1AC - Fem 1NC - K Liberalism Fem Disclosure DA Xi Lashout Case 1AR - All 1NR - All
Coppell Classic Swing
3
Opponent: Coppell EH | Judge: Nikhil Jeeva
1AC - Heg debris 1NC - CP US Debris DA Mining Case
NSDA Districts
1
Opponent: Dripping Springs AS | Judge: Seung Joh Cho
1AC - Russia Dissinformation War Reporting 1NC - Disclosure DA News Regulation DA Populism Case 1AR - All 1NR - All
NSDA Districts
3
Opponent: Dripping Springs CB | Judge: Stanley Akano
1AC - Doomism 1NC - DA Climate Change DA Racism Case 1AR - All 1NR - All
National Debate Coachs Association
1
Opponent: Harker DS | Judge: John Sims
1AC - Mining 1NC - T-Appropriation Econ DA Circumvention Case 1AR - All 1NR - All
National Debate Coachs Association
4
Opponent: Strake DA | Judge: Madeleine Conrad-Mogin
1AC - Debris 1NC - CP US Debris Cleanup DA Mining DA megaconstellations Case
National Debate Coachs Association
6
Opponent: Apple Valley KW | Judge: Joseph Barquin
1AC - Disclosure FW - Justice Contentions 1NC - Extinction First Solar Energy PIC Politics DA Case 1AR - All 1NR - All
Westlake TFA Chap Classic
2
Opponent: McNeil AP | Judge: Ivan Garcia
1AC - Contractualism 1NC - DA Innovation DA SoPo
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Cites
Entry
Date
0 - Contact Information
Tournament: 0 - contact info | Round: 1 | Opponent: na | Judge: na 0 -- Contact Information Email: shauryapathania75@gmail.com Phone Number: 512-608-6754
If there's a specific disclosure practice or adaptation you'd like me to make, eg a certain highlighting color, formatting, or font size, please contact me with this information about 10-20 minutes before the round so that I can make that accommodation for you. I'd like to make the round as engageable as I can, but I just want to know what to do before the round.
0 –- Navigation 1 - Theory Interps/ Generics SO - September-October ND - November-December JF - January-February MA - March-April
4/27/22
1 - Disclosure - Contact Info
Tournament: NSDA Districts | Round: 1 | Opponent: Dripping Springs AS | Judge: Seung Joh Cho Contact Info Interpretation: Debaters must have a cite listing their contact information on the 2020-2021 NDCA LD wiki 30 minutes before their round. Violation: They didn’t cite contact info Standards – 1 Pre round prep – it would be impossible to contact you before round, since I don’t know who to or your preferred contact – destroys preround prep because you could be breaking new, or making changes to your aff and I wouldn’t even know. Outweighs, since preround prep is a gateway issue to engagement. 2 Clash – I could know more about your aff if I asked questions about it preround, which is key to indepth clash in round, otherwise you can get away with sneaky 1AR pivots. Education - Reducing clash and prep means I will not do as well and in turn not learn as much. No one would do debate if it wasn’t educational Fairness - If aff gets an advantage before the round, there is no point for the neg to debate. No one would debate if it was not fair from the start 3 DTD Dropping the debater is key - sets a precedent that you have to disclose even without being told which improves debate
4/27/22
1 - Disclosure - Email
Tournament: California Invitational Berkeley Debate | Round: 4 | Opponent: Harvard-Westlake KD | Judge: Kwudjwa Osei Generic Interp: Aff debater must disclose aff 30 minutes before round when asked by the neg debater Violation: They didn’t send it Standards – 1 Quality research: disclosure promotes quality research and in-depth engagement. Nails 13. Jacob Nails debated on the high school LD national circuit and now debates for Georgia State University, 10-10-2013, "A Defense of Disclosure (Including Third-Party Disclosure) by Jacob Nails," NSD Update, http://nsdupdate.com/2013/10/10/a-defense-of-disclosure-including-third-party-disclosure-by-jacob-nails/RS I fall squarely on the side of disclosure. I find that the largest advantage of widespread disclosure is the educational value it provides. First, disclosure streamlines research. Rather than every team and every lone wolf researching completely in the dark, the wiki provides a public body of knowledge that everyone can contribute to and build off of. Students can look through the different studies on the topic and choose the best ones on an informed basis without the prohibitively large burden of personally surveying all of the literature. The best arguments are identified and replicated, which is a natural result of an open marketplace of ideas. Quality of evidence increases across the board. In theory, the increased quality of information could trade off with quantity. If debaters could just look to the wiki for evidence, it might remove the competitive incentive to do one’s own research. Empirically, however, the opposite has been true. In fact, a second advantage of disclosure is that it motivates research. Debaters cannot expect to make it a whole topic with the same stock AC – that is, unless they are continually updating and frontlining it. Likewise, debaters with access to their opponents’ cases can do more targeted and specific research. Students can go to a new level of depth, researching not just the pros and cons of the topic but the specific authors, arguments, and advocacies employed by other debaters. The incentive to cut author-specific indicts is low if there’s little guarantee that the author will ever be cited in a round but high if one knows that specific schools are using that author in rounds. In this way, disclosure increases incentive to research by altering a student’s cost-benefit analysis so that the time spent researching is more valuable, i.e. more likely to produce useful evidence because it is more directed. In any case, if publicly accessible evidence jeopardized research, backfiles and briefs would have done LD in a long time ago. 2 Accessibility – Not all debaters have access to research libraries like JSTOR or Lexis Nexis. Additionally, not all debates have access to coaches who can explain what Kant offense looks like or functions like. Disclosing full text is uniquely key to maximize clash among small schools and controls the internal link to your solvency. Limits the activity to big schools and kills participation. 3 Clash – disclosing solves predictability and allows debaters to prep for arguments before tournaments. Means, 1NC and 1AR blocks will become better because debaters can more easily form a coherent strategy. Strategy outweighs because it allows for in-depth argumentation and coherent rebuttals. Key to fairness because without strategy, debaters couldn’t win. Key to education because it creates better argumentation.
4/28/22
1 - T-Appropriation
Tournament: National Debate Coachs Association | Round: 1 | Opponent: Harker DS | Judge: John Sims Interpretation: Appropriation refers to sovereign claims of land. Melissa J. Durkee 19, J. Alton Hosch Associate Professor of Law, University of Georgia, "Interstitial Space Law," Washington University Law Review 97, no. 2 423-482 Those answering this question in the affirmative have access to a strong textual argument. Article II of the Outer Space Treaty specifically references "national" appropriation.17 9 The context surrounding that appears to confirm that the prohibition of "national" appropriation is directed at nations, as only a nation could have a legitimate "claim of sovereignty." 180 Moreover, "occupation" refers to old international legal doctrines that once allowed nations to claim territory based on occupation. The historical context within which the treaty was drafted supports this position, as the concern of the time was colonization, not commercial use of space resources. As for private parties, they are specifically anticipated by the treaty: Article VI states that States Parties bear international responsibility for activities by "non-governmental entities" as well as governmental agencies.' 8 1 The fact that they are anticipated by the treaty but not included in the Article II prohibition on appropriation suggests that the treaty intended to prohibit only national appropriation of outer space resources.18 2 Those claiming that the treaty prohibits both national appropriation and appropriation by private parties can marshal their own textual argument. Article VI defines "national activities in outer space" to include both "activities . .. carried on by governmental agencies" and those carried on by "non-governmental entities." 8 3 This definition of "national" must inform Article II's prohibition on "national" appropriation and thus extend to a nation's citizens and commercial entities as well as governmental activities. Moreover, a contrary interpretation defies logic: if nations themselves may not claim property rights to outer space objects, they have no power to confer those rights on their nationals.184 Violation: they only defend asteroid mining which is extraction – those are distinct – prefer rigorous legal analysis. Wrench 19 – John grew up outside of Ithaca, New York, and received his law degree from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 2019. During law school, he served as editor in chief of the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law and was a member of the Federalist Society. John interned in his law school’s First Amendment Litigation Clinic and was a judicial extern to the Honorable Paul E. Davison in the Southern District of New York. John graduated from Pace University in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Religious Studies. 2019. Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, “ Non-Appropriation, No Problem: The Outer Space Treaty Is Ready for Asteroid Mining,” https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2546andcontext=jil Justin Secondly, even if nations, businesses, and individuals are equally bound by the non-appropriation principle, the scope of that restriction is not entirely clear from the text of Article II.59 It is unlikely, however, that the non-appropriation principle is an absolute ban on the ownership of resources extracted in outer space. An interpretation of Article II supporting a blanket ban on resource ownership is unwarranted by the text of the OST and illfounded on account of the international community’s common practices. Scholars have noted that the international community has never questioned whether scientific samples harvested from celestial bodies belong to the extracting nation.60 Furthermore, space-faring members of the international community rejected the Moon Treaty precisely because it prohibited all forms of ownership in resources extracted from celestial bodies.61 The space-faring nations’ support for the OST, coupled with their rejection of an alternative set of rules governing extracted resources, is at the very least an indication of what those nations believe the non-appropriation principle to stand for. It is equally improbable that the international community drafted the non-appropriation principle to be merely idealistic rhetoric. The OST leaves no room for interpretations to squirm out from under its ban on sovereign claims of land.62 The following section illustrates, however, that the distinction between sovereign ownership of land, and the vestment of property rights in resources extracted from that land, is nothing new. II. Legal Regimes Distinguishing Resource Extraction from Appropriation Although the OST does not provide a comprehensive guideline for resource extraction in outer space, its foundational logic provides a workable distinction between ownership and use. This part explores three property regimes developed under the same fundamental constraints as the non-appropriation principle: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”), the Antarctica Treaty System, and the prior appropriation doctrine as applied in United States water law.63 Under each regime, parties may establish some form of ownership in extracted resources despite being restricted from claiming sovereignty over the underlying land. Each section includes a brief discussion of the property regime’s history, its major traits and their relationship to the overarching characteristics of the non-appropriation principle. This part further describes how each property regime fits within the non-appropriation principle’s prohibition on claims to land, while prohibiting waste, separating land ownership from rights to extracted resources, enforcing liability for destruction or damage, and establishing a simple regulatory system to manage claims. A. The Law(s) of the Sea: UNCLOS and the Seabed Act International and national maritime laws addressing resource extraction deal with many of the same obstacles present in outer space. Like outer space, “the seabed is rich in minerals…collecting and mining these minerals is expensive and requires sophisticated technology capable of reaching the great depths.”64 Additionally, the international regulatory regime created to address seabed mining contemplates widely applicable issues including the “protection and preservation of the marine environment,” “promoting the peaceful uses of the seas and oceans,” and the “efficient utilization” of the resources therein.65 Although international law forms the backbone of seabed mining regulations, individual nations have concurrently developed their own regulations. The foremost international maritime law is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”).66 The current iteration of UNCLOS came into force in 1982, replacing decades of international treaties that had not addressed seabed mining.67 The 1982 UNCLOS established the International Seabed Authority (“ISA”), a body responsible for managing seabed mining through regulations and licensing.68 UNCLOS further established a dispute resolution system through the Seabed Disputes Chamber of the International Tribunal.69 The United States found some features of the 1982 UNCLOS objectionable. Originally, the ISA was empowered to create an entity called the “Enterprise”, which would conduct mining operations for the benefit of developing countries alongside private mining operations.70 Under this agreement, private businesses were compelled to provide the Enterprise with the location of discovered minerals and the technology necessary to extract them, all in addition to the funding from member states.71 Some of these requirements proved controversial. Several developed nations subsequently rejected UNCLOS and signed the “Provisional Understanding Regarding Deep Seabed Matters” (“The Provisional Understanding”) in 1984.72 The Provisional Understanding established “…procedures to follow in order to avoid overlapping claims to seabed sites,” while encouraging reciprocal recognition of other party’s claims.73 The Group of 77—a coalition of developing countries—and the ISA, criticized the Provisional Understanding on the grounds that it established an illegal regime.74 As one critic concedes, however, the Provisional Understanding is probably legal because it “…neither claims sovereignty or ownership…nor grants exclusive rights…” to seabed areas.75 UNCLOS was renegotiated in 1994, in part due to the changes brought about by the end of the Cold War and decreased focus on deep-seabed mining.76 Among the changes, it secured permanent seats on the ISA Council for the United States and Russia,77 created a Finance Committee consisting of the five parties with the largest financial contributions,78 removed mandatory funding of the Enterprise,79 made technology-sharing optional,80 and made development plans a prerequisite for granting permits for resource mining.81 Despite these changes, the United States “remains the only major seafaring nation” that has not ratified 1994 Agreement.82 The United States’ disagreements with the 1982 UNCLOS led to the creation of an interim national law called the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (“Seabed Act”).83 While the Seabed Act is intended as a temporary regime, it acknowledges that a functional international regime may take some time to develop.84 Under the Seabed Act, companies are required to obtain licenses and permits to explore and extract, both of which expire after a period of years.85 The United States has not entirely abandoned UNCLOS. Addressing recent conflicts in the South China Sea, President Trump called for “…claimants to clarify and comport their maritime claims in accordance with the international law of the sea as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea…”86 Additionally, several United States presidents have supported ratification of UNCLOS since the 1994 Agreement.87 And, although President Reagan was dissatisfied with the 1982 UNCLOS, changes incorporated into the 1994 Agreement have addressed those complaints.88 The laws regulating resource extraction in the sea share major traits with the non-appropriation principle, as UNCLOS and the Seabed Act allow parties to establish property rights in extracted resources without violating the non-appropriation principle. First, under both regimes, parties extract minerals without laying claim to underlying land.89 Secondly, UNCLOS’s requirement for development plans and the Seabed Act’s licensing-system place some pressure on parties to extract resources or forfeit their rights.90 This feature prevents parties from sleeping on a license, thereby encouraging productive use of land. In other words, the licensing system reduces waste and protects against de facto ownership of land resulting from inordinately long periods of occupation. The United States, by adopting both traits from UNCLOS, and voicing its willingness to enter into a robust international regime for resource extraction, indicates support for an international regime reflecting those features. Even if the United States’ framework under the Seabed Act were adopted as a model for resource extraction in space, it comports with the non-appropriation principle. The United States’ conceptual distinction between land ownership and resource extraction is a gauge for whether it would accept a similar arrangement for space law.91 And, while the United States is only one of many members of the international community, it is difficult to conceive of a successful international agreement without the involvement of the major spacefaring nations. B. The Antarctic Treaty System The Antarctic Treaty92 and the subsequent agreements collectively regulating the peaceful use of Antarctica form the “Antarctic Treaty System.”93 The first of these treaties was created in 1959 to preserve environmental integrity and prohibit violence in the region.94 Antarctica’s size, impenetrableness, and vast resource stores have made it a reoccurring model for outer space law.95 While the Antarctic Treaty System shares key features with the law of outer space, its development and subsequent legal regime is distinctive. Several nations made property claims to Antarctica before the first Antarctic Treaty.96 Parties suspended those claims, however, in effort to moderate claims and prevent Antarctica from becoming a site of violent competition.97 Although the 1959 Antarctic Treaty does not directly address resource-mining, parties “…understood that the question of how Antarctic mineral activity was to be regulated…would not go away.”98 The international community originally attempted to establish a legal regime for Antarctica that distinguished between sovereign claims and resource extraction. The Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Act (“CRAMRA”) was the first venture to provide a foundation for an international property regime in Antarctica.99 CRAMRA defined, as a means to regulate resource mining, three categories of resource-related activity: “prospecting”, “exploration”, and “development.”100 The Regulatory Committee, one of several institutions established under CRAMRA, was responsible for considering permit applications for the “exploration and development” of mineral resources.101 Unlike exploration and development, prospecting does not require the authorization of any of the institutions.102 CRAMRA’s definition of “prospecting” is crucial for understanding the role of property rights under the regime. Prospecting includes the investigation of areas for potential exploration or development using a variety of sensing technologies.103 Dredging, excavation, or drilling, however, are defined as “prospecting” only if used for the purpose of obtaining small-scale samples or drilling less than 25 metres.104 Furthermore, activities defined as “prospecting” do not confer property rights to mineral resources.105 As a result, an operator gains property rights to mineral resources “…at the exact point where prospecting activities cease to be prospecting activities and become exploration or development activities.”106 The six years of negotiation that culminated in CRAMRA107 were not ultimately fruitful. Under its terms, CRAMRA could not enter into force unless all states with territorial claims to Antarctica were parties to it.108 Australia and France, while supportive of CRAMRA during negotiations, stated in 1989 that they would not ratify the Convention.109 Consequently, no nations have ratified CRAMRA.110 Antarctic resource extraction is currently regulated under the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, also known as the “Madrid Protocol”.111 Concluded in 1991, the Madrid Protocol prohibits “…any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research…”112 Parties to the Madrid Protocol are able to reconsider the ban on commercial resource mining in 2048 and have reaffirmed the moratorium as recently as 2016.113 Although it was not ultimately adopted, CRAMRA’s negotiation provides insight into the international community’s willingness to create a resource extraction regime starting from a premise that ownership and use are distinct. Although CRAMRA permitted nations to extract resources, extraction explicitly could not amount to ownership of the underlying land.114 From that premise, CRAMRA does not grant property rights to parties who have merely used sensing technologies on the land, requiring more significant labor through activities like drilling or dredging.115 While the Madrid Protocol removes commercial resource extraction as an option, it allows nations to extract scientific samples without requiring—or permitting—claims of sovereignty.116 Because the Madrid Protocol “neither modifies nor amends” the framework laid out by the Antarctic Treaty,117 extraction—whether scientific or commercial—remains separate from the ownership of underlying land. While the international community chose to restrict commercial extraction in Antarctica, that arrangement is a result of environmental concerns and not the failure to develop a property regime.118 CRAMRA’s successful illustration of a property regime remains instructive for the international community as it develops finer points of space law. C. The Prior Appropriation Doctrine The prior appropriation doctrine is a system developed in the American West to simplify miners’ water claims, granting rights to use the water to whoever made beneficial use of it first.119 The prior appropriation doctrine is useful for analyzing the law of outer space in both functional and abstract ways. First, scientists expect that water will be necessary for creating fuel and breathable air in outer space.120 Secondly, the prior appropriation doctrine evolved to resolve various claims in the water-scarce American West.121 The prior appropriation doctrine developed against the backdrop of commercial/private tension, embodies deeply-rooted American ethical assumptions, and contemplates the “public ownership” of underlying land.122 The prior appropriation doctrine is also “a rule of scarcity, not plenty,” and is therefore concerned with managing limited resources.123 These features of the doctrine make it a useful comparison to the demands of outer space resource extraction. Most importantly, the prior appropriation doctrine has resulted in an intuitive set of rules distinguishing between ownership and productive use. The prior appropriation doctrine grew out of the chaos and grit that embodied the mining rush to the Western United States.124 The unpredictable availability of water, combined with the need for a simple adjudicative system, led early miners and farmers to adopt an “intuitive common sense” system of rules to resolve water claims.125 Essentially, the first claimant to make actual beneficial use of the water has senior rights to later users.126 Claimants do not own the land, however, but rather the right to use the water.127 Consequently, claimants may transfer their rights to the use but the public ultimately owns the water.128 Each of these features is explored below. Central to the prior appropriation doctrine, and exemplified in Colorado’s constitution, is that water is a publicly owned resource.129 This concept stands in contrast to the idea that ownership of land is tied to ownership of the land’s water.130 The prior appropriation doctrine severs those concepts from one another, justifying citizens’ right to appropriate water while nullifying riparian claims.131 This feature is a doctrinal cornerstone of the prior appropriation system, as it distributes ultimate decision-making authority to the public while protecting valid claims. Not all claimants establish or retain valid claims to use diverted water. Prior appropriation requires a claimant to make actual beneficial use of the water to obtain and retain their right to continue that use.132 In the context of the doctrine’s development, this stipulation prevented vast, speculative hoarding of property for the purpose of a later sale.133 This emphasis on “antispeculation” is derived from the era’s intensely anti-monopoly sentiment, favoring the distribution of water rights to those who could make actual use of the land.134 Therefore, claimants must define the location and expected scope of their use to establish or transfer rights.135 Parties who establish valid claims are protected against other future users who seek to use the same water at the earlier claimant’s detriment. Parties who make actual beneficial use of water have “seniority” over later claimants who use the water for similar purposes.136 In this system of senior and junior claimants, the latter must yield their use to senior claimants in times of water scarcity.137 Although this arrangement protects senior claimants from losing their use in times of scarcity, one scholar notes that claims often avoid their seniority.138 Furthermore, some states simply prohibit senior claimants from enforcing their priority over junior claimants when doing so would be futile.139 Claimants may actually benefit from avoiding enforcement, especially when enforcement is sought solely to prove seniority at the expense of junior claimants.140 Because prior appropriation separates the ownership of land from rights to beneficial use of water, claimants can freely transfer their validly established water rights.141 The technology claimants use to divert water for “out-of-stream” uses, like mining and agriculture, helps make the use “measurable and enforceable,” and therefore identifiable for transfer.142 Although transfers require new users to satisfy the actual beneficial-use requirement, the arrangement is flexible enough to facilitate the temporary transfer of use rights.143 The prior appropriation’s system of senior and junior claimants is enforced and regulated by a centralized authority. Acting in a “trusteeship role,” the government is responsible for enforcing validly established water rights.144 Although enforcement is sometimes avoided, as noted above, the value of a senior claim is necessarily dependent on the enforcement of those rights, especially when water is in short supply.145 In addition to adjudicating claims, the government is responsible for the “conservation of the public’s water resources.”146 Here, the implications of the “public ownership” concept is significant: …The state assumed a trusteeship role to administer the waters of the state for the benefit of the public. As such, it became responsible not only for minimal administrative functions but also for administration of the kind a trustee owes to the beneficiary of the trust. Its responsibilities include, first and foremost, the conservation of the estate and avoidance of waste; second, the promotion of beneficial use by assisting the appropriator in achieving use objectives to the maximum extent feasible; third, the representation of beneficiaries in a parens patriae capacity and maintaining the use regimen on the river system; and fourth, the promotion of efficiency and prudence of the kind expected of a trustee.147 The prior appropriation doctrine serves as a unique example for space law because of how it conceptualizes land ownership. Underlying land is available for use not because it is “unowned,” but because it is owned by a community who has the right to make productive use of it.148 Because the community owns the land, claimants have an obligation to use the land properly and the government is responsible for stewardship.149 This framing fits neatly with proponents of the idea that outer space is collectively “owned” by the international community. Regardless, stewardship and government ownership do not necessarily displace the potential for productive use. Parties do not violate the non-appropriation principle simply by extracting—or as here, diverting—resources from the land. At no point does extraction equate to a sovereign claim over the land. In instances where non-productive use or the like violates those principles, property rights disappear. Furthermore, the OST encourages the idea that outer space is to be used to benefit the broader international community.150 The prior appropriation doctrine illustrates that parties can establish and transfer robust property rights in resources independent from land-ownership, while promoting beneficial use Standards: 1 Precision – non-topical affs violate tournament rules so the judge doesn’t have the jurisdiction to vote on them and it controls the internal to pragmatic offense in a question of models because it decks predictable stasis. 2 Limits – allowing extraction to equate to sovereign claims explodes limits by shifting the debate away from sovereign claims to celestial bodies to permutations of parts of celestial bodies that companies could extract – leads to unbeatable affs that just ban extraction of one resource which the neg can’t ever predict. Forcing the affirmative to defend sovereign claims to celestial bodies is net better. 3 TVA – defend an aff that bans sovereign claims to celestial bodies – solves your offense since you still get property rights fight offense. Fairness is a voter – it’s a gateway issue to the ballot and every argument assumes the judges evaluates fairly. Drop the debater to deter future abuse and since substance is skewed. CI – Reasonability is arbitrary and we don’t know the brightline while prepping. Collapses since it uses an offense/defense paradigm to win it. No RVIs- A Illogical- you don’t win for being fair B Encourages baiting theory which proliferates abuse C Chills checking abuse for fear of the RVI
4/27/22
CP - UN Resolution
Tournament: California Invitational Berkeley Debate | Round: 6 | Opponent: Immaculate Heart MF | Judge: Alvis Yang CP Text: The United Nations should enact the UN resolution that calls for new discussions of international norms and principles for military activities in space.
