Jacob+and+Donald

=1ac – plan=


 * Plan: The United States federal government should withdraw its military presence to levels consistent with a counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan.**

=1ac – Hegemony=


 * Advantage I: Hegemony**


 * The war in Afghanistan will collapse American primacy – 2 internal links:**


 * First – credibility.**


 * Obama announced a July 2011 withdrawal date, but at most only small numbers will leave**
 * CBS News 6/24** (Brian Montopoli, 6/24/10, " July 2011 Deadline for Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal: Politics Over Policy? ", [])

When President __Obama announced__ late last year he was deploying 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, he said __the troop surge__ __would "allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011__ ." But __it's become increasingly clear that the July 2011 deadline is more about politics than policy__. That's true for a few reasons. First off, __the president said from the beginning that July 2011 was only when forces would //begin// to be brought home__ - which means __he could conceivably bring back just a few thousand troops and still technically meet the deadline__. But more importantly, __the White House and military have made clear the deadline can simply be changed depending on conditions on the ground__. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said Thursday that if the strategy doesn't look like it's working at the end of the year, the military may recommend that the timeline be altered. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, stressed that the drawdown plan is "conditions-based," and said while General David Petraeus agrees with the president's overall strategy, "when he gets on the ground, he will assess the situation for himself." "And at some point, he will make recommendations to the president," Gates said. "And that's what any military commander should do. And the president will welcome those recommendations. But at the end of the day, the president will decide whether changes are to be made in the strategy." Mr. __Obama, for his part, maintained today that the current plan still stands__ - but __he made clear that there would not be a mass exodus of U.S. forces from Afghanistan __. "We didn't say we'd be switching off the lights and closing the door behind us," the president said. "We said we'd begin a transition phase that would allow the Afghan government to take more and more responsibility." That's a very different message than the one heard from Vice President Joe Biden, who has been quoted as saying, "In July of 2011, you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it." There are, of course, political considerations at play - while Republicans like Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain have expressed concerns about setting a deadline, liberals (including House Democrats who hold the purse strings for war funding) are increasingly unwilling to continue pouring money into a conflict without a clear and defined endpoint. "We cannot tell the enemy when you are leaving in warfare and expect your strategy to be able to prevail," McCain argues. "That's just a fundamental of warfare." The __vagueness of the message coming out of the White House - we have a deadline, only we don't have a deadline, we'll be withdrawing lots of troops, only we might not - is meant to try to placate both sides of the debate as the battle continues__. Members of the military stress that they are on board with a strategy they helped craft, and say there are benefits to a deadline - it conveys a sense of urgency for Afghan leaders to take greater responsibility, as Petraeus argues. But they also don't want to be boxed in: " In a perfect world," Petraeus said last week, "...we have to be very careful with timelines." __What appears most likely to happen in July 2011 is a drawdown of some__ and perhaps all __of the 30,000 troops that were part of the surge__ - political pressure from the left may simply be too significant for the White House not to make at least some concessions to their deadline.

** The July 2011 announcement destroyed the perception of US commitment to Afghanistan **
 * Rubin, 10** – resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute ; senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Civil-Military Relations; and a senior editor of the // Middle East Quarterly //. (Michael, Public Square, 3/8, “The Afghanistan Withdrawal: Why Obama Was Wrong to Insist on a Deadline,” http://www.michaelrubin.org/7033/afghanistan-withdrawal-deadline )

It is true, as Schlesinger points out, that Obama did not set a date for the completion of the withdrawal, but he signaled its finite nature. And herein lays the problem. The reason Obama spoke of a deadline was not to pressure Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai but rather to assuage constituencies in the U nited S tates increasingly wary of open-ended U.S. involvement in the country. But in the Middle East and South Asia, perception matters far more than reality. Diplomatic affairs expert Omar Sharifi, speaking on Afghan television, declared, "Today the Afghans unfortunately lost the game and failed to get a long-term commitment from the international community." Likewise, Afghan political analyst Ahmad Sayedi observed, "When the USA sets a timeline of 18 months for troop withdraw, this by itself boosts the morale of the opponents and makes them less likely to take any step towards reconciliation." It is absolutely correct to say that Obama did not say that all—or even a significant fraction—of U.S. troops would withdraw in July 2011, but this is what was heard not only by U.S. allies and adversaries in Afghanistan but also by the governments and media in regional states such as Pakistan, Iran, and even Russia.


 * Second –overstretch**

Over the winter break I had an epiphany about the interrelation of U.S. hard and soft power: I  now  oppose a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy  in Afghanistan and advocate a purely counterterror  (CT)  strategy  (PDF link) there instead. Blame history—or histories—that I've read recently, starting with Livy's works on early Rome (books I-V) last spring and Donald Kagan's //The Peloponnesian War// at the end of 2009. I've taken occasional dips back into Robert Kaplan's //Warrior Politics// and his source materials (Churchill, the Federalists, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and several others). What I've taken from that reading is that the U.S. must pull back  from its current efforts to remake Iraq and Afghanistan in the image of a Western democracy,  or risk long-term political and economic exhaustion. What follows is not an argument about morality, and readers may find much of it amoral. It //is// about making cold-blooded political and economic calculations about where U.S. national interests will lie in the next decade. They do not lie in an open-ended COIN mission. The history of the Peloponnesian War is particularly relevant here. Athens began fighting Sparta with the resources of an empire and thousands of talents of silver in the bank—enough to fight expensive, far-flung naval and land campaigns for three years without lasting financial consequences. Athens was //rich//, and if peace with Sparta had come by the end of the third year, Athens would have continued to prosper and rule over much of the Mediterranean. (Athens had a "hard"—conquered or cowed—empire as opposed to the "soft" empire of alliances and treaties the U.S. currently has.) But the war with Sparta dragged on for decades, despite occasional peace overtures by both sides. By war's end—despite the spoils of battle and increased taxes and tribute extracted from its shrinking dominion—Athens was broke, depopulated by fighting and plague, bereft of its empire, and could no longer project power into the Mediterranean. Where its former interests ranged from Black Sea Turkey to southern Italy, it spent decades as a small-bore power and never regained its former strength or influence. I worry that the U.S. is similarly locked into an open-ended commitment to democratize a nation that is of regional rather than global importance—a parallel to Athens convincing itself that it had to conquer distant, militarily insignificant Sicily. "Winning" in Afghanistan The U.S. could "win" in Afghanistan where victory is defined as a stable, legitimate central government that can project power within its own borders. I don't doubt that the U.S. and its allies could accomplish this given enough time and resources. But I think—as many COIN experts also do—that  it will take at least another decade or more of blood and treasure to produce such a result, if ever. Of course I'd like to see the results of a successful COIN campaign: a stable democracy, women's rights, and general prosperity for Afghans, who among all Asia's peoples surely deserve those things. I certainly want to end al-Qa'ida's ability to operate freely in South Asia and elsewhere. The U.S. is the only country that would both conceive of these missions and attempt to carry them out. But goals beyond keeping al-Qa'ida on the run don't serve the long-term interests of the U.S., and I am more interested in regaining and preserving U.S. hard power than I am in the rewards that would come from "winning" a lengthy COIN war. I fear the U.S. people and government becoming exhausted from the costs of a lengthy COIN effort, just as they are already exhausted from (and have largely forgotten about) the  Iraq  war. I worry that if this fatigue sits in, the U.S. will abandon foreign-policy leadership  as it has done periodically throughout history. This outcome would be worse than a resurgent Taliban, worse than Afghan women and men being further oppressed,  and worse than al-Qa'ida having plentiful additional caves  to plot in. Here are some signs of an exhaustion of U.S. power: The U.S. is already overextended , with commitments in Iraq (shrinking for now), Afghanistan (expanding), Yemen (pending) and Iran (TBD). At home, the U.S. economy remains feeble and in the long term is increasingly hostage to other nations for goods and services it no longer produces (and increasingly, no longer //can// produce). Even more worrisome is the U.S. credit situation. The wars, and much other U.S. government spending, are now heavily underwritten by other countries' purchases of debt the U.S. issues. It has borrowed trillions from foreign countries and especially China, which continues its steady, highly rational policy of promoting exports while freeriding under the American security umbrella (just as the U.S. once rode for free beneath Britain's). Over time, those countries accrue enough debt to have a say in U.S. policies that may threaten the dollar's value, which is why you now see high U.S. officials flying to Beijing to soothe PRC nerves and explain why America keeps borrowing money. At home, there are few resources to apply following a major disaster, such as a Katrina-style hurricane or a major earthquake. The U.S. needs to start rebuilding its reserves—of capital, of credit, of political goodwill abroad, of military force—to be ready for these and more serious crises,  for which we currently have few resources to spare. Such challenges may involve humanitarian crises (think Darfur, a Rwanda-style genocide, Indian Ocean tsunamis); Latin American instability (Mexico, Venezuela, post-Castro Cuba);  rogue-state nuclear development (Iran, North Korea); or complex challenges from a rising power (China, a reinvigorated Russia  ).
 * Counterinsurgency doctrine is overstretching the US military and exhausting American leadership – withdrawing to a counterterrorism strategy is vital to preventing great power challengers **
 * Kretkowski, 10 ** – Frequently assists think tank in conferences and other work products that aid DoD's long-term thinking about threats that may not be addressable via weapons platforms. Spent six months in Afghanistan working with Army public affairs. (Paul, “Against COIN, for CT in Afghanistan and Elsewhere”, 1/7, Beacon (a blog), http://softpowerbeacon.blogspot.com/2010/01/against-coin-for-ct-in-afghanistan-and.html)

** Kuhner, 9 - ** the president of the Edmund Burke Institute for American Renewal (Jeffrey, Washington Times, “Obama’s quagmire; US should look to its own interests,” 9/7, Lexis Academic)
 * Afghanistan is a quagmire of attrition warfare that is destroying US morale and readiness.**

