AT AFF

Resolved: The United States should substantially reduce its military support of
Taiwan.

OUR SIDE: The United States should NOT reduce its military support of Taiwan

AT AFF_____________________________________________________________________ 1
AT: Reduced Conflict Risk__________________________________________________ 2
AT: Domestic Priorities_____________________________________________________2
AT: US-China Relations____________________________________________________ 4
AT: Over Reliance on the US________________________________________________ 6
AT: Arms Race____________________________________________________________6
AT: US v.s. China Outweighs Taiwan v.s. China_________________________________8
AT: Strategic Partnership___________________________________________________ 8
AT: Nuclear Proliferation___________________________________________________ 8
AT: China Nuclear War_____________________________________________________ 9
AT: Support Unsustainable________________________________________________ 10
AT: Geopolitical Risks____________________________________________________ 10
AT: Damage Diplomatic Opportunities_______________________________________ 10
AT: No Public Support____________________________________________________ 10
AT: Non-Taiwan Produced Semiconductors___________________________________13
AT: No China Attack______________________________________________________ 13
AT: Miscalculation________________________________________________________15
AT: Escalation___________________________________________________________ 16
AT: Military Spending_____________________________________________________ 17
AT: Climate Cooperation__________________________________________________ 19
AT: US Hegemony________________________________________________________ 24
AT: Ukraine_____________________________________________________________ 26
AT: Trade_______________________________________________________________ 28
AT: China Relations______________________________________________________ 28
AT: US - China Relations__________________________________________________ 31
AT: Deterrence Fails______________________________________________________ 31
AT: North Korea-South Korea Conflict_______________________________________ 32
AT: South Korea Proliferation______________________________________________ 32
AT: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems___________________________________ 34
AT: Cyber Attacks________________________________________________________ 34
 AT: Tech Race___________________________________________________________ 38
FRONTLINES_______________________________________________________________38
AT: Opportunity Cost_____________________________________________________ 38
AT: Block Template_______________________________________________________ 38

Abbreviations:
IS= Increase support
DS: Decrease support

AT: Reduced Conflict Risk

Argument: Decreasing military support could lower tensions with China and reduce the risk of a
potentially catastrophic war

Questions:

Turn: decreasing military support would INCREASE the risk of an invasion of Taiwan. It decreases
deterrence which increases the risk of a catastrophic war.

De link:

AT: Domestic Priorities

Argument: Reducing military support would allow the U.S. to redirect resources towards pressing
domestic issues such as infrastructure, healthcare, and education.

Questions:
Non-unique: the budget for the US military isn’t even the same as
the budget for infrastructure, healthcare, and education, so these
areas won't be invested in more JUST BECAUSE we decreased
military support.

TURN: decreased military support would weaken relations with

Taiwan, jeopardizing economic ties that strengthen the US
economy

Turn: Judge, we turn their argument– increased military spending would actually have a positive
impact on these domestic issues
Lin et al. ’15 [Eric S Lin, Hamid E Ali, Yu-Lung Lu; Professor at the Department of Economics, National Tsing Hua University, Ph.D.
in Economics from University of Texas at Austin; Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Public Policy and
Administration at the American University in Cairo; 2015; “Does Military Spending Crowd Out Social Welfare Expenditures?
Evidence from a Panel of OECD Countries”; ; Defence and Peace Economics, Vol. 26, Issue 1; accessed 10/27/20; TV]
Tables IV and V report the estimation results of the health and education Equations in (1) and (2), respectively. The POLS estimators indicate that military spending is nothing to do with both health and education expenditures. FE and RE specifications lead to a no ‘trade-off’ result, where
we control the country-specific heterogeneity to mitigate the omitted variable bias problem. On one hand, it is observed that the coefficient estimates using POLS, FE, and RE methods generally give rise to the same signs as those in terms of various panel GMM estimations. On the other
hand, the POLS, FE, and RE may obtain many insignificant parameter estimates (e.g. see Table V). Because POLS, FE, and RE do not treat the right-hand-side variables as endogenous, the estimation results are hence not reliable. In the following discussion, we will concentrate on the results
of the consistent parameter estimation using panel GMM method.As pointed out in Cameron and Trivedi (2005), the panel GMM method can be conducted by choosing different lagged variables as instruments. We first consider to include lag one-period (e.g. in Equations (1) and (2)) and
two-period (e.g. in equations (1) and (2)) variables as the IV (see GMM1 model in Tables IV and V).10 The lagged variables up to the three periods are also performed in our analysis, indexed by models GMM2–GMM6 in both tables. Overall, instruments based on lagged variables up to two

(model GMM1) and three (model GMM2) periods lead to very similar results. When inspecting Table IV, it is clear to see that military spending has a positive impact on health the

expenditure (see the results of models GMM1 and GMM2). The positive crowding-out effect implies that an increase in military spending promotes health spending
also the as % of GDP, suggesting a

complementary relationship between the two types of government spending. As for the education equation in Table V, we find that military spending has a significantly positive impact
also

on education found in previous studies

expenditures – once again confirming a positive crowding-out effect of milex vs. welfare spending relationship. This phenomena has been such as Verner (1983), Harris and

Pranowo (1988), Frederiksen and Looney (1994), and Kollias and Paleologou (2011). According to Frederiksen and Looney (1994), government is willing to cut from infrastructure the programs instead

of curtailing the social welfare expenditures in response to an increase of military spending. In addition, the defense spending can be beneficial to human capital formation since defense
personnel and soldiers are appropriately taken care (in terms of health spending) and well trained physically, and receive good skills (in terms of education spending). This is particularly the case since we focus on the well-developed OECD countries. Moreover, even though the
military expenditures are mainly paid for new weapons rather than military personnel, the education training programs must be offered for army personnel. Our empirical results are robust across different model specifications in terms of GMM3–GMM6 in Tables IV and V It is worth
noting that our finding that military spending and two social welfare expenditures (i.e. health and education) are complementary is slightly different from those of Yildirim and Sezgin (2002) and Ali (2011) using the data in Turkey and Egypt, respectively. Their finding that the
trade-off is positive between education and defense spending is consistent with our result, while the negative crowding-out effect between health and military expenditures is opposite to our crowding-in effect. The relationship between health and education expenditures in both
health and education equations is distinct. In Table IV, education spending has a positive impact on health spending even though this relationship is not always significant (e.g. models GMM1 and GMM4). However, health expenditures tend to shrink the size of education
expenditures as indicated in Table V. Once again, it is not significant in each model specification (e.g. models GMM5 and GMM6). The asymmetric finding between the two social spendings may be due to that the health spending seems to constantly account for a higher rate as % of
GDP than education (see Figure 2 and Table II). However, it needs more work to figure out the detailed link between the two variables in the future research. In regard to other control variables, the effect of population on education and health expenditure is significantly positive in
both equations. The evidence may imply that the social welfare expenditures depend on the number of welfare recipients. The positive impact of the tax revenue on education expenditure suggests that the increasing tax revenues can be utilized to finance more social welfare
expenditures. The effect of household consumption and government consumption is positive and significant in both equations. However, GDP has a negative effect on the social welfare expenditures, which might indicate that other components (e.g. gross investment and net export)
in GDP increase with a faster rate than government spending. To test whether our model specification is right, the Hansen’s over-identifying restriction tests are performed across GMM1–GMM6 in both Tables IV and V. It shows that the p-values are all large enough to support the
over-identifying restriction. The weak instrument problem is an issue in an over-identified model. To address this problem, we apply the F-statistic criterion by Staiger and Stock (1997) from the first-stage regression. Tables IV and V show that the panel robust F-statistics (treating
military spending as endogenous) are sufficiently large enough to avoid the weak instrument problem in all cases. In this article, we aim to empirically evaluate the guns-and-butter argument using a panel data of OECD countries from 1988 to 2005, which provides much more
complete and accurate data sources. Earlier empirical studies on the relationship between defense and social welfare expenditures tend to use single-equation models or cross-section data analysis, ignoring the potential endogeneity problem. This study adopts the panel GMM

. Our empirical finding suggests that there is a positive crowding-out

method to control for unknown country-specific heterogeneity, to overcome the simultaneity problem, and thus to reach a more reliable empirical result

effect between defense spending and the two types of social welfare expenditures, namely, health and education expenditures, in terms of the panel GMM
estimator. This result is along the line of several previous studies (e.g. Benoit, 1973, 1978; Lindgren, 1984; Harris and Pranowo, 1988; Ram, 1995; Kollias and
Paleologou, 2011), even though we employ a different data-set and different empirical method. The positive effect (or complementary effect) in our study may
be due to the fact that the developed OECD countries are more supportive of the social welfare programs. Government is willing to cut from the infrastructure
programs rather than sacrificing the social welfare expenditures in response to an increase of military spending. Additionally, the defense spending can be
beneficial to human capital formation because defense personnel and soldiers are appropriately taken care and well trained physically, and receive good skills.
Therefore, if
the government increases military spending, the health and education spending may be
raised as well.
DE LINK: Taiwan spends billions of dollars purchasing American
military, offsetting the cost of military support

Patricia Zengerle 22, Writer for Reuters; Michael Martina is a writer for Reuters, 9/2/2022, “U.S angers
China with potential $1.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan,” , Wpeng
WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department has
approved a potential $1.1 billion sale of military equipment to
Taiwan, including 60 anti-ship missiles and 100 air-to-air missiles, with China threatening to take counter measures. The Pentagon
announced the package on Friday in the wake of China's aggressive military drills around Taiwan following a visit to the island last month by U.S. House of
Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to Taipei in years. The sale
includes Sidewinder missiles, which can be
used for air-to-air and surface-attack missions, at a cost of some $85.6 million, Harpoon anti-ship missiles at an estimated $355 million cost

and support for Taiwan's surveillance radar program for an estimated $665.4 million, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA)
said. Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in a statement the possible arms sale "severely jeopardizes China-U.S. relations and
peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait." "China will resolutely take legitimate and necessary counter-measures in light of the development of the situation," he
said. President Joe Biden's administration said the package has been under consideration for some time and was developed in consultation with Taiwan and U.S.
lawmakers. "As the PRC continues to increase pressure on Taiwan – including through heightened military air and maritime presence around Taiwan – and engages in
attempts to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, we’re providing Taiwan with what it needs to maintain its self-defense
capabilities," Laura Rosenberger, White House senior director for China and Taiwan, said in a statement. Reuters reported last month that the Biden
administration was planning new equipment for Taiwan but that the equipment would sustain Taiwan's current military systems and fulfill existing orders, not offer
new capabilities, despite the heightened tensions that followed Pelosi's visit. The Pentagon said the equipment and support announced on Friday would not alter the
basic military balance in the region. U.S. officials said they did not reflect any change in policy toward Taiwan. "These proposed sales are routine cases to
support Taiwan’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability," a U.S. Department
of State spokesperson said, requesting anonymity. Taiwan's defense ministry expressed its thanks, adding that China's recent "provocative" activities represented a
serious threat and the arms sale would help it face China's military pressure. "At the same time, it also demonstrates that it will help our country strengthen its
overall defense capabilities and jointly maintain the security and peace of the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region," the ministry said in a statement. Rupert
Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, said his organization opposed what he termed a "limited approach" to arms sales to Taiwan. "As
the (China's) People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently demonstrated in its mock blockade, the island faces a range of threats that require a range of capabilities. To
deny the island the ability to mount a full defense will, over time, create new gaps in Taiwan’s defenses that the PLA can exploit," Hammond-Chambers said in a
statement. The order reflects continued U.S. support for Taiwan as Taipei faces pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own
territory and has never ruled out using force to bring the democratically ruled island under its control. The sales must be reviewed by Congress, but both Democratic
and Republican congressional aides said they do not expect opposition. There have been at least two other visits to Taiwan by members of
Congress from both parties since Pelosi's visit, as well as by governors of U.S. states, all condemned by Beijing.

AT: US-China Relations

Argument: A reduction in military support could lead to better diplomatic and economic relations with
China

Questions:
-
Nonunique: either way, the current state of diplomatic affairs
between the US and China is already inferior; reducing support
does NOT address broader issues

Turn: it would weaken diplomatic and economic relations with

Taiwan

Non-unique: reducing military support wouldn’t change the

status quo of us-china relations

Mastro 19 - Assistant Professor of Security Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at
Georgetown University (Oriana, “The Future of China-U.S. Military Relations,” China File,
http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/future-of-china-us-military-relations)
What should the agenda be for U.S.-China military relations, and what obstacles need to be overcome?

While the U.S. national security strategy has asserted for the first time that we are in a great power
competition with China, our approach to military-to-military relations has seemingly not changed. On
January 28, Admiral John M. Richardson commented positively about his recent visit to China, stating that he has “a good
working relationship with [his] counterpart” and that he “had a very rich visit.” Our talking points remain the same: encouraging
China to embrace professionalism in its military activities and to abide by international law. More specifically, the U.S. goal is to
establish personal relationships to facilitate risk reduction. But China has become more aggressive under Xi Jinping
and is relying more and more on military tools to, for example, push its agenda in the South China Sea. The Chinese military’s
number one objective is to “prepare for military struggle,” with its mostly likely opponent being the United States. This means
we have to shift the focus of the military relationship accordingly. Specifically, the goal of these exchanges should
be to learn more about the operational capabilities and procedures of the People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A.). Even with all of the
Pentagon’s resources, there are still things the U.S. does not know or understand about China’s military. This should be the focus
of our military-to-military relationship. Not on establishing personal ties, which are short-lived and probably not as
strong as we think they are, nor Sabout risk management—China engages in risky behavior intentionally to signal its
resolve on maritime disputes. Instead, we should be asking to see how their personnel is trained, how their command and
control system functions in crises and wartime, and what impact the anti-corruption campaign has had on the P.L.A., by meeting
with people from China’s Inspection and Discipline Committees. The bottom line is: both the U.S. and Chinese militaries
are tools of power that their national leaderships will wield as they see fit. Our exchanges are unlikely
to impact broader U.S.-China relations. Thus, we need to move away from the symbolic and towards devising agendas
that help the U.S. better prepare for contingencies in East Asia.

AT: Over Reliance on the US

RT: Taiwan’s defense is over-reliant on support from the United
States military

Questions:

AT: Arms Race

Argument: Reducing military support would discourage an arms
race between the U.S. and China, saving billions of dollars in
defense spending.

Questions:

Non-unique: Reducing military support wouldn’t discourage an

arms race since the US is already in one. China is ahead, so the
US would have to spend billions anyway
Warrant: The US is already in an arms race with China, China is
ahead

Lüdtke, Lisa. “The Chinese-United States Nuclear Arms Race Takes Off.” GIS Reports, 21 Mar. 2023,
www.gisreportsonline.com/r/china-united-states-nuclear.

There is already a[n] nuclear arms race between the United States and China. It is fueled by China’s determination to reach
true great power status, with strategic influence on par with what was achieved by the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, when both
superpowers gained the capacity for mutual assured destruction. China’s quest for nuclear dominance complements other initiatives intended to give Beijing
decisive advantages against the U.S., and to hedge against the uncertain future of Russia in the wake of its war against Ukraine. This competition will
likely accelerate for a decade or more. The Chinese spy balloon that recently traversed North America – which the U.S. has publicly stated was a
surveillance craft for gathering Signal Intelligence (SIGINT), and likely MASINT or Measurement and Signature Intelligence – was probably seeking to learn about the
U.S. early warning and nuclear capability and command and control. This incident coincided with an admission by U.S. government officials that China
has
likely surpassed the U.S. in the number of nuclear-capable, land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

(ICBM) launchers. These events have renewed attention on the emergence of China as a pivotal nuclear power. By unclassified estimates, China
nuclear-armed strategic missile force will likely in the near-term match or exceed either the U.S. or Russia. China’s missile
force already exceeds the capacity of U.S. missile defenses to intercept incoming ICBMs targeting the U.S. mainland. In addition,
China, according to unclassified estimates, has the capacity to simultaneously engage countervalue (U.S. cities) and counterforce (the U.S. first strike nuclear
capability).

Warrant: The US is already spending billions on defense spending

Peter G. Peterson Foundation. “The United States Spends More on Defense Than the Next 9 Countries.” pgpf.org,
22 Apr. 2024,
www.pgpf.org/blog/2024/04/the-united-states-spends-more-on-defense-than-the-next-9-countries-combined.

Defense spending by the United States accounted for nearly 40 percent of military expenditures by countries around the world in 2023, according to recently
released figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). U.S. defense spending increased by $55 billion from
2022 to 2023, in part due to additional military aid sent to support Ukraine in its ongoing conflict. The United States spends

more on defense than the next nine countries combined. SIPRI’s definition of defense spending is broader than the definitions that
are most frequently used in fiscal policy discussions in the United States, and according to their calculations, the United States spent $916

billion on national defense in 2023. SIPRI includes discretionary and mandatory outlays by the Department of Defense, Department of Energy,
Department of State, and the National Intelligence Program. By contrast, the national defense budget function ($820 billion in

2023) excludes outlays by the Department of State and certain programs of the Department of Energy. Nonetheless, the SIPRI comparison provides useful insights
on the sheer scale of U.S. defense spending relative to other nations.
 AT: US v.s. China Outweighs Taiwan
v.s. China
RT: Mitigating the risk of a US vs. China war is more important
than a Taiwan vs. China war

AT: Strategic Partnership

RT: Reducing military support would discourage an arms race
between the U.S. and China, saving billions of dollars in defense
spending.