That increases deterrence and checks Chinese Space Heg.
WASHINGTON: The United Kingdom is circulating a draft UN resolution that calls for new discussions designed to create international norms and principles for responsible behavior for military activities in space. The proposal, obtained by Breaking Defense, would set up what is a called an Open Ended Working Group to meet twice in 2022 and 2023 in the hopes of reaching consensus on voluntary measures to restrain actions in orbit likely to be seen as threatening by other nations. The proposal is part of a comprehensive push by London to become more active on military space issues. In July, the UK Ministry of Defence officially opened its first-ever Space Command headquarters at RAF High Wycombe, a Royal Air Force base some 28 miles west of London, and the MoD has pledged to invest 1.4 billion British pounds ($1.9 billion) over the next 10 years in space activities. “As our adversaries advance their space capabilities, it is vital we invest in space to ensure we maintain a battle-winning advantage across this fast-evolving operational domain,” said Minister for Defence Procurement Jeremy Quin in the announcement. However, the UK continues to publicly reject the notion of building its own satellite attack weapons, with senior military officials emphasizing instead the need to protect British space assets from potential attack. Britain’s new UN draft resolution isn’t aimed at arms control in space, however, one UK official explained. Rather, it is pointed at finding some agreement on what states should and should not do to help mitigate misunderstandings and miscalculations that could lead to war. “This effort led by the UK is an encouraging step to break free of the impasse the international community has been in for the past several decades when it comes to space security and stability,” commented Victoria Samson, Washington office director for Secure World Foundation, which has been closely involved with UN processes on norms. “Instead of having the same discussions over and over again about whether or not a treaty should be the way forward, and if so, should that focus on weapons in space or not, this allows the international community to start to get on the same page when it comes to the most pressing threats to the stability of the space environment, what responsible behavior on orbit looks like, and how to increase awareness of this issue in all space actors,” she said. The UK official said there are three aims behind the proposed UN effort. The first is to look at current treaties and agreements that relate to how states interact in space — everything from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that serves as the Magna Carta for space, to the Geneva Conventions and the law of armed conflict — in order to highlight the gaps. One such gap is a glaring lack of formal accords designed to restrain risky military behaviors; such agreement currently exist for military actions on land (for example near borders), in the air (think border restrictions and notifications of exercises in involving warplanes), and especially at sea. The new UK space badge The second aim is to have an open dialogue around current and future threats and security risks, including the impact of different types of technology, both on Earth and in space. But again, the emphasis isn’t on the technology itself but how those technologies are being developed, tested and used by nations. (Both Secure World Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies do annual reports focused in particular on counterspace capabilities.) Importantly, the UK very much wants to differentiate between state actions that are threatening or raise tensions and the issue of dual-use technologies being used for economic purposes, especially by the private sector. “We’re trying not to say that every satellite can be a weapon. Yes, it can. But it’s not actually a useful thing in the debate, we won’t really solve anything, or move anything forward,” the official said. The third goal: to directly address what norms and principles could provide solutions to these threats and risks. The UK’s emphasis on state behavior, threat perceptions and international security is what makes London’s effort fundamentally different than much of the previous international discussion on the issue of norms. Up to now, the key venue for norms discussions has been the UN Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in Vienna, Austria, which has a mandate that does not cover military or international security. COPUOS is guided by the UN Fourth Committee that deals with political issues such as UN peacekeeping, and has been focusing on safety of space operations via years-long work in crafting a set of guidelines on the long-term sustainability of space, known as the LTS Guidelines. The new UK draft resolution — like last year’s UK resolution, accepted by the UN General Assembly in Resolution 75/36, that called on nations to submit to Secretary-General António Guterres views about what constitutes threatening behavior in space — will be debated in the UN First Committee responsible for international security. The First Committee is currently slated to meet from Sept. 30 to Oct. 12. The US plans to support the effort, which isn’t a surprise. The Trump administration co-sponsored the first UK resolution. Further, as first reported by Breaking Defense, the US military for the first time in July acceded to a list of what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called “tenets” of responsible behavior. Kinetic ASATs would create enormous amounts of dangerous space debris. National Space and Intelligence Center image “The United States thanks the United Kingdom for its continued leadership on this important effort. We were pleased to co-sponsor this resolution last year and look forward to working with other delegations to make sure this follow-on resolution successfully advances the dialogue among Member States to ensure the safety, stability, and sustainability of national security-related space activities,” a State Department spokesperson, said in an email to Breaking Defense. (Interestingly, both Audrey Schafer, space policy lead at the National Space Council, and Eric Desautels, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for emerging security challenges and defense policy, are slated to speak Sept. 17 on norms at the annual AMOS Conference on space situational awareness in Maui.) In fact, an internal assessment done by Secure World Foundation and a similar review of responses to the UK’s 2020 resolution by Canada’s Project Ploughshares both show a strong level of international accord around a number of potential normative measures. These include transparency enhancing actions such as notifications of certain space activities and sharing of space situational awareness data on the movements of space objects. “Having read through the country inputs for the previous UK resolution, it is evident that several norms are starting to emerge,” Samson said. “One is that it is increasingly considered a bad idea to deliberately create long-lived debris on orbit; another is that it is thought to be bad form to conduct non-consensual close approaches to other countries’ satellites. These ideas also show up in Sec. Austin’s memo on space norms for DoD that came out in July.” “There is also strong support for some sort of ban on the testing and use of kinetic weapons,” or at least a voluntary prohibition, writes Jessica West, the author of the Project Ploughshares review. Kinetic antisatellite weapons, which essentially smash into a satellite and could be based terrestrially or in space, almost inevitably would create large amounts of dangerous space junk. The Canadian government, in fact, has gone even further to push for the launch of negotiations on a legal treaty. Ottawa’s formal response to the first UK resolution calls for a debate to start at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, the UN body that negotiates arms control treaties. The Canadian government’s view has been publicly backed by Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, and Switzerland, according to West’s report. The 65 nations making up the CD membership, however, have been hopelessly stalemated on even agreeing an agenda of work for decades. And there is little reason to hope that that will change any time soon.
4/27/22
JF - CP - UN Resolution
Tournament: California Invitational Berkeley Debate | Round: 6 | Opponent: Immaculate Heart MF | Judge: Alvis Yang CP Text: The United Nations should enact the UN resolution that calls for new discussions of international norms and principles for military activities in space.
That increases deterrence and checks Chinese Space Heg.
WASHINGTON: The United Kingdom is circulating a draft UN resolution that calls for new discussions designed to create international norms and principles for responsible behavior for military activities in space. The proposal, obtained by Breaking Defense, would set up what is a called an Open Ended Working Group to meet twice in 2022 and 2023 in the hopes of reaching consensus on voluntary measures to restrain actions in orbit likely to be seen as threatening by other nations. The proposal is part of a comprehensive push by London to become more active on military space issues. In July, the UK Ministry of Defence officially opened its first-ever Space Command headquarters at RAF High Wycombe, a Royal Air Force base some 28 miles west of London, and the MoD has pledged to invest 1.4 billion British pounds ($1.9 billion) over the next 10 years in space activities. “As our adversaries advance their space capabilities, it is vital we invest in space to ensure we maintain a battle-winning advantage across this fast-evolving operational domain,” said Minister for Defence Procurement Jeremy Quin in the announcement. However, the UK continues to publicly reject the notion of building its own satellite attack weapons, with senior military officials emphasizing instead the need to protect British space assets from potential attack. Britain’s new UN draft resolution isn’t aimed at arms control in space, however, one UK official explained. Rather, it is pointed at finding some agreement on what states should and should not do to help mitigate misunderstandings and miscalculations that could lead to war. “This effort led by the UK is an encouraging step to break free of the impasse the international community has been in for the past several decades when it comes to space security and stability,” commented Victoria Samson, Washington office director for Secure World Foundation, which has been closely involved with UN processes on norms. “Instead of having the same discussions over and over again about whether or not a treaty should be the way forward, and if so, should that focus on weapons in space or not, this allows the international community to start to get on the same page when it comes to the most pressing threats to the stability of the space environment, what responsible behavior on orbit looks like, and how to increase awareness of this issue in all space actors,” she said. The UK official said there are three aims behind the proposed UN effort. The first is to look at current treaties and agreements that relate to how states interact in space — everything from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that serves as the Magna Carta for space, to the Geneva Conventions and the law of armed conflict — in order to highlight the gaps. One such gap is a glaring lack of formal accords designed to restrain risky military behaviors; such agreement currently exist for military actions on land (for example near borders), in the air (think border restrictions and notifications of exercises in involving warplanes), and especially at sea. The new UK space badge The second aim is to have an open dialogue around current and future threats and security risks, including the impact of different types of technology, both on Earth and in space. But again, the emphasis isn’t on the technology itself but how those technologies are being developed, tested and used by nations. (Both Secure World Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies do annual reports focused in particular on counterspace capabilities.) Importantly, the UK very much wants to differentiate between state actions that are threatening or raise tensions and the issue of dual-use technologies being used for economic purposes, especially by the private sector. “We’re trying not to say that every satellite can be a weapon. Yes, it can. But it’s not actually a useful thing in the debate, we won’t really solve anything, or move anything forward,” the official said. The third goal: to directly address what norms and principles could provide solutions to these threats and risks. The UK’s emphasis on state behavior, threat perceptions and international security is what makes London’s effort fundamentally different than much of the previous international discussion on the issue of norms. Up to now, the key venue for norms discussions has been the UN Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in Vienna, Austria, which has a mandate that does not cover military or international security. COPUOS is guided by the UN Fourth Committee that deals with political issues such as UN peacekeeping, and has been focusing on safety of space operations via years-long work in crafting a set of guidelines on the long-term sustainability of space, known as the LTS Guidelines. The new UK draft resolution — like last year’s UK resolution, accepted by the UN General Assembly in Resolution 75/36, that called on nations to submit to Secretary-General António Guterres views about what constitutes threatening behavior in space — will be debated in the UN First Committee responsible for international security. The First Committee is currently slated to meet from Sept. 30 to Oct. 12. The US plans to support the effort, which isn’t a surprise. The Trump administration co-sponsored the first UK resolution. Further, as first reported by Breaking Defense, the US military for the first time in July acceded to a list of what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called “tenets” of responsible behavior. Kinetic ASATs would create enormous amounts of dangerous space debris. National Space and Intelligence Center image “The United States thanks the United Kingdom for its continued leadership on this important effort. We were pleased to co-sponsor this resolution last year and look forward to working with other delegations to make sure this follow-on resolution successfully advances the dialogue among Member States to ensure the safety, stability, and sustainability of national security-related space activities,” a State Department spokesperson, said in an email to Breaking Defense. (Interestingly, both Audrey Schafer, space policy lead at the National Space Council, and Eric Desautels, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for emerging security challenges and defense policy, are slated to speak Sept. 17 on norms at the annual AMOS Conference on space situational awareness in Maui.) In fact, an internal assessment done by Secure World Foundation and a similar review of responses to the UK’s 2020 resolution by Canada’s Project Ploughshares both show a strong level of international accord around a number of potential normative measures. These include transparency enhancing actions such as notifications of certain space activities and sharing of space situational awareness data on the movements of space objects. “Having read through the country inputs for the previous UK resolution, it is evident that several norms are starting to emerge,” Samson said. “One is that it is increasingly considered a bad idea to deliberately create long-lived debris on orbit; another is that it is thought to be bad form to conduct non-consensual close approaches to other countries’ satellites. These ideas also show up in Sec. Austin’s memo on space norms for DoD that came out in July.” “There is also strong support for some sort of ban on the testing and use of kinetic weapons,” or at least a voluntary prohibition, writes Jessica West, the author of the Project Ploughshares review. Kinetic antisatellite weapons, which essentially smash into a satellite and could be based terrestrially or in space, almost inevitably would create large amounts of dangerous space junk. The Canadian government, in fact, has gone even further to push for the launch of negotiations on a legal treaty. Ottawa’s formal response to the first UK resolution calls for a debate to start at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, the UN body that negotiates arms control treaties. The Canadian government’s view has been publicly backed by Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, and Switzerland, according to West’s report. The 65 nations making up the CD membership, however, have been hopelessly stalemated on even agreeing an agenda of work for decades. And there is little reason to hope that that will change any time soon.
