeply skeptical that Pakistan could build centrifuges in the 1970s because of the country’s limited
industrial base. What U.S. analysts didn’t grasp was that Pakistan’s industrial base — and that of every
other proliferator — was the entire world. There is no reason to think this problem went away with A.Q. Khan. Take a spin
around Alibaba, the big Chinese online B2B procurement site sometime. Moreover, a proliferator doesn’t have to try to acquire the most
modern centrifuges. When U.N. inspectors were stumbling across the remnants of the Iraqi nuclear program in the early 1990s, they made a
surprising discovery: Calutrons. These were an obsolete uranium enrichment technology (electromagnetic isotope separation) from the 1940s
that fell out of favor after World War II. Inefficient, sure, but good enough to make the highly enriched uranium for the Little Boy bomb that
destroyed Hiroshima. Frankly,
we’re lucky that nuclear weapons have not spread as quickly as the
technology to make them. Some of the success in slowing the spread of nuclear weapons is down to sanctions, export controls, and
the occasional air strike. Most of the success, however, goes to the regime that discourages states that could build nuclear weapons from doing
so in the first place. If you ask a policy wonk whether the nonproliferation regime has been successful or not, the chances are better than even
that you’ll hear about President John F. Kennedy’s famous warning that “I see the possibility in the 1970s of the President of the United States
having to face a world in which 15 or 20 or 25 nations may have these weapons.” (It’s kind of a standard talking point we all learn early on.)
That didn’t happen — and credit usually goes to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). To see why, look at the countries that were in
Kennedy’s list of 15, 20, or 25 nuclear-armed states. Kennedy’s estimate came from a 1963 briefing paper provided by Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara that is now declassified. Here is McNamara’s chart:mcnamarachart Look at those names. They aren’t rogue states, but
rather a list of the world’s relatively industrialized countries, along with a few developing regional powers like China and the UAR (The United
Arab Republic was a brief political union of Egypt and Syria). The working assumption behind Kennedy’s estimate was that any state that could
build nuclear weapons probably would. That’s because, before the NPT, nuclear weapons were seen by many people as just another weapon,
part of any modern military’s future arsenal. In fact, virtually all the non-Warsaw Pact countries on this list seriously considered a nuclear
weapons program. Australia, Sweden, and Switzerland all had active nuclear weapons programs. The NPT helped changed that. (In the case of
Australia, Jim Walsh has written a particularly compelling account of the role played by the NPT in constraining Canberra’s nuclear aspirations.)
Treaties are absolutely necessary. It is simply not possible to sustain a nearly universal regime through technology denial and military action.
The regime depends on the vast majority of states choosing compliance, allowing the international community to focus its enforcement efforts
on a small number of hard cases like North Korea and Iran. Thenonproliferation regime can only function with the
support of those states that can build nuclear weapons, but choose not to — states like Saudi Arabia .
The Saudis are clearly alarmed by the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon . While I suspect that a lot of the talk
about acquiring nuclear weapons is intended to make the United States focus on Saudi security concerns, it doesn’t help to dismiss
Riyadh’s anxieties by mocking their educational system and ability to go nuclear . Rather, we need to focus
on making sure the nonproliferation regime works for Saudi Arabia and other states. That means closer
consultations on regional defense issues, expanded security arrangements, and crucially an attempt to
head off an Iranian bomb with a negotiated settlement. Fareed Zakaria may well win his bet that the Saudis
will not have a bomb in 10 years, but it’s not because they can’t have one. If he wins — and I hope he does — it’s because the United States and
other powers have successfully addressed Iran’s nuclear program and the regional security issues that would push Riyadh toward a bomb. And
who knows, maybe in 10 years we’ll all be driving Meeyas.

No Saudi prolif – tech, bureaucratic, and international barriers.

Colin Kahl Adjunct Professor and Director of East Asia Non-Proliferation Program at CNS et al. 13
Melissa Dalton, Fellow and Chief of Staff, International Security Program, CSIS, former senior adviser for
force planning, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Matthew Irvine, Research
Associate, CNAS, “Atomic Kingdom: If Iran Builds the Bomb, Will Saudi Arabia Be Next?”
http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_AtomicKingdom_Kahl.pdf
Saudi Technical and Bureaucratic Constraints

Even if Riyadh wanted to move decisively to produce nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear-armed Iran, the technical and
bureaucratic hurdles for developing a successful, indigenous nuclear weapons program would be monumental. As the world’s largest oil exporter and a country with enormous
foreign currency reserves, Saudi Arabia has sufficient economic resources to eventually develop a robust nuclear program should its leaders decide to do so.98

However, such a project would take more than a decade and may not be able to succeed even if the Saudi government devoted considerable resources to the
endeavor. Saudi Arabia currently lacks the natural resources, technical expertise and practical experience

required for uranium mining, uranium conversion, uranium enrichment, reprocessing, fuel fabrication and nuclear
power production – that is, nearly every essential civilian building block required to eventually develop a nuclear bomb (see Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear
Infrastructure text box).99

[BEGIN SIDE BOX, REFERENCED IN MAIN TEXT]

Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Infrastructure Saudi Arabia lacks sufficient domestic sources of uranium to support a large-scale nuclear program. At present, the Kingdom has no uranium mining
or milling industry, and developing one would be costly and take years. Low-level amounts of uranium and thorium have been discovered near the country’s Tabuk
Basin, but these areas have not been mined. The Kingdom could potentially extract uranium from its large deposits of phosphates, although it has yet to attempt to do so.100

Nonproliferation
Riyadh’s other nuclear activities are also modest, focusing on radiation monitoring and the limited development of civilian nuclear energy for industrial, agricultural and medical purposes.

experts agree that the Kingdom’s known facilities and capabilities are insufficient for military nuclear
purposes.101 In 1977, Saudi Arabia created the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, within which the Atomic Energy Research Institute was established in 1988 to coordinate nuclear research.102 Several
laboratories work under the Institute’s supervision, and Saudi scientists have conducted experiments and research in uranium analysis, isotope production, radiation protection, waste management and reactor operations.

Saudi academic research institutions have also cooperated with scientists in Africa and Europe, as well as Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, the United States and other
nations.103 However, little of this work has direct military applications .

Producing indigenous nuclear weapons requires mastering the fuel cycle . Countries need either a modest-sized nuclear research reactor and the reprocessing
capability to create fissile materials for nuclear weapons or the capability to produce enriched uranium. Saudi Arabia possesses neither. The Kingdom has no nuclear research

reactors or nuclear power facilities, no known reprocessing capability and no known uranium conversion, enrichment or
fuel fabrication facilities.104 Saudi scientists do have some experience producing uranium isotopes and managing spent fuel. For example, the Saudis operate a Tangetron accelerator at the King Fadh University of
Petroleum and Minerals that is used in nuclear physics experiments, as well as a cyclotron at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh that is used for the production of medical isotopes. However, these activities do not directly
train Saudi scientists in areas relevant to designing and building nuclear weapons.105 Although some activities conducted by Saudi laboratories – including physical and chemical separation, radiochemistry and work with
radioactive isotopes – could potentially be suitable for small-scale reprocessing of fissionable plutonium, it is not at a level assessed to represent a proliferation risk.106

[END SIDE BOX, REFERENCED IN MAIN TEXT]

Developing the technology and expertise necessary to support an indigenous nuclear weapons program would require dramatically expanding Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear energy sector. Such expansion could arguably be justified
to meet a number of pressing domestic needs. Nuclear energy could help power vitally important desalination efforts. It could also address a fundamental fiscal dilemma – created by a combination of Saudi population growth,
government fuel subsidies and increased domestic oil consumption for electricity – that could make Saudi Arabia a major oil importer as early as 2030.107 By that date, according to some estimates, the Kingdom would require oil
to be $320 a barrel for the country to simultaneously meet rising domestic energy needs and maintain adequate revenues from oil exports to meet anticipated budget requirements.108

