Mexico Drug Cartels Negative - HSS 2013

Case
Relations
1NC Relations
1. Mexico says no not a fan of US drug involvement.
Cave et al 13 (Randal C. Archibold and Damien Cave reported from Mexico City, and Ginger Thompson
from New York, 4/30/13, Mexicos Curbs on U.S. Role in Drug Fight Spark Friction,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/world/americas/friction-between-us-and-mexico-threatens-
efforts-on-drugs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)//DR. H

In their joint fight against drug traffickers, the United States and Mexico have forged an
unusually close relationship in recent years, with the Americans regularly conducting polygraph
tests on elite Mexican security officials to root out anyone who had been corrupted.
But shortly after Mexicos new president, Enrique Pea Nieto, took office in December, American
agents got a clear message that the dynamics, with Washington holding the clear upper
hand, were about to change.
So do we get to polygraph you? one incoming Mexican official asked his American counterparts,
alarming United States security officials who consider the vetting of the Mexicans central to tracking
down drug kingpins. The Mexican government briefly stopped its vetted officials from
cooperating in sensitive investigations. The Americans are waiting to see if Mexico allows
polygraphs when assigning new members to units, a senior Obama administration official said.
In another clash, American security officials were recently asked to leave an important
intelligence center in Monterrey, where they had worked side by side with an array of
Mexican military and police commanders collecting and analyzing tips and intelligence
on drug gangs. The Mexicans, scoffing at the notion of Americans having so much contact with
different agencies, questioned the value of the center and made clear that they would put
tighter reins on the sharing of drug intelligence.
There have long been political sensitivities in Mexico over allowing too much American
involvement. But the recent policy changes have rattled American officials used to far
fewer restrictions than they have faced in years.

2. Cooperation now solves.
Stratfor 5/2 (geopolitical intelligence firm that provides strategic analysis and forecasting to
individuals and organizations, 5/2/13, Evolving U.S.-Mexico Relations and Obama's Visit,
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/evolving-us-mexico-relations-and-obamas-visit)//DR. H

When U.S. President Barack Obama travels to Mexico on May 2, he will arrive amid a period of
sweeping transformation in the country. Embroiled in myriad political battles and seeking to implement an extensive
slate of national reforms, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration has been focused almost solely on
internal affairs. Meanwhile, after years of delay, the U.S. Congress has been debating gun
control and immigration reform -- two issues of serious interest to the Mexican
government.
U.S.-Mexican relations are strategically important to both countries, and Mexico's period of transition has created opportunities for each to
reshape the partnership. And although U.S. media attention has focused primarily on bilateral
security issues ahead of Obama's visit -- namely cooperation in Mexico's drug war -- the
Pena Nieto administration is working with Washington to re-orient the cross-border
conversation to one centered primarily on mutual economic possibility.

3. Security approaches fail empirics and data.
Brewer 08 (Stephanie Erin, 6/30/08, International Legal Officer at the Miguel Agustn Pro Jurez
Human Rights Center in Mexico City, Rethinking the Mrida Initiative: Why the U.S. Must Change
Course in its Approach to Mexicos Drug War, American University Washington College of Law,
pdf)//DR. H

In addition to these concerns, the consistently ineffective track record of frontal-combat
approaches to reducing drug trafficking leave little doubt that supporting such an
approach now will not end the drug trade, despite any short-term increases in the number of
arrests or amount of drugs seized. Other largescale security operations to fight drug
traffickers at various points over the past few Mexican administrations have resulted in
the arrests of high-profile drug kingpins or shifted drug trafficking routes from one place to another.
They have not shown signs, however, of sustainable progress in
reducing the drug trade as a whole.25
Thus, while effective and professional law enforcement is important at all times, the
experiences and data cited above lead to the conclusion that increased law enforcement
is not the panacea to Mexican drug trafficking. Deterrence in general does not hold
much power over the foot soldiers of Mexicos drug trafficking organizations; such
individuals already risk a violent death at the hands of rival traffickers or authorities.
Tough law enforcement, even if it achieved increased numbers of arrests, would not stop new
drug traffickers from emerging, lured by the promise of economic returns in a social and
economic context that frequently offers few other opportunities to earn a dignified
income.
These points are especially relevant in a context of increasing recognition of the failure
of the regional drug war paradigm. In February 2009, the Latin American Commission on Drugs
and Democracy, composed of leading political figures including former Presidents of Mexico, Colombia,
and Brazil, issued its conclusions on this subject. It strongly criticized as ineffective the U.S.-led
drug war paradigm of the past 30 years and called for a public health approach to drug
policy centered on treatment and demand reduction.26 While it recognized the need for
effective law enforcement against organized crime, the ommission observed, Colombia is a clear
example of the limitations of the repressive policies romoted globally by the United
States27 in the drug war. It concluded that the sustainable solution to the drug problem
lay in demand reduction in the major consumer countries, notably the United States,
as well as the European Union.28
Also noteworthy is that a February 2009 telephone survey of Mexican residents, which measured
reactions to the Commissions report, found that 63% agreed with the statement,
Strategies to confront drug trafficking exclusively through the police
and military have failed in Latin America.29 More than half of the participants in
the survey (53%) agreed with the perception that, It has not been possible to debate openly
the subject of drugs to find new solutions, due to prejudices and the imposition of the
United States, which only wants to use the police and military.30
4. Econ resilient.
E.I.U. 11
(Economist Intelligence Unit Global Forecasting Service, 11/16/11
(http://gfs.eiu.com/Article.aspx?articleType=gef&articleId=668596451&secID=7)

The US economy, by any standard, remains weak, and consumer and business sentiment are close to
2009 lows. That said, the economy has been surprisingly resilient in the face of so many shocks. US
real GDP expanded by a relatively robust 2.5% in the third quarter of 2011, twice the rate of the
previous quarter. Consumer spending rose by 2.4%, which is impressive given that real
incomes dropped during the quarter (the savings rate fell, which helps to explain the anomaly.)
Historically, US consumers have been willing to spend even in difficult times. Before the
2008-09 slump, personal spending rose in every quarter between 1992 and 2007. That resilience is again
in evidence: retail sales in September were at a seven-month high, and sales at chain stores
have been strong. Business investment has been even more buoyant: it expanded in the third
quarter by an impressive 16.3% at an annual rate, and spending by companies in September on
conventional capital goods (that is, excluding defence and aircraft) grew by the most since
March. This has been made possible, in part, by strong corporate profits. According to data
compiled by Bloomberg, earnings for US companies in the S&P 500 rose by 24% year on year in the third
quarter. All of this has occurred despite a debilitating fiscal debate in Washington, a sovereign debt
downgrade by a major ratings agency and exceptional volatility in capital markets. This reinforces our
view that the US economy, although weak, is not in danger of falling into a recession (absent a
shock from the euro zone). US growth will, however, continue to be held back by a weak labour
marketthe unemployment rate has been at or above 9% for 28 of the last 30 monthsand by a
moribund housing market.

5. No diversionary theory itll be small scale if it happens.
Harrison 11
(Mark, Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Centre for Russian and East European Studies,
University of Birmingham, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University,
Capitalism at War Oct 19
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/harrison/papers/capitalism.pdf)

Diversionary wars In the concept of diversionary wars, political leaders seek and exploit conflict with external
adversaries in order to rally domestic support. The idea is well established in the literature, perhaps because the theoretical case is quite
intuitive, and narrative support is not hard to find. In fact, it may be too easy; as Jack Levy (1989) pointed out, few wars have not been attributed to political leaders
desire to improve domestic standing. The idea of diversionary wars is directly relevant to a discussion of capitalism
only if it can be shown that capitalist polities are more likely to exploit foreign adventures. One reason might be
advanced from a Marxist perspective: perhaps capitalist societies, being class-divided, are more likely to give rise to wars
intended to divert the workers from the cause of socialism. A longstanding interpretation of the origins of World War I in domestic
German politics conveys exactly this message (Berghahn 1973). This view does not sit well with the equally traditional idea that
a class-divided society is less able to go to war. The official Soviet histories of World War II used to claim
that, under capitalism, divided class interests made the working people reluctant to fight for the nation.
Because of this, the workers could be motivated to take part only by demagogy, deception, bribery,
and force (Grechko et al., eds 1982, vol. 12, p. 38; Pospelov et al., eds 1965, vol. 6, pp. 80-82). Quantitative empirical work has lent little support to the idea
(Levy 1989). Exceptions include studies of the use of force by U.S. and British postwar governments by Morgan and Bickers (1992) and Morgan and Anderson (1999).
They conclude that the use of force is more likely when government approval is high but the governments
supporting coalition is suffering erosion. They also suggest that force is unlikely to be used at high intensities
under such circumstances (because likely costs are high, eroding political support) or when domestic
conflict is high (because conflict would then be polarizing rather than consolidate support). Another line of
research suggests that new or incompletely established democracies are particularly vulnerable to risky adventures in nation-building (Mansfield and Snyder 2005).
One inspiration for this view was the record of the new democracies born out of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. More recently, Georgia seems to have
provided out-of-sample confirmation. Suppose diversionary wars exist. Is capitalism somehow more internally
conflicted than other societies, and so disproportionately likely to externalize conflict? As a comparator, the
case of fascism seems straightforward. Fascism did not produce diversionary wars because, for fascists,
war was not a diversion; it was the Schwerpunkt. The more interesting case is that of communism. Communists
do not seem to have pursued diversionary wars. But the domestic legitimacy of Soviet rule visibly relied
on the image of an external enemy, and thrived on tension short of military conflict. Soviet leaders used
external tension to justify internal controls on movement, culture, and expression, and the associated apparatus of secrecy, censorship, and
surveillance. When they tolerated trends towards dtente in the 1970s, they subverted their own controls. An
East German Stasi officer told his boss, repeating it later to Garton Ash (1997, p. 159): How can you expect me to prevent *defections and revelations+, when weve
signed all these international agreements for improved relations with the West, working conditions for journalists, freedom of movement, respect for human
rights? If Soviet foreign policy was sometimes expansionist, it sought expansion only up to the point where the desired level of tension was assured. Bolsheviks of
the 1917 generation knew well that too much too much conflict abroad encouraged defeatist and counter-revolutionary sentiments at home. Oleg Khlevniuk (1995,
p. 174) noted: The complex relationship between war and revolution, which had almost seen the tsarist regime toppled in 1905 and which finally brought its
demise in 1917, was a relationship of which Stalin was acutely aware. The lessons of history had to be learnt lest history repeat itself. Stalin did all he could to avoid
war with Germany in 1941 (Gorodetsky 1999). Postwar Soviet leaders risked war by proxy, but avoided direct conflict with the main adversary. Faced with
unfavourable odds, they tended to withdraw (from Cuba) or do nothing (in Poland) or accepted them with great reluctance (in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and
Afghanistan). Diversionary tension must fall short of diversionary war. From this follows an acceptance that
capitalism, because of its tendency to give rise to democratic structures and political competition, has
been more open to diversionary wars than other systems. But the empirical research and analysis that underpin
this conclusion also imply that such wars would generally be small scale and short lived, and the
circumstances that give rise to them would be exceptional or transient. We should place this in the
wider context of the democratic peace. As Levy (1988) wrote: Liberal or democratic states do not fight each
other This absence of war between democracies comes as close as anything we have to an empirical
law in international relations. Since all liberal democracies have also been capitalist on any definition, it is
a finding of deep relevance.

6. Decline doesnt cause war
Barnett 9
(Thomas P.M Barnett, senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC, contributing editor/online
columnist for Esquire, 8/25/9 The New Rules: Security Remains Stable Amid Financial Crisis,
Aprodex, Asset Protection Index, http://www.aprodex.com/the-new-rules--security-remains-stable-
amid-financial-crisis-398-bl.aspx)

When the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the blogosphere was ablaze with
all sorts of scary predictions of, and commentary regarding, ensuing conflict and wars -- a rerun
of the Great Depression leading to world war, as it were. Now, as global economic news
brightens and recovery -- surprisingly led by China and emerging markets -- is the talk of the day, it's
interesting to look back over the past year and realize how globalization's first truly
worldwide recession has had virtually no impact whatsoever on the international security
landscape. None of the more than three-dozen ongoing conflicts listed by
GlobalSecurity.org can be clearly attributed to the global recession. Indeed, the last new
entry (civil conflict between Hamas and Fatah in the Palestine) predates the economic
crisis by a year, and three quarters of the chronic struggles began in the last century. Ditto for the 15
low-intensity conflicts listed by Wikipedia (where the latest entry is the Mexican "drug war" begun in
2006). Certainly, the Russia-Georgia conflict last August was specifically timed, but by most
accounts the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the most important external
trigger (followed by the U.S. presidential campaign) for that sudden spike in an almost two-
decade long struggle between Georgia and its two breakaway regions. Looking over the various
databases, then, we see a most familiar picture: the usual mix of civil conflicts, insurgencies,
and liberation-themed terrorist movements. Besides the recent Russia-Georgia dust-up, the
only two potential state-on-state wars (North v. South Korea, Israel v. Iran) are both tied to one
side acquiring a nuclear weapon capacity -- a process wholly unrelated to global economic
trends. And with the United States effectively tied down by its two ongoing major interventions
(Iraq and Afghanistan-bleeding-into-Pakistan), our involvement elsewhere around the planet has
been quite modest, both leading up to and following the onset of the economic crisis: e.g., the
usual counter-drug efforts in Latin America, the usual military exercises with allies across Asia, mixing it
up with pirates off Somalia's coast). Everywhere else we find serious instability we pretty
much let it burn, occasionally pressing the Chinese -- unsuccessfully -- to do something. Our
new Africa Command, for example, hasn't led us to anything beyond advising and training local forces.
XT Say No
nieto administration is strictly opposed to us intervention in the mexican drug
war
Priest, 13 Dana, national security reporter for the Washington Post whose work focuses on
intelligence and counterterrorism, Washington Post, 4/27,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-role-at-a-crossroads-in-mexicos-intelligence-war-
on-the-cartels/2013/04/27/b578b3ba-a3b3-11e2-be47-b44febada3a8_print.html, U.S. role at a
crossroads in Mexicos intelligence war on the cartels, ADM
MEXICO CITY For the past seven years, Mexico and the United States have put aside their
tension-filled history on security matters to forge an unparalleled alliance against
Mexicos drug cartels, one based on sharing sensitive intelligence, U.S. training and joint operational
planning. But now, much of that hard-earned cooperation may be in
jeopardy. The December inauguration of President Enrique Pea Nieto brought the nationalistic
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) back to power after 13 years, and with it a whiff of
resentment over the deep U.S. involvement in Mexicos fight against narco-
traffickers. The new administration has shifted priorities away from the U.S.-backed
strategy of arresting kingpins, which sparked an unprecedented level of violence among the cartels,
and toward an emphasis on prevention and keeping Mexicos streets safe and calm,
Mexican authorities said. Some U.S. officials fear the coming of an unofficial truce with cartel leaders.
The Mexicans see it otherwise. The objective of fighting organized crime is not in conflict with achieving
peace, said Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexicos ambassador to the United States. Interviews with more
than four dozen current and former U.S. and Mexican diplomats, law enforcement agents, military
officers and intelligence officials most of whom agreed to speak about sensitive matters only on
condition of anonymity paint the most detailed public portrait to date of how the two countries grew
so close after so many years of distance and distrust, and what is at stake should the alliance be scaled
back. U.S. officials got their first inkling that the relationship might change just two weeks
after Pea Nieto assumed office Dec. 1. At the U.S. ambassadors request, the new president
sent his top five security officials to an unusual meeting at the U.S. Embassy here. In a
crowded conference room, the new attorney general and interior minister sat in silence, not knowing
what to expect, next to the new leaders of the army, navy and Mexican intelligence agency. In front of
them at the Dec. 15 meeting were representatives from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA), the CIA, the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and other U.S. agencies tasked
with helping Mexico destroy the drug cartels that had besieged the country for the past decade. The
Mexicans remained stone-faced as they learned for the first time just how entwined the two
countries had become during the battle against narco-traffickers, and how, in the process, the
United States had been given near-complete entree to Mexicos territory and the secrets of
its citizens, according to several U.S. officials familiar with the meeting.
Interior Minister claims prove

But behind the scenes, the Americans are coming to grips with a scaling back of the level
of coordination that existed during the presidency of Felipe Caldern, which included
American drones flying deep into Mexican territory and American spy technology helping
to track high-level suspects.
In an interview, Mexicos interior minister, Miguel ngel Osorio Chong, made no apologies. He
defended the moves, including the creation of a one-stop window in his department
to screen and handle all intelligence, in the name of efficiency and a new phase in
fighting crime.
In a country worn down by tens of thousands of people killed in a drug war, he said Mexico needed to
emphasize smart intelligence over the militarized combating violence with more violence approach of
the Caldern years.
But American officials here see the changes as a way to minimize American involvement
and manage the image of the violence, rather than confronting it with clear strategies.

Mexico wants a unilateral perception of resolving drug wars.

But there is growing anxiety that the violence has not diminished, with daily killings hovering around 50
since last fall. Some American officials say they are increasingly worried by public and
private signs suggesting that Mr. Pea Nieto, the young face of the Institutional Revolutionary
Party, which ran Mexico for 71 years, is putting the governments crime-fighting image above
its actions.
The cosmetics thats what they care about, one American official said, insisting on
anonymity so as not to worsen already tense relations.
The impression they seem to want to send is We got this, one former American official
said, asking for anonymity because he was discussing private conversations. But its clear to us, no,
they dont. Not yet.

PEMEX explosion proves.

If so, it would represent a step beyond the Mexican discomfort with Americans operating on their turf
that emerged in December, just after Mr. Pea Nietos inauguration. It solidified after an explosion
on Jan. 31 at the office complex of the state oil company, Pemex, in which 37 people died and more
than 120 were injured.
Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were invited to help investigate.
But after they suggested in a preliminary assessment that a bomb might have caused the blast,
the agencys role in the investigation was cut short, American officials said, adding that
Mexican officials canceled a visit by a team of investigators from the United States.
An administration official said that while American explosives experts were not allowed to
contribute as much as they could have to the investigation, creating a sense that the
Mexicans were rushing to conclude that the blast was an accident.
On Feb. 4, the attorney general of Mexico announced that the cause was an unexplained buildup of gas,
possibly methane, that was ignited by a spark in the basement of one of the buildings.
The American ambassador was invited to the news conference on the findings, but a State Department
official said the level of American involvement in the investigation did not warrant the ambassadors
presence. With the American agents leaving the cooperative center in Monterrey, which was first
reported by The Washington Post on Sunday, and the development of the one-stop intelligence
mechanism, the United States is worried and is seeking more information.
Were still figuring out what that means, a senior administration official said of the new intelligence
arrangement.
But the fear is that it will diminish the access that American law enforcement and
intelligence agencies have established with branches of the Mexican police and military.
Those hard-fought relationships could disintegrate if American agents have to go
through a central office to communicate and share knowledge with their Mexican
counterparts, some American officials say.

Recent reforms prove.

Security Cooperation and Centralization
Pena Nieto's predecessor, the National Action Party's Felipe Calderon, focused heavily on Mexico's security
challenges and oversaw the sustained military offensive against criminal organizations
throughout the country. Pena Nieto has yet to elaborate much on his plans to address the
security issues, but he has emphasized the need to combat street violence and kidnappings, while playing down the
importance of combating drug trafficking -- a U.S. priority.
But ahead of Obama's visit, certain details have emerged indicating that the Pena Nieto administration
intends to change the nature of intelligence cooperation between the United States and
Mexico. Until now, the two countries' various law enforcement and intelligence agencies
have been able to interact directly, but Mexico's interior ministry will begin overseeing
all intelligence collaboration.
This centralization effort has not been isolated to cooperation with the United States. The Mexican Interior Ministry has
also taken charge of the federal police, and Pena Nieto intends to eventually create a
national gendarmarie under the interior secretariat in order to fill the role in the drug
wars currently played by the Mexican military with a security body better equipped with
law enforcement training.
XT Status quo solves
The US and Mexico are intricately linked together trade, investment,
immigration, environmental cooperation, and cultural relationships
Storrs, 06 K. Larry, Specialist in Latin American Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division,
Congressional Research Service, http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL33244_20060118.pdf, Mexicos
Importance and Multiple Relationships with the United States | ADM
Sharing a 2,000-mile border and extensive interconnections through the Gulf of Mexico, the United
States and Mexico are so intricately linked together in an enormous multiplicity of ways that
President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials have stated that no country is more
important to the United States than Mexico. At the same time, Mexican President Vicente Fox
(2000-2006), the first president to be elected from an opposition party in 71 years, has sought to
strengthen the relationship with the United States through what some have called a grand
bargain. Under this proposed bargain, the United States would regularize the status of
undocumented Mexican workers in the United States and economically assist the less
developed partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), while Mexico would be
more cooperative in efforts to control the illegal traffic of drugs, people, and goods into the United
States. The southern neighbor is linked with the United States through
trade and investment, migration and tourism, environment and
health concerns, and family and cultural relationships. It is the second
most important trading partner of the United States, and this trade is critical to many U.S.
industries and border communities. It is a major source of undocumented migrants and illicit drugs and
a possible avenue for the entry of terrorists into the United States. As a result, cooperation with Mexico
is essential to deal effectively with migration, drug trafficking, and border, terrorism, health,
environment, and energy issues. The United States and Mexico have developed a wide
variety of mechanisms for consultation and cooperation on the range of issues in which the
countries interact. These include (1) periodical presidential meetings; (2) annual cabinet-level
Binational Commission meetings with 10 Working Groups on major issues; (3) annual meetings of
congressional delegations in the Mexico-United States Interparliamentary Group Conferences; (4)
NAFTA-related trilateral trade meetings under various groups; (5) regular meetings of the
Attorneys General and the Senior Law Enforcement Plenary to deal with law enforcement and
counter-narcotics matters; (6) a wide variety of bilateral border area cooperation meetings
dealing with environment, health, transportation, and border crossing issues; and (7) trilateral
meetings under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America launched in Waco,
Texas, in March 2005.
Sandoval saved the day.
RGJ 7/23 (Reno Gazette-Journal, 7/23/13, Sandoval's trade mission to Mexico beneficial, timely,
http://www.rgj.com/article/20130724/OPED01/307240001/Sandoval-s-trade-mission-Mexico-beneficial-timely)//DR. H

At a time when immigration reform is front and center of the national debate and the U.S. seeks to
expand trade abroad, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandovals recent trip to Mexico is
significant.
As part of the agreement Sandoval signed with Eruviel Avila, the governor of the state of
Mexico the most populous state within the United Mexican States Nevada is pledging to
work with our southern neighbor on such issues as education, tourism, manufacturing
and mining.
This memorandum of understanding is a step towards building upon
our strong bilateral trade relationship with Mexico, Sandoval said in a
statement.
The agreement comes at a sensitive time in U.S.-Mexican relations as the issue of immigration reform
continues to dominate discussions in Washington, D.C.
The tone of the immigration debate, and in particular tougher border security in the U.S., has left some
U.S. House members worried that a crackdown will, in the words of The Wall Street Journal, alienate a
key trading partner.
The newspaper reports that U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, recently returned from a three-day trip to
Mexico, where lawmakers and business officials were astounded by the tone of the border debate.
The first thing they said was, What are you all up to there in the United States? What are you trying to
do to us? he told the Journal.
According to the Office of the U.S. Trade representative, Mexico is the third largest trading partner with
the U.S., ranking only behind only Canada and China.
Less than three months before Sandoval visited Mexico, President Barack Obama was there,
calling for action to expand trade and commerce between the two countries.
We already buy more of your exports than any country in the world, Obama said. We sell more of our
exports to Mexico than we do to Brazil, Russia, India and China combined. Mexican companies are
investing more in the United States, and were the largest foreign investor in Mexico because we
believe in Mexico and want to be a partner in your success.
Mexico also was the United States second-largest goods export market in 2012.
U.S.-Mexican trade has risen as Mexico becomes an increasingly attractive locale for
U.S. manufacturers that are seeing the cost to produce goods in China go up, a story in
USA Today reports, noting that trade between Mexico and the USA topped $500 billion in 2012.
Labor reforms.

Labor and education overhauls passed through the legislature relatively easily, and
banking reforms intended to broadly increase access to credit are set to be proposed once the
legislature reconvenes in September. The administration still has an aggressive to-do list remaining, with
planned overhauls ranging from the telecommunications and energy sectors to issues such as taxation.
The majority of the reforms has been structural in nature and driven by economic
imperatives, representing a notable shift in tempo and character from the previous government,
which saw its legislative efforts largely stall for years prior to the 2012 election.
Domestic political factors will determine the success of the pending overhauls. But the labor
reform could improve bilateral commerce and investment with the
United States, as would a successful liberalization of the country's energy sector in the coming
years. Mexico is already the United States' third-largest trading partner, and economic
coordination between the two countries has become a routine matter at the ministerial
level, but there is still a need to ease bureaucratic trade and investment barriers.

