Gfca Packet Cuba Negative Paper

GFCA Packet 2013-2014
Cuba Negative 1
Cuba Negative
Explanations
Debating the Cuba Affirmative ...................................................................................................................................... 2
1NC Case Frontlines

1NC Soft Power Advantage ........................................................................................................................................ 4 1NC Terrorism Advantage ......................................................................................................................................... 9 1NC Solvency Frontline ............................................................................................................................................ 12
2NC/1NR Soft Power Advantage

Extend: Latin American Relations Strong Now ......................................................................................................... 13 Extend: Other Policies Undermine Latin American Relations .................................................................................. 16 Extend: Soft Power Resilient ..................................................................................................................................... 18 Extend: Soft Power Decline Inevitable ...................................................................................................................... 19 Extend: No Impact To Soft Power ............................................................................................................................. 21
2NC/1NR Terrorism Advantage

Extend: Terror Threat Exaggerated .......................................................................................................................... 24 Extend: Iran Wont Sponsor Terrorism ...................................................................................................................... 26 Extend: Terror List Flawed ........................................................................................................................................ 27 Extend: No Nuclear Terrorism .................................................................................................................................. 28
2NC/1NR Solvency
Extend: Condition on Alan Gross .............................................................................................................................. 30
Cuba Negative 2
Debating the Cuba Affirmative (1/2)

Affirmative Description:
The affirmative proposes that the United States adopt a policy of constructive engagement with the Republic of Cuba. Specifically, the plan lifts the economic embargo on Cuba and removes Cuba from the State Department's List of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
Affirmative Advantages:
The affirmative claims two advantages. 1. Soft Power The affirmative argues that America's current containment policy toward Cuba undermines U.S. regional and global influence. Specifically, policy toward Cuba alienates potential allies in Latin America and weakens the U.S.'s ability to meet a variety of global challenges. 2. Terrorism The affirmative argues that enforcing restrictions on Cuba wastes resources that could be better invested fighting more urgent threats. Specifically, America's Cuba policy weakens its ability to address the challenge of global terrorism especially terrorism supported by Iran and perpetrated by Hezbollah.
Affirmative Timing:
Depending on time considerations, the affirmative can choose to introduce either the Soft Power Advantage, the Terrorism Advantage, or both. If necessary, the affirmative can also choose to eliminate the Latin American Relations portion of the Soft Power Advantage and only introduce the evidence about the effect of Cuba policy on global soft power. Unless absolutely necessary, the affirmative should also introduce the Solvency contention.
Negative Answers to Soft Power Advantage:

The negative can introduce a variety of arguments against the Soft Power Advantage. First, the negative argues that U.S.-Latin American relations are already strong because of cultural and economic ties. Second, the negative argues that to the extent that policies irritate relations, other policies are to blame. Third, the negative argues that soft power in Latin America is resilient and will never collapse. Fourth, the negative argues that overall U.S. soft power has been irreparably weakened by the economic downturn. Finally, the negative argues that soft power alone is useless and incapable of meeting global challenges.
Negative Answers to Terrorism Advantage:

The negative can introduce a variety of arguments against the Terrorism Advantage. First, the negative argues that the risk of global terrorism is exaggerated. Second, the negative argues that the State Department's Terror List will inevitably fail because of structural reasons. Third, the negative argues that Iran will not support terrorist attacks against the U.S. or provide terrorist organizations with access to nuclear materials. Finally, the negative argues that the risk of a nuclear terrorist attack is extraordinarily low.
Negative Answers to Solvency:

The negative challenges the affirmative's proposed policy toward Cuba by calling into question whether engagement should be unconditional. Specifically, the negative argues that engagement with Cuba should be conditioned on concessions by the Cuban government especially the release of Alan Gross, a U.S. citizen serving a prison term in Cuba.
Cuba Negative 3
Debating the Cuba Affirmative (2/2)

Key Terms:
Alan Gross: Alan Gross is an American citizen that is currently serving a lengthy prison term in Cuba. Gross was convicted of crimes against the state in 2011 after he brought satellite phones and computer equipment to members of Cuba's Jewish community without the required permit as part of a U.S. Agency for International Development program. The U.S. has demanded his release, but Cuba has refused. This is an important point of contention in the U.S.-Cuba relationship. In debates, the negative will argue that engagement with Cuba should not be initiated unless and until Cuba releases Gross. Embargo (General): An embargo is a ban on trade or other commercial activity with a particular country. Embargos are the strongest version of economic sanctions. Embargo (on Cuba): The United States has maintained an embargo on Cuba since 1960. The Cuban Democracy Act (1993) and the Helms-Burton Act (1996) officially codified the near total restrictions between the two countries. Engagement: Engagement is a foreign policy that uses positive incentives to influence the behavior of an adversary and improve bilateral relations. In the context of debate, the affirmative argues that the United States should adopt a policy of economic engagement toward the Republic of Cuba. Hezbollah: Hezbollah is an Islamic (Shi'a) militant group and political party based in Lebanon. It was founded during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and is largely funded by Iran. Many nations including the United States categorize Hezbollah as a terrorist group. In debates, the affirmative will argue that Hezbollah poses a far greater threat to the United States than does Cuba. Multilateralism: Multilateralism is a foreign policy strategy that relies on working together with other countries to address specific challenges. Instead of "going it alone," nations pursuing multilateralism act in concert with other nations to jointly address issues like climate change, environmental destruction, disease, and proliferation. In debates, the affirmative will argue that strong U.S. soft power and U.S.-Latin American relations facilitate more effective multilateralism. Office of Foreign Asset Control: The Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) is the agency of the U.S. government tasked with administering and enforcing economic and trade sanctions. In particular, OFAC administers and enforces the embargo on Cuba. In debates, the affirmative will argue that OFAC's resources should be focused on confronting global terrorism (especially Hezbollah and Iran), not on Cuba. Soft Power: Soft Power is an international relations concept that describes a nation's ability to attract and persuade other nations. Developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University, soft power is contrasted from the hard power of military force and coercion. In debates, the affirmative will argue that America's policy toward Cuba hurts its global soft power, undermining its ability to influence other countries to act in the U.S.'s interests. Terror List: "State Sponsors of Terrorism" is a designation that the U.S. Department of State applies to countries which have "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism." A list of countries with this designation is published each year; the current list includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Countries with this designation face severe economic sanctions. In debates, the affirmative will argue that Cuba should be removed from the list.
Cuba Negative 4
1NC Soft Power Advantage (1/5)

1. Latin American relations are strong their authors oversimplify. Duddy and Mora 13 Patrick Duddy, Visiting Senior Lecturer at Duke University, served as U.S. ambassador to
Venezuela from 2007 until 2010, and Frank O. Mora, incoming director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University, served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere from 2009 to 2013, 2013 (Latin America: Is U.S. influence waning?, Miami Herald, May 1st, Available Online at http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/01/3375160/latin-america-is-us-influence.html#storylink=cpy, Accessed 05-202013) Is U.S. influence in Latin America on the wane? It depends how you look at it. As President Obama travels to Mexico and Costa Rica, its likely the pundits will once again underscore what some perceive to be the eroding influence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. Some will point to the decline in foreign aid or the absence of an overarching policy with an inspiring moniker like Alliance for Progress or Enterprise Area of the Americas as evidence that the United States is failing to embrace the opportunities of a region that is more important to this country than ever. The reality is a lot more complicated. Forty-two percent of all U.S. exports flow to the Western Hemisphere. In many ways, U.S. engagement in the Americas is more pervasive than ever , even if more diffused. That is in part because the peoples of the Western Hemisphere are not waiting for governments to choreograph their interactions. A more-nuanced assessment inevitably will highlight the complex, multidimensional ties between the United States and the rest of the hemisphere. In fact, it may be that we need to change the way we think and talk about the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. We also need to resist the temptation to embrace overly reductive yardsticks for judging our standing in the hemisphere. As Moises Naim notes in his recent book, The End of Power, there has been an important change in power distribution in the world away from states toward an expanding and increasingly mobile set of actors that are dramatically shaping the nature and scope of global relationships. In Latin America, many of the most substantive and dynamic forms of engagement are occurring in a web of cross-national relationships involving small and large companies, people-to-people contact through student exchanges and social media, travel and migration. Trade and investment remain the most enduring and measurable dimensions of U.S. relations with the region. It is certainly the case that our economic interests alone would justify more U.S. attention to the region. Many observers who worry about declining U.S. influence in this area point to the rise of trade with China and the presence of European companies and investors. While it is true that other countries are important to the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean, it is also still true that the United States is by far the largest and most important economic partner of the region and trade is growing even with those countries with which we do not have free trade agreements . An area of immense importance to regional economies that we often overlook is the exponential growth in travel, tourism and migration . It is commonplace to note the enormous presence of foreign students in the United States but in 2011, according to the Institute of International Education, after Europe, Latin America was the second most popular destination for U.S. university students. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. tourists travel every year to Latin America and the Caribbean helping to support thousands of jobs. From 2006-2011 U.S. non-government organizations, such as churches, think tanks and universities increased the number of partnerships with their regional cohorts by a factor of four. Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean from the United States totaled $64 billion in 2012. Particularly for the smaller economies of Central America and the Caribbean these flows can sometimes constitute more than 10 percent of g ross d omestic p roduct.
Cuba Negative 5