AT: Nuclear Proliferation

RT: Reducing tensions with China could help prevent the
proliferation of nuclear weapons, making the world safer
 AT: China Nuclear War
Argument: China will initiate nuclear or make use of nuclear
weaponry

Delink: China won't use nuclear weapons first in a war

David Axe, defense editor at the National Interest, 7/24/19, China: We Won't Use Nuclear Weapons First in a
War, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china-we-wont-use-nuclear-weapons-first-war-69007

China has reaffirmed its policy of never being the first in a conflict to use nuclear weapons. Experts
refer to this policy as “no first use,” or NFU The NFU policy reaffirmation, contained in Beijing’s July
2019 strategic white paper, surprised some observers who expected a more expansive and aggressive
nuclear posture from the rising power. Notably, the United States does not have a no-first-use policy. “Retaining a degree of ambiguity and refraining from a no first use policy creates uncertainty in the mind of potential adversaries and reinforces deterrence of aggression by ensuring adversaries cannot predict what specific actions will lead to a U.S.

nuclear response,” the Pentagon stated. Chinese state media posted the government’s white paper in its entirety. "Nuclear capability is the strategic cornerstone to safeguarding national sovereignty and security," the paper asserts. “This is standard language,” explained David Santoro, a nuclear expert with the nonprofit Pacific Forum. “China's nukes serve to prevent nuclear coercion and deter nuclear attack.” Then the surprise. “China is always committed to a nuclear policy of no first use of nuclear
weapons at any time and under any circumstances, and not using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones unconditionally,” the white paper adds. This NFU clause surprised Gregory Kulacki, a nuclear expert with the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. “Ever since I took this job 17 years ago, U.S. colleagues of all political and intellectual persuasions have been telling me that sooner or later China would alter, adjust, amend or

China is not
qualify the policy that China will never, under any circumstances, use nuclear weapons first,” Kulacki wrote. It would be difficult to compose a more emphatic rejection of claims that China’s no-first-use policy is changing. The statement also indicates it is not Chinese policy to use nuclear weapons first to forestall defeat in a conventional military conflict with the United States. China does not have an “escalate to de-escalate” nuclear strategy.

preparing to fight a nuclear war with the United States. It does not have “battlefield” or “tactical” or “non-strategic” nuclear weapons. Chinese nuclear

strategists don’t think a nuclear war with the United States is likely to happen. And they seem sure it won’t happen as long as the U.S. president

China’s nuclear arsenal remains small and,

believes China can retaliate if the United States strikes first. That’s not a high bar to meet, which is why for the time being, off alert.
China sees its comparatively modest nuclear modernization program as a means to convince U.S. leaders that a few Chinese ICBMs can survive a U.S. first strike and that these survivors can penetrate U.S. missile defenses. Chinese nuclear planners might be willing to slow or scale back their nuclear modernization efforts if the United States were willing to assure China’s leaders it would never use nuclear weapons first in a military conflict with China. Chinese experts and officials have been asking the
United States to offer that assurance for decades. U.S. experts and officials consistently refuse. While China has not adopted a more aggressive nuclear policy, it does continue to upgrade its small nuclear arsenal and its command systems. Kulacki explained that modernization in the context of America’s own refusal to commit to no-first-use. “In the absence of a no-first-use commitment from the United States, Chinese nuclear strategists believe continued improvements to their nuclear arsenal are
needed to assure China’s leaders their U.S. counterparts won’t take the risk of attacking China with nuclear weapons,” Kulacki wrote. Chinese experts know U.S. efforts to develop a working ballistic missile defense system are not going well, but they still feel the need to hedge against continued U.S. investment in the system with incremental improvements in the quality and quantity of China’s small nuclear force. Given the impassioned attack on constructive U.S.-China relations currently sweeping
U.S. elites off their feet, along with the continued proliferation of misinformation about Chinese nuclear capabilities and intentions, many U.S. commentators are likely to brush aside the new white paper’s reiteration of China’s longstanding nuclear no-first-use policy. It doesn’t fit in the emerging U.S. story about a new Cold War. That’s unfortunate, especially as the U.S. Congress threatens to ramp up a new nuclear arms race its supposed adversary has no intention to run.
 AT: Support Unsustainable
AT: Geopolitical Risks
AT: Damage Diplomatic
Opportunities
AT: No Public Support
Rebutting To: “There is no public support for granting military
aid to Taiwan”

Link: If there is no public support, the government can not act as

it MUST represent the interests of its people.

Weighing:

1. Probability: High probability that without military support, an invasion from China is
imminent.
2. Magnitude: The potential developments MIGHT impede the semiconductor industry and
destroy global shipping routes, while wreaking havoc in the region.
3. Scope: Withdrawing will impact every person in the world due to the vitality of the
semiconductor industry.
4. Reversibility: There is no way to go back in time and prevent a POTENTIAL invasion of
Taiwan.

Questions to Ask:

1. Do you still claim that there is no public support given that we have provided a card
directly stating that not only is support strong, but it is also bipartisan?
 2. How can the government consistently be increasing military aid for Taiwan under the
premise that there is no public support?

Answers to Questions:

1. Question: How do you justify continuing military aid of Taiwan if the public does not
support such a course of action?
a. Answer: Firstly, our Bodeed 24 card proves the strength of bipartisan support of
aiding Taiwan, and secondly it is justified by the fact that aid prevents the death
of innocent people.
2. Question:
a. Answer:
3. Question:
a. Answer:

Warrant: Voters of the United States support military aid of

Taiwan

Bodeen 24 (Christopher Bodeen, 9-4-2024, reporter and Beijing correspondent for the associate press "US envoy to Taiwan declares ties 'rock solid' amid military threats from China", AP News, )

The top U.S. envoy to Taiwan on Wednesday said American support for the island is “rock-solid,
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) —

principled, and bipartisan,” and said Washington will continue to follow through on its commitments to ensure the island can
defend itself against threats from China.

Raymond F. Greene’s remarks Wednesday come at a time of uncertainty over toward the island it claims as its own territory — to be taken
by force if necessary — and amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East that threaten to draw the U.S. in further.

Taiwan was a top priority, especially the security of shipping in the crucial Taiwan Strait that
Greene made clear

divides the island and China.

The U.S. will “continue to maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion
against Taiwan,” Greene said, referencing the Taiwan Relations Act that ensured such backing following the breaking of formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, when Washington normalized relations with the Communist government in Beijing.

Greene said the Executive Branch has notified Congress of approximately $38.4 billion in Foreign Military Sales to Taiwan since 2010, including over $6.4 billion under the Biden administration, along with the equivalent of $345 million in transfers of arms from existing U.S. stocks.

Warrant: Military support of Taiwan is only increasing,

demonstrating public support, as the government represents its
people.

MercoPress 22 9-3 (9-3-2022 "US to increase military aid to Taiwan," MercoPress, https://en.mercopress.com/2022/09/03/us-to-increase-military-aid-to-taiwan)HS
Funding worth more than US$ 1.1 billion has been pledged from the United States to Taiwan,
according to Pentagon sources quoted Friday by the press. The measure will help the island strengthen its missile and radar systems, a
State Department spokesman also said. The announcement comes at a time of particular tension over Taiwan with Chinese military maneuvers near the island
and after the controversial visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. The aid package is the largest ever
granted to the country China regards as a rogue province and includes 60 Harpoon-type ship-firing missile systems and 100 AIM-9 Sidewinder short-range missiles, as well as financial support for a radar system. However, the aid has yet to be endorsed by the US Congress, where Taiwan has the support of both

approval seems a formality. The same State Department spokesperson said the military aid was needed for Taiwan to
Democrats and Republicans, due to which mere

since 2010, the US government has notified Congress of the

“maintain its ability to defend itself” and recalled that,

delivery of more than US$ 35 billion in military aid to Taiwan. The same source also argued that the aid complied with the “one China” principle whereby the only Chinese government to be recognized by the US is the one based in Beijing. The United States

adopted the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, in which it pledged to aid the island, although it remains unclear whether it would intervene in the event of a Chinese attack. US President Joseph Biden's administration has never ruled out using force. China considers Taiwan a rebel province since the Kuomintang nationalists retreated there in 1949 after losing the civil war against the communists on the mainland. Taipei also maintains that the People's Republic of China has never ruled the island and has
no right to claim it. The new package was announced in the wake of China's aggressive military drills around Taiwan following a visit to the island last month by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking US official to travel to Taipei in years. Meanwhile, Taiwanese tycoon Robert Tsao, a microchip entrepreneur, announced he would disburse US$ 32 million to train and equip a 3.3 million-strong army of ‘civilian warriors’ to be ready in case of a Chinese attack. The United
Microelectronics Corp founder made this announcement after Taiwan’s defense ministry announced it had shot down a Chinese drone over Taiwan’s Kinmen islands. Tsao, 75, said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) threat to Taiwan was growing. “If we can successfully resist China’s ambitions, we not only will be able to safeguard our homeland but make a big contribution to the world situation and the development of civilization,” Tsao said. Formerly an active supporter of unifying Taiwan with
China after the Taiwanese government ordered an investigation of his company, Tsao told Radio Free Asia that he had a change of heart after witnessing the crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, particularly the Yuen Long MTR attack. “Given the Chinese Communist party’s record of atrocities against its own people and its brutal domination of those like the Uyghurs who are not even Chinese, the CCP’s threats have only ignited among the Taiwanese people a bitter hatred against
this threatening enemy and a shared determination to resist,” he stressed.

Warrant: US is increasing aid to Taiwan now

Harris 22 [Bryant Harris, 10-17-2022, "Senate to add $10 billion in Taiwan aid, scale back arms sale reform," Defense News,
WASHINGTON — The Senate’s annual defense authorization bill will now include $10 billion in military
aid for Taiwan — more than double the initial amount proposed — even as it scales back language
intended to help address the $14 billion backlog of arms sales the Asian nation already made from the
U.S.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., included

a modified Taiwan defense package as part of a massive
bipartisan amendment he filed last week to the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. The full Senate is expected to vote on the NDAA,
including the Taiwan defense provisions, when lawmakers return to Washington after the November midterm elections.

Reed told reporters last week that the NDAA’s defense package for Taipei remains “consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act.” The bill’s defense provisions for
Taipei come from the sprawling Taiwan Policy Act, which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced 17 [to] - 5 [votes] last
month.
The White House had expressed concerns regarding the initial version of the Taiwan Policy Act, introduced by Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J. He worked with the White House to address many of those concerns, but the NDAA only contains the defense components of Menendez’s bill while removing provisions that would upgrade diplomatic ties with Taipei, give Taiwan the same treatment as major non-NATO allies and sanction China. China considers Taiwan a rogue
province and has threatened to return it under the mainland’s control, by force if necessary.

Still, the $10 billion in Foreign Military Financing — a program that allows other countries to purchase U.S. military
equipment with grants and loans — marks another significant increase from the $4.5 billion proposed in Menendez’s initial
version of the bill.
The Foreign Relations Committee boosted the FMF amount to $6.5 billion when it advanced the bill, and the proposed NDAA plusses that up again to $10 billion — allocating $2 billion per year through the FMF program for Taiwan through fiscal 2027.

Taiwan would be able to use $300 million of that aid per year for onshore procurement, which allows a customer to purchase weapons systems and components from its own defense-industrial base instead of the United States. Israel is the only other country that has standing permission from Congress for onshore procurement; all other recipients require a State Department waiver for that authority.

It’s unclear how quickly Taiwan can procure the U.S. weapons it purchases with that money because of the unwieldy Foreign Military Sales process, which has resulted in the $14 billion backlog dating back to 2019.

The NDAA retains some measures intended to ameliorate the backlog to Taiwan, but drops a key requirement that would have required U.S. defense manufacturers to “expedite and prioritize” the production of weapons that Taiwan purchased ahead of other countries in the queue.

A Senate aide told Defense News that the provision was dropped in the NDAA because, under contract law, there’s no legal way to force U.S. defense manufacturers to bump up certain customers ahead of other countries in the queue. Saudi Arabia, for instance, remains ahead of Taiwan in the queue for certain backlogged items. But Riyadh would have to consent to letting Taipei’s weapons orders jump ahead of its own — an unlikely proposition given tension between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. over
the OPEC+ oil production cuts and the former’s human rights record.

Still, the proposed NDAA text retains Taiwan Policy Act provisions intended to speed up the contracting process for arms sales to the island nation. It directs the Defense and State departments to “prioritize and expedite” foreign military sales for Taipei and prohibits both departments from delaying the sales through a bundling route, whereby a defense manufacturer would simultaneously produce weapons systems from multiple contracts.

Another provision would require both departments to develop a list of weapons systems that are “pre-cleared and prioritized for sale and release to Taiwan through the Foreign Military Sales program.”

It would also require the departments to produce a joint report on foreign military sales worth $25 million or more to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, dating back to 2017. The report must detail the reasons for any delays as well as solutions for interim capabilities to fill the gap caused by any backlog.

The proposed bill also prioritizes the transfer of excess U.S. defense articles to Taiwan. It would also authorize $1 billion a year in presidential drawdown authority from existing U.S. stockpiles to transfer defense articles to Taiwan in the event of an emergency — the same authorization President Joe Biden

used to send billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s invasion.

Additionally, it allows the president to establish an Asia-Pacific “regional contingency stockpile” at an unspecified location, allocating $500 million per year in funding for those stocks through 2025.

While the proposed NDAA text also drops the Taiwan Policy Act provision that would have required the U.S. to establish a comprehensive training program with the Taiwanese military, it does authorize the State Department to conduct International Military Education and Training programs for Taiwan.
 AT: Non-Taiwan Produced
Semiconductors
Find a source that says that over 92 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors are
produced in Taiwan.

AT: No China Attack

W1: China developing EMP weapons – will strike the U.S.

Before Its News 15 (Before Its News, cites Peter Vincent Pry, the Executive Director of the EMP Task
Force on National and Homeland Security who has also served on the Congressional EMP Commission, the House Armed
Services Committee and in the CIA, 9/6/15, “Is China is Planning EMP Attacks Against the United States?,”
http://beforeitsnews.com/china/2015/09/is-china-is-planning-emp-attacks-against-the-united-states-24 51800.html)

As tensions rise between the Obama Administration and China over a host of national security issues, defense analysts warn that China is planning a broad
range of attacks against the United States using electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons. EMP weapons can knock out all electronic systems, including those in computers and automobiles, by creating a burst

of energy similar to the gamma-ray pulse produced by a nuclear blast. The EMP effect was discovered in 1962 after an above-ground nuclear test in the Pacific disabled electronics in Hawaii.

W2: EMP attack leads to extinction – independently leads to

Canadian economic collapse

Carafano 10 – James Jay Carafano, Ph.D, Director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign
Policy Studies, and Richard Weitz, Ph.D, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political–Military
Analysis at the Hudson Institute, 11-17-2010, "EMP Attacks—What the U.S. Must Do Now" The Heritage Foundation,
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/11/EMP-Attacks-What-the-US-Must-Do-Now

An electromagnetic pulse ( EMP) attack represents one of the greatest threats imaginable —to the United States and the world. An EMP occurs when a nuclear device is

detonated high in the atmosphere—a phenomenon of which America’s enemies are well aware. The electromagnetic discharge can permanently disable the
electrical systems that run nearly all civilian and military infrastructures. A massive EMP attack on the United States would produce almost unimaginable

Communications would collapse, transportation would halt, and electrical power would simply be non-existent.
devastation.

Not even a global humanitarian effort would be enough to keep hundreds of millions of

Americans from death by starvation, exposure, or lack of medicine. Nor would the catastrophe stop at U.S. borders. Most of Canada would be devastated, too, as its infrastructure is

integrated with the U.S. power grid. Without the American economic engine, the world economy would quickly collapse. Much of the world’s
intellectual brain power (half of it is in the United States) would be lost as well. Earth would most likely recede into
the “new” Dark Ages.
Causes Quebec to secede – the economy is a rallying point
RT News 12 Quebexit: Canada's separation anxiety Published time: September 04, 2012
http://rt.com/news/quebec-election-separation-canada-309/

Quebec’s separatist party is expecting a comeback amidst student protest and economic uncertainty. As voters head to the polls to choose their government, the French-speaking province looks on course

for another referendum to split from Canada. Tuesday’s provincial election is a three-way fight between the incumbent Liberals, newly-formed coalition Avenir Quebec, and the separatist Party Quebecois (PQ). PQ has been
proving most popular at the polls – marching ahead of the others at around 33 per cent. Liberal premier, Jean Charest, head of Quebec’s government for nearly a decade, called for an early election on August 1 due to looming student protests. However,

throughout the election campaign he has trailed the separatist Party Quebecois leader Pauline Marois in the polls. PQ’s popularity means the issue of Quebec’s separation from Canada has
surfaced again . Quebec has already had two unsuccessful referenda that came close to splitting Quebec from Canada in the past: one in 1980 with 40 per cent support and another in 1995 with almost 50 per cent voting for separation. The
separatists leading in the polls claim their short-term priority would be picking the economy up off its knees, instead of pushing for a separation vote straight away. "It's very important for me to

manage our finances responsibly. That is without doubt why our engagements are the least costly of all parties," Marois told Canadian media, while outlining a program that sets out new spending of $1 billion over five years. At the same time she stated that she would hold an

independence vote "tomorrow morning" if the conditions were right. Further, the party leader clarified a referendum that on Quebec's independence would only be held if there
was complete confidence in a win . For now, opinion polls suggest that only less than 40 per cent of the province's population would support a split. Protests and lack of support for Liberals The new buzz over Quebec comes after months of student and union protests raging this spring and summer

against tuition hikes in the province and the controversial new Bill 78, which restricts mass gatherings in the province. Tens of thousands of students have made their outrage public by demonstrating and clashing with police, making

headlines across the world. Protests began in February, resulting in about 2,500 arrests. Tuesday's vote is seen by many as an echo of this public discontent. Experts believe the more economic that the

uncertainty continues, the louder the calls for Quebec's sovereignty will be After nine years of Liberals .

governing Quebec, people have grown wary and reluctant to re-elect them considering the student unrest that evolved into a larger social protest, says Concordia political science Professor Bruce Hicks.

"Quebecers tend to tire of the government and throw them out," he says. "It's sort of been the tradition in Quebec politics." "It's not going to be a referendum or nothing," said Antonia Maioni, a political scientist at McGill University. "The idea is to have smaller wins and move towards an eventual, perhaps, referendum. At least [Pauline Marois] can then

go back to her party and say I'm moving to a third referendum." Referendum agenda: PQ’s referendum agenda consists of two phases. First, Marois plans to ask Ottawa for
greater control in areas such as foreign policy and economic development. Any kind of refusal from Ottawa would be met with a legislative fight and any of PQ’s losses would

be added to the list of reasons why Quebec should separate . The second phase is setting referendum in motion. PQ has already transferred the responsibility for calling a referendum to the general public.

Currently, as soon as 850,000 people sign a petition – 15 per cent of Quebec’s population – the public could demand a referendum. Moreover, Marois plans to establish a new cabinet

post that would manage such requests, CBC reported. Canadian reporter Michael Forian says Quebec is growing estranged from the rest of Canada , while half of Canadians no longer care whether Quebec chooses to separate

or not.

