april 2020 advanced public forum brief · april 2020 advanced public forum brief 5 national speech...

NSDA Advanced PF Brief September/October 2019

PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE

National Speech & Debate Association • updated 4/13/2020

APRIL 2020 ADVANCED PUBLIC FORUM BRIEF

April 2020 Advanced Public Forum Brief 2

National Speech & Debate Association • Public Forum Debate: APRIL 2020 ADVANCED BRIEF

Resolved: The United States should remove nearly all of its military presence in

the Arab States of the Persian Gulf

This topic brief was written by Jesse Meyer. Jesse is a diamond coach, recipient of the Donald Crabtree Service Award, the state of Iowa’s 2015 Coach of the Year, member of the TOC’s PF advisory board, and board member of the Iowa Forensics League. He is currently an assistant coach at Iowa City West High School. He can be reached at [email protected].



Table of Contents

Contents Resolved: The United States should remove nearly all of its military presence in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf ............................................................................................................................................. 2

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................ 3

History and Background ...................................................................................................................... 5

Framework and Definitions ................................................................................................................. 8

Regional Stability ................................................................................................................................... 15

Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 17

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 21

Saudi Arms Sales ................................................................................................................................... 22

Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 24

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 32

Global Economics .................................................................................................................................. 33

Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 34

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 35

US Economics ........................................................................................................................................ 36

Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 37

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 40

US Hegemony........................................................................................................................................ 41

Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 43

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 46

Drones .................................................................................................................................................. 47

Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 49

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 51

Terrorism .............................................................................................................................................. 52

Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 54

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 56

Arab Spring/Democracy ........................................................................................................................ 57

Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 59

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 61

Iran/Strait of Hormuz ............................................................................................................................ 62



Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 64

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 66

5th Fleet in Bahrain ................................................................................................................................ 67

Sample Evidence............................................................................................................................ 69

Further Reading ............................................................................................................................. 73

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 74



History and Background

Prior to World War I, the United States didn’t have a huge presence in the Middle East. In fact, to many Us politicians and scholars, the Middle East prior to this time was a land of mystery and legend. I know that it seems crazy to say this when this was only 100 years ago, but the truth of the matter is that with the prevailing American philosophy being that of isolation and with the current political climate focused on developing the Western hemisphere and keeping it safe from outside aggression, the regions where the United States did not have a huge need for investment were “out of sight, out of mind.”

World War I would bring the US and other Western nations into direct conflict with the Ottoman Empire. At this time our knowledge of the area and culture was so lacking that college students and professors that were drafted were transferred to intelligence so that their knowledge could be put to use. Anyone with experience in the language was used as interpreters for prisoner’s pf war, and anyone with a remote knowledge of the area was asked to draw up maps for logistics. After the war and the division of the Ottoman Empire into the nations more or less as we know them today, the US became interested in the geopolitical affairs of the region. At this same time the resources of the Middle East, namely oil, natural gas, and silica sand became useful in the industrial sector.

During World War II, both the Axis and Allies fought over the region for its oil reserves. Both sides knew that the victor would control the world’s energy reserves and thus, would be able to choke off the enemy’s power supplies. When it became apparent late in the war that Hitler’s tanks were being pushed back, negotiations began with the King of Saudi Arabia to secure a long-lasting oil and gas treaty. On August 8, 1944, the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement was signed, dividing Middle Eastern oil between the United States and Britain. Political scholar Fred H. Lawson was quoted as saying in his bestselling history textbook. “By the mid-1944, U.S. officials had buttressed their country's position on the peninsula by concluding an Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement that protected "all valid concession contracts and lawfully acquired rights" belonging to the signatories and established a principle of "equal opportunity

By 1946, the United States had come to consider the Middle East region as "the most strategically important area of the world." and "one of the greatest material prizes in world history," According to writer Norm Chomsky, this investment in the Middle East was the soul driving force behind the United States quest for dominance in the region.

At this time, surviving Jewish citizens from Europe who had just been liberated from the concentration camps asked the governments of the world for a safe haven. The major European powers isolated a strip of land in the Middle East and declared this as the new nation state of Israel. Shortly after, the newly liberated immigrants began to arrive. Shortly after that, this new



nation began to experience attacks from their neighbors as many saw this as an illegitimate land grab by the Western nations. In 1947, Truman administration, both international and congressional political pressure, pushed for a solution and resolution on the Arab–Israeli conflict, and in May 1948 the new state of Israel was formally recognized by international law.

At the same time, civil unrest was brewing in Syria. Due to the death of a long-time king and the instability caused by World War II, Syria was on the verge of a major political transformation. In 1946. Suria broke away from the title of “colony” and became an independent nation. This new nation would be tested in the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état, led by Army Chief of Staff Husni al-Za'im, that ended the initial period of civilian rule. Za'im met at least six times with CIA operatives in the months prior to the coup to discuss his plan to seize power. Za'im requested American funding or personnel, but it is not known whether this assistance was provided. Once in power, Za'im made several key decisions that benefitted the United States.

In the decades that followed, conflict in Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia would all see intervention of the United States or other Western nations. It was during this time that arms sales to the region rapidly increased as US defense contractors saw an opening for major arms sales to the region. Furthermore, it was during this period that Israel likely developed nuclear weapons. I say “likely” because as of today, Israel has yet to declare themselves a nuclear power. This is likely due to the idea that a hidden weapon acts as a better deterrent rather than an open declaration that one can plan for. In short, if you know your enemy has nuclear weapons, you can plan for that if you attack, but not knowing keeps them off guard and wary of making a move. In 1979, the US began arms sales to both Iran and Iraq during their war to claim supremacy in the region. This might sound counterproductive, but the concept is that we could go all in on one side should the tide turn depending on which side was willing to work with us more. When Iraq emerged victorious, the US secretly breathed a sigh of relief as many diplomats felt that the US could work with Iraq rather than Iran.

However, in the late 1980’s, things changed. Under mounting debt from the war, Iraq demanded that the nations of the Middle East pay their fair as Iraq felt that they had defended the region from a hostile nation that would have threatened the stability of the region for everyone. When every nation in the region refused to pay the bill, Saddam issued ultimatums that either they pay or he would take what was his fair share. When nations continued to refuse, Saddam invaded the tiny nation of Kuwait so that their oil reserves could be tapped to pay for their share of the debt. Saddam also moved troops to his border with Saudi Arabia. In defense of a major oil supplier, the United States along with nations from around the world launched Operation Desert Shield. This was a defensive operation that stationed over 100,000 troops in the deserts of Saudi Arabia to defend the oil fields. At this time, negotiations were ongoing with Iraq on a withdraw from the region. When it became apparently that diplomacy was going to fail, and at the urging of then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher, the US launched Operation Desert Storm, the Invasion of Iraq.



In order to accomplish this goal, the US needed a place for fast mobilization. Bases in Europe could only allow transports in a 6 to 8 hour window. The US wanted more. To do this, they asked the governments of Turkey and Saudi Arabia if they could deploy forward operating bases in their countries. At first, this was displeasing to the religious hardliners in both nations as they saw American troops on Arab soil as an affront to their holy land. This was especially true in Saudi Arabia. However, the US issued guarantees that once the conflict was over, the bases would be removed, so the leaders agreed. Operation Desert Strom was launched and in less than a year, Saddam and his forces were pushed back to central Iraq. As the US began their pullout of the region, the bases in Saudi Arabia and Turkey remained. Furthermore, the 5th fleet had deployed at a naval base in Bahrain. None of these bases were showing any sign of packing up. This angered the religious hardliners as another American lie. One hardliner, Osama Bin Laden, fled Saudi Arabia for Afghanistan. He would be back.

In 2003, the US invaded Iraq for a second time. This time, we ousted Saddam and installed a new government, after the withdraw of major US troops and a declaration of “Mission Accomplished,” terrorist groups began to launch counterattacks. Before long, large parts of Iraq were under terrorist control. This prompted a “surge’ or third invasion of Iraq to reclaim the lands lost. In 2010, the Arab Soring movement began. This movement was a massive civilian uprising at the governments of the Middle East for their harsh treatment of the people. This caused the leaders of several nations, including Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, and Tunisia to lose power or be overthrown entirely. The US remained neutral in these conflicts, although they did move additional troops to the region to protect allies like Saudi Arabia and to defend US bases and embassies. Secretly, the US supported several uprisings as they sought to overthrow dictators that the US had viewed as hostile for decades. It was from this instability that we see the rise of a new terrorist groups, ISIS (Islamic State in Syria) as well as the AQAP (Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula). Both groups would be responsible for launching major terrorist attacks against US targets both in the region and on US soil via converted sleeper cells.

In 2019, the United States announced a massive withdraw of troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. This withdraw was feared by locals and the international community as a vacuum in power could lead to a massive shift in power that could lead to terrorist groups gaining a foothold in the region. This was compounded by the increased support by the Trump Administration of Israel as well as the US’s killing of an Iranian general via a drone strike.

So, this topic is very timely. Our presence in the Middle East and the Araba States of the Persian Gulf has never been so hotly debated. With a worldwide pandemic, tensions, terrorism, and the budget, the debate over this will be diverse and ever changing by the day.



Framework and Definitions

To those that have read my brief before, this is normally the part where I would talk about the frameworks that one could use to debate the topic. I tried to write this brief much the same as I normally would. However, as I was writing, I noticed that even more than with the Venezuela resolution, the framework section was sounding much like an argument list. The cause of this is the very policy nature of this resolution. It almost mirrors the current high school resolution to a tee, and it echoes similar notes to the Saudi Arabia topic from last February. In those cases, the justifications became much the same as the advantages for or against action. Thus, in order to not sound repetitive and to keep this brief concise and easy to follow, the argument sections can and will also be functioning as frameworks. Under each section you might find different subsections that explain different arguments.

The frameworks can be divided into three clean classes of types: deontological and utilitarian and realistic. When it comes to determining the issues of morality and deontology, it is important to determine culpability. The question that must be asked is “Was there a foreseeable harm that could come from either our action or in action, and did we fail to act to prevent this harm>” if the answer is yes, then we are culpable for the damages that result and thus we have violated a moral ethic. In this case, we could be morally responsible for deaths to civilians or poverty caused by military spending. Likewise, if our withdrawal causes a terrorist takeover or a war, we could be culpable for this as well.

On the other side, we have a utilitarian framework. This weighs straight numbers and lives. How much money is saved, how many lives are traded, how many nations are lost and gained, allies helped, or land lost or gained? This type of number counting puts in clear statistics for a judge the benefits and harms in terms that most people can understand, however it leaves open the idea that lives are just numbers on the flow and means to an end rather than living beings and an end unto themselves.

Finally, we get to realistic frameworks or realism. Realism means that nations, despite how crazy or abstract they appear to be or act, will always act in a predictable manner. IN this case, they will act towards self-preservation. Actions will always look to what keeps their governments or nations going longest. Would a nation risk a regional war with the United States for a few square kilometers of land? What would be the repercussions to them? Would a nation create a nuclear weapon in defiance of international law knowing that it might bring about conflict just to deter a potential attack? Self-preservation is strong with leaders and one must remember that actions are different than the rhetoric they say for the press.

The brief summary of the classes of frameworks will be followed up in the arguments as the arguments act as frameworks. So, the main purpose of this section will be focused on definitions. In this resolution, and unlike many other topics for this year, we have a chance for



some real topicality debates. Normally, I would advise you to shy away from these if you can, but on this resolution, I feel that the act of setting clear limits and bounds for your case is going to be strategic.

First, let’s start with the definition of “should.” Under a traditionally LD standard, I would say that this means “ought” and that it implies a moral obligation. This would be fine If you are taking a moral standpoint for your case. However, in a more practice sense, let’s look at other policymaking definitions. Under contemporary dictionary terms, should either mean definite action or a suggested action that is not required. This can allow you to leverage a huge advantage as you can debate the likelihood of action happening under the current administration with current geopolitical forces and with the current state of a world that is fighting the virus. You can also defend and debate over whether the action would be a suggestion and then debate over what would happen in a perfect world. Both sides give you flexibility and the ability to shift your argument styles to undercut your opponent’s modes of offense.

“Should” doesn’t require certainty

Black’s Law 79 (Black’s Law Dictionary – Fifth Edition, p. 1237)

Should. The past tense of shall; ordinarily implying duty or obligation; although usually no more than an obligation of propriety or expediency, or a moral obligation, thereby distinguishing it from “ought.” It is not normally synonymous with “may,” and although

often interchangeable with the word “would,” it does not ordinarily express certainty as “will” sometimes does.



“Should” is mandatory

Nieto 9 – Judge Henry Nieto, Colorado Court of Appeals, 8-20-2009 People v. Munoz, 240 P.3d 311 (Colo. Ct. App. 2009)

"Should" is "used . . . to express duty, obligation, propriety, or expediency." Webster's Third New International

Dictionary 2104 (2002). Courts [**15] interpreting the word in various contexts have drawn conflicting conclusions, although the weight of authority appears to favor interpreting "should" in an imperative, obligatory sense. HN7A number of courts, confronted with the question of whether using the word "should" in jury instructions conforms with the

Fifth and Sixth Amendment protections governing the reasonable doubt standard, have upheld instructions using the word. In the courts of other states in which a defendant has argued that the word "should" in the reasonable doubt instruction does not sufficiently inform the jury that it is bound to find the defendant not guilty if insufficient proof is submitted at trial, the courts have

squarely rejected the argument. They reasoned that the word "conveys a sense of duty and obligation and could not be misunderstood by a jury." See State v. McCloud, 257 Kan. 1, 891 P.2d 324, 335 (Kan. 1995); see also Tyson v. State, 217 Ga. App. 428, 457 S.E.2d 690, 691-92 (Ga. Ct. App. 1995) (finding argument that "should" is directional but not instructional to be without merit); Commonwealth v. Hammond, 350 Pa. Super. 477, 504 A.2d 940, 941-42 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1986).

Notably, courts interpreting the word "should" in other types of jury instructions [**16] have also found that the word conveys to the jury a sense of duty or obligation and not discretion. In Little v. State, 261 Ark. 859,

554 S.W.2d 312, 324 (Ark. 1977), the Arkansas Supreme Court interpreted the word "should" in an instruction

on circumstantial evidence as synonymous with the word "must" and rejected the defendant's argument that the

jury may have been misled by the court's use of the word in the instruction. Similarly, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected a defendant's argument that the court erred by not using the word "should" in an instruction on witness credibility which used the word "must" because the two words have the same meaning. State v. Rack, 318 S.W.2d 211, 215 (Mo. 1958). [*318] In applying a child support statute, the Arizona Court of

Appeals concluded that a legislature's or commission's use of the word "should" is meant to convey duty or obligation. McNutt v. McNutt, 203 Ariz. 28, 49 P.3d 300, 306 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2002) (finding a statute stating that child support expenditures "should" be allocated for the purpose of parents' federal tax exemption to be mandatory).

To remove means, but a dictionary definition, to eliminate. However, this is the 4th definition given in most dictionaries. If we expand to a more broad and accepting definition that is also more realistic to how our world and our current president operates, we ask the question, “What are the odds we will ever downsize the military?” I would wager that this is zero. With that being assumed true, then what happens if we were to remove our military presence? The likely idea would be that these troops would be reallocated to a different part of the world. This can shape the debate over readiness, hegemony, as well as overspending and conflict mitigation.



Remove means to eliminate

Lifting, Pushing, "Definition of REMOVE," No Publication, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/remove

: to get rid of : ELIMINATE

Remove means to transfer or move

Lifting, Pushing, "Definition of REMOVE," No Publication, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/remove

: to change the location, position, station, or residence of; remove soldiers to the front

Next, we get to the heart and soul of the topic, military presence. This team can mean many things, and this will change the course of the debate. Under most definitions that I have heard while judging this topic, I can say that the standard and accepted definition is that of troops. However, I think that this is a very limited definition that doesn’t allow for much creativity. Based in the literature, the concept of “military presence” can span from bases, weapons, training, troops, fleets, and drones. This opens up a whole door for pro and con arguments that spike out of your opponent’s offense if you choose to use it as such. This allows for strategic case writing and a layered debate that really gets to the heart of what policy makers do when debating action, and that is looking at the limits of their action and the effects that it might have on the current situation. I can speak from personal experience that as a judge who has seen a tournament’s worth of rounds on this topic, I would appreciate a good variance in arguments that differs from “deterrence good/bad” and “Iran.”



