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Inherency
__The Navy still cannot afford to move portions of its fleet down to its Mayport__, Fla., __facility, despite the service's continued investment into its shipyards__ headquartered __there__. __At issue is a proposed plan to move one of the Navy's aircraft carriers from__ the service's main shipyard in __Norfolk__ ,Va., __down to__ the __Mayport__ facility. Service officials announced it would be moving a Marine Corps Amphibious Ready Group down to Florida on June 16. The first of those three ships in the group, the USS New York, will head down to Mayport by 2013. The USS Iwo Jima and USS Fort McHenry will follow in 2014, according to a service statement. But __due to increasing pressure on the Navy's bottom line, service officials have yet to pull the trigger on the carrier move__, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said on Wednesday. " __We're upgrading the pier in Mayport__ . It will be able to take a carrier visit and be able to do some maintenance there," Greenert told reporters at the Pentagon. "[But] __right now we just don't have the__ fiscal __resources to conduct a carrier move__ ." The Florida and Virginia congressional delegations have been battling over the proposed carrier move on Capitol Hill since the Navy began considering the shift. Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.) hailed the Marine Corps deployment to Mayport as a boon for the state's floundering shipbuilding industry. However, the Florida Republican said he would continue to push for a carrier deployment to Mayport, in spite of the Navy's fiscal woes. “My fight continues for all parts of the Mayport equation, including the future homeporting of a nuclear aircraft carrier,” he said in a statement released shortly after the Navy announced its plans for the Marine Corps Ready Group. Proponents of the carrier move argue that __having the ships deployed to different points along the Eastern seaboard would make them less susceptible to a Pearl Harbor-type attack.__ __Currently, all Navy carriers deployed on the East Coast are stationed in Norfolk__.
 * The Navy is funding upgrades at Naval Station Mayport now but has canceled funding necessary to permanently base carriers—that leaves the entire fleet vulnerable due to concentration at Norfolk**
 * THE HILL 6-27-2012** (“Navy move to Mayport still unaffordable, says Greenert,” http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/navy/235165-navy-move-to-mayport-still-unaffordable-says-greenert)

Naval Power
The advantage is naval power.

Thompson 09, Chief Operating Officer at the Lexington Institute, PhD in government from Georgetown, (Loren, March 10th, “Navy Will Offer Up Carrier & Air Wing in Quadrennial Review”, http://lexingtoninstitute.org/1383.shtml ) Of course, today's carriers make World War Two carriers look like toys. With nuclear propulsion, supersonic fighters, and over four acres of deck space, they are the biggest warships in history. But at any given time some are being repaired, some are being replenished, some are in training and some are in transit; if the fleet is cut to ten then maybe half a dozen will be available for quick action on any given day. Congress didn't think that was enough, so it mandated in law that at least eleven carriers must be maintained in the force. But with big bills coming from the Obama Administration and other items like healthcare costs pressuring Navy budgets, the service has repeatedly sought relief from that requirement. This year's quadrennial review is the likely venue for another such bid. The issue is coming to a head now because the pace of new carrier commissionings is not keeping up with the rate of retirements. Kitty Hawk, the last carrier in the fleet powered by fossil fuels, was removed from the force last summer after nearly 50 years of service. The Navy plans to decommission the nuclear-powered Enterprise in November of 2012, leaving the fleet with only the ten flattops of the Nimitz class for three years, until the next-generation Ford class of carriers debuts in September of 2015. Going to ten isn't supposed to happen under present law, but since the service hasn't made budgetary provisions for maintaining the Enterprise and its crew until the Ford class arrives, it looks like ten carriers will be the total number in the fleet. In the current budget environment, once the Navy gets used to having ten carriers, that's probably where it will stay. Navy insiders think the service will decide to forego the refueling of the Lincoln, which is scheduled for 2012. And when the decision to stay at ten is formalized, the service can also move to eliminate one of its carrier wings. That step would cut the Navy's projected shortfall in strike aircraft by half. So billions of dollars are saved by skipping the refueling, cutting the purchase of aircraft, and eliminating the need to sustain 6,000 personnel associated with ship operations and air-wing support. There's only one problem with all this. It reduces the nation's capacity to project power from the sea at the same time access to foreign bases is becoming doubtful. And why is such a move necessary? Because the Obama Administration has decided to stick with Bush-era plans to grow the size of ground forces by 92,000 personnel, and the Navy must pay part of the bill for that. Yet the administration is getting ready to depart Iraq, which was the main reason for increasing the size of ground forces in the first place. There are precious few other places where the warfighting scenarios for the next QDR suggest a big ground force will be needed. Most of the scenarios envision reliance on air power for the big fights of the future -- the kind of air power delivered by carriers. So cutting carriers to build a bigger ground force doesn't make much sense.
 * Carrier reductions are coming now—maintaining the fleet is key to US power**

State government facilities include those owned or leased by all levels of government and can be located domestically and overseas. Many of these facilities such as courthouses, education facilities, libraries, and archives are open to the public and provide important government services. Other facilities contain highly sensitive information, materials, processes, and equipment such as military installations, embassies, and research facilities and are not open to the public. These facilities, varied in function, size, and location, are differentiated from other CIKR sectors because they are uniquely governmental. __The abundance of government facilities and military__ related __infrastructure in Virginia coupled with their symbolic nature and past attacks on such infrastructure in the U.S. suggests this sector remains especially vulnerable to exploitation by terrorist and extremist groups__. Potential Trend(s) Impacting Sector __Due to the desire of most international and many domestic groups to target the U.S. government, trends of significance include terrorism tradecraft techniques of surveillance, elicitation, and security probes__. The trend of illicit entry into the U.S. also affects this sector, as many individuals will enter government facilities to obtain necessary documentation. __Local, state, and federal government facilities are highly interconnected, both physically and through cyber networks__. Efforts to identify, understand, and analyze interdependencies and dependencies are challenging because of the diversity and complexity of these facilities or components. Interdependencies vary widely and each has its own characteristics, whether physical, cyber, or geographic in nature. Virginia facilities may be impacted by the closure of Guantanamo Bay; a recent report by the House Armed Services Committee has recommended government sites in Quantico and Norfolk as possible transfer locations for current Guantanamo detainees. According to early February 2009 reporting, a task force has 30 days to recommend where to put the 245 remaining detainees.451 Potential Threat Group(s) Local, state, and federal __government facilities represent attractive targets for a wide variety of groups__. While __international groups are__ most __likely to target__ the __military__ and federal sector __assets as symbols of the West__, domestic movements including anarchists, black separatists, white nationalists, and homegrown extremists have conducted activities targeting facilities at various levels of government. Domestic Incidents On a national level, __numerous reports of surveillance and security probes against military installations continue__. These reports include incidents of elicitation as well as security breaches involving the use of fraudulent military and law enforcement credentials. Although the vast majority of these incidents have not been definitely linked to terrorism, the continued reporting of preoperationaltype surveillance merits increased vigilance.452 Virginia The Virginia Fusion Center has not received a significant number of unresolved reports pertaining to general government facilities. __Much__ more __reporting has been received regarding suspicious activity around military bases__. It is unclear at this time if this disparity reflects actual rates of occurrence or if this is due to the increased security awareness inherent in military force protection. Examples of suspicious activity pertaining to Virginia include: • Suspicious attempts to purchase military uniforms near Yorktown453 • Persistent attempts to bypass security controls by a group of subjects at Fort Story454 • Suspicious photography of the entrance gate to the Naval Weapons Laboratory at Dahlgren455 The Virginia Fusion Center does not currently possess active threat information against any of these facilities, nor is there any evidence of patterns in the timing, location, or individuals involved in these incidents. Intelligence Gaps 1. Have suspicious employment inquiries been received at Virginia’s government or DIB facilities? 2. Have any possible surveillance activities of any building or assets associated with government or DIB assets occurred? 3. Have suspicious inquiries about security measures been received? 4. How frequently are unauthorized attempts to access government or DIB facilities in Virginia discovered? 5. Have there been any threats against government or DIB staff or officials? 6. Have any concerns regarding potential misconduct by current or recently separated employees been received? Projections __The__ Government Buildings and __Military Installations sector is expected to remain an important and potentially vulnerable sector at risk for surveillance, infiltration, or attacks__ by groups with nefarious intentions. It is anticipated the VFC will continue to receive reporting of potential surveillance or probing of government and military facilities. __Interest as a Target: Remain High - Due to the symbolic nature and the potential operational disruption__, facilities within this sector may be desirable, if not necessarily feasible targets for many international and domestic groups. Number of Virginia-based assets: Remain Constant – Current economic conditions make expansion unlikely, but industries that support government and military functions will not likely face the same contraction of other sectors. Interdependencies: Significant - __These sectors are heavily reliant on energy, IT, and telecommunications, as well as each major transportation mode. The interruption of government__ or CIKR __could quickly cascade and have significant impact on other sectors,__ especially those that are highly regulated. As shown in the Terrorism Screening Center’s 2007 Virginia Terrorist Screening Database Encounters Report, __a number of potentially “watch-listed” subjects either applied for government and military positions or were involved in suspicious incidents near such facilities__. Although these instances have not been linked to specific plots, __these instances underscore the potential for infiltration or pre-incident activity__.
 * Terrorist attack at Norfolk is highly likely—even attacks against other infrastructure in Virginia will have ripple effects**
 * VFC 2009** (Virginia State Police Virginia Fusion Center, “2009 VIRGINIA TERRORISM THREAT ASSESSMENT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF STATE POLICE VIRGINIA FUSION CENTER MARCH 2009,” http://rawstory.com/images/other/vafusioncenterterrorassessment.pdf)

HAMAS was created in 1987 by leaders of the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Widely recognized as a terrorist organization, __HAMAS__ has governed the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories since July 2007 and __utilizes__ political power and social programs as well as __violent terrorist tactics to pursue the goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state__ in place of Israel.25 HAMAS, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, has also been involved in increasingly sophisticated methods of targeting children with their propaganda efforts.26 Domestic Activities __HAMAS has the largest U.S. presence of any Palestinian group, and maintains a complex fundraising, propaganda, and recruitment infrastructure__ .27 According to 2008 Terrorism Screening Center ground encounter data, __HAMAS was one of the three most frequently encountered groups in Virginia__ .28 In 2007, the TSC reported 189 total Virginia encounters with subjects tied to HAMAS in Virginia.29 Current estimates suggest that __numerous members, supporters, and sympathizers may reside in and near Virginia;__ these estimates appear to gain credibility from reports that several thousand protestors from the National Capitol area demonstrated in Washington, D.C. as a result of the most recent Gaza conflict.30 While no potential threats have been identified from HAMAS against targets in the U.S., members residing in Virginia have participated in fundraising and political activities to support the group. Subjects identified as defendants in the Holy Land Foundation trial have been tied to Arlington and Fairfax Counties.31 Additional __subjects with ties to HAMAS have been identified in Norfolk, Newport News,__ Chesterfield County, __and Falls Church__ .h
 * Hamas is a unique threat to Norfolk**
 * VFC 2009** (Virginia State Police Virginia Fusion Center, “2009 VIRGINIA TERRORISM THREAT ASSESSMENT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF STATE POLICE VIRGINIA FUSION CENTER MARCH 2009,” http://rawstory.com/images/other/vafusioncenterterrorassessment.pdf)

As part of its plan to transport high-level radioactive waste to Western Shoshone Indian land at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the U.S. Department of Energy ( __DOE) proposes__ up to 334 barge shipments carrying giant high-level radioactive waste containers on the James River from the Surry nuclear power plant in Gravel Neck, Virginia __to the Port of Norfolk__. (See the second page of this fact sheet for a map of the proposed route). The James River, of course, is the lifeblood of numerous communities, including Newport News and Virginia Beach. __Accidents happen__. But what if high-level radioactive waste is involved? __Each barge sized container would hold the long-lasting radiological equivalent of 200 Hiroshima-sized bombs__. But U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) __design criteria__ for atomic waste transport containers __are woefully inadequate__. Rather than full-scale physical safety testing, scale model tests and computer simulations are all that is required. The underwater immersion design criteria are meant to “test” (on paper, at least) the integrity of a slightly damaged container submerged under 3 feet of water for 8 hours. An undamaged cask is “tested” (on computers, at least) for a 1 hour submersion under 656 feet of water. __But if a cask were accidentally immersed under water, or sunk by terrorists__, is it reasonable for NRC to assume that the cask would only be slightly damaged, or not damaged at all? Given that barge casks could weigh well over 100 tons (even up to 140 tons), __how____can NRC assume that they could be recovered from underwater__ within 1 hour, or even within 8 hours? Special cranes capable of lifting such heavy loads would have to be located, brought in, and set up. __Given the James River’s historic significance, as well as the U.S. Navy installations and tourist destinations around Norfolk, the potential for terrorist attack on these barge shipments is increased__.
 * High risk of radiological accidents and terrorism against Naval forces at Norfolk**
 * NIRS 2008** (Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “The Yucca Mountain Dump Plan Would Launch Up to 334 Barges of Deadly High-Level Radioactive Waste Onto the James River,” Date is Date Last Mod, Jan 21, http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/vabargefactsheet92804.pdf)

Terrorism, natural disasters, foreign attack, and accidents all threaten US naval power—creation of a second carrier port is key to prevent this and increase readiness O’ROURKE 6-14-2012 (Ronald, Specialist in Naval Affairs with the Congressional Research Service, “Navy Nuclear Aircraft Carrier (CVN) Homeporting at Mayport: Background and Issues for Congress,” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R40248.pdf) A Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on Mayport homeporting alternatives was released in November 2008. The FEIS examined 12 alternatives for homeporting additional surface ships at Mayport. Four of the 12 alternatives involved homeporting a CVN; another four involved making Mayport capable of homeporting a CVN, but not immediately homeporting a CVN there; and the remaining four did not involve making Mayport capable of homeporting a CVN. Ten of the 12 alternatives also involved transferring additional ships other than a CVN— various combinations of cruisers, destroyers, frigates, large-deck amphibious assault ships (LHDs), and other amphibious ships (LPDs and LSDs)—to Mayport. The FEIS also assessed a 13th alternative of homeporting no additional ships at Mayport. __Homeporting a single additional__ ship—a __CVN__ — __was Alternative 4__. The FEIS identified Alternative 4 as __the Navy’s preferred alternative__. The FEIS, like the January 2009 ROD, stated that a key reason for the Navy’s desire to transfer a CVN to Mayport is __to hedge against the risk of a catastrophic event that could damage the Navy’s CVN homeporting facilities in the Hampton Roads area__ of Virginia. The FEIS stated: Based on a thorough review of the alternatives, the Department of the Navy has determined Alternative 4 to be its Preferred Alternative. __Alternative 4 involves homeporting one CVN, dredging, infrastructure and wharf improvements, and construction of CVN nuclear propulsion plant maintenance facilities.__ Factors that influenced selection of Alternative 4 as the Preferred Alternative included impact analysis in the EIS, estimated costs of implementation, including military construction and other operation and sustainment costs, and strategic dispersal considerations. __Homeporting a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport would enhance distribution of CVN homeport locations to reduce risks to fleet resources in the event of natural disaster, manmade calamity, or attack by foreign nations or terrorists. This includes risks to aircraft carriers, industrial support facilities, and the people that operate and maintain those crucial assets__. __The aircraft carriers of the United States Navy are **vital strategic assets** that serve our national interests in both peace and war. The President calls upon them for their **unique ability** to provide **both deterrence and combat support** in times of crisis__. Of the 11 aircraft carriers currently in service, five are assigned to the Atlantic Fleet. __Utilizing the capacity at__ NAVSTA __Mayport__ to homeport a CVN __disperses critical Atlantic Fleet assets to reduce risks, thereby enhancing operational readiness. Operational readiness is **fundamental** **to the Navy’s mission**__ and obligation to the Commander in Chief.24

Basing at Mayport independently increases deployment speed, fleet redundancy, and operational flexibility G.A.O. 2010 (DEFENSE INFRASTRUCTURE Opportunities Exist to Improve the Navy’s Basing Decision Process and DOD Oversight, May, http://www.gao.gov/assets/310/304353.pdf) According to Navy officials, the Department of the Navy made its recent decision to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Naval Station Mayport using its strategic laydown and strategic dispersal processes and its environmental planning guidance documents. In addition, the Navy stated in its record of decision that the most critical considerations in making the decision were the environmental impacts, recurring and nonrecurring costs associated with changes in surface ship homeporting options, and strategic dispersal considerations. However, according to its record of decision, the need to develop a hedge against the potentially crippling results of a catastrophic event was ultimately the determining factor in the Navy’s decision to establish a second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier homeport on the East Coast of the United States at Mayport. The Navy has historically had multiple aircraft carrier homeports on each coast. Currently, the Navy has three nuclear-powered aircraft carrier homeports on the West Coast —Bremerton and Everett, Washington, and San Diego, California— and one East Coast carrier homeport in the Hampton Roads area, which includes Norfolk and Newport News, Virginia.7 According to Navy officials,8 the Navy used elements of its strategic laydown process existing at the time the Mayport decision was in the process of being made to apportion the fleet to the Pacific (West) Coast, to the Atlantic (East) Coast based on its force structure analysis. According to officials, the process relies on several documents, including conventional campaign plans; homeland defense requirements; the Cooperative Strategy for the 21st Century Seapower, Navy 2030 Ashore Vision; the 2001 and 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, and the Global Maritime Posture. Based on these strategic laydown analyses, the Navy developed a baseline for the total Navy force structure to try to optimize the sourcing of forces based on the speed of response, the maritime strategy, and the Quadrennial Defense Review direction. Using the output from the strategic laydown process, Navy officials said that they performed its strategic dispersal process, which allowed the Navy to further assess and determine the distribution of the fleet by homeport based on strategic requirements and the ability to balance operational, fiscal, and infrastructure factors. Based on its analysis, the Navy decided to establish a second East Coast homeport for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Navy officials said that the Navy worked on the assumption that it would not establish a new carrier homeport but upgrade an existing carrier homeport to support nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Navy officials said that Naval Station Mayport was the best option because it was an existing conventional carrier homeport with underutilized facilities since the USS John F. Kennedy was retired in 2007. According to Navy officials, the Navy used its strategic dispersal process to evaluate key operational factors, such as response time to combatant commands, transit times to deployment areas and training, geographic location of air wings, historic aircraft carrier loading, physical pier capacity, transit times for pier side to open ocean, antiterrorism and force protection, and mitigation of natural and man-made risks for both the Hampton Roads area and Naval Station Mayport. For example, the Navy believes the following constitute risk factors associated with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier consolidation in Hampton Roads : (1) singular homeport, maintenance, and support location ; (2) all of the Atlantic Fleet nuclear-powered aircraft carrier trained crews, associated community support infrastructure, and nuclear carrier support facilities within a 15 nautical mile radius ; (3) single 32 nautical mile access channel with two major choke points (bridges); (4) approximately 3-hour transit time from carrier piers to open ocean; and (5) the planned significant increase in commercial shipping volume because of the planned Craney Island upgrades. Furthermore, the Navy used the U.S. Coast Guard’s Port Threat Assessments for the Coast Guard Sectors of Hampton Roads and Mayport, which determined that the overall threat level for Hampton Roads is moderate, whilethe overall threat level for Mayport is low. According to the threat assessments, a moderate threat level indicatesa potential threat exists against the port and that one or more groups have either the intention or capability to employ large casualty-production attacks or cause denial of commercial, military, and passenger vessel access to the port, while a low threat level indicates that little or no information exists on one or more groups with a capability or intention to damage the port. Navy officials also identified the following benefits associated with homeporting a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Naval Station Mayport : • the shortest access to the Atlantic Ocean of any current Navy homeport, • additional dispersed controlled industrial facility and nuclear maintenance capabilities , • physical separation of East Coast nuclear-powered aircraft carriers , • physical separation between piers and shipping lanes , • smaller commercial shipping traffic volume, and • strategic and operational flexibility.

Mayport basing enhances surge capacity NAVFAC 2008 (Naval Facilities Engineering Command, NAVFAC Southeast, “Final EIS for the proposed homeporting of additional surface ships at Naval Station Mayport, FL Vol I: Final Environmental Impact Statement,” November, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ada491893) The purpose of the proposed action is to ensure effective support of fleet operational requirements through efficient use of waterfront and shore side facilities at NAVSTA Mayport. The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review ( QDR) called for the Department of Defense (DoD) to be capable of swiftly defeating aggression in overlapping conflicts worldwide. This required the Navy to modify its operational philosophy and to ensure it was capable of providing more warfighting assets, more quickly, to multiple locations. In Navy terms, this is called surge capability – or the ability to send trained naval battle forces in addition to those currently deployed. The Navy adopted the Fleet Response Plan (FRP) institutionalizing an enhanced naval surge capability. Under the guidance of USFF, the fleet training cycle has been adjusted with refined maintenance, modernization, manning, and training processes to enable the fleet to consistently sustain a level of at least six surge capable carrier strike groups available within 30 days, and one additional strike group able to deploy within 90 days of an emergency order. Achieving this higher level of surge capability is a difficult task requiring Navy ships and Sailors to maintain an appropriate level of training (or readiness) for longer periods of time, while continuing to achieve ship maintenance and Sailor quality of life standards. The Navy has developed plans for ashore infrastructure to ensure appropriate support of the FRP and the Navy’s required operational battle force. While budgetary decisions drive the trend to consolidate or reduce the number of Navy bases overall, retaining bases in dispersed locations nationwide and worldwide supports the FRP and the operational battle force. Required capabilities at Navy bases are driven by strategic/geographic location and fleet operational readiness. USFF has finite berthing capacity for surface ships in the turning basin at NAVSTA Mayport. NAVSTA Mayport also has established shore support capacity for ship maintenance and repair, as well as military personnel support facilities, not being fully utilized. The Navy will begin in 2010 to decommission frigates currently homeported at NAVSTA Mayport. The Navy needs to utilize the available facilities at NAVSTA Mayport, both pierside and shoreside, in an effective and efficient manner, thereby minimizing new construction. The CNO has directed USFF to review and assess a broad range of options for homeporting additional surface ships at NAVSTA Mayport. Consideration of NAVSTA Mayport as a homeport for any of the classes of ships being discussed in the FEIS is based on the following: • Use of NAVSTA Mayport helps preserve distribution of homeport locations and ports to reduce the risks to fleet resources in the event of natural disaster, manmade calamity, or attack by foreign nations or terrorists ; • Full use of NAVSTA Mayport preserves the capabilities of the Jacksonville Fleet Concentration Area, which supports U.S. based naval surge capability ; and • Utilization of NAVSTA Mayport helps optimize fleet access to naval training ranges and operating areas by retaining ship homeport locations within six hours transit time of local operating areas.

Surge capacity is key to Naval power GLOBAL SECURITY 2011 (“Fleet Response Plan,” May 7, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/frp.htm) The Fleet Response Plan, adopted in 2003, calls for six of the Navy's 12 aircraft carriers to be available for deployment within 30 daysand another two to be available in 90 days. Typically, the Navy will have two carriers based in the United States deployed overseas, in addition to one carrier permanently stationed in Japan. The requirement to be able to swiftly defeat aggression in overlapping conflicts called for in the 2001 QDR has necessitated a focus on developing new surge capabilities to complement and capitalize on our current competency in providing immediately employable forward-deployed naval forces. The recently created Fleet Response Plan (FRP) will significantly increase the rate at which we can augment deployed forces as contingencies require. Under the regular rotation approach, the training, manning, maintenance, and readiness funding practices of the Inter-Deployment Readiness Cycle (IDRC) were optimized to meet the requirements of Global Naval Forward Presence Policy. While a modest number of forward deployed units were at peak readiness, the majority of ships and associated units were not deployed and thus at a point in their IDRC that made it difficult and expensive to swiftly "surge" to a crisis, conflict or for Homeland Defense. The FRP features a change in readiness posture that institutionalizes an enhanced surge capability for the Navy. Under the guidance of Commander Fleet Forces Command (CFFC), a revised IDRC is being developed that meets the demand for a more responsive force. With refined maintenance, modernization, manning and training processes, as well as fully-funded readiness accounts, the Fleet can consistently sustain a level of at least 6 surge-capable carrier strike groups, with two additional strike groups able to deploy within approximately 90 days of an emergency order. In parallel with this, the Naval Reserve Force is embarked on a fully integrated active-reserve transformation to a more flexible unit structure. Part of this transformation is focused on providing a rapid surge capability of skilled aviators who have trained with active-duty units to reinforce them and rapidly boost their ability to generate combat sorties. The enhanced and expanded readiness availability delivered by the Fleet Response Plan provides the President with unprecedented responsiveness. Instead of predictable, lock-step, 6-month deployments to pre-determined regions in support of the Global Naval Forward Presence Policy, the Flexible Deployment Concept allows units that have attained high readiness to embark on deployments of varied duration in support of specific national priorities such as Homeland Defense, multi-national exercises, security cooperation events, deterrent operations, or prosecution of the Global War on Terrorism. often in multi-Carrier Strike Group formations. These deployments provide "presence with a purpose" and can also occur in less predictable patterns, thereby forcing potential adversaries to adjust to our operational timelines. The sustained readiness created via the Fleet Response Plan will enable the Flexible Deployment Concept. Flexible Deployment Concept implementation will occur under the emerging Joint Presence Policy. Naval implementation of these new presence requirements will be carefully monitored to ensure that schedules and OPTEMPO standards are adhered to so that our unprecedented force levels will not result in uncertainties for our sailors or allies. ¶ The military build-up for and waging of Operation Iraqi Freedom dramatically impacted the IDTC and the deployment schedules of the Navy's aircraft carriers as six carriers were sent to the Persian Gulf and another carrier was sent to fill the vacuum left by the Kitty Hawk's deployment to the Persian Gulf. In some instances carriers were surged earlier than expected and in other cases carriers experienced an extended deployment, most notably the USS Abraham Lincoln, who deployed in July 2002 and did not return to the US until May 2003. ¶ Prior to OIF the Navy began to experiment with an altered IDTC that reduced the time that a carrier would spend in the yard and accelerated the ships training cycle. The USS Carl Vinson returned from a deployment on January 23, 2002 and after spending roughly 4 months in the yard began sea trials and its IDTC in September. The Vinson had completed its COMPTUEX by late November, its JTFEX in January and was deployed on February 6, 2003. ¶ In March 2003, the Chief of Naval Operations released his "Culture of Readiness" message to the Navy that directed Commander, Fleet Forces Command to develop IDTC processes and milestones that would improve the speed of response for the full combat power of the Navy. The CFFC convened a working group composed of fleet and TYCOM representatives and developed a fleet response concept that would make the necessary changes to attain the increased readiness and responsiveness. ¶ In May 2003, the Navy issued a message to major commands describing the Fleet Response Plan which would dramatically alter the IDTC and the way in which the Navy leadership viewed deployments. The FRP would shift the focus away from rotational deployments and presence to being capable of surging substantial forces, ideally 6 surge ready carrier strike groups and 2 carrier strike groups that would follow shortly thereafter. ¶ In addition, under FRP, eight out of 10 of the Navy's submarines are able to respond to emergent fleet requirements at any time. ¶ To meet this objective the Navy intends to extend the interval between maintenance periods and modify training and manpower processes. The Navy also adopted a mindset of "R+plus" (R=return) rather than "D-minus" (D=Deploy). The idea being that working up for a scheduled deployment was not as important as being available as quickly as possible from the end of the last deployment. ¶ Instead of the rather vague "surge status" or "deployed status" the Navy created emergency surge status, surge ready status, and routine deployable. ¶ Emergency surge assets are those that would be employed in cases of urgent need. Attaining emergency surge status occurs upon completion of the Basic phase of the IDTC. "Emergency Surge" status should be attained with three to four months of the completion of its maintenance period. ¶ Surge ready status are those assets that can deploy upon completion of the intermediate phase of the IDTC. Ships should attain Surge Ready status within six months of the completion of its maintenance period. ¶ Routine deployable is equivalant to completion of the current IDTC. ¶ The goal of the current new concept would be to move assets through the IDTC as quickly as possible and conducting refesher training to insure readiness. ¶ The FRP was instituted by July 1, 2003 and the 6+2 surge goals were completed by December 1, 2003. ¶ Maintaining the Fleet Readiness Plan (FRP) construct of six aircraft carriers available within 30 days plus two additional carriers available within 90 days is a difficult task. Maintenance requirements on carriers alone make satisfying the FRP a challenging scheduling problem. By increasing the average cycle time for a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) to 27 months, the FRP requirements can be met continuously, after an initial maintenance adjustment period of 62 months. During the summer of 2004 the Navy surged some aircraft carriers from their homeports. to generate as many as seven of 12 carriers on station. for Coalition operations. The ability to push that kind of military capability to the four corners of the world is quite remarkable and recent. Several years ago, the Navy could deploy only two. Through this series of deployments, surge operations and exercises, the Navy will demonstrate and exercise a new approach to operations and maintenance.