Uniq o/w link too many issues to change relations.
Rozental 13 (Andrs Rozental, former deputy foreign minister of Mexico, works primarily on global
governance issues, U.S.-Mexico relations and international migration, served for many years in Mexicos
diplomatic corps, 2/1/13, Have Prospects for U.S.-Mexican Relations Improved?
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/02/01-us-mexico-rozental)//DR. H

The Mexico-U.S. relationship won't substantially change; there are too
many ongoing issues to expect any major shift in what has become a very close and cooperative
bilateral partnership in economic, security and social aspects. There will be a change of emphasis
from the Mexican side as far as the security relationship goes, with Pea Nieto's declared
intention to focus much more on the economy and public safety. He has already moved
away from the constant statements made by his predecessor extolling the number of criminals
apprehended and 'successes' in the fight against organized crime. The change of message comes as a
relief to many Mexicans tired of hearing about violence and crime on a daily basis.
XT Security Approach fails
Anti-drug operations fail aggravates the drug war, fails to resolve poor
conditions, and cant .overcome demand
Mercille 2011 (Julien Mercille is a lecturer in the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental
Policy, University College Dublin. He was previously at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA).
His forthcoming book, Harvest of Destruction: US Responsibility in the Afghan Drug Trade, will be
published by Pluto Press in 2012, Violent Narco-Cartels or US Hegemony? The political economy of
the war on drugs in Mexico, http://www.kent.ac.uk/politics/carc/reading%20group/Mercille%20-
%20Narco%20Cartels%20or%20US%20Hegemony_Oct%202011.pdf)
Contrary to conventional analyses that focus almost exclusively on narcocartels, this article has argued
that US policy towards Mexico is shaped by political economic imperatives, rather than
by concerns for drug control. In fact, drug wars have served to justify the
expansion of US hegemony, which itself has increased the size of the drug industry.
Further, mainstream analysts favoured solutionsinterdiction and seizure of drug shipments,
arrests of drug kingpins, military and police operationsmiss the point in at least three ways. First,
in general, since US hegemony over the country has worsened drug problems, more equitable bilateral
relations should therefore be favoured. For example, instead of promoting neoliberal policies that
result in unemployment and harsh living conditions south of the border and thus provide an
abundant pool of labour for drug cartels, policies that support growth and development would
make a positive dierence. Better labour standards, working conditions and environmental
regulations would be a good start. Second, Washington should stop directly supporting
some important drug actors in Mexico, whether these be the military, police or drug
kingpin as paid informants (if the latter claim is indeed true). Third, in addition to stopping the
ow of rearms south, the ndings of drug policy research should be applied. Whereas mainstream
authors call for overseas drug control operations, interdiction and enforcement to tackle
the narcotics problem, research has consistently found that such methods are
ine ective, while the most eective methods to reduce drug consumption are
treatment of addicts and prevention. Indeed, a widely cited RAND report calculated
that treatment was the most eective method for reducing cocaine consumption in the US and that
targeting source countries like Mexico was 23 times less cost-eective, interdiction 11 times less
cost-eective, and domestic enforcement seven times less cost-eective.54 The Latin American
Commission on Drugs and Democracy, conceived by ex-presidents Cardoso of Brazil, Gaviria of
Colombia and Zedillo of Mexico, agrees and stated that: The long-term solution for the drug
problem is to reduce drastically the demand for drugs in the main consumer countries, the
US and Europe.55 But the US has rejected the consensus on drugs policy, allocating 64 per
cent of the drug control budget to interdiction and to arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating drug
oenders, including the arrest of about 750 000 each year for possession of small amounts of
marijuana. Only 36 per cent of the budget is reserved for treatment and other demand reduction
activities. Nonetheless, the US has one of the highest levels of drug use in the world, while
many European countries adopting softer approaches have signicantly lower usage
levels. In short, the solutions are known, but have not been fully implemented.

US policy isnt key Nietos domestic reform plans drive anti-drug effort.
Stewart, 13 Vice president of analysis at Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm that provides
strategic analysis and forecasting to individuals and organizations around the world, 5/16, Forbes,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2013/05/16/u-s-mexico-cooperation-against-cartels-remains-
strong/, U.S.-Mexico Cooperation Against Cartels Remains Strong | ADM
Aside from the political struggles, the Mexican government still faces very real challenges on
the streets as it attempts to quell violence, reassert control over lawless areas and gain the trust of the
public. The holistic plan laid out by the Pena Nieto administration sounds good on paper, but it
will still require a great deal of leadership by Pena Nieto and his team to bring
Mexico through the challenges it faces. They will obviously need to cooperate with the United
States to succeed, but it has become clear that this cooperation will need to be
on Mexicos terms and in accordance with the administrations new, holistic approach.
XT Econ Resilient
US-Mexico trade is already huge and trends flow neg
Villareal, 12 M. Angeles, Specialist in International Trade and Finance, Congressional Research Service,
8/9, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32934.pdf, U.S.-Mexico Economic Relations: Trends, Issues,
and Implications | ADM
The United States is, by far, Mexicos leading partner in merchandise trade, while
Mexico is the United States third-largest trade partner after China and Canada.
Mexico ranks second among U.S. export markets after Canada, and is the third-leading
supplier of U.S. imports. U.S. trade with Mexico increased rapidly since NAFTA
entered into force in January 1994. U.S. exports to Mexico increased from $54.8 billion in 1994 to
$174.4 billion in 2011, an increase of 218%. Imports from Mexico increased from $51.6 billion in 1994 to
$285.4 billion in 2011, an increase of 453% (see Figure 1). In services, the United States had a surplus of
$2.2 billion in 2010 (the most recent available data). U.S. exports in services to Mexico totaled $3.8
billion in 2010, while U.S. imports totaled $1.6 billion.5 Total services trade with Mexico is
approximately equal to 1% of total merchandise trade with Mexico. The trade balance with Mexico
went from a surplus of $3.1 billion in 1994 to a deficit of $99.5 billion in 2011. In 2011, 13% of
total U.S. merchandise exports were destined for Mexico and 12% of U.S. merchandise
imports came from Mexico. After the significant decrease in trade in 2009 that resulted from the
global economic downturn, U.S.-Mexico trade increased considerably in 2010 and
2011. Part of the increase in trade with Mexico may be attributed to the increasing trade
in energy. Crude petroleum oil accounts for 15% of total U.S. imports from Mexico. The value
of U.S. crude oil imports from Mexico increased over 500% since the 1990s, increasing from $6.3 billion
in 1996 to $39.8 billion in 2011. Mexico is the leading destination for U.S. exports in refined oil. The
value of U.S. refined oil exports to Mexico increased by $18.4 billion from 1996 to 2011, from
$1.0 billion to $19.4 billion, approximately an 1800% increase.6 As stated previously, Mexico relies
heavily on the United States as an export market; this reliance has diminished very slightly over
the years. The percentage of Mexicos total exports going to the United States decreased from 83% in
1996 to 79% in 2011. Mexicos share of the U.S. market has lost ground since 2002. In 2003, China
surpassed Mexico as the second-leading supplier of U.S. imports. The United States is losing market
share of Mexicos import market. Between 1996 and 2011, the U.S. share of Mexicos total imports
decreased from 75% to 50%. China is Mexicos second-leading source of imports.
FDI is an integral part of the us-mexico economic relationship trends go neg
Villareal, 12 M. Angeles, Specialist in International Trade and Finance, Congressional Research Service,
8/9, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32934.pdf, U.S.-Mexico Economic Relations: Trends, Issues,
and Implications | ADM
Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been an integral part of the economic
relationship between the United States and Mexico since NAFTA implementation. FDI
consists of investments in real estate, manufacturing plants, and retail facilities, in which the
foreign investor owns 10% or more of the entity. The United States is the largest
source of FDI in Mexico. The stock of U.S. FDI increased from $17.0 billion in 1994 to
$91.4 billion in 2011, a 440% increase (see Table 4). Mexican FDI in the United States is much lower than
U.S. investment in Mexico, with levels of Mexican FDI fluctuating over the last 10 years. In 2010,
Mexican FDI in the United States totaled $12.6 billion (see Table 4). The sharp rise in U.S. investment
in Mexico since NAFTA is also a result of the liberalization of Mexicos restrictions on foreign
investment in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Prior to the mid-1980s, Mexico had a very
protective policy that restricted foreign investment and controlled the exchange rate to
encourage domestic growth, affecting the entire industrial sector. Mexicos trade liberalization
measures and economic reform in the late 1980s represented a sharp shift in policy and
helped bring in a steady increase of FDI flows into Mexico. NAFTA provisions on foreign
investment helped to lock in the reforms and increase investor confidence. Under NAFTA, Mexico gave
U.S. and Canadian investors nondiscriminatory treatment of their investments as well as investor
protection. NAFTA may have encouraged U.S. FDI in Mexico by increasing investor
confidence, but much of the growth may have occurred anyway because Mexico likely would
have continued to liberalize its foreign investment laws with or without the agreement. Nearly half of
total FDI investment in Mexico is in the manufacturing industry, of which the
maquiladora industry forms a major part. (See Mexicos Export-Oriented Assembly Plants below.) In
Mexico, the industry has helped attract investment from countries such as the United
States that have a relatively large amount of capital. For the United States, the industry is
important because U.S. companies are able to locate their labor-intensive operations in Mexico and
lower their labor costs in the overall production process.
US econ resilient.
Johnson 13
(Robert , CFA, director of economic analysis with Morningstar, Morningstar.com, U.S. Economy Not So
Fragile After All 1/19 http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=581616)

No, the U.S. Economy Has Not Been Fragile After All Although most economists got at least
some things right about the U.S. economy over the past two years, the one nearly universal error
was the expectation that the economy was fragile. The U.S. economy has proven to be
anything but fragile. I believe this to be the single biggest error that economists have made over the
last two years. During that time, the U.S. has survived the fallout from a major debt crisis in
Europe, a divisive election, temporarily going over the fiscal cliff, gasoline prices that have
been on a yo-yo, a tsunami in Japan, and Hurricane Sandy, which shut down New York
and even the stock exchanges for a couple of days. These are not signs of a fragile
economy.

Econ resilient fundamentals growing.
Stewart 13
(Hale Stewart spent 5 years as a bond broker in the late 1990s before returning to law school in the early
2000s. He is currently a tax lawyer in Houston, Texas. He has an LLM from the Thomas Jefferson School
of Law in domestic and international taxation where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, seeking alpha, Is
The U.S. Economy Moving Into A Higher Growth Phase? Part 1 - The Positive Feb 5
th

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1158011-is-the-u-s-economy-moving-into-a-higher-growth-phase-part-
1-the-positive?source=google_news)

All three of the above sectors -- housing, autos and manufacturing -- are bedrock components of the
economy. If all three are doing fairly well, the worst that can happen is slow
growth. There is simply too much of a multiplier effect of the
combined total for a recession to occur with the above three
expanding. However, this is before we get to the latest and upcoming fiscal follies from the people in Washington. We'll touch on that i n Part 2.

Recovery from 2008 proves economy resilient.
Drezner 12
(Daniel, Professor International Politics Tufts University, October, The Irony of Global Economic
Governance: The System Worked Council on Foreign Relations International Institutions and Global
Governance)
In looking at outcomes, the obvious question is how well the global economy has recovered
from the 2008 crisis. The current literature on economic downturns suggests two factors that impose
significant barriers to a strong recovery from the Great Recession: it was triggered by a financial
crisis and it was global in scope. Whether measuring output, per capita income, or employment,
financial crashes trigger downturns that last longer and have far weaker recoveries than
standard business cycle downturns.10 Furthermore, the global nature of the crisis makes it
extremely difficult for countries to export their way out of the problem. Countries that have
experienced severe banking crises since World War II have usually done so when the global economy
was largely unaffected. That was not the case for the Great Recession. The global economy has
rebounded much better than during the Great Depression. Economists Barry Eichengreen and
Kevin ORourke have compiled data to compare global economic performance from the start of the
crises (see Figures 1 and 2).11 Two facts stand out in their comparisons. First, the percentage drop
in global industrial output and world trade levels at the start of the 2008 financial crisis
was more precipitous than the falloffs following the October 1929 stock market crash.
The drop in industrial output was greater in 2008 nine months into the crisis than it was eighty years
earlier after the same amount of time. The drop in trade flows was more than twice as large. Second,
the post-2008 rebound has been far more robust. Four years after the onset of the Great Recession,
global industrial output is 10 percent higher than when the recession began. In contrast,
four years after the 1929 stock market crash, industrial output was at only two-thirds of
precrisis levels. A similar story can be told with aggregate economic growth. According to World Bank
figures, global economic output rebounded in 2010 with 2.3 percent growth, followed up in
2011 with 4.2 percent growth. The global growth rate in 2011 was 44 percent higher than the average of
the previous decade. Even more intriguing, the growth continued to be poverty reducing.12 The World
Banks latest figures suggest that despite the 2008 financial crisis, extreme poverty continued to decline
across all the major regions of the globe. And the developing world achieved its first Millennium
Development Goal of halving the 1990 levels of extreme poverty.13 An important reason for the quick
return to positive economic growth is that cross-border flows did not dry up after the 2008
crisis. Again, compared to the Great Depression, trade flows have rebounded extremely well.14
Four years after the 1929 stock market crash, trade flows were off by 25 percent compared to precrisis
levels. Current trade flows, in contrast, are more than 5 percent higher than in 2008. Even compared to
other postwar recessions, the current period has seen robust crossborder exchange. Indeed, as a report
from CFRs Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies concluded in May 2012, The
growth in world trade since the start of the [current] recovery exceeds even the best of
the prior postwar experiences.15 Other cross-border flows have also rebounded from 20082009
lows. Global foreign direct investment (FDI) has returned to robust levels. FDI inflows rose by 17 percent
in 2011 alone. This put annual FDI levels at $1.5 trillion, surpassing the three-year precrisis average,
though still approximately 25 percent below the 2007 peak. More generally, global foreign investment
assets reached $96 trillion, a 5 percent increase from precrisis highs. Remittances from migrant workers
have become an increasingly important revenue stream to the developing worldand the 2008
financial crisis did not dampen that income stream. Cross-border remittances to developing countries
quickly rebounded to precrisis levels and then rose to an estimated all-time high of $372 billion in 2011,
with growth rates in 2011 that exceeded those in 2010. Total cross-border remittances were more than
$501 billion last year, and are estimated to reach $615 billion by 2014.16 Another salient outcome is
mass public attitudes about the global economy. A general assumption in public opinion research is
that during a downturn, demand for greater economic closure should spike, as
individuals scapegoat foreigners for domestic woes. The global nature of the 2008 crisis,
combined with anxiety about the shifting distribution of power, should have triggered a
fall in support for an open global economy. Somewhat surprisingly, however, the reverse is
true. Pews Global Attitudes Project has surveyed a wide spectrum of countries since 2002, asking
people about their opinions on both international trade and the free market more generally.17 The
results show resilient support for expanding trade and business ties with other
countries. Twenty-four countries were surveyed both in 2007 and at least one year after 2008,
including a majority of the G20 economies. Overall, eighteen of those twenty-four countries showed
equal or greater support for trade in 2009 than two years earlier. By 2011, twenty of twenty-four
countries showed greater or equal support for trade compared to 2007. Indeed, between 2007 and
2012, the unweighted average support for more trade in these countries increased from 78.5 percent to
83.6 percent. Contrary to expectation, there has been no mass public rejection of the open global
economy. Indeed, public support for the open trading system has strengthened, despite softening public
support for free-market economics more generally.18 The final outcome addresses a dog that
hasnt barked: the effect of the Great Recession on crossborder conflict and violence.
During the initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis would
lead states to increase their use of force as a tool for staying in power.19 Whether
through greater internal repression, diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of
great power conflict, there were genuine concerns that the global economic downturn
would lead to an increase in conflict. Violence in the Middle East, border disputes in the South
China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy movement fuel impressions of surge in global public
disorder. The aggregate data suggests otherwise, however. A fundamental conclusion
from a recent report by the Institute for Economics and Peace is that the average level of
peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in 2007.20 Interstate violence
in particular has declined since the start of the financial crisisas have military expenditures
in most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not
triggered any increase in violent conflict; the secular decline in violence that started
with the end of the Cold War has not been reversed.21

XT No Diversionary War
Diversionary war theory is false.
Boehmer 7
(Charles, political science professor at the University of Texas, Politics & Policy, 35:4, The Effects of
Economic Crisis, Domestic Discord, and State Efficacy on the Decision to Initiate Interstate Conflict)
This article examines the contemporaneous effect of low economic growth and domestic instability on
the threat of regime change and/ or involvement in external militarized conflicts. Many studies of
diversionary conflict argue that lower rates of economic growth should heighten the risk of
international conflict. Yet we know that militarized interstate conflicts, and especially wars, are
generally rare events whereas lower rates of growth are not. Additionally, a growing body of literature
shows that regime changes are also associated with lower rates of economic growth. The question then
becomes which event, militarized interstate conflict or regime change, is the most likely to occur with
domestic discord and lower rates of economic growth? Diversionary theory claims that leaders
seek to divert attention away from domestic problems such as a bad economy or political
scandals, or to garner increased support prior to elections. Leaders then supposedly externalize
discontented domestic sentiments onto other nations, sometimes as scapegoats based on the similar in-
group/out-group dynamic found in the research of Coser (1956) and Simmel (1955), where foreign
countries are blamed for domestic problems. This process is said to involve a rally-round-the-flag
effect, where a leader can expect a short-term boost in popularity with the threat or use of force
(Blechman, Kaplan, and Hall 1978; Mueller 1973). Scholarship on diversionary conflict has focused most
often on the American case1 but recent studies have sought to identify this possible behavior in other
countries.2 The Falklands War is often a popular example of diversionary conflict (Levy and Vakili 1992).
Argentina was reeling from hyperinflation and rampant unemployment associated with the Latin
American debt crisis. It is plausible that a success in the Falklands War may have helped to rally support
for the governing Galtieri regime, although Argentina lost the war and the ruling regime lost power. How
many other attempts to use diversionary tactics, if they indeed occur, can be seen to generate a similar
outcome? The goal of this article is to provide an assessment of the extent to which diversionary
strategy is a threat to peace. Is this a colorful theory kept alive by academics that has little
bearing upon real events, or is this a real problem that policy makers should be concerned with? If it
is a strategy readily available to leaders, then it is important to know what domestic factors trigger this
gambit. Moreover, to know that requires an understanding of the context in external conflict, which
occurs relative to regime changes. Theories of diversionary conflict usually emphasize the
potential benefits of diversionary tactics, although few pay equal attention to the
prospective costs associated with such behavior. It is not contentious to claim that leaders typically
seek to remain in office. However, whether they can successfully manipulate public opinion
regularly during periods of domestic unpopularity through their states participation in foreign
militarized conflictsespecially outside of the American caseis a question open for debate.
Furthermore, there appears to be a logical disconnect between diversionary theories and extant studies
of domestic conflict and regime change. Lower rates of economic growth are purported to increase the
risk of both militarized interstate conflicts (and internal conflicts) as well as regime changes (Bloomberg
and Hess 2002). This implies that if leaders do, in fact, undertake diversionary conflicts, many
may still be thrown from the seat of powerespecially if the outcome is defeat to a foreign
enemy. Diversionary conflict would thus seem to be a risky gambit (Smith 1996). Scholars such as
MacFie (1938) and Blainey (1988) have nevertheless questioned the validity of the diversionary
thesis. As noted by Levy (1989), this perspective is rarely formulated as a cohesive and
comprehensive theory, and there has been little or no knowledge cumulation. Later analyses do not
necessarily build on past studies and the discrepancies between inquiries are often difficult to unravel.
Studies have used a variety of research designs, different dependent variables (uses of force,
major uses of force, militarized disputes), different estimation techniques, and different data sets
covering different time periods and different states (Bennett and Nordstrom 2000, 39). To these
problems, we should add a lack of theoretical precision and incomplete model specification. By a lack of
theoretical precision, I am referring to the linkages between economic conditions and domestic strife
that remain unclear in some studies (Miller 1995; Russett 1990). Consequently, extant studies are to a
degree incommensurate; they offer a step in the right direction but do not provide robust cross-national
explanations and tests of economic growth and interstate conflict. Yet a few studies have attempted to
provide deductive explanations about when and how diversionary tactics might be employed. Using a
Bayesian updating game, Richards and others (1993) theorize that while the use of force would appear
to offer leaders a means to boost their popularity, a poorly performing economy acts as a signal to a
leaders constituents about his or her competence. Hence, attempts to use diversion are likely to
fail either because incompetent leaders will likewise fail in foreign policy or people will
recognize the gambit for what it is. Instead, these two models conclude that diversion is likely to
be undertaken particularly by risk-acceptant leaders. This stress on a heightened risk of removal from
office is also apparent in the work of Bueno de Mesquita and others (1999), and Downs and Rocke
(1994), where leaders may gamble for resurrection, although the diversionary scenario in the former
study is only a partial extension of their theory on selectorates, winning coalitions, and leader survival.
Again, how often do leaders fail in the process or are removed from positions of power before they can
even initiate diversionary tactics? A few studies focusing on leader tenure have examined the removal of
leaders following war, although almost no study in the diversionary literature has looked at the effects
of domestic problems on the relative risks of regime change, interstate conflict, or both events occurring
in the same year.3

Low growth makes politicians cautiousthey dont want to risk war because
it makes them vulnerable.
Boehmer 7
(Charles, political science professor at the University of Texas, Politics & Policy, 35:4, The Effects of
Economic Crisis, Domestic Discord, and State Efficacy on the Decision to Initiate Interstate Conflict)
Economic Growth and Fatal MIDs The theory presented earlier predicts that lower rates of growth
suppress participation in foreign conflicts, particularly concerning conflict initiation and
escalation to combat. To sustain combat, states need to be militarily prepared and not
open up a second front when they are already fighting, or may fear, domestic opposition. A
good example would be when the various Afghani resistance fighters expelled the Soviet Union from
their territory, but the Taliban crumbled when it had to face the combined forces of the United States
and Northern Alliance insurrection. Yet the coefficient for GDP growth and MID initiations was negative
but insignificant. However, considering that there are many reasons why states fight, the
logic presented earlier should hold especially in regard to the risk of participating in
more severe conflicts. Threats to use military force may be safe to make and may be
made with both external and internal actors in mind, but in the end may remain mere
cheap talk that does not risk escalation if there is a chance to back down. Chiozza and Goemans
(2004b) found that secure leaders were more likely to become involved in war than insecure leaders,
supporting the theory and evidence presented here. We should find that leaders who face
domestic opposition and a poorly performing economy shy away from situations that
could escalate to combat if doing so would compromise their ability to retain power.

XT No War
Economic decline doesnt cause war.
Jervis,11
(Robert, Professor PolSci Columbia, December, Force in Our Times Survival, Vol 25 No 4, p 403-425)
Even if war is still seen as evil, the security community could be dissolved if severe conflicts of interest
were to arise. Could the more peaceful world generate new interests that would bring the members of
the community into sharp disputes? 45 A zero-sum sense of status would be one example, perhaps
linked to a steep rise in nationalism. More likely would be a worsening of the current economic
difficulties, which could itself produce greater nationalism, undermine democracy and bring back
old-fashioned beggar-my-neighbor economic policies. While these dangers are real, it is hard to
believe that the conflicts could be great enough to lead the members of the community
to contemplate fighting each other. It is not so much that economic interdependence has
proceeded to the point where it could not be reversed states that were more internally
interdependent than anything seen internationally have fought bloody civil wars. Rather it is that even
if the more extreme versions of free trade and economic liberalism become discredited,
it is hard to see how without building on a preexisting high level of political conflict
leaders and mass opinion would come to believe that their countries could prosper by
impoverishing or even attacking others. Is it possible that problems will not only become severe,
but that people will entertain the thought that they have to be solved by war? While a pessimist could
note that this argument does not appear as outlandish as it did before the financial crisis, an optimist
could reply (correctly, in my view) that the very fact that we have seen such a sharp economic
down-turn without anyone suggesting that force of arms is the solution shows that even
if bad times bring about greater economic conflict, it will not make war thinkable.

Multipolarity makes your arguments untrueeconomic decline doesnt cause
war.
Thirlwell 10
MPhil in economics from Oxford U, postgraduate qualifications in applied finance from Macquarie U, program director in International Economy for the Lowy Institute for International Policy
(Mark, September 2010, The Return of Geo-economics: Globalisation and National Security, Lowy Institute for International Policy, google scholar,)
Summing up the evidence, then, I would judge that while empirical support for the Pax Mercatoria is
not conclusive, nevertheless its still strongly supportive of the general idea that international
integration is good for peace, all else equal. Since there is also even stronger evidence that peace is
good for trade, this raises the possibility of a nice virtuous circle: globalisation (trade) promotes
peace, which in turn promotes more globalisation. In this kind of world, we should not worry
too much about the big power shifts described in the previous section, since they are taking place
against a backdrop of greater economic integration which should help smooth the whole process.
Instead of ending this section on that optimistic note, however, its worth thinking about some reasons
why the Pax Mercatoria might nevertheless turn out to be a poor, or at least overly optimistic,
guide to our future. The first is captured by that all important get-out-of-gaol-free card, all else equal.
Its quite possible that the peace-promoting effects of international commerce will end up being
swamped by other factors, just as they were in 1914. Second, perhaps the theory itself is wrong.
Certainly, a realist like John Mearsheimer would seem to have little time for the optimistic
consequences of the rise of new powers implied by the theory. Heres Mearsheimer on how the US
should view Chinas economic progress, for example: . . . the United States has a profound interest in
seeing Chinese economic growth slow considerably in the years ahead . . . A wealthy China would not be
a status quo power but an aggressive state determined to achieve regional hegemony. 62 Such
pessimistic (or are they tragic?) views of the world would also seem to run the risk of being self-fulfilling
prophecies if they end up guiding actual policy. Finally, there is the risk that the shift to a
multipolar world might indirectly undermine some of the supports needed to deliver
globalisation. Here I am thinking about some simple variant on the idea of hegemonic stability theory
(HST) the proposition that the global economy needs a leader (or hegemon) that is both able
and willing to provide the sorts of international public goods that are required for its smooth
functioning: open markets (liberal or free trade), a smoothly functioning monetary regime,
liberal capital flows, and a lender of last resort function. 63 Charles Kindleberger argued that the
1929 depression was so wide, so deep, and so long because the international economic
system was rendered unstable by British inability and US unwillingness to assume
responsibility for stabilizing it, drawing on the failures of the Great Depression to make the original
case for HST: . . . the international economic and monetary system needs leadership, a
country that is prepared . . . to set standards of conduct for other countries and to seek to get
others to follow them, to take on an undue share of the burdens of the system, and in particular to
take on its support in adversity... 64 Kindlebergers assessment appears to capture a rough empirical
regularity: As Findlay and ORourke remind us, periods of sustained expansion in world trade have
tended to coincided with the infrastructure of law and order necessary to keep trade routes open being
provided by a dominant hegemon or imperial power. 65 Thus periods of globalisation have
typically been associated with periods of hegemonic or imperial power, such as the Pax
Mongolica, the Pax Britannica and, most recently, the Pax Americana (Figure 9). The risk, then, is that
by reducing the economic clout of the United States, it is possible that the shift to a
multipolar world economy might undermine either the willingness or the ability (or both) of
Washington to continue to supply the international public goods needed to sustain a
(relatively) smoothly functioning world economy. 66 That in turn could undermine the potential
virtuous circle identified above.