4/27/22
JF - CP - US Debris Cleanup
Tournament: Coppell Classic Swing | Round: 3 | Opponent: Coppell EH | Judge: Nikhil Jeeva CP: The United States federal government should Establish a national space debris removal program; Engage the commercial sector in space debris removal; Establish special funds at the expense of parties who generate debris; Prioritize transparency in space debris removal. US debris removal solves best — it generates international follow on BUT avoids the downfalls of international cooperation that make solvency impossible. Ansdell ’10 (Megan; is a graduate student at the George Washington University Elliot School of International Affairs, focusing on space policy; Active Space Debris Removal: Needs, Implications, and Recommendations for Today’s Geopolitical Environment; https://jpia.princeton.edu/sites/jpia/files/space-debris-removal.pdf; accessed 8/29/19; Julia/MSCOTT)ww pbj VI. US Leadership by Example Need to Initiate Unilateral Action International cooperation in space has rarely resulted in cost-effective or expedient solutions, especially in politically-charged areas of uncertain technological feasibility. The International Space Station, because of both political and technical setbacks, has taken over two decades to deploy and cost many billions of dollars—far more time and money than was originally intended. Space debris mitigation has also encountered aversion in international forums. The topic was brought up in COPUOS as early as 1980, yet a policy failed to develop despite a steady flow of documents on the increasing danger of space debris (Perek 1991). In fact, COPUOS did not adopt debris mitigation guidelines until 2007 and, even then, they were legally non-binding. Space debris removal systems could take decades to develop and deploy through international partnerships due to the many interdisciplinary challenges they face. Given the need to start actively removing space debris sooner rather than later to ensure the continued benefits of satellite services, international cooperation may not be the most appropriate mechanism for instigating the first space debris removal system. Instead, one country should take a leadership role by establishing a national space debris removal program. This would accelerate technology development and demonstration, which would, in turn, build-up trust and hasten international participation in space debris removal. Possibilities of Leadership As previously discussed, a recent NASA study found that annually removing as little as five massive pieces of debris in critical orbits could significantly stabilize the long-term space debris environment (Liou and Johnson 2007). This suggests that it is feasible for one nation to unilaterally develop and deploy an effective debris removal system. As the United States is responsible for creating much of the debris in Earth’s orbit, it is a candidate for taking a leadership role in removing it, along with other heavy polluters of the space environment such as China and Russia. There are several reasons why the United States should take this leadership role, rather than China or Russia. First and foremost, the United States would be hardest hit by the loss of satellites services. It owns about half of the roughly 800 operating satellites in orbit and its military is significantly more dependent upon them than any other entity (Moore 2008). For example, GPS precision-guided munitions are a key component of the “new American way of war” (Dolman 2006, 163-165), which allows the United States to remain a globally dominant military power while also waging war in accordance with its political and ethical values by enabling faster, less costly war fighting with minimal collateral damage (Sheldon 2005). The U.S. Department of Defense recognized the need to protect U.S. satellite systems over ten years ago when it stated in its 1999 Space Policy that, “the ability to access and utilize space is a vital national interest because many of the activities conducted in the medium are critical to U.S. national security and economic well-being” (U.S. Department of Defense 1999, 6). Clearly, the United States has a vested interest in keeping the near-Earth space environment free from threats like space debris and thus assuring U.S. access to space. Moreover, current U.S. National Space Policy asserts that the United States will take a “leadership role” in space debris minimization. This could include the development, deployment, and demonstration of an effective space debris removal system to remove U.S. debris as well as that of other nations, upon their request. There could also be international political and economic advantages associated with being the first country to develop this revolutionary technology. However, there is always the danger of other nations simply benefiting from U.S. investment of its resources in this area. Thus, mechanisms should also be created to avoid a classic “free rider” situation. For example, techniques could be employed to ensure other countries either join in the effort later on or pay appropriate fees to the United States for removal services. Recommendations for Leadership in Space Debris Removal Going forward, the U.S. government should engage the commercial sector in space debris removal. Government contracts with several commercial firms would create a competitive environment, encouraging innovation and cost minimization. Having several companies working on the problem at the same time would also accelerate remediation as several critical orbits could be addressed at once. Furthermore, early investments in a domestic space debris removal industry would give the United States a head start in what may become a critical industry over the coming decades. The aforementioned 2009 International Conference on Orbital Debris Removal, co-hosted by DARPA and NASA, suggests that these two agencies could lead U.S. government efforts in space debris removal. However, it is important to recognize that DARPA and NASA are driven by very different motives: one is a civilian space agency, while the other is a defense research agency. Failure to appreciate these differences when establishing mission requirements could lead to a situation like that of the National Polar Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), where the attempt to combine civil and military requirements into a single satellite resulted in doubling project costs, a launch delay of five years, and ultimately splitting the project into two separate programs (Clark 2010). Furthermore, any system developed through a joint NASA-DARPA partnership would need to be transferred to an operational agency, as both NASA and DARPA are research and development entities. The U.S. Air Force, as it is the primary agency responsible for national security space operations, is a possible option. Funding the development of a national space debris removal system carries risks because, due to the nascent state of the field, detailed cost-benefit estimates have not yet been carried out. The Space Frontier Foundation, however, proposes that the government should establish special funds at the expense of parties who generate debris (Dunstan and Werb 2009). Suggested mechanisms for raising the funds include charging fees for U.S. launches based on the debris potential of the mission, with the size of the fee determined by relevant factors such as the mass of the anticipated debris resulting from the mission and the congestion of the orbit into which the space object is being launched. Satellite manufacturers, operators, and service providers could all share responsibility for payment into such funds. Once debris removal systems are in operation, additional funds could also come from service fees. For example, entities that created debris could pay a specified amount to removal providers in return for the service rendered. Any national space debris removal program must also be kept transparent with ongoing international dialogue in forums such as COPUOS so that other nations can build-up trust in the effectiveness and efficiency of the program. A proven debris removal program will result in more productive discussions in these international forums. VII. Conclusion If the United States and other powerful governments do not take steps now to avert the potentially devastating effects of space debris, the issue risks becoming stalemated in a manner similar to climate change. Given the past hesitation of international forums in addressing the space debris issue, unilateral action is the most appropriate means of instigating space debris removal within the needed timeframe. The United States is well poised for a leadership role in space debris removal. Going forward, the U.S. government should work closely with the commercial sector in this endeavor, focusing on removing pieces of U.S. debris with the greatest potential to contribute to future collisions. It should also keep its space debris removal system as open and transparent as possible to allow for future international cooperation in this field
4/27/22
JF - DA - China Soft Power
Tournament: Westlake TFA Chap Classic | Round: 2 | Opponent: McNeil AP | Judge: Ivan Garcia US private space industry is key to American soft power – it’s doing well now, but it’s tentative and the aff collapses it. Cahan and Sadat ’20 Bruce Cahan is co-founder and president of Urban Logic, Inc., a New York nonprofit qualified in California, an Ashoka Fellow social entrepreneur and a Stanford CodeX Fellow, Mir Sadat is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He has more than twenty-five years of experience in private industry, higher education, and the US government. Sadat is an adjunct scholar with Modern War Institute at West Point and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Previously, he founded and served as the first editor-in-chief of Space Force Journal after completing his detail to the US National Security Council (NSC), where, as a policy director, he led interagency coordination on defense and space policy issues. In that role, he supported the establishment of both the US Space Force and US Space Command in recognition that space has also evolved into a warfighting domain similar to land, air, sea, and cyber. While on the NSC, Sadat also prioritized national security decisions involving US civil space and the commercial space sector. He led multiple efforts to reduce US risk and critical dependencies in US civil space and the commercial industrial base on foreign nations who view the United States as an adversary. Sadat pushed for innovative US policies to power space vehicles with modular nuclear reactors, secure the space supply chain, improve strategic messaging for space, establish norms and behavior in space, and to prevail in a new era of strategic technical competition. He is also a naval officer with intelligence and space qualifications. In his preceding two naval assignments, he served as a space policy strategist with the chief of naval operations in the Pentagon and as a space operations officer with the US Tenth Fleet/US Fleet Cyber Command. Sadat has also spent a considerable amount of time in various assignments within the US national security enterprise. In addition, he has previously deployed to overseas contingency operations in Afghanistan, where he served as a strategic advisor to two International Security Assistance Force commanding generals. Sadat has served as a cultural advisor to two Hollywood productions—The Kite Runner and Charlie Wilson’s War. He has a PhD from Claremont Graduate University and has taught at various universities in California and Washington, DC. He has trained and educated US and NATO troops on a variety of topics to increase their operational capability and strategic impact. Sadat has written extensively on US national security, space, Afghanistan, South Asia, and the broader Middle East, “US Space Policies for the New Space Age: Competing on the Final Economic Frontier”, 01-06-2021, https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000177-9349-d713-a777-d7cfce4b0000//pranav Space has been primarily a shared, not a warfighting, domain.67 With each passing second of Planck time,68 space enables a modern way of life, provides instantaneous global imagery, assures telecommunications, and captures humanity’s imagination for civil space exploration. As a result, space is a burgeoning marketplace and territory for commercial ventures and investors. Strengthening the US commercial space industrial base is vital to and beyond US national security. Civil space activities are a source of US “soft power” in global commerce, cooperation, and investment. 69 The civil space sector, led by NASA, is fundamental to America’s national security. 70 NASA is on an ambitious critical path to return to the Moon by 2024,71 along with developing the capabilities and infrastructure for a sustained lunar presence. NASA’s lunar plans provide a lunar staging area for missions to Mars and beyond. They offer a strategic and economic presence for the United States on the Moon. Congress, the White House, DoD, and NASA must recognize that economic and strategic dominance in service of national security requires catalyzing and accelerating growth of a vibrant, private US industrial and cultural expansion into the Solar System. Human visitation and eventual settlement beyond the Earth require sustaining visionary leaders, aided by, and aiding, US national security. A recurring theme in US policy is “maintaining and advancing United States dominance and strategic leadership in space” because US global competitors and adversaries are competent and capable of outpacing American space capabilities. 72 The stakes are high: At this historic moment, there is a real race for dominance over cislunar access and resources. Specifically key to counter China rise Cahan and Sadat ’20 Bruce Cahan is co-founder and president of Urban Logic, Inc., a New York nonprofit qualified in California, an Ashoka Fellow social entrepreneur and a Stanford CodeX Fellow, Mir Sadat is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He has more than twenty-five years of experience in private industry, higher education, and the US government. Sadat is an adjunct scholar with Modern War Institute at West Point and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Previously, he founded and served as the first editor-in-chief of Space Force Journal after completing his detail to the US National Security Council (NSC), where, as a policy director, he led interagency coordination on defense and space policy issues. In that role, he supported the establishment of both the US Space Force and US Space Command in recognition that space has also evolved into a warfighting domain similar to land, air, sea, and cyber. While on the NSC, Sadat also prioritized national security decisions involving US civil space and the commercial space sector. He led multiple efforts to reduce US risk and critical dependencies in US civil space and the commercial industrial base on foreign nations who view the United States as an adversary. Sadat pushed for innovative US policies to power space vehicles with modular nuclear reactors, secure the space supply chain, improve strategic messaging for space, establish norms and behavior in space, and to prevail in a new era of strategic technical competition. He is also a naval officer with intelligence and space qualifications. In his preceding two naval assignments, he served as a space policy strategist with the chief of naval operations in the Pentagon and as a space operations officer with the US Tenth Fleet/US Fleet Cyber Command. Sadat has also spent a considerable amount of time in various assignments within the US national security enterprise. In addition, he has previously deployed to overseas contingency operations in Afghanistan, where he served as a strategic advisor to two International Security Assistance Force commanding generals. Sadat has served as a cultural advisor to two Hollywood productions—The Kite Runner and Charlie Wilson’s War. He has a PhD from Claremont Graduate University and has taught at various universities in California and Washington, DC. He has trained and educated US and NATO troops on a variety of topics to increase their operational capability and strategic impact. Sadat has written extensively on US national security, space, Afghanistan, South Asia, and the broader Middle East, “US Space Policies for the New Space Age: Competing on the Final Economic Frontier”, 01-06-2021, https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000177-9349-d713-a777-d7cfce4b0000//pranav To compete with China, the United States cannot become China. Instead, the United States must play to its strengths to retain the global competitive advantage. The United States must utilize its soft power as global leader in financial and technological innovation, proponent of vibrant true market economies and, most importantly, democratic norms and values. The United States must provide a level-playing field advantage to allies, partners, and other nations that view the United States as the 33 leading model of open, transparent economic and financial markets - which stand in contrast with the Chinese state-controlled opaque model. China was a late entrant to the space race. Its first satellite was sent into orbit in 1970,56 by which time the United States had already landed astronauts on the Moon. In 2003, more than 40 years after the Russians and Americans embarked on the space race, China sent its first astronaut into orbit.57 In 2007, China conducted a kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) test on its dead weather satellite, which created a debris field of almost 3,400 fragments, more than half of which are expected to be in orbit in 2027.58 Fast forward to 2018, when China conducted more space-oriented operations than any other country. In 2019, China became the first nation to send an unmanned rover to the moon's far side.59 In June 2020, China launched the BeiDou system, which is an alternative to global positioning system (GPS) space-based navigation and timing, to become the largest space-based position and timing system in the world – not only removing China’s dependence on US’ GPS but also serving as means to lure the rest of the world to adopt and provide data on its movements via BeiDou.60 In July 2020, China sent its first unmanned mission to orbit Mars before landing a rover on the surface, and is expected to reach the red planet in February 2021.61 In December 2020, China landed on the Moon, planted their flag, collected Moon rock samples, and returned to Earth.62 Chinese plans also include launching a permanent space station by 2022, and sending astronauts to the Moon by the 2030s.63 If successful, China would become only the second country, after the United States, to put a citizen on the Moon. While the past twenty years of Chinese space accomplishments are impressively vast and rapid, their acquisition, data harvesting and exploitation of human knowledge and talent, product designs and manufacturing methods, prototypes and plans from US and allies’ companies, research facilities, universities and government operations has provided intellectual property, trade secrets and other assets that China did not discover or fund on its own. Today, China’s commercial space sector is in its infancy but is set to grow with continued national and provincial support, which have been rapidly increasing over the past three years.64 Since 2004, the United States and China accounted for 74 of the $135.2 billion venture capital (VC) invested in commercial space. 65 The early 2020s are pivotal, as it would be far cheaper for China and Chinese commercial space firms to acquire space technologies from the United States or allied nation companies seeking revenues or facing cashflow constraints, than to build the companies and their teams and technologies from scratch in China. The tight coupling of Chinese military goals and an economy organized to achieve those goals magnifies the economic threats and market disruptions that the United States must immediately address, in order for DoD and national security operations to rely on US commercial space capabilities. US leadership in this decade solves global war and results in a peaceful end to Chinese revisionism Erickson and Collins 10/21 (Andrew, A professor of strategy in the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute)(Gabriel, Baker Botts fellow in energy and environmental regulatory affairs at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy) “A Dangerous Decade of Chinese Power Is Here,” Foreign Policy, 10/18/2021 U.S. and allied policymakers are facing the most important foreign-policy challenge of the 21st century. China’s power is peaking; so is the political position of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) domestic strength. In the long term, China’s likely decline after this peak is a good thing. But right now, it creates a decade of danger from a system that increasingly realizes it only has a short time to fulfill some of its most critical, long-held goals. Within the next five years, China’s leaders are likely to conclude that its deteriorating demographic profile, structural economic problems, and technological estrangement from global innovation centers are eroding its leverage to annex Taiwan and achieve other major strategic objectives. As Xi internalizes these challenges, his foreign policy is likely to become even more accepting of risk, feeding on his nearly decadelong track record of successful revisionist action against the rules-based order. Notable examples include China occupying and militarizing sub-tidal features in the South China Sea, ramping up air and maritime incursions against Japan and Taiwan, pushing border challenges against India, occupying Bhutanese and Tibetan lands, perpetrating crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, and coercively enveloping Hong Kong. The relatively low-hanging fruit is plucked, but Beijing is emboldened to grasp the biggest single revisionist prize: Taiwan. Beijing’s actions over the last decade have triggered backlash, such as with the so-called AUKUS deal, but concrete constraints on China’s strategic freedom of action may not fully manifest until after 2030. It’s remarkable and dangerous that China has paid few costs for its actions over the last 10 years, even as its military capacities have rapidly grown. Beijing will likely conclude that under current diplomatic, economic, and force postures for both “gray zone” and high-end scenarios, the 2021 to late 2020s timeframe still favors China—and is attractive for its 68-year-old leader, who seeks a historical achievement at the zenith of his career. U.S. planners must mobilize resources, effort, and risk acceptance to maximize power and thereby deter Chinese aggression in the coming decade—literally starting now—and innovatively employ assets that currently exist or can be operationally assembled and scaled within the next several years. That will be the first step to pushing back against China during the 2020s—a decade of danger—before what will likely be a waning of Chinese power. As Beijing aggressively seeks to undermine the international order and promotes a narrative of inevitable Chinese strategic domination in Asia and beyond, it creates a dangerous contradiction between its goals and its medium-term capacity to achieve them. China is, in fact, likely nearing the apogee of its relative power; and by 2030 to 2035, it will cross a tipping point from which it may never recover strategically. Growing headwinds constraining Chinese growth, while not publicly acknowledged by Beijing, help explain Xi’s high and apparently increasing risk tolerance. Beijing’s window of strategic opportunity is sliding shut. China’s skyrocketing household debt levels exemplify structural economic constraints that are emerging much earlier than they did for the United States when it had similar per capita GDP and income levels. Debt is often a wet blanket on consumption growth. A 2017 analysis published by the Bank for International Settlements found that once the household debt-to-GDP ratio in a sample of 54 countries exceeded 60 percent, “the negative long-run effects on consumption tend to intensify.” China’s household debt-to-GDP ratio surpassed that empirical danger threshold in late 2020. Rising debt service burdens thus threaten Chinese consumers’ capacity to sustain the domestic consumption-focused “dual circulation” economic model that Xi and his advisors seek to build. China’s growth record during the past 30 years has been remarkable, but past exceptionalism does not confer future immunity from fundamental demographic and economic headwinds. As debt levels continue to rise at an absolute level that has accelerated almost continuously for the past decade, China also faces a hollowing out of its working-age population. This critical segment peaked in 2010 and has since declined, with the rate from 2015 to 2020 nearing 0.6 percent annually—nearly twice the respective pace in the United States. While the United States faces demographic challenges of its own, the disparity between the respective paces of decline highlights its relative advantage compared to its chief geopolitical competitor. Moreover, the United States can choose to access a global demographic and talent dividend via immigration in a way China simply will not be able to do. Atop surging debt and worsening demographics, China also faces resource insecurity. China’s dependence on imported food and energy has grown steadily over the past two decades. Projections from Tsinghua University make a compelling case that China’s oil and gas imports will peak between 2030 and 2035. As China grapples with power shortages, Beijing has been reminded that supply shortfalls equal to even a few percentage points of total demand can have outsized negative impacts. Domestic resource insufficiency by itself does not hinder economic growth—as the Four Asian Tigers’ multi-decade boom attests. But China is in a different position. Japan and South Korea never had to worry about the U.S. Navy interdicting inbound tankers or grain ships. In fact, the United States was avowedly willing to use military force to protect energy flows from the Persian Gulf region to its allies. Now, as an increasingly energy-secure United States pivots away from the Middle East toward the Indo-Pacific, there is a substantial probability that energy shipping route protection could be viewed in much more differentiated terms—with oil and liquefied natural gas cargoes sailing under the Chinese flag viewed very differently than cargoes headed to buyers in other regional countries. Each of these dynamics—demographic downshifts, rising debts, resource supply insecurity—either imminently threatens or is already actively interfering with the CCP’s long-cherished goal of achieving a “moderately prosperous society.” Electricity blackouts, real estate sector travails (like those of Evergrande) that show just how many Chinese investors’ financial eggs now sit in an unstable $52 trillion basket, and a solidifying alignment of countries abroad concerned by aggressive Chinese behavior all raise questions about Xi’s ability to deliver. With this confluence of adverse events only a year before the next party congress, where personal ambition and survival imperatives will almost drive him to seek anointment as the only Chinese “leader for life” aside from former leader Mao Zedong, the timing only fuels his sense of insecurity. Xi’s anti-corruption campaigns and ruthless removal of potential rivals and their supporters solidified his power but likely also created a quiet corps of opponents who may prove willing to move against him if events create the perception he’s lost the “mandate of heaven.” Accordingly, the baseline assumption should be that Xi’s crown sits heavy and the insecurity induced is thereby intense enough to drive high-stake, high-consequence posturing and action. While Xi is under pressure to act, the external risks are magnified because so far, he has suffered few consequences from taking actions on issues his predecessors would likely never have gambled on. Reactions to party predations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong have been restricted to diplomatic-signaling pinpricks, such as sanctioning responsible Chinese officials and entities, most of whom lack substantial economic ties to the United States. Whether U.S. restraint results from a fear of losing market access or a belief that China’s goals are ultimately limited is not clear at this time. While the CCP issues retaliatory sanctions against U.S. officials and proclaims a triumphant outcome to its hostage diplomacy, these tactical public actions mask a growing private awareness that China’s latitude for irredentist action is poised to shrink. Not knowing exactly when domestic and external constraints will come to bite—but knowing that when Beijing sees the tipping point in its rearview mirror, major rivals will recognize it too—amplifies Xi and the party’s anxiety to act on a shorter timeline. Hence the dramatic acceleration of the last few years. Just as China is mustering its own strategic actions, so the United States must also intensify its focus and deployment of resources. The United States has taken too long to warm up and confront the central challenge, but it retains formidable advantages, agility, and the ability to prevail—provided it goes all-in now. Conversely, if Washington fails to marshal its forces promptly, its achievements after 2030 or 2035 will matter little. Seizing the 2020s would enable Beijing to cripple destroy the free and open rules-based order and entrench its position by economically subjugating regional neighbors (including key U.S. treaty allies) to a degree that could offset the strategic headwinds China now increasingly grapples with. Deterrence is never certain. But it offers the highest probability of avoiding the certainty that an Indo-Pacific region dominated by a CCP-led China would doom treaty allies, threaten the U.S. homeland, and likely set the stage for worse to come. Accordingly, U.S. planners should immediately mobilize resources and effort as well as accept greater risks to deter Chinese action over the critical next decade. The greatest threat is armed conflict over Taiwan, where U.S. and allied success or failure will be fundamental and reverberate for the remainder of the century. There is a high chance of a major move against Taiwan by the late 2020s—following an extraordinary ramp-up in People’s Liberation Army capabilities and before Xi or the party state’s power grasp has ebbed or Washington and its allies have fully regrouped and rallied to the challenge. So how should policymakers assess the potential risk of Chinese action against Taiwan reaching dangerous levels by 2027 or possibly even earlier—as emphasized in the testimonies of Adms. Philip Davidson and John Aquilino? In June, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley testified to the House of Representatives that Xi had “challenged the People’s Liberation Army to accelerate their modernization programs to develop capabilities to seize Taiwan and move it from 2035 to 2027,” although China does not currently have the capabilities or intentions to conduct an all-out invasion of mainland Taiwan. U.S. military leaders’ assessments are informed by some of the world’s most extensive and sophisticated internal information. But what’s striking is open-source information available to everyone suggests similar things. Moving forward, a number of open-source indicators offer valuable “early warning lights” that can help policymakers more accurately calibrate both potential timetables and risk readings as the riskiest period of relations—from 2027 onward—approaches. Semiconductors supply self-sufficiency. Taiwan is the “OPEC+” of semiconductors, accounting for approximately two-thirds of global chip foundry capacity. A kinetic crisis would almost certainly disrupt—and potentially even completely curtail—semiconductor supplies. China presently spends even more each year on semiconductor imports (around $380 billion) than it does on oil, but much of the final products are destined for markets abroad. Taiwan is producing cutting-edge 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer chips, but China produces around 80 percent of the rest of the chips in the world. The closer China comes to being able to secure “good enough” chips for “inside China-only” needs, the less of a constraint this becomes. Crude oil, grain, strategic metals stockpiles—the commercial community (Planet Labs, Ursa Space Systems, etc.) has developed substantial expertise in cost-effectively tracking inventory changes for key input commodities needed to prepare for war. Electric vehicle fleet size—the amount of oil demand displaced by electric vehicles varies depending on miles driven, but the more of China’s car fleet that can be connected to the grid (and thus powered by blockade-resistant coal), the less political burden Beijing will face if it has to weather a maritime oil blockade imposed in response to actions it took against Taiwan or other major revisionist adventures. China’s passenger vehicle fleet, now approximately 225 million units strong, counts nearly 6.5 million electric vehicles among its ranks, the lion’s share of which are full-battery electrics. China’s State Council seeks to have 20 percent of new vehicles sold in China be electric vehicles by 2025. This target has already basically been achieved over the last few months, meaning at least 3.5 to 4 million (and eventually many more) new elective vehicles will enter China’s car fleet each year from now on. Local concentration of maritime vessels—snap exercises with warships, circumnavigations, and midline tests with swarms of aircraft highlight the growing scale of China’s threat to Taiwan. But these assets alone cannot invade the island. To capture and garrison, Beijing would need not only air, missile, naval, and special operations forces but also the ability to move lots of equipment and—at the very least—tens of thousands of personnel across the Taiwan Strait. As such, Beijing would have to amass maritime transport assets. And given the scale required, this would alter ship patterns elsewhere along China’s coast in ways detectable with artificial intelligence-facilitated imagery analysis from firms like Planet Labs (or national assets). Only the most formidable, agile American and allied deterrence can kick the can down the road long enough for China’s slowdown to shut the window of vulnerability. Holding the line is likely to require frequent and sustained proactive enforcement actions to disincentivize full-frontal Chinese assaults on the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. Chinese probing behavior and provocations must be met with a range of symmetric and asymmetric responses that impose real costs, such as publishing assets owned by Chinese officials abroad, cyber interference with China’s technological social control apparatus, “hands on” U.S. Navy and Coast Guard enforcement measures against Maritime Militia-affiliated vessels in the South China Sea, intensified air and maritime surveillance of Chinese naval bases, and visas and resettlement options to Hong Kongers, Uyghurs, and other threatened Chinese citizens—including CCP officials (and their families) who seek to defect and/or leave China. U.S. policymakers must make crystal clear to their Chinese counterparts that the engagement-above-all policies that dominated much of the past 25 years are over and the risks and costs of ongoing—and future—adventurism will fall heaviest on China. Bombastic Chinese reactions to emerging cohesive actions verify the approach’s effectiveness and potential for halting—and perhaps even reversing—the revisionist tide China has unleashed across the Asian region. Consider the recent nuclear submarine deal among Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Beijing’s strong public reaction (including toleration of nuclear threats made by the state-affiliated Global Times) highlights the gap between its global information war touting China’s irresistible power and deeply insecure internal self-perception. Eight nuclear submarines will ultimately represent formidable military capacity, but for a bona fide superpower that believes in its own capabilities, they would not be a game-changer. Consider the U.S.-NATO reaction to the Soviet Union’s commissioning of eight Oscar I/II-class cruise missile subs during the late Cold War. These formidable boats each carried 24 SS-N-19 Granit missiles specifically designed to kill U.S. carrier battle groups, yet NATO never stooped to public threats. With diplomatic proofs of concepts like the so-called AUKUS deal, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, and hard security actions like the Pacific Deterrence Initiative now falling into place, it is time to comprehensively peak the non-authoritarian world’s protective action to hold the line in the Indo-Pacific. During this decade, U.S. policymakers must understand that under Xi’s strongman rule, personal political survival will dictate Chinese behavior. Xi’s recreation of a “one-man” system is a one-way, high-leverage bet that decisions he drives will succeed. If Xi miscalculates, a significant risk given his suppression of dissenting voices while China raises the stakes in its confrontation with the United States, the proverbial “leverage” that would have left him with outsized returns on a successful bet would instead amplify the downside, all of which he personally and exclusively signed for. Resulting tensions could very realistically undermine his status and authority, embolden internal challengers, and weaken the party. They could also foreseeably drive him to double down on mistakes, especially if those led to—or were made in the course of—a kinetic conflict. Personal survival measures could thus rapidly transmute into regional or even global threats. If Xi triggered a “margin call” on his personal political account through a failed high-stakes gamble, it would likely be paid in blood. Washington must thus prepare the U.S. electorate and its institutional and physical infrastructure as well as that of allies and partners abroad for the likelihood that tensions will periodically ratchet up to uncomfortable levels—and that actual conflict is a concrete possibility. Si vis pacem, para bellum (“if you want peace, prepare for war”) must unfortunately serve as a central organizing principle for a variety of U.S. and allied decisions during the next decade with China. Given these unforgiving dynamics and stakes, implications for U.S. planners are stark: Do whatever remains possible to “peak” for deterrent competition against China by the mid-to-late 2020s, and accept whatever trade-offs are available for doing so. Nothing we might theoretically achieve in 2035 and beyond is worth pursuing at the expense of China-credible capabilities we can realistically achieve no later than the mid-to-late 2020s.
