1ac

1AC Plan
The United States federal government should cooperate with the People’s Republic of
China and the Russian Federation to negotiate an international agreement that bans
debris-producing destruction or damage of orbiting space systems.
 1AC Arms Race
The rising trend of kinetic ASAT arms racing is catastrophic—inadvertent nuclear
escalation is extremely likely in a case where ASAT capabilities strike early warning
communications satellites.
The threat of pre-emptive strikes encourages escalation to nuclear use.

Johnson-Freese 17—Joan Johnson-Freese, Professor and the Charles F. Bolden, Jr. Chair of Science,
Space & Technology at the Naval War College, Ph.D., Kent State University, 1981, Political
Science/International Relations (“Protecting Space Assets,” Chapter 1 of Space Warfare in the 21st
Century: Arming the Heavens, Routledge)

Space warfare runs two untenable risks: the creation of destructive debris and escalation to terrestrial,
even nuclear, warfare. Kinetic warfare in space creates debris traveling at a speed of more than 17,000 miles per hour,
which then in itself becomes a destructive weapon if it hits another object—even potentially triggering the so-called
Kessler Syndrome,86 exaggerated for dramatic effect in the movie Gravity. Ironically, both China and the United States learned the negative
lessons of debris creation the hard way. In 1985, the United States tested a miniature homing vehicle (MHV) ASAT launched from an F-15
aircraft. The MHV intercepted and destroyed a defunct US satellite at an altitude of approximately 250 miles. It took almost 17 years for the
debris resulting from that test to be fully eliminated by conflagration re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere or being consumed by frictional
forces, though no fragment had any adverse consequences to another satellite—in particular, no collisions. China irresponsibly tested a direct-
ascent ASAT in 2007, destroying one if its defunct satellites. That test was at an altitude almost twice that of the 1985 US test. The debris
created by the impact added 25 percent to the debris total in low Earth orbit87 and will dissipate through the low Earth orbit, heavily populated
with satellites, for decades, perhaps centuries, to come. Perhaps most ironically, because of superior US debris-tracking capabilities, the United
States—even though not required to do so—has on more than one occasion warned China that it needed to maneuver one of its satellites to
avoid a collision with debris China itself had likely created.88 In 2013, a piece of Chinese space junk from the 2007 ASAT test collided with a
Russian laser ranging nanosatellite called BLITS, creating still more debris.89 The broader point is that all
nations have a compelling
common interest in avoiding the massive increase in space debris that would be created by a substantial
ASAT conflict.
Gen. Hyten has said that not creating debris is “the one limiting factor” to space war. “Whatever you do,” he warns, “don’t create debris.”90
While that might appear an obvious “limiting factor,” preparing to fight its way through a debris cloud had been a Pentagon consideration in
the past. Now, however, sustaining the space environment has been incorporated into Pentagon space goals .

Beyond debris creation, MacDonald points out that as

China becomes more militarily capable in space and there is more
symmetry between the countries, other risks are created – specifically, escalation .

That is, the United States could threaten to attack not just Chinese space assets, but also ground-based assets, including ASAT
command-and-control centers and other military capabilities. But such actions, which would involve attacking Chinese soil and
likely causing substantial direct casualties, would politically weigh much heavier than the U.S. loss of space hardware, and thus might climb
the escalatory ladder to a more damaging war that both sides would probably want to avoid.91
MacDonald isn’t alone in concerns about escalation. Secure World Foundation analyst Victoria Samson has also voiced apprehension regarding
US rhetoric that does not distinguish between actions against unclassified and classified US satellites, stating that
“things can escalate pretty quickly should we come into a time of hostility .”92

Theresa Hitchens explained the most frightening, but not implausible, risk of space war escalation in a 2012 Time
magazine interview.

Say you have a crisis between two nuclear-armed, space-faring countries, Nation A and Nation B, which have a long-standing border dispute.
Nation A, with its satellite capability, sees that Nation B is mobilizing troops and opening up military depots in a region where
things are very tense already, on the tipping point. Nation A thinks: “That’s it, they’re going to attack .” So it might decide
to pre-emptively strike the communications satellite used by Nation B to slow down its ability to move toward the border
and give itself time to fortify. Say this happens and Nation B has no use of satellites for 12 hours, the time it takes it to get another satellite into
position. What does Nation B do? It’s blind, it’s deaf, it’s thinking all this time that it’s about to be overwhelmed by
an invasion or even nuked. This is possibly a real crisis escalation situation; something similar has been played out in
U.S. Air Force war games, a scenario-planning exercise practiced by the U.S. military. The first game involving anti-satellite
weapons stopped in five minutes because it went nuclear – bam. Nation B nuked Nation A. This is not a far-out,
“The sky’s falling in!” concern, it is something that has been played out over and over again in the gaming of these things, and I have real fears
about it.93

While escalation
to a nuclear exchange may seem unthinkable, in war games conducted by the military, nuclear
weapons are treated as just another warfighting weapon.

Continued space arms race ends strategic stability ---it makes the risk of accidental
nuclear launch unacceptable---ONLY clarity and certainty over early warning satellites
maintains deterrence
Arbatov 19 — Alexey Arbatov (head of the Center for International Security at the Primakov National Research Institute of World
Economy and International Relations, PhD, History, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, MA, Moscow State Institute of
International Relations, former scholar in residence and chair of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Nonproliferation Program, member of the
research council of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the governing board of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the Center
for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute, and the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy), 6-28-2019, “Arms control in
outer space: The Russian angle, and a possible way forward,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Volume 75, pages 157-158, 2019,
https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2019.1628475, [accessed: 8/1/19]
Prospects for agreements

Traditionally, practical (in contrast to romantic) disarmament stemmed from emergence of the overlapping strategic interests of the parties. Proceeding from common interest, initial US-Russian space arms limitation may
capitalize on strategic stability
the concept of formalized in the US-Soviet
, which for 20 years served as the basis for START treaties.44 The concept of strategic stability was

Declaration of 1990 ,45 which set out a goal: a state of strategic relationship under which the incentives for a first nuclear strike by either the United States or Russia were removed.

Space arms control aim at enhancing survivability of early-warning satellites

efforts may be related to strategic stability, first of all, if they the the

that provide info about rmation foreign ballistic missile launches 90 seconds after their start . Information about the origin, scale, and initial direction of a missile attack is

Russia sustains it as the principal concept of

indispensable for retaliation in the form of launch-onwarning. This type of response is one of the operational options of both nuclear superpowers, but its nuclear

deterrence strategy.46

A missile attack should also be confirmed by land based radars 10–15 minutes after its detection by satellites. After that, the leadership of the attacked nation would have several minutes to take political decision and technically authorize the launch of its own combat ready ICBMs and, for

Russia, also for the firing of some missiles on submarines that are in their bases, rather than at sea. Early warning by satellites also allows alerted strategic aircraft to immediately take
off before they are destroyed at the airfields (leaving the possibility of calling them back in case of a false alarm).

With boost-glide hypersonic systems ICBMs might be launched on warning

the advent of , the on the basis of satellites’ detection of a hostile missile launch

land-based radars unable to provide timely confirmation

alone, being ASAT threat to early- of an incoming hypersonic attack.47 Thus, an

warning satellites would increase the risk of inadvertent or accidental nuclear war caused by
tangibly the firing missiles as a

false alarm or interruption of communication with satellites

result of .

launch-on-warning
The creates a threat of nuclear war that might erupt due to a technical
concept is controversial and risky; it

malfunction, unauthorized actions, or a political miscalculation. even if both countries abandon 48 But were to

this operational concept, early warning provide timely warning to

space systems would remain crucial for nuclear deterrence and strategic stability. They

national leaders so they can take cover or delegate authority for implementing retaliation (underground or in the air) to survivable
command posts; make decisions that will increase the survivability of nuclear forces (such as dispersing ground-mobile ICBMs and putting aircraft in the air); and have full understanding on the origin and scale of attack.

leaders will have time to make a thought-through decision

Possessing this information, This on the scale and targets of a delayed second strike or any other response steps.

capability provided by early warning satellites reduces the incentives for a nuclear first strike and
– in large part –

enhances mutual nuclear deterrence and strategic stability.

Early-warning satellites also play a role in ballistic missile defenses. For many years, the assessment of anti-missile defenses as destabilizing or stabilizing has been a subject of great controversy between, on the one hand, the United States and its allies and, on the other, Russia and China.
Still, even if ballistic missile defense systems are considered destabilizing, there are numerous ways to defeat them besides putting early-warning satellites in jeopardy – which would be destabilizing no matter what.
 Satellites of this class are located at geostationary or highly elliptical orbits.
There is good news in this context: At the moment, Russia is reconstituting its

neither the United States nor

constellation with the deployment of the Unified Space System. The United States meanwhile is replacing its old Defense Support Program satellites with the new Space-Based Infrared System. To date,

Russia has operationally deployed dedicated high-orbit anti-satellite weapons Those available are . an element of

dual-purpose systems (the US sea-based Aegis SM-3 and Russia’s land-based Nudol’ and forthcoming S-500 Prometey ballistic missile defense systems).

the dual-purpose nature of

On the one hand, ASAT systems makes their verifiable ban or limitation highly
US and Russia’s main existing

problematic. existing systems are primarily for low-orbit interception

On the other hand, the , except for surveillance and space awareness satellites that are on high
orbits and may be used to attack other satellites.

The aff’s ban on kinetic ASATs solves- focusing on hit-to-kill operations is the first step
in getting US, Russia, and China on the same page.
- High-value satellites for communication, navigation, and missile warning are higher up
- Arms-race of kinetic ASATs – testing creates debris jeopardizes satellites
- Ban on hit-to-kill is verifiable, prevents debris causing tests, and slows development

Lewis 14—Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program for the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey
(“They Shoot Satellites, Don’t They?” Foreign Policy, August 9th,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/09/they-shoot-satellites-dont-they/)

China’s interest is
Hit-to-kill is really just an advanced defense technology. There is a lot of talk about China pursuing "asymmetric" technologies to threaten the United States. But this is a case where

totally symmetric. The Chinese are interested in hit-to-kill for the same reasons as the United States is. In fact,
the Chinese are probably doubly interested because they don’t want to be left behind as the United States develops an important new defense technology that can be used to intercept anything — airplanes, missiles, and satellites.

What Beijing ultimately

China might have shot down a missile during its last test, but it is really building up a broad technological capability that can be used for any number of missions.

chooses to do with its hit-to-kill capability, once the country has it, depends on a lot of factors, not all of which are under our control.

It’s not only the United States and China . Russia, as well as many of America’s allies like Japan and Israel, are
investing in hit-to-kill systems that can be used for missile defense or anti-satellite applications. This is the basic technology that Israel uses in Iron Dome to intercept short-range rockets. (Iron
Dome doesn’t have any capability against satellites, but Israel’s Arrow system does, as might longer-range versions derived from Iron Dome.) Even India is getting into the act.

the proliferation of hit-to-kill technologies means that many, many

Which brings us to the problem. Whatever one thinks of missile defenses,

countries are going to have very fancy anti-satellite weapons in the not-so-distant future.

Satellites are far more vulnerable than ballistic missiles — and a lot more important. China will never come under ballistic missile
attack from the United States unless America is starting a nuclear war. That’s not very likely. On the other hand, in a conventional conflict over Taiwan or some rock outcropping

doomed by global warming, China might be tempted to start knocking down U.S. or Japanese satellites . No country

depends on satellites for military operations more than the United States do. The problem is that many countries also
depend on these satellites for a range of civilian applications including communications and navigation. And all of these assets
would be jeopardized by the debris from anti-satellite test strikes.
For a long time, some people argued that the proliferation of hit-to-kill systems might be a problem — but only for satellites in low-Earth orbit. These are mostly (though not exclusively) the satellites that take the sort of pictures

The really high-value civilian and military satellites are

you find in Google Earth. The International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope are in this orbit too.

used for communication, navigation, and missile warning. These are higher up, with navigation satellites in medium-Earth orbit and
satellites for missile warning and communications higher still in geosynchronous orbit. Which brings us to an ambiguous, but distressing event.

In May 2013, China conducted a curious high-altitude scientific experiment, sending a sounding rocket into the magnetosphere to release a
cloud of barium powder. Although Beijing has a real research program to study the magnetosphere, this launch seemed different in a lot of important ways, from how it was conducted to the secrecy surrounding it. The evidence is

really quite ambiguous, but as my colleague Brian Weeden argues in a very long essay, the simplest explanation is that it was a test of a hit-to-kill system that can reach
geostationary orbit.
If China is developing an anti-satellite capability to hold at risk all U.S. satellites , this is a very distressing
development. After the mid-1980s, the United States gradually lost interest in developing debris-creating anti-

satellite weapons because it has the most to lose if space becomes so littered with debris that it is unusable. China
and Russia, on the other hand, might not be so delicate if push came to shove. A world filled with hit-to-kill anti-satellite
missiles should be very disturbing.
So what to do?

One option is to negotiate some sort of ban on hit-to-kill anti-satellite weapons. Washington and Moscow tried to do this in the 1970s, but
issues of definition and verification were pretty difficult. Remember the U.S. missile defense system modified to shoot down USA-193? How would the Russians know that software isn’t installed on every U.S. Aegis destroyer?

Despite these problems, there are some verifiable partial measures, such as a ban on any hit-to-kill test that
creates orbital debris. That won’t stop the development of hit-to-kill capabilities for missile defense — but it would mean that China’s newest SC-19
and any follow-on systems would remain untested against a real target. That’s not much, but it’s something — and a place to start.
In 2008, then President-elect Barack Obama actually came out in support of such an agreement. That’s right, he filled out a little survey for the Arms Control Association that included the sentence: "I will pursue negotiations of an
agreement that would ban testing anti-satellite weapons." (Full disclosure: I volunteered on the team that actually filled out the survey for him. I hope you aren’t scandalized that presidents don’t fill out questionnaires by
themselves or that people try to put words in the president’s mouth!)

The administration simply hasn’t followed up on the idea of negotiating a ban on anti-satellite testing, despite the importance of protecting U.S. assets in space. The administration has stated, in its National Space Policy, that it "will
consider proposals and concepts for arms control measures if they are equitable, effectively verifiable, and enhance the national security of the United States and its allies." This is an improvement over the 2006 edition, as U.S.
officials argue, but it is still a passive position of waiting for someone else to come up with an idea to solve the problem. And it sure as hell doesn’t do anything to prevent China from developing ever better anti-satellite missile
technology.

Still, there are already a number of proposals outlined by various experts who share my concern about the proliferation of hit-to-kill technologies and the threat to space assets. So, perhaps it is time that the administration
consider some of them. Bruce MacDonald wrote a report for the Council on Foreign Relations that contained the model for such a treaty. Geoffrey Forden outlined a slightly different version in Arms Control Today, while the
Stimson Center’s Michael Krepon has suggested that the United States, Russia, and China could agree to a moratorium on "further [anti-satellite] tests that generate long-lived, indiscriminately lethal space debris" as part of the
now-stalled effort to develop a code of conduct for space activities. I have even offered my own meager thoughts on such an agreement in exchange for a few days per diem in Geneva.

The short version of all the proposals is simple : no blowing things up in space that leaves a bunch of
space junk. All of these proposals aim to prevent the creation of yet more debris that will threaten the
commercial, civil, and military uses of space , while also trying to slow the development of dedicated anti-
satellite systems. States will still develop hit-to-kill systems — like the United States, Russia, and China — and have a latent capability to threaten space assets. But the least we can do
is prevent a race to start testing these systems against live targets in orbit.