2. Other policies undermine relations immigration and drugs. Lobe 12 Jim Lobe, Washington Bureau Chief of the international news agency Inter Press Service, holds a J.D. from
the University of California-Berkeley and a B.A. in History from Williams College, 2012 (U.S., Latin America Growing More Distant, Warns Think Tank, Inter Press Service, April 11th, Available Online at http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/04/us-latin-america-growing-more-distant-warns-think-tank/, Accessed 05-27-2013) Relations between the United States and Latin America have grown more distant in importance part due to the latters persistent disagreement with U.S. policies on immigration , drugs , and Cuba , according to a new report released here Wednesday on the eve of this years Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia. The United States must regain credibility in the region by dealing seriously with an unfinished agenda of problems , including immigration , drugs , and Cuba that stands in the way of a real partnership, according to Michael Shifter, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue (IAD).
3. Soft power in Latin America is resilient no risk of collapse. Duddy and Mora 13 Patrick Duddy, Visiting Senior Lecturer at Duke University, served as U.S. ambassador to
Venezuela from 2007 until 2010, and Frank O. Mora, incoming director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University, served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere from 2009 to 2013, 2013 (Latin America: Is U.S. influence waning?, Miami Herald, May 1st, Available Online at http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/01/3375160/latin-america-is-us-influence.html#storylink=cpy, Accessed 05-202013) Finally, one should not underestimate the resiliency of U.S. soft power in the region . The power of national reputation , popular culture , values and institutions continues to contribute to U.S. influence in ways that are difficult to measure and impossible to quantify. Example: Despite 14 years of strident anti-American rhetoric during the Chvez government, tens of thousand of Venezuelans apply for U.S. nonimmigrant visas every year, including many thousands of Chvez loyalists. Does this mean we can feel comfortable relegating U.S. relations with the hemisphere to the second or third tier of our international concerns? Certainly not. We have real and proliferating interests in the region. As the president and his team head to Mexico and Costa Rica, it is important to recognize the importance of our ties to the region. We have many individual national partners in the Americas. We dont need a new template for relations with the hemisphere as a whole or another grand U.S.-Latin America strategy. A greater commitment to work more intensely with the individual countries on the issues most relevant to them would be appropriate. The United States still has the economic and cultural heft in the region to play a fundamental role and to advance its own interests.
Cuba Negative 6

4. Decline of overall U.S. soft power is inevitable economic downturn. Neu 13 C. Richard Neu, Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation, holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard
University, 2013 (U.S. 'Soft Power' Abroad Is Losing Its Punch, The RAND Blog, February 8th, Available Online at http://www.rand.org/blog/2013/02/us-soft-power-abroad-is-losing-its-punch.html, Accessed 05-27-2013) The way America flexes it economic muscle around the world is changing dramatically and not necessarily for the better. In 1997, facing a wave of sovereign debt defaults, the International Monetary Fund asked its member states to pledge lines of credit to support Fund rescue efforts. The United States and other nations did as asked. In 2009, the United States responded again to a call for expanded credit lines. When the Fund sought yet another expansion of these credit lines last April, 39 countries, including China, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, India, and Saudi Arabia, stepped up. Even cashstrapped Italy and Spain pledged support. But the United States was conspicuously absent. A pledge from the United States requires congressional authorization. In the midst of last spring's contentious debate over U.S. government deficits and debts, support for an international body was a political nonstarter. Where the United States had previously demonstrated international leadership, other countriessome of them America's rivals for international influencenow make the running. This is a small example of what may be a troubling trend: America's fiscal predicament and the seeming inability of its political system to resolve these matters may be taking a toll on the instruments of U.S. soft power and on the country's ability to shape international developments in ways that serve American interests. The most potent instrument of U.S. soft power is probably the simple size of the U.S. economy . As the biggest economy in the world, America has a lot to say about how the world works. But the economics profession is beginning to understand that high levels of public debt can slow economic growth, especially when gross general government debt rises above 85 or 90 percent of GDP. The United States crossed that threshold in 2009, and the negative effects are probably mostly out in the future. These will come at a bad time. The U.S. share of global economic output has been falling since 1999by nearly 5 percentage points as of 2011. As America's GDP share declined, so did its share of world trade, which may reduce U.S. influence in setting the rules for international trade. And it's not just the debt itself that may be slowing GDP growth. Economists at Stanford and the University of Chicago have demonstrated that uncertainty about economic policyon the rise as a result of political squabbling over U.S. fiscal policytypically foreshadows slower economic growth. Investors may be growing skittish about U.S. government debt levels and the disordered state of U.S. fiscal policymaking. From the beginning of 2002, when U.S. government debt was at its most recent minimum as a share of GDP, to the end of 2012, the dollar lost 25 percent of its value, in price-adjusted terms, against a basket of the currencies of major trading partners. This may have been because investors fear that the only way out of the current debt problems will be future inflation. The dollar has also given up a bit of its dominance as the preferred currency for international reserves among advanced economies. And the renminbi appears to have replaced the dollar as the reference currency for most of East Asia. (The good news is that in recent years U.S. banks have increased their share of deposits from foreigners, mostly at the expense of banks in London.) More troubling for the future is that private domestic investmentthe fuel for future economic growthshows a strong negative correlation with government debt levels over several business cycles dating back to the late 1950s. Continuing high debt does not bode well in this regard. But perhaps the worst consequences of U.S. debt are actions not taken. [Continues No Text Removed]
Cuba Negative 7

[Continues No Text Removed] U.S. international leadership has been based, in part, on contributionspolitical and financialto major institutions and initiativesInternational Monetary Fund, World Bank, General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (and later World Trade Organization), NATO, North America Free Trade Agreement, the Marshall Plan, and so on. These served U.S. interests and made the world better. But what have we done lately? The Doha round of trade negotiations has stalled. Ditto efforts at coordinated international action on climate change. Countries of the Arab Spring need rebuilding. Little progress is apparent on the Transpacific Partnership, a proposed new free-trade area. And warnings from the U.S. treasury secretary to his European counterparts about the dangers of failing to resolve the fiscal crisis in the eurozone met with public rebukes: Get your own house in order before you lecture us. Have U.S. fiscal problems undermined America's self confidence and external credibility to the extent that it can no longer lead? And what about unmet needs at homehealthcare costs, a foundering public education system, deteriorating infrastructure, and increasing inequality? A strained fiscal situation that limits resources for action and absorbs so much political energy cannot be helping with any of these matters. But without progress on such things, what becomes of the social cohesion necessary for unified action abroad or the moral authority to lead other nations by example? America's fiscal predicament is serious . The problem has become obvious in the last few years, but it has been building for decades, largely the result of promises of extensive social benefits without a corresponding willingness to pay for them. Putting U.S. government financing on a sustainable path will require painful adjustments over a number of years increased government revenue and painful reductions in government outlays, almost certainly including outlays for defense and international affairs. During the necessary period of fiscal adjustment and constrained government resources, U.S. international influence may decline yet further . But there is no alternative to getting on with the task. The world has not yet found an acceptable substitute for U.S. leadership.
Cuba Negative 8