Even if carrier reliance is bad, we won’t change it—it’s only a question of effectiveness REUTERS 5-6-10 (“Navy to Gates: Yes, we need 11 aircraft carriers,” http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/05/07/us-navy-usa-carriers-idUSTRE6460AN20100507) "The Navy remains firmly committed to maintaining a force of 11 carriers for the next three decades," Sean Stackley, the service's warship buyer, told the Senate Armed Services Seapower subcommittee on Thursday. The 11-carrier force structure is based on "world-wide presence requirements, surge availability, training and exercise, and maintenance" needs, he said in an opening statement.

Naval reliance is also inevitable __In the future, the demand for the Navy will continue to be part of an activist US foreign policy. There is no end in sight for coalition leadership, counter-terrorism on a global scale, or the use of U.S. forces to demonstrate commitment and resolve in areas of interest__. The importance of access secured by continuous Department of Defense and Department of State efforts with partners will support this global presence. __U.S. interests in securing the__ global commons ( __sea__, air, space, cyber) __will remain in place, and the U.S. will remain the guarantor of security for democratic nations through its near monopoly on high-end military power and defensive systems. Continued demand for active peacetime engagement by the U.S. military will be met by maritime diplomacy to support administration priorities and to support security cooperation activities__ by COCOMs.
 * WHITENECK 2010** (Daniel Whiteneck • Michael Price • Neil Jenkins •Peter Swartz, CNA Analysis & Solutions, “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake?” March, http://www.public.navy.mil/usff/documents/navy_at_tipping_point.pdf)

Second, __no other country (or combination of countries) will create the forces required for a navy with global influence. America’s European allies, and its Asian allies as well, have created navies that are capable of sustained regional operations__, or routine “cruising” by small squadrons of surface ships that show the flag, conduct engagement and exercises, and demonstrate national interest in economic ties with the visited nations and regions. These navies can also conduct short-term surges for uses of force against low end threats or act as supporters to USN-led naval operations; __however persistent out-of-area operations (even by a low number of assets) would quickly deplete their resources and political support at home__.
 * No one can fill in for US naval power**
 * WHITENECK 2010** (Daniel Whiteneck • Michael Price • Neil Jenkins •Peter Swartz, CNA Analysis & Solutions, “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake?” March, http://www.public.navy.mil/usff/documents/navy_at_tipping_point.pdf)

Effective carrier forces are key to diplomatic and military power—presence alone defuses conflicts before they start even when the US has no allied support EAGLAN 2008 (Mackenzie Eaglen is Senior Policy Analyst for National Security at The Heritage Foundation, “Aircraft Carriers Are Crucial,” July 31, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003078.html) For any U.S. president, the aircraft carrier embodies the ultimate crisis management tool. Continuously deployed throughout the globe, carrier-strike groups give our military unparalleled freedom of action to respond to a range of combat and non-combat missions. The recent George Washington incident only further emphasizes the significance of maintaining a robust carrier fleet, one large enough to meet all contingencies and "surge" in crises, no matter what may happen. Carriers can move large contingents of forces and their support to distant theaters, respond rapidly to changing tactical situations, support several missions simultaneously, and, perhaps most importantly, guarantee access to any region in the world. In a time when America's political relationships with other countries can shift almost overnight, aircraft carriers can reduce America's reliance on others -- often including suspect regimes -- for basing rights. A carrier's air wing can typically support 125 sorties a day at a distance up to 750 nautical miles. They also operate as a hub in the strike group's command, control, communications and intelligence network, playing an increasingly larger role in controlling the battlespace at sea. Whether in a direct or support role, carriers have taken part in almost every major military operation the U.S. has undertaken since the Second World War. They also serve as first-rate diplomatic tools to either heighten or ease political pressure. When tensions with North Korea or Iran increase, a carrier, or sometimes two, is sent to patrol off their coast. And when an election takes place in a nascent democracy or country central to U.S. interests, a strike group typically is sailing offshore. In March, when Taiwan held important presidential elections that will chart the future of that country's relationship with China, both the Kitty Hawk and Nimitz trolled nearby to ensure a smooth transition of events and deliver a psychological message of U.S. interest.

Forward-deployed carriers are key to US deterrence—solves terrorism, regional war, WMD attacks, and terrorism PIENO 1993 (John, retired Navy captain, commanded the carrier Forrestal, “Why We Need 12 Aircraft Carriers,” New York Times, Sept 6, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/06/opinion/l-why-we-need-12-aircraft-carriers-511193.html) Your view is contrary to that of the majority of knowledgeable people who have thought about how to protect America's national security interests in the years ahead. Civilian analysts, professors, members of Congress, think tanks and even the Clinton Administration have concluded that forward presence and mobility are essential elements of a post-cold war national security strategy. When the United States military presence is declining around the world and overseas bases are being closed, the Navy and its aircraft carriers are more important than ever. Every President since World War II has found it necessary to ask, "Where are the carriers, and how fast can we get them there?" President Clinton, in his first six months, has had to deploy aircraft carriers to Somalia, Iraq and the Balkans. The carrier's flexibility and awesome military power make it an effective Presidential tool in managing crises. The presence of a carrier can often stabilize a crisis and prevent hostilities or limit their spread. We saw the value of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf war. They were on the scene within 48 hours of the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, and many believe that the presence of the carriers prevented him from invading Saudi Arabia and its oilfields. The carriers and their aircraft were also an important part of the military campaign that freed Kuwait and defeated the Iraqi army. While the number of aircraft carriers may be subject to discussion and debate, it is important to remember that even with 12 aircraft carriers, the United States cannot maintain a full-time carrier presence in the most important regions of the world -- the Mediterranean, the Western Pacific, the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. If the United States were to reduce its carrier force to 10 or fewer carriers there would be gaps of as long as four months in carrier presence in these regions. Further, our sailors and airmen are already stretched beyond breaking point with long deployments to meet crises around the world. To reduce the number of carriers further would be foolish. The so-called new world order is one of uncertainty and danger. Proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons, along with Scud missiles, provides more countries and even terrorist groups with the capability to threaten United States security. We need a strong Navy and a strong carrier force to meet the unknown dangers of the years ahead. In my 25 years of naval service, I served in virtually every trouble spot of the world aboard aircraft carriers. They send a powerful signal to friend and foe alike.

__The combination of horror and outrage that will surge upon the nation will demand that the president retaliate__ for the incomprehensible damage done by the attack. The problem will be that __the president will not immediately know how to respond or against whom__. The perpetrators will have been incinerated by the explosion that destroyed New York City. Unlike 9-11, there will have been no interval during the attack when those hijacked could make phone calls to loved ones telling them before they died that the hijackers were radical Islamic extremists. There will be no such phone calls when the attack will not have been anticipated until the instant the terrorists detonate their improvised nuclear device inside the truck parked on a curb at the Empire State Building. Nor will there be any possibility of finding any clues, which either were vaporized instantly or are now lying physically inaccessible under tons of radioactive rubble. Still, the president, members of Congress, the military, and the public at large will suspect another attack by our known enemy – Islamic terrorists. __The first impulse will be to launch a nuclear strike on Mecca__, to destroy the whole religion of Islam. Medina could possibly be added to the target list just to make the point with crystal clarity. Yet what would we gain? The moment Mecca and Medina were wiped off the map, __the Islamic world__ – more than 1 billion human beings in countless different nations – __would feel attacked. Nothing would emerge intact after a war between the__ United States __and Islam. The apocalypse would be upon us__. Then, too, we would face an immediate threat from our long-term enemy, the former Soviet Union. Many in __the Kremlin would see this as an opportunity to grasp__ the __victory__ that had been snatched from them by Ronald Reagan when the Berlin Wall came down. __A missile strike by the Russians on a score of American cities could possibly be pre-emptive__. Would the U.S. strategic defense system be so in shock that immediate retaliation would not be possible? __Hardliners in Moscow might argue that there was never a better opportunity to destroy America__. In China, our newer Communist enemies might not care if we could retaliate. With a population already over 1.3 billion people and with their population not concentrated in a few major cities, __the Chinese might calculate to initiate a nuclear blow__ on the United States. What if the United States retaliated with a nuclear counterattack upon China? The Chinese might be able to absorb the blow and recover. __The North Koreans might calculate even more recklessly.__ Why not launch upon America the few missiles they have that could reach our soil? More confusion and chaos might only advance their position. If Russia, China, and the United States could be drawn into attacking one another, North Korea might emerge stronger just because it was overlooked while the great nations focus on attacking one another.
 * Terrorism causes nuclear war**
 * CORSI**, **2005** .Jerome, PhD in political science from Harvard. excerpt from Atomic Iran, http://911review.org/Wget/worldnetdaily.com/NYC_hit_by_terrorist_nuke.html.

Reduction in carrier presence would tip the balance away from US naval dominance and cause war in the Middle East __Is there a logical “tipping point” that can be__ numerically __assigned?__ Is a 285 ship-Navy the tipping point, or is it at 250, or 230? __At what number, does the Navy reach a point where it is no longer able to project combat credibility with constant forward presence?__ Is the Navy able to deter and reassure at 230 ships? __It depends__. We have defined a “global navy.” We have assessed what it is asked to do by the political leadership and what it will be asked to do in an evolving world of rising powers, rogue nations, and threats from non-state actors. We conclude that __there is not a specific number at which the navy ceases to be “the global navy.” It depends on how one defines the threat environment, the demand signal, and the objectives of naval forces within the foreign policy__. __The Navy can remain the global maritime power__ with either the 2 hub or 1+ hubWESTPAC option. Both preserve a global presence for the Navy __and__ allow it to __be a force for reassuring allies, deterring the major maritime challenger, and working__ within joint and combined environments __to address the security threats in the two top priority areas of global politics for the foreseeable future__. The Shaping and Surge options sacrifice either presence or combat credibility to an extent that threatens the Navy’s ability to maintain its status. They could be chosen only within the context of major changes in U.S. foreign policies; an acceptance of a much diminished role for the United States as a leader willing to act only in concert with other nations in protecting the global system from low-end threats, or a neoisolationist America willing to go it alone on high-end threats and letting other issues resolve themselves at the local and regional levels. If the Navy refuses to choose an option, it faces the prospect of a long, slow glide into the Shrinking Status Quo. This would be a navy 20 percent smaller than the one we have now, with the same balance of forces. It will fall through the capacity and capability necessary for either a 2-hub or 1+ hub navy to be constantly present overseas or to be dominant up and down the escalation ladder, without making the strategic choices to be either a shaping or surge force. Our most relevant example of a navy that faced this choice in the past was the Royal Navy in the early part of the 20th Century. It had maintained a policy of meeting two challengers and carrying out what we would call maritime security operations throughout the empire since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. It was the undisputed “global navy,” but it faced rising powers in Germany and the United States, domestic spending pressures, and new alignments on the continent in Europe. The British Government (with the Royal Navy as an active participant in the decision process) chose to re-orient its foreign and security policies to meet the German threat, leave the Western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific to the United States, and assume what we would call a 1+ hub strategy. It was able to meet the threat of Germany, contribute to the Triple Entente with France and Russia, forge a treaty with Japan that lasted through World War I, and meet all of its empire maritime policing needs. It was not these decisions that drained the treasury, but four years of war in Europe and its toll on the British Army and nation. Without an empire to police, might __the United States__ be able to carry out the 2-hub strategy? It does not have the luxury of the British who faced only one potential threat. It __faces a current fight (Islamic terror, Afghanistan, Iranian adventurism) in CENTCOM and a potential future fight requiring deterrence and reassurance to meet a traditional rising national challenger. Both situations require a combat-credible, visible presence by naval forces for prompt denial, escalation and de-escalation dominance, deterrence by denial__ (missile defense), __and assured access__. On the other hand, the maritime security operations in other areas of the world can be addressed in large part by local and regional efforts, with the U.S. playing a supporting role. __The inherent flexibility of naval people and platforms and assets has been proven again and again. The ability of high-end assets to flex for a number of missions along the spectrum of operations has been a staple of deployments by carrier strike groups and their escorts and their air assets. What has not been proven is the ability of a global navy to use forces that are not dominant or not____present overseas to deter challengers, deny regional aggressors, or reassure partners. When you are no longer present in **one or two areas** of vital national interest with dominant maritime forces, you are at the “**tipping point**__ .”
 * WHITENECK 2010** (Daniel Whiteneck • Michael Price • Neil Jenkins •Peter Swartz, CNA Analysis & Solutions, “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake?” March, http://www.public.navy.mil/usff/documents/navy_at_tipping_point.pdf)

in the Context of International Relations”] __The Middle East conflict is unparalleled in terms of **its potential for spreading globally**. During the Cold War__, amid which the Arab-Israeli conflict evolved, __the two opposing superpowers directly supported the conflicting parties__ : the Soviet Union supported Arab countries, while the United States supported Israel. On the one hand, the bipolar world order which existed at that time objectively played in favor of the escalation of the Middle East conflict into a global confrontation. On the other hand, __the Soviet Union and the United States__ were not interested in such developments and they __managed to keep the situation under control. The behavior of both superpowers in the course of all the wars in the Middle East proves that__. In 1956, during the Anglo-French-Israeli military invasion of Egypt (which followed Cairo’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company) the United States – contrary to the widespread belief in various countries, including Russia – not only refrained from supporting its allies but insistently pressed – along with the Soviet Union – for the cessation of the armed action. Washington feared that the tripartite aggression would undermine the positions of the West in the Arab world and would result in a direct clash with the Soviet Union. __Fears that hostilities in the Middle East might acquire a global dimension could materialize also during the Six-Day War__ of 1967. On its eve, Moscow and Washington urged each other to cool down their “clients.” When the war began, both superpowers assured each other that they did not intend to get involved in the crisis militarily and that that they would make efforts at the United Nations to negotiate terms for a ceasefire. On July 5, the Chairman of the Soviet Government, Alexei Kosygin, who was authorized by the Politburo to conduct negotiations on behalf of the Soviet leadership, for the first time ever used a hot line for this purpose. After the USS //Liberty// was attacked by Israeli forces, which later claimed the attack was a case of mistaken identity, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson immediately notified Kosygin that the movement of the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean Sea was only intended to help the crew of the attacked ship and to investigate the incident. The situation repeated itself during the hostilities of October 1973. Russian publications of those years argued that it was the Soviet Union that prevented U.S. military involvement in those events. In contrast, many U.S. authors claimed that a U.S. reaction thwarted Soviet plans to send troops to the Middle East. Neither statement is true. The atmosphere was really quite tense. Sentiments both in Washington and Moscow were in favor of interference, yet both capitals were far from taking real action. When U.S. troops were put on high alert, Henry Kissinger assured Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that this was done largely for domestic considerations and should not be seen by Moscow as a hostile act. In a private conversation with Dobrynin, President Richard Nixon said the same, adding that he might have overreacted but that this had been done amidst a hostile campaign against him over Watergate. Meanwhile, Kosygin and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko at a Politburo meeting in Moscow strongly rejected a proposal by Defense Minister Marshal Andrei Grechko to “demonstrate” Soviet military presence in Egypt in response to Israel’s refusal to comply with a UN Security Council resolution. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev took the side of Kosygin and Gromyko, saying that he was against any Soviet involvement in the conflict. __The above suggests an unequivocal conclusion that control by the superpowers in the bipolar world did not allow the Middle East conflict to escalate into a global confrontation__. __After the__ end of the __Cold War, some__ scholars and political observers __concluded that a real threat of the__ Arab-Israeli __conflict going____beyond regional frameworks ceased to exist. However, in **the 21st century this conclusion no longer conforms to the reality**__. The U.S. military __operation in Iraq has changed the balance of forces__ in the Middle East. __The disappearance of the Iraqi counterbalance has brought Iran to the fore as a____regional power__ claiming a direct role in various Middle East processes. I do not belong to those who believe that the Iranian leadership has already made a political decision to create nuclear weapons of its own. Yet Tehran seems to have set itself the goal of achieving a technological level that would let it make such a decision (the “Japanese model”) under unfavorable circumstances. __Israel already possesses nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles__. In such circumstances, __the absence of a Middle East settlement opens **a dangerous prospect of a nuclear collision** in the region__, __which would have **catastrophic consequences for the whole world**__**.**__The transition to a multipolar world has objectively strengthened the role of states and____organizations that are directly involved in regional conflicts, which increases the__ latter’s __danger and reduces the possibility of controlling them. This refers, above all, to the Middle East conflict.__ The coming of Barack Obama to the presidency has allayed fears that the United States could deliver a preventive strike against Iran (under George W. Bush, it was one of the most discussed topics in the United States). However, fears have increased that such a strike can be launched //Yevgeny Primakov// 1 3 2 RUSSIA IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS VOL. 7 • No. 3 • JULY – SEPTEMBER• 2009 by Israel, which would have unpredictable consequences for the region and beyond. It seems that President Obama’s position does not completely rule out such a possibility.
 * Middle East war goes global and nuclear**
 * PRIMAKOV 2009** [September, Yevgeny, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation; Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; member of the Editorial Board of //Russia in Global Affairs//. This article is based on the scientific report for which the author was awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2008, “The Middle East Problem

Carriers are key to disaster response EAGLAN 2008 (Mackenzie Eaglen is Senior Policy Analyst for National Security at The Heritage Foundation, “Aircraft Carriers Are Crucial,” July 31, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003078.html) And at a time when policymakers expect to spend less on defense and where the services' lists of unfunded requirements continues to mount, we'll likely call on the aircraft carrier to perform an expanded array of duties, ranging from humanitarian relief to counterinsurgency support and temporary basing for Special Operations Forces. As the Navy assumes responsibility for humanitarian missions in places such as Africa and South America, it will rely on aircraft carriers to provide immediate relief following natural disasters. During Operation Unified Assistance, following the December 2004 tsunami and during relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, for instance, they placed a central role.

Unmitigated disasters cause extinction The human species has never been exposed to a natural upheaval of this magnitude within living memory. What happened in South Asia is the ecological equivalent of 9/11. Ecological problems like global warming and climatic disturbances in general threaten to make our natural habitat unfit for human life. __The extinction of the species has become a very real possibility,__ whether by our own hand or __as a result of natural disasters of a much greater magnitude than the Indian Ocean earthquake and the killer waves it spawned__. Human civilisation has developed in the hope that Man will be able to reach welfare and prosperity on earth for everybody. But now things seem to be moving in the opposite direction, exposing planet Earth to the end of its role as a nurturing place for human life. Today, __human conflicts have become less of a threat than the confrontation between____[Humanity__ ] Man __and Nature__. At least __they are less likely to bring about the end of the__ human __species__. The reactions of Nature as a result of its exposure to the onslaughts of human societies have become more important in determining the fate of the human species than any harm it can inflict on itself. __Until recently, the threat Nature represented was perceived as likely to arise only in the long run__, related for instance to how global warming would affect life on our planet. Such a threat could take __decades, even centuries__, to reach a critical level. This perception has changed following __the devastating earthquake and tsunamis__ that hit the coastal regions of South Asia and, less violently, of East Africa, on 26 December. This cataclysmic event has __underscored the vulnerability of our world before the wrath of Nature and shaken the sanguine belief that the end of the world is a long way away__. Gone are the days when we could comfort ourselves with the notion that the extinction of the human race will not occur before a long-term future that will only materialise after millions of years and not affect us directly in any way. __We are now forced to live with the possibility of an imminent demise of humankind__.
 * SID-AHMED 2005** (Mohamed, Al-Ahram Online, Jan 6-12, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/724/op3.htm)

__They__ also __expose local populations to U.S. naval forces, cultivating__ a __familiarity and receptivity that__ Cossa said “ __could come in handy in__ the event of __future crises while building up__ a reservoir of __goodwill__ .” For the other partnering nations, they promote better communications and more fluid operations among participating naval personnel. Cossa said __humanitarian missions like the Mercy's are “win-win__ in every sense of the word: __They promote confidence and build trust.” Offering this__ kind of __assistance leaves a lasting impression of American values and ideals__, he said. “ __It underscores what is best about America__ .” “ __This is the essence of American soft power__ ,” Cossa said. “ __It enhances the image not only of the U.S.__ Navy and the __military, but of America in general.”__
 * Disaster response is also an independent link to leadership—solves opposition**
 * PORTH 2008** (Jacquelyn S, Staff Writer for America.gov, http://www.america.gov/st/peacesec-english/2008/June/20080627150217sjhtrop0.657818.html, AD: 6/25/10)

The fact that quantifying the risk of a catastrophic event is difficult is an independent reason to act now – Hurricane Katrina proves we can’t wait until it’s too late O’ROURKE 6-14-2012 (Ronald, Specialist in Naval Affairs with the Congressional Research Service, “Navy Nuclear Aircraft Carrier (CVN) Homeporting at Mayport: Background and Issues for Congress,” This section is a reprinting of a 2009 Navy Record of Decision, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R40248.pdf) __The most significant strategic advantage offered by development of an additional East Coast CVN homeport is a hedge against a catastrophic event that may impact NAVSTA Norfolk, the only existing CVN homeport for Atlantic Fleet CVNs. It is difficult to quantify the likelihood of a catastrophic event__, whether natural or man-made. __Nonetheless, there is a need to plan and prepare__ for any such event. That planning and preparation must address CVN maintenance and repair infrastructure as well as operational considerations. __The fact that quantifying the likelihood of a catastrophic event is so difficult underscores the need to ensure that our planning and preparation efforts do not underestimate or overlook the longterm effects__ of such event. Hurricane __Katrina is a clear and recent example__. The level of devastation in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was so extensive and so pervasive that more than three years after Katrina hit, the New Orleans industrial infrastructure, work force, and community support functions have not fully recovered. __The potential impact of similar__ man- __made or natural catastrophic events in the Hampton Roads area requires the DON to plan and prepare. A failure to do so presents an unacceptable risk. The aircraft carriers of the United States DON are vital strategic assets that serve our national interests in both peace and war. The President calls upon them for their unique ability to provide both deterrence and combat support in times of crisis__. Of the 11 aircraft carriers currently in service, five are assigned to the Atlantic Fleet. NAVSTA Norfolk is homeport to all five of the CVNs assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and the Hampton Roads area is the only East Coast location where CVN maintenance and repair infrastructure exists. It is the only location in the U.S. capable of CVN construction and refueling. The Hampton Roads area also houses all Atlantic Fleet CVN trained crews and associated community support infrastructure. __A second CVN homeport on the East Coast will provide additional CVN maintenance infrastructure, thereby providing added strategic value and allowing the DON to extract the added operational value of two CVN homeports in meeting its national defense obligations.__ __Homeporting a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport would provide strategic options in case of a catastrophic event in the Hampton Roads area, and enhance distribution of CVN assets, thereby reducing the risks to aircraft carriers and associated maintenance and repair infrastructure supporting those crucial assets....__ CONCLUSION: The decision to create the capacity to homeport a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport represents the best military judgment of the DON’s leadership regarding strategic considerations. In reaching that decision, the DON considered the environmental impacts analyzed in the EIS, comments from regulatory agencies as well as those received from members of the public, mitigation measures that would lessen the extent and severity of environmental impacts, recurring and nonrecurring costs, and the strategic implications of developing a second CVN homeport on the East Coast to support Atlantic Fleet operational, training and maintenance needs. There will be no significant adverse environmental impacts associated with the CVN homeporting. That conclusion is based on the data collected and analyzed in the EIS, on interagency consultations, and on the mitigation measures developed as part of that consultation process. The cost of developing a CVN homeport at NAVSTA Mayport was balanced against the strategic need to create a hedge against a catastrophic event in the Hampton Roads area. The cost of developing a CVN homeport at NAVSTA Mayport is more than offset by the added security for CVN assets and enhanced operational effectiveness provided by the ability to operate out of two homeports. Ultimately, the need to develop a hedge against the potentially crippling results of a catastrophic event was the driver behind the decision to homeport a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport. Developing a second CVN homeport on the East Coast not only reduces potential risk to CVN assets through dispersal of those critical assets, it provides some maintenance and repair infrastructure and ensures access to that infrastructure by CVNs deployed at the time a catastrophic event in Hampton Roads occurred. Mayport allows DON to obtain the advantages of fleet dispersal and survivability without impacting operational availability. On the West Coast DON has accepted reduced operational availability in the interest of dispersal. By homeporting CVNs in the Northwestern U.S., DON loses operational availability during the additional transit time required to reach operational and training areas. By establishing a second CVN homeport on the East Coast, DON can gain the dispersal advantage without the increased transit time. The proximity to training areas and transit time to operating areas is about equal from Norfolk and Mayport. West Coast CVN homeports and maintenance facilities are not viable options in planning for Atlantic Fleet CVN assets in the event a catastrophic event occurs in the Hampton Roads area. The nuclear powered aircraft carriers are too large to transit the Panama Canal, requiring a 12,700 nautical mile voyage around South America to reach the closest CVN homeport on the West Coast at [65]San Diego. Neither the DON, nor the nation, nor its citizens can wait for a catastrophic event to occur before recognizing the potential impacts of such an event and appropriately planning and preparing for continuity of operations. This lesson was learned all too well in the aftermath of recent catastrophic events such as Hurricane Katrina. The DON looked at the possible crippling effects - immediate and long-term - of a catastrophic event in the Hampton Roads area and recognized its responsibility to develop a hedge against such an event. That hedge is homeporting a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport and developing the requisite operational, training, maintenance and support facilities. Homeporting one CVN at NAVSTA Mayport best serves the interests of the DON and the nation, and can be accomplished in a manner that keeps environmental impacts at a less than significant level .66