There is value to limiting anti-satellite

I think a fair-minded observer would conclude that such a treaty certainly meets the criteria outlined in the National Space Policy.

testing; the creation of debris is easily verified; and it would not limit U.S. missile defense programs . But
perhaps most importantly, a ban on anti-satellite tests that create debris in space would be more in the interest of the United States than any other country on Earth.

Even a small nuclear exchange kills millions and results in global famine
Erin Hunt 18, Program Manager at Mines Action Canada, working in humanitarian disarmament in
various capacities since 2006 and doing public education on the Ottawa Treaty banning landmines since
2003, 6/25/18, “Sustaining Destruction: Nuclear Weapons and the Sustainable Development Goals,”
https://impakter.com/sustaining-destruction-nuclear-weapons-sustainable-development-goals/

A single nuclear weapon detonated in a major city could kill millions and continue to cause harm to
people and the environment for decades . The humanitarian community knows that no relief efforts will be possible in the face of a nuclear detonation, no state,
agency or international organization has the capacity to respond to the devastation caused by a nuclear
weapon. A limited nuclear exchange is predicted to result in a global famine that would kill two billion people due to
the soot deposited in the atmosphere . That soot would alter temperatures and decrease food production around the
world. Costs would skyrocket and the most vulnerable people who are already malnourished or food
insecure would no longer be able to afford food. As food prices increase and famine sets in, people will be forced to migrate to survive thus increasing pressure on the few
areas still able to produce food.

nuclear
While the international community is taking steps to address climate change, there are significantly fewer plans to address the threat posed by nuclear weapons. This lack of action is problematic because

weapons also hamper other global efforts like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and
ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity, the SDGs set an ambitious and inclusive agenda for development. All states have committed to working towards these
targets by 2030. However, a commitment to the SDGs is completely incompatible with the use, development or possession of nuclear weapons or the reliance on nuclear deterrence.
As mentioned above, a limitednuclear conflict would have disastrous consequences for global development . Global famine would make
the achievement of the SDGs impossible. Clearly, the SDGs around reducing poverty and hunger , increasing health and human rights, and building economic

security for all would see dramatic declines in a situation where the majority of the planet is struggling to
feed themselves.

Chinese and Russian action is reactionary to US – absent diplomacy and arms control,
great power competition will consume space. Military modernization in space drives
arms racing and inevitable conflict—the aff’s narrow agreement solves.
Lamrani 18—Omar Lamrani, Senior Military Analyst, Stratfor, master's degree from the Diplomatic
Academy of Vienna (“Space: The Final Frontier for War?” RealClearDefense, September 25th,
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/09/25/space_the_final_frontier_for_war_113835.htm
l)

The U.S. move to beef up its defenses in space is understandable given the increasing attention the frontier is receiving from
its closest competitors, China and Russia. Both countries continue to develop their anti-satellite capabilities, including specialized maneuvering
satellites that could be deployed to either conduct repairs on other satellites or interfere with them in a nefarious way. Nevertheless, in the absence of parallel

diplomatic efforts and a wider comprehensive strategy to establish international standards for conduct in space, the U.S. move to
strengthen its defenses in space could drive the Russians and the Chinese to accelerate their own space militarization efforts. For instance,

the United States could technically use interceptors , which are essential to a space-based ballistic missile defense system, to destroy other
satellites — a fact that is bound to drive Beijing and Moscow to establish their own deterrents in space in
the absence of significant transparency or agreements .
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty is the world's foundational and governing document on space. The agreement bars members (including the United States, Russia and China) from placing nuclear weapons in space and mandates only
non-military activity on the moon and other celestial bodies. The pact does not, however, enact restrictions on the placement of conventional weapons in space, and subsequent efforts to impose such limits, including the 2006
Space Preservation Treaty, have failed.

Such blanket treaties are unlikely to succeed in the foreseeable future because of their significant limitations, as well as concerns over the ability to verify compliance. The United
States has especially voiced concern in this regard, repeatedly voting down such initiatives in addition to noting that the treaties fail to take into account the ability of terrestrial anti-satellite weapons to damage space assets.

transparency and confidence-building measures, which could

Nevertheless, the dim prospect of any blanket ban on weapons in space should not limit the effort to engage in

provide a foundation for more narrow arms control agreements that limit specific aspects of the
increasing militarization of space or the scope of such activities over the long term.
Whether or not U.S. defense in space is best served by the creation of a new service is an organizational question that will attract debate over the next few years both inside and outside the military. What the question does not

any space conflict would

address is the need to incorporate a simultaneous and concerted effort to establish international norms in space to prevent a destabilizing, militarized space race. Because

produce large amounts of space debris that would ruin the orbiting assets of all countries — and devastate the world
economy in the process — the only way to win a war in space is to not fight one. To that end, space should increasingly be seen through a prism akin to

that of nuclear deterrence in which the ultimate aim is to prevent a space war from ever occurring. There is a vital need to build up a
defensive capacity to deter an attack in space, but this capacity should be tempered by outer space treaties and norms in much the
same way as arms control agreements have played a vital role in restricting nuclear arsenals. The future of the world and its neighborhood depends on it.
 1AC Solvency
The aff solves – China and Russia say yes, and other countries get on board.
Arbatov 19 (Alexey, Center for International Security at the Institute of World Economy and
International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the advisory council to the
Russian foreign minister and an adviser on defense and security to the head of the Center for Strategic
Research, member of the governing board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and of the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey,
former deputy chair of Defense Committee in Russian parliament, former head of nuclear non-
proliferation at Carnegie Moscow Center, “Arms control in outer space: The Russian angle, and a
possible way forward,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Volume 75, Issur 4, 2019, Taylor & Francis)

By the logic of the past ABM, SALT, and START agreements, an obvious common interest of the United States and Russia in space should
be to limit as much as possible (if total prohibition is unfeasible) the dedicated anti-satellite systems that threaten the early-
warning satellites of each nation. The negotiations on these ASAT systems should be narrow, at least initially, to
avoid overburdening the diplomatic process. This approach would leave out some systems and perceived threats that are difficult to technically define or that pose huge
verification problems (i.e. lasers, particle-beams, electronic jamming, cyber systems). But this method of focusing on the ASAT systems whose prohibition or

limitation could be verified would facilitate the start of the process, like limiting the number of missile
launchers available to each country did 50 years ago at the SALT-I talks.

The ability to elaborate realistic and reliable verification means is crucial to the success of practical
arms control. No doubt, it would be preferable to prohibit deployment of high-orbit anti-satellite systems, regardless of their destruction mechanism or basing modes – but for technical reasons, this would be very
difficult to do in a verifiable way. The development of reliable, direct-ascent ASAT systems to attack early warning

satellites in high orbits, however, would require major programs and realistic testing that would be impossible
to conceal.

Instead of prohibiting deployment of such high-orbit systems,the parties could resolve this problem indirectly, agreeing as a first step to
prohibit testing of anti-satellite systems involving the actual destruction of target satellites (space objects) – that is, the
kind of tests conducted by the USSR in 1960s and the 1980s, by the United States in the 1980s and 2008, by China in 2007 and by India in 2019. This test ban would not affect already tested ASAT systems, but

would seriously hamper the development of high-orbit follow-on weapons. At the same time, such a
ban would limit the growing volume of space debris threatening the satellites of all nations.

Verification of such an agreement could be based on national technical means, preferably in conjunction with cooperative
measures and well-defined transparency. For example, the existing format for notification of all missile
launches should be expanded to all experiments that have a destructive effect on space objects. Elimination of
obsolescent satellites that threaten to fall to Earth should be conducted under the supervision of the other party or parties, with sufficient information presented so as to remove suspicion of tacit ASAT testing.

Rendezvous and proximity operations – in which one satellite is maneuvered close to another – may gradually enhance anti-satellite capabilities and eventually
come to threaten early-warning satellites. This threat may be addressed at a later stage of talks. A partial solution
might consist of an agreement that would strictly regulate the permitted speed and distance of such approaches toward all space objects and require
pre-notification of all such operations.

The first treaty could initially involve the United States, Russia, and, one might hope, China and India, but also provide for the
possibility of membership for any other country in the future. The treaty could be limited to a 10-year period, with the
option of extending. This period would be less than the time required for the deployment of any technically
feasible space-based ballistic missile defense system that would be a primary concern and target of Russian (and Chinese)
land-based ASAT programs. That is why banning anti-satellite tests might be acceptable to them. Besides, as with
any other such agreement, this first anti-satellite weapon treaty should contain the right of withdrawal, should an extraordinary event jeopardize the “supreme interests” of either side. Russia (and China, if it joined such an
agreement) could make a unilateral statement referring to the creation of space ballistic missile defense as a possible cause for invoking the withdrawal right.49
 the
FOOTNOTE 49. If other nations follow India’s 2019 ASAT test example, it might be politically difficult to preserve a bi- or trilateral ASAT test ban. However, strategically this should not be an obstacle:

deterrence to ASAT development by third states may rely on other weapon systems and strategies
rather than development of analogous anti-satellite arms (all the more so that third states would hardly have similar high-value space systems of their own as
objects for retaliation).

this proposal appears to be relatively feasible

The proposed treaty has obvious deficiencies, but its advantages clearly outweigh its shortcomings. Perhaps most important,

as a practical first step in preventing the weaponization of outer space. It is strategically attractive to
the parties, it has clear technical properties that could reasonably be addressed, and compliance with those regulations
could be verified through national technical means and cooperative measures already in use.

the alternative to the proposed treaty

One final argument in favor of the proposed treaty: the apparent absence of realistic alternatives for initiating measures that promote space non-weaponization. In reality,

would be no legal restrictions on the weaponization of outer space, which would gradually transform it
into an arena for arms racing and, potentially, armed conflicts.

A limited ban is verifiable and discourages countries from developing new weapons
and using existing ASATs.
Koplow 18—David A. Koplow, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center (“The Fault Is Not
in Our Stars: Avoiding an Arms Race in Outer Space,” Harvard International Law Journal, Vol. 59, No. 2,
Summer 2018, https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=3101&context=facpub)

Turning now to the positive attributes of the proposal, this test-ban regime would pursue two principal purposes, in
addition to the general overall goal of seeking to reinvigorate the long-moribund international dialog on space
security and arms control. The first objective is to inhibit the development of at least one type of ASAT
technology. The concept here rests upon the “test-ban theory of arms control”: countries will be reluctant
to rely upon weapons that have not been thoroughly tested, so the most effective mechanism for
inhibiting the next spin in an arms race is to deprive them of the opportunity to assure themselves that the
new evolving prototypes will, in fact, operate as intended. In this view, blocking future qualitative
improvements in a weapon may be even more important than capping the sheer numbers of those devices,
and a test ban can be the key governor against innovations .126 This theory is not iron-clad; states sometimes do invest
in weapons that have not survived the crucible of rigorous testing.127 But prudence strongly guides them in the opposite direction:
a cautious budget office will be reluctant to devote scarce resources to procurement of unproven
systems, and conservative military and civilian leaders will hesitate to rely upon arms of unproven effect. The history of weapons
development is littered with illustrations of conspicuous and expensive failures resulting from decisions
to forego customarily exhaustive testing, especially where new technology is pushing the envelope of prior experience.128 In
addition to helping retard the proliferation of ASAT capabilities, this test-ban regime could, over time, reduce the confidence of
countries that have already completed their testing of debris-creating ASAT systems. That is, even a proven
military strength can atrophy if it is not regularly exercised,129 and space weapons would be no
exception. The U.S. and Soviet legacy kinetic-energy interceptor systems that were deemed operational in the
1980s, for example, largely deteriorated through desuetude in the subsequent decades, and their more recent ASAT
enterprises had to start more or less from scratch.130
The logic of arms control in space adopted by the plan hamstrings the U.S. pursuit of
national domination – an international legal regime would prevent imperial expansion
into space in favor of binding commitment to equal access.
Tannenwald ‘4 Nina, Joukowsky Family Research Assistant Professor and Director of the International
Relations Program, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University. Law Versus Power on
the High Frontier: The Case for a Rule-Based Regime for Outer Space, 29 Yale J. Int'l L. (2004).

