Offense

Al Qaeda possesses chemical and biological weapons

Adam Dolnik 11, Professor of Terrorism Studies at the University of Wollongong in Australia, Terror
Studies PhD from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (1/07, Die and Let Die: Exploring
Links between Suicide Terrorism and Terrorist Use of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear
Weapons, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Taylor and Francis, lpc)
Much has been written in recent months about the CBRN activities of Al Qaida. According to media
reports and trial testimonies of Al Qaida operatives, the group tried to purchase uranium for $1.5
million in 1993.72 Al Qaida reportedly also made attempts to obtain ready-made nuclear warheads
from Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.73 It has been confirmed by the U.S. intelligence
community that the group possesses unspecified chemical agents as well.74 Furthermore, the
networks members have allegedly purchased anthrax from Indonesia and botulinum toxin from a
laboratory in the Czech Republic.75 Plague and anthrax bacteria have reportedly also been bought
from arms dealers in Kazakhstan.76 On the declaratory level, Al Qaidas head Osama bin Laden has
stated an interest in obtaining CBRN weapons to kill Americans indiscriminately. However, in an
interview conducted on 7 November 2001, he claimed to have nuclear and chemical weapons for
purposes of deterrence.77 In the case of Al Qaida, it seems that the groups CBRN involvement so
far has been motivated by the desire to spread fear and to generate publicity as opposed to mass
killing.

Al Qaeda is pursuing WMDs large scale attacks are likely and troubling
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen 10, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, served
over three years as the Director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of
Energy (January, Al Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat: Hype or Reality? Belfer Center,
lpc)
There are many plausible explanations for why the world has not experienced an al Qaeda attack
using chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but it would be foolish to discount the
possibility that such an event will occur in the future. To date, al Qaeda's WMD programs may have
been disrupted. This is in fact one likely explanation, given a sustained and ferocious counterterrorist
response to 9/11 that largely destroyed al Qaeda as the organization that existed before the fateful
attack on the US. If so, terrorists must continue to be disrupted and denied a safe haven to
reestablish the ability to launch a major strike on the US homeland, or elsewhere in the world.
Or perhaps, al Qaeda operational planners have failed to acquire the kind of weapons they seek,
because they are unwilling to settle for anything other than a large scale attack in the US. It would
surely be hard for al Qaeda to lower the bar they set on 9/11: what would constitute a worthy follow-up
to 9/11, on their terms? What would they achieve through another attack? There are few weapons that
would meet their expectations in this regard. It is extremely difficult to acquire a functioning nuclear
bomb, or to steal enough weapons usable material to build a bomb. And as al Qaeda probably learned
in trying to weaponize anthrax, biological pathogens may seem simple enough to produce, but such
weapons are not easy to bottle up and control. To complicate matters further, an attack on the scale of
9/11 is more difficult to accomplish in an environment of heightened security and vigilance in the US.
But if Osama bin Ladin and his lieutenants had been interested in employing crude chemical,
biological and radiological materials in small scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have
done so by now. However, events have shown that the al Qaeda leadership does not choose weapons

based on how easy they are to acquire and use, be they conventional or unconventional weapons. They
choose them based on the best means of destroying the specific targets that they have in mind. Al
Qaeda's reasoning thus runs counter to analytic convention that equates the ease of acquisition of
chemical, biological or radiological weapons with an increasing likelihood of terrorist use -- i.e., a
terrorist attack employing crude weapons is therefore more likely than an attack using a nuclear or
large scale biological weapon. In fact, it is the opposite: If perpetrating a large- scale attack serves
as al Qaeda's motivation for possessing WMD, not deterrence value, then the greatest threat is
posed by the most effective and simple means of mass destruction, whether these means consist of
nuclear, biological, or other forms of asymmetric weapons.
An examination of the 9/11 attack sheds light on al Qaeda's reasoning behind the selection of specific
weapons, and how that may apply to the role WMD plays in their thinking. Al Qaeda opted to pursue a
highly complex and artfully choreographed plot to strike multiple targets requiring the simultaneous
hijacking of several 747 jumbo passenger aircraft, because using airplanes as weapons offered the best
means of attacking the targets they intended to destroy. If conventional wisdom on assessing WMD
terrorism threats had been applied to considering the likelihood of the 9/11 plot, analysts may
well have concluded it never would have happened; at the time, it was simply hard to believe any
terrorist group could pull off such an elaborate plot utilizing novel, unpredictable weapons that
were so difficult to acquire.