Military Presence - Non-Combat

Thomason 2 – Project Leader, Institute for Defense Analysis (James, “Transforming US Overseas Military Presence: Evidence and Options for DoD,” July, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.122.1144&rep=rep1&type=pdf

WHAT IS OVERSEAS MILITARY PRESENCE?

Our working definition of US overseas military presence is that it consists of all the US military assets in overseas areas that are engaged in relatively routine, regular, non-combat activities or functions.

By this definition, forces that are located overseas may or may not be engaging in presence activities. If they are engaging in combat (such as Operation Enduring Freedom) or are involved in a one-time non-combat action (such as an unscheduled carrier battle group deployment from the United States aimed at calming or stabilizing an emerging crisis situation), then they are not engaging in presence activities. Thus, an asset that is located (or present) overseas may or may not be “engaged in presence activities,” may or may not be “doing presence.”

We have thus far defined presence activities chiefly in “negative” terms—what they are not. In more positive terms, what exactly are presence activities, i.e., what do presence activities actually entail doing?

Overseas military presence activities are generally viewed as a subset of the overall class of activities that the US government uses in its efforts to promote important military/security objectives [Dismukes, 1994]. A variety of recurrent, overseas military activities are normally placed under the “umbrella” concept of military presence. These include but are not limited to US military efforts overseas to train foreign militaries; to improve inter-operability of US and friendly forces; to peacefully and visibly demonstrate US commitment and/or ability to defend US interests; to gain intelligence and familiarity with a locale; to conduct peacekeeping activities; and to position relevant, capable US military assets such that they are likely to be available sooner rather than later in case an evolving security operation or contingency should call for them.



Military Presence - Bases

Meernik 94 James Meernik, University of North Texas, 1994, “Presidential Decision Making and the Political Use of Military Force,” International Studies Quarterly, Volume 38, p. 128

American Military Presence. The first, and perhaps most important indicator of U.S. involvement, is the establishment of a permanent American military base. Not only does such a military presence signify an especially close relationship between the host country and the United States, it also demonstrates that the United States is necessarily involved should any aggression against the host country take place. This trip-wire function ensures that U.S. credibility and interests are always and obviously at stake in any matters that threaten the stability of the

host country or the U.S. presence. Military bases are defined to include all permanent U.S. facilities that are home to army, navy, or air force combat-oriented units according to either the Department of Defense Annual Reports (various years) or Harkavy (1989). This leads to the following proposition: H1: Situations occurring where there is an established U.S. military presence increase the level of the military response.

Military Presence - Personnel

The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military 2 (by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved, republished and cited as “US Military Dictionary” at: http://www.answers.com/topic/presence)

US Military Dictionary:

presence

n.a group of people, especially soldiers or police, stationed in a particular place: maintain a presence in the region.

Finally, we look to the definition of “Arab States of the Persian Gulf.” Most teams will conflate this to mean the “Middle East.” Even this brief does so for ease of typing. However, this is a wrong interpretation. The Arab States of the Persian Gulf is a defined region that is in the Middle East. However, to just say “Middle East” is a generalization. That would be like saying that you are going to a tournament in the Midwest of the West Coast. That is a huge region and where you go depends on how you pack and how you prep. Likewise, narrowing the focus on the Arab States of the Persian Gulf can dramatically change the types of arguments run. Do you include Egypt or Bahrain or not? This greatly changes whether you can run police training and the 5th fleet arguments. Below are some of the more specific definitions.



7 states in the Middle East

Mary Ann Tétreault; Gwenn Okruhlik; Andrzej Kapiszewski (2011). “Political Change in the Arab Gulf States: Stuck in Transition.”

The seven Arab states which border the Persian Gulf, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).”

Broader definition including any state in the Persian Gulf Region

The Free Dictionary, "Persian Gulf States," https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Persian+Gulf+States

The countries bordering the Persian Gulf in southwest Asia, including Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman.



Regional Stability

There are two ways to approach the framework debate for this topic. The first is from an international standpoint. The concept of a military presence in the region is a huge factor towards things like stability and security for the region. Many US policymakers would like to think that the US’s presence is a supporting force to others and a deterrent to the enemies of the United States and the region. These policymakers would also say that nations like Iran and Syria and terrorist groups such as AQAP and ISIS are all kept at bay by the involvement of a Us presence. This translates into lives saved and deaths avoided. Although true that lives would be lost in the event of military action, the utilitarian expectation is that the number of deaths would be less than that if we just left outrights. On the other hand, the opponents of Us military presence in the region argue that most of the US’s involvement is what drives the regional stability in the first place. As stated in the introduction and background, many of the conflicts in the area stem from US involvement. Providing support for Israel, supplying arms to Saudi Arabia for their war in Yemen, the US fleet that is stationed in Bahrain, and the military bases in Saudi Arabia all contribute to the rise and continuation of radical fundamentalism in the region. To these groups, pushing the Western influence leads by the United Sates out of the region is a first priority.

This point differs from other points like Saudi Arms Sales or Terrorism as we are not generating our impacts off of direct action but rather, we are generating our impacts from the mere presence of US troops in the region. It is very similar to how knowing that you have a spider in your room unnerves you to the point of paranoia. You saw it earlier and even though it isn’t near you right now, you can feel it watching you. In fact, it might be behind you right now… just kidding. But I bet you looked. And that is the point. The fact that the United States is there, out of sight is not out of mind, especially when combined with other actions that the United States has taken, threatens to take, or has the ability to take in the future.

This debate can operate semi autonomously; however, it does work best with points like terrorism or Saudi Arms Sales as those give it both direct action and inaction as impact scenarios. However, historical examples and the direct wording from hostile enemy forces will be enough to set the standard for this. It was just the presence of US bases in Saudi Arabia that put Osama Bin Laden on his path towards planning 9/11. The nest con defense against this point is to argue that there a trigger for impacts but the US is also the solution to the problem. Without us, there would be a larger impact as the region would likely fall to these hostile forces regardless of US presence. In this contention, the impact will likely be with a projected lives lost vs. saved calculus. The fact that we have real situations where body counts are present means



that it is less of a hypothetical and more of an extrapolation which might help you get over some judges that dislike policy like impact scenarios.



Sample Evidence

US Humanitarian aid solves terrorism, poverty, and social inequality

Buck Baskin ‘13,

Technology Manager, 9-10-2015, "Humanitarian Aid Combats Terrorism," No Publication, http://thenews.choate.edu/article/humanitarian-aid-combats-terrorism - See more at: http://thenews.choate.edu/article/humanitarian-aid-combats-terrorism#sthash.jbmgUo88.dpuf

Rather, the best way for the United States to accomplish its long-term mission of stabilizing Africa and combating terrorism is to provide direct foreign humanitarian aid. The goal of the United States should be to aid people in Africa struggling from poverty, corruption, and discrimination. It is these basic problems which drive many to participate in terrorist organizations for want of order, values, or even just sustenance. Terrorist groups offer an answer to downtrodden people, often in the form of a scapegoat, the United States. For instance, in Nigeria, where 70% of the population is below the poverty line, the terrorist group Boko Haram controls and influences the northeast quarter of the country. Their philosophy preaches against the United States, which they claim to be the source of suffering in Nigeria. When people are disadvantaged, a door is opened for terrorist groups to sweep in and claim new members. Instituting a drone policy is no way to respond to this type of threat. The appropriate response would be to deploy more Peace Corps workers and send food aid to regions in which terrorist activity is high. Putting Americans on the ground would give a face to the supposed scapegoat, giving people real-world interaction with those that the terrorist groups demonize. Moreover, such solutions would not only put an end to terrorist activity, but also might help solve the larger issues of poverty and social inequality in Africa. For such a reason, the U.S. drone program is simply not the most effective solution to combatting terrorism. Simply put, the United States needs to show a helping hand rather than a military fist to Africa. Rather than taking a distant approach, America must stop terrorist activity through pursuing a soft power approach. We must provide humanitarian aid to counter the popular perception of the United States as an imperialist power, and in turn raise the standard of living so that terrorist organizations have fewer gullible targets. Indeed, the current drone system is not a permanent solution to preventing the spread of terrorism in Africa.



Military Key to Humanitarian Aid Poole 13

Lydia Poole (graduated from School of Oriental and African Studies, U. of London, University of Cambridge with a background in humanitarian aid, co-ordination and policy) March 2013 https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Documents/130301_Counting_the_cost_of_humanitarian_aid_delivered_through_the_mil.pdf

What do military actors do in a humanitarian crisis? The UN agreed a set of guidelines in 1994, revised in 2006, to regulate the conditions and modes of engagement for military actors in humanitarian situations. The ‘Oslo Guidelines’ on the use of military and civil defence assets in disaster relief were developed primarily to guide UN organisations including UN peacekeeping forces. The Oslo Guidelines state that military involvement should be as a last resort, when no comparable civilian alternative exists, and only deployed when meeting a critical humanitarian need. In addition, the Oslo Guidelines envisage that UN civilian agencies and the affected state will coordinate requests and deployments of military actors involved in humanitarian activities. In practice, the most common forms of assistance are logistical support to enable access for humanitarian personnel and relief goods, followed by medical operations and the provision of material relief goods (such as tents, clean water and food supplies). In the ideal scenario described by the UN guidelines, military actors may fill a clearly identified civilian capacity gap in responding to natural disasters, their involvement will be civilian in nature and under civilian coordination and of course will be motivated by the humanitarian imperative. However, in some cases military actors may also actively pursue their own strategic security related agendas, particularly where they are actively engaged in military operations. This additional motivator may pattern the nature and targeting of assistance. It is of course less likely that assistance provided with a strategic security motivation will be coordinated by civilian authorities. In the case of the US Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) fund for example, priorities for assistance are determined by operational Commanders. At this far end of the spectrum, as well as providing assistance directly, the military may also be a donor of aid financing to third party implementing actors. What is the cost of military involvement in humanitarian action? Military involvement in humanitarian response is typically much more costly than civilian operations. The UN’s Oslo Guidelines cautions that ‘An Assisting State deciding to employ its MCDA [Military and Civil Defence Assets] should bear in mind the cost/benefit ratio of such operations as compared to other alternatives, if available.’ In certain circumstances however, the superior logistic capabilities and state of readiness of the military will be more important in providing timely life-saving assistance, overriding cost considerations. Moreover, because military assets are kept in a state of readiness, procurement, maintenance, training and other investment costs, are already budgeted for and therefore typically not considered in assessing the costs of deployment for humanitarian activities. If these investment costs were considered, the real cost of military assistance would be far greater. Military assistance is often therefore in effect subsidised by existing state investments in military capabilities in comparison with the market rates one might face when trying to procure similar assets and services via the private sector. It is conventional to only account for the marginal or additional costs incurred as a result of undertaking humanitarian activities through the military over and above the costs that would have been incurred had those military assets and



personnel remained deployed in existing operations. These costs might include additional fuel and other equipment running costs, and procurement or reimbursement of material relief supplies. There is no common standard however to report against when counting and estimating the financial value of military contributions; interpretation of additional costs will therefore vary. In addition, many contributions are in-kind, therefore making it difficult to ascribe monetary value to them. Or they may have already been written-off against military budgets and may not be included in assessments of additional costs.



US presence key to combat piracy

UDS 12

U.S. Department of State, 10-25-2012, "The U.S. Government's Approach to Countering Somali Piracy," http://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/rm/199929.htm

Thank you. It’s my great pleasure to be here at Combating Piracy Week. Today, I want to talk to you about the progress that has been made in combating piracy off the coast of Somalia – and the task that remains. I am pleased to say that we have made remarkable progress. In 2007 and

2008, pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia began to escalate dramatically. A vicious and reinforcing cycle was forming. Motivated by escalating ransom payments – which grew into the millions of dollars – and a lack of other employment opportunities, more and more Somali men took to the waters. Piracy, as a result,

went from a fairly ad hoc, disorganized endeavor to a highly developed transnational criminal enterprise. Flush with money, pirates were able to improve their capabilities and expand their operations further and further away from shore. Since that time, Somali pirates have hijacked more than 175 vessels and attacked more than 400 vessels that we know of, likely many others. They have kidnapped thousands of crewmembers from over 40 countries. Pirates still hold hostages from at least 20 countries. In a globalized world, the impact of piracy in one area can ripple across the globe. People in countries around the world depend on secure and reliable shipping lanes for their food, their energy, and their consumer goods brought by cargo ships and tankers. By preying on commercial ships in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes,

pirates off the Horn of Africa threaten more than just individual ships. They threaten a central artery of the global economy -- and that means that they threaten global security and exact a painful toll. Action had

to be taken. While there seemed to be no limit to the growth of piracy, through the collective effort of the United States, the UK, NATO, the EU, the broader international community, and the private sector, we are now seeing signs of dramatic progress. Today, I can report that, according to figures from the U.S. Navy, we are on track to experience a 75 percent decline in pirate attacks this year compared with 2011. We are seeing fewer attempted attacks in no small measure because pirates were less successful at hijacking ships. In 2011, the number of successful pirate attacks fell by half. This year, in 2012, the number of successful attacks has continued to decline. To date, pirates have captured ten vessels this year, compared to 34 in 2011 and 68 in 2010. The last successful Somali pirate attack on a major commercial vessel was more than five months ago on May 10, 2012. The lack of success at sea means that pirates are holding fewer and fewer hostages. In

January 2011, pirates held 31 ships and 710 hostages. Today, pirates hold five ships and 143 hostages. That is roughly a 75 percent reduction in ships and hostages held by pirates since January 2011. While this is still unacceptably high, the trend is clear. We are making significant progress. Today, I want to talk about the U.S. government

response to piracy. In combating piracy, the United States has pursued an integrated multi-dimensional approach that is rooted in what Secretary Clinton described as “smart power.” This approach has involved utilizing every tool in our tool kit. It has focused on: Diplomatic engagement: by diplomatically engaging the international community to spur collective international action; Military power: by expanding security at sea through the use of naval assets to defend private vessels and to disrupt pirate attacks; Collaboration with the private sector: by encouraging and empowering industry to take steps to protect itself; Legal enforcement: by using our legal tools to deter piracy through effective legal prosecution and incarceration; Targeting networks: by utilizing our investigative and financial tracking capabilities to target pirate networks, their financing and their ringleaders ashore; And lastly development and governance: by working with our Somali partners to build responsive and credible governing institutions as well as effective law enforcement in Somalia. I would like to talk about each of these areas in a bit more detail.



Further Reading

Reuters Editorial, 1-6-2020, "China says U.S. use of force aggravating Middle East tension," U.S., https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-iran-china/china-says-us-use-of-force-aggravating-middle-east-tension-idUSKBN1Z50MO

John Campbell, 8-7-2019, "The Enduring American Presence in the Middle East," Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2019-08-07/enduring-american-presence-middle-east

Anthony H. Cordesman1-2-2020, "America’s Failed Strategy in the Middle East: Losing Iraq and the Gulf," https://www.csis.org/analysis/americas-failed-strategy-middle-east-losing-iraq-and-gulf

Yang Yi-Zhong, 2-27-2020, "Problems of US Military Presence in Middle East and Reasons Behind," Modern Diplomacy, <a class="vglnk" href="https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/02/27/problems-of-us-military-presence-in-middle-east-and-reasons-behind/"

Ali Younes, 4-1-2020, "Iran warns US after Patriot missile deployment to Iraq," -, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/iran-warns-patriot-missile-deployment-iraq-200401105644716.html



Saudi Arms Sales

Providing direct military support and providing a direct irritation to the region, lets focus on Saudi Arms Sales. This could also be lumped to include the arms sales to the UAE as well. Since the 1950’s the United States has been close to the nation of Saudi Arabia. Our dependency as well as our decision to shield the region from Soviet influence kept the United States involved in the region. After the Iranian Revolution, the United States saw that the region was fragile and that at any moment, we might lose our biggest ally and energy supplier in the region. It was also at this time under Ronald Regan that the United States began selling weapons to Saudi Arabia as a strategic partnership for regional stability.