__ America is losing the war in Afghanistan. __ Rather than change course, President Obama is sending 21,000 additional U.S. troops. This will bring the total to 68,000 American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, bolstering coalition forces to 110,000. The **__ troop surge __**, however, **__ will not work. Afghanistan has become __** Mr. **__ Obama's Vietnam - a protracted quagmire __** draining precious American blood and treasure. August was the deadliest month for U.S. forces, with 47 soldiers killed by Taliban insurgents. More than 300 coalition troops have died in 2009. This is the highest toll since the war began in 2001, and there are still four months to go. The __ tide of battle has turned against the West __. The Taliban is resurgent. It has reasserted control over its southern stronghold in Kandahar. __ The Taliban is launching devastating attacks in the western and northern parts of the country - formerly stable areas. U.S. casualties are soaring**. The morale of coalition forces is plummeting**. __ Most of our allies - with the exception of the Canadians and the British - are reluctant to engage the Islamist militants. American public support for the war is waning. The conflict has dragged on for nearly eight years. (U.S. involvement in World War II was four years, World War I less than one.) Yet, America's strategic objectives remain incoherent and elusive. The war's initial aim was to topple the Taliban and eradicate al Qaeda bases from Afghan territory. Those goals have been achieved. Washington should have declared victory and focused on the more important issue: preventing Islamic fundamentalists from seizing power in Pakistan, along with its nuclear arsenal. Instead, America is engaged in futile nation-building. Mr. Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, believes Afghanistan must be transformed by erecting a strong central government, democracy and a modern economy. Washington argues this will prevent terrorism from taking root and bring about lasting "stability." Hence, following a recent reassessment of the war by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, the Obama administration is contemplating deploying 20,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops - on top of the 21,000 already pledged. Moreover, billions have been spent building irrigation canals, schools, hospitals and factories. Civilian advisers are being sent to encourage farmers to grow other cash crops besides opium poppies. Western aid money has been used to establish a massive Afghan army, a large police force and a swollen government bureaucracy. Gen. McChrystal said this week that the situation is "serious," but not impossible. He still believes victory is within reach. His new strategy is to protect Afghan civilians from Taliban attacks. He also wants to create a lucrative jobs programs and improve local government services. The goal is to win the "hearts and minds" of the Afghan people. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says we must combat Afghanistan's "culture of poverty." Call it humanitarian war through social engineering. Mr. **__ Obama's policy will result in a major American defeat - one that will signal the end of America as a superpower and expose us to the world as a paper tiger __**. Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. The mighty British and Russian armies were humiliated in drawn-out guerrilla campaigns. __ The country's mountainous geography __ and primitive tribal culture __ are ideally suited for insurgent warfare. By sending in more troops, Washington is playing right into the Taliban's hands: We are enabling the Taliban to pick off our forces one by one as they wage a campaign of attrition. __ __ The Taliban blend with the local population, making it almost impossible for U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians. American counterinsurgency efforts are thus alienating some of the locals. __ Initially welcomed as liberators, __ we are __ now __ viewed __ in some quarters __ as occupiers __. Moreover, much of the West's aid money is siphoned off by greedy politicians in Kabul. President Hamid Karzai's government is corrupt, venal and ineffective. It barely controls one-third of the country. It is despised by many Afghans for its brutality and incompetence. In addition, Mr. Karzai's vice-presidential running mate is a drug trafficker. __ The West's efforts to forge a cohesive national state based on federalism and economic reconstruction have failed. Warlords are increasingly asserting power in the provinces. The country is fractured along tribal and ethnic lines. The center cannot hold: Afghanistan remains mired in anarchy, blood feuds and weak, decentralized rule. __ U.S. troops should be deployed to defend U.S. national interests. Their lives should never be squandered for an experiment in liberal internationalism. In fact, such a policy is morally grotesque and strategically reckless. Mr. __ Obama should quickly withdraw most U.S. forces from Afghanistan. **American air power and small, flexible Special Forces units are more than enough to wipe out al Qaeda terrorists**. __ __ The Taliban is too hated to reoccupy the country - unless our huge military and economic footprint drives numerous Afghans into __ the evil, welcoming __ arms of extremists. __


 * This will obliterate American primacy **
 * Pyne, 9 - ** Vice Chair of the Utah State Legislative Compensation Commission and Vice President of the Association of the United States Army's Utah chapter and a Vice President of the Salt Lake Total Force Chapter of the Military Officers Association of America (David, “  Obama failing our troops in Afghanistan,” 11/7, http://westernfrontamerica.com/2009/11/07/obama-failing-troops-afghanistan/)

Since we invaded Iraq six and a half years ago and Afghanistan eight years ago, we have lost nearly 7,000 American soldiers and contractors killed in action with tens of thousands more severely wounded at the cost of a trillion dollars thus far. October has been the single deadliest month for US forces since the war began. It shouldn’t take a military strategist to realize that after fighting a war for over eight years without any real idea how to win, it might be time to consider a drastic change in strategy. This should include a sober assessment of the cost/benefit analysis of staying and fighting at a rising cost in American blood and treasure versus conserving our military strength and bringing our troops home to defend America from terrorist attack. The Soviets fought an eight year long war in Afghanistan before finally realizing that victory was not a possibility in a conflict which some say began a chain of events that resulted in the collapse of the Evil Empire thanks to Reagan’s support of proxy forces against the Soviet invaders. If the Soviet Union could not win after eight years of fighting in Afghanistan, what makes our leaders think that we can? The longer we keep large numbers of our troops fighting no-win counterinsurgency wars of attrition in Iraq and  Afghanistan, the weaker and more vulnerable we will become to the point where eventually the American Empire , as some call it,  may decline precipitously or  perhaps even  collapse altogether. Worse yet, America’s increasing military weakness highlighted further by Obama’s ongoing demolition of our nuclear deterrent might invite a catastrophic attack from our from our Sino-Russian alliance enemies. Already some of our retired generals have stated that they believe our Army and Marine Corps ground forces have been broken by their over-deployment in the desert sands of Iraq and Afghanistan. If the Soviet Union could not win after eight years of fighting in Afghanistan, what makes our leaders think that we can? The longer we keep large numbers of our troops bogged down fighting two no-win counterinsurgency wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghanistan, the weaker and more vulnerable we will become to the point where eventually the American Empire, as some call it, may decline precipitously or perhaps even collapse altogether. Worse yet, America’s increasing military weakness highlighted further by Obama’s ongoing demolition of our nuclear deterrent, might invite a catastrophic attack from our from our Sino-Russian alliance enemies. Already some of our retired generals have stated that they believe our Army and Marine Corps ground forces have been broken by their over-deployment in the desert sands of Iraq and  Afghanistan. This high tempo of deployments has resulted in much of our military equipment to break down while procurement and readiness are at their lowest levels over the past quarter century. Our national security always suffers when we get bogged down in wars where our troops are asked to bleed and die, but are not permitted by our political leaders to win. Our brave soldiers should never be allowed to sacrifice in this way without the hope of victory! The best way to support our troops is to bring them home to their families and make a commitment that we will not let a week go by without thanking a soldier for their willingness to risk life and limb to defend us all. What is it going to take to get our political leaders to realize that the costs of staying and fighting the long war in Iraq and Afghanistan greatly outweigh the costs of redeploying out of theater? The same voices we hear calling for us to send another 40,000 to 100,000 troops to Afghanistan are the ones that would have called for us to keep surging and fighting in Vietnam in perpetuity at the cost of hundreds of thousands of our soldiers lives. It didn’t make sense to do that then and it doesn’t make sense to do so now. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War against the Evil Soviet Empire in part by employing proxies to fight and win our battles for us. We need to learn from Reagan and re-employ a strategy of arming and supporting proxies both states and insurgent movements to fight our wars so our troops don’t have to. America needs to conserve its military strength for a time when we they may be called upon to fight great power enemies, not waste it bogged down fighting Vietnams in the desert as we have been doing the past several years. Until we do, we will remain in a state of imperial overstretch and strategic paralysis with no reserve forces to fight new hypothetical wars of necessity  and with a continuing window of vulnerability which our enemies will undoubtedly continue to exploit. North Korea has already been exploiting our window of vulnerability with their ongoing nuclear missile buildup as has the Islamic Republic of  Iran is doing with its near imminent development of weaponized nukes. Even Russia has done so with their invasion of US-ally Georgia this past year.

Robert Kagan (Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund) 2007 “End of Dreams, Return of History,” Hoover Institution, No. 144, August/September, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6136 The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Nationalism in all its forms is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying — its regional as well as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons. That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic.It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the role the United States plays in providing a measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is the dominant naval power everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the guarantor of international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its role as guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and possibly beyond. Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed embargos, of the kind used in World War i and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in a way that is now impossible. Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power. Even the European Union, that great geopolitical miracle, owes its founding to American power, for without it the European nations after World War ii would never have felt secure enough to reintegrate Germany. Most Europeans recoil at the thought, but even today Europe ’s stability depends on the guarantee, however distant and one hopes unnecessary, that the United States could step in to check any dangerous development on the continent. In a genuinely multipolar world, that would not be possible without renewing the danger of world war. People who believe greater equality among nations would be preferable to the present American predominance often succumb to a basic logical fallacy. They believe the order the world enjoys today exists independently of American power. They imagine that in a world where American power was diminished, the aspects of international order that they like would remain in place. But that ’s not the way it works. International order does not rest on ideas and institutions. It is shaped by configurations of power. The international order we know today reflects the distribution of power in the world since World War ii, and especially since the end of the Cold War. A different configuration of power, a multipolar world in which the poles were Russia, China, the United States, India, and Europe, would produce its own kind of order, with different rules and norms reflecting the interests of the powerful states that would have a hand in shaping it. Would that international order be an improvement? Perhaps for Beijing and Moscow it would. But it is doubtful that it would suit the tastes of enlightenment liberals in the United States and Europe. The current order, of course, is not only far from perfect but also offers no guarantee against major conflict among the world ’s great powers. Even under the umbrella of unipolarity, regional conflicts involving the large powers may erupt. War could erupt between China and Taiwan and draw in both the United States and Japan. War could erupt between Russia and Georgia, forcing the United States and its European allies to decide whether to intervene or suffer the consequences of a Russian victory. Conflict between India and Pakistan remains possible, as does conflict between Iran and Israel or other Middle Eastern states. These, too, could draw in other great powers, including the United States. Such conflicts may be unavoidable no matter what policies the United States pursues. But they are more likely to erupt if the United States weakens or withdraws from its positions of regional dominance. This is especially true in East Asia, where most nations agree that a reliable American power has a stabilizing and pacific effect on the region. That is certainly the view of most of China ’s neighbors. But even China, which seeks gradually to supplant the United States as the dominant power in the region, faces the dilemma that an American withdrawal could unleash an ambitious, independent, nationalist Japan. In Europe, too, the departure of the United States from the scene — even if it remained the world’s most powerful nation — could be destabilizing. It could tempt Russia to an even more overbearing and potentially forceful approach to unruly nations on its periphery. Although some realist theorists seem to imagine that the disappearance of the Soviet Union put an end to the possibility of confrontation between Russia and the West, and therefore to the need for a permanent American role in Europe, history suggests that conflicts in Europe involving Russia are possible even without Soviet communism. If the United States withdrew from Europe — if it adopted what some call a strategy of “offshore balancing” — this could in time increase the likelihood of conflict involving Russia and its near neighbors, which could in turn draw the United States back in under unfavorable circumstances. It is also optimistic to imagine that a retrenchment of the American position in the Middle East and the assumption of a more passive, “offshore” role would lead to greater stability there. The vital interest the United States has in access to oil and the role it plays in keeping access open to other nations in Europe and Asia make it unlikely that American leaders could or would stand back and hope for the best while the powers in the region battle it out. Nor would a more “even-handed” policy toward Israel, which some see as the magic key to unlocking peace, stability, and comity in the Middle East, obviate the need to come to Israel ’s aid if its security became threatened. That commitment, paired with the American commitment to protect strategic oil supplies for most of the world, practically ensures a heavy American military presence in the region, both on the seas and on the ground. The subtraction of American power from any region would not end conflict but would simply change the equation. In the Middle East, competition for influence among powers both inside and outside the region has raged for at least two centuries. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism doesn ’t change this. It only adds a new and more threatening dimension to the competition, which neither a sudden end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians nor an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq would change. The alternative to American predominance in the region is not balance and peace. It is further competition. The region and the states within it remain relatively weak. A diminution of American influence would not be followed by a diminution of other external influences. One could expect deeper involvement by both China and Russia, if only to secure their interests. 18 And one could also expect the more powerful states of the region, particularly Iran, to expand and fill the vacuum. It is doubtful that any American administration would voluntarily take actions that could shift the balance of power in the Middle East further toward Russia, China, or Iran. The world hasn ’t changed that much. An American withdrawal from Iraq will not return things to “normal” or to a new kind of stability in the region. It will produce a new instability, one likely to draw the United States back in again.
 * Hegemony key to de-escalate conflict – collapse causes multiple hotspots to escalate – causes global nuclear war**