At least partly for these reasons, Riyadh announced an extraordinarily ambitious plan in June 2011 to spend $100 billion on 16 nuclear reactors over the next 20 years, with the hope of completing the first pair of reactors between
2019 and 2021.109 The Kingdom has also been actively engaged with several countries to strengthen civilian nuclear cooperation. In December 2006, the Saudis and other GCC states announced a joint research initiative to expand
civilian nuclear power and cooperation.110 In 2008, the Kingdom signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation with the United States to expand Saudi nuclear capabilities in the areas of medicine,
industry and power generation. 111 In early 2011, Saudi Arabia signed an agreement with France, a leading producer of civilian nuclear power plants, to expand Saudi access to French nuclear expertise.112 Later that same year,
Saudi Arabia reached nuclear cooperation agreements with Argentina and South Korea to facilitate research and development, including building nuclear power plants and research reactors, as well as associated training, safety
and waste management. 113 And, in January 2012, the Kingdom inked a deal with China to cooperate in areas such as maintaining and developing nuclear power plants and research reactors, as well as the manufacturing and
supply of nuclear fuel elements.114

Despite Riyadh’s clear desire to expand its civilian nuclear activities , however, it remains highly uncertain whether
any of these arrangements and plans will bear much fruit or how long they might take to significantly expand Saudi Arabia’s indigenous nuclear capabilities.
Indeed, most nuclear experts see Saudi plans as highly unrealistic .115 Furthermore, even if the Kingdom has a legitimate domestic requirement

for nuclear power, it has “no basis … to claim that it has any legitimate civilian need to acquire nuclear fuel production capability, including equipment and

facilities to enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel.”116 Any Saudi attempt to develop indigenous fuel-cycle capabilities would therefore raise significant

suspicions within the international community regarding the intentions of the program. Perhaps for this reason, Saudi officials have repeatedly stressed the exclusively peaceful nature of their nuclear activities.
Following the announcement of the 2006 GCC joint research initiative, for example, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, told reporters, “Our aim is to obtain the technology for peaceful purposes, no more no less. … We
want no bombs. … Our policy is to have a region free of nuclear weapons.”117 Even though the GCC agreement was clearly meant to signal to Tehran that the Gulf states would seek to compete in the area of nuclear expertise, the
Saudis and their GCC partners also declared that their efforts would be fully transparent and under IAEA safeguards.118 Through in its 2008 Memorandum of Understanding with the United States, Riyadh similarly signaled its
intent to forego domestic uranium enrichment or spent-fuel reprocessing in favor of procuring nuclear fuel from market sources, although it has not yet made any firm commitments in this regard.119 Whether Saudi Arabia will

commitments themselves create leverage

ultimately follow through with these pledges remains to be seen; official statements could be aimed at masking more malign intentions. However, the

points for the international community to limit the potential proliferation dangers emanating from the Saudi program (see Section
V).

even if the Kingdom’s technical prowess grows over time, any Saudi attempt to develop nuclear weapons would be
Last but not least,

complicated by significant bureaucratic and managerial challenges . Put bluntly, the Saudi bureaucracy lacks the
human capital, managerial expertise, safety culture and regulatory, technical and legal structures
necessary to nurture and sustain a robust domestic nuclear program, and the country has no national authority
capable of coordinating all the required activities .120 The country may be able to eventually overcome these constraints, but they suggest that the prospect
of Saudi Arabia moving decisively toward an indigenous nuclear weapons program in response to an
Iranian bomb, let alone succeeding in this endeavor, is remote.

A Pakistani Option?
 Saudi Arabia decides to proliferate in reaction to Iran’s nuclear program, many analysts contend that it is more likely to develop the technical
Consequently, if

capability with substantial foreign assistance or seek to acquire a nuclear weapon from another country, with Pakistan being the most likely source.
Islamabad could provide Riyadh with fuel-cycle technology, fissile materials or other sensitive assistance that might enable the Kingdom to develop weapons in a matter of years, rather than the decade or longer that it would take
Saudi Arabia on its own. It is also possible, and some believe probable, that Pakistan could provide Saudi Arabia with operational nuclear weapons and delivery systems.121 These claims have been buttressed by longstanding
allegations that Saudi Arabia bankrolled the Pakistani nuclear program and engaged in other forms of sensitive nuclear cooperation in exchange for a commitment from Islamabad to provide nuclear weapons to the Kingdom in
extremis (see Alleged Saudi-Pakistani Nuclear Cooperation text box). This decades-long nuclear relationship has contributed to persistent claims by (usually unnamed) Saudi and Western sources that Pakistan would provide Saudi
Arabia with a nuclear bomb “the next day” after Iran becomes a nucleararmed state.122 Some reports even suggest that the Saudi Air Force has a small number of aircraft permanently stationed in Pakistan to deliver nuclear
weapons to the Kingdom on short notice.123

Allegations of a Riyadh-Islamabad nuclear arrangement remain unconfirmed by publicly available information. But even if such a deal exists, there are good reasons to believe that neither side would
follow through with the arrangement. For the Saudis, the same disincentives influencing a possible decision to indigenously develop nuclear weapons would discourage the illicit acquisition of a Pakistani bomb or
other sensitive technologies at odds with the Kingdom’s NPT commitments.

Nor is Islamabad likely to provide a weapon or sensitive assistance aimed at rapidly accelerating Saudi nuclear efforts. Indeed, although considerable attention has been placed on the motivations underlying the Saudi “demand

the Pakistani “supply side” of the equation is often taken for granted . Yet it is
side” of a possible nuclear transfer deal with Pakistan,

precisely here that claims of a grand Saudi-Pakistani nuclear conspiracy become particularly tenuous.

The rhetoric of an “Islamic bomb” notwithstanding, Pakistan did not develop its nuclear arsenal to help defend Saudi Arabia or the
wider Muslim world. To be sure, Pakistanis take great pride in being the first Muslim nation to develop nuclear weapons, and the country has long had a special relationship with the Kingdom, rooted in
common strategic interests, Wahhabi religious ties to Pakistan’s Sunni population and mountains of Saudi cash. In February 2012, after fresh rumors surfaced of a possible nuclear arrangement between Islamabad and Riyadh, the
Pakistani Ambassador to Saudi Arabia even declared that “each Pakistani considers [the] security of Saudi Arabia as his personal matter,” adding that the Saudi leadership also considered Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be one
country.124 Yet none of this changes the fact that Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal serves the very specific purpose of countering archrival India’s nuclear and conventional capabilities, and therefore, Gawdat Bahghat argues,

“ Pakistan … is not likely to ‘sell’ [the bomb] to any other country” in order to advance another objective. 125 Or, put somewhat less definitively,
Pakistan is unlikely to provide or sell nuclear weapons or other sensitive technologies to any other country unless the strategic imperatives for doing so – especially with regard to balancing India and maintaining relationships with
key states – clearly outweigh the expected costs. With regard to a potential transfer of operational weapons to Saudi Arabia, they do not.

There is no Iran-centric strategic rationale for Pakistan i leaders to transfer nuclear weapons to the Kingdom. Islamabad competes
with Tehran for influence in Afghanistan, and Sunni-majority Pakistan shares the view of its longtime Saudi ally that a nuclear-armed Iran would be more assertive in promoting radical Shia ideology and militancy throughout the
Middle East and Central Asia. Pakistan also worries that India intends to forge a closer strategic relationship with Iran, contributing to Pakistan’s encirclement. For all these reasons, Islamabad has cooperated with Riyadh to

despite a shared land border with Iran, Pakistani leaders do not view Tehran as
minimize Iranian influence in the region.138 However,

a direct or existential security threat. Moreover, if Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, Islamabad already
possesses a nuclear deterrent to neutralize the threat; providing nuclear weapons to the Kingdom would not make
the Pakistani homeland more secure.