Multiple scenarios for extinction

Matthews 14 Daniel S. Matthews, Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC). “The Quebec Wars”
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail?id=181216

Thought Canada sparks World War III

of there is one area where a foreign foe could surprise
being the region where the for will be struck may not seem likely, but

the West: Quebec. If Quebec were to secede Canada could go from Canada, two unsettling possibilities could occur. The first is that

to China or Russia could build an alliance with Quebec

war with its wayward province. The second is that some power like . While such possibilities are unlikely, there are means of defense. The

Canadian Civil WarIf Quebec were to secede from Canada, there are several points that could spark a civil war between the two. The

There are economic reasons that could provide the tinder for war
least likely would be national pride. several . Quebec controls the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, and Quebec could use

that control to wage economic war with Western Canada Quebec possesses reserves . In addition, significant of natural

resources that currently contribute to the North American economy on a free basis. An independent Quebec would change that . Finally, Canada proper would become a split

country, with a third of Canadian provinces being geographically separated from the Capital. In light of the fact that no state wants to be divided, and Canada already has several fluttering independence movements, the urge to prevent further dissolution will be strong. While it is true that Canada does not have a large military, and Quebec has none, it is

not impossible for war to break out. The Quebec separatists have used violence before, most notably with the murder of Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte,

and it would be easy for a semi-independent Quebec to buy arms on the international market . If Canada did get involved in civil war with
Quebec , there are several options open to both sides if the war drags on. Canada could invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which could split NATO as France has
traditionally expressed support for Francophone Quebec . It is unlikely Britain would be unconcerned with a core Commonwealth state being embroiled in civil war; especially depending on how the vote for

Scottish independence goes this year. The United States would be committed, as they are deeply intertwined with Canada at
every level . States like Russia, China, or Iran could use the distraction of a civil war in the very center of the Anglosphere to press their boundaries with
the Western Alliance they could start supporting the Quebec rebels . Furthermore, , either directly or through third party means. If the war was presaged by an internationally recognized referendum, then

Russia or China could take the position that they are upholding international norms , and

paint the Western states in a negative light. Attempts at arming the rebels or openly supporting them would directly threaten the fundamental security of the United States ,

asit would provide a foothold on the continent from which hostile states could threaten the United
States .
 AT: Miscalculation
W1: Taiwanese people aren’t concerned about drills
AFP, 24 "China vows never to renounce 'use of force'
10-14-20 ,

to retake Taiwan as drills end," France

24, https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20241014-china-taiwan // MH

China ended a day of military drills around Taiwan on Monday in which it deployed fighter jets and warships in what Beijing said was a "stern warning" to "separatist" forces on the self-ruled island . Beijing has not ruled out using force to bring
Taiwan under its control and Monday's drills represented its fourth round of large-scale war games in just over two
years. "We sincerely strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification, but we will never promise to renounce the
use of force and will not leave any space for 'Taiwan
independence'," Ministry of National Defence spokesperson Wu Qian said in a statement. The United States said China's actions were "unwarranted" and risk "escalation" as it called on Beijing to act with restraint. Beijing announced at around 6pm (1000 GMT), 13 hours after the drills started, that they had been "successfully completed". The drills, dubbed Joint Sword-2024B, had "fully tested the integrated joint

operation capabilities of its troops", military spokesperson Captain Li Xi said in a statement. "Always on high alert, troops of the theater command keep strengthening combat readiness with arduous training, and will foil the 'Taiwan Independence separatist attempts'," Li said. President Lai Ching-te, who took office in May, has been more outspoken than his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen in defending Taiwan's sovereignty, angering Beijing, which calls him a "separatist". Lai
vowed on Monday to "protect dmocratic Taiwan and safeguard national security", while the defence ministry said it had dispatched

"appropriate forces" in response to the drills. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said "Taiwan

independence and peace in the Taiwan Strait are irreconcilable". Taiwan detected 125 Chinese
aircraft, including fighter jets and drones, around the island between 5:02am (2102 GMT) and 4:30pm, a defence ministry official said, describing it as a record for a single day.
Seventeen warships were also spotted. Outlying islands administered by Taipei had been put on "heightened alert", Taiwan's defence ministry said. Beijing said its exercises
served as a "stern warning to the separatist acts of 'Taiwan Independence' forces". The drills took place in "areas to the north, south and east of Taiwan Island", Li said earlier.
Their aim was to focus "on subjects of sea-air combat-readiness patrol, blockade on key ports and areas", Li said. They also practised an "assault on maritime and ground
targets". The previous large-scale drills held in May, three days after Lai's inauguration, were called "Joint Sword-2024A" and lasted two days. China coast guard 'inspections'
China's coast guard was also sent to conduct "inspections", with a diagram released by the coast guard showing four fleets encircling Taiwan and moving in an anti-clockwise
direction around the island. The
coast guard of the eastern province of Fujian – the closest
area on the mainland to Taiwan – also said it conducted "comprehensive law enforcement patrols" in
waters nearthe Taipei-controlled Matsu islands. Taiwan said four "formations" of China coast guard ships had patrolled the island and briefly entered its restricted
waters, but not its prohibited waters. China has ramped up military activity around Taiwan in recent years, sending warplanes and other military aircraft while its ships maintain a
near-constant presence around the island's waters. "In the face of enemy threats, all officers and soldiers of the country are in full readiness," Taiwan's defence ministry said on
Monday. Lai
convened a high-level security meeting over the drills, said Joseph Wu, secretary-general of the National Security Council, who
described the exercises as "inconsistent with international law".He
vowed in his
National Day speech on Thursday to "resist annexation" and insisted that Beijing and
Taipei were "not subordinate to each other". Lai's Democratic Progressive Party has long defended the
sovereignty and democracy of Taiwan, which has its own government, military and currency. Beijing said on Monday the drills were "a legitimate and necessary operation for
safeguarding state sovereignty and national unity". 'Feel a bit numb' Lieutenant Colonel
Fu Zhengnan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, said in a video shared by state media that the drills could "switch from training to combat at any time".
"If Taiwan separatists provoke once, the PLA's operation around the island will make their first move," Fu said, referring to China's People's Liberation Army. Taiwan's
coast guard said on Monday it had detained a Chinese man on one of its outlying islands after a possible
"grey zone
intrusion", referring to tactics that fall short of a direct act of war. In Taipei, people appeared to be largely unperturbed. "I won't
panic too much because they quite often have drills," 34-year-old
engineer Benjamin Hsiao told AFP. "It's not the first time in
recent years anyway, so I feel a bit numb." AFP journalists saw about five military jeeps mounted with machine guns on Monday
afternoon patrolling around Taipei Songshan Airport, which is also a military air base. The dispute between China and Taiwan dates back to a civil war in which the nationalist
forces of Chiang Kai-shek were defeated by Mao Zedong's communist fighters and fled to the island in 1949. China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since then. 2.
 AT: Escalation
Turn—it is more dangerous to appease a potential revisionist
than to deter a defensive one. Wang 18,
PhD, professor of political science at Western Michigan University. (Yuan-kang,
“Rethinking US Security Commitment to Taiwan,” in Taiwan’s Political Re-Alignment and Diplomatic
Challenges, pg. 253-254, Palgrave Macmillan)
Does China Have Limited Aims? The claim of a limited-aims China is not backed up by logic and evidence. To begin with,
whether a state has limited aims is private information that outsiders cannot discern with confidence. States also have
incentives to conceal or misrepresent their true aims to mislead others and to gain advantages. More importantly,
present aims can change in the future as a state’s power increases. A state that professes status quo aims today may
shift to an expansionist stance in the future when it has developed the capabilities to alter the status quo, such as
existing territorial arrangements and alignment patterns among states. Thus, claiming that China is motivated by limited aims is
logically unpersuasive and empirically unknowable. In addition,there is no conclusive evidence to support a limited-aims China.
There is no agreement, let alone consensus, among analysts when it comes to China’s foreign policy goals. Some view China as a
conservative, defensive power intent on protecting its territory, while others see China as an aggressive, expansionist state seeking to
dominate Asia.33 To complicate matters further, there are no widely accepted guidelines for determining a state’s foreign policy goals. After a
conflict has occurred, scholars often find themselves debating whether the initiator was motivated by security or by greed. For instance, one
hundred years after the outbreak of World War I, there is still no consensus among scholars about whether Germany was driven by the
limited aims of insecurity or by a greedy desire for hegemony. As Sebastian Rosato persuasively argues, “if scholars armed with definitions
and the documentary record cannot agree about what states wanted long after the fact, it is unlikely that great powers can do so in real
time.”34 Since we face uncertainty about China’s foreign policy goals, abandoning Taiwan to China is highly risky and
dangerous. It would not convince Beijing that Washington harbors only benign intentions toward China and seeks cooperative relations.
Instead, Beijing is likely to see such a concession as a sign of growing US weakness and as a vindication of China’s
successful pursuit of power. US concession on Taiwan would also fuel Chinese nationalism.35 It is dangerous to
assume that, once Washington abandons Taiwan, Beijing would restrain its foreign policy ambitions or become a
status quo power. On the contrary, by acquiring a forward base in the First Island Chain, China’s capabilities to project
power would be substantially enhanced should Taiwan fall
into Beijing’s orbit. Rather than limiting its aims, Beijing would likely push for more concessions on other issues. As
John Mearsheimer points out, “appeasement is likely to make a dangerous rival more, not less, dangerous.”36 The
structurally driven imperatives for China to maximize relative power in Asia will not stop at the waters of Taiwan. We have evidence that
accommodation encourages more aggressive behavior by China.In the early years ofthe Obama administration, [when]
the United States attempted to accommodate China by refraining from criticizing China’s human rights records, postponing arms
sales to Taiwan, demonstrating willingness to respect[ing] China’s “core interests,” and delaying meeting with the Dalai
Lama. Instead of moderating its foreign policy aims, China took these unilateral concessions as “signs of American
weakness, and proof that China could get away with more assertiveness.”37

W2: China is revisionist but can’t act aggressively so long as US

deterrence is strong
Brown 15 (James, Assistant Professor in Political Science at Temple University, Japan Campus,
Ukraine and the Russia-China Axis, 4/2, ) recut ZG
While Russia is not a revisionist power, China unquestionably is. This is not a reflection of anything specific to China’s
political system. Rather, it is simply the fact that, as with all rising powers before it, China’s international ambitions are
growing in proportion to its economic and military might. Beijing is therefore seeking to make use of its greater clout to
expand control over surrounding areas and to remake the international order to reflect its interests. This revisionist
agenda is particularly pronounced in East Asia where China judges the status quo to be against it. This is above all
due to the heavy presence of U.S. troops in Japan, South Korea, and Guam, as well as America’s regional naval
dominance. China’s strategic goal is therefore to push the US out beyond the “first island chain” and thereby to
establish its own hegemony within the East and South China Seas. Having achieved this, China will then look to extend
its influence further into the Western Pacific. Undoubtedly at some point in this process Beijing will also seek to
reintegrate Taiwan.

AT: Military Spending

W1: If it's true that the US military brings with it a peaceful
Indo-Pacific, then the costs we incur through spending outweigh
the potential impact of invasion, specifically through trade.

Luetkemeyer 24 [Blaine Luetkemeyer, "Blaine's Bulletin: China's War On Taiwan And Our
Economy", 04/12/2024, U.S. Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer,
https://luetkemeyer.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=401079#:~:text=Bloomberg% 20spec
ulates%20that%20a%20military,35%25%20in%20the%20S%26P%20500.] ZG

An analysis from global financial firm GTS has estimated a short-term stock market plummet of up to 34% after an invasion,
as uncertainty about the U.S. response may lead institutional investors and retail investors to quickly exit their equity
positions while market makers struggle to accurately price stocks in this volatile environment. The long-term effects would
be much greater. Bloomberg speculates that a military engagement over Taiwan would cost roughly $10 trillion and
reduce global GDP by 10%. This drop would be almost twice what was observed in the aftermath of the global
financial crisis and Covid pandemic, events which triggered peak to trough declines of 57% and 35% in the S&P
500.

W2: Military spending good—it spawns innovation and sets the

direction of the economy

Moretti et al. 19 (December 19 2019, Enrico Moretti is a professor of Economics at UC Berkeley,

Claudia Steinwender is a professor of Applied Economics at MIT, John Van Reenen is a professor of Applied Economics at
MIT, “The intellectual spoils of war: How government spending on defence research benefits the private sector”, Vox EU,
https://voxeu.org/article/how-government-spending-defence-research-benefits-private-sector)
Government funding for innovation related to military uses represents a key channel through which governments all
over the world shape innovation. In the US, for example, annual government defence-related research and development
(R&D) expenditures were $78 billion in 2016, accounting for over 57% of all government-funded R&D (Congressional
Research Service 2018). While defence-related [reasearch and development or] R&D is motivated by goals that are not
mainly economic, it is often the most important de facto industrial policy used by central governments to affect the
speed and direction of innovation in the economy. The amount of public money flowing into defence R&D dwarfs the
amount spent on other prominent innovation policy tools in the US. For example, the total budget of the National Science
Foundation or the overall value of the federal R&D tax credit in a typical year are less than one tenth of federal
outlays for defence-related R&D (NSF 2006). Defence R&D is the single most important component of
government-funded R&D in the UK and France as well, and a major component of government-sponsored R&D in many
other developed economies. The effect of defence R&D expenditures on private sector innovation and economic growth
has been a hotly debated topic for many years (see surveys by Mowery 2010 and Lichtenberg 1995, for example).
Proponents of the benefits of defence R&D point to the commercial success of major innovations such as jet engines,
computers, radar, nuclear power, semiconductors, GPS, and the internet as evidence that military R&D has been a
crucial source of technological development with civilian applications (Lichtenberg 1984, 1988, Ruttan 2006, Mazzucato
2013). Some even argue that the Pentagon’s role as the world’s most generous investor in technological innovation during
the Cold War – ultimately resulting in superior technologies for US companies and enduring gains in their competitiveness
(Braddon, 1999) – was an important reason that US manufacturing became so dominant after WWII. More recently,
defence R&D has been viewed as an important contributor to national economic growth through private sector
spinoffs and agglomeration economies. Proponents of this view often point to Israel as an example of how defence
spending has spawned a multitude of commercially successful high-tech startups (e.g. Senor and Singer 2009). On the
other hand, critics argue that there are the benefits of defence R&D are meagre, primarily because military secrecy inhibits
the scope of spillovers to civilian firms. Even more fundamentally, critics argue that defence-related R&D might displace
private R&D and therefore could even have a negative impact on the total amount of innovation. Overall, there is much
anecdotal evidence of some of the positive and negative effects that defence R&D might have on growth, but little
systematic econometric evidence. In a recent paper (Moretti et al. 2019) we study the effect of government-funded R&D on
private R&D – i.e. R&D conducted and financed by private businesses. We use a unique dataset on government-funded
and private R&D in multiple industries in every OECD country over 23 years. There was a lot of variation over time across
countries (and across industries) in the degree of defence spending over this period (see Figure 1). We complement the
international industry data with a sample of all R&D performing firms in France together with their R&D subsidies – broken
down into defence and other ministries. This longitudinal data allow us to compare the same firm before and after the public
R&D award. The effect of government-funded R&D on privately funded R&D could be positive or negative, depending on
whether there is ‘crowding out’ or ‘crowding in’. Crowding out may occur if the supply of inputs to the R&D process
(specialised engineers, for example) is in short supply within an industry and country (Goolsbee 1998). In this case, the only
effect of an increase in government-funded R&D is to displace private R&D with no net gains for total R&D. On the other
hand, crowding in may occur if (1) R&D activity involves large fixed costs and, by covering some of the fixed costs,
government-funded R&D makes some marginal private sector projects profitable; (2) government-funded R&D in an
industry generates technological spillovers t hat benefit other private firms in the same industry; and/or (3) firms face
credit constraints. Empirically, we find strong evidence of crowding in in both the
OECD and French datasets. Increases in government-funded R&D generated by variation in predicted defence R&D
translate into significant increases in privately funded R&D expenditures. To illustrate this, consider the following case
study. As can be seen in Figure 1, the 9/11 terrorist attacks induced the Bush administration to suddenly increase military
R&D spending in the US. We are interested in what happened to private R&D following 9/11. Figure 2 shows the
differential change in private R&D intensity experienced by two ‘defence-sensitive’ industries – aerospace and ICT –
compared to the change experienced by industries that are less dependent on defence R&D. Before 9/11, there is no
obvious differential trend in private R&D intensity. However, after 9/11, the figure shows a rapid increase in private R&D
intensity in the defence-sensitive sector compared to other sectors. The effect of 9/11 appears both statistically
significant and economically sizable. In our systematic analysis across all OECD countries, our estimates imply that a 10%
increase in defence R&D results in a 4% increase in private R&D. They imply that defence-related R&D is responsible for
an important part of private R&D investment in some industries. For example, in the US ‘aerospace products and parts’
industry, defence-related R&D amounted to $3,026 million in 2002. Our estimates suggest that this public investment
results in $1,632 million of additional private investment in R&D. Our estimates also indicate that cross-country differences
in defence R&D might play an important role in determining
cross-country differences in overall private sector R&D investment. For example, we estimate that if France increased its
defence R&D as a fraction of its GDP to the level of the US (admittedly, a large increase), private R&D in France would
increase by 8.7%. We also find evidence of spillovers between countries. In the OECD data, increases in
government-funded R&D in one country appear to increase private R&D spending in the same industry in other
countries. For example, an increase in government-funded R&D in the US chemical industry induced by an increase in US
defence spending in the chemical industry raises the industry’s private R&D in the US, but it also raises private R&D in the
German chemical industry. This type of cross-border spillover is consistent with the presence of industry-wide technological
or human capital externalities. When we turn to the effect of investment in R&D on productivity, we find a positive effect
on productivity. For example, defence R&D in the US increased by just over half between 2001 and 2004 following the
9/11 attack. We estimate that, holding taxes constant, this translated into a 0.006 percentage point increase of the
annual TFP growth rate in the US in the affected years – about a 1.8% increase. Since, in reality, this defence R&D
spending had to be financed by increased taxes or cuts in other government expenditures, the ultimate impact is almost
certainly smaller.
 1. [DL]- Taiwan spending is discretionary NOT mandatory, they are 2 different
budgets, no possibility of tradeoff ( only use if they run Social Security/ Medicare)
2. [DL]- US doesn’t need to tradeoff with anything, the US can ask for a loan or raise
taxes
3. [DL]- our opponents never provide any empirics of welfare programs in the US
being traded off at the cost of providing military support in Taiwan. Two
implications:
a. Probability: Even history is against them as it never happened in the past
which means our opponents have no real probability of their impacts
happening, probability is one of the most important issues in this debate,
especially because probability dictates if the impact would happen or not in
the first place.
b. they never provide any special warrants on why the SQUO is different from
the past. This means history is likely to repeat
4. [DL]here’s numerous other trillion dollar projects the US has taken on such as
funding Ukraine, being a member of the UNSC, student loans, etc- the list goes on
forever! The implication on this is that
a. the scope of solvency is tiny: just because you affirm doesn’t mean that
you eliminate US spending from all these other projects that have even
more of a risk to trading off with programs which means they only solve for
one pathway when there’s dozens of other pathways
b. [NU] This also means that their impact becomes inevitable or untrue which
is bad in both worlds.