 * The plan solves – reducing to a counterterrorism focus creates sustainable presence, and prevents vacillations between engagement and isolationism**
 * Stewart, 9-** Ryan Family Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, studied at Oxford and served briefly in the British army before working in the diplomatic service in Indonesia and as British representative to Montenegro (9/16/09, Rory, “The Future of Afghanistan,” http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/testimonies/rory-stewart-on-afghanistan )

__The best Afghan policy would be to reduce the number of foreign troops from the current level of 90,000 to__ far fewer – perhaps __20,000.__ In that case, two distinct objectives would remain for the international community: development and counter-terrorism. Neither would amount to the building of an Afghan state or winning a counter-insurgency campaign. A __reduction in troop numbers and a turn away from state-building should not mean total withdrawal: good projects could continue to be undertaken in electricity, water, irrigation, health, education, agriculture, rural development__ and in other areas favoured by development agencies. __Even a light US presence could continue to allow for aggressive operations against Al Qaeda terrorists, in Afghanistan__, who plan to attack the United States. The US has successfully prevent Al Qaeda from re-establishing itself since 2001 (though the result has only been to move bin Laden across the border.). The US military could also (with other forms of assistance) support the Afghan military to prevent the Taliban from seizing a city or taking over the country. These twin objectives will require a very long-term presence, as indeed is almost inevitable in a country which is as poor, as fragile and traumatized as Afghanistan (and which lacks the internal capacity at the moment to become independent of Foreign aid or control its territory). But a long-term presence will in turn mean a much lighter and more limited presence (if it is to retain US domestic support). We should not control and cannot predict the future of Afghanistan. It may in the future become more violent, or find a decentralised equilibrium or a new national unity, but if its communities continue to want to work with us, we can, over 30 years, encourage the more positive trends in Afghan society and help to contain the more negative. Such a policy can seem strained, unrealistic, counter-intuitive and unappealing. They appear to betray the hopes of Afghans who trusted us and to allow the Taliban to abuse district towns. No politician wants to be perceived to have underestimated, or failed to address, a terrorist threat; or to write off the ‘blood and treasure’ that we have sunk into Afghanistan; or to admit defeat. Americans are particularly unwilling to believe that problems are insoluble; Obama’s motto is not ‘no we can’t’; soldiers are not trained to admit defeat or to say a mission is impossible. And to suggest that what worked in Iraq won’t work in Afghanistan requires a detailed knowledge of each country’s past, a bold analysis of the causes of development and a rigorous exposition of the differences, for which few have patience. __The greatest risk of our inflated ambitions__ and fears, encapsulated __in the current surge is that it will achieve the exact opposite of its intentions and in fact precipitate a total withdrawal. **The heavier our footprint, and the more costly, the less we are likely to be able to sustain it.**__ Public opinion is already turning against it. Nato allies are mostly staying in Afghanistan simply to please the United States and have little confidence in our objectives or our reasons. Contemporary political culture tends to encourage black and white solutions: either we garrison or we abandon. While, I strongly oppose troop increases, I equally strongly oppose a total flight. __We are currently in danger of lurching from troop increases to withdrawal and from engagement to isolation. We are threatening to provide instant electro-shock therapy followed by abandonment. This is the last thing Afghanistan needs.__ The international community should aim to provide a patient, tolerant long-term relationship with a country as poor and traumatized as Afghanistan. Judging by comparable countries in the developing world (and Afghanistan is very near the bottom of the UN Human Development index), making Afghanistan more stable, prosperous and humane is a project which will take decades. It is a worthwhile project in the long-term for us and for Afghans but __we will only be able to sustain our presence if we massively reduce our investment__ and our ambitions and begin to approach Afghanistan more as we do other poor countries in the developing world. The best way of avoiding the mistakes of the 1980s and 1990s – the familiar cycle of investment and abandonment which most Afghan expect and fear and which have contributed so much to instability and danger - is to husband and conserve our resources, __limit our objectives to counter-terrorism__ and humanitarian assistance and __work out how to work with fewer troops__ and less money over a longer period. In Afghanistan in the long-term, less will be more.


 * Obama will sell the plan as a drawdown to a lighter but permanent commitment to Afghanistan – this resolves confusion over the withdrawal deadline and restores US credibility **
 * Stewart, 10 ** - Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, studied at Oxford and served briefly in the British army before working in the diplomatic service in Indonesia and as British representative to Montenegro (Rory, “   Afghanistan: What Could Work”, New York Review of Books, 1/14,  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jan/14/afghanistan-what-could-work/?page=3)

But this moderate tone gains Obama the leverage that Bush lacked. As long as the US asserted that Afghanistan was an existential threat, the front line in the war on terror, and that, therefore, failure was not an option, the US had no leverage over Karzai. The worse Afghanistan behaved—the more drugs it grew and terrorists it fostered—the more money it received. If it sorted out its act, it risked being relegated to a minor charitable recipient like Tajikistan. A senior Afghan official warned me this year “to stop referring to us as a humanitarian crisis: we must be the number one terrorist threat in the world, because if we are not we won’t get any money.” By asserting convincingly that Afghanistan is not the be-all and end-all and that the US could always ultimately withdraw, Obama  escapes this codependent trap and  regains some leverage over the Afghan government. In his politer words: It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan. But perhaps even more importantly, defining a more moderate and limited strategy gives him leverage over his own generals. By refusing to endorse or use the language of counterinsurgency in the speech, he escapes their doctrinal logic. By no longer committing the US to defeating the Taliban or state-building, he dramatically reduces the objectives and the costs of the mission. By talking about costs, the fragility of public support, and other priorities, he reminds the generals why this surge must be the last. All of this serves to “cap” the troop increases at current levels and provide the justification for beginning to reduce numbers in 2011. But the brilliance of its moderate arguments cannot overcome that statement about withdrawal. With seven words, “our troops will begin to come home,” he loses leverage over the Taliban, as well as leverage he had gained over Karzai and the generals. It is a cautious, lawyerly statement, expressed again as “[we will] begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.” It sets no final exit date or numbers. But the Afghan students who were watching the speech with me ignored these nuances and saw it only as departure. This may be fatal for Obama’s ambition to “open the door” to the Taliban. The lighter, more political, and less but still robust militarized presence that his argument implies could facilitate a deal with the Taliban, if it appeared semi-permanent. As the President asserted, the Taliban are not that strong. They have nothing like the strength or appeal that they had in 1995. They cannot take the capital, let alone recapture the country. There is strong opposition to their presence, particularly in the center and the north of the country. Their only hope is to negotiate. But the Taliban need to acknowledge this. And the only way they will is if they believe that we are not going to allow the Kabul government to collapse. Afghanistan has been above all a project not of force but of patience. It would take decades before Afghanistan achieved the political cohesion, stability, wealth, government structures, or even basic education levels of Pakistan. A political settlement requires a reasonably strong permanent government. The best argument against the surge, therefore, was never that a US operation without an adequate Afghan government partner would be unable to defeat the Taliban—though it won’t. Nor that the attempt to strengthen the US campaign will intensify resistance, though it may. Nor because such a deployment of over 100,000 troops at a cost of perhaps $100 billion a year would be completely disproportional to the US ’s limited strategic interests and moral obligation in Afghanistan—though that too is true. Instead, Obama should not have requested more troops because doing so intensifies opposition to the war  in the US and Europe  and accelerates the pace of withdrawal demanded by political pressures at home. To keep domestic consent for a long engagement we need to limit troop numbers  and in particular limit our casualties. The surge is a Mephistophelian bargain, in which the President has gained force but lost time. What can now be done to salvage the administration’s position ? Obama has acquired leverage over the generals and some support from the public by making it clear that he will not increase troop strength further. He has gained leverage over Karzai by showing that he has options other than investing in Afghanistan. Now he needs to regain leverage over the Taliban by showing them that he is not about to abandon Afghanistan  and that their best option is to negotiate. In short, he needs to follow his argument for a call strategy to its conclusion. The date of withdrawal should be recast as a time for reduction to a lighter, more sustainable, and more permanent presence. This is what the administration began to do in the days following the speech. As National Security Adviser General James Jones said, “That date is a ‘ramp’ rather than a cliff.” And as Hillary Clinton said in her congressional testimony on December 3, their real aim should be to “develop a long-term sustainable relationship with Afghanistan and Pakistan so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past, primarily our abandonment of that region.” A more realistic, affordable, and therefore sustainable presence would not make Afghanistan stable or predictable. It would be merely a small if necessary part of an Afghan political strategy. The US  and its allies would only moderate, influence, and fund a strategy shaped and led by Afghans themselves. The aim would be to knit together different Afghan interests and allegiances sensitively enough to avoid alienating independent local groups, consistently enough to regain their trust, and robustly enough to restore the security and justice that Afghans demand and deserve from a national government. What would this look like in practice? Probably a mess. It might involve a tricky coalition of people we refer to, respectively, as Islamists, progressive civil society, terrorists, warlords, learned technocrats, and village chiefs. Under a notionally democratic constitutional structure, it could be a rickety experiment with systems that might, like Afghanistan’s neighbors, include strong elements of religious or military rule. There is no way to predict what the Taliban might become or what authority a national government in Kabul could regain. Civil war would remain a possibility. But an intelligent, long-term, and tolerant partnership with the United States could reduce the likelihood of civil war and increase the likelihood of a political settlement. This is hardly the stuff of sound bites and political slogans. But it would be better for everyone than boom and bust, surge and flight. With the right patient leadership, a political strategy could leave Afghanistan in twenty years’ time more prosperous, stable, and humane than it is today. That would be excellent for Afghans and good for the world. Meanwhile, Obama’s broader strategic argument must not be lost. He has grasped that the foreign policy of the president should not consist in a series of extravagant, brief, Manichaean battles, driven by exaggerated fears, grandiloquent promises, and fragile edifices of doctrine. Instead the foreign policy of a great power should be the responsible exercise of limited power and knowledge in concurrent situations of radical uncertainty. Obama, we may hope, will develop this elusive insight. And then it might become possible to find the right places in which to deploy the wealth, the courage, and the political capital of the U  nited  S  tates. We might hope in South Asia, for example,  for a lighter involvement in Afghanistan but a much greater focus on Kashmir  .1