Given the estimated size of Pakistan’s current nuclear arsenal, it is also not clear whether Islamabad has sufficient weapons
to spare, at least in the near future. The country is estimated to possess approximately 100 nuclear warheads, which it likely can deliver via F-16 and Mirage V
aircraft, and solid- and liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles. Pakistan is also in the process of significantly expanding its nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal, shifting from highly enriched uranium-based weapons to plutonium-based

weapons, and Islamabad has refused to sign the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty for this reason.139 Some suggest that this will easily provide “spare” weapons ,
including older uranium devices, which would enable a Pakistani sale or transfer to Saudi Arabia.140 Although conceivable, this should not be taken as a given. Pakistan’s race to acquire more

nuclear weapons is a result of the Pakistani leadership’s deep anxiety over maintaining even a “minimal
deterrent” in the face of Indian plans to increase their stock of nuclear materials and weapons. Islamabad also sees a larger nuclear arsenal as essential to check India’s conventional
modernization efforts – including New Delhi’s growing air, sea and missile capabilities ; emerging space-based systems; and ballistic

missile defenses – as well as the emergence of India’s “Cold Start” doctrine, which envisions the rapid defeat of Pakistani forces. In this context, giving the Saudis a portion of the Pakistani nuclear stockpile
anytime soon would probably aggravate, not alleviate, Islamabad’s perceived strategic dilemma vis-à-vis India.141 Of course, much would depend on how many weapons the Saudis required. If Riyadh only asked for a handful of
symbolic weapons, the net risk to India-related equities might be small, especially as Islamabad’s stockpile grows. However, if the Kingdom requested sufficient nuclear weapons to ensure a viable second-strike capability against a
nuclear-armed Iran – which seems more likely than being satisfied with a symbolic force – the potential trade-off of a transfer with Islamabad’s quest to attain a minimal deterrent against New Delhi would be more acute.

Additionally, Pakistani leaders would have to factor in the likely international response. A transfer of nuclear weapons or other sensitive
nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia would undoubtedly produce a very harsh response from the United States and other Western
countries. Although Pakistan is not an NPT signatory, the transfer of operational nuclear weapons to the Kingdom would likely be seen as one of the most provocative transactions in history. If the arrangement included
the transfer of weapons into the sole control of the Saudis, it would represent a gross violation of Riyadh’s NPT commitments. Irrespective of legal technicalities, the United States,
European nations and Israel would see any transfer as an extraordinarily dangerous proliferation precedent for the future, not to mention a potential trigger for an immediate nuclear crisis in the world’s most volatile region.

Western countries, and perhaps other members of the international community , would likely target Pakistan with
sweeping economic and military sanctions – and the Pakistanis have a lot to lose. In Washington, the
debate regarding Pakistan’s ambiguous status as a “friendly” vs. “enemy” state would likely be definitively
settled in favor of the latter interpretation, and the United States would probably terminate over $2 billion in annual U.S. economic and security assistance to Pakistan.142 Moreover, as Christopher Clary and Mara Karlin
note, “if the United States used its leverage at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund to attenuate the support of those institutions [to Pakistan],

Pakistan would be thrown into a major fiscal crisis.”143 To be sure, previous U.S. attempts to condition Islamabad’s aid have fallen flat.144 However, as U.S. forces
complete their drawdown from Afghanistan, Washington’s willingness to come down hard on Islamabad may increase. Given acute European concerns over Middle Eastern proliferation and European reactions to Pakistan’s 1998

nuclear tests, European states would likely to join in whatever harsh measures the United States imposed.

ongoing domestic instability in Pakistan and the potential impact of sanctions on the country’s fragile economy145 make it
The

difficult to imagine Pakistani leaders risking an international economic backlash by giving nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia.146
The broader geopolitical implications for Islamabad could also be significant . In particular, Pakistani leaders would have to factor in the very
real prospect of growing diplomatic isolation and pushing Washington into an even closer economic and military embrace of India.147

Pakistan’s history of shady nuclear dealings would, paradoxically, make Islamabad more sensitive to a potential Western backlash.
Pakistan acquired its own nuclear weapons capabilities on the grey market and then allowed those technologies to proliferate to some of the world’s most dangerous regimes via the A.Q. Khan network. As Feroz Hassan Khan, a
former director in the Pakistani Strategic Plans Division,148 notes, this legacy “is a scarlet letter that Pakistan has been unable to overcome.”149 However, it is precisely because of this past behavior – and lingering concerns in the
West – that the Pakistani government has become more concerned about the likely negative international consequences of further illicit nuclear transfers. Pakistani leaders know that any additional proliferation in the Muslim
world will immediately generate speculation about Islamabad’s involvement. The Pakistani government has therefore gone out of its way in recent years to demonstrate its commitment to nonproliferation and countersmuggling.

Not only has Pakistan taken aggressive steps to shut down the A.Q. Khan network, but it has also
reorganized its security bureaucracy to tighten control over its nuclear weapons and has placed stringent
export controls on technology, material and equipment that might contribute to designing, developing, stockpiling or using nuclear weapons.150 As a result, there have been no known
deliberate Pakistani transfers of sensitive nuclear technology to other states or foreign actors in recent years, and “there is little risk of a sudden radical change in Pakistani policy.”151

Finally, if Pakistan provided Saudi Arabia with a nuclear warhead (or help in developing one) without accompanying aircraft or missiles, Riyadh
would probably require China’s assistance to upgrade or replace the Kingdom’s aging CSS-2s as potential delivery
systems. China has close relations with Islamabad, seeing Pakistan as a useful counterweight to India, and China is a major customer for Saudi oil, potentially providing an incentive to cooperate.152 Allegations have also
surfaced that the Saudis have approached China (perhaps with Pakistani mediation) to provide more advanced nuclear-capable missiles.153 Nevertheless, Beijing is highly unlikely to

provide the required assistance. Abetting a proliferation deal between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan could jeopardize China’s
highly valued bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States and potentially make China the target
of Western sanctions. Furthermore, although China was willing to aid Pakistan’s nuclear program in the past and provide Saudi Arabia with its existing CSS-2 missiles,154 Beijing would
have no compelling strategic imperative to facilitate Saudi efforts to balance a nuclear-armed Iran. Indeed, given China’s dependence on
Middle Eastern oil supplies and interest in stability, it seems highly unlikely that Chinese leaders would want to help
accelerate a destabilizing nuclear arms race in the region .155
 Impact defense – Oil
No risk of oil wars---several reasons
Emily Meierding an assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif 2016.
“Oil wars: Why nations aren’t battling over resources.” 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/19/oil-wars-why-nations-arent-
battling-over-petroleum-resources/?utm_term=.3caff36523e9
The confrontation died down, but a critical question remains: Do countries fight over oil resources? The
question isn’t just pertinent to the South China Sea. The Arctic, Caspian, East China Sea and eastern
Mediterranean have all been identified as potential “hot spots” for international oil conflicts . Numerous
conflicts, including Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Japan’s invasion of the Dutch East Indies in World War II, Germany’s attacks against the Russian Caucasus in the same
war, the Iran-Iraq War, the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, and even the Falklands War, have been described as international “oil wars.” However,
contrary to the conventional wisdom, the risk of international oil wars is slim. Although oil is an exceptionally valuable strategic and
economic resource, fighting for it does not pay. The belief that countries fight for oil rests on a flawed foundational assumption: Countries reap the same benefits

