Summary

• Objects (1 modified, 1 added, 0 removed)
  • Caselist.RoundClass[8]
  • Caselist.CitesClass[25]

Details

Caselist.RoundClass[8]

EntryDate

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1		-2016-10-22 22:40:00.994
	1	+2016-10-22 22:40:00.0

Caselist.CitesClass[25]

Cites

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	1	+Russian nuclear export market is focused and expanding in Middle East now – key to economy, nuclear intelligence, and greater overall Russian influence in the region
	2	+Armstrong 15 (Ian, former non-proliferation and international energy researcher at UPenn, Hudson Institute’s Center for Political-Military analysis, and Temple University, Supervisor and Researcher at Wikistrat, the world’s first crowdsourced geopolitical consultancy, research presented at conferences at Tufts University and University of Edinburgh, “Russia is creating a global nuclear power empire,” Global Risk Insights, October 29, 2015, http://globalriskinsights.com/2015/10/russia-is-creating-a-global-nuclear-power-empire/)
	3	+Thus, Russia’s nuclear power diplomacy has penetrated the international stage in an already significant manner. Countries that have signed on to Rosatom nuclear agreements span across all regions of the world, and include strategically significant players such as Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
	4	+As of 2014, 29 Russian reactors are planned for construction abroad, and Rosatom predicts that the number will grow to around 80 within a “few years.”
	5	+While other countries such as the United States and France have the nuclear know-how required to export nuclear technologies abroad, no entity outside of Russia has aggressively sought to capitalize on international demand for nuclear energy. The Russian dominance of global nuclear energy that has followed holds important geopolitical connotations in the medium-term and beyond.
	6	+Positive Economic Implications
	7	+For one, the ability of Russia to not only maintain pre-Fukushima nuclear power agreements but also broaden its international NPP roll-out is a clear signal that — from a global perspective — the reportedly “historic” decline of nuclear energy may be less dramatic than presently understood.
	8	+Russia’s success in securing a litany of NPP contracts may be an early indicator that nuclear energy will rise in the medium-term along the same environmentally-minded tide as renewables.
	9	+Naturally, sending nuclear power abroad also provides economic gains to Moscow; The U.S. Department of Commerce projects $740 billion in revenue generation from nuclear power technologies between now and 2025. With Rosatom boasting no other comparable international competitor, vast swaths of that revenue will be siphoned into the pockets of the Kremlin, with nuclear energy standing firmly alongside oil and gas as an adhesive to the otherwise fracturing economy.
	10	+Finally, nuclear power plants have been deemed as an “effective local development tool” for the surrounding community. Local economies across the diverse list of Rosatom contractees may benefit not only from the labor required for nuclear plant maintenance, but also the prestige that an NPP entails.
	11	+Russian Geopolitical Influence Expanded
	12	+Though these economic implications are worth considering, they are far overshadowed by the geopolitical impacts of Russia’s nuclear power expansion strategy. The same local governments that may experience economic upticks as a result of Russian-installed NPPs will also become sutured to the Russian nuclear industry — and therefore the broader Russian government.
	13	+To be clear, the influence gained by Russia through each bilateral nuclear agreement should not be understated. For one, the construction timeline for nuclear power plants is typically long-term, ensuring that Russia will have a presence in any country it signs a nuclear contract with for a minimum of several years.
	14	+In addition, Moscow has secured special comprehensive contracts with highly strategic countries like Turkey under the premise of “build-own-operate” — a system in which Russia builds, owns, and permanently operates a nuclear power plant.
	15	+From this perspective, Russian-built nuclear power plants in foreign countries become more akin to embassies — or even military bases — than simple bilateral infrastructure projects. The long-term or permanent presence that accompanies the exportation of Russian nuclear power will afford President Vladimir Putin a notable influence in countries crucial to regional geopolitics.
	16	+Western influence will subsequently be undermined in crucial ally states like Egypt, Turkey, and Algeria. This now-justified Russian presence abroad will also provide Moscow intelligence opportunities that would otherwise be significantly more difficult and risky. Russian nuclear expertise will also be required in some form for maintenance and operational purposes even in countries that do not sign on for the full build-own-operate package.
	17	+All of these benefits — significant as stand-alone strategic gains — will be undergirded by the traditional Russian leverage that emerges when nations become dependent on Russia for their energy needs.
	18	+At present, it appears that Russia is well-positioned to continue its expansive nuclear power diplomacy in pursuit of a broader sphere of influence. However, competition from other capable nuclear powers may emerge in the medium-term.
	19	+The affirmative trades off – we will grant them the internal link on their second advantage – US-Egypt relations are key to American influence in the region, which blocks Russian influence – it’s a controlling factor