4/27/22
JF - DA - Econ
Tournament: Coppell Classic Swing | Round: 2 | Opponent: Grapevine KB | Judge: Lei Huang The Space Economy is rapidly growing – all thanks goes to the private sector Rana and Sharma 21 Damini Rana works at Delhi Public School RK Puram, Delhi, India and Mritunjay Sharma is an Advisor. JSR Volume 10 Issue 3 2021 “The New Final Frontier: A Case Study Analysis of Private Sector’s Increasing Role in the Space Industry” https://www.jsr.org/hs/index.php/path/article/view/1622aaditg This has drawn tremendous interest from both entrepreneurs and investors, as space became not just an exciting, but also a lucrative, investment. Figure 4 shows how SpaceX’s success has since sparked a rapid increase in private investments in space. From less than US$500 million per year in 2009, private investment in space had grown to over US$5 billion per annum by 2019. 32. Fig. 4. Cumulative private investments. The next section offers an analysis of how the space economy is expected to grow in the future and the role that private investment will continue to play in it. Future Outlook of Space Revenues and Investments The analysis and research provided above clearly indicates that the commercial sector has a much higher impact on the monetary size of the space economy than the government sector. While the government may have started space research, the growth of the space economy is now driven primarily by private sector initiatives. The space economy’s growth looks promising over the next decades, as humans look to leverage the earthoriented opportunities (communications, earth observation, etc.) in the near term and the prospects of mining, space tourism, as well as Moon and Mars expeditions in future. Several organizations have made forecasts of the space economy using slightly different starting points and future assumptions. The Science and Technology Policy Institute 17 has collated and reviewed some of these forecasts, as provided in Table 4 below. According to its report published in 2017, Morgan Stanley estimates that the global space industry could generate more than US$1 trillion in revenue by 2040 33. As per the report, the industry growth in the next 5-7 years is likely to be driven by the launches of LEO satellite constellations and their associated services, while growth after 2026, to a substantial extent, will be determined by what are mentioned as ‘second order impacts’ in the report – essentially this will require the New Space Economy businesses to start pulling their weight from a commercial perspective. Fig. 5. The global space economy (US$ million). It is evident that while the near-term opportunities are satellite-led and relatively well-established, new space opportunities, that is, asteroid mining, space tourism and the colonization of Mars, are novel and riskier, in terms of both economic value and timelines. Significant investments will be required before some of these are realized. Keeping this in view, a forecast was made for space industry revenues till 2040. Investments required to achieve these revenues were also assessed through quantitative regression analysis. A. Space Economy Forecast Till 2040 The historical data for space economy size used earlier in Table 1 was projected forward to forecast the size of the economy till 2040. As per Table 1, the space economy grew at 6.5 from 2005-2019, with the commercial economy growing at 7.3 and the government at 3.9. Significant recent growth can be attributed to the need for more satellites by a rapidly digitizing world. This is a relatively low-hanging fruit for private sector exploitation. However, it is expected that with increasing scale and greater technical challenges to be overcome in non-satellite business, the growth over the next two decades may be lower than what has been witnessed over the last decade. Hence, the following assumptions have been made for the forecast. Annual growth rate of Commercial Economy: 6.5 Volume 10 Issue 3 (2021) ISSN: 2167-1907 www.JSR.org 11 Annual growth rate of Government Economy: 3 The above assumptions led to a forecast for the space economy as per Table 5 below. The above forecast suggests that the space economy will grow from US$424 billion in 2019 to US$1.4 trillion by 2040, at an annualized rate of about 6. The size of the commercial economy by 2040 will be US$1.26 trillion, while the government economy will be US$162 billion. This indicates that the share of the government economy in the total space economy would decline from 20.5 in 2019 to 11.3 in 2040. Private Space Exploration solves recession Sidorov 20 Konstantin Sidorov is chief executive of the London Tech Club. City AM “Need a way out of recession? Look to the stars” https://www.cityam.com/need-a-way-out-of-recession-look-to-the-stars/ 11/23/2020 aaditg “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” These words by President John F. Kennedy are as important today as they were when he spoke in 1962. Asteroid mining may seem like something out of a sci-fi movie, and not the most obvious choice of investment, especially during a global pandemic and recession. But it is exactly these kinds of aspirations that have pushed human endeavour and technological advancement to new heights. The discoveries made along the way to achieving these sky-high goals have become integral parts of our daily lives — and could even help us out of this recession. The economics of space is now a crucial part of the market and no longer only in the realm of government endeavour. Private capital is paving the way for public partnerships. Supply chains in the “new space economy” are accelerating, startups are emerging, and clusters are forming. Old space discovery was defined by the Russian Voshod and Vostok and the US Apollo missions. We have entered a space age defined by private enterprise. Financial firms Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have each conducted their own studies and found the space economy could reach between $1 trillion and $2.7 trillion by the 2040s. That would make it larger than the 2017 GDP of the UK. But are these astronomical figures relevant to people beyond the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson? The answer is a resounding yes. The space sector is made up of a hidden infrastructure which most people do not see but is central to the technology that surrounds us. The strides humankind is making in space are integral to the day-to-day things we take for granted. Space plays an indispensable role in the global economy. The highest grossing sectors — agriculture, mining, transportation, IT, finance, and insurance — all heavily rely on systems and technology developed for space. We know that without satellite observation our navigation and mapping capacity would be significantly reduced. But that is only the start. Satellite data is being harnessed to protect critical infrastructure, and can be used to prevent disasters like the Morandi bridge collapse in Genoa by monitoring and holding critical information to better manage and maintain these types of structures. Given that there are over 80,000 ageing bridges in Canada alone, most with a design life of less than 100 years, the potential impact could be huge. The insurance industry can also be transformed by “mega constellations” — a group of artificial satellites working together as a system to provide permanent global coverage. Insurers are excited about the prospect of increased real-time data on hurricanes, especially the ability to use imagery and analytics to speed up or question claims. Amazon is rolling out plans to launch over 3,200 satellites to over 95 per cent of the Earth’s surface. The initiative is to launch a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to the unserved communities around the world. Starlink, built by SpaceX, is launching “constellation broadband” to deliver higher-speed internet connections across the world. The volume of space spin-off industries is multiplying every year. NASA has created more than 2,000 inventions that later became widespread products and services. Innovations such as the dialysis machines, CAT scanners and freeze-dried food are all a result of space-related projects. Without investment in space exploration we would be without memory foam or GPS, while an adaptation of the spacesuit upgrade led to the creation of the Nike Air footwear. We are only going to become more dependent on space technologies as AI and the fourth industrial revolution take off. Satellite data and its deep-learning technology are being used to map and monitor solar energy assets for smart city and smart grid initiatives. The AI combines satellite data with other factors such as weather information and local government policies to provide a complete picture of the emissions and financial benefits the technology could bring. And yet, despite these strides, space exploration is still not considered a central part of our everyday lives. That needs to change. Governments must recognise its strategic importance. Consumers must realise how the space industry affects their everyday actions. Investors must consider the value of investment into the sector. Space is key to protecting our people, promoting our global influence, and providing future prosperity.
Recessions cause war – stats support transition wars, resource conflicts, terrorism, and diversionary wars – other authors don’t base their analysis on global studies Royal ’10 Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises”, 2010, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215PM Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent slates. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level. Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (19) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often-bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (sec also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner, 1999). Separately. Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level. Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, likelihood for conflict increases. as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession lends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg and I less. 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg. Hess. and Wccrapana. 2004). which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary theory' suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DcRoucn (1995), and Blomberg. Mess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DcRoucn (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Those studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views. That causes global nuclear war. Merlini ’11 Cesare, was a nonresident senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe and is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Italian Institute for International Affairs (IAI) in Rome, “A Post-Secular World?”, 03-30-2011, Routledge, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/04_international_relations_merlini.pdfPM Two neatly opposed scenarios for the future of the world order illustrate the range of possibilities, albeit at the risk of oversimplification. The first scenario entails the premature crumbling of the post-Westphalian system. One or more of the acute tensions apparent today evolves into an open and traditional conflict between states, perhaps even involving the use of nuclear weapons. The crisis might be triggered by a collapse of the global economic and financial system, the vulnerability of which we have just experienced, and the prospect of a second Great Depression, with consequences for peace and democracy similar to those of the first. Whatever the trigger, the unlimited exercise of national sovereignty, exclusive self-interest and rejection of outside interference would likely be amplified, emptying, perhaps entirely, the half-full glass of multilateralism, including the UN and the European Union. Many of the more likely conflicts, such as between Israel and Iran or India and Pakistan, have potential religious dimensions. Short of war, tensions such as those related to immigration might become unbearable. Familiar issues of creed and identity could be exacerbated. One way or another, the secular rational approach would be sidestepped by a return to theocratic absolutes, competing or converging with secular absolutes such as unbridled nationalism.
4/27/22
JF - DA - Innovation
Tournament: California Invitational Berkeley Debate | Round: 2 | Opponent: Harker AS | Judge: Aditya Madaraju The US commercial space industry is booming – private space companies are driving innovation. Lindzon 21 (Jared Lindzon, A FREELANCE JOURNALIST AND PUBLIC SPEAKER BORN, RAISED AND BASED IN TORONTO, CANADA. LINDZON'S WRITING FOCUSES ON THE FUTURE OF WORK AND TALENT AS IT RELATES TO TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION) "How Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are ushering in a new era of space startups," Fast Company, 2/23/21, https://www.fastcompany.com/90606811/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-elon-musk-spaces-space TDI In early February, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the planet’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, dropped the bombshell announcement that he would be stepping down as CEO to free up more time for his other passions. Though Bezos listed a few targets for his creativity and energy—The Washington Post and philanthropy through the Bezos Earth Fund and Bezos Day One Fund—one of the highest-potential areas is his renewed commitment and focus on his suborbital spaceflight project, Blue Origin. Before space became a frontier for innovation and development for privately held companies, opportunities were limited to nation states and the private defense contractors who supported them. In recent years, however, billionaires such as Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson have lowered the barrier to entry. Since the launch of its first rocket, Falcon 1, in September of 2008, Musk’s commercial space transportation company SpaceX has gradually but significantly reduced the cost and complexity of innovation beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. With Bezos’s announcement, many in the space sector are excited by the prospect of those barriers being lowered even further, creating a new wave of innovation in its wake. “What I want to achieve with Blue Origin is to build the heavy-lifting infrastructure that allows for the kind of dynamic, entrepreneurial explosion of thousands of companies in space that I have witnessed over the last 21 years on the internet,” Bezos said during the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in 2016. During the event, Bezos explained how the creation of Amazon was only possible thanks to the billions of dollars spent on critical infrastructure—such as the postal service, electronic payment systems, and the internet itself—in the decades prior. “On the internet today, two kids in their dorm room can reinvent an industry, because the heavy-lifting infrastructure is in place for that,” he continued. “Two kids in their dorm room can’t do anything interesting in space. . . . I’m using my Amazon winnings to do a new piece of heavy-lifting infrastructure, which is low-cost access to space.” In the less than 20 years since the launch of SpaceX’s first rocket, space has gone from a domain reserved for nation states and the world’s wealthiest individuals to everyday innovators and entrepreneurs. Today, building a space startup isn’t rocket science. THE NEXT FRONTIER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP According to the latest Space Investment Quarterly report published by Space Capital, the fourth quarter of 2020 saw a record $5.7 billion invested into 80 space-related companies, bringing the year’s total capital investments in space innovation to more than $25 billion. Overall, more than $177 billion of equity investments have been made in 1,343 individual companies in the space economy over the past 10 years. “It’s kind of crazy how quickly things have picked up; 10 years ago when SpaceX launched their first customer they removed the barriers to entry, and we’ve seen all this innovation and capital flood in,” says Chad Anderson, the managing partner of Space Capital. “We’re on an exponential curve here. Every week that goes by we’re picking up the pace.” The plan creates a restriction that encourages companies to move their operations to states with lower standards. Albert 14 (Caley Albert, J.D. Loyola Marymount University) “Liability in International Law and the Ramifications on Commercial Space Launches and Space Tourism,” Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review, 11/1/14, https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1708andcontext=ilr TDI A parallel can be drawn here between the commercial space industry and the maritime law concept of the Flag of Convenience. The term has evolved over time, but in this day and age, it is commonly used to mean the owner of a vessel does not want to create an obligation with a country with stricter standards for registry; hence, the owner will register strictly for economic reasons with a country that has a more convenient registry.133 By flying a Flag of Convenience, ship owners are able to avoid taxation on earnings of ships registered under these flags, and in some cases, they can also receive relief from stricter crew standards and corresponding operating costs.134 A Flag of Convenience is flown by a vessel that is registered in one state, which the vessel has little if any connection to, when in reality the vessel is owned and operated from another state.135 This way the vessel avoids any unfavorable economic requirements from its true home state.136 In this sense, “flag shopping” is similar to “launch forum shopping,” similar in that Flags of Convenience are utilized for economic reasons, such as to avoid high taxes and compliance with certain restrictive international conventions, commercial space companies will forum shop when choosing which country to launch from. As of today, there has yet to be a catastrophic commercial launch incident, so for now commercial space companies do not have an incentive to forum shop, but if there is, the indemnification policies described above may lead companies to seek out countries that provide more coverage so they pay less in the event something goes wrong. This comparison to Flags of Convenience brings up two separate yet equally important issues. First, launch companies may try to follow the Flags of Convenience model and soon catch on to the wisdom of their maritime predecessors by “registering” in countries with more favorable conditions. Of course, in this case the concern is not with registration so much as launching. If launch companies follow the Flags of Convenience model, they will seek out the most convenient state for launch, most likely the state that provides the most liability coverage and has the least safety precautions. Launching from states with low safety standards increases the potential for catastrophic launch events. This, in turn, will place states that are potentially incapable of paying for damages from launch disasters in a position they would not normally assume if these commercial companies had not been drawn to their shores with the promise of more favorable regulations. Second, launch customers may also seek out companies located in states with lower cost liability regimes (lower insurance policy limits) since those companies will presumably charge less to launch their payloads. In this scenario, instead of the launch companies seeking out states with lower liability caps and softer regulations, the launch customers themselves will seek companies located in states with lowcost liability regimes. Here, the effect will be the same as above. Under the Liability Convention, the launching state will be liable for any damage caused by a vehicle launched from within its borders; hence, if customers start engaging in “launch forum shopping,” states will be incentivized to put in place low-cost liability regimes, which in turn will increase the states’ potential payout in the event of a catastrophic launch incident. Looking at the indemnification program the United States has in place in comparison to other countries, it is possible to see how either launch companies or launch customers could engage in “launch forum shopping” when a catastrophic launch incident ever occur. It is also important to keep in mind that various factors go into where a company or customer decides to launch from. A state’s indemnification program is just one factor in this decision. With this in mind, it is clear that if a launch incident did occur in the United States, the commercial launch company would be liable for much more than it would in another country. For instance, why would a commercial space company launch in the United States, where it would be liable up to $500 million and the additional costs that the government would not cover? The argument can be made that a catastrophic space incident has yet to occur, and even if it did, it is unlikely to cost above the $2.7 billion covered by the United States government. Other states like Russia or France, which has the two-tier liability system, would simply cover all claims above the initial insurance, which is much lower than the $500 million mark required by the United States. In that case, the commercial company would never have to pay more than the initial liability insurance. If there ever is a catastrophic commercial space incident in the future, it is easy to see why commercial companies or launch customers might be drawn to “launch forum shop” outside the United States. Maintaining US space dominance requires a homegrown commercial space industry – private companies offshoring gives China the advantage they need. Cahan and Sadat 21 (Bruce Cahan, J.D) (Dr. Mir Sadat, ) "US Space Policies for the New Space Age: Competing on the Final Economic Frontier," based on Proceedings from State of the Space Industrial Base 2020 Sponsored by United States Space Force, Defense Innovation Unit, United States Air Force Research Laboratory, 1/6/21, https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000177-9349-d713-a777-d7cfce4b0000 TDI Today, China’s commercial space sector is in its infancy but is set to grow with continued national and provincial support, which have been rapidly increasing over the past three years.64 Since 2004, the United States and China accounted for 74 of the $135.2 billion venture capital (VC) invested in commercial space. 65 The early 2020s are pivotal, as it would be far cheaper for China and Chinese commercial space firms to acquire space technologies from the United States or allied nation companies seeking revenues or facing cashflow constraints, than to build the companies and their teams and technologies from scratch in China. The tight coupling of Chinese military goals and an economy organized to achieve those goals magnifies the economic threats and market disruptions that the United States must immediately address, in order for DoD and national security operations to rely on US commercial space capabilities. 3. ISSUES AND CHALLENGES Peaceful Uses of Space and Space Exploration Space has been primarily a shared, not a warfighting, domain.67 With each passing second of Planck time,68 space enables a modern way of life, provides instantaneous global imagery, assures telecommunications, and captures humanity’s imagination for civil space exploration. As a result, space is a burgeoning marketplace and territory for commercial ventures and investors. Strengthening the US commercial space industrial base is vital to and beyond US national security. Civil space activities are a source of US “soft power” in global commerce, cooperation, and investment. 69 The civil space sector, led by NASA, is fundamental to America’s national security. 70 NASA is on an ambitious critical path to return to the Moon by 2024,71 along with developing the capabilities and infrastructure for a sustained lunar presence. NASA’s lunar plans provide a lunar staging area for missions to Mars and beyond. They offer a strategic and economic presence for the United States on the Moon. Congress, the White House, DoD, and NASA must recognize that economic and strategic dominance in service of national security requires catalyzing and accelerating growth of a vibrant, private US industrial and cultural expansion into the Solar System. Human visitation and eventual settlement beyond the Earth require sustaining visionary leaders, aided by, and aiding, US national security. A recurring theme in US policy is “maintaining and advancing United States dominance and strategic leadership in space” because US global competitors and adversaries are competent and capable of outpacing American space capabilities. 72 The stakes are high: At this historic moment, there is a real race for dominance over cislunar access and resources. Regulations Should Foster US Commercial Space as a National Asset Leveraging the reimagination and disruption of terrestrial industries, the US commercial space industry is pushing the frontiers of the United States and global space economics and capabilities. A pre-COVID19 assessment by the US Chamber of Commerce projected that the US space market will increase from approximately $385 billion in 2020, to at least $1.5 trillion by 2040. 