Case

Navy

The way we come to our knowledge claims is correct and is an impact turn to the k because it is a reason that capitalism is good and the U.S. should boost growth to make sure the Navy is able to out compete countries like China.

Attempting to Assess Chinese motivation is possible and epistemologically useful---

Joseph K. Clifton 11,

Claremont McKenna College “DISPUTED THEORY AND SECURITY POLICY: RESPONDING TO “THE RISE OF CHINA”,” 2011, http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=cmc_theses

First, motives can be known. Mearsheimer is correct in observing that assessing motives can be difficult, but this does not mean that the task is impossible. There clearly are ways of finding out information about the goals of states and the means with which they plan to achieve them. One of the most important roles of intelligence analysts, for example, is to determine state interests and expected behavior based on obtained information. The possibility that information may be flawed should not lead to a rejection of all information. People make decisions based on less than perfect knowledge all of the time. This ability to know motives extends to future motives, because an analyst can use information such as historical trends to observe consistencies or constant evolutions of motives. Prediction of the future is necessarily less certain in its accuracy, but the prediction can still be made.104¶ Second, even if there is still some uncertainty of motives, the rational response is not to assume absolute aggression. Assuming aggressive motive in a situation of uncertainty ignites the security dilemma, which could actually decrease a state’s security. Mearsheimer calls this tragic, but it is not necessary. An illustrative example is Mearsheimer’s analysis of the German security situation were the United States to withdraw its military protection. Mearsheimer argues that it would be rational for Germany to develop nuclear weapons, since these weapons would provide a deterrent, and it would also be rational for nuclear European powers to wage a preemptive war against Germany to prevent it from developing a nuclear deterrent. 105 This scenario is not rational for either side because it ignores motives. If Germany knows that other states will attack if it were to develop nuclear weapons, then it would not be rational for it to develop nuclear weapons. And if other states know that Germany’s development of nuclear weapons is only as a deterrent, then it would not be rational to prevent German nuclear development. The point is that the security dilemma exists because of a lack of motivational knowledge, so the proper response is to try to enhance understanding of motives, not discard motivational knowledge altogether. Misperception is certainly a problem in international politics, but reducing misperception would allow states to better conform to defensive realist logic, which results in preferable outcomes relative to offensive realism. 106¶ Assessing motives is vital in the case of the rise of China, because mutually preferable outcomes can be achieved if China is not an aggressive power, as offensive realism would have to assume, but is actually a status quo power with aims that have limited effect on the security of the U.S. and other potentially affected countries. I do not mean here to claim with certainty that China is and will always be a status quo power, and policymakers likely have access to more intentional information than what is publicly known. At the very least, valuing motivational assessments empowers policymakers to act on this knowledge, which is preferable because of the possibility of reducing competition and conflict.

TTheir K is useless in crafting policy response to Chinese action

Joseph K. Clifton 11, “DISPUTED THEORY AND SECURITY POLICY: RESPONDING TO “THE RISE OF CHINA”,” 2011, http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=cmc_theses

Criticism also exists for the epistemological basis of mainstream IR theory, positivism, resulting in provocative theoretical positions. The basic claim of post-positivists is that mainstream theory claims that knowledge as objective and immutable when all knowledge is actually subjective and contingent. A theorist cannot have objective knowledge because reality can only be observed by a subject, the theorist. Knowledge, therefore, is articulated in terms of inherently subjective discourses. 156¶ Recognizing the subjectivity of mainstream IR’s supposedly objective knowledge leads to two main conclusions. First, mainstream IR is inaccurate in its understanding of the world, so awareness of subjectivity will allow for greater explanation and engagement with reality. Second, mainstream IR knowledge hides the value judgments inherent in subjective claims by positing their objectivity. This places them beyond question, elevating their power. The reproduction of dominant IR discourses oppresses the less powerful by marginalizing their discourses. 157 For example, critical theorists argue that mainstream IR discourse is implicitly masculinized, excluding women from positions of power and from consideration of the effects of theory and policy. 158 Critical theorists attribute many if not all of negative outcomes in international politics to exclusive, dominant discourses. War, for example, often results from the reproduction of dominant discourses of statist power. 159 Consequently, the goal of critical theory is “emancipatory,” a normative attempt to resist power. Resistance is attempted through exposing subjectivity, promoting the discourses of the oppressed, and otherwise attempting to change the discursive climate to loosen the grip of dominant discourses. 160¶ While purely critical approaches may be interesting or even more correct, they are basically useless for policymakers. Robert Cox distinguishes critical theory from problemsolving theory, where the latter does not question dominant discourses and institutions but tries to get them to “work smoothly by dealing effectively with particular sources of trouble.” Mainstream IR theory fits this description. Critical theory tries to affect the real world as well, but it tries to enact broad social change instead of focusing on specific problems. 161 This will not do for policymakers, who have to craft responses to specific issues like the rise of China. 162 As Waltz argues in a response to Ashley and Cox, problem-solving theory needs to make assumptions regardless of their objectivity: “The alternative is simply to eschew such [problemsolving] theories altogether. Would we then know more or less about the social and the natural worlds?” 163

