1NC

1
The aff must specify who passes the plan
Vote negGround- we lose specific counterplans, disads, and case arguments
Condo- not specifying allows 2AC clarification to moot links

2
They read the resolution not the plan- must specify beyond legalize
Vote Neg
a. Makes the plan void for vagueness- undermines policy analysis
Kleiman and Saiger 90 lecturer public policy Harvard, consultant drug policy Rand, 1990, A SYMPOSIUM
ON DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION: DRUG LEGALIZATION: THE IMPORTANCE OF ASKING THE RIGHT
QUESTION, 18 Hofstra L. Rev. 527

Defining Legalization Legalization, like prohibition, does not name a unique strategy. Perhaps the most prominent inadequacy of
current legalization arguments is their failure to specify what is meant by "legalization ." Current drug policy
provides an illustration of this diversity. Heroin and marijuana are completely prohibited, 74 and cocaine can only be
used in rigidly specified medical contexts, not including any where the drug's psychoactive properties are exercised. 75 On the other hand, a
wide range of pain-killers, sleep-inducers, stimulants, tranquilizers and sedatives can be obtained with a doctor's prescription. 76
Alcohol is available for recreational use, but is subject to an array of controls including excise taxation, 77 limits on drinking ages, 78
limits on TV and radio advertising, 79 and retail licensing. 80 Nicotine is subject to age minimums, warning label requirements, 81 taxation, 82 and
bans on smoking in some public places. 83 [*541] Drug legalization can therefore be thought of as moving drugs along a spectrum of regulated statuses in the
direction of increased availability. However, while legalization advocates do not deny that some sort of controls will be required, their proposals

rarely
address the question of how far on the spectrum a given drug should be moved, or how to accomplish such a
movement. Instead, such details are dismissed as easily determined, or postponed as a problem requiring future
thought. 84 But the consequences of legalization depend almost entirely on the details of the remaining
regulatory regime. The price and conditions of the availability of a newly legal drug will be more powerful in shaping its consumption than the fact that the
drug is "legal." Rules about advertising, place and time of sale, and availability to minors help determine whether important aspects of the drug problem get better or
worse. The amount of regulatory apparatus required and the way in which it is organized and enforced will determine how much budget reduction can be realized
from dismantling current enforcement efforts. 85 Moreover, currently illicit drugs, because they are so varied pharmacologically, would not all pose the same range of
the problems if they were to be made legally available for non-medical use. They would therefore require different control regimes. These regimes might need to be as
diverse as the drugs themselves.

b. Neg ground- makes the 2AC a moving target.

3
UIGEA prevents remittances
Gutierrez, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Domestic and International
Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology, Committee on Financial Services, 8
(Luis, PROPOSED UIGEA REGULATIONS: BURDEN WITHOUT BENEFIT?, 4-2-8,
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg42714/html/CHRG-110hhrg42714.htm, accessed 10-4-14) PM
In October of 2007, the draft regulations were issued and more than 200 comments were filed in response. As proposed, the

regulations
would require most companies involved in the payment systems, from banks and credit card companies, to many
transmitters and payment processors, to develop and implement policies and procedures designed to identify and
block unlawful Internet gambling transactions. The regulations have been widely criticized as being vague and costly for financial
institutions to implement. One of the most common complaints is that the proposed rules fail to sufficiently define key terms, leaving financial
institutions with significant compliance difficulties. For example, the regulation fails to adequately define what constitutes ``unlawful Internet
gambling'' or ``restricted transaction,'' yet requires the financial institutions to make a determination on their own about what is lawful or
unlawful. If the rule is adopted in its current form, the response by many financial institutions may likely be to

overblock transactions to protect themselves from legal liability. Although the regulation does provide a safe harbor for financial
institutions that block transactions that are in fact legal, it does nothing to ensure that legal transactions are not blocked. As a
result, consumers may be placed at risk of having lawful transactions blocked. It is easy to see how these regulations, if implemented in their
current form, could wreak havoc on electronic commerce in the United States. With that in mind, I want to take a moment to question the
priorities reflected by the underlying law, which was passed while my party was in the minority, and which seeks to eliminate Internet gambling
by adults. In my opinion, if Congress is going to impose additional regulations on financial institutions, our time would be better spent restricting
payday lending or curbing unfair and deceptive practices associated with credit card accounts and other types of predatory lending. But the reality
is, we have a law that requires the regulators to develop rules that ban Internet gambling, and I have several concerns with
the proposed rules. First, I

am concerned about the effect these regulations will have on the remittances system that
immigrants use to send billions of dollars home each year. Money transmitter companies are already having
problems maintaining accounts with some banks, and I fear that this rule could exacerbate that problem. I am also troubled
that these regulations could impose significant compliance burdens on financial institutions during a time of economic and financial turmoil.

Remittances strengthen MS-13

Rosser, Assistant Law Professor at American, 8
(Ezra, Immigrant Remittances, Connecticut Law Review 41.1, November 2008, 41 Conn. L. Rev. 1, accessed 3-211, Lexis) PM
For receiving families, by making work less necessary and distorting the perceived return from work,
remittance income can and does diminish the attractiveness of work. As the Economist observed,
"[t]here may also be economic costs associated with reliance on remittances. Like any unearned wealth, they may
foster idleness among those who benefit." n118 For Latin American countries, where the effect of work
incentive data is available, "remittances have the effect of reducing the number of hours worked per week." n119
Income and substitution effects drive remittance- [*25] based work reductions: Remittances may tend to reduce the
supply of labor provided by remaining household members, who may take a portion of the remittance gain as
leisure. This income effect is generally not a concern, because it represents part of the welfare gain from
remittances. By contrast, remittances may change the return to supplying labor,for example, if the migrant
conditions the remittance on low household income. Such a substitution effect will reduce the welfare gain from
remittances by distorting household labor decisions. n120 While the income effect is a welfare gain to remittancereceiving families, the income effect is a concern from a national and community development concern. Remittance
recipient "supplemental" leisure lowers national production (subject to offset by increased spending made possible
by the remittances) and, by reducing the demand for employment, can lead to elevated wages-relative to the wagerate absent remittances-that narrow the range of business types that can earn a profit. Suppose a remittance recipient

family is fortunate and receives $ 500 monthly from their hermano lejano. Family members quite rationally
might decide it is not worth working for a mere $ 185 per month-their standard of living without accounting
for leisure would be better if they worked, but once leisure is taken into account, for some it can make sense
to rely solely on the remittances. n121 The disincentive to work can be exacerbated where the remittance sender
is motivated to make sure basic needs are met for family members back home. In turn, this would reduce remittance
sending were remittance-recipients able to meet some of their needs through their own labor. Seen negatively, the
substitution effect is a case of recipient family members free-riding off the work of the remittance sender. But such
"free-riding" arguably reflects shared family values. If a remittance sender is in a country where $ 185 can be earned
through a few days work and receivers would have to work all month for the same amount of money, though the
hermano lejano ultimately becomes the burdened family member, this household labor distortion might be the
optimal ex ante, pre-emigration, allocation of labor. Even though the hermano lejano conditions remittance sending
on family need and would lower the amount sent if need fell, the remittance sender may support the decision of
family members not to work in the home country's lower [*26] paying labor market. Yet worthy of note, the
intangible consequences of remittance-driven work disincentives are hard to capture quantitatively. Work
disincentives do not simply lower the amount produced by recipient countries; reduced need to work can alter the
social fabric in countries where a large percentage of people receive remittances. "[A] number of development
practitioners have noted the negative social implications associated with the fact of important segments of the
younger generation becoming used to receiving steady flows of remittances without any effort on their part," a trend
which can impact work incentives and life choices. n122 The Salvadoran government faces a youth
gang problem that not only is a destabilizing force in the country but also is another connection between
El Salvador and the Salvadoran expatriate community. n123 Mara Salvatrucha, "The Most Dangerous Gang in
America" according to Newsweek, operates across the United States and Central America, with a
strong connection to El Salvador. n124 While MS-13, as it is also known, is more a byproduct of limited
opportunities and ripple effects from the Salvadoran civil war, remittances may play a role in
acculturating youth to not working traditional jobs to earn a living. While gang membership
undoubtedly reflects much more than an effect of remittances, an exaggerated culture of consumerism is
a likely offshoot of high remittance receipts.

Theyll attack the Panama Canal tanks global econ turn their advantage
Daniels-Ruff, professor at American Military University, 10
(Kimberly, Security of the Panama Canal: One Decade After US Departure, most recent date cited,
http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/apjinternational/apj-s/2010/2010-2/2010_2_05_dannelsruff_eng_wats.pdf, accessed
2-17-11) PM
The threat of terrorism has been a concern throughout the history of the Canal.

An awareness of the potential for a terrorist

assault on the Canal predates

the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, which so graphically demonstrated the
patience, determination, creativity and unpredictability of al Qaeda. In a 1989 article outlining the history of security at the Canal, Charlie Morris, then chief of the
Canal Protection Division, wrote: Perhaps all that has not changed is the Canal's vulnerability to sabotage and terrorism.

Combating these threats

requires the vigilance of a trained proprietary security force

and the dynamic and intertwining associations of the

international community, in whose interest it is to keep the Canal an open and neutral avenue for world commerce.29 A decade later, months before the Canal was
transferred to Panama, Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm, in charge of United States Southern Command (hereafter referred to as SOUTHCOM) cautioned the Senate Armed
Services Committee that The

Canal must always be regarded as a potential target for both conventional

and unconventional forces, given its importance to global commerce and for military transits.30 It
would be relatively easy for al-Qaeda terrorists to cripple one of the locks or to sink a ship in the still-narrow Gaillard Cut, closing the Canal. Although such an attack
would be aimed at the United States, its effect According to Dr. Robert Buckman, author of a series of textbooks on Latin America, It would be relatively easy for alQaeda terrorists to cripple one of the locks or to sink a ship in the still-narrow Gaillard Cut, closing the Canal. Although such

an attack

would be aimed

at the United States, its effect on the Panamanian economyand world commercewould be devastating. 31 These threats are what Dr.
Manwaring refers to as Gray Area Phenomenon or GAP. GAP includes challenges from an array of non state actors, such as trans-national criminal organizations
and militant fundamentalist movements.32 U.S. government analysts are very concerned about the dangers these groups represent. An analyst from SOUTHCOM
commented that

Any insertion of de-stabilizing groups: Islamic Radical Groups

(IRG), gangs

(MS 13, M18, Los Zetas & Drug Trafficking

will threaten the operation of

Organizations), Violent Extremist Organizations (VEO)like the FARC or ELN, or other Illegal Armed Groups (IAG),

the Panama Canalhence, threaten US interests. 33

Panama Canal Key to Heg

Sanchez 7 associate professor of political science at Loyola University, 2007
(Panama Lost? U.S. Hegemony, Democracy, and the Canal, 2007, page 3)

Panama's importance in the world community belies its small size. This small republic has been a prominent nation-state for two basic reasons.
First, its strategic geographic location and size-a narrow isthmus linking North America and South America-has

attracted the attention of strong nation-states for five hundred years. 'These Great Powers have used the territory that is now
Panama as a vital location for the movement of people, goods, and resources. Spain's wealth in the 1500s was amassed to a large extent by the
quick transport of gold through the narrow isthmus over the camino real. Hundreds of years later, in the mid- to late 1800s, the transfer of gold
from California and the transfer of people to the American West via the Panama Railroad helped to forge the United States as a continental Great
Power. Panama's geography has thus assisted and continues to assist influential nations in developing and enhancing their power. This unique

location has also attracted global interest because of its value to world trade, which is increasingly important in the
post - World War II world. Second, more recently Panama has been visible internationally because of its importance to
the United States, the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. In the twentieth century, the Panama Canal
served vital U.S. commercial and military interests. More than any independent country in the region, Panama represented a symbol
for and source of U.S. power and influence. The United States would undoubtedly have become a Great Power without the Isthmus of Panama.

But tiny Panama, more than any other country in the hemisphere, has served as a critical outpost for U.S. power and
as a vehicle for U.S. military and economic might. The security of Panama and its canal did and will continue to
preoccupy policy makers in Washington who are concerned about vital U.S. interests.

Heg solves extinction

Brooks et al 13 Lean Forward: In Defense of American Engagement, Foreign Affairs, January 2013, Stephen
G. Brooks, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth, G. John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of
Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and William C. Wohlforth, Daniel Webster Professor in the
Department of Government at Dartmouth, http://mcfr.wildapricot.org/Resources/Documents/2013-05 20%20Brooks
%20Ikenberry%20FA%20Stay%20Engaged%201301.pdf

Since the end of World War II, the United States has pursued a single grand strategy: deep engagement. In an effort to protect
its security and prosperity, the country has promoted a liberal economic order and established close defense ties
with partners in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East. Its military bases cover the map, its ships patrol transit
routes across the globe, and tens of thousands of its troops stand guard in allied countries such as Germany, Japan,
and South Korea. The details of U.S. foreign policy have differed from administration to administration, including the emphasis placed on democracy promotion and humanitarian goals, but for over 60 years,
every president has agreed on the fundamental decision to remain deeply engaged in the world, even as the rationale for that strategy has shifted.
During the Cold War, the United States' security commitments to Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East served primarily to prevent Soviet encroachment into the world's wealthiest and most resource-rich regions. Since the fall of the
Soviet Union, the aim has become to make these same regions more secure, and thus less threatening to the United States, and to use these security partnerships to foster the cooperation necessary for a stable and open international

Now, more than ever, Washington might be tempted to abandon this grand strategy and pull back from the world. The
rise of China is chipping away at the United States' preponderance of power, a budget crisis has put defense spending on the chopping block, and two
long wars have left the U.S. military and public exhausted. Indeed, even as most politicians continue to assert their commitment to global leadership, a very different view has
order.

taken hold among scholars of international relations over the past decade: that the United States should minimize its overseas military presence, shed its security ties, and give up its efforts to lead the liberal international order.

Proponents of retrenchment argue that a globally engaged grand strategy wastes money by subsidizing the defense of well-off allies and generates resentment among foreign populations and governments. A
more modest posture, they contend, would put an end to allies' free-riding and defuse anti-American sentiment. Even if allies did not take over every mission the United States now performs, most of these roles have nothing to do with
U.S. security and only risk entrapping the United States in unnecessary wars. In short, those in this camp maintain that pulling back would not only save blood and treasure but also make the United States more secure. If Washington

are wrong. In making their case, advocates of retrenchment overstate

the costs of the current grand strategy and understate its benefits. In fact, the budgetary savings of lowering the United
States' international profile are debatable, and there is little evidence to suggest that an internationally engaged
America provokes other countries to balance against it, becomes overextended, or gets dragged into unnecessary
wars. The benefits of deep engagement, on the other hand, are legion. U.S. security commitments reduce competition in key
got out of East Asia, Japan and South Korea would likely expand their military capabilities and go nuclear. They

regions and act as a check against potential rivals. They help maintain an open world economy and give
Washington leverage in economic negotiations. And they make it easier for the United States to secure cooperation for
combating a wide range of global threats. Were the United States to cede its global leadership role, it would forgo
these proven upsides while exposing itself to the unprecedented downsides of a world in which the country was
less secure, prosperous, and influential. AN AFFORDABLE STRATEGY Many advocates of retrenchment consider the United States' assertive global posture simply too expensive. The
international relations scholar Christopher Layne, for example, has warned of the country's "ballooning budget deficits" and argued that "its strategic commitments exceed the resources available to support them."

Calculating the savings of switching grand strategies, however, is not so simple, because it depends on the expenditures
the current strategy demands and the amount required for its replacement -- numbers that are hard to pin down. If the United States revoked all its security
guarantees, brought home all its troops, shrank every branch of the military, and slashed its nuclear arsenal, it would save around $900 billion over ten years, according to Benjamin Friedman and Justin Logan of the Cato Institute. But

few advocates of retrenchment endorse such a radical reduction; instead, most call for "restraint," an "offshore balancing" strategy, or an "over the horizon" military
posture. The savings these approaches would yield are less clear, since they depend on which security commitments Washington would abandon outright and how much it would cost to keep the remaining ones. If
retrenchment simply meant shipping foreign-based U.S. forces back to the United States, then the savings would be
modest at best, since the countries hosting U.S. forces usually cover a large portion of the basing costs. And if it meant maintaining a
major expeditionary capacity, then any savings would again be small, since the Pentagon would still have to pay for the expensive weaponry and equipment required for projecting power abroad. The other side of the cost equation,
the price of continued engagement, is also in flux. Although the fat defense budgets of the past decade make an easy target for advocates of retrenchment, such high levels of spending aren't needed to maintain an engaged global

Spending skyrocketed after 9/11, but it has already begun to fall back to earth as the United States winds down its two costly
wars and trims its base level of nonwar spending. As of the fall of 2012, the Defense Department was planning for cuts of just under $500 billion over the next five years, which it
posture.

maintains will not compromise national security. These reductions would lower military spending to a little less than three percent of GDP by 2017, from its current level of 4.5 percent. The Pentagon could save even more with no ill
effects by reforming its procurement practices and compensation policies. Even without major budget cuts, however, the country can afford the costs of its ambitious grand strategy. The significant increases in military spending
proposed by Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, during the 2012 presidential campaign would still have kept military spending below its current share of GDP, since spending on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would still have
gone down and Romney's proposed nonwar spending levels would not have kept pace with economic growth. Small wonder, then, that the case for pulling back rests more on the nonmonetary costs that the current strategy supposedly

there is no
evidence that countries have banded together in anti-American alliances or tried to match the United States' military
capacity on their own -- or that they will do so in the future. Indeed, it's hard to see how the current grand strategy could
generate true counterbalancing. Unlike past hegemons, the United States is geographically isolated, which means that it is far less
threatening to other major states and that it faces no contiguous great-power rivals that could step up to the task of balancing against it. Moreover, any competitor would have
a hard time matching the U.S. military. Not only is the United States so far ahead militarily in both quantitative and
qualitative terms, but its security guarantees also give it the leverage to prevent allies from giving military
technology to potential U.S. rivals. Because the United States dominates the high-end defense industry, it can trade access to its defense market for allies' agreement not to transfer key military
incurs. UNBALANCED One such alleged cost of the current grand strategy is that, in the words of the political scientist Barry Posen, it "prompts states to balance against U.S. power however they can." Yet

technologies to its competitors. The embargo that the United States has convinced the EU to maintain on military sales to China since 1989 is a case in point. The country's globe-spanning posture is the devil we know, and a world
with a disengaged America is the devil we don't know.