	20	+*Recut AC CFR 2 Council on Foreign Relations. “Strengthening the US-Egyptian Relationship. Council on Foreign Relations. May 2002. MSG
	21	+
	22	+The U.S.-Egyptian relationship is rooted in strategic calculation. It bolsters peace between Egypt and Israel and makes possible broader peace in the region. The U.S.-Egyptian relationship has helped Egypt modernize its military and has added weight to its position as a stabilizing regional force. America's support has also strengthened Egypt's economy. As has been true for the past two decades, a moderate Egypt is the key to peace and stability in the Middle East and a strong U.S.-Egyptian relationship is essential to securing American presence in the region.¶ The U.S.-Egyptian relationship has served the two sides well. Two decades of military cooperation and training have moderated Egypt's military establishment, the most powerful institution in Egypt, and made it a reliable U.S. partner. During the Gulf War, Egypt's support was central to Arab participation in the war against Iraq; Egypt's willingness to keep open its canal in crisis and allow overflight and refueling cannot be taken for granted. These ties remain central to the U.S. ability to project and protect its strategic interests in the world's most volatile region.¶ Washington has lost sight of what the Middle East would look like without a strong U.S.-Egyptian relationship. A nuclear-inclined or -armed Egypt, ambiguous on the issue of terror, uncertain on peace with Israel, and disinclined to negotiate would drastically recast the management of the Middle East.¶ Since September 11, it has become all too clear that U.S.-Egyptian ties are in trouble. Although the Egyptian government has stood firmly with the United States, the U.S. Congress has grown increasingly critical in its support for Egypt. Congress questions the line that Egypt has taken with Israel, its position on terrorism, issues of human rights, and economic and political reform.¶ A similar dissatisfaction with the U.S.-Egyptian relationship exists in Egypt. The events of recent months set loose demonstrations unprecedented in recent decades. The Egyptian public's perception of powerlessness is breeding alienation and intensifying anger. It underscores a key challenge to American statecraft- how to begin recreating a partnership that serves both Egyptian and American interests and helps further peace for the region. The United States needs Arab allies, especially in these challenging times; Egypt is our most important partner.¶ The generation of American statesmen and political leaders who forged the Egyptian-Israeli agreement and was committed to the political relationship between the United States and Egypt in the 1970s has largely passed. As the Mubarak era similarly draws to a close, Washington should work to ensure that the successor regime shares a commitment to the kind of relationship the United States has enjoyed over the past quarter century.¶ At the same time, both sides must recognize that the U.S.-Egyptian relationship has changed and now reflects new political realities, such as Egypt's struggling economic condition and concerns over governance and human rights. This generation of leaders must set new goals for the relationship and recalibrate the dialogue so that it reaches beyond the institutions of government and engages religious leaders, media, intellectuals, and the business establishment on both sides.¶ Foundations of the U.S.-Egypt Relationship¶ Political¶ Egypt is the most powerful moderate, balancing voice in the Arab world.¶ Its position in the region is critical to peace between Arab states and Israel.¶ Egypt's political clout shapes outlooks and guides agendas in the region.¶ Cairo's diplomatic corps has significant influence in regional and multinational bodies. Egypt plays an important role in the United Nations in shaping international consensus on issues important to peace and stability in the region.¶ Egypt's posture on key issues of importance provides cover for Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.¶ Egypt, a vigorous Organization of African Unity actor, has the ability to influence events in Africa.¶ Military¶ U.S.-Egyptian military ties are a key link in the U.S. relationship. They are a central stabilizing factor in the U.S.-Egyptian relationship. More broadly, the U.S.-Egyptian defense relationship sends a signal of domestic moderation and deterrence to the region. The Egyptian military is deeply opposed to Islamic political radicalism.¶ Overflight rights, the sharing of intelligence and military perceptions in the region, transit through the Suez Canal, military supply, etc., demonstrate the important nature of the military relationship, especially during times of war.¶ Egypt hosts Operation Bright Star, the largest military exercise the United States conducts in the world. These maneuvers send a strong signal to the region of the close ties the U.S. shares with Egypt and its ability to quickly deploy American military power during times of crisis.¶ Cultural¶ Egypt's intellectual and academic voice is the strongest in the region.¶
	23	+Geopolitical parity is crucial to avoid creeping US-Russia war – this card is fantastic
	24	+-Parity is both geopolitical and perception-based – changing our view of Russia to respect its power is key
	25	+-Russia sees current world order as the result of US incursions on its SOIs – means trying to reclaim regions isn’t an act of aggression, it’s a search for equal footing