Alternative Causality Arguments
immigration, border, economic integration, climate change, and security are
alt causes
Barry, 13 Tom, senior policy analyst at the Center for International Policy, where he directs the
TransBorder project. Barry specializes in immigration policy, homeland security, border security and the
outsourcing of national security, 5/7, http://truth-out.org/news/item/16221-changing-perspectives-on-
us-mexico-relations, Changing Perspectives on US-Mexico Relations | ADM
Its unfortunate that the two presidents chose to hold their May 2-3 summit in Mexico City. Both nations
and Presidents Barack Obama and Enrique Pea Nieto would have been better served by a
meeting at the borderwhere the grim reality of neighborly relations would not be masked by the
pomp and circumstance of the grand presidential residence of Los Pinos. A meeting at the customs
building in Ciudad Jurezthe site of the first Mexico-U.S. presidential meeting in 1909 between Porfirio
Daz and William Taftwould have likely resulted in a more memorable and productive summit of the
current heads of state, Enrique Pea Nieto and Barack Obama. As it is, this meeting will likely be soon
forgottenlost in protocol, predictable rhetoric about interdependence, and the photogenic smiles of
the two presidents. A century ago the Rio Grande/Ro Bravo clearly marked the divide between El Paso
and Jurez, the border twins that were jointly known as El Paso del Nortethe pass to the north. Today,
however, its unlikely that the presidential delegations and the accompanying media would now passes
for a riverreally just an alarmingly greenish trickle of pesticides, fertilizer runoff, and human waste.
Instead of news photos from the bilateral meeting depicting two smiling presidents, we would be
witnessing images of the stark divide between the two neighbors: the formidable border
security infrastructure, the smog rising from the long lines of vehicles waiting to cross, the
beggars and street vendors taking advantage of the stalled south-north traffic, the ravages of the drug
wars, the miles of low-slung factories calledmaquiladoras, the sprawling colonias of Mexicos expanding,
but still largely poor, middle class (those families earning at least $7,500 annually), and still-poorer
squatter settlements that spread out into the Chihuahuan Desert. The lead items of the Los
Pinos meeting are ones that have long dominated U.S.-Mexico presidential meetings:
immigration, border control, economic integration, and drug-related
security. The presidents will achieve some camaraderie chatting about the domestic political
obstacles that complicate their plans for national and international progress. In the pleasant, climate-
controlled setting of Los Pinos, its unlikely that Pea Nieto and Obama will address in any
depth, if at all, what will soon become the top agenda item of most binational and multilateral
meetings: the scourge of climate change.
alt Causes gun policy, drugs, Latin American foreign policy, and illegal
immigration
Reyes, 13 Raul, attorney and columnist in New York City, 4/29,
http://nbclatino.com/2013/04/29/opinion-president-obama-has-the-chance-to-improve-usmexico-
relations/, Opinion: President Obama has the chance to improve US/Mexico relations | ADM
Obama will arrive in Mexico with good and bad news. On the positive side, he can highlight the progress
his administration has made towards overhauling our immigration system. The border is more secure
than ever, and the Senate has unveiled a proposal that creates new pathways for legal immigration. On
the negative side, Obama bears responsibility for his failure to reform U.S. gun laws.
ThinkProgress reports that the expiration of the assault weapons ban has resulted in the
deaths of hundreds of Mexicans in cartel violence. Even worse, Americas demand for
illegal drugs fuels the growth of these cartels. However, Obama would be wise to recognize that
relations with Mexico should not center on these issues alone. As president-elect, Pea
Nieto wrote in The Washington Post that, It is a mistake to limit our bilateral relationship to drugs and
security concerns. Our mutual interests are too vast and complex to be restricted in this short-sighted
way. He wants a deeper relationship, one that is defined by shared economic goals. Thats the smart
way forward. Since 2008, Mexico has seen steady economic growth, which has been a net benefit to the
U.S. The U.S. exports more to Mexico than to China and Japan combined, and U.S./Mexico trade hit
almost $500 billion in 2012. Obama should build on these ties to create greater economic integration. If
he and Pea Nieto were to collaborate on ways of matching Mexicos young labor force with American
technology and training, it would be a recipe for a regional economic boom. Greater U.S. investment in
Mexico will make the country safer, as the cartels generally leave multinational operations alone.
Politically, Obama cannot afford to take Mexico for granted. Consider that Mexico has been
fully engaged with Cuba since the revolution in 1959 (which was launched from Mexico). And
although the U.S. has not recognized Venezuelas Nicolas Maduro as successor to Hugo
Chavez, Mexico recognized his election on April 19. So Mexico is not an ally that
automatically falls in lockstep with American interests. Perhaps with more
attention from the Obama administration, Pea Nieto could be persuaded to be more supportive of U.S.
policies for the region. True, there are legitimate reasons why Mexico has been viewed
warily by past administrations. Mexico has historically been the largest source of our
undocumented population. Border towns have long feared spillover violence from the drug cartels.
But illegal immigration is at net zero, and the fears of violence on the U.S. side of the border have
proved largely unfounded. Obama should take the lead in encouraging more communication and
cooperation with Mexico. Already, Pea Nieto favors opening Mexicos energy sector to private
investment, and he may even allow foreign investment in its state oil company.
economic issues, rule of law, judicial issues, trafficking, and energy are alt
causes
*also an advantage counterplan card
Miller and deLeon, 09 Stephanie, consultant on U.S.-Latin America relations and was formerly the
Research Associate for the Americas Project on the National Security Team. Born in Venezuela with
family from Colombia, Miller earned her degree from Duke University in International Comparative
Studies with a focus on Latin America. She currently lives in Bogot, Colombia, and Rudy, Senior Vice
President of National Security and International Policy at American Progress in Washington, DC. He
serves on several non-profit boards and is a parttime college instructor. DeLeon is also a former senior
U.S. Department of Defense official, staff director on Capitol Hill, and retired corporate executive, April,
Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/04/pdf/mexico.pdf,
Transcending the Rio Grande - U.S.-Mexico relations need to reach beyond the border -
Recommendations of our Mexico Working Group | ADM
The U.S.-Mexico relationship is ready for renewed collaboration on a range of issues that
bind the United States and Mexico together. The global economic crisis and increasing violence
along the U.S.-Mexico border have raised the relationship to the forefront of U.S. national
and economic security concerns. Indeed, within 60 days in office President Obama laid out a new
border security strategy intended to target the ways in which the United States contributes to the
violence raging just south of its border. This is a good first step, but more needs to be done and
the United States needs to think about its relationship with Mexico beyond the Rio Grande.
The policy recommendations included in this report provide the Obama administration
with a blueprint for ways to expand and strengthen U.S.-Mexico relations beyond the issue areas that
have traditionally defined the relationship, as well as reinvigorate the issue areas that have historically
dominated bilateral relations. This report focused on concrete policy recommendations in four
areas: Improving the rule of law and judicial reform in Mexico. Stopping the illegal flow
of weapons and money from the United States to Mexico. Exploring enhanced
cooperation in economic development. Promoting alternative energy cooperation and
investment. By tackling these issues head on and in a sustained manner, the Obama
administration can begin to build on the important first steps taken on March 24 to begin to
repair and strengthen relations with one of the United States most important and
strategic allies in the hemisphere.

Soft Power
1NC Soft Power
1. Alt cause to USAIDcutting Cuba program now
Eaton 4/25 assistant professor of communication at Flagler College (USAID may slash Cuba
program (updated), 2013, Tracey, http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/2013/04/usaid-may-slash-
cuba-program.html) EL

The U.S. Agency for International Development plans to cut its budget for democracy
programs in Cuba by 25 percent. Sen. Marco Rubio on Wednesday called it "a terrible
precedent, a terrible idea" and urged the agency to reconsider. The planned reduction*
is "way out of proportion...for a program of this small scale," said Rubio, speaking Wednesday
at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. (See video). Rubio blamed
Secretary of State John Kerry for the cut. He did not mention Kerry by name, but recalled that Kerry, as
senator and chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, once froze funding for democracy
programs in Cuba. Rubio said Kerry and other lawmakers "held up this program with
endless questions about it." Kerry now oversees both the State Department and USAID and is in a
position to adjust the budget for the democracy programs. Said Rubio: I don't think it's a coincidence
that this was reduced. I just hope that this will be reversed. I think it's a terrible precedent. It's a terrible
idea. Rubio also urged that USAID's Cuba money be spent on democracy promotion, "not
the creation of grassroots community organizations that specialize in, you know, better sewage
treatment programs or what have you. This is about democracy." Rubio is a member of the Foreign
Relations Committee, which heard testimony from USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. Shah told Rubio:
On Cuba, your point is well taken. Sen. Bob Menndez, who chairs the committee, said he didn't
agree with "the totality of cuts" to USAID's budget proposed for fiscal 2014. Menndez
said the agency was cutting its Cuba program at a time when arrests of dissidents and
activists are rising on the island. He cited attacks on members of Ladies in White and the
"assassination" of dissident leader Oswaldo Pay. He said: I just don't get it. Mnendez also
complained that the U.S. government doesn't react until there's a major problem in a
region and then "we'll spend a fortune." That's what happened in Central America, the
senator said. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. Shah replied that the agency has had to make "tough
trade-offs in a budget we certainly wish was larger." Mnendez interrupted Shah, telling him that he's
heard the same story before from USAID. He complained that when the agency makes cuts, programs
targeting Latin America and the Caribbean always suffer. The senator said: I just think it's foolish at the
end of the day. * While watching a video of the committee hearing, I didn't hear anyone say how much
money may be cut from the Cuba programs, just that a 25 percent cut was planned. The State
Department's Executive Budget Summary for Function 150 & Other International Programs (see
document) lists $15 million for Cuba programs in fiscal 2014. That is a 25 percent drop over fiscal 2012.
Perhaps that is where Rubio got the 25 percent figure. Cuba program budget figures show $20 million
in fiscal 2012. An asterisk linked to the sequester is shown for fiscal 2013, then $15 million for fiscal
2014. The State Department's fiscal 2014 budget does not list a fiscal 2013 figure for the Cuba
programs. That number is evidently affected by automatic budget cuts, also known as the sequester (for
more on that, see Public Law 112175).
2. No spilloverLatin American countries reject USAID
Reuters 5/1Bolivia expels U.S. aid agency after Kerry 'backyard' comment, 2013,
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-01/news/sns-rt-us-bolivia-usaidbre94013v-
20130501_1_president-evo-morales-bolivian-usaid) EL

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales expelled a U.S. development agency from his
country on Wednesday, marking the latest confrontation between Washington and a
bloc of left-wing governments in Latin America. Morales said he was kicking out the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID) as a "protest" after U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry recently referred to Latin America as Washington's "backyard." The term evokes
strong emotions in the region, which experienced several U.S.-backed coups during the
Cold War. Morales announced his decision at a Labor Day rally, an occasion he has used in recent
years as a forum to nationalize businesses and take other steps to rouse his working-class base in South
America's poorest nation. "Today we're only going to nationalize ... the dignity of the
Bolivian people," Morales said. "USAID is leaving Bolivia." He did not say what USAID did to deserve
expulsion, though Bolivian officials have previously accused the agency of destabilizing the
government. In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador for allegedly aiding the
opposition. Morales is a close ally of Venezuela's left-wing government, which has seen its
already strained relations with the United States deteriorate further in recent weeks. The government of
President Nicolas Maduro, who won a tightly contested election last month to succeed the late Hugo
Chavez, on April 25 detained a U.S. citizen and accused him of destabilizing the country. USAID said in a
statement it has spent nearly $2 billion in Bolivia over the past 50 years on projects in
education, health and food security, among other areas. The U.S. government "deeply
regrets" Bolivia's decision, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters. "Those who
will be most hurt by the Bolivian government's decision are the Bolivian citizens who have benefited
from our collaborative work," he said. Ventrell said Bolivia's allegations against USAID were "baseless,"
and said the U.S. government had not yet decided whether to take any action in response. Kerry made
the "backyard" comment at a Senate committee hearing on April 18. When pressed by a senator about
Washington's influence in Latin America, Kerry expressed regret that U.S. aid to the region is
falling victim to budget cuts. "I don't disagree with you about the need to change the dynamic in
the Western Hemisphere," he said. "It has too often been viewed as a second thought. It shouldn't be.
It's our backyard, neighborhood, as you say. I think there are relationships we could improve."

3. Soft power is useless empirically proven.
Lacey 13 Jim Lacey, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Marine Corps War College, holds a Ph.D. in Military History from Leeds University, 2013 (Soft Power, Smart Power,
National Review Online, April 22
nd
, Available Online at http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346131/soft-power-smart-power, Accessed 05-27-2013)
During World War II, Stalins advisers encouraged him to seek the favor of the pope. He famously replied: How many divisions does the pope have? Decades later, the Soviets came to realize
that papal power was not something to cavalierly disregard. Many, in fact, claim that Pope John Paul IIs moral authority was decisive in breaking the Soviet hold on Poland and propelling the
Evil Empire toward its final demise. It was, therefore, a true example of the clout of soft power. Of course, one can maintain that view only by discounting the massive U.S. and NATO military
forces that kept Soviet hard power in check for decades.
A few years back, a number of policymakers, jumping on a popular academic trend given its greatest voice by Joseph Nye, began espousing a theory of soft power. In this new and shiny vision,
America could wield its greatest global influence through the power of its example. The world would just look at how good we were, and how great it was to be an American, and clamor to
follow us. Somehow these visionaries neglected to notice that Europes almost total unilateral disarmament had failed to translate into influence on the global stage. Rather, it had done the
opposite. In a remarkably short time, European opinions on any matter of consequence ceased to matter.
Worse, a large segment of the world took a good look at the American example and was repelled. Some of these people launched the 9/11 attack. At some point, it became clear that those
holding a world vision that included returning to eighth-century barbarism were not finding our example attractive. Our deep-thinking strategists realized they needed a new answer. What
they came up with was even more seductive than soft power. In the future, America would prosper through the employment of smart power. One wonders if our policymakers had been
willfully employing dumb power for the previous two centuries. In any case, smart-power advocates claimed that a new policy nirvana was attainable, if only we could find the right mix of
soft and hard power.
Well, soft power and smart power were fascinating intellectual exercises that led nowhere. Iran is still
building nuclear weapons, North Korea is threatening to nuke U.S. cities, and China is becoming
militarily more aggressive. It turns out that power is what it has always been the ability to influence
and control others and deploying it requires, as it always has, hard instruments. Without superior
military power and the economic strength that underpins it, the U.S. would have no more ability to
influence global events than Costa Rica.
When President Obama made the strategic decision to pivot toward Asia, he did not follow up by sending dance troupes to China, or opening more cultural centers across the Pacifics great
expanse. Rather, he ordered the U.S. military to begin shifting assets into the region, so as to show the seriousness of our intent. If North Korea is dissuaded from the ultimate act of stupidity,
it will have a lot more to do with our maintenance of ready military forces in the region than with any desire the North Korean regime has for a continuing flow of Hollywood movies.
By now every serious strategist and policymaker understands that if the United States is going to continue
influencing global events it requires hard power a military second to none. That is what makes a new report from the well-respected
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute troubling. According to SIPRI, in 2012, Chinas real military spending increased by nearly 8 percent, while Russias increased by a whopping 16
percent. Worse, SIPRI expects both nations to increase spending by even greater percentages this year.
The United States, on the other hand, decreased real spending by 6 percent last year, with much larger cuts on the way. After a decade of war, much of our military equipment is simply worn
out and in need of immediate replacement. Moreover, technologys rapid advance continues, threatening much of our current weapons inventory with obsolescence. As much as
the utopians (soft-power believers) want to deny it, American power is weakening even as the world becomes
progressively less stable and more dangerous.
In a world where too many states are led by men who still believe Maos dictum that Power comes from the barrel of a gun, weakness is dangerous. Weakness is also a choice. The United
States, despite our current economic woes, can easily afford the cost of recapitalizing and maintaining our military. We are not even close to spending levels that would lead one to worry
about imperial overstretch. Rather, our long-term security is being eaten up so as to fund entitlement overstretch.
I suppose that one day, if left unchecked, the welfare state will absorb so much spending that the only military we
can afford will be a shadow of what has protected us for the past seven decades. Soft power will then
cease to be one option among many and, instead, become our only choice. We will become as relevant to the rest of the world
as Europe.
I wonder how many people realize just how different their daily lives will become if that day arrives. For a long time, American hard power has cast a
protective shield around the liberal world order. It will not be pretty when that is gone.

4. Hard power is inevitable and more important than soft power
Bremmer 09 an American political scientist specializing in US foreign policy, states in transition, and
global political risk, president and founder of Eurasia Group, a leading global political risk research and
consulting firm, and a professor at Columbia University (Obama or not, U.S. still needs hard power,
2/9, Ian, http://eurasia.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/02/09/the_durable_value_of_hard_power) EL

But you don't have to be a hawk to believe that, over the longer term, it's the country's hard
power advantages that will ensure that America remains indispensable for the world's
political and economic stability -- even as its soft power loses some of its appeal relative
to that of other states. The erosion of the U.S. soft power advantage has already begun.
The global financial crisis has inflicted a lot of damage on the American argument that
unfettered capitalism is the best model for steady economic expansion. The rise of "state
capitalism," as practiced in China, Russia, the Persian Gulf states and several other places, has
created an attractive alternative. Breakout growth over the past several years in several
emerging market countries ensures that American brands now share shelf space around
the world with products made in dozens of developing states. The icons of American popular
culture, central to U.S. soft power appeal, now share stage and screen with celebrities from a
growing number of other countries. The Bush administration's unpopularity in much of
the world has merely added momentum to these trends. America's hard power
advantages have their limitations, as well, but their value is less subject to the ebbs and
flows of popular opinion and cultural attraction. The United States now spends more on its
military than every other nation in the world combined. For all the fear in Washington (and
elsewhere) that China's military spending continues to grow and that Russian foreign policy has become
more aggressive, U.S. military spending outpaces China's by almost ten to one and Russia's by about 25
to one. It will be decades before any other state can afford to challenge the balance of
global military power-assuming that any becomes willing to accept the costs and risks
that come with global ambitions. U.S. military strength will remain useful for the next several
decades -- not only for the waging of wars and not just for Americans. Governments around the world
that depend on the import of oil and natural gas to fuel their economies are hard at work crafting plans
for a technological transition toward a more diversified energy mix. But that's a long-term process. For
the next several years, the world's oil and gas will continue to come from unstable (and
potentially unstable) parts of the world -- the Middle East, the Caspian Sea basin, West Africa, etc.
Only the United States has a global naval presence. That's why other countries will continue to
count on Washington to protect the transit of all this oil and gas from threats like terrorist attack
and even piracy. Why should China or India accept the costs and risks that go with
safeguarding the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important energy bottleneck, when
America will do it for them? That gives U.S. policymakers leverage they wouldn't
otherwise have with their counterparts in other governments. The U.S. provision of global
public goods will also extend to new military challenges. As Iran and others master uranium
enrichment technology, their nuclear clout may provoke neighboring states toward
even greater reliance on Washington as guarantor of regional security and stability. That's
not a bad thing if it helps ease the fears and pressures that might otherwise beget a
nuclear arms race. As several Eastern European governments worry over the implications of Russia's
increasingly belligerent approach toward some of its neighbors -- an anxiety heightened by Europe's
dependence on Russian natural gas, Moscow's demonstrated willingness to turn off the taps, and last
August's war with Georgia -- they'll turn to a U.S.-led NATO to ease their fears. The U.S.
military will also remain an essential weapon in America's soft power arsenal -- by
delivering relief to victims of natural disasters abroad, for example.

5. PRISM is an alt cause to soft power
Arkedis 6/19-- Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and was a DOD counter-terrorism
analyst (Jim, 2013, PRISM Is Bad for American Soft Power,
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/prism-is-bad-for-american-soft-
power/277015/) EL

Collecting Americans' phone and Internet records must meet the absolute highest bar of
public consent. It's a test the Obama administration is failing. The argument was effective,
argues Caley Robertson of Colby University: segregation was frustrating the United States'
attempts to export democracy during the Cold War. In other words, Jim Crow was
damaging America's soft power, defined by Harvard professor Joseph Nye as a country's ability to
achieve its aims through attraction rather than coercion. Which brings us to PRISM, the NSA
program that collects meta-data from Americans' telephone and online
communications. Ideas Report 2013 Modest ideas that can change the world. See full coverage I
am a former Department of Defense intelligence analyst. I have never used PRISM, and do not know if it
existed during my tenure. However, I have used NSA databases, and became aware of two ironclad
truths about the agency: First, its data is a critical intelligence tool; and second, that access to databases
by non-NSA intelligence analysts is highly controlled. It's like buying drugs (so I'm told): you need "a guy"
on the inside who passes you the goods in the shadows, then disavows any connection to you. In
addition to being useful and tightly controlled, PRISM is, of course, legal by the letter of the law. Its
existence is primarily justified by the "business records" clause in the PATRIOT Act, and President
Obama has argued that the legislation has been authorized by "bipartisan majorities repeatedly," and
that "it's important to understand your duly elected representatives have been consistently informed on
exactly what we're doing." Salvation from excessive government snooping would seem to lie at the
ballot box. Fair enough. But in the immediate wake of September 11, Americans questioned
little of what their government would do to keep them safe. Just four months after the
attacks in January 2002, Gallup reported that fully half of Americans would support anti-terrorism
measures even if they violated civil liberties. Times have changed. As soon as August 2003,
Gallup found just 29 percent of Americans were willing to sacrifice civil liberties for
security. By 2009, a CBS poll concluded only 41 percent of Americans had even heard or read about the
PATRIOT Act, and 45 percent of those believed the law endangered their civil liberties. A Washington
Post poll from April 2013--after the Boston marathon attacks but before PRISM's disclosure-- found 48
percent of Americans feared the government would go too far in compromising constitutional rights to
investigate terrorism. And following the Edward Snowden leaks, 58 percent were against the
government collecting phone records. Not a total reversal, but certainly trending in one
direction. This shift has existed in a vacuum of public debate. Prior to the PRISM leaks, the last time
domestic government surveillance made headlines was in very late 2005 and early 2006, following
revelations that the Bush administration was wiretapping Americans without a warrant. Despite the
scandal, the PATRIOT Act was quickly reauthorized by March 2006. The Bush administration did
announce the end of warrantless wiretapping in 2007, and he moved the program under jurisdiction of
the FISA court , a panel of Supreme Court-appointed judges who approve domestic surveillance
requests. To call the FISA court a rubber stamp is an understatement. This year, it has rejected a grand
total of 11 warrant requests out of--wait for it--33,996 applications since the Carter administration. The
PATRIOT Act's reauthorization wouldn't come up again until 2009. By then, public uproar over
warrantless wiretapping had long since receded, and the year's debate played out as a relatively quite
inside-baseball scuffle between civil liberties groups and the Hill. When the law came up for its next
presidential signature in 2011, it was done quietly by autopen--a device that imitates Obama's John
Hancock--from France. Shifting attitudes and quiet reauthorization flies in the face of the standard the
president has set for himself. In a 2009 speech at the National Archives, Obama emphasized the
importance of the consent of the governed in security affairs, "I believe with every fiber of my
being that in the long run we cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power
of our most fundamental values... My administration will make all information available
to the American people so that they can make informed judgments and hold us
accountable." The president's inability to live up to this ideal is particularly jarring as he
defends PRISM. Following the leaks, he's said he is pushing the intelligence community to release
what it can, and rightly insists that the NSA is not listening in on Americans' phone calls. Those are
helpful steps, but should have been raised during the National Archives speech just months into his
administration, not six months into his second term. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
continues to argue that disclosure of collection methods will give America's enemies a "'playbook' to
avoid detection." That's thin gruel. First, America's enemies are already aware of the NSA's
extensive electronic surveillance capabilities. That's why Osama Bin Laden and deceased
al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi used a complex network of couriers rather
than electronic communications. It's typical operational security of truly dangerous operatives.
Second, Obama stated as recently as late May that the threat from al Qaeda's core operatives has
decreased significantly, shifting to less deadly cells scattered throughout the Middle East and North
Africa. The lack of public debate, shifting attitudes towards civil liberties, insufficient
disclosure, and a decreasing terrorist threat demands that collecting Americans' phone
and Internet records must meet the absolute highest bar of public consent. It's a test the
Obama administration is failing. This brings us back to Harry Truman and Jim Crow. Even though PRISM
is technically legal, the lack of recent public debate and support for aggressive domestic
collection is hurting America's soft power. The evidence is rolling in. The China Daily, an
English-language mouthpiece for the Communist Party, is having a field day, pointing out
America's hypocrisy as the Soviet Union did with Jim Crow. Chinese dissident artist Ai Wei Wei
made the link explicitly, saying "In the Soviet Union before, in China today, and even in the U.S.,
officials always think what they do is necessary... but the lesson that people should learn from history is
the need to limit state power." Even America's allies are uneasy, at best. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel grew up in the East German police state and expressed diplomatic
"surprise" at the NSA's activities. She vowed to raise the issue with Obama at this week's G8
meetings. The Italian data protection commissioner said the program would "not be
legal" in his country. British Foreign Minister William Hague came under fire in Parliament for
his government's participation.

