arizona debate institute 2015 opening topic lecture “dr. dave” hingstman resolved: the united...

Arizona Debate Institute 2015Opening Topic Lecture

“Dr. Dave” Hingstman

Resolved: The United States should significantly reduce its military presence in one or more of the following: the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, the Greater Horn of Africa, Northeast Asia.

Affirmative cases and Topicality

• An affirmative case on US military presence should contain initial arguments (reasons and support) that somehow relate to that topic.

• Topicality is an issue that relates all affirmative arguments to the topic being debated, even if only by metaphor to or by suppressing whatever problems the affirmative is interested in talking about.

• When preparing an affirmative case, think about how your arguments and key topic words will relate to each other.

Common metaphors used in debate: battles, control, narratives

To what things might US military presence refer?

• “the visible employment of US military personnel and/or military materiel as a deterrent outside of the continental United States at any point along the operational continuum short of involving major US conventional forces in combat” (Greer 1991)

Types of military basing:Main operating base | Forward operating base | Cooperative security location

Military term equivalents to “US military presence”: forward presence; forward deployment; basing

Military presence as a symbolic or functional idea

• “forward presence — Maintaining forward-deployed or stationed forces overseas to demonstrate national resolve, strengthen alliances, dissuade potential adversaries, and enhance the ability to respond quickly to contingencies (JP 3-32).” (US Dept of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, June 15, 2015) http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf

“Trust cannot be surged.” (Forster 2011)

“To deter adversaries, US military must. . . ”(Metz 2015)

“Premier crisis response force” (Amos 2013)

“US pledges resolve against terrorism” (VOA 2014)

Military presence and the US armed forces

“naval presence includes a wide range of forward-deployed Navy and Marine Corps units afloat and ashore in friendly nations” (Mack 1998)“The U.S. Army presence in Europe involves dozens of bases, many of which are being downsized and closed” (O’Hanlon 2009).“The key to Fifth Air Force’s presence is the frontline air bases spanning Japan from north to south” (5th Air Force, no date)“The global network [of Special Operations Forces] enables small, persistent presence in critical locations, and facilitates engagement where necessary or appropriate.” (McRaven 2013).

“Presence” may have different connotations for various branches of the US Armed Forces

US Military Presence in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf

Bahrain IraqKuwait Oman QatarSaudi Arabia UAE (United Arab Emirates)

All except Iraq are part of the Gulf Cooperation Council

Territorial waters of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf

US Military Presence in the Greater Horn of Africa

Djibouti EritreaEthiopiaKenyaSeychelles Islands?Somalia South Sudan SudanTanzania? Uganda

Gulf of AdenWestern Indian Ocean

US Military Presence in Northeast Asia

China, Japan, North Korea, Okinawa, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan?Sea of Japan [or East Sea], Yellow Sea, East China Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, North Pacific Ocean, 7 Straits

Strategic Choices for Affirmative Casescritical and policy approaches

Critical approaches question the uses of state power and politics of exclusion and control and seek strategies of resistance

Policy approaches emphasize alternative governmental actions and what their costs and benefits, both direct and indirect, might be

What makes an affirmative case work—anticipating negative strategic choices and finding offense against them

Critical negative arguments—1. You legitimize US imperialism2. You ignore other forms of state exclusion or control over people3. You encourage a shift to secret US military presence, which is worse4. You legitimize a security-oriented mindset, which needs to be displaced by a new forms of understanding or performative engagement with others5. You exaggerate threats and create enemies

Policy negative arguments—1. You scare US allies and cause them to militarize or switch sides2. You encourage US enemies to attack or threaten3. You create political problems that affect other policy decisions4. You free up military resources to do worse things5. Alternative policy—don’t do dangerous military tactics6. Alternative policy—increase US military presence to make it work better

A strong affirmative case gets leverage (has “offense,” not just “defense”) against the usual negative arguments