5. Soft power is useless empirically proven. Lacey 13 Jim Lacey, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Marine Corps War College, holds a Ph.D. in Military History
from Leeds University, 2013 (Soft Power, Smart Power, National Review Online, April 22nd, Available Online at http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346131/soft-power-smart-power, Accessed 05-27-2013) Well, soft power and smart power were fascinating intellectual exercises that led nowhere . Iran is still building nuclear weapons, North Korea is threatening to nuke U.S. cities, and China is becoming militarily more aggressive. It turns out that power is what it has always been the ability to influence and control others and deploying it requires, as it always has, hard instruments . Without superior military power and the economic strength that underpins it, the U.S. would have no more ability to influence global events than Costa Rica . When President Obama made the strategic decision to pivot toward Asia, he did not follow up by sending dance troupes to China, or opening more cultural centers across the Pacifics great expanse. Rather, he ordered the U.S. military to begin shifting assets into the region, so as to show the seriousness of our intent. If North Korea is dissuaded from the ultimate act of stupidity, it will have a lot more to do with our maintenance of ready military forces in the region than with any desire the North Korean regime has for a continuing flow of Hollywood movies. By now every serious strategist and policymaker understands that if the United States is going to continue influencing global events it requires hard power a military second to none. That is what makes a new report from the well-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute troubling. According to SIPRI, in 2012, Chinas real military spending increased by nearly 8 percent, while Russias increased by a whopping 16 percent. Worse, SIPRI expects both nations to increase spending by even greater percentages this year. The United States, on the other hand, decreased real spending by 6 percent last year, with much larger cuts on the way. After a decade of war, much of our military equipment is simply worn out and in need of immediate replacement. Moreover, technologys rapid advance continues, threatening much of our current weapons inventory with obsolescence. As much as the utopians (soft-power believers) want to deny it, American power is weakening even as the world becomes progressively less stable and more dangerous. In a world where too many states are led by men who still believe Maos dictum that Power comes from the barrel of a gun, weakness is dangerous. Weakness is also a choice. The United States, despite our current economic woes, can easily afford the cost of recapitalizing and maintaining our military. We are not even close to spending levels that would lead one to worry about imperial overstretch. Rather, our long-term security is being eaten up so as to fund entitlement overstretch. I suppose that one day, if left unchecked, the welfare state will absorb so much spending that the only military we can afford will be a shadow of what has protected us for the past seven decades. Soft power will then cease to be one option among many and, instead, become our only choice. We will become as relevant to the rest of the world as Europe . I wonder how many people realize just how different their daily lives will become if that day arrives. For a long time, American hard power has cast a protective shield around the liberal world order. It will not be pretty when that is gone.
Cuba Negative 9
1NC Terrorism Advantage (1/3)

1. Terror threat exaggerated best studies prove. Zakaria 13 Fareed Zakaria, Columnist for Newsweek and Editor of Newsweek International, holds a Ph.D. in Political
Science from Harvard University 2013 (The future of the terrorist threat to America, Global Public SquareFareed Zakarias CNN blog, May 10th, http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/10/the-future-of-the-terrorist-threatto-america/, Accessed 07-20-2013) And one final point just some facts. The National Counterterrorism Center released its annual report last June. It showed that attacks worldwide had dropped by 12 percent from 2010 and were down 29 percent from 2007. The Global Terrorism Index, also released last year, systematically ranks countries by levels of terrorist incidents. Over the ten year period it analyzed, 2002-2011, the region least likely to suffer from a terrorist attack was North America. The fact is that the most comprehensive studies show that terrorism was declining in the United States even in 2001 and it dropped even more sharply after 9/11. The historian John Mueller has pointed out that more Americans die in their bathtubs every year than are killed by terrorists. The emotions generated by terrorist attacks are raw and intense. But it is essential moving forward that we are still able to have a rational discussion , grounded in facts , if we are to have any chance of keeping the country safe in the future.
2. Terror List inevitably fails structurally flawed. Beehner 8 Lionel Beehner, Fellow with the Truman National Security Project, former Senior Staff Writer at the
Council on Foreign Relations, holds an M.A. from Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Yale University, 2008 (What good is a terrorism list?, Los Angeles Times, October 20th, Available Online at http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/20/opinion/oe-beehner20, Accessed 07-20-2013) The State Department's list of "state sponsors of terrorism" is one of the biggest farces of U.S. foreign policy. Started in 1979 for nations designated by the secretary of State "to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism," the rationale behind the list is far from any high moral purpose to rid the world of terrorism. This blacklist exists solely to punish our enemies, not to cajole them to stop sponsoring terrorists. Landing on it places limits on the size and scope of arms, economic aid and other financial transactions a country can have with American citizens. By promising to remove a country from it, we dangle a carrot in front of the North Koreas and Libyas of the world to try to exact behavioral change and wrest concessions. Although that may be a useful tool in theory , it ignores the need to work with our international allies to apply pressure on these states and does not tackle the socioeconomic causes of why terrorism takes root in the first place.
Cuba Negative 10

3. Iran wont act aggressively or supply terrorists not in their self-interest. Waltz 12 Kenneth N. Waltz, Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia
University, Ford Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley, former President of the American Political Science Association and a recipient of its James Madison Award for Distinguished Scholarly Contributions to Political Science, 2012 (Why Iran Should Get the Bomb: Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability, Foreign Affairs, July/August, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Lexis-Nexis) Nevertheless, even some observers and policymakers who accept that the Iranian regime is rational still worry that a nuclear weapon would embolden it, providing Tehran with a shield that would allow it to act more aggressively and increase its support for terrorism. Some analysts even fear that Iran would directly provide terrorists with nuclear arms. The problem with these concerns is that they contradict the record of every other nuclear weapons state going back to 1945 . History shows that when countries acquire the bomb, they feel increasingly vulnerable and become acutely aware that their nuclear weapons make them a potential target in the eyes of major powers. This awareness discourages nuclear states from bold and aggressive action. Maoist China, for example, became much less bellicose after acquiring nuclear weapons in 1964, and India and Pakistan have both become more cautious since going nuclear. There is little reason to believe Iran would break this mold . As for the risk of a handoff to terrorists, no country could transfer nuclear weapons without running a high risk of being found out. U.S. surveillance capabilities would pose a serious obstacle , as would the United States' impressive and growing ability to identify the source of fissile material. Moreover, countries can never entirely control or even predict the behavior of the terrorist groups they sponsor. Once a country such as Iran acquires a nuclear capability, it will have every reason to maintain full control over its arsenal. After all, building a bomb is costly and dangerous . It would make little sense to transfer the product of that investment to parties that cannot be trusted or managed.
10
Cuba Negative 11

4. Very low risk of nuclear terrorism. Mueller and Stewart 12 John Mueller, Senior Research Scientist at the Mershon Center for International Security
Studies and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science at Ohio State University, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, and Mark G. Stewart, Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow and Professor and Director at the Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at the University of Newcastle (Australia), 2012 (The Terrorism Delusion: Americas Overwrought Response to September 11, International Security, Volume 37, Number 1, Summer, Available Online at http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller//absisfin.pdf, Accessed 01-30-2013, p. 97-98) Over the course of time, such essentially delusionary thinking has been internalized and institutionalized in a great many ways. For example, an extrapolation of delusionary proportions is evident in the common observation that, because terrorists were able, mostly by thuggish means, to crash airplanes into buildings, they might therefore be able to construct a nuclear bomb. Brian [end page 97] Jenkins has run an internet search to discover how often variants of the term al-Qaida appeared within ten words of nuclear. There were only seven hits in 1999 and eleven in 2000, but the number soared to 1,742 in 2001 and to 2,931 in 2002. 47 By 2008, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was assuring a congressional committee that what keeps every senior government leader awake at night is the thought of a terrorist ending up with a weapon of mass destruction, especially nuclear. 48 Few of the sleepless, it seems, found much solace in the fact that an al-Qaida computer seized in Afghanistan in 2001 indicated that the groups budget for research on weapons of mass destruction (almost all of it focused on primitive chemical weapons work) was $2,000 to $4,000 . 49 In the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, officials now have many more al-Qaida computers, and nothing in their content appears to suggest that the group had the time or inclination, let alone the money , to set up and staff a uranium-seizing operation, as well as a fancy, super-hightechnology facility to fabricate a bomb. This is a process that requires trusting corrupted foreign collaborators and other criminals, obtaining and transporting highly guarded material, setting up a machine shop staffed with top scientists and technicians, and rolling the heavy, cumbersome, and untested finished product into position to be detonated by a skilled crewall while attracting no attention from outsiders . 50 If the miscreants in the American cases have been unable to create and set off even the simplest conventional bombs, it stands to reason that none of them were very close to creating, or having anything to do with, nuclear weapons or for that matter biological, radiological, or chemical ones. In fact, with perhaps one exception, none seems to have even dreamed of the prospect; and the exception is Jos Padilla (case 2), who apparently mused at one point about creating a dirty bomba device that would disperse radiationor even possibly an atomic one. His idea about isotope separation was to put uranium into a pail and then to make himself into a human centrifuge by swinging the pail around in great arcs. 51
11
Cuba Negative 12
1NC Solvency Frontline (1/1)