The purpose was twofold. First, the United States was setting up an alliance against the expanding influence of the Soviet Union. The Soviets were looking for open new routes for oil purchases as well as to open a route to the open waters of the Persian Gulf for trade. By allying with Saudi Arabia, the US effectively cut off this route for trade. The second reason was to provide a counterbalance to Iran and the revolutionary forces in the region. After the Iranian Revolution, the US suffered a major military setback when the rescue party sent to free the embassy hostages from Iran were taken out by a freak dust storm over the desert. Although not directly due to Iranian attacks, the propaganda spun this as a major military defeat. It looked bad for the US as the helicopters that were lost were new and state of the art and the deaths of several service members painted a bad picture for the American public. The US wanted no more direct conflict in the region if they could avoid it. To get around this, the US began a system of proxy wars. By supplying the enemies of our enemies, we hoped that we could influence conflict to our side. In the late 1970’s. we supported Iran and Iraq as they fought for regional superiority in the hopes that we would ally with the victor. We have supplied Kuwait, the UAE, and Israel with weapons and training in exchange for loyalty and support.

After the Arab Spring of 2008, the United States began to supply weapons to nations and groups that stood against the enemies of the US. We supplied weapons to the Syrian rebels so that they could fight off the government backed forces. We supplied weapons to Libyan rebels as they overthrew their country and did what no president since Reagan could do in overthrowing Qadhafi. And in Yemen, we have supplied the Yemen government with support through arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE so that they might fight the war against the rising rebel forces there. Our reasoning is that the rebels are funded and supported by Iran and this is just an Iranian attempt to overthrow a loyal US partner. Whether this is true or not, the fact remains that our arms are killing thousands. So far, over 100,000 civilians have been killed by our munitions. This is compounded by a few factors. First, that the government has targeted hospitals, schools, and other civilian complexes, and the second is that the weapons the US is selling to Saudi Arabia and the UAE are banned by almost every other country. These include



incendiary bombs containing white phosphorus as well as cluster munitions. These maim people long after the detonation.

The conflict in Yemen is causing reginal instability as thousands flee and become refugees in the neighboring countries. International relief workers are becoming overloaded with the sick, injured, and dying. To make matters worse, the current viral outbreak only looks to exacerbate the current crisis. A military withdraw from the region that includes stopping arms sales would severely limit the ability for the Saudis and the UAE to wage a war against the civilians and thus, we might see a reduction in civilian deaths and a return to normal operations.

This impact has both a deontological as well as a utilitarian impact. The moral issue is whether our arms sales makes us culpable in the deaths of the innocent civilians. In most legal settings, the act of being reckless requires an act that we didn’t know could cause harm while negligence requires an act with a foreseeable harm that we did not attempt to stop. The fact that we are selling weapons in a war where we know they are being used in such a fashion and we do so anyway seem to meet this justification of negligence and culpability.

On the utilitarian side of things, the fact that you will outright win sheer numbers means that you have the advantage. The body count seems to have stabilized in recent days, but the number is over 100,000. Due to the viral outbreak, there is a ceasefire. However, once this ends, one can imagine that the killing will start again. It is important to remember that the deaths come not only from direct attacks but the fact that the attacks come from attacks on hospitals and water treatment plants. These are critical for healthy people.

On the con, you will need to win that the rebels are the ones doing most of the killing. There is evidence that says that most of the killings are being done by the rebels and not by our munitions. Furthermore, win that the rebels are allied with the terrorists in Iran and that any withdraw would weaken our allies and thus putting their safety and security at risk.



Sample Evidence

Saudi arms sales used in counterterror operations

US Department of State, October 16, 2018, https://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/fs/2018/279540.htm U.S. Security Cooperation With Saudi Arabia

As a result of U.S. security cooperation, the Kingdom has foiled numerous terrorist attempts against Saudi and foreign targets and has been able to successfully deter external attacks. The United States remains committed to providing the Saudi armed forces with the equipment, training, and follow-on support necessary to protect Saudi Arabia, and the region, from the destabilizing effects of terrorism, countering Iranian influence, and other threats. Toward that end, the United States will continue to collaborate with Saudi Arabia to improve training for special operations and counterterrorism forces, integrate air and missile defense systems, strengthen cyber defenses, and bolster maritime security



A whole generation could die due to famine

Roya News, February 14, 2019, https://en.royanews.tv/news/16624/2019-02-14, UN warns loss of whole generation in Yemen due to famine

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned that a whole generation of Yemeni children could be lost due to persistent malnutrition. According to WFP nutrition expert Trust Malambo, malnourished children in Al Hudaydah "will face long-term difficulties in disease resistance and fertility." According to Reuters, the United Nations is pushing towards the implementation of the cease-fire agreement, and the withdrawal of troops from Hudaydah which was reached in December in Sweden, and that Hudaydah is the main entry point for most of the Yemeni imports. The main goal of the ongoing peace talks is to bring in 51,000 tonnes of wheat and grinding equipment provided by the United Nations to Hudaydah, and it is estimated that about 70 percent of the population fled the city because of the fighting. The four-year-old war in Yemen has killed tens of thousands of people and caused the economy to collapse and pushed millions into famine. Since March 26, 2015, a Saudi-led Arab military alliance has been carrying out operations to support the Yemeni army loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to restore areas seized by Ansar Allah in January of the same year. Yemen has the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with thousands killed and wounded according to the United Nations, and 22 million people, about 75 percent of the population, need some form of humanitarian assistance and protection.



Yemen facing a widespread humanitarian catastrophe UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, February 14, 2019 https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-2019-humanitarian-needs-overview Yemen: 2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview

NEEDS AND KEY FIGURES The humanitarian crisis in Yemen remains the worst in the world. Nearly four years of conflict and severe economic decline are driving the country to the brink of famine and exacerbating needs in all sectors. An estimated 80 per cent of the population – 24 million people – require some form of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 14.3 million who are in acute need. Severity of needs is deepening, with the number of people in acute need a staggering 27 per cent higher than last year. Two-thirds of all districts in the country are already pre-famine, and one-third face a convergence of multiple acute vulnerabilities. The escalation of the conflict since March 2015 has dramatically aggravated the protection crisis in which millions face risks to their safety and basic rights. KEY HUMANITARIAN ISSUES 1. Basic survival needs More than 20 million people across the country are food insecure, including nearly 10 million who are suffering from extreme levels of hunger. For the first time, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has confirmed pockets of catastrophic hunger in some locations, with 238,000 people affected. An estimated 7.4 million people require services to treat or prevent malnutrition, including 3.2 million people who require treatment for acute malnutrition – 2 million children under 5 and more than one million pregnant and lactating women (PLW). A total of 17.8 million people lack access to safe water and sanitation, and 19.7 million people lack access to adequate healthcare. Poor sanitation and waterborne diseases, including cholera, left hundreds of thousands of people ill last year. In sum, needs have intensified across all sectors. Millions of Yemenis are hungrier, sicker and more vulnerable than a year ago, pushing an ever-greater number of people into reliance on humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian response is increasingly becoming the only lifeline for millions of Yemenis. 2. Protection of Civilians Yemen is facing a severe protection crisis, and civilians face serious risks to their safety, well-being and basic rights. Tens of thousands of people have been killed or injured since 2015, and among them at least 17,700 civilians as verified by the UN. An estimated 3.3 million people remain displaced, up from 2.2 million last year. This includes 685,000 people who fled fighting in Al Hudaydah and on the west coast from June onwards. Escalating conflict is causing extensive damage to public and civilian infrastructure. Intensity of conflict is directly related to severity of needs. Humanitarian needs are most acute in governorates that have been most affected by conflict, including Taizz, Al Hudaydah and Sa’ada governorates. More than 60 per cent of people in these governorates are in acute need of humanitarian assistance. 3. Livelihoods and essential basic services The Yemeni economy is on the verge of collapse. The economy has contracted by about 50 per cent since conflict escalated in March 2015. Employment and income opportunities have significantly diminished. Exchange rate volatility – including unprecedented depreciation of the Yemeni Rial (YER) between August and October 2018 – further undermined households’ purchasing power. Basic services and the institutions that provide them are collapsing, placing enormous pressure on the humanitarian response. The fiscal deficit since the last quarter of 2016 has led to major gaps in the operational budgets of basic services and erratic salary payments – severely compromising peoples’ access to basic services. Only 51 per cent of health facilities are fully functional. More than a quarter of all children are out of school, and civil servants and pensioners in northern Yemen have not been paid



salaries and bursaries for years. Humanitarian partners have been increasingly stretching to fill some of these gaps to ensure continuity of essential services.



War has destroyed the health care system

Mona Zaid, 2-14, 19, http://nthnews.net/en/yemennews/diseases-and-famine-kill-yemenis-as-war-continues/ Diseases and famine kill Yemenis as war continues

The war in Yemen has completely decimated the health care system. More than half of the people have little access to basic health care, and less than 45% of the hospitals work and the health personnel cannot cope with the needs. As the war entered its Fifth year, Yemen’s humanitarian needs increased tremendously, with 22.2 million Yemenis – nearly three in every four people – reliant on humanitarian aid to survive. On top of this, dengue fever, malaria, diphtheria and cholera began to spread fast. Health system in Yemen has been facing many challenges in the last decade along with the complex emergency situation that includes widespread conflict-driven displacement and a slow-onset crisis in food security, malnutrition and outbreak of communicable diseases particularly in neglected areas. Malnutrition and extremes of ages make refugee population vulnerable due to low immunity; favorable environmental factors help in creation and propagation of epidemics. Survival was a miracle not only because of endemic disease, dirt and filth, concomitant poor hygiene, and sanitation but also because of the primitive state of medical knowledge, thus, a large number of people were prone to infections for a sustained duration of time, within a constrained health system. The places where the war is active are the ones most at risk for increase of diseases. The war-torn Arab country has also been suffering from a severe diphtheria outbreak. A TRAGEDY MIRRORING A NATIONAL CATASTROPHE: CONJOINED TWINS DIE IN YEMEN UNDER SAUDI BLOCKADE The disease, which has not been seen in Yemen for 25 years, has affected 312 people and killed 35. It has not spread explosively, as cholera did, but diphtheria outbreaks can affect many thousands, and there is a global shortage of diphtheria anti-toxin. Yemen has enough for 200 to 500 patients, Mr. Poncin said. Ships and planes carrying humanitarian supplies have been unable to reach Yemen since the Saudi-led coalition imposed a blockade. Former manager of UNHCR Yemen Refugee Health Project Judith Brown says the assault on Hudaydah has worsened famine and seeded up the spread of diseases like cholera and others. Dengue fever is endemic in Yemen, with outbreaks reported in a number of governorates over the last 10 years. This year, however, the response to the current outbreak has been fraught with challenges as a result of the ongoing insecurity and a near-collapse of the health system. In addition, recent heavy rainfall, disruption of water supplies and scarcity of safe drinking-water have contributed to the spread of mosquitoes in the affected areas, resulting in an upsurge in suspected dengue cases. As part of a dengue fever preparedness and response plan, WHO is working with the Ministry of Public Health and Population and partners to provide intravenous fluids and supportive treatment to functioning health facilities in affected areas; conduct spraying activities in Al-Hodaidah, Aden and Hadramout governorates; and provide rapid response training courses for doctors and health workers, including case identification and management for dengue fever. WHO has also distributed information, education and communication materials to inform affected communities on how to protect themselves against dengue fever and other vector-borne and water-borne diseases. By December 2017, the outbreak of cholera in Yemen had infected a staggering million people. Despite being a completely treatable disease, thousands of people have died from the disease. In addition to cholera, other contagious diseases such as diphtheria are spreading in the country. In a country where supplies and medical care



are scarce, a lack of access to drinking water doesn’t bode well for the ongoing health crisis. More than 80% of Yemen’s population lacks food, fuel, drinking water and access to health care services, which makes it particularly vulnerable to diseases that can generally be cured or eradicated elsewhere in the world. AS THE FRAGILE TRUCE STILL HOLDS IN YEMEN, YOUNG VICTIMS DIE EVERYDAY The cholera figure is almost certainly exaggerated, but that does not diminish the scale and complexity of the humanitarian crisis, said Mr. Marc Poncin, Yemen emergency coordinator for aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières. Cholera flared up in April 2016 and spread rapidly, killing 2,227 people, the death rate has fallen dramatically and, recent cases are probably diarrhoea, Mr. Poncin said. “It’s probably unavoidable. We need to be ready to face another big epidemic,” said Mr. Poncin, adding that cholera may become a long-term burden as it has in Haiti. Cholera in Yemen is a man-made disaster, and its spread and casualties are tied to the politics of the war. Aerial bombing by the Saudi-led coalition in areas have damaged hospitals, public water systems and sewage plants. More than half of health care facilities have fully or partly closed. Doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers have gone without salaries for months. Sanitation has worsened. People live amid sewage. Acute watery diarrhea has been more fatal in areas controlled by the rebels than in areas controlled by the government. Yemen deserves better. Looking at four years of destroyed infrastructure, starvation and unchecked spread of disease, the humanitarian needs have increased from one year to another at an insane rate. Peace is the only thing that will allow us to rebuild our country; the Yemeni people have been suffering for far too long. Peace has to take the place of destruction, development and infrastructure have to take the place of starvation, laughter and happiness and normality should take the place of the endless stories of sadness and destruction and death, Yemenis deserve more than this, Yemen deserves better.



Weapons end up being transferred to terrorists’ groups and the Houthis

Nima Elgibar, February 2019, https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/02/middleeast/yemen-lost-us-arms/ Sold to an Ally, Lost to an Enemy, https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/02/middleeast/yemen-lost-us-arms/

Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found. The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels battling the coalition for control of the country, exposing some of America's sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other conflict zones. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, its main partner in the war, have used the US-manufactured weapons as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape, according to local commanders on the ground and analysts who spoke to CNN. By handing off this military equipment to third parties, the Saudi-led coalition is breaking the terms of its arms sales with the US, according to the Department of Defense. After CNN presented its findings, a US defense official confirmed there was an ongoing investigation into the issue. The revelations raise fresh questions about whether the US has lost control over a key ally presiding over one of the most horrific wars of the past decade, and whether Saudi Arabia is responsible enough to be allowed to continue buying the sophisticated arms and fighting hardware. Previous CNN investigations established that US-made weapons were used in a series of deadly Saudi coalition attacks that killed dozens of civilians, many of them children. The developments also come as Congress, outraged with Riyadh over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year, considers whether to force an end to the Trump administration's support for the Saudi coalition, which relies on American weapons to conduct its war. Play Video: How US-made weapons end up in the wrong hands 10:11 In 2015, Riyadh launched a coalition to oust Iranian-supported Houthi rebels from the country's capital and reinstate the internationally recognized government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. The war split the country in two, and with it came the weapons -- not just guns, but anti-tank missiles, armored vehicles, heat-seeking lasers and artillery -- all flooding into an unruly and complex state. Since then, some of America's "beautiful military equipment," as US President Donald Trump once called it, has been passed on, sold, stolen or abandoned in Yemen's state of chaos, where murky alliances and fractured politics mean little hope for any system of accountability or tracking. Some terror groups have gained from the influx of US arms, with the barrier of entry to advanced weaponry now lowered by the laws of supply and demand. Militia leaders have had ample opportunity to obtain military hardware in exchange for the manpower to fight the Houthi militias. Arms dealers have flourished, with traders offering to buy or sell anything, from a US-manufactured rifle to a tank, to the highest bidder. And Iran's proxies have captured American weapons they can exploit for vulnerabilities or reverse-engineer for native production. 'Do you have American guns here?' In the narrow, ramshackle streets of Taiz's historic district, weapons shops lie tucked between women's clothing stores. Arms markets are illegal in Yemen, but that doesn't stop them operating openly in this large, mountainous city in the country's southwest. To one side hang veils, abayas and colorful dresses for sale; to the other are pistols, hand grenades, and US assault rifles available on special order. In one



arms market, sweets were displayed among the ammunition. "Do you have American guns here?" CNN asked. "The American guns are expensive and sought after," the weapons trader replied, in an exchange captured by undercover CNN cameras. In another of the city's markets, a very young-looking boy handled weapons like an expert. Men joked and chewed khat, a commonly used drug, and the atmosphere was casual. But these shops don't just take individual orders, they can supply militias -- and it's this not-so-hidden black market that in part is driving the demand for hi-tech American weapons and perpetuating the cycle of violence in Yemen. Once the intellectual heart of the country, Taiz is now a tinder box that set off a war within a war last year, when the various militias backed by the Saudi-led coalition turned their guns on each other.