from foreign oil resources as from domestic oil resources. In reality, profiting from oil wars is hard.
Countries face at least four sets of
obstacles that discourage them from fighting for oil: invasion costs, occupation costs, international costs
and investment costs. Invasion costs are the damage that wars inflict on oil fields and infrastructure.
Occupation costs arise from local resistance to foreign occupation, which can target oil industry
infrastructure and personnel. International costs are imposed by the international community, which
can respond to oil grabs with economic sanctions and military interventions. Investment costs are the
challenges of attracting foreign capital and technical expertise to occupied oil fields. Collectively, these four
sets of costs dramatically reduce the payoffs of fighting for oil and the appeal of oil wars. When the many
other costs of war, including manpower and materiel, are taken into account, fighting for oil becomes even less attractive. From a purely rational standpoint,
countries shouldn’t launch oil wars. But, countries don’t always act rationally. To test the oil war hypothesis, we have to take another look at historical so-called oil
wars. Closer examination shows that oil has not been the fundamental cause of any international wars. The Falklands War in
1982 was triggered by national pride and Argentine officials’ fear that their window of opportunity for retaking the islands was closing. Rather than fight over oil,
Britain and Argentina tried to use it as a catalyst for cooperation. In the 1970s and 1990s, they tried to jointly develop the Falklands’ oil resources. The Iran-Iraq
War, from 1980 to 1988, was also not an oil war. Iraq initially aimed only to gain control over the Shatt al-Arab waterway and 130 square miles of contested
territory. In the early stages of the war, Iraq repeatedly offered to withdraw from Iran, if Tehran would accept those demands. However, Iranian officials accused
the Iraqis of fighting for oil in order to discredit them internationally. The Chaco War, from 1932 to 1935, was also launched for other reasons. Bolivia and Paraguay
knew that oil discoveries in the Chaco region were unlikely. They fought because of national pride and to avoid further territorial dismemberment, after major
losses in the 19th century. The oil explanation didn’t appear until the war bogged down, when leaders tried to transfer responsibility for the devastating conflict
onto international oil companies. On three occasions, countries have launched major military campaigns targeting oil resources. However, these were
fundamentally wars for survival, not for oil. In World War II, Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies and Germany attacked the Russian Caucasus because leaders
realized that, without more oil, their regimes would collapse. Japan would have to withdraw from China, which was “tantamount to telling us to commit suicide,” as
Japanese Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori put it. Hitler was even more succinct: “Unless we get the Baku oil,” he stated, “the war is lost.” Iraq’s
invasion of
Kuwait in 1990 was a war for survival. Contrary to popular beliefs, Saddam Hussein was not attempting
to greedily grab more oil resources. Instead, he was afraid that the United States was trying to
overthrow his regime. The United States had supported the Kurds’ rebellion in the 1970s, perpetrated the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, and by
1990, seemed to be squeezing Iraq economically. According to Hussein, the United States was driving down oil prices by directing Kuwait to exceed its OPEC
production quota. Hussein believed that seizing Kuwait offered the only means of eluding the United States’ hostile designs .
By controlling his
neighbor, Hussein could raise oil prices, escape his economic crisis and regain domestic support. He knew
that the maneuver was a long shot. Regime records show that Hussein expected the United States would try to force him out of Kuwait. Still, it was either that or
regime collapse. As Hussein’s deputy, Tariq Aziz, said after the war, “You will either be hit inside your house and destroyed, economically and militarily. Or you go
outside and attack…” Japanese, German and Iraqi leaders believed that they were fighting wars for survival. Participants in other so-called oil wars were fighting for
additional reasons, like national pride. None of the conflicts were driven by oil ambitions. This is good news for contemporary international relations. Oil
competition in areas like the South China Sea is not a serious threat to international security.
Countries may engage in minor oil spats, like China and Vietnam’s rig confrontation, to reinforce their
resource claims. However, these incidents will not escalate into international wars. There is also little
risk of oil imperialism. Countries like China will not satisfy their oil needs by seizing foreign oil fields.
Historically, leaders have only initiated oil grabs when they believed that their survival depended on it. This
condition is exceedingly rare, even in wartime. And, it’s unrelated to the price of oil. The United States considered grabbing Middle Eastern oil

in 1975, after the first energy crisis drove up prices. However, the Ford administration refrained, because the costs of aggression were too high. Lastly , oil

won’t inspire great power wars. The United States and China may eventually come to blows. Some of their military campaigns may target oil
resources, if controlling them seems necessary for regime survival. However, oil will not be the fundamental cause of a Sino-American conflict. It’s not worth
fighting for.

US oil prices already spiked- disproves impact

Tom Dichristopher Energy reporter, April 3rd, 2019, “Why oil and gasoline prices
are rising faster than analysts expected this year,” CNBC,
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/why-oil-and-gasoline-prices-are-rising-faster-
than-analysts-expected.html (Occessed July 8th, 2019): Oli
Oil prices are rising faster this year than many energy analysts expected,
leaving many consumers to wonder how much further their gasoline bills will jump.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices have rallied 37 percent this year,
hitting a five-month high near $63 a barrel on Wednesday. Brent crude, the
international benchmark

No impact to oil volatility---allocation strategies mitigate exposure to risk, and

underlying economic resiliency prevents collapse
Miles Capital 16, Miles Capital’s investment professionals have backgrounds both in asset
management and broader industry, including significant expertise in insurance asset management, non-
profit board leadership, and public entity finance, professionals include CFA charterholders, CPAs and
MBAs, "Fears and Volatility are Likely Overblown", First Quarter 2016, Volume 14, Issue 1, www.miles-
capital.com/upl/downloads/insight/commentary/miles-capital-1st-quarter-update.pdf

The past six months has been a period of heightened market volatilty with significant spikes above historical averages
- first in August and September and againat the turn of the year. The turmoil in oil, the slowdown in China, and corporate
earnings concerns, while not new, continue to cause havoc in the markets. Revisiting the bear market This most recent
downturn technically marks the beginning of a bear market for the economy, which occurs after a 20-percent drop
from the most recent high. However, as stocks enter this correction, it would be wise for market watchers to remember that not all
bear markets are created equal. While the two most recent bear markets - in 2000 and 2007 - were
extreme, a regular bear market or downturn does not signal economic or market crisis. A corrective
patch for the market, while concerning for those investors needing immediate liquidity, should not automatically create
concern. This is especially true for long-term investors and institutions desiring long-term growth. Day-
to-day volatility is challenging but not a cause for alarm . Instead, a bear market can create many
additional opportunities for asset managers. With more attractive prices, investors can take advantage
of the opportunity to bolster holdings and wait out the storm . Asset managers utilize researched and
active allocation strategies that help alleviate the risks associated with these types of large swings in the
market. While not every strategy is a definite route to avoid volatility, asset managers ensure they’re mitigating exposure
to risks. Systemic versus nonsystemic risks It’s important to understand the difference between these two types
of risks. A systemic risk involves a problem that investors cannot avoid through portfolio diversification. No
matter where an individual or institutional investor tries to put their money, there is significant risk associated with the action. This is commonly
summed with the term PRIME, which stands for risks associated with purchasing power, reinvestment, interest rates, market and exchange
rates. On the other hand, a nonsystemic risk revolves around diversifiable risks and stems from a
concentrated investment strategy. Typically this would stem from a portfolio that only has shares in a single company or industry,
where any minor volatility can potentially wreak havoc on all the assets. As opposed to the aforementioned bear markets of
2000 and 2007, when there was considerable systemic risk across most sectors, the economy is in
significantly better shape than it was at that point. Most market watchers currently think banks and
market fundamentals are much more stable than they were during those previous downturns. Indeed,
the financial markets as a whole are well supported to withstand additional volatility . A resilient economy The
market is likely severely underestimating not only the current strength of the U.S. economy, but also its
long-term resiliency. Investors seem to be taking an undue cautious approach stemming from a lack of
confidence that doesn’t seem to be accurately predicting the economy for 2016. With a good amount of
pent-up demand for housing and commercial construction coming to fruition , and the low
unemployment rate persisting, there are several good reasons to believe in the long-term health of the
economy. The slowdown in Chinese growth remains one of the biggest factors that many economists feel is overblown. The U.S. economy
only exports one-eighth of its total gross domestic product, and of that number, a mere 10 percent of those goods travel to China. With seven-
eighths of the economic activity generated within the U.S. borders, it can be much easier to gauge the impact of the U.S. companies and
policies most likely to impact the stock market. Further, many of the prime recession indicators are healthy. The
spread between the 10-year and 2-year U.S. Treasury note is tightening, but it’s still positive. Historically, when the
yield curve spread goes negative, it would typically presage an imminent recession. For now, this number is still close to a reading of 2. With
several positive factors indicating the underlying strength of the U.S. economy, the risk can be
controlled. As the market settles in for a period of volatility, many institutional investors and asset
managers will have the chance to take advantage of market opportunities.
 Impact defense – Afghanistan
The Afghan war is stabilizing now
Krishnadev Calamur, 3-28-2018, is a staff writer for the atlantic where he covers global news, Is Peace
on the Horizon for Afghanistan?, Atlantic,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/afghanistan-taliban-tashkent-
conference/556508/, accessed 10-16-2018 {\\EP}

Is it time for optimism in Afghanistan? On February 28, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani offered the Taliban
peace talks without preconditions as a way to end the nearly two-decade-long conflict in his country. A
month later, as delegates from more than 20 countries gathered in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan,
to discuss ways to restore stability to Afghanistan , there still hasn’t been a formal response from the
Taliban. Officials, meanwhile, have held out hope that the absence of a reply is cause for optimism.
“[W]e have not seen them reject the proposal, which … is in itself a positive sign ,” Alice Wells, the U.S. State
Department official who oversees South and Central Asia, said earlier this month at the U.S. Institute for Peace. “And I would underscore our hope and expectation
that the Taliban leadership will analyze the proposal seriously and carefully.” Ghani’s unprecedented overture to the Taliban includes the offer of talks without
preconditions. It would also allow its members to run for government, release Taliban fighters from prison, and require foreign forces to leave Afghanistan. The
Taliban, who ruled the country until the U.S.-led invasion in retaliation for the attacks of September 11, 2001 (which was conceived and executed by al-Qaeda, a
group granted refuge in Afghanistan by the Taliban regime), is reportedly considering the offer. That has not prevented it from carrying out attacks across the
country—nor does it mean its leaders will accept the proposal. Barnett Rubin, an expert on the region at NYU, told me that Ghani’s offer is significant in that it
addresses many of the Taliban’s major concerns. But, he said, it doesn’t address its main concern: its belief that Ghani lacks the authority or legitimacy to make such
an offer. “The Afghan Taliban were not overthrown by the Afghan government. They were overthrown by the United States,” Rubin said. “And they want to talk to
the United States. If they talk to the Afghan government, to them, it’s like surrendering—because, to them, it means that it was legitimate to overthrow them.” And
yet, as The New York Times reported Tuesday, the mood at the Tashkent conference, the latest international effort to bring peace to Afghanistan, was
“unusually optimistic.” Ghani’s offer to the Taliban came at a similar conference in Kabul bringing
together 20 countries. There are also several other mechanisms in place working towards peace in
Afghanistan; many involve a combination of its neighbors and either the United States or Russia . Most,
but not all, include the Afghan government . None include the Taliban. After years of criticizing America’s war in Afghanistan, President
Trump followed his two predecessors by sending U.S. soldiers to the country. His South Asia strategy involved pressuring Pakistan, which he accused of giving “safe
haven to the terrorists we hunt,” by suspending security assistance to Islamabad. He also wants India to do more. As part of this effort, the U.S. is helping Afghan
forces fight the Taliban “in order to drive them to the negotiating table.” The Taliban remains the most powerful insurgent group in Afghanistan. Its membership is
Afghan (unlike the other groups, whose ranks include many foreign fighters), it enjoys some support among the population, and controls about one-third of the
country—more territory than at any point since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. (The Afghan government controls all the major population centers.) What all these
international efforts underscore is that while the international community wants a reconciliation process between the Afghan government and the Taliban, many
global powers who have meddled in the country for decades—if not centuries—still influence what happens within its borders. U.S. Army General John Nicholson,
the senior-most U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told the BBC last week that weapons seized from Taliban fighters were allegedly supplied by Russia. (Russia, whose
painful history in Afghanistan dates back to the 19th century, has denied this.) Russia is reportedly arming the Taliban in order to fight the Islamic State, which has
gained a foothold in the country. (It also supports the Afghan government.) Hanif Atmar, Afghanistan’s national-security adviser, said last week in Washington that
Kabul disagreed with Moscow’s distinction “between good and bad terrorists.” “Of course, we’ve been provided assurance that [the] Taliban will not be provided
with weapons and resources,” he said. “We will welcome that assurance and we would like to see that in practice.” Afghanistan’s other neighbors have their own
interests—interests that are often at odds with one another, as well as with the Afghan government. Pakistan, the Taliban’s ally and major benefactor, is afraid of
being hemmed in between two unfriendly neighbors, India and Afghanistan. India, in turn, is nervous about the prospect of the withdrawal of international forces
from Afghanistan because they provide a semblance of stability to the region. Iran, which borders Afghanistan in the west, is also reportedly arming the Taliban in
order to fight ISIS. (It supports the Afghan government, as well.) China sees stability in the country as a major necessity if the belt-and-road initiative, its massive
infrastructure project, is to succeed. China is also nervous about the presence of Uighur separatists inside Afghanistan; ditto for Uzbekistan, which is battling its own
Islamist militancy. Atmar said the number of foreign fighters had increased in the country, as the number of international forces fell over the past four years. The
government’s goal, he said, was to “separate the Afghan Taliban from the foreign fighters. And we can make peace with them because they are Afghans—if they are
interested in peace.” If the Taliban accepted Ghani’s offer of talks (a big if), it would mark the first time since 2015 that the group’s leadership met with Afghan
government officials. That effort in Pakistan faltered after it emerged that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, had died two years previously, but the
group had managed to conceal it. Other efforts at peace talks also failed.*Hamid Karzai, the previous Afghan president, tried in 2014 to talk secretly to the Taliban,
but the Obama administration blocked his attempts. Karzai himself had opposed previous U.S. attempts to negotiate with the insurgents. The
U.S. role in
Afghanistan itself has changed since 2001 . At the height of the war on terrorism, there were about
100,000 U.S. troops in the country. Today, that figure is down to about 15,000 troops who work with the
Afghan military to fight the Taliban and international terrorist groups, including isis. Atmar, the Afghan national-
security adviser, cast doubt over whether the Taliban were still monolithic, arguing that because it lacks the strong leadership it once had, it is brought together by
foreign influence. “There are leaders now among the Taliban … that question the continuation of the conflict,” he said. “And they are certainly in contact with our
peace council and with the government, and they are asking for a process whereby they and their families are protected to engage in peace.” But, he said, there are
also elements that are irreconcilable. The Afghan government, he said, would engage with one group and fight the other. But Rubin, who previously worked as a
U.S. diplomat and talked to the Taliban, said the militants are less fragmented than they are perceived to be. “There’s a stereotype about the Taliban that they’re a
bunch of fractious tribesmen, but it’s not true,” he said. “They do speak with one voice. In fact, they are much more consistent in their policy positions than either
the U.S. or Afghan governments.” * This story noted that the Taliban and the Afghan government last met in 2010. They last met in 2015. We regret the error.

Central Asia will cooperate, solves the impact.

Lamb et al 2014
Robert D., Senior Fellow and Director of the Program on Crisis, Conflict, and Cooperation at the CSIS,
‘South Asia Regional Dynamics and Strategic Concerns,
http://csis.org/files/publication/140116_Lamb_SouthAsiaRegionalDynamics_WEB.pdf

Afghanistan's neighbors would suffer the consequences of a major escalation of Af- ghanistan's internal
conflict. All neighboring countries are concerned about refugee flows. All are concerned about incursions by combatants
across their borders to stage attacks, recruit fighters, or form alliances with local extremist groups. All are concerned about the safety of their
nationals working in Afghanistan (diplomats, development officials, train- ers, advisers, and so on). And all are concerned about the security of
any economic projects that they are sponsoring or would benefit from. Some are concerned about the safety of Afghans who share their ethnic
identify. And Pakistan and India are concerned about having influence with the central government in Kabul and, in Pakistan's case, with the
governors and power brokers in the provinces along its border. In the event of conflict escalation in Afghanistan, China
would be in direct contact with the Afghan government, the power brokers it has a relationship with,
and with Pakistani civilian and (especially) military leaders to strongly encourage a political settlement. It
would put its economic projects on hold temporarily. But it would not become involved militarily; instead, it would try to contain the
fallout with, for example, stronger border security. Iran would certainly take similar measures to contain
spillover from an escalated Afghan conflict, but otherwise its involvement would depend almost entirely on the state of its conflicts and
rivalries in the Levant and the Gulf, much higher-priority areas than Afghanistan. If things settle down to its west and south, Iran might turn
some attention eastward to Afghanistan's conflict. This would not be in the form of direct military incursions but
rather of funding, military equipment, and possibly safe haven to Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek groups, as it has in the past,
with a particular priority on protecting Afghanistan's Shi'ite minority. Saudi Arabia, working with Pakistan, would probably
offer support to groups that oppose Iranian-support groups. Qatar might follow Saudi Arabia's lead or it might
offer to mediate talks between opposing groups, as it has recently . Beyond that, Qatar and UAE would probably stay
out. Russia would probably increase its security presence in Central Asia, as noted above, but work
diplomatically with the United States, European powers, or NATO to find ways to contain the spread of
violence from Afghanistan into Central Asia.
 Impact defense – Russia
No Russian war or aggression
Trenin 7-20-18 – Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center (Dmitri, “Fears of World War III are
overblown,” Politico, 7-20-18, https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-nato-
crimea-fears-of-world-war-iii-are-overblown/)