1. Unconditional engagement fails the U.S. should demand concessions from Cuba including the release of Alan Gross before engaging. Lopez 13 Vanessa Lopez, Research Associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the
University of Miami, J.D. Candidate at Emory University, 2013 (The Failure of U.S. Attempts at Unilateral Rapprochement with Cuba, Focus on Cuba, Issue 187, March 25th, Available Online at http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FOCUS_Web/Issue187.htm, Accessed 07-21-2013) Obama entered the Oval Office having made promises to liberalize Cuba policy. His Administration swiftly lifted restrictions on Cuban-American travel to Cuba as well as remittances sent to the island. Cuba's response was to arrest a U.S. citizen . Alan Gross was working as a USAID subcontractor, providing Jewish groups in the island with communications equipment. He was tried and sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban jail. The U.S. government said Gross's incarceration would prevent further liberalization. Various notable personalities have travelled to Cuba seeking Gross's release, including President Jimmy Carter and Governor Bill Richardson, but these efforts have all failed. Despite Grosss continued incarceration, in 2011, Obama also liberalized people-to-people travel, allowing more university, religious, and cultural programs to travel to Cuba. History demonstrates that unilateral U.S. efforts have had, and are having, no impact on Cuba's leadership. On the contrary, the Cuban government has interpreted U.S. openings towards Cuba as signs of weakness , which have resulted in Cuba's hostility towards the U.S. and in some instances, in reckless actions such as Mariel and the Balsero Crisis. Improved relations between the U.S. and Cuba is a laudable goal, but to be successful, Cuba must be a willing participant. Cuba has an unambiguous pattern of harming U.S. interests when the U.S. has engaged in attempts of unilateral rapprochement . If the U.S. would like to protect its interests, it should demand that Cuba take the first step in any future efforts to improve relations between the two countries and offer irreversible concessions .
12
Cuba Negative 13
Extend: Latin American Relations Strong Now (1/3)

U.S.-Latin American relations are strong their authors misunderstand the nature of power. Ben-Ami 13 Shlomo Ben-Ami, Vice President of the Toledo International Center for Peace, former Israeli foreign
minister and internal security minister, holds a D.Phil. in History from St Antonys College at Oxford University, 2013 (Is the US Losing Latin America?, Project Syndicate, June 5th, Available Online at http://www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/the-new-nature-of-us-influence-in-latin-america-by-shlomo-ben-ami, Accessed 06-11-2013) It is a mantra increasingly heard around the world: US power is in decline. And nowhere does this seem truer than in Latin America. No longer is the region regarded as Americas backyard; on the contrary, the continent has arguably never been so united and independent. But this view fails to capture the true nature of US influence in Latin America and elsewhere as well.
It is true that US attention to Latin America has waned in recent years. President George W. Bush was more focused on his gl obal war on terror. His successor, Barack Obama, seemed to give the region little thought as well, at le ast in his first term. Indeed, at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena in April 2012, Latin American leaders felt sufficiently confident and united to challenge US priorities in the region. They urged the US to lift its embargo on Cuba, claiming that it had damaged relations with the rest of the continent, and to do more to combat drug use on its own turf, through education and social work, rather than supplying arms to fight the drug lords in Latin America a battle that all acknowledged has been an utter failure. It is also true that Latin American countries have pursued a massive expansion of economic ties beyond Americas sway. China is now Latin Americas second-largest trading partner and rapidly closing the gap with the US. India is showing keen interest in the regions energy industry, and has signed export agreements in the defense sector. Iran has strengthened its economic and mili tary ties, especially in Venezuela. Similarly, in 2008, Russias then-President Dmitri Medvedev identified the US war on terror as an opportunity to create strategic partnerships with rising powers such as Brazil, and with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), a Venezuelan-inspired bloc opposed to US designs in the region. The energy giant Gazprom and the cou ntrys military industries have spearheaded the Kremlins effort to demonstrate Russias ability to influence Americas neighborhood a direct response to perceived American meddling in Russias own near abroad, particularly Georgia and Ukraine.
Yet it would be a mistake to regard Latin Americas broadening international relations as marking the end of US preeminence. Unlike in the bygone era of superpowers and captive nations, American influence can no longer be defined by the ability to install and depose leaders from the US embassy. To believe otherwise is to ignore how international politics has changed over the last quarter-century. A continent once afflicted by military takeovers has slowly but surely implanted stable democracies. Responsible economic management, poverty-reduction programs, structural reforms, and greater openness to foreign investment have all helped to generate years of low-inflation growth. As a result, the region was able to withstand the ravages of the global financial crisis. The US not only encouraged these changes, but has benefited hugely from them. More than 40% of US exports now go to Mexico and Central and South America, the USs fastest-growing export destination. Mexico is Americas secondlargest foreign market (valued at $215 billion in 2012). US exports to Central America have risen by 94% over the past six years; imports from the region have risen by 87% . And the US continues to be the largest foreign investor on the continent. American interests are evidently well served by having democratic, stable, and increasingly prosperous neighbors. This new reality also demands a different type of diplomacy one that recognizes the diverse interests of the continent. For example, an emerging power such as Brazil wants more respect on the world stage. Obama blundered when he dismissed a 2010 deal on Irans nuclear program mediated by Brazil and Turkey (despite having earlier endorsed the talks). Other countries might benefit from US efforts to promote democracy and socioeconomic ties, as Obamas recent trips to Mexico and Costa Rica show. [Continues No Text Removed]
13
Cuba Negative 14

[Continues No Text Removed] Trade relations provide an other all-important lever . President Sebastian Piera of Chile visited the White House earlier this week to discuss, among other things, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an ambitious trade agreement that might encompass New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Mexico, Canada, and Japan. President Ollanta Humala of Peru is expected in the White House next week, while Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Latin America soon after. Language and culture matter, too. Given the extraordinary growth of Latinos influence in the US, it is almost inconceivable that America could lose its unique status in the region to China or Russia, let alone Iran. Gone are the days when military muscle and the politics of subversion could secure US influence in Latin America or anywhere else. A world power today is one that can combine economic vigor and a popular culture with global outreach on the basis of shared interests . The US is better positioned than any other power in this respect, particularly when it comes to applying these advantages in its immediate vicinity .
14
Cuba Negative 15

Engagement with Latin America is high now. Padgett 13 Tim Padgett, Americas correspondent covering Latin America and the Caribbean for WLRN-Miami
Herald News, has covered Latin America for almost 25 years for Newsweek as its Mexico City bureau chief and for Time as its Latin America bureau chief, 2013 (Why China Is Behind Fresh U.S. Moves In Latin America, WLRN, May 27th, Available Online at http://wlrn.org/post/why-china-behind-fresh-us-moves-latin-america, Accessed 05-27-2013) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will visit Colombia, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago next week. President Obama already swung through Mexico and Costa Rica this month and next month Obama will host the presidents of Chile and Peru at the White House. Has the Obama Administration finally discovered Latin America and the Caribbean? After a first term marked largely by indifference to the region, is the U.S. poised for what Biden is calling the most active stretch of high-level engagement on Latin America in a long, long time -- one that could also be a boon to Miamis economy? If so, theres probably one word that sums up Washingtons sudden interest in the world to the south, and its located in the far east: China. Make no mistake, the U.S. is still Latin Americas chief trading partner . In fact, total commerce between the two hit a record trillion dollars last year. Still, after a decade of economic boom in Latin America, U.S. influence in the western hemisphere
is in serious decline -- and China, the U.S.'s biggest economic rival, has been eager to fill the void. In 2000, for example, Chinas trade with Latin America was less than $10 billion; today it tops $200 billion, according to Beijing, and Chinas investment in the region is burgeoning as well. For Washingtons part, business with Latin America and the Caribbean as a share of total U.S. trade has actually dropped over the past decade. In 1995, the U.S. sent Brazil, Latin Americas largest economy and now the worlds sixth largest, more than a fifth of that countrys imports; today its about 15% -- less than the share China sent to Brazil. Back then the U.S. accounted for 37% of Brazils foreig n investment; today its a tenth -- again, less than Chinas share.
A trade and investment gathering in Miami Beach this month hosted by the Colombian Proexport Agency drew a larger than usual crowd thanks in no small part to the buzz about renewed U.S. outreach to Latin America and the Caribbean. As a result, the Obama Administration may be more eager than usual to re-engage Latin America and the Caribbean . The Presidents aides argue he was preoccupied with U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in his first t erm, not to mention the Arab Spring; but now that so many Latin American countries have become global economic players , say analysts, he understands that strengthening ties with them helps the U.S. as well. The Administration suddenly realizes there is now an economic power broker element in Latin America, says Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy and the Americas Society and Council of the Americas in New York.
15
Cuba Negative 16
Extend: Other Policies Undermine Latin American Relations (1/2)

