Isolationism disadvantage

ISOLATIONISM DISADVANTAGE

Isolationism DA Shell (1/2)

A. Uniqueness: Obama has restored hard and soft power now:

B. Link: Pulling back from overseas defense commitments is a signal to our allies that America is retreating into isolationism—this guts American soft power with allies around the globe.

· A reduction in defense spending this year would unnerve American allies and undercut efforts to gain greater cooperation. There is already a sense around the world, fed by irresponsible pundits here at home, that the United States is in terminal decline. Many fear that the economic crisis will cause the United States to pull back from overseas commitments. The announcement of a defense cutback would be taken by the world as evidence that the American retreat has begun. This would make it harder to press allies to do more. The Obama administration rightly plans to encourage European allies to increase defense capabilities so they can more equitably share the burden of global commitments. This will be a tough sell if the United States is cutting its own defense budget. In Afghanistan, there are already concerns that the United States may be "short of breath." In Pakistan, the military may be tempted to wait out what its members perceive as America's flagging commitment to the region. A reduction in defense funding would feed these perceptions and make it harder for Obama's newly appointed special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, to press for necessary changes in both countries.

2. Abandoning military commitments undermines other US commitments—our word will no longer be believed:

Isolationism DA Shell (2/2)

C. Impact: A perception of US withdrawal from the world creates a devastating power vacuum, risking international anarchy and multiple scenarios for nuclear war.

Uniqueness Extensions: Soft Power High Now

The US image abroad has recovered under the Obama administration.

Obama is effectively wielding soft power now.

US influence in the world has rebounded despite alternate causes.

Other alternate causes have not reduced American soft power.

Obama's status defies widespread assumptions that the overwhelming international public approval of America's first African-American chief executive was bound to crash once the afterglow of his historic election faded. American soft power, eroding through much of the last decade, has rebounded despite the American roots of the recent economic crisis, escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and failure to take steps against climate change.

The world is increasingly viewing the US in a positive light.

America’s influence in the world is growing now.

America is rapidly improving its soft power now:

"Its influence on people's views worldwide, though, is to soften the negative aspects of the United States' image, while positive aspects are not yet coming into strong focus." He added: "While China's image is stuck in neutral, America has motored past it in the global soft-power competition."

The international community increasingly views the United States favorably:

He may be a divisive figure here at home, but has President Obama greatly increased the opinion the rest of the world has of America? That’s what a new poll seems to be saying. The BBC is reporting that the poll, which asked people around the world to rate the influence of different countries as either “positive” or “negative” has found America finally breaking into the positive side. This is the first time the country has scored highly since the poll’s inception in 2005. Analysts were quick to speculate that the global community must share Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s views that America has benefited from the election of a “thinker”.

Uniqueness Extensions: Soft Power High Now

The standing of the US around the world is improving now.

"People around the world today view the United States more positively than at any time since the second Iraq war," said Doug Miller, chairman of international polling firm GlobeScan, which carried out the poll with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa) at the University of Maryland. "While still well below that of countries like Germany and the UK, the global standing of the US is clearly on the rise again."

Obama is increasingly softening the negative aspects of the US image:

The rest of the results weren’t particularly surprising. Iran and Pakistan were considered the most negative while China continued the slow downward trend its been making the past few years. Germany, a country who has had to overcome a much larger PR problem than an unpopular Bush administration, remains the highest viewed country. But the enormous upswing for America is the real story here and Steve Krup, the director of one of the groups who conducted the poll, gives all the credit to the new president. “‘After a year, it appears the ‘Obama effect’ is real. Its influence on people’s views worldwide, though, is to soften the negative aspects of the United States’ image, while positive aspects are not yet coming into strong focus.’

Link Extensions

Reneging on US military commitments undermines US leadership and the global economy.

They won't. Truth is, if the United States were to renege on its commitments and allow the international order that it has maintained for 60 years to fall apart, another order would take its place. The transition from one to another would be characterized by conflict. And the new order, once it was born, would not be pleasant. It would be less free, less prosperous and less peaceful than the world we know today. You can see what happens when Americans turn inward by reading the history of the 1970s. It is not a pretty sight. U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam marked the beginning of a period of global catastrophe, as the Soviet Union expanded its influence in Central Asia, Africa and Central America and the Iranian revolution provided the first state vehicle for jihadism's war on the West. These crises engendered others in the U.S. government and the global economy. Going back even earlier in our history, when you look at America's failure to maintain the post-Versailles Treaty order that it had helped build following the World War I, you see the same pattern. Illiberalism was allowed to expand, the world economy tanked and more war followed. We know what happens when the United States decides to reject "interventionism." Let's not make the same mistakes again.