AT: Climate Cooperation

W1: Cooperation is impossible with China: their coal industry
short-circuits any attempts at energy transitions.
Erickson 21 [Andrew S. Erickson, Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College's China
Maritime Studies Institut; and Gabriel Collins, Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental
Regulatory Affairs at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and a Senior Visiting Research
Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, “Competition With China Can Save the Planet,”
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2021, accessed 6-23-21] ZG
But this rhetorical posturing masks a very different reality: China remains addicted to coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. It burns
over four billion metric tons per year and accounts for half of the world’s total consumption. Roughly 65 percent of China’s
electricity supply comes from coal, a proportion far greater than that of the United States (24 percent) or Europe (18
percent). Finnish and U.S. researchers revealed in February that China dramatically expanded its use of coal-fired power
plants in 2020. China’s net coal-fired power generation capacity grew by about 30 gigawatts over the course of the year, as
opposed to a net decline of 17 gigawatts elsewhere in the world. China also has nearly 200 gigawatts’ worth of coal
power projects under construction, approved for construction, or seeking permits, a sum that on its own could power all
of Germany—the world’s fourth-largest industrial economy. Given that coal power plants often operate for 40 years or
more, these ongoing investments suggest the strong possibility that China will remain reliant on coal for decades
to come. Here’s the inconvenient truth: the social contract that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has forged with the
Chinese people—growth and stability in exchange for curtailed liberties and one-party rule— has incentivized
overinvestment across the board, including in the coal that powers most of China’s economy. China may be shuttering some
coal plants and investing in renewable energy, but serious decarbonization remains a distant prospect. Xi’s bullish talk of
combating climate change is a smokescreen for a more calculated agenda. Chinese policymakers know their country is
critical to any comprehensive international effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and they are trying to use that leverage
to advance Chinese interests in other areas. Policymakers in the United States have hoped to compartmentalize climate
change as a challenge on which Beijing and Washington can meaningfully cooperate, even as the two countries compete
elsewhere. John Kerry, the United States’ senior climate diplomat, has insisted that climate change is a “standalone issue” in
U.S.-Chinese relations. Yet Beijing does not see it that way.

[T]- Competition with China is better for global climate action

than cooperation
Steven Stashwick 21, editor at the U.S. Naval War College and a reserve naval officer, 7/9/21, “U.S.-China Competition Can Still Produce Climate Wins,”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/09/us-china-competition-climate-change/
A letter sent recently to the White House and Congress by nearly 50 progressive groups urges the United States to abandon what it describes as an antagonistic approach to China that threatens critical cooperation to address climate

change. But the fear that U.S. competition with China dooms necessary climate action is misplaced. Competition may, in fact,
spur[s] climate action—the groups’ proposal would leave the United States with no realistic means to address the worst of China’s human rights abuses and potential security threats. The letter calls
the United States’ competitive approach to China “an antagonistic posture that risks undermining much-needed climate cooperation” and calls instead for the United States to prioritize “multilateralism, diplomacy, and cooperation with China to address the existential
threat that is the climate crisis.” There is no question the stakes are dire. Climate change-fueled disasters like the record-breaking heat waves last month in North America and Siberia—alongside persistent drought and devastating wildfires—will only become more
common and more severe, even with drastic reductions in carbon emissions. However, the letter undermines its own advocacy by framing the problem as the United States’ “Cold War mentality” against China. This, consciously or not, parrots a
long-standing Chinese talking point that is unlikely to make the White House more receptive to its argument. And although there is certainly no reason for the United States to be gratuitously combative with China, it is fantastical to assert the problem is
chiefly on the U.S. side when China’s acrimonious “wolf warrior” diplomats and state media openly and regularly ridicule the United States and threaten allies and key trade and security partners like Japan, Australia, and Europe. The letter does not
directly address Chinese human rights abuses like the repression of its Uyghur population in Xinjiang, political crackdowns in Hong Kong, or its long-standing threats to Taiwan’s self-governance. It is concerned the United States’ competitive approach does nothing
for “the wellbeing of everyday people” in China, and representatives of the letter’s sponsor insist climate cooperation doesn’t absolve either state from human rights abuses. But whether its signatories recognize it or not, the letter’s practical implication is this concern
does not extend to the well-being of those repressed or threatened populations as it leaves no coercive tools for the United States to influence China’s domestic or international behavior. One issue that seems to be near the top of signatories’ concerns about U.S.
policy toward China is ensuring the supply of critical materials for renewable energy production. Much of the global supply of polysilicon, a necessary component in photovoltaic solar panels, is produced in Xinjiang. Cheap Chinese solar materials have been key to
reducing the cost of renewable solar energy, to the point it is now often cheaper to build new solar capacity than continue operating existing coal and other fossil-fueled power plants. But concern over the use of Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang’s polysilicon industry
recently led U.S. President Joe Biden to ban the import of material from several top Chinese suppliers. Although this may create problems for the U.S. solar industry over the near term, the sanctions are one of the few levers the United States has to either influence
China’s policies in Xinjiang or motivate polysilicon supply chains to diversify, which could ultimately benefit global solar deployment. The letter insists there are no “nationalistic solutions” to climate change and both addressing it and making the global economy more
just and sustainable requires a “shift from competition to cooperation.” Since the United States and China currently account for around 38 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is intuitive the two countries must cooperate to reduce them. For its part, the
Biden administration has neither foreclosed climate cooperation with China nor made it contingent on halting human rights abuses. Senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and even Biden himself,
have consistently said the United States will cooperate with China on areas of mutual interest like climate change when it makes sense to do so. But when looking at specific policies, it’s not clear how much

nationalist motivations may even be the most likely

meaningful cooperation between the world’s two top emitters is actually necessary to decarbonize their economies. Some appropriate

driver of meaningful climate solutions and action in both China and the United States. These do not have to
be nationalistic or populist. Competition for economic benefit and global leadership and influence can push[es] both countries to find

decarbonization solutions, promote sustainable development, and extend international green financing more effectively
than coordination or cooperation might. In any case, given the absence of comity between the two powers and the diminishing prospect of building any over what climate
experts call a “critical decade” for climate action, there are not many realistic alternatives. A misconception shared by both climate advocates and some China hawks is the idea that China’s adherence to its climate goals is
somehow purchased with concessions from the United States—the former seeing it as a precondition for climate cooperation and the latter as a reason to avoid cooperation at all. Even if the United States helped usher in the 2014
joint climate agreement with China that in turn enabled the Paris Agreement to be reached in 2015, China has never made environmental commitments either as a favor to the United States or in return for one. China faces significant

water scarcity and food security issues, both made worse by the mounting effects of climate change. Although Chinese leaders feel extraordinary pressure to maintain economic growth rates—often using
unproductive infrastructure investments that

produce needless additional carbon emissions simply for the sake of achieving a benchmark—they know China’s continued prosperity, the Chinese Communist Party’s

legitimacy, and China’s global standing depend[s] on meaningful climate action. Chinese President Xi Jinping has staked his personal reputation and
legacy on making China a climate leader and realizing an “ecological civilization.” Toward that end—and against many skeptics’ expectations—China is making strides toward meeting its goals of peaking its carbon emissions before
2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. China’s national carbon trading market will open this month after a delay. China empowered its most powerful economic planning agency to lead industry decarbonization, and strong
targets are already emerging for especially carbon-intensive sectors like cement and steel as well as policy reforms that incentivized overproduction. Chinese banks, long (and justly) criticized for financing dirty coal plants overseas, are
starting to cancel polluting projects, and some are beginning to make plans to exit the coal sector altogether. If China is going to escape the “middle-income trap” and other social and structural pressures that threaten to stall its already
slowing economic growth, it must address the country’s enormous income inequality, unproductive and emissions-encouraging debt model, and unsustainable development practices. That is, China must build an economy, as the letter

puts it, “that works for everyday working people.” It remains to be seen whether it can, since even if Chinese leaders recognize these problems, they have been slow or loathe to make many decisive reforms. But China
does not need U.S. encouragement or cooperation to do so. Reconciling China’s repressive abuses at home and
its potential threat to places like Taiwan with its critical role in the global response to climate change may be the thorniest foreign-policy challenge the United States and its partners face in the medium term, but ignoring the former to
service the latter provides solutions to neither.

1. [DL]- AFF only tries to solve for Chinese Cooperation, the US is also not willing to cooperate with
China due to reasons not solved by Affirming such as
a. Chinese IP theft
b. China increasing influence in Latin America
c. China supporting Russia
 d. China increasing tensions in SCS
e. US wants technological supremacy, thus not wanting to share data and tech with China
2. [NU]- Chinese aggression against the US will not stop

[Aaron Friedberg 22; Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University; Member of the bipartisan US-China Economic and Security
Review Commission and the author of “Getting China Wrong” (2022); “Aaron Friedberg says the West should abandon efforts to integrate a hostile, revisionist China” December 12th 2022;

, China
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/12/12/aaron-friedberg-says-the-west-should-abandon-efforts-to-integrate-a-hostile-revisionist-china NP & Ang] of the existing order

is now a frankly revisionist state. Beijing uses the threat of force to try to alter the territorial status quo in the Indo-Pacific; it
has deployed its growing clout in the developing world to manipulate international institutions and challenge the “so-called universal values” of the liberal West; and it
seeks to wield its economy as a weapon, threatening to cut off supplies of critical materials and deny access to its massive market to countries that oppose its policies. Mr Xi
aims to weaken, divide and isolate the advanced democracies. He evidently also intends to put China at the centre of an
alternative, anti-Western grouping that includes much of the world’s population and extends across large swathes of the global South.

a. Thus relations will remain in permanent freefall and climate will remain forever decline
2. [DL]- Climate Cooperation has been PROVEN to fail such as the largest CLIMATE

COLLABORATION EVER the Paris Accords in 2016

CFR, 12-5-2023, "Global Climate Agreements: Successes and Failures", Council on Foreign Relations,
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/paris-global-climate-change-agreements

Every five years, countries are supposed to assess their progress toward implementing the agreement through

a process known as the global stocktake. The first of these reports, released in September 2023, warned governments that “the world is not on track
to meet the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement.”
That said, countries have made some breakthroughs during the annual UN climate summits, such as the landmark commitment to establish the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The fund aims to address
the inequality of climate change by providing financial assistance to poorer countries, which are often least responsible for global emissions yet most vulnerable to climate disasters. At COP28, countries decided that the fund will be
initially housed at the World Bank, with several wealthy countries, such as the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, and EU members, initially pledging around $430 million combined. The UAE also pledged $100 million, a move
some analysts say may put additional pressure on other high-emitting countries, such as China and Saudi Arabia, to increase their contributions to climate action funding.

Recently, there have been global efforts to cut methane emissions, which account for more than half of human-made warming today because of they higher potency and heat trapping ability within the first few decades of release. The
United States and the EU introduced a Global Methane Pledge at COP26, which aims to slash 30 percent of methane emissions levels from 2020 to 2030. At COP28, oil companies announced they would cut their methane emissions
from wells and drilling by more than 80 percent by the end of the decade, and the pledge included international monitoring efforts to hold companies accountable. Meanwhile, the United States announced a commitment to reduce
methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by nearly 80 percent over the next fifteen years.

Are the commitments made under the Paris Agreement enough?

Most experts say that countries’ pledges are not ambitious enough and will not be enacted quickly
enough to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. The policies of Paris signatories as of late 2022 could result in a 2.7°C
(4.9°F) rise by 2100, according to the Climate Action Tracker compiled by Germany-based nonprofits Climate Analytics and the NewClimate
Institute.

“The Paris Agreement is not enough. Even at the time of negotiation, it was recognized as not being enough,”

5. [NU]-Cooperation is impossible with China: their coal industry short-circuits any attempts at energy
transitions, negotiations are a rhetorical smoke screen
Erickson 21 [Andrew S. Erickson, Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College's China Maritime Studies Institut; and Gabriel Collins,
Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental Regulatory Affairs at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford
Institute for Energy Studies, “Competition With China Can Save the Planet,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2021, accessed 6-23-21] ZG

But this rhetorical posturing masks a very different reality: China remains addicted to coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. It burns over four billion metric tons per
year and accounts for half of the world’s total consumption. Roughly 65 percent of China’s electricity supply comes from coal, a proportion far greater than that of the United
States (24 percent) or Europe (18 percent). Finnish and U.S. researchers revealed in February that China dramatically expanded its use of coal-fired power plants in 2020.
China’s net coal-fired power generation capacity grew by about 30 gigawatts over the course of the year, as opposed to a net decline of 17 gigawatts elsewhere in the world.
China also has nearly 200 gigawatts’ worth of coal power projects under construction, approved for construction, or seeking
permits, a sum that on its own could power all of Germany—the world’s fourth-largest industrial economy. Given
that coal power
plants often operate for 40 years or more, these ongoing investments suggest the strong possibility that
China will remain reliant on coal for decades to come. Here’s the inconvenient truth: the
social contract that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has forged with the Chinese people—growth and stability in exchange for curtailed liberties and one-party rule— has
incentivized overinvestment across the board, including in the coal that powers most of China’s economy. China may be shuttering some coal plants and investing in renewable
energy, but serious decarbonization remains a distant prospect. Xi’s
bullish talk of combating climate change is a smokescreen for a more calculated agenda. Chinese policymakers
know their country is critical to any comprehensive international effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and they are trying to use that

leverage to advance Chinese interests in other areas. Policymakers in the United States have hoped to
compartmentalize climate change as a challenge on which Beijing and Washington can meaningfully cooperate, even as the two countries compete elsewhere. John Kerry, the
United States’ senior climate diplomat, has insisted that climate change is a “standalone issue” in U.S.-Chinese relations. Yet Beijing does not see it that way.

1. [DL] Adaptation solves, no extinction

Sebastian Farquhar, 2017, “Existential Risk: Diplomacy and Governance,” Global Priorities Project, University of Oxford, and Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland,
https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risks-2017-01-23.pdf
It is very difficult to precisely estimate the probability of existential risk from nuclear war over the next century, and existing attempts leave very large confidence intervals. According to many experts, the most likely nuclear war at present
is between India and Pakistan.14 However, given the relatively modest size of their arsenals, the risk of human extinction is plausibly greater from a conflict between the United States and Russia. Tensions between these countries have
increased in recent years and it seems unreasonable to rule out the possibility of them rising further in

most likely levels of global warming are very unlikely to cause human extinction.15 The
the future. 1.1.2 Extreme climate change and geoengineering The

existential risks of climate change instead stem from tail risk climate change – the low probability of extreme levels
of warming – and interaction with other sources of risk. It is impossible to say with confidence at what point global warming would become severe enough to pose an existential threat. Research has suggested
that warming of 11-12°C would render most of the planet uninhabitable,16 and would completely devastate agriculture.17 This would pose an extreme threat to human civilisation as we know it.18 Warming of around 7°C or more could
potentially produce conflict and instability on such a scale that the indirect effects could be an

the timescales over which such changes might happen could mean that
existential risk, although it is extremely uncertain how likely such scenarios are.19 Moreover,

humanity is able to adapt enough to avoid extinction in even very extreme scenarios. The
probability of these levels of warming depends on eventual greenhouse gas concentrations. According to some experts, unless strong action is taken soon by major emitters, it is likely that we will pursue a medium-high emissions
pathway.20 If we do, the chance of extreme warming is highly uncertain but appears non-negligible. Current concentrations of greenhouse gases are higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years,21 which means that
there are significant unknown unknowns about how the climate system will respond. Particularly concerning is the risk of positive feedback loops, such as the release of vast amounts of methane from melting of the arctic permafrost,
which would cause rapid and disastrous warming.22 The economists Gernot Wagner and Martin Weitzman have used IPCC figures (which do not include modelling of feedback loops such as those from
melting permafrost) to estimate that if we continue to pursue a medium-high emissions pathway, the probability of eventual warming of 6°C is around

10%,23 and of 10°C is around 3%.24 These estimates are of course highly uncertain. It is likely that the world will take action against climate change once it begins to
impose large costs on human society, long before there is warming of 10°C. Unfortunately, there is significant inertia in the
climate system: there is a 25 to 50 year lag between CO2 emissions and eventual warming,25 and it is expected that 40% of the peak concentration of CO2 will remain in the atmosphere 1,000 years after the peak is reached.26
Consequently, it is impossible to reduce temperatures quickly by reducing CO2 emissions. If the world does start to face costly warming, the international community will therefore face strong incentives to find other ways to reduce
global temperatures. The only known way to reduce global temperatures quickly and cheaply is a form of climate engineering called Solar Radiation Management (SRM), which involves cooling the Earth by reflecting sunlight back into
space.27 The most researched form of SRM involves injecting aerosols into the stratosphere.28 Most of the evidence so far suggests that ideal SRM deployment programmes would reduce overall damages relative to an un-engineered
greenhouse world.29

2. [DL] No chance of catastrophic warming – most recent studies.