Immigration reform and drug policies undermine U.S.-Latin American relations. Lobe 12 Jim Lobe, Washington Bureau Chief of the international news agency Inter Press Service, holds a J.D. from
the University of California-Berkeley and a B.A. in History from Williams College, 2012 (U.S., Latin America Growing More Distant, Warns Think Tank, Inter Press Service, April 11th, Available Online at http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/04/us-latin-america-growing-more-distant-warns-think-tank/, Accessed 05-27-2013) As a result, (m)ost countries of the (Latin American) region view the United States as less and less relevant to their needs and with declining capacity to propose and carry out strategies to deal with the issues that most concern them, it said. Moreover, Washingtons failure to deal effectively with three longstanding irritants to inter-American relations immigration , drug policy , and Cuba has hardly helped, the report noted. The report noted that Washingtons failure to achieve meaningful immigration reform the result, to a great extent, of its increasingly divisive politics is breeding resentment across the region , nowhere more so than in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Recent signs that immigration from Mexico, in particular, has levelled off should, according to the report, offer an opportunity for U.S. policy makers to revise their views. On drugs, the report called it critical that Washington respond to growing calls by Latin American leaders, most recently by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, and Guatemalas new president, Otto Perez, to consider alternative strategies, such as regulated legalisation of marijuana and decriminalisation of mere possession of certain drugs.
16
Cuba Negative 17
Extend: Other Policies Undermine Latin American Relations (2/2)

The plan is not sufficient to solve anti-Americanism is too entrenched. Boniface and Azpuru 13 Dexter Boniface, Weddell Chair of the Americas, Associate Professor of Political Science,
and Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at Rollins College, former Research Fellow at the Center for Inter-American Studies and Programs at the Instituto Tecnolgico Autnomo de Mxico, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Dinorah Azpuru, Associate Professor of Political Science at Wichita State University, former Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science and Research Coordinator of the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh, 2013 (U.S.-Latin America Relations in the Post-Chvez Era, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs at Tufts University, March 26th, Available Online at http://www.fletcherforum.org/2013/03/26/boniface_azpuru/, Accessed 05-27-2013) Hugo Chvez, the most outspoken anti-American leader in the Western Hemisphere in recent years, is forever gone. During his fourteen years in power in Venezuela, Chvez made anti-imperialism one of the cornerstones of his discourseeven as the United States continued to be one of the most important markets for Venezuelan oil. His antiimperialism went beyond rhetoric. Chvez disrupted diplomatic relations with the United States, embarked on a crusade to unite Latin America through the creation of alternative organizations such as the left-wing Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), and attempted to undermine the influence of traditional inter-American institutions such as the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Chvez also reached out to extrahemispheric actors such as China, Russia, and even Iran. Now that Chvez has passed, U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle have expressed hope that relations between Venezuela and the United States, as well as relations between the U.S. and Latin America more generally, will improve. Yet the prospects for improved relations may be dimmer than U.S. policymakers appreciate. One of the first issues to consider, though too often forgotten, is history . The United States and Latin America have long had a rocky relationship , and Chvez was not the first leader to express his disgust at the influence of the U nited States in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, while anti-Americanism has long been a staple of the left in Latin America, even conservative elites have historically resented and resisted imposition from Washington. Distrust of the U nited States remains extensive in several countries in the regionand not only in countries where the president is an outspoken critic of the United States. For example, 2012 survey data from the AmericasBarometer demonstrates that in countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Uruguay, over forty percent of the population does not trust the U.S. government, though distrust is low in Central America and the Caribbean (see chart below). Although the torch of anti-Americanism will not automatically be transferred from Chvez to one of the other ALBA presidents (Correa in Ecuador, Morales in Bolivia, Ortega in Nicaragua, or Ral Castro in Cuba), these presidents are not likely to soften their anti-American discourse anytime soon . In fact, they will likely continue to exploit anti-American sentiments as part of what appears to be a highly effective domestic political strategy. Furthermore, if acting Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro is elected next month (as polls currently predict), his recent allegations that Chvez was infected with cancer by imperialist enemies certainly do not bode well for an improved relationship with the United States.
17
Cuba Negative 18
Extend: Soft Power Resilient (1/1)

Soft power with Latin America is inevitable and resilient. Alvarado 13 Liza Torres Alvarado, former diplomat in the Mission of Venezuela to the Organization of American
States, 2013 (The U.S. Must Re-evaluate its Foreign Policy in Latin America, Diplomatic Courier, May 13th, Available Online at http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/regions/latin-america/1457, Accessed 05-27-2013) Although there has been a decline in U.S. influence in the region, its presence is still there . In Venezuela, for example, U.S. oil companies have seen their actions limited, yet they still operate there. The United States is Venezuelas top commercial partner, as Venezuela supplies 12 percent of U.S. oil imports. Relations between the United States and Latin America have experienced cyclical ups and downs . Geographically, the United States and Latin America are linked and have a natural shared market , so there will always be a relationship of one sort or another . The United States will continue to seek to exert its influence over the region, whether through future plans for the placement of military bases or the promotion of bilateral trade agreements.
Shared interests and deep connections ensure continued U.S. soft power. Sabatini 13 Christopher Sabatini, Adjunct Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia
University, Editor-in-Chief of Americas Quarterly and Senior Director of Policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas, former Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the National Endowment for Democracy, holds Ph.D. in Government from the University of Virginia, 2013 (Will Latin America Miss U.S. Hegemony?, Journal of International Affairs, Volume 66, Issue 2, Spring/Summer, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via EBSCOhost Academic Search Complete, p. 11-12) Here, we turn to the last two provocative sources of soft power: moral leadership and aspirational leadership. While the United States may have cloaked national interests in the rhetoric of shared principles, there have been timessuch as those discussed earlierwhen its actions have helped to ensure positive political change and the reinforcement of human rights norms and standards in the region. The call of a common history , of democratic independence , and of a shared commitment to government by the people, while hard to quantify, remains powerful . Even those who have established themselves as opposed to U.S. influence and democracy, such as Presidents Chavez and Morales, defined their movements and governments as expressions of democratic participation and inclusion in the region. And as the United States advances its own processes of democratic inclusionin areas of race, gender, or sexual orientationits efforts remain an inspiration and source of support for citizens in these countries. U.S. leadership on issues of civil rights, gender equality, and more recently lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LCBT) rights have helped to give voice to once-discriminated groups and have [end page 11] pressured governments directly and indirectly into addressing those concerns. Similarly, the aspirational aspect of U.S. power remains strong . Whether it is the desire to immigrate to seek work or to pursue higher education in the United States, the ineffable allure of the "colossus of the north" remains important . And, as personal ties between the United States and Latin America growthrough immigration, culture, education, and integrationso too will the importance of people's sense of personal and cultural connection to the U nited S tates.
18
Cuba Negative 19
Extend: Soft Power Decline Inevitable (1/2)

The plan is not sufficient to rehabilitate U.S. global soft power its too far gone. Hadas 12 Edward Hadas, Economics Editor at Reuters Breakingviews, Columnist at Reuters, teaches Political
Philosophy at the Maryvale Institute, holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Oxford and an MBA from the State University of New York, 2012 (Has the United States Lost Its Power to Peacefully Coerce Other Nations?, Breakingviewsa Reuters blog, November 19th, Available Online at http://www.slate.com/blogs/breakingviews/2012/11/19/the_disappearance_of_soft_power_has_the_united_states_lo st_its_power_to.html, Accessed 05-27-2013) Soft power is proving to be priceless - and scarce . The United States may not have lost much power to coerce but its power to co-opt has weakened . Despite the claims of a new study, no country has taken its place. The soft power vacuum makes the world a little more risky. The ancient Romans, the early Muslims, Napoleons France and the Britain of industry and empire were all long gone by 1990 when political scientist Joseph Nye introduced the term soft power to describe Americas ability to influence foreign countries without military or commercial pressure. All these powers had a certain something - a persuasive worldview, a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of destiny - that made the available brute force more palatable and powerful. Nye thought the appeal of the U.S. way of life would help set the global and regional political-economic agendas. For a while, he was at least partly right. The Washington consensus guided economic policy in many developing countries, U.S.-style secular democracy was considered the global standard and many admired the American vision of big finance and small government. The United States is still emulated, but is also now increasingly distrusted . Whether the reason is some nebulous domestic loss of spirit , foolish foreign policy , the financial crisis or something else , the country is probably held in lower esteem internationally than at any time since the isolationist and Depression-struck 1930s .
19
Cuba Negative 20
Extend: Soft Power Decline Inevitable (2/2)

