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InfoHere are some useful additional k answers that you should have. I think that Repko may be putting out a bigger version of this type of file, but I think this will be useful for the mini-tournament.

Forslund

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AT: Ontology/EpistemologyPolicy change is necessary to alleviate real and on-going suffering. Abstract claims of “epistemology” and “ontology” and non-impacts like “technological rationality” are ivory-tower constructions that condemn millions to death

Jarvis 00 (Darryl, Senior Lecturer in International Relations – University of Sydney, International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism, p. 128-130)Questions of Relevance, Rhetoric, Fiction, and Irrationalism While Ashley's rhetoric serves to effect a number of political moves, it also helps conceal a series of blatant weaknesses implicit in his poststructural theory. The first of these we might identify as the rhetorical invention and reification of fictitious enemies, a mechanism that not only validates Ashley's project but gives it meaning. Frequently, for example, what Ashley purports to be attacking turns out to be a fictitious, or at best grossly exaggerated , entity . In his adoption of the "megahistorical unit, modernity," for example, Ashley presupposes an homogeneous, coherent phenomenon able to be studied—a suggestion most would find outrageous. As Tony Porter notes, "giving coherence to such a phenomenon requires doing violence to its diversity." Enlightenment thought can no more be reduced to a symmetric intellectual tradition or historical moment than can postmodernism." Indeed, emasculating such an intellectual potpourri of ideas whose only similarity is dissonance seems peculiar considering Ashley's persistent commitment to venerate difference and discursive practices. To suppose that liberalism, Marxism, conservatism, fascism, leninism, or assorted other -isms that fall under the modernist rubric are contiguous is as preposterous as conflating Derrida with Foucault, Lyotard, and Baudrillard. Yet the hubris of Ashley's entire poststructural theory rests on such simplification and not only with the concept of modernity. Positivism, realism, or technical rationality, for instance, are all reduced to overly simplistic caricatures, assumed ubiquitous, and distilled into three or four rudimentary propositions that Ashley then sets about deconstructing. Technical rationality simply becomes nonreflexive problem-solving; positivism, a system of thought that divides subject from object and fact from value; while realism is reduced to the ontological presumption of the state-as-actor. While simplicity has unquestionable heuristic value, crude reductionism for the sake of political opportunism is plainly defamatory. Rather than parsimonious theory, what Ashley delivers is a series of fictitious straw men, theoretically fabri cated along with crude ontological and epistemological presumptions that render them congenitally deformed and thus susceptible to Ashley's poststructural interpretivism. In reality, of course, no such caricatures exist. Positivists, realists, and modernists alike are considerably more complex, divergent, and reflexive than Ashley would have us believe. In the case of realism, for example, Ashley conflates the writings of Kenneth Waltz, Robert Keohane, Stephen Krasner, Robert W. Tucker, George Modelski, Charles Kindleberger, and Robert Gilpin, disregarding the disparate set of professional and political perspectives that makes each one distinctive and debate among them ferocious." However, it is on the basis of these exaggerated caricatures that Ashley's raison d'être for poststructural theory and political transformation ultimately rests. Perhaps more alarming though is the outright violence Ashley recommends in response to what at best seem trite, if not imagined, injustices. Inculpating modernity, positivism, technical rationality, or realism with violence, racism, war, and countless other crimes not only smacks of anthropomorphism but, as demonstrated by Ashley's torturous prose and reasoning, requires a dubious logic to make such connections in the first place. Are we really to believe that ethereal entities like positivism, modernism, or realism emanate a "violence" that marginalizes dissidents? Indeed, where is this violence, repression, and marginalization? As self- professed dissidents supposedly exiled from the discipline, Ashley and Walker appear remarkably well integrated into the academy—vocal, published, and at the center of the Third Debate and the forefront of theoretical research. Likewise, is Ashley seriously suggesting that, on the basis of this largely imagined violence, global transformation (perhaps even revolutionary violence) is a necessary, let alone desirable, response? Has the rationale for emancipation or the fight for justice been reduced to such vacuous revolutionary slogans as "Down with positivism and rationality"? The point is surely trite. Apart from members of the academy, who has heard of positivism and who for a moment imagines that they need to be emancipated from it, or from modernity, rationality, or realism for that matter? In an era of unprecedented change and turmoil, of new political and military configurations, of war in the Balkans and ethnic cleansing, is Ashley really suggesting that some of the greatest threats facing humankind or some of the great moments of history rest on such innocu ous and largely unknown nonrealities like positivism and realism? These are imagined and fictitious enemies, theoretical fabrications that represent arcane, self-serving debates superfluous to the lives of most people and, arguably, to most issues of importance in international relations. More is the pity that such irrational and obviously abstruse debate should so occupy us at a time of great global turmoil. That it does and continues to do so reflects our lack of judicious criteria for evaluating theory and, more importantly, the lack of attachment theorists have to the real world. Certainly it is right and proper that we ponder the depths of our theoretical imaginations, engage in epistemological and ontological debate, and analyze the sociology of our knowledge." But to suppose that this is the only task of international theory, let alone the most important one, smacks of intellectual elitism and displays a certain contempt for those who search for guidance in their daily struggles as actors in international politics. What does Ashley's project, his deconstructive efforts, or valiant fight against positivism say to the truly marginalized, oppressed, and des-titute? How does it help solve the plight of the poor, the displaced refugees, the casualties of war, or the emigres of death squads? Does it in any way speak to those whose actions and thoughts comprise the policy and practice of international relations? On all these questions one must answer no . This is not to say, of course, that all theory should be judged by its technical rationality and problem-solving capacity as Ashley forcefully argues. But to suppose that problem-solving technical theory is not necessary—or is in some way bad—is a contemptuous position that abrogates any hope of solving some of the nightmarish realities that millions confront daily. As Holsti argues, we need ask of these theorists and their theories the ultimate question, "So what?" To what purpose do they deconstruct, problematize, destabilize, undermine, ridicule, and belittle modernist and rationalist approaches? Does this

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get us any further, make the world any better, or enhance the human condition? In what sense can this "debate toward [a] bottomless pit of epistemology and metaphysics" be judged pertinent, relevant, help ful , or cogent to anyone other than those foolish enough to be scholasti cally excited by abstract and recondite debate ." Contrary to Ashley's assertions, then, a poststructural approach fails to empower the marginalized and, in fact, abandons them. Rather than analyze the political economy of power, wealth, oppression, production, or international relations and render an intelligible understanding of these processes, Ashley succeeds in ostracizing those he portends to represent by delivering an obscure and highly convoluted discourse. If Ashley wishes to chastise structural realism for its abstractness and detachment, he must be prepared also to face similar criticism, especially when he so adamantly intends his work to address the real life plight of those who struggle at marginal places. If the relevance of Ashley's project is questionable, so too is its logic and cogency. First, we might ask to what extent the postmodern "emphasis on the textual, constructed nature of the world" represents "an unwarranted extension of approaches appropriate for literature to other areas of human practice that are more constrained by an objective reality."" All theory is socially constructed and realities like the nation-state, domestic and international politics, regimes, or transnational agencies are obviously social fabrications. But to what extent is this observation of any real use? Just because we acknowledge that the state is a socially fabricated entity, or that the division between domestic and international society is arbitrarily inscribed does not make the reality of the state disappear or render invisible international politics. Whether socially constructed or objectively given, the argument over the ontological status of the state is of no par ticular moment . Does this change our experience of the state or somehow diminish the political-economic-juridical-military functions of the state? To recognize that states are not naturally inscribed but dynamic entities continually in the process of being made and reimposed and are therefore culturally dissimilar, economically different, and politically atypical, while perspicacious to our historical and theoretical understanding of the state, in no way detracts from its reality, practices, and consequences. Similarly, few would object to Ashley's hermeneutic interpretivist understanding of the international sphere as an artificially inscribed demarcation. But, to paraphrase Holsti again, so what? This does not make its effects any less real, diminish its importance in our lives, or excuse us from paying serious attention to it. That international politics and states would not exist without subjectivities is a banal tautology. The point, surely, is to move beyond this and study these processes. Thus, while intellectually interesting, con structivist theory is not an end point as Ashley seems to think, where we all throw up our hands and announce there are no foundations and all real ity is an arbitrary social construction . Rather, it should be a means of recognizing the structurated nature of our being and the reciprocity between subjects and structures through history. Ashley, however, seems not to want to do this, but only to deconstruct the state, international politics, and international theory on the basis that none of these is objectively given but fictitious entities that arise out of modernist practices of representation. While an interesting theoretical enterprise, it is of no great consequence to the study of international politics. Indeed, structuration theory has long taken care of these ontological dilemmas that otherwise seem to preoccupy Ashley."