 * The plan’s rejection of counterinsurgency creates a doctrinal shift towards selective engagement that can sustain US presence globally **
 * Gventer, 9 ** - Senior Defense Analyst at the RAND Corporation and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. She served two tours in Iraq, including a year as a senior adviser to General Peter Chiarelli, the operational commander in Iraq in 2006 (Celeste, “False Promise of 'Counterinsurgency'”, 12/1, http://www.rand.org/commentary/2009/12/01/NYT.html)

An effort to conduct "counterinsurgency" in Afghanistan is not just a costly business for still-unspecified strategic returns. It is likely to also prolong the U.S. defense establishment's preoccupation with military-led nation-building in unfamiliar cultures and perpetuate the deeply problematic assumption that chronic societal failure and social pathologies around the world are a form of warfare. This notion is built in part on what seems to be an oversimplified and glamorized—and thus dangerously misleading—pop history about the 'surge' in Iraq and the role it played in the still-unfolding outcomes there. The opportunity for the new strategy in Afghanistan was to form the beginning of a new era of American restraint in its foreign policy — one based on confidence in America's own values, protection of its borders, strong intelligence capabilities, and selective engagement of a strong, credible U.S. military capable of applying overwhelming force.


 * Restricting our mission to counterterrorism frees up resources to pay down debt **
 * Kretkowski, 10 ** – Frequently assists think tank in conferences and other work products that aid DoD's long-term thinking about threats that may not be addressable via weapons platforms. Spent six months in Afghanistan working with Army public affairs. (Paul, “Against COIN, for CT in Afghanistan and Elsewhere”, 1/7, Beacon (a blog), http://softpowerbeacon.blogspot.com/2010/01/against-coin-for-ct-in-afghanistan-and.html)

Benefits of a CT Focus Pulling the bulk of U.S. troops from the two active wars means military spending drops sharply, freeing up greatly needed funds for other uses: to stimulate the domestic economy, to aid in healthcare reform, or simply to reduce the need to issue more debt and thus begin paying down our current tab. (As an added benefit, China and others who want to extract wealth from a less-secure Afghanistan must then foot their own security bill.) Perhaps we become less hated in Afghanistan and Iraq, perhaps not, but we get out of the nation-building business that President Bush used to deride and can use our political, economic and military assets elsewhere. At that point we begin to rebuild those all-important reserves without which a great nation cannot aid allies, warn off adversaries, and sway those in the middle.

=1ac - Insurgency=


 * Advantage 2: the war**

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jan/14/afghanistan-what-could-work/?page=3)
 * Counterinsurgency failure inevitable **
 * Stewart, 10 ** - Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, studied at Oxford and served briefly in the British army before working in the diplomatic service in Indonesia and as British representative to Montenegro (Rory, “   Afghanistan: What Could Work”, New York Review of Books, 1/14,

The counterinsurgency strategy and surge in Iraq led to a drop in violence (against predictions), but the same will not happen in Afghanistan. The Iraq insurgency was the movement of a minority sectarian group, the Sunnis, whose supporters have been driven from most of the neighborhoods in the capital city and whose leaders were tribal figures with a long-standing relationship to the central government. The Shia-dominated Baghdad government was a powerful, credible force, from the majority ethnic and sectarian group, and was supported by mass political parties, with their own militias. The challenge for Petraeus and his predecessors in Iraq was to grasp this political opportunity; provide support, money, and status to the losing Sunni groups to separate them from al- Qaeda; and convince Nouri al-Maliki to disengage from some of the Shia militias and endorse the settlement. In Afghanistan, neither the Karzai government nor the Taliban have the history, the structure, or the incentives to foster such a deal. Afghanistan contains a diffuse rural insurgency spread among a population of 30 million people, 80 percent of whom are scattered among 20,000  remote, often mountainous villages. It is different from Iraq, where the insurgency was largely centered around the flat urban areas surrounding Baghdad. Nor is it like the much smaller Malaya of the 1950s, where the British in their antiguerrilla operations were able to move villagers to walled and guarded camps. At least half of Afghanistan (a country almost the size of Texas) is now threatened by insurgency, and the COIN doctrine requires sufficient troops to secure and protect the population areas. This is why the architects of the COIN doctrine are calling for a ratio of one “trained counterinsurgent ” (a category that includes Afghans, if they have been given the necessary skills) for every fifty members of the population or a combined total that would amount in Afghanistan to 600,000 troops, if they intended to cover the country (though most theorists believe it is only necessary to cover half). The effective, legitimate Afghan government, on which the entire counterinsurgency strategy depends, shows little sign of emerging, in part because the international community lacks the skills, the knowledge, the legitimacy, or the patience to build a new nation. In short, COIN won’t work on its own terms because of the lack of numbers and a credible Afghan partner and in absolute terms because of the difficulties of the country and its political structures.

Galston 10 - Senior Fellow of Governance Studies @ Brookings (William, Senior Fellow of Governance Studies @ Brookings, “A Question of Life and Death: U.S. Policy in Afghanistan,” Brookings, June 15th, http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0615_afghanistan_galston.aspx)
 * A large military footprint combined with the perception of an illegitimate government make crushing the Taliban impossible**

__Are the basic premises of our current policy in Afghanistan fatally flawed?__ The fact that I feel compelled to pose __this question__ so soon after the completion of President Obama’s painstaking review __reflects the mounting evidence that the results of that policy have fallen far short of expectations.__ Let’s begin at the beginning, with Marja. The holy trinity of modern counterinsurgency is clear, hold, and build. __Coalition forces are stalled__ at step one. __After the initial military thrust, many__ __Taliban fighters__, including mid-level commanders, __swooped back in to the area to intimidate local inhabitants__ who might otherwise be inclined to cooperate with the coalition and Afghan government. __Many other Afghanis sympathize with the core Taliban message that we intend to occupy their country for the long-term with the aim of imposing alien cultural, religious, and political values. It is hard to see what will tip this stalemate in our favor__, even harder to see how we can hand over governance and security function to the Afghans in Marja any time soon. Brigadier General Frederick Hodges, one of the leading commanders in southern Afghanistan, puts it this way: “You’ve got to have the governance part ready to go. We talked about doing that in Marja but didn’t realize how hard it was to do. __Ultimately, it’s up to the Afghans to step forward.” It’s clear that Hodges is not holding his breath.__ The next shoe to drop was Kandahar. Ever since this Taliban stronghold was identified as a key target, the tension between the U.S. and Afghan governments on this issue has been palpable—so much so that the coalition is now hesitant to call what it has in mind an “offensive.” Just last week, we learned that the __operation scheduled to begin in the spring would fall even farther behind schedule__. As The New York Times reports, “ __The Afghan government has not produced the civilian leadership and trained security forces it was to contribute to the effort__, U.S. officials said, and the __support from Kandaharis that the United States was counting on Karzai to deliver has not materialized__ .” Stanley __McChrystal__ , the top commander in Afghanistan, __has been admirably frank about a core difficulty: the residents of Kandahar are far from sure that they want the protection we claim to be offering them.__ On to Kabul, where President __Karzai has reportedly lost faith in the coalition’s ability (and that of his own government) to defeat the Taliban and is secretly maneuvering to strike a separate deal with them.__ If these reports are correct—and Susan Rice, our UN ambassador, disputed them on Sunday (though, notably, she offered no new evidence in support of her assertion that Karzai remains a committed partner)—two events appear to be fueling his growing disenchantment: senior American officials’ claims that his reelection lacked legitimacy, and President Obama’s December announcement that he intended to begin reducing the number of American troops by July 2011. One might be tempted to chalk up the extent of our difficulties in Afghanistan to tendentious reporting. I was skeptical myself—that is, until I stumbled across a stunning NATO/ISAF report completed in March. This report summarizes the results of an in-depth survey conducted in nine of the 16 districts in Kandahar Province to which researchers could safely gain access. Here are some of the findings: __Security is viewed everywhere as a major problem__. __When asked to name the top dangers experienced while traveling on the roads, far more respondents named Afghan National Army and Police checkpoints than roadside bombs, Taliban checkpoints, or criminals. And the Taliban were rated better than ISAF convoys and checkpoints as well.__ __Corruption is viewed as a widespread problem and is experienced by respondents on a regular basis__. In fact, __84 percent say that corruption is the main reason for the current conflict. Corruption erodes confidence in the Afghan government, and fully two-thirds of respondents believe that this corruption forces them to seek alternatives to government services and authority. Chillingly, 53 percent regard the Taliban as “incorruptible.”__ The __residents__ of Kandahar __overwhelmingly prefer a process of reconciliation to the prospect of continued conflict. Ninety-four percent say that it is better to negotiate with the Taliban than to fight with them,__ and they see grounds for believing that these negotiations will succeed. __Eighty-five percent regard the Taliban as “our Afghan brothers__ ” (a phrase President Karzai repeated word for word in his address to the recent jirga), and 81 percent say that the Taliban would lay down their arms if given jobs. Our military commanders in Afghanistan talk incessantly about the need to “shape” the political context in a given area before beginning activities with a significant military component—but if their own research is correct, our chances of “shaping” Kandahar any time soon range from slim to none. Based on General McChrystal’s own logic, then, we cannot proceed there because a key requirement for success is not fulfilled. And if we can’t prevail in Kandahar, then __we’re stuck with the Taliban as a long-term military presence and political force in Afghanistan.__

**Pashtun nationalism and the lack of history with a strong state makes combatting corruption or sustainable security force impossible.** **Dorronsoro, 09** - visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (9/23/09, Gilles, The National Interest, “Afghanization,” http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22218 ) In addition, **there is no state structure to speak of in the Pashtun belt**. The military operations there are foreign alone, including no more than token Afghan National Army forces. No Afghan forces can effectively take charge of secured areas after the “clear” phase, as they are nowhere near numerous or well-trained enough, and the police are often corrupt or inefficient. In addition, the pro-government tribes or communities that are present in a few districts cannot venture outside their areas without great difficulty. The supposed “ink spot” strategy—whereby the coalition establishes control in a key part of a province and security radiates outward—is not working, because of the social and ethnic fragmentation. Stability in one district doesn’t necessarily bleed over into the neighboring one, since groups and villages are often antagonistic to one another, and compete for the resources provided by the war economy. In this context, **to secure an area means essentially to stay there indefinitely, under constant attack by the insurgency**. Even if only 20 percent of a village sympathizes with the insurgents, “clearing” cannot work. As long as the coalition persists in its current strategy, **increasing the number of troops in country will not only be inefficient, it will be dangerously counterproductive.** As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said not so long ago, more troops would fuel opposition amongst the Afghan population. Considering the growing illegitimacy of the Karzai regime, more foreign troops will be resented as a military occupation. To this end, the coalition’s communiqués stating that the foreign presence in Afghanistan will go on for two generations—which were intended to reassure the Afghan partners—are staggering diplomatic blunders, especially in a country where feelings towards outsiders are at best ambiguous. The more foreign troops fight to take territory back from the Taliban, the more the population rejects them, because it sees them as the major provider of insecurity. In addition, more troops mean more casualties, leaving the coalition less time to do its work before public opinion turns too far against the war. Yet it is unrealistic to expect quick results, especially in training the Afghan National Army. And at the same time, it is more and more difficult to argue in support of the discredited Karzai regime.