Economic weakness undermines soft power. Aaronson 8 Susan Aaronson, Associate Research Professor of International Affairs in the Elliott School of
International Affairs and the School of Business at the George Washington University, holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, 2008 (Financial Crisis Hurts U.S. Soft Power, Policy Innovations, October 28th, Available Online at http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/000090, Accessed 05-27-2013) Many of my students come from foreign countries and have strong opinions about America's role in the world. As the discussion continued, I realized that the financial crisis would have an additional unforeseen effect. The United States could lose much of its ability to influence the behavior of other nations without using coercion or forceso-called soft power. Much of that soft power is rooted in U.S. economic prowess. First, America's global standing is, to a great extent, reflective of how it projects its power, relates to other countries, and keeps its commitments to them. If the global financial meltdown makes life worse for the world's poor, many people may link the U.S. model of democratic capitalism with global misery. They may be less receptive to economic and political strategies presented by U.S. diplomats and NGOs. Meanwhile, the financial crisis will make American taxpayers less able to provide generous levels of foreign aid to help the world's poor . Second, although many countries will be desperate for investment, U.S. investors could come under considerable pressure to create jobs at home. U.S. tax policy is likely to favor domestic job creation and investment in the U.S. market. Meanwhile, U.S. investors may be less welcome abroad than, for example, Chinese or Indian investors Americans and Europeans are more likely to demand transparency, accountability, and human rights. Finally, the United States, like the European Union, has long used the incentive of its large market to prod other nations to change their behavior. With a shrunken economy, America will be less able to use trade policy to advance good governance. For example, the U.S. preference program that benefits some 140 developing countries requires participants to protect labor rights and improve the rule of law. In recent years, the United States used free-trade agreements with Oman, Jordan, and Bahrain to promote democracy and good governance in the Middle East; and used a trade ban with South Africa to encourage the end of apartheid.
20
Cuba Negative 21
Extend: No Impact To Soft Power (1/2)

Soft power is useless and undermines maintenance of necessary hard power. Ford 12 Christopher A. Ford, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, served in a variety of positions during the George
W. Bush Administration including Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and U.S. Special Representative for Nuclear Non-proliferation, holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Oxford University, 2012 (Soft on Soft Power, SAIS Review, Volume 32, Number 1, Winter-Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Project MUSE, p. 104105) From a U.S. perspective, it seems that the romanticized conception of soft power entails considerable opportunity costs . At an extreme, enthusiasm about the virtues and possibilities of softness can lead to atrophy of the policymaking process . After all, if one assumes that ones values or modes of political or economic organization are so powerful that they will in time triumph all of their own, there is little reason to pay attention to policymaking. Assuming that soft power works without having to manipulate anything in a deliberate fashion is akin to assuming that some socio-cultural deus ex machina will intervene to make everything right without having actually to develop, articulate, and implement real policy. One can perhaps see soft power theory as being a contributor to the Obama Administrations distaste for having to make difficult moral choices and face challenging trade-offs in foreign and national security policy. If simply relying upon the attraction of our values will produce a better world all by itself, for example, why go to the trouble of assuring allies of the strength of U.S. security guarantees, reducing the role nuclear weapons play in American security strategy, and slashing conventional military budgets? Through a prism that claims to rely on soft power as a quasi-substitute for reliance upon other types of power, such security trade-offs do not have to be made or can be dismissed as unreal, or false choices. The soft power of American values, moral authority, and overseas socio-cultural ubiquity will assure triumph in the end either way. Perhaps in part because of President Obamas seeming faith that all manner of policy issues would magically sort themselves out after, or simply because, he had arrived in the White House to model change, the rhetorical device of the false choice quickly became one of the signature tropes of his presidency. As Ruth Marcus has pointed out, the presidents use of this phrasein discussing issues as diverse as financial reform, environmental regulation, defense contracting, civil liberties, crime policy, health care, Iraq, Native Americans, the space program, and Libyaseemed designed to encourage listeners to confuse facing hard choices with not having to make them at all.61 This line of thinking is manifested in contemporary U.S. foreign policy perhaps more than anywhere else: by being soft, we could achieve our interests without having to face the expense, anxieties, and tough decisions involved in maintaining and exercising more traditional aspects of national power. Such passivity can be costly in a complicated and unpredictable world, however, especially given the considerable historical dependence of statecraft upon hard capabilities. It would no doubt be wonderful to believe that freedom and prosperity were enough to ensure their own survival and perpetuation, [end page 104] but what if this is not always so? If faith in the all-vanquishing power of soft power leads one to neglect the maintenance of hard power as the world sometimes require, that faith must be regarded as maladaptive .
21
Cuba Negative 22
Extend: No Impact To Soft Power (1/2)

Soft power wont reduce anti-Americanism it doesnt alter international perceptions. Layne 10 Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security at the George Bush School
of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, former professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the University of Miami, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley, an LL.M. from the University of Virginia Law School, a J.D. from the University of Southern California Law Center, and a Diploma in Historical Studies from Corpus Christi College at the University of Cambridge, 2010 (The unbearable lightness of soft power, Soft Power and US Foreign Policy: Theoretical, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Edited by Inderjeet Parmar and Michael Cox, Published by Routledge, ISBN 020385649X, p. 61-62) Prophylactic multilateralism cannot inoculate the USA from counter-hegemonic balancing. The reality of the USA's enormous power cannot be hidden by the veil of multilateralism. Moreover, what the feisty Brooklyn Dodger Manager Leo Durocher said about baseball is also true in international politics: nice guys finish last . The USA did not attain hegemony by being nice, but rather by assertively and often aggressively using its power. Although the USA may employ a discourse that professes its regard for others' interests and a commitment to multilateralism, whenever it chooses to do so it can use its power unilaterally to others' detriment. If other states did not understand this before (though many of them did), the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq dispelled any remaining illusions on this point. For much of the world, the invasion shattered one of the most important foundations upon which the notion of benevolent US hegemony is based: the perception that the United States is a status quo power. Since the Cold War's end, notes Walt (2005: 23), 'The United States has not acted as a "status quo" power: rather, it has used its position of primacy to increase its influence, to enhance its position vis-a-vis potential rivals, and to deal with specific security threats' (see also Sestanovich 2005). The claim of soft power proponents that the USA until the George W. Bush administration preferred to act multilaterally is a myth not fact. Although that administration was more inept diplomatically than many of its predecessors, the substance of its policy was the same: the USA acts multilaterally when it can (i.e. when others support US policies), and unilaterally when it decides that it must, which is much of the time.18 Following World War II, the USA created a web of security and economic institutions to solidify its hegemony in the non-Soviet world and promote its grand strategic ambitions. Some scholars John Ikenberry (2000) is a leading example depict this as an example of benevolent US soft power, but the USA undertook these policies to advance its hard power geopolitical interests. Specifically, it did so to avail itself of its allies' strategic resources (and keep them from drifting into the Soviet sphere). However, the USA never intended that it should itself be constrained by these institutions and it seldom has been.19 All post-1945 US administrations 'have believed that the only way' the USA could attain its most critical grand strategic goals 'was to keep others from having too much influence' on its policies (Sestanovich 2005: 13). In the Suez, Berlin and Cuban missile crises, and during the Vietnam War, the USA acted unilaterally. Similarly, according to Stephen Sestanovich, it also did during the Euromissile crisis of the early 1980s and during the negotiations on German reunification.20 And although the US-led NATO interventions in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 may have appeared to be and certainly were depicted rhetorically by Washington as multilateral actions, they were not. As Walt (2005: 46) observes, [end page 61] 'America's European allies complained during both episodes, but could do little to stop the United States from imposing its preferences upon them'. In truth, whenever they felt that US interests required doing so, preceding administrations acted no less unilaterally than did the Bush administration in deciding (foolishly) to invade Iraq in March 2003.21 There is no compelling reason to believe that multilateralism legitimizes US hegemony. There is a big gap between the way soft power advocates depict American foreign policy behaviour and the way the USA actually acts . Other states know that the USA (like all dominant great powers) habitually acts unilaterally when it feels that its interests require it to do so. Hence, they are unlikely to be reassured that US hegemonic power is benign. In other words, soft power is not very effective as means of preventing other states from opposing the policies of a hegemonic USA.
22
Cuba Negative 23
23
Cuba Negative 24
Extend: Terror Threat Exaggerated (1/2)

Operational difficulties prevent successful terrorism their authors exaggerate the risk. Schneier 10 Bruce Schneier, internationally renowned security technologist who was described by The Economist
as a Security Guru, currently works as the Chief Security Technology Officer for BTa global telecommunications services company, holds an M.A. in Computer Science from American University, 2010 (Where Are All the Terrorist Attacks?, AOL News, May 4th, Available Online at http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-why-arent-theremore-times-square-style-terrorist-attacks/19463843, Accessed 10-01-2010) Hard to Pull Off Terrorism sounds easy, but the actual attack is the easiest part. Putting together the people , the plot and the materials is hard . It's hard to sneak terrorists into the U.S. It's hard to grow your own inside the U.S. It's hard to operate; the general population, even the Muslim population, is against you. Movies and television make terrorist plots look easier than they are . It's hard to hold conspiracies together. It's easy to make a mistake. Even 9/11, which was planned before the climate of fear that event engendered, just barely succeeded. Today, it's much harder to pull something like that off without slipping up and getting arrested .
24
Cuba Negative 25
Extend: Terror Threat Exaggerated (1/2)