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A2: Epistemology

Any knowledge they produced will be rejected- acting within a framework of rationality and empiricism is the only way for your ideas to be incorporated into society

Zafirovski, 2005, (Milan, associate professor of sociology at University of North Texas, “Is Sociology the Science of the Irrational? Conceptions of Rationality in Sociological Theory,” JSTOR) Since sociologists are "deprived" from the blessing of a conception and thus "igno rant" of rationality, sociology should, rational-choice theorists (e.g., Coleman, 1990; Goldthorpe, 1998; Kiser and Hechter, 1998) urge, import or borrow such a conception from economics as the purported science of "rational choice" (Hodgson, 1998; 190). The outcome would be general sociological (rational choice) theory admittedly resting on the "utilitarian type of theorizing [in particular] the idealization that purposive action is rational in the sense of economic theory" (Fararo, 2001: 258-261). Presumably, it is the mission of economists and their rational-choice "cousins" (Kiser and Hechter, 1998) in sociology to teach "ignorant" or "non-appreciative" sociologists and other non-econo mists about rationality and eventually to convert them into the believers of rational choice "religion" (Hey, 1993), morality (Favell, 1993), and ideological orthodoxy (Etzioni, 1991). Moreover, sociology as a science should be premised on a paradigm of rational action "borrowed from economics," despite the recognized "deficiencies" of the economic model of "rational man" (Coleman, 1986: 4-11). Arguably, sociological theory needs a "more precise notion" than that of purposive behavior, and that is the conception of rationality which is the "basis of the rational actor in economic theory," more precisely, the "narrow conception of rationality given by the principle of maximization of utility" (Coleman, 1990:13-15). Thus, the conception of "rational man" with its canonical status (Hechter, 1990: 143) in economics (e.g., homo economicus) is seen, "even with its deficiencies [as] the most promising starting point for a theoretical program" (Coleman, 1986: 5) in sociology and all social science. However, one might remark that "assumptions of rationality are essential components of virtually all the sociological theories. It is no novelty in those [theories] to propose that people behave rationally?in its broader dictionary sense. What economics has to export is not rationality, but a very particular and special form of it?the rationality of the utility maximizer" (Simon, 1982: 445). Moreover, some leading contemporary econo mists warn that economic tools, including the concept of rationality as utility maximiza tion, not only do not apply "very well outside of economics," but also they "do not have much predictive and explanatory power even in economics" (Sen, 1990: 264). In this connection, they suggest that "you cannot first ignore the enormous impact of sociological factors in economics and think that you have succeeded with the economic analysis, and then try to apply this narrow economic analysis outside the field of economics" (Sen, 1990:266).

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1AR AT: PanChina is a threat-hyper-nationalism and hatred of the West

Dr. Jeffrey Record 2k1(“Thinking about China and War” BA, Occidental College; MA, PhD, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Brookings InstitutionPg online @ http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj01/win01/record.html) CHINA'S XENOPHOBIC AND increasingly strident nationalism reinforces the argument that it is destined to become America’s next great strategic rival and, therefore, that the United States should begin to think seriously about the possibility of war with that country.1 The combination of continued autocracy in Beijing, China’s militant assertiveness across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea, and the growing influence of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “in the development of China’s national identity and security policy” all point to a determination to displace American power in East Asia and the Western Pacific.2 The new Bush administration is certainly prepared to take a harder line than its predecessor on the noneconomic dimensions of the Sino-American relationship, including Beijing’s myriad human-rights abuses and military bullying of its neighbors. The administration has rejected the illusion of strategic partnership with China, has been explicit on US protection of Taiwan against an attack from the mainland, and is openly reorienting America’s primary strategic focus from Europe to Asia. It is, in short, moving to contain China even while it embraces expanded trade with that country. Indeed, for the Bush administration, trade serves as a means of containment; trade promotes economic democratization, which, in turn—or so it is believed— will undermine the very autocracy that has embraced extreme nationalism as a legitimizing substitute for failed communist ideology. The Bush administration sees eye to eye with its predecessor on the attractiveness of attempting to subvert China politically via trade-assisted economic democratization. A policy of containing Communist Chinese expansionism is hardly new. It began in 1950, when the Truman administration ordered the interposition of the Seventh Fleet between the mainland and what was then known as Formosa as a means of preventing Mao Ze-dong’s takeover of that island. The administration subsequently fought Chinese forces to a standstill in Korea. Containment continued during the 1960s, when the Kennedy and Johnson administrations escalated US military intervention against the advance of Vietnamese communism, which they believed was a stalking-horse for Chinese imperialism in Southeast Asia. Even during the era of Sino-American tacit strategic alignment against the Soviet Union in the 1970s and early 1980s, the United States insisted on a nonviolent resolution of Taiwan’s relationship with the mainland. But the China that the United States sought to contain during the Cold War was poor and preindustrial and, under Mao Ze-dong, periodically plunged into domestic political upheaval. For Mao, political purification was always more important than wealth creation, and his notions of industrialization were idiotic. Accordingly, the Chinese economy remained a shambles until the late 1980s. Moreover, for most of the Cold War’s last two decades, China’s military posture was defensive and focused northward on the Soviet Union. Although the emergence of China as a qualified strategic rival is far from inevitable, it is time to think about a future war with China. Beijing’s core political values are hostile to everything America stands for; China is territorially unsatisfied; its military potential is impressive if only slowly mobilizable; and Sino-American flash points are present in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. Moreover, history teaches that the relative power and influence the United States enjoys around the world today will inevitably decline at some point. That point may be 50 or even 200 years away, but it will come—because no great power remains so forever. The history of both China and the international political system as a whole also suggests that an emergent Chinese hegemon is unlikely to be a cooperative state willing to accept a continued American-dominated international order.3 For most of its long history, the Middle Kingdom was the dominant power in its world; only recently, beginning with the Opium Wars of the midnineteenth century, did China fall victim to over a century of Western and, later, Japanese intrusion and humiliation. China, notes Henry Kissinger, “has rarely had the experience of dealing with other societies on the basis of equality.”4 Even unburdened of its profound sense of victimization by the West, China as a rising power is likely to insist on an international order that reflects its power growth relative to that of the United States. Precautionary thinking about a war with China must address at least four issues: the economic, political, military, and foreign-policy ingredients of China as a qualified strategic rival; the likely causes of a Sino-American war; the strengths and weaknesses each side would bring to the conflict; and the likely scope of combat. Thinking about a war with China also profits from an examination of the Korean War—the one and only Sino-American war to date and a marathon of mutual incomprehension and miscalculation. China as the Next Strategic Rival Postulation of China as the next functional equivalent of the Soviet Union rests on several necessarily speculative assumptions. The first is that China will continue to sustain high growth rates in gross national product. China’s economic growth in the late 1980s and 1990s was impressive, to be sure, although it has slowed over the past several years. But the economic boom started from a very low base and has been jarringly uneven between the coastal provinces and the still-backward interior.5 Much of China’s industrial production remains economically worthless, state-owned goods. Corruption is rampant throughout the economy, and levels of unemployment and underemployment are staggering and potentially destabilizing.6 Even if China’s official statistics were reliable, no basis exists for a simple extrapolation of past growth rates into the future. Nonetheless, even the most conservatively estimated growth rates still significantly surpass those of the United States and reaffirm the strategic wisdom of Deng Xiaoping’s momentous decision to unleash capitalism in China. Unlike his politically dreamy and romantic predecessor, the realist Deng understood that security could not be had without power and that the foundation of national power was wealth creation. Economic success remains a prerequisite for China’s military competitiveness. The Soviet Union lost the Cold War because it became a one-dimensional superpower whose declining economic performance could not sustain its imperial ambitions. A second assumption is continued autocracy in Beijing. During the past two decades, dictatorial rule has taken a beating around the world, including East Asia, and both the history of Europe and recent political change in Taiwan and South Korea suggest that economic democratization can indeed exert a powerful and ultimately irresistible pressure for political democratization. Thus, prospects for a democratic China cannot be dismissed, and the evidence suggests that democracies are much less warlike toward one another than are autocracies to each other and to democracies. (This certainly does not mean a peaceful transition; more often than not, the road from autocracy to democracy is a violent one because autocrats are not disposed to