**Nationalism means that even if the US won every battle it couldn’t beat the insurgency** **Dorronsoro, 09** - visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2/9/09, Gilles, The National Interest, “Going South in Afghanistan,” http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20794 )

Afghanistan may be the right war, but the United States could very well fight it in the wrong place. Present plans call for most of the new troops to be deployed to the southern and eastern regions of the country, where they could win every battle and still fail to hold the ground. In a land already notoriously averse to foreign invaders, the southern province of Kandahar is particularly hostile to outsiders. In the 1980s, when the Soviets or the Afghan government wanted to punish one of their soldiers, they sent him there. Helmand, the other hot spot in the south, has no cities and few towns—very little of strategic value, except the road to Herat. In the eastern provinces, it’s important for Obama and his team to recognize that regardless of how the United States revises its strategy, American troops and their NATO allies will still face “hit and run” attacks from across the Pakistani border to the east. **There is no quick fix to this situation: even with the full support of the Pakistani government and military** (a very optimistic hypothesis) **the border will stay out of control for years.** **And even if Kandahar and Helmand could be secured, U.S. troops would be stuck there, unable to prevent a stubborn Taliban infiltration and progression in the north**. And when U.S. troops inevitably withdraw, what little order had previously existed would dissolve overnight. Regardless of how well U.S. troops there fare, the Afghan National Army forces that eventually replace them will be simply unable to ward off the Taliban. This is the Taliban’s historical base and they understand the political dynamics of these regions better than any foreign forces ever could.


 * Multiple impacts -**

**Akhtar, 10-** professor of international relations, and a senior analyst & writer. He was the dean of faculty of management, Baluchistan university, and former chairman of International Relations Department, Karachi university (1/26/10, Shameem, “Pakistan’s Instability : The US War Factor,” http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1262372328640&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs/MAELayout#**1 )
 * First – Pakistan. A large counterinsurgency footprint drives insurgents to Pakistan, mobilizes the Pakistani Taliban and will cause Pakistan to collapse**

__If it is a war against extremists and militancy inside Pakistan, it is a civil war because its **origins stem** from the US,__ NATO __occupation of neighboring Afghanistan__. __The conflict should be seen as an extension of the ongoing resistance of the Afghan people to alien domination__. It is inaccurate to say that the US invaded Afghanistan because of the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda. Former BBC correspondent George Arney reported on September 18, 2001, that Niaz Naik, the former Pakistani foreign secretary, had told him that he was informed by US officials at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan in Berlin during July that year that unless Osama bin Laden were handed over swiftly, America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and Mullah Omar. The wider objective, however, was to topple the Taliban regime and install a transitional government under King Mohammad Zahir Shah. The invasion was to take place in mid-October 2001. Mr. Naik went on to say that he doubted that the US would have abandoned its plan to invade Afghanistan even if Osama were handed over by the Taliban. Arney's story is corroborated by the Guardian correspondent David Leigh in his report published on September 26, 2001, in which he revealed that the Taliban had received specific warning by the US through secret diplomacy in Berlin in July that the Bush Administration would topple the entire regime militarily unless Osama is extradited to the US. This was part of the larger design of US military, industrial complex to bring about regime change in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. As the US needed bases in Pakistan to accomplish its pre-planned invasion of Afghanistan, the Bush Administration sought to use Islamabad as a cat's paw to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. Fortunately for President Bush, a usurper ruled there, devoid of all legitimacy, legal and moral, and he readily and willingly succumbed to US pressure and made a U-turn by severing all links with the Taliban. He even joined the war against Afghanistan instead of using his leverage with the Taliban to exhaust all means of peaceful settlement of the dispute. The entire region, including Pakistan, was declared a war zone by the US military command, and the flights of all passenger planes were prohibited over a certain altitude, while no merchant ships could enter the harbors of Pakistan, thus bringing maritime trade (which comprises approximately 95 percent of Pakistan's import-export trade) to a standstill. __It is no wonder that Pakistan suffered a loss of 34 billion dollars because of its involvement in the Afghan war.__ America's War As one can see, __it was America's war that was imposed upon Pakistan__. Whether Pakistan could have avoided the war is a matter of controversy among politicians and political observers. But __the war has fuelled insurgency in Pakistan's hitherto peaceful tribal territory adjacent to Afghanistan.__ __This insurgency shows no sign of abatement__, as terrorist attacks on military and civilian centers in the capital and major cities of the North-West Frontier Province and Punjab continue with a vengeance, **__posing threat to the security of the state.__** In the meantime, routine predator strikes by the US in Waziristan have taken a heavy toll of civilian lives amid accusations of Islamabad's complicity in the piratical attacks on tribespeople, which prompts them to resort to retaliatory strikes on the perpetrators. Not satisfied with Pakistan's military operations in the tribal region, the US Administration has compelled Islamabad's fragile government to pull out its troops from the tense Indo-Pak border and deploy them in the restive tribal belt along the Pak-Afghan border. Now **__Pakistan faces existential threat from the Taliban__** and not India, a perception __which the country's military leadership is not prepared to share,__ given the unresolved disputes with New Delhi, which triggered four wars during the last 62 years. At the same time, speculation (not entirely unfounded) is rife about the involvement of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the former Blackwater (now christened Xe Services) in murder, mayhem, and gunrunning as evidenced by the armed Americans who drive consulate vehicles through cities and, when intercepted, refuse to disclose their identity. It is here that one recalls with dismay the role of General Stanley McChrystal, who until last year headed the Joint Special Operations Command, which runs drone attacks and targeted assassinations with the assistance of the operatives of the former Blackwater. This was revealed by Jeremy Scahill's investigative report published in the US weekly the Nation. That may, perhaps, solve the mystery surrounding a series of assassinations of ulama belonging to various Islamic movements. The sinister motive behind such acts of terror is to incite sectarian violence in Pakistan and lay the blame at the doors of religious extremists. Similar death squads were organized by the CIA in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua to carry out political assassinations of nationalists who were opposed to US intervention. At the time, the Sandinista government of Nicaragua complained to the International Court of Justice about the mining of Nicaraguan ports, the violation of the country's airspace, the killing and kidnapping of individuals on the Nicaraguan territory, and the threat or use of force by the US. The court in its decision in June 1986 held that the US was in breach of the customary rules of international law and international humanitarian law. The above case is titled the "Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua." The precedent set by this case may be invoked by Pakistan to prevent the US drone attacks on its territory. Once the piratical attacks of the US have stopped, the irritant in the tribal insurgency would have gone, paving the way for pacification of the conflict. If this were Pakistan's war, the government would have exercised its own judgment in dealing with the militants at home, either by conciliation or by resort to force. But Islamabad's so-called operation against militants is subordinated to US military designs in the region, aimed at the encirclement of the People's Republic of China and the control of the transit of gas pipelines from Central Asia to South Asia. It is not aimless that China expressed its concern over the concentration of US, NATO troops in the region. India fits in the American scheme of things, hence the US-India nuclear deal. Pakistan's National Interest __In this emerging security environment, Pakistan will have to be content with its role as a junior partner of India. Therefore**,** the sooner Islamabad extricates itself from the US "war on terror," the better it is for its security and independence**.**__ Doesn't Islamabad realize that its military operation against the militants would leave its border with India vulnerable to a New Delhi offensive? If Pakistan permits the US to attack the suspected training centers of militants on its territory, will it be able to prevent India from doing so? With Islamabad embroiled in internecine strife, it cannot negotiate with India from a position of strength. It may be forced to make a compromise that might be detrimental to its national interest. __Pakistan's preoccupation with tribal rebellion would not permit it to deal with separatist ethnic forces in Baluchistan. Undoubtedly, this is a threat to the territorial integrity of Pakistan.__ After the total failure of the military operation in Baluchistan, the federal government has come round to the painful conclusion that political and not military action can bring militancy to an end. Granting general amnesty to the dissidents and engaging them in a meaningful dialogue on contentious issues is a laudable initiative. The same gesture should be made to the militants in the tribal areas. But Islamabad has adopted double standards in dealing with the Baluchistan militants and the Pashtun militants, as if there were good militants and bad ones. This discriminatory policy would intensify the Pashtun insurgency and might drive them toward even more escalation. The rulers have seen the consequences of military operations in the former East Pakistan, Baluchistan, Karachi, Sind, and FATA (federally administered tribal areas). If anything, __the situation has only worsened. The surge of US troops, the expansion of war beyond the borders of Afghanistan, and the attacks on Quetta and Muridke as envisaged by Obama's new strategy would mean that US troops are at war with the people of Pakistan.__ Any Solution? __The Obama Administration would be better advised to concentrate on its exit strategy,__ and to that end, it is imperative that it involve the UN in its peace-making efforts aimed at the establishment of a broad-based government in Afghanistan, because the Karzai Government has no legitimacy. To fill the vacuum, the UN peacekeeping force, made up of troops of states not involved in the Afghan war, may be deployed until a government of national unity is able to assume full responsibility. Here the US can contribute to the postwar reconstruction of Afghanistan under the aegis of the UN. __The insurgency in the tribal region is the spillover effect of US military occupation of Afghanistan, but Pakistan faces a far greater threat: the threat of ethnic violence as manifested in the bloody clashes among various linguistic groups in urban and rural Sind. These have been overshadowed by the counterinsurgency operations in FATA, but they may erupt at any moment, thus destabilizing the state.__