Minimal terror risk a comprehensive study of post-9/11 terrorists proves they arent good enough to complete successful attacks. Mueller and Stewart 12 John Mueller, Senior Research Scientist at the Mershon Center for International Security
Studies and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science at Ohio State University, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, and Mark G. Stewart, Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow and Professor and Director at the Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at the University of Newcastle (Australia), 2012 (The Terrorism Delusion: Americas Overwrought Response to September 11, International Security, Volume 37, Number 1, Summer, Available Online at http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller//absisfin.pdf, Accessed 01-30-2013, p. 83-88) To assess the danger presented by terrorists seeking to attack the United States, we examined the fifty cases of Islamist extremist terrorism that have come to light since the September 11 attacks, whether based in the United States or abroad, in which the United States was, or apparently was, targeted. These cases make up (or generate) the chief terrorism fear for Americans. Table 1 presents a capsule summary of each case, and the case numbers given throughout this article refer to this table and to the free web book from which it derives. 7 In 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a lengthy report on protecting the homeland. Key to achieving such an objective should be a careful assessment of the character, capacities, and desires of potential terrorists targeting that homeland. Although the report contains a section dealing with what its authors call the nature of the terrorist adversary, the section devotes only two sentences to assessing that nature: The number and high profile of international and domestic terrorist attacks and disrupted plots during [end page 83 table of terrorism incidents spans pages 83-87] the last two decades underscore the determination and persistence of terrorist organizations. Terrorists have proven to be relentless, patient, opportunistic, and flexible, learning from experience and modifying tactics and targets to exploit perceived vulnerabilities and avoid observed strengths. 8 This description may apply to some terrorists somewhere, including at least a few of those involved in the September 11 attacks. Yet, it scarcely describes the vast majority of those individuals picked up on terrorism charges in the United States since those attacks. The inability of the DHS to consider this fact [end page 87] even parenthetically in its fleeting discussion is not only amazing but perhaps delusional in its single-minded preoccupation with the extreme. In sharp contrast, the authors of the case studies, with remarkably few exceptions, describe their subjects with such words as incompetent , ineffective , unintelligent , idiotic , ignorant , inadequate , unorganized , misguided , muddled , amateurish , dopey , unrealistic , moronic , irrational , and foolish . 9 And in nearly all of the cases where an operative from the police or from the Federal Bureau of Investigation was at work (almost half of the total), the most appropriate descriptor would be gullible. In all, as Shikha Dalmia has put it, would-be terrorists need to be radicalized enough to die for their cause; Westernized enough to move around without raising red flags; ingenious enough to exploit loopholes in the security apparatus; meticulous enough to attend to the myriad logistical details that could torpedo the operation; selfsufficient enough to make all the preparations without enlisting outsiders who might give them away; disciplined enough to maintain complete secrecy; andabove all psychologically tough enough to keep functioning at a high level without cracking in the face of their own impending death. 10 The case studies examined in this article certainly do not abound with people with such characteristics .
25
Cuba Negative 26
Extend: Iran Wont Sponsor Terrorism (1/1)

Iran wont give nuclear materials to terrorists history proves. Pillar 12 Paul R. Pillar, Visiting Professor and Director of the Security Studies Program in the Edmund A. Walsh
School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, served in the Central Intelligence Agency for 28 years, 2012 (We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran, The Washington Monthly, March/April, Available Online at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril_2012/features/we_can_live_with_a_nuclear_ira035772.ph p?page=all, Accessed 04-24-2012) The more sophisticated-sounding argument about the supposed dangers of an Iranian nuclear weaponone heard less from politicians than from policy-debating intelligentsiaaccepts that Iranian leaders are not suicidal but contends that the mere possession of such a weapon would make Tehran more aggressive in its region. A dominant feature of this mode of argument is worst-casing, as exemplified by a pro-war article by Matthew Kroenig in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs. Kroenigs case rests on speculation after speculation about what mischief Iran could commit in the Middle East, with almost no attention to whether Iran has any reason to do those things, and thus to whether it ever would be likely to do them. Kroenig includes among his coulds a scary possibility that also served as a selling point of the Iraq War: the thought of a regime giving nuclear weapons or materials to a terrorist group. Nothing is said about why Iran or any other regime ever would have an incentive to do this . In fact, Tehran would have strong reasons not to do it . Why would it want to lose control over a commodity that is scarce as well as dangerous? And how would it achieve deniability regarding its role in what the group subsequently did with the stuff? No regime in the history of the nuclear age has ever been known to transfer nuclear material to a nonstate group. That history includes the Cold War, when the USSR had both a huge nuclear arsenal and patronage relationships with a long list of radical and revolutionary clients . As for deniability, Iranian leaders have only to listen to rhetoric coming out of the United States to know that their regime would immediately be a suspect in any terrorist incidents involving a nuclear weapon.
No state will provide terrorists with weapons of mass destructionstructural reasons. Mearsheimer 10 John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and
Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, 2010 (Imperial by Design, The National Interest, December 16th, Available Online at http://nationalinterest.org/print/article/imperial-by-design-4576, Accessed 01-03-2011) The fact is that states have strong incentives to distrust terrorist groups, in part because they might turn on them someday, but also because countries cannot control what terrorist organizations do, and they may do something that gets their patrons into serious trouble. This is why there is hardly any chance that a rogue state will give a nuclear weapon to terrorists. That regimes leaders could never be sure that they would not be blamed and punished for a terrorist groups actions. Nor could they be certain that the United States or Israel would not incinerate them if either country merely suspected that they had provided terrorists with the ability to carry out a WMD attack. A nuclear handoff, therefore, is not a serious threat .
26
Cuba Negative 27
Extend: Terror List Flawed (1/1)

The problem is structural the Terror List is too simplistic. Beehner 8 Lionel Beehner, Fellow with the Truman National Security Project, former Senior Staff Writer at the
Council on Foreign Relations, holds an M.A. from Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Yale University, 2008 (What good is a terrorism list?, Los Angeles Times, October 20th, Available Online at http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/20/opinion/oe-beehner20, Accessed 07-20-2013) The terrorism blacklist only reduces our foreign policy to the petty thinking of a clipboard-toting nightclub bouncer, who gets to whimsically decide who is allowed in and who is not. It fits snugly into our with-us-or-against-us view of world affairs, not to mention our one-size-fits-all preference to lump all terrorist groups under one umbrella. "The very concept of a binary list, with countries either on it or off, is flawed and often does more harm to U.S. interests than good," noted terrorism expert Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution in an analysis paper in May.
No leverage from Terror List designations its too politicized. Beehner 8 Lionel Beehner, Fellow with the Truman National Security Project, former Senior Staff Writer at the
Council on Foreign Relations, holds an M.A. from Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Yale University, 2008 (What good is a terrorism list?, Los Angeles Times, October 20th, Available Online at http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/20/opinion/oe-beehner20, Accessed 07-20-2013) Of course, some will stress the importance of the list as leverage during negotiations. But we have lots of other levers to pull for that purpose. And most countries fully understand how politicized the list has become, thus watering down its effectiveness . Slapping Syria and Iran on a terrorism list does little to deter those governments from funneling arms to Hamas or Hezbollah. It's purely political theater -- the equivalent of Congress' labeling Iran's Revolutionary Guards a "specially designated global terrorist" organization. Washington should knock off this charade and do away with its terrorism blacklist, which has little to do with stamping out suicide bombers and their ilk and everything to do with strong-arming countries for grievances unrelated to their support of terrorists.
27
Cuba Negative 28
Extend: No Nuclear Terrorism (1/2)