Helsinki was a PR disaster. But Russia is no more likely to attack its neighbors than it was . MOSCOW — Donald Trump’s
meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was widely derided in the U.S. and Europe as a public relations disaster with dire implications for the
geopolitical world order. Yes, Putin came away looking better than the U.S. president. But there’s no point in letting the event’s admittedly bad
optics overshadow the substance of the thing itself. Europeans
fretted about the end of NATO. But seen from Moscow,
the military alliance still appears to be very much alive. Trump’s harsh words to his allies on spending haven’t changed that.
Russia is all too aware that the alliance is focused on its eastern flank, and not only rhetorically. Since it rediscovered Russia as a threat in 2014,
there have been new deployments, a higher degree of mobility, and more military exercises along the
Russian border, from the Barents to the Black Seas. Hardly a boon for Russia. It was clear at last week’s NATO summit that allies agree on
the need to upgrade the bloc’s military efforts. Germany, Italy, France, the U.S. — they all agree members’ defense spending should go up.
Whether by 2 percent of GDP as agreed in Wales, or by 4 percent as now demanded by Trump, is, of course, important. However, with Russia’s
GDP often likened to that of Spain, or the state of New York, either figure is considered significant in Moscow, given that the money will be
spent with Russia in mind. NATO allies also worry about Trump’s comment this week that it is problematic for the U.S. to come to the defense
of smaller NATO allies such as Montenegro. But let’s not forget that at the height of the Cold War it was never 100 percent certain what the
U.S. would do in case of an attack on West Germany. Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt would not have asked for U.S. medium-range missiles
in Europe in the 1970s had he had full confidence in NATO’s largest member. Nor is NATO enlargement off the table completely. Macedonia has
just crossed a major hurdle in its push for membership. Predictions that Trump would recognize Crimea at the Helsinki meeting were also
overblown. There was never any question of the U.S. accepting Crimea’s status as part of Russia, or Washington leaning on Kiev to fulfill its side
of the Minsk II accords. In Helsinki, Trump and Putin simply acknowledged the issue, and moved on. The U.S. continues to support both Ukraine
and Georgia in their conflicts with Russia and to promote their eventual membership in NATO, which most in the West privately regard as
increasingly dangerous. NATO is still very much exerting pressure on Russia. It’s considered more of an annoyance than an immediate threat in
Moscow, but also keeps the country in permanent “war mode” vis-à-vis the U.S. Because Moscow is focused on Washington, this means
Europeans usually get a pass. As for Russia’s own intentions, two things are clear. There is no interest in Moscow
in attacking the Baltic states or Poland. These countries are as safe now as they were before 2014. Suggestions
otherwise simply point to the deep wounds in both nations’ psyche , which will not be healed for many decades.
Should Ukraine’s leaders decide to repeat Mikheil Saakashvili’s mistake in 2008 and launch a major offensive to retake
Donbas — however unlikely — the Russian response could indeed be devastating and lead to Ukraine’s loss of
sovereignty, as Putin recently stated. But does this mean Russia will move on Ukraine unprovoked? Most certainly
not. Putin’s main concerns are largely domestic. He has an ambitious program that logically calls for
more economic ties with the West. To move forward, he is looking to ease tensions with the EU and the U.S.
What Putin wanted to get out of Helsinki was mainly to start a dialogue with Washington. Those hopes are now visibly going up in smoke. It is
safe to bet that Russia will continue to face the same opposition from a coalition of U.S. and EU interests. The first détente in the hybrid war
between Russia and the West was indeed nipped in the bud by Trump’s behavior and the vehemence of his domestic critics. So be it.
Moscow will not capitulate, and will indeed push back. But it’s not likely to take the form of an
aggressive, overt military attack. Fears of new wars are far from accurate. Moscow’s strategy should
now be one of patience, leaving America and Europe to their own devices and focusing on relations with
countries far more relevant to its future : Asia and the Middle East.

No US-Russia war
Andrew Korybko 18, member of the expert council for the Institute of Strategic Studies and
Predictions at the People’s Friendship University of Russia, "The World War III Media Hype is Misplaced:
The US-Russian Arms Competition Might Stabilize Their Standoff in Syria",
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-world-war-iii-media-hype-is-misplaced-the-us-russian-arms-
competition-might-stabilize-their-standoff-in-syria/5635701
There are a lot of fast-moving events happening right now surrounding the latest Syrian Crisis, and it’s not the point of this article to review
them all in detail, which is why the author recommends that the reader check out his previous analysis about “The Suspicious Timing Of The Latest Provocations In Syria” and his follow-up

Facebook post from this morning about why the Alt-Media-driven hype about World War III is totally misplaced. The US-
Russian standoff has rhetorically escalated to the point where both Great Powers have to do something
otherwise they’ll “lose face” and subsequent “prestige”, which is why the US looks ready to hit Syria
while Russia may very well militarily respond , but neither of these actions are guaranteed to be
“substantial” and could very likely just be “superficial” in order to keep their delicate “dance” going.
The US knows that endangering the lives of Russian servicemen would automatically trigger the tripwire
that would necessitate Moscow undertaking a decisive military response , hence why this probably won’t
happen and the so-called “deconfliction mechanisms” will be relied upon instead to prevent this “dark
scenario” from materializing. By the same token, Russia knows that shooting down the US missiles will enrage
Trump and prompt his “deep state” to push him into escalating the crisis even further in order to avoid
“embarrassment”, which is one argument as to why it might not militarily respond to this predictably forthcoming assault apart from the fact that it officially declared last year
after the first one happened that it wouldn’t do if any new ones happened either. That said, the Russian rhetoric on this matter has gotten to such a point – and been

so widely misinterpreted by many – that there are very real expectations around the world for it to
respond in one form or another otherwise it will be “humiliated” and considered “unreliable”, and this soft power-“constructivist” impression might actually end up influencing policy at
the end of the day. However, it doesn’t mean that Russia will intercept Trump and his allies’ cruise missiles with S-400

ones but just that it could react through diplomatic or economic means like Russian State Duma Defense Committee Chairman and
former Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Airborne Troops Vladimir Shamanov warned earlier this week. Russia is also in a predicament when it comes to its possible response because
anything less than a 100% success rate with the S-400s might diminish their hard-earned international reputation as the world’s best anti-air and anti-missile defensive weapons system,
something that Moscow might not be willing to risk when considering that billions upon billions of dollars of future revenue is dependent on their sales, which become even more important in

Because of the dangerous escalatory risk that could occur if Russia’s S-400s take down
the context of existing sanctions.