 * Pakistan collapse causes global nuclear conflict – draws in China, India and Russia**
 * Pitt, 9** - //a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." (5/8/09, William, “Unstable Pakistan Threatens the World,” // http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=commentary&article=2183 )

||  || But a suicide bomber in Pakistan rammed a car packed with explosives into a jeep filled with troops today, killing five and wounding as many as 21, including several children who were waiting for a ride to school. Residents of the region where the attack took place are fleeing in terror as gunfire rings out around them, and government forces have been unable to quell the violence. Two regional government officials were beheaded by militants in retaliation for the killing of other militants by government forces. As familiar as this sounds, it did not take place where we have come to expect such terrible events. This, unfortunately, is a whole new ballgame. It is part of another conflict that is brewing, one which puts what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan in deep shade, and which represents a grave and growing threat to us all. __Pakistan is now trembling on the edge of violent chaos__, and is doing so __with nuclear weapons__ in its hip pocket, __right in the middle of one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world.__ The situation in brief: Pakistan for years has been a nation in turmoil, run by a shaky government supported by a corrupted system, dominated by a blatantly criminal security service, and threatened by a large fundamentalist Islamic population with deep ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan. All this is piled atop an ongoing standoff with neighboring India that has been the center of political gravity in the region for more than half a century. __The fact that Pakistan, and India, and Russia, and China all possess nuclear weapons and share the same space means any ongoing or escalating violence over there has the real potential to crack open the very gates of Hell itself.__ ||  || __Recently, the Taliban made a military push into the northwest Pakistani region around the Swat Valley.__ According to a recent Reuters report __:__ The (Pakistani) army deployed troops in Swat in October 2007 and used artillery and gunship helicopters to reassert control. But insecurity mounted after a civilian government came to power last year and tried to reach a negotiated settlement. A peace accord fell apart in May 2008. After that, hundreds — including soldiers, militants and civilians — died in battles. Militants unleashed a reign of terror, killing and beheading politicians, singers, soldiers and opponents. They banned female education and destroyed nearly 200 girls' schools. About 1,200 people were killed since late 2007 and 250,000 to 500,000 fled, leaving the militants in virtual control. Pakistan offered on February 16 to introduce Islamic law in the Swat valley and neighboring areas in a bid to take the steam out of the insurgency. The militants announced an indefinite cease-fire after the army said it was halting operations in the region. President Asif Ali Zardari signed a regulation imposing sharia in the area last month. But the Taliban refused to give up their guns and pushed into Buner and another district adjacent to Swat, intent on spreading their rule. T __he United States, already embroiled in a war against Taliban forces in Afghanistan, must now face the possibility that **Pakistan could collapse** under the mounting threat of Taliban forces there__. Military and diplomatic advisers to President Obama, uncertain how best to proceed, now face one of the great nightmare scenarios of our time. "Recent militant gains in Pakistan," reported The New York Times on Monday, "have so alarmed the White House that the national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, described the situation as 'one of the very most serious problems we face.'" __"__Security was deteriorating rapidly," reported The Washington Post on Monday, "particularly in the mountains along the Afghan border that harbor al-Qaeda and the Taliban, intelligence chiefs reported, and there were signs that those groups were working with indigenous extremists in Pakistan's populous Punjabi heartland. The Pakistani government was mired in political bickering. The army, still fixated on its historical adversary India, remained ill-equipped and unwilling to throw its full weight into the counterinsurgency fight. But despite the threat the intelligence conveyed, Obama has only limited options for dealing with it. Anti-American feeling in Pakistan is high, and a U.S. combat presence is prohibited. The United States is fighting Pakistan-based extremists by proxy, through an army over which it has little control, in alliance with a government in which it has little confidence." It is believed Pakistan is currently in possession of between 60 and 100 nuclear weapons . Because Pakistan's stability is threatened by the wide swath of its population that shares ethnic, cultural and religious connections to the fundamentalist Islamic populace of Afghanistan, fears over what could happen to those nuclear weapons if the Pakistani government collapses are very real. " __As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan,"__ reported the Times last week, " __senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.__ In public, the administration has only hinted at those concerns, repeating the formulation that the Bush administration used: that it has faith in the Pakistani Army. But that cooperation, according to officials who would not speak for attribution because of the sensitivity surrounding the exchanges between Washington and Islamabad, has been sharply limited when the subject has turned to the vulnerabilities in the Pakistani nuclear infrastructure." " The prospect of turmoil in Pakistan sends shivers up the spines of those U.S. officials charged with keeping tabs on foreign nuclear weapons," reported Time Magazine last month. "Pakistan is thought to possess about 100 — the U.S. isn't sure of the total, and may not know where all of them are. Still, if Pakistan collapses, the U.S. military is primed to enter the country and secure as many of those weapons as it can, according to U.S. officials. Pakistani officials insist their personnel safeguards are stringent, but a sleeper cell could cause big trouble, U.S. officials say." In other words, a shaky Pakistan spells trouble for everyone, especially if America loses the footrace to secure those weapons in the event of the worst-case scenario. __If Pakistani militants ever succeed in toppling the government__, several very dangerous events could happen at once. Nuclear-armed __India could be galvanized into military action__ of some kind, __as could__ nuclear-armed __China or__ nuclear-armed __Russia.__ If the Pakistani government does fall, and all those Pakistani nukes are not immediately accounted for and secured, the specter (or reality) of __loose nukes falling into the hands of terrorist organizations could place the **entire world on a collision course with unimaginable disaster**.__ We have all been paying a great deal of attention to Iraq and Afghanistan, and rightly so. The developing situation in Pakistan, however, needs to be placed immediately on the front burner. The Obama administration appears to be gravely serious about addressing the situation. So should we all.

** Second – terrorism – **
 * Risk of nuclear terrorism is high – probably an attack will come from al Qaeda by 2013 **
 * Hall, 10** (Mimi, USA Today, “Obama seeks front against nuclear terror”, 4/12, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-04-11-nukesummit_N.htm

WASHINGTON — President Obama is asking world leaders to commit to a new international offense against nuclear terrorism  — a threat so dire that it  could challenge "our ultimate survival  ." At a first-ever summit of 47 countries to address the problem of "loose nukes," Obama will push for specific steps toward his goal of securing in four years the world's vast quantity of vulnerable nuclear material, such as uranium that could be enriched for a weapon. The summit begins today, but discussions will start in earnest Tuesday. Obama said " the single biggest threat" to U.S. security is the possibility of a terrorist organization with a nuclear weapon. "If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications economically, politically and from a security perspective would be devastating," he said Sunday before meeting with South African President Jacob Zuma, who is attending the summit. Also attending: presidents, prime ministers and kings from countries such as Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Jordan. Obama continues one-on-one meetings with leaders today, and on Tuesday, the group will sign a "high-level communiqué" that recognizes the seriousness of the threat and outlines efforts to secure or eliminate vulnerable stockpiles, according to Gary Samore, the White House senior adviser for non-proliferation. The summit is "intended to rally collective action," White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes says. The meetings will present their own security challenge for the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies because there will be so many world leaders at one time in Washington. Samore says several countries will announce plans to eliminate or better protect their stockpiles. Securing nuclear material is a challenging but necessary job "because the global stockpile of nuclear weapons materials is large enough to build 120,000 nuclear bombs (and  ) because  Osama bin Laden considers it his religious duty to obtain nuclear weapons and to use them against the U  nited  S  tates,"  says  Alexandra  Toma of the Fissile Materials Working Group , a 40-member coalition dedicated to securing nuclear material. Five countries — the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, China and France — are internationally recognized nuclear powers and have signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which pledges to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and technology. India, Pakistan and North Korea also have nuclear weapons, and Israel is suspected of having warheads, according to the non-partisan Arms Control Association. Israel does not admit or deny having them. The United States and Russia hold the overwhelming majority of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the material that could be used to build a crude but devastating bomb. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nuclear-security group run by former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, there is no comprehensive inventory of the world's nuclear material. But 672 research reactors have been built worldwide and 272 operate in 56 countries, most at universities or other research centers where security is lax , the group says. "Much of the nuclear materials that are potentially vulnerable or could be used for nuclear weapons are actually in the hands of private industry, so government regulation is a very important component," Samore says. Some of the material already has been stolen, according to Harvard University's Matthew  Bunn,  author of //Securing the Bomb//. " Nuclear theft is not a hypothetical worry,"  he says. " It's an ongoing reality  ." The International Atomic Energy Agency, a watchdog arm of the United Nations that monitors the use of nuclear power and technology  , has documented 18 cases involving the theft or loss of plutonium or weapons-grade uranium  , mostly occurring in the former Soviet Union. The IAEA says a majority of these cases have not had a pre-identified buyer and "amateurish character" and "poor organization" have been the hallmark of some of the cases involving unauthorized possession of materials. In Prague last year, Obama said, "Black market trade in nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abound." Government efforts have been made to secure nuclear material in recent years. Last week, the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) worked with officials in Chile to remove nuclear material from reactors near Santiago and transport it to the USA. The agency has removed all significant amounts of highly enriched uranium from 18 countries, helped convert 60 reactors in 32 countries to the use of safer, low-enriched uranium and closed seven reactors. The NNSA also has secured highly enriched uranium in more than 750 buildings worldwide and safely stored 2,691 kilograms of nuclear material. Despite those efforts, in 2008, the Commission for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction warned, " Unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack" by 2013.


 * Afghanistan is a vital safe haven for al Qaeda – terrorism is inevitable but nuclear risks can be reduced is the US drives them out **
 * Arkedis, 9 ** - director of the National Security Project at the Progressive Policy Institute. He was a counterterrorism analyst with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service from 2002 to 2007 (Jim, “Why Al Qaeda Wants a Safe Haven”, 10/23, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/23/got_safe_haven)

