States ought not possess nuclear weapons

The major lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis is this: the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations." It's because I agree with Robert McNamara that I affirm the resolution: "RESOLVED: States ought not possess nuclear weapons." For the purposes of this debate I provide the following definition: State: a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory; especially: one that is sovereign. VALUE: Safety CRITERION: Upholding international humanitarian law CONTENTION 1: North Korea has nuclear weapons, and could be targeting the U.S. Wolfsthal '06 … continued development of missiles should worry all Americans as over the past few years North Korea has acquired enough nuclear material to build a small arsenal of nuclear weapons and… they are clearly pursuing a system capable of holding American cities at risk of attack. Their success is only a matter of time… how can Americans be sure that some future "test" missile won't be fitted with a nuclear weapon and targeted on a US city? they can't… North Korea has succeeded in developing a nuclear arsenal and in advancing its missile programs… This only encourages more provocative behavior in the future. Contention 2: Officials believe Iran is building nuclear weapons. MAZZETTI and SANGER 8/19/10 The Obama administration has persuaded Israel that it would take roughly a year for Iran to complete a nuclear weapon… American officials said the United States would detect an Iranian move toward breakout within weeks… Iran, would build nuclear bombs from a of nuclear material, currently enough for two weapons. Israeli officials have indicated that if they saw a race for the bomb under way, they would take military action and encourage the United States to join… Israeli officials remain suspicious that Iran has a secret enrichment site… in the tunnels it has dug throughout the country. Last September, Iran acknowledged that it had such a hidden facility near the city of Qum… Israel was particularly concerned that Iran's supreme leader could order that nuclear materials be dispersed to secret locations around the country… Contention 3: Terrorists smuggle nuclear weapons. Wolfsthal '05 … and terrorist groups cannot at the moment produce highly enriched uranium or plutonium--the key ingredients in a nuclear device… The International Atomic Energy Agency has documented two dozen cases of nuclear smuggling… Allison provides ample evidence that terrorists have opportunity to buy or steal either a nuclear device or the material to build one… with graphic images of recent terrorist attacks in Russia, reports of such opportunities communicate the gravity of the threat. Contention 4: Nuclear Reduction addresses major problems without reducing deterrence. Weber 7/13/10 The presidents of the United States and of Russia have signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, which authorizes significant reductions of the nuclear weapons and delivery systems of both countries… Whatever deterrence the United States may require is provided by its awesome air and naval power… Any hostile state so foolish as to contemplate war with the United States will be deterred because it does not want to risk fighting the United States and confronting its massive conventional might, not because it fears being blown up by nuclear strikes. The New START will not compromise that deterrent capability. This architecture of deterrence was the basis of bipolar relationships. The treaty will help work against proliferation and will reduce substantially the number of weapons available to be targeted by terrorist theft operations… Cooperation between these two powers is essential… If they work different sides of these conflicts the political difficulties will grow worse and the temptation to nuclearize the conflicts will increase. For the aforementioned reasons, a ballot for the Negative is a ballot covered in human blood. Also, I would like to tell you why nuclear deterrence is bad for other reasons: 1.Nuclear deterrence is speculative. Just because nothing has happened in the past doesn't mean deterrence works -- the threat isn't credible. 2.Nuclear weapons don't deter against terrorists b/c they have no permanent base that will be threatened. Also, deterrence depends on rationality of deterree to NOT risk being attacked and rogue nation leaders and terrorists are irrational so they won't be deterred. 3.Deterrence only has to fail once. Even the strongest advocates of nuclear deterrence realize it cannot work 100% of the time, due to irrational, "undeterrable", and sometimes suicidal aggressors. This means when it fails once, nuclear proliferation occurs. 4.Deterrence can't prevent accidents which can escalate into global conflict 5.Link Turn: Deterrence is based on perception, so you don't actually need nuclear weapons to achieve same effect. 6.For deterrence to work, it is necessary for the attacker to find the cost of retaliation extremely high. If they don't, nuclear deterrence isn't effective. 7.Nuclear deterrence only works if the deterree is credible. This depends mostly upon the state leader's reputation and the state government's legitimacy. 8.TURN: President Kennedy made a deterrence threat against the Soviets, and failed miserably. 9.Deterrence can often be set in place after a nuclear decision has already been made. For example, President Kennedy set deterrence in place after the Kremlin decision had sent missiles to Cuba. 10.An aggressor nation could believe its actions are below the threshold of what could trigger a nuclear response. Then, the defending nation retaliates. 11.There often is not a certain threshold for when retaliation is necessary. Thus, the "nuclear threat" is often not set into action after an aggressor attacks, OR the deterring nation could proliferate nukes at the drop of a hat. 12.There's always the threat of "catalytic nuclear war." This is where a third party launches nukes on "country X," and blames it on "country Y." Thus causing nuclear war between these two countries. This was especially feared to happen during the Cold War. 13. Nuclear deterrence makes other countries want to possess nukes, leading to even higher danger. Onto my opponent's case.. Contention 1: TURN: The globe is a much more dangerous place with nukes. My opponent claims that nuclear weapons are the reason that no other countries have nuked us. This is untrue. He provides no empirical evidence on this. Do you know why? Because there is no empirical evidence saying that. There's a phrase called "the fog war." This means in war, there's too many variables to predict what your opponent will do, just like I don't know how my opponent will respond to this. This means we cannot conclude that MAD was the only reason we weren't nuked. When my opponent jumps to this conclusion, he actually commits a "Post Hog Ergo Propter Hoc" logical fallacy. And nukes have moved us past genocide? So... What about Darfur? Also, my opponent claims there has been no death in the U.S. What about 9/11? This is from a terrorist attack, and nukes certainly didn't prevent it. And if you're speaking internationally, what about the U.S. troops in Pakistan who have been victims of bombings? And it's moved us past the age of conquest? What about Palestine and Israel arguing over land? Contention 2: TURN: Conventional warfare is better. This is because while conventional means might kill thousands or millions, nuclear warfare will cause 7 billion. Let's do a little math... And we can see that my impact calculus is much bigger, thus I outweigh. Also, the Holocaust isn't conventional warfare. That was a genocide, which is not synonymous with conventional warfare. Contention 3: Nukes have been used with good reason??? I don't think so. When we nuked Hiroshima, we did so unnecessarily. Experts agree that the U.S. could have invaded with conventional means,