If U.S. global leadership were prompting balancing, then one would expect actual

examples of pushback -- especially during the administration of George W. Bush, who pursued a foreign policy that seemed particularly unilateral. Yet since the Soviet Union collapsed, no major powers have
tried to balance against the United States by seeking to match its military might or by assembling a formidable alliance; the prospect is simply too daunting. Instead, they have resorted to what scholars call "soft balancing," using
international institutions and norms to constrain Washington. Setting aside the fact that soft balancing is a slippery concept and difficult to distinguish from everyday diplomatic competition, it is wrong to say that the practice only

today's rules and institutions

came about under its auspices and largely reflect its interests, and so they are in fact tailor-made for soft balancing
by the United States itself. In 2011, for example, Washington coordinated action with several Southeast Asian states to oppose Beijing's claims in the South China Sea by pointing to established international
law and norms. Another argument for retrenchment holds that the United States will fall prey to the same fate as past hegemons and accelerate its own decline. In
harms the United States. Arguably, as the global leader, the United States benefits from employing soft- balancing-style leverage more than any other country. After all,

order to keep its ambitious strategy in place, the logic goes, the country will have to divert resources away from more productive purposes -- infrastructure, education, scientific research, and so on -- that are necessary to keep its

historical evidence for this phenomenon is

thin; for the most part, past superpowers lost their leadership not because they pursued hegemony but because other major
powers balanced against them -- a prospect that is not in the cards today. (If anything, leading states can use their position to stave off their decline.) A bigger
problem with the warnings against "imperial overstretch" is that there is no reason to believe that the pursuit of global leadership saps economic
growth. Instead, most studies by economists find no clear relationship between military expenditures and economic decline. To be sure, if the United States were a
economy competitive. Allies, meanwhile, can get away with lower military expenditures and grow faster than they otherwise would. The

dramatic outlier and spent around a quarter of its GDP on defense, as the Soviet Union did in its last decades, its growth and competitiveness would suffer. But in 2012, even as it fought a war in Afghanistan and conducted
counterterrorism operations around the globe, Washington spent just 4.5 percent of GDP on defense -- a relatively small fraction, historically speaking. (From 1950 to 1990, that figure averaged 7.6 percent.) Recent economic

And any money freed up from

dropping global commitments would not necessarily be spent in ways that would help the U.S. economy. Likewise, U.S. allies'
difficulties might prompt Washington to reevaluate its defense budgets and international commitments, but that does not mean that those policies caused the downturn.

economic growth rates have nothing to do with any security subsidies they receive from Washington. The contention that lower military expenditures facilitated the rise of Japan, West Germany, and other countries dependent on U.S.
defense guarantees may have seemed plausible during the last bout of declinist anxiety, in the 1980s. But these states eventually stopped climbing up the global economic ranks as their per capita wealth approached U.S. levels -- just
as standard models of economic growth would predict. Over the past 20 years, the United States has maintained its lead in per capita GDP over its European allies and Japan, even as those countries' defense efforts have fallen further
behind. Their failure to modernize their militaries has only served to entrench the United States' dominance. LED NOT INTO TEMPTATION The costs of U.S. foreign policy that matter most, of course, are human lives, and critics
of an expansive grand strategy worry that the United States might get dragged into unnecessary wars. Securing smaller allies, they argue, emboldens those states to take risks they would not otherwise accept, pulling the superpower
sponsor into costly conflicts -- a classic moral hazard problem. Concerned about the reputational costs of failing to honor the country's alliance commitments, U.S. leaders might go to war even when no national interests are at stake.

History shows, however, that great powers anticipate the danger of entrapment and structure their agreements to protect
themselves from it. It is nearly impossible to find a clear case of a smaller power luring a reluctant great power into
war. For decades, World War I served as the canonical example of entangling alliances supposedly drawing great powers into a fight, but an outpouring of new historical
research has overturned the conventional wisdom, revealing that the war was more the result of a conscious decision
on Germany's part to try to dominate Europe than a case of alliance entrapment. If anything, alliances reduce the risk of
getting pulled into a conflict. In East Asia, the regional security agreements that Washington struck after World War II were designed, in the words of the political scientist Victor Cha, to "constrain
anticommunist allies in the region that might engage in aggressive behavior against adversaries that could entrap the United States in an unwanted larger war." The same logic is now at play in the U.S.-Taiwanese relationship. After
cross-strait tensions flared in the 1990s and the first decade of this century, U.S. officials grew concerned that their ambiguous support for Taiwan might expose them to the risk of entrapment. So the Bush administration adjusted its
policy, clarifying that its goal was to not only deter China from an unprovoked attack but also deter Taiwan from unilateral moves toward independence. For many advocates of retrenchment, the problem is that the mere possession
of globe-girdling military capabilities supposedly inflates policymakers' conception of the national interest, so much so that every foreign problem begins to look like America's to solve. Critics also argue that the country's military

superiority causes it to seek total solutions to security problems, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, that could be dealt with in less costly ways. Only a country that possessed such awesome military power and faced no serious geopolitical
rival would fail to be satisfied with partial fixes, such as containment, and instead embark on wild schemes of democracy building, the argument goes. Furthermore, they contend, the United States' outsized military creates a sense of
obligation to do something with it even when no U.S. interests are at stake. As Madeleine Albright, then the U.S. ambassador to the un, famously asked Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when debating
intervention in Bosnia in 1993, "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" If the U.S. military scrapped its forces and shuttered its bases, then the country would no doubt eliminate
the risk of entering needless wars, having tied itself to the mast like Ulysses. But if it instead merely moved its forces over the horizon, as is more commonly proposed by advocates of retrenchment, whatever temptations there were to
intervene would not disappear. The bigger problem with the idea that a forward posture distorts conceptions of the national interest, however, is that it rests on just one case: Iraq. That war is an outlier in terms of both its high costs (it
accounts for some two-thirds of the casualties and budget costs of all U.S. wars since 1990) and the degree to which the United States shouldered them alone. In the Persian Gulf War and the interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo,

the Iraq war was not an inevitable consequence

of pursuing the United States' existing grand strategy; many scholars and policymakers who prefer an engaged
America strongly opposed the war. Likewise, continuing the current grand strategy in no way condemns the United States
to more wars like it. Consider how the country, after it lost in Vietnam, waged the rest of the Cold War with proxies and highly limited interventions. Iraq has generated a similar
reluctance to undertake large expeditionary operations -- what the political scientist John Mueller has dubbed "the Iraq syndrome." Those contending that
the United States' grand strategy ineluctably leads the country into temptation need to present much more evidence
before their case can be convincing. KEEPING THE PEACE Of course, even if it is true that the costs of deep engagement fall far below what advocates of retrenchment claim, they would not be
worth bearing unless they yielded greater benefits. In fact, they do. The most obvious benefit of the current strategy is that it reduces the risk of a
dangerous conflict. The United States' security commitments deter states with aspirations to regional hegemony from
contemplating expansion and dissuade U.S. partners from trying to solve security problems on their own in ways that would end
Afghanistan, and Libya, U.S. allies bore more of the burden, controlling for the size of their economies and populations. Besides,

up threatening other states. Skeptics discount this benefit by arguing that U.S. security guarantees aren't necessary to prevent dangerous rivalries from erupting. They maintain that the high costs of territorial conquest and the many

If
Washington got out of East Asia, Japan and South Korea would likely expand their military capabilities and go
nuclear, which could provoke a destabilizing reaction from China. It's worth noting that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan tried to obtain nuclear
weapons; the only thing that stopped them was the United States, which used its security commitments to restrain their nuclear temptations. Similarly, were the United States to leave the
Middle East, the countries currently backed by Washington -- notably, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia -- might act in
ways that would intensify the region's security dilemmas. There would even be reason to worry about Europe. Although
tools countries can use to signal their benign intentions are enough to prevent conflict. In other words, major powers could peacefully manage regional multipolarity without the American pacifier. But that outlook is too sanguine.

it's hard to imagine the return of great-power military competition in a post-American Europe, it's not difficult to foresee governments there refusing to pay the budgetary costs of higher military outlays and the political costs of
increasing EU defense cooperation. The result might be a continent incapable of securing itself from threats on its periphery, unable to join foreign interventions on which U.S. leaders might want European help, and vulnerable to the

U.S. withdrawal from key regions could lead to dangerous competition

influence of outside rising powers. Given how easily a

, advocates of retrenchment
tend to put forth another argument: that such rivalries wouldn't actually hurt the United States. To be sure, few doubt that the United States could survive the return of conflict among powers in Asia or the Middle East -- but at what
cost? Were states in one or both of these regions to start competing against one another, they would likely boost their military budgets, arm client states, and perhaps even start regional proxy wars, all of which should concern the

Greater regional insecurity could also produce cascades of nuclear

proliferation as powers such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan built nuclear forces of their
own. Those countries' regional competitors might then also seek nuclear arsenals. Although nuclear deterrence can
promote stability between two states with the kinds of nuclear forces that the Soviet Union and the United States possessed, things get shakier when there are
multiple nuclear rivals with less robust arsenals. As the number of nuclear powers increases, the probability of illicit
transfers, irrational decisions, accidents, and unforeseen crises goes up. The case for abandoning the United States' global role misses the underlying security
logic of the current approach. By reassuring allies and actively managing regional relations, Washington dampens competition in the world's key areas, thereby
preventing the emergence of a hothouse in which countries would grow new military capabilities. For proof that this
strategy is working, one need look no further than the defense budgets of the current great powers: on average, since 1991 they have
United States, in part because its lead in military capabilities would narrow.

kept their military expenditures as a percentage of GDP to historic lows, and they have not attempted to match the United States' top-end military capabilities. Moreover, all of the world's most modern militaries are U.S. allies, and the
United States' military lead over its potential rivals is by many measures growing. On top of all this, the current grand strategy acts as a hedge against the emergence regional hegemons. Some supporters of retrenchment argue that
the U.S. military should keep its forces over the horizon and pass the buck to local powers to do the dangerous work of counterbalancing rising regional powers. Washington, they contend, should deploy forces abroad only when a

there is already a potential

contender for regional hegemony -- China -- and to balance it, the United States will need to maintain its key
alliances in Asia and the military capacity to intervene there. The implication is that the United States should get out of Afghanistan and Iraq, reduce its military presence in
Europe, and pivot to Asia. Yet that is exactly what the Obama administration is doing. MILITARY DOMINANCE, ECONOMIC PREEMINENCE Preoccupied with security issues, critics of the current
grand strategy miss one of its most important benefits: sustaining an open global economy and a favorable place for
the United States within it. To be sure, the sheer size of its output would guarantee the United States a major role in the global economy whatever grand strategy it adopted. Yet the country's
military dominance undergirds its economic leadership. In addition to protecting the world economy from
instability, its military commitments and naval superiority help secure the sea-lanes and other shipping corridors that
allow trade to flow freely and cheaply. Were the United States to pull back from the world, the task of securing the
global commons would get much harder. Washington would have less leverage with which it could convince
countries to cooperate on economic matters and less access to the military bases throughout the world needed to
keep the seas open. A global role also lets the United States structure the world economy in ways that serve its particular economic interests. During the Cold War, Washington used its overseas security
truly credible contender for regional hegemony arises, as in the cases of Germany and Japan during World War II and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Yet

commitments to get allies to embrace the economic policies it preferred -- convincing West Germany in the 1960s, for example, to take costly steps to support the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. U.S. defense agreements work the
same way today. For example, when negotiating the 2011 free-trade agreement with South Korea, U.S. officials took advantage of Seoul's desire to use the agreement as a means of tightening its security relations with Washington. As
one diplomat explained to us privately, "We asked for changes in labor and environment clauses, in auto clauses, and the Koreans took it all." Why? Because they feared a failed agreement would be "a setback to the political and
security relationship." More broadly, the United States wields its security leverage to shape the overall structure of the global economy. Much of what the United States wants from the economic order is more of the same: for

Washington wins when U.S. allies favor this

status quo, and one reason they are inclined to support the existing system is because they value their military
alliances. Japan, to name one example, has shown interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Obama administration's most important free-trade initiative in the region, less because its economic interests compel it to do so
than because Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda believes that his support will strengthen Japan's security ties with the United States. The United States' geopolitical dominance also
instance, it likes the current structure of the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund and prefers that free trade continue.

helps keep the U.S. dollar in place as the world's reserve currency, which confers enormous benefits on the country,
such as a greater ability to borrow money. This is perhaps clearest with Europe: the EU's dependence on the United States for its security precludes the EU from having the kind of political
leverage to support the euro that the United States has with the dollar. As with other aspects of the global economy, the United States does not provide its leadership for free: it extracts disproportionate gains. Shirking that
responsibility would place those benefits at risk. CREATING COOPERATION What goes for the global economy goes for other forms of international cooperation. Here, too, American leadership benefits many countries but

In order to counter transnational threats, such as terrorism, piracy, organized crime, climate
change, and pandemics, states have to work together and take collective action. But cooperation does not come about
effortlessly, especially when national interests diverge. The United States' military efforts to promote stability and its broader leadership
make it easier for Washington to launch joint initiatives and shape them in ways that reflect U.S. interests. After all, cooperation
is hard to come by in regions where chaos reigns, and it flourishes where leaders can anticipate lasting stability. U.S. alliances are about security first, but they also provide
the political framework and channels of communication for cooperation on nonmilitary issues . NATO, for example, has spawned new
disproportionately helps the United States.

institutions, such as the Atlantic Council, a think tank, that make it easier for Americans and Europeans to talk to one another and do business. Likewise, consultations with allies in East Asia spill over into other policy issues; for

United States can use

bargaining chips in one issue area to make progress in others. The benefits of these communication channels are especially pronounced when it comes to fighting
the kinds of threats that require new forms of cooperation, such as terrorism and pandemics. With its alliance system in place, the United States is in a stronger
position than it would otherwise be to advance cooperation and share burdens. For example, the intelligence- sharing network within NATO, which was
example, when American diplomats travel to Seoul to manage the military alliance, they also end up discussing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Thanks to conduits such as this, the

originally designed to gather information on the Soviet Union, has been adapted to deal with terrorism. Similarly, after a tsunami in the Indian Ocean devastated surrounding countries in 2004, Washington had a much easier time

The
United States' global role also has the more direct effect of facilitating the bargains among governments that get
cooperation going in the first place. As the scholar Joseph Nye has written, "The American military role in deterring threats to allies, or of assuring access to a crucial resource such as oil in the
orchestrating a fast humanitarian response with Australia, India, and Japan, since their militaries were already comfortable working with one another. The operation did wonders for the United States' image in the region.

Persian Gulf, means that the provision of protective force can be used in bargaining situations. Sometimes the linkage may be direct; more often it is a factor not mentioned openly but present in the back of statesmen's minds." THE
DEVIL WE KNOW Should America come home? For many prominent scholars of international relations, the answer is yes -- a view that seems even wiser in the wake of the disaster in Iraq and the Great Recession. Yet their

There is little evidence that the United States would save much money switching to a smaller global
posture. Nor is the current strategy self- defeating: it has not provoked the formation of counterbalancing coalitions or
caused the country to spend itself into economic decline. Nor will it condemn the United States to foolhardy wars in the
future. What the strategy does do is help prevent the outbreak of conflict in the world's most important regions, keep
the global economy humming, and make international cooperation easier. Charting a different course would
threaten all these benefits. This is not to say that the United States' current foreign policy can't be adapted to new circumstances and challenges. Washington does not need to retain every commitment at all
arguments simply don't hold up.

costs, and there is nothing wrong with rejiggering its strategy in response to new opportunities or setbacks. That is what the Nixon administration did by winding down the Vietnam War and increasing the United States' reliance on
regional partners to contain Soviet power, and it is what the Obama administration has been doing after the Iraq war by pivoting to Asia. These episodes of rebalancing belie the argument that a powerful and internationally engaged
America cannot tailor its policies to a changing world. A grand strategy of actively managing global security and promoting the liberal economic order has served the United States exceptionally well for the past six decades, and

Were American leaders to choose

retrenchment, they would in essence be running a massive experiment to test how the world would work without an
engaged and liberal leading power. The results could well be disastrous.
there is no reason to give it up now. The country's globe-spanning posture is the devil we know, and a world with a disengaged America is the devil we don't know.

