Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

Proliferation Turns China/Space/Cyber War

Proliferation leads to cyber war, space war and conflict with China
Blank 2 [Stephen Research Professor of National Security Affairs;. CIAO]

China launched missile attacks on Taiwan (which it declares to be part of China) in 1995-1996 and has continued proliferating to Pakistan and Iran despite membership in the Missile Technology Control Regime. 59 Furthermore China is evidently moving towards a new nuclear doctrine that actually contemplates use of those weapons, not only to deter, but also as warfighting weapons. 60  China, aided by Russia, is undoubtedly modernizing its missiles and missile defense capability to gain the capacity to threaten the continental United States, diversify and expand its arsenal, and counter foreign missile attacks. 61 This buildup is only part of a much larger comprehensive modernization of military technologies across the board. It aims to give China the means to fight for informational and strategic superiority by striking the enemy’s most critical targets first, even preemptively. 62 This strategy and target set could easily mandate space war and/or nuclear attacks. 63  Thus we are witnessing the return of limited (and possibly even unlimited) nuclear war as a viable operational mission. And this is not a question of one or two states. Proliferators and established nuclear power see new justification for their use as threats change and as warfare becomes multi-dimensional to the degree that cyberwar is a reality as is the potentiality for weapons to strike from underwater, the earth, the sea, the air, and space at targets in any one of the other dimensions. And they are abetted by the trend whereby proliferating states then become salesmen of WMD systems to other proliferators, as China and North Korea have done.   

Proliferation Turns Terrorism

Prolif causes terrorism through corruption.
Sethi, 1 (Manpreet Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies “Dangers From Weapons of Mass Destruction: Any Different in South Asia.” Strategic Analysis:A Monthly Journal of the IDSA. February 2001 Vol. XXVI No. 11. CIAO)AQB

Even though illegal nuclear commerce has long existed and proof of this is evident in the state of advancement of the clandestine nuclear programmes of Pakistan, Iraq, and North Korea yet, it is only after the break up of the USSR that the problem has assumed menacing proportions. This may be attributed to three main factors. Firstly, the fact the Soviet Union possessed the largest nuclear arsenal and related nuclear infrastructure that got split with the break up of the empire into 15 republics. With physical control of nuclear weapons, installations and stockpiles of fissile material slipping into many hands, the exact accounting of nuclear materials came to pose a problem. Given the magnitude of the material, errors in accounting could easily be exploited by those wishing to indulge in their trade. Such a possibility is further heightened by the socio-economic crises and political instability that continues to afflict most of the new states. A rise in corruption has not only raised the specter of technological mercenaries but also the fear of nuclear commerce being conducted to raise easy money. The problem is further aggravated by the degradation in the standards of physical protection of nuclear materials and weapons. 7 Since 1990, incidences of smuggling of nuclear fissile material have registered a perceptible increase. Attempts to smuggle radioactive material from Eastern Europe had more than doubled from 56 cases in the early 1990s to 124 in 1995. Of these, 77 cases involved weapons grade material. 8 Proliferation of such material or weapons made thereof, increase the risk of their coming into use, if not as a weapon of war fighting, then as one of terror to facilitate nuclear coercion or blackmail.

Proliferation Turns Asian Stability

Proliferation causes Asian instability- North Korea proves

Gavin 10 [ Francis J, professor of international affairs University of Texas at Austin, March 9, Los Angeles Times, Lexis]

Iran's announcement last month that it will begin enriching uranium for use in a medical reactor sparked a rare bipartisan consensus in Washington. Politicians on both sides of the aisle treated the news as the latest evidence we are moving closer to a nuclear crisis. There is cause for concern, with Iran unwilling to bend to global pressure, terrorists eager to acquire an atomic device, an erratic North Korea threatening stability in East Asia and an international nuclear nonproliferation regime that appears to be getting weaker by the minute.

***DETERRENCE***

Deterrence Turns Hegemony

Reassessing deterrence key to American hegemony

Thayer 7 [Bradley, American legal Writer, International Studies Association 48th Annual Convention, Februrary 28, http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/7/9/2/6/p179261_index.html]

This analysis explores the relationship between nuclear deterrence and changes in the international system. The central argument of this chapter is that the effectiveness of the United States? nuclear deterrent depends on the distribution of power in international politics. That is, whether the international system is bipolar, as it was during the Cold War, or is hegemonic, as it is today, with a significant imbalance of power between the United States and the rest of the world. Deterrence was relatively straightforward during the Cold War due to the political context of a bipolar international system. However, the political context of the post-Cold War period contains important differences that the United States did not confront previously. Some of these are negative?the rise of Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups who seek to use nuclear weapons against the United States; and some are positive?the United States has escalation dominance against likely adversaries.This issue is important to analyze precisely because deterrence worked in Cold War. Why it did so is critical to understand. Equally, even in the era of its hegemony, the United States cannot assume that the causes of successful deterrence during the Cold War will obtain in the post-Cold War period. The changing political circumstances between the Cold War and post-Cold War world create new dangers and risks that can lead to deterrence failure if the United States is not cognizant of them. Likewise, there are new opportunities for the United States to use its strategic capabilities to advance its interests, and these must be explored as well.

Inability to provide extended nuclear deterrence to allies threatens US hegemony

Hayes 9 [Peter, Professor of International Relations, RMIT University The Asia-Pacific Journal, December 14, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Peter-Hayes/3268]

This essay examines the role that nuclear weapons have played in Northeast Asia in creating a system of inter-state relations based in part on nuclear threat and the impact of North Korea on that system. The US-led alliances that rest on extended nuclear deterrence have been characterized as hegemonic in the forty years of Cold War in the Gramscian sense of hegemonic, that is, allied elites accepted US leadership based on its legitimating ideology of extended nuclear deterrence, institutional integration, and unique American nuclear forces that underpinned the alliances.2 A crucial aspect of American nuclear hegemony in Asia was the guarantee that the hegemon would ensure that no adversary could break out of the system after China's 1964 successful nuclear test, as expressed by the Non Proliferation Treaty and IAEA safeguard system. The failure of the United States to stop and now reverse the DPRK nuclear over the previous two decades threatens its hegemonic leadership in Northeast Asia, and is linked to the decreasing ability of American power to shape events in other proliferation-prone regions such as South and West Asia.

Nuclear deterrence imposes a direct correlation to US hegemony

Hayes 9 [Peter, Professor of International Relations, RMIT University The Asia-Pacific Journal, December 14, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Peter-Hayes/3268]

The DPRK thereby called the American bluff in the most serious challenge to American nuclear hegemony in the entire post Cold War period. The inability and unwillingness of the United States to halt or reverse North Korean nuclear breakout to the point where the DPRK can at least partly neutralize the United States’ “unique” nuclear weapons capacities are obvious to the leadership of all states in the region.¹² Recent discussions of the need to “shore up” extended deterrence in the US-Japan security alliance,13 thereby reinforcing extended nuclear deterrence to Japan and Korea14 and even reintroducing nuclear weapons into Korea itself,15 reveal the effects of North Korean nuclearization and the lack of an American vision for regional order based on Global Abolition—the new doctrinal framework introduced by President Obama for international relations without depending on nuclear threat.