YOUR GUIDE TO THE TOPIC SO FAR

[drtuna@aol.com]

FROM: Alfred C. "Tuna" Snider, University of Vermont
ABOUT: How this topic is going

I write this while in Kansas City, it is Sunday night 1-9-94. The William
Jewell tournament is over. It was a very good tournament. Four East teams got
to octas (25% of the field!) with Pace, two Cornells, and Max & Rico.
Unfortunately, all of them lost. But, it was one of the better showings I can
remember. I would encourage more of you to try and come out this way. The
debating is good, the judging is excellent, and you learn lot. I think the
way to get these judges to vote for us at nationals is to show them that we
are good during the season and break this silly stereotype about Eastern
debate.

Cases seem to be of three types:
1. We should intervene somewhere and straighten things out. Haiti, Bosnia,
Burundi, etc. They don
't necessarily emphasize US troops (although they might), but might use such
things as arms sales, air strikes, electronic warfare, non lethal weapons,
etc.
2. We should continue a military intervention we have now. US forces in
Germany, Macedonia, the Far East, Japan, etc. are said to be a good and
stabilizing influence and that they should stay.
3. We should do something which is *sort of* military intervention. Pulling
out bases from Balau, flood relief in Bangladesh, civic action in various
nations are some examples. I am sure all of you have come up with a big list
of things which might be considered *sort of* military intervention.

No value oriented cases were run that I know of, but there might have been
some in the junior division.

All of these cases have scenarios as their advantages. North Korean attack,
Russian adventurism, Iranian proliferation, Ukrainian-Russian war, Islamic
backlash, Chinese adve
nturism, etc. Very few people say "it is good and creates stability" without
showing a specific scenario. You need to be ready to argue these
scenarios....in favor of them, and to take them out on the negative, or to
turn them. 

Negative attacks seem to be of four types.
1. Topicality. Intervention is the focus of this, usually, and there is a lot
of evidence from military journals and foreign policy texts which define
specific characteristics which military intervention must have. They tend to
be very specific definitions and can really hurt the affirmative. Plain old
dictionary definitions are not making it. Negatives have been arguing about
democracy, but usually only so that they can trick the affirmative into
allowing them to link one of their disadvantages.
2. Case arguments. Most of them are about military intervention proper,
whether it works, whether it escalates, etc. Some democracy stuff, too.
3. Counterplans. The negative usually uses the counterplan so that it is net
beneficial....it avoids the negative disadvantages but gains the affirmative
advantages. If the case is really good or the negative is not prepared for
it, this is a preferred strategy. Usually, the negative will have specific
disadvantages which it runs with a specific counterplan because the CP does
not link to those disadvantages.
4. Disadvantages. Teams seems to have between 4-8 disadvantages and then pick
whichever ones link or matches their CP or both. Perhaps I can come up with a
list of these later.

Evidence seems to be extremely impo
rtant. Cards from 1992 just aren't making it, as the international scene
seems to be changing very quickly, as events in Russia show. Is the evidence
from before the crisis with parliament? Before
 the election? Before Clinton's visit? This makes a difference. Backfiles
from the UN topic will not carry you very far. Judges just seem to be more
aware of the fast changing nature of foreign events, so 
they demand current  evidence and vote for it.

Well, on to Kansas State next for us. I'll p
robably write you later. Better go to the library.

We ride the back of time!

Alfred C. "Tuna" Snider, University of Vermont

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