I spent five years as a counterterrorism analyst for the Pentagon and rigorously studied plots from Madrid to London to 9/11. The above arguments may have merit in a piecemeal or abstract sense, but fall apart in the specific case of what we all dread: a large-scale, al Qaeda operation aimed at the United States. It is certainly true, for example, that terrorist groups can accomplish much online. Individuals can maintain contact with groups via chat rooms, money can be transferred over the Web (if done with extreme caution), and plotters can download items like instruction manuals for bomb-making, photographs of potential targets, and even blueprints for particular buildings. But all the e-mail accounts, chat rooms, and social media available will never account for the human touch. There is simply no substitute for the trust and confidence built by physically meeting, jointly conceiving,  and then training together for a large-scale, complex operation on the other side of the world. As the 9/11 plot developed, mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) put the future operatives through a series of training courses along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Courses included physical fitness, firearms, close combat, Western culture, and English language. The 9/11 Commission report notes the extreme physical and mental demands KSM put on the participants -- even if the operation didn't require extensive firearms usage, KSM would have wanted the operatives to be proficient under intense pressure, should the need arise. Juxtapose that with an online learning environment. While you can no doubt learn some amazing things from online courses, it is far preferable to have a dedicated professor physically present to supervise students and monitor their progress. Or think of it another way: You wouldn't want the U.S. Marine Corps to send recruits into battle without training under a drill instructor, would you? KSM was somewhere between a professor and sergeant. Second, critics argue that the Madrid bombings of 2004 (which killed 191) as well those in London a year later (which killed 56) were largely -- though not entirely -- conceived, prepared, and executed within their respective countries, thus obviating the need for a safe haven. True enough. However, unlike 9/11 (which killed nearly 3,000), those plots' successes were possible due to their simple concept and small scale. In both cities, the playbook was essentially the same: Four to eight individuals had to find a safe house, download bomb-making instructions, purchase explosive agents, assemble the devices, and deliver charges to the attack points. Without trivializing the tragic loss of life in the European attacks, building those explosive devices was akin to conducting a difficult high-school chemistry experiment. On that scale, 9/11 was like constructing a nuclear warhead. In every sense, it was a grander vision, involving 20 highly skilled operatives infiltrating the U.S. homeland, who conducted a series of hijackings and targeted four national landmarks with enough know-how, preparation, and contingency plans to be success. In one instance, KSM taught the 9/11 operatives to shoot a rifle from the back of a moving motorcycle, just in case. You can't do that in someone's bedroom -- you need space, time, and the ability to work without worrying that the cops are listening in. In other words, as a plot grows in number of operatives, scale of target, distance from base, and logistical complexity, so does the need for space to reduce the chances of being discovered and disrupted. The final argument is that denying al Qaeda a safe haven is an exercise in futility: Drive Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan and he'd relocate to some place like Sudan, southern Algeria, Somalia, or other swaths of ungoverned territory. However, this logic makes two faulty assumptions: that al Qaeda is mobile, and that the group's international affiliates would automatically roll out the red carpet for the jihadi refugees. Neither is true. Bin Laden and his senior and mid level cadre are well-known to intelligence services the world over. Any attempt to travel, let alone cross an international border (save Afghanistan-Pakistan)  would fall somewhere between "utterly unthinkable" and "highly risky.  " Moving would further require massive reorientation of al Qaeda's financial operations and smuggling networks. Nor would bin Laden's senior leaders be automatically welcomed abroad in areas their regional partners control. Though al Qaeda has established "franchise affiliates" in places like North Africa and Southeast Asia, relationships between al Qaeda's leadership and its regional nodes are extraordinarily complex. Groups like the North African affiliate "al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM) are happy to co-opt the al Qaeda "brand" for recruiting and financial reasons, but they don't necessarily share the al Qaeda senior leadership's ideological goals. AQIM is much more focused on attacking the Algerian government or foreign entities within the country, having not displayed much capability or desire for grandiose international operations. And last, recruits come to North Africa more often through independent networks in Europe, not camps along the Durand Line. Think of the relationship like the one you have your in-laws: You might share a name, but you probably don't want them coming to visit for three full weeks. Regional leaders aren't terribly loyal to senior leadership, either. Take Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the deceased leader of the group's Iraq affiliate. He was summoned to bin Laden's side numerous times in an attempt to exert control as the Iraqi commander's tactics grew more grotesque and questionable. Zarqawi declined, not wanting to risk travel or accept instruction from bin Laden. In the end, a safe haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is as good as it gets for al Qaeda's chances to launch a large-scale attack against the U n  ited  S  tates. Certainly, smaller, less complex attacks could be planned without "Afghan real estate," but any such plot's death toll and long-term effect on American society will be far more limited. Unfortunately, that's a risk President Barack Obama has to accept -- no amount of intelligence or counterterrorism operations can provide 100 percent security. But to avoid the Big One, the U.S. president's best bet is to deny al Qaeda the only physical space it can access.


 * Nuclear terrorism causes extinction **
 * Morgan, 9 ** - Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Yongin Campus - South Korea (Dennis, Futures, November, “World on fire: two scenarios of the destruction of human civilization and possible extinction of the human race,” Science Direct)

In a remarkable website on nuclear war, Carol Moore asks the question ‘‘Is Nuclear War Inevitable??’’ [10].4 In Section 1, Moore points out what most terrorists obviously already know about the nuclear tensions between powerful countries. No doubt, they’ve figured out that the best way to escalate these tensions into nuclear war is to set off a nuclear exchange. As Moore points out, all that militant terrorists would have to do is get their hands on one small nuclear bomb and explode it on either Moscow or Israel. Because of the Russian ‘‘dead hand’’ system, ‘‘where regional nuclear commanders would be given full powers should Moscow be destroyed,’’ it is likely that any attack would be blamed on the U nited S tates’’ [10]. Israeli leaders and Zionist supporters have, likewise, stated for years that if Israel were to suffer a nuclear attack, whether from terrorists or a nation state, it would retaliate with the suicidal ‘‘Samson option’’ against all major Muslim cities in the Middle East. Furthermore, the Israeli Samson option would also include attacks on Russia and even ‘‘anti-Semitic’’ European cities [10]. In that case, of course, Russia would retaliate, and the U.S. would then retaliate against Russia. China would probably be involved as well, as thousands, if not tens of thousands, of nuclear warheads, many of them much more powerful than those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would rain upon most of the major cities in the Northern Hemisphere. Afterwards, for years to come, massive radioactive clouds would drift throughout the Earth in the nuclear fallout, bringing death or else radiation disease that would be genetically transmitted to future generations in a nuclear winter that could last as long as a 100 years, taking a savage toll upon the environment and fragile ecosphere as well. And what many people fail to realize is what a precarious, hair-trigger basis the nuclear web rests on. Any accident, mistaken communication, false signal or ‘‘lone wolf’ act of sabotage or treason could, in a matter of a few minutes, unleash the use of nuclear weapons, and once a weapon is used, then the likelihood of a rapid escalation of nuclear attacks is quite high while the likelihood of a limited nuclear war is actually less probable since each country would act under the ‘‘use them or lose them’’ strategy and psychology ; restraint by one power would be interpreted as a weakness by the other, which could be exploited as a window of opportunity to ‘‘win’’ the war. In other words, once Pandora’s Box is opened, it will spread quickly, as it will be the signal for permission for anyone to use them. Moore compares swift nuclear escalation to a room full of people embarrassed to cough. Once one does, however, ‘‘everyone else feels free to do so. The bottom line is that as long as large nation states use internal and external war to keep their disparate factions glued together and to satisfy elites’ needs for power and plunder, these nations will attempt to obtain, keep, and inevitably use nuclear weapons. And as long as large nations oppress groups who seek self determination, some of those groups will look for any means to fight their oppressors’’ [10]. In other words, as long as war and aggression are backed up by the implicit threat of nuclear arms, it is only a matter of time before the escalation of violent conflict leads to the actual use of nuclear weapons, and once even just one is used, it is very likely that many, if not all, will be used, leading to horrific scenarios of global death and the destruction of much of human civilization while condemning a mutant human remnant, if there is such a remnant, to a life of unimaginable misery and suffering in a nuclear winter.


 * Withdrawal of combat troops will immediately turn the population against the Taliban and shore up Afghan government legitimacy**
 * Dorronsoro,9 - **Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (January 2009, Gilles, “Focus and Exit: An Alternative Strategy for the Afghan War,” http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/afghan_war-strategy.pdf )

This three-zone strategy is not, // per se, // a gamechanger, and it must be accompanied by an incremental, phased withdrawal. The withdrawal would not be a consequence of “stabilization,” but rather an essential part of the process. Since __the presence of foreign troops is the most important factor in mobilizing support for the Taliban__, the beginning of the __withdrawal would change the political game on two levels__. First, __Jihad would become a motivation for fewer Afghan__ s; instead, __the conflict would be mostly seen as a civil war.__ Second, __the pro-government population__ (or, more exactly, the anti-Taliban one) __would rally together because of fear of a Taliban victory.__ Why Withdraw the Combat Troops ? Reframing the War There is an argument against withdrawing combat troops: namely, that al-Qaeda would retain its sanctuary in Afghanistan because the Afghan state would not have control of some parts of the country, especially in the east. Though superficially compelling, this argument is weak for two reasons. First, the international coalition lacks the resources to control the periphery of the Afghan territory anyway. Second, __the withdrawal of combat troops does not preclude targeted operations with the agreement of the Kabul government__. So, in terms of physical security, __the withdrawal of combat troops does not bring clear gains for al-Qaeda.__ There are two important reasons for withdrawal. First, __the mere presence of foreign soldiers fighting a war in Afghanistan is probably the single most important factor in the resurgence of the Taliban.__ The convergence of nationalism and Jihad has aided the Taliban in extending its influence. It is sometimes frightening to see how similar NATO military operations are to Soviet ones in the 1980s and how the similarities could affect the perceptions of the population. __The majority of Afghans are now deeply opposed to the foreign troops on their soil__. **__The idea that one can “stabilize” Afghanistan with more troops goes against all that one should have learned from the Soviet war.__** The real issue is not to “stabilize” but to create a new dynamic. The Taliban have successfully framed the war as a Jihad and a liberation war against (non-Muslim) foreign armies. The concrete consequence of this moral victory is that the movement has been able to gain ground in non-Pashtun areas. The situations in Badghris Province (northwest) and in Badakhshan Province (northeast) are extremely worrisome, because the Taliban have been able to attract the support of some Pashtun tribes and fundamentalist networks. A province like Wardak, initially opposed to the Taliban in the 1990s, is now one of its strongholds. Insecurity bred by the narcotics trade and the infighting of local groups in the north also provides the Taliban opportunities to find new allies on a more practical, rather than ideological, ground. This trend is extraordinarily dangerous, since the spread of the war geographically would put Western countries in an untenable position. Second, __withdrawal would create a new dynamic in the country, providing two main benefits__. __The momentum of the Taliban would slow or stop altogether, because without a foreign occupier the Jihadist and nationalist feelings of the population would be much more difficult to mobilize__. Furthermore __, the Karzai regime would gain legitimacy__. If Karzai (or his successor) receives enough help from the international coalition, he would be able to develop more centralized institutions in the strategic areas or at least keep local actors under control. __The regime would remain corrupt but would appear more legitimate if it succeeded in bringing security to the population in the strategic zones without the help of foreign troops.__ The support of the urban population, which opposes the Taliban, is a critical issue. __Corruption is a problem primarily if it accelerates the independence of Afghanistan’s peripheral regions.__


 * A counterterrorism posture empirically works – it reduces the threat of terrorism and can provide actionable intelligence without undermining US credibility **
 * Long, 10 ** - assistant professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (Austin, “Small is Beautiful: The Counterterrorism Option in Afghanistan,” Orbis, Spring 2010, Science Direct)