This raises a more fundamental question: What is the value of naval power in a world in which naval battles are not fought? To frame the question more clearly, let us begin by noting that __the United States has maintained global maritime hegemony since the end of World War II__. Except for the failed Soviet attempt to partially challenge the United States, __the most important geopolitical fact since World War II was that the world’s oceans were effectively under the control of the U.S. Navy. Prior to World War II, there were multiple contenders for maritime power__, such as Britain, Japan and most major powers. __No one__ power, not even Britain, __had global maritime hegemony. The United States now does__. The question is whether this hegemony has any real value at this time — a question made relevant by the issue of whether to blockade Iran. The United States controls the blue water. To be a little more precise, the U.S. Navy can assert direct and overwhelming control over any portion of the blue water it wishes, and it can do so in multiple places. It cannot directly control all of the oceans at the same time. However, __the total available naval force that can be deployed by non-U.S. powers__ (friendly and other) __is so limited that they lack the ability, **even taken together,** to assert control **anywhere** should the United States challenge their presence__. This is an unprecedented situation historically. __The current situation is__, of course, **__invaluable__** __to the United States. It means that a seaborne invasion of the United States by any power is completely impractical__. Given the geopolitical condition of the United States, the homeland is secure from conventional military attack but vulnerable to terrorist strikes and nuclear attacks. __At the same time, the United States is in a position to **project forces at will** to **any part of the globe**__. Such power projection might not be wise at times, but **__even failure__** __does not lead to reciprocation. For instance, no matter how badly U.S. forces fare in Iraq, the Iraqis will not invade the United States__ if the Americans are defeated there. __This is not a trivial fact. Control of the seas means that military or political failure in Eurasia will not result in a direct conventional threat to the United States. Nor does such failure necessarily preclude future U.S. intervention in that region. It also means that no other state can choose to invade the United States. Control of the seas allows the United States to intervene where it wants, survive the consequences of failure and be immune to occupation itself. It was the most important geopolitical consequence of World War II, and one that still **defines the world**__. The issue for the United States is not whether it should abandon control of the seas — that would be irrational in the extreme. Rather, the question is whether it has to exert itself at all in order to retain that control. Other powers either have abandoned attempts to challenge the United States, have fallen short of challenging the United States or have confined their efforts to building navies for extremely limited uses, or for uses aligned with the United States. No one has a shipbuilding program under way that could challenge the United States for several generations. One argument, then, is that the United States should cut its naval forces radically — since they have, in effect, done their job. Mothballing a good portion of the fleet would free up resources for other military requirements without threatening U.S. ability to control the sea-lanes. Should other powers attempt to build fleets to challenge the United States, the lead time involved in naval construction is such that the United States would have plenty of opportunities for re-commissioning ships or building new generations of vessels to thwart the potential challenge. The counterargument normally given is that the U.S. Navy provides a critical service in what is called littoral warfare. In other words, while the Navy might not be needed immediately to control sea-lanes, it carries out critical functions in securing access to those lanes and projecting rapid power into countries where the United States might want to intervene. Thus, U.S. aircraft carriers can bring tactical airpower to bear relatively quickly in any intervention. Moreover, the Navy’s amphibious capabilities — particularly those of deploying and supplying the U.S. Marines — make for a rapid deployment force that, when coupled with Naval airpower, can secure hostile areas of interest for the United States. That argument is persuasive, but it poses this problem: The Navy provides a powerful option for war initiation by the United States, but it cannot by itself sustain the war. In any sustained conflict, the Army must be brought in to occupy territory — or, as in Iraq, the Marines must be diverted from the amphibious specialty to serve essentially as Army units. Naval air by itself is a powerful opening move, but greater infusions of airpower are needed for a longer conflict. Naval transport might well be critically important in the opening stages, but commercial transport sustains the operation. If one accepts this argument, the case for a Navy of the current size and shape is not proven. How many carrier battle groups are needed and, given the threat to the carriers, is an entire battle group needed to protect them? If we consider the Iraq war in isolation, for example, it is apparent that the Navy served a function in the defeat of Iraq’s conventional forces. It is not clear, however, that the Navy has served an important role in the attempt to occupy and pacify Iraq. And, as we have seen in the case of Iran, a blockade is such a complex politico-military matter that the option not to blockade tends to emerge as the obvious choice. The Risk Not Taken The argument for slashing the Navy can be tempting. But consider the counterargument. First, and most important, we must consider the crises the United States has not experienced. The presence of the U.S. Navy has shaped the ambitions of primary and secondary powers. The threshold for challenging the Navy has been so high that few have even initiated serious challenges. Those that might be trying to do so, like the Chinese, understand that it requires a substantial diversion of resources. Therefore, the mere existence of U.S. naval power has been effective in averting crises that likely would have occurred otherwise. Reducing the power of the U.S. Navy, or fine-tuning it, would not only open the door to challenges but also eliminate a useful, if not essential, element in U.S. strategy — the ability to bring relatively rapid force to bear. There are times when the Navy’s use is tactical, and times when it is strategic. At this moment in U.S. history, the role of naval power is highly strategic. The domination of the world’s oceans represents the foundation stone of U.S. grand strategy. It allows the United States to take risks while minimizing consequences. It facilitates risk-taking. Above all, it eliminates the threat of sustained conventional attack against the homeland. U.S. grand strategy has worked so well that this risk appears to be a phantom. The dispersal of U.S. forces around the world attests to what naval power can achieve. It is illusory to believe that this situation cannot be reversed, but it is ultimately a generational threat. Just as U.S. maritime hegemony is measured in generations, the threat to that hegemony will emerge over generations. The apparent lack of utility of naval forces in secondary campaigns, like Iraq, masks the fundamentally **__indispensable role the Navy plays in U.S. national security __**.
 * US naval power guarantees hegemony, prevents attacks on the US mainland, and deters potential rivals from even attempting to change the status quo**
 * FRIEDMAN 2007** (George, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and founder of STRATFOR, “The Limitations and Necessity of Naval Power,” April 10, http://www.stratfor.com/limitations_and_necessity_naval_power)

The future security environment underscores two broad security trends. First, __international political realities and the internationally agreed-to sovereign rights of nations will increasingly limit the sustained involvement of American permanent land-based, heavy forces__ to the more extreme crises. __This will make offshore options for deterrence and power projection **ever more paramount**__ in support of our national interests. Second, __the naval dimensions of American power will re-emerge as the primary means for assuring our allies and partners, ensuring prosperity in times of peace, and countering anti-access, area-denial efforts in times of crisis__. We do not believe these trends will require the dismantling of land-based forces, as these forces will remain essential reservoirs of power. As the United States has learned time and again, once a crisis becomes a conflict, it is impossible to predict with certainty its depth, duration and cost. That said, __the U.S. has been shrinking its overseas land-based installations, so the ability to project power globally will make the forward presence of naval forces an **even more essential dimension of American influence**__. What we do believe is that **__uniquely responsive__** __Navy-Marine Corps capabilities provide the basis on which our most vital overseas interests are safeguarded. Forward presence and engagement is what allows the U.S. to maintain awareness, to deter aggression, and to quickly respond to threats as they arise__. Though we clearly must be prepared for the high-end threats, such __preparation should be made in balance with the means necessary to **avoid escalation** to the high end **in the first place**__. __The versatility of maritime forces provides a truly **unmatched advantage.**____The sea remains a vast space that provides nearly unlimited freedom of maneuver. Command of the sea allows for the presence of our naval forces, supported from a network of shore facilities, to be adjusted and scaled with little external restraint__. It permits reliance on proven capabilities such as prepositioned ships. __Maritime capabilities encourage and enable cooperation with other nations to solve common sea-based problems such as piracy, illegal trafficking, proliferation of W.M.D__ ., and a host of other ills, which if unchecked can harm our friends and interests abroad, and our own citizenry at home. __The flexibility and responsiveness of naval forces provide our country with a general strategic deterrent in a potentially violent and unstable world. Most importantly, our naval forces project and sustain power at sea and ashore at the time, place, duration, and intensity of our choosing__. Given these enduring qualities, tough choices must clearly be made, especially in light of expected tight defense budgets. The administration and the Congress need to balance the resources allocated to missions such as strategic deterrence, ballistic missile defense, and cyber warfare with the more traditional ones of sea control and power projection. The maritime capability and capacity vital to the flexible projection of U.S. power and influence around the globe must surely be preserved, especially in light of available technology. Capabilities such as the Joint Strike Fighter will provide strategic deterrence, in addition to tactical long-range strike, especially when operating from forward-deployed naval vessels. __Postured to respond quickly, the Navy-Marine Corps team integrates sea, air, and land power into adaptive force packages spanning the entire spectrum of operations, from everyday cooperative security activities to unwelcome — but not impossible — **wars between major powers**. This is exactly what we will need to meet the challenges of the future__.
 * Naval power is critical to overall US capabilities—this allows us to deter and defeat any challenger and contain every impact**
 * ENGLAND, JONES, AND CLARK 2011** (Gordon England is a former secretary of the Navy. General James Jones is a former commandant of the Marine Corps. Admiral Vern Clark is a former chief of naval operations; “The Necessity of U.S. Naval Power,” July 11, http://gcaptain.com/necessity-u-s-naval-power?27784)

So what is left? __Waning empires. Religious revivals. Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities. These are the Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might quickly find itself reliving.__ The trouble is, of course, that __this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one__ than the Dark Age of the ninth century. For the world is much more populous—roughly 20 times more—so friction between the world's disparate “tribes” is bound to be more frequent. Technology has transformed production; now human societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of fossil fuels that are known to be finite. __Technology has upgraded destruction__, too, __so it is now possible not just to sack a city but to obliterate it.__ For more than two decades, globalization—the integration of world markets for commodities, labor, and capital—has raised living standards throughout the world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. __The reversal of globalization—which a new Dark Age would produce—would certainly lead to economic stagnation and even depression__. __As the United States sought to protect itself after a second September 11__ devastates, say, Houston or Chicago, __it would inevitably become a less open society, less hospitable for foreigners__ seeking to work, visit, or do business. Meanwhile, as Europe's Muslim enclaves grew, Islamist extremists' infiltration of the EU would become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to the breaking point. An economic meltdown in China would plunge the Communist system into crisis, unleashing the centrifugal forces that undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. __The wealthiest ports of the global economy__ —from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai— __would become__ the __targets__ of plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, __limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East.__ In Latin America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S. religious orders. In Africa, __the great plagues of AIDS and malaria would continue their deadly work__. The few remaining solvent airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? __For all these reasons, the prospect of an apolar world should frighten us__ today a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of Charlemagne. __If the United States retreats from global hegemony__ —its fragile self-image dented by minor setbacks on the imperial frontier— __its critics at home and abroad must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony, or even a return to the good old balance of power__. Be careful what you wish for. __The alternative to unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be apolarity—a global vacuum of power. And far more dangerous forces than rival great powers would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder__.
 * There’s no alternative to American power—US decline exacerbates every impact and cause nuclear war**
 * FERGUSON 2004** (Niall, Prof of History at NYU, Foreign Policy, July/August)

Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, __U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival__, __enabling the__ United States and the __world to avoid another global__ cold or hot __war and__ all the attendant dangers, including a __global nuclear exchange__. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.
 * The impact is global nuclear war**
 * KHALILZAD 1995** (Zalmay, RAND analyst and now U.S. ambassador to Iraq, The Washington Quarterly)


 * Plan: the United States federal government should substantially increase its investment in transportation infrastructure necessary to sustain a home port for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Naval Station Mayport. **

__A lot of work must take place before a carrier can again call Mayport home__. the __carriers__ newer than the USS John F. Kennedy __are larger and require more channel depth, meaning Mayport must be dredged, and__ the nuclear __fuel requires a significant upgrade to the wharf__ at Mayport. Funds for both projects have been included in congressional bills since 2010, according to Crenshaw, totalling over $77 million. __HR 2055__, which passed the House 411-5, __includes__ nearly $15 million for __transportation infrastructure improvements at Mayport and "funding, as, necessary," for future projects such as the maintenance wharf__ and controlled industrial facility. __If everything is fast-tracked, the earliest Mayport could see a carrier is estimated to be 2016__, though it could be as late as 2019.
 * The plan is key to carrier basing at Mayport**
 * FCN 6-14-2011** (House Passes Bill Including Mayport Carrier Money, http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/article/207690/0/House-Passes-Bill-Including-Mayport-Carrier-Money)

Local industry is strong enough to support carrier basing Private ship repair firms in northeast Florida will likely be able to support the maintenance requirements of a nuclear aircraft carrier if one is homeported at Naval Station Mayport in 2019 as the Navy plans. Of the 20 surface ships currently homeported at Mayport, the Navy plans to decommission 12 guided-missile frigates between 2011 and 2015. According to the Navy, the total depot maintenance workload at Mayport has averaged 225,000 work days per year over the last several years. The Navy estimates that the decommissioning of the frigates will reduce this average workload by about 135,200 work days after all of the frigates have been decommissioned in 2015—a potential decrease of 60 percent if no other work is allocated to Mayport. According to private ship repair firm representatives, this decrease in workload will likely result in the loss of some jobs for ship repair firms in northeast Florida, but the Navy expects the private ship repair firms to be able to support a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in 2019 for five key reasons. • The Navy has implemented mitigation measures to offset the decreased workload, such as transferring the maintenance of three barges from Norfolk Naval Shipyard to Mayport. These measures will likely not fully offset the decreased workload, but the Navy has stated it is continuing to explore other mitigation options, such as the homeporting of some littoral combat ships.11 Additionally, the Navy expects the proposed homeporting of a nuclear aircraft carrier at Mayport in 2019 to further increase the workload at Mayport by an average of 28,800 work days per year. • The northeast Florida area is home to three master ship repair firms certified by the Navy to have the capabilities and capacities to support the maintenance requirements of U.S. Navy surface ships, including aircraft carriers. Each of these firms has significant production and administrative facilities either on or near Naval Station Mayport, and officials from these firms told us they will maintain their presence in northeast Florida. Additionally, these private ship repair officials told us they have options by which they can adjust to fluctuations in workload. For example, two of the firms have ship repair personnel at other Navy homeports that could be used to supplement the firms’ workforces at Mayport during workload increases or used to transfer personnel during workload decreases. Similarly, there is a large transient, temporary ship repair workforce that can be used to supplement each of the ship repair firm’s full-time workforce as needed. Because of these options, private ship repair firm officials told us that although they are concerned over the projected decrease in workload, workload fluctuations are common in the ship repair industry and their firms would be able to withstand any lulls in workload at Mayport and that it would not impact their ability to support a nuclear carrier beginning in 2019. • The tasks required of the private ship repair firms to support a nuclear carrier are the same as those performed on conventional carriers in the past and the other types of ships currently homeported at Mayport. • Private ship repair firms in northeast Florida have previously demonstrated the ability to support carrier maintenance. In fact, the largest aircraft carrier availability ever performed outside of a public shipyard was completed on the USS John F. Kennedy in Mayport in 2003. • Finally, according to the Navy, the contracting strategy used with the private ship repair firms provides the firms with early visibility into the Navy’s maintenance planning, thus allowing the firms to appropriately size their workforces in anticipation of future workload.
 * GAO 2011** (Government Accountability Office, “Subject: Defense Infrastructure: Ability of Ship Maintenance Industrial Base to Support a Nuclear Aircraft Carrier at Naval Station Mayport,” March 29, http://www.gao.gov/assets/100/97346.pdf)