Ronald Bailey, 2-9-2022, "Worst-Case Climate Change Scenarios Are Highly Implausible, Argues New Study," Reason,
https://reason.com/2022/02/09/worst-case-climate-change-scenarios-are-highly-implausible-argues-new-study/, Date Accessed 6-25-2022 // NDF-JM

Before rushing to kit out your climate prepper bunker, you might want to take a look at the
new study by University of Colorado climate change policy researcher Roger
Pielke thatconfirms what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found in August 2021, namely that the worst-case climate scenario is
increasingly unlikely, and that while our future will be warmer, it will not be catastrophically so. These dire predictions were
based on calculations derived from a scenario of the future in which fossil fuel and agricultural emissions over the course of this century would
boost atmospheric carbon dioxide to nearly 1,400 parts per million (ppm) by 2100. The current level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is just under
420 ppm, and that is up from the pre-industrial level of about 280 ppm. Largely as a result of this increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, global average
temperature has risen to around 1.1°C above the pre-industrial level. Climate researchers labeled this worst-case scenario "RCP8.5," and it has been somewhat updated in the
new Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6) on the physical science basis of climate change and given a new moniker of
SSP5-8.5. The IPCC's AR6 report, released in August 2021, now acknowledges that "the likelihood of high emission scenarios such as RCP8.5 or SSP5-8.5 is
considered low in light of recent developments in the energy sector." The recent developments in the energy sector to which the AR6 report refers are
that fossil fuel usage is likely to be fairly flat for the next 50 years. One of the main ways that the RCP8.5

scenario goes off the rails of plausibility is that it projects a six-fold rise in global coal consumption per capita by 2100. Since future coal consumption is likely to
remain flat or decline, the development of the global economy is highly
that means that global carbon dioxide emissions will be "approximately in line with the medium RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and SSP2-4.5 scenarios." For some years now, University of Colorado climate change policy researcher Roger Pielke, Jr., and his colleagues have been pointing out that

unlikely to trace the high emissions pathways that led to the worst projected outcomes. Nevertheless, climate studies based on the RCP8.5 scenario are the ones being relied upon by people making their predictions of dire climate calamity by the end of this century.
Pielke and his colleagues have published a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters that argues that these intermediate emissions scenarios are much more plausible than the high end scenarios that engendered fears of
climate catastrophe. "These scenarios project between 2 and 3 degrees C of warming by 2100, with a median of 2.2 degrees C," they conclude. They do, however, acknowledge that "these scenarios also indicate that the world is still off track from limiting 21st-century warming to 1.5 or below 2 degrees C." These new calculations are based on the future energy use and energy policy projections found in the International Energy Agency's latest World
Energy Outlook report. That report concludes that, instead of rising six-fold, global coal consumption will peak during this decade. On the other hand, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that world coal consumption will continue to rise slightly through 2050, but that's still far from the sixfold increase entailed in the RCP8.5 scenario. To assess plausibility of most of the IPCC scenarios, Pielke and his

colleagues ask which of the scenarios have projected carbon dioxide emissions growth errors and divergences of less than 0.1 or 0.3 percent per year over the observed growth rates between 2005 and 2020. That is, which

scenarios tracked what actually happened with carbon dioxide emissions over the last fifteen years? Next they further parse how well the scenarios similarly track actual emissions beginning in 2005 through the
IEA's projections of future emissions to 2050. The chart above displays the plausibility of the various IPCC emissions scenarios by tracking how well they match likely cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide over the course of this century. The scenarios that closely track actual and projected IEA emissions are marked with blue dots (0.1 percent) and triangles (0.3 percent). "All of the plausible
scenarios," explains Pielke in his Substack newsletter The Honest Broker, "envision less than 3 degrees Celsius total warming by 2100. In fact, the median projection is for 2100 warming of 2.2 degrees Celsius." He adds that that "is within spitting distance of the Paris Agreement goal of holding temperatures to a warming of 2.0 degrees Celsius." Under the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement,
signatories committed to "holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels." So man-made global warming of 4°C by 2100 above pre-industrial levels is not a real possibility. "Is the world ready for good news on climate?," asks Pielke. Yes, we are.

3. [DL] Just wrong: won't cause extinction

Pester ’21 (Patrick Pester, freelance writer and previously a staff writer at Live Science, background in wildlife conservation and worked with endangered species
around the world, holds a master's degree in international journalism from Cardiff University in the U.K.; 8-30-2021; "Could climate change make humans go extinct?"; Live
Science; https://www.livescience.com/climate-change-humans-extinct.html)//TP

The impacts of climate change are here with soaring temperatures, stronger hurricanes, intensified floods and a longer and more severe wildfire season. Scientists warn that
ignoring climate change will yield "untold suffering" for humanity. But if things are going to get that much worse, could climate change make humans go extinct? Scientists
predict a range of devastating scenarios if climate change is not kept under control, but if we just consider the direct impacts, then there's some good news; it's unlikely to cause
our mass
extinction. "There is no evidence of climate change scenarios that would render human beings extinct," Michael Mann,
a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State and author of "The New
Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet" (PublicAffairs, 2021), told Live Science in an email. However, it's possible that climate change will still
threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of people, such as by leading to food and water scarcity, which has the potential to trigger a societal collapse and set the stage for
global conflict, research finds.

NU---CC Inevitable
Climate change is locked-in – view their ev as “climate appeasement”
Tangalakis-Lippert 22 (Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert – Business Insider, quoting Bill McGuire –
Emeritus Professor of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College London, “Climate scientist says total climate
breakdown is now inevitable: 'It is already a different world out there, soon it will be unrecognizable to every one of us',”
7-31-22,
https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-scientist-says-total-climate-breakdown-is-now-inevitable-2022 -7) //Bosley

Record-breaking heatwaves, lethal flooding, and extreme weather events are just the beginning of the
climate crisis, according to a leading UK climate scientist. In his new book published Thursday, "Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide," Bill
McGuire argues that, after years of ignoring warnings from scientists, it is too late to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate
change. The University College London Earth sciences professor pointed to a record-breaking heatwave across the
UK this month and dangerous wildfires that destroyed 16 homes in East London as evidence of the rapidly changing climate. McGuire says

weather will begin to regularly surpass current extremes, despite government goals to lower carbon emissions. "And as we head
further into 2022, it is already a different world out there," McGuire told The Guardian. "Soon it will be unrecognizable to every one of us." His perspective — that
severe climate change is now inevitable and irreversible — is more extreme than many scientists who believe that, with lowered emissions, the most severe potential impacts
Many climate scientists, McGuire said, are much more scared
can still be avoided. McGuire did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
about the future than they are willing to admit in public. He calls their reluctance to acknowledge the futility of current
climate action "climate appeasement" and says it only makes things worse. Instead of focusing on net-zero emission goals,
which McGuire says won't reverse the current course of climate change, he argues we need to adapt to the "hothouse
world" that lies ahead and start taking action to try to stop material conditions from deteriorating further.
Climate devastation is inevitable even if we stopped all emissions
Dennis and Kaplan 22 (Brady Dennis and Sarah Kaplan – Washington Post, “5 takeaways from the latest United
Nations climate change report,” 2-28-22,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/02/28/ipcc-united-nations-climate-chang e-takeaways/) //Bosley
Humanity has unleashed more than a trillion tons of carbon dioxide since the start of the Industrial Revolution, fueling an average global temperature rise of more than one
emissions, even if they ceased tomorrow, have set in motion a
degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to the late 19th century. Those
certain amount of irreversible change. [Postcards from Earth’s climate futures] Already, fish species are dying in oceans that have become
warmer, more acidic and depleted of oxygen.
Ravenous wildfires, ferocious hurricanes and unprecedented flooding have claimed lives and destroyed communities across the globe. One study of the
world’s 150 biggest cities found that these areas have seen a 500 percent increase in extreme heat since 1980. Near-term deterioration of
environmental conditions could result in as much as 14 percent of species facing a “very high risk of extinction,” with even worse outcomes the more
the world warms, the IPCC report finds. Even the best-case scenarios, which limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), project
the demise of an overwhelming majority of coral reefs and irreversible loss of glaciers and polar ice by the end of the century. In
coming decades, changes in temperature and weather patterns will make some agricultural areas unsuitable for the crops that are currently grown. Sea level rise will continue to
threaten coastal communities. Annual deaths from climate-related illnesses such as extreme heat exposure, diarrheal disease and childhood malnutrition are projected to
increase by 250,000 within the next 30 years. But in many cases, the scientists say, adaptation can make a significant dent in the suffering. A woman is carried on a boat to a
Doctors Without Borders hospital in Old Fangak, South Sudan, in October 2021. (Adrienne Surprenant for The Washington Post) 2 Every incremental increase in temperature
will lead to dramatically more disease, death and frequent, costly disasters Return to menu World leaders vowed in the Paris climate agreement to limit Earth’s warming to “well
below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), and if possible to stop at 1.5 Celsius. While nations remain woefully far from hitting those goals, the science could not be clearer:
Each increment of additional warming brings more devastation, more death — and more dollars spent on coping. “Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary
health,” the IPCC authors write. “Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity
to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” The difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees Celsius of temperature rise, Monday’s report states, would mean an
additional 65 million people exposed to “exceptionally” extreme heat waves every five years. Already, between 1.5 and 2.5 billion people live in areas exposed to water scarcity.
These numbers are projected to increase continuously, with estimates of up to 3 billion at 2 degrees Celsius of warming. In the worst-case warming scenarios, projections show
an additional 9 million annual deaths from climate-related illnesses by 2100, compared to the period from 1961 to 1990. Climate change will make some current crop production
areas unsuitable and force millions more humans to face hunger by mid-century. Some regions could experience 200 or more days a year where outdoor work is not feasible.
No place on Earth will be left unscathed by climate change. But the regions that contributed the least to the problem — particularly Africa, Central America, South Asia and small
island states — will suffer some of the harshest consequences. And coming generations will inherit a much harsher planet than the one their parents knew. For instance, people
younger than 10 in the year 2020 are projected to experience a nearly fourfold increase in extreme events at 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming and a fivefold increase if
temperatures rise by 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit). People clean up a road after the passage of cyclone Batsirai in Mananjary, Madagascar, on Feb. 8.
(Rijasolo/AFP/Getty Images) 3 Climate change is battering the places and populations least able to adapt, and that is all but certain to continue

Return to menu The gap between rich and poor countries will likely widen as the world warms, Monday’s IPCC report
makes clear. In the past decade, the average number of deaths from floods, droughts and storms in countries considered “highly vulnerable” was 15 times higher than in places
with low vulnerability, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Sweden. Even moderate scenarios for sea level rise would risk inundating coastlines where roughly 90 percent
of all Pacific Islanders live. At high levels of warming, small island states and some tropical regions will hit limits on their ability to adapt to flooding and extreme heat. Depending
on how much temperatures rise, between 31 million and 143 million people could become displaced in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America. African nations will
suffer some of the most extreme inequities. These countries have contributed less than 3 percent of cumulative global emissions, yet in the near term they are projected to
experience over half of excess deaths from climate-related illnesses. The worst-case scenario for warming would increase extreme heat exposure in Africa to 118 times
historical levels. By contrast, heat exposure in Europe would go up only fourfold. Current

financial support for adaptation projects in African nations falls billions of dollars short of what’s needed, the IPCC authors say —
illustrating a problem that persists in vulnerable nations all over the world, where access to climate finance is slow and inadequate. This disparity
extends to basic information needed for adaptation; just 3.8 percent of funding for climate research has gone to projects focused on Africa over the past three decades. Aircraft
apply fire retardant and water to support firefighters in Big Sur, Calif., on Jan. 22. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) 4 Global warming is wreaking havoc on plants and wildlife
Return to menu By shifting seasonal weather patterns and intensifying disruptive disasters, human-caused warming imperils almost all forms of life on Earth. Plants and
animals are unable to shift their habitats fast enough to keep up with rising temperatures. Catastrophic
wildfires and fierce hurricanes can incinerate forests and obliterate coastal ecosystems. Creatures whose migrations are triggered by seasonal changes in daylight are falling out
of sync with the plants they eat, which flower and leaf out in response to warmer weather. The risk of sudden and severe die-offs becomes much higher if global temperatures
rise by 2 degrees Celsius or more, scientists say. The IPCC report estimates that 10 percent of all plant and animal species could face high risk of extinction even if the world
limits warming to 2 degrees Celsius. In less than a century, the losses would equal the number of species driven to extinction by human activities over the last 12,000 years. Yet
threats to
biodiversity also hurt humans, who depend on ecosystems to provide food and clean the water and air. By
weakening wildlife populations and damaging habitats, climate change increases the chance of diseases jumping from animals to people, the

IPCC warns. Meanwhile, rising temperatures risk unleashing millions of tons of carbon currently stored in
vegetation and soil. Projected loss of forests and thawing of permafrost under some of the worst-case warming scenarios would add the equivalent of 15 years’ worth
of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. But curbing warming to below 2 degrees Celsius would cut emissions from these ecosystems by more than half.

AT: US Hegemony
W1: US Hegemony is resilient, and all indicators show the US is
ahead.
Nelson Denis 21, Student of Economics and Data Science at the University of Buenos Aires
(UBA). 12-2-2021, "The end of North American hegemony, a myth," Terere Complice,
https://tererecomplice.com/en/2021/12/02/the-end-of-north-american-hegemony-a-myth/ With this thesis in the limelight, Gilpin
and Kindleberger interpreted the great political and economic imbalances of the time as indications of an inexorable “decline” of
the United States as a hegemonic power, which no longer fulfilled its role of “stabilizer”. With some differences, this same idea
continues to permeate diagnostics today. It can be seen in the countless announcements of North American decline,
whether from liberal or even Marxisttraditions, heralding “hegemonic crises” and historical ruptures in the face of any
systemic dysfunction of global political and economic life. However, from then until today,the United States has
demonstrated impressive resilience in its ability to accumulate power and wealth. In fact, many of the outlined forecasts
indicators of its “decline”, turned to show the opposite. For example, it is true that the United States became the great “debtor”
of the world economy, after the (unilateral) abandonment of the convertibility of the dollar with gold in 1971. But that debt did not
cause afatal imbalance in the North American economy and it rather functioned as atrue motor of the global
economy up until now. The dollar continues to be the dominant international reserve currency, accounting for
approximately 60% of the currency demand composition of central banks. Neither the euro, nor the Chinese renminbi nor any other
national currency, seem to give it any comparable competition. The US percentage in GDP and global exports have been
declining but it is still the main world market, with a relative share in global consumption of
approximately 25%. At the military level,the US continues to be the country with the highest military spending in the world,
with a budget of USD 778 billion and a 39% share of military spending in the world. With 37% of world arms exports, it
remains first at the top of this list, in addition to having 1,750 nuclear warheads deployed with operational forces, even larger
than Russia, which has a larger inventory.In addition, it continues to be the country with the largest deployment of
military bases abroad: 800 basesaround the planet with more than 200,000 soldiers. There is great confrontation in the
scientific-technological field, but even so, the US remains on theinnovation frontier, with an investment in Research and
Development (R&D) of USD 581.6 billion and a share of 28% of the world total. Of thetwenty most valuable technology
firms in the world,thirteen are American and, of these,three top the world ranking. The aforementioned aspects (monetary,
military and technological) are not the only ones to measure the power of the States, but they are the most relevant. For almost half a
century now,academics and analysts have been predicting a “terminal crisis” in the US at the top of the inter-state hierarchy. A
notable case is that of the sociologists Giovanni Arrighi and Immanuel Wallerstein, who died defending not only that the crisis of American
hegemony, which began during the 1970s, was still in full swing (until their deaths, 2009 and 2019 respectively), but that it would have
mutated, towards the beginning of this century, in a kind of terminal crisis of the modern world system: that is, capitalism
itself. However, throughout this timethe US has only continued to expand and reaffirm its dominant position and, beyond
its recurring crises, capitalism continues to be the only existing mode of production on a planetary scale.

W2: China's rise is peaceful.

Shifrinson, 19 – Joshua, Assistant Professor of International Relations with the Pardee School of
Global Affairs at Boston University; “Should the United States Fear China’s Rise?,” The Washington
Quarterly, http://www.bu.edu/pardeeschool/files/2019/01/Winter-2019_Shifrinson_0.pdf
Nevertheless, considered in light of what a true relegation strategy would entail and the steps China might but has not taken, the
comparatively limited nature of Chinese predation becomes clear. For one, China has not increased the rate of its military
spending over the last decade even as its economy has grown; in fact, Chinese military expenditures remain below the
rates witnessed in both the late Cold War period and in the early 2000s.39 Likewise, Chineseland reclamation and military
deployments in the East and South China Seas have only involved territories previously claimed by the Chinese
government; China has not expanded its maritime claims so much as taken a unilateral approach toward resolving
existing disputes.40 It has also done little to strengthen its nuclear arsenal even though this force remains
vulnerable to American disruption.41 Above all, it has made no moves to try to evict the United States from
East Asia by either declaring a sphere of influence in the region42 or undercutting the U.S. alliance network.43 In fact, facing suggestions by
the Trump administration that the United States might retrench, Chinese leaders have signaled they want the United States to remain active
in the area.44 Ultimately, and as other analysts note, Chinese efforts contain some competitive elements, but these are also notably
constrained in their scope and degree.45 This strategy makes sense. On one level, China’s rise has moved it near the top of the East Asian
pecking order. A quarter century ago, China lagged behind states such as Russia and Japan economically and militarily, but now its
economy outstrips all states involved in the region except for the United States.46 The military balance tells a similar story: China is far from
a military hegemon, but given Japan’s limited investment in its military, Russia’s focus on Europe (and friendly relationship with China), the
still-nascent emergence of India as a regional player, and the relative weakness of other countries around China’s periphery, the United
States is the principal external security impediment to China’s continued rise.47 Under these conditions—absent another great power
competitor—China faces incentives to try to shift the distribution of power further against the United States. By the same measure, however,
China’s relative rise from a position of marked inferiority vis-à-vis the United States means it also faces strong
incentivesto avoid provoking the United States too much or too soon.48 Not only might overly aggressive Chinese
activities court a war with the United States that the PRC might well lose, but—even short of war —it might prompt further U.S. efforts
to stymie China’s continued growth. Given these conditions, Chinese leaders have good reason to embark on a slow and cautious predatory
campaign—a weakening strategy—that tries to shift the distribution of power against the United States while operating below a threshold
that might catalyze a hostile response. In short, limited predation—not an overt and outright push to overtake and challenge the
United States—is the name of China’s current and highly rational game. As significantly, it appears Chinese leaders are aware of the
structural logic of the situation. Despite ongoing debate over the extent to which China has departed from its long-standing “hide strength,
bide time” strategy first formulated by Deng Xiaoping in favor a more assertive course seeking to increase Chinese influence in world affairs,
Chinese leaders and China watchers have been at pains to point out that Chinese strategy still seeks to avoid provoking conflict with the
United States.49 As one analyst notes, China’s decision to carve out a more prominent role for itself in world politics has been
coupled with an effort to reassure and engage the United States so asto avoid unneeded competition
whilefacilitating stability.50 Chinese leaders echo these themes, with one senior official noting in 2014 that Chinese policy focused
on “properly address[ing] conflicts and differences through dialogue and cooperation instead of confrontational approaches.” 51 Xi Jinping
himself has underlined these currents, arguing even before taking office that U.S.-Chinese relations should be premised on
“preventing conflict and confrontation,” and more recently vowing that “China will promote coordination and cooperation with other
 major countries.” 52 Ultimately, as one scholar observes,there is “hardly evidence that [… China has] begun to focus on
hegemonic competition.” 53 Put another way, China’s leaders appear aware of the risks of taking an overly confrontational
stance toward a stillpotent United States and have scoped Chinese ambitions accordingly.