4
WTO cred forces US to export LNG hurts competitiveness
Snow, Oil and Gas Journal Editor, 13
(Nick, Delaying US energy exports may run afoul of WTO, report warns, 12-3-13,
http://www.ogj.com/articles/2013/12/delaying-us-energy-exports-may-run-afoul-of-wto-report-warns.html, accessed
9-23-14) PM
Unnecessary delays in US LNG and coal export applications review processes may conflict with international treaty
obligations under World Treaty Organization agreements, a study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers
warned. The Greenberg Traurig LLP report by James Bacchus, who formerly chaired WTOs appellate body, and Rosa Jeong
examined two main questions: whether delays at the US Department of Energy in issuing LNG export licenses violate US
international obligations as a WTO member, and whether state and local authorities efforts in the Pacific Northwest to broaden their
environmental review authorities beyond federal requirements violate US international obligations under the WTO. The United States has
always been a strong advocate of rules that forbid export restrictions and has been forceful in challenging export
restrictions imposed by other countries, said Bacchus, who also is a former US trade negotiator and US House member (D-Fla.). In short,
the tables may be turned on the US directly in the WTO, but also through other countries walking away from core
principles that have long been critical to US success in the global economy. Ongoing energy export delays and licensing
requirements and processes are starting to raise questions about the United States own commitment to key principles of
the WTO that bind not only the US, but also 158 other countries, the Dec. 3 report said. US actionor inaction as the current situation
appearsraises important questions about the nations implementation of these WTO rules, it continued. It also raises the
specter that other WTO members may follow suit in ways that would undermine US global competitiveness, the report
said.

Great power war

Baru, Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Institute of South
Asian Studies, Singapore, 9
(Sanjaya, January, Year of the power shift?, http://www.india-seminar.com/2009/593/593_sanjaya_baru.htm,
accessed 11-5-12)
The management of the economy, and of the treasury, has been a vital aspect of statecraft from time immemorial. Kautilyas Arthashastra
says, From the strength of the treasury the army is born. men without wealth do not attain their objectives even after hundreds of trials
Only through wealth can material gains be acquired, as elephants (wild) can be captured only by elephants (tamed) A state with depleted
resources, even if acquired, becomes only a liability.4 Hence, economic policies and performance do have strategic

consequences.5 In the modern era, the idea that strong economic performance is the foundation of power was argued most
persuasively by historian Paul Kennedy. 'Victory (in war)', Kennedy claimed, 'has repeatedly gone to the side with more
flourishing productive base'.3 Drawing attention to the interrelationships between economic wealth,
technological innovation, and the ability of states to efficiently mobilize economic and technological resources for
power projection and national defence, Kennedy argued that nations that were able to better combine military and
economic strength scored over others. 'The fact remains', Kennedy argued, 'that all of the major shifts in the world's
military-power balance have followed alterations in the productive balances; and further, that the rising and falling of
the various empires and states in the international system has been confirmed by the outcomes of the major Great Power
wars, where victory has always gone to the side with the greatest material resources'.4 In Kennedy's view, the geopolitical
consequences of an economic crisis, or even decline, would be transmitted through a nation's inability to find
adequate financial resources to simultaneously sustain economic growth and military power.

5
PC is effectively preventing sanctions, but its close
Trita Parsi 2/4, Trita Parsi is the author of A Single Roll of the Dice: Obamas Diplomacy with Iran, and
president of the National Iranian American Council. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, "Tehran
shouldn't underestimate Obama's abilities," Japan Times,
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/02/04/commentary/world-commentary/tehran-shouldnt-underestimateobamas-abilities/#.VNUcXfnF8Xg, DOA: 2-6-2015, y2k
changes to the political landscape
should prompt Iran to reevaluate
Obamas abilities
Historically, no piece of legislation passes as easily in Congress as an Iran sanctions bill
many Democratic lawmakers
would abandon the president
But Obama stood firm. Rather than seek a
compromise
he threatened a veto
The
threat worked only two
senators have co-sponsored the
bill Unless sanctions supporters manage to get
at least 14 Democrats
they cannot override Obamas veto
senators who
supported a similar measure
who have
been very close to A I P A C
have refrained from sponsoring the bill The president strongly believes it would harm
negotiations
Even more shocking
was Clintons backing of Obama
But the doubters in Tehran should take note. Some extraordinary

in the U.S. have occurred that

. A few weeks ago, new sanctions on Iran were on the fast track in the new Republican Senate. The measure would, at a minimum, undermine the nuclear talks, at most cause their collapse. On paper, Obama was heavily outgunned.

. The Republican-controlled Congress has no time or patience for either

Obama or his chats with Iranian nuclear negotiators, so sabotaging the talks and depriving the president of a much needed foreign policy success was a no-brainer. And mindful of Israeli pressure in favor of sanctions,
likely

and side with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instead, it was predicted.

with the Senate,

and warned it about the consequences of sabotaging the talks. The American people expect us to only go to war as a last resort, and I intend to stay true to that wisdom, he said.

. So far

Democratic

new sanctions

to commit to the measure,

and will only embarrass themselves trying. Perhaps more importantly,

last year and

historically

Democrat) and Cory Booker (a New Jersey Democrat),

the

merican

srael

ublic

ffairs

ommittees position on Iran, such as Kirsten Gillibrand (a New York

gravely

, and therefore, I am willing to give him more time before supporting this bill, Gillibrand told CNN.

, perhaps,

Hillary

in this

contest. In the midst of preparations for her presumed 2016 presidential run, Clinton came out against both AIPAC and Netanyahu and called the sanctions bill a very serious strategic error. Undoubtedly, the issue took on an even greater partisan dimension when House Speaker John
Boehner secretly invited Netanyahu to address Congress on this matter, which in turn added pressure on Clinton to close ranks with Obama. But for Clinton to come out and so strongly back Obama at a time when she has sought to distance herself from his foreign policy cannot be

Obama has succeeded in changing the underlying politics of the matter The debate over
sanctions is
about war with Iran
Passing sanctions on Iran used to be the safest political move
But today imposing sanctions
carries a tremendous political cost
This is not to suggest that Obama has taken
control over the process
That authority remains in the hands of Congress But
Obama
can redefine what is politically feasible and unfeasible
explained solely by partisan solidarity. Rather,

no longer about Iran, but

Iran

. Diplomacy with Iran is the best way of avoiding both a nuclear Iran, and bombing Iran. Any measure that undermines diplomacy, such as new sanctions, automatically enhances the

risk of war.

in Congress.

move that

means supporting war, which is a

. So high that Clinton chose to come out against AIPAC and Netanyahu instead.

of lifting sanctions.

what the recent wrangling in Congress shows is that

. Two years ago, anyone who suggested that Congress would fail to impose new sanctions on Iran would be lucky not to be committed to a mental

institution. Those advocating diplomacy over sanctions were in the political margins. Today, diplomacy is the policy, while sanctions proponents are considered extremists. Tehran should be careful not to base its negotiation calculations on yesteryears political realities.

Plan destroys PC
Demirjian 10 (Karoun Demirjian, Harry Reid Rushes Effort to Legalize Internet Poker, Las Vegas Sun,
12/7/10 http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/dec/07/reid-pushes-online-poker-bill date accessed: 11/10/14) TM
But

Internet gambling is as controversial in Washington as it has historically been in the gaming industry, meaning that
its still going to be a hard road. The bill is a work in progress, but

while the lame-duck session is likely Reids best chance to push something through,

opposition is in full swing on the Hill, where critics are lobbying against it on both moral and fiscal grounds.
Ranking Republicans of the Houses three committees with jurisdiction on Internet gambling Spencer Bachus of Financial Services, Dave Camp of Ways and Means, and Lamar Smith of
Judiciary are lobbying the Senate against taking up any measure that might be partially motivated by one of the gravest sins
that afflicts this Congress: desperation for more tax dollars to pay for ever-increasing federal spending. Creating a federal right to gamble that
has never existed in our countrys history and imposing an unprecedented new tax regime on such activity require careful deliberation, not
backroom deals or earmarks or special interests, they wrote in a letter sent to Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who has historically opposed Internet
gambling. The letter amounts to little more than emphatic

opposition from the minority

. But in a few weeks, those same Republicans enter the

majority in the House, from where they could easily stop similar legislation, adding to the urgency for Reid to work fast. Lobbyists guess that the bill could hit the Senate floor as early as next week. Reid won re-election with the
backing of Nevadas biggest gaming operators. For example, Caesars Entertainment facilitated union efforts to drive up voter turnout among members. And MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren endorsed Reid in campaign ads.

Mainstream Republican opposition to legalization of online gambling has always been fierce. In 2006, one of the
last acts of the Republican Congress was passing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which outlawed all forms of gambling online
and, advocates say, helped to drive this offshore business further underground.

Interim deal solves prolif- sanctions wreck it

Rawan Alkhatib 12/8, WAND staff, Womens Action for New Directions, "New Sanctions on Iran Would
Undermine Diplomacy," 12-8-14, www.wand.org/2014/12/08/new-sanctions-on-iran-would-undermine-diplomacy/,
DOA: 1-23-15, y2k
New Sanctions on Iran Would Undermine Diplomacy On November 24, the deadline for the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 the permanent members of the UN
Security Council plus Germany -- was extended for another seven months. Reacting to the extension, a number of members of Congress are demanding harsher
sanctions on Iran to, in their view, increase pressure on the Iranians to make greater concessions. Imposing new sanctions on Iran would violate the terms of the Joint
Plan of Action -- the interim agreement from November 2013 -- and undermine the United States role at the negotiating table. The Iranians
must believe the United States is negotiating in good faith. Otherwise, U.S. credibility will diminish and reaching a
nuclear deal with Iran that lessens the threat of nuclear prolif eration will be near impossible. Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey
Graham (SC), and Kelly Ayotte (NH) are among those voicing the most significant opposition to the continuation of the nuclear negotiations without additional demands on the Iranians. They argue that the failure to impose more
sanctions will diminish Irans incentive to maintain a nuclear program solely for energy rather than weapons and, in turn, set off an unbridled nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It is hard to take their intentions at face value. Indeed,
in an interview with ABC News Radio, Senator-elect Tom Cotton (R-AR) revealed what he believes would result from this course of action: Cotton said the way to accomplish [an end to the negotiations] would be to reimpose the
economic sanctions that were relaxed as part of an interim deal with Iran so that negotiations could continue. (As part of the JPOA, the P5+1 provided modest sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for Iran freezing and rolling back

McCain, Graham, and Ayotte are not considering the political impact that renewed sanctions
could have on Irans citizens and how this might subsequently play into the negotiations. We cannot risk losing the support of ordinary Iranians
who will benefit from economic improvements once a deal is done and who would be most adversely impacted by new sanctions. Conversely,
renewing sanctions on Iran will empower Iranian hard-liners that find ways around the economic pain while loudly calling for more aggression
against the United States and for unchecked nuclear proliferation. While it was disappointing that the sides could not come to an agreement on the self-imposed November 24
deadline, the extension to the nuclear negotiations nonetheless represents progress. The obligations established by the JPOA are still in effect
and as experts note, nothing in the extension weakens the hands of the P5+1 to secure a final agreement. That is, Iran
continues to have curbs on its ability to produce materials for nuclear weapons and its facilities continue to be
scrutinized by international inspectors. In fact, the extension requires heightened scrutiny. Iran must expand IAEA
access to centrifuge production facilities to double the current frequency and allow for no-notice or "snap"
inspections. If Congress were to impose renewed sanctions on Iran, the progress made up to this point would likely
unravel. As Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA) argued, "A collapse of the talks is counter to U.S. interests and would further destabilize an already volatile
region." In this way, Congress needs to present a united front to crystallize the United States negotiating position. Splintering causes the Iranians to doubt American intentions. In a highly volatile
region, diplomacy with Iran is the only good option. Moreover, engaging in meaningful dialogue with Iran is only possible
when we demonstrate our own commitment to the process by making good on our commitments under the JPOA and holding off on actions that
would undermine our position.
aspects of its nuclear program.) One thing seems clear:

Iranian prolif causes regional nuclear conflict

Edelman et al 11 The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran, The Limits of Containment, Eric S. Edelman, Andrew F.
Krepinevich Jr, and Evan Braden Montgomery JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011, ERIC S. EDELMAN is a
Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; he was U.S. Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy in 2005-9. ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH is President of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments. EVAN BRADEN MONTGOMERY is a Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67162/eric-s-edelman-andrew-f-krepinevich-jr-and-evanbraden-montgomer/the-dangers-of-a-nuclear-iran
Yet this

view is far too sanguine. Above all, it rests on the questionable assumptions that possessing nuclear weapons induces
caution and restraint, that other nations in the Middle East would balance against Iran rather than bandwagon with it,
that a nuclear-armed Iran would respect new redlines even though a conventionally armed Iran has failed to comply
with similar warnings, and that further proliferation in the region could be avoided. It seems more likely that Iran would
become increasingly aggressive once it acquired a nuclear capability, that the United States' allies in the Middle East
would feel greatly threatened and so would increasingly accommodate Tehran, that the United States' ability to
promote and defend its interests in the region would be diminished, and that further nuclear proliferation, with all the dangers
that entails, would occur. The greatest concern in the near term would be that an unstable Iranian-Israeli nuclear
contest could emerge, with a significant risk that either side would launch a first strike on the other despite the
enormous risks and costs involved. Over the longer term, Saudi Arabia and other states in the Middle East might pursue
their own nuclear capabilities, raising the possibility of a highly unstable regional nuclear arms race.

6
The United States should create and require cryptocurrency transmitter licenses for
virtual and real currency exchanges.
The President of the United States should make a public declaration that Internet
freedom is a priority, establishes interest in "one Internet", and require agency
prioritization and benchmarks for promotion of Internet freedom.
Solves money laundering
Dunham 14, Project on International Peace and Security at College of William and Mary, 14
(Samuel, Legitimizing Cryptocurrencies: Making the Virtual Economy Work for the United States, April,
http://www.wm.edu/offices/itpir/pips/_documents/pips/2013-2014/legitimizing_cryptocurrencies_dunham.pdf)
A New Idea: Preemption and Regulation Consumer protection makes sense. I think where bitcoins are exchanged for national currencies, it certainly makes sense that
whoever controls those national currencies might want to regulate that. Gavin Andresen, Chief Scientist, Bitcoin Foundation By

monitoring the flow of

real currency in and out of cryptocurrency networks through carefully regulated exchanges, policymakers can
discourage and prosecute illicit uses of these networks. The U.S. government, therefore, should create a special license
called a cryptocurrency transmitter license. This license would be necessary for businesses to exchange cryptocurrency for real
currency or another virtual currency. Licenses for cryptocurrency transmitters would be granted only at the federal level through FinCEN and would preempt other
state-level authorization for money services businesses to trade cryptocurrencies. The

United States could then use anti-money laundering laws

to prevent businesses trading cryptocurrency for real currency without a cryptocurrency transmitter license. Clarity and
specificity. Future regulation must directly address the emergent challenge of cryptocurrencies. FinCEN licensing should require all businesses with cryptocurrency
transmitter licenses to record and regularly report their users names, e-mail addresses, IP addresses, and transaction amounts for each transaction made through the
exchange. Many

U.S. exchanges already volunteer similar information to regulatory bodies.81 Legally requiring the
reporting of this information would only clarify and institutionalize an already-occurring practice. It would also
greatly aid law enforcement officials in tracking criminals using exchanges. FinCEN should also streamline and clarify the
application process specifically for cryptocurrency transmitter licenses to ensure that applications ask relevant information of potential transmitters. Universal
applicability. Cryptocurrency licensing and regulation should lower costs for cryptocurrency exchange entrepeneurs by requiring licensing only at the federal level.