The dominant challenge to the future of outer space lies in the existence of two competing visions of
how activities in space should be organized, managed, and controlled. The first view emphasizes the
central role of law in preserving space for peaceful purposes and in promoting international
cooperation in the use and exploitation of space for the benefit of all. This view emphasizes the benefits of a multilateral legal regime as
the best way to balance the various interests in space, to manage the possible interference of activities, and to ensure that no single power
dominates and possibly jeopardizes access to space by others. Power
is constrained by law, and national interests are pursued in the
context of a developed and articulated legal framework and an assumption of mutual and reciprocal interests. This
is the logic of the
current legal regime for space (however weak and incomplete), as reflected in a set of outer space, arms control,
and commercial treaties and agreements beginning in the 1960s.3 The second view is the logic of national
dominance projected by the former U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM).4 With the United States increasingly reliant on space for both
commercial and military support activities, SPACECOM argues that U.S . assets in space are vulnerable to attack and that, in order to
protect them, the United States needs to dominate space militarily . SPACECOM's Visionfor 2020 argues that the protection of
space requires superior U.S. space warfare capability and proclaims its members "stewards for military space." 5 It sets out two principal
themes: (1) dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment; and (2) integrating space forces
into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict. 6 As Air Force General Joseph W. Ashy, a former commander of SPACECOM,
explained, the United States "will engage terrestrial targets someday-ships, airplanes, land targets-from space. We will engage targets in space,
from space . . . . [The missions are] already assigned, and we've written the concepts of operations."7 SPACECOM
also claims that
the United States must establish a military presence in space in 8 order to preempt possible efforts by
other nations to do so. Although this doctrine was once advanced exclusively by SPACECOM, prominent civilian defense officials have
endorsed the global engagement strategy, and have begun to implement changes in Pentagon doctrine, organization, and budgets to move in
that direction. The January 2001 Rumsfeld Commission report on the management of U.S. space assets, produced by a study commission
chaired by Donald Rumsfeld before he became Secretary of Defense, signaled his strong support for the need to project force in space in order
to counter presumed threats to U.S. military security there.9 Although it stopped short of directly advocating space weapons, no one could miss
the point. In late September 2001, the QuadrennialDefense Review Report, a wide-ranging assessment of U.S defense policy, called for beefing
up military space surveillance, communications, and other applications of earth-orbiting spacecraft. It also underscored the need to deny the
use of space by adversaries, and to address U.S. vulnerabilities in space with aggressive development of space capabilities. 10 Most tellingly, the
Department of Defense's Nuclear Posture Review, portions of which were leaked in March 2002, reportedly advocates the use of space-based
assets to enhance conventional and nuclear strike capabilities.' In October 2002, SPACECOM merged with the U.S. Strategic Command, which
controls U.S. nuclear forces, to create a single entity responsible for early warning, missile defense, and long-range strikes. 2 The Pentagon
requested $1.6 billion dollars over FY 2003-2007 to develop space-based lasers and kinetic kill vehicles to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles
(and to destroy satellites). 13 Providing further evidence of high-level support for the global engagement strategy, the current Bush
administration's decision to withdraw from the 30-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty 14 appeared to be less of a necessary move
driven by technical demands of missile defense testing (since much testing could be done within the terms of the treaty, and deployment of a
feasible system is not imminent) than a symbolic move to sweep away inconvenient legal obstacles to U.S. power 5 projection in space. This
vision of national dominance, the rest of the world, and especially 6 China, contends, is incompatible with the
established legal regime in space.' The international community has for over forty years repeatedly
reaffirmed that space should be preserved for peaceful purposes, should be available to all, and should
be weapon-free. Hence the relevant options appear to be reduced to two: an active contest over
national superiority in space, or an elaborated legal regime that would undoubtedly be designed to
prevent decisive predominance in space by any one country, the United States in 17 particular. A contest
over national superiority in space could extinguish the explicit equal right to use space that all nations
enjoy, creating instead a de facto regime of control over access and use by the first nation to
successfully deploy weapons based in space or weapons on the ground that target satellites . Given the
immense value of outer space and its resources, other nations might develop their own antisatellite weapons
designed to break this monopoly. Countries that lack the capabilities to build such weapons might purchase them. Space-
based weapons would also generate instability due to the incentives for preemptive attack that
powerful but vulnerable weapons systems seem likely to create. A more elaborated legal regime would
be aimed at preventing destabilizing conflicts over the use of space . The problem posed is how to balance the
interests of the United States with those of the rest of the world. The SPACECOM position, if seriously pursued, would pit the United States
against everyone else, and the support of even close allies could be in question. Equally if not more important, other significant interests of the
United States in space would be jeopardized if an extended battle over space superiority were to develop. Given the inherent vulnerability of
space activities, traditional military support activities (including space-tracking, early warning, communications, reconnaissance, weather
monitoring, and navigation) would be placed in jeopardy. The viability of commercial and scientific activities in space would come into serious
question as well. In a conflict, terrestrial components of space activities could become objects of attack, while attacks against satellites could
litter space with speeding debris that might rip into commercial satellites and space vehicles, disrupting commercial and scientific activity and
communications on the ground. Although SPACECOM and its supporters aggressively assert their views, advocates of space weaponry may be
in the minority, even in the Pentagon. As many observers recognize, the interests of the United States in space are much broader than
SPACECOM presents. U.S. testing and deployment of orbital weapons could make the use of space for other military and commercial purposes
more difficult. Many in the military, especially those involved in crucial military support activities, are quietly aware of this, as are officials at the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the International Space Station (ISS),20 and their supporters in Congress.
Congressional support for space weapons programs is sometimes difficult to assess, but does not appear to be deep or widespread.21 Serious
questions remain as to whether the threats to U.S. assets in space are really as great as SPACECOM argues, and whether, even if the threats
were real, expensive and difficult space-based weapons would be the most effective way to deal with them. In many cases, those wishing to
hurt the United States likely will find it much easier, and more effective, to attack terrestrial targets.22 Overall, the
risks brought on by
a competition for national dominance in space would ultimately be detrimental to the United States . The
United States is by far the nation most reliant on space for its military and economic well- being. It has an estimated 850 satellites, both military
and commercial, in orbit-a number that is expected to increase substantially during the next ten years.23 Although this technological and
financial edge in space will grow in the short term, the United States ultimately will see that advantage diminish over time. Current U.S. space
doctrine such as that articulated in Visionfor 2020 likely underestimates the speed with which the U.S. advantage as a space power will erode
(although SPACECOM advocates hope to preserve this advantage through space domination).24 The
choice between a
competition for national superiority and a strengthened legal regime that preserves and balances the
interests of all in space will have profound consequences. If the United States aggressively moved
weaponry into space, it would likely provoke other nations to pursue countermeasures, with
destabilizing consequences for global and national security . In addition, by encouraging nations who do not currently
have an interest in placing weapons in space to compete directly and immediately with U.S. space-based assets, the United States would almost
certainly guarantee the loss of the advantages it seeks to protect. Although
an arms race in ASAT weapons is one of the
dangers, the threat currently of greatest concern to states such as China and Russia is the U.S. use of
space systems to augment its nuclear and conventional strategic strike capabilitie s. From the perspective of these
nations, the U.S. decision to expand strategic capabilities into space represents the collapse of the Cold War bargain of strategic stability based
on mutual vulnerability. A military competition in space could thus invigorate a high-tech arms race and renew
emphasis on doctrines of nuclear warfare .25 Finally, a military competition in space would largely
extinguish the role of law in space in favor of a regime of power . Despite the narrow organizational appeal of the latter
to SPACECOM, the much broader interests of the United States in space lie in the promotion of the rule of law. The United States has a
long history of supporting the rule of law both at home and in global affairs -in the latter case, promoting the
development of rules that would secure U.S. interests in an interdependent world. 26 When presented with the choice , it is
likely that most users of space-including the satellite communications industry, those involved in military support operations, and
the scientific community, including NASA-would prefer the more stable protection provided by the rule of law
rather than the more uncertain and potentially disruptive protection of untested and complex weapons
systems. In sum, the United States and the international community have a strong interest in preventing a destabilizing military competition
in space through the timely negotiation of a more elaborated legal regime for space.
In the space domain, diplomatic arms control offers the most epistemologically sound
approach to breaking out of the security dilemma. It transforms mutual vulnerability
into common interest
Mutschler 13 – Max M. Mutschler, Researcher at the German Institute for International and Security
Affairs, Berlin, holds a doctoral degree from the Eberhard-Karls University Tübingen (“Analyzing Arms
Control in Space,” Chapter 6 in Arms Control in Space, Palgrave Macmillan, Available through Springer)

The knowledge-based approach helps to solve the puzzles of the other two approaches. According to this approach, states
preferences are not exogenously given but are the result of internal processes of interpretation . Which option
is better for national security: unhindered arms dynamic or arms control? How this question is answered depends to a considerable extent upon the interpretation of the situation at hand. Here, the factors

power and interests come back in. How do states evaluate power relationships? Are they self-centered
and focus on their own strength with regard to a certain weapon technology , or do they consider the
consequences of their actions in an interdependent world? Naturally, in the second case, the chances for preventive arms control are much higher than in the
first case. In addition, several other questions are related to this rather general issue: Does verification have

to be waterproof or is a high probability of detection sufficient? Do all sides have to possess the same
standard in all fields of weapon technology, or is it acceptable to make package-deals that account for those differences? How these questions are
answered can be influenced decisively by national and transnational political processes of learning.

an arms race has negative consequences for national security . It is this learning
The most important thing that must be learned is that

that transforms the Deadlock situation into a Prisoner’s Dilemma, thereby making cooperation
desirable in the first place. It seems plausible that cases of future weapon systems that are still in the process of development, at first resemble the situation structure of a Deadlock game. Each
state that is developing the respective weapon believes that the development improves its national
security, because it brings additional military capability. Usually, the effects of the new weapons are
unclear. In particular, because of the secrecy surrounding weapon development, states do not know how others will and can react. Particularly in cases of technological asymmetry, the more advanced states can be
expected to think that arming is better than arms control.

If a government believes that its weapon systems are superior to those of its rival, or that the strategy that will guide their use is superior, it may prefer mutual defection to mutual cooperation. (Downs et al. 1985: 122) The weaker
states, while officially calling for arms control, might seek to exploit the weaknesses that often are the downside of asymmetric power. None of them think ahead and consider the negative consequences of the inherent

Learning about these consequences transforms the Deadlock situation into a

interdependence for its national security.

Prisoner’s Dilemma, thereby enabling cooperation. While the maximization of national security is the main goal of policy-makers, they reinterpret their situation on the
basis of new knowledge that points out the inconsistency between the goal – security – and the means – unilateral armament. While doubts regarding the technical feasibility of a weapon system might prolong the process of R&D

A closer look at
and delay procurement and deployment; it seems to be strategic reasoning, by doubting the added value for security of the weapon system that makes states agree to preventive arms control.

the respective internal debates has shown that while plenty of arguments against ABMs on the basis of
technical shortcomings of whatever sort were made by the critics, these arguments did not make the
decisive points against ABMs. Right from the start, especially in the U.S., there were massive doubts about whether ABM could ever work properly. These doubts have
played an important role in providing arguments for the critics to postpone the production and
deployment of the systems, but they were not strong enough to make the case for arms control. Instead, it was the knowledge about the
interdependent nature of the arms dynamic and the impossibility of achieving security by unilateral
armament which convinced the top political decision-makers to seek an arms control solution .

Such a learning process transforms the Deadlock game , where the players prefer mutual defection over
cooperation, into a Prisoner’s Dilemma situation, where they prefer cooperation over mutual defection. We have seen such a learning process in the case of ABMs but not in
the case of space weapons. This is the central difference between the two cases, which explains the different outcomes: a regime with regard to ABMs and a nonregime in the case of space weapons. Both cases have situation

in both cases, preventive arms control could provide

structures that can be interpreted as resembling the situation structure of the Prisoner’s Dilemma;

balanced gains; and in both cases, verification measures would allow states to apply a strategy of
reciprocal cooperation. The major difference between the two cases is a process of learning about the negative security consequences of an arms race, which has happened in one case but not in the
other. Again, it is not important, if the things states have learned match reality. The decisive point is that a certain interpretation of reality has

triumphed over another one.

Scenario analysis is pedagogically valuable – enhances creativity and self-reflexivity,
deconstructs cognitive biases and flawed ontological assumptions, and enables the
imagination and creation of alternative futures.
Barma et al. 16 – (May 2016, [Advance Publication Online on 11/6/15], Naazneen Barma, PhD in Political
Science from UC-Berkeley, Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate
School, Brent Durbin, PhD in Political Science from UC-Berkeley, Professor of Government at Smith
College, Eric Lorber, JD from UPenn and PhD in Political Science from Duke, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher,
Rachel Whitlark, PhD in Political Science from GWU, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Project on
Managing the Atom and International Security Program within the Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs at Harvard, “‘Imagine a World in Which’: Using Scenarios in Political Science,”
International Studies Perspectives 17 (2), pp. 1-19,
http://www.naazneenbarma.com/uploads/2/9/6/9/29695681/using_scenarios_in_political_science_isp
_2015.pdf)
**FYI if anyone is skeptical of Barma’s affiliation with the Naval Postgraduate School, it’s worth looking at her publication
history, which is deeply opposed to US hegemony and the existing liberal world order:

a) co-authored an article entitled “How Globalization Went Bad” that has this byline: “From terrorism to global warming,
the evils of globalization are more dangerous than ever before. What went wrong? The world became dependent on
a single superpower. Only by correcting this imbalance can the world become a safer place.”
(http://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/publications/how_globalization_went_bad)
b) most recent published scenario is entitled “World Without the West,” supports the a Non-Western reinvention of the
liberal order, and concludes that “This argument made a lot of people uncomfortable, mostly because of an endemic
and gross overestimation of the reach, depth and attractiveness of the existing liberal order”
(http://nationalinterest.org/feature/welcome-the-world-without-the-west-11651)

Over the past decade, the “cult of irrelevance” in political science scholarship has been lamented by a growing
chorus (Putnam 2003; Nye 2009; Walt 2009). Prominent scholars of international affairs have diagnosed the roots of the gap between academia and policymaking,
made the case for why political science research is valuable for policymaking, and offered a number of ideas for enhancing the policy
relevance of scholarship in international relations and comparative politics (Walt 2005,2011; Mead 2010; Van Evera 2010; Jentleson and Ratner 2011; Gallucci 2012; Avey and Desch 2014). Building on these insights, several

initiatives have been formed in the attempt to “bridge the gap.”2 Many of the specific efforts put in place by these projects focus on providing scholars
with the skills, platforms, and networks to better communicate the findings and implications of their research to the
policymaking community, a necessary and worthwhile objective for a field in which theoretical debates, methodological training, and publishing norms tend more and more toward the abstract and
esoteric.

Yet enhancing communication between scholars and policymakers is only one component of bridging the gap between international affairs theory and practice.
Another crucial component of this bridge is the generation of substantive research programs that are actually policy
relevant—a challenge to which less concerted attention has been paid. The dual challenges of bridging the gap are especially acute for graduate students, a particular irony since many enter the discipline with the explicit
hope of informing policy. In a field that has an admirable devotion to pedagogical self-reflection , strikingly little

attention is paid to techniques for generating policy-relevant ideas for dissertation and other research topics. Although
numerous articles and conference workshops are devoted to the importance of experiential and problem-based learning, especially through techniques of simulation that emulate policymaking processes (Loggins 2009; Butcher
2012; Glasgow 2012; Rothman 2012; DiCicco 2014), little has been written about the use of such techniques for generating and developing innovative research ideas.

This article outlines an experiential and problem-based approach to developing a political science research program
using scenario analysis. It focuses especially on illuminating the research generation and pedagogical benefits of this technique by describing the use of scenarios in the annual New Era Foreign Policy
Conference (NEFPC), which brings together doctoral students of international and comparative affairs who share a demonstrated interest in policy-relevant scholarship.3 In the introductory section, the article outlines the practice
of scenario analysis and considers the utility of the technique in political science. We argue that scenario analysis should be viewed as a tool to stimulate problem-based learning for doctoral students and discuss the broader
scholarly benefits of using scenarios to help generate research ideas. The second section details the manner in which NEFPC deploys scenario analysis. The third section reflects upon some of the concrete scholarly benefits that
have been realized from the scenario format. The fourth section offers insights on the pedagogical potential associated with using scenarios in the classroom across levels of study. A brief conclusion reflects on the importance of
developing specific techniques to aid those who wish to generate political science scholarship of relevance to the policy world.

What Are Scenarios and Why Use Them in Political Science?

Scenario analysis is perceived most commonly as a technique for examining the robustness of strategy. It can immerse decision makers in future states
that go beyond conventional extrapolations of current trends, preparing them to take advantage of
unexpected opportunities and to protect themselves from adverse exogenous shocks . The global petroleum company Shell, a
pioneer of the technique, characterizes scenario analysis as the art of considering “what if” questions about possible future worlds. Scenario analysis is thus typically seen as

serving the purposes of corporate planning or as a policy tool to be used in combination with simulations of decision making. Yet scenario
analysis is not inherently limited to these uses . This section provides a brief overview of the practice of scenario analysis and the motivations underpinning its
uses. It then makes a case for the utility of the technique for political science scholarship and describes how the scenarios deployed at
NEFPC were created.

The Art of Scenario Analysis

We characterize scenario analysis as the art of juxtaposing current trends in unexpected combinations in
order to articulate surprising and yet plausible futures, often referred to as “alternative worlds.” Scenarios
are thus explicitly not forecasts or projections based on linear extrapolations of contemporary patterns,
and they are not hypothesis-based expert predictions. Nor should they be equated with simulations ,
which are best characterized as functional representations of real institutions or decision-making processes (Asal 2005).
Instead, they are depictions of possible future states of the world , offered together with a narrative of the
driving causal forces and potential exogenous shocks that could lead to those futures. Good scenarios thus rely on explicit causal propositions that, independent of
one another, are plausible—yet, when combined, suggest surprising and sometimes controversial future worlds. For example, few predicted the dramatic fall in oil prices toward the end of 2014. Yet independent driving forces,
such as the shale gas revolution in the United States, China’s slowing economic growth, and declining conflict in major Middle Eastern oil producers such as Libya, were all recognized secular trends that—combined with OPEC’s
decision not to take concerted action as prices began to decline—came together in an unexpected way.

While scenario analysis played a role in war gaming and strategic planning during the Cold War, the real antecedents of the contemporary practice are found in corporate futures studies of the late 1960s and early 1970s (Raskin et
al. 2005). Scenario analysis was essentially initiated at Royal Dutch Shell in 1965, with the realization that the usual forecasting techniques and models were not capturing the rapidly changing environment in which the company
operated (Wack 1985; Schwartz 1991). In particular, it had become evident that straight-line extrapolations of past global trends were inadequate for anticipating the evolving business environment. Shell-style scenario planning
“helped break the habit, ingrained in most corporate planning, of assuming that the future will look much like the present” (Wilkinson and Kupers 2013, 4). Using scenario thinking, Shell anticipated the possibility of two Arab-
induced oil shocks in the 1970s and hence was able to position itself for major disruptions in the global petroleum sector.