Critical affirmative arguments—1. We resist US imperialism by opposing US military presence2. We act in solidarity with excluded or dominated people in other places3. We oppose the paranoid mindsets that lead to dangerous overt or covert military presence4. We move toward peaceful engagement with other countries5. We can both reconsider our threat constructions and call for the US to reduce its military presence

Policy affirmative arguments—1. Current US military engagement is counterproductive for allied cohesion (not credible)2. US enemies are not deterred by its military presence and potential supporters are alienated3. Excessive US military engagement is politically unpopular4. We are a symbolic step in the direction of a less-threatening foreign policy5. Military presence causes more problems than the risk of war6. More military presence will blowback and kill more people

Persian Gulf Affirmative

• “In 2013, the Navy announced that it was adding five more coastal patrol ships to American forces in Bahrain. Last year, the Obama administration went forward with a more than half-billion-dollar expansion of the U.S. presence in Bahrain, which will cement the U.S. presence in the country for decades to come. Now, what signal does that send the royals?” (Abrams, 2/27/15).”

Inherency: Expanding US military presence in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf condones royal oppression


• “’With each passing day, the Bahrain government’s self-fulfilling prophecy of a sectarian war is becoming more and more the reality,’ Reza Aslan wrote in 2013. ‘If that happens — if the Bahrain uprising descends into the kind of regional holy war between Sunni and [Shiite] — the United States will not be able to avoid the consequences.’ That message holds true for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which makes one wonder why it is smart to assume that the facilities the United States has in Bahrain will in fact be available — or safe to use — in the coming decades. Meanwhile, the announcement of the expansion can only be read one way by the Bahraini authorities: The American protests about human rights conditions are not serious” (Abrams, 2/27/15).

Harms: Persian Gulf misrule denies human rights and risks civil unrest and regional war


• “Such a message — and if necessary, a public statement a few months later — would have had a huge impact. It would have shown the Bahraini government and its supporters the risks they face; it would have made the business community nervous, and perhaps more supportive of reform; and above all, it might have given additional ammunition to those in the royal family who favor reconciliation over repression. Instead, the Obama administration is sending the clear message that its loud protests are over, the president won’t speak about Bahrain, and the monarchy can relax.” (Abrams, 2/27/15).”

Solvency: Reducing US military presence will send a message that opposes repression of Gulf minorities

Maryam Al-Khawaja, activist

Greater Horn of Africa Affirmative

•“US military presence.” In 2002, the US established the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF- HoA). It is based upon the assumption that transnational terrorist cells would flee the 2001 US-led campaign in Afghanistan, establish a safe haven in the Horn of Africa and proceed to coordinate future attacks from there. It is a multi-service formation operating under the auspices of the US African Command (AFRICOM), which since March 2010 has been led by Rear Admiral Brian Losey. Since 2003, the task force has been housed in Camp Lemonier, a former French Foreign Legion camp adjacent to the Djibouti-Ambouli international airport, which is managed by Dubai Ports World and has suitable runways and lighting conditions. The US pays around US$30 million annually for Camp Lemonier, which is its only official military base located in Africa.” (Meslin 2011).

Inherency 1: US military presence in the Horn promotes counterterrorism under the guise of humanitarianism


• “1) First up is Camp Lemmonier, which houses thousands of U.S. personnel and has — according to satellite imagery — also hosted everything from F-15E Strike Eagle bombers and C-130 cargo planes, to PC-12 special ops planes and MQ-1 Predator or MQ-9 Reaper UAVS. 2) Next is the U.S. Indian Ocean drone base in the Seychelles that’s used to hunt Somali pirates and other seaborne ne’er do wells. You can clearly see a tan-colored "clamshell" tent on the northwest end of the runway — a common indicator of a U.S. military presence at an airstrip. 3) Speaking of clamshell tents, this Bing map shows several at what appears to be a fairly large and newly constructed facility near the old terminal at Entebbe Airport on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda. The old terminal at Entebbe is famous as the site of the Israeli commando raid that freed hundreds of passengers from a hijacked Air France flight in 1976. 4) Here’s the reported U.S. drone base at Arba Minch, Ethiopia, as shown in Bing Maps. The image shows construction of a new ramp and hangars that are separate from existing facilities at the remote airport. 5) Then there’s the new drone base in tucked away at a remote airstrip in Lamu on the Kenyan coast. 6) Next, we’ll go to the middle of nowhere, South Sudan, where available satellite photos simply show a dirt strip outside the village of Nizara, that’s reportedly a possible U.S. drone site” (Reed, 2013).

Inherency 2: US military presence in the Horn enables targeted killing with drone strikes


• “Killing such leaders does little in the long-run to halt terrorism, say critics of US drone policy. In fact, they argue, these leaders are easily replaced, while the drone attacks counterproductively drive locals, hungry for revenge, into the arms of groups like al-Qaeda, and destabilise the countries where they take. ‘Living Under Drones,” a report published in September 2012 by researchers from Stanford and New York University law schools, found that ‘publicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best.’ Earlier this year, activist Farea al-Muslimi testified before the US Senate that the strikes are ‘fuelling anti-Americanism" in his home country of Yemen, going so far as to say that the US "has become al-Qaeda's public relations officer’” (Bollier 2013).

Harm: Drone strikes are counterproductive. They fuel terrorist recruitment and violence. Yemen proves this.


• “Africom has a carefully cultivated image designed to convince Africans (and Americans) that the US military has a very light footprint on the continent and is primarily engaged in humanitarian missions. Anything that upsets this fiction, upsets the US military, so they have consistently acted to obscure, cover-up and keep secret the size, scale and scope of operations on the continent. In less guarded moments, commanders have admitted that the specter of neocolonialism is a major reason why the appearance of a light footprint is key to the US mission. Blowback will continue because Washington has repeatedly set the stage for it through ill-conceived interventions that have imploded spectacularly only to lead to further meddling, which, in turn, is bound to lead to further chaos” (Turse 2015).

Solvency: Reducing US military presence prevents further radicalization and chaos

Northeast Asia [Okinawa] Affirmative

75 percent of the U.S. military facilities in Japan are located in Okinawa, although Okinawa is only 0.6% of the land area of Japan. There are 37 U.S. bases and military installations in Okinawa, 23,842 troops and 21,512 family members (Women for Genuine Security 2006).


• “Central to Mr. Abe’s vision of a more proactive Japan is fulfilling a nearly two-decade-old agreement between Tokyo and Washington to relocate the busy Futenma air base, one of more than a dozen American military facilities on Okinawa, from its current site in the middle of the crowded city of Ginowan in the island’s south to Henoko Bay in its less-populated north.

Inherency: US military presence in Okinawa will be maintained

In recent months, Mr. Abe has signaled his resolve to move ahead with construction where his predecessors stalled, by proceeding with tests of the seabed and by marking off the area with the orange buoys. That has put him on a collision course with tens of thousands of angry and increasingly radicalized Okinawans” (Fackler, New York Times, 7/5/15).


“The rape of this girl was reported worldwide, but most crimes by U.S. troops (including rape, assault, and murder) are not. Official reports estimate more than 5,394 military crimes against Okinawan people from 1972 to 2005, with 533 of them heinous crimes (1972-2004). Arrested military personnel suspected of committing these crimes numbered 678.10 These crime figures are a conservative estimate as many crimes are not reported, perhaps especially violence against women. The bases are also associated with drug use and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Mixed-race Amerasian children fathered by U.S. troops have often been abandoned by their fathers and experience discrimination from local people” (Women for Genuine Security 2006)