6. The embargo, drug policy, and trade are alt causes specifically, military
aid over the drug war undermines us influence
Ben-Ami, 13 Shlomo, former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as Vice President of the Toledo
International Center for Peace, is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy,
6/5, Project Syndicate, http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-new-nature-of-us-influence-
in-latin-america-by-shlomo-ben-ami, Is the US Losing Latin America | ADM
It is true that US attention to Latin America has waned in recent years. President
George W. Bush was more focused on his global war on terror. His successor, Barack Obama,
seemed to give the region little thought as well, at least in his first term. Indeed, at the Summit
of the Americas in Cartagena in April 2012, Latin American leaders felt sufficiently confident
and united to challenge US priorities in the region. They urged the US to lift its embargo
on Cuba, claiming that it had damaged relations with the rest of the continent, and to do more to
combat drug use on its own turf, through education and social work, rather than
supplying arms to fight the drug lords in Latin America a battle that all acknowledged has been
an utter failure. It is also true that Latin American countries have pursued a massive
expansion of economic ties beyond Americas sway. China is now Latin Americas second-
largest trading partner and rapidly closing the gap with the US. India is showing keen interest in the
regions energy industry, and has signed export agreements in the defense sector. Iran has strengthened
its economic and military ties, especially in Venezuela. Similarly, in 2008, Russias then-President Dmitri
Medvedev identified the US war on terror as an opportunity to create strategic
partnerships with rising powers such as Brazil, and with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas
(ALBA), a Venezuelan-inspired bloc opposed to US designs in the region. The energy giant Gazprom and
the countrys military industries have spearheaded the Kremlins effort to demonstrate Russias ability
to influence Americas neighborhood a direct response to perceived American meddling in Russias
own near abroad, particularly Georgia and Ukraine.

7. Soft power collapse inevitable-- debt
Neu 2/8-- B.S. in economics, California Institute of Technology; Ph.D. in economics, Harvard University;
M.A. in economics, Harvard University, Senior Economist at RAND (C. Richard, 2013, U.S. 'Soft Power'
Abroad Is Losing Its Punch, http://www.rand.org/blog/2013/02/us-soft-power-abroad-is-losing-its-
punch.html) EL

The way America flexes it economic muscle around the world is changing dramatically
and not necessarily for the better. In 1997, facing a wave of sovereign debt defaults, the
International Monetary Fund asked its member states to pledge lines of credit to support Fund rescue
efforts. The United States and other nations did as asked. In 2009, the United States responded
again to a call for expanded credit lines. When the Fund sought yet another expansion
of these credit lines last April, 39 countries, including China, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, India,
and Saudi Arabia, stepped up. Even cash-strapped Italy and Spain pledged support. But
the United States was conspicuously absent. A pledge from the United States requires
congressional authorization. In the midst of last spring's contentious debate over U.S. government
deficits and debts, support for an international body was a political nonstarter. Where the
United States had previously demonstrated international leadership, other countries
some of them America's rivals for international influencenow make the running. This is a small
example of what may be a troubling trend: America's fiscal predicament and the
seeming inability of its political system to resolve these matters may be taking a toll on
the instruments of U.S. soft power and on the country's ability to shape international
developments in ways that serve American interests. The most potent instrument of U.S. soft
power is probably the simple size of the U.S. economy. As the biggest economy in the world,
America has a lot to say about how the world works. But the economics profession is beginning to
understand that high levels of public debt can slow economic growth, especially when gross
general government debt rises above 85 or 90 percent of GDP. The United States crossed that threshold
in 2009, and the negative effects are probably mostly out in the future. These will come at a bad time.
The U.S. share of global economic output has been falling since 1999by nearly 5
percentage points as of 2011. As America's GDP share declined, so did its share of world trade, which
may reduce U.S. influence in setting the rules for international trade. And it's not just the debt itself
that may be slowing GDP growth. Economists at Stanford and the University of Chicago have
demonstrated that uncertainty about economic policyon the rise as a result of political
squabbling over U.S. fiscal policytypically foreshadows slower economic growth.
Investors may be growing skittish about U.S. government debt levels and the disordered
state of U.S. fiscal policymaking. From the beginning of 2002, when U.S. government debt was at
its most recent minimum as a share of GDP, to the end of 2012, the dollar lost 25 percent of its value, in
price-adjusted terms, against a basket of the currencies of major trading partners. This may have been
because investors fear that the only way out of the current debt problems will be future inflation. The
dollar has also given up a bit of its dominance as the preferred currency for international reserves
among advanced economies. And the renminbi appears to have replaced the dollar as the
reference currency for most of East Asia. (The good news is that in recent years U.S. banks
have increased their share of deposits from foreigners, mostly at the expense of banks in London.)
More troubling for the future is that private domestic investmentthe fuel for future economic
growthshows a strong negative correlation with government debt levels over several
business cycles dating back to the late 1950s. Continuing high debt does not bode well in this regard.
But perhaps the worst consequences of U.S. debt are actions not taken. U.S. international
leadership has been based, in part, on contributionspolitical and financialto major
institutions and initiativesInternational Monetary Fund, World Bank, General
Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (and later World Trade Organization), NATO, North America Free
Trade Agreement, the Marshall Plan, and so on. These served U.S. interests and made the world
better. But what have we done lately? The Doha round of trade negotiations has stalled. Ditto
efforts at coordinated international action on climate change. Countries of the Arab
Spring need rebuilding. Little progress is apparent on the Transpacific Partnership, a
proposed new free-trade area. And warnings from the U.S. treasury secretary to his European
counterparts about the dangers of failing to resolve the fiscal crisis in the eurozone met
with public rebukes: Get your own house in order before you lecture us. Have U.S. fiscal problems
undermined America's self confidence and external credibility to the extent that it can no longer lead?
And what about unmet needs at homehealthcare costs, a foundering public education
system, deteriorating infrastructure, and increasing inequality? A strained fiscal situation that
limits resources for action and absorbs so much political energy cannot be helping with any of these
matters. But without progress on such things, what becomes of the social cohesion necessary for unified
action abroad or the moral authority to lead other nations by example? America's fiscal predicament is
serious. The problem has become obvious in the last few years, but it has been building for decades,
largely the result of promises of extensive social benefits without a corresponding willingness to pay for
them. Putting U.S. government financing on a sustainable path will require painful adjustments over a
number of yearsincreased government revenue and painful reductions in government outlays, almost
certainly including outlays for defense and international affairs. During the necessary period of
fiscal adjustment and constrained government resources, U.S. international influence
may decline yet further. But there is no alternative to getting on with the task. The world has not
yet found an acceptable substitute for U.S. leadership.

XT Alt Cause USAID
USAID cuts in Central Asia are an alt cause to soft power
CACI Analyst 4/3Central-Asia Caucasus Institute (Aigul Kasymova, 2013, U.S. To Cut Aid To Central
Asia, http://www.cacianalyst.org/publications/field-reports/item/12698-us-to-cut-aid-to-central-
asia.html) EL

According to the Congressional Budget Justification by the Department of State (FY2013), the U.S. will
make a cut of 13 percent in aid to the Central Asian region. Assistance from the U.S. will
stress the importance of security programs in the region rather than programs aimed at the
economy, politics, health and/or education. Despite the drop in aid, U.S. policies toward Kyrgyzstan will
continue to support programs aimed at assisting the countrys development. Kyrgyzstan has since its
independence in 1991, similar to its neighboring countries in Central Asia, become a new market for
foreign aid. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been providing assistance
to Kyrgyzstan since 1992 and is the largest single-country donor organization in the
country. According to USAID, it has provided around US$ 460 million in programs aimed at
supporting the countrys development in various sectors such as health care, the
economy and democratic institutions. In Kyrgyzstan, USAID works in various fields such as
education, economic growth and trade, agriculture and food security, global health, democracy, human
rights and governance, and crisis and conflict management. Over 21 years of assistance from USAID,
Kyrgyzstan has overcome various obstacles as a nation-state. It went from being an authoritarian
regime to having a parliamentary system. With two revolutions in 2005 and 2010 which were
accompanied by violence, Kyrgyzstan is today working towards establishing government accountability
and transparency. The flow of foreign aid greatly assists the government in creating a
favorable environment in this regard. According to the U.S. Annual Submission to the OECD/DAC
via USAIDs Foreign Assistance Database, Kyrgyzstan received US$ 54.1 million from USAID alone in
2011, and an additional US$ 4.3 million from the U.S. Department of State. The same year, Central Asia
as a region received a total of US$ 28.9 million from both U.S. agencies. Out of all Central Asian
countries, Kyrgyzstan was the largest recipient of USAID assistance in the region in 2011,
whereas Uzbekistan received the smallest amount. The State Departments aid to the region of Central
Asia in 2013 would amount in total to US$ 118.3 million. Compared to 2012, the overall aid to the region
has been cut by US$ 15.3 million. However, despite the drop in aid, U.S. security assistance to the region
will remain largely unchanged. According to the Department of States foreign assistance program, the
main U.S. objective in Kyrgyzstan in 2013 will be the consolidation of democratic gains
in the country and the development of a more representative government that provides improved
access to justice and better citizen services. In other words, the U.S. will in 2013 allocate funding
for programs that will focus on supporting democratic processes and building
democratic institutions, respect for human rights and rule of law, and decreasing the level of inter-
ethnic conflict. Like in previous years, the U.S. will continue to support the development of a
parliamentary system and engagement of civil society.

The sequester destroyed USAID
The Hill 3/25Sequester cuts hurting US foreign policy, Thomas Boyatt, Ronald Neumann and
Russell Rumbaugh, 2013, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/290105-sequester-cuts-
hurting-us-foreign-policy) EL

The mandatory across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequester are weakening
Americas ability to effectively carry out foreign policy and are also highlighting the
existing flaws in how the U.S. spends foreign affairs dollars. Because the State Department
and the U.S. Agency for International Development are mischaracterized as non-security agencies under
sequester despite their central role in U.S. foreign policy the sequester will cut U.S. international
affairs funding by 5 percent this year. Five percent is a significant chunk of money almost $3 billion
but the State Department and USAID have said the cut will not force them to furlough their employees.
While obviously a good thing, such a policy emphasizes that the bulk of the State Departments and
USAIDs funding does not go to their most important resource: their people. We conducted a study
last year that found direct U.S. employee personnel costs made up only 31 percent of the State
Departments operating budget. USAID non-program funded personnel costs were only 37 percent of its
operating budget. Operating budgets pay for the day-to-day running of the agencies.
Together, both agencies personnel costs are only 8 percent of the total U.S. international affairs
spending. The sequester will not force furloughs because people are such a small part of the spending
on international affairs. Our study, titled Diplomacy in a Time of Scarcity, argued that this spending
on personnel costs flipped the relationship of what was important in conducting international affairs;
that even though they are a small part of the budget, the people who conduct U.S. diplomacy and
development are the most important foreign policy asset. While our study acknowledged the
growth in personnel at both the State Department and USAID over the last few years, it
found that that growth did not achieve the real needs identified years ago needs that
have only been complicated by a constantly changing world. And so the report argued that the United
States needs to continue to grow foreign policy personnel numbers even as the budget crisis rages.
Today sequester is not only preventing this growth but reversing it. Although the State
Department and USAID will not furlough employees, the sequester will force them to
slow hiring and leave positions empty, over time eroding the size of Americas existing
diplomatic and development workforce. Sequester will also affect training, a key
recommendation of the study. Just having more people is not enough. The U.S. needs to give
foreign policy personnel not just basic training but advanced training that makes them
more effective across all areas of foreign policy. As with the number of people, such training is
something the State Department has always needed more of. Sequester both emphasizes how few
resources are dedicated to this problem and exacerbates it by cutting what resources are available.

Jordan
Obeiddat 2/17reporter for the Jordan Times (US aid to Jordan at stake due to budget cuts, Omar,
2013, http://jordantimes.com/us-aid-to-jordan-at-stake-due-to-budget-cuts) EL

AMMAN Automatic spending cuts set to go into effect in the US early next month may
affect Washingtons military and humanitarian assistance to Jordan. As across-the-board
cuts in US government spending, set to begin on March 1, would reduce the budget for the State
Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) by $2.6 billion, State Secretary
John Kerry has said that an over $300 million cut in foreign military financing could lead to
reductions in military assistance to Israel, Jordan and Egypt. The reductions, Kerry told
the Congress late last week, would undermine the US commitment to the security of the
three countries at such a volatile time. Annual regular US assistance to Jordan includes $300
million in military aid and $360 million in financial and economic support. The cuts, known as
sequestration, would reduce the State Departments operations by roughly $850 million and foreign
assistance by approximately $1.7 billion, he wrote in a letter to Senator Barbara Mikulski, chairwoman
of Senate Committee on Appropriations. Cuts of this magnitude would severely impair our
ability to ensure Americas leadership in global affairs, build relationships with host
governments and promote peaceful democracies. They would limit our ability to
advance peace, security and stability around the world, said Kerry, who took over as state
secretary from Hillary Clinton some two weeks ago. Kerry mentioned in the letter, dated February 11
and posted on the Senates website, that sequestration would force the department to cut more than
$200 million from humanitarian assistance accounts. Detailing the impact of the sequestration on the
State Department and USAID, he noted it would hamper the US ability to respond to
humanitarian disasters at a time when the world faces growing needs in Syria and its
neighbouring countries. Since the start of the Syrian revolution nearly 23 months ago, over
350,000 Syrians have fled to the Kingdom. According to official figures, until the end of November of
2012, the cost of hosting 230,000 Syrian refugees on Jordans economy was estimated at around JD590
million, around $842 million. Commenting on the issue, Minister of Planning and International
Cooperation Jafar Hassan told The Jordan Times Sunday that cutting military assistance to Jordan and
other countries is one of the scenarios US lawmakers are discussing to address the budget deficit.
However, Hassan, who has recently concluded a visit to Washington, said US officials have stressed their
continuous support for the Kingdom. The cuts, expected to total about $85 billion this year
across the entire US budget, will take place March 1 unless lawmakers and President
Barack Obama reach an agreement to shelf them. According to Reuters, Democrats in the
Senate on Thursday rallied around a $110 billion tax increase and spending cut plan that would
postpone the sequestration cuts. The proposal is expected to be shot down by Republicans, but some of
its components could be included in future budget negotiations.

Tuberculosis programs
Aziz 5/1 Policy Research Coordinator at Science Speaks (Legislators to Shah: Really? Cuts to TB, HIV
efforts arent a problem?, Rabita, 2013, http://sciencespeaksblog.org/2013/05/01/legislators-to-shah-
really-cuts-to-tb-hiv-efforts-arent-a-problem/) EL

In the budget-cutting environment that characterizes the current Congress, it is not often you will see
legislators from both parties urging a foreign aid director to voice the need for more funds, but that is
what happened last week. While members of Congress emphasized during hearings last week the
importance of robust U.S. support for global health and expressed concern for proposed funding
cuts to the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and USAIDs global TB
budget, under President Obamas recently released fiscal year 2014 request, USAID Administrator Raj
Shah assured them they had nothing to worry about. Referring to the $45 million cut to USAIDs TB
program under the FY 2014 budget proposal as extremely shortsighted, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) urged
USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah to take into consideration that we have to sufficiently fund our
efforts to treat and eliminate tuberculosis, when Shah appeared in front of the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs last week to discuss U.S. foreign assistance priorities and strategies.
Engels comments echoed Rep. Chris Smiths concerns about the massive cut to the TB
budget, with $191 million proposed for FY 2014, down 19 percent from the FY 2012
level of $236 million. The Republican from New Jersey pointed to the growing threats posed by
multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, adding, there is a cut of $45
million from the budget and hopefully that can be restored and maybe even enhanced since it is so
important. There are three foreign assistance accounts that provide our TB support, Shah
responded, and while we have limited some of our funding in one account, we are expanding our
efforts in HIV-related TB and in using the Global Fund to End AIDS, TB, and Malaria to ensure that our
efforts crowd in resources from other donors and allow for more sustainability over time. But
Administrator Shahs implication that the cut in TB funding will be compensated through
increased HIV-TB activities through PEPFAR isnt backed up by reality, as PEPFAR is
seeing a cut of $223 million a 5.3% reduction from funding for fiscal year 2012, and no
increased HIV-related TB activities through PEPFAR are anticipated. Although President Obamas
budget proposal for fiscal year 2014 does increase funding for the Global Fund to $1.65 billion an
increase of $350 million over FY 2012 levels TB response advocates have expressed concern that an
increase in funding for the Global Fund wont translate to enough of an expansion of TB efforts to
counteract the adverse effects of a USAID TB cut. Advocates also have pointed out that due to its new
funding model, the Global Fund may actually distribute less to TB programs, in the short term.
Additionally, TB treatment advocates point out that USAIDs TB program provides critical
support to ensure the quality of Global Fund-supported TB programs. Scaling up country
programs without accompanying technical support, advocates say, could lead to an increase of cases of
multidrug resistant and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis. Last year USAID provided technical
assistance to 22 countries for the implementation of their Global Fund grants.

Cuts to malaria, immunization, and food aid
Radia 11ABC News correspondent (USAID Administrator: GOP Bill Could Kill 70,000 Kids, 4/1, Kirit,
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/usaid-administrator-rajiv-shah-republican-cuts-lead-
child/storynew?id=13275542) EL

At least 70,000 children around the world could die if funding for global health programs
is cut under the Republican budget proposal, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah warned Congress
Thursday. "What I worry about is that with the H.R. 1 budget [the proposed spending bill], if
that becomes a baseline reality for fiscal year '12, that would be very problematic for
some of our most important programs," Administrator Shah testified before the House
Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee. "We estimate, and I believe these are very
conservative estimates, that H.R. 1 would lead to 70,000 kids dying," he said. Shah said that 30,000 of
those deaths would come if malaria control programs have to be scaled back, 24,000
would die from lack of support for immunizations, and another 16,000 would die at
birth. Shah's comments come as the Obama administration is fighting Congressional Republicans over
how to fund the government this year. The impasse has led to the threat of a government shutdown.
Republicans have proposed significant cuts to the international affairs budget, 19 percent below 2010
enacted base levels, as part of an effort to reduce deficit spending. "I believe there are ways to find the
efficiencies we're all seeking, through being more businesslike in how we do our work, reining in
contract partners and doing better program oversight. There's a way to do this that does not have to
cost lives," Shah testified. In her testimony before Congress last month, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said the cuts, which would also hamper expanded efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Pakistan, "would be devastating for our national security." According to the U.S. Global
Leadership Coalition, which lobbies to increase funding for international affairs, the Republican
budget proposal would cut funding for global health programs by 11 percent, including a
reduction in money for the Global fund for HIV/AIDS by 43 percent. The group says that
would mean 5 million children would not receive malaria treatments and about 43,000
would not receive tuberculosis treatments. USAID Chief: Republican Foreign Aid Cuts Could Kill
Children The proposed budget would also decrease food aid programs by 30 percent and
slash U.S. funding for disaster relief by 41 percent. Shah said the disaster relief cut
"would be, really, the most dramatic stepping back away from our humanitarian
responsibilities around the world in decades. We are seeing an increase in the number
of disasters, and we're seeing an increase in the need for American leadership, often to
bring in other donors to do the cost sharing and burden sharing required to successfully see
through a disaster response and a transition." Shah pointed to Darfur, where 1.6 million
people receive food and water through U.S. funding. The proposed cuts would mean
half of those people, 800,000, would no longer receive that aid. Lawmakers were split on
the matter. Rep Kay Granger, the Republican chair of the subcommittee from Texas, said the Obama
administration's budget request for 2012 was "unrealistic in today's budget environment." Rep. Nita
Lowey (D-N.Y.), the ranking member, said the cuts "would risk a great deal in stability and security
around the world which could spawn the kinds of threats that cost this country the lives of men and
women in uniform and billions in treasure." Last month Secretary Clinton warned against cutting
international assistance funding and withdrawing from the world. "There have always been
moments of temptation in our country to resist obligations beyond our borders. But
each time we have shrunk from global leadership, events have summoned us back,
often cruelly, to reality. We saved money in the short term when we walked away from Afghanistan
after the Cold War. But those savings came at an unspeakable cost one we are still paying, ten years
later, in money and lives," she told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 1.
XT No Spillover

Latin American governments thinking USAID is destabilizingBolivia proves
Germanos 5/2staff writer for Common Dreams (Bolivia's Booting of USAID 'No Surprise': President
Evo Morales expels USAID from country following years of fomenting opposition, Andrea, 2013,
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/02-7) EL

Following President Evo Morales' expulsion of United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) from Bolivia on Wednesday, some analysts are saying the only
surprising thing about the news is in how long it took. (Photo: ABI) Making the
announcement at a May Day rally in La Paz, Morales accused the U.S. of conspiring against his
government, and said, Some institutions of the United States Embassy continue to conspire against
this process, against the people and especially against the country. This is why We have decided
to expel USAID from Bolivia. He also called USAID an "instrument that still has a
mentality of domination," La Prensa reports. But USAID's involvement in Bolivia has been
questionable for years. Writing in The Americas Blog, Center for Economic and Policy Research's
Jake Johnston points out that The role of USAID in Bolivia has been a primary point of
contention between the U.S. and Bolivia dating back to at least 2006. State Department
spokesperson Patrick Ventrell characterized Morales statement as baseless allegations. While State
Department spokespeople and many commentators will characterize USAID's work with oppositional
groups as appropriate, a look at the agency's work over the past decade paints a very
different picture. Documents obtained by investigative journalist Jeremy Bigwood show that as early
as 2002, USAID funded a Political Party Reform Project, which sought to serve as a
counterweight to the radical MAS *Morales political party+ or its successors. Later USAID
began a program to provide support to fledgling regional governments, some of which
were pushing for regional autonomy and were involved in the September 2008
destabilization campaign that left some 20 indigenous Bolivians dead. Meanwhile, the U.S. has
continually refused to disclose the recipients of aid funds. As a recent CEPR report on USAID
activities in Haiti concluded, U.S. aid often goes into a black box where it becomes impossible to
determine who the ultimate recipients actually are. Damning information about USAID's role in Bolivia
was also revealed in cables brought to light by WikiLeaks, as Johnston notes: In one cable written by
Ambassador Greenlee from January 2006, just months after Morales election, he notes that U.S.
assistance, the largest of any bilateral donor by a factor of three, is often hidden by our
use of third parties to dispense aid with U.S. funds. In the same cable, Greenlee acknowledges
that *m]any USAID-administered economic programs run counter to the direction the
GOB *Government of Bolivia+ wishes to move the country. The cable goes on to outline a
carrot and sticks approach to the new Bolivian government, outlining possible actions to be taken to
pressure the government to take positive policy actions. Three areas where the U.S. would focus were
on coca policy, the nationalization of hydrocarbons (which would have a negative impact on U.S.
investors) and the forming of the constituent assembly to write a new constitution. Possible sticks
included; using veto authority within the Inter-American Development Bank to oppose loans to Bolivia,
postponing debt cancellation and threatening to suspend trade benefits. Another cable, also written by
Greenlee, reporting on a meeting between U.S. officials and the Morales government notes that the
Ambassador stated in the meeting, When you think of the IDB, you should think of the U.S.This is not
blackmail, it is simple reality. Later cables, as reported by Green Left Weekly, show the U.S. role in
fomenting dissent within indigenous groups and other social movements. Given this history, then, the
question may be "not why, but why not sooner": The AP spoke with Kathryn Ledebur of the Andean
Information Network, reporting that she was not surprised by the expulsion itself but by the fact that
Morales took so long to do it after repeated threats. Given the amount of evidence in
declassified documents that point to U.S. aid funds going to opposition groups and being
used to bolster opposition to the Morales government, the expulsion indeed comes as
little surprise.