	26	+Cohen 15 (Stephen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation, “Why We Must Return to the US-Russian Parity Principle,” The Nation, April 14, 2015, https://www.thenation.com/article/why-we-must-return-us-russian-parity-principle/)
	27	+ (The text below is a somewhat expanded version of remarks I delivered at the annual US-Russia Forum in Washington, DC, held in the Hart Senate Office Building, on March 26.)
	28	+ When I spoke at this forum nine months ago, in June 2014, I warned that the Ukrainian crisis was the worst US-Russian confrontation in many decades. It had already plunged us into a new (or renewed) Cold War potentially even more perilous than its forty-year US-Soviet predecessor because the epicenter of this one was on Russia’s borders; because it lacked the stabilizing rules developed during the preceding Cold War; and because, unlike before, there was no significant opposition to it in the American political-media establishment. I also warned that we might soon be closer to actual war with Russia than we had been since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
	29	+I regret to say that today the crisis is even worse. The new Cold War has been deepened and institutionalized by transforming what began, in February last year, as essentially a Ukrainian civil war into a US/NATO-Russian proxy war; by a torrent of inflammatory misinformation out of Washington, Moscow, Kiev and Brussels; and by Western economic sanctions that are compelling Russia to retreat politically, as it did in the late 1940s, from the West. Still worse, both sides are again aggressively deploying their conventional and nuclear weapons and probing the other’s defenses in the air and at sea. Diplomacy between Washington and Moscow is being displaced by resurgent militarized thinking, while cooperative relationships nurtured over many decades, from trade, education, and science to arms control, are being shredded. And yet, despite this fateful crisis and its growing dangers, there is still no effective political opposition to the US policies that have contributed to it—not in the administration, Congress, mainstream media, think tanks, or on campuses—but instead mostly uncritical political, financial, and military boosterism for the increasingly authoritarian Kiev regime, hardly a bastion of “democracy and Western values.”
	30	+Indeed, the current best hope to avert a larger war is being assailed by political forces, especially in Washington and in US-backed Kiev, that seem to want a military showdown with Russia’s unreasonably vilified president, Vladimir Putin. In February, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande brokered in Minsk a military and political agreement with Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that, if implemented, would end the Ukrainian civil war. Powerful enemies of the Minsk accord—again, in both Washington and Kiev—are denouncing it as appeasement of Putin while demanding that President Obama send $3 billion of weapons to Kiev. Such a step would escalate the war in Ukraine, sabotage the ceasefire and political negotiations agreed upon in Minsk, and provoke a Russian military response with unpredictable consequences. While Europe is splitting over the crisis, and with it perhaps shattering the vaunted transatlantic alliance, this recklessness in Washington is fully bipartisan, urged on by four all-but-unanimous votes in Congress. (We must therefore honor the 48 House members who voted against the most recent warfare resolution on March 23, even if their dissent is too little, too late.)
	31	+* * *
	32	+What more can I say today? I could use my limited time to point out that the primary cause of this fateful crisis has been US policy since the 1990s, not “Russian aggression.” But I did so here nine months ago and subsequently published those remarks (“Patriotic Heresy vs. The New Cold War,” September 15, 2014). Instead, I want to look back briefly to the US-Soviet Cold War, as well as ahead, in order to ask, perhaps quixotically: Even if negotiations over the Ukrainian civil war proceed, how do we sustain them and avoid another prolonged, more perilous Cold War with post-Soviet Russia?
	33	+The answer is through a new détente between Washington and Moscow. For this, we must relearn a fundamental lesson from the history of the 40-year US-Soviet Cold War and how it ended, a history largely forgotten, distorted, or unknown to many younger Americans. Simply recalled, détente, as an idea and a policy, meant expanding elements of cooperation in US-Soviet relations while diminishing areas of dangerous conflict, particularly, though not only, in the existential realm of the nuclear arms race. In this regard, détente had a long, always embattled, often defeated but ultimately victorious history.
	34	+Leaving aside the first détente of 1933, when Washington officially recognized Soviet Russia after fifteen years of diplomatic non-recognition (the first Cold War), latter-day détente began in the mid-1950s under President Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It was soon disrupted by Cold War forces and events on both sides. The pattern continued for thirty years: under President John Kennedy and Khrushchev, after the Cuban Missile Crisis; under President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, in the growing shadow of Vietnam; under President Richard Nixon and Brezhnev in the 1970s, the most expansive era of détente; and briefly under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, also with Brezhnev. Each time, détente was gravely undermined, intentionally and unintentionally, and abandoned as Washington policy, though not by its determined American proponents. (Having been among them in the 1970s and ’80s, I can testify on their behalf.)