Building on its corporate roots, scenario analysis has become a standard policymaking tool. For example, the Project on Forward Engagement advocates linking systematic foresight, which it defines as the disciplined analysis of
alternative futures, to planning and feedback loops to better equip the United States to meet contemporary governance challenges (Fuerth 2011). Another prominent application of scenario thinking is found in the National
Intelligence Council’s series of Global Trends reports, issued every four years to aid policymakers in anticipating and planning for future challenges. These reports present a handful of “alternative worlds” approximately twenty
years into the future, carefully constructed on the basis of emerging global trends, risks, and opportunities, and intended to stimulate thinking about geopolitical change and its effects.4 As with corporate scenario analysis, the
technique can be used in foreign policymaking for long-range general planning purposes as well as for anticipating and coping with more narrow and immediate challenges. An example of the latter is the German Marshall Fund’s
EuroFutures project, which uses four scenarios to map the potential consequences of the Euro-area financial crisis (German Marshall Fund 2013).

Several features make scenario analysis particularly useful for policymaking.5 Long-term global trends
across a number of different realms—social, technological, environmental, economic, and political—combine in often-unexpected ways to
produce unforeseen challenges. Yet the ability of decision makers to imagine, let alone prepare for,
discontinuities in the policy realm is constrained by their existing mental models and maps. This limitation is
exacerbated by well-known cognitive bias tendencies such as groupthink and confirmation bias (Jervis 1976;
Janis 1982; Tetlock 2005). The power of scenarios lies in their ability to help individuals break out of conventional

modes of thinking and analysis by introducing unusual combinations of trends and deliberate
discontinuities in narratives about the future . Imagining alternative future worlds through a structured
analytical process enables policymakers to envision and thereby adapt to something altogether
different from the known present.
Designing Scenarios for Political Science Inquiry

Scenarios are
The characteristics of scenario analysis that commend its use to policymakers also make it well suited to helping political scientists generate and develop policy-relevant research programs.

essentially textured, plausible, and relevant stories that help us imagine how the future political-economic world could
be different from the past in a manner that highlights policy challenges and opportunities. For example, terrorist organizations are a known threat that have captured the attention of the policy
community, yet our responses to them tend to be linear and reactive. Scenarios that explore how seemingly unrelated vectors of change—the rise of a new peer competitor in the East that diverts strategic attention, volatile
commodity prices that empower and disempower various state and nonstate actors in surprising ways, and the destabilizing effects of climate change or infectious disease pandemics—can be useful for illuminating the nature and
limits of the terrorist threat in ways that may be missed by a narrower focus on recognized states and groups. By illuminating the potential strategic significance of specific and yet poorly understood opportunities and threats,
scenario analysis helps to identify crucial gaps in our collective understanding of global politicaleconomic trends and dynamics. The notion of “exogeneity”—so prevalent in social science scholarship—applies to models of reality,

Very simply, scenario analysis can throw into sharp relief often-overlooked yet pressing
not to reality itself.

questions in international affairs that demand focused investigation.

Scenarios thus offer, in principle, an innovative tool for developing a political science research agenda . In practice,
achieving this objective requires careful tailoring of the approach . The specific scenario analysis technique we outline below was designed and refined
to provide a structured experiential process for generating problem-based research questions with contemporary international policy relevance.6 The first step in the process of creating the scenario set described here was to
identify important causal forces in contemporary global affairs. Consensus was not the goal; on the contrary, some of these causal statements represented competing theories about global change (e.g., a resurgence of the nation-
state vs. border-evading globalizing forces). A major principle underpinning the transformation of these causal drivers into possible future worlds was to “simplify, then exaggerate” them, before fleshing out the emerging story
with more details.7 Thus, the contours of the future world were drawn first in the scenario, with details about the possible pathways to that point filled in second. It is entirely possible, indeed probable, that some of the causal
claims that turned into parts of scenarios were exaggerated so much as to be implausible, and that an unavoidable degree of bias or our own form of groupthink went into construction of the scenarios. One of the great strengths
of scenario analysis, however, is that the scenario discussions themselves, as described below, lay bare these especially implausible claims and systematic biases.8

An explicit methodological approach underlies the written scenarios themselves as well as the analytical process around them—that of case-centered, structured, focused comparison, intended especially to shed light on new

The use of scenarios is similar to counterfactual analysis in that it modifies certain

causal mechanisms (George and Bennett 2005).

variables in a given situation in order to analyze the resulting effects (Fearon 1991). Whereas counterfactuals are
traditionally retrospective in nature and explore events that did not actually occur in the context of known history, our scenarios are deliberately forward-
looking and are designed to explore potential futures that could unfold. As such, counterfactual analysis is especially well suited to identifying how individual events might
expand or shift the “funnel of choices” available to political actors and thus lead to different historical outcomes (Nye 2005, 68–69), while forward-looking scenario analysis can better illuminate surprising intersections and

We see scenarios as a complementary resource for

sociopolitical dynamics without the perceptual constraints imposed by fine-grained historical knowledge.

exploring these dynamics in international affairs, rather than as a replacement for counterfactual analysis, historical case studies, or
other methodological tools.

In the scenario process developed for NEFPC, three distinct scenarios are employed, acting as cases for analytical comparison. Each scenario, as detailed below, includes a set of explicit “driving forces” which represent hypotheses
about causal mechanisms worth investigating in evolving international affairs. The scenario analysis process itself employs templates (discussed further below) to serve as a graphical representation of a structured, focused
investigation and thereby as the research tool for conducting case-centered comparative analysis (George and Bennett 2005). In essence, these templates articulate key observable implications within the alternative worlds of the
scenarios and serve as a framework for capturing the data that emerge (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994). Finally, this structured, focused comparison serves as the basis for the cross-case session emerging from the scenario
analysis that leads directly to the articulation of new research agendas.

The scenario process described here has thus been carefully designed to offer some guidance to policy-
oriented graduate students who are otherwise left to the relatively unstructured norms by which political
science dissertation ideas are typically developed. The initial articulation of a dissertation project is generally an idiosyncratic and personal undertaking (Useem 1997; Rothman 2008),
whereby students might choose topics based on their coursework, their own previous policy exposure, or the topics studied by their advisors. Research agendas are thus typically developed by looking for “puzzles” in existing
research programs (Kuhn 1996). Doctoral students also, understandably, often choose topics that are particularly amenable to garnering research funding. Conventional grant programs typically base their funding priorities on
extrapolations from what has been important in the recent past—leading to, for example, the prevalence of Japan and Soviet studies in the mid-1980s or terrorism studies in the 2000s—in the absence of any alternative method for
identifying questions of likely future significance.

The scenario approach to generating research ideas is grounded in the belief that these traditional
approaches can be complemented by identifying questions likely to be of great empirical importance in
the real world, even if these do not appear as puzzles in existing research programs or as clear extrapolations
from past events. The scenarios analyzed at NEFPC envision alternative worlds that could develop in the medium (five
to seven year) term and are designed to tease out issues scholars and policymakers may encounter in
the relatively near future so that they can begin thinking critically about them now. This timeframe
offers a period distant enough from the present as to avoid falling into current events analysis, but not
so far into the future as to seem like science fiction . In imagining the worlds in which these scenarios might come to pass, participants learn
strategies for avoiding failures of creativity and for overturning the assumptions that prevent scholars
and analysts from anticipating and understanding the pivotal junctures that arise in international
affairs.

The security dilemma is a robust and intellectually sound explanation of conflict

escalation
Jacobsen and Halvorsen 18 – (Jo, Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and
Technology; Thomas, Senior Scientist at SINTEF ( Stiftelsen for industriell og teknisk forskning)
Technology and Society; 5/22/18; The Durability of the Security Dilemma: An Empirical Investigation of
Action–Reaction Dynamics in States’ Military Spending (1988–2014); doi: 10.1093/cjip/poy007)

The security-dilemma model, for its part, rests on a spiral logic that highlights the self-defeating—tragic—properties
of security-seeking in an anarchic world ;15 that is to say, a world, ‘where one state’s attempts to increase
its security appear threatening to others and provoke an unnecessary conflict’ .16 States seek survival and
security, and as they cannot be certain of the intentions of others, military capabilities become the
ultimate means of protection. But here, suspicion and fear are mutual, resulting in a cyclical pattern: one state
increases its arms; the other, fearing that the arms build-up may rest on malign intentions, follows suit ; the
first reacts to this; the second reacts to the first’s reaction, and so on. Both states are pure, defensively-minded security-seekers —but none can

afford to trust that the other is of this type.

Anarchy, Tragedy, and the Security Dilemma

The concept of the security dilemma thus catches, ‘the unfortunate fact that policies designed to
increase the state’s security often have the effect of decreasing the other’s securit y’.17 States accumulate
power for defence, but considering that, ‘no state can know that the power accumulation of others is
defensively-motivated only, each must assume that it might be intended for attack. Consequently, each party’s
power increments are matched by the others, and all wind up with no more security than when the
vicious cycle began’.18 Such tragic spirals, ‘between states that want nothing more than to preserve the
status quo’19 represent, according to some, ‘the quintessential dilemma in international politics’.20

security-
It was John Herz21 who originally introduced the term, lucidly capturing the key elements on which later scholars—notably Herbert Butterfield,22 Robert Jervis, and Charles Glaser—elaborate. The

dilemma logic has since been used to explain, inter alia, the security environment in East Asia ;23 World War I;24
the onset and continuation of the Cold War ;25 ethnic conflict;26 alliance politics;27 and US ballistic missile
defences and Russian countermoves.28
For Herz, it all begins with the structure of the system—of any system without a higher authority. In such an anarchic system, he writes, what arises is a,

‘security dilemma’ of men, or groups, or their leaders. Groups or individuals living in such a constellation must be, and usually are, concerned about their security from being attacked, subjected, dominated, or annihilated by
other groups and individuals. Striving to attain security from such attack, they are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of the power of others. This, in turn, renders the others more insecure and
compels them to prepare for the worst. Since none can ever feel entirely secure in such a world of competing units, power competition ensues, and the vicious cycle of security and power accumulation is on.29

The dilemma is a structural one. It follows not from characteristics of states or individuals; it is rather
based at Kenneth Waltz’s third level of analysis,30 arising from the lack of a supranational sovereign—that is,
from anarchy.31 This is a self-help, competitive system wherein actors or states are constrained with respect to their freedom of manoeuvre. Security and survival being their
fundamental goals, states are apt to err on the side of caution in their security policies, constantly
striving either to improve or to keep their power position vis-à-vis others. For not doing so, considering the possibility
that the motives or intentions of those others might not be benevolent, involves the risk of being exploited .

the fear with which it is associated, ‘most strongly drives the security dilemma’. 32 Its command generates efforts
This risk, and

to maximise security by augmenting relative power. But when two (or more) states simultaneously act
according to this logic, both (all) will at the very least wind up no better off in terms of security, and bearing the
added costs that go with security competition and arms races .33 Indeed, security should be reduced all around, because the vicious
spiral enhances mutual suspicion and tensions.34 Worse still, if military technology and prevailing strategies are
such that striking first is rationally tempting, the security dilemma mechanism can, by itself, trigger
war.35

states do not seek to become engaged in conflicts and vicious spirals ; instead, the
The security dilemma is a tragic dilemma, in the sense that

structural constraints under which they operate induce or compel them to undertake actions that are in
reality self-defeating.36 Mutual security is preferred, but security competition ensues as an unintended consequence of moves by, ‘decision makers finding themselves in a predicament that is not of their
own making’.37 The motives or intentions of actors play no necessary role in the tragedy. Others’ intentions

cannot be known for certain—and their future intentions are impossible to predict . This means that even
in a world consisting solely of security-seeking or status quo-oriented state s—as opposed to power-seeking, ‘revisionist’, or ‘greedy’ ones—
fear and uncertainty prevail, as does the security dilemma . As Robert Jervis observes, this fear and uncertainty stem not from any ‘limitations on rationality
imposed by human psychology nor in a flaw in human nature, but in a correct appreciation of the consequences of living in a Hobbesian state of nature’.38 The build-up of military
capabilities, therefore, can be viewed as a prudent response to an uncertain future (or present) in which worst-case
scenario planning constitutes insurance against threats to one’s security or survival .39

This fits with the Prisoner’s Dilemma analogy, which Robert Jervis in particular has pondered and elaborated:40 each state or player, under conditions of imperfect
information, rationally follows a strategy of ‘defection’, as opposed to one of ‘cooperation’, to avoid the
‘sucker’s payoff’. Both (or all) having done so, their interaction produces a Pareto suboptimal outcome, for both (all) would have preferred mutual cooperation to reciprocal defection. But the conflict outcome—
the game's ‘solution’—still has the character of a Nash equilibrium, which follows rationally from the game’s properties. Again, it is fundamentally structure (anarchy) coupled

with the inescapable factor of information deficiency that compels such a tragic outcome , even if the
players’ preference orderings are overwhelmingly status-quo inclined , in which case the game is not a Prisoners’ Dilemma but a Stag Hunt,
wherein mutual cooperation is preferred even to the unilateral defection. Yet, so long as the players are uncertain about which game they are actually participants of, defection should be the

strategy of choice, and conflict should therefore ensue.

The ubiquitous uncertainty notwithstanding, states still try to estimate others’ motives, and in doing so are apt to pay heed to
the behaviour of potential security competitors , not least to their military spending and posture .41 It is exactly
here that the delicate balancing between security-enhancing and self-defeating behaviour commences. This constitutes a dilemma in itself. If a given state has an incentive to signal

benign motives to its adversary, it will (depending on the offence–defence balance, which is described later) avoid augmenting military
capabilities for fear the other will interpret this as signalling malign intentions . At the same time, though, such a
decision will necessarily put the former in a vulnerable position, which it can scarcely afford given the
prominence of security concerns under the perilousness of anarchy .42 Contrarily, if the state instead increases
its military spending, it risks signalling malign intentions, in which case the second state would rationally react by doing the same.
Most states facing this situation would probably be inclined to settle for the ‘least-bad’ option, which entails the sacrifice of revealing their true, benign motives on the altar of military capabilities.43 However, this still constitutes a

the former’s arms build-up would signal both enhanced

quandary for the second state that would ultimately make it ‘doubly insecure’.44 That is to say,

military capacity and malevolent intentions . Consequently the second state, for its part, would be ill advised to let a potentially ‘greedy’45 or ‘imperialist’46 state gain an
unfettered advantage with regard to capabilities. At core here is the reluctance or inability—out of fear, uncertainty or risk aversion

—to perceive the situation as a security dilemma, even when that is what it really is. Two states, both of
which are status-quo oriented, may thus end up, ‘in a relationship of higher conflict than is required by
the objective situation’.

Root cause explanations of International Relations don’t exist – methodological

pluralism is necessary to reclaim IR as emancipatory praxis and avoid endless political
violence.
Bleiker 14 – (6/17, Roland, Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland,
“International Theory Between Reification and Self-Reflective Critique,” International Studies Review,
Volume 16, Issue 2, pages 325–327)
This book is part of an increasing trend of scholarly works that have embraced poststructural critique but want to ground it in more positive political foundations, while retaining a reluctance to return to the positivist tendencies
that implicitly underpin much of constructivist research. The path that Daniel Levine has carved out is innovative, sophisticated, and convincing. A superb scholarly achievement.

the key challenge in international relations (IR) scholarship is what he calls “unchecked reification”: the widespread and
For Levine,

dangerous process of forgetting “the distinction between theoretical concepts and the real-world things
they mean to describe or to which they refer” (p. 15). The dangers are real, Levine stresses, because IR deals with some of the
most difficult issues, from genocides to war. Upholding one subjective position without critical scrutiny
can thus have far-reaching consequences. Following Theodor Adorno—who is the key theoretical influence on this book—Levine takes a post-positive position and assumes that the
world cannot be known outside of our human perceptions and the values that are inevitably intertwined with them. His ultimate goal is to overcome reification, or, to be more precise, to recognize it as an inevitable aspect of
thought so that its dangerous consequences can be mitigated.