Further Reading

Belen Fernandez, 3-22-2020, "Coronavirus: World cannot afford to continue ignoring Yemen," Middle East Eye, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/coronavirus-world-cannot-afford-continue-ignoring-yemen

William Hartung, 3-12-2020, "We’re Number One: U.S. Dominates Global Arms Trade — Again," Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhartung/2020/03/12/were-number-one-us-dominates-global-arms-trade---again/#6f4523e11374

Dan Mahanty, 3-15-2020, "Time to flip the script on congressional arms sales powers," TheHill, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/487347-time-to-flip-the-script-on-congressional-arms-sales-powers

Niall Mccarthy, 3-9-2020, "Report: The U.S. And France Have Dramatically Increased Their Arms Exports [Infographic]," Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/09/report-the-us-and-france-have-dramatically-increased-their-arms-exports-infographic/#264fd7ef73d2

NEWS WIRES, 3-9=-2020, "Global arms trade has increased with US as top exporter, report shows," France 24, https://www.france24.com/en/20200309-arms-trade-war-middle-east



Global Economics

World economics can be seen as a major issue that can be used as a yardstick for determining d economic frameworks. As we have seen recently through the rise and fall of international stock markets due to the Covid 19 virus outbreak, all markets are fundamentally tied together. What happens in one region will likely impact another. Economically, this region is an important keystone for the world’s economy as the waterways are a major transit route for trade leaving Asia and heading to Europe as well as a major pipeline for oil heading from the Middle East to Asia. Saudi Arabia and the UAE control some of the world’s largest banks and financial institutions. Some of the largest tourist hotspots and travel destinations are in the region or would be affected by a military conflict in the region. Should the region fall, we risk plunging the world into an economic tailspin that one could magnify by the already devastating effects of the Covid 19 outbreak.

Just as important, and as we learned on the first topic of the year, the Chinese expansion of the Belt and Road as a trading route means that a large part of the trade to the Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea area flows through the Persian Gulf region. Should this area be disrupted by a conflict, this could devastate trade with China. Disrupting one of the largest economies in the world is bad for the global markets as a whole Furthermore, it endangers the region as China, will not likely be willing to stand by while their nation is put under threat, will send troops and a military presence to the region to take the place of the United States. This risk losing vital allies in the region as well as a continued aggravation of the situation.

This impact scenario can be measured in economic stability that could lead to lives lost. As the world economy drops due to conflict, the poverty level around the world is sure to rise. This increase cold plunge millions into a state of depression. As evidence from other topics will explain, poverty kills a disproportionate amount of people. It lowers the quality of healthcare, food quality and availability, adequate shelter, and other basic goods. This in turn causes people to suffer and die.

On the con, the best counter argument is to run defense that the threat of the conflict in the region is overblown and that the only think keeping the region stable is a Us presence. Without this, we actually trigger the impacts they talk about. In essence, you are attempting to link turn their impact scenarios.



Sample Evidence US Humanitarian aid solves terrorism, poverty, and social inequality

Buck Baskin ‘13,

Technology Manager, 9-10-2015, "Humanitarian Aid Combats Terrorism," No Publication, http://thenews.choate.edu/article/humanitarian-aid-combats-terrorism - See more at: http://thenews.choate.edu/article/humanitarian-aid-combats-terrorism#sthash.jbmgUo88.dpuf

Rather, the best way for the United States to accomplish its long-term mission of stabilizing Africa and combating terrorism is to provide direct foreign humanitarian aid. The goal of the United States should be to aid people in Africa struggling from poverty, corruption, and discrimination. It is these basic problems which drive many to participate in terrorist organizations for want of order, values, or even just sustenance. Terrorist groups offer an answer to downtrodden people, often in the form of a scapegoat, the United States. For instance, in Nigeria, where 70% of the population is below the poverty line, the terrorist group Boko Haram controls and influences the northeast quarter of the country. Their philosophy preaches against the United States, which they claim to be the source of suffering in Nigeria. When people are disadvantaged, a door is opened for terrorist groups to sweep in and claim new members. Instituting a drone policy is no way to respond to this type of threat. The appropriate response would be to deploy more Peace Corps workers and send food aid to regions in which terrorist activity is high. Putting Americans on the ground would give a face to the supposed scapegoat, giving people real-world interaction with those that the terrorist groups demonize. Moreover, such solutions would not only put an end to terrorist activity, but also might help solve the larger issues of poverty and social inequality in Africa. For such a reason, the U.S. drone program is simply not the most effective solution to combatting terrorism. Simply put, the United States needs to show a helping hand rather than a military fist to Africa. Rather than taking a distant approach, America must stop terrorist activity through pursuing a soft power approach. We must provide humanitarian aid to counter the popular perception of the United States as an imperialist power, and in turn raise the standard of living so that terrorist organizations have fewer gullible targets. Indeed, the current drone system is not a permanent solution to preventing the spread of terrorism in Africa.



Further Reading

JON B. ALTERMAN., 3-22-2020, "Add coronavirus to other crises, and the Middle East faces a catastrophe," TheHill, https://thehill.com/opinion/international/488843-add-coronavirus-to-other-crises-and-the-middle-east-faces-a-catastrophe

Ryan Grace, 5-13-2019, "The Middle East and its role in the global economy," Middle East Institute, https://www.mei.edu/publications/middle-east-and-its-role-global-economy

Adnan Mazarei, 1-10-2020, "A prolonged US-Iran confrontation may spark a new economic crisis in the Middle East," https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/prolonged-us-iran-confrontation-may-spark-new-economic-crisis

Ben White, 9-16-2019, "The Trump economy’s new threat: A Middle East meltdown," POLITICO, https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/16/oil-saudi-arabia-us-economy-iran-trump-1498152

World Bank, 2-3-2016, "Economic Effects of War and Peace in the Middle East and North Africa," World Bank, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/02/03/economic-effects-of-war-and-peace-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa



US Economics

Looking to domestic based frameworks, we have economics. The United States spends huge amounts of money and time in the region waging war and supplying foreign military forces. At a time when the US has a skyrocketing national debt (and when we just added 2.2 trillion dollars to this with the passage of the CARE ACT) one must wonder if we would be better off spending the finances on other areas of the world or on other priorities. Currently, the cost of all US wars in the region since 2000 has amounted to some 6 trillion dollars. Right now, the current US national debt is 23 trillion. This might seem insignificant, but this is a quarter of our debt that we have spent on Middle Eastern wars. Besides the bases and military equipment that the US has stationed in the region, the United States has a huge amount of military arms transfers in the region. As we have covered in the Saudi Arms Sales section, this is mainly done through the use of arms sales. However, this can also be done through gifts and donations of weapons to nations for “humanitarian” reasons or anti-terrorist operations. In this case, we give millions to our allies so that they can use these to defend their nations. In the case of weapons sales, often, the US will subsidize the weapons sales by offering tax breaks to the businesses or even by direct cash payments to the defense contractors to cut down on the price. This is done to undercut other nations who might be trying to sell weapon to our allies as well. This all amounts to a huge amount of money spent on the region.

We must weigh this against the benefits of our involvement. What truly does our involvement get us? Is it worth the costs to have a steady stream of oil, even if the oil is sold at market rates rather than at any discount? Is it worth the deaths from conflict to have a steady stream of allies that are willing to stand in a proxy war for us? And how big is the real threat from terrorism and are we willing to spend billions fighting it? These are all questions that must be answered at the contention level or at least asked in cross examination.

The counter to this is that with our current administration, the odds that we will reduce the size of our military is slim so any reduction of our military from one region will likely be redistributed to another region of the world. Military spending is huge profit in the United States. Both political parties know this and are hesitant to cut off this source of revenue for defense contractors. Cutting off this could mean job losses in key swing states. In an election year, both parties would be ill advised to take on this, especially when the goal is beating or keeping Trump in office.



Sample Evidence

The US has spent over 6 trillion dollars on Middle Eastern Wars

Amanda Macias, 5-12-2013, “America has spent $6.4 trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001, a new study says,” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/20/us-spent-6point4-trillion-on-middle-east-wars-since-2001-study.html

WASHINGTON — American taxpayers have spent $6.4 trillion on post-9/11 wars and military action in the Middle East and Asia, according to a new study.

That total is $2 trillion more than the entire federal government spending during the recently completed 2019 fiscal year. The U.S. government spent $4.4 trillion during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to the Treasury Department.

The report, from the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University, also finds that more than 801,000 people have died as a direct result of fighting. Of those, more than 335,000 have been civilians. Another 21 million people have been displaced due to violence.

The report comes as the Trump administration works to withdraw the U.S. military presence from war-torn Syria. Last year, President Donald Trump went through a similar debate over whether to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, ultimately agreeing to keep them there but only after repeatedly raising questions about why they should stay.

The $6.4 trillion figure reflects the cost across the U.S. federal government since the price of America’s wars is not borne by the Defense Department alone, according to Neta Crawford, who authored the study.

Crawford explains that the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria have expanded to more than 80 countries — “becoming a truly global war on terror.”

The longer wars drag on, more and more service members will ultimately claim veterans’ benefits and disability payments, the study points out.

“Even if the United States withdraws completely from the major war zones by the end of FY2020 and halts its other Global War on Terror operations, in the Philippines and Africa for example, the total budgetary burden of the post-9/11 wars will continue to rise as the U.S. pays the on-going costs of veterans’ care and for interest on borrowing to pay for the wars,” Crawford writes.

In March, the Pentagon estimated that the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have cost each taxpayer $7,623 through fiscal 2018



Middle East military spending on the increase

Consultancy- 17 June 2019, "Military spending set to rise in the Middle East despite already high burden," https://www.consultancy-me.com/news/2174/military-spending-set-to-rise-in-the-middle-east-despite-already-high-burden

A global defense industry report from Deloitte expects a rise in national spending over the next decade across the Middle East – with the region’s relative outlay already well above its weight.

Professional services giant Deloitte has in its latest global aerospace and defense industry outlook predicted mid-single-digit growth in regional Middle East military spending annually over the coming decade – despite the region already featuring seven out of the top ten countries worldwide with the highest military expenditure as a percentage of GDP, led by Saudi Arabia at an estimated 8.8 percent.

According to data sourced by Deloitte from SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) – which has tracked government military expenditure internationally since 1949 – total military spending by states in the Middle East (exc. Qatar, Syria, the UAE and Yemen for incomplete data) fell by almost 2 percent last year – including a 6.5 percent reduction in Saudi Arabia despite its current campaign in Yemen.

Still, Saudi Arabia, with a population of just over 30 million people, remains the world’s third largest military spender behind the US and China (pop. ~1.385 billion), coughing up around $67.6 billion last year – although the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) puts that figure at $82.9 billion. And Deloitte expects this outlay to grow over the coming decade, pointing to the stabilisation of oil prices at much higher levels compared to the 2015–17 period.

Indeed, as oil revenues dried up in the wake of the 2014 global price crash, Saudi military spending after a 72 percent increase between 2009 and 2015 fell by 28 percent the following year, nudging back up by 11 percent in 2017 when the market had steadied. It is unclear if this latest decrease in part reflects improved operational efficiencies, with the Kingdom embarking on a recent ongoing campaign to modernise its forces.

Military spending

Still, as one of the most targeted countries worldwide, Saudi Arabia has to contend with a rising cyber-warfare threat, particularly from increasingly sophisticated malignant actors in Iran, and the Deloitte report contends that global aerospace and defense industry growth will in the short-term be driven in part by heightened geopolitical tensions in the region, together with the evergreen North Korean threat and demand from China, India and Japan.

Yet, countries the Middle East already bear some of the world’s highest military burdens by far. Of the countries where data is available, only 20 according to SIPRI allocated 3.0 per cent or more of their GDP to the military last year, while around two thirds of the world’s nations committed less than 2 percent. In the Middle East & North Africa, all of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Algeria, Kuwait and Lebanon – the latter which is suffering a chronic economic crisis – spent upwards of 5 percent, with KSA and Oman at above 8 percent.



With Jordan and Israel, both at above 4 percent, included – and keeping in mind the lack of current data from the UAE (estimated to be in the top 15 biggest spenders worldwide, but outside of the 25 largest economies), Qatar and Syria among others – the MENA region features seven of the ten highest relative rates of spending. And when using the IISS methodology, the GDP percentages of both Oman and Saudi Arabia’s military spending rises t0 above an incredible 10.5 percent.

As could be expected, the Middle East then also features many of the nations with the highest military spending per capita – led globally by Oman at $2,561 per head last year, followed closely by Saudi Arabia ($2,506), and then Israel and Kuwait (~$2,200 apiece). In total terms, depending on the source, the region also features three other nations (exc. UAE) among the top 15 or 20 biggest spenders: Turkey (up by 24 percent last year, the highest increase of any nation), Israel, and Iran (down 9.5 percent).

However, despite its massive outlay, Saudi Arabia doesn’t feature among the world’s top 20 powerful militaries according to analyst Global Firepower, which takes in a host of factors to arrive at its rankings. Here, the Kingdom lands at 25th, eleven places below the 14th-ranked Iran, with Israel in 17th. In fact, outside of Turkey, Egypt is considered the strongest regional power at 12th – although SIPRI seems quietly skeptical of its supposed $3.1 billion 2018 military budget.



Further Reading

Josh Barro, 1-6-2020, "How Would War With Iran Affect the U.S. Economy?," Intelligencer, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/how-would-war-with-iran-affect-the-u-s-economy.html

Geneva Business School – International Education "Middle East Conflict and American Economy," https://gbsge.com/middle-east-conflict-american-economy/

Philip H. Gordon, 9-1-2000, "No Way Out: The Essential U.S. Role in the Middle East," Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/no-way-out-the-essential-u-s-role-in-the-middle-east/

Martin Indyk, 1-17-2020, "The Middle East Isn’t Worth It Anymore," WSJ, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-middle-east-isnt-worth-it-anymore-11579277317

Matt O'Brien, 1-6-2020, "Oil price keeps rising as industry eyes Iran-US conflict," AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/c552a9b1a14be2ebf32a21ebd1f9506c



US Hegemony

US hegemony, or the ability to influence world actors through military power or might, is one of the corner stones of US diplomacy.

In ancient Greece hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of a city-state over other city-states. The dominant state is known as the hegemon. In the 19th century, hegemony came to denote the "Social or cultural predominance or ascendancy; predominance by one group within a society or milieu".

international relations theory states that hegemony denotes a situation of great material asymmetry in favor of one state, that has enough military power to systematically defeat any potential contester in the system, controls the access to raw materials, natural resources, capital and markets, has competitive advantages in the production of value added goods, generates an accepted ideology reflecting this status quo; and is functionally differentiated from other states in the system, being expected to provide certain public goods such as security, or commercial and financial stability.

Various perspectives on whether the US was or continues to be a hegemon have been presented since the end of the Cold War. The American political scientists John Mearsheimer and Joseph Nye have argued that the US is not a true hegemon because it has neither the financial nor the military resources to impose a proper, formal, global hegemony. On the other hand, Anna Cornelia Beyer, in her book about counter-terrorism, argues that global governance is a product of American leadership and describes it as hegemonic governance. Within NATO, moreover, the United States remains a dispensable hegemonic force, as seen in the decline in the alliance's external value profile.