Lack of transparency and economic growth make USAID unnecessary for Latin
American countries
Fortin 5/2 world politics reporter at the International Business Times (Bolivian President
Morales Shuns USAID: Why He May Not Need The Money, 2013, Jacey, http://www.ibtimes.com/bolivian-president-
morales-shuns-usaid-why-he-may-not-need-money-1231287) EL

Bolivian President Evo Morales sparked controversy on Wednesday when he called for the U.S. Agency
for International Development, or USAID, to leave his country. The statement came during a May Day rally in La Paz, the
Bolivian seat of government. Morales, who leads the Movimiento al Socialismo, or MAS, has long accused the U.S. government of conspiring
against his leftist administration. They might think that they can manipulate us economically and
politically here, but that is no longer the case, he said to the crowds gathered outside of his presidential palace.
The U.S. is still conspiring -- that is why we have decided to expel USAID of Bolivia.
American State Department officials have denied Morales claims, calling them baseless allegations. But rumors of clandestine
U.S. efforts to destabilize the Bolivian government have been circulating for years,
lending some credence to the presidents suspicions. A Falling Out Bolivia and the United States have had a
tense relationship since Morales was first elected in 2006. The American ambassador Philip Goldberg and other officials were expelled from the
country in 2008, and Bolivias ambassador Gustavo Guzman was sent home from Washington in retaliation. Full diplomatic ties
have since been restored, but the two ambassadors have yet to be re-exchanged. At the
heart of ongoing disputes is the coca plant, whose leaves are traditionally chewed by Bolivian indigenous groups; Morales himself once
cultivated the crop as a farmer. But coca is a primary ingredient in cocaine, and U.S. officials have sought to curb production of the stimulant as
part of Washingtons war on drugs. Official assistance from the United States to Bolivia has been on
the decline. In 2011, the last year on record with USAID data, aid disbursements to
Bolivia totaled more than $96 million. Thats down from the $131.1 million disbursed in
2008, the year relations fell apart following the ambassador expulsions. Though he has not made it official by notifying USAID itself,
Morales seems prepared to renounce that assistance on the basis of Washingtons
opposition toward his own administration. Theres been a number of declassified documents that came out, which
point to a long history of efforts to undermine and limit the influence of the MAS political party, said Jake Johnston, a research associate with
the Center for Economic and Policy Research. This dates back to well before Morales was elected. In 2008, for instance, ABC News published
statements from an American Fulbright scholar in Bolivia who said that U.S. embassy officials had asked him to provide information on any
Venezuelan or Cuban nationals he might come across in Bolivia. Peace Corps volunteers had reportedly received similar requests a year earlier.
American officials deny those claims. Wikileaks cables from 2009 show U.S. antipathy toward the
constitution that was implemented under Morales in 2009, and toward the MAS party, which would go on
to sweep general elections later that year. Another cable from 2006, just after Morales was first elected, reveals then-Ambassador David
Greenlee acknowledging that many USAID-administered economic programs run counter to the direction the [government] wishes to move
the country. USAIDs own data are too vague to shed much light on these implications. Official records name the sectors and agencies that
implement American disbursements in Bolivia and other recipient countries, but they do not break the information down further to reveal the
precise recipients of development monies. This gets to a larger issue with USAID: a lack of transparency
on whos getting the funding, Johnston said. Changing Dynamics If Morales follows through on his threat to expel the aid
organization, Bolivia stands to forfeit tens of thousands of dollars of American assistance funding on an annual basis. That could have serious
consequences for one of South Americas poorest countries, where about 26 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Then
again, Bolivias economy has been doing well in recent years. It has enjoyed seven
consecutive years of fiscal surplus, and the administration expects GDP to grow by 5.5
percent in 2013 to hit a record $28.7 billion. This growth is fueled in large part by
growing domestic demand for goods and a shrinking wealth gap. Thats not to say the
administrations fiscal policies are entirely sound; the country is still vulnerable due to high dependence on
volatile mining and oil revenues, and extreme poverty still affects rural areas. But Bolivias ongoing growth is
promising. A loss of USAID assistance would be detrimental, but not insurmountable. In
the end, Morales call to cut USAID could be little more than an empty threat -- an effort to get the organization in line with his own objectives.
The president has called for its expulsion once before, in 2011. But given the suspicions surrounding USAID in
Bolivia, combined with shrinking disbursements during a time of unprecedented
economic growth in the South American country, Morales ideas about ending the
assistance program arent as outlandish as they once were.

Bolivia is just one exampleALBA countries and Russia
Achtenberg 5/11 urban planner and a former NACLA Research Associate with a focus
on Latin American social movements and progressive governments (Emily, 2013, Bolivia: USAID Out,
Morales In For Re-Election Bid, http://nacla.org/blog/2013/5/11/bolivia-usaid-out-morales-re-election-bid) EL

On May 1, President Evo Morales expelled USAID from Bolivia for allegedly fomenting divisions within the countrys social movements in order
to destabilize his government. The announcement came just days after Bolivias Constitutional
Tribunal ruled that Morales can run for a third presidential term in 2014. The well-timed
decisions could have important implications for Bolivia's political future. 1767 Morales expels USAID.
Credit: La Razn. While USAID has funded health, educational, agricultural, and environmental projects in Bolivia for 50 years, its political
agenda has long been suspect, especially in relation to Morales. As Kathryn Ledebur of Bolivias Andean Information Network notes, the
agencys alternative development programs in the Chapare region during the 1990s required coca growers to eradicate their crops and
abandon their unions before receiving assistance, working to undermine the cocalero movement headed by Morales. In 2002, USAID funded a
political project to counter Moraless incipient MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) party. After Moraless election, USAID
funding for democracy promotion bolstered pro-autonomy regional governments in
the eastern lowlands that formed the core of the conservative opposition, working to destabilize
the MAS government. These activities prompted Morales to expel the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia in 2008, followed by the DEA (Drug
Enforcement Agency) in 2009. USAID was ousted from the Chapare in 2008. More recently, MAS government officials have accused USAID of
funding popular organizations that oppose Moraless policies, including the lowlands indigenous federation that has spearheaded resistance to
the proposed TIPNIS highway. For indigenous groups, these accusations are a tactic to delegitimize social protest activities. Critics note that a
wide range of organizations and programs in Bolivia, including the official Coordinating Unit for the Constituent Assembly (which drafted the
2009 Constitution) have benefitted from USAID funding, while maintaining their political independence. Says ex-Minister of Education Flix
Patzi, Accusing international organizations is a way of avoiding the conflict between the Bolivian government and social and labor
organizations, and shows a lack of political clarity. While the government has not tied the rupture to any
specific recent incident, it has alluded generally to eight projects, identified in 2011, in
which USAID allegedly conspired to divide social sectors against Morales. For its part, USAID
has denied all accusations of political interference.1769 USAID expelled from Chapare, 2008. Credit: Pgina
Siete. The lack of transparency and accountability in USAID funding has been a long-
standing bone of contention. In November 2011, the United States and Bolivia signed a much-heralded framework
agreement restoring diplomatic ties between the two countries and purporting to establish a new collaborative direction for assistance based
on mutual respect for national sovereignty. The status of this agreement is now uncertain. Given this legacy of mistrust, recent commentators
have suggested that the question is not why Morales expelled USAID, but why he did not do it sooner. The more relevant question for Bolivia is,
why did he do it just now? For one thing, the timing was propitious internationally. Last June, following the
coup in Paraguay, the ALBA group of nations signed a declaration advocating the
expulsion of USAID by their member governments. In October, Russia ousted USAID for
alleged political interference. Secretary of State John Kerrys infamous reference to Latin America
as the United States' backyard revived a wave of anti-imperialist outrage throughout
the region. For another, with USAID funding now drastically reducedfrom $92 million in 2008 to an
estimated $14 million in 2014 (for both political and economic reasons)the financial impact of the rupture will be
relatively minimal. Morales has promised to absorb the cost of USAIDs social programs.
Given the current strength of Bolivias economy, which has enjoyed seven consecutive
years of fiscal surplus, this commitment seems feasible.

Anti-American political pressures
Achtenberg 5/11 urban planner and a former NACLA Research Associate with a focus
on Latin American social movements and progressive governments (Emily, 2013, Bolivia: USAID Out,
Morales In For Re-Election Bid, http://nacla.org/blog/2013/5/11/bolivia-usaid-out-morales-re-election-bid) EL

1770 Credit: La Razn. Most important, now that the Constitutional Tribunal has cleared the way for
Morales to run for a third term in December 2014, Bolivia is in full presidential campaign
mode. Stoking the fires of nationalism against an internationalist threatreal or
imaginedis a time-honored electoral strategy in Bolivia (and elsewhere). Recent charges by a
prominent MAS deputy that USAID is promoting and financing a united opposition bloc
for the 2014 elections are certainly plausible, though no evidence has been offered. Still, as ex-
MAS cabinet minister Alejandro Almaraz argues, expelling an agency that is merely a shadow of
its former self may be little more than a show of symbolic anti-imperialism. (The Economist
reports that USAID was already planning to close its monumental offices in La Paz and operate through a skeleton staff in the U.S. Embassy.) In
any case, the expulsion of USAID also provides a convenient distraction from the Constitutional Tribunals
decision, which itself has been controversial. The court ruled that Morales could seek a third consecutive term, even though the 2009
Constitution allows only two, on the grounds that his first election (in 2004) took place under a previous constitution. The ruling dismissed a
clause in the new Constitution stating that any prior mandate must be taken into account in computing the allowable term. This transitional
provision, the court reasoned, does not apply to Morales because his original mandate did not carry over into the new Constitution (instead,
Morales cut his first term short by one year and was re-elected in 2009 under the new Constitutional regime).

XT No Impact to Soft Power
Soft power is useless and undermines maintenance of necessary hard power.
Ford 12 Christopher A. Ford, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, served in a variety of positions during the George W. Bush Administration including Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State and U.S. Special Representative for Nuclear Non-proliferation, holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Oxford University, 2012 (Soft on Soft Power, SAIS Review,
Volume 32, Number 1, Winter-Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Project MUSE, p. 104-105)
From a U.S. perspective, it seems that the romanticized conception of soft power entails considerable opportunity costs.
At an extreme, enthusiasm about the virtues and possibilities of softness can lead to atrophy of the
policymaking process. After all, if one assumes that ones values or modes of political or economic
organization are so powerful that they will in time triumph all of their own, there is little reason to pay
attention to policymaking. Assuming that soft power works without having to manipulate anything in
a deliberate fashion is akin to assuming that some socio-cultural deus ex machina will intervene to make
everything right without having actually to develop, articulate, and implement real policy.
One can perhaps see soft power theory as being a contributor to the Obama Administrations distaste for having to make difficult moral choices and face challenging trade-offs in foreign and
national security policy. If simply relying upon the attraction of our values will produce a better world all by itself, for example, why go to the trouble of assuring allies of the strength of U.S.
security guarantees, reducing the role nuclear weapons play in American security strategy, and slashing conventional military budgets? Through a prism that claims to rely on soft power as a
quasi-substitute for reliance upon other types of power, such security trade-offs do not have to be made or can be dismissed as unreal, or false choices. The soft power of American values,
moral authority, and overseas socio-cultural ubiquity will assure triumph in the end either way.
Perhaps in part because of President Obamas seeming faith that all manner of policy issues would magically sort themselves out after, or simply because, he had arrived in the White House to
model change, the rhetorical device of the false choice quickly became one of the signature tropes of his presidency. As Ruth Marcus has pointed out, the presidents use of this phrasein
discussing issues as diverse as financial reform, environmental regulation, defense contracting, civil liberties, crime policy, health care, Iraq, Native Americans, the space program, and Libya
seemed designed to encourage listeners to confuse facing hard choices with not having to make them at all.61 This line of thinking is manifested in contemporary U.S. foreign policy perhaps
more than anywhere else: by being soft, we could achieve our interests without having to face the expense, anxieties, and tough decisions involved in maintaining and exercising more
traditional aspects of national power.
Such passivity can be costly in a complicated and unpredictable world, however, especially given the considerable historical
dependence of statecraft upon hard capabilities. It would no doubt be wonderful to believe that freedom and prosperity were enough to ensure their own survival and perpetuation, [end
page 104] but what if this is not always so? If faith in the all-vanquishing power of soft power leads one to neglect the
maintenance of hard power as the world sometimes require, that faith must be regarded as
maladaptive.

Soft power wont reduce anti-Americanism it doesnt alter international
perceptions.
Layne 10 Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University,
former professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the University of Miami, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California-
Berkeley, an LL.M. from the University of Virginia Law School, a J.D. from the University of Southern California Law Center, and a Diploma in Historical Studies from Corpus Christi College at the
University of Cambridge, 2010 (The unbearable lightness of soft power, Soft Power and US Foreign Policy: Theoretical, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Edited by Inderjeet Parmar
and Michael Cox, Published by Routledge, ISBN 020385649X, p. 61-62)
Prophylactic multilateralism cannot inoculate the USA from counter-hegemonic balancing. The reality of
the USA's enormous power cannot be hidden by the veil of multilateralism. Moreover, what the feisty Brooklyn Dodger
Manager Leo Durocher said about baseball is also true in international politics: nice guys finish last. The USA
did not attain hegemony by being nice, but rather by assertively and often aggressively using its
power. Although the USA may employ a discourse that professes its regard for others' interests and a commitment to multilateralism, whenever it chooses to do so it can use its power
unilaterally to others' detriment. If other states did not understand this before (though many of them did), the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq dispelled any remaining illusions on this point.
For much of the world, the invasion shattered one of the most important foundations upon which the notion of benevolent US hegemony is based: the perception that the United States is a
status quo power. Since the Cold War's end, notes Walt (2005: 23), 'The United States has not acted as a "status quo" power: rather, it has used its position of primacy to increase its influence,
to enhance its position vis-a-vis potential rivals, and to deal with specific security threats' (see also Sestanovich 2005).
The claim of soft power proponents that the USA until the George W. Bush administration preferred to act multilaterally is a myth not fact. Although that administration was more
inept diplomatically than many of its predecessors, the substance of its policy was the same: the USA acts multilaterally when it can (i.e. when others support US policies), and unilaterally
when it decides that it must, which is much of the time.18 Following World War II, the USA created a web of security and economic institutions to solidify its hegemony in the non-Soviet world
and promote its grand strategic ambitions. Some scholars John Ikenberry (2000) is a leading example depict this as an example of benevolent US soft power, but the USA undertook these
policies to advance its hard power geopolitical interests. Specifically, it did so to avail itself of its allies' strategic resources (and keep them from drifting into the Soviet sphere). However,
the USA never intended that it should itself be constrained by these institutions and it seldom has been.19
All post-1945 US administrations 'have believed that the only way' the USA could attain its most critical grand strategic goals 'was to keep others from having too much influence' on its policies
(Sestanovich 2005: 13). In the Suez, Berlin and Cuban missile crises, and during the Vietnam War, the USA acted unilaterally. Similarly, according to Stephen Sestanovich, it also did during the
Euromissile crisis of the early 1980s and during the negotiations on German reunification.20 And although the US-led NATO interventions in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 may have
appeared to be and certainly were depicted rhetorically by Washington as multilateral actions, they were not. As Walt (2005: 46) observes, [end page 61] 'America's European allies
complained during both episodes, but could do little to stop the United States from imposing its preferences upon them'. In truth, whenever they felt that US interests required doing so,
preceding administrations acted no less unilaterally than did the Bush administration in deciding (foolishly) to invade Iraq in March 2003.21
There is no compelling reason to believe that multilateralism legitimizes US hegemony. There is a big
gap between the way soft power advocates depict American foreign policy behaviour and the way the
USA actually acts. Other states know that the USA (like all dominant great powers) habitually acts unilaterally when it
feels that its interests require it to do so. Hence, they are unlikely to be reassured that US hegemonic
power is benign. In other words, soft power is not very effective as means of preventing other states from
opposing the policies of a hegemonic USA.

XT Hard Power Key

Hard power is key to US influence globally
Kaplan 5/22-- Chief Geopolitical Analyst at Stratfor (The Virtues Of Hard Power, Robert D., 2013,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2013/05/22/the-virtues-of-hard-power/) EL

Hard power has not been in vogue since the Iraq War turned badly in about 2004. In foreign policy
journals and at elite conferences, the talk for years has been about soft power, the power of
persuasion and the need to revitalize the U.S. State Department as opposed to the Pentagon: didnt
you know, its about diplomacy, not military might! Except when it isnt; except when
members of this same elite argue for humanitarian intervention in places like Libya and
Syria. Then soft power be damned. The fact is that hard power is supremely necessary in
todays world, for reasons having nothing to do with humanitarian intervention. Indeed, the Harvard
professor and former government official, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., who, in 2004, actually coined the term
soft power in an eponymous book, has always been subtle enough in his own thinking to realize how
relevant hard power remains. As I write, the two areas of the world that are most important in terms of
Americas long-term economic and political interests Asia and Europe are undergoing power shifts.
The growth of Chinese air and naval power is beginning to rearrange the correlation of
forces in Asia, while the weakening of the European Union in geopolitical terms because
of its ongoing fiscal crisis is providing an opportunity for a new Russian sphere of
influence to emerge in Central and Eastern Europe. Of course, both challenges require robust
diplomacy on Americas part. But fundamentally what they really require is a steadfast
commitment of American hard power. And the countries in these two most vital regions are not
bashful about saying so. Security officials in countries as diverse as Japan and Poland,
Vietnam and Romania desperately hope that all this talk about American soft power
overtaking American hard power is merely that talk. For it is American warships and
ground forces deployments that matter most to these countries and their officials.
Indeed, despite the disappointing conclusions to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, rarely before has
American hard power been so revered in places that actually matter. Asia is the worlds demographic
and economic hub, as well as the region where the great sea lines of communication coalesce. And
unless China undergoes a profound political and economic upheaval of a degree not yet on the
horizon the Middle Kingdom will present the United States with its greatest 21st century competitor.
In the face of Chinas military rise, Japan is shedding its quasi-pacifistic orientation and adopting a
positive attitude toward military expansion. In a psychological sense, Japan no longer takes the
American air and naval presence in Northeast Asia for granted. It actively courts
American hard power in the face of a territorial dispute with China over islands in the East China
Sea. Japan knows that, ultimately, it is only American hard power that can balance against
China in the region. For South Korea, too, American hard power is critical. Though the
South Korean military can ably defend itself against North Koreas, again, it is Americas air and
naval presence in the region that provides for a favorable balance of power that defends
Seoul against Pyongyang and its ally in Beijing. As for Taiwan, its very existence as a
state depends on the American militarys Pacific presence. Dont tell officials in the
Philippines that American hard power is any less relevant than in previous decades. Like Japan, after
years of taking the U.S. Navy and Air Force for granted, Manila is literally desperate for American
military support and presence against China, with which it disputes potentially resource-
rich islands and geographical features in the South China Sea. Like Japan and South Korea,
the Philippines is a formal treaty ally of the United States: that is to say, these countries
matter. As for Taiwan, it is arguably one of the finest examples of a functioning democracy in the world
beyond the West, as well as geopolitically vital because of its position on the main sea lines of
communication. Thus, Taiwan too, matters greatly. Vietnam, for its part, has emerged as a
critical de facto ally of the United States. It is the single most important Southeast Asian
country preventing Chinas domination of the strategically crucial South China Sea. And
what is Vietnam doing? It is refitting Cam Ranh Bay as a deep-water harbor, officially to
attract navies from India, Russia and elsewhere; but especially to attract the U.S. Navy.
Malaysia plays down its close relationship with the United States, as part of a delicate diplomatic minuet
to get along with both China and the Muslim world. Nevertheless, the number of visits of
American warships to Malaysian ports has jumped from three annually in 2003 to well
over 50. As for Singapore, one of its diplomats told me: We see American hard power as
benign. The U.S. Navy defends globalization by protecting the sea lanes, which we, more
than any other people, benefit from. To us, there is nothing dark or conspiratorial about the
United States and its vast security apparatus. In 1998, the Singaporeans built Changi Naval Base solely
to host American nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. In 2011, there were 150 American
warship visits to Singapore. Then there are the four American littoral combat ships that, it was
announced in 2011, would be stationed in Singapore. At the other end of Eurasia, whatever their public
comments, diplomats from countries in Central and Eastern Europe are worried about any American
shift away from hard power. In the 1990s, the security situation looked benevolent to them. They were
in the process of joining NATO and the European Union, even as Russia was weakened by chaos under
Boris Yeltsins undisciplined rule. Following centuries of interminable warfare, they were finally escaping
history, in other words. Now NATO and the European Union so vigorous and formidable in the
1990s look fundamentally infirm. Meanwhile, Russia has been, for the moment, revitalized
through a combination of natural gas revenues and Vladimir Putins dynamic authoritarianism-lite.
Russia once again beckons on the doorstep of Europe, and the Poles, Romanians and others are
scared. Forget NATO. With declining defense budgets of almost all European member
states, NATO is to be taken less and less seriously. The Poles, Romanians and so on now
require unilateral U.S. hard power. For years already, the Poles and Romanians have been
participating in U.S. military missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and sub-Saharan Africa. They have been doing
so much less because they actually believe in those missions, but in order to prove their mettle as
reliable allies of the United States so that the United States military will be there for them in any
future hour of need. As for the Middle East, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries
all desperately require U.S. hard power: If not specifically for an attack on Irans nuclear
facilities, then certainly in order to promote a balance of power unfavorable to Irans
regional hegemony. Soft power became a trendy concept in the immediate wake of Americas
military overextension in Iraq and Afghanistan. But soft power was properly meant as a critical
accompaniment to hard power and as a shift in emphasis away from hard power, not as a replacement
for it. Hard power is best employed not when America invades a country with its ground troops but
when it daily projects military might over vast swaths of the earth, primarily with air and naval assets, in
order to protect U.S. allies, world trade and a liberal maritime order. American hard power, thus, must
never go out of fashion.

Empirics prove hard power is more influential than soft power
Kagan 12-- American historian, author and foreign policy commentator at the Brookings Institution,
co-founder of the Project for the New American Century (Robert, 2/2, The importance of U.S. military
might shouldnt be underestimated, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02-
02/opinions/35445829_1_soft-power-hard-power-military-power) EL

These days soft power and smart power are in vogue (who wants to make the case for
dumb power?) while American hard power is on the chopping block. This is, in part, a symbolic
sacrifice to the fiscal crisis even though the looming defense cuts are a drop in the bucket compared
with the ballooning entitlement spending that is not being cut. And partly this is the Obama
administrations election-year strategy of playing to a presumably war-weary nation. But there is a
theory behind all this: The United States has relied too much on hard power for too
long, and to be truly effective in a complex, modern world, the United States needs to
emphasize other tools. It must be an attractive power, capable of persuading rather than
compelling. It must convene and corral both partners and non-partners, using economic, diplomatic and
other means to leverage American influence. These are sensible arguments. Power takes many forms,
and its smart to make use of all of them. But there is a danger in taking this wisdom too far
and forgetting just how important U.S. military power has been in building and
sustaining the present liberal international order. That order has rested significantly on
the U.S. ability to provide security in parts of the world, such as Europe and Asia, that had
known endless cycles of warfare before the arrival of the United States. The worlds free-trade,
free-market economy has depended on Americas ability to keep trade routes open,
even during times of conflict. And the remarkably wide spread of democracy around the
world owes something to Americas ability to provide support to democratic forces
under siege and to protect peoples from dictators such as Moammar Gaddafi and Slobodan
Milosevic. Some find it absurd that the United States should have a larger military than the next 10
nations combined. But that gap in military power has probably been the greatest factor in
upholding an international system that, in historical terms, is unique and uniquely
beneficial to Americans. Nor should we forget that this power is part of what makes America
attractive to many other nations. The world has not always loved America. During the
era of Vietnam and Watergate and the ugly last stand of segregationists, America was often
hated. But nations that relied on the United States for security from threatening
neighbors tended to overlook the countrys flaws. In the 1960s, millions of young
Europeans took to the streets to protest American imperialism, while their
governments worked to ensure that the alliance with the United States held firm. Soft
power, meanwhile, has its limits. No U.S. president has enjoyed more international
popularity than Woodrow Wilson did when he traveled to Paris to negotiate the treaty ending
World War I. He was a hero to the world, but he found his ability to shape the peace, and
to establish the new League of Nations, severely limited, in no small part by his
countrymens refusal to commit U.S. military power to the defense of the peace. John F.
Kennedy, another globally admired president, found his popularity of no use in his
confrontations with Nikita Khrushchev, who, by Kennedys own admission, beat the hell
out of me and who may have been convinced by his perception of Kennedys weakness
that the United States would tolerate his placing Soviet missiles in Cuba.
The international system is not static. It responds quickly to fluctuations in power. If the United States
were to cut too deeply into its ability to project military power, other nations could be counted on to
respond accordingly. Those nations whose power rises in relative terms would display expanding
ambitions commensurate with their new clout in the international system. They would, as in the past,
demand particular spheres of influence. Those whose power declined in relative terms, like the United
States, would have little choice but to cede some influence in those areas. Thus China would lay claim to
its sphere of influence in Asia, Russia in eastern Europe and the Caucasus. And, as in the past, these
burgeoning great-power claims would overlap and conflict: India and China claim the same sphere in the
Indian Ocean; Russia and Europe have overlapping spheres in the region between the Black Sea and the
Baltic. Without the United States to suppress and contain these conflicting ambitions, there would have
to be complex adjustments to establish a new balance. Some of these adjustments could be made
through diplomacy, as they were sometimes in the past. Other adjustments might be made through war
or the threat of war, as also happened in the past. The biggest illusion is to imagine that as American
power declines, the world stays the same. What has been true since the time of Rome remains true
today: There can be no world order without power to preserve it, to shape its norms,
uphold its institutions, defend the sinews of its economic system and keep the peace.
Military power can be abused, wielded unwisely and ineffectively. It can be deployed to answer
problems that it cannot answer or that have no answer. But it is also essential. No nation or
group of nations that renounced power could expect to maintain any kind of world
order. If the United States begins to look like a less reliable defender of the present order, that order
will begin to unravel. People might indeed find Americans very attractive in this weaker
state, but if the United States cannot help them when and where they need help the
most, they will make other arrangements.