Yes Pakistani Nukes

ISIS can get Pakistani nukesempirically leaks info and ISIS has monetary capability
Farhan 14- graduate of Kabul University and holds a Master degree from Japan in Public Policy and
Economics, Afghan analyst and commentator on political and socioeconomic affairs in Afghanistan
(Ahmad Hasib, The World Must Prevent ISIS from Obtaining Pakistani Nukes, Khaama Press,
11/20/14, http://www.khaama.com/the-world-must-prevent-isis-from-obtaining-pakistani-nukes8782)//WK
The global leaders certainly understand that the extreme threat to global security is the risk that
terrorists could get a hold of nuclear weapons and start new terrorism. Although world leaders especially
Americans hold several international conferences on addressing this immediate and extreme threat, there
is no guarantee that terrorist organization such as ISIS won't acquire nuclear weapons. Al-Qaeda
struggled for several years to obtain nuclear and chemical weapons but they failed. However, ISIS is
much stronger than Al-Qaeda and was able to hold some sort of chemical weapons in Iraq which they
used against the Kurds. In the 16 years since Pakistan emerged as an active nuclear weapons state in
1998, there has been no reliable report of a terrorist seizure of nuclear weapons in Pakistan.
Nevertheless, the risk that terrorists could acquire new weapons in Pakistan cannot be ignored. Among
all the new clear stats Pakistan is the only country that leaked and transferred nuclear technology to the
countries that are still under UN and US sanctions. It is also the only nuclear state that shelters and
protect terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Haqani Network and many others. The
Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, leaked nuclear secrets to North Korea, Libya and Iran.
Abdul Qadeer Khan not only accepted the full responsibility for transferring sensitive technology to
mentioned stats but he also revealed in 2004, that the former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf
was involved neck-deep in nuclear proliferation. However, after that incident Pakistan enhanced
protection of its nuclear weapons, but still ISIS will strive for acquiring nuclear weapons in Pakistan.
This means even if ISIS don't fight for it, there are elements in Pakistan that may sell either nuclear
technology or nuclear weapons to ISIS. If ISIS obtains nuclear weapons in Pakistan a new chapter of
terrorism will emerge, and ISIS will turn into an invincible force. This time the world will have to deal
with nuclear terrorism in Pakistan which will be fueled by drug money from Afghanistan and oil money
from Iraq. It will certainly have severe consequence not only for Pakistan but for the region and

international community. It is important for world leaders to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons and
make sure ISIS never gets hold of them. This bears considerable weight on the United States because
America is a pioneer of the nuclear technology, and a close ally of Pakistan. Moreover, the US is a prime
target of terrorism from Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Al Qaeda wants nukes empirics

Wellen 14 (Russ Wellen, edits the Foreign Policy in Focus blog Focal
Points for the Institute of Policy Studies, writer about disarmament for
theAsia Times Online, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the Journal of
Psychohistory, 10/21/14, Foreign Policy in Focus, Is the Islamic State
Capable of Nuclear Terrorism, http://fpif.org/islamic-state-capable-nuclearterrorism/, JHR)
After 9/11, many feared that Al Qaeda would get its hands on nuclear weapons. Such
fears were stoked by the far right, especially the books of journalist Paul Williams with
their provocative titles: Osamas Revenge: The Next 9/11 and The Al Qaeda Connection:
International Terrorism, Organized Crime, And the Coming Apocalypse. (Yes, I read them
at the time; ate them up even.) In fact , Al Qaeda had made attempts to obtain
nuclear materials. In 2007 at the New Yorker,Steve Coll asked: Can the United States
be made safe from nuclear terrorism? Even the Belfer Center of the Harvard Kennedy
School issued a report in 2010. Key excerpt: Al Qaedas patient, decade-long effort