The federal
governments preemption of license granting would lower costs for entrepreneurs wishing to start a cryptocurrency
exchange. If states resist preemption, the federal government instead could develop uniform application and reporting requirements for all states, similar to the
Cryptocurrency transmitter licenses should be granted by FinCEN, and preempt statelevel licenses for other money services businesses.

uniformity of money transmitter regulation in the European Union. Federal regulation of cryptocurrency exchanges would encourage greater consumer confidence in
the security and reputability of these exchanges. The size or reputation of these exchanges often does not serve as a good indicator of their true reputability; Mt. Gox,
once the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, abruptly ceased operations in early January 2014 after losing around $400 million (US) worth of cryptocoins
and delayed notifying their customers.82 Direct federal oversight of exchanges would allow regulators to impose security standards on exchanges and require
exchanges to notify customers in the event of a security breach. The

United States must become a secure, welcoming location in which to

base cryptocurrency exchanges. Encouraging the establishment of cryptocurrency exchanges within the United States
grants it more control over the virtual economy and will position it as a major player in the possible development
of future international regulation. By carefully monitoring these exchanges, U.S. regulators can ensure that the
money that flows into the virtual economy will be used for beneficial purposes

CP solves the Internet advantage

HRF 12 (Human Rights First. December. Human Rights First is a nonprofit, nonpartisan human rights
organization based in New York City and Washington, D.C. "How to Protect and Expand Internet Freedom:

Blueprint for the Next Administration" http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wpcontent/uploads/pdf/blueprints2012/HRF_Internet_Freedom_blueprint.pdf) 11/13/14 RK

president should: Make a landmark declaration that illuminates the full range of
U.S. interests in Internet freedom to articulate the stakes for each agency in the U.S. government. In 2010, Secretary
Clinton outlined a road map for the U.S. strategy on Internet freedom and followed it up in 2011 with Internet Rights and Wrongs. In 2013, the president
should advance the strategy with a major statement laying out the next phase of U.S. government action. It should
include: An updated articulation of U.S. interests in one Internet. Internet freedom is commonly understood as free speech, free
RECOMMENDATIONS The

flow of information, freedoms of association and expression, and privacy rights. However, there are further fundamental implications of the Internet that affect
U.S. interests. For example: the Internet enables products to reach new commercial markets and develop more jobs for manufacturers; international relief efforts
are supported or hampered by the status of Internet use and policy in-country; and international development efforts such as agriculture, health, banking, and
education are more effective in a well-connected country. Tangible

benchmarks for U.S. government agencies to pursue in the

development of one Internet. For example, Internet freedom should be included in trade, aid, investment, and
procurement policies; Internet freedom should be assessed in existing agency reports; and all U.S. agencies
should engage Internet freedom in bilateral relations. Direction to every U.S. agency to prioritize related issues of Internet freedom.
A commitment to expand international partnerships already in place to strengthen strategic goals of one
Internet. For instance, the United States and Jordan share a mutual interest in the economic benefits of one
Internet, however progress will be limited until Jordan commits to the full range of Internet rights, such as
freedom of speech.

Laundering
Alt Cause - Native American gambling ops
Kindt, University of Illinois Economics Professor, and Joy, Attorney, 2002,
(John Warren and Stephen W., "ARTICLE: INTERNET GAMBLING AND THE DESTABILIZATION OF
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIES: TIME FOR A COMPREHENSIVE BAN ON GAMBLING
OVER THE WORLD WIDE WEB," Denver University Law Review, 80 Denv. U.L. Rev. 111, PAS) Accessed on
LexisNexis 6-24-14
"From

the days of Bugsy Siegel, casinos worldwide have been ripe grounds for money laundering," n189 concluded
ex-federal prosecutor and publisher of the Money Laundering Alert newsletter. Looking to major problems in the
future, he predicted that Native American casinos would become increasingly problematic and noted that "with the proliferation of Indian casinos,
there's more opportunity [for money laundering]." n190 When comparing the less-regulated nature of the offshore
Internet sites to the scant regulation in American Indian gambling operations, the possibilities for money laundering
increased dramatically.
Charles Intriago,

Increases laundering
Gottfried, Harvard J.D. Candidate, 2004,
(Jonathan, "ARTICLE: The Federal Framework for Internet Gambling," Richmond Journal of Law & Technology,
10 Rich. J.L. & Tech. 26, Spring, PAS) Accessed on LexisNexis 6-24-14
Unregulated Internet casinos may pose several money-laundering risks, particularly at the layering stage. n79 The speed,
international character, and possible anonymity of certain Internet gambling transactions, together with the potential
of transferring large sums of money, may attract money launderers to online gambling operations. n80 In addition, some
Internet casinos "offer a broad array of financial services to their customers, such as providing credit accounts, fund
transmittal services, check cashing services, and currency exchange services." n81 A possible laundering of money
could take the following form: A person in Australia could . . . deposit the proceeds of a drug sale onto his/her credit
card, and then transfer the amount via the card to an online casino in a 'tax haven .' The casino opens an account for
the person and the account is credited with the amount deposited. The person gambles some of the money and the
winnings (or losses) are credited (or debited) to the account. When the person wishes to withdraw the money from the account the casino sends the
funds back to the person's credit card as winnings. The . . . money is now clean. n82 Since law enforcement authorities must be able to monitor or review a
business's transactions in order to detect and prosecute money-laundering, n83 and since

the records of offshore gambling operators may be

difficult for regulatory authorities in another jurisdiction to obtain, law enforcement agents in another
jurisdiction would have no means of verifying the suspected money-launderer's claims. n84 A money-launderer may
not even have to place a bet in order to clean his funds. Depending on the Internet casino, the criminal might be able
to place his money in a casino account and then move the funds into another account as "winnings" without ever
playing a game. n85 While this example could work with an Internet gambling site that was oblivious to its client's money-laundering activity, moneylaunderers may also try to operate their own Internet casinos. In such a case, the criminal would transfer his funds to the site which would then deduct a small amount
of money (a money laundering "fee") and attribute the deduction to a "gaming loss." Without having placed a wager, the money-launderer, with the assistance of the
Internet casino, would have been able to cloak the origin of the illegitimate funds. n86

Legalization doesnt solve money laundering

Fiedler 13 [Ingo Fiedler, Visiting Scholar at University of Hamburg, diplomas both in business administration
and economics from the University of Hamburg. His Ph.D. thesis Empirical Analyses on Online Poker was
awarded a prize for the best dissertation at the faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Hamburg. Dr.
Fiedler was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, and the Research Chair on Gambling
Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. His expertise was sought by the European Parliament, the Financial
Committee of the German Bundestag, Germanys Ministry of Finance, Qubecs Ministry of Finance, and other
institutions, Online Gambling as a Game Changer to Money Laundering, http://www.wiso.unihamburg.de/fileadmin/bwl/rechtderwirtschaft/institut/Ingo_Fiedler/Online_Gambling_as_a_Game_Changer_to_Mo
ney_Laundering_01.pdf]cd
5 Conclusion and Regulatory Advice Hence, online

gambling can be used to launder money easily. Small and medium sums of
criminal proceedings can be laundered using current unregulated gambling operators to transfer the funds into the legal system.
To launder large sums an online casino in a regulatory haven can be founded and fake revenues created which can be
paid out to the owners as legal business profits. All forms involve very low costs and a detection of virtually zero.
Online gambling is thus a game changer to money laundering. It increases the profitability and thus the prevalence of crime. All forms of money
laundering in online gambling involve unregulated or illegal operators as they do not have to oblige to anti-money
laundering directives but can hide in regulatory havens. Legal operators, in contrast, are not prone to money laundering
(Brooks 2012), especially because of the much lower payout ratios. However, the online gambling market is still dominated by illegal
operators; legal ones play only a minor role. This leaves plenty of opportunities of money laundering. The obvious way to tackle
money laundering in unregulated/illegal online gambling is to introduce legal markets. But this is far from
sufficient. Legal operators are far less attractive to customers due to lower payout ratios which result from taxes
and fees the operators have to pay. Even in regulated markets like France the illegal operators still play an
important role. The reason is a lack of law enforcement against unregulated/illegal operators. For example, Germany is the largest online poker
market worldwide although it is illegal (Fiedler and Wilcke 2012). Thus, the first and most important step in tackling money laundering in online
gaming and preventing it from increasing the prevalence of organized crime in our society is to enforce the law against illegal/unregulated operators.

No econ impact
Jervis 11 Robert Jervis, Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of International and Public
Affairs at Columbia University, December 2011, Force in Our Times, Survival, Vol. 25, No. 4, p. 403-425
Even if war is still seen as evil, the security community could be dissolved if severe conflicts of interest were to arise. Could the more peaceful world generate new
interests that would bring the members of the community into sharp disputes? 45 A zero-sum sense of status would be one example, perhaps linked to a steep rise in
nationalism. More likely would be a

worsening of the current economic difficulties, which could itself produce greater nationalism,
undermine democracy and bring back old-fashioned beggar-my-neighbor economic policies. While these dangers are
real, it is hard to believe that the conflicts could be great enough to lead the members of the community to
contemplate fighting each other. It is not so much that economic interdependence has proceeded to the point where it could not
be reversed states that were more internally interdependent than anything seen internationally have fought bloody civil wars. Rather it is that even if
the more extreme versions of free trade and economic liberalism become discredited, it is hard to see how without
building on a preexisting high level of political conflict leaders and mass opinion would come to believe that their countries could
prosper by impoverishing or even attacking others. Is it possible that problems will not only become severe, but that people will entertain the
thought that they have to be solved by war? While a pessimist could note that this argument does not appear as outlandish as it
did before the financial crisis, an optimist could reply (correctly, in my view) that the very fact that we have seen such a
sharp economic down-turn without anyone suggesting that force of arms is the solution shows that even if bad times
bring about greater economic conflict, it will not make war thinkable.

No impact to terrorism- threats are low and SQ solves- doesnt escalate beyond
conventional weapons
Mockli 12 Daniel mockli is a Senior Researcher @ Center for Security Studies in International Relations and
Security Network, "Terrorism as a Manageable Risk -- Yes it is," http://www.isn.ethz.ch/DigitalLibrary/Articles/Special-Feature/Detail/?
lng=en&id=152973&tabid=1453321093&contextid774=152973&contextid775=152971 9-21-13, DOA: 7-20-13,
y2k
Eleven years after al-Qaidas coordinated mass-casualty attacks on the US, many effects of 11 September 2001 are still visible. Islamist extremist
violence continues to be widely perceived as a major threat to global security. Recurring terrorism alerts and news about successful or foiled attacks
serve as forceful reminders that this is a threat that could hit anyone anytime. Aviation security and infrastructure protection remain major
public concerns. Counterterrorism capabilities in law enforcement, intelligence, and the military have all been enhanced. For all these repercussions, 9/11 has not brought
about strategic change to the international system. It illustrated the globalization of security threats and the
empowerment of non-state actors. It also had a tremendous impact on US foreign policy for several years. Yet, with the US gradually modifying its counterterrorism
approach, al-Qaida has not succeeded in provoking the West into a clash of civilizations . This is notwithstanding growing anti-Muslim
and anti-American sentiment in certain parts of the world. Nor has al-Qaida become a mass movement . The core organization of alQaida has been significantly weakened. Al-Qaidas ideology has lost much support in Muslim countries. The
vast majority of Islamist extremist groups have not answered the call for global jihad and continue to pursue more
local agendas. Seen from the perspective of Western security, Islamist extremist violence has not become an existential threat as
was frequently predicted after 9/11. Rather, it should be perceived as an ongoing but manageable risk. Current
counter-terrorism policies are effective to the extent that the likelihood of complex and catastrophic attacks against the
homeland of Western countries has substantially decreased. The jihadist threat to Europe and the US no doubt remains real, with homegrown
radicals that have ties to al-Qaida-related terror organizations being a particular source of concern. However, potential terrorist attacks are likely to be limited
in scale and conventional in nature over the coming years. Shifting from managing to resolving the problem of jihadist terrorism may be too ambitious an objective, as
strategic counterterrorism is beset with major challenges. The fight against terrorism is set to stay and will continue to require considerable resources. Yet, terrorism is a threat that should no
longer be overemphasized at the expense of other security challenges. Issues relating to the transformation of the international system and regional developments in Europe, the Middle East, and
elsewhere will likely top the strategic agenda of Western countries in the coming years. An evolving threat The jihadist threat has evolved significantly in the past years. The capacity of al-Qaida
Central to launch complex and catastrophic attacks has been diminished. Al-Qaidas ideology and brand have, however, been taken up by some other terror organizations. These regional al-Qaida
affiliates embrace the call for global jihad to some extent. But their grievances and objectives and in most cases, also their operative range are tied to specific local contexts. The same holds
true for most other Islamist extremist groups. Al-Qaidas concept of global jihad is being marginalized in Islamic religious and political discourse. Most of the groups that operate on the premise
of jihad continue to follow the classical interpretation of a defensive struggle against oppression in Muslim countries. Going after the near enemy, they still may hit not just national regimes and
security forces, but also local Western targets. But they do not subscribe to al-Qaidas reinterpretation of jihad in global and more offensive terms. Hitting the far enemy, i.e. launching attacks
against the US homeland and other Western countries, is not what they are after. In Europe, and increasingly in the US as well, there is the additional threat of homegrown radicalization.
Evidence suggests that the damage homegrown jihadists can cause depends significantly on whether they are self-inspired and acting autonomously or trained and guided by established terrorist
organizations. The most likely current scenarios of homegrown terrorism concern attacks of limited scale with traditional terrorist methods such as armed assault and improvised explosives.
Overall, the diversification of Islamist extremist violence in recent years has rendered the jihadist threat more diffuse. It has also meant that the threat for Western homelands, while still real, has

The decreasing appeal of global

jihad and the limited operational capacity of jihadists willing to strike European or US targets suggest a
reduced scale of threat emanating from Islamist extremist violence to Western countries. A typical attack in the
coming years will likely be of limited scale and sophistication, carried out with conventional weapons like assault
rifles or small improvised explosive devices. In its methods, jihadist terrorism increasingly resembles traditional IRA-or ETA-type terrorism. It continues to differ,
been reduced. Muslim-majority countries, rather than the West, are the main target of terrorist attacks. A largely non-Western threat

however, in that it is often aimed at indiscriminate mass casualties and may target any country, irrespective of secessionist conflicts. It is due to this last reason that Islamist extremist violence

It is
important to note, however, that it is non- OECD countries, and predominantly Muslim-majority countries, that suffer the bulk of
terrorism attacks and casualties. In 2010, the top five countries in terms of both attacks and deaths were Afghanistan,
Iraq, Pakistan, India, and Somalia. Collectively, they accounted for 76 per cent of all attacks and 83 per cent of all
deaths. Europe and the United States rank last on this global list of terror incidents. In Europe, there have been few attacks, and
will likely remain a major concern to Western publics and policy-makers. It works to the advantage of al-Qaida that even failed attacks arouse public attention, emotion, and fear.

the figures for arrests have been decreasing since 2006. According to Europol data covering 26 European Union (EU) member states (excluding the UK), six member states reported 294 failed,
foiled, or successfully perpetrated terrorist attacks in 2009. Only one of these attacks was categorized as Islamist, as opposed to 237 attacks related to ETA in Spain and France. In the figures for
2010, the number of Islamist attacks may go up slightly [note: in 2011, no religiously-inspired attack was reported by EU member-states], but the major trend may well be a rise in attacks by
anarchist (left-wing) groups in Greece, Italy, and Spain. In the UK, there were 173 terrorism arrests in 2009/10 [note: 62 in 2011], compared to an annual average of 216 since 2002. As for the
US, few would have expected that there would only be 14 homeland deaths caused by Islamist extremist violence in the decade post- 9/11 a figure that contrasts with the 168 people killed in

it is a manageable risk in Western

countries. There is of course a price tag attached to managing this risk effectively. Also, new large-scale attacks on Western homelands can never be ruled out. Nevertheless, the
likelihood of such an attack appears lower today than some counterterrorist bureaucracies and analysts
continue to argue. This is also why two worst-case scenarios are unlikely today: for example, links between anti-Western
Muslim regimes and global jihadists have not materialized in any substantial way. Iran does support Hezbollah and
Hamas, but has been tough on Al Qaeda. Nor did Saddam Hussein cooperate with global jihadists. There are ties
between the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and al-Qaida and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan . Yet, these are
the right-wing Oklahoma bombing of 1995. The bottom line is that while jihadist terrorism hits hard some of the Muslim countries,

tactical alliances that are not geared against the West, but must be seen in the context of the ISIs strategic calculations concerning Pakistans relations
with India. Without state sponsorship of global jihadism, the scenario of terrorism based on weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) appears unlikely too. Again, there are concerns about the safety of nuclear weapons, especially should Pakistan descend into political chaos.
US President Barack Obamas characterization of nuclear terrorism as the most extreme threat to global security is certainly justified, and there is no doubt that a WMD attack could be a game-

Getting the materials and the know-how

to launch an effective WMD attack remains exceedingly difficult. As for the use of conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials,
changer in international relations. But it is doubtful that Obama is also right in calling this the most immediate threat.
such dirty bombs are unlikely to cause mass casualties, though they may cause mass panic.