Levine proceeds in three stages: First he reviews several decades of IR theories to resurrect critical moments when scholars displayed an acute awareness of the dangers of reification. He refreshingly breaks down
distinctions between conventional and progressive scholarship, for he detects self-reflective and critical moments in scholars that are usually associated with
straightforward positivist positions (such as E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, or Graham Allison). But Levine also shows how these moments of self-reflexivity never lasted long and were driven
out by the compulsion to offer systematic and scientific knowledge.

outlines why IR scholars regularly closed down critique. Here, he points to a range of factors and phenomena, from peer review processes to the speed at which academics are
The second stage of Levine's inquiry

meant to publish. And here too, he eschews conventional wisdom, showing that work conducted in the wake of the third debate, while explicitly post-positivist and critiquing the reifying

tendencies of existing IR scholarship, often lacked critical self-awareness . As a result, Levine believes that many of the respective authors

failed to appreciate sufficiently that “reification is a consequence of all thinking—including itself” (p. 68).

sustainable critique”: a form of self-reflection that can counter the dangers of reification.
The third objective of Levine's book is also the most interesting one. Here, he outlines the path toward what he calls “

not just something that is directed outwards, against particular theories or theorists . It is also
Critique, for him, is

inward-oriented, ongoing, and sensitive to the “limitations of thought itself” (p. 12).
The challenges that such a sustainable critique faces are formidable. Two stand out: First, if the natural tendency to forget the origins and values of our concepts are as strong as Levine and other Adorno-inspired theorists believe
they are, then how can we actually recognize our own reifying tendencies? Are we not all inevitably and subconsciously caught in a web of meanings from which we cannot escape? Second, if one constantly questions one's own
perspective, does one not fall into a relativism that loses the ability to establish the kind of stable foundations that are necessary for political action? Adorno has, of course, been critiqued as relentlessly negative, even by his
second-generation Frankfurt School successors (from Jürgen Habermas to his IR interpreters, such as Andrew Linklater and Ken Booth).

He starts off with depicting reification not

The response that Levine has to these two sets of legitimate criticisms are, in my view, both convincing and useful at a practical level.

as a flaw that is meant to be expunged, but as an a priori condition for scholarship . The challenge then is not to let it go unchecked.

Methodological pluralism lies at the heart of Levine's sustainable critique. He borrows from what Adorno calls a “constellation”: an
attempt to juxtapose, rather than integrate, different perspectives. It is in this spirit that Levine advocates multiple methods to understand the same event or

phenomena. He writes of the need to validate “multiple and mutually incompatible ways of seeing” (p. 63, see
also pp. 101–102). In this model, a scholar oscillates back and forth between different methods and paradigms , trying to

understand the event in question from multiple perspectives. No single method can ever adequately
represent the event or should gain the upper hand. But each should, in a way, recognize and capture details
or perspectives that the others cannot (p. 102). In practical terms, this means combining a range of methods
even when—or, rather, precisely when—they are deemed incompatible. They can range from
poststructual deconstruction to the tools pioneered and championed by positivist social sciences.

The benefit of such a methodological polyphony is not just the opportunity to bring out nuances and new
perspectives. Once the false hope of a smooth synthesis has been abandoned, the very incompatibility of
the respective perspectives can then be used to identify the reifying tendencies in each of them . For Levine, this is
how reification may be “checked at the source” and this is how a “critically reflexive moment might thus be

rendered sustainable” (p. 103). It is in this sense that Levine's approach is not really post-foundational but , rather, an attempt
to “balance foundationalisms against one another” (p. 14). There are strong parallels here with arguments advanced by assemblage thinking and complexity theory—
links that could have been explored in more detail.

Outer space policy is an essential subject of debate---space militarization issues open

ground for profound questions about the nature of society, politics and humanity, as
well as possibilities for ontological transformation of the political---the aff’s analysis
breaks through the totalizing terms of status quo debates
Natlie Bormann 9, Professor of Politics at Northeastern University; with Michael Sheehan, IR
Professor; 2009, “Introduction,” in Securing Outer Space: International Relations Theory and the Politics
of Space, p. 10-20

For fifty years, much of our thinking about socio-political, economic and military-related issues were defined, shaped
and driven by the Cold War and the centrality of a comfortable paradox — that of a bipolar nuclear confrontation. A decade and a half after the end of that confrontation we are still deemed to be
living in a period, the ‘post’—Cold War era, that is defined only in relation to the preceding one. And while there is a strong temptation , if not an expectation, for some
scholars to adhere to these well-known and totalizing terms of the debate, for others the past two generations have been animated by a
different, and pervasive, intervention — the ‘space age’. The movement of humanity into space and the development of satellite technology in retrospect may well appear as the defining characteristic of this period.

The fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the space age was marked on 4 October 2007. It was on this day, in 1957, that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first satellite to be placed in orbit. This dramatic event not only

the space era, it also triggered a set of questions regarding the assumptions and effects that were (and
ushered in

are) constitutive of this new endeavour: questions of the global, the international, the political, the ethical,
the technical, the scientific, humankind and modernity — to name but a few. In what ways would these
questions guide, alter and intervene with our activities in space? But also, in what ways would the space
age guide, alter and intervene with these questions?

That day in October 1957 also marked the beginning of serious concerns regarding the modes and kinds of space activities that we would be witnessing, and these concerns were
dominated from the outset by the fact that the first journey into space was accompanied by — if not
entirely driven by — the Cold War arms race. The initial steps in the exploration of space were inexorably linked with
pressures to militarize and securitize this new dimension. As a geographical realm that had hitherto been pristine in relation to mankind’s warlike history, this
immediate tendency for space exploration to be led by military rationales raised profound philosophical and political questions . What should

the purpose of space activity be, and what should it not be? And how would we approach, understand and distinguish between military activities, civilian
ones, commercial ones, and so forth?

questions as to ‘what we bring to space’ as well as how space activities challenge us, and to what effects, seem ever more
More than a half century later, the

pressing. While the debate over some of the assumptions, modes and effects of the space age never truly abated, most of the contributors in this volume agree that there is sense of urgency in
raising concern, re-conceptualizing the modes of the debate , and engaging critically with the limits and

possibilities of the dimension of space vis-a-vis the political.

This sense of urgency reflects the revitalization of national space programmes, and particularly that of
the United States and China since the start of the twenty—first century. In January 2004, at NASA headquarters, US President George W. Bush
announced the need for a new vision for America’s civilian and scientific space programme. This call culminated in a Commission’s Report on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy, which emphasized the
fundamental role of space for US technological leadership, economic validity, and most importantly, security. While this certainly stimulated the debate over the future direction of US space exploration, it has led many to express
concern over the implicitly aggressive and ambitious endeavour of colonizing space in the form of calling upon the need for permanent access to and presence in space. A critical eye has also been cast on the Commission’s
endorsement of the privatization and commercialization of space and its support for implementing a far larger presence of private industry in space operations.

at the forefront of the current debate on space activities are notions of its militarization and securitization. The
Certainly also

deployment of technologies with the aim to secure, safeguard, defend and control certain assets, innovations and activities in space is presented to us as an
inevitable and necessary development. It is argued that just as the development of reconnaissance aircraft in the First World War led inexorably to the emergence of fighter aircraft
to deny the enemy the ability to carry out such reconnaissance and then bombers to deliver weapons against targets that could be identified and reached from the air, so too has the ‘multiplier effect’ on military capabilities of
satellites encouraged calls for the acquisition of space—based capabilities to defend one’s own satellites and attack those of adversaries, and in the longer term, to place weapons in space that could attack targets on Earth. Here,
the Bush administration’s indication that it envisaged a prominent role for space—based Weapons in the longer term as part of the controversial national missile defence system contributed to the atmosphere of controversy
surrounding space policy.

As space has become crucial to, and utilized by, far more international actors, so the political implications of space activities have multiplied. The members of the European Space Agency have pursued space development for
economic, scientific and social reasons. Their model of international space cooperation has been seen as offering an example to other areas of the world, particularly in their desire to avoid militarizing efforts. Yet even Europe has
begun to develop military space capabilities, following a path that has already been pursued by other key states such as China and India, suggesting that there is an inevitability about the militarization, and perhaps ultimately the

How we conceptualize space has therefore become of fundamental moral, political and
weaponization, of space.

strategic importance.

Outer space challenges the political imagination as it has always challenged the human imagination in many other fields. For millennia people have looked up to the stars and
imagined it as the home of gods or the location of the afterlife. For centuries they have looked to it for answers about the physical nature of the universe and the place of mankind’s ancestral home within it. And for decades, it has

Space exploration is a driver of innovation, encouraging us to dream of what

been seen as the supreme test for advanced technology.

might be possible, to push back the boundaries of thought and to change the nature of ontological
realities by drawing on novel epistemologies . The physical exploration of the solar system through the application of science and technology has been the visible
demonstration of this.

The challenges that space poses for political theory are profound. If space is about the use of imagination, and the application of novel developments to create new possibilities for human progress, how has political theory and
political reality responded to this challenge? The answer, at least thus far, is both that it has changed everything, and that it has changed very little. For international law, most notably in the Outer Space Treaty, the denial of

On the
territoriality and limitations on sovereignty beyond planet Earth offers a fundamental challenge to the way in which international relations has been conceptualized and operationalized in the modern era.

other hand, the dream of many, that humanity would leave behind its dark side as it entered space , has
not been realized. For the most part, the exploration and utilization of space has reflected, not challenged,
the political patterns and impulses that characterized twentieth—century politics and international
relations. Propaganda, military rivalry, economic competition and exploitation, North-South
discrimination and so on have extended their reach beyond the atmosphere . Industrialization and imperialism
in the nineteenth century helped produce powerful new social theories, as well as new philosophy,
political ideologies and conceptualizations of the meaning of politics and the nature of human destiny.
The realities of the space age demand novel social theories of the same order.
With the above in mind, this volume is undoubtedly driven by, and wants to speak to, the articulation of a number of controversial policies, contentious strategies and linguistic utilizations that promote space activities in various
ways under the rubric of exploration and innovation, militarization and weaponization, colonization and commercialization. However, while the contributions here were clearly prompted by recent and current policies, the aim of
this book is neither necessarily to explain these policies and discuss the merits of the space age, nor to offer more ‘workable’ solutions. Rather, it seeks to place them in a broader theoretical perspective by attempting to achieve
two objectives.

First, it explores ways in which we can articulate an understanding of that which precedes and informs these policies to begin with. The contributions here engage in a reading of space that traces the discourses of space activities,
and particularly their military dimension, exposes their meaning- producing practices, and unearths the narratives that give possibility to seeing particular space strategies as desirable, inevitable and seamless. The authors also
draw attention to the contexts within which activities ‘out there’ in space are always embedded, and which we need to remind ourselves of when contemplating space developments. The contributions emphasize the fact that
space policies resonate practices already central to the overall ‘earth—bound’ forging of foreign policies, security strategies, development, the ‘war on terror’, globalization and so forth.

we can articulate an understanding of, and critically engage with, the effects of particular manifestations of space
Second, the book suggests ways in which

policies. While our conception of space is always constitutive of what already ‘is’, the projection of activities in
space (and their possibilities ) similarly constitute, produce and shape socio-political relations and activities on

Earth. The contributions here reflect critically on questions of sovereignty; perceptions of time and space; modes of destruction, fighting and killing in, from and through space; and relations of technology and ethics.
2ac
 2AC Vattimo
Debate is important because discussion over a governmental proposition is important
both to create the practical skills and the confidence to challenge the government
through political engagement – the world is messy and inundated with information
that is important to parse through in the course of political and activist organization –
only our model is able to foster the the information acess and utilization
Leek 16. Danielle R. Leek, professor of communications at Grand Valley State University, “Policy debate
pedagogy: a complementary strategy for civic and political engagement through service-learning,”
Communication Education, 65:4, 399-405

Through policy debate, students can develop information literacy and learn how
to make critical arguments of fact. This experience is politically empowering for
students who will also build confidence for political engagement. Information
literacy While there are many definitions of information literacy, the term generally is understood to
mean that a student is “able to recognize when information is needed