	35	+Then, in 1985, the seemingly most Cold War president ever, Ronald Reagan, began with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev a renewed détente so far-reaching that both men, as well as Reagan’s successor, President George H.W. Bush, believed they had ended the Cold War. How did détente, despite three decades of repeated defeats and political defamation, remain a vital and ultimately triumphant (as it seemed at the time to most observers) American policy?
	36	+Above all, because Washington gradually acknowledged that Soviet Russia was a co-equal great power with comparable legitimate national interests in world affairs. This recognition was given a conceptual basis and a name: “parity.”
	37	+It is true that “parity” began as a grudging recognition of the US-Soviet nuclear capacity for “mutually assured destruction” and that, due to their different systems (and “isms”) at home, the parity principle (as I termed it in 1981 in a New York Times op-ed) did not mean moral equivalence. It is also true that powerful American political forces never accepted the principle and relentlessly assailed it. Even so, the principle existed—like sex in Victorian England, acknowledged only obliquely in public but amply practiced—as reflected in the commonplace expression “the two superpowers,” without the modifier “nuclear.”
	38	+Most important, every US president returned to it, from Eisenhower to Reagan. Thus, Jack Matlock Jr., a leading diplomatic participant in and historian of the Reagan-Gorbachev-Bush détente, tells us that for Reagan, “détente was based on several logical principles,” the first being “the countries would deal with each other as equals.”
	39	+Three elements of US-Soviet parity were especially important. First, both sides had recognized spheres of influence, “red lines” that should not be directly challenged. This understanding was occasionally tested, even violated, as in Cuba in 1962, but it prevailed. Second, neither side should interfere excessively, apart from the mutual propaganda war, in the other’s internal politics. This too was tested—particularly in regard to Soviet Jewish emigration and political dissidents—but generally negotiated and observed. And third, Washington and Moscow had a shared responsibility for peace and mutual security in Europe, even while competing economically and militarily in what was called the Third World. This assumption was also tested by serious crises, but they did not negate the underlying parity principle.
	40	+Those tenets of parity prevented a US-Soviet hot war during the long Cold War. They were the basis of détente’s great diplomatic successes, from symbolic bilateral leadership summits, arms control agreements, and the 1975 Helsinki Accords on European security, based on sovereign equality, to many other forms of cooperation now being discarded. And in 1985-89, they made possible what both sides declared to be the end of the Cold War.
	41	+* * *
	42	+We are in a new Cold War with Russia today, and specifically over the Ukrainian confrontation, largely because Washington nullified the parity principle. Indeed, we know when, why, and how this happened.
	43	+The three leaders who negotiated an end to the US-Soviet Cold War said repeatedly at the time, in 1988-90, that they did so “without any losers.” Both sides, they assured each other, were “winners.” But when the Soviet Union itself ended nearly two years later, in December 1991, Washington conflated the two historic events, leading the first President Bush to change his mind and declare, in his 1992 State of the Union address, “By the grace of God, America won the Cold War.” He added that there was now “one sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of America.” This dual rejection of parity and assertion of America’s pre-eminence in international relations became, and remains, a virtually sacred US policymaking axiom, one embodied in the formulation by President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, that “America is the world’s indispensable nation,” which was echoed in President Obama’s 2014 address to West Point cadets, in which he said, “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.”
	44	+This official American triumphalist narrative is what we have told ourselves and taught our children for nearly twenty-five years. Rarely is it challenged by leading American politicians or commentators. It is a bipartisan orthodoxy that has led to many US foreign policy disasters, not least in regard to Russia.
	45	+For more than two decades, Washington has perceived post-Soviet Russia as a defeated and thus lesser nation, presumably analogous to Germany and Japan after World War II, and therefore as a state without legitimate rights and interests comparable to America’s, either abroad or at home, even in its own region. Anti-parity thinking has shaped every major Washington policy toward Moscow, from the disastrous crusade to remake Russia in America’s image in the 1990s, ongoing expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders, non-reciprocal negotiations known as “selective cooperation,” double-standard conduct abroad, and broken promises to persistent “democracy-promotion” intrusions into Russia’s domestic politics.