WTO
No impact to collapse
Legal Frontiers 10
(International law blog hosted by the McGill University of Law in Quebec, Regional trade agreements, neither
building blocks nor stumbling blocks: dismantling a tired dichotomy, 4-2-10,
http://www.legalfrontiers.ca/2010/04/regional-trade-agreements-neither-building-blocks-nor-stumbling-blocksdismantling-a-tired-dichotomy/, accessed 10-4-14) PM
Since the establishment of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements (CRTA) in 1996, the WTO has

scrambled to find ways to

effectively control the impact of RTAs. This futile mission to tighten RTA regulation has been driven by a persistent
fear of trade diversion, as well as by the assumption that regionalismand the agreements springing from itis subordinate
to the multilateral regime. WTO regulation of RTAs has evolved since 1947, notably with the introduction of the 1994 Understanding on
the Interpretation of Article XXIV of the GATT 1994 and the creation of the Transparency Mechanism for RTAs in 2006. These regulations
remain however, narrow and ambiguous. Article XXIV thus continues its long history of being systematically
flouted by member states with the WTO as little more than an innocent bystander to the overwhelming spread of
regionalism. Under the GATT 1947, regionalism was permitted as an exception. RTAs were accepted, but only to the extent that they complied
with the terms of GATT Art. XXIV. It is this exception ethos that reinforces the conceptual primacy of multilateralism,
which undermines the legitimacy of RTAs. In many respects, this attitude has contributed to the disregard of GATT Art.
XXIV.

Disease doesnt lead to extinction

Gladwell 99 (Malcolm, The New Republic, July 17 and 24, 1995, excerpted in Epidemics: Opposing
Viewpoints, p. 31-32)
Every infectious agent that has ever plagued humanity has had to adapt a specific strategy but every

strategy carries a corresponding cost and

this makes human counterattack possible. Malaria is vicious and deadly but it relies on mosquitoes to spread from one human to the next, which
means that draining swamps and putting up mosquito netting can all hut halt endemic malaria. Smallpox is extraordinarily durable remaining infectious in the
environment for years, but its very durability its essential rigidity is what makes it one of the easiest microbes to create a vaccine against. AIDS is almost invariably
lethal because it attacks the body at its point of great vulnerability, that is, the immune system, but the fact that it targets blood cells is what makes it so relatively
uninfectious. Viruses are not superhuman. I could go on, but the point is obvious. Any

microbe capable of wiping us all out would have to be

everything at once: as contagious as flue, as durable as the cold, as lethal as Ebola, as stealthy as HIV and so
doggedly resistant to mutation that it would stay deadly over the course of a long epidemic. But viruses are not,
well, superhuman. They cannot do everything at once. It is one of the ironies of the analysis of alarmists such as Preston that they are all too
willing to point out the limitations of human beings, but they neglect to point out the limitations of microscopic life forms.

WTO failure causes East Asian regionalism -- solves trade and regional stability
better
Zhang & Shen 11 (Yunling Zhang is professor at and director of the Academic Division of International
Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Minghui Shen is associate research fellow at the Institute of
Asia-Pacific Studies, CASS, The Status of East Asian Free Trade Agreements May 2011, ADBI Working Paper
282. Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute)

RTAs) have become a prominent feature of the multilateral trading system and an important instrument of trade
policy for members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The proliferation of RTAs is the result of a number of factors, from the economic to the political. They
may be considered an integral part of the regional movement toward integration and cooperation, or a political motivation for closer
relations between countries. They may be viewed as supplementing multilateral arrangementsa WTO plus formula (i.e., faster, or beyond WTO arrangements). They may be
seen as an alternative approach when multilateral negotiations stall, or as a regional response to globalization. They may also be a policy
option to facilitate domestic reform. The principal component of an RTA is negotiation of a free trade agreement (FTA). Compared with multilateral arrangements,
an FTA has broader coverage, although its principal content is liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment (Fiorentino, Verdeja, and Toqueboeuf 2006). East
Asia is witnessing the establishment of multilayered FTAs. Pioneered by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1992 when it initiated the
ASEAN FTA (AFTA), and encouraged by ASEAN+1 (ASEAN plus one country) FTAs, more and more economies are involved in RTAs. While the
Regional trade arrangements (

characteristics of FTAs differ according to their background and circumstances, all are committed to be harmonious with WTO. FTA partners can benefit from liberalization of markets and trade,
facilitation of investment, and from enhancement of economic cooperation. However, questions have been raised about the potential for negative effects of FTAs because of the complexity and
inconsistency of some regulations, and the noodle bowl (or spaghetti bowl) effect arising from different rules of origin (ROOs). While recognizing the importance of FTAs, the business
community in east Asia has warned that their proliferation has created barriers and raised the cost of business in the region. At the second East Asia Summit (EAS) in January 2007, the leaders of
ASEAN, Australia, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), India, Japan, the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea), and New Zealand, agreed to launch the track II studies of the problems of FTAs
and the feasibility of an integrated east Asian FTA. East Asian economies are highly integrated and interdependent. With their high levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) and an intra-regional
trade and production network, east Asia needs to progress from the proliferation of multilayered FTAs to a regional FTA with wider participation and broader coverage. 2. FREE TRADE
AGREEMENTS IN EAST ASIA 2.1 Proliferation of Free Trade Agreements East Asian economies benefited from the advance of multilateralism following the Second World War because most
adopted an export-led economic growth model. As the wave of regionalism emerged worldwide, east Asia economies began establishing RTAs. ASEAN, one of the early regional organizations,
took the lead in forming FTAs. AFTA, established in 1992, was clearly inspired by the development dynamism of the coming European Union (EU) and the North American Free Trade
Agreement. ASEANs role is unique in east Asia. On one hand, ASEAN seeks to benefit from FTAs with itself as the hub, creating a hub-spoke structure with its ASEAN+1 FTAs. On the other

The PRC, after its emergence as an

to WTO in 2000, showed interest in formulating FTAs in order to gain broader access to the markets
of both members and nonmembers of WTO. The PRCs first FTA initiative was with ASEAN, and was aimed at establishing ASEAN as both a regional market and a
hand, as an integrated regional market, ASEAN is attractive to other regional groups, leading the latter to seek FTAs with ASEAN.
economic power and accession

close geographic partner. The PRC initiative was received favorably by ASEAN as an effective strategy for engaging a rising economic power. The PRCs FTA with ASEAN aroused quick

Japan had previously focused on

multilateralism, but its subsequent interest in RTAs was understandable because it was a major player in the east
Asian production network. East Asian FTAs excluding Japan would impair the interests of Japanese companies with well developed business networks in the region. Korea, an
responses from other countries, particularly Japan and Korea, leading to several parallel ASEAN+1 FTAs in east Asia.

emerging power in trade and investment, also began to negotiate an FTA with ASEAN. Korean negotiations followed with India, and Australia and New Zealand because of their existing or
potential economic links with ASEAN. Few economies restricted the pursuit of FTAs to east Asia as the search for FTA partners assumed a global reach. For east Asian economies, however,

In general, the slow

progress of the WTO Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations encouraged WTO members to concentrate more on regional
efforts. The FTA was embraced by WTO members as an effective instrument for exploiting regional as well as
global markets. The FTA initiatives of east Asian economies are thus just one aspect of a global phenomenon. From a regional perspective, east Asian economies have been encouraged
FTAs had clearly become a significant new strategy. How did the FTA become such an important policy instrument and trade strategy for these economies?

to turn to practicable bilateral or subregional approaches by the failure of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to realize its Bogor Goali.e., free trade and investment in Asia and the
Pacific by 2010 for developed members, and by 2020 for developing members. In 1997, APEC initiated an Early Voluntary Sector Liberalization program by selecting 15 sectors for
liberalization. The program, however, failed due to its voluntary approach and the subsequent Asian financial crisis (Feridhanusetyawan 2005). The slow progress of APEC after the 1997
financial crisis encouraged its members turn to other strategies centering on FTAs. In east Asia, FTAs are also considered part of a strategy of defense against globalization and regionalism in
other regions. However, almost all countries are pursuing FTAs. European integration has deepened greatly since the 1990snotably through the creation of a single market and the successful
launch of the euro. The EU also admitted transitional economies in Central and eastern Europe as part of its continued enlargement. In addition to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the

East Asian economies understandably feel compelled to conclude their own

agreements with critical markets (Asian Development Bank 2008). They fear that unless they develop their own regional trade
arrangements, they will be disadvantaged in global competition and multilateral negotiations. In addition, they
increasingly realize the importance of uniting themselves to strengthen their bargaining power vis--vis the EU, the
US, and other regional groupings (Bergsten 2000, 2001). The push toward regionalism in east Asia strengthened considerably
after the financial crisis in 1997. The crisis helped create a sense of east Asian economic identity because of the
highly integrated nature of these economies (Kawai 2005). This led to the ASEAN+3 (ASEAN plus the PRC, Japan and Korea) dialogue
and cooperation framework and other regional cooperation mechanisms. FTAs can enhance market access.
Compared with a multilateral approach, a regional agreement is much more flexible and can be concluded
faster. Problems that may take years to resolve in global negotiations can be dealt with more quickly through
an FTA (Zhang 2006). The small number of parties involved in a regional agreementcompared with a WTO
agreementfacilitates agreement and the tailoring of agreements to the needs of the participants. Many FTAs in
the region cover areas not covered or covered poorly by WTO arrangements, and are thus seen as elements of the WTO-plus formula.
Included are FTAs dealing with liberalization of trade in services, investment, standards, intellectual property rights,
capacity building, economic cooperation, and labor mobility (Feridhanusetyawan 2005). Apart from economic considerations, RTAs may be
used to cement political relationships between countries. For example, ASEAN began as politico-security institution
with limited attention devoted to economic issues. The formation of AFTA in 1992 provided an effective platform for ASEAN
countries to intensify cooperation. ASEAN has become an integrated framework for uniting all countries in
southeast Asia, and the goal of an ASEAN Community by 2015 has been established. Similarly, the ASEAN-PRC Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement ( ACCEC)
was regarded as contributing to the process of building political confidence when the PRC emerged as regional
United States (US) has pursued FTAs around the world.

power. ASEAN+1 FTAs, with ASEAN as the hub, are viewed as strategic initiatives as well as instruments for
community-building within ASEAN.

Prevents great power war

Campbell et al 8 (Kurt M, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Dr. Campbell served
in several capacities in government, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia and the Pacific,
Director on theNational Security Council Staff, previously the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the Center
for a New American Security (CNAS), served as Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and the Chairman of the
Editorial Board of the Washington Quarterly, and was the founder and Principal of StratAsia, a strategic advisory
company focused on Asia, rior to co-founding CNAS, he served as Senior Vice President, Director of the
International Security Program, and the Henry A. Kissinger Chair in National Security Policy at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, doctorate in International Relation Theory from Oxford, former associate
professor of public policy and international relations at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Assistant
Director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, member of Council on Foreign
Relations and International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Power of Balance: America in iAsia June 2008,
http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CampbellPatelSingh_iAsia_June08.pdf)
Asian investment is also at record levels. Asian countries lead the world with unprecedented infrastructure projects. With over $3 trillion in
foreign currency reserves, Asian nations and businesses are starting to shape global economic activity. Indian firms are purchasing industrial
giants such as Arcelor Steel, as well as iconic brands of its once-colonial ruler, such as Jaguar and Range Rover. Chinas Lenovo bought IBMs
personal computer We call the transformations across the Asia-Pacific the emergence of iAsia to reflect the adoption
by countries across Asia of

fundamentally new strategic approaches to their neighbors and the world. Asian nations are
pursuing their interests with real power in a period of both tremendous potential and great uncertainty. iAsia is:
Integrating: iAsia includes increasing economic interdependence and a flowering of multinational forums to deal with trade,
cultural exchange, and, to some degree, security. Innovating: iAsia boasts the worlds most successful manufacturing and technology sectors
and could start taking the lead in everything from finance to nanotech to green tech. Investing: Asian nations are developing infrastructure and
human capital at unprecedented rates. But the continent remains plagued by: Insecurity: Great-power rivalry is alive in Asia.

Massive military investments along with historic suspicions and contemporary territorial and other conflicts make
war in Asia plausible. Instability: From environmental degradation to violent extremism to trafficking in drugs, people,
and weapons, Asian nations have much to worry about. Inequality: Within nations and between them, inequality in Asia is
more stark than anywhere else in the world. Impoverished minorities in countries like India and China, and the gap
in governance and capacity within countries, whether as backward as Burma or as advanced as Singapore, present unique
challenges. A traditional approach to Asia will not suffice if the United States is to both protect American interests and help iAsia realize its
potential and avoid pitfalls. business and the Chinese government, along with other Asian financial players, injected billions in capital to help
steady U.S. investment banks such as Merrill Lynch as the American subprime mortgage collapse unfolded. Chinese investment funds regional
industrialization, which in turn creates new markets for global products. Asia now accounts for over 40 percent of global consumption of steel 4
and China is consuming almost half of worlds available concrete. 5 Natural resources from soy to copper to oil are being used by China and
India at astonishing rates, driving up commodity prices and setting off alarm bells in Washington and other Western capitals. Yet Asia is not a

theater at peace. On average, between 15 and 50 people die every day from causes tied to conflict, and suspicions rooted
in rivalry and nationalism run deep. The continent harbors every traditional and non-traditional challenge of our age:
it is a cauldron of religious and ethnic tension; a source of terror and extremism; an accelerating driver of the
insatiable global appetite for energy; the place where the most people will suffer the adverse effects of global
climate change; the primary source of nuclear proliferation; and the most likely theater on Earth for a major
conventional confrontation and even a nuclear conflict. Coexisting with the optimism of iAsia are the ingredients for internal
strife, non-traditional threats like terrorism, and traditional interstate conflict, which are all magnified by the risk of
miscalculation or poor decision-making.

New regionalism isnt like WW2

Brkic, economics professor at University of Sarajevo, 13

(Snjeana, Regional Trading Arrangements Stumbling Blocks or Building Blocks in the Process of Global Trade
Liberalization?, 3-25-13, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2239275, accessed 10-2-14) PM
Forces driving the contemporary regionalism development differ from those that used to drive earlier regionalism
periods in the 20th century. The present regionalism emerged in the period characterized by the increasing economic interdependence between different world economy subjects, countries attempts to resolve trade disputes and multilateral framework of trade
relations. As opposed to the 1930s episode, contemporary regional initiatives represent attempts to make the members'
participation in the world economy easier, rather than make them more distant from it. As opposed to 1950s and
1960s episode, new initiatives are less frequently motivated exclusively by political interests, and are less frequently
being used for mercantilist purposes. After the Second World War, more powerful countries kept using the economic integration as a means to
strengthen their political influence on their weaker partners and outsiders. The examples include CMEA and European Community arrangements with its members'
former colonies. As opposed to this practice, the

new regionalism, mostly driven by common economic interests, yielded less trade diversion
than previous one, and has also contributed to the prevention of military conflicts of greater proportions. Various
analyses have shown that many regional integrations in earlier periods resulted in trade deviations, particularly those formed between less developed countries and
between socialist countries. In

recent years, however, the newly formed or revised regional integrations primarily seem to lead
to trade creation. Contrary to the beggarthy- neighbor model of former international economic integrations, the integrations now offer certain
advantages to outsiders as well, by stimulating growth and spurring the role of market forces.27

Their impacts are empirically denied 30 years of data goes neg

Brkic, economics professor at University of Sarajevo, 13
(Snjeana, Regional Trading Arrangements Stumbling Blocks or Building Blocks in the Process of Global Trade
Liberalization?, 3-25-13, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2239275, accessed 10-2-14) PM
In the years-long period of regional integration development, four periods have been identified during which the integration processes were becoming particularly
intensive and which have therefore been named "waves of regionalism". The first wave was taking place during the capitalism development in the second half of the
19th century, in the course of British sovereign domination over the world market. Economic integrations of the time primarily had the form of bilateral customs
unions; however, owing to the comparative openness of international trading system based on the golden standard automatism, this period is called the "era of
progressive bilateralism". The next two waves of regionalism occurred in the years following the world wars. Since the disintegration processes caused by the wars
usually spawned economic nationalisms and autarchic tendencies, it is not surprising that post-war regionalisms were marked by discriminatory international
economic integrations, primarily at the level of so-called negative integration, with expressedly beggar-thy-neighbor policies that resulted in considerable trade
deviations. This particularly refers to the regionalism momentum after the First World War, which was additionally burdened by the consequences of Big Economic
Crisis. The

current wave of regionalism started in late 1980s and spread around the world to a far greater extent than
any previous one did: it has covered almost all the continents and almost all the countries , even those which have mis to join all
earlier regional initiatives, such as the USA, Canada, Japan and China. Integration processes, however, do not show any signs of flagging. Up
till now, over 200 RTAs have been registered with GATT/WTO, more than 150 of them being still in force, and most of
these valid arrangement have been made in the past ten years.25

Trade blocs conflict empirically denied interdependence between blocs actually

DECREASES the risk of protectionism
Brkic, economics professor at University of Sarajevo, 13
(Snjeana, Regional Trading Arrangements Stumbling Blocks or Building Blocks in the Process of Global Trade
Liberalization?, 3-25-13, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2239275, accessed 10-2-14) PM
Contemporary research shows that intra-regional

trade is growing, however, same as interdependence between North America and

East Asia and between the EU and East Asia. It can also be seen that the biggest and the most powerful countries, i.e. blocs, are extremely
dependent on the rest of the world in terms of trade. For the EU, besides the intra-European trade, which is ranked first, foreign trade
has the vital importance since it accounts for 10% of European GDP. In early 1990s, EU exchanged 40% of its foreign trade with non-members, 16% out of
which with North America and East Asia together. EU therefore must keep in mind the rest of the world as well. The growing EU interest in outsiders is confirmed by

the
past few years witnessed a series of inter-regional agreements between the EU on the one hand, and certain groups from
other regions on the other (MERCOSUR, CARICOM, ASEAN and GCC). In case of North America, the ratio between intra-regional and inter-regional trade is
establishing "The Euro-Med Partnership", which proclaimed a new form of cooperation between the EU and the countries at its South periphery32. Besides,

40:60, and in East Asia, it is 45:55. Any

attempt to move towards significantly closed blocs ("fortresses") would require overcoming
the significant inter-dependence between major trading blocs.