XT Alt Cause Embargo
Cuban embargo kills soft powerUN vote proves
MacFARQUHAR 09-- United Nations bureau chief of The New York Times (U.S. Embargo on Cuba
Again Finds Scant Support at U.N., Neil, 10/28,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/world/americas/29nations.html?_r=0) EL

UNITED NATIONS The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to condemn the
American trade embargo against Cuba, with the speeches by the United States ambassador and Cubas
foreign minister reflecting that little has changed despite an expected shift under the Obama
administration. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodrguez Parilla of Cuba spoke after a United Nations vote
overwhelmingly condemned the embargo. The nonbinding resolution has been an annual ritual for 18
years. The vote this time of 187 in support, 3 opposed and 2 abstaining underlined the utter lack of
support for the 50-year-old American attempt to isolate Cuba. (Israel and Palau joined the United States,
while the Marshall Islands and Micronesia abstained.) The Cuban foreign minister, Bruno Rodrguez
Parilla, noted that while President Obama had taken steps to ease strained relations, many Bush-era
policies remained intact, including barring the export of medical equipment and pursuing fines against
companies all over the world that do business with Havana. The United States has lifted some
restrictions in recent months on Cuban-Americans visiting relatives or sending money, and opened the
path for food and telecommunications companies to trade. But in September Mr. Obama extended the
trade embargo for another year. The economic blockade has not met, nor will it meet, its purpose of
bending the patriotic determination of the Cuban people, Mr. Rodrguez said. But it generates
shortages, he added. It is, no doubt, the fundamental obstacle that hinders the economic
development of our country. Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said the
resolution ignored the oppression that she called the real cause of Cubans suffering. The Cuban
governments airtight restrictions on internationally recognized social, political and economic freedoms
are the main source of deprivation and the primary obstacle to development in Cuba, she said. Ms. Rice
called it regrettable that Cuba had not made any move to reciprocate the important steps taken by
the Obama administration. Analysts said Mr. Obama had not gone nearly as far as some of his
Democratic predecessors in changing the restrictions on Cuba. Under President Bill Clinton there were
extensive academic and artistic exchanges, while President Jimmy Carter lifted the travel ban entirely.
The problem, said Julie E. Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, is that the two sides tend to talk
past each other. For the United States, reciprocating would mean implementing greater civil rights in
Cuba and freeing political prisoners, she said. The Cuban foreign minister noted in his speech that his
country had already responded by proposing ways to improve bilateral ties. Mr. Obama has said that the
embargo will be maintained until Cuba eases its domestic oppression, but that he wants to recast the
relationship.

The embargo is incredibly unpopular even with close US allies- UN proves
Charbonneau 12-- Bureau Chief, United Nations for Reuters (Louis, U.N. urges end to U.S. Cuba
embargo for 21st year, 11/13, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/13/us-cuba-embargo-un-
idUSBRE8AC11820121113) EL

(Reuters) - Repeating an annual ritual, the U.N. General Assembly called on Tuesday for the United
States to lift its trade embargo against Cuba, whose foreign minister said the blockade against the
communist-run island was tantamount to "genocide." For the 21st year, the assembly's vote was
overwhelming, with 188 nations - including most of Washington's closest allies - supporting the embargo
resolution, a result virtually unchanged from last year. Israel, heavily dependent on U.S. backing in the
Middle East, and the tiny Pacific state of Palau were the only two countries that supported the United
States in opposing the non-binding resolution in the 193-nation assembly. The Pacific states of the
Marshall Islands and Micronesia abstained. President Barack Obama further loosened curbs last year on
U.S. travel and remittances to Cuba. He had said he was ready to change Cuba policy but was still
waiting for signals from Havana, such as the release of political prisoners and guarantees of basic human
rights. But Obama has not lifted the five-decade-old trade embargo, and the imprisonment of a U.S.
contractor in Cuba has halted the thaw in Cuban-U.S. relations. Havana's Foreign Minister Bruno
Rodriguez told the assembly that Cuba had high hopes for Obama when he was first elected in 2008 and
welcomed his calls for change. But he said the result had been disappointing. "The reality is that the last
four years have been characterized by the persistent tightening of ... the embargo," he said. 'EXTERNAL
SCAPEGOAT' Rodriguez said the "extraterritoriality" of the blockade measures - the fact that Washington
pressures other countries to adhere to the U.S. embargo - violates international law. He added that the
blockade is not in U.S. interests and harms its credibility. "It leads the U.S. to adopt costly double
standards," he said, adding that the embargo has failed to achieve its objectives of pressuring the
government to introduce economic and political freedoms and comply with international human rights
standards. "There is no legitimate or moral reason to maintain this embargo that is anchored in the Cold
War," he said. He said it qualified as a "act of genocide" against Cuba and was a "massive, flagrant and
systematic violation of the human rights of an entire people." U.S. envoy Ronald Godard rejected the
resolution's call for ending the blockade and Cuba's allegation that the United States was to blame for
Cuban financial difficulties. He added that the government in Havana was putting the brakes on Cuba's
further development, not the United States. "It is the Cuban government that continues to deprive them
of that aspiration," he said, adding that Cuba was seeking an "external scapegoat for the island's
economic problems." Godard said Washington was not punishing the Cuban people. He said $2 billion in
remittances were sent from the United States to Cuba last year, while Washington had authorized over
$1.2 billion in humanitarian assistance. He repeated Washington's calls for Cuba to "immediately release
Mr. (Alan) Gross," a U.S. contractor serving a 15-year sentence in Cuba for setting up Internet networks,
work that a judge said was a crime against the Cuban state. Gross' imprisonment halted efforts by
Obama to improve long-hostile relations between the United States and Cuba. Rodriguez received a
resounding ovation after his speech. No one applauded Godard as the assembly proceeded to the vote.

Its especially key to influence in Latin America
Goodman 09-- Bloomberg reporter responsible for economic and political coverage in Latin America
(Joshua, 4/13, Latin America to Push Obama on Cuba Embargo at Summit (Update1),
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a0_zyWMi297I&refer=uk) EL

April 13 (Bloomberg) -- When Barack Obama arrives at the fifth Summit of the Americas this week, Cuba
will be at the heart of the U.S. relationship with the rest of the hemisphere, exactly as it has been for
half a century. While Latin American leaders split on many issues, they agree that Obama should lift the
47-year-old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. From Venezuelan socialist Hugo Chavez to Mexicos pro-
business Felipe Calderon, leaders view a change in policy toward Cuba as a starting point for reviving
U.S. relations with the region, which are at their lowest point in two decades. Obama, born six months
before President John F. Kennedy imposed the embargo, isnt prepared to support ending it. Instead,
hell seek to satisfy the leaders at the April 17-19 summit in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, with less
ambitious steps disclosed by the administration today -- repealing restrictions on family visits and
remittances imposed by former President George W. Bush. That would mesh with his stated goal of
changing the perception of U.S. arrogance that he attributed to his predecessor in his sole policy
speech on the region last May. All of Latin America and the Caribbean are awaiting a change in policy
toward Cuba, Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Washington-based Organization of
American States, said in an interview. They value what Obama has promised, but they want more. The
policy changes unveiled today also include an expanded list of items that can be shipped to the island,
and a plan to allow U.S. telecommunications companies to apply for licenses in Cuba. Symbolically
Important Cuba, the only country in the hemisphere excluded from the 34-nation summit, is
symbolically important to the regions leaders, many of whom entered politics under military regimes
and looked to Cuba and its longtime leader Fidel Castro, 82, for inspiration and support. Even though
most countries shun the communist policies of Castro and his brother, now-President Raul Castro, the
U.S. alone in the hemisphere rejects diplomatic and trade relations with the island. Cuba represents a
50-year policy failure in Latin America and thats why its so important for Obama to address it now,
says Wayne Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, who headed the
State Departments Cuba interest section in Havana from 1979-1982. Unless Obama wants to be booed
off the stage, he better come with fresh ideas. The U.S. president, 47, thinks it would be unfortunate
if Cuba is the principal theme at the summit and would prefer the session focus instead on the economy,
poverty and the environment, says Jeffrey Davidow, the White Houses top adviser for the meeting.
Obama also understands that he cant control the discussion and intends to deal with the other leaders
as partners, Davidow told reporters on April 6. Past Protests That should be enough to avoid a repeat of
the circus atmosphere surrounding the previous summit, held in 2005 in Argentina, when 30,000
protesters led by Chavez and Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona burned an effigy of Bush. Obama
will also benefit from the U.S.s decision to take off the table its earlier proposal for a free-trade area
spanning the Americas, an issue that divided countries at the four previous summits starting in 1994.
Still, Obamas meeting with Chavez, who last month called the U.S. president an ignoramus when it
comes to Latin America, has the potential to generate a few sparks. To defuse the tension, Obama may
say the U.S. is seeking good relations with governments across the political spectrum, says Peter Hakim,
president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based research group. Chavez, 54, joined
Bolivian President Evo Morales, an ally, in expelling the U.S. ambassadors to their countries in
September for alleged interference in domestic politics. Unpredictable Chavez The main concern at
this point for the U.S. is the unpredictability of Chavez, Hakim says. U.S. influence in Latin America
waned under Bush as the war on terror diverted attention to the Middle East while the region expanded
economic and diplomatic ties with Russia, China and other outside-the-hemisphere powers. In
December, Brazil hosted the first-ever, region-wide summit of Latin American and Caribbean nations
that excluded the U.S. The summit reinforced other initiatives such as the Union of South American
Nations, which was formed by 12 countries to mediate regional conflicts, bypassing the OAS. Taking the
minor step of easing travel restrictions to Cuba, a campaign pledge Obama made almost a year ago,
may not satisfy the regions increasingly assertive leaders, Julia Sweig, director of the Latin America
program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview from Washington. A Lot on the Table
The Cubans are putting a lot on the table, says Sweig, the author of two books on Cuba, including the
forthcoming Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know. The U.S. should test their intentions. From
Havana to the halls of Congress, momentum for a detente is building. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana,
the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, urged Obama last month to begin direct
talks with the Cuban government and end U.S. opposition to its membership in the OAS. Other bills
would lift travel restrictions for all U.S. citizens.

XT Debt Key
Effectively managing debt is key to promote US soft power
Geewax 12senior editor, assigning and editing business radio stories, national economics
correspondent for the NPR web site (Marilyn, Can U.S. Still Lead In Economic And 'Soft' Power?, 10/22,
http://m.npr.org/news/Business/163387838) EL

At Monday night's foreign policy debate, the first round of questions for the presidential candidates will
involve "America's role in the world." The answers from President Obama and former Gov. Mitt
Romney likely will focus on military readiness and anti-terrorism efforts. That's what most Americans
would expect to hear, given that their country has been involved continuously in overseas combat since
the terrorist attacks of 2001. But the U.S. role in the world is shaped by much more than just
its ability to project military might. Leadership also is defined by economic power, as
well as "soft" power for example, the country's ability to attract and persuade people to adopt
American values, according to Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor. In the early 1990s, Nye's book Bound to
Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power got people talking about the need to further develop
economic and soft power. His ideas got traction because with the Berlin Wall coming down in 1989
many Americans were eager to explore new ways to lead in a post-Cold War era. But after terrorists
slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, the conversation
turned back to military strength. Drones and Humvees seemed far more important than the attractive
powers of Hollywood movies or mobile phones. A Shift Back To Economic Leadership? Now, with the
Iraq War over and U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan winding down, Nye says the focus may be
shifting back to those other two pillars economic and cultural leadership. "In the 21st century,
the Iraq War caused a big drop in American soft power," Nye said. That's because many
people in other countries saw the United States as being too aggressive, he said. And then
in 2008, when the subprime mortgage crisis hit, U.S. economic power declined too.
Before the financial crisis, "there was the idea that Americans really knew how to run an
economic system," he said. After the crisis, not so much. But now, the wheel is turning again
because both China and Europe are struggling with economic growth. "If you compare us with Europe's
economic system, we're doing pretty well," Nye said. "The dollar is still the safe haven." And U.S college
campuses are bolstering American soft power. "Most Chinese leaders have a kid at a university in the
United States," Nye said. At this point, America is again the soft-power global leader "in everything from
Hollywood to Harvard," he added. Nariman Behravesh, chief economist of the forecasting firm IHS
Global Insight and author of Spin-Free Economics: A No-Nonsense, Nonpartisan Guide to Today's Global
Economic Debates, agreed with Nye that U.S. economic and soft power are coming back. "We still have
the largest economy in the world; we are still the No. 1 export destination; we still have lots of
innovative companies, like Apple; we have the world's reserve currency; we have a dynamic economy,
with oil and gas production increasing," Behravesh said. "We have a lot going for us," he said "We've
got our problems, but others have problems that are as bad or worse, and I include China in that. They
have had a huge deceleration in their growth." Dealing With The Debt But going forward,
America's role in the world will be largely shaped by how well Congress handles the
budget deficit problems in coming months, he said. As other countries, especially in
Europe, grapple with the problem of too much government debt, people around the
world are looking to the United States for moral leadership, he said. If the United States
shows that it's possible for democracies to discipline themselves and control their debts,
then its economic and soft power may surge, Behravesh said. As part of overall U.S.
foreign strategy, "we need to tackle our domestic deficit problem," he said. "If we deal with
it in a constructive way, people will view us favorably," Behravesh said. "It's a manageable problem. We
can do this.

Add-Ons
Bioterror
Empirically denied 2001 anthrax attacks and Syria dispersion shouldve
spread globally.

No internal link other routes of bioterrorism can occur even if they want to
attack the US dispersion can occur in Mexican soil and spread quote on quote
globally.
No impact to bioweapons.
Leitenberg 05 (Milton, Senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, Trained as a Scientist and Moved into
the Field of Arms Control in 1966, First American Recruited to Work at the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, Affiliated with the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and the Center for International Studies Peace
Program at Cornell University, Senior Fellow at CISSM, ASSESSING THE BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS AND BIOTERRORISM
THREAT, http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/assessing_bw_threat.pdf)

The conclusions from these independent studies were uniform and mutually
reinforcing. There is an extremely low incidence of real biological (or chemical)
events, in contrast to the number of hoaxes, the latter spawned by administration and media hype
since 1996 concerning the prospective likelihood and dangers of such events. A massive second wave of
hoaxes followed the anthrax incidents in the United States in October-November 2001, running into
global totals of tens of thousands. It is also extremely important that analysts producing tables
of biological events not count hoaxes. A hoax is not a biological event, nor is the
word anthrax written on a slip of paper the same thing as anthrax, or a pathogen, or a
demonstration of threatall of which various analysts and even government advisory
groups have counted hoaxes as being on one occasion or another.79 Those events that
were real, and were actual examples of use, were overwhelmingly chemical, and even in
that category, involved the use of easily available, off-the-shelf, nonsynthesized
industrial products. Many of these were instances of personal murder, and not
attempts at mass casualty use. The Sands/Monterey compilation indicated that exactly
one person was killed in the United States in the 100 years between 1900 and
2000 as a result of an act of biological or chemical terrorism. Excluding the preparation of
ricin, a plant toxin that is relatively easier to prepare, there are only a few recorded instances in
the years 1900 to 2000 of the preparation or attempted preparation of pathogens in a
private laboratory by a nonstate actor. The significant events to date are: 1984, the
Rajneesh, The Dalles, Oregon, use of salmonella on food; 1990-94, the Japanese Aum
Shinrikyo groups unsuccessful attempts to procure, produce and disperse anthrax and
botulinum toxin;80 1999, November 2001, al-Qaida,81 the unsuccessful early efforts to
obtain anthrax and to prepare a facility in which to do microbiological work; October-
November 2001, the successful Amerithrax distribution of a high-quality dry-powder
preparation of anthrax spores, which had been prepared within the preceding 24
months.

Democracy
Not key to global democracy internal link is about local stability doesnt
spillover.
No democracy impact.
Rosato, 03 Sebastian, Ph.D. candidate, Political Science Department, UChicago, American Political Science Review, November,
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPSR%2FPSR97_04%2FS0003055403000893a.pdf&code=97d5513385df289000
828a47df480146, The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory, ADM

Democratic peace theory is probably the most powerful liberal contribution to the debate on the causes
of war and peace. In this paper I examine the causal logics that underpin the theory to determine
whether they offer compelling explanations for the nding of mutual democratic pacism. I nd that
they do not. Democracies do not reliably externalize their domestic norms of conict resolution and do
not trust or respect one another when their interests clash. Moreover, elected leaders are not especially
accountable to peace loving publics or pacic interest groups, democracies are not particularly slow to
mobilize or incapable of surprise attack, and open political competition does not guarantee that a
democracy will reveal private information about its level of resolve thereby avoidingconict. Since the
evidence suggests that the logics do not operate as stipulated by the theorys proponents, there are
good reasons to believe that while there is certainly peace among democracies, it may not be caused by
the democratic nature of those states. Democratic peace theorythe claim that democracies rarely
ght one another because they share common norms of live-and-let-live and domestic institutions that
constrain the recourse to waris probably the most powerful liberal contribution to the debate on the
causes of war and peace.1 If the theory is correct, it has important implications for both the study and
the practice of international politics. Within the academy it undermines both the realist claim that states
are condemned to exist in a constant state of security competition and its assertion that the structure of
the international system, rather than state type, should be central to our understanding of state
behavior. In practical terms democratic peace theory provides the intellectual justication for the belief
that spreading democracy abroad will perform the dual task of enhancing American national security
and promoting world peace. In this article I offer an assessment of democratic peace theory. Specically,
I examine the causal logics that underpin the theory to determine whether they offer compelling
explanations for why democracies do not ght one another. A theory is comprised of a hypothesis
stipulating an association between an independent and a dependent variable and a causal logic that
explains the connection between those two variables. To test a theory fully, we should determine
whether there is support for the hypothesis, that is, whether there is a correlation between the
independent and the dependent variables and whether there is a causal relationship between them.2
An evaluation of democratic peace theory, then, rests on answering two questions. First, do the data
support the claim that democracies rarely ght each other? Second, is there a compelling explanation
for why this should be the case? Democratic peace theorists have discovered a powerful empirical
generalization: Democracies rarely go to war or engage in militarized disputes with one another.
Although there have been several attempts to challenge these ndings (e.g., Farber and Gowa 1997;
Layne 1994; Spiro 1994), the correlations remain robust (e.g., Maoz 1998; Oneal and Russett 1999; Ray
1995; Russett 1993; Weart 1998). Nevertheless, some scholars argue that while there is certainly peace
among democracies, it may be caused by factors other than the democratic nature of those states
(Farber and Gowa 1997; Gartzke 1998; Layne 1994). Farber and Gowa (1997), for example, suggest that
the Cold War largely explains the democratic peace nding. In essence, they are raising doubts about
whether there is a convincing causal logic that explains how democracies interact with each other in
ways that lead to peace. To resolve this debate, we must take the next step in the testing process:
determining the persuasiveness of the various causal logics offered by democratic peace theorists.

Peace theories not true.
Ostrowski 02, (James Ostrowski is a lawyer and a libertarian author. The Myth of Democratic
Peace. http://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/james-ostrowski/the-myth-of-democratic-peace/)

We are led to believe that democracy and peace are inextricably linked; that democracy
leads to and causes peace; and that peace cannot be achieved in the absence of
democracy. Woodrow Wilson was one of the earliest and strongest proponents of this view. He said in his "war message" on April 2, 1917: A steadfast
concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or
observe its covenants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what
they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a
common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own. Spencer R. Weart alleges that democracies rarely if ever go to war with each
other. Even if this is true, it distorts reality and makes people far too sanguine about
democracys ability to deliver the worlds greatest need today peace. In reality, the
main threat to world peace today is not war between two nation-states, but (1) nuclear
arms proliferation; (2) terrorism; and (3) ethnic and religious conflict within states. As this
paper was being written, India, the worlds largest democracy, appeared to be itching to start a war with Pakistan, bringing the world closer to nuclear war than it
has been for many years. The United States, the worlds leading democracy, is waging war in
Afghanistan, which war relates to the second and third threats noted above terrorism
and ethnic/religious conflict. If the terrorists are to be believed and why would they
lie?they struck at the United States on September 11th because of its democratically-
induced interventions into ethnic/religious disputes in their parts of the world. As I shall argue
below, democracy is implicated in all three major threats to world peace and others as well.
The vaunted political machinery of democracy has failed to deliver on its promises. The
United States, the quintessential democracy, was directly or indirectly involved in most
of the major wars in the 20th Century. On September 11, 2001, the 350-year experiment with the modern nation-state ended in
failure. A radical re-thinking of the relationship between the individual and the collective, society and state is urgently required. Our lives depend on it. We
must seriously question whether the primitive and ungainly political technology of
democracy can possibly keep the peace in tomorrows world. Thus, a thorough
reconsideration of the relationship between democracy and peace is essential. This
paper makes a beginning in that direction.

Disease
No internal link cooperation between the US-Mexico to a point are inevitable
no reason the plans the only way to prevent disease vectors.
Empirically denied nothing different in this disease than the common cold
Diseases cant cause extinction-they burn out too fast.
Morse, 04 (Stephen, PhD, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness, at the Mailman
School of Public Health of Columbia University, May 2004, Emerging and Reemerging Infectious
Diseases: A Global Problem, http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/morse.html, Hensel)

Morse: A pandemic is a very big epidemic. It requires a number of things. There are many infections
that get introduced from time to time in the human population and, like Ebola, burn
themselves out because they kill too quickly or they dont have a way to get from
person to person. They are a terrible tragedy, but also, in a sense, it is a lucky thing that
they dont have an efficient means of transmission. In some cases, we may inadvertently
create pathways to allow transmission of infections that may be poorly transmissible, for example,
spreading HIV through needle sharing, the blood supply, and, of course, initially through the commercial
sex trade. The disease is not easily transmitted, but we provided, without realizing it, means for it to
spread. It is now pandemic in spite of its relatively inefficient transmission. We also get complacent and
do not take steps to prevent its spread.

Off-Case
Mexican Politics Disad
1NC Mexican Politics DA
Nietos reform agenda will pass but its not a done deal continued Nieto credibilitys
key solves the economy.
PRS 7/29 (The PRS Group, premier source for global business and economic news, analysis, trends,
forecasts, strategies, and editorials, 7/29/13, Mexican Energy, Labor and Tax Reforms Could Have
Major Impact, http://www.manzellareport.com/index.php/economy/714-mexican-energy-labor-and-
tax-reforms-could-have-major-impact)//DR. H

President Enrique Pea Nieto has managed to enlist the backing of both the conservative
PAN and the left-leaning PRD for the reform agenda of his PRI administration. The
unprecedented tripartite alliance, dubbed the Pact for Mexico, has agreed to steer a
total of 95 reform initiatives through the 500-member Chamber of Deputies, and has
already delivered in the areas of education, labor-market rules, and telecommunications.
The survival of the partnership is far from assured. Following recent state-level
and municipal elections that were marred by violence and allegations of fraud, the leaders of both
the PAN and the PRD warned that their continued support for Pea Nietos agenda
depended on action by the administration to guard against similar problems during
future elections.
However, despite chronic tensions, the reform effort has not lost momentum. The Congress is
planning to hold two special summer sessions to clear the agenda for key tax and energy-
sector reforms that will be presented to lawmakers during the regular fall session.
Approval of the reforms would go a long way toward establishing a solid foundation for long-
term fiscal stability.
The main focus of tax reform will be stemming the losses to the Treasury caused by
loopholes and exemptions, and creating incentives that encourage workers operating in
the informal sectorestimated at 60 percent of the active labor forceto join the formal (and
tax-paying) economy. According to some experts, the government could achieve its target of
boosting the tax take by 6 percent of GDP by focusing its efforts entirely on those two tasks.
Obama-Nieto coop is low now thats key to Nietos legitimacy, agenda, and Mexican
stability.
LaFranchi 5/2 (Howard, Staff Writer, 5/2/13, Why Obama won't talk so much about drug war on
Mexico trip, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2013/0502/Why-Obama-won-t-talk-so-
much-about-drug-war-on-Mexico-trip-video)//DR. H

President Obama travels to Mexico Thursday with a bilateral agenda that no longer
screams drug war as its No. 1 item.
But if narcotrafficking and security issues seem to have given way to trade, Western Hemisphere energy
development, and regional prosperity on the list of items Mr. Obama and his Mexican counterpart,
Enrique Pea Nieto, will discuss Thursday, that doesnt mean the drug war is a thing of the past, experts
say.
It just means the two countries agree its time to talk about drugs and drug trade-related
violence less.
Instead, experts add, the lower profile the two leaders give to drug trafficking and
Mexicos related violence reflects Mr. Pea Nietos effort to downplay his nations battle
with drug cartels in favor of his reform agenda and Obamas own desires to change the
narrative of the bilateral relationship.
Pea Nieto has been putting the emphasis on economic issues and his reforms, and not
so much on narcotrafficking, levels of violence, and the security agenda, says Jorge
Chabat, an expert in US-Mexico security issues at CIDE, a social sciences research and teaching
institution in Mexico City.
The US is still very interested in Mexican stability, but basically Obama has decided that not talking
about the violence and talking more about economic progress will help legitimize Pea
Nieto, and will help Mexican stability, Mr. Chabat says. Both countries are still very interested
in what continues to be a very big problem, he adds, theyve just agreed to talk about it less.
In discussing Obamas trip, White House officials concur that the president sees his three days of travel
to Mexico and Costa Rica as an opportunity to shift the focus of the US-Mexico and indeed the US-
Americas relationships beyond security and drug-trade issues.
We very much want to broaden the focus of the relationship beyond security to encompass the
economic potential, says Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser for strategic
communications. Noting Mexicos tremendous economic growth in recent years, he says both
presidents want to put their emphasis on enhancing that growth to create jobs and economic
opportunity on both sides of the border.
One reason Obama is making this trip now, Mr. Rhodes says, is that the president saw the moment
Obama beginning a second term, Pea Nieto having just taken office in December as an opportunity to
recast and deepen US relations with Mexico and other southern neighbors.
Pea Nieto replaced President Felipe Calderon, who launched a ferocious fight with Mexicos powerful
drug cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006. Mr. Calderons war challenged the cartels and
netted some top traffickers but at the cost of tremendous violence that resulted in more than 70,000
deaths.
Pea Nieto came into office pledging to reduce the violence, and to put more emphasis on reforms to
improve Mexicos judicial system, reduce legendary police corruption, and streamline the anti-drug
trafficking fight through better coordination among the countrys various security forces.
Some of the announced changes have caused ripples of concern north of the border Pea Nieto has
decided that all cooperation with US law enforcement agencies should be channeled through Mexicos
Interior Ministry, which is responsible for all internal security issues.
Some Drug Enforcement Agency officials have said privately they worry that order could disrupt their
work with their Mexican counterparts. But Obama says that, while he wants to hear from Pea
Nieto what he intends from such changes, his initial understanding is that the Mexican
leader is primarily aiming for better coordinated and more efficient domestic security
efforts.
Some of the issues that hes talking about really had to do with refinements and improvements in
terms of how Mexican authorities work with each other, how they coordinate more effectively, and it
has less to do with how theyre dealing with us, Obama said at a press conference Tuesday.
The new Mexican leaders streamlining of law enforcement efforts has a lot to do with
domestic considerations and very little to do with cooperation with the US, CIDEs Chabat
says. Already under President Calderon US-Mexico counternarcotics cooperation had shifted from the
provision of antitrafficking vehicles and related supplies to institution-building, he says.
What is different, Chabat adds, is that for political reasons Pea Nieto will be less public than
his two predecessors about US-Mexico security cooperation.