Withdrawing troops from Iraq risks a retreat to isolationism.

Impacts: Declining US Power is Disastrous

Declines in hegemonic power risk conflict.

Clearly, major shifts in the balance of power in the international system often lead to instability and conflict. And America’s current predicament is far more severe. This time, our relative decline of 32 percent is accompanied, not by an even-steeper decline of our near-peer competitor, but rather by a 144 percent increase in China’s relative position. Further, the rapid spread of technology and technological breakthroughs means that one great discovery does not buoy an already-strong state to decades-long predominance. And with a rising China—with raw resources of population, landmass and increasing adoption of leading technology—a true peer competitor is looming. America’s current, rapid domestic economic decline is merely accelerating our own downfall. The distinct quality of a system with only one superpower is that no other single state is powerful enough to balance against it. A true global hegemon is more powerful still—stronger than all second-ranked powers acting as members of a counterbalancing coalition seeking to contain the unipolar leader. By these standards, America’s relative decline is fundamentally changing international politics, and is fundamentally different from Russia circa 1850 and Great Britain circa 1910.

Historically, nations in decline launch wars.

THE UNITED States has always prided itself on exceptionalism, and the U.S. downfall is indeed extraordinary. Something fundamental has changed. America’s relative decline since 2000 of some 30 percent represents a far greater loss of relative power in a shorter time than any power shift among European great powers from roughly the end of the Napoleonic Wars to World War II. It is one of the largest relative declines in modern history. Indeed, in size, it is clearly surpassed by only one other great-power decline, the unexpected internal collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Most disturbing, whenever there are major changes in the balance of power, conflict routinely ensues. Examining the historical record reveals an important pattern: the states facing the largest declines in power compared to other major powers were apt to be the target of opportunistic aggression. And this is surely not the only possible danger from relative decline; states on the power wane also have a history of launching preventive wars to strengthen their positions. All of this suggests that major relative declines are often accompanied by highly dangerous international environments. So, these declines matter not just in terms of economics, but also because of their destabilizing consequences.

Declines in leadership almost always lead to warfare.

Clearly, the United States is not the first great power to suffer long-term decline—we should learn from history. Great powers in decline seem to almost instinctively spend more on military forces in order to shore up their disintegrating strategic positions, and some like Germany go even further, shoring up their security by adopting preventive military strategies, beyond defensive alliances, to actively stop a rising competitor from becoming dominant. For declining great powers, the allure of preventive war—or lesser measures to “merely” firmly contain a rising power—has a more compelling logic than many might assume. Since Thucydides, scholars of international politics have famously argued that a declining hegemon and rising challenger must necessarily face such intense security competition that hegemonic war to retain dominance over the international system is almost a foregone conclusion. Robert Gilpin, one of the deans of realism who taught for decades at Princeton, believed that “the first and most attractive response to a society’s decline is to eliminate the source of the problem . . . [by] what we shall call a hegemonic war.”

Soft power is key to solve terrorism, warming, the economy, proliferation and disease.

Kagan writes as if the Obama administration is engaging with re-emerging powers to prove an ideological point that great power strife is a relic of history. Yet no staffer that I have ever spoken with would suggest that these relationships are beyond rivalry. More importantly, Kagan does not reveal the Obama administration’s reasons for pursuing strategic collaborations with China, Russia, India, and other pivotal powers. In fact, these partnerships are necessary to protect Americans from common threats in terrorists, global warming, economic crises, nuclear proliferation, and pandemics such as swine flu—the forces of disorder that can and do affect Americans right here at home.

The core idea essentially turns the Bush doctrine on its head. It argues that the main problems facing America in the 21st century - terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change and dependence on fossil fuels - cannot by addressed by one country acting alone or even in concert with traditional allies. As Obama said in his first major foreign policy address, in Chicago last year: "The threats we face at the dawn of the 21st century can no longer be contained by borders and boundaries." The aim would be to restore America's global leadership in a world that is no longer unipolar. It would be achieved not primarily through military force (although the Obama team are at pains to stress they are not traditional liberal doves), but through soft power, exemplary action and networking among governments, inside and outside formal international organisations, to address specific problems. Nuclear and climate change An Obama White House would seek to take the initiative on the two existential issues facing the planet: nuclear proliferation and climate change. It would seek to negotiate deep cuts in the US and Russian arsenals, to restore the integrity of the non-proliferation treaty before it comes up for review in 2010 and before a nuclear arms race breaks out in the Middle East.