all of Trump and his allies’ incoming munitions (something that Moscow said last year it wouldn’t do anyway), as well as the need to avoid any
unexpected “flukes” that could result in anything less than a 100% or other similarly “convincing”
showing of this defensive system’s first-ever battle-tested capabilities , Russia is unlikely to militarily
respond to the US in any “significant” way. Nor, for that matter, is the US expected to “significantly” change the
balance of power in Syria through its supposedly imminent and potentially multilateral strike against the
Arab Republic, meaning that both the US’ actions and Russia’s reaction will probably be “ superficial” in
order for both sides to “save face” and not risk having the other “embarrass” them by upstaging their
real military capabilities. Russia’s 100% deflection of the US and its allies’ best missiles would prove that the S-400 is the
most effective system for preventing American-led aggression against any country in the world; conversely, anything less than that or similarly
“unconvincing” (and brought about by some kind of unexpected and unusual occurrence) would make the world think whether rightly or
wrongly that the S-400 doesn’t live up to its “hype” and is incapable of “saving” its customers.
Therefore, as paradoxical as it may sound, the US-Russian standoff in Syria might actually be “stably”
managed (key word, used relatively) precisely because of the military competition between these parties’ offensive
and defensive weapons respectively, with each of them knowing full well that anything other than an
“ideal” performance by either of them – which is impossible for both sides to pull off given that they’d be challenging
one another – would lead to a profound erosion of their soft power, which is a risk that neither of them might be willing to

take.
 Relations Bad - Nuclearization
US-Saudi relations allowing export of nuclear technology which will be a mechanism
to support Saudi nuclearization
BRANDON JETTER — BRJETTER@UCDAVIS.EDU APRIL 23, 2019 The United States is putting Saudi
Arabia on the fast-track to nuclear weapons https://theaggie.org/2019/04/23/the-united-states-is-
putting-saudi-arabia-on-the-fast-track-to-nuclear-weapons/

Recently proposed nuclear sales have been portrayed as assisting Saudi efforts to pursue energy
modernization. The reality is, however, that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s push toward
nuclear technology has far more to do with developing nuclear weapons as a means of countering
Iranian influence than with providing a source of renewable energy. In fact, the Crown Prince stated last
year that “without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”
Despite the repeated insistence of the Trump administration that Iran is the greatest state sponsor of
terrorism (and thus must be subject to regime change), the State Department remains silent on Saudi
Arabia’s role in becoming arguably the most prolific financial supporter of global Islamist terrorism.
Saudi Arabia has exported violent Wahhabist ideology at an international level, funding thousands of
radical madrassas across multiple continents, with the intention of fomenting a radical form of Islam at
the expense of more moderate voices. Saudi Arabia has funded terrorist organizations including al-
Qaeda, the Taliban and al-Nusra. Of course, the cognitive dissonance caused by America’s contradictory
policies over Iran and Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of nuclear technology is not without reason. The United
States remains closely tied financially to the Saudi government, especially over weapon sales and crude
oil transactions. More broadly, the Trump administration’s support for exporting nuclear technology to
Saudi Arabia is also part of a larger effort to establish a coalition of Arab states to assist the United
States and Israel in countering Iranian influence in the Middle East. White House Senior Adviser Jared
Kushner has developed an unusually close relationship with the Saudi royal family, frequently engaging
in private, informal conversations with the Crown Prince. This has drawn the ire of some who see the
politically-inexperienced Kushner as susceptible to Saudi manipulation. Kushner’s top level security
clearance was initially denied by intelligence officials last month, likely due in part to his close ties to the
Saudi government, and was only approved after the president overruled the decision. Given his
proximity to both Trump and the Crown Prince, it’s hard to imagine that Kushner did not have a role in
pushing these dangerous nuclear sales forward. Even as Trump rightfully attempts to denuclearize
countries like North Korea, his administration contradicts itself by supporting the nuclearization of one
of the most despotic regimes on the planet. Driven by its own greed and manipulated by its close
alliance with the Saudi royal family, the U.S. government seems intent on assisting Saudi Arabia in
developing nuclear weapons. The sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia does not benefit the U.S.
domestically or on an international level. Instead, it threatens to violently backfire by signifying
American hypocrisy on a global scale and rapidly accelerating tensions in one of the most volatile
regions in the world.

US Saudi relations allows Saudi Arabia to develop nuclear tech.

Victor Gilinsky, 19, 6-23-2019, (Victor Gilinsky, 6-23-2019, 7-7-2019, National Interest, <a class="vglnk"
href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/only-congress-stands-between-saudi-arabia-and-nuclear-
weapons-635420
There is an eerie lull in the news about the proposed U.S.-Saudi nuclear agreement that Washington has talked about for months. Could it be that the
administration no longer supports a sweetheart deal with its favorite crown prince? It seems too good to be true. Alas, it surely is .
The lure of Saudi
money is irresistible to the Trump White House and its nuclear camp followers, and they will be back.
Congress must act now in anticipation if it is to stop an arrangement that would allow Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman to outfit himself with everything he needs for a bomb . If Congress waits to see what lands on
its table, then it will be too late. If President Donald Trump presents a fully negotiated agreement text to Congress, then the only way Congress can reject it is by
mustering a two-thirds vote of opposition in both houses, which in their current configuration is a near political impossibility. Altogether, the law, and Congress’s
decades-old passivity in the face of Executive action, favor the president. So why has Trump not done so already? It can only be because he has not been able to
negotiate sufficiently advantageous terms. In truth, he doesn’t have much to work with other than the threat that Saudi security ultimately rests on American
power. There is no longer an American vendor of nuclear power plants. Westinghouse, which is often spoken of in this context, has been Japanese-owned for years.
Its managerial incompetence led to the collapse of one of the only two U.S. nuclear construction projects, and the near failure of the other. It went through
bankruptcy and is now owned by a Canadian conglomerate (albeit one with financial ties to the Trump family). It is an altogether unattractive partner for an
international construction project. The best it can realistically hope for is to piggy-back on a Saudi deal with a more solid vendor, the prime candidate being Korean.
But the president and his closest advisors are too heavily invested in the U.S.-Saudi connection to let the
nuclear deal go. It not only has personal importance for Trump—recall the Kingdom was his first foreign
destination—but he has advertised that its putative riches will create untold jobs in America , and it is
also the capstone in the U.S.-Arab-Israeli front against Iran. If the Saudis want nuclear technology as part
of the price, the president is not going to insist on encumbrances that would restrict what use they
made of it. To make this work he has to find a way around the tiresome congressmen who keep on
insisting that we shouldn’t encourage the spread of nuclear weapons , and the even more tiresome ones who bring up the
unfortunate disappearance of a Washington Post columnist. Part of the strategy is to keep Congress in the dark.

Nuclear tech sales to Saudi Arabia will spark nuclear arms race.
Sonam Sheth, 19, 6-5-2019, (Sonam Sheth, 6-5-2019, 7-7-2019, Business Insider,
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-saudi-arabia-iran-weapons-republicans-national-security-risks-
2019-60
The first of the two approvals was on October 18, two weeks after Khashoggi's death, Kaine's office said in a statement. The second was on February 18. The Trump
administration has approved a total of seven nuclear technology transfers to Saudi Arabia since December 2017. The news is both surprising — given the swift
global backlash to the Saudis' role in Khashoggi's murder — and par for the course for a White House that has repeatedly butted heads with Congress over the
former's coziness with authoritarian regimes. Read more: Jared Kushner still won't blame Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Jamal Khashoggi's killing
Now, however, more and more Republicanlawmakers are standing up to Trump amid fears that providing the
Saudis with weapons and technology could spark a nuclear arms race with dangerous repercussions.
Republicans' resistance also comes as the US is confronting Iran after Trump's decision to withdraw from
the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was designed to stop Iran from
becoming a nuclear power. In response to the Trump administration's deployment of bombers and an aircraft carrier to the Middle East and
increased sanctions, Iran in May warned it would stop complying with parts of the nuclear deal if it does not

receive economic relief in the near future. The United Nations' nuclear watchdog said last Friday that Iran is still in compliance with the key
components of the agreement, but that its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and heavy water had grown. Iran has also installed 33 new centrifuges capable of
more quickly enriching uranium, "potentially placing it in violation of the terms of the deal," the Associated Press reported. Read more: Trump is stoking a crisis with
Iran, and now Iran is calling his bluff Jordan's
King Abdullah II, Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, U.S.
President Donald Trump, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sh Reuters/Jonathan Ernst 'Nuclear nonproliferation
malpractice' As the Trump administration transfers nuclear technology to the Saudis, Democrats in
Congress are raising alarms about how Iran will react. "The president's committing nuclear
nonproliferation malpractice," Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday. "Because he's pulled out of the Iran
agreement, and by selling to the Saudis nuclear technology, it makes it much more likely that the
Iranians are going to restart their nuclear program, because they see that the Saudis have a head start."
 Aff extension – knowledge production
The knowledge production of the negative is grounded in the spirit of militarism and
should be rejected – frame the debate away from this type of cruel propaganda
Giroux 2012 [Henry, Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and
Cultural Studies Department, “Beyond the Politics of the Big Lie: The Education Deficit and the New
Authoritarianism” June 6, 2012 http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9865-beyond-the-politics-of-the-big-
lie-the-education-deficit-and-the-new-authoritarianism]

Anti-Public Intellectuals and the Conservative Re-Education Machine The conservative takeover of public pedagogy with its
elite codifiers of neoliberal ideology has a long history extending from the work of the "Chicago Boys" at the University of Chicago to the
various conservative think tanks that emerged after the publication of the Powell memo in the early seventies.(16) The Republican Party will
more than likely win the next election and take full control over all aspects of policymaking in the United States. This is especially dangerous
given that the Republican Party is now controlled by extremists. If
they win the 2012 election, they will not only extend
the Bush/Obama legacy of militarism abroad, but likely intensify the war at home as well. Political scientist Frances
Fox Piven rightly argues that, "We've been at war for decades now - not just in Afghanistan or Iraq, but right here at home. Domestically, it's
been a war [a]gainst the poor [and as] devastating as it has been, the war against the poor has gone largely unnoticed until now."(17) And the
war at home now includes more than attacks on the poor, as campaigns are increasingly waged against the rights of women, students, workers,
people of color and immigrants, especially Latino Americans. As the social state collapses, the punishing state expands its power and targets
larger portions of the population. The war in Afghanistan is now mimicked in the war waged on peaceful student
protesters at home. It is evident in the environmental racism that produces massive health problems for African-Americans. The
domestic war is even waged on elementary school children, who now live in fear of the police handcuffing them in their
classrooms and incarcerating them as if they were adult criminals.(18) It is waged on workers by taking away their pensions,
bargaining rights and dignity. The spirit of militarism is also evident in the war waged on the welfare state and
any form of social protection that benefits the poor, disabled, sick, elderly, and other groups now considered disposable, including
children. The soft side of authoritarianism in the United States does not need to put soldiers in the streets ,
though it certainly follows that script . As it expands its control over the commanding institutions of government, the armed forces
and civil society in general, it hires anti-public intellectuals and academics to provide ideological support for its
gated communities, institutions and modes of education . As Yasha Levine points out, it puts thousands of dollars
in the hands of corporate shills such as Malcolm Gladwell, who has become a "one man branding and distribution pipeline for
valuable corporate messages, constructed on the public's gullibility in trusting his probity and intellectual honesty."(19) Gladwell (who is
certainly not alone) functions as a bought-and-paid mouthpiece for "Big Tobacco Pharma and defend[s] Enron-style financial fraud ... earning
hundreds of thousands of dollars as a corporate speaker, sometimes from the same companies and industries that he covers as a
journalist."(20) Corporate
power uses these "pay to play" academics, anti-public intellectuals, the mainstream
media, and other educational apparatuses to discredit the very people that it simultaneously oppresses ,
while waging an overarching war on all things public . As Charles Ferguson has noted, an entire industry has been created
that enables the "sale of academic expertise for the purpose of influencing government policy, the courts and public opinion [and] is now a
multibillion-dollar business."(21) It gets worse, in that "Academic,
legal, regulatory and policy consulting in economics ,
finance and regulation is dominated by a half dozen consulting firms , several speakers' bureaus and various industry
lobbying groups that maintain large networks of academics for hire specifically for the purpose of advocating industry interests in policy and
regulatory debates."(22) Such anti-public intellectuals create what William Black has called a "criminogenic
environment" that spreads disease and fraud in the interest of bolstering the interests, profits and
values of the super wealthy.(23) There is more at work here than carpet bombing the culture with lies, deceptions and euphemisms.
Language in this case does more than obfuscate or promote propaganda. It creates framing mechanisms, cultural
ecosystems and cultures of cruelty, while closing down the spaces for dialogue, critique and
thoughtfulness. At its worst, it engages in the dual processes of demonization and distraction. The rhetoric of demonization takes many
forms: for example, calling firefighters, teachers, and other public servants greedy because they want to hold onto their paltry benefits. It labels
students as irresponsible because of the large debts they are forced to incur as states cut back funding to higher education (this, too, is part of a
broader effort by conservatives to hollow out the social state). Poor people are insulted and humiliated because they are forced to live on food
stamps, lack decent health care and collect unemployment benefits because there are no decent jobs available. Poor minorities are now subject
to overt racism in the right-wing media and outright violence in the larger society.

The states propaganda for pro military states fosters the

larger war impacts the neg may describe
William J. Astore, 6-13-2014, "Inside America's militarized mind: How propaganda
and perpetual war have poisoned our imaginations,"
https://www.salon.com/2014/06/13/inside_americas_militarized_mind_how_propaga
nda_and_perpetual_war_have_poisoned_our_imaginations/
Consider us all recruits, more or less, in the new version of Fortress America, of
an ever more militarized, securitized country. Renting a movie?  Why not opt
for the first Captain America and watch him vanquish the Nazis yet again, a
reminder of the last war we truly won?  Did you head for a baseball park on
Memorial Day?  What could be more American or more innocent?  So I hope you
paid no attention to all those camouflaged caps and uniforms your favorite players
were wearing in just another of an endless stream of tributes to our troops and
veterans. Let’s hear no whining about militarized uniforms on America’s playing
fields.  After all, don’t you know that America’s real pastime these last years has
been war and lots of it? Be a Good Trooper Think of the irony.  The Vietnam War
generated an unruly citizen’s army that reflected an unruly and increasingly
rebellious citizenry. That proved more than the U.S. military and our ruling elites
could take.  So President Nixon ended the draft in 1973 and made America’s citizen-
soldier ideal, an ideal that had persisted for two centuries, a thing of the past.  The
“all-volunteer military,” the professionals, were recruited or otherwise enticed to do
the job for us.  No muss, no fuss, and it’s been that way ever since.  Plenty of war,
but no need to be a “warrior,” unless you sign on the dotted line.  It’s the new
American way. But it turned out that there was a fair amount of fine print in the
agreement that freed Americans from those involuntary military obligations.  Part
of the bargain was to “support the pros” (or rather “our troops”) unstintingly
and the rest involved being pacified, keeping your peace, being a happy
warrior in the new national security state that, particularly in the wake of 9/11,
grew to enormous proportions on the taxpayer dollar.  Whether you like it or not,
you’ve been drafted into that role, so join the line of recruits and take your proper
place in the garrison state. If you’re bold, gaze out across the increasingly fortified
and monitored borders we share with Canada and Mexico.  (Remember when you
could cross those borders with no hassle, not even a passport or ID card?  I do.) 
Watch for those drones, home from the wars and already hovering in or soon to
arrive in your local skies -- ostensibly to fight crime.  Pay due respect to your
increasingly up-armored police forces with their automatic weapons, their special
SWAT teams, and their converted MRAPs (mine-resistant ambush protected
vehicles).  These vintage Iraqi Freedom vehicles are now military surplus given
away or sold on the cheap to local police departments.  Be careful to observe their
draconian orders for prison-like “lockdowns” of your neighborhood or city,
essentially temporary declarations of martial law, all for your safety and security. Be
a good trooper and do what you’re told.  Stay out of public areas when you’re
ordered to do so.  Learn to salute smartly.  (It’s one of the first lessons I was taught
as a military recruit.)  No, not that middle-finger salute, you aging hippie.  Render a
proper one to those in authority.  You had best learn how.Or perhaps you don’t even
have to, since so much that we now do automatically is structured to render
that salute for us.  Repeated singings of “God Bless America” at sporting
events.  Repeated viewings of movies that glorify the military .  (Special
Operations forces are a hot topic in American multiplexes these days from Act of
Valor to Lone Survivor.)  Why not answer the call of duty by playing militarized
video games like Call of Duty?  Indeed, when you do think of war, be sure to
treat it as a sport, a movie, a game.