, and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the information needed” for problem-
solving and decision-making (Spitzer, Eisenberg, & Lowe, 1998, p. 19). Information exists in a variety of
forms, in visual data, computer graphics, sound-recordings, film, and photographs. Information is also
constructed and disseminated through a wide range of sources and mediums. Therefore, “information
literacy” functions as a blanket term which covers a wide range of more specific literacies. Critiques of
service-learning’s knowl- edge-building power, such as those articulated by Eby (1998) and Colby (2008),
are chal- lenging both the emphasis the pedagogy places on information gained through experience and
the limited scope of political information students are exposed to in the process. Policy debate can
augment a student’s civic and political learning by fostering extended information literacies. Snider
and Schnurer (2002) identify policy debate as an especially research intensive form of oral discussion
which requires extensive time and commitment to learn the dimensions of a topic. Understanding
policy issues calls for contemplating a range of materials, from traditional news
media publications to court proceedings, research data, and institutional
propaganda. Moreover, the nature of policy debate, which involves public presentation of
arguments on two competing sides of a question, motivates students to go beyond basic information
to achieve a more advanced level of expertise and credibility on a topic (Dybvig & Iverson, n.d.). This
type of work differs from traditional research projects where students gather only the materials needed
to support their argument while neglecting contrary evidence. Instead, the “debate research process
encourages a kind of holistic approach, where students need to pay attention to the critics of their
argument because they will have to respond to those attacks” (Snider & Schnurer, 2002, p. 32). In
today’s attention economy, cultivating a sensibility for well- rounded
information gathering can also aid students in recognizing when and how the
knowledge produced in their social environments can be effectively translated
to specific contexts. The “cultural shift in the production of data” which has followed the
emergence of Web 2.0 technologies means that all students are likely “prosumers”—that is, they
consume, produce, and coproduce information online all at the same time (Scoble, 2011). Coupling
service- learning with policy debate calls on students to apply information across registers of public
engagement, including their own service efforts and their own public argumentation, in and outside of
their debates. Information is used in the service experience, which in turn, informs the use of
information in debates, where students then produce new information through their argumentation.
The process is what Bruce (2008) refers to “informed learning,” or “using information in order to learn.”
When individuals move from learning how to gather materials for a task to a cognitive awareness and
understanding of how the information-seeking process shapes their learning, they are engaged in
informed learning. Through this process, students can come to recognize that information management
and credibility is deeply disciplinary and historically con- textual (Bruce & Hughes, 2010). This
understanding, combined with practical experience in locating information, is a critical missing element
in contemporary political engage- ment. Over 20 years ago, Graber (1994) argued that one of the biggest
obstacles to political engagement was not apathy, but a gap between the way news media presents
information during elections, and the type of information voters need and will listen to during electoral
campaigns. The challenge extends beyond elections into policy-making, especially as younger
generations continue to revise their notions of citizenship away from institutional politics towards more
social forms of activism (Bennett, Wells, & Freelon, 2011). For stu- dents to effectively practice more
expressive forms of citizenship they need experience managing the breadth of information available
about issues they care about. As past research indicates a strong correlation between service-learning
experience and the motiv- ation and desire for post-graduation service, it seems likely that students who
debate about policy issues related to service areas will continue their informed learning practices after
they have left the classroom (Soria & Thomas-Card, 2014). Arguing facts In addition to building
information literacies, students who combine policy debate with service-learning can practice “politically
relevant skills,” which will help them have confidence for political engagement in the future. As Colby
(2008) explains, this confidence should be tempered by tolerance for difference and differing opinions.
On the surface, debating about institutional politics might seem counterintuitive to this goal.
Politicians and the press have a credibility problem among college-aged students, and this leaves
younger generations less inclined to feel obligated to the state or to look to traditional modes of
policy- making for social change (Bennett et al., 2011; Manning & Edwards, 2014). This lack of faith in
government and media outlets also makes political argument more difficult (Klumpp, 2006). Whereas
these institutions once served as authoritative and trustworthy sources of information, the credibility
of legislators and journalists has decreased over the last 40 years or so. Today, politicians and pundits
are viewed as political actors interested in spectacle, power, and profit rather than truth-seeking or
the common good. While some political controversies are rooted in competing values, Klumpp (2006)
explains that arguments about policy are more often based in fact. Indeed, when engaged in public
arguments over questions of policy, people tend to “invoke the authority of facts to support their
positions.” Likewise, “the governmental sphere has developed elaborate legal and deliberative
processes in recognition of the power of facts as the basis for a decision.” Yet, while shared
values are often quickly agreed upon, differences over fact are more difficult to
resolve. Without credible institutions of authority that can disseminate facts, public deliberation
requires more time, information-gathering, evaluation, and reasoning. The Bush
administration’s decision to take military action in Iraq, for example, was
presumably based on the “fact” that Saddam Hussein had acquired weapons of
mass destruction. This has now become a classic example of poor policy-making grounded in
faulty factual evidence. This shortcoming is precisely why policy debate is a valuable
complement to service- learning activities. Not only can students use their developing
literacies to better understand social problems, they can also learn to access a broader range of
knowledge sources, thereby mitigating the absence of fact-finding from traditional institutions. Fur-
thermore, policy advocacy gives students experience testing the reasoning underlying claims of fact.
Issues of source credibility, analogic comparisons, and data analysis are three examples of the type of
critical thinking skills that students may need to apply in order to engage a question of policy (Allen,
Berkowitz, Hunt, & Louden, 1999). While the effect may be to undermine government action in some
instances, in others students will gain a better understanding of when and where institutional activities
can work to make change. As students gain knowledge about the relationship between institutional
structures and the communities they serve, they grow confidence in their ability to engage in future
conversations about policy issues. Zwarensteyn’s (2012) research high- lights these sorts of effects in
high school students who engage in competitive policy debate. Zwarensteyn theorizes that even
minimal increases in technical knowledge about politics can translate to significant increases in a
student’s sense of self-efficacy. Many students start off feeling very insecure when it comes to their
mastery of insti- tutional politics; policy debate helps overcome that insecurity. Moreover, because
training in policy debate encourages students to address issues as arguments rather than partisan
positions, it encourages them to engage policy-making without the hostility and incivility that often
characterizes today’s political scene. Indeed, it is precisely that perceived hostility and incivility that
prompts many young people to avoid politics in the first place. I do not mean to imply that students who
debate about their service-learning experi- ences will draw homogenous conclusions about policies.
Quite the contrary. Students who engage in service-learning still bring their personal visions and history
to bear on their debates. As a result, students will often have very different opinions after engaging in a
shared debate experience. More importantly, the practice of debating should operate to particularize
students’ knowledge of community partners and clients, working against the destructive generalizations
and power dynamics that can result when students feel privileged to serve less fortunate “others.” For
civic and political engagement through service-learning to be meaningful and productive, it must do
more to challenge students’ concepts of the homogenous “we” who helps “them.” Seligman (2013)
argues that this civic spirit can be cultivated through the core pedagogical principle of a “shared
practice,” which emphasizes the application of knowledge to purpose (p. 60). Policy debate achieves this
outcome by calling on students to consider and reconsider their understanding of themselves,
institutions, community, and policy every time the question “should” may arise. As Seligman writes: ...
the orientation of thought to purpose (having an explanation rest at a place, a purpose) is of extreme
importance. We must recognize that the orientation of thought to purpose is to recognize moving
from providing a knowledge of, to providing a knowledge for. This means that in the context of
encountering difference it is not sufficient to learn about (have an idea of) the other, rather it means to
have ideas for certain joint purposes—for a set of “to-does.” A purpose becomes the goal towards which
our explanations should be oriented. (p. 61) Put another way, policy debate challenges students “to
maintain a sense of doubt and to carry on a systematic and protracted inquiry” in the process of
service-learning itself (Seligman, 2013, p. 60). This is precisely the type of complex, ongoing, reflective
inquiry that John Dewey had in mind. Political engagement through policy debate This essay began with
a discussion of the growing attention to civic engagement programs in higher education. The national
trend is to accomplish higher levels of student civic responsibility during and after their time in college
through service-learning experiences tied to curricular learning objectives. A challenge for service-
learning scholars and teachers is to recognize a distinction between civic activities that are accomplished
by helping others and political activities that require engagement with the collective institutional
structures and processes that govern social life. Both are necessary for democracy to thrive. Policy
debate pedagogy can help service-learning educators accomplish these dual objectives. To call policy
debate a pedagogy rather than just a style of debate is purposeful. A pedagogy is a praxis for cultivating
learning in others.

The pedagogy of service-learning helps students to know and engage social conditions through physical
engagement with their environments and communities. Policy debate pedagogy leads students to
know and engage these same social conditions while also challenging them to apply their knowledge
for the purpose of political advocacy. These pedagogies are natural compliments for cul- tivating
student learning. Therefore, future studies should explore how well service-learn- ing combined with
policy debate can resolve concerns that policy debate alone does not go far enough to invest students
with political agency (Mitchell, 1998). The present analysis suggests the potential for such an outcome is
likely. Moreover, research is clear that the civic effects of service-learning as an instructional method are
improved simply by increasing the amount of time spent on in-class discus- sion about the service work
students do (Levesque-Bristol, Knapp, & Fisher, 2010). Policy debates related to students’ service can
accomplish this goal and more. Policy debates can also facilitate the political learning students need to
build their political efficacy and capacity for political engagement. Through informed learning about
the political process—especially in the context of service practice—students develop literacies that will
extend beyond the classroom. Using this knowledge in reasoned public argument about policy
challenges invites students to move beyond cynical disengagement towards a productive recognition
of their own potential voice in the political world. Policy debate pedagogy brings unique elements to
the process of political learning. By emphasizing the conditional and dynamic
nature of
political arguments and processes, debates can work to relieve students of the
misconception that there is a single “right answer” for questions about policy-
making and politics, especially during election time. The communication perspective on
policy debates also highlights students’ collective involvement in the ever-changing field of political
terms, symbols, and meanings that constitute interpretations of our social world. In fact, the historical
roots of the term “communication” seem to demand that speech and debate educators call for such
emphasis on political learning. “To make common,” the Latin interpretation of communicare, situ- ates
our discipline as the heart of public political affairs (Peters, 1999). Connecting policy debate to service-
learning helps highlight the common purpose of these approaches in efforts to promote civic
engagement in higher education.
Evaluate consequences --- the alt is just arm-chair activism which is politically
demobilizing.
Kathryn SIKKINK 8. Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. “The Role of
Consequences, Comparison, and Counterfactuals in Constructivist Ethical Thought.” Cambridge Studies
in International Relations 107: 83. Emory Libraries.
Ethical arguments of these different types are ubiquitous and necessary. But because they are also slippery and open to manipulation and
misuse, we also need to be very careful and precise about how we go about using them. I would recommend that first we distinguish very
carefully between the comparison to ideals and historical empirical comparison. I believe that many critical constructivist accounts
rely
on the comparison to the ideal or to the conditions of possibility counterfactual argument . In almost every
critical constructivist work there is an implicit ideal ethical argument . This argument is implicit because it is rarely clearly
stated, but it is found in the nature of the 36 critique. So, for example, in her discussion of U.S. human rights policy, Roxanne
Doty critiques a human rights policy carried out by actors who sometimes use it for their own self aggrandizement
and to denigrate others. 42 The implicit ideal this presents is a human rights policy that is not used for
denigration or surveillance or othering those it criticizes or conversely, of elevating those who advocate it. What
would be examples of such a policy? The book does not provide examples . We do not know if examples
exist in the world. So the implicit comparison is a comparison to an ideal – a never fully stated ideal, but
one present in the critique of what is wrong with the policies discussed. Nicolas Guilhot makes a similar argument
in his recent book. The promotion of democracy and human rights, he argues, are increasingly used in order to extend the power they were
meant to limit. “The promotion of democracy and human rights defines new forms of administration on a global scale and generates a new
political science.” He historically examines how progressive movements for democracy and human rights have
become hegemonic because they “systematically managed to integrate emancipatory and progressive
forces in the construction of imperial policies .” But once again, the book offers no alternative political
scenario. In the final sentence of the book, the author clarifies that “this book has no other ambition than to contribute to the democratic
critique of democracy.” 43 In the introduction, he clarifies, “This book does not provide answers to these dilemmas. At most, its only ambition is
to highlight them, in the hope that a proper understanding constitutes a first step toward the invention of new courses of action.”44
Ethically, I believe this is a cop-out. Politically and intellectually, I find it too comfortable and too easy. This
critique has a crucial role to play in pointing to hypocrisy (as Price highlights in the introduction). It could also serve
as a catalyst for policy change in the direction of policy that would include less surveillance or less
cooptation of human rights discourse. But it is unlikely to serve as a catalyst for new action or policy
change unless it ventures something more than pure critique, unless it risks a political or ethical
proposal. Without that, it has the impact of delegitimizing any human rights policy without suggesting
any alternative. Any policy to promote human rights of democracy policy is shown to be deeply flawed or even
pernicious. It is portrayed as part of the problem , certainly not as offering any kind of solution. Human rights policy appears to
make the situation worse, not better. The critique has the effect of telling us clearly what we do not want, what we can not support—human
rights policies by imperfect and hypocritical actors like the U.S. In its historical comparisons, it also lumps
human rights policy
together with colonialism and does not provide any elements to distinguish between one policy of
surveillance and other. All are equally flawed. The ethical effect is to remove normative support from existing
policies without producing any alternatives . This is similar to what Price means when he says that “critical accounts
which do not in fact offer constructive normative theorizing to follow critique ironically lend themselves
to being complicit with the conservative agenda opposing erstwhile progressive change in world
politics.” Neither Doty nor Guilhot, for example, contrast two human rights policies to give examples of policies
that are more of less hypocritical or where there has been more or 44 Guilhot, p. 14. 38 less surveillance. They
don’t contrast human rights policies or democracy promotion policies to previous policies that were also
hypocritical and self aggrandizing, but more pernicious – e.g. national security ideology and support for authoritarian
regimes in the third world. By presenting no contrasts, the critique would appear to say that there is no ethical or
political difference between a policy that supports coups and funds repressive military regimes and a
policy that critiques coups and cuts military aid to repressive regimes. These policies would appear to be
ethically indistinguishable. Indeed, by these standards, a realist policy (a la Kissinger) might be preferable.
Kissinger didn’t denigrate his authoritarianism allies. He took regimes as they were . He treated them as valuable
allies. He didn’t lecture them on how they should change . He also, in doing so, encouraged, in so me cases,
coups and mass murder. But at least he didn’t “Other” . Doty and Guilhot give me no ethical criteria to
distinguish between the policies of the Kissinger administration, the Carter administration, and current
Bush administration policy. Because the comparison is an implicit ideal, never an empirical real world
example, the critique is very telling and can delegitimize the critiqued policy. But nothing is put in its place.
So, it demobilizes any support we might have for any human rights policy . It puts the analyst in an
ethically comfortable position, but by not proposing any explicit comparison , it demobilizes the reader.
We learn what to oppose, to critique, but we don’t learn explicitly what to support in its stead. The
result can be political paralysis. One finds it difficult to act.

Their alt gets coopted --- it has historically supported imperialism and
authoritarianism.
John SANBONMATSU 15. Associate professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in
Massachusetts. “Postmodernism and the Corruption of the Critical Intelligentsia” in Radical Intellectuals
and the Subversion of Progressive Politics, ed. by Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker and Michael J. Thompson.
57-8.

Occupy aside, the most successful effort so far to translate academic postmodernism into a usable language of
praxis ironically seems to have been initiated not by the political Left at all, but by the Right. In 2006, Eyal Weizman
reported that elite military research institutions on urban warfare around the world had been assign ing
their students "Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Guy Debord ... as well as more contemporary writings on
urbanism, psychology, cybernetics, post-colonial and post-Structuralist theory."88 The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in
particular, had been bullish on Deleuze and Guattari. As the director of the IDF's Operational Theory
Research Institute explained, "We employ critical theory" because it helps the IDF rethink its conceptual
foundations: "Several of the concepts in A Thousand Plateaux became instrumental for us [... ] allowing us
to explain contemporary situations in a way that we could not have otherwise." Brigadier-General Aviv
Kokhavi, sounding rather like Foucault or Georges Bataille—another IDF favorite—in fact describes a 2002 military
campaign he waged against Palestinian militants in Nablus as "the reorganization of the urban syntax by
means of a series of micro-tactical actions." Though one doesn't "need Deleuze to attack Nablus,"
Weizman comments, "theory helped the military reorganize by [END PAGE 57] providing a new language in
which to speak to itself and others." "In no uncertain terms," he writes, "education in the humanities—
often believed to be the most powerful weapon against imperialism— is being appropriated as a
powerful vehicle for imperialism."89¶ While it would be unfair to draw too many conclusions from this bizarre effort to enlist
post-structuralist theory for state repression, the episode does raise the question of whether postmodernism is
really a friend to the Left after all. The trouble with Nietzscheanism ultimately is that it is an unreliable basis for a
progressive politics. Post-structuralism's Nietzschean-inflected skepticism toward "meta narratives" like freedom
and justice; its Foucauldian metaphysics of the spatial indeterminacy of power ; its rejection of a diachronic historical
vision in favor of a collapsed temporality ("the now"); its refusal of longer-term visions of collective action and
institution-building; and its refusal too of an older, more worthy language of solidarity, mutual aid, unity, and
collective consciousness, tell heavily against it. Worse still, a strain of authoritarianism has long haunted the
project, from Nietzsche's hatred of socialism and feminism to Martin Heidegger's Nazism and Louis
Althusser's mechanistic Stalinism. Even the otherwise libertarian Foucault flirted with authoritarianism at
times. During the Iranian Revolution in 1978, Foucault's first response to the paroxysm was not to side with the
leftists and feminists who participated in the upheaval, but to side with the radical Islamist followers of
the Ayatollah Khomeini. Nor was this some oversight on Foucault's part, but a stance that flowed
organically from his deep skepticism toward modern institutions and norms—including those of
representative democracy. As Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson remind us:¶ Scholars often assume that Foucault’s suspicion of
utopianism... hostility to grand narratives and universals . . . and his stress on difference and singularity rather than totality would make him less
likely than his predecessors on the Left to romanticize an authoritarian politics that promised radically to refashion from above the lives and
thought of a people ... However, his
Iran's writings showed that Foucault was not immune to the [same] type of
illusions that so many Western leftists had held with regard to [the USSR and China ].90¶ This is not to say that
post-structuralism is necessarily undemocratic; only that its attitude toward democracy and to human rights has at best been ambivalent. [END
PAGE 58]