2AC Death K
Calls for change are the best means to celebrate life – inaction breeds resentment May, Lemon Professor of Philosophy at Clemson University, ‘ 5 (Todd, “To change the world, to celebrate life” Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol 31 No 5-6, p 517-531, SagePub) To change the world and to celebrate life. This, as the theologian Harvey Cox saw, is the struggle within us .1 It is a struggle in which one cannot choose sides; or better, a struggle in which one must choose both sides. The abandonment of one for the sake of the other can lead only to disaster or callousness. Forsaking the celebration of life for the sake of changing the world is the path of the sad revolutionary. In his preface to Anti-Oedipus, Foucault writes that one does not have to be sad in order to be revolu­tionary. The matter is more urgent than that, however. One cannot be both sad and revolutionary. Lacking a sense of the wondrous that is already here, among us, one who is bent upon changing the world can only become solemn or bitter. He or she is focused only on the future; the present is what is to be overcome. The vision of what is not but must come to be overwhelms all else, and the point of change itself becomes lost. The history of the left in the 20th century offers numerous examples of this, and the disaster that attends to it should be evident to all of us by now. The alternative is surely not to shift one's allegiance to the pure celebration of life, although there are many who have chosen this path. It is at best blindness not to see the misery that envelops so many of our fellow humans, to say nothing of what happens to sentient non-human creatures. The attempt to jettison world-changing for an un­critical assent to the world as it is requires a self-deception that I assume would be anathema for those of us who have studied Foucault. Indeed, it is anathema for all of us who awaken each day to an America whose expansive boldness is matched only by an equally expansive disregard for those we place in harm's way. This is the struggle, then. The one between the desire for life-celebration and the desire for world-changing. The struggle between reveling in the contingent and fragile joys that constitute our world and wresting it from its intolerability. I am sure it is a struggle that is not foreign to anyone who is reading this. I am sure as well that the stakes for choosing one side over another that I have recalled here are obvious to everyone. The question then becomes one of how to choose both sides at once. III Maybe it happens this way. You walk into a small meeting room at the back of a local bookstore. There are eight or ten people milling about. They're dressed in dark clothes, nothing fancy, and one or two of them have earrings or dreadlocks. They vary in age. You don't know any of them. You've never seen them before. Several of them seem to know one another. They are affectionate, hugging, letting a hand linger on a shoulder or an elbow. A younger man, tall and thin, with an open face and a blue baseball cap bearing no logo, glides into the room. Two others, a man and a woman, shout, 'Tim!' and he glides over to them and hugs them, one at a time. They tell him how glad they are that he could make it, and he says that he just got back into town and heard about the meeting. You stand a little off to the side. Nobody has taken a seat at the rectangle of folding tables yet. You don't want to be the first to sit down. Tim looks around the room and smiles. Several other people filter in. You're not quite sure where to put your hands so you slide them into your jean pockets. You hunch your shoulders. Tim's arrival has made you feel more of an outsider. But then he sees you. He edges his way around several others and walks up to you and introduces himself. You respond. Tim asks and you tell him that this is your first time at a meeting like this. He doesn't ask about politics but about where you're from. He tells you he has a friend in that neighborhood and do you know. . . ? Then several things happen that you only vaguely notice because you're talking with Tim. People start to sit down at the rec­tangle of tables. One of them pulls out a legal pad with notes on it. She sits at the head of the rectangle; or rather, when she sits down there, it becomes the head. And there's something you don't notice at all. You are more relaxed, your shoulders have stopped hunching, and when you sit down the seat feels familiar. The woman at the head of the table looks around. She smiles; her eyes linger over you and a couple of others that you take to be new faces, like yours. She says, 'Maybe we should begin.' IV I can offer only a suggestion of an answer here today. It is a suggestion that brings together some thoughts from the late writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty with those of Foucault, in order to sketch not even a framework for thought, but the mere outlines of a framework. It is not a framework that would seek to find the unconscious of each in the writings of the other. Neither thinker finishes or accomplishes the other. (Often, for example regarding methodology, they do not even agree.) Rather, it is a framework that requires both of them, from their very different angles, in order to be able to think it. My goal in constructing the outlines of this framework is largely philosophical. That is to say, the suggestion I would like to make here is not one for resolving for each of us the struggle of life-celebration and world-changing, but of offering a way to conceive ourselves that allows us to embrace both sides of this battle at the same time. Given the thinkers I have chosen as reference points, it will be no surprise when I say that that conception runs through the body. Let me start with Merleau-Ponty. In his last writings, particularly in The Visible and the Invisible, he offers a conception of the body that is neither at odds nor even entangled with the world, but is of the very world itself. His concept of the flesh introduces a point of contact that is also a point of undifferentiation. The flesh, Merleau-Ponty writes, 'is the coiling over of the visible upon the seeing body, of the tangible upon the touching body, which is attested in particular when the body sees itself, touches itself seeing and touching the things, such that, as tangible it descends among them'.2 We must recall this economy of the flesh before we turn to Foucault. There is, for Merleau-Ponty, a single Being. Our world is of that Being, and we are of our world. We are not something that confronts the world from outside, but are born into it and do not leave it. This does not mean that we cannot remove ourselves from the immediacy of its grasp. What it means is that to remove ourselves from that immedi­acy is neither the breaking of a bond nor the discovery of an original dichotomy or dualism. What is remarkable about human beings is pre­cisely our capacity to confront the world, to reflect upon it, understand it, and change it, while still being of a piece with it. To grasp this remarkable character, it is perhaps worth recalling Gilles Deleuze's concept of the fold. The world is not composed of different parts; there is no transcendent, whether of God or of subjec­tivity. The world is one. As Deleuze sometimes says, being is univocal. This oneness is not, however, inert or inanimate. Among other things, it can fold over on itself, creating spaces that are at once insides and outsides, at once different from and continuous with one another. The flesh is a fold of Being in this sense. It is of the world, and yet encounters it as if from a perceptual or cognitive distance. It is a visi­bility that sees, a tangible that touches, an audible that hears. Merleau-Ponty writes: There is vision, touch when a certain visible, a certain tangible, turns back upon the whole of the visible, the whole of the tangible, of which it is a part, or when suddenly it finds itself surrounded by them, or when between it and them, and through their commerce, is formed a Visibility, a Tangible in itself, which belong properly neither to the body qua fact nor to the world qua fact. . . and which therefore form a couple, a couple more real than either of them.3 For Merleau-Ponty, thought and reflection do not attach themselves to this flesh from beyond it, but arise through it. As our body is of this world, our thought is of our bodies, its language of a piece with the world it addresses. '[I]f we were to make completely explicit the archi­tectonics of the human body, its ontological framework, and how it sees itself and hears itself, we would see the possibilities of language already given in it.'4 This conception of the body as flesh of the world is not foreign to Foucault, although of course the terms Merleau-Ponty uses are not his. We might read Foucault's politics as starting from here, inaugurated at the point of undifferentiation between body and world. The crucial addition he would make is that that point of undifferentiation is not historically inert. The body/world nexus is inscribed in a history that leaves its traces on both at the same time, and that crosses the border of the flesh and reaches the language that arises from it, and the thought that language expresses. How does this work? V Maybe it doesn't happen that way. Maybe it happens another way. Maybe you walk into a room at a local community center. The room is large, but there aren't many people, at least yet. There's a rectangular table in the center, and everyone is sitting around it. A couple of people look up as you walk in. They nod slightly. You nod back, even more slightly. At the head of the table is someone with a legal pad. She does not look up. She is reading the notes on the pad, making occasional marks with the pen in her right hand. Other people come in and take places at the table. One or two of them open laptop computers and look for an outlet. Eventually, the table fills up and people start sitting in chairs behind the table. Your feel as though you're in an inner circle where you don't belong. You wonder whether you should give up your chair and go sit on the outside with the others who are just coming in now. Maybe people notice you, think you don't belong there. At this moment you'd like to leave. You begin to feel at once large and small, visually intrusive and an object of scrutiny. You don't move because maybe this is OK after all. You just don't know. The room is quiet. A couple of people cough. Then the woman seated at the head of the table looks up. She scans the room as if taking attendance. She says, 'Maybe we should begin.' VI Merleau-Ponty's discussion of the body as flesh is an ontological one. Although he does not see the body as remote from its historical inscrip­tion, his discussion does not incorporate the role such inscription plays. For a body to be of the world is also for it to be temporal, to be encrusted in the continuous emerging of the world over time. And this emerging is not abstract; rather, it is concrete. The body/world nexus evolves during particular historical periods. This fold of the flesh, this body, is not nowhere and at any time. It is there, then; or it is here, now. A body is entangled within a web of specific events and relations that, precisely because it is of this world, are inescapably a part of that body's destiny. As Merleau-Ponty tells us in Phenomenology of Perception, 'our open and personal existence rests on an initial foundation of acquired and stabilized existence. But it could not be otherwise, if we are tem­porality, since the dialectic of acquisition and future is what constitutes time.'5 The medium for the body's insertion into a particular net of events and relations is that of social practices. Our bodies are not first and foremost creatures of the state or the economy, no more than they are atomized wholes distinct from the world they inhabit. Or better, they are creatures of the state and the economy inasmuch as those appear through social practices, through the everyday practices that are the ether of our lives. Social practices are the sedimentation of history at the level of the body. When I teach, when I write this article, when I run a race or teach one of my children how to ride a bicycle, my body is oriented in particular ways, conforming to or rejecting particular norms, responding to the constraints and restraints of those practices as they have evolved in interaction with other practices over time. Through its engagement in these practices, my body has taken on a history that is not of my making but is nevertheless part of my inheritance. It is pre­cisely because, as Merleau-Ponty has written, the body and the world are not separate things but rather in a chiasmic relation that we can think this inheritance. And it is because of Foucault's histories that we can recognize that this inheritance is granted through specific social practices. And of course, as Foucault has taught us, social practices are where the power is. It is not, or not simply, at the level of the state or the modes of production where power arises. It is, as he sometimes puts it, at the capillaries. One of the lessons of Discipline and Punish is that, if the soul is the prison of the body, this is because the body is inserted into a set of practices that create for it a soul. These practices are not merely the choices of an individual whose thought surveys the world from above, but instead the fate of a body that is of a particular world at a particular time and place. Moreover, these practices are not merely in service to a power that exists outside of them; they are mechanisms of power in their own right. It is not because Jeremy Bentham disliked the prison population that the Panopticon became a grid for thinking about penal institutions. It is instead because the evolution of penal practices at that time created an opening for the economy of visibility that the Panopticon represented. When Foucault writes that. . . the soul has a reality, it is produced permanently around , on, within the body by the functioning of a power that is exercised on those punished - and, in a more general way, on those one supervises, trains and corrects, over madmen, children at home and at school, the colonized, over those who are stuck at a machine and supervised for the rest of their lives6 his claim is informed by four other ones that lie behind it: that bodies are of a piece with the world , that the body/world nexus is a temporal one, that the medium of that corporeal temporality is the practices a body is engaged in , and that that medium is political as well as social. The last three claims are, of course, of the framework of Foucault's thought. The first one is the ontological scaffolding provided by Merleau-Ponty. And it is by means of all four that we can begin to conceive things so as to be able to choose both world-changing and life-celebrating at the same time. VII It could happen yet another way. Increasingly, it does. There is no meeting. There are no tables and no legal pads. Nobody sits down in a room together, at least nobody sits down at a place you know about. There may not even be a leaflet. Maybe you just got an email that was for­warded by someone you know slightly and who thought you might be interested. At the bottom there's a link, in case you want to unsubscribe. If you don't unsubscribe you get more notices, with petitions to sign or times and places for rallies or teach-ins or marches. Maybe there's also a link for feedback or a list for virtual conversations or suggestions. If you show up, it's not to something you put together but to some­thing that was already in place before you arrived. How did you decide on this rally or teach-in? You sat in front of your computer screen, stared at it, pondering. Maybe you emailed somebody you know, asking for their advice. Is it worth going? If it's on campus you probably did. It matters who will see you, whether you have tenure, how much you've published. There are no Tims here. You've decided to go. If it's a teach-in, you've got plausible denia-bility; you're just there as an observer. If it's a rally, you can stand to the side. But maybe you won't do that. The issue is too important. You don't know the people who will be there, but you will stand among them, walk among them. You will be with them, in some way. Bodies at the same time and place. You agree on the issue, but it's a virtual agreement, one that does not come through gestures or words but through sharing the same values and the same internet connections. As you march, as you stand there, nearly shoulder to shoulder with others of like mind, you're already somewhere else, telling this story to someone you know, trying to get them to understand the feeling of solidarity that you are projecting back into this moment. You say to yourself that maybe you should have brought a friend along. VIII There are many ways to conceive the bond between world-changing and life-celebrating. Let me isolate two: one that runs from Merleau-Ponty to Foucault, from the body's chiasmic relation with the world to the politics of its practices; and the other one running back in the opposite direction. The ontology Merleau-Ponty offers in his late work is one of wonder. Abandoning the sterile philosophical debates about the relation of mind and body, subject and object, about the relation of reason to that which is not reason, or the problem of other minds, his ontology forges a unity of body and world that puts us in immediate contact with all of its aspects. No longer are we to be thought the self-enclosed crea­tures of the philosophical tradition. We are now in touch with the world, because we are of it. Art, for example, does not appeal solely to our minds; its beauty is not merely a matter of the convergence of our fac­ulties. We are moved by art, often literally moved, because our bodies and the work of art share the same world. As Merleau-Ponty says, 'I would be at great pains to say where is the painting I am looking at. For I do not look at it as I do a thing; I do not fix it in its place. My gaze wanders in it as in the halos of Being. It is more accurate to say that I see according to it, or with it, than that I see it.'7 It is only because my body is a fold of this world that art can affect me so. But this affection is also a vulnerability. As my look can happen according to a work of art, so it can happen according to a social practice. And even more so in proportion as that social practice and its effects are suffused through the world in which I carry on my life, the world my body navigates throughout the day, every day. I do not have a chance to look according to a painting by Cezanne very often; but I do encounter the effects of normalization as it has filtered through the practices of my employment, of my students' upbringing, and of my family's expectations of themselves and one another. The vulnerability of the body, then, is at once its exposure to beauty and its opening to what is intolerable. We might also see things from the other end, starting from politics and ending at the body. I take it that this is what Foucault suggests when he talks about bodies and pleasures at the end of the first volume of the History of Sexuality. If we are a product of our practices and the con­ception of ourselves and the world that those practices have fostered, so to change our practices is to experiment in new possibilities both for living and, inseparably, for conceiving the world. To experiment in sexu­ality is not to see where the desire that lies at the core of our being may lead us; that is simply the continuation of our oppression by other means. Rather, it is to construct practices where what is at issue is no longer desire but something else, something that might go by the name of bodies and pleasures. In doing so, we not only act differently, we think differently, both about ourselves and about the world those selves are inseparable from. And because these experiments are practices of our bodies, and because our bodies are encrusted in the world, these experiments become not merely acts of political resistance but new folds in the body/ world nexus. To construct new practices is to appeal to aspects or possibilities of the world that have been previously closed to us. It is to offer novel, and perhaps more tolerable, engagements in the chiasm of body and world. Thus we might say of politics what Merleau-Ponty has said of painting, that we see according to it. Here, I take it, is where the idea of freedom in Foucault lies. For Foucault, freedom is not a metaphysical condition. It does not lie in the nature of being human, nor is it a warping, an atomic swerve, in the web of causal relations in which we find ourselves. To seek our freedom in a space apart from our encrustation in the world is not so much to liberate ourselves from its influence as to build our own private prison. Foucault once said: There's an optimism that consists in saying that things couldn't be better. My optimism would consist rather in saying that so many things can be changed, fragile as they are, bound up more with circumstances than with necessities, more arbitrary than self-evident, more a matter of complex, but temporary, historical circumstances than with inevitable anthropological constraints. . .8 That is where to discover our freedom. IX And what happens from there? From the meetings, from the rallies, from the petitions and the teach-ins? What happens next? There is, after all, always a next. If you win this time - end aid to the contras, divest from apartheid South Africa, force debt-forgiveness by techno­logically advanced countries - there is always more to do. There is the de-unionization of workers, there are gay rights, there is Burma, there are the Palestinians, the Tibetans. There will always be Tibetans, even if they aren't in Tibet, even if they aren't Asian. But is that the only question: Next? Or is that just the question we focus on? What's the next move in this campaign, what's the next campaign? Isn't there more going on than that? After all, engaging in political organizing is a practice, or a group of practices. It contributes to making you who you are. It's where the power is, and where your life is, and where the intersection of your life and those of others (many of whom you will never meet, even if it's for their sake that you're involved) and the buildings and streets of your town is. This moment when you are seeking to change the world, whether by making a suggestion in a meeting or singing at a rally or marching in silence or asking for a signature on a petition, is not a moment in which you don't exist. It's not a moment of yours that you sacrifice for others so that it no longer belongs to you. It remains a moment of your life, sedimenting in you to make you what you will become, emerging out of a past that is yours as well. What will you make of it, this moment? How will you be with others, those others around you who also do not cease to exist when they begin to organize or to protest or to resist? The illusion is to think that this has nothing to do with you. You've made a decision to participate in world-changing. Will that be all there is to it? Will it seem to you a simple sacrifice, for this small period of time, of who you are for the sake of others? Are you, for this moment, a political ascetic? Asceticism like that is dangerous. X Freedom lies not in our distance from the world but in the historically fragile and contingent ways we are folded into it, just as we ourselves are folds of it. If we take Merleau-Ponty's Being not as a rigid foun­dation or a truth behind appearances but as the historical folding and refolding of a univocity, then our freedom lies in the possibility of other foldings. Merleau-Ponty is not insensitive to this point. His elusive concept of the invisible seems to gesture in this direction. Of painting, he writes: the proper essence of the visible is to have a layer of invisibility in the strict sense, which it makes present as a certain absence. . . There is that which reaches the eye directly, the frontal properties of the visible; but there is also that which reaches it from below. . . and that which reaches it from above. . . where it no longer participates in the heaviness of origins but in free accomplishments.9 Elsewhere, in The Visible and the Invisible, he says: if. . . the surface of the visible, is doubled up over its whole extension with an invisible reserve; and if, finally, in our flesh as the flesh of things, the actual, empirical, ontic visible, by a sort of folding back, invagination, or padding, exhibits a visibility, a possibility that is not the shadow of the actual but its principle. . . an interior horizon and an exterior horizon between which the actual visible is a partitioning and which, nonetheless, open indefinitely only upon other visibles. . .10 What are we to make of these references? We can, to be sure, see the hand of Heidegger in them. But we may also, and for present purposes more relevantly, see an intersection with Foucault's work on freedom. There is an ontology of freedom at work here, one that situates freedom not in the private reserve of an individual but in the unfinished character of any historical situation. There is more to our historical juncture, as there is to a painting, than appears to us on the surface of its visibility. The trick is to recognize this, and to take advantage of it, not only with our thoughts but with our lives. And that is why, in the end, there can be no such thing as a sad revolutionary. To seek to change the world is to offer a new form of life-celebration. It is to articulate a fresh way of being, which is at once a way of seeing, thinking, acting, and being acted upon. It is to fold Being once again upon itself, this time at a new point, to see what that might yield. There is, as Foucault often reminds us, no guarantee that this fold will not itself turn out to contain the intolerable. In a complex world with which we are inescapably entwined, a world we cannot view from above or outside, there is no certainty about the results of our experiments. Our politics are constructed from the same vulnerability that is the stuff of our art and our daily practices. But to refuse to experi­ment is to resign oneself to the intolerable ; it is to abandon both the struggle to change the world and the opportunity to celebrate living within it. And to seek one aspect without the other - life-celebration without world-changing, world-changing without life-celebration - is to refuse to acknowledge the chiasm of body and world that is the well-spring of both. If we are to celebrate our lives, if we are to change our world , then perhaps the best place to begin to think is our bodies, which are the openings to celebration and to change , and perhaps the point at which the war within us that I spoke of earlier can be both waged and resolved. That is the fragile beauty that, in their different ways, both Merleau-Ponty and Foucault have placed before us. The question before us is whether, in our lives and in our politics, we can be worthy of it. XI So how might you be a political body, woven into the fabric of the world as a celebrator and as a changer? You went to the meeting, and then to the demonstration. How was it there? Were the bodies in harmony or in counterpoint? Did you sing with your feet, did your voice soar? Did your mind come alive? Did you see possibilities you had not seen before? Were there people whose words or clothes, or even the way they walked hand in hand (how long has it been since you've walked hand in hand with someone out in public?) offer you a possibility, or make you feel alive as well as righteous? And how about those people off to the side, the ones on the sidewalk watching? Maybe they just stared, or maybe nodded as you went past. Or maybe some of them shouted at you to stop blocking the streets with your nonsense. Did you recoil within yourself, see yourself as in a mirror, or as the person at Sartre's keyhole who's just been caught? Did you feel superior to them, smug in your knowledge? Or did they, too, show you something you might learn from? Are they you at another moment, a moment in the past or in the future? Are they your parents that you have not explained to, sat down beside, or just shared a meal with? That one over there, the old man slightly stooped in the long overcoat: whom does he remind you of? What message might he have unwittingly brought for you? And why does it have to be a demonstration? You go to a few meetings, a few more demonstrations. You write some letters to legis­lators. You send an email to the President. And then more meetings. The next thing you know, you're involved in a political campaign. By then you may have stopped asking why. This is how it goes: demonstra­tions, meetings with legislators, internet contacts. Does it have to be like this? Are demonstrations and meetings your only means? Do they become, sooner or later, not only means but ends? And what kinds of ends? In some sense they should always be ends: a meeting is a celebra­tion, after all. But there are other ends as well. You go to the meeting because that fulfills your obligation to your political conscience. Does it come to that? There are other means, other ends. Other means/ends. Some people ride bicycles, en masse, slowly through crowded urban streets. You want environmentalism? Then have it. The streets are beautiful with their tall corniced buildings and wide avenues. To ride a bike through these streets instead of hiding in the armor of a car would be exhilarating. If enough of you do it together it would make for a pleasant ride, as well as a little lived environmentalism. Would you want to call it a demonstra­tion? Would it matter? There are others as well who do other things with their bodies, more dangerous things. Some people have gone to Palestine in order to put their bodies between the Palestinians and the Israeli soldiers and settlers who attack them. They lie down next to Palestinians in front of the bulldozers that would destroy homes or build a wall through a family's olive orchard. They feel the bodies of those they are in solidarity with. They smell the soil of Palestine as they lay there. Sometimes, they are harmed by it. A young woman, Rachel Corrie, was deliberately crushed by a US bulldozer operated by an Israeli soldier as she kneeled in front of a Palestinian home, hoping to stop its demolition. To do politics with one's body can be like this. To resist, to celebrate, is also to be vulner­able. The world that you embrace, the world of which you are a part, can kill you too. And so you experiment. You try this and you try that. You are a phenomenologist and a genealogist. You sense what is around you, attend to the way your body is encrusted in your political involvements. And you know that that sensing has its own history, a history that often escapes you even as it envelops you. There is always more to what you are, and to what you are involved in, than you can know. So you try to keep vigilant, seeking the possibilities without scorning the realities. It's a difficult balance. You can neglect it if you like. Many do. But your body is there, woven into the fabric of all the other bodies, animate and inanimate. Whether you like it or not, whether you recognize it or not. The only question is whether you will take up the world that you are of, or leave it to others, to those others who would be more than willing to take your world up for you.

Kymlicka, 90 – Professor of Philosophy and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University at Kingston, Recurrent Visiting Professor in the Nationalism Studies program at the Central European University, B.A. (Honours) in philosophy and political studies from Queen's University, Ph.D. from Oxford University, (Will, “Contemporary Political Philosophy”, Clarendon and Oxford, 1990, Print)//JKahn// //Sandel says that liberalism ignores the way we are embedded in our social roles. He emphasizes that as ‘self-interpreting beings’, we can interpret the meaning of these constitutive attachments (Sandel 1984a: 91). But the question is whether we can reject them entirely should we come to view them as trivial or degrading. On one interpretation of communitarianism, we cannot, or at any rate, we should not. On this view, we neither choose nor reject these attachments, rather we find ourselves in them. Our goals come not by choice, but by// self-discovery//. A Christian housewife in a monogamous heterosexual marriage can interpret what it means to be a Christian or a housewife—she can interpret the meaning of these shared religious, economic, and sexual practices. But she cannot stand back and decide that she does not want to be a Christian at all, or a housewife. I can interpret the meaning of the roles I find myself in, but I// cannot reject the roles themselves//, or the goals internal to them, as worthless. Since these goals are constitutive of me as a person, they have to be taken as given in deciding what to do with my life; the question of the good in my life can only be a question of how best to interpret their meaning. It makes no sense to say that they have no value for me, since there is no ‘me’ standing behind them, no self prior to these constitutive attachments. It is unclear which if any communitarians hold this view consistently. It is not a plausible position, since we can and do make sense of questions not just about the //meaning of the roles we find ourselves in, but also about their value//. Perhaps communitarians do not mean to deny that; perhaps their idea of our embeddedness is not incompatible with our rejecting the attachments we find ourselves in. But then the advertised contrast with the liberal view is a deception, for the sense in which communitarians view us as embedded in communal roles incorporates the sense in which liberals view us as independent of them, and the sense in which communitarians view practical reasoning as a process of ‘ //self discovery’// incorporates the sense in which liberals view it as a process of //judgement and choice//. The differences would be merely semantic. And once we agree that individuals, are capable of questioning and rejecting the value of the community’s way of life, then the attempt to discourage such questioning through a ‘politics of the common good’ seems an unjustified restriction on people’s seif-determination.
 * Utility is good – it allows for self-discovery and true freedom – the alt results in a fascist politics that decides what is good for individuals**

2AC Cyber Security
__A bill__ further __funding the Navy's__ planned __move of a nuclear aircraft carrier__ from Virginia __to Mayport **overwhelmingly** passed the House of Representatives__ today. Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.) announced the passage of HR 2055 -- the Fiscal Year 2012 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill, which contains infrastructure and planning and design funds for nuclearization projects at Naval Station Mayport. The Naval station has not been homeport to an aircraft carrier since the 2007 decommissioning of the USS John F. Kennedy, which was a conventionally powered carrier. The remaining 10 carriers in the U.S. fleet are all nuclear, and all five of the carriers on the East Coast are homeported in Virginia. __Crenshaw and Sen. Bill Nelson__ (D-Fla.) __have **led the charge** to get one carrier moved to Mayport__, citing national security as the primary reason. Virginia has fought back, despite Mayport having the support of the Navy on the matter, so each legislative step is a victory for northeast Florida. "Mayport nuclearization funds move forward today with a strong boost from the full U.S. House of Representatives," said Crenshaw, a member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. "Next stop is the United States Senate where __I fully expect the Armed Services Committee and Appropriations Committee to agree with top defense and military personnel and approve the funds__ ." A lot of work must take place before a carrier can again call Mayport home. the carriers newer than the USS John F. Kennedy are larger and require more channel depth, meaning Mayport must be dredged, and the nuclear fuel requires a significant upgrade to the wharf at Mayport. Funds for both projects have been included in congressional bills since 2010, according to Crenshaw, totalling over $77 million. __HR 2055, which____passed the House **411-5**, includes nearly $15 million for transportation infrastructure improvements at Mayport__ and "funding, as, necessary," for future projects such as the maintenance wharf and controlled industrial facility.
 * The plan has overwhelming Congressional support and there’s no link—Crenshaw will push**
 * FCN 6-14-2011** (House Passes Bill Including Mayport Carrier Money, http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/article/207690/0/House-Passes-Bill-Including-Mayport-Carrier-Money)

DAs are non-unique- The Navy has already announced plans GAO 11 – Government Accountability Office (“Defense Infrastructure: Ability of Ship Maintenance Industrial Base to Support a Nuclear Aircraft Carrier at Naval Station Mayport,” March 29th 2011, http://www.gao.gov/assets/100/97346.pdf)#SPS Since established as a naval base in December 1942, Naval Station Mayport, Florida, 1 as grown to become the third largest naval fleet concentration area in the United States and the second largest on the East Coast. During this time, the base has served as the home port for multiple types of Navy surface ships—reaching a peak of over 30 ships including two conventional carriers in 1987. The most recent conventionally powered carrier to be homeported there—the USS John F. Kennedy—was decommissioned in 2007. Prior to the USS John F. Kennedy’s retirement, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review called for the Navy to provide more warfighting assets more quickly to multiple locations, and, to meet this requirement, the Navy made a preliminary decision to homeport additional surface ships at Mayport. The Navy subsequently prepared an environmental impact statement to evaluate a broad range of strategic home port and dispersal options for Atlantic Fleet surface ships in Mayport and on January 14, 20 09, issued its decision to pursue an option that would include the first-time homeporting of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Mayport. The Navy’s decision was reviewed as part of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, which in its report supported the Navy’s decision to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Mayport, indicating that homeporting an East Coast carrier in Mayport would contribute to mitigating the risk of a terrorist attack, accident, or natural disaster occurring in Norfolk, Virginia, where currently all of the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers on the East Coast are homeported. 2

No chance cybersecurity passes* and capital isn’t key, amendments are Romm, 7-22 -12 – Tony, Supporters eager to move cyberbill, POLITICO Pro, []. For more info on why POLITICO Pro = most qualified to discuss cybersecurity and other tech issues see: []. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Lieberman, Collins and others don’t want the debate to slip into September, but only a few days remain before the August recess. And before the chamber can //even think of tackling cybersecurity//, it first has to addr ess the expiring Bush tax cuts — a potentially //lengthy political battle//. ¶ The new cybersecurity bill faces its share of //political obstacles//, including the //same barriers// that have prevented Senate progress on the issue since the beginning of the year. Supportive lawmakers must still find a way to mollify critics, while delivering a bill to the president that brings new security protections to critical infrastructure and helps companies and the government share data about emerging digital threats. ¶ The new proposal from Senate leaders seeks to court Republicans by eschewing mandates on critical infrastructure, and it instead proposes a measures that would reward power plants, water systems and similar entities that agree to implement new security standards. ¶ The provisions are the result of considerable work by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). Kyl, with his staff, even took the duo’s preliminary ideas to the Chamber earlier this month for a briefing. But the //business lobby//, reacting to the new Lieberman bill this weekend, said it fears the revisions on critical infrastructure might not actually be voluntary. ¶ Ann Beauchesne, a top official at the Chamber, said the group is looking at the revised plan and reviewing it with members. But she said she thinks the Chamber “ will still have concerns with it .” ¶ Some //Republicans// also arealready criticizing the new measure. Indiana Sen. Dan Coats said in a statement he finds troubling provisions that “move beyond voluntary incentives and subject the private sector to mandatory requirements and burdensome regulations.” ¶ Coats is a backer of the so-called SECURE IT Act, a Republican-led counterproposal on cybersecurity spearheaded by Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. The measure does not include any provisions on critical infrastructure. ¶ Asked last week about the Kyl-Whitehouse compromise that later informed Lieberman’s new bill, McCain told POLITICO he thought it was “no good .” His office would not specify whether the new cybersecurity plan resolved his concerns. ¶ To satisfy some Democrats, meanwhile, the new bill includes additional protections for Americans’ privacy and civil liberties. Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Al Franken of Minnesota were among the most active members in pushing for those changes, which have been blessed by the American Civil Liberties Union. ¶ But it’s possible that a few //Democrats// still might try to limit further the ways in which Internet companies under the bill can monitor Web traffic to detect and block cyberthreats. ¶ In the end, the coming debate is going to matter: While some key Republicans have expressed a willingness to consider a cybersecurity effort with elements on critical infrastructure, others have also said their //support may depend on// the way the measure is written and the sort of //amendments// they may be able to offer.
 * Tax cuts, old barriers/empirics, Business Lobby, GOP, Democrats

As for Sotomayor, from here the path toward almost certain confirmation goes as follows: the Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to hold hearings sometime this summer (this involves both written depositions and of course open hearings), which should lead to formal Senate approval before Congress adjourns for its summer recess in early August. So Sotomayor will likely take her seat in time for the start of the new Court session on October 5. (I talk briefly about the likely politics of the nomination process below). What is of more interest to me, however, is what her selection reveals about the basis of presidential power. __Political scientists, like baseball writers__ evaluating hitters, __have devised numerous means of measuring a president’s influence in Congress__. I will devote a separate post to discussing these, but in brief, they often center on the creation of legislative “box scores” designed to measure how many times a president’s preferred piece of legislation, or nominee to the executive branch or the courts, is approved by Congress. __That is, how many pieces of legislation that the president supports actually pass Congress? How often do members of Congress vote with the president’s preferences?__ How often is a president’s policy position supported by roll call outcomes? __These measures__, however, __are a misleading gauge__ of presidential power – they are a better indicator of congressional power. This is because __how members of Congress vote on a nominee or legislative item is rarely influenced by anything a president does__. Although journalists (and political scientists) often focus on the legislative “endgame” to gauge presidential influence – will the President swing enough votes to get his preferred legislation enacted? – this mistakes an outcome with actual evidence of presidential influence. Once we control for other factors – a member of Congress’ ideological and partisan leanings, the political leanings of her constituency, whether she’s up for reelection or not – we can usually predict how she will vote without needing to know much of anything about what the president wants. (I am ignoring the importance of a president’s veto power for the moment.) __Despite the much publicized and celebrated instances of presidential arm-twisting__ during the legislative endgame, then, __most legislative outcomes don’t depend on presidential lobbying__. But this is not to say that presidents lack influence. Instead, the primary means by which presidents influence what Congress does is through their ability to determine the alternatives from which Congress must choose. That is, __presidential power is largely an exercise in agenda-setting – not arm-twisting__. And we see this in the Sotomayer nomination. Barring a major scandal, she will almost certainly be confirmed to the Supreme Court whether Obama spends the confirmation hearings calling every Senator or instead spends the next few weeks ignoring the Senate debate in order to play Halo III on his Xbox. That is, how senators decide to vote on Sotomayor will have almost nothing to do with Obama’s lobbying from here on in (or lack thereof). His real influence has already occurred, in the decision to present Sotomayor as his nominee.
 * Capital is irrelevant.**
 * Dickinson, ‘9** [Matthew, professor of political science at Middlebury College and taught previously at Harvard University where he worked under the supervision of presidential scholar Richard Neustadt, “Presidential Power: A NonPartisan Analysis of Presidential Politics,” 5-26, “Sotomayor, Obama and Presidential Power,” http://blogs.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2009/05/26/sotamayor-obama-and-presidential-power/]