Harm: Gendered violence


• “Environmental Contamination Highly carcinogenic materials (fuels, oils, solvents and heavy metals) are regularly released during military operations, affecting the land, water, air, and ocean, as well as people’s health. Okinawan people suffer deafening noise from low-flying military aircraft. In other parts of Japan, U.S. planes cannot leave or land after 7pm. At Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, they can leave or land any time, and generate severe noise. Students in schools near the bases often have classes disrupted due to noise, and suffer from poor concentrations”(Women for Genuine Security 2006)

Harm: Health disasters


• “In fact, the protesters at Henoko have been ardently but peaceably protesting U.S.-Japanese plans to destroy the last coral reef ecosystem in Japan! It is a place of great beauty, as well as ecological and cultural importance. As coral reefs are perishing elsewhere, from the Caribbean to the Great Barrier Reef, this glorious Oura Bay ecosystem at Henoko has become especially valuable. I suggest that Capt. Eames visit Oura Bay to see for himself the thousands of species of fish, the hundreds of species of corals, shellfish, seagrasses, marine algae, etc., that construction of the U.S. Marine base will tragically destroy! New species, undescribed species, endangered species, ‘useful’ species — all will be irreversibly lost if the destruction is allowed to proceed. Perhaps he will retract his shameful remarks upon seeing its beauty and importance, and be able to sympathise with the protesters, who are so justifiably angered by the destructive activities of the military-industrial complex in Okinawa, now and during many previous decades” (Muzik 2015).

Harm: Ecosystem destruction and species loss


• “In the twentieth century alone, the Chamorros of the Marianas and the Okinawans of Okinawa, as well as their respective settler populations, have separately and sometimes uniformly suffered issues of cultural, linguistic and political loss as a result of wars waged by and between Japan and the US.[8] Issues of colonial education, labour exploitation, land displacement, military enlistment, nuclearism and sexual violence likewise comprise these histories.[9] Given these colonial contexts, Chamorro and Okinawan bodies can be theorised as subject formations that are differentially produced outside the 'normatively human,' or the white, rights-bearing subject of modernity.[10] In fact, Chamorros and Okinawans historically figure in American and Japanese juridical and political thought as ambivalent, semi-citizen bodies, neither fully legally recognised nor widely grieved by Japan and the US” (Bascara et al 2015).

Harm: Neocolonial States of Exception


• “In conclusion, if the United States had to deal with any of the problems faced by Japanese civilians, in the wake of these military bases, we would not hesitate, we would immediately close any base if it were one of our children being raped, assaulted and murdered. With more than 5,584 reported crimes have been committed by the U.S. military stationed in Japan, it tarnishes our nation’s image to the international community and especially to our number one ally, Japan. It is a waste of money to house the military personnel across seas, and these bases are a burden on taxpayers as well. It would be more economically feasible to redistribute the troops among our bases in Hawaii, California, and Guam. The bases no longer serve any military strategy or function, beyond training, and many professionals with knowledge of the situation agree. I am asking everyone that took the time to read my report on these atrocities to not only sign the petition but also to contact your congressman and demand that the U.S. military be immediately withdrawn from Japan” (Lopez 2012).

Underview: We must demand reduced US military presence

Other potentially popular case areas

• Anti-imperialism affirmatives that advocate other forms of “grand strategy,” such as offshore balancing. Big Korea, Japan and Persian Gulf affirmatives in particular.

• New agreements to constrain air, surface ship or submarine deployments to prevent accidental escalation with Chinese or Iranian military forces.

Other potentially popular case areas

• Change Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA treaties) to make it easier to hold military personnel responsible for bad behavior.

• Restrict the activities of private military contractors in the Persian Gulf. Advantage areas similar to the Horn of Africa affirmative.

• Drawdown US forces in Iraq. Alienates Sunnis, helps ISIS, and antagonizes Iran.

Maybe it’s time for “Johnny” to come marching home again

• Good luck and thanks for reading!

arizona debate institute 2015 opening topic lecture “dr. dave” hingstman resolved: the united...

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