It will therefore take about three years to get to this posture. But will it work? First, this is clearly not the U.S. posture before September 11, 2001, so any comparisons to that period are inapt. Second, arguments that this was essentially the United States posture from 2002-2006 are much closer to the mark. However, here the argument is that this posture ‘‘failed’’ because the militants have made a comeback. Yet this misinterprets the strategic goal completely. If the strategic goal is a stable Afghanistan, then the strategy was a failure. If the strategic goal is to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan, it was a success: there are, at present, few al Qaeda members in Afghanistan and certainly no senior leadership. In an interview on October 5, 2009 national security adviser James Jones noted of al Qaeda in Afghanistan that the ‘‘maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.’’41 The counterterrorism option merely seeks to ensure that this minimal level of al Qaeda presence continues in the future. Alternately, this argument conflates all militants under the rubric al Qaeda. This is problematic: if any thug with a Kalashnikov is a threat to U.S. national security then readers should prepare for a rough future as there are millions of them spread across the globe. It is this conflating of the local fighter with the global terrorist that David Kilcullen’s Accidental Guerilla rails against, so it would behoove the United States to avoid this error.42 More generally, Riedel and O’Hanlon claim this small footprint posture will be ineffective because actionable intelligence will not be obtained without a substantial conventional force ground presence. Yet this is belied by the fact that the U nited  S  tates gains  actionable intelligence against targets in even very dangerous areas in which it has essentially no ground forces. In Somalia in 1993, a small U.S. task force, supported by a small conventional force, was able to collect intelligence on the Habr Gidr clan.43 CIA and special operations personnel were also able to collect intelligence in Iraq before the 2003 invasion.44 The United States also has a good track record of gaining actionable intelligence specifically against al Qaeda in hostile environments without conventional forces. At least three times in 2007-2009, the United States collected sufficient intelligence to enable strikes on al Qaeda affiliates in Somalia, where there are no conventional U.S. forces.45 A similar strike was launched in Yemen in 2002, another country lacking U.S. conventional forces.46 Across the border from Afghanistan in Pakistan it has struck even more targets  (according to one source at least thirty eight from September 2008 to March 2009)  despite having no conventional presence  .47 Some will protest that the Pakistanis serve as the ground presence in Pakistan, but they do not have a substantial security force (or in some cases any at all) presence in many areas where the United States has targeted al Qaeda. For example, in the militant redoubt of South Waziristan, where the United States has launched multiple drone strikes, Pakistan had no significant conventional ground force presence until October 2009.48 Others argue Somalia and Yemen are poor comparisons because they are mostly flat and on the coast, making offshore intelligence collection easy. While true, this argument stresses access, not ground force presence, which enables collection. Yet with the posture recommended in this article, the United States is assured vastly greater access than it has in either Somalia or Yemen. In the period immediately after September 11, 2001, even with essentially no conventional ground presence in Afghanistan, small teams of U.S. intelligence and special operations forces worked with local allies to gain substantial intelligence on al Qaeda in an environment filled with hostile Taliban. A poorly executed operation at Tora Bora enabled Osama bin Laden to escape, but this was not because intelligence was unavailable. Even this failure resulted in the deaths of many al Qaeda associates and forced its leadership to flee the country.49 It seems implausible that a vastly more robust presence in Afghanistan would be significantly less capable of collecting intelligence than these small teams, or similar U.S. efforts in Somalia and Pakistan. At best, large numbers of U.S. troops make the work of intelligence collectors easier. Their presence helps prevent militants from massing forces to attack small units and provides readily available quick reaction forces, allowing collectors to assume more risk in collection. Conventional forces also collect some intelligence organically via patrols and engagements. With a reduced force posture, collectors will have to be more circumspect and work harder. Yet as the above examples of collection in hostile environment demonstrate, this will not prevent them from operating. Another argument against the small footprint is that U.S. ground forces in substantial numbers in Afghanistan have given the United States more leverage over Pakistan. According to this explanation, the increase in troops in Afghanistan provides the rationale for Pakistani offensive operations against militants in 2009 and also why U.S. drone targeting has been more successful in the same period. Yet the timing suggests that this change in behavior has more to do with Pakistani perceptions of the militants’ threat. Pakistani operations began when in April 2009 militants broke a ceasefire that was only a few weeks old and sought to expand their control towards the Punjabi heartland of Pakistan.50 This timing seems significant in explaining Pakistan’s offensives. In contrast, U.S. drone strikes increased in tempo beginning in late 2008, months before a decision to send more troops to Afghanistan was made.51 Even if troops do give leverage over Pakistan, how much is that leverage worth in U.S. blood and treasure? There is no sign that additional troops will cause Pakistan to stop supporting its proxies. In terms of the strategic goal of disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda, Pakistan was aiding U.S. intelligence collection and began allowing drone strikes in June 2004 when there were less than 18,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Thus, it seems likely they will not simply stop it with 13,000 there.52 The final argument marshaled against this small footprint posture is that it hands al Qaeda a major propaganda victory. It could claim it drove another superpower out, that the West lacks will, and the like. There is some merit in this argument but with 13,000 U.S. military personnel in the country hunting for al Qaeda day and night, it would probably not prove to be a resounding victory. More importantly, it is far from clear what this propaganda victory would mean in terms of the strategic goal. It would not appear to have much effect on the first two goals, as al Qaeda would continue to be disrupted and dismantled by operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the latter of which will remain highly unsafe for al Qaeda. It might make it harder to achieve the third goal, defeat. Yet it is this goal that is most unclear anyway. In fact, Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker argue in War 2.0 that, while it has become impossible for al Qaeda to ‘‘win’’ in any meaningful sense, its existence as a transnational social movement using various media means it cannot be totally defeated either.53 Finally, the U  nited  S  tates  has to leave Afghanistan at some point, so it is inevitable that it will make the claim to have driven the U  nited  S  tates  out. As policymakers have sought to grapple with the challenge of Afghanistan, the lessons of Vietnam have been invoked and debated by both those favoring an increase in U.S. troops and those against it.54 Yet Vietnam was not the United States only experience with irregular warfare in Southeast Asia. The U.S. experience in Laos provides a better historical analogy for U.S. strategic ends and means in Afghanistan. In Laos, the United States supported both a weak central state and minority tribes, principally the mountain dwelling Hmong. The U.S. goal was limited, seeking both to interdict the use of Laotian territory to supply Communist forces in South Vietnam and to tie down as many North Vietnamese units as possible. Beginning in 1961 and with only a handful of CIA case officers, development workers, and Special Forces personnel, the U.S. mission worked with Hmong leader Vang Pao to create an effective guerilla force. This force had notable successes against the Communists, evolving into a force capable of holding territory when supported by U.S. airpower and small numbers of Thai ground forces. Other CIA-supported irregular units and even a few Laotian government units were also effective. In addition, the strategy was able to tie down multiple North Vietnamese divisions and ensure that the Laotian government held about as much territory in 1972 as it did in 1962.55 As with Laos, U.S. goals in Afghanistan are strictly limited and do not require a major state building enterprise. If anything, U.S. goals in Afghanistan are more limited than in Laos, as the goal in the former is to keep out at a few hundred irregular fighters while the latter sought to oppose tens of thousands of disciplined soldiers. The limited goals in Laos could be achieved with limited means, making it sustainable for more than a decade. A similar  limited means strategy will  likewise  make U.S. strategy in Afghanistan sustainable for the long term. To return to the point from which this analysis began—strategy is matching means and ends. If the ends desired are about al Qaeda, the counterterrorism option is the best fit in terms of means. It is sustainable, always crucial in prolonged conflict, as it limits the expenditure of U.S. blood and treasure. It is also less dependent on Pakistan choosing to abandon its proxies, a possibility that seems remote at present. The counterterrorism option is not only possible, but as Steve Simon and Jonathan Stevenson argue, it  is the best alternative for the U  nited  S  tates.

**Gradual withdrawal while maintaining a counterterrorism strategy allows more effective US leadership in the war on terror and maximizes US credibility** **Chellany, 09** - professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi (9/14/09, Brahma, Japan Times, “An Advantagous U.S. Exit,” http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090914bc.html )

When the administration's principal war target is not the Taliban but rather al-Qaida remnants on the run, why chase a troop-intensive strategy pivoted on protecting population centers to win grassroots support? In reality, what it calls a "clear, hold, build" strategy is actually a "surge, bribe, run" strategy, except that the muddled nature of the mission and the deepening U.S. involvement crimp the "run" option. America's quandary is a reminder that it is easier to get into a war than to get out. In fact, Obama undermined his unfolding war strategy last March by publicly declaring, "There's got to be an exit strategy." The message that sent to the Taliban and its sponsor, the Pakistani military, was that they ought to simply out-wait the Americans to reclaim Afghanistan. Before Afghanistan becomes a Vietnam-style quagmire, Obama must rethink his plan for another troop surge. Gradually drawing down U.S. troop levels indeed makes more sense because what holds the disparate constituents of the Taliban syndicate together is **a common opposition to foreign military presence**. An American military exit from Afghanistan will not come as a shot in the arm for the forces of global jihad, as many in Washington seem to fear. To the contrary, **it will remove the common unifying element and unleash developme** **nts whose significance would be largely internal or regional**. In Afghanistan, a vicious power struggle would break out along sectarian and ethnic lines. The Taliban, with the active support of the Pakistani military, would certainly make a run for Kabul to replay the 1996 power grab. But it won't be easy to repeat 1996. For one, the Taliban is splintered today, with the tail (private armies and militias) wagging the dog. For another, the non-Taliban and non-Pashtun forces now are stronger, more organized and better prepared than in 1996 to resist the Taliban's advance to Kabul, having been empowered by the autonomy they have enjoyed in provinces or by the offices they still hold in the Afghan federal government. Also, by retaining Afghan bases to carry out covert operations and Predator missions and other airstrikes, the U.S. military would be able to unleash punitive air power to prevent a 1996 repeat. After all, it was the combination of American air power and the Northern Alliance's ground operations that ousted the Taliban from power in 2001. Against this background, the most likely outcome of the Afghan power struggle triggered by an American decision to pull out would be the formalization of the present de facto partition of Afghanistan along ethnic lines. Iraq, too, is headed in the same direction. The Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and other ethnic minorities would be able to ensure self-governance in the Afghan areas they dominate, leaving the Pashtun lands on both sides of the British-drawn Durand Line in ferment. Thanks to ethnic polarization, the Durand Line, or the Afpak border, exists today only on maps. On the ground, it has little political, ethnic and economic relevance. As in Iraq, an American withdrawal would potentially let loose forces of Balkanization in the Afpak belt. That may sound disturbing, but this would be an unintended and perhaps unstoppable consequence of the U.S. invasion. **An American pullout actually would aid the fight against international terrorism**. Instead of staying bogged down in Afghanistan and seeking to cajole and bribe the Pakistani military from continuing to provide succor to Islamic militants, **Washington would become free to pursue a broader and more-balanced counterterrorism strategy.** Also, minus the Afghan-war burden, the U.S. would better appreciate the dangers to international security posed by Pakistani terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e- Mohammed. The threat of an Islamist takeover of Pakistan comes not from the Taliban but from these groups that have long drawn support from the Pakistani army as part of the deep-rooted military-mullah alliance.