73 This projection represents a seven percent (7) annual compound average growth rate (CAGR), driven largely by expanded business opportunities in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Total addressable market (TAM) for US commercial space companies could be far larger were they to have federal and financial support for initiating cislunar space operations and opportunities. Recent advancements in commercial space technologies and business models have driven down costs and unlocked new areas of economic growth and space capabilities that outpace and de-risk acquiring capabilities through traditional US government economic development, research and development (RandD), procurement and regulatory policies and processes. US regulations must ensure that US companies lead in commercial space. In specific, technological advances that lower access costs and expand space mission capabilities, content, continuity, and redundancies must be fully supported by or incorporated into US government programs, budgets, requirements, and acquisition processes. Until commercial space offerings are fully incorporated, and federal acquisition policies and personnel commit to innovation, US government fiscal buying power, intelligence and program support will lag and remain inadequate in comparison to US private sector companies and the nation’s global competitors and adversaries in space. Addressing COVID-19’s Impact on US Commercial Space The COVID-19 pandemic damaged and still challenges the US space industrial base. US domestic investors’ funding of space RandD remains inconsistent across the lifecycle of New Space companies and the spectrum of technologies necessary to grow the space economy. To date, public RandD, government procurements and visionary space entrepreneurs have played a major role in establishing and funding the New Space industrial base. In the last five years, $11 billion of private capital has been invested.74 Traditional private investors may become reluctant to fund space technologies due to perceptions of higher risk over longer time horizons before receiving profitable returns on their capital. Institutional and long-horizon investors who manage patient capital have an appetite for illiquid, but higher yielding, terrestrial alternative asset investments such as commodities, private equity limited partnerships and real estate.75 The COVID-19 pandemic has created economic uncertainties making the New Space’s funding model unreliable. COVID-19 significantly impacted venture capital (VC)-backed companies: the pace of VC space investments fell 85 between April - June, as compared to January – March, in 2020. 76 Pre-COVID-19, the New Space industrial base confronted multiple challenges in raising later stages of venture capital such as (1) the lag between having an early-stage startup with an idea and commercializing a viable revenue-generating product, (2) the lack of market liquidity for founder and private equity space investments to attract and retain talented teams, and (3) the lack of a market to re-sell contracts for space goods and services when customers buy more capacity than needed. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, federal financing of US RandD was at a historically minor level, as compared to businesses and universities.77 US government support for basic research has steadily declined as a percent of GDP. The federal government will experience near- to medium-term budget constraints.78 The vibrant venture community in the United States has taken up a portion of this slack by increasing RandD investment in later-stage and applied research. However, founding teams and VC financing rely on government to fund earlier RandD for basic science and engineering. Therefore, government must resume the sustainable and impactful past levels of support for basic research, an essential role in the space economy’s public-private partnership that ensures US leadership in space. Space as Existential Terrain for National Security In this Digital Era, space integrates and drives all elements of US national security. The Cold War may be over, but since the early 2010s, a renewed era of great power competition has emerged across terrestrial land, air, sea, and cyber domains. This competition extends into space, where a great game ensues.79 Space is no longer an uncontested or sanctuary domain. Competent and capable global competitors and peer adversaries are challenging US military, commercial, and civil space interests. The United States, along with its allies and partners, has had to accept and anticipate that space may be a warfighting domain, as suggested primarily by Russian and Chinese counter-space capabilities, military operations, and declarative statements. On December 20, 2019, the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 202080 authorized the creation of the US Space Force, under the Department of the Air Force, to secure US national interests in an increasingly contested domain.81 Back in October 1775, the Continental Congress established the US Navy to ensure that commercial and government fleets could freely navigate the Atlantic coastline - today, that includes the South China Sea. Likewise, the USSF’s mission is to ensure unfettered access to and the freedom to operate in space. The 2017 National Security Strategy considers space to be a “priority domain.”82 Freedom of navigation is a sovereign right that nations have fought to achieve and defend. 83 The USSF’s main role is to organize, train and equip, as well as to protecting US space interests and supporting terrestrial and joint warfighters (e.g., US Space Command). Thus, USSF must secure US national interests in space, whether military, commercial, scientific, civil, or enhancing US competitiveness for cislunar leadership. US space dominance prevents global war Zubrin 15 (Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Energy, a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy) “US Space Supremacy is Now Critical,” Space News, 1/22/15, https://spacenews.com/op-ed-u-s-space-supremacy-now-critical/ TDI The United States needs a new national security policy. For the first time in more than 60 years, we face the real possibility of a large-scale conventional war, and we are woefully unprepared. Eastern and Central Europe is now so weakly defended as to virtually invite invasion. The United States is not about to go to nuclear war to defend any foreign country. So deterrence is dead, and, with the German army cut from 12 divisions to three, the British gone from the continent, and American forces down to a 30,000-troop tankless remnant, the only serious and committed ground force that stands between Russia and the Rhine is the Polish army. It’s not enough. Meanwhile, in Asia, the powerful growth of the Chinese economy promises that nation eventual overwhelming numerical force superiority in the region. How can we restore the balance, creating a sufficiently powerful conventional force to deter aggression? It won’t be by matching potential adversaries tank for tank, division for division, replacement for replacement. Rather, the United States must seek to totally outgun them by obtaining a radical technological advantage. This can be done by achieving space supremacy. To grasp the importance of space power, some historical perspective is required. Wars are fought for control of territory. Yet for thousands of years, victory on land has frequently been determined by dominance at sea. In the 20th century, victory on both land and sea almost invariably went to the power that controlled the air. In the 21st century, victory on land, sea or in the air will go to the power that controls space. The critical military importance of space has been obscured by the fact that in the period since the United States has had space assets, all of our wars have been fought against minor powers that we could have defeated without them. Desert Storm has been called the first space war, because the allied forces made extensive use of GPS navigation satellites. However, if they had no such technology at their disposal, the end result would have been just the same. This has given some the impression that space forces are just a frill to real military power — a useful and convenient frill perhaps, but a frill nevertheless. But consider how history might have changed had the Axis of World War II possessed reconnaissance satellites — merely one of many of today’s space-based assets — without the Allies having a matching capability. In that case, the Battle of the Atlantic would have gone to the U-boats, as they would have had infallible intelligence on the location of every convoy. Cut off from oil and other supplies, Britain would have fallen. On the Eastern front, every Soviet tank concentration would have been spotted in advance and wiped out by German air power, as would any surviving British ships or tanks in the Mediterranean and North Africa. In the Pacific, the battle of Midway would have gone very much the other way, as the Japanese would not have wasted their first deadly airstrike on the unsinkable island, but sunk the American carriers instead. With these gone, the remaining cruisers and destroyers in Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher’s fleet would have lacked air cover, and every one of them would have been hunted down and sunk by unopposed and omniscient Japanese air power. With the same certain fate awaiting any American ships that dared venture forth from the West Coast, Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand would then have fallen, and eventually China and India as well. With a monopoly of just one element of space power, the Axis would have won the war. But modern space power involves far more than just reconnaissance satellites. The use of space-based GPS can endow munitions with 100 times greater accuracy, while space-based communications provide an unmatched capability of command and control of forces. Knock out the enemy’s reconnaissance satellites and he is effectively blind. Knock out his comsats and he is deaf. Knock out his navsats and he loses his aim. In any serious future conventional conflict, even between opponents as mismatched as Japan was against the United States — or Poland (with 1,000 tanks) is currently against Russia (with 12,000) — it is space power that will prove decisive. Not only Europe, but the defense of the entire free world hangs upon this matter. For the past 70 years, U.S. Navy carrier task forces have controlled the world’s oceans, first making and then keeping the Pax Americana, which has done so much to secure and advance the human condition over the postwar period. But should there ever be another major conflict, an adversary possessing the ability to locate and target those carriers from space would be able to wipe them out with the push of a button. For this reason, it is imperative that the United States possess space capabilities that are so robust as to not only assure our own ability to operate in and through space, but also be able to comprehensively deny it to others. Space superiority means having better space assets than an opponent. Space supremacy means being able to assert a complete monopoly of such capabilities. The latter is what we must have. If the United States can gain space supremacy, then the capability of any American ally can be multiplied by orders of magnitude, and with the support of the similarly multiplied striking power of our own land- and sea-based air and missile forces be made so formidable as to render any conventional attack unthinkable. On the other hand, should we fail to do so, we will remain so vulnerable as to increasingly invite aggression by ever-more-emboldened revanchist powers. This battle for space supremacy is one we can win. Neither Russia nor China, nor any other potential adversary, can match us in this area if we put our minds to it. We can and must develop ever-more-advanced satellite systems, anti-satellite systems and truly robust space launch and logistics capabilities. Then the next time an aggressor commits an act of war against the United States or a country we are pledged to defend, instead of impotently threatening to limit his tourist visas, we can respond by taking out his satellites, effectively informing him in advance the certainty of defeat should he persist. If we desire peace on Earth, we need to prepare for war in space.
4/27/22
JF - DA - Manchin Politics
Tournament: National Debate Coachs Association | Round: 6 | Opponent: Apple Valley KW | Judge: Joseph Barquin Updated reconciliation bill passes now – new Manchin agenda funds climate fully, gets Sinema on board, and progressives give in because of midterms pressure Everett and Wu 3/2 Burgess Everett - co-congressional bureau chief for POLITICO, specializing in the Senate since 2013, Nicholas Wu - congressional reporter at POLITICO, “Dems agonize over Manchin's wish list: Taxes, prescription drugs, climate cash”, 03-02-2022, Politico, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/02/joe-manchin-democrat-bill-taxes-00013246//pranav Joe Manchin is once again setting the agenda for Democrats and says he’s willing to make a deal. They’re listening — cautiously. Hours after President Joe Biden laid out what he hoped to salvage from Democrats’ defunct “Build Back Better” social spending plan, Joe Manchin quickly assembled a counteroffer. It might amount to deja vu for Democrats, many of whom still feel burned from last year’s debacle, yet many in the party are willing to entertain any shot they have to unify while they still have control of Congress. “Here’s the thing. I’ve always been open to talking to people okay? But they just don’t want to hear,” Manchin said in a Wednesday interview. The West Virginia centrist laid out a basic party-line package that could win his vote in the interview, to lower the deficit and enact some new programs — provided they are permanently funded. It may be Democrats’ best and last chance to get at least some of their major domestic priorities done before the midterm election, even as some leading liberals acknowledged any potential deal would not come close to the $1.7 trillion package Manchin spurned in December. Manchin said that if Democrats want to cut a deal on a party-line bill using the budget process to circumvent a Republican filibuster, they need to start with prescription drug savings and tax reform. He envisions whatever revenue they can wring out of that as split evenly between reducing the federal deficit and inflation, on the one hand, and enacting new climate and social programs, on the other — “to the point where it’s sustainable.” “If you do that, the revenue producing measures would be taxes and drugs. The spending is going to be climate,” Manchin said. “And the social issues, we basically have to deal with those” with any money that’s left, he added. As far as whether he thinks his party finally understands his parameters for joining the talks, he said that Democrats “know where I am. They just basically think that I’m going to change.” Negotiating with Manchin isn’t exactly Democrats’ favorite topic after nearly a year of back and forth. Asked about whether he can envision a passable deal, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) responded: “I was hoping you would were going to, like, ask me to expound about Ukraine.” “I’ve got a lot of respect for him. And hope springs eternal,” Warner said. The two are often aligned in centrist deal-making groups. Manchin, who also chairs the Senate Energy Committee, said that the climate portion of any theoretical bill will look different now that Russia is invading Ukraine. He’s calling for the U.S. to ban oil imports from Russia and ramp up domestic energy production, including fossil fuels. He would support big clean energy investments in a potential deal, he said, but wants domestic oil, gas and coal production to still be a big part of the mix. “You want to be able to defend your people, have reliable, dependable and affordable power? You have to use ‘all of the above,’” Manchin said, defending his support for clean energy investments. “They say ‘Manchin doesn’t care … he’s killing the environment.’ I’m not killing anything.” Though he prefers everything in Congress to be bipartisan, Manchin said he has “come to that conclusion” that changing the tax code to make the rich and corporations pay their fair share can only be done with Democratic votes. To enact Manchin’s vision, Democrats would also have to bargain with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) who last year steered the party toward surtaxes and corporate minimum taxes — and away from raising individual and corporate tax rates. Sinema said Wednesday that the tax package negotiated last year, which shied away from raising those rates, would more than pay for what Manchin is talking about. “Any new, narrow proposal — including deficit reduction — already has enough tax reform options to pay for it. These reforms are supported by the White House, target tax avoidance, and ensure corporations pay taxes, while not increasing costs on small businesses or everyday Americans already hurting from inflation,” said Hannah Hurley, a spokesperson for Sinema. Progressives might take a while to warm to it. Asked about Manchin’s hopes of diverting new revenues to deficit reduction and inflation, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) griped: “I don’t care what he wants. We’re talking about what the American people want. He doesn’t like it, he can vote against it, that’s his business.” And Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) scoffed, saying it would not satisfy many of the House’s frustrated liberals. She seemed more interested in still trying to change Manchin’s mind on the expanded child tax credit and other domestic programs than in accepting his blueprint. “I would hope he would reconsider, and realize how many people are being left behind,” Lee said. “We’ve got to keep going and try to get everything that we can get.” Despite some lawmakers’ aggravation with Manchin, other progressives were willing to entertain just about whatever they could get through with only 50 Senate Democrats and a slim House majority. After all, the midterms are now eight months away; recreating the momentum to put a big bill on the floor may take months. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) put it this way: “There’s so much that we all agree on, that we ought to be able to get a deal.” And Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), the deputy chair of the Progressive Caucus, said she’s “open” to Manchin’s energy proposal provided “it’s paired with a real meaningful commitment, and actual movement.” Private space exploration has united democratic support – the plan causes backlash – SPACE act proves Smith ’18 Lamar, American politician and lobbyist who served in the United States House of Representatives for Texas's 21st congressional district for 16 terms, a district including most of the wealthier sections of San Antonio and Austin, as well as some of the Texas Hill Country, “Lamar Smith: Space commercialization is the future”, Austin-American Statesman, https://amp.statesman.com/amp/10154753007//pranav As part of Innovation Week in the House of Representatives, I joined House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in passing the Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Act of 2015, or SPACE Act. Almost 50 Democrats joined Republicans in easily passing our bill with broad bipartisan support. This legislation gives space companies the stability and certainty they need to operate successfully, safely and competitively in a global market. It’s one of several bills the Science Committee I chair has produced this year to support our nation’s leadership in space. Space commercialization is the future of space. The SPACE Act encourages private sector companies to launch rockets, take risks and shoot for the heavens. We live in exciting times. In addition to the work being done at NASA Johnson Space Center, this new generation of private space companies is making its mark on the Lone Star State. SpaceX, which is building a launch facility near Brownsville, is working in partnership with NASA to once more launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil. And Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin just completed its first successful test of its New Shepard vehicle in West Texas. XCOR Aerospace, whose development and manufacturing operations are located in Midland, is currently putting the finishing touches on its Lynx vehicle that will take civilians on 30-minute rides into suborbital space. These are just a few of the Texas success stories that the American commercial space industry is making possible. Many more companies across the country are launching satellites that support our technology economy, developing rocket engines and designing new vehicles for space transport and travel. The best is yet to come — but only if we support our American space partners. Other countries like China and India are aggressively expanding their space programs and we risk losing the space leadership we’ve had for more than 50 years. Private space companies are working to end our reliance on Russia. We currently pay $70 million per seat per flight for Russia to take our astronauts to the International Space Station. Manchin’s climate proposal is still a massive investment – their ev underestimates it. Davenport ‘21 Coral, covers energy and environmental policy, with a focus on climate change, from The Times's Washington bureau, “This Powerful Democrat Linked to Fossil Fuels Will Craft the U.S. Climate Plan”, 09-19-2021 (UPDATED ON 10/08/2021), New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/climate/manchin-climate-biden.html//pranav “There is no question that climate change is real or that human activities are driving much of it,” he co-wrote in a 2019 opinion article in the Washington Post with Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. But Mr. Manchin has also made clear that he does not support legislation that would eliminate the burning of those fossil fuels — particularly coal and natural gas. Now, Mr. Manchin is preparing to write the climate portion of the budget bill in a way that would keep natural gas flowing to power plants, according to people familiar with his thinking. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss it. Mr. Manchin does support some climate measures proposed by Mr. Biden, but is working to ensure they protect and extend the use of coal and natural gas. He agrees with the president that communities dependent on fossil fuels deserve financial support as the country transitions to green energy. And he is a booster of carbon capture sequestration, a nascent technology that collects carbon emissions from smokestacks and buries them in the ground. If it were to become commercially viable, that technology could allow industries to continue to burn coal, oil and gas. But the most powerful climate mechanism in the budget bill — and the one that Mr. Manchin intends to reshape — is a $150 billion program designed to replace most of the nation’s coal- and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear power over the next decade. Known as the Clean Electricity Performance Program, it would pay utilities to ratchet up the amount of power they produce from zero-emissions sources, and fine those that don’t. As envisioned by the White House and House Democrats, the carrot-and-stick approach could transform the nation’s electricity sector, the second-largest source of greenhouse pollution after transportation. The policy is crucial to Mr. Biden’s goal of producing 80 percent of electricity from zero-carbon sources by 2030 and 100 percent clean electricity by 2035, analysts say. It could also help lower pollution from automobiles since electric cars and trucks would be drawing power from a grid powered by clean energy. Fossil fuel lobbyists, utility executives and West Virginia business leaders have been meeting, calling and emailing Mr. Manchin and his staff in an effort to shape the bill. Several said in recent interviews that they expect that Mr. Manchin’s plan will reward companies that increase their supply of clean energy — but the incentives will be smaller and require less. Under the version supported by the White House and House Democrats, companies would qualify for payments if they increase the amount of clean electricity they supply to customers by 4 percent a year through 2030. Mr. Manchin is likely to lower that requirement to 3 percent a year or less, said two people familiar with the matter. That would still be an improvement over business as usual: American electric utilities increased their use of zero-carbon power sources by roughly 1.4 percentage points a year over the last five years. That use increased about 2.3 percentage points in 2020. “While this will fall far short of what President Biden wants, it could still be the largest action Congress has ever taken on climate change,” Mr. Aldy, the former Obama climate adviser, said. Warming causes extinction and turns every impact – no adaptation and each degree is worse Krosofsky ’21 Andrew, Green Matters Journalist, “How Global Warming May Eventually Lead to Global Extinction”, Green Matters, 03-11-2021, https://www.greenmatters.com/p/will-global-warming-cause-extinction//pranav C/A the krosofsky 21 evidence from the pic
4/27/22
JF - DA - Mega constellations