This is a reason to combine approaches pragmatically via the perhis is a reason to combine approaches pragmatically via the permutation

Joseph K. Clifton 11, “DISPUTED THEORY AND SECURITY POLICY: RESPONDING TO “THE RISE OF CHINA”,” 2011, http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=cmc_theses

This brief overview of some of the different theoretical positions applied to the rise of China should give an idea of the quandary of the policymaker. The debates between different theoretical positions are complex and obscure, but the differences in prescribed policy can be enormous. For example, should the U.S. pursue economically independent trade policies with China? Isolating all other competing theoretical factors, the decision can come down to technical methodological agreements. A policymaker has to make a choice, and she has little way of knowing which choice is correct. And the problem is all the more serious when theorists claim that the wrong choice could lead to great power war. One possible option is to choose a theory and stick with it. This would make analysis and decisions straightforward. Additionally, it would establish predictability in policy behavior, reducing security concerns stemming from uncertainty. But there are two major drawbacks. First, the theory could be wrong. Dogmatically pursuing an incorrect theory would be much more disastrous than tentatively wavering between different theories. Second, some theories do not apply to every aspect of a relationship, creating indeterminate decisions. ¶ Perhaps the most sophisticated attempt to solve this problem is Peter J. Katzenstein’s case for “analytical eclecticism.” 173 Analytical eclecticism attempts to abandon the deep theoretical backing behind different theoretical positions, and combine relevant elements of implemented theory in “explanatory sketches.” 174 The benefit of the approach is that is allows flexible access to a large amount of relevant knowledge without having to take sides in the theoretical debates. Analytical eclecticism could be the best option, but there are four potential problems. First, it assumes complementary theoretical combinations, but the real problems are when different theories are contradictory. 175 Promoting deep economic interdependence is either a good idea or a terrible one, and combining realist and liberal understandings on trade is probably impossible. Second, it artificially elevates constructivism because constructivism’s greater compatibility with other theories. Third, it discounts theories that make few contextual claims. In particular, offensive realism’s long-term forecast of conflict between China and the U.S. will not necessarily manifest itself with any signs at this stage. Consequently, policymakers might be tempted to ignore its warnings for greater descriptive ability. My point is that this creates a systemically arbitrary criterion for theory selection, not that offensive realism ought to be followed. Fourth, it allows policymakers to pick and choose theoretical elements that fit their personal preference. This could be seen as a good way to empower policymakers, but it is also arbitrary.

EU

Not going for the Balkans war impact rather just going for the tech diffusion arguments. It allows the U.S. to create international diffusion that would allow us to best solve the revolution and create permeable citizens between countries.

Instrumentalization is not bad or violent

Bush, 2012

[Stephen, assistant professor of religious studies at Brown University, GEORGES BATAILLE’S MYSTICAL CRUELTY, 0.3:551–555, 2012 Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc.] /Wyo-MB

However, I do not think that the instrumentalization/non- instrumentalization distinction has the ethical significance that Brint- nall attributes to it, and I do not think, as Brintnall and Bataille do, that subject-object relations involve “inherently alienating violence.” Not all instrumentalization is ethically problematic or tends toward violence. We instrumentalize each other all the time and could not carry on our affairs without doing so. Many goods we rightly regard as valuable require instrumentalizing relations. What matters is that when we treat others as a means to an end, we simultaneously respect them as an end in themselves. We cannot treat them as a mere means. It is possible to¶ regard someone as both a means and an end, in other words. This is what the Kantians tell us, and though I do not count myself among their number, they are on to something here. When we buy a head of lettuce at a farmer’s market, we treat the farmer as a means to our end, but the important thing is we do not treat her as merely a means. We must treat her in such a way that regards her as a means to our end (of obtaining salad ingredients) but also as someone who has her own ambitions, desires, concerns, attachments, and decision-making capacities. To give an extreme example: if we abducted her and kept her in captivity, forcing her to grow and provide food for us, then we would be treating her merely as a means. So the ethically relevant distinction is not between instrumentalizing and non-instrumentalizing relations with others, but rather between different types of instrumentalizing, subject-object relations.

Securitization doesn’t result in war except when heg isn’t there to check it.

Gartzke 12—Erik Gartzke, University of California, San Diego, Could climate change precipitate peace?, Journal of Peace Research 49(1) 177–192, http://www.openbriefing.org/docs/JPRclimateconflict.pdf

Violent conflict occurs wherever human beings inhabit the globe. Disputes require some mechanism for resolution, whether this involves force or persuasion. When the stakes are high, the temptation to resort to violence as the final arbiter must remain strong. State monopolies on force do not refute, but instead reflect the logic of political competition. Of course, the fact that politics involves violence does not make all politics violent. The possibility of punishment or coercion is itself available to deter or compel, and therefore often prevents the exercise of force. Common conjecture about the eventuality of conflict ‘shadows’ political discourse, often making behavioral violence redundant. Political actors can anticipate when another actor is incentivized to violence and can choose to avoid provocation (Leeds & Davis, 1997). Alternately, ignorance, indifference or an inability to act can result in political violence. Scholars must thus view context, motive, and information to determine whether certain situations make force more or less likely.

Security k

First, F/W: Our interpretation is the ballot is a yes/no referendum on the aff’s plan-

RTP:

Fairness- should be able to weigh the aff’s impact against the k.

a:Predictibility- prevents negs from linking generically

b. skews the debate into an abstract direction that prevents focus on the implications of plan action

Security is inevitable; becoming more responsible in our deployments and criticisms of security solves better than total rejections because security is a politically powerful signifier.

Burke 7 (Anthony, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, June 2007, What security makes possible: Some thoughts on critical security studies)

The Copenhagen School’s analyses open a door, however briefly, to an important insight. Security is contingent and not universal. However they fail to push beyond that into an analysis that could put the deeper ontological claims and construction of security into question, that could reveal its wider sociological function and power, and most importantly, that could be put into the service of a normatively progressive politics (whether that takes the name of security or not).49 Put briefly, this is the critical project which has motivated my own research over the last decade. This project requires walking a tricky path between what Matthew McDonald has called the ‘reconstructive’ and ‘deconstructive’ agendas in security studies.50 Many writers argue that they simply cannot be reconciled. From the reconstructive end, Booth has been sharply critical of some poststructuralist work on security which he thinks fails to acknowledge, or create space for, an agenda which resignifies security in terms of social justice or emancipation. He comments that: the poststructuralist approach seems to assume that security cannot be common or positive-sum but must always be zero-sum, with somebody’s security always being at the cost of the insecurity of others. [Hence] security itself is questioned as desirable goal … They also tend to celebrate insecurity, which I regard as a middle-class affront to the truly insecure.51 In some ways this critique—which cites writings by Michael Dillon and James Der Derian as examples—is appropriate. He might also have included in this list an article published in 2000 by Costas Constantinou.52 While in some ways he misunderstands what they are searching for (a route out of generalised politics of alienation and fear, which make them as critical of realism as he is) it is important to remind ourselves of the legitimate and almost universal concern of individuals and communities for secure and stable lives. It is for this reason that in my own work I have often endorsed the normative arguments of the Welsh School, Tickner, the Secure Australia Project or the UNDP’s 1994 Human development report. It might be possible to read Booth’s comments as a critique of my argument in the introduction to In fear of security, which challenges realist policy discourses for generating Orwellian practices of security that sacrifice the security of others. I, however, am implicitly working with a contrasting human security ideal. This, manifestly, is not a celebration of insecurity. The power of statist ontologies of security nevertheless led me to wonder if it might be better to speak of the human needs and priorities named by security in their specificity: conflict prevention and resolution, human rights, land and women’s rights, the right to control one’s own economic destiny, etc. My concern was, and remains, that security’s ‘perversion’ into a ‘metaphysical canopy for the worst manifestations of liberalmodernity’ has been too final and damaging.53 We live in a world where security will continue to remain one of the most powerful signifiers in politics, and we cannot opt out of the game of its naming and use. It must be defined and practiced in normatively better ways, and kept under continual scrutiny.

Rejection leaves security apparatus intact, only the permutation can solve

Williams 3 (Michael, Professor of International Politics at the University of Wales, “Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics,” International Studies Quarterly, 47(4), AD: 7-10-9) BL

I would like to suggest that it is in response to these issues, and in regard to the realm of ethical practice, that the idea of security as a speech-act takes on an importance well beyond its role as a tool of social explanation. Casting securitization as a speech-act places that act within a framework of communicative action and legitimation that links it to a discursive ethics that seeks to avoid the excesses of a decisionist account of securitization. While the Copenhagen School has been insufficiently clear in developing these aspects of securitization theory, they link clearly to some of the most interesting current analyses of the practical ethics of social-constructivism. As Thomas Risse (2000) has recently argued, communicative action is not simply a realm of instrumental rationality and rhetorical manipulation. Communicative action involves a process of argument, the provision of reasons, presentation of evidence, and commitment to convincing others of the validity of one’s position. Communicative action (speech-acts) are thus not just given social practices, they are implicated in a process of justification. Moreover, as processes of dialogue, communicative action has a potentially transformative capacity. As Risse puts it: Argumentative rationality appears to be crucially linked to the constitutive rather than the regulative role of norms and identities by providing actors with a mode of interaction that enables them to mutually challenge and explore the validity claims of those norms and identities. When actors engage in a truth-seeking discourse, they must be prepared to change their own views of the world, their interests, and sometimes even their identities. (2000: 2)31 As speech-acts, securitizations are in principle forced to enter the realm of discursive legitimation. Speech-act theory entails the possibility of argument, of dialogue, and thereby holds out the potential for the transformation of security perceptions both within and between states. The securitizing speech-act must be accepted by the audience, and while the Copenhagen School is careful to note that ‘‘[a]ccept does not necessarily mean in civilized, dominance-free discussion; it only means that an order always rests on coercion as well as on consent,’’ it is nonetheless the case that ‘‘[s]ince securitization can never only be imposed, there is some need to argue one’s case’’(Buzan et al., 1998: 23), and that ‘‘[s]uccessful securitization is not decided by the securitizer but by the audience of the security speech-act: does the audience accept that something is an existential threat to a shared value? Thus security (as with all politics) ultimately rests neither with the objects nor with the subjects but among the subjects’’(1998:31). It is via this commitment to communicative action and discursive ethics, I would like to suggest, that the Copenhagen School seeks to avoid the radical realpolitik that might otherwise seem necessarily to follow from the Schmittian elements of the theory of securitization. Schmitt appeals to the necessity and inescapability of decision, enmity, and ‘‘the political.’’ He appeals to the mobilizing power of myth in the production of friends and enemies, and asserts the need for a single point of decision to the point of justifying dictatorship. He mythologizes war and enmity as the paramount moments of political life.32

Security discourse is inevitable.

Williams 3 (Michael, Prof. of International Politics at the Univ. of Wales, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 511-531)

The first, and simplest point is that in some ways the Copenhagen School treats securitization not as a normative question, but as an objective process and possibility. Very much like Schmitt, they view securitization as a social possibility intrinsic to political life. In regard to his concept of the political, for example, Schmitt once argued,

It is irrelevant here whether one rejects, accepts, or perhaps finds it an atavistic remnant of barbaric times that nations continue to group themselves according to friend and enemy, or whether it is perhaps strong pedagogic reasoning to imagine that enemies no longer exist at all. The concern here is neither with abstractions nor normative ideals, but with inherent reality and the real possibility of making such a distinction. One may or may not share these hopes and pedagogic ideals. But, rationally speaking, it cannot be denied that nations continue to group themselves according to the friend–enemy antithesis, that the distinction still remains actual today, and that this is an ever present possibility for every people existing in the political sphere (1996 [1932]: 28).30 In certain settings, the Copenhagen School seems very close to this position. Securitization must be understood as both an existing reality and a continual possibility. Yet equally clearly there is a basic ambivalence in this position, for it raises the dilemma that securitization theory must remain at best agnostic in the face of any securitization, even, for example, a fascist speech-act (such as that Schmitt has often been associated with) that securitizes a specific ethnic or racial minority. To say that we must study the conditions under which such processes and constructions emerge and become viable is important but incomplete, for without some basis for avoiding this process and transforming it the Copenhagen School appears to risk replicating some of the worst excesses made possible by a Schmittian understanding of politics.

Critical theory is not able to predict the outcome of desecuritization – the alternative is nothing more than wishful thinking.

Mearsheimer 95 (John, Prof. of Poli Sci at the Univ. of Chicago, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3, Winter 1994-1995, pp. 5-49)

There is another problem with the application of critical theory to international relations. Although critical theorists hope to replace realism with a discourse that emphasizes harmony and peace, critical theory per se emphasizes that it is impossible to know the future. Critical theory, according to its own logic, can be used to undermine realism and produce change, but it cannot serve as the basis for predicting which discourse will replace realism, because the theory says little about the direction change takes. In fact, Cox argues that although "utopian expectations may be an element in stimulating people to act ... such expectations are almost never realized in practice."160 Thus, in a sense, the communitarian discourse championed by critical theorists is wishful thinking, not an outcome linked to the theory itself. Indeed, critical theory cannot guarantee that the new discourse will not be more malignant than the discourse it replaces. Nothing in the theory guarantees, for example, that a fascist discourse far more violent than realism will not emerge as the new hegemonic discourse.

By trying to prevent security, we secure the status quo, the K links to itself

Dillon 96 (Michael, Prof@Lancaster, Politics of Security, p.30-31)JFS

Security cannot be taken as an unproblematic ontological predicate of the political because the question of ontology has itself become so problematical since the radical problematisation of the very tradition in which it has hitherto been thought. That problematisation, and its implications for thinking politics, is what I want to explore next. Consequently we cannot understand the inception and operation of (inter)national politics of security by reference to the expression of that predicate in self-consciousness, the biological individual, the community/nation/people, or the egotistical subject. Just as certainty is never certain of itself, (inter)national security never succeeds in securing itself. For each consists in exactly the same demand, which redoubles with any act that might satisfy it.One of the virtues of approaching security through a philosophy of the limit lies in the way such thinking is concerned not with the discernment of metaphysical truth but the decipherment of value, not with the production of reliable knowledge but the exposure of the processes of valuation and the foreclosure of possibilities effected by regimes of truth as power—knowledge. Such a posture emphasises that (inter)national security names a process of valuation and so alerts us to what is being devalued as well. And that such a process is not a simple monolithic determination of values, but sets in motion a dynamic play of (de)valuation in its preoccupation with calculation.While we have no greater provocation than the terminal paradox of our (inter)national politics of security to doubt the truth and the value (the truth-value) of security, it is perfectly obvious also that thinking the limit is itself, however, a dangerous game. For to doubt the truth and value of security seems to deny us the very means of survival in the most lethal of circumstances; particularly when it does not come equipped with a promise that we can secure an escape from (in)security, danger or a final overcoming of the violence which threatens, and is always threatened by, the agonal mortal life of human being.`There are no dangerous thoughts', said one of the very few contemporary political philosophers — Hannah Arendt — whose work was deeply influenced by Heidegger.47 'Thinking itself', she concluded, 'is dangerous'.48 Heidegger, too, called the ontological difference — which is the very thought that re-opens the question of the political — 'the most dangerous matter for thought'.49 But 'non- thinking', Arendt nonetheless also cautioned, 'which seems so recommendable a state for political and moral affairs, also has its perils'.50 To think and not to think, especially where the matter for thought is the question of the political, are therefore equally dangerous things to do. All this, then, is very dangerous talk.51 However, even if it is inevitably dangerous, it is dangerous in different ways and for different reasons.

Rejection of securitization causes the state to become more interventionist—turns the K

Tara McCormack, ’10, is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester and has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Westminster. 2010, (Critique, Security and Power: The political limits to emancipatory approaches, page 127-129)

The following section will briefly raise some questions about the rejection of the old security framework as it has been taken up by the most powerful institutions and states. Here we can begin to see the political limits to critical and emancipatory frameworks. In an international system which is marked by great power inequalities between states, the rejection of the old narrow national interest-based security framework by major international institutions, and the adoption of ostensibly emancipatory policies and policy rhetoric, has the consequence of problematising weak or unstable states and allowing international institutions or major states a more interventionary role, yet without establishing mechanisms by which the citizens of states being intervened in might have any control over the agents or agencies of their emancipation. Whatever the problems associated with the pluralist security framework there were at least formal and clear demarcations. This has the consequence of entrenching international power inequalities and allowing for a shift towards a hierarchical international order in which the citizens in weak or unstable states may arguably have even less freedom or power than before. Radical critics of contemporary security policies, such as human security and humanitarian intervention, argue that we see an assertion of Western power and the creation of liberal subjectivities in the developing world. For example, see Mark Duffield’s important and insightful contribution to the ongoing debates about contemporary international security and development. Duffield attempts to provide a coherent empirical engagement with, and theoretical explanation of, these shifts. Whilst these shifts, away from a focus on state security, and the so-called merging of security and development are often portrayed as positive and progressive shifts that have come about because of the end of the Cold War, Duffield argues convincingly that these shifts are highly problematic and unprogressive. For example, the rejection of sovereignty as formal international equality and a presumption of nonintervention has eroded the division between the international and domestic spheres and led to an international environment in which Western NGOs and powerful states have a major role in the governance of third world states. Whilst for supporters of humanitarian intervention this is a good development, Duffield points out the depoliticising implications, drawing on examples in Mozambique and Afghanistan. Duffield also draws out the problems of the retreat from modernisation that is represented by sustainable development. The Western world has moved away from the development policies of the Cold War, which aimed to develop third world states industrially. Duffield describes this in terms of a new division of human life into uninsured and insured life. Whilst we in the West are ‘insured’ – that is we no longer have to be entirely self-reliant, we have welfare systems, a modern division of labour and so on – sustainable development aims to teach populations in poor states how to survive in the absence of any of this. Third world populations must be taught to be self-reliant, they will remain uninsured. Self-reliance of course means the condemnation of millions to a barbarous life of inhuman bare survival. Ironically, although sustainable development is celebrated by many on the left today, by leaving people to fend for themselves rather than developing a society wide system which can support people, sustainable development actually leads to a less human and humane system than that developed in modern capitalist states. Duffield also describes how many of these problematic shifts are embodied in the contemporary concept of human security. For Duffield, we can understand these shifts in terms of Foucauldian biopolitical framework, which can be understood as a regulatory power that seeks to support life through intervening in the biological, social and economic processes that constitute a human population (2007: 16). Sustainable development and human security are for Duffield technologies of security which aim to create self-managing and self-reliant subjectivities in the third world, which can then survive in a situation of serious underdevelopment (or being uninsured as Duffield terms it) without causing security problems for the developed world. For Duffield this is all driven by a neoliberal project which seeks to control and manage uninsured populations globally. Radical critic Costas Douzinas (2007) also criticises new forms of cosmopolitanism such as human rights and interventions for human rights as a triumph of American hegemony. Whilst we are in agreement with critics such as Douzinas and Duffield that these new security frameworks cannot be empowering, and ultimately lead to more power for powerful states, we need to understand why these frameworks have the effect that they do. We can understand that these frameworks have political limitations without having to look for a specific plan on the part of current powerful states. In new security frameworks such as human security we can see the political limits of the framework proposed by critical and emancipatory theoretical approaches.