to steal or construct an improvised nuclear device (IND) flows from their

perception of the benefits of producing the image of a mushroom cloud
rising over a US city, just as the 9/11 attacks have altered the course of
history. This lofty aim helps explains why al Qaeda has consistently sought a
bomb capable of producing a nuclear yield, as opposed to settling for the
more expedient and realistic course of devising a dirty bomb, or a
radiological dispersal device.

Al Qaeda is committed to a nuclear attack

Lalbiakchhunga 15 (K. Lalbiakchhunga, Research scholar, School of
International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University of New Delhi, February
2015, Nuclear Terrorism and the Threat of Dirty Bomb, Global Journal of
Multidisciplinary Studies, Volume 4, Issue 03,
http://www.gjms.co.in/index.php/gjms/article/view/656/579, JHR)
Terrorist Groups and Nuclear Ambition Allegations or indications that various

terrorist/non-state groups have tried in the past to acquire nuclear and

other radioactive material have been widely reported and indictments in criminal
prosecutions of alleged members of terrorist groups have, in several cases, included such
charges (IAEA: 2014). According to Lee (2003), accounts of varying credibility also

point to efforts by terrorists to purchase finished nuclear weapons from

inside the former USSR and apparently, the Aum Shinrikyo cult apparently harbored
such intentions which is evident in the documents seized from the cults construction
minister, who had visited Russia extensively in the early 1990s, contained the ominous
notation, How much is a nuclear warhead? and listed several prices, though whether
these references reflected actual negotiations was not clear (Lee, 2003). Osama bin

Laden's assertion in 1998 that it was his Islamic duty to acquire weapons of
mass destruction ensured that the fulfillment of this intent would become a
top priority for his lieutenants in the ensuing years (Mowatt-Larssen, 2010). The Tehreek-eTaliban Pakistans (TTPs) is another potential group that might have intention to acquire nuclear or radiological capability.
Operating in Pakistan which is the hotspot of nuclear insecurity, this group may have been want to use nuclear or
radiological weapon to fulfill their avowed objective of establishing an Islamic state. Finally, the most potent terrorist group
ISIS pose the gravest danger to proliferation of nuclear and fissile material. In June 2014, the ISIS capture Mosul city in Iraq
and took possession of about 40 kilograms radiological materials from Mosul University. Since then they started threatening

countries like Israel and Britain with nuclear attack (Cefaratti, 2014; Su, 2014). For example, in 1995, Chechen extremists
threatened to bundle radioactive material with explosives to use against Russia in order to force the Russian military to
withdraw from Chechnya. While no explosives were used, officials later retrieved a package of cesium-137 the rebels had
buried in a Moscow park (USNRC: 2014).

Al Qaeda possesses chemical and biological weapons

Adam Dolnik 11, Professor of Terrorism Studies at the University of
Wollongong in Australia, Terror Studies PhD from Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore (1/07, Die and Let Die: Exploring Links between
Suicide Terrorism and Terrorist Use of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and
Nuclear Weapons, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Taylor and Francis, lpc)
Much has been written in recent months about the CBRN activities of Al
Qaida. According to media reports and trial testimonies of Al Qaida
operatives, the group tried to purchase uranium for $1.5 million in
1993.72 Al Qaida reportedly also made attempts to obtain ready-made
nuclear warheads from Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.73
It has been confirmed by the U.S. intelligence community that the group
possesses unspecified chemical agents as well.74 Furthermore, the
networks members have allegedly purchased anthrax from Indonesia
and botulinum toxin from a laboratory in the Czech Republic.75 Plague
and anthrax bacteria have reportedly also been bought from arms
dealers in Kazakhstan.76 On the declaratory level, Al Qaidas head
Osama bin Laden has stated an interest in obtaining CBRN weapons to kill
Americans indiscriminately. However, in an interview conducted on 7
November 2001, Bin Laden claimed to have nuclear and chemical
weapons for purposes of deterrence.77 In the case of Al Qaida, it
seems that the groups CBRN involvement so far has been
motivated by the desire to spread fear and to generate publicity as
opposed to mass killing.
Al Qaeda is pursuing WMDs large scale attacks are likely and
troubling
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen 10, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs, served over three years as the Director of Intelligence
and Counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy (January, Al
Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat: Hype or Reality? Belfer
Center, lpc)
There are many plausible explanations for why the world has not
experienced an al Qaeda attack using chemical, biological,
radiological or nuclear weapons, but it would be foolish to discount
the possibility that such an event will occur in the future. To date, al
Qaeda's WMD programs may have been disrupted. This is in fact one likely
explanation, given a sustained and ferocious counterterrorist response to

9/11 that largely destroyed al Qaeda as the organization that existed before
the fateful attack on the US. If so, terrorists must continue to be
disrupted and denied a safe haven to reestablish the ability to
launch a major strike on the US homeland, or elsewhere in the
world.
Or perhaps, al Qaeda operational planners have failed to acquire the
kind of weapons they seek, because they are unwilling to settle for
anything other than a large scale attack in the US. It would surely be
hard for al Qaeda to lower the bar they set on 9/11: what would constitute a
worthy follow-up to 9/11, on their terms? What would they achieve through
another attack? There are few weapons that would meet their expectations
in this regard. It is extremely difficult to acquire a functioning nuclear bomb,
or to steal enough weapons usable material to build a bomb. And as al
Qaeda probably learned in trying to weaponize anthrax, biological
pathogens may seem simple enough to produce, but such weapons are not
easy to bottle up and control. To complicate matters further, an attack on
the scale of 9/11 is more difficult to accomplish in an environment of
heightened security and vigilance in the US.
But if Osama bin Ladin and his lieutenants had been interested in
employing crude chemical, biological and radiological materials in
small scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so by
now. However, events have shown that the al Qaeda leadership does not
choose weapons based on how easy they are to acquire and use, be they
conventional or unconventional weapons. They choose them based on the
best means of destroying the specific targets that they have in mind. Al
Qaeda's reasoning thus runs counter to analytic convention that
equates the ease of acquisition of chemical, biological or radiological
weapons with an increasing likelihood of terrorist use -- i.e., a
terrorist attack employing crude weapons is therefore more likely than an
attack using a nuclear or large scale biological weapon. In fact, it is the
opposite: If perpetrating a large- scale attack serves as al Qaeda's
motivation for possessing WMD, not deterrence value, then the
greatest threat is posed by the most effective and simple means of
mass destruction, whether these means consist of nuclear,
biological, or other forms of asymmetric weapons.
An examination of the 9/11 attack sheds light on al Qaeda's reasoning
behind the selection of specific weapons, and how that may apply to the
role WMD plays in their thinking. Al Qaeda opted to pursue a highly
complex and artfully choreographed plot to strike multiple targets requiring
the simultaneous hijacking of several 747 jumbo passenger aircraft,
because using airplanes as weapons offered the best means of attacking
the targets they intended to destroy. If conventional wisdom on
assessing WMD terrorism threats had been applied to considering
the likelihood of the 9/11 plot, analysts may well have concluded it

never would have happened; at the time, it was simply hard to

believe any terrorist group could pull off such an elaborate plot
utilizing novel, unpredictable weapons that were so difficult to
acquire.

Defense
Climate Change
Cant Solve Climate Change

Multilateralism not key to solve climate change individual countries are already taking
action.
Levi 14 (Michael Levi, Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the
Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council of Foreign Relations
with a Ph.D. in war studies from the University of London, Why climate change policy wont
hinge on international talks, Fortune, 25 September 2014, http://fortune.com/author/michaellevi/, *fc)
Its not that international diplomacy wont matter, but individual

countries are already taking action to

reduce carbon emissions for various reasons beyond worries about climate
change.
World leaders gathered at a United Nations summit this week to kick off 15 months of negotiations aimed
at finalizing a climate pact next December in Paris. If you focus on those international climate talks, though, youll miss most of the
real action. The fate of global efforts to tackle climate change and of the businesses that will win and lose as
a result depends far more on what countries do at home.
Climate change has long been approached as the ultimate foreign policy problem. Greenhouse gas emissions anywhere raise temperatures everywhere.
What that means for climate policy is that emissions cuts anywhere curb global warming everywhere. Since cutting emissions usually costs money, it
makes sense for each country to ask other countries to act while trying to do as little as possible themselves: that way, they keep their costs to a minimum,
but still benefit from reduced climate change because of what others have done. The danger is that if every country adopts this attitude, no one will do
much of anything. The only way out of this beggar-thy-neighbor quagmire, strategists have long assumed, is for countries to reach a legally binding pact in
which they all curb greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.
Thats why people have long paid attention to the international climate talks. Its also why, after the last big talks at Copenhagen in 2009 failed to produce a
legally binding climate treaty, so many people assumed that climate action was dead.

Yet something perplexing happened in the nearly five years since. Leaders

from the United States to China moved forward

with domestic climate policies despite the absence of a solid international foundation. The Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), for example, announced regulations aimed at coal-fired power plants earlier this
year despite no international agreement requiring that it do so.

Three things explain whats going on.

Countries are taking actions that cut carbon emissions for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with
climate change. China, for example, is facing massive challenges as a result of its dependence on coal.
Suffocating pollution is wrecking public health, hurting productivity, and boosting the risk of social
unrest. Chinese leaders have responded with a plan that includes a gradual shift toward natural gas and renewable energy and away from coal. A happy
byproduct of this set of policies is reduced greenhouse gas emissions. But China isnt waiting for an international deal to take
these steps, because it has other reasons to pursue them. And if businesses and investors focus on diplomatic
negotiations to divine where China is heading on climate policy, theyll be inevitably surprised.
Policymakers around the world are also discovering that its possible to loosely coordinate their climate
efforts with each other even absent an international deal. Conventional wisdom about climate diplomacy owes a lot to
experience with nuclear arms. During the Cold War, if the United States wanted to cut its nuclear arsenal, it needed iron-clad assurances that the
Soviet Union was cutting its arsenal too. That meant not only tough legal requirements but also extensive and mandatory monitoring and
verification to ensure that the secretive Soviet military wasnt cheating. Many have long assumed that something similar was needed for climate
change in order to ensure that every country was doing its part. But the United States doesnt need a treaty or a complex

inspections system to know roughly what

Nuke defence
No nuke war rational actors
Zeeberg 5/6 (Amos Zeeberg is Nautilus digital editor. Nautilus: "Why Hasnt the World Been
Destroyed in a Nuclear War Yet?," May 6, 2015. nautil.us/blog/why-hasnt-the-world-been-destroyedin-a-nuclear-war-yet) jsk
When opposing nations gained access to nuclear weapons, it fundamentally changed the logic of war. You
might say that it made questions about war more cleanly logicalwith nuclear-armed belligerents, there are fewer classic military analyses about morale,
materiel, and maneuverings. Hundreds of small-scale tactical decisions dissolve into a few hugely important large-scale strategic ones, like, What happens
if one side drops a nuclear bomb on its nuclear-armed opponent?
Using a dangerous weapon like a nuclear bomb can of course provoke dangerous responses. If one country
crosses the nuclear line, what will its opponent do? What will its allies, or other nuclear-armed states do? The decision to use a nuclear weapon is
practically nothing next to the chain reaction it begins. The act of one nation simply developing a nuclear weapon can provoke a nuclear proliferation
cascade, as other nations, concerned about new nuclear-armed rivals, rush to follow suit. This is cited as one reason why its so important to prevent Iran
from building its own nuclear weapons.
During the Cold War, the important thinking about using nuclear weapons didnt come from old military wisdom but from game theory, a new way to
understand strategic decision-making. This analytical approach suggested that the standoff between the U.S. and USSR represented a Nash equilibrium:

Neither superpower had reason to preemptively launch a nuclear attack, as it would surely provoke a
devastating counterattack. At the same time, neither would disarm significantly enough to leave itself
unable to retaliate to a preemptive strike. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction (or MAD, named somewhat
facetiously by mathematician John von Neumann) seemed to keep the superpowers at a peaceful balance point. But its
unsettling to live in a world whose existence is maintained only by the threatening logic of the Nash equilibrium.

No nuke war rational actors and mutually assured destruction

Aziz 14 (John Aziz is staff writer at The Week. "Don't worry: World War III will almost certainly never happen," The Week, March 6, 2014.
theweek.com/articles/449783/dont-worry-world-war-iii-almost-certainly-never-happen) jsk
Next year will be the seventieth anniversary of the end of the last global conflict. There have been points on that timeline such as the Cuban missile
crisis in 1962, and a Soviet computer malfunction in 1983 that erroneously suggested that the U.S. had attacked, and perhaps even the Kosovo War in 1999
when a global conflict was a real possibility. Yet today in the shadow of a flare up which some are calling a new Cold

War between Russia and the U.S. I believe the threat of World War III has almost faded into nothingness. That is, the probability
of a world war is the lowest it has been in decades, and perhaps the lowest it has ever been since the dawn
of modernity.
This is certainly a view that current data supports. Steven Pinker's studies into the decline of violence reveal
that deaths from war have fallen and fallen since World War II. But we should not just assume that the past is an accurate guide to the
future. Instead, we must look at the factors which have led to the reduction in war and try to conclude whether
the decrease in war is sustainable.
So what's changed? Well, the first big change after the last world war was the arrival of mutually assured
destruction. It's no coincidence that the end of the last global war coincided with the invention of atomic weapons. The possibility of
complete annihilation provided a huge disincentive to launching and expanding total wars. Instead, the
great powers now fight proxy wars like Vietnam and Afghanistan (the 1980 version, that is), rather than letting their rivalries
expand into full-on, globe-spanning struggles against each other. Sure, accidents could happen, but the possibility is incredibly remote. More importantly,

nobody in power wants to be the cause of Armageddon.

Economic Interdependence
No global wareconomic and cultural interconnectedness
Aziz 14 (John Aziz is staff writer at The Week. "Don't worry: World War III will almost certainly never happen," The Week, March 6, 2014.
theweek.com/articles/449783/dont-worry-world-war-iii-almost-certainly-never-happen) jsk
But what about a non-nuclear global war? Other changes economic and social in nature have

made that highly

unlikely too.
The world has become much more economically interconnected since the last global war. Economic cooperation
treaties and free trade agreements have intertwined the economies of countries around the world . This has
meant there has been a huge rise in the volume of global trade since World War II, and especially since the 1980s.

Today consumer goods like smartphones, laptops, cars, jewelery, food, cosmetics, and medicine are
produced on a global level, with supply-chains criss-crossing the planet . An example: The laptop I am typing this on is the
cumulative culmination of thousands of hours of work, as well as resources and manufacturing processes across the globe. It incorporates metals like
tellurium, indium, cobalt, gallium, and manganese mined in Africa. Neodymium mined in China. Plastics forged out of oil, perhaps from Saudi Arabia, or
Russia, or Venezuela. Aluminum from bauxite, perhaps mined in Brazil. Iron, perhaps mined in Australia. These raw materials are turned into components
memory manufactured in Korea, semiconductors forged in Germany, glass made in the United States. And it takes gallons and gallons of oil to ship all
the resources and components back and forth around the world, until they are finally assembled in China, and shipped once again around the world to the
consumer.
In a global war, global trade becomes a nightmare. Shipping becomes more expensive due to higher insurance costs,

and riskier because it's subject to seizures, blockades, ship sinkings. Many goods, intermediate components or resources
including energy supplies like coal and oil, components for military hardware, etc, may become
temporarily unavailable in certain areas. Sometimes such as occurred in the Siege of Leningrad during World War II the supply of food
can be cut off. This is why countries hold strategic reserves of things like helium, pork, rare earth metals and oil, coal, and gas. These kinds of breakdowns
were troublesome enough in the economic landscape of the early and mid-20th century, when the last global wars occurred. But in today's ultra-

globalized and ultra-specialized economy? The level of economic adaptation even for large countries
like Russia and the United States with lots of land and natural resources required to adapt to a world
war would be crushing, and huge numbers of business and livelihoods would be wiped out.
In other words, global trade interdependency has become, to borrow a phrase from finance, too big to fail.
It is easy to complain about the reality of big business influencing or controlling politicians. But big
business has just about the most to lose from breakdowns in global trade. A practical example: If Russian oligarchs make
their money from selling gas and natural resources to Western Europe, and send their children to schools in Britain and Germany, and lend and borrow
money from the West's financial centers, are they going to be willing to tolerate Vladimir Putin starting a regional war in Eastern Europe (let alone a world
war)? Would the Chinese financial industry be happy to see their multi-trillion dollar investments in dollars and U.S. treasury debt go up in smoke? Of
course, world wars have been waged despite international business interests, but the world today is far more

globalized than ever before and well-connected domestic interests are more dependent on access to global
markets, components and resources, or the repayment of foreign debts. These are huge disincentives to
global war.
But what of the military-industrial complex ? While other businesses might be hurt due to a breakdown in trade, surely military
contractors and weapons manufacturers are happy with war? Not necessarily. As the last seventy years illustrates, it is perfectly
possible for weapons contractors to enjoy the profits from huge military spending without a global war. And
the uncertainty of a breakdown in global trade could hurt weapons contractors just as much as other
industries in terms of losing access to global markets. That means weapons manufacturers may be just as uneasy about the
prospects for large-scale war as other businesses.

Other changes have been social in nature. Obviously, democratic countries do not tend to go to war with each other , and the spread of
liberal democracy is correlated against the decrease in war around the world. But the spread of internet
technology and social media has brought the world much closer together, too. As late as the last world war, populations
were separated from each other by physical distance, by language barriers, and by lack of mass communication tools. This means that it was easy for warmongering politicians to sell a population on the idea that the enemy is evil. It's hard to empathize with people who you only see in slanted government
propaganda reels. Today, people from enemy countries can come together in cyberspace and find out that the

"enemy" is not so different, as occurred in the Iran-Israel solidarity movement of 2012

More importantly, violent incidents and deaths can be broadcast to the world much more easily. Public shock
and disgust at the brutal reality of war broadcast over YouTube and Facebook makes it much more difficult for governments to
carry out large scale military aggressions. For example, the Kremlin's own pollster today released a survey showing that 73 percent of
Russians disapprove of Putin's handling of the Ukraine crisis, with only 15 percent of the nation supporting a response to the overthrow of the government
in Kiev. There are, of course, a few countries like North Korea that deny their citizens access to information that might contradict the government's
propaganda line. And sometimes countries ignore mass anti-war protests as occurred prior to the Iraq invasion of 2003 but generally a more

connected, open, empathetic and democratic world has made it much harder for war-mongers to go to
war. The greatest trend, though, may be that the world as a whole is getting richer. Fundamentally, wars arise out of one
group of people deciding that they want whatever another group has land, tools, resources, money, friends, sexual partners, empire, prestige and
deciding to take it by force. Or they arise as a result of grudges or hatreds from previous wars of the first kind. We don't quite live in a superabundant world
yet, but the long march of human ingenuity is making basic human wants like clothing, water, food, shelter, warmth, entertainment, recreation, and
medicine more ubiquitous throughout the world. This means that countries are less desperate to go to war to seize other

people's stuff.

No Extinction
No extinction alternative food sources solve even in nuclear winter
Heyes 15 (J.D. Heyes is a contributing writer for Natural News. "How to survive when the sun doesn't rise," Jan 10, 2015.
www.naturalnews.com/048247_apocalypse_survival_food_ supply.html#) jsk
(NaturalNews) During the Cold War, Americans - and citizens of countries all

over the globe - worried that the two superpowers at the

time, the United States and the Soviet Union, could someday launch a nuclear war that would shroud the world in planet-killing
radioactive fallout.
While that is not as much of a concern anymore - the Soviet Union is gone and the U.S. does not yet have a nuclear-armed peer - there are still thousands
of nuclear warheads in existence and, until a weapon is developed to defeat them and render them useless, they will continue to exist.
With that in mind, then, shouldn't we still be concerned about "nuclear winter ," which would be the effect of multiple nuclear
explosions around the world? Not

really says one scientist and expert.

reported by Michigan Technological University, one of its scholars, Prof . Joshua
Pearce, says if the world as we currently know it were to end, humanity would be fine.
"People have been doing catastrophic risk research for a while," Pearce said, according to a press release posted at Newswise. " But most of what's
been done is dark, apocalyptic and dismal. It hasn't provided any real solutions."
So, he examined doomsday scenarios - super volcanoes, nuclear winter, abrupt global climate change (for
real) - and what he found was that the forecast for society is not that bad.
Indeed, Pearce says in research outlined in a new book, "Feeding Everyone No Matter What," that we should look positively.
"We researched the worst cases and asked, 'Is it possible to still feed everybody after a complete collapse of the
agricultural system?'" he told the university. "All solutions until this book focused on food storage, the survivalist method of putting cans in
'We can still feed everyone' As

closets. But for global catastrophes, you'd need at least five years of supplies - think bedroom size, not just a closet."
So, in global terms, it is just not feasible to imagine stockpiles big enough to feed survivors , let alone in terms of just
feeding survivors in the U.S. Families just don't have the resources - or space - to prepare in that way, and also he says, such stockpiling

would
likely lead to rising food prices (because of shortages), and that would cause even more of the world's current poor and downtrodden to go
hungry.
You may not like your cuisine choices, but...Don't worry, Pearce said: If

the sun were blacked out for years at a time, leading to

the death of all plant life, humans would be okay.

The university reported further:
After looking at five crop-destroying

catastrophes (sudden climate change, super-weeds, super-bacteria, super-pests and superevents (super-volcano eruption, asteroid or comet impact, and nuclear winter), Pearce
says we have a way to feed everyone on Earth for five years. That's enough time for the planet to recover,
allowing a gradual return to the agricultural system we use today.
pathogens) and three sunlight-extinguishing

"We looked purely at technical viability - ignoring all the social issues that currently cause millions to go hungry and die every year," Pearce said.

How would the planet feed billions of mouths? By swapping traditional foods for bacterial slime and bugs.
"We came up with two primary classes of solutions," Pearce said. "We can convert existing fossil fuels to food by growing
bacteria on top of it - then either eat the bacterial slime or feed it to rats and bugs and then eat them."
He said a second, and far easier, set of solutions is to utilize partial rotting of woody plant fiber to grow
mushrooms or to feed to insects, rats, cows, deer or chickens.
"The trees are all dying from the lack of light anyway . If we use dead trees as an input, we can feed beetles
or rats and then feed them to something else higher on the food chain," he said, "or just eat the bugs."