RTAs dont collapse multilateral trade WTO has already created exemptions for
RTAs as a means to global trade
Brkic, economics professor at University of Sarajevo, 13
(Snjeana, Regional Trading Arrangements Stumbling Blocks or Building Blocks in the Process of Global Trade
Liberalization?, 3-25-13, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2239275, accessed 10-2-14) PM
The optimistic view is actually incorporated in the GATT text, as the explanation for exceptions from the mostfavoured-nation clause (MFN clause). The MFN clause, included in Article I line 1. of the GATT 47 represents the multilateralism principle. This principle has
considerably sped up and facilitated the trade among GATT members over the past 50 years. The fact that GATT, i.e. WTO today have 146 members7 and that the
trade among them covers over 90% of the world trade, points to the significance of GATT principles and rules for international trade. However, as a concession to
some more developed and powerful members, the

very foundations of GATT include exceptions from MFN clause that refer to the
permission to establish free trade areas and customs unions between nations. Article XXIV of GATT sets conditions under
which countries are allowed to establish international economic integrations . Authors of this article seem to have believed that the
provision on total elimination of trade barriers within economic integrations will complement GATT initiatives on improving
multilateral liberalization. Article XXIV line 4. of GATT 47 says: The contracting parties recognize the desirability of increasing freedom of trade by the
development, through voluntary agreements, of closer integration between the economies of the countries parties to such agreements. They also recognize that the
purpose of a customs union or of a freetrade area should be to facilitate trade between the constituent territories and not to raise barriers to the trade of other
contracting parties with such territories.8 Line 5. says that ... GATT shall not prevent the formation of a customs union or a free-trade area, under condition that such
an integration fulfills certain requirements9: 1. The first requirement is reflected in the obligation to remove all trade barriers between members, including regional
privileges (except in the transition period), and the main industries. 2. The second requirement says that customs and other trade barriers with respect to non-members
shall not be higher or stricter compared to the period before the integration has been established. If the integration participants have different levels of customs burdens
with respect to non-members, the common external tariff is determined based on the average. If this brings about the higher barriers in some industries, the affected
non-members have the right to require compensation. 3. Finally, participants in integration processes are required to advance in the integration creation fast, which
means that the formation of free trade area or customs union must be completed in a "reasonable period of time"; according to the Uruguay round conclusions, this
period should not be longer than 10 years. It is for this reason, following the GATT 47 provisions and taking into account the fact of enormous increase in the number
of regional trading arrangements world wide, that the revised GATT (1994) provisions "recognized" trading arrangements as a potentially positive phenomenon in
creating the global world market. In the preamble of Agreement on Understanding on the Interpretation of Article XXIV of the General Agreements on Tariffs and
Trade 1994 it was written as follows: ... Recognizing that customs unions and free-trade areas have greatly increased in number and importance since the
establishment of GATT 1947 and today cover a significant proportion of world trade; Recognizing the contribution to the expansion of world trade that may be made
by closer integration between the economies of the parties to such agreements; Recognizing also that such contribution is increased if the elimination between the
constituent territories of duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce extends to all trade, and diminished if any major sector of trade is excluded; Reaffirming
that the purpose of such agreements should be to facilitate trade between the constituent territories and not to raise barriers to the trade of other Members with such
territories; and that in their formation or enlargement the parties to them should to the greatest possible extent avoid creating adverse effects on the trade of other

WTO
members proclaimed that regional trading arrangements can play an important role in advancing trade liberalization
and strengthening economic development. They also stressed the need for the existence of harmonized links between multilateral and regional
Members; ...10 Some current happenings within WTO further confirmed this orientation. At the Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, in 2001,

processes.11

BUT sequencing is key RTAs spill up to global trade, which solves the case, BUT
gradual increases in trade avoid overestimation which collapses global markets and
turns the case
Brkic, economics professor at University of Sarajevo, 13
(Snjeana, Regional Trading Arrangements Stumbling Blocks or Building Blocks in the Process of Global Trade
Liberalization?, 3-25-13, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2239275, accessed 10-2-14) PM
There are over 180 independent states in the modern world, most of which differ enormously in economic development and power. World economy is therefore a
battlefield of varied interests expressed in the action of different national economic policies. In such conditions, attempts

to integrate world economy

by global liberalization of international trade cannot yield significant results overnight . Global free trade is
considered the first best solution, but is not feasible immediately and at once, since too many people believe that

they would lose with global liberalization. According to the view believed to be optimistic, creation of international economic
integrations could be a distinctive inter-step in the process of free world market creation . Lester Thurow points out: "In the
long run, regionalism development could be favorable for the world. Free trade within regions and regulated trade
between regions could be the proper road to free world trade in a long term. The shift from national to world
economy at once would be too big a jump. One should first make a few smaller inter-steps, and pseudo-trading blocs
coupled with regulated trade could be such a necessary inter-step."4 The essential rationale of this view is actually the
speed of reforms - the gradual versus big bang approach. Many contemporary economists, in their analyses of world economy trends, conclude that
political forces behind regional integration show signs of consistency with those acting towards global world trade .5
According to the optimistic view, the multilateralization process is slowed down by different standpoints on the free trade usefulness, by economic
nationalisms, even by varying political interests, and therefore another way had to be found in order to achieve the world market
integration a slower one, but more effective in the existing constellation of international economic relations. This view denies the opposition
between regionalism and multilateralism, and explains it as follows: Since integration improves economic relations between members
through removing trading and other barriers, and since all these integrated regions are part of the world territory, the
advancement of economic relations within regions can be understood as the advancement of global economic
relations. Regional trading, i.e. economic blocs would in this case be only a bypass towards the creation of unified world
market. "... What could not be achieved in global relations was achieved within regions, through multilateralization of the European economic area. These
achievements were later followed by many countries in other world regions, in their mutual relations practice. Practically, we thus got regional
multilateralisms."6 Regionalism advocates also point out that the formation of economic integrations could facilitate the pending
WTO negotiation rounds. Actually, the Uruguay round was partly protracted due to a great number of participants and the "free riders" issue. Viewed in
broader context, one could say that regionalism contributes to overall globalization as well , since these are processes motivated from the same
source. Both regionalism and globalization are driven by big capital interests , and that these two phenomena are actually ways to make the
centuries-long capitalism aspiration unified world market - come true. According to this view, the globalization process as a process of world economy
functional integration under the circumstances of imperfect market and hegemony weakening early in the 20th century has to be supported by the
institutional component, either on a multilateral basis through international organizations and institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO, or on
regional scale through regional trading arrangements.

The only reasons multilateral trade solves war are interdependence and that the
WTO is a forum for cooperation
RTAs access BOTH of those internal links
Martin et al, Professor Econ rue des Saints Peres, 12
(Philippe, Thierry Mayer, Professor Econ rue des Saints Peres, and Mathias Thoenig, Professor University of
Lausanne, The geography of conflicts and regional trade agreements Politics, Economics and Global Governance:
The European Dimensions, 6-16-12, http://econ.sciences-po.fr/sites/default/files/file/tmayer/fta-war-final.pdf,
accessed 10-4-14) PM
We first use a simple theoretical framework to illustrate the different mechanisms at work in the decision whether to sign or not a RTA. In addition to the expected
trade gains, policy makers consider that RTAs

provide two types of peace-promoting security gains (i) by offering a political

forum which facilitates settlement of future disputes; (ii) by increasing the opportunity cost of future and potentially
trade-disrupting wars. This simple framework allows us to derive several testable implications. First, RTAs are more beneficial to country
pairs with a higher probability of war because the expected welfare gain of the political forum channel is larger. Second,
expected trade gains and the probability of war have a positive and complementary impact on RTA formation. The
complementarity stems from the opportunity cost channel: the larger the trade gains, the larger the opportunity cost of a war and
therefore the more useful a RTA is to secure peace which is more valuable to countries that have a higher probability of war.

2NC

CP
The world models EVERY detailed communications regulation
McDowell 13 (Chair-FCC, 2/15, Commissioner McDowell Congressional Testimony,
http://www.fcc.gov/document/commissioner-mcdowell-congressional-testimony)
WemustwastenotimefightingtopreventfurthergovernmentalexpansionintotheInternetsaffairsatthe
upcomingITUPlenipotentiary in 2014. Time is of the essence. While we debate what to do next, Internet freedoms foes around the globe are working hard to
exploit a treaty negotiation that dwarfs the importance of the WCIT by orders of magnitude. In 2014, the ITU will conduct what is literally a constitutional convention,
called a plenipotentiary meeting, which will define the ITUs mission for years to come. Its constitution will be rewritten and a new Secretary General will be
elected. This scenario poses both a threat and an opportunity for Internet freedom. The outcome of this massive treaty negotiation is uncertain, but the momentum
favors those pushing for more Internet regulation. More immediately, the World Telecommunications Policy/ICT Forum (WTPF), which convenes in Geneva this
May, will focus squarely on Internet governance and will shape the 2014 Plenipotentiary. Accordingly, the highest levels of the U.S. Government must make this cause
a top priority and recruit allies in civil society, the private sector and diplomatic circles around the world. The effort should start with the President immediately
making appointments to fill crucial vacancies in our diplomatic ranks. The recent departures of my distinguished friend, Ambassador Phil Verveer, his legendary
deputy Dick Beaird, as well as WCIT Ambassador Terry Kramer, have left a hole in the United States ability to advocate for a constructive rather than destructive
Plenipot. America and Internet freedoms allies simply cannot dither again. If we do, we will fail, and global freedom and prosperity will suffer. We should work to
offer constructive alternative proposals, such as improving the highly successful multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance to include those who feel
disenfranchised. As I warned a year ago, merely saying no to any changes to the multi-stakeholder Internet governance model has recently proven to be a losing
proposition.19 Ambassador Gross can speak to this approach far better than can I, but using the creation of the IGF as a model, we should immediately engage with all
countries to encourage a dialogue among all interested parties, including governments, civil society, the private sector, non-profits and the ITU, to broaden the multistakeholder umbrella to provide those who feel disenfranchised from the current structure with a meaningful role in shaping the evolution of the Internet. Primarily
due to economic and logistical reasons, many developing world countries are not able to play a role in the multi-stakeholder process. This is unacceptable and should
change immediately. Developing nations stand to gain the most from unfettered Internet connectivity, and they will be injured the most by centralized multilateral
control of its operations and content. V. Last years bipartisan and unanimous Congressional resolutions clearly opposing expansions of international powers over the
Internet reverberated around the world and had a positive and constructive effect, but Congress must do more. Inmynearlysevenyearsofserviceon

theFCC, havebeenamazedbyhowclosely
I
everygovernmentandcommunicationsproviderontheglobe
studiesthelatestdevelopmentsinAmericancommunicationspolicy . In fact, we can be confident that this hearing is streaming live
in some countries, and is being blocked by government censors in others. Everydetailofouractionsisscrutinized . It is truly humbling to learn
that even my statements have been read in Thailand and Taiwan, as well as translated into Polish and Italian. And when Congress speaks, especially when it speaks
with one loud and clear voice, as it did last year with the unanimous and bipartisan resolutions concerning the WCIT, an uncountable number of global policymakers
pause to think. Time and again, I have been told by international legislators, ministers, regulators and business leaders that last years resolutions had a positive effect
on the outcome of the WCIT. Although Internet freedom suffered as a result of the WCIT, many even more corrosive proposals did not become international law in
part due to your actions.20 IV. Conclusion. And so, I ask you in the strongest terms possible, to take action and take action now. Two years hence, let us not look back
at this moment and lament how we did not do enough. We have but one chance. Letustelltheworldthatwewillberesoluteandstand

strongforInternetfreedom. All nations should join us. Thank you for having me appear before you today. I look forward to your questions.

Laundering

AC

Banks thump
Tharoor 14, Avinash, 1/17/14, Banks Launder Billions of Illegal Cartel Money While Snubbing Legal
Marijuana Businesses, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/avinash-tharoor/banks-cartel-moneylaundering_b_4619464.html, Accessed 7/29/14
The failure of both the vigilantes and the army to quell the cartel's carnage is a direct result of the huge profits that the drug trade generates. Cartel leaders can

One of
the primary reasons that cartels retain their enormous power is that well-known and popular banks are supporting
their finances. Bank of America, Western Union, and JP Morgan, are among the institutions allegedly involved in
the drug trade. Meanwhile, HSBC has admitted its laundering role, and evaded criminal prosecution by paying a fine
of almost $2 billion. The lack of imprisonment of any bankers involved is indicative of the hypocritical nature of the drug war; an individual selling a few
continue hiring and arming their combatants because it's worth the expenditure; the illegal drug trade accounts for around 8 percent of all international trade.

grams of drugs can face decades in prison, while a group of people that tacitly allow -- and profit from -- the trade of tons, escape incarceration. The hypocrisy of the
role that banks play in the drug trade is particularly disgraceful when considering the recent system of marijuana regulation that was introduced in Colorado. The
state's legal marijuana business has proven to be highly lucrative, with $5 million made in the first week of 2014. However, at present, marijuana businesses cannot
access essential banking services. Despite liberalization of marijuana laws in Colorado and elsewhere, the plant remains illegal at the federal level; this means that
banks won't open accounts for marijuana businesses, so the majority of their transactions are cash-only. The movement of such large amounts of cash can be highly
dangerous for business owners, and troublesome for both customers and tax collectors. Earlier this week, several Colorado legislators made a bipartisan appeal to the
federal government, requesting clear guidelines for marijuana businesses' regulation within the banking sector. Banks have avoided allowing these new companies to
open accounts, ironically, for the fear of being penalized, or implicated as launderers. Essentially, the

current banking system implicitly tolerates

the handling of violent cartels' illegal assets, but blocks the legal and legitimate business of the Coloradan marijuana
industry. The role that banks have played in the global drug trade has been partly responsible for widespread carnage
and countless civilian deaths, particularly in Mexico. Now, as legal marijuana industries begin to emerge, and the war on drugs seems to slowly
decelerate, the banking sector has an opportunity to redeem itself in this respect. Banks cannot undo the wrongs of the past, but they can create a fairer future for
regulated trade within this expanding and legal new industry, and without supporting lawlessness.

So do front companies
Novis and McDowell 1, John McDowell, Senior Policy Adviser, Gary Novis, Program Analyst, Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State, THE CONSEQUENCES OF
MONEY LAUNDERING AND FINANCIAL CRIME, Vol. 6, No. 2, May 2001, Accessed 7/11/14
Money
launderers often use front companies, which co-mingle the proceeds of illicit activity with legitimate funds, to hide the ill-gotten
gains. In the United States, for example, organized crime has used pizza parlors to mask proceeds from heroin trafficking.
These front companies have access to substantial illicit funds, allowing them to subsidize front company products and services at levels well
below market rates. In some cases, front companies are able to offer products at prices below what it costs the
manufacturer to produce. Thus, front companies have a competitive advantage over legitimate firms that draw
capital funds from financial markets. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for legitimate business to compete
against front companies with subsidized funding, a situation that can result in the crowding out of private
sector business by criminal organizations.
Undermining the Legitimate Private Sector: One of the most serious microeconomic effects of money laundering is felt in the private sector.

And Diamond trade

FATF 13, Financial Action Task Force, independent inter-governmental body that develops and promotes
policies to protect the global financial system against money laundering, Oct 2013, Money Laundering And
Terrorist Financing Through Trade In Diamonds, http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/ML-TFthrough-trade-in-diamonds.pdf, Accessed 7/29/14

*ML = Money Laundering, TF = Terrorist Financing.