2AC EIS CP
Since established as a naval base in December 1942, Naval Station Mayport, Florida, as grown to become the third largest naval fleet concentration area in the United States and the second largest on the East Coast. During this time, the base has served as the home port for multiple types of Navy surface ships—reaching a peak of over 30 ships including two conventional carriers in 1987. The most recent conventionally powered carrier to be homeported there—the USS John F. Kennedy—was decommissioned in 2007. Prior to the USS John F. Kennedy’s retirement, __the__ Department of Defense’s ( __DOD__ ) 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review __called for the Navy to provide more warfighting assets more quickly to multiple locations, and, to meet this requirement, the Navy made a preliminary decision to homeport additional surface ships at Mayport. The Navy subsequently prepared an environmental impact statement to evaluate a broad range of strategic home port and dispersal options for Atlantic Fleet surface ships in Mayport__ and on January 14, 2009, issued its decision to pursue an option that would include the first-time homeporting of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Mayport. __The Navy’s decision was reviewed as part of the 2010 Q__ uadrennial __D__ efense __R__ eview, __which in its report supported the Navy’s decision to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Mayport, indicating that homeporting an East Coast carrier in Mayport would contribute to mitigating the risk of a terrorist attack, accident, or natural disaster occurring in Norfolk, Virginia,__ where currently all of the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers on the East Coast are homeported. 2
 * Already an EIS done on the plan – no need for another one**
 * GAO** 3-28- **2011** (Government Accountability Office, “Defense Infrastructure: Ability of Ship Maintenance Industrial Base to Support a Nuclear Aircraft Carrier at Naval Station Mayport” []) BW

__"It would be my full intention to recommend that we commence such__ an __EIS__ so that we could establish that [base's nuclear] capability," said Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, during Senate Armed Services Committee hearings. Clark said an environmental impact statement, which lists the upgrades needed to base a Nimitz-class carrier, would take two or three years, delaying by about five years when Mayport could get a carrier. But __such a report was completed in 1996__, according an internal presentation by Mayport's commander, Capt. Charles King. The Times-Union obtained the impact study and presentation. When asked Friday about the 1996 study, __Clark's spokesman____,__ Cmdr. Dennis Moynihan __, said he did not know if a new study was necessary.__ The 200-page study published by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command in March 1997 lists the upgrades needed, along with local environmental, economic and demographics studies. __A spokesman from Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic in Norfolk, Va., said Friday there was no shelf life for the report,__ which was done for $1 million nearly a decade ago. " __As long as the action is the same, then that should be a valid study__ ," spokesman John Peters said after consulting the command's experts. " __The requirements for a carrier in 1996 are very similar to what they would be now." A new study would be needed if there were significant changes to the base and surrounding areas, Peters said. But he doubted that was the case at Mayport__, saying that local information could easily be updated. However, Peters couldn't say how much an update would cost. __The Environmental Protection Agency confirmed Tuesday the report is still valid__ and would only need updating. This is good news to Florida lawmakers who are worried Mayport might go without a carrier for five years or more if the Jacksonville-based USS John F. Kennedy is retired over the next year under military cuts in the 2006 budget. They also worry the base could be relegated to a minor installation or closed under the Pentagon's base-closing round this year. "I'd like to ask the [chief of naval operations] why a study would take two or three years when one could be updated from '97," U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., said Tuesday. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., had hoped the nuclear upgrades would come sooner, but Clark said __during the hearing nuclear upgrades would still take a couple of years to complete after a new impact study is done.__ Nelson wasn't available for comment Tuesday, but spokesman Bryan Gulley said the senator's office is looking to see if the report is outdated. __If no carrier replacement for the oil-fired JFK comes, lawmakers say a terrorist attack could bottle the Atlantic Fleet's five remaining nuclear carriers in__ what would then be the only East Coast carrier port, __Norfolk__, Va.If the JFK -- the third-oldest carrier in the fleet -- is retired, the Florida lawmakers hope to move one of Norfolk's carriers to Mayport. Currently, Mayport can temporarily port a nuclear carrier because of the non-nuclear specific upgrades. "We're a long way from having a nuclear carrier [permanently]," Crenshaw said in a phone interview. "But if the Navy is serious about making Mayport nuclear-ready, then that's a step in the right direction." The JFK's possible retirement has rejuvenated the push to upgrade Mayport, which began in the early 1990s. Former U.S. Rep. Tillie Fowler, who had the first impact study commissioned, Crenshaw and Nelson have led the push for upgrades. __Since the impact statement was completed, the Navy hasn't made a decision to upgrade the port, but it has improved a pier, utilities and built a ship maintenance facility for work on non-nuclear areas on all ships.__ According to King's presentation, the base still needs to upgrade a wharf, dredge the Mayport basin and channel from 42 to at least 50 feet, and build support and controlled facilities for working on the nuclear portion of the ship. After the impact study was done, the Navy estimated the upgrades would cost about $150 million. Clark said the upgrades would now cost about $200 million. U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the money for the upgrades would be appropriated over several years. __This could prolong the process and the Navy might never move a carrier. Fowler warned lawmakers that decisions on the upgrades and a carrier move could be "slow rolled," as they have been since the____first study.__
 * And, another EIS would be unnecessary and extend the process by 5 years **
 * Piatt, 05 ** GREGORY PIATT, The Times Union, “Nuclear Mayport may not need new study,” February 16, 2005 [|http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/021605/met_17982620.shtml Accessed 7/26/12] BJM

2AC Enviro DA
O’ROURKE 6-14-2012 (Ronald, Specialist in Naval Affairs with the Congressional Research Service, “Navy Nuclear Aircraft Carrier (CVN) Homeporting at Mayport: Background and Issues for Congress,” This section is a reprinting of a 2009 Navy Record of Decision, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R40248.pdf) Environmental impacts: __Environmental impacts were identified through studies and data collection efforts__. The information culled from the studies and collected data was assessed and conclusions were drawn regarding the significance of environmental impacts. These conclusions, along with the underlying studies and data, were the subject of discussions and consultations with federal/state regulators over the course of the EIS process. __This interagency process led to identification of mitigation measures, where appropriate, to address environmental impacts. Based on these consultations with regulators and their subject matter experts, the DON has committed to implementation of specific mitigation measures__ as outlined earlier in this Record of Decision. __There are no environmental impacts associated with homeporting a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport that cannot be appropriately addressed or mitigated, including impacts to endangered species__ such as the NARW, Florida Manatee, and sea turtles.
 * The plan doesn’t cause environmental damage**

2AC Coercion
Friedman 97 (Jefferey, Political Science at Bernard University, "What's Wrong with Libertarianism," Critical Review, Volume: 3, pg 435-436) The effect of libertarian straddling on libertarian scholarship is suggested by a passage in the scholarly appendix to Boaz’s collection of libertarian essays, The Libertarian Reader. There, Tom G. Palmer (also of the Cato Institute) writes that in libertarian scholarship, “ **the moral imperatives of peace and voluntary cooperation are brought together with a rich understanding of the spontaneous order made possible by such voluntary cooperation, and of the ways in which coercive intervention can disorder the world and set in motion complex trains of unintended consequences”** (Boaz r997b, 416, emphasis added). Palmer’s ambiguous “brought together” suggests (without coming right out and saying) that **even if there were no rich understanding of spontaneous order, libertarianism would be sustained by “moral imperatives?’ But in that case, why develop the rich understanding of spontaneous order in the first place, and why emphasize its importance now that it has been developed? Spontaneous order is, on Palmer’s own terms, irrelevant, since even if a rich understanding of it yielded the conclusion that markets are less orderly or less spontaneous than states, or that the quality of the order they produce is inferior to that produced by states, we would still be compelled to be libertarians by moral imperatives**. The premise of the philosophical approach is that nothing can possibly trump freedom-cum-private property. But if libertarian freedom is an end in itself and is the greatest of all values, one’s endorsement of it should not be affected in the slightest by such empirical questions as whether libertarianism would spell starvation or warfare. **The premise** **of the empirical approach is, conversely, that such consequences do matter.** ** Why investigate the effects of libertarianism if they could not conceivably outweigh the putative intrinsic value of private property? If a priori reasoning tells us that laissez—faire capitalism is just, come what may, then why should we care to find out what may, in fact, come? **
 * The assertion that libertarianism outweighs other values justifies the worst atrocities**

__The personal pronouns, like "I" and "We," become governed existentially by the possessive pronouns, like "ours," "mine," "theirs"; and this in turn becomes governed by the adjective "own."__ What is authentic becomes what is our own as a way of existing. The meaning of this term is less the sense of possession than the sense of belonging to. It is a translation of the German eigen, from which the term eigentlich (authentic) is derived. __To lose this sense of one's own is to abandon any meaningfulness, and hence to embrace nihilism.__ To be a nihilist is to deny that there is any way of being that is our own; for the nihilist, what is one's own has no meaning. The threat here is not that what is our own may yield to what is not, but rather that the distinction itself will simply collapse. __Unless I can distinguish between what is our own and what is not, no meaningfulness is possible at all.__ This is the foundation of the we-they principle. The pronouns in the title do not refer to anything; they merely reveal how we think. Like all principles, this existential principle does not determine specific judgments, any more than the principle of cause and effect determines what the cause of any given thing is. The we-they principle is simply a rule that governs the standards by which certain judgments are made. Since it is possible to isolate the existential meanings of an idea from the thinglike referent, the notions of we-ness and they-ness can be articulated philosophically. On the basis of this primary understanding, it is possible to talk about an "existential value," that is, the weight o. rank given to ways of existing in opposition to other kinds of value, such as moral or psychological values. But the principle itself is not, strictly speaking, a principle of value; it is an ontological principle, for its foundation is in the very basic way in which I think about what it means to be. __The ground of the we-they principle is, quite simply, the way in which we think about being. Thus, it is more fundamental than any kind of evaluating or judging__. One of the things that the authentic I can do, of course, is to concern itself with moral questions. __Whether from a deontological sense of obligation or from a utilitarian projection of possible happiness, **an I that considers these matters nevertheless is presupposed by them**.__ Although authenticity and morality are distinct, a sense of who one is must precede a decision about how to act. Thus, the question of authenticity comes before the question of obligation. And __since the worth of the I is generated from the prior worth of the we, it follows there can be no moral judgment that cancels out the worth of the I or the We__. This is not to say that anything that benefits the we is therefore more important than what ought to be done. It is merely to say that __any proper moral judgment will in fact be consistent with the integrity of the we__. Thus, I would be morally prohibited from offending someone else merely for my own advantage, but no moral law would ever require me to forgo my existential integrity. This is true not only for moral questions but for any question of value whatsoever: __all legitimate value claims must be consistent with the worth of the I and the We. It is only because my existence matters that I can care about such things as morality, aesthetics, or even happiness__. Pleasure, of course, would still be preferable to pain, but to argue that one ought to have pleasure or even that it is good to have pleasure would simply reduce itself to a tautology: if I define pleasure as the satisfaction of my wants, then to say I want pleasure is tautological, for I am merely saying that I want what I want, which may be true but is not very illuminating. __The existential worth of existing is therefore fundamental and cannot be outranked by any other consideration. Unless I am first meaningful, I cannot be good; unless I first care about who I am, I cannot genuinely care about anything else, even my conduct. To threaten this ground of all values, the worth of my own being, then becomes the supreme assault against me. To defend it and protect it is simply without peer. It is beyond human appeal or persuasion__.
 * Life is a prerequisite to value to life**
 * Gelven ’94** (Michael, Prof. Phil. – Northern Illinois U., “War and Existence: A Philosophical Inquiry”, p. 136-137)

2AC T Military
Public just means concerning people Free Dictionary.Com No Date ( http://www.thefreedictionary.com/public ) 1. Of, concerning, or affecting the community or the people :: the public good.

T-Military limits out all affs- during a time of war, the SOD can control all transportation
 * 10 USC § 2644** – ( 10 USC § 2644 - CONTROL OF TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS IN TIME OF WAR, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/2644)#SPS

__In time of war,__ the President, through __the Secretary of Defense,____may take possession and assume control of all__ or part of any system of __transportation to transport troops, war material, and equipment,__ or for other purposes related to the emergency. So far as necessary, __he may use the system to the exclusion of other traffic.__

Military education is good It’s no surprise that __civilian Americans tend to lack a basic understanding of military matters.__ Even when I was a graduate student, 30-some years ago, military history—understood broadly as the investigation of why one side wins and another loses a war, and encompassing reflections on magisterial or foolish generalship, technological stagnation or breakthrough, and the roles of discipline, bravery, national will, and culture in determining a conflict’s outcome and its consequences—had already become unfashionable on campus. Today, __universities are even less receptive to the subject.____This state of affairs is profoundly troubling, for democratic citizenship requires knowledge of war—and now, in the age of weapons of mass annihilation, more than ever__. I came to the study of warfare in an odd way, at the age of 24. Without ever taking a class in military history, I naively began writing about war for a Stanford classics dissertation that explored the effects of agricultural devastation in ancient Greece, especially the Spartan ravaging of the Athenian countryside during the Peloponnesian War. The topic fascinated me. Was the strategy effective? Why assume that ancient armies with primitive tools could easily burn or cut trees, vines, and grain on thousands of acres of enemy farms, when on my family farm in Selma, California, it took me almost an hour to fell a mature fruit tree with a sharp modern ax? Yet even if the invaders couldn’t starve civilian populations, was the destruction still harmful psychologically? Did it goad proud agrarians to come out and fight? And what did the practice tell us about the values of the Greeks—and of the generals who persisted in an operation that seemingly brought no tangible results? I posed these questions to my prospective thesis advisor, adding all sorts of further justifications. The topic was central to understanding the Peloponnesian War, I noted. The research would be interdisciplinary—a big plus in the modern university—drawing not just on ancient military histories but also on archaeology, classical drama, epigraphy, and poetry. I could bring a personal dimension to the research, too, having grown up around veterans of both world wars who talked constantly about battle. And from my experience on the farm, I wanted to add practical details about growing trees and vines in a Mediterranean climate. Yet my advisor was skeptical. Agrarian wars, indeed wars of any kind, weren’t popular in classics Ph.D. programs, even though farming and fighting were the ancient Greeks’ two most common pursuits, the sources of anecdote, allusion, and metaphor in almost every Greek philosophical, historical, and literary text. Few classicists seemed to care any more that most notable Greek writers, thinkers, and statesmen—from Aeschylus to Pericles to Xenophon—had served in the phalanx or on a trireme at sea. Dozens of nineteenth-century dissertations and monographs on ancient warfare—on the organization of the Spartan army, the birth of Greek tactics, the strategic thinking of Greek generals, and much more—went largely unread. Nor was the discipline of military history, once central to a liberal education, in vogue on campuses in the seventies. It was as if the university had forgotten that history itself had begun with Herodotus and Thucydides as the story of armed conflicts. What lay behind this academic lack of interest? The most obvious explanation: this was the immediate post-Vietnam era. The public perception in the Carter years was that America had lost a war that for moral and practical reasons it should never have fought—a catastrophe, for many in the universities, that it must never repeat. The necessary corrective wasn’t to learn how such wars started, went forward, and were lost. Better to ignore anything that had to do with such odious business in the first place. The nuclear pessimism of the cold war, which followed the horror of two world wars, also dampened academic interest. The postwar obscenity of Mutually Assured Destruction had lent an apocalyptic veneer to contemporary war: as President Kennedy warned, “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.” Conflict had become something so destructive, in this view, that it no longer had any relation to the battles of the past. It seemed absurd to worry about a new tank or a novel doctrine of counterinsurgency when the press of a button, unleashing nuclear Armageddon, would render all military thinking superfluous. Further, the sixties had ushered in a utopian view of society antithetical to serious thinking about war. Government, the military, business, religion, and the family had conspired, the new Rousseauians believed, to warp the naturally peace-loving individual. Conformity and coercion smothered our innately pacifist selves. To assert that wars broke out because bad men, in fear or in pride, sought material advantage or status, or because good men had done too little to stop them, was now seen as antithetical to an enlightened understanding of human nature. “What difference does it make,” in the words of the much-quoted Mahatma Gandhi, “to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?” __The academic neglect of war is even more acute today. Military history as a discipline has atrophied__, with very few professorships, journal articles, or degree programs. In 2004, Edward Coffman, a retired military history professor who taught at the University of Wisconsin, reviewed the faculties of the top 25 history departments, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. He found that of over 1,000 professors, only 21 identified war as a specialty. When war does show up on university syllabi, it’s often about the race, class, and gender of combatants and wartime civilians. So a class on the Civil War will focus on the Underground Railroad and Reconstruction, not on Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. One on World War II might emphasize Japanese internment, Rosie the Riveter, and the horror of Hiroshima, not Guadalcanal and Midway. A survey of the Vietnam War will devote lots of time to the inequities of the draft, media coverage, and the antiwar movement at home, and scant the air and artillery barrages at Khe Sanh. Those who want to study war in the traditional way face intense academic suspicion, as Margaret Atwood’s poem “The Loneliness of the Military Historian” suggests: Confess: it’s my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don’t go out of my way to be scary. Historians of war must derive perverse pleasure, their critics suspect, from reading about carnage and suffering. Why not figure out instead how to outlaw war forever, as if it were not a tragic, nearly inevitable aspect of human existence? Hence the recent surge of “peace studies” (see “The Peace Racket”). The university’s aversion to the study of war certainly doesn’t reflect public lack of interest in the subject. Students love old-fashioned war classes on those rare occasions when they’re offered, usually as courses that professors sneak in when the choice of what to teach is left up to them. I taught a number of such classes at California State University, Stanford, and elsewhere. They’d invariably wind up overenrolled, with hordes of students lingering after office hours to offer opinions on the battles of Marathon and Lepanto. Popular culture, too, displays extraordinary enthusiasm for all things military. There’s a new Military History Channel, and Hollywood churns out a steady supply of blockbuster war movies, from Saving Private Ryan to 300. The post–Ken Burns explosion of interest in the Civil War continues. Historical reenactment societies stage history’s great battles, from the Roman legions’ to the Wehrmacht’s. Barnes and Noble and Borders bookstores boast well-stocked military history sections, with scores of new titles every month. A plethora of websites obsess over strategy and tactics. Hit video games grow ever more realistic in their reconstructions of battles. The public may feel drawn to military history because it wants to learn about honor and sacrifice, or because of interest in technology—the muzzle velocity of a Tiger Tank’s 88mm cannon, for instance—or because of a pathological need to experience violence, if only vicariously. __The importance—and challenge—of the academic study of war is to elevate__ that __popular enthusiasm into a more capacious and serious understanding__, one that seeks answers to such questions as: Why do wars break out? How do they end? Why do the winners win and the losers lose? How best to avoid wars or contain their worst effects? A wartime public illiterate about the conflicts of the past can easily find itself paralyzed in the acrimony of the present. Without standards of historical comparison, it will prove ill equipped to make informed judgments. Neither our politicians nor most of our citizens seem to recall the incompetence and terrible decisions that, in December 1777, December 1941, and November 1950, led to massive American casualties and, for a time, public despair. So it’s no surprise that today so many seem to think that the violence in Iraq is unprecedented in our history. Roughly 3,000 combat dead in Iraq in some four years of fighting is, of course, a terrible thing. And it has provoked national outrage to the point of considering withdrawal and defeat, as we still bicker over up-armored Humvees and proper troop levels. But a previous generation considered Okinawa a stunning American victory, and prepared to follow it with an invasion of the Japanese mainland itself—despite losing, in a little over two months, four times as many Americans as we have lost in Iraq, casualties of faulty intelligence, poor generalship, and suicidal head-on assaults against fortified positions. It’s not that military history offers cookie-cutter comparisons with the past. Germany’s World War I victory over Russia in under three years and her failure to take France in four apparently misled Hitler into thinking that he could overrun the Soviets in three or four weeks—after all, he had brought down historically tougher France in just six. Similarly, the conquest of the Taliban in eight weeks in 2001, followed by the establishment of constitutional government within a year in Kabul, did not mean that the similarly easy removal of Saddam Hussein in three weeks in 2003 would ensure a working Iraqi democracy within six months. The differences between the countries—cultural, political, geographical, and economic—were too great. Instead, knowledge of past wars establishes wide parameters of what to expect from new ones. Themes, emotions, and rhetoric remain constant over the centuries, and thus generally predictable. Athens’s disastrous expedition in 415 BC against Sicily, the largest democracy in the Greek world, may not prefigure our war in Iraq. But the story of the Sicilian calamity does instruct us on how consensual societies can clamor for war—yet soon become disheartened and predicate their support on the perceived pulse of the battlefield. Military history teaches us, contrary to popular belief these days, that wars aren’t necessarily the most costly of human calamities. The first Gulf War took few lives in getting Saddam out of Kuwait; doing nothing in Rwanda allowed savage gangs and militias to murder hundreds of thousands with impunity. Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and Stalin killed far more off the battlefield than on it. The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic brought down more people than World War I did. And more Americans—over 3.2 million—lost their lives driving over the last 90 years than died in combat in this nation’s 231-year history. Perhaps what bothers us about wars, though, isn’t just their horrific lethality but also that people choose to wage them—which makes them seem avoidable, unlike a flu virus or a car wreck, and their tolls unduly grievous. Yet military history also reminds us that war sometimes has an eerie utility: as British strategist Basil H. Liddell Hart put it, “War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.” Wars—or threats of wars—put an end to chattel slavery, Nazism, fascism, Japanese militarism, and Soviet Communism. Military history is as often the story of appeasement as of warmongering. The destructive military careers of Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler would all have ended early had any of their numerous enemies united when the odds favored them. Western air power stopped Slobodan Milošević’s reign of terror at little cost to NATO forces—but only after a near-decade of inaction and dialogue had made possible the slaughter of tens of thousands. Affluent Western societies have often proved reluctant to use force to prevent greater future violence. “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things,” observed the British philosopher John Stuart Mill. “The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.” Indeed, by ignoring history, the modern age is free to interpret war as a failure of communication, of diplomacy, of talking—as if aggressors don’t know exactly what they’re doing. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, frustrated by the Bush administration’s intransigence in the War on Terror, flew to Syria, hoping to persuade President Assad to stop funding terror in the Middle East. She assumed that Assad’s belligerence resulted from our aloofness and arrogance rather than from his dictatorship’s interest in destroying democracy in Lebanon and Iraq, before such contagious freedom might in fact destroy him. For a therapeutically inclined generation raised on Oprah and Dr. Phil—and not on the letters of William Tecumseh Sherman and William Shirer’s Berlin Diary—problems between states, like those in our personal lives, should be argued about by equally civilized and peaceful rivals, and so solved without resorting to violence. Yet it’s hard to find many wars that result from miscommunication. Far more often they break out because of malevolent intent and the absence of deterrence. Margaret Atwood also wrote in her poem: “Wars happen because the ones who start them / think they can win.” Hitler did; so did Mussolini and Tojo—and their assumptions were logical, given the relative disarmament of the Western democracies at the time. Bin Laden attacked on September 11 not because there was a dearth of American diplomats willing to dialogue with him in the Hindu Kush. Instead, he recognized that a series of Islamic terrorist assaults against U.S. interests over two decades had met with no meaningful reprisals, and concluded that decadent Westerners would never fight, whatever the provocation—or that, if we did, we would withdraw as we had from Mogadishu. In the twenty-first century, it’s easier than ever to succumb to technological determinism, the idea that science, new weaponry, and globalization have altered the very rules of war. But military history teaches us that our ability to strike a single individual from 30,000 feet up with a GPS bomb or a jihadist’s efforts to have his propaganda beamed to millions in real time do not necessarily transform the conditions that determine who wins and who loses wars. True, instant communications may compress decision making, and generals must be skilled at news conferences that can now influence the views of millions worldwide. Yet these are really just new wrinkles on the old face of war. The improvised explosive device versus the up-armored Humvee is simply an updated take on the catapult versus the stone wall or the harquebus versus the mailed knight. The long history of war suggests no static primacy of the defensive or the offensive, or of one sort of weapon over the other, but just temporary advantages gained by particular strategies and technologies that go unanswered for a time by less adept adversaries. So it’s highly doubtful, the study of war tells us, that a new weapon will emerge from the Pentagon or anywhere else that will change the very nature of armed conflict—unless some sort of genetic engineering so alters man’s brain chemistry that he begins to act in unprecedented ways. We fought the 1991 Gulf War with dazzling, computer-enhanced weaponry. But lost in the technological pizzazz was the basic wisdom that we need to fight wars with political objectives in mind and that, to conclude them decisively, we must defeat and even humiliate our enemies, so that they agree to abandon their prewar behavior. For some reason, no American general or diplomat seemed to understand that crucial point 16 years ago, with the result that, on the cessation of hostilities, Saddam Hussein’s supposedly defeated generals used their gunships to butcher Kurds and Shiites while Americans looked on. And because we never achieved the war’s proper aim—ensuring that Iraq would not use its petro-wealth to destroy the peace of the region—we have had to fight a second war of no-fly zones, and then a third war to remove Saddam, and now a fourth war, of counterinsurgency, to protect the fledgling Iraqi democracy. Military history reminds us of important anomalies and paradoxes. When Sparta invaded Attica in the first spring of the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides recounts, it expected the Athenians to surrender after a few short seasons of ravaging. They didn’t—but a plague that broke out unexpectedly did more damage than thousands of Spartan ravagers did. Twenty-seven years later, a maritime Athens lost the war at sea to Sparta, an insular land power that started the conflict with scarcely a navy. The 2003 removal of Saddam refuted doom-and-gloom critics who predicted thousands of deaths and millions of refugees, just as the subsequent messy four-year reconstruction hasn’t evolved as anticipated into a quiet, stable democracy—to say the least. The size of armies doesn’t guarantee battlefield success: the victors at Salamis, Issos, Mexico City, and Lepanto were all outnumbered. War’s most savage moments—the Allied summer offensive of 1918, the Russian siege of Berlin in the spring of 1945, the Battle of the Bulge, Hiroshima—often unfold right before hostilities cease. And democratic leaders during war—think of Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Richard Nixon—often leave office either disgraced or unpopular. It would be reassuring to think that the righteousness of a cause, or the bravery of an army, or the nobility of a sacrifice ensures public support for war. But military history shows that far more often the perception of winning is what matters. Citizens turn abruptly on any leaders deemed culpable for losing. “Public sentiment is everything,” wrote Abraham Lincoln. “With public sentiment nothing can fail. Without it nothing can succeed. He who molds opinion is greater than he who enacts laws.” Lincoln knew that lesson well. Gettysburg and Vicksburg were brilliant Union victories that by summer 1863 had restored Lincoln’s previously shaky credibility. But a year later, after the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, and Cold Harbor battles—Cold Harbor claimed 7,000 Union lives in 20 minutes—the public reviled him. Neither Lincoln nor his policies had changed, but the Confederate ability to kill large numbers of Union soldiers had. Ultimately, public opinion follows the ups and downs—including the perception of the ups and downs—of the battlefield, since victory excites the most ardent pacifist and defeat silences the most zealous zealot. After the defeat of France, the losses to Bomber Command, the U-boat rampage, and the fall of Greece, Singapore, and Dunkirk, Churchill took the blame for a war as seemingly lost as, a little later, it seemed won by the brilliant prime minister after victories in North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy. When the successful military action against Saddam Hussein ended in April 2003, over 70 percent of the American people backed it, with politicians and pundits alike elbowing each other aside to take credit for their prescient support. Four years of insurgency later, Americans oppose a now-orphaned war by the same margin. General George S. Patton may have been uncouth, but he wasn’t wrong when he bellowed, “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.” The American public turned on the Iraq War not because of Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore but because it felt that the battlefield news had turned uniformly bad and that the price in American lives and treasure for ensuring Iraqi reform was too dear. Finally, __military history has the moral purpose of educating us about past sacrifices that have secured our present freedom and security__. If we know nothing of Shiloh, Belleau Wood, Tarawa, and Chosun, the crosses in our military cemeteries are just pleasant white stones on lush green lawns. They no longer serve as reminders that thousands endured pain and hardship for our right to listen to what we wish on our iPods and to shop at Wal-Mart in safety—or that they expected future generations, links in this great chain of obligation, to do the same for those not yet born. The United States was born through war, reunited by war, and saved from destruction by war. No future generation, however comfortable and affluent, should escape that terrible knowledge. What, then, can we do to restore the study of war to its proper place in the life of the American mind? The challenge isn’t just to reform the graduate schools or the professoriate, though that would help. On a deeper level, __we need to reexamine the larger forces that have devalued the very idea of__ military history—of __war__ itself. We must abandon the naive faith that with enough money, education, or good intentions we can change the nature of mankind so that conflict, as if by fiat, becomes a thing of the past. In the end, __the study of war reminds us that we will never be gods__. We will always just be men, it tells us. __Some__ men __will always prefer war to peace; and__ other men, __we who have learned from the past, have a moral obligation to stop them__.
 * HANSON 2007** (Victor Davis Hanson, Professor of Classics at CSU Fullerton, “Why Study War?” City Journal, Summer)