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relinquishing power without a fight.) Yet, even if Adam Smith and James Madison beat Lenin in China, the question remains whether a democratic China would be less fervently nationalist. The present regime in Beijing has both excited and curbed the expression of popular nationalist passions: witness the encouragement of street demonstrations after the accidental US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and the subsequent suppression of such demonstrations following the Chinese ramming of a US electronic-surveillance aircraft. Could not a democratic regime become more a prisoner of nationalist passions than a dictatorial one? A third assumption is that China remains unified. Its long history has been one of cyclical alternation between effective central political control and degeneration into warlordism.7 Though ethnically homogeneous (except along its northern and western peripheries), China has always been difficult to govern, even in the absence of significant social and economic change. Post-Marxist China, however, has invited enormous change; never before has any regime tried to move so many people so quickly into economic modernity, and it is far from certain that Beijing’s rulers can pull it off without revolutionary upheaval, which was the norm for China in the twentieth century. The ongoing crackdown on the seemingly harmless Falun Gong spiritual movement underscores the regime’s insecurity and its preoccupation with preserving its own legitimacy, which in the post-Marxist period has rested heavily on economic progress as well as nationalism. Richard Betts and Thomas Christensen properly caution that “before one laments the rise of Chinese power, one should consider an even more uncertain alternative: Chinese weakness and collapse. Nothing ordains that China’s march to great power status cannot be derailed.”8 A fourth assumption is that China has imperial ambitions whose realization would compromise fundamental American security interests. Unlike the Soviet Union, China has no pretensions to a global imperium. Its ambitions are neither global nor ideological but national and regional in scope, including the assertion of sovereignty over Taiwan and the South China Sea. The real issue is whether China is prepared to act on those ambitions in a way that would elicit a violent US response. The United States could hardly object to a peaceful incorporation of Taiwan on terms satisfactory to both the Chinese and Taiwanese, even though it would significantly increase China’s economic and latent military power. American interest lies in the manner—not the fact—of China’s reunification. As for the South China Sea, China has seized small bits of disputed rock there, but it has not challenged international freedom of navigation through the sea. Beyond Taiwan and the South China Sea are those territories over which Imperial China held sway at one time or another. They include much of Central Asia and the Russian Far East (RFE) as well as northern and central Vietnam (which China ruled for a millennium). Will China seek to recover these “lost” territories, and will it be prepared to use force to do so? Or has it come to understand, as do most modern industrial and postindustrial states, that extent of territory per se is not a key ingredient of modern national power? The scope of China’s ultimate territorial and other ambitions in Asia is simply not evident at this juncture in history—probably not even to China itself. US security interests in East Asia are also subject to change. Indeed, they could evolve over the coming decade to the point where one could come to regard the present robust, forward American military presence as unnecessary. The bottom-line justifications for that presence today are deterrence of North Korean aggression against South Korea, any attack on Japan, and a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Yet, these justifications would be hard to sustain in the event of Korean reunification, a Sino-Japanese rapprochement, or Taiwan’s willing return to governance by mainland China. Even in the absence of such events, there remains the possible emergence of irresistible domestic political pressure for US military retrenchment overseas. The American people have never lusted for the costly burdens of being a great power [Continues to Next Section] Comparative Advantages and Disadvantages Primary Sino-American war starters seem to be Chinese aggression against Taiwan and in the South China Sea. Yet, a US defense of Taiwan and of freedom of navigation in the western Pacific would play greatly to America’s traditional military strengths while at the same time exploit long-standing Chinese weaknesses. Historically, China’s sole strategically impressive war-fighting suit has been the quantity of its ground forces, which counts for little in the pursuit of offshore imperial ambitions. Asserting and maintaining dominance over Taiwan and the South China Sea require mastery of air and naval power—arenas in which the United States is peerless and likely to remain so for decades (assuming no retreat to isolationism plus a determination to maintain both conventional military supremacy and a forward military presence in East Asia—neither to be taken for granted). Chinese naval and air forces are rudimentary by US standards, but perhaps an even greater deficiency is the absence of any modern combat experience. China has not fought a major war since Korea (where US airpower pummeled the PLA), whereas the United States has had a virtual cornucopia of such experience since the end of the Cold War. Practice may not make perfect, but it is surely better than sitting on the military bench for almost half a century. (China’s brief and highly restricted invasion of Vietnam in 1979 pitted masses of poorly armed and trained Chinese troops against better-equipped North Vietnamese combat veterans.) Crucial to sound thinking about war with China is recognition that to shift America’s primary strategic focus from Europe to Asia is to shift from a predominantly ground-air to a predominantly air-sea theater of operations. Why? Because of the asymmetrical distributions of wealth and power between the two regions. Most of Asia’s wealth and power still lies in offshore and peninsular states, whereas in Europe it is concentrated ashore. Thus, maintaining a balance of power in Europe (i.e., preventing Europe’s domination by a hostile power) mandated a willingness and capacity to wage ground warfare deeply inland. In contrast, maintaining an Asian balance of power requires performing the simpler task of keeping offshore and peninsular Asia outside a continental hegemon’s grasp.9 Large land-warfare operations in the Asian interior are not just unnecessary; they are to be avoided at all costs because they would pit US weaknesses against a continental hegemon’s strengths. Even Gen Douglas MacArthur, who in 1951 wanted to expand the Korean War into an air and sea assault on China, declared that “it would be a master folly to contemplate the use of United States ground troops in China,” adding that “I can conceive of no strategic or tactical position where I would put in . . . units of American ground troops in continental China.”10 In addition to naval and air inferiority, China would approach war with the United States with significant strategic disadvantages. Regionwide suspicion of China’s imperial ambitions has deprived Beijing of significant allies and even friends in East Asia, whereas the United States is rich in both. India remains a strategic competitor, and Chinese behavior in the South China Sea has alienated most of Southeast Asia. The post–Cold War rapprochement between China and Russia has not eliminated centuries-old national and racial animosities between the two countries, animosities that can be heightened only by the growth of Chinese economic influence and demographic “aggression” in the RFE. In any event, Russian military power has virtually evaporated in Asia. A robust, land-based strategic nuclear deterrent is the only real asset that Moscow could make available to China in a Sino-American war, but it staggers the mind to imagine that Russia would invite its own destruction on behalf of promoting Chinese interests in East Asia. Finally, a war with the United States could be economically and even politically catastrophic for the communist rulers in Beijing. Unlike the defunct Soviet Union, China has an enormous stake in the international capitalist trading order. Indeed, China’s whopping annual trade surpluses with the United States have been indispensable to sustaining China’s remarkable economic growth and have provided large amounts of hard currency with which to finance its selective military modernization. A war with the United States would destroy Sino-American commerce (as well as China’s lucrative trade with and investment from Taiwan). China’s attractiveness as a magnet for foreign capital would cease. The consequent effects of collapsed growth would not be just economic. Because the post-Marxist regime in Beijing has staked so much of its legitimacy on its ability to deliver higher living standards, a war-caused economic depression could topple the government itself. Over time,