Tournament: National Debate Coachs Association | Round: 4 | Opponent: Strake DA | Judge: Madeleine Conrad-Mogin SpaceX megaconstellations are private appropriation of orbits. Christopher D. Johnson 20 summarizes C. D. Johnson Secure World Foundation, Washington, DC, USA "The legal status of megaleo constellations and concerns about appropriation of large swaths of earth orbit." Handbook of small satellites: Technology, design, manufacture, applications, economics and regulation (2020): 1-22. Note: the author presents arguments for and against megaconstellations violating the non-appropriation principle without endorsing either conclusion Yes, This Is Impermissible Appropriation Article II of the Outer Space Treaty, discussed above, is clear on the point that the appropriation of outer space, including the appropriation of either void space or of celestial bodies, is an impermissible and prohibited action under international law. No means or methods of possession of outer space will legitimize the appropriation or ownership of outer space, or subsections thereof. Excludes Others The constellations above, because they seem to so overwhelmingly possess particular orbits through the use of multiple satellites to occupy orbital planes, and in a manner that precludes other actors from using those exact planes, constitute an appropriation of those orbits. While the access to outer space is nonrivalrous – in the sense that anyone with the technological capacity to launch space objects can therefore explore space – it is also true that orbits closer to Earth are unique, and when any actor utilizes that orbit to such an extent to these proposed constellations will, it means that other actors simply cannot go there. To allow SpaceX, for example, to so overwhelmingly occupy a number of altitudes with so many of their spacecraft, essentially means that SpaceX will henceforth be the sole owner and user of that orbit (at least until their satellites are removed). No other actors can realistically expect to operate there until that time. No other operator would dare run the risk of possible collision with so many other spacecraft in that orbit. Consequently, the sole occupant will be SpaceX, and if “possession is 9/10th of the law,” then SpaceX appears to be the owner of that orbit. Done Without Coordination Additionally, SpaceX and other operators of megaconstellations are doing so without any real international conversation or agreement, which is especially egregious and transgressive of the norms of outer space. Compared to the regime for GSO, as administered by the ITU and national frequency administrators, Low Earth Orbit is essentially ungoverned, and SpaceX and others are attempting to seize this lack of authority to claim entire portions of LEO for itself; and before any international agreement, consensus, or even discussion is had. They are operating on a purely “first come, first served” basis that smacks of unilateralism, if not colonialism. Governments Are Ultimately Implicated As we know, under international space law, what a nongovernmental entity does, a State is responsible for. Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty requires that at least one State authorize and supervise its nongovernmental entities and assure their continuing compliance with international law. As such, the prohibition on nonappropriation imposed upon States under Article II of the Outer Space Treaty applies equally to nongovernmental private entities such as SpaceX. Nevertheless, through the launching and bringing into use of the Starlink constellation, SpaceX will be the sole occupant, and thereby, possessor, both fact and in law, of 550 km, 1100 km, 1130 km, 1275 km, and 1325 km above our planet (or whatever orbits they finally come to occupy). The same is true for the other operators of these large constellations which will be solely occupying entire orbits. Long-Term Occupation Constitutes Appropriation These altitudes are additionally significant, as nonfunctional spacecraft in orbits lower than around 500 km will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere in months or a few years, but the altitudes selected for the Starlink constellation, while technologically desirable for their purposes, also mean that any spacecraft which are not de-orbited from these regions may be there for decades, or possibly even hundreds of years. By comparison, the granting of rights for orbital slots at GSO is in 15-year increments, a length of time much less than what the altitudes of the megaconstellations threaten. Such long spans of time at these altitudes by these megaconstellations further bolster the contention that this occupation rises to the level of appropriation of these orbits. Internet access checks multiple existential threats Eagleman ’10 Dr. David; 11/9/2010; PhD in Neuroscience @ Baylor University, Adjunct Professor of Neoroscience @ Stanford University, Former Guggenheim Fellow, Director of the Center for Science and Law, BA @ Rice University; “Six Ways The Internet Will Save Civilization”; https://www.wired.co.uk/article/apocalypse-no Many great civilisations have fallen, leaving nothing but cracked ruins and scattered genetics. Usually this results from: natural disasters, resource depletion, economic meltdown, disease, poor information flow and corruption. But we’re luckier than our predecessors because we command a technology that no one else possessed: a rapid communication network that finds its highest expression in the internet. I propose that there are six ways in which the net has vastly reduced the threat of societal collapse. Epidemics can be deflected by telepresence One of our more dire prospects for collapse is an infectious-disease epidemic. Viral and bacterial epidemics precipitated the fall of the Golden Age of Athens, the Roman Empire and most of the empires of the Native Americans. The internet can be our key to survival because the ability to work telepresently can inhibit microbial transmission by reducing human-to-human contact. In the face of an otherwise devastating epidemic, businesses can keep supply chains running with the maximum number of employees working from home. This can reduce host density below the tipping point required for an epidemic. If we are well prepared when an epidemic arrives, we can fluidly shift into a self-quarantined society in which microbes fail due to host scarcity. Whatever the social ills of isolation, they are worse for the microbes than for us. The internet will predict natural disasters We are witnessing the downfall of slow central control in the media: news stories are increasingly becoming user-generated nets of up-to-the-minute information. During the recent California wildfires, locals went to the TV stations to learn whether their neighbourhoods were in danger. But the news stations appeared most concerned with the fate of celebrity mansions, so Californians changed their tack: they uploaded geotagged mobile-phone pictures, updated Facebook statuses and tweeted. The balance tipped: the internet carried news about the fire more quickly and accurately than any news station could. In this grass-roots, decentralised scheme, there were embedded reporters on every block, and the news shockwave kept ahead of the fire. This head start could provide the extra hours that save us. If the Pompeiians had had the internet in 79AD, they could have easily marched 10km to safety, well ahead of the pyroclastic flow from Mount Vesuvius. If the Indian Ocean had the Pacific’s networked tsunami-warning system, South-East Asia would look quite different today. Discoveries are retained and shared Historically, critical information has required constant rediscovery. Collections of learning -- from the library at Alexandria to the entire Minoan civilisation -- have fallen to the bonfires of invaders or the wrecking ball of natural disaster. Knowledge is hard won but easily lost. And information that survives often does not spread. Consider smallpox inoculation: this was under way in India, China and Africa centuries before it made its way to Europe. By the time the idea reached North America, native civilisations who needed it had already collapsed. The net solved the problem. New discoveries catch on immediately; information spreads widely. In this way, societies can optimally ratchet up, using the latest bricks of knowledge in their fortification against risk. Tyranny is mitigated Censorship of ideas was a familiar spectre in the last century, with state-approved news outlets ruling the press, airwaves and copying machines in the USSR, Romania, Cuba, China, Iraq and elsewhere. In many cases, such as Lysenko’s agricultural despotism in the USSR, it directly contributed to the collapse of the nation. Historically, a more successful strategy has been to confront free speech with free speech -- and the internet allows this in a natural way. It democratises the flow of information by offering access to the newspapers of the world, the photographers of every nation, the bloggers of every political stripe. Some posts are full of doctoring and dishonesty whereas others strive for independence and impartiality -- but all are available to us to sift through. Given the attempts by some governments to build firewalls, it’s clear that this benefit of the net requires constant vigilance. Human capital is vastly increased Crowdsourcing brings people together to solve problems. Yet far fewer than one per cent of the world’s population is involved. We need expand human capital. Most of the world not have access to the education afforded a small minority. For every Albert Einstein, Yo-Yo Ma or Barack Obama who has educational opportunities, uncountable others do not. This squandering of talent translates into reduced economic output and a smaller pool of problem solvers. The net opens the gates education to anyone with a computer. A motivated teen anywhere on the planet can walk through the world’s knowledge -- from the webs of Wikipedia to the curriculum of MIT’s OpenCourseWare. The new human capital will serve us well when we confront existential threats we’ve never imagined before. Energy expenditure is reduced Societal collapse can often be understood in terms of an energy budget: when energy spend outweighs energy return, collapse ensues. This has taken the form of deforestation or soil erosion; currently, the worry involves fossil-fuel depletion. The internet addresses the energy problem with a natural ease. Consider the massive energy savings inherent in the shift from paper to electrons -- as seen in the transition from the post to email. Ecommerce reduces the need to drive long distances to purchase products. Delivery trucks are more eco-friendly than individuals driving around, not least because of tight packaging and optimisation algorithms for driving routes. Of course, there are energy costs to the banks of computers that underpin the internet -- but these costs are less than the wood, coal and oil that would be expended for the same quantity of information flow. The tangle of events that triggers societal collapse can be complex, and there are several threats the net does not address. But vast, networked communication can be an antidote to several of the most deadly diseases threatening civilisation. The next time your coworker laments internet addiction, the banality of tweeting or the decline of face-to-face conversation, you may want to suggest that the net may just be the technology that saves us.
4/27/22
JF - DA - Mining
Tournament: Coppell Classic Swing | Round: 2 | Opponent: Grapevine KB | Judge: Lei Huang Private companies are set to mine in space – new tech and profit motives make space lucrative Gilbert 21, (Alex Gilbert is a complex systems researcher and PhD student in Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines, “Mining in Space is Coming”), 4-26-21, Milken Institute Review, https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/mining-in-space-is-coming MNHS NL Space exploration is back. after decades of disappointment, a combination of better technology, falling costs and a rush of competitive energy from the private sector has put space travel front and center. indeed, many analysts (even some with their feet on the ground) believe that commercial developments in the space industry may be on the cusp of starting the largest resource rush in history: mining on the Moon, Mars and asteroids. While this may sound fantastical, some baby steps toward the goal have already been taken. Last year, NASA awarded contracts to four companies to extract small amounts of lunar regolith by 2024, effectively beginning the era of commercial space mining. Whether this proves to be the dawn of a gigantic adjunct to mining on earth — and more immediately, a key to unlocking cost-effective space travel — will turn on the answers to a host of questions ranging from what resources can be efficiently. As every fan of science fiction knows, the resources of the solar system appear virtually unlimited compared to those on Earth. There are whole other planets, dozens of moons, thousands of massive asteroids and millions of small ones that doubtless contain humungous quantities of materials that are scarce and very valuable (back on Earth). Visionaries including Jeff Bezos imagine heavy industry moving to space and Earth becoming a residential area. However, as entrepreneurs look to harness the riches beyond the atmosphere, access to space resources remains tangled in the realities of economics and governance. Start with the fact that space belongs to no country, complicating traditional methods of resource allocation, property rights and trade. With limited demand for materials in space itself and the need for huge amounts of energy to return materials to Earth, creating a viable industry will turn on major advances in technology, finance and business models. That said, there’s no grass growing under potential pioneers’ feet. Potential economic, scientific and even security benefits underlie an emerging geopolitical competition to pursue space mining. The United States is rapidly emerging as a front-runner, in part due to its ambitious Artemis Program to lead a multinational consortium back to the Moon. But it is also a leader in creating a legal infrastructure for mineral exploitation. The United States has adopted the world’s first spaceresources law, recognizing the property rights of private companies and individuals to materials gathered in space. However, the United States is hardly alone. Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates (you read those right) are racing to codify space-resources laws of their own, hoping to attract investment to their entrepot nations with business-friendly legal frameworks. China reportedly views space-resource development as a national priority, part of a strategy to challenge U.S. economic and security primacy in space. Meanwhile, Russia, Japan, India and the European Space Agency all harbor space-mining ambitions of their own. Governing these emerging interests is an outdated treaty framework from the Cold War. Sooner rather than later, we’ll need new agreements to facilitate private investment and ensure international cooperation. Back up for a moment. For the record, space is already being heavily exploited, because space resources include non-material assets such as orbital locations and abundant sunlight that enable satellites to provide services to Earth. Indeed, satellite-based telecommunications and global positioning systems have become indispensable infrastructure underpinning the modern economy. Mining space for materials, of course, is another matter. In the past several decades, planetary science has confirmed what has long been suspected: celestial bodies are potential sources for dozens of natural materials that, in the right time and place, are incredibly valuable. Of these, water may be the most attractive in the near-term, because — with assistance from solar energy or nuclear fission — H2O can be split into hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket propellant, facilitating in-space refueling. So-called “rare earth” metals are also potential targets of asteroid miners intending to service Earth markets. Consisting of 17 elements, including lanthanum, neodymium, and yttrium, these critical materials (most of which are today mined in China at great environmental cost) are required for electronics. And they loom as bottlenecks in making the transition from fossil fuels to renewables backed up by battery storage. The Moon is a prime space mining target. Boosted by NASA’s mining solicitation, it is likely the first location for commercial mining. The Moon has several advantages. It is relatively close, requiring a journey of only several days by rocket and creating communication lags of only a couple seconds — a delay small enough to allow remote operation of robots from Earth. Its low gravity implies that relatively little energy expenditure will be needed to deliver mined resources to Earth orbit. The Moon may look parched — and by comparison to Earth, it is. But recent probes have confirmed substantial amounts of water ice lurking in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles. Further, it seems that solar winds have implanted significant deposits of helium-3 (a light stable isotope of helium) across the equatorial regions of the Moon. Helium-3 is a potential fuel source for second and third-generation fusion reactors that one hopes will be in service later in the century. The isotope is packed with energy (admittedly hard to unleash in a controlled manner) that might augment sunlight as a source of clean, safe energy on Earth or to power fast spaceships in this century. Between its water and helium-3 deposits, the Moon could be the resource stepping-stone for further solar system exploration. Asteroids are another near-term mining target. There are all sorts of space rocks hurtling through the solar system, with varying amounts of water, rare earth metals and other materials on board. The asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter contains most of them, many of which are greater than a kilometer in diameter. Although the potential water and mineral wealth of the asteroid belt is vast, the long distance from Earth and requisite travel times and energy consumption rule them out as targets in the near term. The prospects for space mining are being driven by technological advances across the space industry. The rise of reusable rocket components and the now-widespread use of off-the-shelf parts are lowering both launch and operations costs. Once limited to government contract missions and the delivery of telecom satellites to orbit, private firms are now emerging as leaders in developing “NewSpace” activities — a catch-all term for endeavors including orbital tourism, orbital manufacturing and mini-satellites providing specialized services. The space sector, with a market capitalization of $400 billion, could grow to as much as $1 trillion by 2040 as private investment soars.
OST defines appropriation as occupation, use, or any other means – the aff definitely links Mallick and Rajagopalan 19, (Senjuti Mallick graduated from ILS Law College, Pune, in 2016. She was a Law Researcher at the High Court of Delhi from 2016 to 2018 and is currently pursuing LL.M in International Law at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, USA. She has been doing research on Outer Space Law since she was a student at ILS. Presently, she is working on different aspects of Space Law, in particular, Space debris mitigation and removal, and the law of the commons. She has published articles on Space Law in the All India Reporter Law Journal and The Hindu. Dr Rajeswari (Raji) Pillai Rajagopalan is the Director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology (CSST) at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. Dr Rajagopalan was the Technical Advisor to the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Prevention of Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) (July 2018-July 2019). She was also a Non-Resident Indo-Pacific Fellow at the Perth USAsia Centre from April-December 2020. As a senior Asia defence writer for The Diplomat, she writes a weekly column on Asian strategic issues. Dr Rajagopalan joined ORF after a five-year stint at the National Security Council Secretariat (2003-2007), Government of India, where she was an Assistant Director. Prior to joining the NSCS, she was Research Officer at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. She was also a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute of International Politics, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan in 2012, “If Space is the ‘province of mankind’, who owns its resources?”), 1-24-19, Observer Research Foundation, https://www.orfonline.org/research/if-space-is-the-province-of-mankind-who-owns-its-resources-47561/ MNHS NL
Based on the premise of ‘res communis’, the magna carta of space law, the OST, illustrates outer space as “the province of all mankind”.l Under Article I, States are free to explore and use outer space and to access all celestial bodies “on the basis of equality and in accordance with international law.”li Although the OST does not explicitly mention “mining” activities, under Article II, outer space including the Moon and other celestial bodies are “not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty” through use, occupation or any other means.lii Furthermore, the Moon Agreement, 1979, not only defines outer space as “common heritage of mankind” but also proscribes commercial exploitation of planets and asteroids by States unless an international regime is established to govern such activities for “rational management,” “equitable sharing” and “expansion of opportunities” in the use of these resources.liii
Private companies are key to space success Ferholz 21, (Tim Ferholz covers space, the economy, and geopolitics for Quartz. He is the author of “Rock Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race, “NASA Has Always Needed Private Companies To Go To The Moon”), 6-24-21, Quartz, https://qz.com/2024339/nasa-has-always-needed-private-space-companies-to-go-to-the-moon/ MNHS NL “We got to the Moon without private contractors, if I’m not mistaken,” US rep. Jamaal Bowman said yesterday, leading me to collapse in a frothing heap. NASA administrator Bill Nelson had a calmer response: “In the Apollo program, Mr. Congressman, we got to the Moon with American corporations.” A dozen major US companies worked closely with the US space agency to build the vehicles that took the first humans to the lunar surface. NASA scientists and engineers planned the mission and the technology needed to accomplish it, then worked with the most advanced tech firms of the day to produce rockets, capsules, landers, suits, and rovers. There’s no doubt Apollo was a big government program, but the private sector was essential. Why does this history matter? In the last decade, the US space program has made major leaps by handing more work directly to private firms. Rather than designing a new space vehicle to carry cargo or astronauts to the International Space Station and hiring someone to build it, NASA effectively told its needs to the marketplace, and accepted proposals from companies that would not only design the spacecraft, but operate them as a service. This choice launched SpaceX and a new era of private sector space in the US. The logic of this kind of partnership rests on several factors: These are tasks that have been done before, paving the way for new organizations to take them on more easily. Private firms are now willing to invest their own capital alongside the government, saving public money. They can take more risk, and use more advanced program management techniques than government-run programs. And they seem to result in more accountability for taxpayers when things go wrong: NASA shoulders the extra cost for Boeing’s long-delayed and over-budget SLS rocket, a traditional program; the same company is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to re-test its Starliner spacecraft, bought through a public-private partnership. As the US plans its return to the Moon, a debate is emerging about the role of private firms. NASA has hired them to do everything from sending robots on the lunar surface to developing the landers that will carry humans there. In the House, lawmakers like science committee chair Eddie Bernice Johnson are skeptical that companies can take on these tasks. This isn’t a crazy worry: Landing on another astronomical body is a greater challenge than flying to low-earth orbit, and there are far fewer obvious non-government customers in the lunar transit market. For now, NASA has hired Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build lunar landers. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is challenging the government’s choice, delaying the whole program until at least August. The corporate tussle, and the two companies’ decision to market themselves as personal projects of their controversial billionaire founders, have led opponents to portray NASA’s partnerships as corporate handouts. But make no mistake: The alternative is still money for corporations—likely much more, and with fewer strings attached.
Squo private companies are willing to invest, but the plan crosses a perception barrier which destroys investment Shaw 13 - Lauren E, J.D. from Chapman University School of Law, ”Asteroids, the New Western Frontier: Applying Principles of the General Mining Law of 1872 to Incentive Asteroid Mining”, JOURNAL OF AIR LAW AND COMMERCE, Volume 78, Issue 1, Article 2, https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1307andcontext=jalc recut MNHS NL To some, the mining of asteroids might sound like the premise of a science fiction novel' or the solution to the heartwrenching, fictional scenario depicted in the film Armageddon.2 To others, it evokes a fantastical idea that may come to fruition in a distant reality. However, impressively funded companies have plans to send spacecraft to begin prospecting on asteroids within the next two years.' The issues associated with the mining of asteroids should be addressed before these plans are set in motion. Much has been written about the issues that might arise from allowing nations to own these space bodies and the minerals they contain; one such issue is the impact on international treaties.4 However, little has been written about the applicability of preexisting mining laws-which provide a basic property right scheme for the private sector-such as the General Mining Law of 1872 (Mining Law) to the management of asteroid mining.' The literature to date on how to legally address asteroid mining is minimal.' The articles that do address it propose the creation of different systems, such as a "property rights-based system that relies on the doctrine of first possession"7 or an international authority that would regulate mining operations.' Implementing a scheme that offers ownership of extracted resources without bestowing complete sovereignty is necessary to avoid an impending legal limbo-that is, an outer space "Wild West" equivalent where there is neither certainty nor security in who owns what.9 If private sector miners of asteroids know this right already exists, they will have more incentive to extract resources.' 0 This, in turn, would increase the chances of successful missions, resulting in numerous scientific and explorative benefits, along with the potential replenishment of key elements that are becoming increasingly depleted on Earth yet are still needed for modern industry. Scientists speculate that key elements needed for modern industry, including platinum, zinc, copper, phosphorus, lead, gold, and indium, could become depleted on Earth within the next fifty to sixty years." Many of these metals, such as platinum, are chemical elements that, unlike oil or diamonds, have no synthetic alternative.12 Once the reserves on Earth are mined to complete depletion, industries will be forced to recycle the existing supply of minerals, which will result in increased costs due to increased scarcity.' 3 However, evidence is accumulating that asteroids only a few hundred thousand miles away from Earth may be composed of an abundance of natural resources-including many of the minerals being mined to depletion on Earth-that could lead to vast profits." Most of the minerals being mined on Earth, including gold, iron, platinum, and palladium, originally came from the many asteroids that hit the Earth after the crust cooled during the planet's formation.'