In the Middle East, formed from the division of the Ottoman Empire and secured by the United States for energy security as well as a balance to the Soviet Union, has long been a key piece of the American hegemonic state. However, rising tensions and global conflict as well as the rising cost of war are making it more and more costly to remain in this region. Furthermore, the rise of Russia and china as geopolitical rivals in the region have put the American hegemonic state on guard. The time has come to determine whether the costs outweigh the benefits of maintaining our power and control in the region.

To win this debate on either side, you will need to control a few key issues. First, there is the issue on whether hegemony is sustainable. If hegemony is decided to be unsustainable, then the pro has a convincing reason for a military withdraw as well to cut the link to the con. The second argument that must be won is that unipolarity is better than multipolarity. This must be done to show that the US must exist as a soul hegemonic power rather than as a



shared power. This goes to show that multiple spheres or nations can’t exist at the same time. Finally, there needs to be an impact to hegemony. This is a standard hegemony good or bad debate that is dented like any other impact debate. To the team that controls these three points, they will win this argument. The hegemony argument generally is won by lives lost or saved so it will default to a utilitarian framework.



Sample Evidence

No impact to heg – Five reasons Maher, 11

(prof of polis ci @ Brown, The Paradox of American Unipolarity: Why the United States May Be Better Off in a Post-Unipolar World)

At the same time, preeminence creates burdens and facilitates imprudent behavior. Indeed, because of America's unique political ideology, which sees its own domestic values and ideals as universal, and the relative openness of the foreign policymaking process,

the United States is particularly susceptible to both the temptations and burdens of preponderance. For decades, perhaps since its very founding, the United States has viewed what is good for itself as good for the world. During its period of preeminence, the United States has both tried to maintain its position at the top and to transform world politics in fundamental ways, combining elements of realpolitik and liberal universalism (democratic

government, free trade, basic human rights). At times, these desires have conflicted with each other, but they also capture the enduring tensions of America's role in the world. The absence of constraints and America's overestimation of its own ability to shape outcomes has served to weaken its overall position. And because foreign policy is not the reserved and exclusive domain of the president—who presumably calculates strategy according to the pursuit of the state's enduring national interests—the policymaking process is open to special interests and outside influences and, thus, susceptible to the cultivation of misperceptions,

miscalculations, and misunderstandings. Five features in particular, each a consequence of how America has used its power in the unipolar era, have worked to diminish America's long-term material and strategic position. Overextension. During its period of preeminence, the United States has found it difficult to stand aloof from threats (real or imagined) to its security, interests, and values. Most states are concerned with what happens in their immediate neighborhoods.

The United States has interests that span virtually the entire globe, from its own Western

Hemisphere, to Europe, the Middle East, Persian Gulf, South Asia, and East Asia. As its preeminence enters its third decade, the United States continues to define its interests in increasingly expansive terms. This has been facilitated by the massive forward presence of the American military, even when excluding the tens of thousands of troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military has permanent bases in over 30 countries and maintains a troop presence in dozens more.13 There are two logics that lead a preeminent state to overextend, and these logics of overextension lead to goals and policies that exceed even the considerable capabilities of a superpower. First, by definition, preeminent states face few external constraints. Unlike in bipolar or multipolar systems, there are no other states that can serve to reliably check or counterbalance the power and influence of a single hegemon. This gives preeminent states a staggering freedom of action and provides a tempting opportunity to shape world politics in fundamental ways. Rather than pursuing its own narrow interests, preeminence provides an opportunity to mix ideology, values, and normative beliefs with foreign policy. The United States has been susceptible to this temptation, going to great lengths to slay dragons abroad, and even to remake whole societies in its own (liberal democratic) image.14 The costs and risks of taking such bold action or pursuing transformative foreign policies often seem manageable or even remote. We know from both theory and history that external powers can impose important checks on calculated risk-taking and serve as a moderating influence. The bipolar system of the Cold War forced policymakers in both the United States and the Soviet Union to exercise extreme caution and prudence. One wrong move could have led to a crisis that quickly spiraled out of policymakers’ control. Second, preeminent states have a strong incentive to seek to maintain their preeminence in the international

system. Being number one has clear strategic, political, and psychological benefits. Preeminent states may, therefore, overestimate the intensity and immediacy of threats, or to fundamentally redefine what constitutes an acceptable level of threat to live with. To protect itself from emerging or even future threats, preeminent states may be more likely to take unilateral action, particularly compared to when power is distributed more evenly in the international system. Preeminence has not only made it possible for the United States to overestimate its power, but also to overestimate the degree to which other states and societies see American power as legitimate and even as worthy of emulation. There is almost a belief in historical determinism, or the feeling that one was destined to stand atop world politics as a colossus, and this preeminence gives one a special prerogative for one's role and purpose in world politics.



The security doctrine that the George W. Bush administration adopted took an aggressive approach to maintaining American preeminence and eliminating threats to American security, including waging preventive war. The invasion of Iraq, based on claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and had ties to al Qaeda, both of which turned out to be false, produced huge costs for the United States—

in political, material, and human terms. After seven years of war, tens of thousands of American military personnel remain in Iraq. Estimates of its long-term cost are in the trillions of dollars.15 At the same time, the United States has fought a parallel conflict in Afghanistan. While the Obama administration looks to dramatically reduce the American military presence in Iraq, President Obama has committed tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Distraction. Preeminent states have a tendency to seek to shape world politics in fundamental ways, which can lead to conflicting priorities and unnecessary diversions. As resources, attention, and prestige are devoted to one issue or set of issues, others are necessarily disregarded or given reduced importance. There are always trade-offs and opportunity costs in international politics, even for a state as powerful as the United States. Most states are required to define their priorities in highly specific terms. Because the preeminent state has such a large stake in world politics, it feels the need to be vigilant against any changes that could impact its short-, medium-, or long-term interests. The result is taking on commitments on an expansive number of issues all over the globe. The United States has been very active in its ambition to shape the post-Cold War world. It has expanded NATO to Russia's doorstep; waged war in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan; sought to export its own democratic principles and institutions around the world; assembled an international coalition against transnational terrorism; imposed sanctions on North Korea and Iran for their nuclear programs; undertaken “nation building” in Iraq and Afghanistan; announced plans for a missile defense system to be stationed in Poland and the Czech Republic; and, with the United Kingdom, led the response to the recent global financial and economic crisis. By being so involved in so many parts of the world, there often emerges ambiguity over priorities. The United States defines its interests and obligations in global terms and defending all of them simultaneously is beyond the pale even for a superpower like the United States. Issues that may have received benign neglect during the Cold War, for example, when U.S. attention and resources were almost exclusively devoted to its strategic competition with the Soviet Union, are now viewed as

central to U.S. interests. Bearing Disproportionate Costs of Maintaining the Status Quo. As the preeminent power, the United States has the largest stake in maintaining the status quo. The world the United States took the lead in creating—one based on open markets and free trade, democratic norms and institutions, private property rights and the rule of law—has created enormous benefits for the United States. This is true both in terms of reaching unprecedented levels of domestic prosperity and in institutionalizing U.S. preferences, norms, and values globally. But at the same time, this system has proven costly to maintain. Smaller, less powerful states have a strong incentive to free ride, meaning that preeminent states bear a disproportionate share of the costs of maintaining the basic rules and institutions that give world politics order, stability, and predictability. While this might be frustrating to U.S. policymakers, it is perfectly understandable. Other countries know that the United States will continue to provide these goods out of its own self-interest, so there is little incentive for these other states to contribute significant resources to help maintain these public goods.16 The U.S. Navy patrols the oceans keeping vital sea lanes open. During financial crises around the globe—such as in Asia in 1997-1998, Mexico in 1994, or the

global financial and economic crisis that began in October 2008—the U.S. Treasury rather than the IMF takes the lead in setting out and implementing a plan to stabilize global financial markets. The United States has spent massive amounts on defense in part to prevent great power war. The United States, therefore, provides an indisputable collective good—a world, particularly compared to past eras, that is marked by order, stability, and predictability. A number of countries—in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia—continue to rely on the American security guarantee for their own security. Rather than devoting more resources to defense, they are able to finance generous social welfare programs. To maintain these commitments, the United States has accumulated staggering budget deficits and national debt. As the sole superpower, the United States bears an additional though different kind of weight. From the Israeli-Palestinian dispute to the India-Pakistan rivalry over Kashmir, the United States is expected to assert leadership to bring these disagreements to a peaceful resolution. The United States puts its reputation on the line, and as years and decades pass without lasting settlements, U.S. prestige and influence is further eroded. The only way to get other states to contribute more to the provision of public goods is if the United States dramatically decreases its share. At the same time, the United States would have to give other states an expanded role and greater responsibility given the proportionate increase in paying for public goods. This is a political decision for the United States—maintain predominant control over the provision of collective

goods or reduce its burden but lose influence in how these public goods are used. Creation of Feelings of Enmity



and Anti-Americanism. It is not necessary that everyone admire the United States or accept its ideals, values, and goals.

Indeed, such dramatic imbalances of power that characterize world politics today almost always produce in others feelings of mistrust, resentment, and outright hostility. At the same time, it is easier for the United States to realize its own goals and values when these are shared by others and are viewed as legitimate and in the common interest.

As a result of both its vast power but also some of the decisions it has made, particularly over the past eight years, feelings of resentment and hostility toward the United States have grown, and perceptions of the legitimacy of its role and place in the world have correspondingly declined. Multiple factors give rise to anti-American sentiment, and anti-Americanism takes different shapes and forms.17 It emerges partly as a response to the vast disparity in power the United States enjoys over other states. Taking satisfaction in the missteps and indiscretions of the imposing Gulliver is a natural reaction. In societies that globalization (which in many parts of the world is interpreted as equivalent to Americanization) has largely passed over, resentment and alienation are felt when comparing one's own impoverished, ill-governed, unstable society with the wealth, stability, and influence enjoyed by the United States.18 Anti-Americanism also emerges

as a consequence of specific American actions and certain values and principles to which the United States ascribes. Opinion polls showed that a dramatic rise in anti-American sentiment followed the perceived unilateral decision to invade Iraq (under pretences that failed to convince much of the rest of the world) and to

depose Saddam Hussein and his government and replace it with a government much more friendly to the United States. To many, this appeared as an arrogant and completely unilateral decision by a single state to decide for itself when— and under what conditions—military force could be used. A number of other policy decisions by not just the George W. Bush but also the Clinton and Obama administrations have provoked feelings of anti-American sentiment. However, it seemed that a large portion of the world had a particular animus for George W. Bush and a number of policy decisions of his administration, from voiding the U.S. signature on the International Criminal Court (ICC), resisting a global climate change treaty, detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and what many viewed as a simplistic worldview that declared a “war” on terrorism and the division of the world between good and evil. With populations around the world mobilized and politicized to a degree never before seen—let alone barely contemplated—such feelings of anti-American sentiment makes it more difficult for the United States to convince other governments that the U.S.’ own preferences and priorities are legitimate and

worthy of emulation. Decreased Allied Dependence. It is counterintuitive to think that America's unprecedented power decreases its allies’ dependence on it. During the Cold War, for example, America's allies were highly dependent on the United States for their own security. The security relationship that the United States had with Western Europe and Japan allowed these societies to rebuild and reach a stunning level of economic prosperity in the decades following World War II. Now that the United States is the sole superpower and the threat posed by the Soviet Union no longer exists, these countries have charted more autonomous courses in foreign and security policy. A reversion to a bipolar or multipolar system could change that, making these allies more dependent on the United States for their security. Russia's reemergence could unnerve America's European allies, just as China's continued ascent could provoke unease in Japan. Either possibility would disrupt the equilibrium in Europe and East Asia that the United States has cultivated over the past several decades. New geopolitical rivalries could serve to create incentives for America's allies to reduce the disagreements they have with Washington and to reinforce their security relationships with the United States.



Further Reading

Marco Carnelos, 2-26-2020, "American power has reached its limit in the Middle East. A rethink is due," Middle East Eye, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/its-time-us-reassess-its-priorities-middle-east

Seth Cropsey, Gary Roughead, 10-31-2019, "A U.S. Withdrawal Will Cause a Power Struggle in the Middle East," Foreign Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/17/us-withdrawal-power-struggle-middle-east-china-russia-iran/

Force. Durin, "The US’ Pursuit of Hegemony Has Harmed the Middle East," China-US Focus, https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/the-us-pursuit-of-hegemony-has-harmed-the-middle-east

Joschka Fischer, 10-21-2019, "The Middle East’s Dangerous New Hegemonic Confrontation," Project Syndicate, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-iran-saudi-arabia-by-joschka-fischer-2019-10?barrier=accesspaylog

Yom, S. (2020), US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Logic of Hegemonic Retreat. Glob Policy, 11: 75-83. doi:10.1111/1758-5899.12777



Drones

The United States has been using Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) to conduct military operations across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This policy has been dramatically expanded under the Obama administration and has faced heavy criticism. Critics have charged that these drone strikes are both illegal and undermine efforts at countering terrorism.

First used in Vietnam, these primitive drones were nothing more than rockets that could land and take off with limited guidance and a basic camera. In fact, some were modified ballistic rockets that had guidance systems installed so that US troops could see what they were about to blow up. This technology would eventually split off into two different weapons systems. The first would be the camera guided rockets used in Desert Strom that CNN and Fox News loved to show on live TV as they slammed into Saddam’s tanks, and the other was the UCAV system that was a more advanced drone with onboard weapons and a GPS guidance system.

Those who argue on behalf of the current drone policy say that it is the most efficient means of destroying terrorist operations. The argument rests on the premise that all the other means of defeating terrorism would require a large commitment of boots on the ground to capture and detain terrorist suspects. They claim that the strikes are highly effective at destroying potential suspects without generating a high amount of collateral damage.

Another defense that people have of current defense policy is that drones are necessary for surveillance. This enables the US to have effective responses to crises across the world. A region that surveillance would be useful for would be the Straits of Taiwan.

Those that argue against current drone policy say that it both increases terrorist recruitment by creating resentment against the US and expands the risk the US engages in risky war mongering. The policy increases resentment through collateral damage. It increases risky behavior by reducing the risk that the US suffers direct casualties and turns war making into a video game for its practitioners.

The pro side should argue that US drone policy should be eliminated due to the fear and anger that it fosters. The con should first argue that drone strikes increase terrorist recruitment. Drone strikes are likely to cause massive collateral damage because they are highly inaccurate. That collateral damage both makes the US look like a malevolent power legitimizing the terrorists’ worldview. The damage it causes also reduces economic opportunities to people across the MENA region causing desperation, which ferments terrorism.



Second, the US is likely to utilize drone strikes in inappropriate circumstances. The use of drones lowers the threshold for violence. Because military operations won’t cause American casualties, generals are more willing to authorize risky missions that may cause unnecessary harm.

The con side should argue that the current policy of drone strikes is justified as a means to defend the United States from terrorist strikes. First, they are extremely effective. The United States Army has used drones to great effect in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen to disrupt terrorist organizations. Al-Qaeda’s core is on the run and hurting for resources because of the punishment the US has delivered by means of precise drone strikes.

Second, drones are useful for surveying potential war zones to give the US sufficient intelligence to conduct military operations in times of crisis. There is great evidence in this file to substantiate this argument. With drones, the US can survey from long periods of time dangerous zones so that our forces can be deployed quickly.

One argument your opponents will be likely to make is that the US increases resentment among MENA countries by initiating drone strikes. The Pro should argue that those that would be recruited because of the drone strikes were already very likely to be recruited to terrorist organizations no matter what.

Drones are a hot button issue in the United States. After the killing of the Iranian general at the hands of a drone strike, people could see both how easy it would be to eliminate our enemies with a drone. It was also seen how easy it could be to start an international conflict with these things. As drones are small and able to slip under the radar of most nations, a new public concern is about how easy it would be to use this and what kind of power projection we would use. After all, one person made the decision to bring us one step closer to conflict with Iran. What if the next target was a Russian general in Iraq? With drone policy governed by the President and his military chiefs, this is a lot of power to vest in one person. So, this is the route that you should argue this with the judge. We need restraint on the power and until congress can restrain the power, should we trust it in the region?