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of course, China’s stake in the international trading order could diminish if China shifted its primary focus from expanding its export markets to developing internal markets. The historic Middle Kingdom was more or less economically self-sufficient, and a future China bent on displacing an American-dominated international political and economic system would have a powerful interest in reducing its dependence on that system. Indeed, it is critical to distinguish between economic growth as an end in itself and economic growth as a means to a political end. Clearly, China has opted in the near term and midterm for the primacy of economic growth and its attendant dependency on the American- dominated international economic order. But to what end? For its own sake? Or for the purpose of putting China in a position some decades hence to assert political and military primacy in Asia? A recent RAND Corporation assessment of these questions concludes that a policy of assertiveness is likely for two reasons: “First, the unique and long-standing Chinese experience of geopolitical primacy and the association of that primacy with good order, civilization, virtue, and justice, may make the pursuit of geopolitical centrality through assertive behavior again attractive.” Second, “an assertive China is likely to appear over the long haul . . . precisely because the United States, the established hegemon, will—if the historical record pertaining to previous declining hegemons holds—prepare to arrest its own gradual loss of relative power and influence.”11 Both history and ideology inform the Chinese that the United States cannot avoid decline, and many people involved in managing Chinese security believe that the United States is already in military decline—a recipe for miscalculation if there ever was one.12 Hope that China’s participation in a globalizing economy will alter its approach to security issues may be misplaced. David Lampton believes that while “it is easy to assume that globalization will slowly erode Beijing’s dedication to its narrow national interest and practice of realpolitik” and while “there is plenty of evidence of increasing Chinese cooperation and conformity with international norms, there is little evidence that considerations of national interest and realpolitik figure any less prominently in Chinese thinking than they always have.”13 To be sure, by any rational calculation of interest, China—now and for the foreseeable future—would be foolish to risk war with the United States over the future of Taiwan and the South China Sea. Yet, states are motivated by fear and honor as well as by calculations of interest, and China’s hypernationalism could easily become an enemy of strategic prudence. The Chinese are exceptionally touchy about righting real and imagined wrongs visited upon them by Western, Japanese, and Russo-Soviet imperialism during the century stretching from the outbreak of the first Opium War to the consolidation of the Chinese Communist revolution. Betts and Christensen believe “there is little reason to assume that sober economic interest will necessarily override national honor in a crisis.”14 Were a crisis to occur, Beijing’s leaders could lose control of popular nationalist passions and find themselves facing the stark choice of making strategically reckless decisions or risking their own domestic political survival.15 Moreover, China would bring to war some important advantages over the United States that might encourage a decision for war in a Sino-American crisis. First and foremost of them, especially in a fight over Taiwan, would be a greater strength of interest and, therefore, a willingness to sacrifice. The future of Taiwan can never be as important to the United States as it is to China, and China could be expected—as was the case in Korea, where it felt directly threatened by Mac-Arthur’s advance to the Yalu River—to display a much higher tolerance of casualties than would the United States. The analogy most relevant here is the Vietnam War, in which superior American firepower and technology was defeated by an enemy whose greater strength of will to win manifested itself in a remarkable strategic patience and willingness to accept horrendous manpower losses. The Chinese are not afraid to threaten or use force, even in circumstances in which the objective military balance is weighted heavily against them, as it was in Korea in 1950 and the Taiwan Strait in 1996. Indeed, the Chinese appear to believe that military weakness requires a superior will to use force. John Garver argues that “Chinese strategic thinking has often concluded that periods of weakness required forceful policies precisely because the enemy may be tempted to exploit China’s vulnerability.” Examples of this inverse relationship between bellicosity and strength in Chinese foreign policy include “the decision for war with the United States in October 1950; the decision to launch an intense political struggle against Khrushchev in 1960 just as China’s economy was collapsing; the 1962 decision for war with India when China was experiencing mass famine and its alliance with Moscow had collapsed; and the 1969 decision for military confrontation with the Soviets on the Ussuri River as the PLA was preoccupied with the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.”16 Nor do the Chinese confuse military success with casualty minimization. China has an excessive population and a long history of subordinating individual human lives to the imperatives of statecraft. Communist China has used force in Korea and Tibet; against islands held by the Nationalist Chinese off the mainland coast; and against India, Vietnam, and Soviet forces along the Ussuri River. China also accepts war as a continuation of politics rather than as a substitute for politics, and force as an indispensable companion to diplomacy with unfriendly states.

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RealismTransition away from realism is violent

Murray, ‘97 (Alastair J.H., Professor Politics at the University of Wales, 1997 Reconstructing Realism: Between Power Politics and Cosmopolitan Ethics, p. 185-6)Yet Linklater concedes that ‘it is not at all clear that any strand of social and political thought provides a compelling account of “strategies of transition”’. Indeed, where he has attempted to engage with this issue himself, he as proved manifestly unable to provide such an account. Although he has put forward some ideas of what is needed – a fundamental recognition of political relations, establishing a global legal order to replace the sovereign state, and a fundamental rearrangement of economic relations, establishing an order in which all individuals have the means as well as the formal rights of freedom – his only suggestion as to how such objectives should be achieved seems to be that ‘[s]ocial development entails individuals placing themselves at odds with their societies as they begin to question conventional means of characterizing outsiders and to criticize customary prohibitions upon individual relations with them’. His critical theoretical “transitional strategies amount to little more than the suggestion that individuals must demand recognition for themselves as men as well as citizens, must demand the right to enter into complex interstate relations themselves, and must act in these relations as beings with fundamental obligations to all other members of the species”. More recently, he has proposed a vision in which ‘substantial and transnational citizenships are strengthened and in which mediating between the different loyalties and identities present within modern societies is one central purpose of the post-Westphalian state’. Such an objective is to be reached by a discourse ethics along the lines of that proposed by Habermas. Yet such an ethics amounts to little more than the suggestions that human beings need to be reflective about the ways in which they include and exclude outsiders from dialogue, scarcely going beyond Linklater’s earlier emphasis on individuals acting as men as well as citizens. Realism does at least propose tangible objectives which, whilst perhaps the visionary appeal of Linklater’s proposals, ultimately offer us a path to follow, and it does at least suggest a strategy of realization, emphasising the necessity of a restrained, moderate diplomacy, which, if less daring than Linklater might wish, provides us with some guidance. It is this inability to articulate practical strategies which suggests the central difficulty with such critical theoretical approaches. The progressive urge moves a stage further here, leading them to abandon almost entirely the problems of establishing some form of stable international order at this level in favour of a continuing revolution in search of a genuine cosmopolis. It generates such an emphasis on the pursuit of distant, ultimate objectives that they prove incapable of furnishing us with anything but the most vague and elusive of strategies, such an emphasis on moving towards a post-Westphalian boundary-less world that they are incapable of telling us anything about the problems facing us today. If, for theorists such as Linklater, such a difficulty does not constitue a failure for critical theory within its own terms of reference, this position cannot be accepted uncritically. Without an ability to address contemporary problems, it is unable to provide strategies to overcome even the immediate obstacles in the way of its objective of a genuinely cosmopolitan society. And, without a guarantee that such cosmopolitan society is even feasible, such a critical theoretical perspective simply offers us the perpetual redefinition of old problems in a new context and the persistent creation of new problems to replace old ones, without even the luxury of attempting to address them.

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Ext. Realism General

Realism is true and inevitable

Mearsheimer 01 (John, Professor of political science at University of Chicago, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pg. 361)The optimists' claim that security competition and war among the great powers has been burned out of the system is wrong. In fact, all of the major states around the globe still care deeply about the balance of power and are destined to compete for power among themselves for the foreseeable future. Consequently, realism will offer the most powerful explanations of international politics over the next century, and this will be true even if the debates among academic and policy elites are dominated by non-realist theories. In short, the real world remains a realist world. States still fear each other and seek to gain power at each other's expense, because international anarchy-the driving force behind greatpower behavior-did not change with the end of the Cold War, and there are few signs that such change is likely any time soon. States remain the principal actors in world politics and there is still no night watchman standing above them. For sure, the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a major shift in the global distribution of power. But it did not give rise to a change in the anarchic structure of the system, and without that kind of profound change, there is no reason to expect the great powers to behave much differently in the new century than they did in previous centuries. Indeed, considerable evidence from the 1990s indicates that power politics has not disappeared from Europe and Northeast Asia, the regions in which there are two or more great powers, as well as possible great powers such as Germany and Japan. There is no question, however, that the competition for power over the past decade has been low-key. Still, there is potential for intense security competion among the great powers that might lead to a major war. Probably the best evidence of that possibility is the fact that the United States maintains about one hundred thousand troops each in Europe and in Northeast Asia for the explicit purpose of keeping the major states in each region at peace.

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2AC Realism - SpaceRealism is necessary in the context of spaceCynamon 9 –USAF colonel, Deputy Program Director, Space and Nuclear Network Group(Charles H., “DEFENDING AMERICA’S INTERESTS IN SPACE,” 2/12/09, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA539893)Depending on one’s outlook, there are a range of projected futures regarding interactions among nations as well as their propensity to wage war. Within the spectrum of international relations, idealism lies on one end and realism on the other, with many variations existing in between. Idealists contend that discourse between nation-states through soft power (e.g., diplomatic and economic means) more effectively stabilizes the international order than hard military power. Conversely, realists adhere to hard power and the pursuit of self-interests by nation-states as the main determinant of international order. While the intent of this paper is not to be a dissertation on international relations, the polarity of idealism and realism permits extrapolation for the future strategic environment. Because a major conflict between spacefaring nations could lead to catastrophic damage to space assets and the space environment itself, the key question for the purposes of this research is, “What is the potential for future conflict among great powers?” Prudently preparing America to defend her space interests is vitally dependent on this answer. Immense disparity exists between idealism and realism when predicting the potential for great power wars in the future. Idealists advocate the democratic peace theory when prognosticating the future international order. That is, democratic nations are less likely to wage war against each other than with totalitarian or authoritarian regimes. Conversely, realists perceive an anarchical international order based upon balance of power or spheres of influence. They adhere to national interests as the key motivator in the behavior of states in international politics without regard for types of government. Through the lens of idealism, authors such as Thomas P. M. Barnett conclude that globalization has significantly reduced the likelihood of war among the great powers (aka peer competitors) citing the economic interdependence of the democratic nations with free markets as adequate deterrence for major conflict.14 Realists, such as James Forsyth and Colonel Thomas Griffith, are not so quick to declare the demise of great power war in the future. Recognizing there are many factors leading to conflict, realists believe conflict among great powers is not only possible but likely as nations pursuing their own interests and greater power will eventually clash.15 The United States will clearly continue to promote open markets for globalization and democratization as the key national interests. However, recent world events confirm the likelihood that volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) will dominate the strategic landscape for the foreseeable future. In 2008, the world witnessed the Russian invasion of Georgia, heightened tensions with Iran over nuclear proliferation, global economic meltdown, continued US counter-insurgency style conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and growing anti-American resentment within the Western Hemisphere. Therefore, prudence dictates charting a future course with inherent flexibility to deter and fight, if necessary, either major wars among great powers or smaller conflicts such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States maintains hegemonic military strength with global reach that’s unlikely to be matched anytime soon. However, the degree that space will be a contested environment in a future conflict greatly depends on the adversaries encountered. This paper will consider near-peer nations, non-peer nations, and non-state actors as the types of possible adversaries. Additionally, spacefaring actors with indigenous access to space represent another critical factor in considering future adversaries’ ability to contest US interests in space.16 However, an adversary need not have access to space in order to harm US space assets. Thus, for completeness, the following taxonomy categorizes possible adversaries as: 1) near-peer, spacefaring nations; 2) non-peer, spacefaring nations; 3) non-peer, non-spacefaring nations; and non-state actors.17 A comprehensive strategy to defend US space interests must address the right mix of measures for assuring actors about US peaceful intentions, dissuading acquisition and use of space weapons, and deterring or defeating use of space weapons. These concepts represent the ways in which the strategy could attain the space defense strategy objective. There is no “one-size fits all” approach against the potential adversary types defined above. A tailored approach is needed and is thus described in the following paragraphs.

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China Threat Competition inevitable—China satellites and new DoD national security space strategy proves.

The Economist 11(“The Cluttered Frontier: America Updates Its Space Security Policy”, Security in Space, The Economist, February 10, 2011, http://www.economist.com/node/18111774)At least, they used to be. Unfortunately, it has not quite worked out like that. A strategy document * published on February 4th by the country’s Department of Defense (DOD) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reveals interlopers. Around 60 countries now have satellites orbiting the Earth. Along with those satellites—which number more than 1,000—there are 22,000 man-made objects large enough to track by radar and hundreds of thousands of bits of debris too small to detect. Space is a congested, contested and competitive place, and one in which America is merely first among equals . America’s new national security space strategy—the first the DOD has felt the need to publish—is an attempt to adapt to this reality. Satellites, vital for both military and economic security, face a range of threats, including accidental collisions, anti-satellite missiles, lasers, electronic jamming and even the hacking of their software. On top of that, America has a lot more competition than it used to in the markets for making and launching satellites. A decade ago its share of these industries was double what it is today. Such competition is inevitable, as space technology spreads and other countries are no longer forced to rely on America’s good offices for things like satellite-based global positioning systems. But a more direct threat to America’s position comes from the testing of anti-satellite weapons. In 2007 the Chinese used one of their ageing weather satellites as target practice for a ground-based missile. The test was successful, in that the satellite was destroyed, and America had a minor “ Sputnik moment” of realization of the true capabilities of its rival . But the test also had the consequence of creating thousands of pieces of debris that now pose a hazard for other satellites, including Chinese ones. The new strategy document suggests that, rather than trying to negotiate treaties that outlaw such behavior, America should lead by example. To an extent, it already has. A year after the Chinese test, America followed suit. It destroyed an errant spy satellite that still had a full load of a toxic propellant called hydrazine, and was in danger of spilling it over an inhabited area when it re-entered the atmosphere. Unlike the Chinese test, though, the American target was in such a low orbit that any debris would quickly have fallen into the air and burned up. There were claims at the time that this test was intended mainly as a demonstration to the Chinese. If it was, they may have learned a lesson in good neighborliness, at least. According to Brian Weeden, of a think-tank called the Secure World Foundation, China conducted another anti-satellite test in 2010, and that passed without criticism. The crucial difference was that, like America’s test, the second Chinese one did not create any mess.