The risk of a successful nuclear attack is less than one in a million. DeGroot quoting Mueller 9 Gerard DeGroot, Professor of History at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland,
quoting John Mueller, Senior Research Scientist at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science at Ohio State University, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, 2012 (Dismissing Doomsday, Arms Control Today, November, Available Online at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_11/BookReview, Accessed 01-30-2013) Mueller sees nuclear weapons as a massive misjudgment inspired by irrational fear. Worst-case scenario fantasists have exercised an iron grip on international sensibilities, he argues, forcing nations to spend money on weapons that they did not need. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, that same fear has prompted an obsession with nuclear terrorism, a danger Mueller also judges bogus. Addicted to fear, the doomsday merchants have turned to the terrorist because Russia could no longer provide a fix. The last section of his book aims at this new bogey, blowing it away with the same deadly precision. Central to Muellers argument is the assertion that terrorists are basically opportunists : they achieve success by keeping attacks simple . The complexity of a nuclear strikethe time, effort, risk, and expense contradicts that ethic . In examining the terrorist scenario, Mueller analyzes the process of funding , designing , building , transporting , and detonating a weapon and breaks the process down into 20 clearly identified tasks. As he stresses, the terrorist needs to succeed at each task , while those who wish to stop him require only one success. Even the very generous 50-50 odds that he gives for each stage in the process mean the accumulated likelihood of success is less than one in a million . Examined through that lens, a decision to pursue nuclear weapons seems ludicrous . It makes no sense for a terrorist organization to invest huge sums of money, time, and effort in such a risky enterprise because its purpose can be served much more easily by strapping a few pounds of gelignite to the body of a fanatic and sending him into a crowded train. For these reasons, Mueller is not greatly concerned by reports that al Qaeda has been seeking nuclear material and information for bomb-making.
28
Cuba Negative 29
Extend: No Nuclear Terrorism (2/2)

Their authors are Chicken Little the risk is grossly exaggerated. Pea 10 Charles V. Pea, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, Senior Fellow with the Coalition for a Realistic
Foreign Policy, former Senior Fellow with the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute and Former Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Adviser to the Straus Military Reform Project, Analyst for MSNBC television, holds an M.A. in Security Studies from George Washington University, 2010 (Better Safe Than Sorry?, Antiwar.com, September 30th, Available Online at http://original.antiwar.com/pena/2010/09/30/better-safethan-sorry/print/, Accessed 10-01-2010) In the post-9/11 world, better safe than sorry has become an article of faith guiding the actions we take in the name of preventing terrorism. But are we truly better safe than sorry? To begin, the main reason so many people are willing to accept better safe than sorry is because they believe the consequences are too terrible to act otherwise. In other words, we should be willing to do almost anything to prevent another terrorist attack. Although another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 which killed some 3,000 people would be a great catastrophe and tragedy, it would not be an end-of-the-world event. As a nation, we survived 9/11, and we would (or at least we should) survive if there was another 9/11. That is not to trivialize or marginalize the people killed by the 9/11 attacks (or who would be killed in any future terrorist attacks), but its important to understand that terrorism is not an existential threat otherwise, our responses are disproportionate (in magnitude or cost, or both) to the actual threat. Its hard to be dispassionate because of the emotionalism surrounding 9/11, but here are some numbers worth considering to put better safe than sorry in context when it comes to terrorism. According to the Global Terrorism Database, from 1970 through 2007, there have been 1,347 terrorist incidents in the United States resulting in 3,340 fatalities (2,949 of which were on 9/11) and 2,234 injuries. Thats less than 100 fatalities per year on average (and more like 10 if you exclude 9/11 as an extraordinary event). By way of comparison, consider these 2006 fatality statistics from the the Centers for Disease Control: * Unintentional fall deaths: 20,853 * Motor vehicle traffic deaths: 43,646 * Unintentional poisoning deaths: 27,531 * Homicides: 18,573 * Firearms homicides: 12,791 Put another way, far more people die in a single year from other causes than have died as result of terrorism over a span of more than 35 years . Yet we have a Chicken Little attitude that the sky is falling when it comes to the potential threat of terrorism.
29
Cuba Negative 30
Extend: Condition on Alan Gross (1/2)

The U.S. should hold its ground engagement must be conditioned on Gross release. Donnelly 12 Kathleen Donnelly, member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation, 2012 (Three
Years as Cubas Hostage: Freedom for Alan Gross Still Far Away, The Foundrythe Heritage Foundation blog, December 4th, Available Online at http://blog.heritage.org/2012/12/04/three-years-as-cubas-hostage-freedom-for-alan-gross-stillfar-away/, Accessed 07-21-2013) The Heritage Foundation has written on the case of Gross before. On this third anniversary of his imprisonment, Americans shouldnt forget the true injustice of Grosss situation. Oddly, the longer Gross is in prison, the more talk is made in favor of the U.S. being flexible with Cuba. After all, some say, Gross did violate Cuban laws, and Cuba has offered to negotiate for his release. To buy into this argument, though, is to forget who is at fault in the case. Despite pressure to cut a deal with Cuba, the Obama Administration is right to hold its ground against Cuba. Three years into his unjust imprisonment, Gross, along with millions of Cubans, remains a victim of a repressive, totalitarian Castro regime that has held the island in its iron grip for more than half a century. No one deserves 15 years in prison for helping to give Cubans freedoms that are considered universal. If the Castro regime wishes to gain the respect of the international community and earn a valuable position on the world stage, it should free Gross immediately and without further chicanery .
30
Cuba Negative 31
Extend: Condition on Alan Gross (2/2)

The U.S. should continue conditioning engagement on the release of Gross the plan weakens American leverage. Walser 11 Ray Walser, Senior Policy Analyst specializing in Latin America at The Heritage Foundation, served as a
career Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Department of State for 27 years, former Visiting Professor of International Relations and Latin America Politics at the U.S. Military Academy, holds a Ph.D. from the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill, 2011 (A Cuban Slap on the Wrist: The Alan Gross Case, The Foundrythe Heritage Foundation blog, August 8th, Available Online at http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/08/a-cuban-slap-on-the-wrist-the-alan-gross-case/, Accessed 07-21-2013) The Obama Administration has in recent months made efforts to improve relations with Cuba contingent upon the release of Alan P. Gross . A subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Gross was arrested in December 2009 for making the Internet available to members of Cubas minuscule Jewish community. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in March 2011. Two weeks ago, Cubas highest tribunal listened to an appeal of his conviction and a plea for release. In Cuba, free circulation of ideas is forbidden. The State defines truth, not the individual. Free exchanges of information are viewed as subversive and undermining the authority of the State. A combination of siege mentality and decades-old thought control keep the island locked in the grip of the regimes repressive informational stranglehold. A window for potential clemency in the Gross case opened when Cubas highest court took up the Gross case. The court could have voided Grosss 15-year sentence. Expectations were not high. Cuba is a country where justice is always political, and the judiciary looks over its shoulder for cues from the political hierarchy. Fidel and Raul Castro could have used the moment to signal a modest change of heart. Or, as The Washington Post notes, they could have demonstrated that Cuba is remotely interested in better relations with Washington. They did not. Cuban paranoia prevailed. The court rejected Gross appeal. The Castro brothers opted to continue to punish Grossnow Americas most prominent political prisonerthrowing it in the face of the Obama Administration and the United States. Cubas aging dictatorship, slumping economy, scattershot economic reforms and resort to acts of repression constitute a desperate spectacle. Cuba has put out the welcome mat for cancer-stricken Hugo Chvez. His health crisis looms large as Venezuela provides an indispensable lifeline of support to the regime. The role U.S. travel and remittances play in propping up the economy is taken as a given. In the twilight of its tyranny, the Castro regime is determined to show it can still play hardball with the life and liberty of a single American citizen and show that the Obama Administration is unable to do little more than bluster . Former diplomat and democracy expert Elliott Abrams is right: The next step for the Administration to take is to use diplomatic channels to inform the Castro brothers that unless their clemency is exercised, the relaxation of travel restrictions will be reversed and greater pressure will be brought on the government of Cuba.
31

Gfca Packet Cuba Negative Paper

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Gfca Packet Cuba Negative Paper

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Case Frontlines

2NC/1NR Soft Power Advantage

2NC/1NR Terrorism Advantage

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Debating the Cuba Affirmative (1/2)

Negative Answers to Soft Power Advantage:

Negative Answers to Terrorism Advantage:

Negative Answers to Solvency:

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Debating the Cuba Affirmative (2/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Soft Power Advantage (1/5)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Soft Power Advantage (2/5)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Soft Power Advantage (3/5)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Soft Power Advantage (4/5)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Soft Power Advantage (5/5)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Terrorism Advantage (1/3)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Terrorism Advantage (2/3)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Terrorism Advantage (3/3)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

1NC Solvency Frontline (1/1)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Latin American Relations Strong Now (1/3)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Latin American Relations Strong Now (2/3)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Latin American Relations Strong Now (3/3)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Other Policies Undermine Latin American Relations (1/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Other Policies Undermine Latin American Relations (2/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Soft Power Resilient (1/1)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Soft Power Decline Inevitable (1/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Soft Power Decline Inevitable (2/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: No Impact To Soft Power (1/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: No Impact To Soft Power (1/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Terror Threat Exaggerated (1/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Terror Threat Exaggerated (1/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Iran Wont Sponsor Terrorism (1/1)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: Terror List Flawed (1/1)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: No Nuclear Terrorism (1/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014

Extend: No Nuclear Terrorism (2/2)

GFCA Packet 2013-2014