Perm Solves – Vattimo and Zabala’s critique is best mobilized against the state’s
misuse of scientific truth claims, not science or truth itself. Framed democracy is bad,
not all technology or science
Eggington ’17 William, Prof of Spanish Lit at JHU, “Potentiality of Life” in Making Communism
Hermeneutical

According to the authors of Hermeneutic Communism, far from purely descriptive, scientific rationalism and
philosophical realism are complicit with and supportive of entrenched political and economic elites and
their efforts to maintain their privilege s. As Vattimo and Zabala write, A politics of description does not
impose power in order to dominate as a philosophy; rather, it is functional for the continued existence of a society of dominion, which
pursues truth in the form of imposition (violence), conservation (realism), and triumph (history). These metaphysically framed
political systems hold that society must direct itself according to truth (the existing paradigm), that is, in favor of the strong against the weak.
Only the strong determine truth, because they are the only ones that have the tools to know, practice, and impose it. (12) The political guise
that the society of dominion has donned in the modern industrial- ized world is nothing other than liberal democracy. Elites who
benefit
from the status quo endeavor to ensure that existing democratic structures continue to support the
wealth of privileges that accrue to them . This explains the transformation of democra- cies in the modern western world, where
the majority of the world’s multinational corporations are based, into thinly disguised oligarchies in which access to the higher reaches of
political power is limited to a class de ned by its outlandish and ever- increasing wealth. As the New Zealand Herald and other sources reported
in July of 2012, the former chief economist at McKinsey, James Henry, produced a report alleg- ing that as much as $30 trillion from the world’s
richest may be squirreled away in tax havens, an amount equal to the combined GDPs of the USA and Japan. Alone the wealth that has escaped
taxation in developing countries since the 1970’s would be enough to pay off all the developing world’s debts.6 The institutions and individuals
who are complicit in this system play a leading role in assuring that democracy does not become any more democratic than its current
manifestation; the acceptable framework defining adequately functioning formal democracy excludes any viable alternatives. Any discourse
that decides in advance what truth is and who has access to truth is by definition a threat to democracy. The unexamined nature of liberal
democracy’s own framing of truth claims is thus a threat to unframed democracy, or what Derrida called the “democracy to come.”7 This is
why “communism” in Vattimo and Zabala’s view is both hermeneutic and limited to the status of a Kantian regulative idea. It is hermeneu- tic
because, as the authors write, hermeneutics is the essence of politics, which “relies on a plurality of individual developments, that is, active
interpretations. A philosophy that relies on a plurality of interpretations must avoid not only any metaphysical claims to universal values, which
would restrict personal developments, but also that passive conservative nature that characterizes descriptive philosophies in favor of action
(77).” Hermeneutics, the circulation and exchange of active interpretations, occurs prior to and outside of metaphysical framing, and must be
excluded in order for metaphysics and framed democracy to establish their claims to exclusive validity. Communism, in turn, is
the
name Vattimo and Zabala give to democracy unframed, unleashed from the bonds of such prior
metaphysical assumptions. Their concept of communism is this unrelated to the totalitarian movements that assumed its title in the
twentieth century, principally because the concept is inherently inimi- cal to institutionalization. From the perspective of
hermeneutic philosophy communism can only ever be an incomplete and utopian project . Communism
must be figured as the embodiment of hermeneutics in the political sphere, the struggle to hold open a space for the
populations that framed democracies exclude, to allow in turn a basic level of ferment to undermine their unexamined truths.
As the authors continue, While we cannot imagine a world where communism is completed, neither can we renounce this ideal as a regulative
and inspiring principle for our concrete decisions.... Kant’s lesson of practical reason also has this meaning: the union between virtue and
happiness is not only the end that gives meaning to moral actions but also something impossible to carry out in the world. Nevertheless, this
impossibility does not remove the obligation toward the categorical imperative. In sum, communism is utopia or, as Benjamin would have it, a
‘weak messianic power, a power on which the past has a claim.’ (117) For communists in the hermeneutic sense, in short, politics is not limited
by what is, but is oriented always toward what could be. When a legislature enacts statutes that claim a rational basis in science but whose
purpose is the re-characterization of fundamental rights or notions of personhood, it
seems to me that the theoretical
perspective outlined by Vattimo and Zabala suddenly becomes very real. In such cases, attentiveness to the
clandestine deployment of political power in the claims to scientific neutrality put forth by Idaho and other
states that are currently aiming to restrict women’s reproductive rights exemplifies the deployment of a politically
engaged hermeneutic philosophy of the kind they advocate .

The alternative endorses and aligns a Christian worldview and aligns with the political
right
Perkins and Gillespie 17 “The Dangerous Divide: Between Weak Thought and Practical Politics” in
making Communism Hermeneutical

But when we begin to examine the attempt by Vattimo and Zabala to bridge the divide between this form
of thinking and politics, we find little more than a thicket of problems and exaggerations that are quite simply
endemic to epochal thinking. The deep mismatch between epochal thinking and politics is in fact a profound
and intractable problem for the central claims of Hermeneutic Communism about what weak thought could or should look like in the
political wild. In what, then, does this mismatch consist? We feel that the problem is that the intended effect of epochal thinking is emphatically
not to provide historical actors with concrete plans for action but rather to provide them with something akin to worldviews or world-
orientations. So far, so good. We would never expect epochal thinking to provide speci c plans, projects, or even goals. Neither Vattimo and
Zabala nor the late Heidegger can be expected to write a Rules for Radicals or even a Politics as a Vocation and remain true to their
philosophical vision. But when they remain within the philosophical boundaries that they themselves set, thinkers like Vattimo and Zabala—not
to mention Jean-Luc Nancy, Reiner Schürmann, Heidegger himself, and others—can perhaps provide historical actors with basic signposts for
getting by in history. We might even venture to call it some- thing like “cognitive mapping,” to use a term Fredric Jameson has made popular, at
the most basic possible level. Epochal thinking is intended to lay out the basic con- tours of an age, to cull together the disparate strands of
experience into a broader picture, to make suggestions about what the future may hold that is qualitatively different from the past and present,
and to advocate a path for political resistance and action that may get us there. For Heidegger, this meant making the humans of the twentieth
century aware of just how thoroughly dominated by techne the world had become and just how little the dominant political “solutions” were
able to cure or even address this disease. Understanding history epochally as the ever-intensifying ascendance of technology is intended to
inspire a deep concern in us for the basic trajectory of the lived world as well as a longing for something fundamentally other, for a way out.
Vattimo’s understanding of history is similarly epochal—and not fully anti- gonal to Heidegger’s—but it has different foci and different
prognostications. For Vattimo, the history of the West (which at some point became the history of the world, whether the non-West wanted it
to be or not) involves the triumph of inter- pretation, of hermeneutics in his very speci c understanding, over truth and cor- respondingly over
being. Vattimo’s intention in producing this epochal history is to inspire us to go with the ow, so to speak, to help truth die a merciful death and
to loosen its hold over our lives and our politics. As we discussed earlier, Vattimo even goes so far as to portray the weakening of truth in terms
of a Joachite, tripar- tite conception of history, in which history is divided up into an age of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit. In this
context post-modernism and the weakening of being amount to the Age of Spirit prophesied by Joachim of Fiore in the thirteenth century. The
aims of epochal thinking are thus formally identical for both Heidegger and Vattimo, even if the resulting content—that is, the actual story itself
—diverges in deep ways. But they also share the same “formal” problem: they both have extreme if not constitutive dif culty in bridging the
chasm between epochal history and the social/political realms. The aims of epochal history are always political in the larg- est sense, even if
someone like the later Heidegger is famously coy about making political pronouncements. But the result of epochal thinking is always that it
ends up confusing will and fate, destiny and project. For Heidegger, the technological age is so totalizing that it establishes the entire staging
ground for our possibilities and also everything that we must overcome in certain fundamental ways. The fate of being itself is in fact so all-
engul ng that it becomes impossible for him to distinguish, for example, between the production of fertilizer and the production of corpses in a
concentration camp, or more generally between different kinds of economic systems or political regimes. Viewed epoch- ally, everything, as he
puts it, is “metaphysically the same.” For Vattimo, the postmodern Age of Spirit, in which technology and a variety of other factors have been
obliterating truth, is both our destiny and also a global project. As our most important tool in ful lling that project, Vattimo gives us
hermeneutics. Vattimo was a student of Karl Löwith and Hans-Georg Gadamer (themselves both students of Heidegger). Gadamer in particular
is well known as an if not the central gure in the hermeneutic school that played such an important role in continental thought in the second
half of the twentieth century. His herme- neutics, which deeply depend upon tradition, have generally been considered to be quietistic or
conservative, in stark contrast to the more leftist views of the Frankfurt School and Habermas in particular. Vattimo, however, argues that
hermeneutics properly understood are not conservative but liberationist. Indeed he and Zabala claim that “hermeneutics is more a ‘critical
theory’ than the work of the Frankfurt School, since it does not need to ground its critical function on metaphysical ideals.” In Hermeneutic
Communism, Vattimo and Zabala go one step further, arguing that even hermeneutics “by itself” is not enough. The realization of the world
that they think is already on the way demands a fusion between hermeneutics and com- munism (in the very speci c way in which they
understand the term). “Weak thought” indeed has a political vision that corresponds to it, and in Hermeneutic Communism Vattimo and Zabala
flesh out that politics more comprehensively than they do in any of their other works. The Mismatch Between Epochal and Political as
Manifested in Hermeneutic Communism As we stated at the outset, we have very deep reservations about some of the
specific political allegiances of the book. Our primary aim, though, is not to criticize those allegiances directly, but rather to
point out that the kinds of allegiance on display in Hermeneutic Communism are at odds with the
philosophical spirit that animates weak thought and hermeneutic communism as an ethico-political
vision. Perhaps the best way to make sense of what Vattimo and Zabala are up to is to view their project not against notions of political
revolution and reform that grew up out of the Western metaphysical tradition and that have become standard features of our technological
age, but rather against a different model that Vattimo explicitly evokes in his discussion of weak thought, the Christian vision of a history of
salva- tion (Heilsgeschichte). Underlying such a historical approach is a vision of the future that does not develop out of a Gadamerian fusion of
horizons but comes into being as the result of a radical rejection of the current world in favor of a new one. To their credit, Vattimo and Zabala
recognize that there can be no simple reversal of existing arrangements without remaining dependent upon them, but they do depend on a
somewhat more complicated reversal to frame the values that they believe need to shape future policy. In place of the rule of the powerful,
they thus propose rule in favor of the weak, by which they generally mean the poor. They do not aim, how- ever, to bring the poor to power but
to ultimately eliminate classes altogether. Like the early Heidegger, their goal is broadly communitarian. But in contrast to Heidegger’s Platonic
vision of a hierarchical, volkisch state of laborers, warriors, and knowledge workers, they imagine the coming into being of a world in which the
meek and the weak inherit the earth. Their
vision of community is thus much more (and at times explicitly)
Christian. This adoption of a Christian framework shapes their vision of the prevailing social reality . Viewed
from this perspective the metaphysically constituted Western world that Vattimo and Zabala describe is analogous to the corrupt and sinful city
of the pagans and is juxtaposed against a future city of God revealed to us by the proper “Biblically informed” interpretation of the social world.
Instead of metaphysical and scienti c modes of interpretation, which rely upon more familiar notions of ef cient causation, and which Vattimo
and Zabala see as the source of our current problems, they employ a hermeneutic that is at least structurally
theological in that it is driven and determined by the notion of apocalyptic transformation and a new
beginning. The necessity that they impute to the historical process, is thus driven by the inevitable end and everything that stands in the
way of his development includ- ing almost all of modern liberal society is construed to be merely a result of the (pagan) lust for domination and
concupiscence. Ironically, the
account that they develop on this foundation is little short of Manichean. The
West, like Augustine’s city of the pagans, is thoroughly corrupt and irredeemable . Such a totalistic rejection of
this epoch, however, is fundamentally at odds with the openness and generosity of weak thought itself. In turning to politics their hermeneutics
thus ceases to be multiperspectival and tentative, and becomes instead a tool of a proto-Christian dogmatism, that rests upon an existential
commit- ment to the service to or defense of the weak and powerless. As in the case of Augustine, they thus imagine that they and those they
admire are always on the side of the angels, but they can give us no explanation for why their side is angelic rather than demonic. In fact, in
every instance of a political fact that seems to contradict their claims, they explain it away as an inevitable consequence of having to deal with
the corrupt Western world. In this way, they overcome what is often thought to be the quietism of hermeneutics but only by plunging into an
anti-metaphysical dogmatism. Their praise of the regimes of Chávez et al and their use of them as exemplars for
the future in a surprising way resembles the account that the Christian Marxist Ernst Bloch gave of the East German
regime in his Principle of Hope (1938–47). He too presented a philosophy rooted in aspirations for a radically different future, but to make his
vision believable and thus more than a utopian dream, he needed to find an actually existing regime that could plausibly serve as a concrete
example that hope could attach to. He chose the East German regime which he believed or at least imagined was such a realized ideal. While it
is understandable that faith seeks some justification in the actual world, epochal thought faces great dangers when it attaches itself to existing
regimes. Bloch
and Heidegger are cautionary examples of such dangers that Vattimo and Zabala and
indeed all epochal thinkers need to heed lest they find themselves entangled in similar political
quagmires. And yet they restrict the potential meaning of hermeneutic communism far more than they need to, asserting that “if
‘hermeneutic communism’ must be proven practically, we are convinced that it can be found in these Latin American democracies [Venezuela,
Bolivia, etc.] that have constructed themselves along the lines of the Cuban resistance.” The problem here is that Hermeneutic Communism
could have chosen, for example, a broadly participatory social movement as its example. Choosing Chávez et al as privileged signifoers strikes
us as awkward at best, and completely inimical to the philosophical thrust of hermeneutic communism at worst. While it’s certainly unfair to
criticize Vattimo and Zabala for releasing the book prior to events like the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring, it strikes us as beyond
question that those kinds of movements—com- mitted to equality and participation not just in their aims but also in their concrete methods—
are far more in keeping with the spirit of hermeneutic communism. Such movements could even, presumably, learn a great deal from thinkers
like Vattimo and Zabala. A style of thinking like hermeneutic communism, with its ethico- political emphasis on generosity, receptivity,
openness, and caritas, might nd a more-than-sympathetic audience in the Zuccotti Parks and Tahrir Squares of the world, at least among those
seeking real democratic alternatives and reforms. Conversely,
it is unclear what traditional state actors—be they
Chávez, Morales, Obama, or anyone else—would stand to learn from hermeneutic communism in the
first place.

Cap sustainable, no movements now, and perm do both solves best

Cap “collapsing” doesn’t mean it’s gone tomorrow – might take hundreds of years – we need a strategy
for the intermediate period

Calhoun 16 (Craig, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, “The future of
capitalism,” Socio-Economic Review, 2016, Vol. 14, No. 1)

Does capitalism have a future? Of course, it does. But it is not necessarily pretty. Wealth can be generated in evermore
extensive and intensive ways even in a world full of crises and challenges. And because capitalism is the dominant economic
system in the world, it could continue to contribute to climate change, conflict, inequality and instability. But

this does not mean it will collapse. The USSR collapsed as a state following a long period of stagnant growth
and expensive arms race. This was bracing, perhaps a warning to other states, but not necessarily a model for the end of
capitalism.