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China Racing NowAnd, China is building Satellites for Offensive Manuevers – will catch the U.S. in 2 years

Digital Journal 7/12/2k11(“China's militarisation of space,” pg lexis//ef)According to the October edition of Journal of Strategic Studies, a United Kingdom-published defence and security journal; "China's constellation of satellites is transitioning from the limited ability to collect general strategic information, into a new era in which it will be able to support tactical operations as they happen," the report said. "China may already be able to match the United States' ability to image a known, stationary target and will likely surpass it in the flurry of launches planned for the next two years." "The most immediate and strategically disquieting application [of reconnaissance satellites] is a targeting and tracking capability in support of the anti-ship ballistic missile, which could hit US carrier groups," "But China's growing capability in space is not designed to support any single weapon; instead it is being developed as a dynamic system, applicable to other long-range platforms. With space as the backbone, China will be able to expand the range of its ability to apply force while preserving its policy of not establishing foreign military bases." During the 1995-96 Taiwan Straits crisis Beijing realised it could neither track nor respond to US war ships which were dispatched to the straits after China conducted war games around the self-ruled island state, which China regards as a rebel province, and which it has been at odds with over a number of years. China has increased its defence budget over the decade and those tracking its projects indicate that China is not far behind the US and Russia in terms of its technology threshold. China recently unveiled its fifth generation fighter jet, the Chengdu J-20, which is said to rival the US F-22 Raptor, the only fifth generation fighter jet currently in service. Intelligence sources say that while the Chengdu is set to go into service somewhere nearing 2018, by that time the US would already be in development of its sixth generation multiple role fighter jet. China maybe 10 to 15 years behind the US now, but its catching up fast.

And, New Chinese Satellite Tech can knock out our carriers – crushes heg and U.S. Military advantage

Aerospace American March 2k11(“China's MILITARY SPACE SURGE,” pg nexis//ef)China's surging military space program is poised to challenge U.S. aircraft carrier operations in the Pacific , as Chinese military spacecraft already gather significant new radar, electrooptical imaging, and signal intelligence data globally. During 2010, China more than doubled its military satellite launch rate to 12. This compares with three to five military missions launched each year between 2006 and 2009. Since 2006, China has launched about 30 military related spacecraft. Its total of 15 launches in 2010 set a new record for China and for the first time equaled the U.S. flight rate for a given year. Most U.S. public and media attention has focused on China's occasional manned flights and its maturing unmanned lunar program. But China's military space surge reveals a program where more than half of its spacecraft are like 'wolves in sheep's clothing,' posing a growing threat to U.S. Navy operations in the Pacific. India's navy is also concerned. "This is a really big deal. These military spacecraft are being launched at a very rapid pace" says Andrew S. Erickson, a Naval War College expert on China's naval and space forces . China is becoming a military space power within a global context." At least three or four different Chinese military satellite systems are being networked to support China's 1,500 km+ range DF-21D antiship ballistic missile (ASBM) program, say U.S. analysts. The DF-21D is being designed to force U.S. Navy aircraft carrier battle groups and other large U.S. allied warships to operate hundreds of miles farther away from China or North Korea than they do today. The ASBM "has undergone repeated tests and has reached initial operational capability," Adm. Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command said recently in Tokyo. The new Chinese space capabilities, combined with development of the DF-21D, are already having an effect on the planning of future operations in the Pacific, says Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. "I'm trying to get people to think about how do we use aircraft carriers in a world environment where other countries [China specifically] will have the capability, between their missile and satellite capabilities, to knock out a carrier ," Gates said recently at Duke University. "How do you use carriers differently in the future than we've used them in the past?" he asked.

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Now Key TimeAnd, U.S. Space and Tactical Weapons development is falling behind China – Multiple Indicators prove – Prefer our Author – he’s done field studies IN CHINA

Fisher 2k11(Richard, Rick Fisher is a Senior Fellow on Asian Military Affairs. Fisher is a recognized authority on the PRC military and the Asian military balance and their implications for Asia and the United States, He has performed field research in China, Taiwan, Russia, India and Pakistan, Fisher has worked on Asian security matters for over 20 years in a range of critical positions -- as Asian Studies Director at the Heritage Foundation, Senior Analyst for Chairman Chris Cox’s Policy Committee in support of the report of the Select Committee for US National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China, and a consultant on PLA issues for the Congressionally chartered US China Security & Economic Review Commission. The author of nearly 200 studies on challenges to American security, economic and foreign policy in Asia, Fisher is a frequent commentator on Asian issues for radio and television and has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the House International Relations Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, and the U.S. China Security Commission, on the modernization of China’s military, “Too Little, Too Late?,” Defense Technology International, pg nexis//ef)Some potential developments are being hinted at. The PLA’s preparations to carry out the new «historic mission» given by the Chinese Communist Party in December 2004, which includes a mandate to defend the party’s international interests, takes the PLA’s challenge beyond its increasing A2/AD capabilities in Asia. The beginning of distant activities is seen in the PLA’s deployment of joint-force packages for exercises in Russia (2008) and Kazakhstan (2010) and its participation in counter-piracy patrols off Somalia since late 2009. In some cases Washington’s initial A2/AD response is meeting challenges. For example, one counter to the DF-21D 2,000-3,000-km (1,240-1,865-mi.)-range ASBM has been the Navy’s UCAS-D unmanned combat aerial system program, for which the Northrop-Grumman X-47B made its first flight on Feb. 2. The X-47B has an initial range of about 2,100 nm., but may not enter the fleet until 2020. On Feb. 20, China’s Global Times carried a public disclosure that by 2015 the PLA would deploy a new family of 4,000-km intermediate-range ballistic missiles. This family, the paper said, would carry out offensive missions, likely nuclear and non-nuclear strike, and defensive missions, probably meaning it will carry improved terminally guided antiship warheads. Chinese sources have referred to future DF-25/26/27 missiles: One may be the new 4,000-km missile. Future PLA medium- and short-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles will be faster and more maneuverable to counter defenses. A new air- and missile-defense interceptor family, sometimes called the HQ-19 (HHQ-26 for the naval version), reportedly has performance goals similar to the 400-km Russian S-400. By the 2020s the U.S. hopes to resolve technology challenges for deployment of energy weapons. Indicators point to the possibility that the PLA is not far behind in development of tactical lasers, high-power microwave weapons and rail guns. There is also heavy Chinese investment in research centers for electromagnetic launch technology, the basis for rail guns, electromagnetic aircraft catapults and spacecraft launchers. China is working on counter-stealth and counter-network technology. At IDEX in February (see p. 17), China released details of the meter-wave (VHF) HK-JM and HK-JM2 radars, both mobile and with detection ranges of 330 and 500 km, respectively. The radars could cue more accurate tracking systems. China also unveiled the DWL002 ground-based electronic surveillance measure system, which could be deployed as a passive coherent-location radar, using long-range broadcast signals to detect non-emitting targets. But these newer trends in Chinese power are not sufficiently reflected in U.S. government documents —like the annual China Military Power report—that influence debate over strategy and spending priorities. One possible result is that U.S. weapons timelines will increasingly trail rather than lead PLA developments.

