1NC

1
 1NC – CP
The United States federal government and the Russian Federation should
---establish a policy of using nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles only
to defend against asteroids.
---cooperatively reduce nuclear ICBM arsenals to the minimum amount
needed for NEO deflection, and eliminate all other nuclear weapons
---submit to IAEA and United Nations monitoring for compliance
---end all nuclear testing, research, and development
---establish joint launch vehicles and mission infrastructure for NEO
deflection.
AND The USFG should pass a policy to impeach Trump
All other states should eliminate their nuclear arsenals.
Scrapping ICBMs makes asteroid deflection impossible – they’re the only
thing that can do it
Amanda Buchanan 16, Assistant Astronomer @ Primland, "Is Blowing up an Asteroid
with a Bomb Really a Good Idea?", Futurism, https://futurism.com/blowing-asteroid-
bomb-really-good-idea
ICBMs are the long-range nukes that the USSR and USA had pointed at each other
To clarify,

during the Cold War they still have some pointed at each other
(in fact, scientists argue that ). Russian

typical rockets are not good candidates for seizing asteroids because they require too
much lead time to meet an asteroid that might be detected only days before impact And .

true enough, typical payload rockets take several days to fuel. On the other hand, ICBMs
can be launched at a moment’s notice.
Asteroids cause extinction – only US-Russia cooperation can solve.
Kaveh Afrasiabi 17. Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Ph.D. is an Iranian American political scientist
and author specializing in Iran’s foreign and nuclear affairs, and author of several
books, US-Russia And The Asteroid Threat – OpEd, April 13,
https://www.eurasiareview.com/13042017-us-russia-and-the-asteroid-threat-oped/
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has just finished his visit in Moscow to discuss Syria and the threat of terrorism and other
related issues with the Russian officials, but conspicuously
absent from the agenda of his visit is the real
and clear danger posed by the threat from space, that is, the asteroids, one of which is due to brush past earth on
Wednesday, April 19. In fact, Russia and US have become allies against the asteroid threat
since the signing of an anti-asteroid agreement in 2013, initiated by the then energy secretary and
scientist Ernst Muniz. This agreement calls for cooperation on research on asteroid defense,
raising the prospect of a US-Russia nuclear cooperation, given the potential feasibility of
nukes in deflecting or destroying an incoming asteroid — for good reason. The asteroid due for
a close flyby next week at a speed of some 60,000 miles per hour is over one mile long
and capable of releasing the equivalent of almost 2000 Hiroshima bombs; if it hits the
earth, it would cause massive tsunamis and giant fireballs wiping out a good chunk of
humanity. In a twist of irony, the NASA officials have reassured us that there is “zero chance”
of earth’s collision by this giant asteroid and, yet simultaneously, brand it as a “potentially
hazardous object” since it is considered a “near-earth” object and also because of a small uncertainty about its size and
orbit, i.e., its path’s trajectory in space, which has its own version of air pockets that can affect an asteroid’s
direction, just as its collision with another asteroid can do so, as was the case with the
meteor that exploded 27 miles about the ground in Russia in 2014, causing extensive
damage and came by undetected from the Sun’s direction; this new one is apparently 60
times bigger, and was detected only 2011. Clearly, humanity is at risk by the asteroid
threat and inaction is not an option. World’s scientists including some NASA scientists
such as Joseph Nuth have recently lamented our planetary lack of adequate defence against this
threat, which has been completely overshadowed by humanity’s other priorities,
which pale in comparison when considering the fact that our species survival depends on
an effective anti-asteroid defence — that may require the use of nuclear weapons.
Yet, despite some feeble initiatives to track and monitor the asteroids, NASA had admitted
that some ten percent of the incoming asteroids, i.e., over 10,000, are still not covered by their
system, which requires a great deal more funding and human resources, such as
increased number of observation points around the world. What is more, the present
efforts in asteroid prevention are still in the stage of infancy and initial testing, basically
proceeding at snail speed, again mainly due to the woefully inadequate resources
committed to these projects, decried by the world’s scientists, some of whom are adamant
about the need for nuclear-ready space missions as part of a contingency plan vis-à-vis
any asteroid on a collision course with our vulnerable planet. This is one of several
options studied at the moment, all of which are still on paper and, on the whole, out of sync
with the urgency of the matter that calls for a massive allocation of new resources that, in
turn, can even boost the economy by producing new jobs. Hence, it is only logical that US and Russia, which
have also collaborated in promoting a UN-based asteroid information network, put aside
their present cold war differences and enhance their cooperation for the sake of planetary
survival. It is in the vital national interests of both nations to do so, given the common
concern about the asteroid threat, that eclipses any human threat such as terrorism by
a huge margin. This problem is, unfortunately, sidelined due to the preoccupation with
geopolitical considerations, pointing at humanity’s folly.
Joint launch vehicles and mission infrastructure can solve.
Kirill Benediktov 13. Benediktov, Writer and member of the editorial board of the
website Terra America, “The Asteroid-Comet Danger and Planetary Defense - A View
from Russia”, April 13th, https://schillerinstitute.com/media/kirill-benediktov-the-asteroid-
comet-danger-and-planetary-defense-a-view-from-russia/
It should be noted that Russia definitely has something to offer in the creation of a global system
of planetary defense. I am referring mainly to the Citadel system, developed at Lavochkin
(Figure 9). This system was worked out “on paper” more than a dozen years ago; it was assumed
then that it would take no more than 7-8 years to implement the hardware. The political decision to create the Citadel Planetary
Defense System (PDS) was not made at that time, however, perhaps because it would have required
effective cooperation among different countries and space agencies. The Citadel PDS is a complex, layered system,
but with fairly simple basic elements. Moreover, all its major elements (or their prototypes) were already
developed in the Soviet Union. These include many types of rocket and space technology, nuclear weapons, means
Now we have a unique opportunity to use these tools, many
of communication, navigation, and control, etc.
of which were developed for military purposes, not for destruction, but to protect humanity from
dangerous celestial bodies. To prevent a collision of dangerous celestial bodies with Earth, the
plan is to use interception, based on the infrastructure for space flights (space launch
complexes, means of control, etc.). It will use, inclusively, special reconnaissance satellites and
interceptor spacecraft capable of acting upon the dangerous celestial bodies. Reconnaissance spacecraft are a small class
of apparatuses, such as the American Clementine, created on the basis of SDI technology. The light weight of the
reconnaissance spacecraft will allow them to accelerate to high speed and thus reach a
dangerous celestial body faster than a heavy interceptor. During the flight to the object, they ascertain its
characteristics and transfer the data to ground control, to refine the interception plan and its effect on the dangerous space body.
After that, the necessary commands are communicated to the interceptor spacecraft, which
maneuvers closer to the object and impacts it for the purpose of deflecting it from its Earth-
bound trajectory or destroying it. Experience acquired during efforts to create missile defense may be useful for this.
Kinetic impact or a nuclear explosion will be used against the dangerous object. It is proposed that the basis of the
planetary defense system will be the Citadel-1 operational reaction echelon, intended for
protection against objects of less than 100 m in diameter—the type that most often collide with Earth. Due to
their small size, their detection will be possible in the range of several days to several months before collision. This places severe
restrictions on the timing to ready the interceptors, primarily the launch vehicles. A Launch Vehicle Available Currently
these
requirements are met by the Russian-Ukrainian launch vehicle (LV) Dnepr (a conversion of the
RS-20 intercontinental ballistic missile, code-named SS-18 by NATO) and the Zenit LV. The
time required for preparing to launch—from a few minutes with the Dnepr to 1.5 hours with the
Zenit—makes them the only ones in the world that could be used in the operational reaction
echelon. The Russian-made launch vehicles have quite large capacities: if an interceptor is
launched using the Zenit LV, the mass of a nuclear device delivered to the asteroid can be
about 1,500 kg. The power of such a nuclear device would be no less than 1.5 megatons, which could destroy a stony asteroid
[S-type asteroid] with a diameter of several hundred meters. If several blocks were docked in Earth orbit, the
power of the nuclear device, and therefore the size of object to be destroyed, could be
substantially increased. Initially it was assumed that the basic spacecraft for creating reconnaissance satellites and
interceptors could be vehicles such as the Mars-96 and Phobos-Grunt, developed at the Lavochkin bureau. However, quite a
number of failures have plagued vehicles made by Lavochkin, significantly reducing the
probability that the Citadel system will be built by the Russian space industry alone. Probably
the best option would be combined missions, whereby Russia would provide the
launch vehicles, and the spacecraft would be built by NASA and the ESA.
2
 1NC - DA
Aff causes a shift to chemical and biological weapons – empirics and
economic theory prove.
Narang 16 (Neil Narang; Neil Narang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Co-Director of the
Global Security hub in the Orfalea Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2015-2016, he served as a Senior
Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense on a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship. He is currently a
research scholar and steering committee member at the University of California Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC),
faculty affiliate at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), affiliated researcher at the
Centre for Conflict Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, and Term Member of the Council on
Foreign Relations. Narang specializes in international relations, with a focus on issues of international security and conflict
management. Specifically, his research explores the role of signaling under uncertainty in situations of bargaining and cooperation,
particularly as it applies to two substantive domains: (1) crisis bargaining in both interstate and civil war, and (2) cooperation through
nuclear and conventional military alliances. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly,
Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, among others. He received his PhD in Political Science from UCSD and
he holds a BA in Molecular Cell Biology and Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He has previously been a
fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Browne Center for International Politics, a nonproliferation policy fellow at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory, and a junior faculty fellow and visiting professor at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and
Cooperation; 4-1-2016; "All Together Now? Questioning WMDs as a Useful Analytical Unit for Understanding Chemical and
Biological Weapons Proliferation"; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10736700.2016.1153184, Taylor & Francis,
accessed 12-8-2019; JPark)

- NBC = Nuclear/Bio/Chemical weapons

Rather than engage in a theoretical debate comparing the ease of acquisition and destructive potential across NBC weapons, we
chose an empirical and inductive approach of observing historical patterns in states’ pursuit and
acquisition ofdifferent WMDs to determine whether states appeared to behave as if these weapons were substitutes or
compliments. To do this, we estimated something akin to a cross-elasticity of demand across WMDs by measuring
the impact of pursuing and possessing any one type of WMD on the risk a state will eventually pursue another type, holding that
state’s underlying ‘‘willingness’’ to pursue a WMD (demand) constant. In other words, at any given level of demand—which we
approximate using a set of control variables that previous research has shown to be correlated with states’ willingness to
pursue a nuclear weapon—we tried to estimate the independent effect that acquiring one type of weapon
would have on the probability that a state will pursue another. To begin, this approach required accurate historical data on
nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons pursuit and acquisition across time and space. And although there is
some emerging consensus around which states pursued and possessed nuclear weapons over time, there was no previously
we relied on six different sources:
established data on chemical and biological weapons proliferation.15 To compile this data,
(1) the StockholmInternational Peace Research Institute, (2) the Center for Nonproliferation Studies,
(3) Arms Control Association, the (4) Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, (5) the Chemical
and Biological Arms Control Institute, and (6) the Stimson Center.16 Fortunately for us, the coding in these six
sources were highly correlated. However, they did not always agree on which states pursed or acquired chemical and biological
weapons in any given year. Nevertheless, we were able to confirm the robustness of our results to different sampling
rules that required either unanimity across sources, agreement across a majority of sources, or any single source reporting pursuit
or possession of a chemical or biological weapon by a state in any particular year. The results of our analyses were telling.
Specifically, we
found that the underlying demand for NBC weapons appears to be correlated. That is, many of
the same factorsthat cause states to “go nuclear” also appear to systematically influence the risk that
states will seek chemical and biological weapons. With respect to the relationship between different weapons of
mass destruction, we found that NBC weapons generally appear to function as complements at the pursuit stage: simply initiating
pursuit of any one WMD appears to independently increase the risk that a state will seek all three simultaneously, controlling for
other factors. Finally, and perhaps most interesting, we found some evidence that WMDs do function as substitutes in
one important fashion: once states acquire nuclear weapons, they appear far less likely to pursue or
possess chemical and biological weapons. That is, the data appears to support the popular notion that chemical and
biological weapons function as a “poor man’s atomic bomb,” since acquiring a nuclear weapon appears to satisfy
demand and reduce the risk of chemical and biological weapons pursuit, but not vice-versa. This last finding is also remarkably
consistent with the idea that nuclear weapons acquisition may uniquely entail some prestige. Of course, these results are not
without their limitations. First, these are systematic empirical regularities estimated across states in the international system over
time. There certainly are, however, important historical cases that do not fit these general patterns well. For example, both the
United States and the Soviet Union maintained chemical weapons programs for decades after they acquired nuclear weapons.
Second, the pursuit and acquisition of WMDs are relatively rare events, particularly with respect to nuclear weapons. For this
reason, some of our findings may be driven by the behavior of only a handful of states, which could limit the applicability of the
findings. Finally, our results are only instructive if the historical data under analysis are accurate. However, because WMD programs
are notoriously secret, determining which states actively pursue or possess a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon in any given
year is a non-trivial measurement challenge. We
were careful to check the robustness of our findings to
different datasets and different sampling rules, but this still assumes some independence across
measurements. In the end, we emphasized these limitations and encouraged caution in making strong policy inferences
based on our results. Misleading Inferences So what inferences—if any—from this research can we draw to the likely impact of
deep nuclear reductions on the risk of chemical and biological weapons proliferation? Might policies that limit the supply of nuclear
weapons simply shift proliferation risk elsewhere? Even more to the point, could actors increasingly view chemical and biological
weapons as the “poor man’s atomic bomb,” in inverse relationship to declining global nuclear stockpiles? The short answer to these
questions is that we cannot yet know the likely impact of deep nuclear reductions on chemical and biological weapons proliferation.
This is because existing research—including our own study—does not provide the type of empirical evidence needed to forecast
these outcomes with any real confidence. To illustrate this, I anticipate four mechanisms through which restrictions in the global
supply of nuclear weapons might be posited to increase the risk of chemical and biological weapons proliferation. I then show that
each of these inferences is nevertheless unsustainable based on the findings described above. The first inference that one may be
tempted to draw from past findings is that a policy focused on achieving reductions in the global nuclear stockpile could cause a rise
in chemical and biological weapons proliferation as more states view them as a “poor man’s atomic bomb.” As noted above, our
findings suggested that states appear to seek chemical and biological weapons for many of the same reasons as they pursue
nuclear weapons. Furthermore, our findings also indicate that
states that do not possess nuclear weapons
appear to be systematically more likely to pursue chemical and biological weapons than states that do
possess them. When combined, it may seem reasonable to suppose that, conditional on some level of demand for one of these
types of weapons, reductions
in the global supply of nuclear weapons could cause some states to
pursue chemical and biological weapons as “imperfect substitutes” for the deterrence and
compellence benefits of nuclear weapons.

North Korean CBW capability and use is uniquely likely

Kazianis 19 (Harry J., Senior Director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest,
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/us-invasion-north-korea-would-be-opening-gates-hell-57377, May 13) BW

Would the Trump administration actually consider invading North Korea? First of all, it goes without
saying I hope this never happens. However, history tells us we must plan for the worst. So what
would military action against the DPRK look like? While there are no certainties in modern warfare, one thing
is certain: an attack on North Korea to rid the world of what can only be described as the most vile regime on the
planet could be an unmitigated disaster. As I explained in a debate for the Week in 2014, there is four reasons a
regime-change-style invasion of North Korea would be insane. First, Kim has likely read a history book in the last
twenty years: Suppose Washington did decide to dispose of the evil thugs in Pyongyang. How would it
proceed? It would start by heavily bolstering the amount of military assets within striking distance of
North Korea. This would involve bringing in multiple aircraft carrier battle groups, increasing the
number of troops in South Korea for a ground invasion, moving in large amounts of land-based aircraft,
and boosting missile defenses in South Korea, Japan, and allied bases. In many respects, the U.S. would be dusting off
an integral component of the 1991 Gulf War playbook — build a large attack force that can overwhelm the enemy. Simple,
right? The problem is that such a massive military mobilization can't be hidden. North
Korea would instantly realize what was up. Pyongyang would certainly have a clear incentive
to strike hard and fast knowing it constituted its best chance for survival. Here we see the
great folly of Saddam Hussein: allowing coalition forces to build one of the world's most
powerful fighting forces on his doorstep. Kim would realize his best chance — maybe his only chance —
would be to strike with everything in his arsenal at the first sign of a build-up. Second, North Korea would have
every reason to launch a nuclear war: Why would a nation with less wealth than Ethiopia put billions of dollars into acquiring nuclear
weapons? The answer is simple: to ensure that anyone considering imposing regime change won't take the risk. If Washington ever
decided it was time to take the regime down, what reason would Pyongyang have from holding back? None. While there is debate
whether Kim's missiles have the range or accuracy to hit the continental U.S., it does seem likely they could hit Seoul or Tokyo —
one hell of an atomic parting gift. Kim knows all too well he would never be able to defeat an allied invasion — he may just decide to
 Kim might unleash his other weapons of mass
take as many souls down with him as possible. Third,
destruction we all forget about: In a 2012 report on North Korea's military, the U.S.
Department of Defense noted that "North Korea probably has had a longstanding chemical
weapons (CW) program with the capability to produce nerve, blister, blood, and
choking agents and likely possesses a CW stockpile. North Korea probably could
employ CW agents by modifying a variety of conventional munitions, including artillery and
ballistic missiles." Some reports estimate that the regime could possess as much as 5,000
metric tons of chemical weapons. While opinions vary regarding North Korea's biological
weapons capabilities, the same report sees such a program as a strong possibility, noting,
"North Korea continues to research bacterial and viral biological agents that could
support an offensive biological weapons program. Infrastructure, combined with its
weapons industry, gives North Korea a potentially robust biological warfare capability."
Imagining a nightmare scenario involving even a small cache of chemical or biological weapons
is not hard. A handful of such weapons launched at Seoul could create a panic not seen since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Even just one attack with such fearsome weapons on a civilian target must be avoided.

Bioweapons cause extinction– mathematically outweighs, even if they win

mitigation.
Millett & Snyder-Beattie ‘17. Millett, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute, University of
Oxford; and Snyder-Beattie, M.S., Director of Research, Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford. 08-01-2017. “Existential
Risk and Cost-Effective Biosecurity,” Health Security, 15(4), PubMed

bioweapons could threaten human

In the decades to come, advanced
existence. Although the probability of human extinction from bioweapons may be low, the
expected value of reducing the risk could still be large, since such risks jeopardize the existence
of all future generations. We provide an overview of biotechnological extinction risk, make some rough initial estimates
for how severe the risks might be, and compare the cost-effectiveness of reducing these extinction-level risks with existing
biosecurity work. We find that reducing human extinction risk can be more cost-effective than reducing smaller-scale risks, even
when using conservative estimates. This suggests that the risks are not low enough to ignore and that more ought to be done to
prevent the worst-case scenarios. How worthwhile is it spending resources to study and mitigate the chance of human extinction
from biological risks? The risks of such a catastrophe are presumably low, so a skeptic might argue that addressing such risks
would be a waste of scarce resources. In this article, we investigate this position using a cost-effectiveness approach and ultimately
conclude that the expected value of reducing these risks is large, especially since such risks jeopardize the existence of all future
human lives. Historically, disease events have been responsible for the greatest death
tolls on humanity. The 1918 flu was responsible for more than 50 million deaths,1 while smallpox killed perhaps 10 times
that many in the 20th century alone.2 The Black Death was responsible for killing over 25% of the European population,3 while
other pandemics, such as the plague of Justinian, are thought to have killed 25 million in the 6th century—constituting over 10% of
a future pandemic could result in outright
the world's population at the time.4 It is an open question whether
human extinction or the irreversible collapse of civilization. A skeptic would have many good
reasons to think that existential risk from disease is unlikely. Such a disease would need to
spread worldwide to remote populations, overcome rare genetic resistances,
and evade detection, cures, and countermeasures. Even evolution itself may work in
humanity's favor: Virulence and transmission is often a trade-off, and so evolutionary
pressures could push against maximally lethal wild-type pathogens.5,6 While these
arguments point to a very small risk of human extinction, they do not rule the possibility out entirely. Although
rare, there are recorded instances of species going extinct due to disease—primarily in amphibians,
but also in 1 mammalian species of rat on Christmas Island.7,8 There are also historical
examples of large human populations being almost entirely wiped out by disease,
especially when multiple diseases were simultaneously introduced into a population without
immunity. The most striking examples of total population collapse include native American
tribes exposed to European diseases, such as the Massachusett (86% loss of population), Quiripi-
Unquachog (95% loss of population), and the Western Abenaki (which suffered a staggering 98% loss of
population).9 In the modern context, no single disease currently exists that combines the worst-
case levels of transmissibility, lethality, resistance to countermeasures, and global reach.
But many diseases are proof of principle that each worst-case attribute can be
realized independently. For example, some diseases exhibit nearly a 100% case fatality ratio in
the absence of treatment, such as rabies or septicemic plague. Other diseases have a track record of
spreading to virtually every human community worldwide, such as the 1918 flu,10 and
seroprevalence studies indicate that other pathogens, such as chickenpox and HSV-1, can
successfully reach over 95% of a population.11,12 Under optimal virulence theory, natural
evolution would be an unlikely source for pathogens with the highest possible levels of
transmissibility, virulence, and global reach. But advances in biotechnology might
allow the creation of diseases that combine such traits. Recent controversy has already
emerged over a number of scientific experiments that resulted in viruses with enhanced
transmissibility, lethality, and/or the ability to overcome therapeutics.13-17 Other experiments
demonstrated that mousepox could be modified to have a 100% case fatality rate and render a vaccine ineffective.18 In addition to
transmissibility and lethality, studies have shown that other disease traits, such as incubation time, environmental survival, and
available vectors, could be modified as well.19-21 Although
these experiments had scientific merit and
were not conducted with malicious intent, their implications are still worrying. This is especially
true given that there is also a long historical track record ofstate-run bioweapon
research applying cutting-edge science and technology to design agents not previously seen
in nature. The Soviet bioweapons program developed agents with traits such as enhanced virulence, resistance to therapies,
greater environmental resilience, increased difficulty to diagnose or treat, and which caused unexpected disease presentations and
outcomes.22 Delivery capabilities have also been subject to the cutting edge of technical development, with Canadian, US, and UK
bioweapon efforts playing a critical role in developing the discipline of aerobiology.23,24 While there is no evidence of state-run
bioweapons programs directly attempting to develop or deploy bioweapons that would pose an existential risk, the
logic
of deterrence and mutually assured destruction could create such incentives in more unstable
political environments or following a breakdown of the Biological Weapons Convention.25 The possibility of a
war between great powers could also increase the pressure to use such weapons—during the
World Wars, bioweapons were used across multiple continents, with Germany targeting animals in WWI,26
and Japan using plague to cause an epidemic in China during WWII.27 Non-state actors may also pose a
risk, especially those with explicitly omnicidal aims. While rare, there are examples. The
Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan sought biological weapons for the express purpose of causing
extinction.28 Environmental groups, such as the Gaia Liberation Front, have argued that “we can
ensure Gaia's survival only through the extinction of the Humans as a species … we now have
the specific technology for doing the job … several different [genetically engineered] viruses
could be released”(quoted in ref. 29). Groups such as R.I.S.E. also sought to protect nature by
destroying most of humanity with bioweapons.30 Fortunately, to date, non-state actors
have lacked the capabilities needed to pose a catastrophic bioweapons threat, but this
could change in future decades as biotechnology becomes more accessible and the pool
of experienced users grows.31,32 What is the appropriate response to these speculative
extinction threats? A balanced biosecurity portfolio might include investments that reduce a mix of proven
and speculative risks, but striking this balance is still difficult given the massive uncertainties
around the low-probability, high-consequence risks. In this article, we examine the traditional spectrum of
biosecurity risks (ie, biocrimes, bioterrorism, and biowarfare) to categorize biothreats by likelihood and impact, expanding the
historical analysis to consider even lower-probability, higher-consequence events (catastrophic risks and existential risks). In order
to produce reasoned estimates of the likelihood of different categories of biothreats, we bring together relevant data and theory and
produce some first-guess estimates of the likelihood of different categories of biothreat, and we use these initial estimates to
compare the cost-effectiveness of reducing existential risks with more traditional biosecurity measures. We emphasize that these
models are highly uncertain, and their utility lies more in enabling order-of-magnitude comparisons rather than as a precise measure
of the true risk. However, even
with the most conservative models, we find that reduction
of low-probability, high-consequence risks can be more cost-effective, as
measured by quality-adjusted life year per dollar, especially when we account for the lives of future generations.
This suggests that despite the low probability of such events, society still ought to invest
more in preventing the most extreme possible biosecurity catastrophes.
3
 1NC - DA
Japan alliance is on the brink – perception of US abandonment guarantees
prolif and East Asian war
Monteiro ‘18 Nuno P., Director of International Security Studies and Associate
Professor of Political Science at Yale University, 2018, “Cascading Chaos in Nuclear
Northeast Asia” The Washington Quarterly, 41:1, 97-113
Since the end of the Cold War, Japan’s security concerns focus on a rising and
revisionist China and on North Korea provocations. When Pyongyang first tested a nuclear weapon in
2006, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reaffirmed Japan’s adherence to the three nonnuclear principles, while President George W. Bush
reasserted the U.S. commitment to Japanese security.42 President Barack Obama offered similar assurances after each
subsequent North Korean nuclear test.43 Japan’s
nuclear forbearance is certainly made easier by
Japanese public opinion, which is frequently described as allergic to nuclear weapons
as a result of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a feeling that was only reinforced
with the disaster at Fukushima.44 Nevertheless, reliable U.S. security assurances,
supported by the presence of a large number of U.S. troops in Japan, have played a
key role in maintaining Japan’s unique forbearance against nuclear weapons. After all,
Japan is the world’s third largest economy and possesses full control of the nuclear fuel cycle, yet remains a nonnuclear state.
Faced with a rising and increasingly assertive China and with a rapidly growing North
Korean nuclear ability to target the Japanese islands, Tokyo more than ever relies on
U.S. security guarantees to be able to deter aggression without its own autonomous
nuclear arsenal. Should the Trump administration question U.S. commitments to its
East Asian allies, Tokyo may be pushed to change its policy of nuclear forbearance.
As with South Korea, Washington might still attempt to deter Japanese nuclearization by imposing economic sanctions on Japan
while denying it credible security guarantees. In
our view, despite the deep level of international
integration of the Japanese economy and the strong preference of Japanese leaders to
remain embedded in the U.S.-led economic order, the dire security situation in which
Japan would be left in this scenario would likely lead Tokyo to push toward nuclear
acquisition despite any sanctions. The key source of instability in this scenario, however, would stem from Beijing’s
likely reaction to a Japanese proliferation effort. Given the short breakout period Tokyo enjoys, Beijing’s leadership would have to
decide fast on China’s policy.
A preventive counterproliferation strike against Japan would be
exceedingly costly and, for now, likely to be beyond the technical capability of the
Chinese military, but a forceful Chinese reaction, including threats of military action, is
not beyond the realm of the possible. This risk of Japanese nuclear acquisition would, of
course, be compounded by eventual South Korean nuclearization. Were Seoul to
build an autonomous nuclear arsenal, Tokyo would be greatly tempted to do so as well.
In what concerns U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy, then, U.S. security commitments to each of its two main East Asian allies are
deeply interconnected. The
removal of U.S. security guarantees to either South Korea or Japan
would trigger a process that would vastly augment instability in East Asia.
SoKo too – there’s mutual distrust between the two that escalates into
conflict + the need to check NoKo is high
Terry 19 (Terry, Sue Mi. “A Nuclear Arsenal Upgrade.” The New York Times, The New
York Times, 26 Oct. 2016, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/10/26/a-nuclear-
arsenal-upgrade/an-american-nuclear-umbrella-means-a-lot-to-northeast-asia. [Sue Mi
Terry, a managing director for Bower Group Asia, is a former senior North Korea analyst
at the Central Intelligence Agency])//LK [Accessed 12/17/19]
North Korea is racing ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs . Publicly available estimates suggest that by 2020 it will

South Korea and

have the ability to hit the continental United States with a nuclear-missile; by that point it may have as many as 100 nuclear warheads. Even before then North Korea poses a growing danger to its neighbors,

Japan, which both have the technology to field their own nuclear weapons in relatively short
order. Why haven’t South Korea and Japan gone
The best way to prevent South Korea and Japan from going nuclear is to restore confidence in the American nuclear deterrent.

ahead and nuclearized already? A big part of the explanation is the faith they have placed in the
American nuclear umbrella. But that faith is starting to erode. There are growing calls from South Korean lawmakers in the conservative, ruling Saenuri Party to develop nuclear weapons — an option that was

What would happen if South Korea were to go nuclear? Japan

endorsed by 54 percent of those surveyed by Gallup Korea in January 2016.

would follow suit. And then we would be in the midst of a dangerous and destabilizing nuclear-
arms race involving Japan, South Korea, North Korea and China, similar to the nuclear
competition that already exists between India and Pakistan. The chances of a catastrophic
conflict would greatly increase. That would not be in the interests of Northeast Asia or in the
interests of America. The best way to prevent that eventuality is to restore confidence in the American nuclear deterrent. Part of that task will involve political and diplomatic signaling on the part of the next president, presumably

it is also important to make the necessary investments to keep the American

Hillary Clinton. But to back up words with actions

nuclear arsenal robust and credible. If those investments aren’t made, the nuclear weapons will degrade and America’s ability to deter a wide range of adversaries — not only North Korea but also China
and Russia, and potentially Iran and Pakistan — will dangerously decrease.

Durable fiat definitely doesn’t solve

1. XT “their” is possessive and modifies states – means res only refers
to states who have nukes
2. You can only eliminate things you have – means the res doesn’t refer
to states without nukes
Marriam Webster
Definition of eliminate transitive verb 1a : to put an end to or get rid of : remove
That goes nuclear
Andrew Tan 15, Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales. “Security
and Conflict in East Asia”, p. 31
East Asia’s arms race leads to the classic problem of the security dilemma, in which a
state that is perceived as becoming too powerful leads to counter-acquisitions by other
states. This results in misperceptions, conflict spirals, heightened tensions and
ultimately open conflict, thereby destroying the very security that arms are supposed to
guarantee (Jervis 1976). East Asia’s sustained economic rise since the end of the Korean War in 1953 and the lack of
any major conflict since has lulled many into believing that growing economic
interdependence will make war unlikely in that region (Khoo 2013: 47-48). However, this is a false
premise as significant historical antagonisms have remained. Japan’s imperialism
prior to 1945 and its failure adequately to account for its past continues to stir up strong
nationalist emotions in China and South Korea. In additions, the divisions between North
Korea and South Korea are as strong as intractable as ever, leading to an arms
race on the Korean peninsula. The situation is compounded by the weakness or
absence of regional institutions, regimes and laws that could regulate interstate
relations, build trust and confidence- and security-building measures which were in pace in
 the
Europe during the Cold War and helped to calm tensions as well as contain the arms race exist in Asia. Within East Asia itself,
Six-Party Talks have focused only on the Korean issue and have not managed to stem
North Korea’s open brinkmanship that in early 2013 almost brought the Korean peninsula to war again. The
arms race in East Asia is dangerous owing to the increased risk of miscalculation as a
result of misperception. Chinese policymakers appear to be convinced that Japan is dominated by right-wing
conservatives bent on reviving militarism (Glosserman 2012). At the same time, there is also a perception within
China that given its growing strength, it should now aggressively assert what it
perceives to be its legitimate claims in the East and South China Seas. Thus, China’s nationalist
discourse perceives that the problems about disputed territory emanate from other powers, not China (Sutter 2012). The
consequences of conflict between China and Japan, on the Korean peninsula or over
Taiwan, however, will not stay regional. As a key player in East Asia, the USA, which has
security commitments to Japan and South Korea, residual commitments to Taiwan, and
troops on the ground in East Asia and in the Western Pacific, will be drawn in. The
problem is that any conflict in East Asia is not likely to remain conventional for long. In fact,
it is likely that it would rapidly escalate into a nuclear war because three of the key
players, namely China, North Korea and the USA, possess nuclear weapons.
4
 1NC – CP
CP Text: All states with the exception of the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea should eliminate their nuclear arsenals.
And North Korea should eliminate their ICBMs but retain all other weapons
 Case
No extinction – this card assumes all of your warrants – takes out webber
- Particles fall super slowly from the sky – by the time they reach the earth – they would
have little to no impact
- Even if they win radiation – rain only brings down a few particles - with very short and
non-sustainable impact
- Shelters have safe air – pple won’t all die
- Even if yes radiation damage – the Human Body repairs it over no time – Hiroshima +
Nagasaki proves – only small portion effected by radiation actually suffered serious fx
- No heat radiation/fireball scenario – Air particles absorb and scatter it.
- No Firestorms Impact – its localized in old cities
- Russia wouldn’t strike population centers – rational actors mean they will just knock out
our weapons and destroy potential for further strikes
- No food/Water impact
o Stored food in dust tight containers solve
o Peeling any fruit takes off the radiation
o Simple filtering solves Water purity
- No impact of abnormalities – our ev cites National Academy of science 30 year case
study of Hiroshima Nagasaki
- Statements that US and Russia even have enough weapons to destroy the world is
rooted in bad studies and pure nationalistic sentiment
- No ozone reduction – all the models say that the worst case scenario would be like
moving from sanfrancisco to sea level at the equator
- Weapons are smaller with no negative impact – most are under 500 kilotons which
actually Help the ozone – they would actually offset any risk of ozone damage from the
few weapons
- Nuclear winter is a scientifically discredited model – all the ev supporting it is propogated
by hacks who are funded by gov in attempting to scare the population of a nuclear war to
sway people in favour of military buildups for self defense
- Worst case scenario of nuclear winter would be a global temp of 50 degrees fareingheit
– which has a negligent impact on crops and agriculture
- No firestorm has ever shown that its able to inject smoke into the stratosphere to cause
cooling

Wigner et al. 14, Eugene P. Wigner was a Professor of Mathematical Physics at

Princeton University and was a Nobel Laureate. Cresson Kearny was a civil defense
researcher at the Hudson Institute, a US Army Major and Legion of Merit recipient, had
a degree in Civil Engineering from Princeton University, and had two degrees in
Geology from Oxford University. Arnold Jagt is a systems engineer and content
digitizer. (“Ch. 1: The Dangers from Nuclear Weapons: Myths and Facts”,
http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p912.htm, Updated on 11/29/2014, Originally published in
2004) Kerwin
An all-out nuclear war would be a tragedy
between Russia and the United States Even so, it
the worst catastrophe in history, so huge it is difficult to comprehend.

would be far from the end of human life on earth. The dangers from nuclear weapons
have been distorted and exaggerated These exaggerations have become , for varied reasons.

demoralizing myths, believed by millions While building shelters and life- of Americans. working with hundreds of Americans expedient

support I have found that

equipment, many people at first see no sense in talking about details of survival skills. Those who hold exaggerated beliefs about the dangers from nuclear weapons must first be convinced

that nuclear war would not inevitably be the end of them and everything worthwhile. Only after they have begun to question the truth of these myths do they become interested,
under normal peacetime conditions, in acquiring nuclear war survival skills. Therefore, before giving detailed instructions for making and using survival equipment, we will examine the most harmful of the myths about nuclear war dangers, along with some of the

Myth: Fallout radiation from a nuclear war would poison the air and all parts of the
grim facts. °

environment. Facts: When a nuclear weapon

It would kill everyone. (This is the demoralizing message of On the Beach and many similar pseudoscientific books and articles.) °

explodes it forms a crater. and

near enough to the ground for its fireball to touch the ground, (See Fig. 1.1.) Fig. 1.1. A surface burst. In a surface or near-surface burst, the fireball touches the ground blasts a crater.

particles.
ORNL-DWG 786264 Book Page: 12 Many thousands of tons of earth from the crater of a large explosion are pulverized into trillions of These particles are contaminated by radioactive atoms produced by the nuclear explosion. Thousands
of tons of the particles are carried up into a mushroom-shaped cloud, miles above the earth. These radioactive particles then fall out of the mushroom cloud, or out of the dispersing cloud of particles blown by the winds thus becoming fallout. Each contaminated
particle continuously gives off invisible radiation, much like a tiny X-ray machine while in the mushroom cloud, while descending, and after having fallen to earth. The descending radioactive particles are carried by the winds like the sand and dust particles of a

they are blown at lower speeds and in many areas the particles are so far apart
miles-thick sandstorm cloud except that usually

that no cloud is seen. The largest, heaviest fallout particles reach the ground first, in locations close to the explosion. Many smaller particles are carried by the winds for tens to thousands of miles before falling to earth. At any
one place where fallout from a single explosion is being deposited on the ground in concentrations high enough to require the use of shelters, deposition will be completed within a few hours. The smallest fallout particles those tiny enough to be inhal ed into a

These particles fall so slowly from the four-mile or greater heights to which
person's lungs are invisible to the naked eye. tiny would

they would be injected by currently deployed Soviet warheads that most remain airborne for would weeks

years before reaching the ground. By that time their extremely wide dispersal and radioactive
to

decay would make them much less dangerous. particles promptly brought to earth by Only where such tiny are

rain would constitute a long-term and minor post-

- outs or snow-outs in scattered "hot spots," and later dried and blown about by the winds, these invisible particles relatively

attack danger. The air in properly designed fallout shelters, even those without air filters, is free
of radioactive particles and safe to breathe danger from except in a few' rare environments as will be explained later. Fortunately for all living things, the

fallout radiation lessens with time. radioactive decay gets slower and slower. The , as this lessening is called, is rapid at first, then

The dose rate decreases(the amount of radiation received per hour) accordingly. Figure 1.2 illustrates the rapidity of the decay of radiation from fallout during the first two days after the n uclear explosion that produced it. R
stands for roentgen, a measurement unit often used to measure exposure to gamma rays and X rays. Fallout meters called dosimeters measure the dose r eceived by recording the number of R. Fallout meters called survey meters, or dose-rate meters, measure the
dose rate by recording the number of R being received per hour at the time of measurement. Notice that it takes about seven times as long for the dose rate to decay from 1000 roentgens per hour (1000 R/hr) to 10 R/hr (48 hours) as to decay from 1000 R/hr to 100

dose rate 1 hour after an explosion is

R/hr (7 hours). (Only in high-fallout areas would the dose rate 1 hour after the explosion be as high as 1000 roentgens per hour.) Book Page: 13 If the

1000 R/hr, it would take about 2 weeks for the dose rate to be reduced to 1 R/hr solely as a
result of radioactive decay. Weathering effects will reduce the dose rate further ,' for example, rain can wash fallout particles
from plants and houses to lower positions on or closer to the ground. Surrounding objects would reduce the radiation dose from these low-lying particles. Figure 1.2 also illustrates the fact that at a typical location where a given amount of fallout from an expl osion is

deposited later than 1 hour after the explosion, the highest dose rate and the total dose received at that location are less than at a location where the same amount of fallout is deposited 1 hour after the explosion. The longer fallout
particles have been airborne before reaching the ground, the less dangerous is their radiation. Within two weeks after an attack
the occupants of most shelters could safely stop using them, or could work outside the shelters for an increasing number of hours each day. Exceptions would be in areas of extremely heavy fallout such as might occur downwind from important targets attacked with
many weapons, especially missile sites and very large cities. To know when to come out safely, occupants either would need a reliable fallout meter to measure the changing radiation dangers, or must receive information based on measurements made nearby with

The radiation dose that will kill a person varies considerably with different people. A
a reliable instrument.

dose of 450 R from exposure of the whole body

resulting will kill half the persons to fallout radiation is often said to be the dose that about

receiving it , although most studies indicate that it would take somewhat less.1 (Note: A number written after a statement refers the reader to a source listed in the Selected References that follow Appendix D.) Almost all persons confined to
expedient shelters after a nuclear attack would be under stress and without clean surroundings or antibiotics to fight infect ions. Many also would lack adequate water and food. Under these unprecedented conditions, perhaps half the persons who receiv ed a whole-

Fortunately, the human body can repair most radiation damage

body dose of 350 R within a few days would die.2 if the daily radiation doses are not too

a person who is healthy

large. As will be explained in Appendix B, can receive a dose of and has not been exposed in the past two weeks to a total radiation dose of more than 100 R

6 R each day for at least two months without being incapacitated. Only a very small fraction of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki citizens who survived radiation doses suffered serious some of which were nearly fatal have

delayed effects. The reader should realize that to do essential work after a massive nuclear attack, many survivors must be willing to receive much larger radiation doses than are normally permissible. Otherwise, too many workers would
stay inside shelter too much of the time, and work that would be vital to national recovery could not be done. For example, if the great majority of truckers were so fearful of receiving even non-incapacitating radiation doses that they would refuse to transport food,

Myth: Fallout radiation penetrates everything; there is no escaping

additional millions would die from starvation alone. ° its deadly

Facts:
effects. ° the radiation dose that the
Some gamma radiation from fallout will penetrate the shielding materials of even an excellent shelter and reach its occupants. However,

occupants of an excellent shelter would receive can be reduced to a dose smaller than while inside this shelter

the average American receives during his lifetime from X rays and other radiation exposures
normal in America today. a shelter include the use of a sufficient thickness of earth
The design features of such or other
heavy shielding material. Gamma rays are like X rays, but more penetrating. Figure 1.3 shows how rapidly gamma rays are reduced in number (but not in their ability to penetrate) by layers of packed earth. Each of the layers shown is one halving-thickness of
packed earth- about 3.6 inches (9 centimeters).3 A halving- thickness is the thickness of a material which reduces by half the dose of radiation that passes through it. The actual paths of gamma rays passing through shielding materials are much more complicated,
due to scattering, etc., than are the straight-line paths shown in Fig. 1.3. But when averaged out, the effectiveness of a halving-thickness of any material is approximately as shown. The denser a substance, the better it serves for shielding material. Thus, a halving-
thickness of concrete is only about 2.4 inches (6.1 cm). Book Page: 14 Fig. 1.3. Illustration of shielding against fallout radiation. Note the increasingly large improvements in the attenuation (reduction) factors that are attained as each additional halving-thickness of
packed earth is added. ORNL-DWG 78-18834 If additional halving-thicknesses of packed earth shielding are successively added to the five thicknesses shown in Fig. 1.3, the protection factor (PF) is successively increased from 32 to 64, to 128, to 256, to 512, to

Myth: A heavy nuclear attack would set practically everything on fire, causing
1024, and so on. °

"firestorms" in cities that would exhaust the oxygen in the air. All shelter occupants
would be killed by the intense heat. Facts: ° On aclear day, thermal pulses (heat radiation that travels at the speed of light) from an air burst can set fire to easily ignitable materials
(such as window curtains, upholstery, dry newspaper, and dry grass) over about as large an area as is damaged by the blast. I t can cause second-degree skin burns to exposed people who are as far as ten miles from a one-megaton (1 MT) explosion. (See Fig.

1.4.) (A 1-MT nuclear explosion is one that produces the same amount of energy as does one million tons of TNT.) If the weather is very clear and dry, the area of fire danger could be considerably larger. On a cloudy or
smoggy day particles in the air would absorb and scatter much of the heat radiation, and the
, however,

area endangered by heat radiation from the fireball would be less An air than the area of severe blast damage. Book Page: 15 Fig. 1.4.

burst Thefireball does not touch the ground. No crater. An air burst produces only extremely
.

small radioactive particles-so small that they are airborne for years days to unless brought to earth by rain or snow. Wet deposition of fallout from

"hot spots" from air bursts are much less dangerous

both surface and air bursts can result in '"hot spots" at, close to, or far from ground zero. However, such ' than the fallout
produced by the surface or near-surface bursting of the same weapons. The main dangers from an air burst are the blast effects, the thermal pulses of intense light and heat radiation, and the very penetrating initial nuclear radiation from the fireball. ORNL.DWG

"Firestorms" could occur only when the concentration of combustible structures is very high,
78.6267

as in the very dense centers of a few old American cities. At rural and suburban building
densities, most people in earth- covered fallout shelters would not have their lives endangered
by fires. In theworst-hit parts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where all buildings were
° Myth:

demolished, everyone was killed by blast, radiation, or fire. people survived uninjured ° Facts: InNagasaki, some

who were inside tunnel shelters built for conventional air raids and located as close as one-third
far

mile from ground zero (the point directly below the explosion). This was true even though these long, large shelters lacked blast doors and were deep

Many earth-
inside the zone within which all buildings were destroyed. (People far inside long, large, open shelters are better protected than are those inside small, open s helters.) Fig. 1.5. Undamaged earth-covered family shelter in Nagasaki.

covered family shelters were essentially undamaged in areas where blast and fire destroyed all
buildings. shelter was undamaged, although less than
Figure 1.5 shows a typical earth covered, backyard family shelter with a crude wooden frame. This essentially

100 yards from ground zero The calculated maximum overpressure was
at Nagasaki.4 (pressure above the normal air pressure) about 65

65 psi
pounds per square inch ( Small
). Persons inside so small a shelter without a blast doorwould have been killed by blast pressure at this distance from the explosion. However, in a recent blast test,5 an earth-covered, expedient -Pole

Shelter equipped with blast doors was undamaged at 53 psi. The pressure rise inside was slight
not even enough to have damaged occupants' eardrums. families can build If poles are available, field tests have indicated that many

such shelters in a few days. The great life-saving potential of blast-protective shelters has been
proven in war and confirmed by blast tests and calculations. For example, the area in which the air bursting of a 1-megaton weapon would wreck a 50-psi
shelter with blast doors in about 2.7 square miles. Within this roughly circular area, practically all them occupants of wrec ked shelters would be killed by blast, carbon monoxide from fires, or radiation. The same blast effects would kill most people who were using

Myth: Because some modern H-bombs are over 1000 times as

basements affording 5 psi protection, over an area of about 58 square miles.6 °

powerful as the A-bomb that destroyed most of Hiroshima, these H-bombs are 1000
times as deadly and destructive. Facts: A nuclear weapon 1000 times as powerful ° as the one that blasted

produces damage to wood-frame houses over an area up to 130

Hiroshima, if exploded under comparable conditions, equally serious blast about

times as large, not 1000 times as large. Book Page: 16 For example, air bursting a 20-kiloton weapon at the optimum height to destroy most buildings will destroy or severely damage houses out to about 1.42 miles from
ground zero.6 The circular area of at least severe blast damage will be about 6.33 square miles. (The explosion of a 20 kiloton weapon releases the same amount of energy as 20 thousand tons of TNT.) One thousand 20-kiloton weapons thus air burst, well
separated to avoid overlap of their blast areas, would destroy or severely damage houses over areas totaling approximately 6,330 square miles. In contrast, similar air bursting of one 20- megaton weapon (equivalent in explosive power to 20 million tons of TNT)

Today few if any of

would destroy or severely damage the great majority of houses out to a distance of 16 miles from ground zero.6 The area of destruction would be about 800 square miles - not 6,330 square miles.

Russia's huge (ICBMs) are armed with a 20-megaton warhead a huge Russian
intercontinental ballistic missiles . Now

ICBM typically carries

, the SS-18, 500 kilotons Myth: A
10 warheads, each having a yield of , each programmed to hit a separate target. See Jane's Weapon Systems, 1987-88. °

Russian nuclear attack on the United States would completely destroy all American cities. °

Facts: Soviet leaders are rational they will continue to give first priority to knocking out our
As long as

weapons and other military assets that can damage Russia and kill Russians. To explode
enough nuclear weapons of any size to completely destroy American cities would be an
irrational waste of warheads. warheads
The Soviets can make much better use of most of the warheads that would be required to completely destroy American cities; the majority of those probably

are targeted to knock out our retaliatory missiles

already on silos, located far by being surface burst or near-surface burst their hardened

from densely populated areas.

most cities and militarily significant targets Unfortunately, many - including naval vessels in port and port facilities, bombers and

would be
fighters on the ground, air base and airport facilities that can be used by bombers, Army installations, and key defense fact ories - are in or close to American cities. In the event of an all-out Soviet attack, most of these '"soft" targets

destroyed by air bursts. Air bursting (see Fig. 1.4) a given weapon subjects about twice as large an area to blast effects severe enough to destroy "s oft" targets as does surface bursting (see Fig. 1.1) the same weapon.

Fortunately air bursts produce only very tiny particles.

for Americans living outside blast and fire areas, Most of these extremely small radioactive particles remain airborne
for so long that their radioactive decay and wide dispersal before reaching the ground make them much less life- endangering than the promptly deposited larger fallout particles from surface and near-surface bursts. However, if you are a survival minded American
you should prepare to survive heavy fallout wherever you are. Unpredictable winds may bring fallout from unexpected directions. Or your area may be in a "hot spot" of life-endangering fallout caused by a rain-out or snow-out of both small and tiny particles from
distant explosions. Or the enemy may use surface or near-surface bursts in your part of the country to crater long runways or otherwise disrupt U.S. retaliatory actions by producing heavy local fallout. Today few if any of Russia's largest intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) are armed with a 20-megaton warhead. A huge Russian ICBM, the SS-18, typically carries 10 warheads each having a yield of 500 kilotons, each programmed to hit a separate target. See "Jane's Weapon Systems. 1987-1988." However, in March
1990 CIA Director William Webster told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that ".... The USSR's strategic modernization program continues unabated," and that the SS-18 Mod 5 can carry 14 to 20 nuclear warheads. The warheads are generally assumed

Myth: So much food and water will be poisoned by fallout that people will
to be smaller than those of the older SS-18s. °

starve and die even in fallout areas where there is enough food and water. Facts: If the °

falloutparticles do not become mixed with the parts of food that are eaten, no harm is done.
Food and water in dust-tight containers are not contaminated Peeling fruits and by fallout radiation.

vegetables removes all fallout, as does removing the uppermost several inches of stored
essentially
grain onto which fallout particles have fallen. Water from many sources -- such as deep wells
and covered reservoirs, tanks, and containers -- would not be contaminated. Even water
containing dissolved radioactive elements and compounds can be made safe for drinking by
simply filtering it through earth Myth: Most of the unborn children of people
, as described later in this book. ° and grandchildren

who have been exposed to radiation will be genetically damaged from nuclear explosions will be malformed, delayed victims of nuclear war. °

Facts: The authoritative study by the National Academy of Sciences, A Thirty Year Study of the
Survivors qf Hiroshima and Nagasaki It concludes that the incidence of abnormalities is , was published in 1977.

no higher among children later conceived by parents who were exposed to radiation during the
attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki than is the incidence of abnormalities among Japanese
children born to un-exposed parents. This is not to say that there would be no genetic damage, nor that some fetuses subjected to large radiation doses would not be damaged. But the

overwhelming evidence does show that the exaggerated fears of radiation damage to future
generations are not supported by scientific findings. Myth: Overkill would result if all the U.S. °

and U.S.S.R, nuclear weapons were used they meaning not only that the two superpowers have more than enough weapons to kill all of each other's people, but also that

have enough weapons to exterminate the human race. Facts: Statements that the U.S. Book Page: 17 °

and the Soviet Union have the power to kill the world's population several times over are based
on misleading calculations. One such calculation is to multiply the deaths produced per kiloton exploded over Hiroshima or Nagasaki by an estimate of the number of kilotons in either side's arsenal. (A kiloton

unstated assumption is that somehow the world's population

explosion is one that produces the same amount of energy as does 1000 tons of TNT.) The

could be gathered into circular crowds, each a few miles in diameter with a population density
equal to downtown Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and then a small (Hiroshima-sized) weapon would
be exploded over the center of each crowd. Other misleading calculations are based on
exaggerations of the dangers from long-lasting radiation Myth: Blindness and a and other harmful effects of a nuclear war. °

disastrous increase of cancers would be the fate of survivors because explosions of a nuclear war, the nuclear

would destroy so much of the protective ozone in the stratosphere that far too much ultraviolet light would reach the earth's surface. Even birds and insects would be blin ded. People

Plants would be badly injured and food

could not work outdoors in daytime for years without dark glasses, and would have to wear protective clothing to prevent incapacitating sunburn.

production greatly reduced. Facts: ° the percent of

Large nuclear explosions do inject huge amounts of nitrogen oxides (gasses that destroy ozone) into the stratosphere. However,

the ozone destroyed

stratospheric has been greatly overestimated in all theoretical
by a given amount of nitrogen oxides almost

calculations and models. For example, the Soviet and U.S. atmospheric nuclear test explosions of large weapons in 1952-1962 were calculated by Foley and Ruderman to result in a reduction of more than 10 percent in

observations showed no reductions

total ozone. (See M. H. Foley and M. A. Ruderman, 'Stratospheric NO from Past Nuclear Explosions", Journal of Geophysics, Res. 78, 4441-4450.) Yet that they cited

in ozone. Nor did ultraviolet increase. Other theoreticians calculated sizable reductions in total ozone, but interpreted the observational data to indicate either no reduction, or much smaller reductions

A realistic
than their calculated ones.estimate of the increased ultraviolet light dangers
simplified to American survivors of a large nuclear war

equates to moving from San Francisco to sea level at the equator, where the sea level
these hazards

incidence of skin cancers (seldom fatal) is highest- about 10 times higher than the incidence at
San Francisco. Many additional thousands of American survivors might get skin cancer, but little or no increase in skin cancers might result if in the post-attack world deliberate sun tanning and going around hatless went out of fashion.

almost all of today's warheads are smaller than those exploded in the large- weapons tests
Furthermore,

most would inject much smaller amounts of ozone-destroying gasses, or no gasses, into
mentioned above;

the stratosphere And nuclear weapons smaller than 500 kilotons result in
, where ozone deficiencies may persist for years.

increases (due to smog reactions) in upper tropospheric ozone. these increases would In a nuclear war, partially

compensate for the upper-level tropospheric decreases -as explained by Julius S. Chang and Donald J. Wuebbles of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. °

Myth: Unsurvivable "nuclear winter" surely will follow a nuclear war. The world will be
frozen if only 100 megatons (less than one percent of all nuclear weapons) are used to ignite cities.

Sub-zero temperatures
World-enveloping smoke from fires and the dust from surface bursts will prevent almost all sunlight and solar heat from reaching the earth's surface. Universal darkness for weeks! , even in

Frozen crops
summertime! Worldwide famine! Whole species of animals and plants
, even in the jungles of South America!

exterminated! Facts: Unsurvivable "nuclear winter" is a discredited theory that

The survival of mankind in doubt! ° , since its

has been used to frighten

conception in 1982, millions into believing that trying to survive a nuclear war is
additional

a waste of effort and resources, and that only by ridding the world of almost all nuclear weapons
do we have a chance of surviving. Non-propagandizing scientists recently calculated that the have

climatic effects of even an all-out nuclear war would be much less severe than the
and other environmental
catastrophic effects repeatedly publicized by popular astronomer Carl Sagan and his fellow activist scientists , and by all

Conclusions reached from

the involved Soviet scientists. these recent, realistic calculations are summarized in an article, "Nuclear Winter Reappraised", featured in the 1986 summer issue of Foreign Affairs, the

the National Center for Atmospheric

prestigious quarterly of the Council on Foreign Relations. The authors, Starley L. Thompson and Stephen H. Schneider, are atmospheric scientists with

Research. showed They apocalyptic conclusions can now be relegated

" that on scientific grounds the global of the initial nuclear winter hypothesis

to a vanishing low level of probability." Their models indicate that in July (when the Book Page: 18

greatest temperature reductions would result) the average temperature in the United States
would be reduced for a few days from about 70 degrees Fahrenheit to 50 degrees. approximately (In contrast, under the
same conditions Carl Sagan, his associates, and the Russian scientists predicted a resulting average temperature of about 10 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, lasting for many weeks!) Persons who want to learn more about possible post-attack climatic effects also

Continuing studies indicate

should read the Fall 1986 issue of Foreign Affairs. This issue contains a long letter from Thompson and Schneider which further demolishes the theory of catastrophic "nuclear winter."

there will be even smaller reductions in temperature than those calculated by Thompson and
Schneider. Soviet propagandists promptly exploited belief in unsurvivable "nuclear winter" to
increase fear of nuclear weapons and war, and to demoralize their enemies. Because raging city firestorms are needed to inject
huge amounts of smoke into the stratosphere and thus, according to one discredited theory, prevent almost all solar heat from r eaching the ground, the Soviets changed their descriptions of how a modern city will burn if blasted by a nuclear explosion. Figure 1.6

Buildings
pictures how Russian scientists and civil defense officials realistically described - before the invention of "nuclear winter" - the burning of a city hit by a nuclear weapon. in the blasted area for miles around ground zero will be reduced to

scattered rubble - mostly of concrete, steel, and other nonflammable materials will not burn in blazing fires. - that Thus in
the Oak Ridge National Laboratory translation (ORNL-TR-2793) of Civil Defense. Second Edition (500,000 copies), Moscow, 1970, by Egorov, Shlyakhov, and Alabin, we read: "Fires do not occur in zones of complete destruction . . . that are characterized by an

overpressure exceeding 0.5 kg/cm2 [- 7 psi]., because rubble is scattered and covers the burning structures. As a result the rubble only smolders fires , and as such do not occur." Fig. 1.6.
Drawing with Caption in a Russian Civil Defense Training Film Strip. The blazing fires ignited by a surface burst are shown i n standing buildings outside the miles-wide "zone of complete destruction," where the blast-hurled "rubble only smolders." Translation:

Firestorms destroyed Hamburg

[Radioactive] contamination occurs in the area of the explosion and also along the trajectory of the cloud which forms a radi oactive track. Book Page: 19 the centers of , Dresden,

old-fashioned buildings those cities contained large amounts of flammable materials

and Tokyo. The of , were ignited

No firestorm has ever injected smoke into the

by many thousands of small incendiaries, and burned quickly as standing structures well supplied with air.

stratosphere, or caused appreciable cooling below its smoke cloud. The theory that smoke from burning cities and

nuclear explosions would cause worldwide freezing temperatures was conceived

forests and dust from in 1982 by the

by a worldwide propaganda campaign.

German atmospheric chemist and environmentalist Paul Crutzen, and continues to be promoted This well funded campaign began in 1983 with televised

featuring
scientific-political meetings in Cambridge and Washington American and Russian scientists. A barrage of newspaper and magazine articles followed, including a scaremongering article by Carl Sagan in the October 30, 1983 issue of
Parade, the Sunday tabloid read by millions. The most influential article was featured in the December 23,1983 issue of Science (the weekly magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science): "N uclear winter, global consequences of multiple

Turco Toon Ackerman Pollack, and Sagan. Significantly, these activists

nuclear explosions," by five scientists, R. P. , O. B. , T. P. , J. B. C.

listed their names to spell TTAPS, pronounced "taps," the bugle call proclaiming "lights out" or
the end of a military funeral. Until 1985, non-propagandizing scientists did not begin to
effectively refute the numerous errors, unrealistic assumptions, and computer modeling
weakness' of the TTAPS and related "nuclear winter" hypotheses. A principal reason is that
government organizations, private corporations, and most scientists generally avoid getting
involved in political controversies, or making statements likely to enable antinuclear activists to
accuse them of minimizing nuclear war dangers, thus undermining hopes for peace. Stephen
Schneider has been called a fascist by some disarmament supporters for having written
"Nuclear Winter Reappraised," according to the Rocky Mountain News of July 6, 1986. Three days later, this paper, that until recently featured accounts of unsurvivable "nuclear winter," criticized Carl Sagan

In a free country, truth will out - although sometimes

and defended Thompson and Schneider in its lead editorial, "In Study of Nuclear Winter, Let Scientists Be Scientists."

too late to effectively counter fast-hittingpropaganda. Effective refutation of "nuclear winter" also was delayed by the prestige of politicians and of politically motivated
scientists and scientific organizations endorsing the TTAPS forecast of worldwide doom. Furthermore, the weakness' in the TTAPS hypothesis could not be effectively explored until adequate Government funding was made available to cover costs of lengthy,
expensive studies, including improved computer modeling of interrelated, poorly understood meteorological phenomena.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki thumps the one explosion arg

Neutron nukes won’t be used & they’re not developed rn – ev is from 2003
and it says being developed right now but can’t say exists right now. This
ev. Says that after every nuke test seismic activity increased but seismic
activity operates on a periodic level.
 Disarm
Limited nuke war with North Korea now has almost zero environmental
effect
David H. Davis 16, PhD from Johns Hopkins University, Professor of Political Science
and Comparative Environmental Policy @ University of Toledo, formerly worked for the
EPA, “Environmental Effects of Limited Nuclear War”,
https://patimes.org/environmental-effects-limited-nuclear-war/
Time for more bad news. Last February I wrote about the horrific environmental effects of an all-out nuclear war. As few as 200 warheads on each side could cause Nuclear
Winter by blasting so much smoke and dust into the atmosphere that the sunlight reaching the Earth would only be as much as on a winter day. Photosynthesis would be

what would be the effects only a few

impossible. All plants would die, followed by all animals (including humans) dying of starvation. But

nuclear bombs? A few back of the envelope calculations should enlighten us. North Korea
is the country most likely to unleash this destruction. It has tested five bombs and appears to
have fissile material to build 20 more warheads of about 10-30 kilotons, roughly the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One
scenario might be for North Korea to launch five missiles against Seoul, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), Busan, Tokyo and Guam.
If the United States were to retaliate on behalf of South Korea, it might launch five “tactical” nukes against

Pyongyang, the base at Yongbyon, and the DMZ. Let us assume this destroys the Communist regime, thus ending the war. The
loss of life would be tragic. The Hiroshima bomb killed 70,000 initially and another 70,000 from
radiation. The Nagasaki bomb killed 40,000 initially and 25,000 later. The present population of Seoul is 10 million, 40 times
as big as the Japanese cities in 1945. The population of Pyongyang is two and a half million. Tokyo
has over 13 million. Thus, while many would die, most would survive. The environmental aftermath

of a hypothetical Korean Nuclear War would be destruction in four or five cities and rural
contamination near the DMZ and the military bases. We have two comparisons for the rural
situation. The 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor in the Soviet Union left a zone of land too hot for
habitation. The Soviets evacuated the area and excluded resettlement. Scientists have
carefully studied the consequences. Immediately following the accident, radioactive iodine
contaminated plants, cows and thus the milk. However, after a few years, this dissipated and
fell to normal levels. Cesium 137 was a greater problem with a longer half-life: 30 years. Because people no longer lived in
the exclusion zone, plants and animals like boars, wolves and elk have thrived, making it an Eden. The

Soviets had a previous event with a similar outcome. In 1957, a nuclear explosion of still unknown causes
spread radioactive materials near Kyshtym in the Ural Mountains. Ten thousand people were
evacuated and not allowed to return. Today, radioactivity has returned to normal levels. Interestingly,
Korea has its own area of exclusion: the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The DMZ was established in
1953 in the cease-fire at the end of the war. This extends back from the center line for 2000 meters on each side and goes 150
miles across the county. No one lives there. Soldiers occasionally patrol the zone on foot, but there is no habitation.
Since 1953, the DMZ has grown up with forests and animals. Rare ones include lynxes, bears, water deer and red crowned cranes. Yet before rhapsodizing over the edens of
Chernobyl, Kyshtym and the DMZ, we should remember the human cost of a Korean Nuclear War. Korea is not the only possible site for a limited nuclear exchange. Iran was
spinning centrifuges to enrich nuclear fuel until bought off by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015. It’s presumed target was Israel, a tiny country. Jerusalem is off-
limits to attack because of so many Muslim holy sites like the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, making Tel Aviv just about the only place to aim. It is virtually certain that
Israel has its own nuclear force, numbering 75 or more warheads in contrast to the handful Iran could produce quickly if it violated the Comprehensive Plan. The only
consolation is that Iran has more deserts at which to aim. Pakistan tested its first nuke in 1998. Although it has not attacked with a nuke in the 18 years since, the government
has suffered numerous coups d’etats. Furthermore, the evidence is strong that it sold the technical plans for the weapon to North Korea. Possibly ISIS could get enough
radioactive material to make a dirty bomb, that is, use conventional explosives to scatter the radiation around a city. However, this would be far less dangerous than a real

the environmental dangers of exploding a few nuclear weapons pale in

nuclear weapon. In conclusion,

comparison to the immediate destruction and loss of life for hundreds of thousands. It would
not cause a Nuclear Winter ending life on Earth. As with Chernobyl and Kyshtym,
after 30 years the land would return to normal. This, however, is not a reason to ignore the risk of war.
Deterrence is sustainable---even if overly reliant on certainty, that’s best
and correlates with great power peace
Miller 16 (Franklin C. Miller – MPA @ Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School,
principal of The Scowcroft Group, served 22 years in senior positions in the Department
of Defense and four additional years on the National Security Council staff as a special
assistant to the President, member of the Defense Policy Board and the US Strategic
Command Senior Advisory Group, five time recipient of the Defense Distinguished
Civilian Service Medal, awarded the Norwegian Royal Order of Merit (Grand Officer)
and the French Legion of Honor (Officer). Keith B. Payne – PhD with distinction in
International Relational @ USC, Professor and Head of the Graduate Department of
Defense and Strategic Studies, Missouri State University, former Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Forces Policy, Chairman of the U.S. Strategic Command’s
Senior Advisory Group, Strategy and Policy Panel, editor-in-chief of Comparative
Strategy: An International Journal, and co-chair of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum..
“No First-Use Advocacy: Contradictions and Guesswork,” 2016,
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/09/08/no_first-
use_advocacy__contradictions_and_guesswork__110034.html)
Indeed, what limited historical evidence is available in this regard suggests that on some
occasions US nuclear deterrence has been important to the deterrence of non-nuclear threats.
For example, the most informed and comprehensive analyses of primary sources indicate
that US nuclear deterrence at least contributed to the deterrence of Saddam Hussein’s use of
CBW in the 1991 Gulf War.[v] Kimball and Reif simply dismiss or ignore these analyses when they claim as a sweeping
rule that nuclear deterrence is unnecessary to deter threats that it, in fact, appears to have helped deter in
1991. In addition, it should be noted that from the founding of the nation state system in 1648 through
1945, the major powers in Europe went to war with each other an average of seven times per
century; not even the recent memory of the catastrophic losses of World War I were sufficient
to deter World War II. After 1945 and the establishment of nuclear deterrence, this history has
not repeated itself and the percentage of the world’s population lost to war has declined
dramatically. This does not “prove” the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence per se, but the
association in time at least suggests the powerful limiting effect of nuclear deterrence on
humanity’s willingness to go to war. The world was long at the nuclear zero “mountain top.” It
most recently looked like World Wars I and II.
 PGS
PGS shift causes space weaponization---undermines stability AND, renders
PGS ineffective.
Nayef Al-Rodhan 18. Honorary Fellow of St. Antony's College at Oxford University;
Senior Fellow and Head of the Geopolitics and Global Futures Programme at the
Geneva Centre for Security Policy. “Weaponization and Outer Space Security.” Global
Policy. 3/12/2018. https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/12/03/2018/weaponization-
and-outer-space-security.
Space weaponization is not a new phenomenon. However, a large number of technological developments over the past few
decades have led to a drastic acceleration in the destructive potential of space warfare. In
2016, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov voiced his concerns about the possibility of
weapons being deployed in space. His statement followed advancements in technological endeavours
such as the Prompt Global Strike program, a project within which the United States started developing hypersonic glide
vehicles in secret in the mid-2000s.¶ Such hypersonic glide vehicles are different from conventional ballistic
missiles in three ways. First, they have a longer range, and can travel over more than half of the Earth circumference.
Second, they can approach their target from a direction opposite to the expected trajectory of a typical
ballistic missile, and do so on a low altitude gliding trajectory within the atmosphere. Third, they can be extremely
precise, with terminal guidance systems enabling them to strike with an accuracy of a few
meters. These characteristics make such vehicles nearly impossible to detect. Though it will take many more years and billions
more dollars to complete the project, upon completion such missiles could effectively decimate a country’s nuclear and military
Russia
arsenals in a few tens of minutes, using low-yield nuclear weapons or even conventional explosives. During the Cold War,
and the US avoided serious nuclear escalations because the involved weapons on both sides
could inflict severe damage on the entire world. However, the precision of hypersonic weapons
eradicates this deterrent. Russia has already responded by creating the Aerospace Defence Forces in 2015, tasked with
As other countries start to consider the US’s
protecting the country against the Prompt Global Strike.¶
weaponization programmes threatening – the US military space budget is estimated at $25 billion and
possibly even at more than $40billion – they are taking steps to defend themselves. Hypersonic
missiles rely on satellites to function properly and for this reason both Russia and China
are increasingly developing the capacity to destroy US satellites. Destroying a satellite could render the
US military both blind and deaf, subsequently obscuring the precise targeting capabilities of hypersonic
missiles for moving targets, which require a steady stream of data.

Space weaponization causes extinction—even without nuclear weapons.

Dr. Gordon Mitchell 01. Associate Professor of Communication and Director of Debate
at the University of Pittsburgh. “Missile Defence: Trans-Atlantic Diplomacy at a
Crossroads.” ISIS Briefing on Ballistic Missile Defence.
http://www.isisuk.demon.co.uk/0811/isis/uk/bmd/no6.html
The dizzying speed of space warfare would introduce intense 'use or lose' pressure into
strategic calculations, with the spectre of split-second attacks creating incentives to rig orbiting
Death Stars with automated 'hair trigger' devices. In theory, this automation would enhance survivability of vulnerable space
weapon platforms. However, by taking the decision to commit violence out of human hands and endowing computers with authority
to make war, military planners could sow insidious seeds of accidental conflict. Yale sociologist Charles Perrow has analyzed
'complexly interactive, tightly coupled' industrial systems such as space weapons, which have many sophisticated components that
all depend on each other's flawless performance. According to Perrow, this interlocking complexity makes it impossible to foresee all
the different ways such systems could fail. As Perrow explains, '[t]he odd term "normal accident" is meant to signal that, given the
 Deployment of space weapons
system characteristics, multiple and unexpected interactions of failures are inevitable'.36
with pre-delegated authority to fire death rays or unleash killer projectiles would likely make war itself
inevitable, given the susceptibility of such systems to 'normal accidents'. It is chilling to contemplate the possible effects of a
space war. According to retired Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman, 'even a tiny projectile reentering from space strikes the
earth with such high velocity that it can do enormous damage — even more than would be done by
a nuclear weapon of the same size!'. 37 In the same Star Wars technology touted as a quintessential tool of peace, defence analyst
David Langford sees one of the most destabilizing offensive weapons ever conceived: 'One imagines dead cities of microwave-
grilled people'.38 Given this unique potential for destruction, it is not hard to imagine that any
nation subjected to space
weapon attack would retaliate with maximum force, including use of nuclear, biological,
and/or chemical weapons. An accidental war sparked by a computer glitch in space could
plunge the world into the most destructive military conflict ever seen.
 2NR
2NR – PICs Bad
TL
CI: We get two PICs
Standards:
Real World Education – PICs are key to education since they focus in on
one specific instance of the aff and its merits – depth outweighs breath – in
the real world we don’t get rewarded about knowing 1,000,000 things
barely, it’s more about knowing 1 thing in depth. Future rounds solve
breadth since we talk about new issues each round.
Ground – PICs are key to test unpredictable Affs – otherwise, if I miss a
nuance of the 1AC I lose – PICs solve by ensuring I can coopt
unpredictable elements.
Topic lit – the solvency advocate proves that they destroy core neg ground
and a central controversy in the topic.
AT Time Skew
non-uq; you always have 13 minutes
make them defend every part of their aff—they could’ve put stuff to
leverage against PICs but they didn’t—I don’t control how they use their 6
minute AC
2ar collapse means u can always win bc of ethos and last word—o/w 1ar
skew
every 1nc will moot part of the 1ac—i.e. if I went NC AC the theory spikes
would no longer be relevant—they can put pre-empts to PICs if they’re
afraid of them
 PIC
NoKo won’t strike – history proves rational deterrence, not aggression
Beauchamp 17 Zack Beauchamp [Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox,
where he covers global politics and ideology, and a host of Worldly, Vox's podcast on
foreign policy and international relations. His work focuses on the rise of the populist
right across the West, the role of identity in American politics, and how fringe ideologies
shape the mainstream. Before coming to Vox, he edited TP Ideas, a section of Think
Progress devoted to the ideas shaping our political world. He has an MSc from the
London School of Economics in International Relations], 9-8-2017, "The case for letting
North Korea keep its nukes," Vox, https://www.vox.com/world/2017/9/8/16256880/north-
korea-nuclear-weapons-test-containment // ash
Give deterrence a chance The most fundamentally important fact aboutNorth Korea’s nuclear program is that it is
born out of fear — fear, specifically, of the United States. The Korean War began in 1950 when North Korea
invaded the South and nearly conquered all of it. The only reason it didn’t was intervention by a
US led-coalition, which in turn nearly took the entire North, stopped only by a Chinese counterintervention. After the war
ended in an armistice in 1953, the US pledged to defend South Korea against future attack and left
thousands of US troops deployed there — a constant reminder to Pyongyang that the world’s
strongest military power was its enemy. Put another way, North Korea’s entire foreign policy and
national identity has evolved around the threat of war with America. As a result, they’ve always
been trying to improve their military capabilities in order to deter the US from invading. “They’re
hyper-focused on our military and what we can do,” explains Dave Kang, the director of the Korean Studies
Institute at the University of Southern California. The nuclear program, which began in the 1950s, was designed to
be the ultimate answer to this problem. The thinking among three generations of Kims was that
if North Korea had nuclear weapons, they could inflict unacceptable costs on the US if it were to
invade the North. Nuclear weapons, in other words, would be the ultimate deterrent
against regime change. This explains why North Korea has invested so many resources, and been willing to accept
crushing international sanctions, in order to develop a nuclear bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could hit the
Kim Jong Un wants a nuclear arsenal, including a nuclear-armed
US mainland. “There’s pretty broad agreement that
ICBM that could put cities and targets in the United States at risk, to deter an attack and to
ensure survival and prevent regime change,” says Kingston Reif, the director for disarmament and threat
North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear
reduction policy at the Arms Control Association. What this brief history suggests is that
missiles is fundamentally rational. North Korea is not a suicidal state; there is no evidence that it
wants to blow up an American city and invite regime-ending retaliation. Its goal, according to
every piece of evidence we have, is the opposite: to avoid war at all costs.