Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

Soft Power Solves North Korean Instability

US soft power solves North Korean aggression
Koh 3 [Harold Hongju, Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, 55 Stan. L. Rev. 1479, 2003 p. Lexis]

America's "hard power" alternative - disarming North Korea militarily - raises such a threat to the people of South Korea and the 100,000 U.S. troops stationed there as to be effectively unusable. Yet the passive alternative initially chosen by the Bush Administration would have let North Korea go nuclear, while seeking to isolate and contain it in hopes of bringing about the eventual collapse of the North Korean regime. Yet an isolationist approach seems most unlikely to affect what is already the most isolated country on earth. Under intense pressure from Seoul and Tokyo, the administration has now finally shifted back to a diplomatic alternative: to reinitiate talks onthe condition - rejected by the North - that the North first abandon its effort to develop a highly enriched uranium program. Meanwhile, Kim Dae Jung has retired, having made little headway with his Sunshine Policy during the last years of his presidency. Our diplomatic ties with South Korea and its new president, Roh Moo Hyun, have been strained. The North Koreans continue to build nuclear weapons and could have six or seven in a year or two, enough to test, sell, and target Seoul and Tokyo, while still holding three or more weapons in reserve as bargaining chips in case serious talks ever do begin. n47 And President Bush has found himself in precisely the same position as his father in 1989 and President Clinton in 1993, concluding reluctantly that America has no real option but to reengage diplomatically, with soft power, having lost both critical time and valuable ground.

***PROLIFERATION***

Proliferation Turns Middle East Stability

Middle East prolif results in an arms race, war and nuclear shootouts
Rosen 6 [Beton Michael Kaneb, Professor of National Security and Military Affairs and Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University Foreign Affairs. Sep. CIAO]

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an intense arms race and built up vast nuclear arsenals. Other binary nuclear competitions, however, such as that between India and Pakistan, have been free of such behavior. Those states' arsenals have remained fairly small and relatively unsophisticated. Nuclear-armed countries in the Middle East would be unlikely to display such restraint. Iran and Iraq would be much too suspicious of each other, as would Saudi Arabia and Iran, Turkey and Iraq, and so forth. And then there is Israel. Wariness would create the classic conditions for a multipolar arms race, with Israel arming against all possible enemies and the Islamic states arming against Israel and one another.   Historical evidence suggests that arms races sometimes precipitate wars because governments come to see conflict as preferable to financial exhaustion or believe they can gain a temporary military advantage through war. Arguably, a nuclear war would be so destructive that its prospect might well dissuade states from escalating conflicts. But energetic arms races would still produce larger arsenals, making it harder to prevent the accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons.  

Proliferation Turns Asian Stability

Proliferation will spillover to Asia – results in an arms race
Rosen 6 [Beton Michael Kaneb, Professor of National Security and Military Affairs and Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University Foreign Affairs. Sep. CIAO]

Nuclear arms races might emerge in regions other than the Middle East as well. Asia features many countries with major territorial or political disputes, including five with nuclear weapons (China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia). Japan and Taiwan could join the list. Most of these countries would have the resources to increase the size and quality of their nuclear arsenals indefinitely if they so chose. They also seem to be nationalist in a way that western European countries no longer are: they are particularly mindful of their sovereignty, relatively uninterested in international organizations, sensitive to slights, and wary about changes in the regional balance of military power. Were the United States to stop serving as guarantor of the current order, Asia might well be, in the words of the Princeton political science professor Aaron Friedberg, "ripe for rivalry" -- including nuclear rivalry. In that case, the region would raise problems similar to those that would be posed by a nuclear Middle East.
Japanese proliferation causes Asian instability and encourages proliferation
Japan Times 5/22 [2010, Lexis]

Japan has more than 47 tons of plutonium stockpiled from spent nuclear waste. Ten tons are being stored in Japan, and the remainder in Europe, where it was sent for reprocessing into plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, the letter said. It is supposed to be returned to Japan for possible use in Monju and other nuclear power plants. "Civil plutonium stockpiles create serious instabilities in the NPT regime. The April 13, 2010, communique of the Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington recognized that 'highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium require special precautions.' Both of these materials can be used to produce nuclear weapons," the letter said. "In addition to the direct proliferation risks associated with Japan's program to separate and reuse plutonium, the example set by Japan encourages other countries to pursue plutonium-based nuclear power programs. The restart of Monju undermines Japan's claim to leadership in nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation," the letter concludes.