Impacts: Declining US Power is Disastrous

Soft power is key to solve Iranian proliferation which causes widespread proliferation

An increasing number of foreign policy experts are saying that the United States and the Middle East would have great difficulty in living with the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran. Former Ambassador James Bullington, a career diplomat who served as dean of the Senior Seminar, the State Department’s highest level of training program, in a recent interview with the Lake Placid News and The Virginia Gazette, said that beneath a nuclear-armed Iran, “much of the Middle East could fall under the strategic domination of a radical Islamist regime that supports global terrorism. Nuclear proliferation would be accelerated, with unforeseeable consequences, and vital energy supplies would be permanently threatened,” He posited that in coming years the United States will need to rely more and more on diplomacy, broadly understood. “We have to recognize that ‘soft power’ has to be combined with ‘hard power’ in order to constitute the ‘smart power’ that is required to protect our interest in an increasingly dangerous world,” he said.

Nuclear proliferation creates nuclear arms races which risk nuclear war.

First and most obviously, such failure directly undermines the most important benefit the NPT brings: assurance against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and thus also against the emergence or resurgence of nuclear arms races which raise the specter of nuclear warfare. By undercutting these core nonproliferation assurances, nonproliferation noncompliance imperils the peace and security of all nations. Perhaps quickly, perhaps more slowly, failure to deal with noncompliance could lead to a loss of faith in the Treaty as a means of constraining proliferation. Would-be violators would feel more free to embark upon nuclear weapons programs, and even peaceful and law-abiding states might come to feel it necessary -- in light of this -- to hedge their bets, perhaps themselves ultimately going down such a path. The world faced enormous danger and uncertainty during the nuclear arms race of the Cold War. A radically-proliferated world would be much more dangerous still, with each new participant and each new regional arms competition introducing vastly greater risks of miscalculation, mistake, or reckless over-reaching.

The alternative to US hegemony will not be peaceful multi-polarity—it will be a dangerous power vacuum.

The alternative to US power is apolarity—risking economic stagnation.

Unfortunately, the world’s experience with power vacuums (eras of “apolarity,” if you will) is hardly encouraging. Anyone who dislikes U.S. hegemony should bear in mind that, rather than a multipolar world of competing great powers, a world with no hegemon at all may be the real alternative to U.S. primacy. Apolarity could turn out to mean an anarchic new Dark Age—an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic plunder and pillage in the world’s forgotten regions; of economic stagnation and civilization’s retreat into a few fortified enclaves.

Economic Decline Causes Nuke War:

*****Isolationism Disadvantage Answers*****

(--) Obama hasn’t restored US international leadership—his popularity abroad has little to do with our actual improved leadership standing:

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/20/just-wild-about-obama/

(--) No link: no reason the South Korean commitment is perceived as crucial on the international stage.

(--) Non-unique: Obama’s multiple blunders on the international stage have undercut US international influence.

Isolationism Disadvantage Answers

Non-Unique: Obama’s failures to close GITMO and pass climate change undermine US influence abroad:

The Obama Administration's charm offensive hasn't been a complete failure. Personally, Obama is far more popular overseas than was George W. Bush, and that popularity has brought the nastiness of adversaries like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into sharper relief. But the very nastiness of those adversaries means that they don't get rattled by low favorability ratings. What's more, Obama's efforts to change America's image have been constrained by his inability to change certain U.S. policies at home. The best way for America to promote its values is "by living them," declares the National Security Strategy, but when it comes to closing Guantánamo Bay or dramatically reducing U.S. carbon emissions, Congress has shown little interest in making Washington a shining city on a hill.

Non-Unique: Financial crisis has undermined America’s soft power:

Obama hasn’t abandoned hard power solutions: he is continuing the militarization of US foreign policy.

Isolationism Disadvantage Answers

Personal approval of Obama does not spill over to support for US foreign policy.

Obama’s smart power strategy is failing to bolster US influence abroad: