Tournament: GSU | Round: 1 | Opponent:  | Judge: 

Advantage 1 – Command and Control

Grid is highly vulnerable – an attack would shut it down for years

Magnuson 12 (Stew Magnuson, managing editor of National Defense Magazine, Washington, D.C.-based journalist and the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns,

the Nebraska Nonfiction Book of the Year for 2009, bronze medal in the regional nonfiction category, September 2012, “Feds Fear Coordinated Physical, Cyber-Attacks on Electrical Grids,” http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2012/september/Pages/FedsFearCoordinatedPhysical,Cyber-AttacksonElectricalGrids.aspx)

Electrical grids in the United States … are now manufactured overseas.

DoD dependence on grid threatens national security – SMRs solve

Robitaille 12 (George E. Robitaille, Master in Strategic Studies degree from Army War College, March 2012, “Small modular reactors: the army’s secure source of energy?” http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA561802)

According to a recent report by … gas fired power plants on the environment.

Long-term disruptions threaten critical national security missions – affects military forces globally

Snider 12 (Annie Snider, reporter for Environment and Energy Publishing, graduate degree in journalism from Northwestern, 1-16-12, “Pentagon still can’t define energy security, much less achieve it,” http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2012/01/16/archive/1)

A terrorist attack that caused … project developers and utilities.

Military decline results in global conflict—successors won’t fill in and multiple hotspots escalate

Brzezinski 12—Professor of Foreign Policy @ Johns Hopkins

Zbigniew, After America, Foreign Policy, Jan/Dec 2012, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/03/after_america?page=0,0

For if America falters, the world is unlikely … for a dangerous slide into global turmoil.

Even if hegemony is unjust and violent—the alternative is an apolar nightmare that causes extinction

Ferguson 2004 (Niall Ferguson, Professor, History, School of Business, New York University and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, September-October, “A World Without Power” – Foreign Policy, http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3009996.html)

So what is left? Waning empires. Religious revivals. …would benefit from such a not-so-new world disorder.

Social science proves—multipolarity supports the natural incentive to seek status by fighting

Wohlforth, 09 – professor of government at Dartmouth (William, “Unipolarity, Status Competition, and Great Power War,” World Affairs, January, project muse)

The upshot is a near scholarly consensus that unpolarity’s … competitions for status tend to be zero sum.⁹

Superpower transitions necessitate global wars.

Khanna, ’09 – Director of the Global Governance Initiative at the New America Foundation (Parag, The second world: how emerging powers are redefining global competition in the twenty-first century, p. 337-338)

Even this scenario is optimistic, for superpowers are … revolutionary situation is now—before the next world war.67

Even if multipolarity is good or inevitable, heg is key for a stable transition

Walton 7 Lecturer in International Relations and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading in Reading, England, 07 [Dale C, “geopolitics and the great powers in the twenty-first century”, http://books.google.com/books?id=AQLTD1R-47ACandprintsec=frontcoverandsource=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepageandq=andf=false

Although international political conditions will … minimize the probability of a great power war.

Deterrence key to avoid crisis escalation—reject the infinite number of root causes that debilitate action

Moore ’04, John Moore, chaired law prof, UVA. Frm first Chairman of the Board of the US Institute of Peace and as the Counselor on Int Law to the Dept. of State, Beyond the Democratic Peace, 44 Va. J. Int'l L. 341, Lexis

If major interstate war is predominantly a… are dramatically increased or decreased?

Grid failure threatens critical missions – CandC, intel, sats, drones, etc. – SMRs key/renewables fail – also deters attack and are safer

Loudermilk ’11, Micah J., Research Associate, Energy and Envt’l Security Policy, Institute for Nat’l Strategic Studies, Nat’l Defense U, 3/27/11 (“Small Nuclear Reactors: Enabling Energy Security for Warfighters,” http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/small-nuclear-reactors-enabling-energy-security-for-warfighters)

Last month, the Institute for National Strategic Studies at … sealed reactor cores, and lower operational requirements.

SMRs on bases ensures constant power supply

King et al. 11 (Marcus King, Associate Director of Research at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, with a concurrent appointment as Associate Research Professor of International Affairs, former Project Director and Research Analyst for the Environment and Energy Team at the Center for Naval Analyses; LaVar Huntzinger, Center for Naval Analyses, author of Market Analysis with Rational Expectations, Theory, and Estimation and other books; Thoi Nguyen, research staff at Center for Naval Analyses, March 2011, “Nuclear Power on Military Installations,” http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/Nuclear%20Power%20on%20Military%20Installations%20D0023932%20A5.pdf)

Small nuclear power plants could … lines would make the overall network more robust.

Current renewables are insufficient to solve – need SMRs on bases

Butler 11 (Lt. Col. Glen Butler, Headquarters, North American Air Defense Command-U.S. Northern Command/J594 (Strategy, Policy, and Plans Directorate), Security Cooperation Integration Branch, 3-1-11, “Not green enough: Why the Marine Corps should lead the environmental and energy way forward and how to do it,” http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/not-green-enough)

First, the political climate, though still … demands boldness, not timidity.

Backup generators are insufficient – self-reliance is key

Andres 11 (Dr. Richard B. Andres, Energy Security Chair, Institute for National Strategic Studies Professor of National Security Strategy, National War College National Defense University, October 2011, “Secure Grid ’11: Electrical Grid Crisis Tabletop Exercise,” http://www.ndu.edu/inss/docuploaded/Secure%20Grid%20'11%20After-Action%20Report.pdf)

The Military – According to … to conduct primary missions

Advantage 2 – Leadership

International tech is taking over the global nuclear market – risks widespread proliferation – DoD leadership on SMRs is key to check prolif

Loudermilk 11 (Micah Loudermilk, Senior Research Associate for the Energy and Environmental Security Policy program with the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. 2-23-11, “In Defense of Small Reactors: A Response,” http://csis.org/blog/defense-small-reactors-response)

What we do know, however, is this: …of preserving the nonproliferation agenda.

Other countries are racing to bring SMRs to market – the only way to prevent rapid proliferation is deployment of new reactors

Colvin 11 (Joe Colvin, president of the American Nuclear Society, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, held many senior positions with the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, 20 years in the Navy operating a nuclear submarine, 6-7-11, testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and National Resources, available here: http://theenergycollective.com/ansorg/58930/ans-president-joe-colvin-testifies-about-smr-legislation)

Second, new SMR designs employ … approach toward safety and nonproliferation.

Proliferation is rapid and pressures states to adopt offensive use doctrines, escalating to nuclear war and extinction

Utgoff 2002, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of Institute for Defense Analysis [Victor A., “Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions,” Survival, Summer, p. 87-90]

Further, the large number of states that … of sheriff, or to be members of a sheriff’s posse, even in the face of nuclear threats.

Deterrence doesn’t check conflict escalation in a world of prolif

Muller 2008 [Harald, Executive Director, Head of Research Department (RD) Peace Research Institute of Frankfurt, “The Future of Nuclear Weapons in an Interdependent World” The Washington Quarterly, Spring, http://www.twq.com/08spring/docs/08spring_muller.pdf]

A world populated by many … are available to terrorists.

New proliferants will be especially unstable–ensures nuclear first strikes and accidents

Arbatov, 04 (Alexei, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Director of the Center of International Security, Institute of the World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, 4/13/2004. “Horizontal Proliferation: New Challenges”, Russia in Global Affairs, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/7/531.html)

As the situation stands, further … future inevitable as many risk factors will overlap.

Small reactors won’t make it absent military leadership

Andres and Breetz 11 (Richard B. Andres is Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College and a Senior fellow and energy and environmental Security and Policy Chair in the Center for Strategic research, institute for national Strategic Studies, at the national Defense University. Hanna L. Breetz is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts institute of technology. February 2011, “Small nuclear reactors for military installations: capabilities, costs, and technological implications,” http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib/pdf/StrForum/SF-262.pdf)

The “Valley of Death.” Given the promise that … for new technologies, and demonstrating technical viability.32

DoD procurement is critical to ensure success of SMRs – solves regulatory issues

Andres and Loudermilk 10 (Richard B. Andres, PhD. Senior Research Fellow, Center for Strategic Research (CSR), Energy and Environmental Security, Institute for National Security Studies at the National Defense University, Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College; Micah J. Loudermilk, research associate with the Energy and Environmental Security Policy program, M.A. in international relations from Akron University, 8-23-10, “Small reactors and the military’s role in securing America’s nuclear industry,” http://sitrep.globalsecurity.org/articles/100823646-small-reactors-and-the-militar.htm)

Notwithstanding all of these benefits… by which their adoption can be achieved.

Plan

The United States federal government should procure small modular reactors for its military installations in the United States.