Alternative fails—state coopts it. Only perm solves

Tara McCormack, 10, is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester and has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Westminster. 2010, (Critique, Security and Power: The political limits to emancipatory approaches, page 137-138)

In chapter 7 I engaged with the human security framework and some of the problematic implications of ‘emancipatory’ security policy frameworks. In this chapter I argued that the shift away from the pluralist security framework and the elevation of cosmopolitan and emancipatory goals has served to enforce international power inequalities rather than lessen them. Weak or unstable states are subjected to greater international scrutiny and international institutions and other states have greater freedom to intervene, but the citizens of these states have no way of controlling or influencing these international institutions or powerful states. This shift away from the pluralist security framework has not challenged the status quo, which may help to explain why major international institutions and states can easily adopt a more cosmopolitan rhetoric in their security policies. As we have seen, the shift away from the pluralist security framework has entailed a shift towards a more openly hierarchical international system, in which states are differentiated according to, for example, their ability to provide human security for their citizens or their supposed democratic commitments. In this shift, the old pluralist international norms of (formal) international sovereign equality, non-intervention and ‘blindness’ to the content of a state are overturned. Instead, international institutions and states have more freedom to intervene in weak or unstable states in order to ‘protect’ and emancipate individuals globally. Critical and emancipatory security theorists argue that the goal of the emancipation of the individual means that security must be reconceptualised away from the state. As the domestic sphere is understood to be the sphere of insecurity and disorder, the international sphere represents greater emancipatory possibilities, as Tickner argues, ‘if security is to start with the individual, its ties to state sovereignty must be severed’ (1995: 189). For critical and emancipatory theorists there must be a shift towards a ‘cosmopolitan’ legal framework, for example Mary Kaldor (2001: 10), Martin Shaw (2003: 104) and Andrew Linklater (2005). For critical theorists, one of the fundamental problems with Realism is that it is unrealistic. Because it prioritises order and the existing status quo, Realism attempts to impose a particular security framework onto a complex world, ignoring the myriad threats to people emerging from their own governments and societies. Moreover, traditional international theory serves to obscure power relations and omits a study of why the system is as it is: [O]mitting myriad strands of power amounts to exaggerating the simplicity of the entire political system. Today’s conventional portrait of international politics thus too often ends up looking like a Superman comic strip, whereas it probably should resemble a Jackson Pollock. (Enloe, 2002 [1996]: 189) Yet as I have argued, contemporary critical security theorists seem to show a marked lack of engagement with their problematic (whether the international security context, or the Yugoslav break-up and wars). Without concrete engagement and analysis, however, the critical project is undermined and critical theory becomes nothing more than a request that people behave in a nicer way to each other. Furthermore, whilst contemporary critical security theorists argue that they present a more realistic image of the world, through exposing power relations, for example, their lack of concrete analysis of the problematic considered renders them actually unable to engage with existing power structures and the way in which power is being exercised in the contemporary international system. For critical and emancipatory theorists the central place of the values of the theorist mean that it cannot fulfil its promise to critically engage with contemporary power relations and emancipatory possibilities. Values must be joined with engagement with the material circumstances of the time.

No root cause of war

Moore, 04 [Dir. Center for Security Law @ University of Virginia, 7-time Presidential appointee, & Honorary Editor of the American Journal of International Law, Solving the War Puzzle: Beyond the Democratic Peace, John Norton Moore, pages 41-2]

If major interstate war is predominantly a product of a synergy between a potential nondemocratic aggressor and an absence of effective deterrence, what is the role of the many traditional "causes" of war? Past, and many contemporary, theories of war have focused on the role of specific disputes between nations, ethnic and religious differences, arms races, poverty or social injustice, competition for resources, incidents and accidents, greed, fear, and perceptions of "honor," or many other such factors. Such factors may well play a role in motivating aggression or in serving as a means for generating fear and manipulating public opinion. The reality, however, is that while some of these may have more potential to contribute to war than others, there may well be an infinite set of motivating factors, or human wants, motivating aggression. It is not the independent existence of such motivating factors for war but rather the circumstances permitting or encouraging high risk decisions leading to war that is the key to more effectively controlling war. And the same may also be true of democide. The early focus in the Rwanda slaughter on "ethnic conflict," as though Hutus and Tutsis had begun to slaughter each other through spontaneous combustion, distracted our attention from the reality that a nondemocratic Hutu regime had carefully planned and orchestrated a genocide against Rwandan Tutsis as well as its Hutu opponents.I1 Certainly if we were able to press a button and end poverty, racism, religious intolerance, injustice, and endless disputes, we would want to do so. Indeed, democratic governments must remain committed to policies that will produce a better world by all measures of human progress. The broader achievement of democracy and the rule of law will itself assist in this progress. No one, however, has yet been able to demonstrate the kind of robust correlation with any of these "traditional" causes of war as is reflected in the "democratic peace." Further, given the difficulties in overcoming many of these social problems, an approach to war exclusively dependent on their solution may be to doom us to war for generations to come. A useful framework in thinking about the war puzzle is provided in the Kenneth Waltz classic Man, the State, and War,12 first published in 1954 for the Institute of War and Peace Studies, in which he notes that previous thinkers about the causes of war have tended to assign responsibility at one of the three levels of individual psychology, the nature of the state, or the nature of the international system. This tripartite level of analysis has subsequently been widely copied in the study of international relations. We might summarize my analysis in this classical construct by suggesting that the most critical variables are the second and third levels, or "images," of analysis. Government structures, at the second level, seem to play a central role in levels of aggressiveness in high risk behavior leading to major war. In this, the "democratic peace" is an essential insight. The third level of analysis, the international system, or totality of external incentives influencing the decision for war, is also critical when government structures do not restrain such high risk behavior CONTINUED - NO TEXT REMOVED... MOORE CONTINUED - NO TEXT REMOVED... on their own. Indeed, nondemocratic systems may not only fail to constrain inappropriate aggressive behavior, they may even massively enable it by placing the resources of the state at the disposal of a ruthless regime elite. It is not that the first level of analysis, the individual, is unimportant. I have already argued that it is important in elite perceptions about the permissibility and feasibility of force and resultant necessary levels of deterrence. It is, instead, that the second level of analysis, government structures, may be a powerful proxy for settings bringing to power those who may be disposed to aggressive military adventures and in creating incentive structures predisposing to high risk behavior. We should keep before us, however, the possibility, indeed probability, that a war/peace model focused on democracy and deterrence might be further usefully refined by adding psychological profiles of particular leaders, and systematically applying other findings of cognitive psychology, as we assess the likelihood of aggression and levels of necessary deterrence in context. A post-Gulf War edition of Gordon Craig and Alexander George's classic, Force and Statecraft,13 presents an important discussion of the inability of the pre-war coercive diplomacy effort to get Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait without war.14 This discussion, by two of the recognized masters of deterrence theory, reminds us of the many important psychological and other factors operating at the individual level of analysis that may well have been crucial in that failure to get Hussein to withdraw without war. We should also remember that nondemocracies can have differences between leaders as to the necessity or usefulness of force and, as Marcus Aurelius should remind us, not all absolute leaders are Caligulas or Neros. Further, the history of ancient Egypt reminds us that not all Pharaohs were disposed to make war on their neighbors. Despite the importance of individual leaders, however, we should also keep before us that major international war is predominantly and critically an interaction, or synergy, of certain characteristics at levels two and three, specifically an absence of democracy and an absence of effective deterrence. Yet another way to conceptualize the importance of democracy and deterrence in war avoidance is to note that each in its own way internalizes the costs to decision elites of engaging in high risk aggressive behavior. Democracy internalizes these costs in a variety of ways including displeasure of the electorate at having war imposed upon it by its own government. And deterrence either prevents achievement of the objective altogether or imposes punishing costs making the gamble not worth the risk.I5 VI Testing the Hypothesis Theory without truth is but costly entertainment. HYPOTHESES, OR PARADIGMS, are useful if they reflect the real world better than previously held paradigms. In the complex world of foreign affairs and the war puzzle, perfection is unlikely. No general construct will fit all cases even in the restricted category of "major interstate war"; there are simply too many variables. We should insist, however, on testing against the real world and on results that suggest enhanced usefulness over other constructs. In testing the hypothesis, we can test it for consistency with major wars; that is, in looking, for example, at the principal interstate wars in the twentieth century, did they present both a nondemocratic aggressor and an absence of effective deterrence?' And although it is by itself not going to prove causation, we might also want to test the hypothesis against settings of potential wars that did not occur. That is, in nonwar settings, was there an absence of at least one element of the synergy? We might also ask questions about the effect of changes on the international system in either element of the synergy; that is, what, in general, happens when a totalitarian state makes a transition to stable democracy or vice versa? And what, in general, happens when levels of deterrence are dramatically increased or decreased?