Sample Evidence

US Drones prevent terrorism yman 13 – Research Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy @ Brookings

Daniel, July 2013, “Why Drones Work: The Case for Washington's Weapon of Choice” Foreign Affairs 92.4 ProQuest

The Obama administration relies on drones for one simple reason: they work. According to data compiled by the

New America Foundation, since Obama has been in the White House, U.S. drones have killed an estimated 3,300 al Qaeda, Taliban, and other jihadist operatives in Pakistan and Yemen. That number includes over 50 senior leaders of al Qaeda and the Taliban—top figures who are not easily replaced. In 2010, Osama bin Laden warned his chief aide, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, who was later killed by a drone strike in the Waziristan region of Pakistan in 2011, that when

experienced leaders are eliminated, the result is “the rise of lower leaders who are not as experienced as the former leaders” and who are prone to errors and miscalculations. And drones also hurt terrorist organizations when they eliminate operatives who are lower down on the food chain but who boast special skills: passport forgers, bomb makers, recruiters, and fundraisers.¶ Drones have also undercut terrorists’ ability to communicate and to train new recruits. In order to avoid attracting drones, al Qaeda and Taliban operatives try to avoid using electronic devices or gathering in large numbers. A tip sheet found among jihadists in Mali advised militants to “maintain complete silence of all wireless contacts” and “avoid gathering in open areas.”

Leaders, however, cannot give orders when they are incommunicado, and training on a large scale is nearly impossible when a drone strike could wipe out an entire group of new recruits. Drones have turned al Qaeda’s command and training structures into a liability, forcing the group to choose between having no leaders and risking dead leaders.



The status quo deploys a “terrorize to oust terrorism” strategy that maims civilians and children

Scahill, 2/14

(Jeremy, an award-winning investigative journalist and correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now! Washington's War in Yemen Backfires, 14 Feb 2012, http://www.thenation.com/article/166265/washingtons-war-yemen-backfires)

Zabara is quick to clarify that he believes AQAP is a terrorist group bent on attacking the United States, but that is hardly his central concern. “The US sees Al Qaeda as terrorism, and we consider the drones terrorism,” he says. “The drones are flying day and night, frightening women and children, disturbing sleeping people. This is terrorism.” Zabara says several US strikes in his region have killed scores of civilians and that his community is littered with unexploded cluster bombs, which have detonated, killing children. He and other tribal leaders asked the Yemeni and US governments for assistance in removing them, he says. “We did not get any response, so we use our guns to explode them.” He also says the US government should pay money to the families of civilians killed in the

missile strikes of the past three years. “We demand compensation from the US for killing Yemeni citizens, just like the Lockerbie case,” he declares. “The world is one village. The US received compensation from Libya for the Lockerbie bombing, but the Yemenis have not.”



Further Reading

Jonathan Burden Has A Masters In Middle Eastern Studies and A Bachelors In Philosophy, Politics And Economics, 11-24-2019, "Will Drones Push the Middle East Past the Point of No Return?," Global Risk Insights, https://globalriskinsights.com/2019/11/will-drones-push-the-middle-east-past-the-point-of-no-return/

Martin Chulov, 9-16-2019, "Middle East drones signal end to era of fast jet air supremacy," Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/16/middle-east-drones-signal-end-to-era-of-fast-jet-air-supremacy

Maria Michela D'Alessandro 13 JANUARY 2020, "US Drones Are Not Only Flying Over the Middle East," InsideOver, https://www.insideover.com/politics/us-drones-are-not-only-flying-over-the-middle-east.html

Jon Gambrell, 8-25-2019, "Drone war takes flight, raising stakes in Iran, US tensions," AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/0f9be65b6ea54fab83d01b959283fcf3

ADP, 11-5-2002, "The Strategic Effects of a Lethal Drones Policy," American Security Project, https://www.americansecurityproject.org/asymmetric-operations/the-strategic-effects-of-a-lethal-drones-policy/



Terrorism

In Turkey, militant groups first gained ground among Kurds before its appeal grew among ethnic Turks. The members of the IBDA-C were predominantly Kurds, most members if not all are ethnic Kurds like its founder, as in the Hizbullah. The IBDA-C stressed its Kurdish roots, and is fighting Turkish secularism, and is also anti-Christian. The Hizbullah reestablished in 2003 in southeastern Turkey and "today its ideology might be more widespread than ever among Kurds there

In Iraq. the area that has seen some of the worst terror attacks in modern history has been Iraq as part of the Iraq War. In 2005, there were more than 400 incidents of suicide bombing attacks, killing more than 2,000 people. In 2006, almost half of all reported terrorist attacks in the world (6,600), and more than half of all terrorist fatalities occurred in Iraq. Along with nationalist groups and criminal, non-political attacks, the Iraqi insurgency includes Islamist insurgent groups, such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who favor suicide attacks far more than non-Islamist groups.

In the Israel and Palestinian region, Hamas grew in power and began attacks on military and civilian targets in Israel at the beginning of the First Intifada in 1987. The 1988 charter of Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel. Hamas has been accused of sabotaging the Israeli-Palestine peace process by launching attacks on civilians during Israeli elections to anger Israeli voters and facilitate the election of harder-line Israeli candidates. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by Canada, the United States, Israel, Australia, Japan, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and Human Rights Watch. It is banned in Jordan. Russia does not consider Hamas a terrorist group as it was "democratically elected,”

Hezbollah, which started with only a small militia, has grown to an organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite television-station, and programs for social development. They maintain strong support among Lebanon's Shi'a population/

AQAP is a relatively new addition to the region. Standing Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, this is a division of the Al Qaeda terrorist group that was founded and supported by Taliban leaders in Afghanistan by Bin Laden. They have used the remote deserts of Saudi Arabia to launch attacks on the US military presence in the region for a decade. Their goals are simple; they are seeking to drive the Western powers from the region.

ISIS, which stands for the Islamic State in Syria is a terrorist group that formed from the remote desert groups of Syria after the Syrian Civil War. This group is well funded as they used oil profits and smuggled goods to finance their networks until recently. Their “grassroots”



terrorist network recruited soldiers from around the Middle East and the world using message boards and targeted advertising. In many cases, the means used to find and recruit new members in the United States was no different than the ads that are used to sell you laptops and plane tickets via data collection and targeted marketing. In doing so, ISIS set up a large terrorist network that was successful in launching several small scale hit and run style terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States. Their network of soldiers in Syria reclaimed much of the nation as well as huge amounts of ground in Iraq before Us troops could reclaim their footing and begin the counteroffensive. Today, their land holdings are smaller than three years ago but they are still a threat.

The key to all of these groups is what drives them to act? In many cases, their motivation is to drive the Western nations from the region. As was stated in the background and history, it was the US establishment of bases during the Gulf War that caused a lot of the irritation in the region. Some international relations experts argue that a withdraw might ease the tensions in the region. However, counterterrorism experts point to the withdraw of troops under Bush and Obama as a sign that it will just empower and allow the networks to grow into a legitimate threat in the region and to the world. Their argument is that we need the presence to demonstrate a deterrence and to allow a first strike against the cells when they show themselves.

When debating this topic, use real world examples. This is a point that has great evidence on it and the evidence is rooted in real speculation rather than obscure link chains. Portray to the judge the impact of leaving or staying and what this might accomplish. The pro is going to argue that we still have the ability to strike from a distance while the con will likely argue that proximity is good and that our ability for a rapid response is key. Furthermore, the con will argue that a withdraw only emboldens our enemies and makes them more likely to attack. Find a point you like and play it up to the judge.



Sample Evidence

US aid funneled to AQAP – our involvement gives them breathing room to grow

Bandow 2018

(Doug, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empirehttps://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/america-should-see-saudi-arabias-war-yemen-horror-it-really)

America’s only serious security issue involving Yemen is the revival of al-Qaeda Arabian Peninsula, the

terrorist group’s most active affiliate. AQAP has accelerated recruiting and expanded its presence. The Jamestown Foundation’s

Michael Horton observed that “AQAP has become more pragmatic and continues to de-prioritize ideology—at least in terms of its day-to-day operations—in favor of building alliances, recruiting and training capable fighters and enhancing access to revenue streams.” The group now controls an estimated third of the country. Carafano argued that if Washington stopped underwriting Riyadh’s aggression, “Tehran, Islamic State group and al-Qaeda would feel emboldened and likely double-down on expanding the war.” This is incorrect because

for Islamists and terrorists the war has been a godsend. The Houthis, though anti-American, also are anti-AQAP. However, their attention has been diverted, by Saudi and UAE aggression, giving AQAP room to breathe. In addition, even the State Department admitted that AQAP and the Islamic State have “exploited the political and security vacuum left by the conflict between the Yemeni government and Houthi-led opposition.” Moreover, journalist Laura Kasinof observed that Hadi, lacking internal support, “cozied up to the Islamists” before his ouster, even quietly cooperating with AQAP in some areas. Also,

noted Reisener, “al-Qaeda was significantly bolstered by the transfer of weapons from Saudi Arabia to a number of al-Qaeda-affiliated Sunni militia groups in Yemen.” Zimmerman said that “The Saudi-led coalition tolerates AQAP’s presence on the battlefield, so long as the group fights against the al-Houthi-Saleh forces.” Thus, the Trump administration arms the Saudis- who arm or turn a blind eye of AQAP- while also increasing airstrikes and ground deployments against al-Qaeda. The U.S. is therefore undermining its own objectives by supporting a bad ally in a bad war.



Saudi arms sales used in counterterror operations

US Department of State, October 16, 2018, https://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/fs/2018/279540.htm U.S. Security Cooperation With Saudi Arabia

As a result of U.S. security cooperation, the Kingdom has foiled numerous terrorist attempts against Saudi and foreign targets and has been able to successfully deter external attacks. The United States remains committed to providing the Saudi armed forces with the equipment, training, and follow-on support necessary to protect Saudi Arabia, and the region, from the destabilizing effects of terrorism, countering Iranian influence, and other threats. Toward that end, the United States will continue to collaborate with Saudi Arabia to improve training for special operations and counterterrorism forces, integrate air and missile defense systems, strengthen cyber defenses, and bolster maritime security.



Further Reading

Wilson Center, 12-11-2019, "Report: Terrorism on Decline in Middle East and North Africa," https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/report-terrorism-decline-middle-east-and-north-africa

Charles Lister, 10-28-2019, "Countering Terrorism & Extremism," Middle East Institute, https://www.mei.edu/programs/countering-terrorism-extremism

Post-Soviet Governments, 5-10-2004, "Islamic Terrorism, the Middle East, and Central Asia: the Elusive Connection,", https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/events/islamic-terrorism-middle-east-and-central-asia-elusive-connection

Shibley Telhami, 2-17-2002, "Put Middle East Terror in Global Perspective," Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/put-middle-east-terror-in-global-perspective/

Marik Von, 1-15-2020, "Is America on the wrong side in the Middle East?," TheHill, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/478386-is-america-on-the-wrong-side-in-the-middle-east



Arab Spring/Democracy

On December 18, 2010, the death of Mohamed Bouazizi committed an act of suicide after lighting himself on fire to protest of the anti-democratic government in Tunisia. Shortly thereafter, uprisings began in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and Bahrain. By March of 2011, nearly a dozen countries would have revolution movements. Due to the oppressive and militant nature of these nations’ governments, social networking did much of the early revolution. Facebook and Twitter became the bombs and bullets of this revolution. By April 2012, this revolution had a name: the Arab Spring. Named for the Prague Spring of 1968, this revolution began as a non-violent movement to protest the unfair commercial sales laws of many Middle Eastern nations. By the summer of 2011, the revolutions had turned to fighting. Freedom fighters in Libya and Syria had launched offensives against the government-supported forces. In Egypt, their president was detained by splinter military groups and eventually put on trial. In Iran, the ruling government quickly crushed the revolution. By fall of 2011, four nations had replaced their governments with new leadership. In October of 2011, Moammar Gadhafi, longtime leader and dictator of Libya had been killed. As of 2012, many states have continued the fighting.

All is not well, however. Many of the revolutions have turned to extreme violence. In Syria, clashes between the militia of the liberation force and the Assad run military have killed thousands and displaced even more. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was elected in a landslide, furthering the hostility between western states and Egypt. In many of these states, terrorist groups are supposed to have taken power during the vacuums left by the retreating leaders and the incoming freedom fighters. In September of 2012, the Ambassador to Libya was killed during an uprising rebellion outside of the US Consulate. The current fighting is disrupting trade routes from the east as well as raising the price of oil as it is shipped through the hostile regions and the Persian Gulf. This constant unrest is threatening to draw in other nations as they rush to secure their interest and stop the spread of terrorism.

The debate on this contention is whether the US and our military presence creates the necessary conditions for peace. How stable will the revolutions be if the US what in the region and how stable would they be if we had never gotten involved? In Lyuba, the US stayed largely out of the conflict and there was relatively (by civil war standards) transition from one government to another. However, in Egypt, the transition was more complicated with a group taking power that we found ourselves at odds with. In other cases, the Us has become involved to prevent the transition to democracy. In Saudi Arabia, we openly support the Saudi monarch against all forms of social protest due to our close ties and oil and arms sales.



When debating this topic, it will be important to find out where the trigger for peace is and what the US can do to best serve it. If our end goal is to see a transition to democracy, then it is in our best interests to do what best accomplishes this goal. However, we must come to grips with the point of our foreign policy. Is our end goal to foster democracy or to maintain a power hold on the region through allied forces? If this is the case, and many realists would say that it is, then we should acknowledge it. In this regard, you would want to defend that support for democracy isn’t the best interests of the region as it would allow the rise of those that would threaten the security of the region and what best for the region is to maintain our presence to keep the peace. In short, peace and stability are best achieved not through democracy. This will be a tough sell for judges if this is the route you take as most judges will be inclined to buy that democracy is good, but if you can lay out the argument pragmatically, you can sway a flow based judge with the line by line and holistic judges by the theory of the argument.