=Neg=

Race K
Blackness is a condition of ontological death – a vocabulary to describe this loss doesn’t exist – the only way to break out of this structure is a complete destruction of civil society and the epistemological foundations it rests on. Wilderson No Date [Frank, Ass. Prof of African American Studies UC-Irvine “Afro Pessimism” [] //liam]//

//Afro-Pessimism theorizes Blackness as a position of accumulation and fungibili ty (Saidiya Hartman ); as condition —or relation— of ontological death ; rather than celebrate it as an identity of cultural plenitude. One of the guiding questions of my engagement with Afro-Pessimism is: How are the political stakes of analysis and aesthetics raised and altered if we theorize the structural relation between Blacks and Humanity as an antagonism (an irreconcilable encounter) as opposed to a conflict? The following question was asked on a graduate student exam for a Critical Theory Seminar, entitled “Sentient Objects and the Crisis of Critical Theory,” that I taught Fall Quarter 2006. Question: Why are the theorists under consideration [in this seminar] called “Afro-Pessimists,” and what characteristics do they have in common? “ Afro-Pessimists are framed as such…because they theorize an antagonism, rather than a conflict —i.e. they perform a kind of ‘work of understanding’ rather than that of liberation, refusing to posit seemingly untenable solutions to the problems they raise .” “[The Afro-Pessimists argue] that violence toward the black person happens gratuitously, hence without former transgression, and the even if the means of repression change (plantation was replaced by prison, etc.), that doesn’t change the structure of the repression itself. Finally (and this is important in terms of the self-definition of the white person), a lot of repression happens on the level of representation, which then infiltrates the unconscious of both the black and the white person … Since these structures are ontological, they cannot be resolved (there is no way of changing this unless the world as we know it comes an end…); this is why the [Afro-Pessimist relational-schema] would be seen as the only true antagonism (while other repressive relations like class and gender would take place on the level of conflict—they can be resolved, hence they are not ontological).” “[The Afro-Pessimists] work toward delineating a relation rather than focus on a cultural object.” “Something that all the Afro-Pessimists seem to agree upon regarding social death are notions of kinship (or lack there of), the absence of time and space to describe blackness… There is no grammar of suffering to describe their loss because the loss cannot be named .” “[The Afro-Pessimists] theorize the workings of civil society as contiguous with slavery, and discuss the following as bearing witness to this contiguity: the inability of the slave (or the being-for-the-captor) to translate space into place and time into event; the fact that the slave remains subject to gratuitous violence (rather than violence contingent on transgression); the natal alienation and social death of the slave.” “[T]he Afro-Pessimists all seek to…stage a metacritique of the current discourse identified as “critical theory” by excavating an antagonism that exceeds it; to recognize this antagonism Jared, Frank, Taehyung forces a mode of death that expels subjecthood and forces objecthood [upon Blacks].” “For Fanon, the solution to the black presence in the white world is not to retrieve and celebrate our African heritage , as was one of the goals of the Negritude project. For Fanon, a revolution that would destroy civil society, as we know it would be a more adequate response. I think the Afro-Pessimist such as Hartman, Spillers, and Marriott would argue there is no place for the black, only prosthetics, techniques which give the illusion of a relationality in the world.” Like the work of Jared Sexton, Saidiya Hartman, David Marriott, Hortense Spillers, Frantz Fanon, Lewis Gordon, Joy James, and others, my poetry, creative prose, scholarly work, and film production are predicated on the notion that slavery did not end in 1865; the United States simply made adjustments to the force of Black resistance without diminishing the centrality of Black captivity to the stability and coherence of civil society. //

// Vote negative to reject the ontological and epistemological foundations of modern understanding. // // A neg ballot signifies a call for all that cannot be given, destroying the epistemological foundations of the world as we know it and creating a politics beyond comprehension. // // Wilderson and Howard 10 [Frank, Assoc prof of African American Studies, Percy, Psychotherapist, “Frank Wilderson, Wallowing in the Contradictions, Part 1” []// liam]

FW Reparations suggests a conceptually coherent loss. The loss of land, the loss of labor power, etc. In other words, there has to be some form of articulation between the party that has lost and the party that has gained for reparations to make sense. No such articulation exists between Blacks and the world. This is, ironically, precisely why I support the Reparations Movement; but my emphasis, my energies, my points of attention are on the word “Movement” and not on the word “Reparation .” I support the movement because I know it is a movement toward the end of the world; a movement toward a catastrophe in epistemological coherence and institutional integrity —I support the movement aspect of it because I know that repair is impossible ; and any struggle that can act as a stick up artist to the world, demanding all that it cannot give ( which is everything ), is a movement toward something so blindingly new that it cannot be imagined. This is the only thing that will save us. PH As a Psychotherapist, I was very interested to see your contrasting Frantz Fanon and Lacan concerning their conceptualizations of potential paths to “emancipation in the libidinal economy”, as you put it. I am ashamed to admit that I have never read Fanon, but have read Lacan. Please illuminate your idea that the stark difference in their conceptualizations of conflict/antagonism differ are based on the fact that Lacan would still see Blacks as fundamentally situated in personhood, but that Fannon (and yourself) see Blacks as “situated a priori in absolute dereliction”. FW This is a big question, too big for a concise answer—I think I take about thirty to forty pages to try and get my head around this in the book. But the key to the answer lies in the concept of “contemporaries.” Fanon rather painfully and meticulously shows us how the human race is a community of “contemporaries.” In addition, this community vouchsafes its coherence (it knows its borders ) through the presence of Blacks. If Blacks became part of the human community then the concept of “contemporaries” would have no outside; and if it had no outside it could have no inside. Lacan assumes the category and thus he imagines the analysand’s problem in terms of how to live without neurosis among ones contemporaries. Fanon interrogates the category itself. For Lacan the analysands suffer psychically due to problems extant within the paradigm of contemporaries. For Fanon, the analysand suffers due to the existence of the contemporaries themselves and the fact that s/he is a stimulus for anxiety for those who have contemporaries. Now, a contemporary’s struggles are conflictual—that is to say, they can be resolved because they are problems that are of- and in the world. But a Blacks problems are the stuff of antagonisms: strugglesthat cannot be resolved between parties but can only be resolved through the obliteration of one or both of the partie s. We are faced —when dealing with the Black— with a set of psychic problems that cannot be resolved through any form of symbolic intervention such as psychoanalysis—though addressing them psychoanalytically we can begin to explain the antagonism (as I have done in my book, and as Fanon does), but it won’t lead us to acure.

2NRs
Transportation Infrastructure PIC & Elections (Obama Good) - Gas Tax Virilio - Military Ocean Terminals T-New Infrastructure - Port Dredging Heg Bad - Marine Transportation System T-New Infrastructure - Port Dredging States CP & Jackson Vanik - NIB LOST CP & Jackson Vanik - Title XI Alaska CP & Jackson Vanik - Bering Strait LOST CP, Jackson Vanik, & Oil DA - Title XI Privatization CP & Jackson Vanik - Mass Transit