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Scenario Planning/Predictions GoodOur Scenario Evaluations are Crucial For Ethically Responsible Politics - Purely Theoretical Kritik is Insufficient - We Need “As If” Stories to Offset the Worst International Violence

Williams 2k5Michael Williams, Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales—Aberystwyth, ‘5 [The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations, p. 165-7]Moreover, the links between skeptical realism and prevalent postmodern themes go more deeply than this, particularly as they apply to attempts by post-structural thinking to reopen questions of responsibility and ethics.8° In part, the goals of post-structural approaches can be usefully characterized, to borrow Stephen White's illuminating contrast, as expressions of 'responsibility to otherness' which question and challenge modernist equations of responsibility with a 'responsibility to act'. A responsibility to otherness seeks to reveal and open the constitutive processes and claims of subjects and subjectivities that a foundational modernism has effaced in its narrow identification of responsibility with a 'responsibility to act'.81 Deconstruction can from this perspective be seen as a principled stance unwilling to succumb to modernist essentialism which in the name of responsibility assumes and reifies subjects and structures, obscures forms of power and violence which are constitutive of them, and at the same time forecloses a consideration of alternative possibilities and practices. Yet it is my claim that the wilful Realist tradition does not lack an understanding of the contingency of practice or a vision of responsibility to otherness. On the contrary, its strategy of objectification is precisely an attempt to bring together a responsibility to otherness and a responsibility to act within a willfully liberal vision. The construction of a realm of objectivity and calculations is not just a consequence of a need to act - the framing of an epistemic context for successful calculation. It is a form of responsibility to otherness, an attempt to allow for diversity and irreconcilability precisely by - at least initially - reducing the self and the other to a structure of material calculation in order to allow a structure of mutual intelligibility, mediation, and stability . It is, in short, a strategy of limitation: a willful attempt to construct a subject and a social world limited - both epistemically and politically - in the name of a politics of toleration: a liberal strategy that John Gray has recently characterized as one of mondus vivendi. If this is the case, then the deconstructive move that gains some of its weight by contrasting itself to a non- or apolitical objectivism must engage with the more complex contrast to skeptical Realist tradition that is itself a constructed, ethical practice. The issue becomes even more acute if one considers Iver Neumann’s incisive questions concerning postmodern construction of identity, action and responsibility. As Neumann points out, the insight that identities are inescapably contingent and relationally constructed, and even the claim that identities are indebted to otherness , do not in themselves provide a foundation for practice, particularly in situations where identities are ‘sediment’ and conflictually defined. In these cases, deconstruction alone will not suffice unless it can demonstrate a capacity to counter in practice (and not just philosophical practice) the essential dynamics it confronts. Here, a responsibility to act must go beyond deconstruction to consider viable alternatives and counter-practices. To take this critique seriously is not necessarily to be subject yet again to the straightforward ‘blackmail of the Enlightenment and a narrow ‘modernist’ vision of responsibility. While an unwillingness to move beyond a deconstructive ethic of responsibility to otherness for fear that an essential stance is the only (or most likely) alternative expresses legitimate concern, it should not license a retreat from such questions or their practical demands. Rather, such situations demand also an evaluation of the structures (of identity and institutions) that might viably be mobilised in order to offset the worst implications of violently exclusionary identities . It requires, as Neumann nicely puts it, the generation of compelling 'as if' stories around which counter-subjectivities and political practices can coalesce. Willful Realism, 1 submit, arises out of an appreciation of these issues, and comprises an attempt to craft precisely such 'stories' within a broader intellectual and sociological analysis of their conditions of production, possibilities of success, and likely consequences. The question is, to what extent are these limits capable of success, and to what extent might they he limits upon their own aspirations toward responsibility? These are crucial questions, but they will not be addressed by retreating yet again into further reversals of the same old dichotomies.

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FrameworkPolicy oriented debates are key to establish substance based discussion with relevant and recognizable argumentation McClean, Ph.D. Philosophy: The New School for Social Research, 2001 [David E, “The Cultural Left And The Limits of Social Hope,” Annual Conference of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. 2001 Conference]There is a lot of philosophical prose on the general subject of social justice. Some of this is quite good, and some of it is quite bad. What distinguishes the good from the bad is not merely the level of erudition. Displays of high erudition are gratuitously reflected in much of the writing by those, for example, still clinging to Marxian ontology and is often just a useful smokescreen which shrouds a near total disconnect from empirical reality. This kind of political writing likes to make a lot of references to other obscure, jargon-laden essays and tedious books written by other true believers - the crowd that takes the fusion of Marxian and Freudian private fantasies seriously . Nor is it the lack of scholarship that makes this prose bad. Much of it is well "supported" by footnotes referencing a lode of other works, some of which are actually quite good. Rather, what makes this prose bad is its utter lack of relevance to extant and critical policy debates, the passage of actual laws, and the amendment of existing regulations that might actually do some good for someone else. The writers of this bad prose are too interested in our arrival at some social place wherein we will finally emerge from our "inauthentic" state into something called "reality." Most of this stuff, of course, comes from those steeped in the Continental tradition (particularly post-Kant). While that tradition has much to offer and has helped shape my own philosophical sensibilities, it is anything but useful when it comes to truly relevant philosophical analysis, and no self-respecting Pragmatist can really take seriously the strong poetry of formations like "authenticity looming on the ever remote horizons of fetishization." What Pragmatists see instead is the hope that we can fix some of the social ills that face us if we treat policy and reform as more important than Spirit and Utopia. Like light rain released from pretty clouds too high in the atmosphere, the substance of this prose dissipates before it can reach the ground and be a useful component in a discussion of medicare reform or how to better regulate a pharmaceutical industry that bankrupts senior citizens and condemns to death HIV patients unfortunate enough to have been born in Burkina Faso - and a regulatory regime that permits this. It is often too drenched in abstractions and references to a narrow and not so merry band of other intellectuals (Nietzsche, Bataille, Foucault, Lukács, Benjamin) to be of much use to those who are the supposed subject matter of this preternatural social justice literature. Since I have no particular allegiance to these other intellectuals, no particular impulse to carry their water or defend their reputations, I try and forget as much as I can about their writings in order to make space for some new approaches and fresh thinking about that important question that always faces us - "What is to be done?" I am, I think, lucky to have taken this decision before it had become too late. One might argue with me that these other intellectuals are not looking to be taken seriously in the construction of solutions to specific socio-political problems. They are, after all, philosophers engaged in something called philosophizing. They are, after all, just trying to be good culture critics. Of course, that isn't quite true, for they often write with specific reference to social issues and social justice in mind, even when they are fluttering about in the ether of high theory (Lukács, for example, was a government officer, albeit a minister of culture, which to me says a lot), and social justice is not a Platonic form but parses into the specific quotidian acts of institutions and individuals. Social justice is but the genus heading which may be described better with reference to its species iterations- the various conditions of cruelty and sadism which we wittingly or unwittingly permit. If we wanted to, we could reconcile the grand general theories of these thinkers to specific bureaucracies or social problems and so try to increase their relevance. We could construct an account which acts as a bridge to relevant policy considerations. But such attempts, usually performed in the reams of secondary literature generated by their devotees, usually make things even more bizarre. In any event, I don't think we owe them that amount of effort. After all, if they wanted to be relevant they could have said so by writing in such a way that made it clear that relevance was a high priority. For Marxians in general, everything tends to get reduced to class. For Lukács everything tends to get reduced to "reification." But society and its social ills are far too intricate to gloss in these ways, and the engines that drive competing interests are much more easily explained with reference to animal drives and fears than by Absolute Spirit. That is to say, they are not easily explained at all. Take Habermas, whose writings are admittedly the most relevant of the group. I cannot find in Habermas's lengthy narratives regarding communicative action, discourse ethics, democracy and ideal speech situations very much more than I have found in the Federalist Papers, or in Paine's Common Sense, or in Emerson's Self Reliance or Circles. I simply don't find the concept of uncoerced and fully informed communication between peers in a democratic polity all that difficult to understand, and I don't much see the need to theorize to death such a simple concept, particularly where the only persons that are apt to take such narratives seriously are already sold, at least in a general sense. Of course, when you are trying to justify yourself in the face of the other members of your chosen club (in Habermas's case, the Frankfurt School) the intricacy of your explication may have less to do with simple concepts than it has to do with parrying for respectability in the eyes of your intellectual brethren. But I don't see why the rest of us need to partake in an insular debate that has little to do with anyone that is not very much interested in the work of early critical theorists such as Horkheimer or Adorno, and who might see their insights as only modestly relevant at best. Not many self-respecting engaged political scientists in this country actually still take these thinkers seriously, if they ever did at all. Or we might take Foucault who, at best, has provided us with what may reasonably be described as a very long and eccentric footnote to Nietzsche (I have once been accused, by a Foucaltian true believer, of "gelding" Foucault with other similar remarks). Foucault, who has provided the Left of the late 1960s through the present with such notions as "governmentality," "Limit," "archeology," "discourse" "power" and "ethics," creating or redefining their meanings, has made it overabundantly clear that all of our moralities and practices are the successors of previous ones which derive from certain configurations of savoir and connaisance arising from or created by, respectively, the discourses of the various scientific schools. But I have not yet found in anything