	46	+Two exceedingly dangerous examples are directly related to the Ukrainian crisis. For years, US leaders have repeatedly asserted that Russia is not entitled to any “sphere of influence,” even on its own borders, while at the same time enlarging the US sphere of influence, spearheaded by NATO, to those borders—by an estimated 400,000 square miles, probably the largest such “sphere” inflation ever in peacetime. Along the way, the US political-media establishment has vilified Putin personally in ways it never demonized Soviet Communist leaders, at least after Stalin, creating the impression of another policy orientation antithetical to parity—the delegitimization and overthrow of Russia’s government.
	47	+Moscow has repeatedly protested this US sphere creep, loudly after it resulted in a previous proxy war in another former Soviet republic, Georgia, in 2008, but to deaf or defiant ears in Washington. Inexorably, it seems, Washington’s anti-parity principle led to today’s Ukrainian crisis, and Moscow reacted as it would have under any established national leader, and as any well-informed observer knew it would.
	48	+* * *
	49	+Unless the idea of détente is fully rehabilitated, and with it the essential parity principle, the new Cold War will include a growing risk of actual war with nuclear Russia. We must therefore strive for a new détente. Time may not be on our side, but reason is.
	50	+To those who say this is “appeasement” or “Putin apologetics,” we reply, no, it is American patriotism, not only because of the risk of a larger war but because real US national security on many vital issues and in many critical regions—from nuclear proliferation and international terrorism to the Middle East and Afghanistan—requires a partner in the Kremlin.
	51	+Ukraine’s the tinder – spark sets off nuclear war and mass famine
	52	+Helfand and Pastore 14 (Ira and John, Ira is M.D., co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, John is M.D., cardiologist in Boston, past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, “Dr. Ira Helfand and Dr. John O. Pastore: Nuclear doom lurks in U.S. faceoff with Russia over Ukraine,” Daily Hampshire Gazette, August 6, 2014, http://www.gazettenet.com/home/13038993-95/dr-ira-helfand-dr-john-o-pastore-nuclear-doom-lurks-in-us-faceoff)
	53	+NORTHAMPTON — As we mark the anniversary of the use of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events in Europe, both current and historical, underline how great a danger nuclear weapons still pose to our national security.
	54	+One hundred years ago this month, Europe stumbled into World War I, a conflict that no one wanted but which no one was able to stop. Before it was over 16 million were dead, the world had learned the horrors of chemical warfare and the old order in Europe had been destroyed. The events of August 1914 serve as frightening cautionary tale of how conflict can spin out of control.
	55	+Today we are witness to another unexpected war in Europe. We all hope that the fighting in Ukraine will not lead to a broader war, but the conflict there between the U.S.-backed government in Kiev and separatists backed by Russia is fraught with danger. For 25 years we have been assured that we no longer had to worry about war between the nuclear super powers. The current crisis puts the lie to these assurances: War between the U.S. and Russia remains a real possibility, and as long as both sides possess large nuclear arsenals — nearly 15,000 nuclear warheads between them — the use of nuclear weapons remains a real possibility as well.
	56	+A large-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia would be a disaster beyond imagining. A 2002 study by Physicians for Social Responsibility showed that if only 300 Russian warheads got through to targets in U.S. cities, 75 to 100 million people would die in the first half hour. In addition, the entire economic infrastructure of the country would be destroyed, and it is likely that the vast majority of the U.S. population would die in the months following the attack from starvation, epidemic disease, exposure and radiation sickness. The U.S. counterattack would cause similar destruction in Russia.
	57	+But these local effects are only part of the story. The firestorms generated by these nuclear explosions would loft enormous amounts of soot into the upper atmosphere causing catastrophic global climate disruption. If all of the 3,100 weapons allowed to the U.S. and Russia when the New START treaty is fully implemented in 2017 were used, temperatures around the world would drop an average of 8 degrees Celsius to levels not seen since the last ice age; food production would plummet and the vast majority of the human race would starve. Recent studies have shown that even a very limited nuclear war, one involving just 100 small, Hiroshima-sized bombs, less than 0.03 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenals, would cause enough climate disruption to trigger a worldwide famine that would put more than 2 billion people at risk.
	58	+The use of a small portion of our nuclear arsenal against targets far away from the U.S. would trigger this global catastrophe even if our adversaries failed to drop a single warhead on us.

EntryDate

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	1	+2016-10-22 22:40:02.820

Judge

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	1	+Other

Opponent

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	1	+Other

ParentRound

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	1	+8

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	1	+8

Team

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	1	+Lexington Balachundhar Neg

Title

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	1	+SEPOCT- DA- Egypt Russia Exports

Tournament

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	1	+Bronx