=Strats=

Round 2 - CCS
Elections T Pipelines Oil DA Race k
 * 1NC**

Race K
 * 2NR**

Round 3 - CCS
Elections Oil DA T pipelines Race K
 * 1NC**

Oil DA
 * 2NR**

Round 6 - CCS
Regulations CP Race K T Pipelines
 * 1NC**

T pipelines  The advantage is naval power. ** Carrier reductions are coming now—maintaining the fleet is key to US power **  Thompson 09 , Chief Operating Officer at the Lexington Institute, PhD in government from Georgetown, (Loren, March 10th, “Navy Will Offer Up Carrier & Air Wing in Quadrennial Review”, http://lexingtoninstitute.org/1383.shtml )  Of course, today's carriers make World War Two carriers look like toys. With nuclear propulsion, supersonic fighters, and over four acres of deck space, they are the biggest warships in history. But at any given time some are being repaired, some are being replenished, some are in training and some are in transit; if the fleet is cut to ten then maybe half a dozen will be available for quick action on any given day. Congress didn't think that was enough, so it mandated in law that at least eleven carriers must be maintained in the force. But with big bills coming from the Obama Administration and other items like healthcare costs pressuring Navy budgets, the service has repeatedly sought relief from that requirement. This year's quadrennial review is the likely venue for another such bid. The issue is coming to a head now because the pace of new carrier commissionings is not keeping up with the rate of retirements. Kitty Hawk, the last carrier in the fleet powered by fossil fuels, was removed from the force last summer after nearly 50 years of service. The Navy plans to decommission the nuclear-powered Enterprise in November of 2012, leaving the fleet with only the ten flattops of the Nimitz class for three years, until the next-generation Ford class of carriers debuts in September of 2015. Going to ten isn't supposed to happen under present law, but since the service hasn't made budgetary provisions for maintaining the Enterprise and its crew until the Ford class arrives, it looks like ten carriers will be the total number in the fleet. In the current budget environment, once the Navy gets used to having ten carriers, that's probably where it will stay. Navy insiders think the service will decide to forego the refueling of the Lincoln, which is scheduled for 2012. And when the decision to stay at ten is formalized, the service can also move to eliminate one of its carrier wings. That step would cut the Navy's projected shortfall in strike aircraft by half. So billions of dollars are saved by skipping the refueling, cutting the purchase of aircraft, and eliminating the need to sustain 6,000 personnel associated with ship operations and air-wing support. There's only one problem with all this. It reduces the nation's capacity to project power from the sea at the same time access to foreign bases is becoming doubtful. And why is such a move necessary? Because the Obama Administration has decided to stick with Bush-era plans to grow the size of ground forces by 92,000 personnel, and the Navy must pay part of the bill for that. Yet the administration is getting ready to depart Iraq, which was the main reason for increasing the size of ground forces in the first place. There are precious few other  places where  the  warfighting scenarios  for the next QDR  suggest a big ground force will be needed. Most of the scenarios envision reliance on air power for the big fights of the future -- the kind of air power delivered by carriers. So cutting carriers to build a bigger ground force doesn't make much sense. ** Terrorist attack at Norfolk is highly likely—even attacks against other infrastructure in Virginia will have ripple effects ** ** VFC 2009 ** (Virginia State Police Virginia Fusion Center, “2009 VIRGINIA TERRORISM THREAT ASSESSMENT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF STATE POLICE VIRGINIA FUSION CENTER MARCH 2009,” http://rawstory.com/images/other/vafusioncenterterrorassessment.pdf)  State government facilities include those owned or leased by all levels of government and can be located domestically and overseas. Many of these facilities such as courthouses, education facilities, libraries, and archives are open to the public and provide important government services. Other facilities contain highly sensitive information, materials, processes, and equipment such as military installations, embassies, and research facilities and are not open to the public. These facilities, varied in function, size, and location, are differentiated from other CIKR sectors because they are uniquely governmental. __The abundance of government facilities and military__ related __infrastructure in Virginia coupled with their symbolic nature and past attacks on such infrastructure in the U.S. suggests this sector remains especially vulnerable to exploitation by terrorist and extremist groups__. Potential Trend(s) Impacting Sector __Due to the desire of most international and many domestic groups to target the U.S. government, trends of significance include terrorism tradecraft techniques of surveillance, elicitation, and security probes__. The trend of illicit entry into the U.S. also affects this sector, as many individuals will enter government facilities to obtain necessary documentation. __Local, state, and federal government facilities are highly interconnected, both physically and through cyber networks__. Efforts to identify, understand, and analyze interdependencies and dependencies are challenging because of the diversity and complexity of these facilities or components. Interdependencies vary widely and each has its own characteristics, whether physical, cyber, or geographic in nature. Virginia facilities may be impacted by the closure of Guantanamo Bay; a recent report by the House Armed Services Committee has recommended government sites in Quantico and Norfolk as possible transfer locations for current Guantanamo detainees. According to early February 2009 reporting, a task force has 30 days to recommend where to put the 245 remaining detainees.451 Potential Threat Group(s)  Local, state, and federal __government facilities represent attractive targets for a wide variety of groups__. While __international groups are__ most __likely to target__ the __military__ and federal sector __assets as symbols of the West__, domestic movements including anarchists, black separatists, white nationalists, and homegrown extremists have conducted activities targeting facilities at various levels of government. Domestic Incidents  On a national level, __numerous reports of surveillance and security probes against military installations continue__. These reports include incidents of elicitation as well as security breaches involving the use of fraudulent military and law enforcement credentials. Although the vast majority of these incidents have not been definitely linked to terrorism, the continued reporting of preoperationaltype surveillance merits increased vigilance.452 Virginia <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The Virginia Fusion Center has not received a significant number of unresolved reports pertaining to general government facilities. __Much__ more __reporting has been received regarding suspicious activity around military bases__. It is unclear at this time if this disparity reflects actual rates of occurrence or if this is due to the increased security awareness inherent in military force protection. Examples of suspicious activity pertaining to Virginia include: <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">• Suspicious attempts to purchase military uniforms near Yorktown453 <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">• Persistent attempts to bypass security controls by a group of subjects at Fort Story454 <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">• Suspicious photography of the entrance gate to the Naval Weapons Laboratory at Dahlgren455 <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">The Virginia Fusion Center does not currently possess active threat information against any of these facilities, nor is there any evidence of patterns in the timing, location, or individuals involved in these incidents. <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">Intelligence Gaps <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">1. Have suspicious employment inquiries been received at Virginia’s government or DIB facilities? <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">2. Have any possible surveillance activities of any building or assets associated with government or DIB assets occurred? <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">3. Have suspicious inquiries about security measures been received? <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">4. How frequently are unauthorized attempts to access government or DIB facilities in Virginia discovered? <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">5. Have there been any threats against government or DIB staff or officials? <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">6. Have any concerns regarding potential misconduct by current or recently separated employees been received? <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">Projections <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__The__ Government Buildings and __Military Installations sector is expected to remain an important and potentially vulnerable sector at risk for surveillance, infiltration, or attacks__ by groups with nefarious intentions. It is anticipated the VFC will continue to receive reporting of potential surveillance or probing of government and military facilities. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__Interest as a Target: Remain High - Due to the symbolic nature and the potential operational disruption__, facilities within this sector may be desirable, if not necessarily feasible targets for many international and domestic groups. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Number of Virginia-based assets: Remain Constant – Current economic conditions make expansion unlikely, but industries that support government and military functions will not likely face the same contraction of other sectors. Interdependencies: Significant - __These sectors are heavily reliant on energy, IT, and telecommunications, as well as each major transportation mode. The interruption of government__ or CIKR __could quickly cascade and have significant impact on other sectors,__ especially those that are highly regulated. As shown in the Terrorism Screening Center’s 2007 Virginia Terrorist Screening Database Encounters Report, __a number of potentially “watch-listed” subjects either applied for government and military positions or were involved in suspicious incidents near such facilities__. Although these instances have not been linked to specific plots, __these instances underscore the potential for infiltration or pre-incident activity__. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** Hamas is a unique threat to Norfolk ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** VFC 2009 ** (Virginia State Police Virginia Fusion Center, “2009 VIRGINIA TERRORISM THREAT ASSESSMENT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF STATE POLICE VIRGINIA FUSION CENTER MARCH 2009,” http://rawstory.com/images/other/vafusioncenterterrorassessment.pdf) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> HAMAS was created in 1987 by leaders of the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Widely recognized as a terrorist organization, __HAMAS__ has governed the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories since July 2007 and __utilizes__ political power and social programs as well as __violent terrorist tactics to pursue the goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state__ in place of Israel.25 HAMAS, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, has also been involved in increasingly sophisticated methods of targeting children with their propaganda efforts.26 <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">Domestic Activities <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__HAMAS has the largest U.S. presence of any Palestinian group, and maintains a complex fundraising, propaganda, and recruitment infrastructure__ .27 According to 2008 Terrorism Screening Center ground encounter data, __HAMAS was one of the three most frequently encountered groups in Virginia__ .28 In 2007, the TSC reported 189 total Virginia encounters with subjects tied to HAMAS in Virginia.29 Current estimates suggest that __numerous members, supporters, and sympathizers may reside in and near Virginia;__ these estimates appear to gain credibility from reports that several thousand protestors from the National Capitol area demonstrated in Washington, D.C. as a result of the most recent Gaza conflict.30 <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> While no potential threats have been identified from HAMAS against targets in the U.S., members residing in Virginia have participated in fundraising and political activities to support the group. Subjects identified as defendants in the Holy Land Foundation trial have been tied to Arlington and Fairfax Counties.31 Additional __subjects with ties to HAMAS have been identified in Norfolk, Newport News,__ Chesterfield County, __and Falls Church__ .h <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** High risk of radiological accidents and terrorism against Naval forces at Norfolk ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** NIRS 2008 ** (Nuclear Information and Resource Service, “The Yucca Mountain Dump Plan Would Launch Up to 334 Barges of Deadly High-Level Radioactive Waste Onto the James River,” Date is Date Last Mod, Jan 21, http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/vabargefactsheet92804.pdf) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> As part of its plan to transport high-level radioactive waste to Western Shoshone Indian land at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the U.S. Department of Energy ( __DOE) proposes__ up to 334 barge shipments carrying giant high-level radioactive waste containers on the James River from the Surry nuclear power plant in Gravel Neck, Virginia __to the Port of Norfolk__. (See the second page of this fact sheet for a map of the proposed route). The James River, of course, is the lifeblood of numerous communities, including Newport News and Virginia Beach. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__Accidents happen__. But what if high-level radioactive waste is involved? __Each barge sized container would hold the long-lasting radiological equivalent of 200 Hiroshima-sized bombs__. But U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) __design criteria__ for atomic waste transport containers __are woefully inadequate__. Rather than full-scale physical safety testing, scale model tests and computer simulations are all that is required. <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">The underwater immersion design criteria are meant to “test” (on paper, at least) the integrity of a slightly damaged container submerged under 3 feet of water for 8 hours. An undamaged cask is “tested” (on computers, at least) for a 1 hour submersion under 656 feet of water. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__But if a cask were accidentally immersed under water, or sunk by terrorists__, is it reasonable for NRC to assume that the cask would only be slightly damaged, or not damaged at all? Given that barge casks could weigh well over 100 tons (even up to 140 tons), __how__ __can NRC assume that they could be recovered from underwater__ within 1 hour, or even within 8 hours? Special cranes capable of lifting such heavy loads would have to be located, brought in, and set up. __Given the James River’s historic significance, as well as the U.S. Navy installations and tourist destinations around Norfolk, the potential for terrorist attack on these barge shipments is increased__. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Terrorism, natural disasters, foreign attack, and accidents all threaten US naval power—creation of a second carrier port is key to prevent this and increase readiness <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> O’ROURKE 6-14-2012 (Ronald, Specialist in Naval Affairs with the Congressional Research Service, “Navy Nuclear Aircraft Carrier (CVN) Homeporting at Mayport: Background and Issues for Congress,” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R40248.pdf) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> A Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on Mayport homeporting alternatives was released in November 2008. The FEIS examined 12 alternatives for homeporting additional surface ships at Mayport. Four of the 12 alternatives involved homeporting a CVN; another four involved making Mayport capable of homeporting a CVN, but not immediately homeporting a CVN there; and the remaining four did not involve making Mayport capable of homeporting a CVN. Ten of the 12 alternatives also involved transferring additional ships other than a CVN— various combinations of cruisers, destroyers, frigates, large-deck amphibious assault ships (LHDs), and other amphibious ships (LPDs and LSDs)—to Mayport. The FEIS also assessed a 13th alternative of homeporting no additional ships at Mayport. __Homeporting a single additional__ ship—a __CVN__ — __was Alternative 4__. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The FEIS identified Alternative 4 as __the Navy’s preferred alternative__. The FEIS, like the January 2009 ROD, stated that a key reason for the Navy’s desire to transfer a CVN to Mayport is __to hedge against the risk of a catastrophic event that could damage the Navy’s CVN homeporting facilities in the Hampton Roads area__ of Virginia. The FEIS stated: Based on a thorough review of the alternatives, the Department of the Navy has determined Alternative 4 to be its Preferred Alternative. __Alternative 4 involves homeporting one CVN, dredging, infrastructure and wharf improvements, and construction of CVN nuclear propulsion plant maintenance facilities.__ Factors that influenced selection of Alternative 4 as the Preferred Alternative included impact analysis in the EIS, estimated costs of implementation, including military construction and other operation and sustainment costs, and strategic dispersal considerations. __Homeporting a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport would enhance distribution of CVN homeport locations to reduce risks to fleet resources in the event of natural disaster, manmade calamity, or attack by foreign nations or terrorists. This includes risks to aircraft carriers, industrial support facilities, and the people that operate and maintain those crucial assets__. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__The aircraft carriers of the United States Navy are ** vital strategic assets ** that serve our national interests in both peace and war. The President calls upon them for their ** unique ability ** to provide ** both deterrence and combat support ** in times of crisis__. Of the 11 aircraft carriers currently in service, five are assigned to the Atlantic Fleet. __Utilizing the capacity at__ NAVSTA __Mayport__ to homeport a CVN __disperses critical Atlantic Fleet assets to reduce risks, thereby enhancing operational readiness. Operational readiness is ** fundamental ** ** to the Navy’s mission **__ and obligation to the Commander in Chief.24 <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Basing at Mayport independently increases deployment speed, fleet redundancy, and operational flexibility <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> G.A.O. 2010 (DEFENSE INFRASTRUCTURE Opportunities Exist to Improve the Navy’s Basing Decision Process and DOD Oversight, May, http://www.gao.gov/assets/310/304353.pdf) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> According to Navy officials, the Department of the Navy made its recent decision to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Naval Station Mayport using its strategic laydown and strategic dispersal processes and its environmental planning guidance documents. In addition, the Navy stated in its record of decision that the most critical considerations in making the decision were the environmental impacts, recurring and nonrecurring costs associated with changes in surface ship homeporting options, and strategic dispersal considerations. However, according to its record of decision, the need to develop a hedge against the potentially crippling results of a catastrophic event was ultimately the determining factor in the Navy’s decision to establish a second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier homeport on the East Coast of the United States at Mayport. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The Navy has historically had multiple aircraft carrier homeports on each coast. Currently, the Navy has three nuclear-powered aircraft carrier homeports on the West Coast —Bremerton and Everett, Washington, and San Diego, California— and one East Coast carrier homeport in the Hampton Roads area, which includes Norfolk and Newport News, Virginia.7 According to Navy officials,8 the Navy used elements of its strategic laydown process existing at the time the Mayport decision was in the process of being made to apportion the fleet to the Pacific (West) Coast, to the Atlantic (East) Coast based on its force structure analysis. According to officials, the process relies on several documents, including conventional campaign plans; homeland defense requirements; the Cooperative Strategy for the 21st Century Seapower, Navy 2030 Ashore Vision; the 2001 and 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, and the Global Maritime Posture. Based on these strategic laydown analyses, the Navy developed a baseline for the total Navy force structure to try to optimize the sourcing of forces based on the speed of response, the maritime strategy, and the Quadrennial Defense Review direction. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Using the output from the strategic laydown process, Navy officials said that they performed its strategic dispersal process, which allowed the Navy to further assess and determine the distribution of the fleet by homeport based on strategic requirements and the ability to balance operational, fiscal, and infrastructure factors. Based on its analysis, the Navy decided to establish a second East Coast homeport for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Navy officials said that the Navy worked on the assumption that it would not establish a new carrier homeport but upgrade an existing carrier homeport to support nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Navy officials said that Naval Station Mayport was the best option because it was an existing conventional carrier homeport with underutilized facilities since the USS John F. Kennedy was retired in 2007. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> According to Navy officials, the Navy used its strategic dispersal process to evaluate key operational factors, such as response time to combatant commands, transit times to deployment areas and training, geographic location of air wings, historic aircraft carrier loading, physical pier capacity, transit times for pier side to open ocean, antiterrorism and force protection, and mitigation of natural and man-made risks for both the Hampton Roads area and Naval Station Mayport. For example, the Navy believes the following constitute risk factors associated with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier consolidation in Hampton Roads : (1) singular homeport, maintenance, and support location ; (2) all of the Atlantic Fleet nuclear-powered aircraft carrier trained crews, associated community support infrastructure, and nuclear carrier support facilities within a 15 nautical mile radius ; (3) single 32 nautical mile access channel with two major choke points (bridges); (4) approximately 3-hour transit time from carrier piers to open ocean; and (5) the planned significant increase in commercial shipping volume because of the planned Craney Island upgrades. Furthermore, the Navy used the U.S. Coast Guard’s Port Threat Assessments for the Coast Guard Sectors of Hampton Roads and Mayport, which determined that the overall threat level for Hampton Roads is moderate, while the overall threat level for Mayport is low. According to the threat assessments, a moderate threat level indicates a potential threat exists against the port and that one or more groups have either the intention or capability to employ large casualty-production attacks or cause denial of commercial, military, and passenger vessel access to the port, while a low threat level indicates that little or no information exists on one or more groups with a capability or intention to damage the port. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Navy officials also identified the following benefits associated with homeporting a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Naval Station Mayport : <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • the shortest access to the Atlantic Ocean of any current Navy homeport, <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • additional dispersed controlled industrial facility and nuclear maintenance capabilities , <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • physical separation of East Coast nuclear-powered aircraft carriers , <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • physical separation between piers and shipping lanes , <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • smaller commercial shipping traffic volume, and <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • strategic and operational flexibility. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Mayport basing enhances surge capacity <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> NAVFAC 2008 (Naval Facilities Engineering Command, NAVFAC Southeast, “Final EIS for the proposed homeporting of additional surface ships at Naval Station Mayport, FL Vol I: Final Environmental Impact Statement,” November, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ada491893) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The purpose of the proposed action is to ensure effective support of fleet operational requirements <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> through efficient use of waterfront and shore side facilities at NAVSTA Mayport. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review ( QDR) called for the Department of Defense (DoD) to be capable of swiftly defeating aggression in overlapping conflicts worldwide. This required the Navy to modify its operational philosophy and to ensure it was capable of providing more warfighting assets, more quickly, to multiple locations. In Navy terms, this is called surge capability – or the ability to send trained naval battle forces in addition to those currently deployed. The Navy adopted the Fleet Response Plan (FRP) institutionalizing an enhanced naval surge capability. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Under the guidance of USFF, the fleet training cycle has been adjusted with refined maintenance, modernization, manning, and training processes to enable the fleet to consistently sustain a level of at least six surge capable carrier strike groups available within 30 days, and one additional strike group able to deploy within 90 days of an emergency order. Achieving this higher level of surge capability is a difficult task requiring Navy ships and Sailors to maintain an appropriate level of training (or readiness) for longer periods of time, while continuing to achieve ship maintenance and Sailor quality of life standards. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The Navy has developed plans for ashore infrastructure to ensure appropriate support of the FRP and the Navy’s required operational battle force. While budgetary decisions drive the trend to consolidate or reduce the number of Navy bases overall, retaining bases in dispersed locations nationwide and worldwide supports the FRP and the operational battle force. Required capabilities at Navy bases are driven by strategic/geographic location and fleet operational readiness. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> USFF has finite berthing capacity for surface ships in the turning basin at NAVSTA Mayport. NAVSTA Mayport also has established shore support capacity for ship maintenance and repair, as well as military personnel support facilities, not being fully utilized. The Navy will begin in 2010 to decommission frigates currently homeported at NAVSTA Mayport. The Navy needs to utilize the available facilities at NAVSTA Mayport, both pierside and shoreside, in an effective and efficient manner, thereby minimizing new construction. The CNO has directed USFF to review and assess a broad range of options for homeporting additional surface ships at NAVSTA Mayport. Consideration of NAVSTA Mayport as a homeport for any of the classes of ships being discussed in the FEIS is based on the following: <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • Use of NAVSTA Mayport helps preserve distribution of homeport locations and ports to reduce the risks to fleet resources in the event of natural disaster, manmade calamity, or attack by foreign nations or terrorists ; <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • Full use of NAVSTA Mayport preserves the capabilities of the Jacksonville Fleet Concentration <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Area, which supports U.S. based naval surge capability ; and <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • Utilization of NAVSTA Mayport helps optimize fleet access to naval training ranges and operating areas by retaining ship homeport locations within six hours transit time of local operating areas. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Surge capacity is key to Naval power <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> GLOBAL SECURITY 2011 (“Fleet Response Plan,” May 7, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/frp.htm) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The Fleet Response Plan, adopted in 2003, calls for six of the Navy's 12 aircraft carriers to be available for deployment within 30 days and another two to be available in 90 days. Typically, the Navy will have two carriers based in the United States deployed overseas, in addition to one carrier permanently stationed in Japan. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The requirement to be able to swiftly defeat aggression in overlapping conflicts called for in the 2001 QDR has necessitated a focus on developing new surge capabilities to complement and capitalize on our current competency in providing immediately employable forward-deployed naval forces. The recently created Fleet Response Plan (FRP) will significantly increase the rate at which we can augment deployed forces as contingencies require. Under the regular rotation approach, the training, manning, maintenance, and readiness funding practices of the Inter-Deployment Readiness Cycle (IDRC) were optimized to meet the requirements of Global Naval Forward Presence Policy. While a modest number of forward deployed units were at peak readiness, the majority of ships and associated units were not deployed and thus at a point in their IDRC that made it difficult and expensive to swiftly "surge" to a crisis, conflict or for Homeland Defense. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The FRP features a change in readiness posture that institutionalizes an enhanced surge capability for the Navy. Under the guidance of Commander Fleet Forces Command (CFFC), a revised IDRC is being developed that meets the demand for a more responsive force. With refined maintenance, modernization, manning and training processes, as well as fully-funded readiness accounts, the Fleet can consistently sustain a level of at least 6 surge-capable carrier strike groups, with two additional strike groups able to deploy within approximately 90 days of an emergency order. In parallel with this, the Naval Reserve Force is embarked on a fully integrated active-reserve transformation to a more flexible unit structure. Part of this transformation is focused on providing a rapid surge capability of skilled aviators who have trained with active-duty units to reinforce them and rapidly boost their ability to generate combat sorties. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The enhanced and expanded readiness availability delivered by the Fleet Response Plan provides the President with unprecedented responsiveness. Instead of predictable, lock-step, 6-month deployments to pre-determined regions in support of the Global Naval Forward Presence Policy, the Flexible Deployment Concept allows units that have attained high readiness to embark on deployments of varied duration in support of specific national priorities such as Homeland Defense, multi-national exercises, security cooperation events, deterrent operations, or prosecution of the Global War on Terrorism. often in multi-Carrier Strike Group formations. These deployments provide "presence with a purpose" and can also occur in less predictable patterns, thereby forcing potential adversaries to adjust to our operational timelines. The sustained readiness created via the Fleet Response Plan will enable the Flexible Deployment Concept. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">Flexible Deployment Concept implementation will occur under the emerging Joint Presence Policy. Naval implementation of these new presence requirements will be carefully monitored to ensure that schedules and OPTEMPO standards are adhered to so that our unprecedented force levels will not result in uncertainties for our sailors or allies. ¶ The military build-up for and waging of Operation Iraqi Freedom dramatically impacted the IDTC and the deployment schedules of the Navy's aircraft carriers as six carriers were sent to the Persian Gulf and another carrier was sent to fill the vacuum left by the Kitty Hawk's deployment to the Persian Gulf. In some instances carriers were surged earlier than expected and in other cases carriers experienced an extended deployment, most notably the USS Abraham Lincoln, who deployed in July 2002 and did not return to the US until May 2003. ¶ Prior to OIF the Navy began to experiment with an altered IDTC that reduced the time that a carrier would spend in the yard and accelerated the ships training cycle. The USS Carl Vinson returned from a deployment on January 23, 2002 and after spending roughly 4 months in the yard began sea trials and its IDTC in September. The Vinson had completed its COMPTUEX by late November, its JTFEX in January and was deployed on February 6, 2003. ¶ In March 2003, the Chief of Naval Operations released his "Culture of Readiness" message to the Navy that directed Commander, Fleet Forces Command to develop IDTC processes and milestones that would improve the speed of response for the full combat power of the Navy. The CFFC convened a working group composed of fleet and TYCOM representatives and developed a fleet response concept that would make the necessary changes to attain the increased readiness and responsiveness. ¶ In May 2003, the Navy issued a message to major commands describing the Fleet Response Plan which would dramatically alter the IDTC and the way in which the Navy leadership viewed deployments. The FRP would shift the focus away from rotational deployments and presence to being capable of surging substantial forces, ideally 6 surge ready carrier strike groups and 2 carrier strike groups that would follow shortly thereafter. ¶ In addition, under FRP, eight out of 10 of the Navy's submarines are able to respond to emergent fleet requirements at any time. ¶ To meet this objective the Navy intends to extend the interval between maintenance periods and modify training and manpower processes. The Navy also adopted a mindset of "R+plus" (R=return) rather than "D-minus" (D=Deploy). The idea being that working up for a scheduled deployment was not as important as being available as quickly as possible from the end of the last deployment. ¶ Instead of the rather vague "surge status" or "deployed status" the Navy created emergency surge status, surge ready status, and routine deployable. ¶ Emergency surge assets are those that would be employed in cases of urgent need. Attaining emergency surge status occurs upon completion of the Basic phase of the IDTC. "Emergency Surge" status should be attained with three to four months of the completion of its maintenance period. ¶ Surge ready status are those assets that can deploy upon completion of the intermediate phase of the IDTC. Ships should attain Surge Ready status within six months of the completion of its maintenance period. ¶ Routine deployable is equivalant to completion of the current IDTC. ¶ The goal of the current new concept would be to move assets through the IDTC as quickly as possible and conducting refesher training to insure readiness. ¶ The FRP was instituted by July 1, 2003 and the 6+2 surge goals were completed by December 1, 2003. ¶ Maintaining the Fleet Readiness Plan (FRP) construct of six aircraft carriers available within 30 days plus two additional carriers available within 90 days is a difficult task. Maintenance requirements on carriers alone make satisfying the FRP a challenging scheduling problem. By increasing the average cycle time for a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) to 27 months, the FRP requirements can be met continuously, after an initial maintenance adjustment period of 62 months. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> During the summer of 2004 the Navy surged some aircraft carriers from their homeports. to generate as many as seven of 12 carriers on station. for Coalition operations. The ability to push that kind of military capability to the four corners of the world is quite remarkable and recent. Several years ago, the Navy could deploy only two. Through this series of deployments, surge operations and exercises, the Navy will demonstrate and exercise a new approach to operations and maintenance. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Even if carrier reliance is bad, we won’t change it—it’s only a question of effectiveness <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> REUTERS 5-6-10   (“Navy to Gates: Yes, we need 11 aircraft carriers,” http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/05/07/us-navy-usa-carriers-idUSTRE6460AN20100507) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> "The Navy remains firmly committed to maintaining a force of 11 carriers for the next three decades," Sean Stackley, the service's warship buyer, told the Senate Armed Services Seapower subcommittee on Thursday. The 11-carrier force structure is based on "world-wide presence requirements, surge availability, training and exercise, and maintenance" needs, he said in an opening statement. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Naval reliance is also inevitable <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** WHITENECK 2010 ** (Daniel Whiteneck • Michael Price • Neil Jenkins •Peter Swartz, CNA Analysis & Solutions, “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake?” March, http://www.public.navy.mil/usff/documents/navy_at_tipping_point.pdf) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__In the future, the demand for the Navy will continue to be part of an activist US foreign policy. There is no end in sight for coalition leadership, counter-terrorism on a global scale, or the use of U.S. forces to demonstrate commitment and resolve in areas of interest__. The importance of access secured by continuous Department of Defense and Department of State efforts with partners will support this global presence. __U.S. interests in securing the__ global commons ( __sea__, air, space, cyber) __will remain in place, and the U.S. will remain the guarantor of security for democratic nations through its near monopoly on high-end military power and defensive systems. Continued demand for active peacetime engagement by the U.S. military will be met by maritime diplomacy to support administration priorities and to support security cooperation activities__ by COCOMs. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** No one can fill in for US naval power ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** WHITENECK 2010 ** (Daniel Whiteneck • Michael Price • Neil Jenkins •Peter Swartz, CNA Analysis & Solutions, “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake?” March, http://www.public.navy.mil/usff/documents/navy_at_tipping_point.pdf) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Second, __no other country (or combination of countries) will create the forces required for a navy with global influence. America’s European allies, and its Asian allies as well, have created navies that are capable of sustained regional operations__, or routine “cruising” by small squadrons of surface ships that show the flag, conduct engagement and exercises, and demonstrate national interest in economic ties with the visited nations and regions. These navies can also conduct short-term surges for uses of force against low end threats or act as supporters to USN-led naval operations; __however persistent out-of-area operations (even by a low number of assets) would quickly deplete their resources and political support at home__. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Effective carrier forces are key to diplomatic and military power—presence alone defuses conflicts before they start even when the US has no allied support <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> EAGLAN 2008 (Mackenzie Eaglen is Senior Policy Analyst for National Security at The Heritage Foundation, “Aircraft Carriers Are Crucial,” July 31, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003078.html) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> For any U.S. president, the aircraft carrier embodies the ultimate crisis management tool. Continuously deployed throughout the globe, carrier-strike groups give our military unparalleled freedom of action to respond to a range of combat and non-combat missions. The recent George Washington incident only further emphasizes the significance of maintaining a robust carrier fleet, one large enough to meet all contingencies and "surge" in crises, no matter what may happen. Carriers can move large contingents of forces and their support to distant theaters, respond rapidly to changing tactical situations, support several missions simultaneously, and, perhaps most importantly, guarantee access to any region in the world. In a time when America's political relationships with other countries can shift almost overnight, aircraft carriers can reduce America's reliance on others -- often including suspect regimes -- for basing rights. A carrier's air wing can typically support 125 sorties a day at a distance up to 750 nautical miles. They also operate as a hub in the strike group's command, control, communications and intelligence network, playing an increasingly larger role in controlling the battlespace at sea. Whether in a direct or support role, carriers have taken part in almost every major military operation the U.S. has undertaken since the Second World War. They also serve as first-rate diplomatic tools to either heighten or ease political pressure. When tensions with North Korea or Iran increase, a carrier, or sometimes two, is sent to patrol off their coast. And when an election takes place in a nascent democracy or country central to U.S. interests, a strike group typically is sailing offshore. In March, when Taiwan held important presidential elections that will chart the future of that country's relationship with China, both the Kitty Hawk and Nimitz trolled nearby to ensure a smooth transition of events and deliver a psychological message of U.S. interest. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Forward-deployed carriers are key to US deterrence—solves terrorism, regional war, WMD attacks, and terrorism <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> PIENO 1993 (John, retired Navy captain, commanded the carrier Forrestal, “Why We Need 12 Aircraft Carriers,” New York Times, Sept 6, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/06/opinion/l-why-we-need-12-aircraft-carriers-511193.html) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Your view is contrary to that of the majority of knowledgeable people who have thought about how to protect America's national security interests in the years ahead. Civilian analysts, professors, members of Congress, think tanks and even the Clinton Administration have concluded that forward presence and mobility are essential elements of a post-cold war national security strategy. When the United States military presence is declining around the world and overseas bases are being closed, the Navy and its aircraft carriers are more important than ever. Every President since World War II has found it necessary to ask, "Where are the carriers, and how fast can we get them there?" President Clinton, in his first six months, has had to deploy aircraft carriers to Somalia, Iraq and the Balkans. The carrier's flexibility and awesome military power make it an effective Presidential tool in managing crises. The presence of a carrier can often stabilize a crisis and prevent hostilities or limit their spread. We saw the value of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf war. They were on the scene within 48 hours of the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, and many believe that the presence of the carriers prevented him from invading Saudi Arabia and its oilfields. The carriers and their aircraft were also an important part of the military campaign that freed Kuwait and defeated the Iraqi army. While the number of aircraft carriers may be subject to discussion and debate, it is important to remember that even with 12 aircraft carriers, the United States cannot maintain a full-time carrier presence in the most important regions of the world -- the Mediterranean, the Western Pacific, the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. If the United States were to reduce its carrier force to 10 or fewer carriers there would be gaps of as long as four months in carrier presence in these regions. Further, our sailors and airmen are already stretched beyond breaking point with long deployments to meet crises around the world. To reduce the number of carriers further would be foolish. The so-called new world order is one of uncertainty and danger. Proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons, along with Scud missiles, provides more countries and even terrorist groups with the capability to threaten United States security. We need a strong Navy and a strong carrier force to meet the unknown dangers of the years ahead. In my 25 years of naval service, I served in virtually every trouble spot of the world aboard aircraft carriers. They send a powerful signal to friend and foe alike. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** Terrorism causes nuclear war ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** CORSI **, ** 2005 ** .Jerome, PhD in political science from Harvard. excerpt from Atomic Iran, http://911review.org/Wget/worldnetdaily.com/NYC_hit_by_terrorist_nuke.html. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__The combination of horror and outrage that will surge upon the nation will demand that the president retaliate__ for the incomprehensible damage done by the attack. The problem will be that __the president will not immediately know how to respond or against whom__. The perpetrators will have been incinerated by the explosion that destroyed New York City. Unlike 9-11, there will have been no interval during the attack when those hijacked could make phone calls to loved ones telling them before they died that the hijackers were radical Islamic extremists. There will be no such phone calls when the attack will not have been anticipated until the instant the terrorists detonate their improvised nuclear device inside the truck parked on a curb at the Empire State Building. Nor will there be any possibility of finding any clues, which either were vaporized instantly or are now lying physically inaccessible under tons of radioactive rubble. Still, the president, members of Congress, the military, and the public at large will suspect another attack by our known enemy – Islamic terrorists. __The first impulse will be to launch a nuclear strike on Mecca__, to destroy the whole religion of Islam. Medina could possibly be added to the target list just to make the point with crystal clarity. Yet what would we gain? The moment Mecca and Medina were wiped off the map, __the Islamic world__ – more than 1 billion human beings in countless different nations – __would feel attacked. Nothing would emerge intact after a war between the__ United States __and Islam. The apocalypse would be upon us__. Then, too, we would face an immediate threat from our long-term enemy, the former Soviet Union. Many in __the Kremlin would see this as an opportunity to grasp__ the __victory__ that had been snatched from them by Ronald Reagan when the Berlin Wall came down. __A missile strike by the Russians on a score of American cities could possibly be pre-emptive__. Would the U.S. strategic defense system be so in shock that immediate retaliation would not be possible? __Hardliners in Moscow might argue that there was never a better opportunity to destroy America__. In China, our newer Communist enemies might not care if we could retaliate. With a population already over 1.3 billion people and with their population not concentrated in a few major cities, __the Chinese might calculate to initiate a nuclear blow__ on the United States. What if the United States retaliated with a nuclear counterattack upon China? The Chinese might be able to absorb the blow and recover. __The North Koreans might calculate even more recklessly.__ Why not launch upon America the few missiles they have that could reach our soil? More confusion and chaos might only advance their position. If Russia, China, and the United States could be drawn into attacking one another, North Korea might emerge stronger just because it was overlooked while the great nations focus on attacking one another. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Reduction in carrier presence would tip the balance away from US naval dominance and cause war in the Middle East <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** WHITENECK 2010 ** (Daniel Whiteneck • Michael Price • Neil Jenkins •Peter Swartz, CNA Analysis & Solutions, “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake?” March, http://www.public.navy.mil/usff/documents/navy_at_tipping_point.pdf) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__Is there a logical “tipping point” that can be__ numerically __assigned?__ Is a 285 ship-Navy the tipping point, or is it at 250, or 230? __At what number, does the Navy reach a point where it is no longer able to project combat credibility with constant forward presence?__ Is the Navy able to deter and reassure at 230 ships? __It depends__. We have defined a “global navy.” We have assessed what it is asked to do by the political leadership and what it will be asked to do in an evolving world of rising powers, rogue nations, and threats from non-state actors. We conclude that __there is not a specific number at which the navy ceases to be “the global navy.” It depends on how one defines the threat environment, the demand signal, and the objectives of naval forces within the foreign policy__. __The Navy can remain the global maritime power__ with either the 2 hub or 1+ hubWESTPAC option. Both preserve a global presence for the Navy __and__ allow it to __be a force for reassuring allies, deterring the major maritime challenger, and working__ within joint and combined environments __to address the security threats in the two top priority areas of global politics for the foreseeable future__. The Shaping and Surge options sacrifice either presence or combat credibility to an extent that threatens the Navy’s ability to maintain its status. They could be chosen only within the context of major changes in U.S. foreign policies; an acceptance of a much diminished role for the United States as a leader willing to act only in concert with other nations in protecting the global system from low-end threats, or a neoisolationist America willing to go it alone on high-end threats and letting other issues resolve themselves at the local and regional levels. If the Navy refuses to choose an option, it faces the prospect of a long, slow glide into the Shrinking Status Quo. This would be a navy 20 percent smaller than the one we have now, with the same balance of forces. It will fall through the capacity and capability necessary for either a 2-hub or 1+ hub navy to be constantly present overseas or to be dominant up and down the escalation ladder, without making the strategic choices to be either a shaping or surge force. Our most relevant example of a navy that faced this choice in the past was the Royal Navy in the early part of the 20th Century. It had maintained a policy of meeting two challengers and carrying out what we would call maritime security operations throughout the empire since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. It was the undisputed “global navy,” but it faced rising powers in Germany and the United States, domestic spending pressures, and new alignments on the continent in Europe. The British Government (with the Royal Navy as an active participant in the decision process) chose to re-orient its foreign and security policies to meet the German threat, leave the Western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific to the United States, and assume what we would call a 1+ hub strategy. It was able to meet the threat of Germany, contribute to the Triple Entente with France and Russia, forge a treaty with Japan that lasted through World War I, and meet all of its empire maritime policing needs. It was not these decisions that drained the treasury, but four years of war in Europe and its toll on the British Army and nation. Without an empire to police, might __the United States__ be able to carry out the 2-hub strategy? It does not have the luxury of the British who faced only one potential threat. It __faces a current fight (Islamic terror, Afghanistan, Iranian adventurism) in CENTCOM and a potential future fight requiring deterrence and reassurance to meet a traditional rising national challenger. Both situations require a combat-credible, visible presence by naval forces for prompt denial, escalation and de-escalation dominance, deterrence by denial__ (missile defense), __and assured access__. On the other hand, the maritime security operations in other areas of the world can be addressed in large part by local and regional efforts, with the U.S. playing a supporting role. __The inherent flexibility of naval people and platforms and assets has been proven again and again. The ability of high-end assets to flex for a number of missions along the spectrum of operations has been a staple of deployments by carrier strike groups and their escorts and their air assets. What has not been proven is the ability of a global navy to use forces that are not dominant or not__ __present overseas to deter challengers, deny regional aggressors, or reassure partners. When you are no longer present in ** one or two areas ** of vital national interest with dominant maritime forces, you are at the “** tipping point **__ .” <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** Middle East war goes global and nuclear ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** PRIMAKOV 2009 ** [September, Yevgeny, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation; Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; member of the Editorial Board of //Russia in Global Affairs//. This article is based on the scientific report for which the author was awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2008, “The Middle East Problem <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">in the Context of International Relations”] <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__The Middle East conflict is unparalleled in terms of ** its potential for spreading globally **. During the Cold War__, amid which the Arab-Israeli conflict evolved, __the two opposing superpowers directly supported the conflicting parties__ : the Soviet Union supported Arab countries, while the United States supported Israel. On the one hand, the bipolar world order which existed at that time objectively played in favor of the escalation of the Middle East conflict into a global confrontation. On the other hand, __the Soviet Union and the United States__ were not interested in such developments and they __managed to keep the situation under control. The behavior of both superpowers in the course of all the wars in the Middle East proves that__. In 1956, during the Anglo-French-Israeli military invasion of Egypt (which followed Cairo’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company) the United States – contrary to the widespread belief in various countries, including Russia – not only refrained from supporting its allies but insistently pressed – along with the Soviet Union – for the cessation of the armed action. Washington feared that the tripartite aggression would undermine the positions of the West in the Arab world and would result in a direct clash with the Soviet Union. __Fears that hostilities in the Middle East might acquire a global dimension could materialize also during the Six-Day War__ of 1967. On its eve, Moscow and Washington urged each other to cool down their “clients.” When the war began, both superpowers assured each other that they did not intend to get involved in the crisis militarily and that that they would make efforts at the United Nations to negotiate terms for a ceasefire. On July 5, the Chairman of the Soviet Government, Alexei Kosygin, who was authorized by the Politburo to conduct negotiations on behalf of the Soviet leadership, for the first time ever used a hot line for this purpose. After the USS //Liberty// was attacked by Israeli forces, which later claimed the attack was a case of mistaken identity, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson immediately notified Kosygin that the movement of the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean Sea was only intended to help the crew of the attacked ship and to investigate the incident. The situation repeated itself during the hostilities of October 1973. Russian publications of those years argued that it was the Soviet Union that prevented U.S. military involvement in those events. In contrast, many U.S. authors claimed that a U.S. reaction thwarted Soviet plans to send troops to the Middle East. Neither statement is true. The atmosphere was really quite tense. Sentiments both in Washington and Moscow were in favor of interference, yet both capitals were far from taking real action. When U.S. troops were put on high alert, Henry Kissinger assured Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that this was done largely for domestic considerations and should not be seen by Moscow as a hostile act. In a private conversation with Dobrynin, President Richard Nixon said the same, adding that he might have overreacted but that this had been done amidst a hostile campaign against him over Watergate. Meanwhile, Kosygin and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko at a Politburo meeting in Moscow strongly rejected a proposal by Defense Minister Marshal Andrei Grechko to “demonstrate” Soviet military presence in Egypt in response to Israel’s refusal to comply with a UN Security Council resolution. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev took the side of Kosygin and Gromyko, saying that he was against any Soviet involvement in the conflict. __The above suggests an unequivocal conclusion that control by the superpowers in the bipolar world did not allow the Middle East conflict to escalate into a global confrontation__. __After the__ end of the __Cold War, some__ scholars and political observers __concluded that a real threat of the__ Arab-Israeli __conflict going__ __beyond regional frameworks ceased to exist. However, in ** the 21st century this conclusion no longer conforms to the reality **__. The U.S. military __operation in Iraq has changed the balance of forces__ in the Middle East. __The disappearance of the Iraqi counterbalance has brought Iran to the fore as a__ __regional power__ claiming a direct role in various Middle East processes. I do not belong to those who believe that the Iranian leadership has already made a political decision to create nuclear weapons of its own. Yet Tehran seems to have set itself the goal of achieving a technological level that would let it make such a decision (the “Japanese model”) under unfavorable circumstances. __Israel already possesses nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles__. In such circumstances, __the absence of a Middle East settlement opens ** a dangerous prospect of a nuclear collision ** in the region__, __which would have ** catastrophic consequences for the whole world **__**. ** __The transition to a multipolar world has objectively strengthened the role of states and__ __organizations that are directly involved in regional conflicts, which increases the__ latter’s __danger and reduces the possibility of controlling them. This refers, above all, to the Middle East conflict.__ The coming of Barack Obama to the presidency has allayed fears that the United States could deliver a preventive strike against Iran (under George W. Bush, it was one of the most discussed topics in the United States). However, fears have increased that such a strike can be launched //Yevgeny Primakov// 1 3 2 RUSSIA IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS VOL. 7 • No. 3 • JULY – SEPTEMBER• 2009 by Israel, which would have unpredictable consequences for the region and beyond. It seems that President Obama’s position does not completely rule out such a possibility. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Carriers are key to disaster response <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> EAGLAN 2008 (Mackenzie Eaglen is Senior Policy Analyst for National Security at The Heritage Foundation, “Aircraft Carriers Are Crucial,” July 31, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003078.html) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> And at a time when policymakers expect to spend less on defense and where the services' lists of unfunded requirements continues to mount, we'll likely call on the aircraft carrier to perform an expanded array of duties, ranging from humanitarian relief to counterinsurgency support and temporary basing for Special Operations Forces. As the Navy assumes responsibility for humanitarian missions in places such as Africa and South America, it will rely on aircraft carriers to provide immediate relief following natural disasters. During Operation Unified Assistance, following the December 2004 tsunami and during relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, for instance, they placed a central role. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Unmitigated disasters cause extinction <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** SID-AHMED 2005 ** (Mohamed, Al-Ahram Online, Jan 6-12, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/724/op3.htm) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The human species has never been exposed to a natural upheaval of this magnitude within living memory. What happened in South Asia is the ecological equivalent of 9/11. Ecological problems like global warming and climatic disturbances in general threaten to make our natural habitat unfit for human life. __The extinction of the species has become a very real possibility,__ whether by our own hand or __as a result of natural disasters of a much greater magnitude than the Indian Ocean earthquake and the killer waves it spawned__. Human civilisation has developed in the hope that Man will be able to reach welfare and prosperity on earth for everybody. But now things seem to be moving in the opposite direction, exposing planet Earth to the end of its role as a nurturing place for human life. Today, __human conflicts have become less of a threat than the confrontation between__ __[Humanity__ ] Man __and Nature__. At least __they are less likely to bring about the end of the__ human __species__. The reactions of Nature as a result of its exposure to the onslaughts of human societies have become more important in determining the fate of the human species than any harm it can inflict on itself. __Until recently, the threat Nature represented was perceived as likely to arise only in the long run__, related for instance to how global warming would affect life on our planet. Such a threat could take __decades, even centuries__, to reach a critical level. This perception has changed following __the devastating earthquake and tsunamis__ that hit the coastal regions of South Asia and, less violently, of East Africa, on 26 December. This cataclysmic event has __underscored the vulnerability of our world before the wrath of Nature and shaken the sanguine belief that the end of the world is a long way away__. Gone are the days when we could comfort ourselves with the notion that the extinction of the human race will not occur before a long-term future that will only materialise after millions of years and not affect us directly in any way. __We are now forced to live with the possibility of an imminent demise of humankind__. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** Disaster response is also an independent link to leadership—solves opposition ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** PORTH 2008 ** (Jacquelyn S, Staff Writer for America.gov, http://www.america.gov/st/peacesec-english/2008/June/20080627150217sjhtrop0.657818.html, AD: 6/25/10) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__They__ also __expose local populations to U.S. naval forces, cultivating__ a __familiarity and receptivity that__ Cossa said “ __could come in handy in__ the event of __future crises while building up__ a reservoir of __goodwill__ .” For the other partnering nations, they promote better communications and more fluid operations among participating naval personnel. Cossa said __humanitarian missions like the Mercy's are “win-win__ in every sense of the word: __They promote confidence and build trust.” Offering this__ kind of __assistance leaves a lasting impression of American values and ideals__, he said. “ __It underscores what is best about America__ .” “ __This is the essence of American soft power__ ,” Cossa said. “ __It enhances the image not only of the U.S.__ Navy and the __military, but of America in general.”__ <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The fact that quantifying the risk of a catastrophic event is difficult is an independent reason to act now – Hurricane Katrina proves we can’t wait until it’s too late <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> O’ROURKE 6-14-2012 (Ronald, Specialist in Naval Affairs with the Congressional Research Service, “Navy Nuclear Aircraft Carrier (CVN) Homeporting at Mayport: Background and Issues for Congress,” This section is a reprinting of a 2009 Navy Record of Decision, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R40248.pdf) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__The most significant strategic advantage offered by development of an additional East Coast CVN homeport is a hedge against a catastrophic event that may impact NAVSTA Norfolk, the only existing CVN homeport for Atlantic Fleet CVNs. It is difficult to quantify the likelihood of a catastrophic event__, whether natural or man-made. __Nonetheless, there is a need to plan and prepare__ for any such event. That planning and preparation must address CVN maintenance and repair infrastructure as well as operational considerations. __The fact that quantifying the likelihood of a catastrophic event is so difficult underscores the need to ensure that our planning and preparation efforts do not underestimate or overlook the longterm effects__ of such event. Hurricane __Katrina is a clear and recent example__. The level of devastation in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was so extensive and so pervasive that more than three years after Katrina hit, the New Orleans industrial infrastructure, work force, and community support functions have not fully recovered. __The potential impact of similar__ man- __made or natural catastrophic events in the Hampton Roads area requires the DON to plan and prepare. A failure to do so presents an unacceptable risk. The aircraft carriers of the United States DON are vital strategic assets that serve our national interests in both peace and war. The President calls upon them for their unique ability to provide both deterrence and combat support in times of crisis__. Of the 11 aircraft carriers currently in service, five are assigned to the Atlantic Fleet. NAVSTA Norfolk is homeport to all five of the CVNs assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and the Hampton Roads area is the only East Coast location where CVN maintenance and repair infrastructure exists. It is the only location in the U.S. capable of CVN construction and refueling. The Hampton Roads area also houses all Atlantic Fleet CVN trained crews and associated community support infrastructure. __A second CVN homeport on the East Coast will provide additional CVN maintenance infrastructure, thereby providing added strategic value and allowing the DON to extract the added operational value of two CVN homeports in meeting its national defense obligations.__ <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__Homeporting a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport would provide strategic options in case of a catastrophic event in the Hampton Roads area, and enhance distribution of CVN assets, thereby reducing the risks to aircraft carriers and associated maintenance and repair infrastructure supporting those crucial assets....__ <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> CONCLUSION: The decision to create the capacity to homeport a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport represents the best military judgment of the DON’s leadership regarding strategic considerations. In reaching that decision, the DON considered the environmental impacts analyzed in the EIS, comments from regulatory agencies as well as those received from members of the public, mitigation measures that would lessen the extent and severity of environmental impacts, recurring and nonrecurring costs, and the strategic implications of developing a second CVN homeport on the East Coast to support Atlantic Fleet operational, training and maintenance needs. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> There will be no significant adverse environmental impacts associated with the CVN homeporting. That conclusion is based on the data collected and analyzed in the EIS, on interagency consultations, and on the mitigation measures developed as part of that consultation process. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The cost of developing a CVN homeport at NAVSTA Mayport was balanced against the strategic need to create a hedge against a catastrophic event in the Hampton Roads area. The cost of developing a CVN homeport at NAVSTA Mayport is more than offset by the added security for CVN assets and enhanced operational effectiveness provided by the ability to operate out of two homeports. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Ultimately, the need to develop a hedge against the potentially crippling results of a catastrophic event was the driver behind the decision to homeport a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport. Developing a second CVN homeport on the East Coast not only reduces potential risk to CVN assets through dispersal of those critical assets, it provides some maintenance and repair infrastructure and ensures access to that infrastructure by CVNs deployed at the time a catastrophic event in Hampton Roads occurred. Mayport allows DON to obtain the advantages of fleet dispersal and survivability without impacting operational availability. On the West Coast DON has accepted reduced operational availability in the interest of dispersal. By homeporting CVNs in the Northwestern U.S., DON loses operational availability during the additional transit time required to reach operational and training areas. By establishing a second CVN homeport on the East Coast, DON can gain the dispersal advantage without the increased transit time. The proximity to training areas and transit time to operating areas is about equal from Norfolk and Mayport. West Coast CVN homeports and maintenance facilities are not viable options in planning for Atlantic Fleet CVN assets in the event a catastrophic event occurs in the Hampton Roads area. The nuclear powered aircraft carriers are too large to transit the Panama Canal, requiring a 12,700 nautical mile voyage around South America to reach the closest CVN homeport on the West Coast at [65]San Diego. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Neither the DON, nor the nation, nor its citizens can wait for a catastrophic event to occur before recognizing the potential impacts of such an event and appropriately planning and preparing for continuity of operations. This lesson was learned all too well in the aftermath of recent catastrophic events such as Hurricane Katrina. The DON looked at the possible crippling effects - immediate and long-term - of a catastrophic event in the Hampton Roads area and recognized its responsibility to develop a hedge against such an event. That hedge is homeporting a CVN at NAVSTA Mayport and developing the requisite operational, training, maintenance and support facilities. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Homeporting one CVN at NAVSTA Mayport best serves the interests of the DON and the nation, and can be accomplished in a manner that keeps environmental impacts at a less than significant level .66 <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** US naval power guarantees hegemony, prevents attacks on the US mainland, and deters potential rivals from even attempting to change the status quo ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** FRIEDMAN 2007 ** (George, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and founder of STRATFOR, “The Limitations and Necessity of Naval Power,” April 10, http://www.stratfor.com/limitations_and_necessity_naval_power) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> This raises a more fundamental question: What is the value of naval power in a world in which naval battles are not fought? To frame the question more clearly, let us begin by noting that __the United States has maintained global maritime hegemony since the end of World War II__. Except for the failed Soviet attempt to partially challenge the United States, __the most important geopolitical fact since World War II was that the world’s oceans were effectively under the control of the U.S. Navy. Prior to World War II, there were multiple contenders for maritime power__, such as Britain, Japan and most major powers. __No one__ power, not even Britain, __had global maritime hegemony. The United States now does__. The question is whether this hegemony has any real value at this time — a question made relevant by the issue of whether to blockade Iran. The United States controls the blue water. To be a little more precise, the U.S. Navy can assert direct and overwhelming control over any portion of the blue water it wishes, and it can do so in multiple places. It cannot directly control all of the oceans at the same time. However, __the total available naval force that can be deployed by non-U.S. powers__ (friendly and other) __is so limited that they lack the ability, ** even taken together, ** to assert control ** anywhere ** should the United States challenge their presence__. This is an unprecedented situation historically. __The current situation is__, of course, ** __invaluable__ ** __to the United States. It means that a seaborne invasion of the United States by any power is completely impractical__. Given the geopolitical condition of the United States, the homeland is secure from conventional military attack but vulnerable to terrorist strikes and nuclear attacks. __At the same time, the United States is in a position to ** project forces at will ** to ** any part of the globe **__. Such power projection might not be wise at times, but ** __even failure__ ** __does not lead to reciprocation. For instance, no matter how badly U.S. forces fare in Iraq, the Iraqis will not invade the United States__ if the Americans are defeated there. __This is not a trivial fact. Control of the seas means that military or political failure in Eurasia will not result in a direct conventional threat to the United States. Nor does such failure necessarily preclude future U.S. intervention in that region. It also means that no other state can choose to invade the United States. Control of the seas allows the United States to intervene where it wants, survive the consequences of failure and be immune to occupation itself. It was the most important geopolitical consequence of World War II, and one that still ** defines the world **__. The issue for the United States is not whether it should abandon control of the seas — that would be irrational in the extreme. Rather, the question is whether it has to exert itself at all in order to retain that control. Other powers either have abandoned attempts to challenge the United States, have fallen short of challenging the United States or have confined their efforts to building navies for extremely limited uses, or for uses aligned with the United States. No one has a shipbuilding program under way that could challenge the United States for several generations. One argument, then, is that the United States should cut its naval forces radically — since they have, in effect, done their job. Mothballing a good portion of the fleet would free up resources for other military requirements without threatening U.S. ability to control the sea-lanes. Should other powers attempt to build fleets to challenge the United States, the lead time involved in naval construction is such that the United States would have plenty of opportunities for re-commissioning ships or building new generations of vessels to thwart the potential challenge. The counterargument normally given is that the U.S. Navy provides a critical service in what is called littoral warfare. In other words, while the Navy might not be needed immediately to control sea-lanes, it carries out critical functions in securing access to those lanes and projecting rapid power into countries where the United States might want to intervene. Thus, U.S. aircraft carriers can bring tactical airpower to bear relatively quickly in any intervention. Moreover, the Navy’s amphibious capabilities — particularly those of deploying and supplying the U.S. Marines — make for a rapid deployment force that, when coupled with Naval airpower, can secure hostile areas of interest for the United States. That argument is persuasive, but it poses this problem: The Navy provides a powerful option for war initiation by the United States, but it cannot by itself sustain the war. In any sustained conflict, the Army must be brought in to occupy territory — or, as in Iraq, the Marines must be diverted from the amphibious specialty to serve essentially as Army units. Naval air by itself is a powerful opening move, but greater infusions of airpower are needed for a longer conflict. Naval transport might well be critically important in the opening stages, but commercial transport sustains the operation. If one accepts this argument, the case for a Navy of the current size and shape is not proven. How many carrier battle groups are needed and, given the threat to the carriers, is an entire battle group needed to protect them? If we consider the Iraq war in isolation, for example, it is apparent that the Navy served a function in the defeat of Iraq’s conventional forces. It is not clear, however, that the Navy has served an important role in the attempt to occupy and pacify Iraq. And, as we have seen in the case of Iran, a blockade is such a complex politico-military matter that the option not to blockade tends to emerge as the obvious choice. The Risk Not Taken The argument for slashing the Navy can be tempting. But consider the counterargument. First, and most important, we must consider the crises the United States has not experienced. The presence of the U.S. Navy has shaped the ambitions of primary and secondary powers. The threshold for challenging the Navy has been so high that few have even initiated serious challenges. Those that might be trying to do so, like the Chinese, understand that it requires a substantial diversion of resources. Therefore, the mere existence of U.S. naval power has been effective in averting crises that likely would have occurred otherwise. Reducing the power of the U.S. Navy, or fine-tuning it, would not only open the door to challenges but also eliminate a useful, if not essential, element in U.S. strategy — the ability to bring relatively rapid force to bear. There are times when the Navy’s use is tactical, and times when it is strategic. At this moment in U.S. history, the role of naval power is highly strategic. The domination of the world’s oceans represents the foundation stone of U.S. grand strategy. It allows the United States to take risks while minimizing consequences. It facilitates risk-taking. Above all, it eliminates the threat of sustained conventional attack against the homeland. U.S. grand strategy has worked so well that this risk appears to be a phantom. The dispersal of U.S. forces around the world attests to what naval power can achieve. It is illusory to believe that this situation cannot be reversed, but it is ultimately a generational threat. Just as U.S. maritime hegemony is measured in generations, the threat to that hegemony will emerge over generations. The apparent lack of utility of naval forces in secondary campaigns, like Iraq, masks the fundamentally ** __indispensable role the Navy plays in U.S. national security __ **. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** Naval power is critical to overall US capabilities—this allows us to deter and defeat any challenger and contain every impact ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** ENGLAND, JONES, AND CLARK 2011 ** (Gordon England is a former secretary of the Navy. General James Jones is a former commandant of the Marine Corps. Admiral Vern Clark is a former chief of naval operations; “The Necessity of U.S. Naval Power,” July 11, http://gcaptain.com/necessity-u-s-naval-power?27784) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> The future security environment underscores two broad security trends. First, __international political realities and the internationally agreed-to sovereign rights of nations will increasingly limit the sustained involvement of American permanent land-based, heavy forces__ to the more extreme crises. __This will make offshore options for deterrence and power projection ** ever more paramount **__ in support of our national interests. Second, __the naval dimensions of American power will re-emerge as the primary means for assuring our allies and partners, ensuring prosperity in times of peace, and countering anti-access, area-denial efforts in times of crisis__. We do not believe these trends will require the dismantling of land-based forces, as these forces will remain essential reservoirs of power. As the United States has learned time and again, once a crisis becomes a conflict, it is impossible to predict with certainty its depth, duration and cost. That said, __the U.S. has been shrinking its overseas land-based installations, so the ability to project power globally will make the forward presence of naval forces an ** even more essential dimension of American influence **__. What we do believe is that ** __uniquely responsive__ ** __Navy-Marine Corps capabilities provide the basis on which our most vital overseas interests are safeguarded. Forward presence and engagement is what allows the U.S. to maintain awareness, to deter aggression, and to quickly respond to threats as they arise__. Though we clearly must be prepared for the high-end threats, such __preparation should be made in balance with the means necessary to ** avoid escalation ** to the high end ** in the first place **__. __The versatility of maritime forces provides a truly ** unmatched advantage. **__ __The sea remains a vast space that provides nearly unlimited freedom of maneuver. Command of the sea allows for the presence of our naval forces, supported from a network of shore facilities, to be adjusted and scaled with little external restraint__. It permits reliance on proven capabilities such as prepositioned ships. __Maritime capabilities encourage and enable cooperation with other nations to solve common sea-based problems such as piracy, illegal trafficking, proliferation of W.M.D__ ., and a host of other ills, which if unchecked can harm our friends and interests abroad, and our own citizenry at home. __The flexibility and responsiveness of naval forces provide our country with a general strategic deterrent in a potentially violent and unstable world. Most importantly, our naval forces project and sustain power at sea and ashore at the time, place, duration, and intensity of our choosing__. Given these enduring qualities, tough choices must clearly be made, especially in light of expected tight defense budgets. The administration and the Congress need to balance the resources allocated to missions such as strategic deterrence, ballistic missile defense, and cyber warfare with the more traditional ones of sea control and power projection. The maritime capability and capacity vital to the flexible projection of U.S. power and influence around the globe must surely be preserved, especially in light of available technology. Capabilities such as the Joint Strike Fighter will provide strategic deterrence, in addition to tactical long-range strike, especially when operating from forward-deployed naval vessels. __Postured to respond quickly, the Navy-Marine Corps team integrates sea, air, and land power into adaptive force packages spanning the entire spectrum of operations, from everyday cooperative security activities to unwelcome — but not impossible — ** wars between major powers **. This is exactly what we will need to meet the challenges of the future__. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** There’s no alternative to American power—US decline exacerbates every impact and cause nuclear war ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** FERGUSON 2004 ** (Niall, Prof of History at NYU, Foreign Policy, July/August) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> So what is left? __Waning empires. Religious revivals. Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities. These are the Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might quickly find itself reliving.__ The trouble is, of course, that __this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one__ than the Dark Age of the ninth century. For the world is much more populous—roughly 20 times more—so friction between the world's disparate “tribes” is bound to be more frequent. Technology has transformed production; now human societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of fossil fuels that are known to be finite. __Technology has upgraded destruction__, too, __so it is now possible not just to sack a city but to obliterate it.__ For more than two decades, globalization—the integration of world markets for commodities, labor, and capital—has raised living standards throughout the world, except where countries have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. __The reversal of globalization—which a new Dark Age would produce—would certainly lead to economic stagnation and even depression__. __As the United States sought to protect itself after a second September 11__ devastates, say, Houston or Chicago, __it would inevitably become a less open society, less hospitable for foreigners__ seeking to work, visit, or do business. Meanwhile, as Europe's Muslim enclaves grew, Islamist extremists' infiltration of the EU would become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to the breaking point. An economic meltdown in China would plunge the Communist system into crisis, unleashing the centrifugal forces that undermined previous Chinese empires. Western investors would lose out and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of default abroad. The worst effects of the new Dark Age would be felt on the edges of the waning great powers. __The wealthiest ports of the global economy__ —from New York to Rotterdam to Shanghai— __would become__ the __targets__ of plunderers and pirates. With ease, terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers, aircraft carriers, and cruise liners, while Western nations frantically concentrated on making their airports secure. Meanwhile, __limited nuclear wars could devastate numerous regions, beginning in the Korean peninsula and Kashmir, perhaps ending catastrophically in the Middle East.__ In Latin America, wretchedly poor citizens would seek solace in Evangelical Christianity imported by U.S. religious orders. In Africa, __the great plagues of AIDS and malaria would continue their deadly work__. The few remaining solvent airlines would simply suspend services to many cities in these continents; who would wish to leave their privately guarded safe havens to go there? __For all these reasons, the prospect of an apolar world should frighten us__ today a great deal more than it frightened the heirs of Charlemagne. __If the United States retreats from global hegemony__ —its fragile self-image dented by minor setbacks on the imperial frontier— __its critics at home and abroad must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of multipolar harmony, or even a return to the good old balance of power__. Be careful what you wish for. __The alternative to unipolarity would not be multipolarity at all. It would be apolarity—a global vacuum of power. And far more dangerous forces than rival great powers would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder__. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** The impact is global nuclear war ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** KHALILZAD 1995 ** (Zalmay, RAND analyst and now U.S. ambassador to Iraq, The Washington Quarterly) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, __U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival__, __enabling the__ United States and the __world to avoid another global__ cold or hot __war and__ all the attendant dangers, including a __global nuclear exchange__. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Plan: the United States federal government should increase its investment in transportation infrastructure necessary to sustain a home port for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Naval Station Mayport. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** The plan is key to carrier basing at Mayport ** <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** FCN 6-14-2011 ** (House Passes Bill Including Mayport Carrier Money, http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/article/207690/0/House-Passes-Bill-Including-Mayport-Carrier-Money) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__A lot of work must take place before a carrier can again call Mayport home__. the __carriers__ newer than the USS John F. Kennedy __are larger and require more channel depth, meaning Mayport must be dredged, and__ the nuclear __fuel requires a significant upgrade to the wharf__ at Mayport. <span style="display: block; font-size: 7pt; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">Funds for both projects have been included in congressional bills since 2010, according to Crenshaw, totalling over $77 million. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__HR 2055__, which passed the House 411-5, __includes__ nearly $15 million for __transportation infrastructure improvements at Mayport and "funding, as, necessary," for future projects such as the maintenance wharf__ and controlled industrial facility. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">__If everything is fast-tracked, the earliest Mayport could see a carrier is estimated to be 2016__, though it could be as late as 2019. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Local industry is strong enough to support carrier basing <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;">** GAO 2011 ** (Government Accountability Office, “Subject: Defense Infrastructure: Ability of Ship Maintenance Industrial Base to Support a Nuclear Aircraft Carrier at Naval Station Mayport,” March 29, http://www.gao.gov/assets/100/97346.pdf) <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> Private ship repair firms in northeast Florida will likely be able to support the maintenance requirements of a nuclear aircraft carrier if one is homeported at Naval Station Mayport in 2019 as the Navy plans. Of the 20 surface ships currently homeported at Mayport, the Navy plans to decommission 12 guided-missile frigates between 2011 and 2015. According to the Navy, the total depot maintenance workload at Mayport has averaged 225,000 work days per year over the last several years. The Navy estimates that the decommissioning of the frigates will reduce this average workload by about 135,200 work days after all of the frigates have been decommissioned in 2015—a potential decrease of 60 percent if no other work is allocated to Mayport. According to private ship repair firm representatives, this decrease in workload will likely result in the loss of some jobs for ship repair firms in northeast Florida, but the Navy expects the private ship repair firms to be able to support a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in 2019 for five key reasons. • The Navy has implemented mitigation measures to offset the decreased workload, such as transferring the maintenance of three barges from Norfolk Naval Shipyard to Mayport. These measures will likely not fully offset the decreased workload, but the Navy has stated it is continuing to explore other mitigation options, such as the homeporting of some littoral combat ships.11 Additionally, the Navy expects the proposed homeporting of a nuclear aircraft carrier at Mayport in 2019 to further increase the workload at Mayport by an average of 28,800 work days per year. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • The northeast Florida area is home to three master ship repair firms certified by the Navy to have the capabilities and capacities to support the maintenance requirements of U.S. Navy surface ships, including aircraft carriers. Each of these firms has significant production and administrative facilities either on or near Naval Station Mayport, and officials from these firms told us they will maintain their presence in northeast Florida. Additionally, these private ship repair officials told us they have options by which they can adjust to fluctuations in workload. For example, two of the firms have ship repair personnel at other Navy homeports that could be used to supplement the firms’ workforces at Mayport during workload increases or used to transfer personnel during workload decreases. Similarly, there is a large transient, temporary ship repair workforce that can be used to supplement each of the ship repair firm’s full-time workforce as needed. Because of these options, private ship repair firm officials told us that although they are concerned over the projected decrease in workload, workload fluctuations are common in the ship repair industry and their firms would be able to withstand any lulls in workload at Mayport and that it would not impact their ability to support a nuclear carrier beginning in 2019. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • The tasks required of the private ship repair firms to support a nuclear carrier are the same as those performed on conventional carriers in the past and the other types of ships currently homeported at Mayport. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • Private ship repair firms in northeast Florida have previously demonstrated the ability to support carrier maintenance. In fact, the largest aircraft carrier availability ever performed outside of a public shipyard was completed on the USS John F. Kennedy in Mayport in 2003. <span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -40px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 5827px; width: 1px;"> • Finally, according to the Navy, the contracting strategy used with the private ship repair firms provides the firms with early visibility into the Navy’s maintenance planning, thus allowing the firms to appropriately size their workforces in anticipation of future workload.
 * 2NR**