OVERVIEW OF DIAMONDS AND MONEY LAUNDERING AND TERRORIST FINANCING That this report has highlighted the different and unique

characteristics of diamonds and the diamond trade which make the industry vulnerable to ML and TF activities should
not be taken to mean that the industry is more vulnerable relative to others. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that the complexity of the international

diamond trade means that the ML and TF vulnerabilities and risks may differ from one segment of the "pipeline" to another and from one jurisdiction to another.
Beyond more conventional cases of ML, including the laundering of the proceeds of crime and the generation of criminal profits, some research 44 has

shed
light on the use of diamonds and diamond jewellery as an alternate currency by criminals. This is particularly
notable in the case of diamonds used by criminal enterprises engaged in drug trafficking, (i.e., the trade of diamonds for drugs).
Diamonds are also used by such criminals for wealth movement, storage and preservation, and use as a status
symbol. It is useful to make a distinction between ML through the diamonds trade and laundering diamond proceeds of crime. The first type of activity is where a
criminal will launder cash or other payment means acquired through predicate offences he commits45 by placing and layering through the diamonds trade. This can be
done by conducting transactions with the proceeds of crime as if they were trade in diamonds where in fact the diamonds trade will only be used to transfer funds from
one account to another, whether locally or internationally, or by purchasing diamonds with cash proceeds of crime and then selling the diamonds to obtain cash at a
later date or a different location. The second type of activity is where illicit diamonds (e.g. stolen/robbed diamonds, or diamonds received as a form of payment for
drugs) will be laundered by selling or trading the diamonds, by cutting/re-cutting and polishing the illicit diamonds etc.' so as to conceal their illicit source. In both
cases the criminal has laundered proceeds of crime, but only in the former case we can formally speak about ML as such, i.e. money which is laundered through the
trade. The diamond industry is a perfect example where both can occur. This distinction may be lost among law enforcement practitioners, intelligence officers and
industry representatives, who almost exclusively refer to ML as encompassing all processes related to the proceeds of crimes involving diamonds. However, with
respect to the development of typologies, this distinction is very important, especially as it relates to the use of diamonds as alternate currencies and in remittance
systems used by criminals. For example, Pablo Escobar laundering drug profits through jewellery stores in a massive ML scheme46. And in 2003, USD 150 million
worth of diamonds were stolen from a central diamond vault in a single theft event47. In this case, selling the diamonds is profiting from the proceeds of crime. Both
cases utilised the diamond market. TF can involve the use of unlawfully and lawfully provided funds to finance terrorism activities. Diamonds

could
therefore be used to finance terrorism in a scenario where a donor or financier purchases diamonds legitimately, using
lawfully derived funds, and then transfers the diamonds to a terrorist or terrorist organisation who use the diamonds in exchange for
equipment or cash intending to finance terrorist activities. Buying and selling diamonds within rough and polished diamond markets is
critical to understanding the vulnerabilities of the criminal use of diamonds, it is important to discuss the diamond and jewellery cycles. Diamonds are often
reintroduced to the diamond market to be resold. The sale and resale of diamonds within the national and international diamond industry is a function of the diamond
and jewellery cycle, which in turn provides an opportunity for laundering proceeds of crime. Illicit funds that are generated can be hidden, moved and entered into
financial institutions or traded for other tangible assets within the diamond and jewellery cycle. The diamond industry may be a stepping stone for criminals who
utilize these commodities to enter illicit funds into the banking system, whether in their own or in an offshore jurisdiction. This cycle is rather unique for
commodities (although it also applies to precious metals and gemstones, to some extent), especially as the diamond remains in the same form from the time that it first
enters the market after being cut and polished. The

simplicity and ease with which diamonds can be purchased and sold, and the special
tremendous opportunity to exploit the commodity and the industry with regard to
the laundering of the proceeds of crime. In summary, the diamond supply chain at all of its stages, from production to
consumption, can be the gateway to profitability, for laundering proceeds of crime, for ML or TF and for moving
proceeds of crime into the financial system.
characteristics of these precious stones, provides

Ext- Doesnt Solve

Cant solve money laundering substitute effect
Brigitte Unger 12, Utrecht University School of Economics, 1/19/12, Water always finds its way: Identifying
new forms of money laundering, http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/459/art%253A10.1007%252Fs10611-0119352-z.pdf?auth66=1408570772_32ded313e28f32ac4965bf595e8e43bf&ext=.pdf

Both crime and laundering of the proceeds of crime seem

to be very flexible. A prodigious lack of data makes it difficult to come to decisive

indicators point at the fact that substitution seems to be the major effect of antidrug and anti-money laundering policy. Hard drugs (such as heroin) get substituted by softer drugs, which increase in intensity (marijuana) while
synthetic drugs replace traditional drugs. Money laundering switches from the traditional banking sector to the less regulated derivative market
and to other sectors. Among these, electronic payments such as buying gold via the internet or by loadable phone cards are increasing. Also,
money laundering by fake invoicing of exports and imports and other forms of trade based money laundering offer a substitute for
launderers. The real estate sector is another lucrative way for launderers to hide their illicit gotten proceeds and expand their
criminal business. Measurement and detection of money laundering face new challenges with these new ways of
laundering. The method proposed in this paper uses unusual movements of economic variables in combination with other characteristics of a person, transaction
conclusions. But the paper showed that many

or an object in order to identify money laundering in a sector. Using econometric and statistical logit and probit analysis, one can also calculate the probability with
which a certain object is a money laundering object. With this, the method proposed can be an important tool for the executive. But for measuring substitution effects
between sectors, the amount of laundering per sector must be arrived at using long term series, which will not be available for some time Money waiting to be
laundered, like water, will always find its way, but the way will become more costly and cumbersome. Eradicating

money laundering altogether, like

eradicating crime, is impossible since the costs of establishing a zero crime or zero laundering system would be far too high in
a democracy. Only dictatorships have reached such a result so far. However, although we do not call for zero money laundering, we would definitely be happy if we
could better understand the process from combined research efforts, and to find out whether money laundering increases or declines after all.

Organized crime will just shift revenue sources

Felbab-Brown 12 senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in the Foreign
Policy program at Brookings, Vanda, Transnational Organized Crime: Whither Antidrug Policy?
[http://www.brookings.edu/research/interviews/2012/12/antidrug-policy-felbabbrown] Fall/Winter
Felbab-Brown: This is a very controversial question. Most of the time governments tend to fight

illicit economies and not think about what

will replace them. Policies are often premised on the erroneous idea that simply suppressing a particular part of the
illicit economy will mean that legality will emerge. Frequently that does not happen, especially when large segments of the population
cannot participate in the legal economy and are dependent on illegality for their survival. In those cases in particular, the propensity towards shifting
to other forms of illegality is very high. On the other hand, if you have a finite supply of traffickers and a large segment of the population that does
not depend on illegality, then it is quite possible that suppression alone will be sufficient, and no replacement economy will arise. In the case of global
networks that have large societal dependence and participation in illegality, it is almost impossible to make sure that if you suppress one
illicit economy, another one will not emerge

Illicit Drugs
National Security Council 11 ("Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/2011-strategy-combat-transnational-organized-crime.pdf)
Expansion of Drug Trafficking. Despite demonstrable counterdrug successes in recent years, particularly against the cocaine trade, illicit

drugs remain a
serious threat to the health, safety, security, and financial well-being of Americans. The demand for illicit drugs,
both in the United States and abroad, fuels the power, impunity, and violence of criminal organizations
around the globe . Mexican DTOs are escalating their violence to consolidate their market share within the Western
Hemisphere, protect their operations in Mexico, and expand their reach into the United States. In West Africa, Latin American cartels are
exploiting local criminal organizations to move cocaine to Western Europe and the Middle East. There have also been instances of Afghan DTOs operating with those
in West Africa to smuggle heroin to Europe and the United States. Many

of the well-established organized criminal groups that had not

been involved in drug traffickingincluding those in Russia, China, Italy, and the Balkansare now establishing ties
to drug producers to develop their own distribution networks and markets. The expansion of drug trafficking is often accompanied by
dramatic increases in local crime and corruption, as the United Nations has detected in regions such as West Africa and Central America.

Human Smuggling
National Security Council 11 ("Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/2011-strategy-combat-transnational-organized-crime.pdf)
Human Smuggling.

Human smuggling is the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation, or illegal entry of a

person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries laws, either clandestinely or through deception, whether with the
use of fraudulent documents or through the evasion of legitimate border controls. It is a criminal commercial transaction between willing
parties who go their separate ways once they have procured illegal entry into a country. The vast majority of people
who are assisted in illegally entering the United States and other countries are smuggled, rather than trafficked.
International human smuggling networks are linked to other transnational crimes including drug trafficking
and the corruption of government officials . They can move criminals, fugitives, terrorists, and trafficking victims,
as well as economic migrants. They undermine the sovereignty of nations and often endanger the lives of those
being smuggled. In its 2010 report The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment, the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated that the smuggling of persons from Latin America to the United States
generated approximately $6.6 billion annually in illicit proceeds for human smuggling networks.

Econ !
No impact to econ
Daniel Drezner 14, IR prof at Tufts, The System Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great
Recession, World Politics, Volume 66. Number 1, January 2014, pp. 123-164
The final significant outcome addresses a

dog that hasn't barked: the effect of the Great Recession on cross-border conflict and violence. During the
initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis would lead states to increase their use of
force as a tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine concern that the global economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflictwhether
through greater internal repression, diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of great power conflict. Violence in the
Middle East, border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy movement fueled impressions of a surge in global public disorder. The
aggregate data suggest otherwise, however. The Institute for Economics and Peace has concluded that "the average level of
peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in 2007."43 Interstate violence in particular has declined since
the start of the financial crisis, as have military expenditures in most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great
Recession has not triggered any increase in violent conflict, as Lotta Themner and Peter Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of
relative stability when we consider the trend for the past five years."44 The secular decline in violence that started with the end of the Cold
War has not been reversed. Rogers Brubaker observes that "the crisis has not to date generated the surge in protectionist
nationalism or ethnic exclusion that might have been expected."43

There is no causal relationship between the economy and conflictthe best study
proves.
Brandt and Ulfelder 11 Patrick T. Brandt, Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University, is an Assistant
Professor of Political Science in the School of Social Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. **Jay Ulfelder,
Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University, is an American political scientist whose research interests
include democratization, civil unrest, and violent conflict, April, 2011, Economic Growth and Political Instability,
Social Science Research Network
These statements

anticipating political fallout from the global economic crisis of 20082010 reflect a widely held view that
economic growth has rapid and profound effects on countries political stability. When economies grow at a healthy clip, citizens are
presumed to be too busy and too content to engage in protest or rebellion, and governments are thought to be flush with revenues they can use to enhance their own
stability by producing public goods or rewarding cronies, depending on the type of regime they inhabit. When growth slows, however, citizens and cronies
alike are presumed to grow frustrated with their governments, and the leaders at the receiving end of that frustration are thought to lack the financial resources to
respond effectively. The

expected result is an increase in the risks of social unrest, civil war, coup attempts, and regime
breakdown. Although it is pervasive, the assumption that countries economic growth rates strongly affect their
political stability has not been subjected to a great deal of careful empirical analysis, and evidence from social
science research to date does not unambiguously support it. Theoretical models of civil wars, coups detat, and transitions to and
from democracy often specify slow economic growth as an important cause or catalyst of those events, but empirical studies on the
effects of economic growth on these phenomena have produced mixed results. Meanwhile, the effects of economic
growth on the occurrence or incidence of social unrest seem to have hardly been studied in recent years, as empirical
analysis of contentious collective action has concentrated on political opportunity structures and dynamics of protest and repression. This paper helps fill
that gap by rigorously re-examining the effects of short-term variations in economic growth on the occurrence of
several forms of political instability in countries worldwide over the past few decades . In this paper, we do not seek to develop
and test new theories of political instability. Instead, we aim to subject a hypothesis common to many prior theories of political instability to more careful empirical
scrutiny. The goal is to provide a detailed empirical characterization of the relationship between economic growth and political instability in a broad sense. In effect,
we describe the conventional wisdom as seen in the data. We do so with statistical models that use smoothing splines and multiple lags to allow for nonlinear and
dynamic effects from economic growth on political stability. We also do so with an instrumented measure of growth that explicitly accounts for endogeneity in the
relationship between political instability and economic growth. To our knowledge, ours

is the first statistical study of this relationship to

paper offers what is probably the most

simultaneously address the possibility of nonlinearity and problems of endogeneity. As such, we believe this

rigorous general evaluation of this argument to date. As the results show, some of our findings are surprising. Consistent with conventional
assumptions, we find that social unrest and civil violence are more likely to occur and democratic regimes are more susceptible to coup attempts around periods of
slow economic growth. At the same time, our analysis shows no significant relationship between variation in growth and the risk of civil-war onset, and results from
our analysis of regime changes contradict the widely accepted claim that economic crises cause transitions from autocracy to democracy. While we would hardly
pretend to have the last word on any of these relationships, our findings do suggest that the

relationship between economic growth and

political stability is neither as uniform nor as strong as the conventional wisdom(s) presume(s). We think these findings
also help explain why the global recession of 20082010 has failed thus far to produce the wave of coups and regime
failures that some observers had anticipated, in spite of the expected and apparent uptick in social unrest associated
with the crisis.

Terr !
No terrorist threat---comprehensive data proves
Zakaria 13 Fareed Zakaria, leading journalists at TIME and CNN, "The Future of the Terrorist Threat to
America," 5-10-13, globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/10/the-future-of-the-terrorist-threat-to-america/
DOA: 7-20-13, y2k

the Marathon day bombings in Boston, a good time to ask ourselves, what did it tell us about the future of terrorism?
What is the nature of the threat we face and are we prepared for it? First, Boston was not the kind of attack that we have worried about and planned for in the last decades. Al Qaeda, the
We are now a little more than three weeks from

group that planned and directed the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, then the attack of the American destroyer, USS Cole, and then the World Trade Center, was an organized, well-

is a shadow of its former self, battered by

ten years in which Western and allied governments have attacked its leaders, tracked its money, and followed
its trail. Perhaps most important, as it practiced terrorism in more countries, it lost any political support or sympathy it had in the Muslim world.
Indeed, before Osama bin Laden died, he wrote about al Qaeda's reduced fortunes. He was very aware that the al Qaeda brand was in deep trouble, terrorism
analyst Peter Bergen notes. He was advising other groups not to adopt the al Qaeda brand because it would be bad for fundraising, would attract a lot of negative attention. But
while al Qaeda central is in deep trouble, it has become a franchise operation, with a number of groups around the world latching onto its cause (though mostly not
financed group with deep roots in a few countries, strategic leaders, clever planners, and fanatical supporters. That group

its name, even though some relish the notoriety and attention that it gives them). But there is a vigorous debate over whether these groups al-Shabaab in Somalia, Ganda Koy and Ansar Dine in

local concerns seem paramount. Even the Taliban,

does not have global terrorist ambitions, but instead has always focused on its desire to control Afghanistan.
Americans often forget that though we went to war in Afghanistan, no Afghan was involved in 9/11, nor in
any other major terrorist plot against Americans and Europeans. The former CIA counter terrorism chief Robert Grenier says about what is
happening in North Africa that we must be very, very careful lest we internationalize what is fundamentally a local security concern.
Turning local thugs into global terrorists could well prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. A third point to remember is that al
Mali and Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen are more local thugs than global terrorists. In my reading of them,
after all,

Qaeda was not crippled by magic but through the hard work of counter-terrorism by many governments across many regions. However, as we fight terrorism we have to keep in mind two factors.
One is to think hard about collateral damage when we target a bad guy with a drone. As Bergen also noted, there is always a temptation to keep using a tactic if it has worked in the past. Yet in
2010, there were 122 drone strikes. Are there 122 al Qaeda leaders in the world? Or are we using these for anyone we suspect is a bad guy? What is the collateral damage of this expanded use in
a country like Pakistan, where anti-Americanism is now at fever pitch? General Stanley McChrystal, who ran hundreds of special missions to kill terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, has said that if
we use our asymmetrical weapons drones indiscriminately in foreign countries, we should not be surprised if people start responding using their own asymmetrical weapon (the suicide
bombers) indiscriminately in our country. Fourth, the Boston bombings have reminded us that the war on terror is one that has to be fought at home as well. But they highlight the challenge; how
to find the next group of misfits, who have no background with terrorists, who might get radicalized over the internet, and who go from talking radicalism one day to plotting terror the next? We
cannot identify every one of these prospective terrorists no matter how well we do. However, people in law enforcement agencies across the United States will tell you that the best intelligence
about potential terrorists comes from their communities, which often means in these times, Muslim communities. So we need eyes on the ground, friendly relations with imams and other leaders,
and outreach to all parts of the communities. We might take a cue here from Europe. Historically, assimilation has worked better in America, but as I wrote recently, European countries are
dealing with a much more complex, larger problem. The lesson from Europe seems to be: Embrace Muslim communities. This may sound too soft, but it is a proven method. In fact, just a few

The war on terror began as a grand

enterprise involving major war. It seems to have evolved into police work. That is a measure of progress. And one
final point just some facts. The National Counterterrorism Center released its annual report last June. It showed that
attacks worldwide had dropped by 12 percent from 2010 and were down 29 percent from 2007. The Global Terrorism Index, also released last year,
systematically ranks countries by levels of terrorist incidents. Over the ten year period it analyzed, 2002-2011, the
region least likely to suffer from a terrorist attack was North America. The fact is that the most comprehensive
studies show that terrorism was declining in the United States even in 2001 and it dropped even more sharply after 9/11. The historian John Mueller has
pointed out that more Americans die in their bathtubs every year than are killed by terrorists. The emotions
generated by terrorist attacks are raw and intense. But it is essential moving forward that we are still able to have
a rational discussion, grounded in facts, if we are to have any chance of keeping the country safe in the future.
weeks ago, a Canadian plot to attack trains was thwarted with just this sort of intelligence provided by the local Muslim community.