Sample Evidence

Aid to authoritarian regimes undermines the legitimacy of both international norms AND US democracy promotion al-Gharbi 15 (Musa al-Gharbi is a social epistemologist affiliated with the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflicts “Why America Lacks Credibility in the Middle East” March 10 2015, http://fpif.org/america-lacks-credibility-middle-east/)

America, on the other hand, has a serious credibility problem in the Middle East. The results of U.S. interventions in the region have been consistently catastrophic: Whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, or Syria, direct U.S. involvement is usually followed by an erosion of state governance, the empowerment of exploitative sub-state and non-state actors, and a dramatic rise in violence, civil tension, and unrest. American indirect involvement, meanwhile, tends to empower corrupt, oppressive, and undemocratic forces —

such as in Pakistan, Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. In terms of achieving positive outcomes, America simply has absolutely no credibility in the Middle East. However, character is also important: Moral credibility means a nation’s intentions and motivations are more likely to be trusted. Strategic and moral credibility are interrelated: Consistently generating good outcomes goes a long way toward bolstering one’s reputation. Even if the methods for achieving an objective seem questionable, they tend to be justified retrospectively if things turn out all right. In the interim, people are much more willing to extend the benefit of doubt to those with a strong track record of success. Conversely, moral credibility can help make up for occasional bad outcomes — an agent is afforded slack when

things go awry if it’s perceived as being genuinely well-intentioned. However, when there are glaring inconsistencies between a government’s declared aspirations (say, promotion of democracy and human rights) and their means of realization (imposing Western socio-economic models at the expense of indigenous self-determination) — especially when

paired with a general failure to realize stated objectives (producing chaos rather than order, be it liberal or otherwise) — these generate suspicion about its real intentions and motives. Hypocrisy Undermines “Resolve” Part of what contributes to America’s cycle of diplomatic and military failures in the Middle East is an underlying distrust of the United States among most Arabs, which inspires widespread ambivalence or resistance to U.S. efforts in the region. The source of this deficit has nothing to do with U.S. follow-through or resolve, as foreign policy hawks love to allege. One can be

consistent with regards to backing up threats, etc. while still being a hypocrite in the moral sphere. Indeed, this is precisely the problem

America faces. After decades of supporting the region’s dictators with arms and money, Washington has now formed a coalition with both the surviving local autocrats and the Middle East’s former imperial powers to “bring democracy” to Syria and (once more) to Iraq. Is it any surprise the “Arab street” is mistrustful? It further fuels skepticism when America attempts to fight ISIS — a group largely empowered by previous U.S. support for other non-state actors in Iraq, Libya, and Syria — by training

and arming new, ineffective, and unpopular proxy militias. Moreover, these new groups are often aligned with, and trained in, Saudi Arabia —

the power most responsible for proliferating the ideology embraced by the so-called “Islamic State.” It seems disingenuous when the U.S. condemns Russia for funding non-state actors in Ukraine, or Pakistan for doing so in Afghanistan, or Iran in Lebanon — even as America expands its own support of insurgents in Syria. The Arab public is outraged when U.S. policymakers decry human rights violations elsewhere while continuing to support Israel and shield it from international accountability for its occupation of the West Bank or its wars on Gaza. And it doesn’t help at all when the Obama administration, among other failings, declines to prosecute clear and grievous infractions like torture by its own intelligence agencies, while

calling for regime change in other countries for the same sorts of infractions. When American representatives lecture others about upholding the very international rules and norms the U.S. government systematically and unapologetically violates through its drone strikes and mass surveillance, enhanced interrogation, and extraordinary rendition

programs, others will not take American rhetoric or ideals seriously. These glaring contradictions imbue



the entire ethical project with a cynical hue — undermining not just American credibility, but the general

value of moral discourse on the world stage more generally. This breakdown, in turn, disrupts consensus building and cooperation, threatening the long-term viability of the rules-based international order Americans sacrificed so much in years past to establish and preserve. Changing the Dynamic But there is good news:

The United States can simultaneously bolster its moral and strategic credibility by adopting a more sensible foreign policy. The first step will be to adopt more modest aspirations and pragmatic strategies in order to avoid making problems worse. Within this narrower framework, the United States should strive to adopt the same policies it promotes for others. If Washington wants to stem the growth and proliferation of non-state actors, for example, the U.S. should stop funding them as well — and should pressure its allies to follow suit. Instead, Washington can provide material and logistical support to the relevant state actors to help these governments first contain the spread of ungoverned zones and then gradually reclaim control over lost territories. (Of course, this support should be contingent on a basic respect for human rights.) Rather than orchestrating another destabilizing regime-change in Syria, furthermore, the United States should aspire towards gradual, viable, and meaningful reform of the state — which will require an inclusive diplomatic approach regarding the Baathist government and its foreign patrons, as well as a piecemeal agenda for rehabilitating the state and its institutions. In the short term, this means prioritizing peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and reconstruction in support of a negotiated

settlement rather than trying to force polarizing elections in the wake of a violent uprising. But perhaps most significantly, if America wants to promote democracy in the Middle East, it should start by rethinking the levels and types of aid afforded to Israel and the region’s autocrats absent substantial political reform. All of these measures would undermine extremist groups, both materially and ideologically, by enhancing Arabs’ self-determination while advancing international law and order. As a result, this approach could generate much better results with significantly less investment and blowback. Perhaps more importantly, these policies would help rebuild America’s credibility by building a better world —in the Mideast and beyond.



Further Reading

William Clapton. 2014. Preventing Risks and Changing Regimes: The 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Risk and Hierarchy in International Society, pages 103-128.

KATERINA DALACOURA, US democracy promotion in the Arab Middle East since 11 September 2001: a critique, International Affairs, Volume 81, Issue 5, October 2005, Pages 963–979, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2005.00497.x

Snider, E.A. and Faris, D.M. (2011), The Arab Spring: U.S. Democracy Promotion in Egypt. Middle East Policy, 18: 49-62. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4967.2011.00497.x

ODED LÖWENHEIM. (2010) The ‘I’ in IR: an autoethnographic account. Review of International Studies 36:04, pages 1023-1045

Andrew Phillips. (2013) The wars on terror, duelling internationalisms and the clash of purposes in a post-unipolar world. International Politics 50:1, pages 77-96



Iran/Strait of Hormuz

Since the Iranian Revolution that ousted the monarch of Iran and installed the religions leaders we know today, the United States has found itself in a power struggle for the region. Prior the revolution, the monarchs were not cleanly on the side of the United States, so at the time, the overthrow that was sponsored by the CIA seemed like a good idea. However, when the resulting government turned radical and began to publish anti-Western messages, we knew we had likely made a mistake.

Since 1979, the climate has been temperate. Limited negotiations occurred after the release of the hostages under the last day of the Carter administration and under the Regan administration, the nation was branded an enemy of the United States. Under Bush senior, the nation was further sanctioned and labeled a state sponsor of terrorism for their funding and training of militant groups in the region. However, at the same time, Iran was waging a war against Iraq for regional supremacy. The US began to supply arms to both sides in hopes that the victor would be open to work with the United States. When Iraq won, the US secretly breathed a sign of relief as they felt that they could work with Iraq easier than Iran (this did not work out that way.) Iran was left crippled but resolved to rebuild and once again rise up to the level of a regional hegemon. In the 1990’s, the nation began to develop a nuclear weapons program which started with uranium enrichment. Under the illusion of wanting this for civilian power production, they began to enrich radioactive materials into yellow cake weapons grade material. In response, sanctions were placed on Iran which froze their oil exports and foreign bank accounts. Under George W. Bush, Iran was branded as a member of the “axis of evil” and with more sanctions that further limited civilian supplies.

Under Obama, the United States signed the Iranian Nuclear Deal which provided a removal of sanctions, allowed for oil purchases, and unfroze their bank accounts sin exchange for a dismantling of their nuclear weapons program and international inspections. This would last only for two years when the new President, Donald Trump, would withdraw the United States from the treaty and once again place sanctions on the nation. In response, Iran restarted their nuclear weapons programs.

From their actions and intent with the program, their goal is to use their weapons program to become a regional hegemon. Their quest for a nuclear weapon is designed to balance any aggression or first strike by the United States or Israel.

What complicates this matter more is the Strait of Hormuz. This waterway is a 33-kilometer-wide stretch of water through which almost all sea trade must travel through in order to get from the European nations and Middle East to Asia. Due to the Law of the Sea Treaty,



this waterway would be considered “international water” and free to transit, but Iran has yet to sign on and thus claims this as their own. They have threatened to mine the water should they feel threatened. This is a major concern for shipping as mines are hard to detect and only a few nations have minesweepers in the area. One sunk ship would all that it would take for shipping to grind to a halt and for commerce to end. This threatens both trade as well as oil sales. Over 400 million barrels of oil flow through the strait each year to a tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. This is critical for economic stability as well as for energy supplies in the Far East. The United States is one of the few nations with active minesweepers in the region as well as the necessary fast attack boats that can counter the Iranian speedboats that would be setting the mines. A withdraw could leave the region open to an attack.

For this contention, you will need to build up the likelihood that the Iranians are fueled by a dislike of the Americans in the region rather than that of a power grab. If the power grab would exist even if the US is gone, then the pro can’t win, so pro must win that the aggression is rooted in US involvement in the region. This is hard to do as Iran has been seen as an aggressor even without America’s involvement. The more likely scenario is that the US a dam holding back Iran from flooding the region and taking over. The classic example is in the Strait where the US is the only thing keeping the Iranian navy from mining the waters and threatening shipping. As a judge, we will be fighting our biases on Iran. No matter our belief, adult judges have been familiarized with the anti-Western hate speech of the religious leaders of Iran. To beat this, you will need to argue that the speech is just rhetorical show for the people and that at their core, they are realists that know war with the US would end badly for them.



Sample Evidence

Iran is a threat to the region Anthony Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 13, 2018, Military Spending: The Other Side of Saudi Security, https://www.csis.org/analysis/military-spending-other-side-saudi-security

Iran renewed the nuclear weapons program started under the Shah in the late 1980s as a result of the Iran-Iraq War, and probably would have been ready to test a fission nuclear weapon in 2018-2019 if it had not signed a nuclear arms agreement called the JCPOA on July 14, 2015 that went into effect on October 15th. The implementation of this agreement seems to have halted Iran's near-term efforts to acquire fissile materials and nuclear weapons, but Iran remains at, or near, the nuclear break out stage. The U.S. has hinted at possible nuclear guarantees, but Saudi Arabia has no nuclear reactors as of yet and no near-term options for matching Iran's technological progress. Iran's ballistic and cruise missile forces. Iran is building up a major force of ballistic and cruise missiles, and armed drones. Almost all currently of these systems lack the accuracy and/or lethality to do major damage to major military and infrastructure targets, but Iran is actively seeking to give its ballistic missiles the level of accuracy and reliability that would give them such capability. If successful, Iran will have created "weapons of mass effectiveness" even if they lack the nuclear warheads to make them "weapons of mass destruction." It is unclear much progress Iran has made in cruise missile and UCAV design and the lethality of such systems in carrying out very precise strikes. Such systems are also capable of effective line source delivery of chemical and biological weapons. Iran has a wide range of systems under development or being improved. The IISS Military Balance for 2018 credits Iran's IRGC with deployed long-range systems, including 22+ conventional MRBMs: 12+ Shahab-3/Ghadr-1(mobile); 10 Shahab-3/Ghadr-1 (silo); and some Sajjil-2 (developmental), plus 18+ conventional SRBMs: Fateh 110; 12–18, Shahab-1/2 (ε200–300 missiles); plus, some It also credits Iran with 129 Shahed high endurance Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs). Iran's naval-missile-air threat to Gulf and Indian Ocean shipping. Iran has also built up a major force of asymmetric threats to shipping and naval forces in the Gulf and Indian Ocean. These include: land, sea, and air based anti-ship missiles like the HY-2, C-704, C-801K, and C-802, 78 guided missiles and 108 other patrol boats, high speed suicide and unmanned ships with explosive payloads, smart and other mines, 3-4 kilo-class submarines, 20+coastal submarines and submersibles, marines and naval special forces, and a variety of other systems. While sometimes being described as designed to close the Gulf, they are capable of quick dispersal throughout the Gulf, at the Straits, in the Gulf of Oman, and the Indian Ocean. Iran may be seeking basing in Yemen and the Red Sea area. Iran's expanding influence in the region. Iran’s growing influence includes ties to the Hezbollah in Lebanon; Palestinian elements in Gaza; the Assad regime in Syria; the central government and a wide range of paramilitary and hostile political elements in Iraq; some elements of the Hazara and warlords/political power brokers in Afghanistan; extremist elements in Bahrain; the Houthi in Yemen; and other elements hostile to Saudi Arabia that Iran may be able to use against it.



Multiple barriers to Iran heg Savyon 11.

[A, director – Iranian Media Project @ Middle East Media Research Institute, 7/4/’11 “Iran's Defeat in the Bahrain Crisis: A Seminal Event in the Sunni-Shi'ite Conflict,” http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5424.htm#_ednref6

Despite its image as a looming superpower, which revolutionary Iran has sought for years to cultivate, its actual policy reveals a deep recognition of its weakness as a representative of the Shi'ites, who constitute a 10% minority in a Sunni Muslim region. Historically persecuted over centuries, the Shi'ites developed various means of survival, including taqiya – the Shi'ite principle of caution, as expressed in willingness to hide one's Shi'ite affiliation in order to survive under a hostile Sunni rule – and passivity, reflected in the use of diplomacy alongside indirect intimidation, terrorism, etc. The ideological change pioneered by the founder of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – who transformed the passive perception characteristic of the of the Shi'a (which was based on the legend of the martyrdom of Hussein at the Battle of Karbala) into an active perception of martyrdom (shahada)[26] – is not being carried out by Iran. Tehran is refraining from sending Iranian nationals to carry out martyrdom operations, despite its years-long glorification of this principle. It is also not sending Iranians to Gaza, either on aid missions or to carry out suicide attacks – and this despite the fact that regime-sponsored organizations are recruiting volunteers for such efforts. Moreover, it appears that the Shi'ite regime in Iran is utilizing the legend of Hussein's martyrdom solely for propaganda purposes, in order to glorify its own might and intimidate the Sunni and Western world. Such intimidation is in keeping with Shi'ite tradition, as a way to conceal Tehran's unwillingness to take overt military action against external challenges. Conclusion Tehran's defeat in the Bahrain crisis reflects characteristic Shi'ite restraint, stemming from recognition of its own weakness in the face of the vast Sunni majority. The decade during which Iran successfully expanded its strength and power exponentially via threats and creating an image of superpower military strength has collapsed in the Bahrain crisis; Iran is now revealed as a paper tiger that will refrain from any violent conflict. When it came to the crunch, it became clear that the most that Iran could do was threaten to use terrorism or to subvert the Shi'ite citizens of other countries – in keeping with customary Shi'ite behavior – and these threats were not even implemented. It can be assumed that the Sunni camp, headed by Saudi Arabia, is fully aware of the political and military significance of Iran's weakness and its unwillingness to initiate face-to-face conflict. This will have ramifications on both the regional and the global levels. In addition to having its weakness exposed by the Bahrain situation, Tehran has also taken several further hits to its prestige and geopolitical status. These include: the popular uprisings in Syria against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, weakening the Tehran-Damascus axis; post-revolutionary Egypt's refusal to renew relations with Iran; and the fact that the E.U. was capable of uniting and leading a military attack against the regime of Libyan leader Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi as well as its refusal to renew the nuclear negotiations with Tehran based on Iran's demands. All this, added to the serious internal rift between Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his long-time ally Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have today left the Iranian regime in clearly reduced circumstances.



Further Reading

Mee Correspondent, 3-26-2020, "Iranian press review: US accused of reinforcing military presence in Iraq," Middle East Eye, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iranian-press-review-iran-accuses-us-building-new-bases-deploying-more-troops-iraq

Seth J. Frantzman, March 21, 2020 "Coronavirus: The US in Iraq is “repositioning” forces, ending training," The Jerusalem Post | JPost, https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Coronavirus-The-US-in-Iraq-is-repositioning-forces-ending-training-621716

Alexandra Ma, 1-13-2020, "How the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow stretch of water where ships carry $1.2 billion of oil every day, is at the heart of spiraling tensions with Iran," Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/strait-of-hormuz-explainer-oil-us-iran-tensions-2019-7

Mark Mazzetti, Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, Alissa J. Rubin and Eric Schmitt, 3-21-2020, "As Iran Reels, Trump Aides Clash Over Escalating Military Showdown," No Publication, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/world/middleeast/trump-iran-iraq-coronavirus-militas.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Articl

Robert G. Rabil, 3-31-2020, "The Middle East Can't Fight A War Against Both Coronavirus And Iran," National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/middle-east-cant-fight-war-against-both-coronavirus-and-iran-139392



5th Fleet in Bahrain

The 5th fleet is one of the primary naval fleets of the United States Blue Water Navy and the primary center of sea-based operations in the Persian Gulf. It has been responsible for naval forces in the Persian Gulf, Middle East, and Indian Ocean Established at the end of World War II to counter the Japanese presence in the Pacific, the fleet was responsible for major operations in the Pacific theater, the bombing of Tokyo, and the hypothetical invasion of the home islands. After World War II< the fleet was put on mothballs in San Diego until 1995 when a rising threat from Iran and Iraq would necessitate the reactivation of the fleet.

Prior to Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, U.S. naval operations in the Persian Gulf region were directed by Middle Eastern Force Commandstar. This was based on the 7th fleet which was assigned to the Western Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. When the Gulf Conflict broke out, naval commanders saw a need for a rapid reaction fleet in the region to counter threats to American interests.

In the early days of the fleet, it consisted of an Aircraft Carrier Battle Group (CVBG), an Amphibious Ready Group, surface combatants, submarines, maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, and logistics ships. This was seen as adequate for a traditional war based strategy. However, with the attacks of 9.11 and the War on Terror, the naval strategy of the U.S. has changed. The regular deployments of the Cold War are now a thing of the past. A reconfiguration of the fleet in the mid 2000’s added a Carrier Strike Group, Amphibious Ready Group, and other ships and aircraft with almost 15,000 people serving on ship and a landing crew of 1000.