<insert impact scenario>
2NC Uniqueness
support for Pemex reform, but its close
Mallen, 13 Patricia Rey, covers Latin America for the International Business Times, 7/29, IBT,
http://www.ibtimes.com/mexico-gets-ready-pemex-reform-amid-fear-demonstrations-opposition-asks-
public-referendum-1363347, Mexico Gets Ready For Pemex Reform Amid Fear Of Demonstrations;
Opposition Asks For Public Referendum, ADM
Spanish newspaper El Pas reported that in the next weeks, the ruling Partido Revolucionario
Institucional will shape its reform proposal beyond the decision to open Pemex to private
investment. That plan should also clarify the vague allusions to "constitutional reforms." The PRI
does not currently have the majority of Congress, so to pass whatever reforms they propose,
it needs to win over the conservative opposition Partido Accin Nacional, which has not
spoken out against the plan to date. PRI Sen. Emilio Gamboa Patrn told Mexican newspaper El
Universal that the reform could not be postponed "under any circumstance."
Pemex reform has bipartisan support Nieto is key to maintain momentum
Martin & Rodriguez, 7/3 Eric, Bloomberg in Mexico City, and Carlos Manuel, in Mexico
City, 7/3/13, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/pemex-overhaul-
harder-as-pri-misses-mexican-congress-majority.html, Pemex Reform Harder as
PRI Misses Majority in Congress | ADM
Im convinced well achieve an accord Im convinced well achieve an accord with other
political forces on a Pemex bill, Pena Nieto said in a meeting with reporters yesterday. At a later
time well decide if eventually the company will float shares on the stock exchange, he said. Pena
Nieto has said he may present the constitutional changes after the new congress begins
work on Sept. 1 and before he takes office on Dec. 1. In a November interview, he said overhauling
Pemex in the mold of Brazils Petroleo Brasileiro SA would be the signature issue of his presidency.
The PRI-led coalition will get at most 249 out of 500 seats in the lower house and 61 out of 128 seats in
the Senate, according to projections by polling company Consulta Mitofsky. The National Action Party,
or PAN, of outgoing President Felipe Calderon will get at most 135, while the Democratic Revolution
Party, which opposes any attempt to weaken Pemexs monopoly, may garner 148, according to
Mitofsky. The electoral institute says final results may not be available until this weekend. PAN Support
PAN Senator Ruben Camarillo said yesterday that his party favors opening the energy
industry and will support reforms that benefit the country, regardless of who proposes them.
The party will call for greater transparency and accountability in exchange for its support,
Camarillo, a member of the Senate energy commission who is poised to win a seat in the lower house,
said in a phone interview. A survey of 1,000 registered voters taken June 22-24 by Mexico City-based
Mitofsky had forecast that the PRI-Green Party coalition would win at least 274 seats in the lower house.
The poll had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error. Were going to pass those reforms
the country needs, said Javier Lozano, former labor minister and a senator-elect with PAN.
Were going to be a truly responsible opposition, he said in an interview with Milenio TV yesterday.
Pena Nieto may have gone some way to building consensus for the constitutional
changes within his party by consulting with Pemexs powerful oil workers union and other
labor groups that have traditionally supported the PRI.

Mexico has found the medicine for political gridlock political compromise makes
reforms likely
the economist, 7/13/13, the economist, 7/13, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21581730-
successful-cross-party-pact-has-broken-congressional-gridlock-it-must-not-become-obstacle, Choose
Pemex over the pact, ADM
PLENTY of Americans must have cast a jealous eye south of the border this year and noticed
that Mexico appears to have found the medicine for political gridlock. It is a
cross-party alliance called the Pact for Mexico, and in the seven months since President Enrique
Pea Nieto took office it has been a model of political compromise. It has made
possible reforms aimed at weakening the power of entrenched interests in education,
telecoms and television that Mexico has needed for decades. It has survived the violent run-up to
local elections in almost half the country on July 7th, in which many candidates were intimidated and
some were murdered (see article).
2NC Top of Docket
energy reform is the top priority nietos efforts are key
afp, 8/1/13 agence france presse, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hIe-
b2hbPzuosjiXGHAPDtLV1p5g?docId=CNG.03e14ce32d06933545ef0845464205f0.421, Mexican
government to present energy reform next week | ADM
Mexico's president said Thursday his government will present a reform plan for energy giant
Pemex next week, setting the stage for a major debate over the state monopoly's future. Overhauling
Petroleos de Mexico, know by its acronym Pemex, is one of the most politically
sensitive reforms being pushed by President Enrique Pena Nieto since he took office eight
months ago. "The government will present in the coming days, I expect next week, my initiative on this
issue," Pena Nieto told Radio Formula from a hospital room, a day after he underwent a successful
surgery to remove a benign thyroid nodule. Pena Nieto did not provide details, but he said the reform
aims to "increase productivity and competitiveness, generate jobs and
secure cheaper energy" for Mexicans and companies. Critics say Pena Nieto aims to privatize
Pemex, which was founded when the oil industry was nationalized 75 years ago, but the Mexican leader
insists it will remain a state-run company. Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which
ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century and returned to the presidency in December, has struck a
landmark pact with the leftist and conservative opposition to enact structural reforms. The conservative
National Action Party (PAN) proposed its own energy reform on Wednesday, aiming to open the door to
more private investment in the oil sector in Latin America's second biggest economy. The so-called
Pact for Mexico has led to major reforms in education and telecommunications. Pena Nieto said
he intends to push a tax reform this year too.
2NC PC High
nieto is in an extended honeymoon he has public approval and political support
GPS, 13 Global Public Square, CNN, 7/20, http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/20/is-
pena-nietos-honeymoon-over-in-mexico/, Is Pea Nieto's honeymoon over in Mexico? | ADM
Elected leaders around the world are struggling. They're down in the polls, their economies are
stagnant, their people are protesting, and their oppositions are betting on their failure. There is,
however, one leader who has seemingly bucked that trend and it's not by jailing his opposition
or shutting down the press. He's the president of a free, democratic, capitalist country. Is this person
Superman? I'm talking about the young and highly successful president of Mexico: Enrique Pea
Nieto. Just compare him with our president. Obama's approval ratings recently hit their
lowest since 2011 45 percent. Seven months into the job, Pea Nieto is sitting pretty at 57
percent. And it's not just average Mexicans who have given their president an extended
honeymoonthe opposition has, as well. Two major rival parties joined Pea
Nieto to form what they called a "Pact for Mexico." Together, they put through a
groundbreaking set of reforms in labor, education, telecoms, and TV. Just this week, the
government announced an infrastructure deal worth $316 billion to build roads and railways.
Imagine that happening in Washington, where we spend months deciding whether or not we should
have filibusters! Drug-related homicides are down in Mexico 18 percent during Pea Nieto's term. This
week, local authorities brought down the leader of the deadly Zeta cartel. It's been an
extraordinary start to a presidency. And it comes at a time when experts are hailing
Mexico's rise. The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman says that Mexico could be one of the 21st
century's big economic successes. Of course on Global Public Square, we have been championing
Mexico's prospects for the last two years. And yet, there are signs emerging that perhaps Pea
Nieto's honeymoon is coming to an end.
Lets explain.
2NC Security Coop Link
US involvement is uniquely controversial
Archibold et. al. 4/30 (Randal C., Damien Cave, Ginger Thompson, New York Times, April 30, 2013, Mexicos Curbs on U.S. Role
in Drug Fight Spark Friction, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/world/americas/friction-between-us-and-
mexico-threatens-efforts-on-drugs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0, alp)

But shortly after Mexicos new president, Enrique Pea Nieto, took office in December, American
agents got a clear message that the dynamics, with Washington holding the clear upper
hand, were about to change. In another clash, American security officials were recently asked
to leave an important intelligence center in Monterrey, where they had worked side by side with
an array of Mexican military and police commanders collecting and analyzing tips and intelligence on
drug gangs. The Mexicans, scoffing at the notion of Americans having so much contact with different
agencies, questioned the value of the center and made clear that they would put tighter
reins on the sharing of drug intelligence. There have long been political sensitivities in
Mexico over allowing too much American involvement. But the recent policy changes have
rattled American officials used to far fewer restrictions than they have faced in years.

2NC PC Key
nietos pc is key to passing Pemex reform independently, his agendas success is key
to mexicos economy
Rathbone, 7/17 John Paul, Financial Times, 7/17/13, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e4d99f60-
d767-11e2-8279-00144feab7de.html, Pea Nieto pledges transformational reform of Pemex, ADM
Mr Pea Nieto said the need to liberalise Pemex was already agreed under the so-called Pact
for Mexico, a coalition between the countrys three main political parties, and that a more detailed
proposal would be forthcoming within two to three months. There are different options on what
the reform should be, but I am confident...It will be transformational, he told the
Financial Times. Mr Pea Nieto added the reform would include the constitutional changes
needed to give private investors certainty. Oil majors such as ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch
Shell, which have been shut out by Mexicos protectionist energy policies, have said they are ready
to invest if Congress passes the measure, a keystone of Mr Pea Nietos ambitious reform
agenda. Pemex, with annual sales of more than $100bn, is the worlds seventh-largest oil producer but
the governments high tax take has left it struggling to fund investment. Since taking office in December,
Mr Pea Nieto has already pushed through education, competition and labour reforms.
But liberalising Pemex and possibly allowing for profit-sharing with international companies
would be the most politically charged change of all, given that the industrys
nationalisation in 1938 remains a point of national pride for many in Latin Americas second-
biggest economy. Democracy is about respecting the majority, its not about unanimity, Mr Pea
Nieto said, commenting on potential opposition to the measure. Although the pact does not include
everybody, it includes the most important parties. And there will always be dissident voices as
happens in any country that is liberal and free. The importance of inclusiveness is often
repeated by Mr Pea Nieto, 46, a former state governor with the looks and easy charm of a matinee
idol. On a visit to the Financial Times although accompanied by a phalanx of dark-suited ministers and
aides he spoke fluently and candidly without notes. State elections set for July 7, have caused
political tensions, Mr Pea Nieto admitted, tacitly acknowledging a recent scandal about the misuse
of federal funds by members of his Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) in Veracruz state. But we *in
the pact] have also agreed that occasional differences should not jeopardise the reforms we
have agreed to work on. Meanwhile, faster economic growth was a central
priority he said, as that is the best way to address poverty and inequality. The central purpose of a
financial reform bill, he added, is to generate more and cheaper credit for all. Tougher competition
policy is about generating a more democratic economy. Ever tactful, though, he said a fiscal reform
expected this summer is still being worked out: I dont want to put it at risk by discussing particular
variables. Mr Pea Nietos reform success has lately made Mexico an investors favourite
although the prospect of higher US interest rates has walloped the peso this month. The economy grew
just 0.8 per cent in the first quarter, but Mr Pea Nieto said the slowdown was partly due to his
new government coming to grips with budget execution. The drop in public spending will be
temporary. We expect growth of 3.1 per cent this year, he said.

2NC Econ Uniqueness
Mexican economy declining now losing revenue sources
The Economist 5/25 (The Economist, May 25, 2013, Reality bites: Lacklustre growth shows the need for reform,
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21578440-lacklustre-growth-shows-need-reform-reality-
bites, alp)

INVESTORS who were starry eyed about Mexicos economic potential at the start of the
year are now having misgivings. From a record high then, the stockmarket fell to an eight-
month low on May 21st. Just to rub it in, stocks in Brazil, which Mexico views as its main regional
rival, have recently been performing much better. The immediate catalyst for the change of
mood is the economy. In December, just as President Enrique Pea Nieto came to power promising
to increase Mexicos growth potential, the countrys strong recovery from the 2008-09 global
financial crisis hit the skids. In the first quarter of 2013 sluggish sales to the United States,
by far Mexicos largest export market, helped reduce growth to a modest 0.8% compared
with the same period in 2012. A fall in public spending as a new party took power
contributed to the dip. Other economic data in recent days have added to the worries.
Foreign direct investment last year plunged to $12.7 billion, from an average of around $23
billion during the past decade, according to CEPAL, a UN-linked research organisation. It said
the figure was affected by one-offs, such as a decision by Spains Banco Santander to list its Mexican
subsidiary, raising $4 billion. That counted as an outflow of foreign investment. Some economists
pointed to concerns that high levels of drug-related crime may also be taking a toll on
investment, notably in tourism. Last year Mexico slipped out of the top ten of global
tourist destinations.

2NC Turns Case
Turns and solves their PEMEX good impact
Schtulmann and Broholm 2/18 (Alejandro and Sergio, EconoMonitor, February 18, 2013, Mexicos Tax Reform in the
Works: Preview and Initial Considerations, http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2013/02/mexicos-tax-reform-in-
the-works-preview-and-initial-considerations/, alp)

The goals of comprehensive tax reform are to strengthen the governments revenues
and tax base, while creating a fairer tax system. According to the Finance Ministry, the
Mexican government collected 9.8% of GDP in taxes in 2012 and is expected to collect
9.7% of GDP in 2013. Even including revenue from Pemex and other government-run
companies, Mexico collects a smaller percentage of its GDP in taxes than any other country
in the OECD (19.7% in 2011). The average OECD country collects a third of its GDP in public revenue.
For the Mexican government to meaningfully reduce its dependence on Pemex, it must
increase its non-oil tax revenue by at least 6% of GDP.

2NC Education/Poverty D-Rules
Tax reform is key to poverty reduction, health care, and education
Cotis No date (Jean Philippe, senior official and French economist, former Director General of the National Institute of Statistics and
Economic Studies, former professor of economic policy at the University of Paris, OECD, no date, WHAT ARE THE OECDS VIEWS ABOUT THE
MEXICAN TAX REFORM, http://www.oecd.org/mexico/22425199.pdf, alp)

A well designed tax system can bring about the additional public revenues which are
needed to finance extra spending on strategic areas such as education and
infrastructures. Importantly, it can do so with minimal economic distortions and in ways that better
insulate the tax base from the vagaries of the business cycle and oil price fluctuations. Having a larger
and more stable tax base is indeed crucial to secure the higher level of taxes and public
spending that Mexico currently requires to boost its potential growth. All in all a well
designed tax system can support growth, via higher and more predictable spending on
infrastructure, human capital development, basic health programmes and targeted
poverty relief, provided the overall size of the government is not excessive. In Mexico, the tax/GDP
ratio is very low and because of weaknesses in the tax design the associated economic
distortions are unnecessarily large (Figure 1). This has imposed constraints on public
spending. As mentioned before, the areas where more and better public spending would be
conducive to faster economic development are: The education and training system, which
is a case on its own. Additional resources could be used to address some of the shortcomings, including
a backlog in investment, but as importantly, efforts should focus on using more effectively the resources
that are being channeled to the system. Spending on physical infrastructure should be at a higher
level; and the financing should not be subject to stop and go behaviour. Although effective in meeting
budget targets cyclical cuts, caused by volatile financing, almost certainly affect programmes which
are essential for Mexicos development, thus jeopardizing the effectiveness of expenditure. Additional
spending on basic health care would also contribute to improving human capital. And preserving
social programmes, including targeted poverty relief (known as PROGRESA/Oportunidades), from
drastic cuts is also important.

Preserving education is a d-rule
UNESCO No date (UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, The
Right to Education, no date, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-
international-agenda/right-to-education/, alp)

Education is a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of all other human rights. It
promotes individual freedom and empowerment and yields important development benefits. Yet
millions of children and adults remain deprived of educational opportunities, many as a result of
poverty. Normative instruments of the United Nations and UNESCO lay down international legal
obligations for the right to education. These instruments promote and develop the right of every person
to enjoy access to education of good quality, without discrimination or exclusion. These instruments
bear witness to the great importance that Member States and the international community attach to
normative action for realizing the right to education. It is for governments to fulfil their obligations both
legal and political in regard to providing education for all of good quality and to implement and monitor
more effectively education strategies. Education is a powerful tool by which economically and socially
marginalized adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty and participate fully as citizens.

Poverty prevention is a d-rule outweighs the aff
Bissio 12 (Roberto, executive director of the Third World Institute, journalist, SocialWatch, September 6, 2012, ERADICATING POVERTY:
FROM MORAL DUTY TO LEGAL OBLIGATION, http://www.socialwatch.org/node/15326, alp)

Before signing international trade or investment treaties or designing fiscal
policies, governments should ensure the compatibility of these policies with their human
rights obligations, while avoiding measures that create, sustain or increase poverty,
domestically or extraterritorially. This is necessary to conciliate the human rights international
regulations with the reality of poverty in which most part of the world population lives. The World
Bank has a monetary definition of poverty and has set the poverty line on income below one-
dollar a day (now adjusted to one dollar and twenty-five cents). According to the human rights
approach, poverty is, in turn, a human condition characterised by the sustained or chronic
deprivation of resources, capabilities, choices, security and power. Poverty, says the
preface to the principles which have been declared final by Seplveda, is both a cause and a
consequence of human rights violations. Poor people experience many interrelated and
mutually reinforcing deprivations including dangerous work conditions, unsafe housing, lack of
nutritious food, unequal access to justice, lack of political power and limited access to health care that
prevent them from realizing their rights and perpetuate their poverty. Thus, the first principle
proposed is that of human dignity, together with the indivisibility, interrelatedness and
interdependece of all rights. The other principles are equality against all discrimination, which
includes the right to be protected from the negative stigma attached to conditions of poverty, equality
between men and women, the rights of the child, the agency and autonomy of persons living in extreme
poverty, participation and empowerment, transparency and access to information and accountability.
Based on these principles, States should adopt national strategies to reduce poverty and
achieve social integration, with clear reference points and deadlines, and well-defined plans of
action. Public policies should give due priority to poor people and the facilities, goods
and services required for the enjoyment of human rights should be accessible,
available, adaptable, affordable and of good quality. States have the already mentioned
obligation to be coherent, request international assistance when their efforts are not
sufficient and provide assistance if they are in a position to do so, being accountable for
their interventions. In a world characterised by an unprecedented level of economic
development, technological means and financial resources, that millions of persons are living in
extreme poverty is a moral outrage, reads the preface of the paper. When it becomes approved,
eradicating extreme poverty shall not only be a moral duty but also a legal obligation.

2NC Failed States
Economic collapse causes poverty and social revolutions leads to a failed
state
Friedman 8/21 (George, STRATFOR, August 21, 2012, Mexico's Strategy, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/mexicos-
strategy, alp)

Discussion of national strategy normally begins with the question of national security. But a
discussion of Mexico's strategy must begin with economics. This is because Mexico's neighbor
is the United States, whose military power in North America denies Mexico military options that other
nations might have. But proximity to the United States does not deny Mexico economic
options. Indeed, while the United States overwhelms Mexico from a national security standpoint, it
offers possibilities for economic growth. Mexico is now the world's 14th-largest economy, just
above South Korea and just below Australia. Its gross domestic product was $1.16 trillion in 2011. It
grew by 3.8 percent in 2011 and 5.5 percent in 2010. Before a major contraction of 6.9 percent in 2009
following the 2008 crisis, Mexico's GDP grew by an average of 3.3 percent in the five years
between 2004 and 2008. When looked at in terms of purchasing power parity, a measure of
GDP in terms of actual purchasing power, Mexico is the 11th-largest economy in the world, just
behind France and Italy. It is also forecast to grow at just below 4 percent again this year,
despite slowing global economic trends, thanks in part to rising U.S. consumption. Total economic
size and growth is extremely important to total national power. But Mexico has a single
profound economic problem: According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development, Mexico has the second-highest level of inequality among member nations.
More than 50 percent of Mexico's population lives in poverty, and some 14.9 percent of its
people live in intense poverty, meaning they have difficulty securing the necessities of life. At the same
time, Mexico is home to the richest man in the world, telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim.
The primary strategic problem for Mexico is the potential for internal instability driven
by inequality. Northern and central Mexico have the highest human development index, nearly on the
European level, while the mountainous, southernmost states are well below that level. Mexican
inequality is geographically defined, though even the wealthiest regions have significant pockets of
inequality. We must remember that this is not Western-style gradient inequality, but cliff
inequality where the poor live utterly different lives from even the middle class.
2NC Economy/Stability
Energy reform is necessary to stave off economic collapse and energy insecurity in
Mexico
Webber, 7/26/13 Jude, joined the Financial Times in 2007 as correspondent for Argentina, Chile,
Uruguay and Paraguay after 15 years working for Reuters in UK, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Peru,
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/07/26/pemex-q2-the-case-for-reform-grows/, Pemex Q2: the
case for reform grows, ADM
One of the most widely watched and significant of Mexican President Enrique Pea Nietos
reforms is that of the energy sector. Its on the agenda when Congress resumes after the
summer break in September and is attracting a lot of international attention in the energy
sector. But with disappointing results out from state oil company Pemex out, its now looking
even more important than before. Pemexs loss in the second quarter was, in fact, its
steepest since late 2011 and though the company is still officially sticking to its target of lifting
production slightly this year, there must be lots of doubters out there. There were some bright spots in
the results. While lower crude export prices and a weaker peso hit earnings, Pemexs crude output in
June was the highest since February, and an increase of 0.4 per cent since May. So reform time? It
looks increasingly important, But the good news is that we wont have to wait long. Pemex said
the package should be ready in a month or so. London-based analysts Capital Economics
count that plan as one of the potential reasons to be cheerful about the Mexican
economy, whose performance has disappointed so far this year. As Javier Trevio Nieto, an
expert on energy in Congress from the ruling PRI party told Reuters recently, Mexico cant
afford to get it wrong: The world is not going to wait for us if we dont do an energy
reform that guarantees the countrys energy security. Pemex, Mexico and Pea Nieto
have a lot riding on the reform proposal. Can they pull it off? Watch this space.

T-Military
1NC Topicality Economic Engagement
Interpretation
Economic engagement is distinct from political and military engagement
prefer policy focus.
Sloan 85 (Stanley, founding Director of the Atlantic Community Initiative, PhD from American
Universitys School of International Service, employed by the Congressional Research Service of the
Library of Congress in a variety of analytical and research management positions from 1975-1999,
including head of the Office of Senior Specialists, In December 2007, Stan served as a Fulbright Senior
Specialist Fellow at the Estonian School of Diplomacy, In 2002, Stan was selected as a Woodrow Wilson
Foundation Visiting Fellow , Natos Future: Toward a New Transatlantic Bargain, pg 158)

A new conceptual framework should have a dynamic outlook to maximize political
effectiveness and flow from a concept of Western interests, rather than from a simple
reaction to Eastern capabilities and politices. Any new approach should reflect the reality of conflict
within the East-West relationship as well as the potential for cooperation. A new Western
policy of active engagement with the Eastmilitary engagement,
political engagement, and economic engagementwould meet those
requirements. A primary purpose of such a policy would be to convince the Soviet Union and its
allies they can gain no decisive power advantage over the West and, equally, to assure the Warsaw Pact
nations that the NATO nations also seek no such advantage.

B. Violation their Relations advantage is based off of military facilitation.
C. That kills limits which is a voter for fairness and education undermines
clash the neg cant predict what the aff will say.
D. Prefer the most limiting interpretation good isnt good enough justifies
judge intervention and is arbitrary.

AT: We MEet
DOD is a part of the drug war.
Longmire 12 (Sylvia, a [medically] retired Air Force captain and former Special Agent with the Air
Force Office of Special Investigation, Former senior intelligence analyst for the California state fusion
center and the California Emergency Management Agency's Situational Awareness Unit, focusing almost
exclusively on Mexican drug trafficking organizations and southwest border violence issues, egularly
lectured on terrorism in Latin America at the Air Force Special Operations School's Dynamics of
International Terrorism course, Masters in Latin American and Carribean studies, 1/13/12, Is The US
Militarys Involvement In Border Security Too Expensive?
http://www.hstoday.us/briefings/correspondents-watch/single-article/is-the-us-militarys-involvement-
in-border-security-too-expensive/c7963abc47990eee4cbb12900e9e9533.html)//DR. H

DoD has also increased their role in the drug war, both by providing military equipment
to law enforcement agencies along the border - helping them do their jobs more
effectively - and providing training and guidance to agencies on the Mexican side of the
border. By executive order, because DoD also has a mandate to assist in the national counterdrug
mission, how the drug war progresses is very important to the Pentagon.

Heres a chart specific to Merida

Kerry CP
1NC Kerry Counterplan
Secretary of State John Kerry should incorporate into the Mrida Initiative
strategy outcome performance measures that indicate progress towards goals
and develop more comprehensive timelines for future program deliveries.

Solvency advocate their ev is all based off of this article.
GAO 10 (July 2010, Report to Congressional Requesters, MRIDA INITIATIVE: The United States Has
Provided Counternarcotics and Anticrime Support but Needs Better Performance Highlights of GAO-10-
837, a report to Measures, pdf)//DR. H

We recommend that the Secretary of State incorporate into the strategy for the Mrida
Initiative outcome performance measures that indicate progress toward strategic goals
and develop more comprehensive timelines for future program deliveries.
2NC Counterplan
Solves the case and doesnt link to politics.
GAO 10 (July 2010, Report to Congressional Requesters, MRIDA INITIATIVE: The United States Has
Provided Counternarcotics and Anticrime Support but Needs Better Performance Highlights of GAO-10-
837, a report to Measures, pdf)//DR. H

The United States has made some progress delivering equipment and training to Mexico and
Central America under the Mrida Initiative and supported efforts to combat crime and narcotics
trafficking. Nevertheless, violence continues to grow and needs are changing across the region as
criminals adjust their activities in reaction to increased law enforcement efforts. This year, State
revised its strategy and defined new goals, but left out key elements that would
facilitate management and accountability. State generally lacks outcome-based measures that
define success in the short term and the long term, making it difficult to determine effectiveness and
leaving unclear when the Initiatives goals will be met. Establishing better performance
measures could provide Congress and other stakeholders with valuable information on
outcomes, enabling them to make more informed decisions on whether or not
policies and approaches might need to be revised and in what ways. Regarding program
implementation, there are no timelines for future deliveries of some equipment and
training, particularly for a range of capacity building programs that will take on a large role going
forward. Provision of time frames for the commencement and completion of programs
would set expectations for stakeholders, including the Mexican government, which has
expressed concerns about the pace of delivery. It would also facilitate coordination and
planning for all organizations involved in implementation.

Legalize USA CP
1NC Legalize USA CP
Text: The United States federal government should end its Merida efforts. The
United States federal government should legalize marijuana, cocaine, heroin
and methamphetamine.
CP solves US drug demands are key.
pdf)//DR. H

The engine driving Mexican drug trafficking is demand for drugs in the United States,
where wholesale illicit drug proceeds reach tens of billions of dollars each year.31 As long as this
level of demand exists, drugs will continue to flow north regardless of the level of
deterrence that the security forces deploy.32 In this regard, it is likely that the most
efficient use of hundreds of millions of dollars annually is to keep most of this money in
the United States and direct it to demand reduction through public health services and
programs to reduce drug use, such as improved access to treatment for addiction.
Another major reason for the United States to focus attention north of the border is
that the military-style assault weapons that fuel Mexican drug violence (such as AK-47s)
come from the United States. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) estimates that
9095% of Mexican cartels weapons enter Mexico from the southern United States,
where individual buyers, benefiting from gaping loopholes in U.S. gun laws, purchase multiple military
weapons from gun sellers and then pass the weapons to drug cartels.33
There are signs that actors in Congress and the current administration recognize the
need to step up efforts to address these domestic problems. The administration of U.S.
President Barack Obama recently announced a border security plan that will target the arms trade by
deploying hundreds more ATF and other agents to the southwest U.S. border. The plan also
contemplates measures to reduce drug demand, such as improving drug treatment within national
healthcare systems.34 Also noteworthy is a letter to the President signed by more than 50 members of
Congress asking for enforcement of the U.S. ban on imported assault weapons.35 While this measure
alone will not correct underlying loopholes in U.S. gun laws, it would be a step in the right direction.
Indeed, from its inception the Mrida Initiative has been billed by both governments as the embodiment
of U.S. recognition of its shared responsibility to combat drug trafficking.36
Only recently, however, have U.S. officials begun to acknowledge clearly the need to
address the factors within U.S. territory that generate drug-related violence in Mexico.
Secretary of State Hillary Clintons recent visit to Mexico marked an important acknowledgement that,
in Clintons words, Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs [in the U.S.]
fuels the drug trade.37
Despite this recognition of the need to reduce U.S. drug demand, the visit was also accompanied by a
pledge from the administration to seek $80 million from Congress to purchase Blackhawk helicopters to
support Mexicos drug war38an indicator of continuing U.S. emphasis on law enforcement battles
with drug traffickers as a primary drug-fighting strategy. It is worth noting that the Mrida
Initiative itself did not introduce any new, concrete commitments in the areas of
demand reduction or reduction of arms smuggling in the United States. A change in the
design of this high-profile Initiative, coupled with a decisive shift away from directing
other foreign aid to Mexicos military, would thus ensure that the administrations
recent statements regarding shared U.S. responsibility for drug trafficking truly signify a
new level of commitment by the U.S. to address efficiently the particular ways in which
it perpetuates the drug trade.
Legalization solves demand most qualified evidence.
Miron and Spiegal 13 (Jeffrey, Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the
Department of Economics at Harvard University, as well as a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Harvard
Economist: Legalizing Drugs Suits Ideal of American Freedom,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/harvard-economist-jeffrey-miron-on-why-drugs-should-be-
legalized-a-886289.html)//DR. H

SPIEGEL: Mr. Miron, why should heroin, cocaine and marijuana be legal?
Miron: The prohibition of drugs is the worst solution for preventing abuse. Firstly, it brings
about a black market that is corrupt and costs human lives. Secondly, it constrains people
who wouldn't abuse drugs. Thirdly, prohibiting drugs is expensive.
SPIEGEL: How expensive?
Miron: If it legalized drugs, the United States could save $85 billion to $90 billion per year.
Roughly half that is spent on the current drugs policy and half that is lost in taxes that the state could
have levied on legal drugs.
SPIEGEL: On the other side of the equation, there are many people who would become addicted to
drugs.
Miron: Let us assume that the consumption of drugs would increase as a result of legalization. Would
that be a bad thing? If we apply the standards of economics, that is (at least partially) a good thing. Any
policy that prevents me from doing what I'd like to do impairs my happiness.
SPIEGEL: Drugs lead to addiction. They impair people's happiness.
Miron: Addiction isn't the problem. Many people are addicted to caffeine and nobody worries about
that. Many people are addicted to sports, beer or food. That doesn't bother the state either.
SPIEGEL: Should the state treat sports and cocaine equally?
Miron: The effects of cocaine are described in a highly exaggerated way. There are Wall
Street bankers who snort coke; they have high incomes, access to a good healthcare system, are married
and have a stable life situation. Many of them subsequently stop taking cocaine. I get the impression
that these people enjoy consuming it. Then there are people who smoke crack cocaine and lead lives
that are very different from those of stockbrokers; they are people with low incomes, no jobs and poor
health. Many of these people come to a sorry end. But cocaine's not to blame for that. Those people's
lousy lives are to blame.
SPIEGEL: Are you trying to say that crack is harmless?
Miron: Can you consume crack for a long time and then give it up? Absolutely, and that's
supported by the data. The prohibition lobby exaggerates substantially to help it achieve
its goals. Drugs are far less dangerous than people think. It's not clear that consuming
marijuana or cocaine has significant negative effects if the product is affordable, if we don't have to risk
our lives to get it, and if the product hasn't been diluted secretly with rat poison.
SPIEGEL: Are you trying to say it's not dangerous to shoot heroin?
Miron: Injecting it is so widespread because, under prohibition, heroin is expensive and
injecting makes users high for less money. If drugs were much less expensive, most
people would probably smoke heroin rather than injecting it.
SPIEGEL: One more time: do you think it would be good if legalization led to an increased consumption
of drugs?
Miron: If you believe in anything that the Americans claim to believe in -- freedom, individuality,
personal responsibility -- you have to legalize drugs. The maxim should be that you're allowed to do it if
you're not harming anyone else. There is an assumption that you're harming someone when
you take drugs, but the scientific data doesn't support this hypothesis.
SPIEGEL: Cocaine makes people aggressive.
Miron: The scientific evidence for that is very thin. Most of the evidence that points to a connection
between violence and drugs relates to alcohol. Does that mean that alcohol should be banned? In fact,
the legalization of all drugs would sharply reduce the amount of violence in the US.
SPIEGEL: How?
Miron: Prohibition leads to violence. By making a black market inevitable, you generate
violence because the conflicts between the parties involved in the drug trade can't be
solved by legal means within the judicial system. They are forced into a twilight world in
which they have to shoot each other instead of hiring lawyers and taking the matter to
court.
SPIEGEL: So the state should just let the cartels get on with it?
Miron: There are studies that show the level of violence is reduced when the state leaves the
drug trade alone, the reason being that the drug dealers have fewer disputes. The latest
evidence from Mexico confirms that. Of course there has been drug-related violence there for
a long time. But the violence didn't escalate and increase sharply in scale until the president,
Felipe Caldern, declared the big war on drugs in 2006. We have calculated that the
murder rate in the US could fall by around 25 percent if drugs were legal.
SPIEGEL: How would drug prices change as a result of legalization?
Miron: Marijuana prices would hardly change. If we compare the black-market prices with prices in
places where marijuana is virtually legal today, for example the Netherlands, they are very similar. The
prices paid for cocaine could fall substantially.
SPIEGEL: Then the whole country would snort coke.
Miron: Consumption of the more harmless drugs would probably increase. And there would be a larger
number of people who occasionally take a drug. But when single malt whiskey became legal again after
the prohibition of alcohol in the US ended, the whole country didn't become addicted to single malt.
SPIEGEL: Don't we as a democracy have an obligation to protect the people from themselves?
Miron: I think that people who harm themselves with drugs will do it anyway, regardless of whether or
not they're legal.
SPIEGEL: Don't we have a moral obligation?
Miron: If a friend of yours does something that's stupid, do you think about whether it would make the
situation better or worse if you intervened? Maybe putting your friend in prison and forcing him to
undergo therapy isn't the best solution. Maybe it's better to talk to your friend in a calm and collected
way.
SPIEGEL: Is talking the solution to the drug problem?
Miron: Prohibition certainly isn't the solution.
SPIEGEL: Why are drugs prohibited at all?
Miron: Naive people believe that if something's illegal, people won't do it any more. That
clearly isn't true. Others think that if you make it illegal, the price will rise and fewer people will take
the drug. But for some people the price isn't a factor.
SPIEGEL: What would a world in which drugs were legal be like?
Miron: Like Portugal. There, consumption has been legal for several years and there has been hardly any
change in the amount of drug use. Legalization wouldn't greatly increase the rates of use. And if people
started to smoke more marijuana, that would be okay too. It's their business.
SPIEGEL: Do you seriously want drugs to be sold in supermarkets?
Miron: Yes.
SPIEGEL: Would prescribing the drugs be a possibility?
Miron: A very lax prescription law like the one in California doesn't do any harm, because everyone gets
a prescription. But if that's the case, what good does it do? If you have a very strict prescription law,
you'll have a black market again.
SPIEGEL: What would happen to the black market if drugs were legalized?
Miron: You'd have the choice. You could buy your cocaine in a supermarket or from a
mysterious Mexican dealer at a street corner who might shoot you. That would drain
the black market.
SPIEGEL: What would happen to the drug cartels?
Miron: If drugs were legalized, many of the big cartels in Mexico would try to use the
benefits of their experience by setting up a legal company right away. They'd want to be
the first and they've got good products and a good distribution network. It's still highly
uncertain whether the drug cartels want legalization. El Chapo Guzmn, the most powerful cartel boss in
the world, has a natural advantage because he's a very skilled criminal -- that's why he's so rich. If there
was no longer a black market for drugs, Guzmn would lose his advantage.

2NC Merida Solvency
Empirics and consensus prove the CPs the best option.
pdf)//DR. H

The U.S. must instead prioritize domestic demand reduction and halt the flow of assault
weapons over the border if it is to cease exporting both the motive and the means for
violent drug trafficking to Mexico. As consensus grows in the region regarding the need to
move beyond the inefficient and damaging anti-drug strategies of the last decade, it is
crucial that the U.S. government follows through and expands upon recent declarations
recognizing the need for domestic action. While an important step forward, these should
constitute only the beginning of a profound paradigm shift in this regard in U.S. anti-drug strategies. A
failure by the United States to change course fully now will mean not only that it finds
itself working largely on the wrong side of the border, but also on the wrong side of
history.
2NC Legalization Solvency
US demand drives drug violence in mexico only domestic drug policy reform
can solve.
Abu-Hamdeh, 11 Sabrina, Pepperdine University, 1/1, Pepperdine Policy Review, Vol. 4,
http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=ppr&sei-
redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fq%3Dmerida%2Binitiative%2Bsucc
ess%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D0%26as_vis%3D1%26oi%3Dscholart%26sa%3DX%26ei%3D1XD6UYihGse
SyAG-rIHgDA%26ved%3D0CC0QgQMwAA#search=%22merida%20initiative%20success%22, The
Merida Initiative: An Effective Way of Reducing Violence in Mexico? | ADM
A Carnevale Associates study of US drug policy found that consumption from 2002 to 2008 had
not changed and remains at eight percent of Americans aged twelve and older.25 It also showed that,
though consumption has remained the same, federal spending for supply reduction rose by
sixty-four percent whereas spending on demand reduction only rose by nine percent. In
light of these bleak statistics, the Obama administration needs to assess its drug policy and
decide the future of the Merida Initiative. Various policy alternatives exist for the Merida Initiative at
this juncture. This paper will address the three most plausible options in turn, and review the
effectiveness of each policy within the established criteria. The first option is to abandon the program by
allowing funding to expire, as it was originally allocated through FY 2010 and has been extended until FY
2011. The second option is to continue with the Obama administrations approach to the Merida
Initiative, called Beyond Merida. This policy embodies the Merida Initiatives original goals, but
integrates a shared responsibility approach to drug control and a larger focus on institution building
rather than military spending. The third option is a new approach that integrates aspects of President
Obamas Beyond Merida approach, but focuses more on domestic drug and weapons policy as
means of lessening demand, and institution building and government support as means of
lessening the supply. The criteria used to determine the best policy incorporates the basic economic
princples of supply and demand. The theory of supply and demand is fundamental in
explaining market economies and most societal outcomes. The problem of drug violence in
Mexico can be attributed to heightened demand that has fueled a larger supply. A
successful policy would lessen supply through decreased drug production and cross border trafficking.
For this to happen, there must be decreased demandnotably, within the United
States. The desired outcome is a reduction in violence in Mexico from drug-related
activities and a lessened supply of illegal drugs
Only domestic drug policy reform solves drives drug violence in Mexico.
A Carnevale Associates study of US drug policy found that consumption from 2002 to 2008 had
not changed and remains at eight percent of Americans aged twelve and older.25 It also showed that,
though consumption has remained the same, federal spending for supply reduction rose by
sixty-four percent whereas spending on demand reduction only rose by nine percent. In
light of these bleak statistics, the Obama administration needs to assess its drug policy and
decide the future of the Merida Initiative. Various policy alternatives exist for the Merida Initiative at
this juncture. This paper will address the three most plausible options in turn, and review the
effectiveness of each policy within the established criteria. The first option is to abandon the program by
allowing funding to expire, as it was originally allocated through FY 2010 and has been extended until FY
2011. The second option is to continue with the Obama administrations approach to the Merida
Initiative, called Beyond Merida. This policy embodies the Merida Initiatives original goals, but
integrates a shared responsibility approach to drug control and a larger focus on institution building
rather than military spending. The third option is a new approach that integrates aspects of President
Obamas Beyond Merida approach, but focuses more on domestic drug and weapons policy as
means of lessening demand, and institution building and government support as means of
lessening the supply. The criteria used to determine the best policy incorporates the basic economic
princples of supply and demand. The theory of supply and demand is fundamental in
explaining market economies and most societal outcomes. The problem of drug violence in
Mexico can be attributed to heightened demand that has fueled a larger supply. A
successful policy would lessen supply through decreased drug production and cross border trafficking.
For this to happen, there must be decreased demandnotably, within the United
States. The desired outcome is a reduction in violence in Mexico from drug-related
activities and a lessened supply of illegal drugs
Combating demand is key direct causal relationship.
Thomas Cole argues that the killings in Mexico and movements in the US market for drugs
are correlated.47 Drug policy analyst Mark Kleiman agrees that Mexicos position as the primary
transit point for illegal drugs entering the United States is directly linked to US
demand. If demand rises, drug violence will rise as well. Kleiman notes that the heaviest
drug users are responsible for the largest portion of demand and says that, taking away the
drug dealers best customers will reduce their earnings.48Effective intervention targeted at these
drug users is necessary to affect the illegal drug economy. The prevention of future
substance abuse could also help shrink the illicit drug market, thereby reducing the stakes for
DTO profits that motivates violence.49 Another option to consider is the legalization of
certain drugs, something that has been advocated for by the United Nations Committee for
Crime and Drugs and many political leaders.
Only legalization solves drug violence expert consensus.
Lastly, many economists and knowledgeable leaders suggest that legalizing certain drugs
would be a means of driving their prices down. Without the high price tags attached to illicit
drugs, the high-stakes drug wars would most certainly diminish. Simple economic
theory explains that high prices stimulate highly competitive markets, but low prices are less
attractive and lessen suppliers. Drug legalization is hotly contested and conflicting information suggests
that legalizing drugs, such as marijuana, will produce few changes in Mexicos illicit drug trade and
related violence.42 Klimer suggests that marijuana sales make up only part of drug trafficking profits
with estimates of between $1.5 and $2 billion in annual gross revenue.43 However, while Klimer also
maintains that it is unknown whether reductions in Mexican DTOs revenues from exporting marijuana
would lead to corresponding decreases in violence, other analysts have suggested that large
reductions in revenues could increase violence in the short run but decrease it in the
long run.44 Therefore, the legalization of certain drugs and the establishment of
government price controls could diminish the surges of violence in Mexico and would
satisfy, in part, all three of the criteria established

Legalizing destroys profits which fund crime.
Grillo 12 (Ioan, 11/1/12, Hit Mexicos Cartels With Legalization, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/opinion/hit-mexicos-cartels-
with-legalization.html)//DR. H

The painful truth is that the monster of Mexican cartels has been pumped up by decades of
Americans buying illegal drugs under the policies of prohibition. No one knows exactly how
much money Mexican traffickers make, but reasonable estimates find they pocket $30 billion
every year selling cocaine, marijuana, heroin and crystal meth to American users. Since
1980, the cumulative jackpot could be close to $1 trillion. Under the law of the jungle, this
money goes to the most violent and sadistic players, so the cartels have spent their dollars on building
increasingly ferocious death squads.
There have been a tragic 60,000 killings under President Felipe Caldern that are described as drug-
related. But even this description can be misleading. Most cartel assassins do not carry out these
brutal acts because they are high on drugs. Their motive is to capture the
profits that are so high because in the black market you can buy drugs for a
nickel and sell them for a dollar. How many others would love to be in a
business with a markup of more than 2,000 percent?
Marijuana is just one of the drugs that the cartels traffic. Chemicals such as crystal meth may
be too venomous to ever be legalized. But cannabis is a cash crop that provides huge profits to criminal
armies, paying for assassins and guns south of the Rio Grande. The scale of the Mexican marijuana
business was illustrated by a mammoth 120-hectare plantation busted last year in Baja California. It had
a sophisticated irrigation system, sleeping quarters for 60 workers and could produce 120 metric tons of
cannabis per harvest.
Again, nobody knows exactly how much the whole Mexico-U.S. marijuana trade is worth, with estimates
ranging from $2 billion to $20 billion annually. But even if you believe the lowest numbers, legal
marijuana would take billions of dollars a year away from organized crime. This would
inflict more financial damage than soldiers or drug agents have managed in years and
substantially weaken cartels.
It is also argued that Mexican gangsters have expanded to a portfolio of crimes that includes kidnapping,
extortion, human smuggling and theft from oil pipelines. This is a terrifying truth. But this does not take
away from the fact that the marijuana trade provides the crime groups with major
resources. That they are committing crimes such as kidnapping, which have a horrific effect on
innocent people, makes cutting off their financing all the more urgent.
Legalization solves cuts off revenue.
Grillo 12 (Ioan, 11/1/12, Hit Mexicos Cartels With Legalization, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/opinion/hit-mexicos-cartels-
with-legalization.html)//DR. H

All these tasks will be easier if the flow of money to the cartels is dramatically slowed
down. Do we really want to hand them another trillion dollars over the next three
decades?
It is always hard to deal with these global issues in a world where all politics is local. Mexico was not
even featured in the presidential debate on foreign policy, despite that fact that the United States has
supported Calderns war on drugs with more than $1.3 billion worth of hardware, including Black Hawk
helicopters, and that cartels have attacked and killed U.S. agents.
Of course, residents of Colorado and Washington will have many valid local reasons to make their
choices. But on the issue of organized crime, the underlying fact should be clear: Legal marijuana will
take away dollars that pay for assassins and redirect them to small businesses and
government coffers.
If voters do choose to legalize marijuana it would be a historic decision, but it would also
open up a can of worms. The U.S. federal government and even the United Nations
would be forced to react to a states resolution to break from the path. This could be a
good thing.
AT: Links to Politics
CP doesnt link to politics prefer recency.
Seitz-Wald 13 (Alex, 2/8/13, Why Congress might legalize marijuana (this time),
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/08/why_congress_might_legalize_marijuana_this_time/)//DR. H

I think we are in a position now to have a group of members of Congress who are able
to spend a little more time and energy in a focused way on this. I think weve got a little
bit more running room; I think our coalition is broader, and weve got people who have
not normally been involved in this, he added, pointing to more conservative members
from Colorado who now care about marijuana after the state legalized it in the fall.
Bipartisan support
DC 13 (The Daily Chronic, 3/21/13, Federal Bill to Legalize Marijuana Gains Support in Congress, The
Marijuana Policy Project, http://www.thedailychronic.net/2013/16466/federal-bill-to-legalize-
marijuana-gains-support-in-congress/)//DR. H

This week, Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-District 1) joined the effort to end marijuana prohibition
and start regulating marijuana like alcohol at the federal level. Rep. Pingree, as well as Rep. Eric
Swalwell (D-CA), signed on to co-sponsor H.R. 499, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013, on Monday, joining a
bipartisan group of supporters in the House.
There are currently 14 co-sponsors of the bill.
Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013 on
February 5, which would remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act
and establish a system in which marijuana is regulated similarly to alcohol at the federal
level.
It would also remove marijuana from the jurisdiction of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and place it in the jurisdiction of a renamed
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana, Firearms, and Explosives.
It is a very positive sign to see federal lawmakers finally coming
around on this issue and supporting rational marijuana reforms, said
David Boyer, Maine policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project.
This comes at an important time, as the Maine Legislature will soon be considering taxing and regulating marijuana in a manner similar to
alcohol. We are grateful to Rep. Pingree, as well as the rest of the congressional bill
sponsors, who have expressed support for the rights of individual states to determine
their own marijuana policies.

AT: Mexico Aid Key
Mexico Aid still occurs just not in relation to the drug war.
pdf)//DR. H

This is not to exclude the possibility of U.S. aid to Mexico. Of great relevance would be
policies and programs that create viable alternatives to illicit economic activities for
Mexicans living in poverty. In terms of public security aid packages, the Mrida
Initiative itself signals areas such as funding to support training of drug treatment counselors and
sharing of best practices in the realm of judicial reform, both of which are potentially fruitful areas of
cooperation. In particular, effective sharing of technical expertise to support Mexicos
transition to an adversarial judicial system characterized by oral criminal trials and
support for the establishment of police oversight mechanisms and community policing
models would provide more sustainable contributions to public security in both
countries than, for example, funding the Mexican armed forces. A rethinking of foreign aid to
Mexico, emphasizing such institution-building and preventive activities while eliminating
military aid, would additionally send a clear message that the U.S. will not fund entities
that continue to commit systematic human rights violations.

Mexico Drug Cartels Negative - HSS 2013

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Mexico Drug Cartels Negative - HSS 2013

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Case

You might also like