Going to net zero means that more mining is needed. Experts have said that the current supply cannot support the necessary metals demand for the green transition. As a result, new mining alternatives have gained greater relevance, among them is space mining. Several countries, including Mexico, have shown their interest in this alternative, creating a new space race. “The solar system can support a billion times greater industry than we have on Earth. When you go to vastly larger scales of civilization, beyond the scale that a planet can support, then the types of things that civilization can do are incomprehensible to us … We would be able to promote healthy societies all over the world at the same time that we would be reducing the environmental burden on the Earth,” said Dr. Phil Metzger, Planetary Scientist at the University of Central Florida. Currently, there are several attempts to address global warming and transition to a net zero carbon economy. There has been an increasing interest in renewable energy and infrastructure, which has increased demand for various minerals, especially lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper and rare earth elements. However, according to experts, the world is close to entering a metals supercycle, where demand will exceed available supply, causing prices to skyrocket. Consequently, the mining industry has sought alternatives to achieve the required supply. Options include recycling and improved mine waste management, sea mining and space mining. The latter is considered one of the alternatives with the greatest potential. However, a regulatory framework is still lacking and there is almost no experience in this regard. Despite the lack of knowledge regarding space mining, it has become a very attractive option since the planet is running out of resources. While some people believe that land-based mining is cheaper than space mining, experts believe this may change in the long term. Furthermore, within the solar system there are countless bodies rich in minerals, ores and elements that will accelerate the fight against climate change. “There will come a point when there is nothing left to mine on the surface, prompting mines to reach even further below. But even those resources are destined to run out and so we will aim toward ocean mining, which already has specific technologies that are being developed. Nevertheless, even those mines are limited as well. The mine of the future, which today may seem unlikely, will no longer be on our planet. There will be a time when space mining will be as common as an open leach mine,” Eder Lugo, Minerals Head at Siemens, told MBN. More than 150 million asteroids measuring approximately 100m are believed to be in the inner solar system alone. In addition, astronomers have also identified abundant minerals near the Earth’s space and the Main Asteroid Belt. There are three main groups into which asteroids are divided: C- type, S- type, and M- type. The last two groups are the most abundant in minerals such as gold, platinum, cobalt, zinc, tin, lead, indium, silver, copper and rare earth metals. "Energy is limited here. Within just a few hundred years, you will have to cover all of the landmass of Earth in solar cells. So, what are you going to do? Well, what I think you are going to do is you are going to move out in space … all of our heavy industry will be moved off-planet and Earth will be zoned residential and light-industrial,” said Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon and the Space Launch Provider Blue Origin. Anthropogenic warming causes extinction -~-- mitigation efforts now are key Griffin, 2015 (David, Professor of Philosophy at Claremont, “The climate is ruined. So can civilization even survive?”, CNN, 4/14/2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/14/opinion/co2-crisis-griffin/ ) Although most of us worry about other things, climate scientists have become increasingly worried about the survival of civilization. For example, Lonnie Thompson, who received the U.S. National Medal of Science in 2010, said that virtually all climatologists "are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization." Informed journalists share this concern. The climate crisis "threatens the survival of our civilization," said Pulitzer Prize-winner Ross Gelbspan. Mark Hertsgaard agrees, saying that the continuation of global warming "would create planetary conditions all but certain to end civilization as we know it." These scientists and journalists, moreover, are worried not only about the distant future but about the condition of the planet for their own children and grandchildren. James Hansen, often considered the world's leading climate scientist, entitled his book "Storms of My Grandchildren." The threat to civilization comes primarily from the increase of the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, due largely to the burning of fossil fuels. Before the rise of the industrial age, CO2 constituted only 275 ppm (parts per million) of the atmosphere. But it is now above 400 and rising about 2.5 ppm per year. Because of the CO2 increase, the planet's average temperature has increased 0.85 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Although this increase may not seem much, it has already brought about serious changes. The idea that we will be safe from "dangerous climate change" if we do not exceed a temperature rise of 2C (3.6F) has been widely accepted. But many informed people have rejected this assumption. In the opinion of journalist-turned-activist Bill McKibben, "the one degree we've raised the temperature already has melted the Arctic, so we're fools to find out what two will do." His warning is supported by James Hansen, who declared that "a target of two degrees (Celsius) is actually a prescription for long-term disaster." The burning of coal, oil, and natural gas has made the planet warmer than it had been since the rise of civilization 10,000 years ago. Civilization was made possible by the emergence about 12,000 years ago of the "Holocene" epoch, which turned out to be the Goldilocks zone - not too hot, not too cold. But now, says physicist Stefan Rahmstorf, "We are catapulting ourselves way out of the Holocene." This catapult is dangerous, because we have no evidence civilization can long survive with significantly higher temperatures. And yet, the world is on a trajectory that would lead to an increase of 4C (7F) in this century. In the opinion of many scientists and the World Bank, this could happen as early as the 2060s. What would "a 4C world" be like? According to Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (at the University of East Anglia), "during New York's summer heat waves the warmest days would be around 10-12C (18-21.6F) hotter than today's." Moreover, he has said, above an increase of 4C only about 10 of the human population will survive. Believe it or not, some scientists consider Anderson overly optimistic. The main reason for pessimism is the fear that the planet's temperature may be close to a tipping point that would initiate a "low-end runaway greenhouse," involving "out-of-control amplifying feedbacks." This condition would result, says Hansen, if all fossil fuels are burned (which is the intention of all fossil-fuel corporations and many governments). This result "would make most of the planet uninhabitable by humans." Moreover, many scientists believe that runaway global warming could occur much more quickly, because the rising temperature caused by CO2 could release massive amounts of methane (CH4), which is, during its first 20 years, 86 times more powerful than CO2. Warmer weather induces this release from carbon that has been stored in methane hydrates, in which enormous amounts of carbon -- four times as much as that emitted from fossil fuels since 1850 -- has been frozen in the Arctic's permafrost. And yet now the Arctic's temperature is warmer than it had been for 120,000 years -- in other words, more than 10 times longer than civilization has existed. According to Joe Romm, a physicist who created the Climate Progress website, methane release from thawing permafrost in the Arctic "is the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle." The amplifying feedback works like this: The warmer temperature releases millions of tons of methane, which then further raise the temperature, which in turn releases more methane. The resulting threat of runaway global warming may not be merely theoretical. Scientists have long been convinced that methane was central to the fastest period of global warming in geological history, which occurred 55 million years ago. Now a group of scientists have accumulated evidence that methane was also central to the greatest extinction of life thus far: the end-Permian extinction about 252 million years ago. Worse yet, whereas it was previously thought that significant amounts of permafrost would not melt, releasing its methane, until the planet's temperature has risen several degrees Celsius, recent studies indicate that a rise of 1.5 degrees would be enough to start the melting. What can be done then? Given the failure of political leaders to deal with the CO2 problem, it is now too late to prevent terrible developments. But it may -- just may -- be possible to keep global warming from bringing about the destruction of civilization. To have a chance, we must, as Hansen says, do everything possible to "keep climate close to the Holocene range" -- which means, mobilize the whole world to replace dirty energy with clean as soon as possible. Specifically, mining boosts the economy – it’s a major source of investment for space exploration and every country is interested Alex Gilbert 21 Alex gilbert, is a complex systems researcher and a PhD student in space resources at the Colorado School of Mines. "Mining in Space Is Coming," Milken Institute Review, https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/mining-in-space-is-coming, accessed 1-14-2022anop Space exploration is back. after decades of disappointment, a combination of better technology, falling costs and a rush of competitive energy from the private sector has put space travel front and center. indeed, many analysts (even some with their feet on the ground) believe that commercial developments in the space industry may be on the cusp of starting the largest resource rush in history: mining on the Moon, Mars and asteroids. While this may sound fantastical, some baby steps toward the goal have already been taken. Last year, NASA awarded contracts to four companies to extract small amounts of lunar regolith by 2024, effectively beginning the era of commercial space mining. Whether this proves to be the dawn of a gigantic adjunct to mining on earth — and more immediately, a key to unlocking cost-effective space travel — will turn on the answers to a host of questions ranging from what resources can be efficiently. As every fan of science fiction knows, the resources of the solar system appear virtually unlimited compared to those on Earth. There are whole other planets, dozens of moons, thousands of massive asteroids and millions of small ones that doubtless contain humungous quantities of materials that are scarce and very valuable (back on Earth). Visionaries including Jeff Bezos imagine heavy industry moving to space and Earth becoming a residential area. However, as entrepreneurs look to harness the riches beyond the atmosphere, access to space resources remains tangled in the realities of economics and governance. Salienko Evgenii/Shutterstock Start with the fact that space belongs to no country, complicating traditional methods of resource allocation, property rights and trade. With limited demand for materials in space itself and the need for huge amounts of energy to return materials to Earth, creating a viable industry will turn on major advances in technology, finance and business models. That said, there’s no grass growing under potential pioneers’ feet. Potential economic, scientific and even security benefits underlie an emerging geopolitical competition to pursue space mining. The United States is rapidly emerging as a front-runner, in part due to its ambitious Artemis Program to lead a multinational consortium back to the Moon. But it is also a leader in creating a legal infrastructure for mineral exploitation. The United States has adopted the world’s first spaceresources law, recognizing the property rights of private companies and individuals to materials gathered in space. However, the United States is hardly alone. Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates (you read those right) are racing to codify space-resources laws of their own, hoping to attract investment to their entrepot nations with business-friendly legal frameworks. China reportedly views space-resource development as a national priority, part of a strategy to challenge U.S. economic and security primacy in space. Meanwhile, Russia, Japan, India and the European Space Agency all harbor space-mining ambitions of their own. Governing these emerging interests is an outdated treaty framework from the Cold War. Sooner rather than later, we’ll need new agreements to facilitate private investment and ensure international cooperation. Private Space Exploration solves recession Sidorov 20 Konstantin Sidorov is chief executive of the London Tech Club. City AM “Need a way out of recession? Look to the stars” https://www.cityam.com/need-a-way-out-of-recession-look-to-the-stars/ 11/23/2020 aaditg “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” These words by President John F. Kennedy are as important today as they were when he spoke in 1962. Asteroid mining may seem like something out of a sci-fi movie, and not the most obvious choice of investment, especially during a global pandemic and recession. But it is exactly these kinds of aspirations that have pushed human endeavour and technological advancement to new heights. The discoveries made along the way to achieving these sky-high goals have become integral parts of our daily lives — and could even help us out of this recession. The economics of space is now a crucial part of the market and no longer only in the realm of government endeavour. Private capital is paving the way for public partnerships. Supply chains in the “new space economy” are accelerating, startups are emerging, and clusters are forming. Old space discovery was defined by the Russian Voshod and Vostok and the US Apollo missions. We have entered a space age defined by private enterprise. Financial firms Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have each conducted their own studies and found the space economy could reach between $1 trillion and $2.7 trillion by the 2040s. That would make it larger than the 2017 GDP of the UK. But are these astronomical figures relevant to people beyond the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson? The answer is a resounding yes. The space sector is made up of a hidden infrastructure which most people do not see but is central to the technology that surrounds us. The strides humankind is making in space are integral to the day-to-day things we take for granted. Space plays an indispensable role in the global economy. The highest grossing sectors — agriculture, mining, transportation, IT, finance, and insurance — all heavily rely on systems and technology developed for space. We know that without satellite observation our navigation and mapping capacity would be significantly reduced. But that is only the start. Satellite data is being harnessed to protect critical infrastructure, and can be used to prevent disasters like the Morandi bridge collapse in Genoa by monitoring and holding critical information to better manage and maintain these types of structures. Given that there are over 80,000 ageing bridges in Canada alone, most with a design life of less than 100 years, the potential impact could be huge. The insurance industry can also be transformed by “mega constellations” — a group of artificial satellites working together as a system to provide permanent global coverage. Insurers are excited about the prospect of increased real-time data on hurricanes, especially the ability to use imagery and analytics to speed up or question claims. Amazon is rolling out plans to launch over 3,200 satellites to over 95 per cent of the Earth’s surface. The initiative is to launch a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to the unserved communities around the world. Starlink, built by SpaceX, is launching “constellation broadband” to deliver higher-speed internet connections across the world. The volume of space spin-off industries is multiplying every year. NASA has created more than 2,000 inventions that later became widespread products and services. Innovations such as the dialysis machines, CAT scanners and freeze-dried food are all a result of space-related projects. Without investment in space exploration we would be without memory foam or GPS, while an adaptation of the spacesuit upgrade led to the creation of the Nike Air footwear. We are only going to become more dependent on space technologies as AI and the fourth industrial revolution take off. Satellite data and its deep-learning technology are being used to map and monitor solar energy assets for smart city and smart grid initiatives. The AI combines satellite data with other factors such as weather information and local government policies to provide a complete picture of the emissions and financial benefits the technology could bring. And yet, despite these strides, space exploration is still not considered a central part of our everyday lives. That needs to change. Governments must recognise its strategic importance. Consumers must realise how the space industry affects their everyday actions. Investors must consider the value of investment into the sector. Space is key to protecting our people, promoting our global influence, and providing future prosperity.
Recessions cause war – stats support transition wars, resource conflicts, terrorism, and diversionary wars – other authors don’t base their analysis on global studies Royal ’10 Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises”, 2010, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215PM Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent slates. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level. Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (19) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often-bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (sec also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner, 1999). Separately. Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level. Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, likelihood for conflict increases. as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession lends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg and I less. 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg. Hess. and Wccrapana. 2004). which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary theory' suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DcRoucn (1995), and Blomberg. Mess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DcRoucn (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Those studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views. That causes global nuclear war. Merlini ’11 Cesare, was a nonresident senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe and is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Italian Institute for International Affairs (IAI) in Rome, “A Post-Secular World?”, 03-30-2011, Routledge, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/04_international_relations_merlini.pdfPM Two neatly opposed scenarios for the future of the world order illustrate the range of possibilities, albeit at the risk of oversimplification. The first scenario entails the premature crumbling of the post-Westphalian system. One or more of the acute tensions apparent today evolves into an open and traditional conflict between states, perhaps even involving the use of nuclear weapons. The crisis might be triggered by a collapse of the global economic and financial system, the vulnerability of which we have just experienced, and the prospect of a second Great Depression, with consequences for peace and democracy similar to those of the first. Whatever the trigger, the unlimited exercise of national sovereignty, exclusive self-interest and rejection of outside interference would likely be amplified, emptying, perhaps entirely, the half-full glass of multilateralism, including the UN and the European Union. Many of the more likely conflicts, such as between Israel and Iran or India and Pakistan, have potential religious dimensions. Short of war, tensions such as those related to immigration might become unbearable. Familiar issues of creed and identity could be exacerbated. One way or another, the secular rational approach would be sidestepped by a return to theocratic absolutes, competing or converging with secular absolutes such as unbridled nationalism.
4/27/22
JF - DA - Ukraine Soft Power
Tournament: Westlake TFA Chap Classic | Round: 2 | Opponent: McNeil AP | Judge: Ivan Garcia US private space industry is key to American soft power – it’s doing well now, but it’s tentative and the aff collapses it. Cahan and Sadat ’20 Bruce Cahan is co-founder and president of Urban Logic, Inc., a New York nonprofit qualified in California, an Ashoka Fellow social entrepreneur and a Stanford CodeX Fellow, Mir Sadat is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He has more than twenty-five years of experience in private industry, higher education, and the US government. Sadat is an adjunct scholar with Modern War Institute at West Point and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Previously, he founded and served as the first editor-in-chief of Space Force Journal after completing his detail to the US National Security Council (NSC), where, as a policy director, he led interagency coordination on defense and space policy issues. In that role, he supported the establishment of both the US Space Force and US Space Command in recognition that space has also evolved into a warfighting domain similar to land, air, sea, and cyber. While on the NSC, Sadat also prioritized national security decisions involving US civil space and the commercial space sector. He led multiple efforts to reduce US risk and critical dependencies in US civil space and the commercial industrial base on foreign nations who view the United States as an adversary. Sadat pushed for innovative US policies to power space vehicles with modular nuclear reactors, secure the space supply chain, improve strategic messaging for space, establish norms and behavior in space, and to prevail in a new era of strategic technical competition. He is also a naval officer with intelligence and space qualifications. In his preceding two naval assignments, he served as a space policy strategist with the chief of naval operations in the Pentagon and as a space operations officer with the US Tenth Fleet/US Fleet Cyber Command. Sadat has also spent a considerable amount of time in various assignments within the US national security enterprise. In addition, he has previously deployed to overseas contingency operations in Afghanistan, where he served as a strategic advisor to two International Security Assistance Force commanding generals. Sadat has served as a cultural advisor to two Hollywood productions—The Kite Runner and Charlie Wilson’s War. He has a PhD from Claremont Graduate University and has taught at various universities in California and Washington, DC. He has trained and educated US and NATO troops on a variety of topics to increase their operational capability and strategic impact. Sadat has written extensively on US national security, space, Afghanistan, South Asia, and the broader Middle East, “US Space Policies for the New Space Age: Competing on the Final Economic Frontier”, 01-06-2021, https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000177-9349-d713-a777-d7cfce4b0000//pranav Space has been primarily a shared, not a warfighting, domain.67 With each passing second of Planck time,68 space enables a modern way of life, provides instantaneous global imagery, assures telecommunications, and captures humanity’s imagination for civil space exploration. As a result, space is a burgeoning marketplace and territory for commercial ventures and investors. Strengthening the US commercial space industrial base is vital to and beyond US national security. Civil space activities are a source of US “soft power” in global commerce, cooperation, and investment. 69 The civil space sector, led by NASA, is fundamental to America’s national security. 70 NASA is on an ambitious critical path to return to the Moon by 2024,71 along with developing the capabilities and infrastructure for a sustained lunar presence. NASA’s lunar plans provide a lunar staging area for missions to Mars and beyond. They offer a strategic and economic presence for the United States on the Moon. Congress, the White House, DoD, and NASA must recognize that economic and strategic dominance in service of national security requires catalyzing and accelerating growth of a vibrant, private US industrial and cultural expansion into the Solar System. Human visitation and eventual settlement beyond the Earth require sustaining visionary leaders, aided by, and aiding, US national security. A recurring theme in US policy is “maintaining and advancing United States dominance and strategic leadership in space” because US global competitors and adversaries are competent and capable of outpacing American space capabilities. 72 The stakes are high: At this historic moment, there is a real race for dominance over cislunar access and resources. Soft Power stops Russian Ukraine invasion – soft power is recovering now, but the aff upsets that Rubin 1/12 Jennifer Rubin, American political commentator who writes opinion columns for The Washington Post, “U.S. diplomacy is in full swing. But Ukraine is not out of the woods yet.”, 01-12-2022, https://apple.news/ADgHQ0A4xSUm4CCma2cSOgg//pranav The Biden administration has been unusually forthcoming in describing the long list of meetings, calls and personal visits it conducted with Ukraine and NATO partners in an effort to display an unwavering and unified stance against Russian aggression. A White House fact sheet explained: “The United States has approached this week’s diplomatic engagements with Russia — in the bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue, the NATO-Russia Council, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) — closely aligned with our European Allies and partners, including Ukraine, after extensive consultations. In recent weeks, President Biden has spoken to leaders across Europe.” The fact sheet provided a long list of consultations by the president and other administration officials with allies, including 20 contacts with Ukraine, a dozen with NATO partners and more than a dozen with members of the Eastern European group of countries known as the “Bucharest Nine.” Brian Katulis at the Middle East Institute observes, “The contrasts between former president Donald Trump’s performance with Russia’s President Putin at Helsinki and his erratic approach on Russia versus how the full Biden team is handling this episode is strong, with the Biden team working closely with partners in Europe.” He adds, “It looks so far that some of the Biden team have learned important lessons from the relatively weak response to the Russian invasion of Crimea in Obama’s second term.” He cautions however that the administration cannot skimp on “diplomatic engagement with Ukraine," which constantly frets deals will be made without its agreement. The administration’s extensive diplomacy and candor about its efforts are meant to convey a simple point: Unlike the prior administration, this administration has done the hard work of coordinating with allies to provide a united diplomatic front to deter Russian aggression. After criticism over its communication with allies on the withdrawal from Afghanistan and its dust-up with France over the new Britain-Australia-U.S. strategic submarine deal, Biden’s foreign policy team has worked furiously to remove any doubt about the West’s unity and resolve. That will be critical if the administration is to dissuade Russia from plunging into a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that might even include Kyiv. Max Bergmann of the Center for American Progress tells me: “The Russians came forth with ridiculous demands. And in response, the administration has said in a clear and measured way: Look, if you really have security concerns about things like military exercises or deployments of forces and weapons, we can talk about that.” He adds, “The U.S. is the constructive and reasonable player, while the Russians look like they are just looking for a diplomatic pretext for war.” Invasion goes nuclear – err neg – defense severely underestimates the risk Hooper 12/28 Craig, Senior Contributor at Forbes, “A Ukraine Invasion Could Go Nuclear: 15 Reactors Would Be In War Zone”, 12-28-2021, Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/craighooper/2021/12/28/a-ukraine-invasion-will-go-nuclear-15-reactors-are-in-the-war-zone/?sh=7770c5a327aa//pranav As Russia’s buildup on the Ukrainian border continues, few observers note that an invasion of Ukraine could put nuclear reactors on the front line of military conflict. The world is underestimating the risk that full-scale, no-holds-barred conventional warfare could spark a catastrophic reactor failure, causing an unprecedented regional nuclear emergency.
The threat is real. Ukraine is heavily dependent upon nuclear power, maintaining four nuclear power plants and stewardship of the shattered nuclear site at Chernobyl. In a major war, all 15 reactors at Ukraine’s nuclear power facilities would be at risk, but even a desultory Russian incursion into eastern Ukraine is likely to expose at least six active reactors to the uncertainty of a ground combat environment.
The world has little experience with reactors in a war zone. Since humanity first harnessed the atom, the world has only experienced two “major” accidents—Chernobyl and Japan’s Fukushima disaster. A Russian invasion, coupled with an extended conventional war throughout Ukraine, could generate multiple International Atomic Energy Agency “Level 7” accidents in a matter of days. Such a contingency would induce a massive refugee exodus and could render much of Ukraine uninhabitable for decades.
Turning the Ukraine into a dystopian landscape, pockmarked by radioactive exclusion zones, would be an extreme method to obtain the defensive zone Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to want. Managing a massive Western-focused migratory crisis and environmental cleanup would absorb Europe for years. The work would distract European leaders and empower nativist governments that tend to be aligned with Russia’s baser interests, giving an overextended Russia breathing room as the country teeters on the brink of technological, demographic, and financial exhaustion.
Put bluntly, the integrity of Ukrainian nuclear reactors is a strategic matter, critical for both NATO and non-NATO countries alike. Causing a severe radiological accident for strategic purposes is unacceptable. A deliberate aggravation of an emerging nuclear catastrophe—preventing mitigation measures or allowing reactors to deliberately melt down and potentially contaminate wide portions of Europe—would simply be nuclear warfare without bombs.
4/27/22
MA - DA - News Regulation
Tournament: NSDA Districts | Round: 1 | Opponent: Dripping Springs AS | Judge: Seung Joh Cho Prioritization is defined by Lexico “PRIORITIZATION English Definition and Meaning.” Lexico Dictionaries | English, Lexico Dictionaries, www.lexico.com/en/definition/prioritization. VS (As) The action or process of deciding the relative importance or urgency of a thing or things. Regulation is defined by Merriam Webster “Regulation Definition andamp; Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/regulation. VS (As) a rule or order issued by an executive authority or regulatory agency of a government and having the force of law Regulation is lexically impossible with prioritization bc prioritization enforces their reorientation of objectivity through the free press while regulation enforces through an authority of power like the government This kills objectivity – regulation key Wordpress 20 “('17) Is Regulation of the Press Desirable?” Essays, 7 May 2020, studentgp.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/17-is-regulation-of-the-press-desirable/. VS (Introduction) The press, commonly known as the fourth estate, is an influential force in everyday life, and an ubiquitous information source. From consuming it, people get to know much more about events around the world. The first Freedom of the Press Act, a Swedish legislation, abolished the government’s role as a censor of printed matter, and allowed for the official activities of the government to be made public. This freedom of the press, of the media, essentially meant freedom of information for the masses. Yet, is regulation (in any form), desirable at the expense of this freedom, which could be argued as a basic human right? I believe it is desirable, but only to the extent that it is ultimately beneficial for the people. (R 1) Some say that regulation is not desirable, because it violates human rights. Freedom of information is part of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, set by the United Nations (UN). Because every human has this right to access news whenever and wherever they wish to, regulation, by setting certain limitations and rules on what can or cannot be published, inherently will control the contents of the press and goes against this right. All content from the press should be made available without regulation; the ones who choose what to read or watch should be the individuals themselves, out of their own free will, and not any other party. The press (and media) is the neutral medium to transmit such information objectively, and should not be limited by regulated to only present some news only, or to be made inaccessible to the public. Hence, regulation, given that it inherently opposes human right, is undesirable. (S 1) But, while regulation may violate rights of viewers, but, if left unchecked (gone too far), the press may violate the rights of their subjects of interest/news, especially for sensationalism and hits. In this case, regulation is necessary (desirable), if done objectively and independently, to serve as a check to such journalism. The press is a business, and ultimately, for it to run it sometimes resorts to these insensitive, ruthless ways to get the news or scoops that will attract the masses, especially if left unregulated. For instance, in the incident of Princess Diana’s death in a car crash, the paparazzi who followed the car and her intoxicated and drunk chauffeur were the main causes of the tragedy. Furthermore, because she still remained a popular and influential public figure with the masses even after her death, the press took advantage of that and continued exaggerated coverage of her death and inquests into the causes and circumstances surrounding it. The British newspaper The Daily Express is one such publication that has been criticized for this. A 2006 report in The Guardian showed that the newspaper had mentioned her in numerous recent news stories, with headlines including “Perhaps Diana should have worn seatbelt”, “Diana inquiry chief’s laptop secrets stolen”, “£250,000 a year bill to run Diana fountain” and “Diana seatbelt sabotage probe”. Hence, in this case, regulation to prevent such insensitive coverage may be desirable. (S 2) Furthermore, it is unlikely for a publication to be unbiased and objective if left to its own devices or its own self-regulation, hence, some form of external regulation is necessary. Again, in the attempt to appeal to more viewers and gain a loyal following, they may present news in an falsified, opinionated way. This makes it more interesting and leaves a greater emotional impact on their audiences, who came precisely for such content. Such press bias tends to be especially prominent when associated with politics. For instance, on the issue of climate change and global warming, the latest (fifth) IPCC (Intergovernmental panel on Climate change) assessment report states that humans are most likely responsible for global warming since 1951. 97 of peer-reviewed literature and climate scientists accept this view; only 3 do not accept this consensus position. But, a study conducted by Media Matters for America shows that in stories about this report, rather than accurately reflect this consensus, select media outlets have created a false perception of discord amongst climate scientists. Specifically, politically conservative news outlets like Fox News (69) and the Wall Street Journal (50) were responsible for most of the doubters, even though the presenters may have no background in climate science. In the UK coverage of the IPCC report, again, the politically conservative Times, Daily Mail, and Telegraph gave the contradicting views disproportionately large coverages. In this case, regulation to ensure that accurate, objective information is presented to the masses is needed and hence desirable. (R 2) Some argue that regulation is not desirable, especially in state-controlled media, because of corruption, governments forcefully use the press for their own advantage, and control the citizens. For instance, the 2016 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) showed that there has been a deep and disturbing decline in media freedom at both the global and regional levels. RSF reports that such is caused by “increasingly authoritarian tendencies of governments in countries such as Turkey and Egypt”, and “tighter government control of state-owned media”. Some governments do not hesitate to “suspend access to the Internet or even to destroy the premises, broadcast equipment or printing presses of media outlets they dislike.” These caused the infrastructure indicator to fall from 16 from 2013 to 2016. Instead of a free press that is also able to investigate on and serve as a check to the government, such hostile regulations prevent it from doing this, causing the press to end up as a tool that states can freely destroy and control for their own purposes. It is forced to suppress the truth of matters, unable to present what is truly important. Ultimately, this serves to support the state’s own authoritarian propaganda. Specifically, it kills two birds with one stone; they can then spread their own ideologies, while also keep the citizens uninformed, ensuring that power is not undermined by educated/informed citizens (who may rebel). Hence, in this light, when regulation is abused by states to control the press, information and the citizens in these unethical ways, it is undesirable, and press should remain free and independent. Advertisements REPORT THIS AD (S 3) While state-controlled press is undesirable, on the other end of the scale, if the press is left completely uncontrolled and presents everything it finds, such is also inevitably, undesirable. The press, as the fourth estate, has widespread influence on society. As such, it has a social responsibility to present what is acceptable within the boundaries of society, and hence, regulation is needed (and desirable). Specifically, to ensure that there is no showing of immoral, explicit, extremist or radical ideas that may potentially affect the public. Different people have different degrees of tolerance and reactions to such controversial news, so it should be regulated accordingly. For instance, to prevent children from seeing overly violent or explicit content, or the showing of hate speech, which may lead to unnecessarily strong public reactions or outcries. As the phrase “some things are better left unsaid” goes, while the press and journalism do have the duty to investigate, find and present events/happenings around the world, if such instances add no positive value to the public’s understanding of the world, and only incite or evoke negative emotions or reactions, then perhaps there is need for regulation to phase these news out. In these situations, regulation then becomes desirable.
4/27/22
MA - DA - Racism
Tournament: NSDA Districts | Round: 3 | Opponent: Dripping Springs CB | Judge: Stanley Akano Pursuits of objectivity allows whites to control what facts are deemed objective, harming black communities Lowery 20 Wesley Lowery, news correspondent for CBS with a BS in journalism from Ohio University, specializing in criminal justice and politics, 6-23-2020, "A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists," NYT, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opinion/objectivity-black-journalists-coronavirus.html/ It was a brief interaction, during the first weeks of my career. There had been a stabbing, and I’d been dispatched to a block in Roxbury, a predominantly black section of Boston, to snag quotes from anyone who might know anything about what had happened. “Who are you with?” inquired the first person I had approached, a black man in his 50s. “The Globe?” he exclaimed after hearing my response. “The Globe doesn’t have black reporters. What are you doing over here? You lost? Y’all don’t write about this part of town.” His complaints and his skepticism were familiar, voiced for decades by black people both outside newsrooms and within them — that most American media organizations do not reflect the diversity of the nation or the communities they cover and too often confine their coverage of black and brown neighborhoods to the crime of the day. Now, almost a decade later, as protesters are taking to the streets of American cities to denounce racism and the unabated police killings of black people across the country, the journalism industry has seemingly reached a breaking point of its own: Black journalists are publicly airing years of accumulated grievances, demanding an overdue reckoning for a profession whose mainstream repeatedly brushes off their concerns; in many newsrooms, writers and editors are now also openly pushing for a paradigm shift in how our outlets define their operations and ideals. While these two battles may seem superficially separate, in reality,the failure of the mainstream press to accurately cover black communities is intrinsically linked with its failure to employ, retain and listen to black people. Since American journalism’s pivot many decades ago from an openly partisan press to a model of professed objectivity,the mainstream has allowed what it considers objective truth to be decided almost exclusively by white reporters and their mostly white bosses. And those selective truths have been calibrated to avoid offending the sensibilities of white readers. On opinion pages,the contours of acceptable public debate have largely been determined through the gaze of white editors. The views and inclinations of whiteness are accepted as the objective neutral. When black and brown reporters and editors challenge those conventions, it’s not uncommon for them to be pushed out, reprimanded or robbed of new opportunities. The journalist Alex S. Jones, who served as a longtime director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, wrote in “Losing the News,” his 2009 book, “I define journalistic objectivity as a genuine effort to be an honest broker when it comes to news.” To him, “That means playing it straight without favoring one side when the facts are in dispute, regardless of your own views and preferences.” But objectivity, Mr. Jones wrote, “also means not trying to create the illusion of fairness by letting advocates pretend in your journalism that there is a debate about the facts when the weight of truth is clear.” He critiqued “he-said/she-said reporting, which just pits one voice against another,” as “the discredited face of objectivity. But that is not authentic objectivity.” It’s striking to read objectivity defined that way — not because it’s objectionable, but rather because it barely resembles the way the concept is commonly discussed in newsrooms today. Conversations about objectivity, rather than happening in a virtuous vacuum, habitually focus on predicting whether a given sentence, opening paragraph or entire article will appear objective to a theoretical reader, who is invariably assumed to be white. This creates the very illusion of fairnessthat Mr. Jones, and others, specifically warn against. Instead of telling hard truths in this polarized environment, America’s newsroomstoo often deprive their readers of plainly stated facts that could expose reporters to accusations of partiality or imbalance. For years, I’ve been among a chorus of mainstream journalists who have called for our industry to abandon the appearance of objectivity as the aspirational journalistic standard, and for reportersinstead to focus on being fair and telling the truth, as best as one can, based on the given context and available facts. It’s not a novel argument. Scores of journalists across generations, from gonzo reporters like Hunter S. Thompson to more traditional voices like Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, have advocated this very approach. Mr. Kovach and Mr. Rosenstiel lay it out in detail in their classic text “The Elements of Journalism.” Those of us advancing this argument know that a fairness-and-truth focus will have different, healthy interpretations. We also know that neutral “objective journalism” is constructed atop a pyramid of subjective decision-making: which stories to cover, how intensely to cover those stories, which sources to seek out and include, which pieces of information are highlighted and which are downplayed. No journalistic process is objective. And no individual journalist is objective, because no human being is. And so, instead of promising our readers that we will never, on any platform, betray a single personal bias — submitting ourselves to a life sentence of public thoughtlessness — a better pledge would be an assurance that we will devote ourselves to accuracy, that we will diligently seek out the perspectives of those with whom we personally may be inclined to disagree and that we will be just as sure to ask hard questions of those with whom we’re inclined to agree. The best of our profession already does this. But we need to be honest about the gulf that lies between the best and the bulk. It’s possible to build journalism self-aware enough to bridge that gap. But it will take moral clarity, which will require both editors and reporters to stop doing things like reflexively hiding behind euphemisms that obfuscate the truth, simply because we’ve always done it that way. Deference to precedent is a poor excuse for continuing to make decisions that potentially let powerful bad actors off the hook and harm the public we serve. Neutral objectivity trips over itself to find ways to avoid telling the truth. Neutral objectivity insists we use clunky euphemisms like “officer-involved shooting.” Moral clarity, and a faithful adherence to grammar and syntax, would demand we use words that most precisely mean the thing we’re trying to communicate: “the police shot someone.” In coverage of policing, adherents to the neutral objectivity model create journalism so deferential to the police that entire articles are rendered meaningless. True fairness would, in fact, go as far as requiring that editors seriously consider not publishing any significant account of a police shooting until the staff has tracked down the perspective — the “side” — of the person the police had shot. That way beat reporters aren’t left simply rewriting a law enforcement news release. Moral clarity would insistthat politicians who traffic in racist stereotypes and tropes — however cleverly — be labeled such with clear language and unburied evidence. Racism, as we know, is not about what lies in the depths of a human’s heart. It is about word and deed. And a more aggressive commitment to truth from the press would empower our industry to finally admit that. The failures of neutral objective journalism across several beats in the news media are countless. And these shortcomings have real consequences forthe readers we are sworn to serve — particularly black readers, who we know are more likely to have interactions with the criminal justice system (whose leaders we court), more likely to be the targets of white supremacists(whom we commonly indulge) and more likely to have lives made more difficult by racist politicians and implicitly racist policies that we repeatedly refuse to call out. Black journalists are speaking out because one of the nation’s major political parties and the current presidential administration are providing refuge to white supremacist rhetoric and policies, and our industry’s gatekeepers are preoccupied with seeming balanced, even ordering up glossy profiles of complicit actors. All the while, black and brown lives and livelihoods remain imperiled. Ideally, the group of journalists given the power to decide what and whom to give a platform in this moment would both understand this era’s gravity and reflect the diversity of the country. Unfortunately, too often that is not the case. Perhaps the most recent controversy to erupt because of such thoughtlessness and lack of inclusion was provided by The New York Times Opinion section, when it published an essay by Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, calling for, among other things, an “overwhelming show of force” by the American military in order to quell civil unrest at protests that, while at times violent, have largely been made up of peaceful demonstrations. A method of moral clarity would have required that leadership think very hard before providing the section’s deeply influential platform to any elected official — allowing him or her to opine, without the buffer of a reporter’s follow-up questions, using inflammatory rhetoric. It would require, at the very least, that such an article not contain several overstatements and unsubstantiated assertions. “We find the publication of this essay to be an irresponsible choice,” the NewsGuild of New York, a union that represents many Times employees, said in a statement. “Its lack of context, inadequate vetting by editorial management, spread of misinformation, and the timing of its call to arms gravely undermine the work we do every day.” Let’s take a moment to be honest about what actually happened in this case: An op-ed page accepted an essay from a firebrand senator. It published that column without adequate line or conceptual editing. Then it got called out for it, leading to the resignation of one man in top leadership and the reassignment of another. It was a rare case of accountability, yet it remains to be seen if the changes at The Times will include aggressively tackling a culture that leaves its own staff members so internally powerless that they have to battle their own publication in public. Despite the suggestions of an increasingly hysterical set of pundits, this fallout was not an attack on the very concept of public debate. It’s the story of a group of Times employees concluding that a specific piece of content and the process by which it was published was beneath the standards they are asked themselves to uphold — then having the audacity to say so. The journalists — the black journalists — who pushed back most forcefully on the Cotton Op-Ed essay were not calling for an end to public discourse or the censorship of opinions they dislike. They were responding to the particularly poor handling of a particularly outlandish case during a particularly sensitive moment. The turmoil at The Times and the simultaneous eruptions inside other newsrooms across the country are the predictable results of the mainstream media’s labored refusal to racially integrate. It’s been more than 50 years since the first black journalists appeared in mainstream American newsrooms. For all of that time, black journalists have made meager demands: Please hire some more of us. Please pay us the way you do our colleagues. Please allow us to ascend to leadership roles. Please consider our opinions about how accurate and fair coverage of all communities, especially our own, can be achieved. Collectively,the industry has responded to generations of black journalists with indifference at best and open hostility at its frequent worst. Black journalists are hired and told — sometimes explicitly — that we can thrive only if we don’t dare to be our full selves. Frequently, when we speak out about coverage that is inaccurate or otherwise lacking, we are driven from newsrooms — which results in fewer experienced black candidates in the room when it comes time to hire for senior editorships. That, in turn,results in coverage that continues to miss the mark, which leaves the now dwindling ranks of black journalists both ostracized and fighting to speak out. Similarly negative experiences have been shared by Hispanic, Asian, Native, immigrant(both documented and undocumented), Muslim, gay and lesbian, transgender and gender-nonconforming journalists, too. What’s different now, in this moment, is that the editors no longer hold a monopoly on publishing power. Individual reporters now have followings of our own on social media platforms, granting us the ability to speak directly to the public. It is, then, no coincidence that after decades of pleading with management, black journalists are now making demands on Twitter. If recent years have taught black journalists anything, it’s that public embarrassment appears to make our bosses better hear us. But humility and attentiveness don’t have to be isolated to crises. Instead of consistently attempting to censor the crucial personnel of color on their own staffs — who consistently deliver the best of their journalism — the leaders of America’s newsrooms could consider truly listening to them. As I stood on that street corner in Roxbury as a cub reporter all those years ago, the man I’d approached told me that years earlier a family member had been wrongfully arrested. He said the paper printed his relative’s full criminal history, as well as a mug shot from an unrelated incident. There had been no follow-up when his loved one was later cleared of the crime. I told him that I understood why he was still upset and that it did sound pretty messed up, before tucking my notebook into my back pocket and turning to leave. “Hey, kid! What was it you wanted to know about?” he asked. “The stabbing?” For years, he’d waited for the chance to tell off a Globe reporter. And now that he had, and had been heard, he wanted to help me tell the story, and get it right. And, only advocacy-based journalism can solve systemic racism Liederman 21 Mack Liederman, reporter with a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern, 02-01-2021, "Let’s rethink objectivity," Redacted Magazine, https://redactedmagazine.com/2021/02/01/lets-rethink-objectivity// In an op-ed that gained traction this summer in The New York Times, “A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists,” two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Wesley Lowery attempts to use the momentum of Black Lives Matter to debunk the myth of objectivity. For Lowery, the stakes of objectivity are heavy. In fact, the Golden Rule may be better labeled as Thinly Veiled Racism. Lowery writes in summary, “The views and inclinations of whiteness are accepted as the objective neutral.” Look no further than the names spilling down any masthead (even this one), or to the TV newsrooms of The Wire, Spotlight, The Post and even Anchorman, and an essential reality becomes unavoidable: Journalism has been owned, operated, curated and defined by white people. The dogma of “quality journalism” has rested on the idea that the truth can stem only from objectivity, one that is defined by white reporters, their white editors, and their white bosses. The ones editing pagesin red ink, assigning articles, hiring writers and framing the larger media narratives are the ones that ultimately get to decide what is and what is not objective journalism. While objectivity may be a powerful method of reporting, spurring journalists to strive toward factual accuracy, it is not an achievable goal. There is nothing objective about the subliminal and not-so-subliminal biases that seep into any given piece of journalism. How we interpret objectivity is inherently opinionated. And what’s objective about an opinion? Even your wiry professor, your wholesome English teacher and your loud gum-chewing colleague would know the clear answer to that one. Yet it is the sacred myth of objectivity that has long leftit unquestioned, untouched and under-scrutinized in predominantly white spaces. The promises of objective reporting allow for white journalists to cover Black communities from a safe distance, supplying a baseline of journalistic credibility where none should be assumed. The consequence of white-framed objectivity has been an underserving of coverage on Black issues and a general silencing of reporters that dare to challenge the conventions of their profession.Objectivity is not an ideal — it’s a racial issue. Lowery chooses to look forward. While America can nevertruly uproot itself from the enduring appeal, familiarity and continuously consequential history of white supremacy, journalism stands in a strong position to challenge the status quo. The democratization of information through the internet has allowed for more Black voices to be heard and more Black stories to be told. The changing demographics and increasingly diverse readerships of major publications have leveraged its most powerful galvanizing agent — C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) — toward hiring and promoting the work of non-white staff. These favorable trends are not nearly enough.Our collective reckoning on race callsfor a reckoning on our media — the total dismantlement of objectivity. Redacted Magazine hopes to play its (albeit small) part in a new direction forward. As pre-professional writers and editors, we believe that we have the runway and the independence (from potential future employers) to build a platform that begins with a socially equitable ethos. And when we fall short, we ask to be called out. This is how we become not objective journalists — but fair journalists. Let’s ditch the Golden Rule and forget objectivity. That’s the only way we can begin to tell the truth.