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Re: national security strategy

Couple of problems with what you say here.  First, as josh has described
the topic, the plan must be akin to issuing a new paper.  Meaning if you
only make one change, the rest of the paper passes as is.  The implication
of this is that although there may be a large number of potential
affirmatives, there are in the same manner an infinite number of
disadvantages.  IE--- find some cards saying Clinton will change x or y in
his next NSS, and your DA is that the Aff issues the paper without that
change, the change is good.  Further, josh has also argued that crafting a
new strategy would be more substantial than changing our DSP policy.  I'm
sure there would be 4 or 5 mainstream Affs which completely revamped our
national security policy.  I'm also relatively sure that the neg could find
good definitions of our national security policy and argue persuasively that
the Aff must change it in whole.  I don't think it's as big as you say.



 See Jamie McKown's post earlier about the problematic idea that 
>this 
>resolution can be limited in any real way. We brainstormed for a while 
>last night and came up with a short list of topical affirmatives:
>
>Agile strategy (whatever that means), Virtual Disarm, disarm, iran, DLR, 
>Counterproliferation, Pivotal States, Economic Espionage, GWEN/HARP, War 
>Powers, Counterterrorism (softline or hardline), Rogue States doctrine, 
>CTBT, CWC, BWC, Start II, CFE, BDRP, ABM, SDI (or any kind of NMD), 
>Counterforce/countervalue targeting, Korematsu/FEMA, Civil defense, UN 
>RDFs, Reorganize info-gathering/procurement/reform the NSA/CIA, JSAPS, 
>Infowar, MTR, Drug interdiction (both ways), export controls, China, SIOP 
>reform, MIC/LIC doctrines, Humanitarian interrvention (both ways), 
>readiness (any number of ways), changes in procurement strategy and 
>policy, oil, base pollution, troop rotations, troop or base withdrawals, 
>loose nukes, international organized crime policy, Cuba, FBMS/ naval 
>rules of the road/sub-bumping, Merchant Marine, Nuclear safety tech, 
>Bosnia, Nuclear winter models, Korea, NATO- expand it, stop expansion, 
>pull out, Japan (both ways), GATT/WTO/NAFTA/Trade Strategy, Currency 
>Stabilization, ASATS/Space Dominance, ASW, DSPs, and ALL GLOBAL 
>ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS, as well as domestic economic growth promotion.
>

  First, these would all be subject to the DA ground I explained above.
Second, look--- every single one of these small cases will be subject to
multiple counterplans that compete on Clinton or some other NB because they
aren't intrinsically tied to the president changing national security
policy.  Using the executive forces limits in the resolution, I feel like
this subject has been adequately discussed on previous posts, are you
ignoring them?  How could Affs ever win against good Negative teams on this
topic unless their plan had an intrinsic reason why the president had to do
the plan, or damn good Clinton impact turns?  This not only will stop
debates from breaking down into Clinton debates all the time, it will limit
the possible number of cases.  Affs will be forced to choose plans which
require executive action in a substantial strategy area, and you'll be able
to find DAs if  you just research the NSS.  



>And, as far as we can tell, no one has yet answered the agent CP 
>objections that we have repeatedly raised. It's one thing to debate 
>Clinton in every debate. It's another thing not to have the case to weigh 
>against it. 
>

See above.  Also, how exactly does this jive with your argument that the
topic would have too many possible Affs.  You're agreeing that Clinton w/ a
congress CP would be a persuasive strategy in many instances, meaning 1)
Affs will choose strategic cases (explained above) 2) as a result there will
be less Clinton debates and a small number of cases.



A couple of other things.  It's obvious you two favor the environment topic.
That's nice.  I think it's a good topic, like this one.  However, i don't
see the
need to trash every aspect of other topics in attempts to win over the crowd.
The environment topic as well would have thousands of possible Affs.  Like
this one.  However, terms of the resolution combined with certain
counterplan ground would likely limit out the bad cases and produce the same
core Affirmatives that win the majority of rounds.  One more thing to throw
in, people in my class ( in the NDT division) have debated homelessness, THE
ENVIRONMENT, health care, immigration, and the Middle East.  Next years'
freshman, sophomores, and juniors (MORE THAN HALF OF THE DEBATE POPULATION)
will have never debated the Commander In Chief topic.  Having to choose
between occasional agent debates in exchange for a diverse number of cases
doesn't seem that bad to me.  Whereas, I don't know how excited I am about
debating fossile fuels, hazardous waste regulations, or the environmental
tyranny of the multinational corporation again.  Remember Kate, you've
debated your four years, some of us are just starting...  while CIC sees
recent to you, it's nonexistent to me.

Michael J Gottlieb
Northwestern CAS '99
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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