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Foucault wrote or said how such observations may be translated into a political movement or hammered into a political document or theory (let alone public policies) that can be justified or founded on more than an arbitrary aesthetic experimentalism. In fact, Foucault would have shuddered if any one ever did, since he thought that anything as grand as a movement went far beyond what he thought appropriate. This leads me to mildly rehabilitate Habermas, for at least he has been useful in exposing Foucault's shortcomings in this regard, just as he has been useful in exposing the shortcomings of others enamored with the abstractions of various Marxian-Freudian social critiques. Yet for some reason, at least partially explicated in Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country, a book that I think is long overdue, leftist critics continue to cite and refer to the eccentric and often a priori ruminations of people like those just mentioned, and a litany of others including Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard, Jameson, and Lacan, who are to me hugely more irrelevant than Habermas in their narrative attempts to suggest policy prescriptions (when they actually do suggest them) aimed at curing the ills of homelessness, poverty, market greed, national belligerence and racism. I would like to suggest that it is time for American social critics who are enamored with this group, those who actually want to be relevant, to recognize that they have a disease, and a disease regarding which I myself must remember to stay faithful to my own twelve step program of recovery. The disease is the need for elaborate theoretical "remedies" wrapped in neological and multi-syllabic jargon. These elaborate theoretical remedies are more "interesting," to be sure, than the pragmatically settled questions about what shape democracy should take in various contexts, or whether private property should be protected by the state, or regarding our basic human nature (described, if not defined (heaven forbid!), in such statements as "We don't like to starve" and "We like to speak our minds without fear of death" and "We like to keep our children safe from poverty"). As Rorty puts it, "When one of today's academic leftists says that some topic has been 'inadequately theorized,' you can be pretty certain that he or she is going to drag in either philosophy of language, or Lacanian psychoanalysis, or some neo-Marxist version of economic determinism. . . . These futile attempts to philosophize one's way into political relevance are a symptom of what happens when a Left retreats from activism and adopts a spectatorial approach to the problems of its country. Disengagement from practice produces theoretical hallucinations "(italics mine).(1) Or as John Dewey put it in his The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy, "I believe that philosophy in America will be lost between chewing a historical cud long since reduced to woody fiber, or an apologetics for lost causes, . . . . or a scholastic, schematic formalism, unless it can somehow bring to consciousness America's own needs and its own implicit principle of successful action." Those who suffer or have suffered from this disease Rorty refers to as the Cultural Left, which left is juxtaposed to the Political Left that Rorty prefers and prefers for good reason. Another attribute of the Cultural Left is that its members fancy themselves pure culture critics who view the successes of America and the West, rather than some of the barbarous methods for achieving those successes, as mostly evil, and who view anything like national pride as equally evil even when that pride is tempered with the knowledge and admission of the nation's shortcomings. In other words, the Cultural Left, in this country, too often dismiss American society as beyond reform and redemption. And Rorty correctly argues that this is a disastrous conclusion, i.e. disastrous for the Cultural Left. I think it may also be disastrous for our social hopes, as I will explain. Leftist American culture critics might put their considerable talents to better use if they bury some of their cynicism about America's social and political prospects and help forge public and political possibilities in a spirit of determination to, indeed, achieve our country - the country of Jefferson and King; the country of John Dewey and Malcom X; the country of Franklin Roosevelt and Bayard Rustin, and of the later George Wallace and the later Barry Goldwater. To invoke the words of King, and with reference to the American society, the time is always ripe to seize the opportunity to help create the "beloved community," one woven with the thread of agape into a conceptually single yet diverse tapestry that shoots for nothing less than a true intra-American cosmopolitan ethos, one wherein both same sex unions and faith-based initiatives will be able to be part of the same social reality, one wherein business interests and the university are not seen as belonging to two separate galaxies but as part of the same answer to the threat of social and ethical nihilism. We who fancy ourselves philosophers would do well to create from within ourselves and from within our ranks a new kind of public intellectual who has both a hungry theoretical mind and who is yet capable of seeing the need to move past high theory to other important questions that are less bedazzling and "interesting" but more important to the prospect of our flourishing - questions such as "How is it possible to develop a citizenry that cherishes a certain hexis, one which prizes the character of the Samaritan on the road to Jericho almost more than any other?" or "How can we square the political dogma that undergirds the fantasy of a missile defense system with the need to treat America as but one member in a community of nations under a "law of peoples?" The new public philosopher might seek to understand labor law and military and trade theory and doctrine as much as theories of surplus value; the logic of international markets and trade agreements as much as critiques of commodification, and the politics of complexity as much as the politics of power (all of which can still be done from our arm chairs.) This means going down deep into the guts of our quotidian social institutions, into the grimy pragmatic details where intellectuals are loathe to dwell but where the officers and bureaucrats of those institutions take difficult and often unpleasant, imperfect decisions that affect other peoples' lives, and it means making honest attempts to truly understand how those institutions actually function in the actual world before howling for their overthrow commences. This might help keep us from being slapped down in debates by true policy pros who actually know what they are talking about but who lack awareness of the dogmatic assumptions from which they proceed, and who have not yet found a good reason to listen to jargon-riddled lectures from philosophers and culture critics with their snobish disrespect for the so-called "managerial class."

SDI 11File Title

AT: K’s/Security Style Args (reminders)Realism – Liberalism – Constructivism

1. The Case Outweighs - something to highlight the significance of the aff. Too often the aff loses sight of their 1AC in their attempts to defeat the K. In the specific instance of your aff,

2. Threats are real. Objective indicators prove. Prefer specificity. Social construction proves the case: US/China posturing has *already created* a self-fulfilling cycle of conflict. At this point, only deterrence can solve. [ This makes the impact their IMPERIALISM JUNK WORSE]

"Just because we describe the world in a certain way doesnot mean we obliterate it"

3. Alt fails. Security is rigid and difficult to displace. Voting Neg has no mechanism for large-scale spillover and can't change politics quick enough to solve the case. Impact is war that shatters the alt because social transformation is impossible during times of conflict.

4. Aff doesn't cause endless apocalypse. It uses security logic to justify the PLAN, which is GOOD. Deterrence theory is best / realism true / stops conflict and doesn't cause it. (Use cards about deterrence to disprove the idea that if you fear something, you will have to kill it --- which their impact stuff basically collapses into).

5. Problem-solving theory Good. Best card is from Jarvis

6. Perm - endorse the Aff and reject security discourse