WTO

WTO Col
WTO isnt key to trade
Dadush 10 [Uri Dadush, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "The Future of the
World Trading System", 7-14-10, carnegieendowment.org/2010/07/14/future-of-world-trading-system/fxta da 10-3014]cd
Looking forward over the next twenty five years, it

is difficult to see how a slow-moving WTO, dependent on the consensus and

single undertaking principles (which require that virtually every item of the negotiation be part of a single package, and that everyone agree), can
produce timely results. Four salient features of the post-crisis world economy will further challenge the current
WTO set-up if it continues in the future. First, advanced countries are no longer able or willing to lead the process.
Slow domestic growth, unaffordable entitlement spending, and high and rising public debtswhich are predicted by
the IMF to reach 120 percent of GDP on average in advanced countries by 2050will make the United States, Europe, and
Japan more self-absorbed and defensive than they have been in the past. Europes large internal imbalances, exposed by the Greek crisis, will
make things worse. Second, the trading system is increasingly multipolar, with China, Brazil, and India playing a much
larger role, reflecting the relative ease with which they navigated the crisis and their rising economic weight. These
countries are, however, more focused on development and on dealing with huge internal poverty gaps than on leading a
free trade offensive, even if the advanced countries were inclined to let them. Third, though the rise of these economies opens vast
new markets, advanced countries increasingly view them as powerful commercial rivals, rather than as poor cousins
in need of assistancedirectly counter to the declared motivation of the Doha Development Agenda. Fourth, many
complex issues, including services, investment, agricultural subsidies, and the import of manufactures in developing
countries, remain de facto outside the WTOs reach. Though most technically fall within the WTO, imposing
disciplines on them in a highly differentiated and rapidly changing development context has proven difficult, and , as
the weight of developing countries in negotiations rises, the difficulties are likely to increase. Formidable vested interests in both the
developing and industrialized countries will continue to oppose the resolution of these issues. These trends are likely to be with us for a long
time. For example, in a generation or so, over half of the ten largest economies will be developing countries, China will
be the major trading partner of most nations, including the United States and Germany, and, while developing
countries will double their share of world trade to 2/3, they will remain relatively poor.

Dis !
Burn out stops disease
Lederberg 99 (Joshua, Professor of Genetics Stanford University School of Medicine, Epidemic The World of
Infectious Disease, p. 13)
The toll of the fourteenth-century plague, the "Black Death," was closer to one third. If the bugs' potential to develop
adaptations that could kill us off were the whole story, we would not be here. However, with very rare exceptions,
our microbial adversaries have a shared interest in our survival. Almost any pathogen comes to a dead end when
we die; it first has to communicate itself to another host in order to survive. So historically, the really severe hostpathogen interactions have resulted in a wipeout of both host and pathogen. We humans are still here because, so
far, the pathogens that have attacked us have willy-nilly had an interest in our survival. This is a very delicate
balance, and it is easily disturbed, often in the wake of large-scale ecological upsets.

RTA no col trd

Their impacts are empirically denied 30 years of data goes neg

Brkic, economics professor at University of Sarajevo, 13
(Snjeana, Regional Trading Arrangements Stumbling Blocks or Building Blocks in the Process of Global Trade
Liberalization?, 3-25-13, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2239275, accessed 10-2-14) PM
In the years-long period of regional integration development, four periods have been identified during which the integration processes were becoming particularly
intensive and which have therefore been named "waves of regionalism". The first wave was taking place during the capitalism development in the second half of the
19th century, in the course of British sovereign domination over the world market. Economic integrations of the time primarily had the form of bilateral customs
unions; however, owing to the comparative openness of international trading system based on the golden standard automatism, this period is called the "era of
progressive bilateralism". The next two waves of regionalism occurred in the years following the world wars. Since the disintegration processes caused by the wars
usually spawned economic nationalisms and autarchic tendencies, it is not surprising that post-war regionalisms were marked by discriminatory international
economic integrations, primarily at the level of so-called negative integration, with expressedly beggar-thy-neighbor policies that resulted in considerable trade
deviations. This particularly refers to the regionalism momentum after the First World War, which was additionally burdened by the consequences of Big Economic
Crisis. The

current wave of regionalism started in late 1980s and spread around the world to a far greater extent than
any previous one did: it has covered almost all the continents and almost all the countries , even those which have mis to join all
earlier regional initiatives, such as the USA, Canada, Japan and China. Integration processes, however, do not show any signs of flagging. Up
till now, over 200 RTAs have been registered with GATT/WTO, more than 150 of them being still in force, and most of
these valid arrangement have been made in the past ten years.25

1NR

Ov
Prolif causes mid-east war---multiple reasons.
Collins 13 Iran is Not the Problem, Wider Proliferation Is, Brian C. Collins, Lieutenant Colonel Brian C. Collins
is a USMC Infantry and Middle East/North Africa Regional Affairs Officer currently assigned to Headquarters,
Marine Corps, October 31, 2013, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iran-is-not-the-problem-wider-proliferation-is

One danger

of increased proliferation could well be the commencement of an accelerated race to go nuclear across
the Middle East. Iran is already perceived to be a threat to many other regional actors and it would be reasonable to
assume that, should Tehran gain a nuclear capability, neighbors will want one as well . The Saudis, Emiratis, and
Jordanians will undoubtedly be first in line. Diplomatically it would be prudent to begin honest discussions of security guarantees (or lack thereof).
Even with steadfast guarantees, the threatening image projected by Iran could also result in the hardening of alliances. These
alliances would likely become more openly hostile and confrontational. Such shifts would only be compounded by
the tremendous social and political upheavals the region is currently experiencing. The states of the so-called Shia
crescent could bandwagon with an ascendant Iran, forcing a stand-off between Iran, Iraq, and what's left of Syria on
the one side, and the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan on the other. With each bloc in greater competition with
one another and willing to take increasingly provocative actions in defense of their interests, open conflict may
ensue. An aspect of positive engagement includes the provision of a meaningful presence, both physical and virtual, to moderate potential behavior and prepare for
contingency. Another aspect to maintaining regional stability remains the effective management of the competition between
Israel and those states seeking to constrain its aspirations of survival and growth. Here, Israels maintenance of a
qualitative military edge has been vital to preserving even the slightest modicum of peace. Israelis increasingly view
themselves as being held hostage by the specter of annihilation, and a strong physical deterrent has done much practically and
psychologically to ameliorate attendant fears. A third consequence of proliferation, therefore, is that the Israeli advantage would, if not
in real terms but in perceived terms, be threatened should nuclear weapons technologies and capabilities spread
throughout the greater Middle East. Again, the building of assurances and trust to allay Israeli fears of abandonment should begin. Perhaps the greatest
fear, however, is a fourth potential consequence of an Iranian capability; the increased chance for proxy conflict. The Iranian
regime already possesses a capable network of surrogates ranging from those available through their own government resources within the
Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and Quds force, to vassals such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Balanced

Proxies unleashed upon one another, even if limited, could be incredibly

de-stabilizing. Add to the mix the potential nightmare of uncontrolled transfer of advanced technology to other
revisionist third parties--state, non-state, and quasi-state--and a potentially lethal mix of conditions results. Under these circumstances,
a regional issue could quickly escalate to one of global proportion. Capabilities must be developed to detect, deter, disrupt, and defeat
against the Iranians would be the instruments of opposing states.

any organization seeking to engage in incredibly dangerous acts of nuclear terror.

US deal builds a new security architecture---solves global conflicts AND turns the
add-on---Case cant turn the DA
Shireen T. Hunter 13, Visiting Professor, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University,
"The US-Iran Deal Could Lead to a More Stable Middle East and South-West Asia," 12-3-2013, Huffington Post,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shireen-t-hunter/the-us-iran-deal-could-le_b_4379098.html, DOA: 1-22-2015, y2k
Their
path could have positive outcomes not only for the U.S. and Iran but also for the entire region of the
Mid East and South-West Asia
it might lead to a change of paradigm in international
relations and
eventually to the establishment of a new security structure
to avoid a repetition
of ruinous wars a new structure for inter-state relations need to be put in place
both continuing on this

dle

. Under proper conditions,

even

and regional

in these regions. The Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years' War in Europe, is called by many historians the "peace of

exhaustion." The Westphalia treaty resulted from the fact that, despite decades of war, none of the competing forces succeeded in achieving its maximalist goals, while leaving them all depleted and exhausted. It also led to the realization that,
such

ed

. This led to the development of principles which laid the foundation of the modern

international system which, in its essential elements, still exists. There is now such a possibility in the Middle East and South-West Asia. The experience of the last three decades, and especially the last ten years, shows that no single regional country or creed can dominate the entire region.
Iran's revolutionary ideology has lost whatever broader appeal it ever had in the region and has even begun to play itself out at home. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has failed to roll back the Shia revival in Iraq or to establish its over-lordship with other Sunni Arab countries. Turkey's dreams of a

At the
international level the U.S. has failed to establish Pax Americana in a democratized Middle East and South-West
Asia other powers
have tried to challenge global hegemony
This stalemate
offers the best opportunity to try
reordering the region according to a new paradigm of avoiding maximalist goals and recognizing the principal
security concerns
new version of the Ottoman Empire have also proved highly unrealistic. And despite efforts to use Iran as the sacrificial lamb in an Israeli-Sunni Arab bargain, Arab-Israeli peace remains as elusive as ever. But Iran has also been thwarted in its effort to "liberate" Palestine.
,

; and

, both old and new,

its

stalemate in this conflict at both regional and international levels, especially Russian and Chinese resistance to US policies there.

. The fundamental changes within the international system are revealed by the unfolding of the Syrian crisis and the

in the region and internationally

of all countries in the region, of course including Israel. This would include Iran's ending its excessive hostility toward Israel and trying to help the Palestinians' aspirations through dialogue as well as recognizing the limits of its influence in the

Sunni Arab World. Meanwhile, this reordering would mean that Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arab states must accept the legitimacy of a role for Iran in the Persian Gulf and the rest of the Middle East and South-West Asia, and for both Iran and Saudi Arabia to recognize that each has
natural constituencies in these regions which both should respect. Such a Saudi-Iranian understanding would go a long way toward easing sectarian tensions and fostering broader regional understandings which would contribute to regional stability. Nor is such a Saudi-Iranian reconciliation a
far-fetched idea. This happened in the past during the Rafsanjani and Khatami presidencies and it can happen again. Already, Ayatullah Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is widely respected and trusted by the Saudi leadership, especially by King Abdullah, has indicated that he is willing to undertake
a process of reconciliation with the Kingdom and, for this purpose, to travel to Riyadh. But even were this reconciliation to take place, it would not mean the establishment of a Saudi-Iranian condominium in the Middle East; such a scheme would be bound to fail. But it would eliminate a

if such developments take place, they could

prepare the ground for development of a region-wide security system. In all of this, the role of the U.S. would be
vital and pivotal None of the other powers has the resources and the acceptance and
willingness
By
making the deal with Iran the U.S. has taken what could be the first step in this direction.
America should convince them that a more reconciliatory and less maximalist approach,
is in the interest of
global peace
major cause of tension in the Middle East and South-West Asia and make it much easier to resolve conflicts from Lebanon to Afghanistan and enhance stability. Eventually,

, more important, the

resistance of its recalcitrant allies,

nuclear deal,

to play such a role.

Therefore, instead of being deterred by the doubts and

as reflected in the Iranian

all regional countries and that of

Deal leads to increased engagement with Iran helps stop resurgence of al-Qaeda
Takeyh, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow, 1-12, 2014,
(Ray, "The U.S. needs a deal with Iran, not detente", Washington Post, PAS)
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-needs-a-deal-with-iran-not-detente/2014/01/12/9f7d1c46-7a44-11e3b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html 1-13-14

On the surface, the chimera of bringing Iran in from the cold could prove equally alluring. After all, the resurgence
of al-Qaeda, a radical Sunni movement, argues for cooperation with an alarmed Shiite state. The United States is
seeking to leave its war-torn charge in Afghanistan and may yet need Tehrans assistance for such a withdrawal.
Perhaps once the two sides have agreed on the nuclear file, they could move toward a larger canvass of
cooperation. These sober strategic arguments are seemingly buttressed by the rise of pragmatists led by President
Hassan Rouhani. As such, a concerted U.S. effort at engagement might foster Iranian moderation in its foreign
policy as well as strengthen the forces of progressive change domestically.

Link Debate
Legalization will be a fight in congress
OBrien 12 (Kerry OBrien J.D. Candidate at the University of Notre Dame, NOTE: THE GREAT
WILDCARD: HOW 2011 SHOOK THE ONLINE POKER WORLD AND BECAME A GAME-CHANGER IN
THE BATTLE FOR LEGALIZATION, 2012 38 J. Legis. 295, Lexis, date accessed: 11/10/14) TM
As previous trial and error has proven, pro-gaming legislation is a difficult sell in Congress. Morality and
regulatory concerns plague any all proposals brought to light. For this reason, Barton's H.R. 2366 stands a better chance of becoming law
than Campbell's H.R. 1174. Barton's bill limits its scope to online poker, which has earned a certain social acceptance denied to all other forms of Internet gambling.
This general

acceptance, coupled with persuasive arguments that poker is a game of skill rather than of chance, makes
legalized web poker an easier pill to swallow than all-inclusive legalized Internet gamblin g. However, Barton's bill is
far from "slam dunk" legislation. Though the Congressman may well have significant silent support from
Republicans, that support could dwindle in election year 2012. Even normally supportive Democrats might be
hesitant to support legislation on such a controversial topic when political control is at stake . Additionally, if the
legislation does manage to pass the House, it may not gain crucial support from Harry Reid once it gets to the Senate due to AGA [*311] opposition over the lack of
penalties for UIGEA violators. Currently, Nevada is developing a licensing and regulatory system for its legalized intrastate poker program. n161 Congress

will
probably take a wait-and-see approach to its own legislation while observing the effectiveness of the Nevada
scheme. While legalized online poker does indeed seem an inevitability, it will likely come about once individual states have shown that their software technology
can prevent underage users from gambling online and that governmental entities can safely and effectively run Internet poker rooms. Nevada's program is due to be up
and running in mid-to-late 2012. If the program is implemented in a timely manner and proves successful, new poker-based legislation proposed in 2013 or 2014 will
have a far more likely chance of passage than either H.R. 1174 or H.R. 2366.

AT Deal Fails
Iran acting in good faith to delay break out capabilities
Chapman, Chicago Tribune Editorial Writer, 1-25, 2015,
(Steve, "An Iran Deal Is Nothing to Fear," Reason, PAS) reason.com/archives/2015/01/25/an-iran-deal-is-nothingto-fear 1-25-15

Obama has good reason to promise to veto the sanctions bill if it passes. Josh Rogin and Eli Lake of Bloomberg View report
that Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, is "telling U.S. officials and lawmakers that a new Iran sanctions bill in the U.S. Congress would tank
the Iran nuclear negotiations." The critics have not been happy since the six nations negotiating with Iran (the United States, France,
Britain, Russia, China and Germany) reached

an interim deal over a year ago, and they are not happy that the talks have been extended
framework is a big improvement on what went before. Iran had to agree to a
number of real limitsfreezing the number of its centrifuges, neutralizing its stockpile of 20 percent enriched
uranium, which can readily be converted to weapons-grade material, and granting greater access to international
inspectors. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which does inspections on a daily basis, affirms that the regime has
complied with its obligations under the interim accord. Obama overstated his case in the State of the Union address when he
after failing to settle all the issues. But that

declared that "we've halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material." Daryl Kimball, executive director of
the Arms Control Association, says it's more accurate to say we have "halted the most worrisome projects that Iran has."
There's no guarantee the talks will ultimately produce an agreement that will make it sufficiently difficult and time-consuming for Iran to build a
bomb. The Iranians know that U.S. enemies that lack nuclear weapons (like Iraq) are more likely to be invaded than countries that have them (like
North Korea). They are not likely to forfeit such a useful capability without strong reasons. One is escaping the economic sanctions imposed by
the world for its nuclear activities. Another is avoiding a preemptive strike by the U.S. or Israel. But sanctions have a poor record of diverting
nations from policies they see as vital for survival. A bombing raid would only delay the nuclear weapons quest, while giving the regime more
reason than ever to persist in it. Iran may be prepared to accept a deal that would greatly lengthen the time it would need

to "break out" to acquire nuclear weapons. But it clearly isn't going to completely surrender that option forever. Hawks have much
invested in the belief that force is the only useful tool in countering adversaries and that Obama is a naive appeaser. It would be a huge
embarrassment if diplomatic pressure and hard bargaining by the administration produced a deal putting nukes beyond Iran's reach indefinitely.
Such an accord would also shelve the option of attacking Iran, a longtime dream of neoconservatives. Before the Iraq invasion, a British official
quipped, "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran." Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton insists an attack by Israel "is
the only way to avoid Tehran's otherwise inevitable march to nuclear weapons." In truth, there is a plausible deal that would stop

that marchand give us plenty of time to act should it ever resume. If what the critics really want to do is close the road to a
peaceful outcome, though, they've got the right idea.