To maintain this fleet, a large naval refit and resupply base was established in the seafront nation of Bahrain. This base is capable of rearming and resupplying the entire fleet several times over. This base has drawn much criticism as it represents a huge US military force on foreign soil for the purpose of resupply. The job of resupply has traditionally been done at ports in the United States or at Us territories. To many, this base represents a US occupation of the region.

The fleet has been instrumental in operations against ISIS, AQAP, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. The retaliation against Syria for the use of chemical weapons was launched from the cruise missile destroyers of the fleet. Drones are routinely launched from the fleet as well. Rescue operations are launched from the fast cruisers. Marines and naval forces deploy from the fleet to aid and assist troops in Syria and Iraq. The fleet is key to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and deter Iran from aggression. Furthermore, the fleet has been seen as key to deterring and



stopping pirate activities in the gulf. This is a huge issue as the Gulf is a major world shipping route and millions of dollars of good cross the waters each day.

The idea behind this contention is whether the cost is worth it. What do we gain from having a fleet based in the Persian Gulf that we can’t get from a base in the Mediterranean Sea or the Indian Ocean? For decades, our fleet operated in the Indian Ocean with little harm to our regional hegemony. The other issue is whether this base and fleet antagonizes the region into conflict. A major military installation and large fleet (which is known in the region as the “tip of the spear”) has the potential to hurt the American image. This must be balanced against the benefits listed above.

As a judge, you will likely need to explain this point. Most people don’t know the difference between the fleets let alone their implications or locations. The concept of a naval fleet doesn’t usually resonate with people that they need a home port and most people likely won’t grasp the impacts to having a home base on foreign soil. Explain this and keep the flow simple.



Sample Evidence

5th fleet permanence prevents strategic resource allocation toward pressing East Asian missions – collapses grand naval strategy Holmes & Yoshihara, 1-4-11

[US Naval War College Professors, “US Navy’s Indian Ocean Folly?,” The Diplomat, online: http://the-diplomat.com/2011/01/04/us-navy%E2%80%99s-indian-ocean-folly/?print=yes]

But assume Washington exercises intellectual discipline, keeping its priorities in order rather than diffusing its efforts. The sea services must still revisit a perennial debate, namely where to station the fleet to best effect. When wrestling with complex matters, it’s always helpful to consult the greats of strategic theory. Clausewitz cautions against dispersing forces and effort too widely. In the effort to do everything, everywhere, the United States risks stretching its military so thin that it proves incapable of doing much of anything anywhere. The Prussian thinker also urges commanders to shun secondary theatres or operations unless the likely gains appear ‘exceptionally rewarding,’ and unless such a diversion won’t risk too much in the main theatre or line of operations. In modern parlance, they should keep their eyes on the ball. Such a focused attitude is worth cultivating. After all, even a global fleet has finite resources, and some theatres must therefore be delegated to regional powers or triaged altogether. Sea-power theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan weighs in with two related insights. Mahan supposedly counselled commanders, ‘never divide the fleet!’ This quotation is apocryphal, but he did highlight the perils of breaking the fleet down into standing contingents weaker than likely opponents. This would subject each lesser fleet to catastrophic defeat and the US Navy to piecemeal defeat. (It should be borne in mind, of course, the context in which he was writing was the pre-Panama Canal world, where the US Navy couldn’t swiftly combine Atlantic and Pacific forces; warships had to circumnavigate South America). Far better, maintained Mahan and kindred thinkers like Theodore Roosevelt, to keep the full battle fleet on one coast and accept the risk of attack on the other coast than to leave one half-strength fleet in the Atlantic and another in the Pacific. Both fleets would be inferior to potential adversaries. In his 1897 book The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future, accordingly, Mahan pronounces it ‘a broad formula’ that any US fleet ‘must be great enough to take the sea, and to fight, with reasonable chances of success, the largest force likely to be brought against it…’ Later, in his 1911 work Naval Strategy, Mahan devised three criteria for appraising the strategic value of possible naval bases, namely ‘position, strength, and resources.’ Position referred straightforwardly enough to a site’s geographic position. The best strategic positions adjoined one or more important sea lines of communication. Strength was a site’s natural defences, along with the ease with which civil engineers could augment these defences to ward off attack. Resources meant a naval station’s ability to sustain itself through foodstuffs, fuel, and other supplies, either from the surrounding country or through efficient transport infrastructure such as railways. So how would this apply now? Take a look at the map of Asia through this Mahanian lens. The principal hubs for forward-deployed US sea power in Asia are in the Persian Gulf to the west and scattered among bases in Japan and Guam to the east. The Gulf island of Bahrain is home to a command centre, while US forces routinely call at Dubai for logistical support. Forces are, as can be seen, concentrated at the opposite extremes of the vast Asian landmass. Geographic distance slows efforts to concentrate the fleet for action in either theatre. And along the way, forces bound eastward or westward depend on free passage through such narrow seas as the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca, and the Lombok and Sunda straits. The prospect of seeing these chokepoints contested or closed altogether ought to give US naval planners pause. But the most problematic challenges are in East Asia. In the coming years, it’s entirely possible that the Japan-based Seventh Fleet may find itself inferior to the concentrated power of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy, augmented by Beijing’s increasingly lethal force of ballistic missiles, antiship cruise missiles, and land-based combat aircraft. If so, support from forces based in the Indian Ocean or the United States will be at a premium. But the US Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain, in the faraway Persian Gulf theatre. Depending on events, a sizable proportion of US combat power is often within the Gulf, in



effect a bay or inlet separated from the broad Indian Ocean by the chokepoint at Hormuz. To sortie for action in South Asian waters or to join the Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific, Fifth Fleet units must exit the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, passing under the shadow of Iranian antiship weaponry. Should Tehran see fit to make mischief, Iranian forces could impede ships transiting the strait in a variety of ways. The Iranian Navy could mine this narrow sea or dispatch stealthy diesel submarines to conduct torpedo or missile attacks. Shore-based antiship missiles could strike at warships navigating the narrow channel, where they have little room to manoeuvre to avoid attack. In short, it’s far from clear that the Persian Gulf, one of the primary regional hubs for US maritime strategy, measures up well by Mahanian principles. The Seventh Fleet could pay the price in East Asia of poor fleet dispositions in the Gulf and Indian Ocean.



Absent naval presence, companies will shift to European PMCs which escalate piracy more than the status quo

Hughes 12

(Emma Hughes and Mika Minio-Paluello, A SECRET SUBSIDY Oil companies, the Navy & the response to piracy, a briefing paper of Platform, http://platformlondon.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/A-Secret-Subsidy-piracy.pdf)

Recently the shipping industry has been lobbying for even more influence. The Chamber of Shipping has called for the UK navy to provide teams of naval or military personnel, called Vessel Protection Detachments (VPDs), to be placed on board their commercial vessels.25 In effect the industry wants the navy to act as private

security guards. While VPDs are not yet used in the UK, some other countries have begun renting their military personnel out to private corporations. The Dutch government has been providing units to escort ships for the last year, but plans to increase this service by deploying 100 teams of ten people this year. Total costs for the Dutch teams are estimated at US$29m but the shipping companies are only expected to pay half of this, leaving the Dutch government to make up the US$14.5m shortfall.26 Hiring out navy personnel to private companies at a reduced fee, or even for free, means the public sector is subsidising corporations’ security costs at a time of spending cutbacks. Companies’ private use of military personnel raises a range of legal and political questions. As James Brown, military fellow of the Lowry Institute, observes, putting national military personnel under the control of a commercial ship captain “essentially makes a

commercial vessel a warship”.27 Although the use of VPDs is fairly new, there has already been one incident demonstrating the potential dangers. In February 2012 two Italian marines were placed as VPDs on board oil tanker MV Enrica Lexie. While serving on the tanker they shot, and killed, two Indian fishermen that they incorrectly suspected of piracy. The incident sparked a diplomatic row between India and Italy. Both of the Italian

marines were arrested by the Indian police and are now being held in a southern Indian jail awaiting trial for murder.28 The lack of transparent information on VPNs means that exact figures

are hard to get, but Brown estimates that there are plans for more than 2,000 European military personnel to be privately hired to shipping as vessel protection detachments. If governments continue to hire out, or simply gift, their national military to act as security guards, such international disputes, with serious implications for the military personnel involved, will undoubtedly increase. It also means that naval deployment is increasingly led by the interests of those corporations best connected with the establishment, or most able to pay. How have oil and gas companies secured

this influence? Since the Sirius star was hijacked in 2008 and insurance premiums began rising, the shipping industry has presented itself as under attack. Previous Vice-President of Shell Shipping Jan Kopernicki, who was simultaneously president of the British Chamber of Shipping, argued that there was a “gaping hole in the UK’s defence strategy” and demanded that David Cameron increase naval spending to bring forward the acquisition of a new generation of warships currently scheduled for 2020.29 Shell’s public interventions – meant to embarrass and pressure the Ministry of Defence - came in the context of public austerity cuts hitting millions of people. Kopernicki was in effect demanding a reallocation of funds from schools, the NHS, or other parts of the military, to the sector most important to Shell’s profit margin. Jan Kopernicki was succeeded by Dr Grahaeme Henderson as the Director of Shell’s International Trading and Shipping company. His career with Shell has included posts in Syria and Nigeria; countries where Shell’s support for repressive regimes has resulted in increased human rights abuses.30 Henderson describes himself as ‘a leading industry spokesperson on piracy’. In addition to working for Shell, he is also Chair of the British Chamber of Shipping’s Defence and Security Committee and Co-chair of the UK’s Shipping Defence Advisory Committee, a joint industry and government committee that coordinates military and commercial interests. Henderson, like Kopernicki, occupies a number of positions that mean he is assured access to government ministers and senior military personnel. Kopernicki’s argument for deploying more troops to the seas off Somalia was that “the UK’s economic security depends on energy security: without enough energy, the economy simply cannot keep going.” This is a purposeful distortion in relation to Somalia, as it relies on flawed assumptions as to the source of Britain’s energy, the types of energy required to keep the economy going, how the economy functions – and even the direction of Shell’s shipments passing Somalia. In November 2010 Kopernicki said, “I don’t want to be alarmist but I provide transport for essential oil and gas for this country and I want to be sure that the lights are on in Birmingham, my home city”.31 This argument was disingenuous as very little of the oil and gas moved through the Gulf of Aden is destined for Britain. Disruptions in the flow of crude will not affect the lights in Birmingham, as oil is not converted into electricity in Britain. In addition gas transported by sea – Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) - currently only makes up one per cent of Britain’s energy mix and is therefore unlikely to provide much in the way of ‘security’ should other sources become temporarily scarce or compromised. While Shell shipments of oil and gas passing Somalia do not play a significant role in Britain’s energy mix, they are highly relevant to Shell’s positioning as a global oil trader. Private Military Security / Mercenary

Companies: Private military and security companies (PMSCs) – mercenaries – have jumped at the commercial opportunities presented by the situation off Somalia. As with VPNs, the deployment of private armed guards on commercial ships raises many concerns. Maritime military

service companies are estimated to take $52.2mn per month for militarising approximately 1500 journeys.32 This growth has led many to raise concerns about the quality of contractors, with even the shipping industry acknowledging the ‘significant competence and quality variations...across the spectrum of contractors’.33 Some of the companies involved have track records that

demonstrate that they should not be trusted with these private military contracts. G4S has described piracy-related maritime military services as a ‘big commercial opportunity’34 and are now maritime military providers.35 The company infamously failed to provide the required number of security staff for

the London 2012 Olympics. It has a record of more fatal behaviour, including allowing multiple detainees to die in its custody.36 In 2009 it hired Danny Fitzsimmons to work as a member of military staff in Iraq despite receiving warnings about his mental health. Within hours of arriving in Iraq Fitzsimmons killed two other colleagues.37 Such a liturgy of mistakes demonstrates that G4S are not a suitable provider of maritime security. The legal status of armed PMSCs is unclear. British private military companies ignore UK laws to exploit this business opportunity.38

Rather then prosecuting these companies the government has chosen to try to legalise the use of private armed guards. In

2011 it was announced that the government would legalise the use of Private Armed Security Guards (PASGs) on ships travelling through the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden, even though this may

break the laws of the countries the ships are travelling through; Egypt and South Africa have already objected.39 The Foreign Affairs Committee concluded that allowing armed guards on ships could escalate violence as it may encourage an arms race with pirates, increasing the weapons they



carry to match the armed guards.40 For vessels transporting flammable material, like LNG carriers and oil tankers, having armed guards is a huge risk.



Further Reading

Douglas Katz, 10-29-2012, "Navy's Fifth Fleet key to stability in Gulf, Bahrain," TheHill, https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/264553-navys-fifth-fleet-key-to-stability-in-gulf-bahrain

Seth J. Frantzman, 3-19-2020, "Yes the Coronavirus Pandemic Could Come for the Gulf States Next," National Interest, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/yes-coronavirus-pandemic-could-come-gulf-states-next-134452

Bilal Y. Saab, "Relocating the Fifth Fleet?," American Interest, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/08/22/relocating-the-fifth-fleet/

Thom Shanker and J. David Goodman, 2-17-2011, "Pentagon Watching Unrest in Bahrain," No Publication, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/world/middleeast/18fleet.html

REUTERS NEWS AGENCY, 3-12-2020, "Bahrain accuses Iran of 'biological aggression' over COVID-2019," https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/bahrain-accuses-iran-biological-aggression-covid-2019-200312165334964.html



Conclusion

Internationally, there is almost no issue that is more polarizing, more contentious, or debated that the Middle East. Since the division of the Ottoman Empire after the conclusion of World War I, the region has been caught in conflict after conflict. Political scientists agree that the lines that divided the Middle East into the countries that exist today did so without concern for the current political climate, tribal affiliations, or religious divisions. Furthermore, thanks to the involvement of these same Western powers for the purposes of economic security, hegemonic posturing, containment of enemies, and imperialistic ambitions, tensions were further raised.

Today, with a dozen leaders fighting for power and civil wars raging across an area the size of Europe, the biggest question that must be answered is whether current involvement by the United States is still needed? As history has shown us, it was our involvement in the first place that put the nations in this region on a crash course for conflict in the first place. It was our arms sales to Iran and Iraq during the Iran/Iran War that fueled mistrust from all parties. It was our defense of Daudi Arabia and the establishment of permanent bases in Middle Eastern countries that caused resentment and anger from the religious fundamentalists in the area. This hate would lead to the rise of a global terrorist network and some of the world terrorist attacks that we have seen. It is the current economic sanctions that we place on nations that have driven nations to acts to acts of piracy and smuggling so that they might feed their people. Our drone strikes put fear in the hearts of the innocent, and our current military positioning and weapons transfers fuel civilian deaths in civil war.

On the flip side, radical groups for decades have always vied for power in the region. They have wanted nations and people to exploit and use for their own purposes. Their goal is to see total Western expulsion from the hemisphere at any cost. They seek to kill those who are of a different sect of Islam than they, they seek to harm those that want peace, they seek to kill in the name of radical ideas that are endorsed by no major religion. They threaten global trade and energy security in the name of disruption of the enemy. They attack innocents who refuse to side with them. They launch terrorist attacks on foreign soil.

So, what place does the US military presence have in the Middle East? Will our withdrawal solve the issue or will it only embolden the enemies of the United States as well as all of those that seek to find a peaceful solution to the current geopolitical conflict? How do we account for the impacts of such a withdraw? Is trading lives worth a few billion dollars saved? Can we quantify the deaths of civilians lost for those of terrorists killed? How do we justify our actions to an ever-wary international community? And finally, how do we plan for peace when



this is all “finished?” These issues are all at the heart of this topic. You, as debaters, students in high school, are being asked to do in a 50-minute round what foreign policy experts have attempted to do for decades. You are being asked to find a solution for the current crisis and conflict that can balance the needs of the region, the US and the world. Remember that you are dealing with heavy material. Nothing is as simple as it seems. As my old debate coach one put it, “If everyone is happy, you have probably messed up at some point.” This holds true for foreign policy. No option is going to be prefect or have 100% favorable outcomes for any one side. The best you can do is to find the bests after weighing impacts. The best you can do if finding the benefits among the harms and digging in and making those count.

Have fun and good luck!