Much critical engagement with capitalism has focused on its internal contradictions and potential collapse.
Contradictions are real and collapse is possible, but the language is misleading. We speak of the collapse of the Roman
Empire, but this took 300 years of decline, instability and conflict. We speak of the collapse of feudalism, but it would again be more
accurate to see a long process of transformation as feudal structures were less able to organize social, economic and even military life, and less

able to reproduce key elements of their power structure while gradually states and what we now call capitalism grew. Capitalism has already proved that

although it is prone to generating crises, it is not merely a short episode between feudalism and socialism, as the Communist Manifesto implied. It has

endured much longer than Marx and Engels thought , and along with the nation-state system dominated global geopolitics and
economics for some 400 years. It may well last much longer —but this continued existence could be marked by both growing systemic diffi- culties
internal to capitalism and upheavals beyond capitalism that are exacerbated by it and pose challenges to it.

Capitalism is more than just markets or economics in general. It is a system of production based on ever
more intensive deployment of capital and pursuit of productivity (and profit)— and hence a driver of both expansion and
technological and organizational innovation. It is a system of relations between states and other economic actors in which states guarantee forms of property,
security of contract and regimes of accumulation. Together these make it a system that drives not only expansion, but also accumulation and concentration of
capital.

But capitalism is not always the same. In the first place, it always exists in social and political contexts, not in a
‘pure’, abstract form. In the real world, capitalism is always shaped by state support, regulation and mediation of

conflicts; states may carry the costs of capitalism’s negative externalities. In addition, capitalism’s internal character varies. Of most immediate importance,
since the 1970s, capitalism has seen a dramatic ascendancy of both finance and service work. Industry has not disappeared any more than land lost all value during
the industrial revolution. But where perhaps a quarter of capital was held in the form of financial assets 40 years ago, the figure now is about three-quarters. There
has been similar proportionate growth in service employment. There may yet be a productivity revolution in service work — though
in what proportion that will bring freedom and opportunity ( probably only for an elite) or only low wages and unemployment (for the rest of us) remains to be
seen. The claim that we are moving into a ‘sharing economy’ points to some new developments, but fails to address basic structural dimensions of capitalism.

To be sure, there is also variation in the forms of enterprise. The development, expansion and international spread of corporations have been remarkable innovations. Corporations may be organized through legal fictions—as
artificial persons ‘without a soul to damn or body to kick’—but also as basic social institutions. Firms are almost as important as states. So ubiquitous are corporations (even though legal regimes vary) that it is now hard to recall
capitalism before corporate capitalism. More recently, however, corporations have themselves have become commodities bought and sold. From IPOs to mergers and acquisitions, this has enriched financial institutions. It has also
made both capital markets and labour markets less stable. And it has brought a real cost in social solidarity. This is shaped by a decline in longterm employment, undermining of ties between firms and their localities, and financial
pressures—ever more intensive and short-term—against the provision of health care, pension and other benefits to employees.

Likewise, capitalism in any one time or place may be shaped more or less by entrepreneurs and the formation of new enterprises. Entrepreneurs were crucial to the rise of merchant capitalism and in the industrial revolution. They
were important in the ‘gilded age’, not just among the robber barons but also in launching a host of family businesses. And entrepreneurs played a central role in the rise of new industries in the last 40 years. There should be
appreciation for the creative, enterprising spirit of entrepreneurs. But we should not be blinded by either the hagiography of individuals or the celebration of entrepreneurship in general to think that entrepreneurial successes are
quite as individualistic as the ideology suggests. Entrepreneurs depend on social networks and whole ecologies of support from universities to venture capitalists. Much of the achievement of technology firms in the last 40 years
has been grounded in commercializing scientific advances that were funded by governments during the cold war—and then, quite remarkably, made publicly available with no claim to property rights by the government on behalf
of citizens.

The term entrepreneur can be used so elastically as to encompass both those acquiring great fortunes by building companies in Silicon Valley and those working at a near subsistence level as contractors in new service economy
businesses—like drivers organized through online booking agencies. Typically paid a fee for each service, these are entrepreneurs only in the same sense that ‘independent’ knitters and weavers were during the industrial
revolution. As mechanization of spinning and expansion of markets drove up demand, knitters set up shop in their own homes, often enlisting family members as assistants. They provided their own equipment, sometimes bought
on credit, including knitting frames (machines that were human-powered but able to produce much more than simple handwork). They sold their work to intermediaries who ran ‘putting out’ businesses, distributing thread to
knitters and collecting finished cloth. As intermediaries, these were arguably the 18th and early 19th century counterparts to Uber and other firms organizing services through ‘apps’. Framework knitting was initially a good
occupation, requiring only modest skill though intense concentration and physical labour. But it was an easy business to enter and knitters were eventually driven to work longer and longer hours both to repay their capital costs
and to support their families. The creators of self-exploiting tiny businesses, more stable small businesses and ‘start-ups’ that might grow with venture capital and successful public offerings are all important. However, lumping
them under the single term ‘entrepreneurs’ can be misleading as can an overly rosy picture of the ‘sharing economy’.

Not least of all, states may themselves pursue capitalist ends like expansion of markets and accumulation of capital. They may either own capitalist firms or actively
try to manage capitalist enterprise and finance. Even countries in which liberal capitalist separation of state from market was celebrated have used such models.
The US accomplished projects like rural electrification partly through state-owned enterprises and partly through preferential financing and state-guaranteed
monopolies. Railroads that were initially private ventures were in many countries consolidated as public service companies. Only rarely was there clarity about
whether to run them as for-profit firms (thus subsidized the state) or as services funded partly by the state. Still, they demanded investment and generally became
more capital-intensive. More strikingly, the Soviet Union was arguably as much an example of state capitalism as of socialism. And today, China is arguably the
model for a capitalist future in which the boundary between state and economy is not celebrated—as it has been in the ideology of liberal capitalism. State-related
enterprises and direct state organization of finance may be as basic to the near-term future of capitalism as, say, entrepreneurs.

Still, capitalism works. Certainly it only works more or less, and not always as well or in the ways we might wish. But it works well
enough that it need not reach an end at any specific point. It is a good bet that it will still dominate global

economics tomorrow, next year, and when the next crisis comes. But, capitalism is not an order of nature. It is a humanly
created historical system. So, it will change. It will likely end, change beyond recognition or continue to exist. It will almost certainly lose its capacity to
dominate.

Capitalism is good at some things, not others, and actively bad at some. It
is good at creating wealth and driving innovation, indeed
extraordinarily good. Even Marx and Engels praised capitalism for this (though they thought it was important at some point
to say ‘we have enough, let’s concentrate on how wealth is shared’). Capitalism’s capacity to create wealth is why less developed countries are betting on it today.
But by comparison, capitalism is bad at equitable distribution. It is not necessarily worse than all other systems: feudalism and slave societies are
hardly models of equitable distribution of wealth. But arguably because capitalism depends on consumer markets it needs distribution of wealth to survive. It thus
operates in an uneasy (or outright denied) collusion with trade unions and other mechanisms that increase returns to labour and with states that ensure some
levels of distribution of wealth. High employment industries may make distribution of wealth (and thus funding of consumer markets) easier; the erosion of
industrial employment makes this harder, at least temporarily.

Of course, capitalism’s extraordinary ability to generate wealth is not counterbalanced only by problems of distribution. Capitalism also produces the opposite of
wealth—which is not poverty but what John Ruskin called ‘illth’. Illth is bad stuff: accumulation of waste, pollution of air and water and even climate change offer
good examples. But so do erosions of social solidarity and mutual support systems. States often step in to deal with illth and other
negative externalities of capitalism. This is what Karl Polanyi analysed as the ‘double-movement’ of capitalism that led to the rise of the welfare-
state. There are also market-based solutions, however, like insurance companies. And philanthropy is also sometimes important, channelling privately accumulated
capital to public purposes. But one way or another, illth and negative externalities demand attention.

So, what challenges capitalism now?

There is still risk—indeed high probability—of systemic financial crises. Addicted to finance and growth, the world continues to hope that
the source of so much recent upheaval can become the source of salvation from it. The dominance of finance in contemporary capitalism ties every country into a
global system that has risks built into its very architecture.

Some apparent solutions—like the spreading of risk through markets for derivatives—create new and intensified risks. So far, ‘financial engineering’ has helped
create great fortunes but it has not produced the equivalent of bridges that do not collapse. And when financial crises have come, the prevailing pattern of response
is to turn private problems into public ones— for example by nationalizing the toxic assets of failing banks. And yet we do not know what to do except invest.

Risk can be mitigated, though this depends on both good analyses and organizational will. Financial markets, instruments and contractual agreements are extraordinarily complex. Unfortunately, the financial system is poorly understood even though it is the product and object of brilliant
research. This reflects not just complexity, but the extent to which the study of finance is bound up with the production of ‘financial engineering’ products that can actually work in practice. For example, unrealistic assumptions like unlimited liquidity are embedded into algorithms that
price derivatives (and indeed to some extent organize derivatives markets). This is not an error; it is a way of accomplishing effective pricing—except in those times where liquidity limits do become significant, in which cases the system is prone to crisis.

Both the complexity of the global financial system and its systemic risk are increased by organizational factors. The system is not the product of some moment of rational planning. It grew by accretion and incremental if rapid change. Different actors set out to solve different problems:
expanding mortgage availability to expand home ownership, for example, or attracting funding to new business ventures, or building transportation and communication infrastructures. These are organized through different firms and government agencies. There is innovation in law
(derivatives are contracts) as well as in finance per se, so different professions are involved with their different perspectives. The development of regulation usually lags, but so does the development of organizational competence even in private firms. Senior executives may not have full
understanding of what subordinates—say traders—are doing and how it creates risks. ‘Silos’ separate different functions within firms, for example, and give different knowledge and incentives to traders, risk officers and general managers.

The risk is also exacerbated when international regulation and risk management is weak. This can also be a problem of inadequate understanding (and inadequate access to information, which is largely in the hands of firms with proprietary interests in it). But there is a deeper problem.
International cooperation is weak on a number of different dimensions and policy areas, even while it is as crucial as ever. The financial crisis showed how difficult it was to generate effective cooperation for changes to financial processes, not just at the global level but even within Europe
—which found its institutions unexpectedly inadequate even after decades of development. The Bretton Woods institutions face new challenges, including a proliferation of alternative mediators of global finance from the BRICs bank to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank led by
China and the US development of alternative regional trade agreements. But insufficient international cooperation in finance is mirrored by weaknesses in other areas: refugee and security policies are notable examples at the moment. In any case, difficulty organizing effective and
efficient regulation and support institutions for global finance multiplies risks. But the risks do not just concern financial collapse. They concern the possibility that no solutions will be found to paying for the costs externalized by capitalist firms.

Another challenge for capitalism, also made evident in the financial crisis, is the huge scale of what we might call ‘unofficial capitalism’. This is wealth and flows of wealth that are unrecorded or incompletely recorded, and perhaps more importantly unregulated or ineffectively regulated.
Some of this derives from organized crime, including trafficking in drugs, arms and people. But some of it derives simply from tax evasion. Whatever the provenance of illicit capital, it amounts to trillions of euros trading in dark or at least obscure markets, and sometimes mingling with
more legitimate capitalism in destabilizing ways. The flow of Russian money into Cyprus before the crisis of 2012–2013 was an example. Of course, unofficial economic activity helped many people survived financial crisis and austerity policies. There are relatively benign, small-scale forms
of off-the-books enterprise in certain businesses and ‘alternative economies’. Even these, however, deprive states of revenues that could be used to finance social expenditure. The impact of large-scale illicit capitalism is much greater.

Diversion of funds into illicit capitalism and weak international cooperation are both factors in widespread destruction of the political and social conditions for capitalism. Even more basically, this is driven by financial capitalism itself and accompanying market fundamentalist ideology.
There has been a weakening of welfare states. This is often a matter of explicit state policy. Privatization may be driven by pro-market views, but also by criticism of inefficiencies in actual bureaucracies. It is also often driven by state fiscal challenges, which are in turn shaped by difficulty
collecting taxes (not least where it is easy for money to flow across borders). Another way of looking at this is that it costs a lot of money to deal with capitalism’s externalities. There are the costs of coping with illth, and there are the costs of providing education, health care,
unemployment benefits and community services that not only sustain national populations and thus stabilize society, but also lower costs to capitalist firms—e.g., of skilled and healthy workers.
The weakening of welfare states is only one example of much more pervasive institutional deficits. Corporations themselves can be important social institutions that
provide their members with what amount to welfare benefits and even some sense of community. But long-term corporate employment and benefit structures are
in decline, subjected to shortterm financial market pressures influenced by the ideology of ‘shareholder value’. In other words, institutions of basic social
importance are being made responsive only to one class of interests—those of investors. Assertions of value for other stakeholders are generally less effective.
Other directly economic factors also challenge capitalism, such as unemployment, inequality and slow (or negative) growth. These are potentially disruptive to the
capacity to realize profits, but also to social solidarity.

At the same time, we should not underestimate how hard people try to make existing systems work , to find their
way to enough material resources and social integration for their own lives. They do this in part by continuing to participate in

capitalist system. It is a source of frustration for many, though they do not always identify their personal problems with this systemic source. It also a
widespread source of hope—not least in many poorer and developing countries. People continue to seek jobs and start businesses. And this is a matter of

emotional attachments as well as economic practicality.

To those optimistic about revolutions, I would stress that these do

not often turn out very well. In addition, one distinctive
feature of the recent and in some ways continuing financial crisis has been the near-absence of anti-systemic
movements. There have been occupations of public spaces, though these have been focused more on failures of
government and power of global finance than on capitalism as such. There are populists on both Left and Right, but
almost no real socialist mobilization. There are remarkable experiments in local-level alternative economies
of barter and mutual support. But there are not large-scale movements for truly transcending capitalism and

replacing it by an alternative scalable economic system.

So, what could happen?

Well, yes, capitalism could collapse. If this happens, purely economic calamity will likely be entwined with war and environmental disaster. If any historians survive
this apocalypse, they will argue over whether capitalism caused the catastrophe, or only exacerbated other problems like climate change failures of international
cooperation or decline in social solidarity. There could also be technological or other innovation that reinvigorates aspects of capitalism and deals with some of its
costly externalities. Opportunities for expansion of capitalism’s reach are shrinking as it reaches the whole world. Still, there could be indefinite continued
intensification.

The liberal hope that capitalism and democracy are somehow naturally linked is likely to be proven specious. Capitalist democracies may persist, but more state-
authoritarian versions of capitalism are at least as likely to prosper. Global integration will not bring homogeneity, but diversity of political, economic and social
arrangements.

Governments will attempt to compensate for problems created by capitalist development. This may bring
aspects of Polanyi’s double movement, but probably not a renewal of the welfare state project—and ( perhaps ironically) particularly not in democratic states. How
much states can do and how well will depend on how they are linked in international cooperation, at regional as well as global levels. In any case, though, it is
important to look at whether compensation for illth and positive virtues of solidarity may be produced in other ways, including in business institutions, philanthropy
and social entrepreneurship.

Small achievements in mitigating problems are worth the effort and worth cherishing. But neither reducing
inequality nor stemming climate change is easy, and neither is likely without trade-offs with freedom or growth.

What seems very unlikely is a pure collapse or revolutionary transformation creating socialism. If
capitalism is to be replaced by a new dominant economic form, this is likely to come about through a
prolonged period of ambiguity, difficulty and conflict. The end of capitalism may be more like the end of the
Roman Empire or of feudalism than like the end of the Soviet Union. In this context, creating and defending islands of civility, solidarity
and relative social justice may be a challenging but crucial project.