AT: Ukraine
[DL]- Taiwan and Ukraine use different channels for arms sales

Jennifer Kavanaghand Jordan Cohen, 5-11-2023, "Taiwan Is Competing for Arms with the Middle East, Not Ukraine," Cato Institute,
https://www.cato.org/commentary/taiwan-competing-arms-middle-east-not-ukraine // MH

Furthermore, to this point, Taiwan

and Ukraine have received arms through two different channels. Most of the aid that
Ukraine has received has come[s] from U.S. stockpilesthrough presidential
drawdown authority—which Taiwan only became eligible for under the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act—rather than foreign military sales, on
which Taiwan has traditionally relied. Taiwan therefore has been shop[s]ping for new weapons, while Ukraine has been
receiving old ones. Rather than Ukraine, Taiwan has competed
most directly with other countries purchasing new systems.

[DL]- Taiwan and Ukraine need different weapons

Jennifer Kavanaghand Jordan Cohen, 5-11-2023, "Taiwan Is Competing for Arms with the Middle East, Not Ukraine," Cato Institute,
https://www.cato.org/commentary/taiwan-competing-arms-middle-east-not-ukraine // MH

For example, Ukraine has been promised just two Harpoon coastal defense systems and received one Patriot battery but zero Hellfire or longer-range missiles, and its HIMARS
were modified to limit their targeting range. Moreover, while Ukraine and Taiwan do need some of the same systems, they face vastly different
battlefield demands that limit the extent of any overlap.
Ukraine is fighting a ground war of attrition, in close proximity to its adversary, and needs short-range artillery and air defense most of all.
Taiwan will instead face air and maritime warfare and needs longer-range missiles and air defense and anti-ship capabilities.
Taiwan and Ukraine may compete more directly for newly built weapons as excess U.S. stocks are consumed. But a review of new production promised to
Ukraine through the Defense Department’s Ukraine Security
Assistance Initiative finds limited overlap between capabilities Ukraine will receive and those Taiwan needs. There are some systems slated to go to Ukraine that
could benefit Taiwan, including National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, HIMARS, and a range of different
types of drones. But quantitiesare relatively low and are unlikely to delay key arms transfers to Taiwan.
While there
are and will continue to be trade-offs between resources committed to Taiwan and Ukraine, the same can be said for
resources committed to arming other allies and partners, many of which have less severe
security concerns and far more problematic human rights records.

[T] - Taiwan arms tradeoff with the UAE and Saudi Arabia

Jennifer Kavanaghand Jordan Cohen, 5-11-2023, "Taiwan Is Competing for Arms with the Middle East, Not Ukraine," Cato Institute,
https://www.cato.org/commentary/taiwan-competing-arms-middle-east-not-ukraine // MH

Ensuring that Taiwan is prepared to deter and defend itself from Chinese aggression should be a priority for the United States and will
require trade-offs. But
cutting aid to Ukraine or supersizing U.S. weapons production is
not the best way to get Taiwan the arms that it needs. Taiwan’s greatest
competitor for many of the systems that it requires most has not
been Ukrainebut large buyers in the Middle East—and Taiwan is developing an increasingly capable defense sector that is able to produce a growing number of key
systems indigenously. To meet Taiwan’s arms requirements more efficiently, the United States should redirect arms transfers that currently support large Middle
Eastern buyers to Taiwan and invest more in co-production and capacity building for
Taiwan’s own defense industrial base. While the war in Ukraine has received much of the blame for slow deliveries of systems such as Javelin and Stinger missiles to Taiwan,
Taiwan’s weapons backlog predates the war. Furthermore, to this point, Taiwan and Ukraine have received arms through
two different channels. Most of the aid that Ukraine has received has come from U.S. stockpilesthrough
presidential drawdown authority—which Taiwan only became eligible for under the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act—rather than foreign
military sales, on which
Taiwan has traditionally relied. Taiwan therefore has been shopping for new weapons, while Ukraine has been receiving
old ones. Rather than Ukraine, Taiwan has competed most directly with other countries
purchasing new systems. Among its biggest competitors are large buyers in the Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi

These
countries
Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.not only buy many of the systems Taiwan needs

most, but they also buy these weapons in large quantities—often exceeding what has been allocated to Ukraine, from
stocks or otherwise. Based on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, between the start of former U.S. President Barack Obama’s Asia pivot in 2012
and 2022, the United States has delivered thousands of weapons to these five Middle Eastern countries, including 25,658 TOW missiles, 8,512 Hellfire missiles, 46 Patriot air
defense systems, 2,526 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, 1,241 Javelins, 645
Harpoon missiles, 459 Stingers, 24 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 250 Abrams tanks, 21 F‑16s, and other missiles, ammunition, and military vehicles. These are all systems that Taiwan could use for its defense, and many are included in the $19 billion backlog. Diverting

even some of the production capacity devoted to these five countries over the past 11 years would have increased Taiwan’s defense stocks substantially. While Ukraine has received a large number of Javelin, Stinger, and
TOW missiles, compared with these Middle Eastern buyers it has received substantially less of most of the other systems Taiwan needs. For example, Ukraine has

been promised just two Harpoon coastal defense systems and received one Patriot battery but zero Hellfire or longer-range missiles, and its HIMARS were modified to limit their targeting range. Moreover, while Ukraine and Taiwan do need some of the same systems,

they face vastly different battlefield demands that limit the extent of any overlap. Ukraine is fighting a ground war of attrition, in close proximity to its adversary, and needs short-range artillery

and air defense most of all. Taiwan will instead face air and maritime warfare and needs longer-range missiles and air defense and anti-ship capabilities. Taiwan and Ukraine may compete more directly for newly built weapons as excess U.S.
stocks are consumed. But a review of new production promised to Ukraine through the Defense Department’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative finds limited overlap between capabilities

quantitiesare relatively low and are unlikely to delay key

Ukraine will receive and those Taiwan needs. There are some systems slated to go to Ukraine that could benefit Taiwan, including National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, HIMARS, and a range of different types of drones. But

arms transfers to Taiwan. While there are and will continue to be trade-offs between resources committed to Taiwan and Ukraine, the same can
be said for resources committed to arming other allies and partners, many of which have less severe security concerns and far more problematic human rights records. For the weapons systems Taiwan needs most, it is large buyers in

the Middle East—and not Ukraine—that have been and likely will continue to be the biggest drain. The fastest and most efficient way to
get needed weapons intoTaiwanese hands would be to pause or reduce deliveries to large arms buyers

in the Middle East—specifically Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, at least temporarily. Though these Arab states do have some legitimate security
concerns, particularly coming from Iran and its proxies, substantial and largely condition-free arms

transfers to these have fueled regional

countries frequently conflicts
, produced security outcomes that are

antithetical to U.S. interests, and contributed to human rights violations. Furthermore

a. This impact links directly into their scenario of Russian victory, when regional conflicts
happen in the Middle East the US has to spend a lot of money and gets distracted from
Ukraine and Russia

[DL]- US is likely to compensate in the case of tradeoff

Alex Velez-Green, 8-31-2023, "Managing Trade-offs Between Military Aid for Taiwan and Ukraine," Heritage Foundation,
https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/managing-trade-offs-between-military-aid-taiwan-and-ukraine // MH

At the same time, Washington can do the following to reduce trade-offs between Taiwan and Ukraine: Increase

U.S. weapons production to support U.S., allied, and partner requirements, especially for a Taiwan contingency. Support efforts to strengthen
allied defense industries, consistent with U.S. efforts to boost weapons production and incentivize greater burden sharing in Europe and the Indo–Pacific. Raise
pressure on NATO allies to increase military aid to
Ukraine, especially by prioritizing Taiwan for weapons both Ukraine and Taiwan require, thereby strengthening incentives for NATO allies to
do more to ensure Ukraine has what it needs to fight. Reform the FMS process, to include speeding up delivery of

weapons and ensuring such deliveries are aligned to America’s national defense objectives. Finally, Washington must work closely with Taipei to ensure it is
doing everything possible to strengthen its defenses, including raising defense spending to a level commensurate to the existential threat it faces, prioritizing
acquisition of asymmetric defense capabilities, and accelerating necessary defense reforms.

1. [CA-Deterrence]- Stopping a Taiwannese invasion is important, if China takes over Taiwan it will
force the US to be more militarily involved in Asian deterrence with its allies (SK,Japan, Philippines)
2. [NU] Republicans are in charge now means the Aff is non-unique, they can cut Ukraine funding now.

Lee et al 23: Republican majority in the House: Republicans have 221 seats, Dems have 213. Double-bind: Either
the Republicans can cut Ukraine funding but choose not to or they'll cut funding in either world.

1. [DL] Democrats are making concessions now for Ukraine aid. Means the Aff is just part of that so no
Ukraine cuts.

Leigh 24: Dems offer border security funding concessions to pass more aid for Ukraine Biden willing to make
"significant" concessions on border spending and policies to pass $106 billion national security package.

AT: Trade

AT: China Relations

W1: China Criticism: China criticizes the new U.S. military aid to
Taiwan and claims that it won’t improve Taiwan's security and
will raise tensions and the chance of conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
Deutsche Welle 24 – [Deutsche Welle. “US Aid for Taiwan ‘Will Only Increase Tensions,’ China Says.” Dw.com. Deutsche Welle. April 24, 2024.
https://www.dw.com/en/us-aid-for-taiwan-will-only-increase-tensions-china-says/a-68905536. ] – Elene.

China on Wednesday decried a fresh package of US military aid for Taiwan, which is intended to boost the island's defenses in the case of a
possible Chinese invasion. The US Senate passed the $8 billion (€7.48 billion) military aid package late Tuesday, as part of larger legislation
that includes fresh assistance for Israel and Ukraine. Having already passed the House, US President Joe Biden later on Wednesday signed
the package into law. "I'd like to emphasize that the United States and Taiwan strengthening military ties will not bring about security
for Taiwan," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said. He said the assistance "will only increase tensions and the
risk of conflict across the Taiwan Strait." A Chinese spokesperson for the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office, Zhu Fenglian, said the aid
violates US commitments to China and "sends a wrong signal to the Taiwan independence separatist forces." China does not view
Taiwan as a separate country, but rather as a breakaway province. The Chinese Civil War ended in 1949, with the communists taking control
of the Chinese mainland and the nationalist Kuomintang retreating to Taiwan. Taiwanese incumbent President Tsai ing-Wen, meanwhile, was
pleased with the aid package. "We are also very happy that the Senate has just passed these bills," Tsai said during a meeting with a US
congressional delegation in Taipei. Tsai belongs to the center-left Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which emphasizes Taiwan's separate
identity from the mainland. A day earlier, Taiwan's incoming president, Lai Ching-te, said the US assistance would "strengthen the deterrence
against authoritarianism in the West Pacific ally chain" and "help ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and also boost
confidence in the region." Lai is also a member of the DPP. The US aid package will help modernize Taiwan's forces as China frequently
conducts military maneuvers near the island. Western leaders such as Biden have expressed concerns that China may take control of
Taiwan by forcein the coming years. A Chinese invasion would not only cost human lives, but it could be a massive blow to the global
economy — the island is a major producer of semiconductor chips which are used in everything from cellphones to automobiles.

W2: Military Support = Independence: from China’s point of view,

continued US military support to Taiwan support’s Taiwan’s
continued separation—whatever the rhetoric from the US
Kanapathy 4/24— [Kanapathy, Ivan. 2024. “Should the United States Change Its Policies toward Taiwan?” Brookings. April 16.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/should-the-united-states-change-its-policies-toward-taiwan/. Conveners: Kimball, Emilie, Patricia M Kim, Ryan Hass] Joel.

[Prior to joining BGS, Mr. Kanapathy was a career military officer and foreign affairs practitioner focused on the Indo-Pacific region. From March 2018 to July 2021,
Mr. Kanapathy served on the White House’s National Security Council staff as Deputy Senior Director for Asian Affairs and Director for China, Taiwan, and
Mongolia. In this capacity, he advised the President and National Security Advisor and led US government interagency policy development and implementation on
US relations with China and Taiwan, covering diplomatic, military, cyber, health, technology, investment, and other related issues. As a military attaché at the American Institute in Taiwan from
2014 to 2017, Mr. Kanapathy represented US interests and advised top US and Taiwanese officials on cross-Strait military and security issues.]

U.S. officials should not gratuitously articulate non-support for Taiwanese independence. This statement should only be used when Taipei
takes provocative actions—exceedingly rare since 2008. Officials could instead use the neutral formulation of opposing unilateral changes to
the status quo. Consider the likely effects of the former statement on three audiences: China, Taiwan, and allies and partners. China.
Attempts to reassure China regarding U.S. intentions are misguided and fruitless. From Beijing’s view, U.S. weapons and training
cannot but support
Taiwan’s continued separation. Furthermore, Washington openly opposes the governance methods deployed in
Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong—presumptive models for a “unified” Taiwan. In the minds of PRC leaders, the United States remains the
duplicitous “black hand” stirring anti-China dissent and the “strong enemy” the PLA must prepare to defeat. By its nature, the PRC
government cannot meaningfully separate U.S. support for Taiwan’s democracy from perceived U.S. support for Taiwanese
independence. Taiwan. The effects in Taiwan are likely counterproductive. Stating non-support for independence signals to Taiwanese that
Washington has made a deal with Beijing that presupposes a resolution for cross-Strait differences. The statement inadvertently supports
PRC-promoted “U.S. skepticism” narratives in Taiwan that question American intent and reliability. These in turn weaken U.S. efforts to
bolster deterrence on the island. A senior U.S. representative’s January public remarks delivered in Taiwan to this effect were thus likely
detrimental to U.S. security objectives.

W3: Hubris: The US needs to back off from its hawkish policy
towards China, and its overly-friendly relations with Taiwan –
China’s warnings on Taiwan are reminiscent of Russia’s
warnings on Ukraine, but American hubris in charging forward
remains the same
Carpenter 22— [Carpenter, Ted. 2024. Cato.org. https://www.cato.org/commentary/washington-making-same-blunder-regarding-taiwan-it-did-ukraine.] Joel.
[Ted Galen Carpenter was a senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. Carpenter served as Cato’s director of foreign policy studies from 1986 to 1995 and as vice president for defense and foreign policy studies from 1995 to 2011.] Tensions between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are rising sharply over the Taiwan issue. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stated intention to include a stop in Taipei to
meet with Taiwanese officials during her forthcoming trip to East Asia is the latest source of trouble. Pelosi apparently escalated that provocation further by inviting other prominent members of Congress to join her in that stop. Her actions have caused even the staunchly pro-Taiwan Biden administration to quietly press her to change her plans. Conversely, congressional hawks are urging Pelosi not to back down. The reason for the administration’s caution are readily
apparent. Beijing has reacted with unusually intense anger to the prospective visit, with President Xi Jinping warning the United States not to “play with fire” on the Taiwan issue. Pelosi’s visit is the latest – and most serious – in a series of U.S. actions over the past several years that have infuriated PRC leaders. The Biden administration needs to exercise even greater wariness about Pelosi’s venture than it already has. Indeed, Washington needs to back away from
its overall hardline policy toward the PRC. For 4 decades after Washington shifted diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 and passed the Taiwan Relations Act to govern reduced, informal relations with Taiwan, US administrations were careful to limit visits to the island to low-level officials. That restraint diminished dramatically during Donald Trump’s presidency, when Congress authorized and the administration approved meetings by National Security
Advisor John Bolton and other Cabinet-level officials with their Taiwanese counterparts. Those trips were part of a new policy of much stronger US diplomatic and military support for Taiwan – a course of action that the Biden administration has continued, despite insisting that the United States still adheres to a “one-China” policy. Beijing’s complaints about Washington’s actions have steadily intensified, and they have now reached openly confrontational
levels with respect to the Pelosi visit. The Biden administration needs to take the PRC’s warnings more seriously. In many ways, Washington’s determination to press ahead with greater support for Taiwan as part of an overall containment policy directed against China is reminiscent of the blunders US officials made with respect to NATO expansion, especially the campaign to incorporate Ukraine, and Washington’s tone-deaf response to
Moscow’s escalating complaints. Biden administration policymakers dismissed the Kremlin’s repeated warnings that trying to make Ukraine a NATO military asset would cross a red line with respect to Russia’s security interests. They discovered belatedly that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not about to cower and accept US diktats simply because the United States insisted that Ukraine had a “right” to join NATO. Nor did he
accept Washington’s accelerating campaign to make Ukraine a de facto US military and intelligence ally perched on Russia’s border. The outcome of Washington’s approach has been horrifyingly bloody and tragic for the people of Ukraine. Even more worrisome, the administration’s policies have led to an extremely dangerous confrontation between NATO and a nuclear-armed Russia, with the United States and NATO cynically using Ukraine as a
pawn in a proxy war
against Moscow. Washington risks making a comparable blunder in its dealings with China. The administration

must implement a quiet retreat regarding its growing political and military ties to Taipei and adopt a less confrontational approach
to Beijing. Moreover, that change needs to go well beyond merely discouraging Pelosi’s provocative visit to Taipei. It has become
increasingly obvious to PRC leaders that the United States is pursuing a full-blown anti-China containment policy, with Taiwan as
the point of the spear, in a desperate effort to preserve Washington’s fading strategic primacy in East Asia. It is highly unlikely that
Beijing will passively accept such an intrusive US presence in China’s core security sphere over the long term. As the PRC’s
economic and military power continues to grow, Beijing’s resistance to Washington’s hegemonic efforts will escalate. US arrogance
and inflexibility helped lead to the current tragedy in Ukraine. Policymakers blew through red warning light after red warning light
from the Kremlin. A similar approach seems to be taking place in Washington’s relations with Beijing, and it threatens to produce a
similar ugly outcome in East Asia over the Taiwan issue.
Return to Normalcy: The United States should reduce military support in Taiwan to maintain the
longstanding status quo that has ensured peace and prioritize diplomatic efforts.

Larison 23 - [ Larison, Daniel. 2023. “Why Senfding More US Military Troops to Taiwan Is so Risky - Responsible Statecraft.”
Responsiblestatecraft.org. February 28, 2023. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/02/28/more-overt-us-support-for-taiwan-is-fraught-with-risk/. ] Elene.

[ Daniel Larison is a journalist and foreign policy analyst who writes for various publications, including Antiwar.com, Responsible Statecraft, and GlobalResearch.He is a Ph.D. graduate from the
University of Chicago, where he recently completed his dissertation on the sixth ecumenical council and the monothelete controversy. ]

The United States is reportedly planning to increase its military presence in Taiwan from nearly 40 to between 100 and 200 military personnel. According to the first report by The Wall Street Journal last week, the additional troops will arrive in the coming months. The small number of U.S. forces in Taiwan has been growing steadily in recent years from less than two dozen at the start of 2021 to what could be nearly ten times as many by the middle of this
year. News of the larger troop presence came on the heels of a high-level meeting between U.S. and Taiwanese officials in Washington last Tuesday. There are also separate reports that 500 Taiwanese troops will be sent to the United States for combat training. While the total numbers involved are still small, these moves represent significant increases in cooperation between the two governments and could portend larger deployments in the future. As the Journal
article states, the planned increase would be “the largest deployment of forces in decades by the U.S. on Taiwan.” The United States and Taiwan have had some military cooperation and unofficial ties despite the lack of formal relations between the two, but the difference now is that these ties are becoming stronger and more visible at the same time and therefore harder for the Chinese government to ignore. The article suggested that the administration
had been trying to keep the larger troop presence out of the public eye. According to the report, the training program is one that “the Pentagon has taken pains not to publicize,” but the public also has a right to know about decisions that the government is making that increase the direct U.S. commitment to Taiwan. If the Washington is going to deploy more troops to Taiwan than it has in decades, the public should be aware of it and Congress should be asking pointed
questions about the potential implications of these decisions. The increased troop presence is consistent with the Biden administration’s more overt signals of support for Taiwan over the last two years. The president himself has repeatedly said that U.S. troops would be sent to fight for Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, and in so doing he has made a commitment that goes far beyond what the Washington is obligated to do. While administration officials have
stuck to the line that there have been no changes to U.S. policy with respect to China and Taiwan, both their words and actions have been saying otherwise. For its part, the Taiwanese government seems nervous enough about the reporting of the increase that it made a point of clarifying that U.S. troops are not permanently stationed there. It’s true that U.S. troops have been rotated in and out, but this distinction may be lost on the Chinese government when they see
more American troops involved in training their Taiwanese counterparts. There needs to be greater clarity about the administration’s plans. As the
United States intensifies its efforts to support Taiwan, it risks further damaging the relationship with China and hamstringing its ability to advance U.S. interests on a wide range of other issues from arms control to climate change. There is also the danger that an increased U.S. military presence in Taiwan could trigger Chinese responses in the form of increased economic warfare and military exercises that would create additional
headaches and costs for Taiwan. Combined with Speaker McCarthy’s expected visit to Taiwan in the spring, these moves may lead to another unnecessary confrontation. Insofar as they are perceived as further eroding U.S. commitments to a One China policy, these actions could make the overall situation less stable rather than more. All of this is happening against a backdrop of generally heightened tensions and a U.S.-led military buildup in the region, including
the expansion of the U.S. military presence in the Philippines. Despite brief hopes of a thaw in the relationship after the breakdown resulting from then-Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taipei last summer, every attempt to repair ties has stalled before it could even begin. As we saw with the overreaction to the incident with the Chinese surveillance balloon and the decision to cancel Secretary Blinken’s visit to Beijing, accidents and mistakes that will sometimes happen with other
major powers have become occasions for panic and alarmism rather than the manageable problems that they are. Under these circumstances, there is a danger that previously routine activities that did not disrupt the bilateral relationship in the past will now be perceived as provocations and lead to strong responses from the other government. To the extent that every incident is treated as a “test” of resolve rather than an irritant to be smoothed over, it
becomes practically impossible to stabilize, much less repair, what many would consider to be the most significant bilateral relationship in the world. The balloon incident showed how inadequate our governments’ preparations for crisis management are, and the instinct to cancel diplomatic meetings in response to an incident does not inspire confidence that a more serious clash could be safely navigated. U.S.-Chinese relations are as bad as they have
been since at least the early 1990s, and they are arguably worse than at any time since our governments normalized relations in 1979. During the long period of U.S.-China détente, there would be tensions and sharp disagreements between our governments as there always will be, but the desire on both sides to maintain a stable and productive relationship prevailed to make sure that these were only temporary setbacks. Today, détente has been replaced by a policy
of actively pursuing rivalry and containment, which means that every incident will cause an already poor relationship to deteriorate further. The latest source of tension is the U.S. charge that the Chinese government is considering providing lethal aid to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which Beijing has angrily denied. Washington and Beijing can’t move past the last breakdown in relations before the next problem crops up. The “great power competition” framing of the
relationship means that the emphasis is always on point-scoring and one-upping the other side rather than de-escalation. In general, the United States needs to work on reducing tensions with China, and that definitely means avoiding provocative actions in connection with Taiwan. Jessica Chen Weiss recently made the case for calming things down in an op-ed for The Washington Post: “In the current atmosphere of intense distrust, verbal
assurances have to be accompanied by coordinated, reciprocal actions to reduce the risk of a catastrophic crisis.” It is not enough simply to say that the United States doesn’t seek conflict or a new cold war. The United States has to back up those statements by exercising restraint in what it does and how it talks about the relationship with China. To prevent tensions over Taiwan from getting worse, Washington needs to worry less about
building up its military strength in the region and instead focus on reassuring the Chinese government that it does not want to abandon the status quo that has kept the peace for more than 40 years.

W4: It would improve US-China relations.

Glaser, 15 – Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Co-Director of the Institute for Security and
Conflict Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University
[Charles L. Glaser, "A U.S.-China Grand Bargain? The Hard Choice between Military Competition and Accommodation,"
International Security (2015) 39 (4): 49–90,
https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/39/4/49/12308/A-U-S-China-Grand-Bargain-The-Hard-Choic e
-between?redirectedFrom=fulltext#.WLidXVXyuUk, accessed 10-12-2024; AD]
More important, however, is that focusing on the quality of current crossstrait relations overlooks two other less direct, but potentially more significant, benefits of U.S.
accommodation on Taiwan. First, U.S. support for Taiwan is one of the most important, possibly the most important, policy-driven sources of
China’s suspicions about U.S. motives and intentions. Although the
United States does not take a position on what the ªnal outcome of the Taiwan issue should be, China considers U.S. support of

Taiwan a key source of “strategic distrust.” A recent study by two leading authorities on U.S.-China relations concludes that Beijing views U.S.
arms sales to Taiwan “as conªrming American arrogance and determination to interfere in China’s domestic affairs
and to prevent peaceful uniªcation from occurring, thereby
harming a clearly-articulated Chinese core interest.” In a similar vein, their report argues that “continuing to provide Taiwan with
advanced weapons . . . is viewed as pernicious in Chinese eyes and has added to suspicion that Washington will
disregard Chinese interests and sentiments as long as China’s power
position is secondary to America’s.”68 Nathan and Scobell conclude that “most Chinese see strategic motives at the root of
American behavior. They believe that keeping the Taiwan problem going helps the U.S. tie China down.”69 Similarly, a prominent Chinese

analyst argues: “Theposition the U.S. takes on the Taiwan issue determines the essence of American strategy toward
China, and thus determines the quality and status of U.S.-China relations.”70 Xu Hui, a professor at China’s National Defense University,
holds that “U.S. policies toward Taiwan have been and are the fundamental cause of some anti-American sentiment
among the Chinese public....I assure you that a posture change of the U.S. policy on Taiwan will remove the major
obstacle for our military-to-military relations and also strengthen Sino-American cooperation by winning the hearts
and minds of 1.3 billion Chinese people.”71 In short, ending the U.S. commitment to Taiwan has the potential to
dramatically improve U.S.-China relations, which in turn could increase the possibility of cooperation on other
issues and reduce the probability of competition and conflict.

W5: The US’s support for Taiwan is preventing US-China

cooperation.
Aljazeera, 24 ["China halts nuclear arms talks with US over Taiwan support," Aljazeera, 7-18-2024,
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/18/china-halts-nuclear-arms-talks-with-us-over-taiwan-suppo r t, accessed
10-12-2024; AD]

China hassuspended negotiations on nuclear non-proliferation and arms control with the United States in
protest against Washington’s arms sales to the self-ruled island of Taiwan. The US called Beijing’s decision on Wednesday “unfortunate”, while analysts said
the move deals a potentially serious setback to global arms-control efforts. China and the US began nuclear weapons discussions in
November as part of a bid to ease mistrust ahead of a summit between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden. Further dialogue had not been publicly announced since, with a
White House official in January urging Beijing to respond “to some of our more substantive ideas on risk reduction”. A
spokesperson for China’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs on Wednesday said the US’s arms sales to Taiwan, a territory that it claims, had “seriously compromised the
political atmosphere for continuing the arms-control consultations”. “Consequently, the Chinese side has decided to hold off discussion
 “The
with the US on a new round of consultations on arms control and non-proliferation,” Lin Jian, the spokesperson, told a regular news briefing in Beijing.
responsibility fully lies with the US,” he said. Lin added that China was willing to maintain communication on international arms control, but said the US
“must respect China’s core interests and create necessary conditions for dialogue and exchange”. The US switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 but has
remained Taiwan’s most important partner and biggest arms supplier, sparking repeated condemnations from China. Taiwan has protested for the past four years about
stepped-up Chinese military activity near the island, including almost daily missions by Chinese warplanes and warships. Washington in June approved two military sales to
Taiwan worth approximately $300m in total, mostly of spare and repair parts for the island’s F-16 fighter jets. Arms-race risks US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller
slammed China’s move, saying Beijing has chosen to follow Russia’s lead by asserting that arms-control engagement cannot proceed while there are other challenges in the
bilateral relationship. “We think this approach undermines
strategic stability. It increases the risk of arms-race dynamics,” Miller told reporters. “Unfortunately, by suspending these consultations, China has chosen not to pursue efforts
that would manage strategic risks and prevent costly arms races, but we, the United States, will remain open to developing and implementing concrete risk-reduction measures
with China,” he said. The Biden administration advocates a policy of “compartmentalization”, in which nuclear arms control talks are segregated from other contentious Sino-US
issues. The Chinese decision comes just over a month after the Biden administration said the US may have to deploy more strategic nuclear weapons to deter growing threats
from Chinese and Russian arsenals. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association advocacy group, told the Reuters news agency that the US, Russia and
China are legally bound as signatories of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty – the cornerstone of global arms control – to “engage in talks to prevent the arms race”. “The only
way they can accomplish that is through serious dialogue and Russia’s refusal to do so and China’s decision to do so are very serious setbacks,” he said. The US has a
stockpile of about 3,700 nuclear warheads, of which roughly 1,419 strategic nuclear warheads were deployed. Russia has about 1,550 nuclear weapons deployed and according
to the Federation of American Scientists, a stockpile of 4,489 nuclear warheads. Washington meanwhile estimates that China has 500 operational nuclear warheads and will
probably have more than 1,000 by 2030. US officials have expressed frustration that Beijing has shown little interest in discussing steps to reduce nuclear weapons risks. But
Beijing has long argued that the US already has a much larger arsenal.

AT: US - China Relations

W1: Alternative causes to tensions - Bresnick 22
Paul Haenle, Sam Bresnick, Feb 21 2022, Why U.S.-China Relations Are Locked in a Stalemate,
https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2022/02/why-us-china-relations-are-locked-in-a-stalemate?lang=en
Former U.S. President Donald Trump ushered in a more confrontational era in U.S.-China relations, and Biden has largely maintained his predecessor’s approach to Beijing,
The U.S. government has for decades been concerned by China’s
albeit with a more equanimous tone and embrace of multilateralism.
mercantilism, rapid military modernization, and illiberal approach to
human rights, but it had held out hope that China might liberalize through increasingly robust contact with the rest of the world. That has not happened, and the United
States and others have lost patience with China’s state capitalist system, militarization of the South China Sea, and increasingly authoritarian governance.

Turn - deterrence is key to preventing tensions and helping

relations.
https://cis.mit.edu/publications/analysis-opinion/2022/how-avoid-war-over-taiwan

Avoiding war in the Taiwan Strait requires all sides to be deterred. At a minimum, Taiwan must be deterred from declaring
formal independence, Washington must be deterred from recognizing Taiwan as an independent state or restoring a formal
alliance with the island, and Beijing must be deterred from using military force against Taiwan to compel unification. All sides
must not only be threatened with harm for crossing these redlines but also be assured that they will not suffer catastrophic
losses to their interests if they refrain from these actions. Triangular deterrence has succeeded for over 40 years in keeping
the peace across the Taiwan Strait. But rising tensions have made this delicate arrangement more fragile.

AT: Deterrence Fails

1. Adversaries only believe in nuclear deterrence, that’s the only thing that matters. Bruno 23 finds that since 1945,
wars between nuclear armed countries have not happened due to deterrence and a sense of caution.
2. No impact - Ladish 20 finds that even in a full nuclear war, extinction is likely to be 1 chance in 100,000 scenarios.
Many misrepresent the scientific uncertainty about nuclear war - it is not likely to result in extinction.
 3. because of fear of retaliation, realize that under article 5 of the NATO treaty says that any attack on a NATO
country means that the entire organization will retaliate, meaning that Russia would never actually attack as they
would just get outnumbers. Indeed, with the MAD treaty no one would ever risk going to nuclear war.

AT: North Korea-South Korea Conflict

W1: Nuclear escalation is nonsensical fear mongering and
provides Kim no tactical advantage.
Roy 24 Denny Roy, "North Korea Does Not Want a War", 01/31/2024, The National Interest,
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/north-korea-does-not-want-war-208985, Accessed 04/02/2024 \\aln

The North Korean government under Kim Jong-un continues to move in a direction that alarms its potential adversaries: South Korea, the United States, and Japan.
Pyongyang’s latest actions douse already dim hopes for reconciliation and solidify a
status quo of seemingly
permanent tension on the Korean Peninsula. But despite speculation to the contrary, Pyongyang’s recent activity does not
indicat[ion] that Kim has decided to go to war against South Korea. Pyongyang’s drive to
develop and deploy various types of advanced missiles, of which the cruise missile tests of the past few days are the latest reminder,
understandably causing worry about the DPRK’s intentions. But this is explainable as attempted deterrence rather than
preparation to launch an elective war. The DPRK government is responding to the relative weakness of its conventional forces, a steady stream of U.S.
nuclear threats, continued U.S. and ROK efforts to negate the DPRK’s second-strike capability through anti-missile defense, and the South Korean
government’s interest in “decapitation” of the DPRK leadership. A possible interpretation is this policy change clears the way for a DPRK decision to make
war against a people redefined as antagonists rather than cousins. Equally plausibly, however, it could be a manifestation of an official view that conquest of the South is not
DPRK should instead focus on self-preservation. Viewed in that light, renouncing reunification would seem to make a bolt-from-the-blue
feasible and the
North Korean attack less rather than more likely. Even carrying out a small-scale, unprovoked lethal attack would be perilous for Kim. One
problem is that since 2010, when South Korea suffered fatalities from the sinking of the ROK Navy ship Cheonan
and the shelling of ROK-held Yeonpyeong island, South Korean governments have said they will retaliate militarily against
North Korean attacks. Instead of gaining political leverage, Kim could expect to lose[s] some of his combat capability and lose face if his punch
proved weaker than the South Korean counter-punch. Another problem is that Kim cannot be sure that a small, one-off DPRK attack
would not initiate a chain of escalation that Kim could not control, leading to a general war that would threaten the existence of the Kim
regime and the North Korean state. Those who warn of an impending unprovoked North Korean attack must explain
what benefit Kim could hope to gain by
taking on militarily superior adversaries. While purposefully spewing belligerent rhetoric, the Kims have not stayed in power for this long by
acting suicidal.

AT: South Korea Proliferation

W1: No South Korea proliferation.
Sieffried S. Hecker 23. Distinguished Professor of Practice at James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the
Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Professor of Practice of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M
University. “The Disastrous Downsides of South Korea Building Nuclear Weapons.” 1/20/23.

https://www.38north.org/2023/01/the-disastrous-downsides-of-south-korea-building-nuclear-weapons/ Whereas President

Yoon’s comment, “…we can have our own nuclear weapons pretty quickly, given our scientific and technological capabilities”
is true, it doesn’t come close to capturing the national redirection, expense, and immense burden that Seoul would have to
shoulder to field not just one bomb, but a nuclear arsenal to counter Pyongyang’s. It is true that with its advanced
technological capabilities, South Korea could probably build the bomb quickly. But a few bombs don’t make a nuclear
deterrent, particularly if Seoul will have to go it alone. And let’s be clear, if Seoul were to go down this path, Washington
could, and likely would, withdraw its nuclear umbrella. Building a nuclear arsenal to counter Pyongyang’s would require a
major national redirection of its economy and diplomacy that would negatively affect nearly all facets of South Korean
life for decades. For nearly fifty years, South Korea has pursued a civilian nuclear energy program. It wisely focused on the
middle of the fuel cycle—that is, reactor fuel fabrication, reactor construction and operation, and electricity production. It has
built neither enrichment nor reprocessing facilities. Consequently, South Korea has no inventory of bomb-grade plutonium
or uranium currently stockpiled. To build nuclear weapons, it would have to repurpose some of its civilian reactors to produce
the plutonium bomb fuel (combined with using its laboratory-scale pyroprocessing facilities to extract plutonium) or construct
a centrifuge facility to make highly enriched uranium. Either path would take at least two years to produce enough bomb fuel
for even a few bombs. In the longer term, an effective nuclear deterrent would require new, dedicated nuclear weapons
facilities, requiring substantial time and financial commitments. The next step in building a bomb is weaponization—that is,
designing, building and testing the nuclear devices. South Korea could surely master all scientific and engineering
challenges of building a bomb—as it has demonstrated so convincingly in mastering civilian nuclear power generation.
Some of the purely military aspects could be accomplished in concert with its conventional military technical complex. But to
prove the design and fabrication,
Japan— to tests from every South Korean province. The nuclear warheads will also have to
be integrated into delivery vehicles—such as ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, submarine-launched missiles or bombers.
South Korea has all the basic building blocks, but it would still have substantial work to do to integrate the nuclear
warheads into the delivery systems. Moreover, these requirements will continue to evolve as North Korea upgrades its
offensive and defensive capabilities. The assembly, disassembly and fielding of nuclear devices pose serious safety and
security risks and would have to be learned without help or advice from current nuclear powers. Seoul will also have to
develop a command-and-control structure that is more stringent than anything it has done so far for its conventional military.
Another consequence of building a nuclear arsenal is that it will compete for resources—financial, personnel, and
technical—with the South’s conventional military. As with other industries, such as electronics, automotive and consumer
goods that depend on South Korean engineering and manufacturing, its military industry has risen to be among the best in
the world. South Korea has become one of the top international suppliers of military hardware. Seoul’s sales pitch is that it
can deliver NATO-attuned military hardware faster and at lower prices than the United States. Changing directions to focus
on a nuclear arsenal will derail most of its conventional military export business.

W2: Doubts about extended deterrence alone check.

Robert Einhorn 23. Senior fellow in the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative and the Strobe Talbott Center for
Security, Strategy, and Technology, both housed within the Foreign Policy program at
Brookings. Master’s in public affairs and international relations from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.
“Will Putin’s invasion spur nuclear proliferation?”
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/will-putins-invasion-spur-nuclear-proliferation/.

Public opinion polls consistently indicate strong support among South Koreans for acquiring their own nuclear deterrent. But
South Korea’s leaders are well aware of the major costs and risks of going nuclear. It could seriously erode the
U.S.-South Korean alliance, increase tensions on the Korean Peninsula, trigger strong penalties by China, damage
Seoul’s international standing, and terminate civil nuclear cooperation with other states, which would end South Korea’s
reliance on nuclear power for 30% of its electricity. For now at least, the Yoon administration would prefer to rely on U.S.
security guarantees rather than pursue its own nuclear deterrent. But it believes the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent needs
to be strengthened — including by giving South Korea a greater voice in its planning and execution. If current
U.S.-Republic of Korea efforts succeed in boosting South Korean confidence in the reliability of U.S. security guarantees, the
appeal of an independent nuclear capability will be significantly diminished. Japan is also considering its nuclear options.
While it shares Seoul’s concerns about the North Korean threat, it is also worried about China. And unlike South Korea,
Japan already has uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities that would allow it to move toward nuclear
weapons relatively quickly. But Japan is even less likely than South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons. Its public remains
strongly opposed, reflecting its history as the only victim of nuclear attack. Tokyo is giving high priority to conventional
means of deterring and responding to aggression by China or North Korea — planning to dramatically increase its military
expenditures, pursuing long-range missile strike capabilities, and joining with Seoul and Washington to promote trilateral
defense cooperation. Like South Korea, Japan is working with the United States to strengthen the U.S. extended deterrent.
And like South Korea, it’s well aware of the many downsides of pursuing nuclear weapons.
 AT: Lethal Autonomous Weapons
Systems
Lethal autonomous weapons

NQ1 - it’s non-unique - Sayler 23 says:

[Kelley M. Sayler, Analyst in Advanced Technology and Global Security, January 30, 2023 Biometric Technologies and
Global Security https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/2023-01-30_IF11783_cfdb98491d440ac259b01a6163a12eb0155c
748c.pdf, Coach Pat]

Some analysts have argued that this technology application could increase precision in targeting, and thus improve
adherence to international humanitarian law (e.g., avoid killing civilians), while others have argued that it is inherently
unethical and could violate international humanitarian law. The United States does not currently possess and is not
known to be developing LAWS; however, there is no prohibition on their development or the incorporation of biometric
technologies into autonomous weapon systems. Weapons manufacturers in both China and Russia have stated that they
are developing these systems, which could include biometric features.

AT: Cyber Attacks

W1: No catastrophic cyber attacks
James Andrew Lewis 20, Senior Vice President and Director of the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, “Dismissing Cyber Catastrophe”, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 8/17/2020,
https://www.csis.org/analysis/dismissing-cyber-catastrophe
A catastrophic cyberattack was first predicted in the mid-1990s. Since then, predictions of a catastrophe have appeared regularly and have entered the popular consciousness.
As a trope, a cyber catastrophe captures our imagination, but as analysis, it remains entirely imaginary and is of dubious value as a basis for
policymaking. There has never been a catastrophic cyberattack.
To qualify as a catastrophe, an event must produce damaging mass effect, including casualties and destruction. The fires that swept across California last summer were a
catastrophe. Covid-19 has been a catastrophe, especially in countries with inadequate responses. With man-made actions, however, a catastrophe is harder to produce than it
may seem, and for cyberattacks a catastrophe requires organizational and technical skills most actors still do not possess. It requires planning, reconnaissance to find
vulnerabilities, and then acquiring or building attack tools—things that require resources and experience. To
achieve mass effect, either a few central targets
(like an electrical grid) need to be hit or multiple targets would have to be hit simultaneously (as is the case with urban water systems), something that is itself an
operational challenge.

It is easier to imagine a catastrophe than to produce it. The 2003 East Coast blackout is the archetype for an attack on the U.S.
electrical grid. No one died in this blackout, and services were restored in a few days. As electric production is digitized,
vulnerability increases, but many electrical companies have made
cybersecurity a priority. Similarly, at water treatment plants, the chemicals used to purify water are controlled in ways that make mass releases difficult. In any case,
it would take a massive amount of chemicals to poison large rivers or lakes, more than most companies keep on hand, and any release would quickly be diluted.

More importantly, there are powerful strategic constraints on those who have the ability to launch
catastrophe attacks. We have more than two decades of experience with the use of cyber techniques and operations for coercive and criminal purposes and have a
clear understanding of motives, capabilities, and intentions. We can be guided by the methods of the Strategic Bombing Survey, which used interviews and observation (rather
than hypotheses) to determine effect. These methods apply equally to cyberattacks. The conclusions we can draw from this are:

Nonstate actors and most states lack the capability to launch attacks that cause physical damage at any level, much less a catastrophe. There have been regular predictions
every year for over a decade that nonstate actors will acquire these high-end cyber capabilities in two or three years in what has become a cycle of repetition. The monetary
return is negligible, which dissuades the skilled cybercriminals (mostly Russian speaking) who might have the necessary skills. One mystery is why these groups have not been
used as mercenaries, and this may reflect either a degree of control by the Russian state (if it has forbidden mercenary ) or a degree of caution by
criminals.

§ There
is enough uncertainty among potential attackersUnited States’ ability to attribute that they are unwilling to risk
massive retaliation in response to a catastrophic attack. (They are perfectly willing to
take the risk of attribution for espionage and coercive cyber actions.)

§ No one has ever died from a cyberattack, and only a handful of these attacks have produced physical

damage. A cyberattack is not a nuclear weapon, and it is intellectually lazy to equate them to nuclear weapons. Using a tactical nuclear weapon against an urban center
would produce several hundred thousand casualties, while a strategic nuclear exchange would cause tens of millions of casualties and immense physical destruction. These are
catastrophes that some hack cannot duplicate. The shadow of nuclear war distorts discussion of cyber warfare.

§ State use of cyber operations is consistent with their broad national strategies and interests. Their primary emphasis is on
espionage and political coercion. The United States has opponents and is in conflict with them, but they have no interest in launching a
catastrophic cyberattack since it would certainly produce an equally catastrophic retaliation. Their goal is to stay below
the “use-of-force” threshold and undertake damaging cyber actions against the United States, not start a war.
This has implications for the discussion of inadvertent escalation, something that has also never occurred. The concern over escalation deserves a longer
discussion, as there are both technological and strategic constraints that shape and limit risk in cyber operations, and the absence of inadvertent escalation
suggests a high degree of control for cyber capabilities by
advanced states. Attackers, particularly among the United States’ major opponents for whom cyber is just one of the tools for confrontation, seek to avoid
actions that could trigger escalation.

The United States has two opponents (China and Russia) who are
capable of damaging cyberattacks. Russia has demonstrated its attack
skills on the Ukrainian power grid, but neither Russia nor China would be well
served by a similar attack on the United States. Iran is improving and may reach the point where it could use cyberattacks to cause major damage, but it would
only do so when it has decided to engage in a major armed conflict with the United States. Iran might attack targets outside the United States and its allies with less risk and
continues to experiment with cyberattacks against Israeli critical infrastructure. North Korea has not yet developed this kind of capability.

that discou the robustness and and resilien

they
of modern
nt configurations; ce
multiple targets

the
are harder to damage
y
catastrophe scenarios is economies. These economies present through cyberattack than they look, given the
One major failing of
growing (albeit incomplete) attention to cybersecurity; and experience shows that people compensate for damage and quickly
repair or rebuild. This was one of the
counterintuitive lessons of the Strategic Bombing Survey. Pre-war planning assumed that civilian morale and production would crumple under aerial bombardment. In fact, the
opposite occurred. Resistance hardened and production was restored.1

This is a short overview of why catastrophe is unlikely. Several longer CSIS reports go into the reasons in some detail. Past performance may not necessarily predict
the future, but after 25 years without a single catastrophic cyberattack, we should invoke the concept cautiously, if at all. Why then, it is raised so often?

W2: Uncertainty alone checks.

Lewis 18, PhD, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
(James Andrew, 1-1-2018, “Rethinking Cybersecurity: Strategy, Mass Effect, and States”, pg. 29,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep22408.8?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents)

This upper bound on cyber attack is affected by the likelihood of attribution. If an attacker was confident that it could avoid
having the attack attributed to it, the risk of retaliation would be reduced, making some attacks more attractive. Uncertainty
about attribution capabilities, particularly American capabilities, combined with uncertainty about the effectiveness of
cyber attack, creates caution. Public expressions of uncertainty about attribution are not shared by opponents, who
know when they have been caught. Over the last decade, the United States has made a major effort to improve its
attribution capabilities and has succeeded to the point where no opponent can be confident about anonymity and this,
if linked to truly credible threats to impose consequences, may finally produce the cyber deterrence so long sought by the
United States.

The implicit threshold governing cyber attack is the line between force and coercion. With very few exceptions, states have
avoided cyber actions that could be judged as the use of force, based on international understandings on what actions
qualify as the use of force or armed attack. Opponents have engaged in cyber actions below this implicit threshold with
impunity, but they are reluctant to cross it for fear of creating a situation that they cannot control. In this, cyber incidents
are more like border incursions or bandit raids than attacks.

Public sources suggest that at least seven countries have used cyber tools for coercive purposes.
However, they have been careful to avoid anything that could be interpreted as the use of force, and they have avoided
physical destruction or casualties. This suggests that countries prefer actions that advance their strategic goals without
creating unmanageable risk of escalation into armed conflict.
Opponents calculate the advantage they would gain from an attack against the potential cost. Miscalculation is possible, but
if anything, opponents appear more likely to overestimate the risk of retaliation.

W3: No motivation.
Lewis 18, PhD, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
(James Andrew, 1-1-2018, “Rethinking Cybersecurity: Strategy, Mass Effect, and States”, pg. 7-9,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep22408.5?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents) *language edited---brackets

The most dangerous and damaging attacks required resources and engineering knowledge that are beyond the
capabilities of nonstate actors, and those who possess such capabilities consider their use in the context of some larger
strategy to achieve national goals. Precision and predictability—always desirable in offensive operations in order to
provide assured effect and economy of force—suggest that the risk of collateral damage is smaller than we assume, and
with this, so is the risk of indiscriminate or mass effect.

State Use of Cyber Attack Is Consistent with Larger Strategic Aims

Based on a review of state actions to date, cyber operations give countries a new way to implement existing policies rather
than leading them to adopt new policy or strategies. State opponents use cyber techniques in ways consistent with their
national strategies and objectives. But for now, cyber may be best explained as an addition to the existing portfolio of tools
available to nations.

Cyber operations are ideal for achieving the strategic effect our opponents seek in this new environment. How nations use
cyber techniques will be determined by their larger needs and interests, by their strategies, experience, and institutions, and
by their tolerance for risk. Cyber operations provide unparalleled access to targets, and the only constraint on attackers is
the risk of retaliation—a risk they manage by avoiding actions that would provoke a damaging response. This is done by
staying below an implicit threshold on what can be considered the use of force in cyberspace.

The reality of cyber attack differs greatly from our fears. Analysts place a range of hypothetical threats, often
accompanied by extreme consequences, before the public without considering the probability of occurrence or the likelihood
that opponents will choose a course of action that does not advance their strategic aims and creates grave risk of
damaging escalation. Our opponents’ goals are not to carry out a cyber 9/11. While there have been many opponent
probes of critical infrastructure facilities in numerous countries, the number of malicious cyber actions that caused physical
damage can be counted on one hand. While opponents have probed critical infrastructure networks, there is no
indication that they are for the purposes of the kind of [devastating] crippling strategic attacks against critical
infrastructure that dominated planning in the Second World War or the Cold War.

Similarly, the popular idea that opponents use cyber techniques to inflict cumulative economic harm is not supported by
evidence. Economic warfare has always been part of conflict, but there are no examples of a country seeking to
imperceptibly harm the economy of an opponent. The United States engaged in economic warfare during the Cold War,
and still uses sanctions as a tool of foreign power, but few if any other nations do the same. The intent of cyber espionage is
to gain market or technological advantage. Coercive actions against government agencies or companies are intended to
intimidate. Terrorists do not seek to inflict economic damage. The difficulty of wreaking real harm on large,
interconnected economies is usually ignored.

Economic warfare in cyberspace is ascribed to China, but China’s cyber doctrine has three elements: control of cyberspace
to preserve party rule and political stability, espionage (both commercial and military), and preparation for disruptive acts to
damage an opponent’s weapons, military information systems, and command and control. “Strategic” uses, such as striking
civilian infrastructure in the opponent’s homeland, appear to be a lower priority and are an adjunct to nuclear strikes as part
of China’s strategic deterrence. Chinese officials seem more concerned about accelerating China’s growth rather than
some long-term effort to undermine the American economy.6 The 2015 agreement with the United States served Chinese
interests by centralizing tasking authority in Beijing and ending People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “freelancing” against
commercial targets.
The Russians specialize in coercion, financial crime, and creating harmful cognitive effect—the ability to manipulate
emotions and decisionmaking. Under their 2010 military doctrine on disruptive information operations (part of what they call
“New Generation Warfare”). Russians want confusion, not physical damage. Iran and North Korea use cyber actions
against American banks or entertainment companies like Sony or the Sands Casino, but their goal is political coercion, not
destruction.

None of these countries talk about death by 1000 cuts or attacking critical infrastructure to produce a cyber Pearl Harbor or
any of the other scenarios that dominate the media. The few disruptive attacks on critical infrastructure have focused almost
exclusively on the energy sector. Major financial institutions face a high degree of risk but in most cases, the attackers’ intent
is to extract money. There have been cases of service disruption and data erasure, but these have been limited in scope.
Denial-of-service attacks against banks impede services and may be costly to the targeted bank, but do not have a major
effect on the national economy. In all of these actions, there is a line that countries have been unwilling to cross.

When our opponents decided to challenge American “hegemony,” they developed strategies to circumvent the risks of
retaliation or escalation by ensuring that their actions stayed below the use-of-force threshold—an imprecise threshold,
roughly defined by international law, but usually considered to involve actions that produce destruction or casualties. Almost
all cyber attacks fall below this threshold, including, crime, espionage, and politically coercive acts. This explains why the
decades-long quest to rebuild Cold War deterrence in cyberspace has been fruitless.

It also explains why we have not seen the dreaded cyber Pearl Harbor or other predicted catastrophes. Opponents are
keenly aware that launching catastrophe brings with it immense risk of receiving catastrophe in return. States are the
only actors who can carry out catastrophic cyber attacks and they are very unlikely to do so in a strategic environment
that seeks to gain advantage without engaging in armed conflict. Decisions on targets and attack make sense only when
embedded in their larger strategic calculations regarding how best to fight with the United States.

There have been thousands of incidents of cybercrime and cyber espionage, but only a handful of true attacks, where the
intent was not to extract information or money, but to disrupt and, in a few cases, destroy. From these incidents, we can
extract a more accurate picture of risk. The salient incidents are the cyber operations against Iran’s nuclear weapons facility
(Stuxnet), Iran’s actions against Aramco and leading American banks, North Korean interference with Sony and with South
Korean banks and television stations, and Russian actions against Estonia, Ukrainian power facilities, Canal 5 (television
network in France), and the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Cyber attacks are not random. All of these incidents have been
part of larger geopolitical conflicts involving Iran, Korea, and the Ukraine, or Russia’s contest with the United States and
NATO.

There are commonalities in each attack. All were undertaken by state actors or proxy forces to achieve the attacking state’s
policy objectives. Only two caused tangible damage; the rest created coercive effect, intended to create confusion and
psychological pressure through fear, uncertainty, and embarrassment. In no instance were there deaths or casualties. In two
decades of cyber attacks, there has never been a single casualty. This alone should give pause to the doomsayers. Nor
has there been widespread collateral damage.

W4: Low risk of significant cyber attacks

Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Research Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, 4-25, 22, The Russian cyber threat is here to
stay and NATO needs to understand it,
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-russian-cyber-threat-is-here-to-stay-and-nato-needs-to-understand-it/
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has escalated warnings about likely Russian cyber-attacks on American infrastructure and business. More
worrying still, cyber alarmists like Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., have suggested that cyber-attacks from the Kremlin could be acts of war that
This sky-is-falling delusion, particularly from leaders with access to classified intelligence, is at best
trigger NATO’s collective defense.
counterproductive and at worst dangerous. Cyber-attacks are rarely acts of war, and treating them as if they are undermines NATO’s
ability to deal with real threats short of cyber war. NATO has only invoked Article 5 – which triggers a collective response – once and that was after the 9/11 attacks.
Cyber-attacks are unlikely to destroy buildings and kill thousands in an instant. While collective defense extends to cyberspace, few
operations could realistically be a cause for war. This would include cyber-attacks resulting in death or
damage like traditional military operations or coordinated assaults that take the power grid or entire economic sectors offline. These scenarios are unlikely though:
such attacks require far too much time, funding, manpower, and control.
Instead, most attacks temporarily overwhelm servers with traffic, deny network access, hold computers hostage, and steal or delete data.
 AT: Tech Race
1. [NU] The US is already investing heavily in AI. Bomey 24’ The U.S. is dominating investment in AI, more
than three times as much than any other country.
a. If the countless amount of money that the US pours into AI tech development outside the southern
border isn’t enough, then an increase in tech does nothing at all compared to the results we’ve
already had from past AI tech development
Bomey 24
Nathan Bomey, 2024, Charted: U.S. is the private sector AI leader, https://www.axios.com/2024/07/09/us-ai-global-leader-private-sector,

Zoom in: The US private sector invested more than three times as much in AI than any other country did
2013 through 2023, according through the new report.

FRONTLINES

AT: Opportunity Cost

Rebut to healthcare and education underinvestment. Focus on weighing and outline how
detrimental

AT: Block Template

T: Topic Template
Rebutting To: “”

Link:

Weighing:

5. Probability:
6. Magnitude:
7. Scope:
8. Reversibility
9. Timeframe
 10. Cost-Benefit Analysis:
11. Opportunity Cost:

Questions to Ask:

3.
4.
5.

Answers to Potential Questions:

4. Question:
a. Answer:
5. Question:
a. Answer:
6. Question:
a. Answer:
7. Question:
a. Answer:
8. Question:
a. Answer:

Warrant 1: