Policy Space Topic

Contention 1 is Inherency: There is Currently No Brilliant Pebbles Program Cooper 02 (Henry F Cooper, Director, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization July 10, 1990 - January 20, 1993) (http://www.missilethreat.com...) In 1993, however, the Clinton Administration delivered a severe blow to U.S. missile defense by systematically eliminating Brilliant Pebbles through a series of budget cuts. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin stated his objective as "taking the star out of Star Wars." The Administration did more than just that: it slashed missile defense funding across the board and replaced SDI with the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). Yet the technology itself would continue to be tested, for a short time: one year later, NASA launched a deep-space probe known as "Clementine," which had been built using first-generation Brilliant Pebbles technology. Clementine successfully mapped the entire surface of the Moon. The mission, which cost $80 million, effectively "space qualified" Brilliant Pebbles' hardware. All the same, no steps were taken by the Clinton Administration to resurrect the program. Thus the plan: The United States Federal Government Should Develop a Substantial Space Based Missile Defense System beyond Earth's Mesosphere We'll fiat and clarify upon request. Contention 2 is Harms and Significance The Status Quo Risks Nuclear War We'll Isolate 3 Scenarios First is Syria and Israel Syria and Israel Relations are on Brink Kershner 2010 [By Isabel Kershner, Reporter for the New York Times, Published: February 4, 2010 "Israeli Foreign Minister Adds Heat to Exchanges With Syria", http://www.nytimes.com...] JERUSALEM — Israel's blunt-talking foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, warned Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, on Thursday that the Assad family would lose power in any war with Israel, ratcheting up bellicose exchanges between the countries in recent days. In a speech at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, Mr. Lieberman said: "I think that our message must be clear to Assad. In the next war, not only will you lose, you and your family will lose the regime. Neither you will remain in power, nor the Assad family." That had to be the message, Mr. Lieberman added, because "the only value truly important to them is power." In an effort to calm the atmosphere, an aide to Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Mr. Netanyahu was "ready to go anywhere in the world, at any time, to open peace talks with Syria without preconditions." The aide, Nir Hefetz, added that Israel did not rule out assistance from any "fair third party" that could advance a peace process with Syria. Mr. Lieberman was responding to strident comments from Syria on Wednesday. Mr. Assad told the visiting Spanish foreign minister, Miguel ï¿½ngel Moratinos, that Israel was "not serious about achieving peace" and that the facts indicated that "Israel is pushing the region toward war, not peace," according to the Syrian news agency SANA. Furthermore, the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said Wednesday that "Israel should not test Syria's determination," adding, "Israel knows that war will move to the Israeli cities." He implied that a conflict beginning in South Lebanon could also lead to an all-out war. Mr. Moallem made his comments in response to a strong statement made by Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, to senior Israeli Army officers on Monday, warning that "in the absence of an arrangement with Syria, we are liable to enter a belligerent clash with it that could reach the point of an all-out, regional war." Israelis understood Mr. Barak's remark as a plea for the Israeli government to start new peace negotiations with Syria, but the Syrians apparently interpreted it as warmongering. Israel's northern borders with Lebanon and Syria are quiet, but tense. The last Israel-Syria war was in 1973; Israel last fought Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia that receives support from Syria, in Lebanon in 2006. Israeli military officials have warned repeatedly that Hezbollah has been rearming, and they assert that Syria has been preparing its military to move from the conventional battlefield into missiles that can be aimed at Israeli cities. Mr. Lieberman said the Syrians had issued a "direct threat" to Israel that "crossed a line." "We cannot continue with business as usual," he said. Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli Army chief and defense minister, and now a senior member of the opposition centrist Kadima Party, described Mr. Lieberman's statements as "irresponsible." "They are liable to lead to verbal escalation or other types of escalation," Mr. Mofaz told Israel Radio. Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he is ready to talk to the Syrians without preconditions on either side. But Syria expects a guarantee from Israel up front that it is willing to withdraw from the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau that Syria lost in the 1967 war. There are sharp differences within Mr. Netanyahu's governing coalition, not least over whether a deal with Syria would succeed in removing Syria from the Iranian sphere. "Those who think that territorial concessions will cause a severance of the ties between Syria and the axis of evil are deluding themselves and avoiding reality," Mr. Lieberman said Thursday, referring to Iran with a term used by former President George W. Bush. Syria, he added, "will have to give up on its ultimate demand for the Golan Heights." Yet with the Palestinian peace process at an impasse, there have been increasing voices in Israel for a refocus on negotiations with Syria. "Because of the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the only chance for generating change lies in the north," wrote the commentator Ari Shavit in Thursday's issue of the newspaper Haaretz. "There is no certainty at all that peace is in the offing," he continued. "But if it is, it is to be found not in Ramallah but in Damascus." The previous Israeli government, under the lead of Ehud Olmert of Kadima, held indirect talks with Syria through Turkish mediators, but they ended when Israel started its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. The Palestinians have refused to engage in direct talks with Mr. Netanyahu's government unless it carries out a total freeze of settlement construction, at least for a few months, including in East Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu hinted on Wednesday that he was ready to engage instead in "proximity" talks with the Palestinians, via American mediation. "In the Middle East it sometimes takes three to tango, or at least to start to tango," Mr. Netanyahu told an audience at the annual Herzliya Conference. "Afterwards," he said, "I assume we can go on to dance as a couple." The Palestinians have not yet stated whether they are ready for indirect talks. Israel-Syria war causes extinction Joshi 2000 [Sharad. Post-Doctoral Fellow @ the Center for Non-Proliferation. "Israel's Nuclear Policy: A Cost-Benefit Analysis" Strategic Analysis: A Monthly Journal of the IDSA, Vol XXII, No 12. 2000, EBSCO//MGW-JV] Arab WMD Development A common argument is that the Israeli nuclear capability has led to the pursuit of WMD and ballistic missiles by some of the Arab states and Iran. This is only partially correct. The fact is that the Arab states have pursued such capabilities to counter each other also. The region's extraordinary complexity, the numerous actors, and the sources of conflict also have to be considered. 15 The resulting divisions in the Arab world have ensured that the chances of a combined Arab attack are low. The Syrian chemical arsenal should be considered, to a certain extent, as being a direct response to Israeli nuclear power, though it has other WMD arsenals to fear, such as Iraq's. In Syrian strategic thinking, chemical weapons are designed to offset Israel's conventional superiority in the event of war. A major Israeli concern is—a massive Syrian surprise attack with conventional forces on the Golan Heights. Syria possesses missiles such as the Scud-C (range 500 km) and the Scud-B (range 280 km) and also chemical arsenals for them like the powerful nerve agent VX. 16 These missiles armed with chemical warheads could strike airfields and mobilisation points, incapacitating these areas. With Israel denied air superiority, Syria could retake the Golan Heights. A simultaneous Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and the Gaza strip along with other Arab states attacking would make the situation particularly grave. Such a scenario would be ripe for a nuclear Armageddon. Further, both Iraq and Iran are known to possess vast quantities of WMD. In case of Iraq, UNSCOM has already shown how elaborate the Iraqi chemical and biological weapons programme was, till the Gulf war. The deadliness of the arsenal had already been established, when Iraq used chemical weapons against its Kurdish population in the late 80s. The activities of UNSCOM in the past eight years notwithstanding, the technical knowhow is still present, and Iraq is capable of recreating its lethal arsenal. The important thing to understand here is that, till the time Israel maintains its nuclear arsenal, and the opacity surrounding it, the Arab states and Iran would claim justification for their own WMD stock. Further, Israel's nuclear arsenal might deter an Arab chemical attack but the danger of creating a linkage between the two categories of weapons is that the nuclear threshold is lowered to scenarios that may not be ‘last resort' situations. Danger of Irrational Use A fear expressed regarding the proliferation of nuclear weapons is that they could fall into the hands of irrational decision-makers in the Middle East, especially in a scenario where an Arab state might acquire nuclear weapons. There is belief that in case an Arab state achieves such a status, then in a confrontational situation, theories of deterrence, MAD may not work. One side assuming the inevitability of war may decide to launch a pre-emptive strike at the other's nuclear forces. On the other hand, an equally convincing argument would be that the high price as a consequence of mistakes in a nuclear weapons scenario, can also force parties to reconsider their course of action, and can also lead to pull backs, in spite of a loss of face. The US had withdrawn from the Bay of Pigs, likewise the Soviet Union withdrew their missiles from Cuba. 17 Risk of Actual Use The introduction of nuclear weapons in an already hostile region could increase the possibility of actual use of nuclear weapons in a tense situation. The continuous hostility of varying levels over the past five decades, might lead to the inclusion of nuclear and other WMD in existing "war-fighting" doctrines. 18 If the states in the region see WMD simply as weapons to be used in a conflict, the probability of these weapons being used increases drastically. The Arabs have tried to counter Israel's nuclear superiority, by developing a sizeable chemical and biological weapons arsenal. The greater the number of powers in a region possessing WMD, the greater the risk of escalation. Wars in history have more often than not been limited; but the main reason for this has been constraints due to resources and technological know-how. Instances are very rare of a war being limited due to considerations of the consequences of existing capabilities. 19 The indiscriminate effect of Weapons of Mass Destruction makes it very difficult to keep a war involving such weapons, limited. Future leaders may have less respect for the nuclear taboo, and may refuse to see the nuclear bomb as only a last resort, thereby increasing the risk. On the other hand, it could also be argued that development of battlefield weapons would not have the cataclysmic effects of bombing population centers. Nuclear Deterrence Against Terrorists Many of the threats that Israel has faced have not been influenced by the fact that it is a nuclear power. Atomic weapons cannot deter guerrilla attacks and they also cannot help in civil wars like the one Israel was involved in Lebanon. It could thus be argued that in the last 25 years, though there have been no conventional wars, Israel has still been forced into various other conflicts, which have threatened its security, and its atomic arsenal has been ineffectual. The Israeli nuclear doctrine is still based on the last resort option, though there have been moves towards battlefield nuclear capability also. But in situations that are less than last resort, deterrence has not really worked, even after taking into account any battlefield strategies that Israel might have developed. Further weakening of the deterrent has taken place as Israel is in control of Arab lands. This weakening has occurred as Israel's occupation is not just military but also national, ideological and territorial. The goal of conflict resolution is not helped by Israel's nuclear arsenal. The Pre-Emptive Strike Option In 1981, Israel successfully bombed Iraq's Osirak reactor. But in its goal of denying nuclear capability to anyone else in the Middle East, it can no longer attempt such pre-emptive air strikes. The most likely candidates to threaten Israel are Iran (which recently tested its Shahab-3 long range missile), Syria, and to a lesser degree, Iraq. At least the first two have undertaken measures like concealment, dispersion, hardening and installation of air defence equipment to prevent any Israeli air strikes. Since pre-emption is ruled out, therefore Israel may be forced to adopt a ‘launch on warning' posture as it does not have the luxury of waiting to assess the damage from a first strike before responding. In turn Iran, Iraq or Syria, lacking secure second strike forces of their own would be under great pressure to launch their missiles first—another first strike posture. There could thus be a hair trigger alert scenario. The possibility of nuclear war breaking out by accident or design would be great and would place intolerable strain on Israel's freedom of military movement and civilian morale. Second is Iran and North Korea Iran Has Nuclear Weapons Dareni 6-2-11 – Ali Akbar Dareini, Associate Press writer, "Iran: Missile progress shows sanctions futile," http://news.yahoo.com... Iran's defense minister claimed Saturday that the country's missile progress shows that U.N. sanctions are ineffective and won't stop Tehran's defense programs. The statement by Gen. Ahmad Vahidi comes during 10 days of war games in Iran's latest show of military might and displays what Tehran claims is growing self-sufficiency in military and other technologies. Vahidi said Iran's missile program is "indigenous" and has no reliance on foreign countries to meet its defense requirements. Iran is under four sets of U.N. sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel or atomic weapons. Last week, Iran unveiled underground missile silos for the first time, making Iran's arsenal less vulnerable to any possible attack. Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the country's most powerful military force, said the Islamic Republic has the ability to produce missiles with a greater range than those currently in its arsenal, but doesn't need to do so. The upgraded version of Iran's Shahab-3 and Sajjil-2 missiles already can travel up to 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers) — putting Israel, U.S. bases in the Gulf region and parts Europe within reach. "The war games ... show Iran's great capability in designing, producing and using various kinds of missiles based on domestic knowledge. This showed that the sanctions imposed had no effect on Iran's missile program," Vahidi said in comments posted on sepahnews.com, the Guard's official website. Iran has periodically boasted of what it calls homegrown advances in technological sectors such as its satellite program and other scientific work. And Iran has all intention to attack the US Timmerman 08 (Kenneth R. Timmerman, Staff Writer, "U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.", July 29th 2008, http://www.newsmax.com...) Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned. In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community "doesn't have a story" to explain the recent Iranian tests. And Iran is Proliferating Bard '11 (Dr. Mitchell Bard, Executive Director of the nonprofit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, Policy Analyst, "Potential Threats to Israel: Iran", June 27th, 2011, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org...) If Iran has nuclear weapons it can also pose an indirect threat by sharing the technology or an actual weapon with other Muslim countries or terrorists. Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows the peaceful pursuit of nuclear technology, including uranium mining and enrichment, under oversight by the IAEA, but Ahmadinejad raised worldwide concern about nuclear proliferation when he told the UN General Assembly in September 2005, " Iran is ready to transfer nuclear know-how to the Islamic countries due to their need." Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, repeated the proliferation threat several months later when he told the president of Sudan, "Iran's nuclear capability is one example of various scientific capabilities in the country....The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge and technology of its scientists." If Iran succeeds in getting a bomb, it will also create a potential arms race as Arab states see the need to obtain weapons to deter the Iranians. In fact, since 2006, 12 Middle East countries (Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, and the Gulf Cooperation Council) have either announced plans to explore atomic energy or signed nuclear cooperation agreements. All say they are only interested in peaceful uses of nuclear technology, but the fear is that some or all may follow the Iranian example and work toward building a bomb. North Korea Has Nuclear Weapons Bolton 7-14-2011 – John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, "North Korea edges toward next nuke test," http://www.washingtontimes.com... You wouldn't know it from the Obama administration, but North Korea's global threat continues to metastasize. South Korea recently concluded that extensive cyber-attacks against civilian and military targets in the South emanated from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Following China's lead in information warfare, the North is creating yet another asymmetric military capability it can deploy against its adversaries and also peddle for hard currency to other rogue states and terrorists. Although Pyongyang limited its targeting of this particular sortie to South Korea, the potential cyberwarfare battlefield is global and includes the United States, which already is the subject of extensive cyberprobing, exploitation and espionage by China. For a country perennially on the brink of starvation, North Korea's military foray into cyberspace demonstrates its continuing malevolence. The DPRK's nuclear-weapons program has not rested on its laurels, either, with widely observed surface-level preparations for a possible third underground test well under way. The North's development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads is also advancing apace, as Russian missile designer Yuri Solomonov highlighted last month in a Kommersant interview. This is hardly surprisingly given Iran's increasing long-range capabilities, the extensive Tehran-Pyongyang collaboration, and their programs' common base in Soviet-era Scud missile technology. Meanwhile, Pakistan's A.Q. Khan has released documents purportedly showing prior North Korean bribery of senior Islamabad officials to grease the transfer of nuclear or ballistic-missile technology. While their authenticity is disputed, the documents are part of Mr. Khan's continuing campaign to prove he did not act solo in the world's illicit nuclear-weapons bazaar. He long ago admitted supplying North Korea and Iran with critical nuclear technology. Pyongyang's unveiling in November of impressive new uranium-enrichment facilities at Yongbyon and recent construction there show the continuing fruits of Mr. Khan's entrepreneurship. His documents - and the many others he undoubtedly has in a shoebox somewhere - are worth verifying and actually might help Islamabad and Washington work together to repair their fractured relationship and prevent China from exploiting their current differences. Clearly, North Korea's weapons programs are not decelerating even amid intensive preparations for a possible transition of power, following Kim Jong-il's death, to a third member of the communist Kim dynasty. But faced with these challenges, the Obama administration has been not only publicly silent but essentially passive both diplomatically and intellectually. Only the Pentagon and the intelligence community, fortunately still implementing the Proliferation Security Initiative, have done much beyond noting pro forma that the troublemaking DPRK is still at it. And North Korea Is Proliferating Taylor 06 Jessica, correspondent, United Press International; "Expert Debate Space-Based Missile Defense Assets" United Press International; http://www.spacewar.com... |Cramer The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank, has issued a study saying the implementation of plans for space missile defense is critical for U.S. national security and an effective system against at least some intercontinental ballistic missiles from so-called rogue states should be in place no later than 2010. "The absence of a space strategy is a gap in national security," said Robert Pfaltzgraff, president of the IFPA, during a roundtable on the new report hosted by the American Foreign Policy Council, a small conservative Washington think tank, last Friday on Capitol Hill. "Only space can give us a global missile defense." The threat is even more immediate, many fear, following several missile tests on July 4 by North Korea. While their long range Taepodong-2 ICBM was unsuccessful, several short range No Dong missiles appeared to work effectively in the tests. One of North Korea's main exports is weapons, and Pfaltzgraff said the United States should be increasingly concerned that these short range missiles could end up in the hands of terrorists aiming to launch them from domestic shores. The IFPA analysts claimed that U.S. ballistic missile defense must be revaluated in light of these developments. However, other analysts said the Bush administration has failed so far in adequately developing its BMD programs. And proliferation threatens regional stability Levinger 6 – Josh Levinger, Research Assistant with the Center for Future Civic Media at MIT, Fall 2006, "Ballistic Missile Proliferation Among the "Axis of Evil": Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Pakistan," http://www.levinger.net... The real threat posed by ballistic missile proliferation is to regional stability. Introducing long range missiles and nuclear warheads into inflamed regions such as the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and East Asia, opens the possibility for accidental launch and rapid escalation. While the United States and the Soviet Union stared each other down at the nuclear threshold for decades, other adversaries may not have as advanced a military decision process, or the experience of living with the threat of total annihilation. The future of missile proliferation looks bleak, with the impending disintegra- tion of the NPT and the circumvention of the MTCR. On the other hand, the foreign market for budding missile designers appears to be booming. Perhaps there are job of- fers waiting for this graduating senior in Pyongyang, Tehran or Islamabad. This causes nuclear war Roberto L. Delgado 5, Colonel - United States Army, "WHAT SHOULD BE THE UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARDS BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE FOR NORTHEAST ASIA?", U.S. Army War College, 3-18, http://www.dtic.mil... The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by rogue nations is an issue that jeopardizes the security of our nation, people, deployed military forces, friends, and allies. Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the world has become more unpredictable and volatile rather than predictable and peaceful. The instability in some countries and regions of the world has increased the interest of insurgents and extremists in obtaining WMD and the means to deliver them, including ballistic missiles, in order to coerce or topple the governments within their countries. To many nations and countries, ballistic missiles are an inexpensive and effective means to overcome an adversary's air defense system without having to use manned aircraft, lose trained personnel, and damage costly aircrafts. Missiles also require less maintenance, training, and logistics than manned aircraft. Ballistic and cruise missiles can also be armed with conventional or non-conventional warheads; even the limited use of these weapons could be devastating to any country or nation and their people. The United States, as the only global power, is a prime target for these players as they seek to destabilize the United States and its interests abroad through either the employment or threat of employment of WMD. Ballistic missiles, with the capability to deliver nuclear, biological, and chemical war heads cause significant anxiety in the United States and abroad. This causes extinction. Utgoff 02 — Victor A. Utgoff, Deputy Director of the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses and senior member of the National Security Council Staff, 2002 ("Proliferation, missile defence and American ambitions," Survival, Volume 44, Number 2, June, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via EBSCOhost Electronic Journals Service, p. 90) In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot-outs will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed toward a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear 'six-shooters' on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations. Third is an Indo-Pak War India and Pakistan Relations are on brink now Ignatius 2011 (David, Staff writer for Washington Times, India and Pakistan on the Brink,http://www.washingtonpost.com..., 1/14/2011,AS) Everything is going right these days for India, except for one big problem: It is living next to a Pakistan that is coming apart politically, and Indian leaders insist with a tone of resignation that there's nothing they can do about it. Starting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, top Indian officials know that their booming democracy is endangered by the growing chaos across the border. They say that they're willing to revive back-channel negotiations with Islamabad to resolve the long-festering problem of Kashmir. They favor confidence-building measures to reduce the risk of war between these two nuclear-armed nations. And then, in the next breath, Indian officials insist that such positive steps won't make any difference. The Pakistani military doesn't want any reduction in tensions, they argue. The civilian government is crumbling and incapable of making a deal. Even Singh, long an advocate of better relations with Pakistan, is said to have concluded that hopes for better relations are "wishful thinking." A few hundred miles away in Islamabad, you'd hear the same bleak message from Pakistani military and political leaders. Yes, they know that the immediate threat to Pakistan is from Islamic militants, not India. Yes, they know that restoring a back-channel dialogue with New Delhi might ease tensions. But no, they don't see any way to step back from the brink. The Indians, in their view, are conspiring to undermine Pakistan. Welcome to the world's most dangerous zero-sum game. The sad fact is that India and Pakistan, separated at birth in 1947, are locked in what seems like a blood feud. You hear the same language of suspicion in prosperous New Delhi that you do in embattled Islamabad. I spent three days here talking with Indian leaders as part of a dialogue sponsored by the Aspen Strategy Group and the Confederation of Indian Industry. Discussing the India-Pakistan dispute with these officials reminded me of the fable of Tantalus, whose punishment by the gods was that food and drink were always just out of reach. A rapprochement between India and Pakistan is that elusive: You can imagine what the reduction of tensions would look like but you can't grasp it. This is a problem that might seem ripe for U.S. mediation. Washington has close ties with both countries, after all, and it could act as an honest broker on issues such as Kashmir, which is ruled by India but claimed by both countries. But Indians say that American intervention could just make matters worse - poisoning public opinion against any deal that emerged. U.S. diplomats are walking on eggshells: The Kashmir problem is so sensitive that American officials sometimes refer to it as "the K word," as if the very subject were unmentionable. Washington has gently encouraged dialogue between the two countries, but two meetings last year between their foreign ministers collapsed amid mutual recriminations. They will have another chance next month at a regional gathering in Bhutan, but nobody seems very hopeful. The Indians watch Pakistan's political instability with grim resignation. The root problem, they argue, is that the Pakistani military is unwilling to sever its links with Islamic terrorists. Until the Pakistanis break this insurgency, they will be at its mercy. Dialogue with India won't make any difference, they insist. "The last thing we want to see is Pakistan slide into instability," says one top Indian official, but he cautions that there is little that India or America can do. "It's Pakistan's internal problem. And that, we can't fix." As India celebrates its own economic success, there is a slight tone of South Asian schadenfreude about Pakistan's troubles. "There is one school of thought that says, 'If they [the Pakistanis] are committing suicide, then you don't have to murder them,'" the top official concedes. "But the consequences of that are horrible." I came away from these discussions feeling that Indian leaders are being shortsighted: If Pakistan descends further into violence and chaos, India will suffer from the fallout. And with these two bitter rivals, there is always the risk of nuclear war. If I were a newly prosperous Indian, I'd want to help my ailing neighbor as a matter of self-protection. But try making that argument to Indian officials. "You have to recognize that some problems can't be solved," counsels one prominent Indian. Officials here don't want American mediation, and they think outreach to Pakistan won't do any good. Meanwhile, the South Asian tinderbox keeps on getting hotter. That nuclear war would escalate rapidly Sethi 09 (Manpreet, PHD in International Studies, December 2009, NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN SECOND TIER NUCLEAR WEAPON STATES: A CASE STUDY OF INDIA, Dr. Manpreet Sethi is Fellow, International Relations at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi. She is also Senior Fellow, Centre for Air Power Studies, where she heads the Nuclear Security project. She completed her Ph. D from School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 1997 and was on the research faculty of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi from 1997-2001. http://www.csh-delhi.com..., AM) The first factor that is deemed to heighten nuclear dangers in the case of the two dyads under study is geographical proximity and a history of conflict. Located next to one another and sharing disputed boundaries, it is feared that any major breakout of conventional hostilities between India-Pakistan or India-China could increase the pressures for a pre-emptive strike or a nuclear attack being launched without proper confirmation. Moreover, since the missile flight times would only be between 8-13 minutes for missile ranges of 600-2000 kms, it would not allow either side to even use the hotline (assuming these were functional) to confirm the veracity (deliberate or accidental) or nature (conventional or nuclear) of launch. Haunted by the thought that the country that waited to use its nuclear assets might end up losing them to a disarming first strike would cause near immediate nuclear retaliation engulfing the nations in a mindless nuclear exchange. Indo-Pak war causes nuclear Armageddon Bidwai 08 [Praful Jouranlist and political analyst International The News, 12-26-08, http://www.thenews.com.pk...] Any India-Pakistan conflict is liable to escalate into nuclear war. In Nuclear Armageddon, there are no winners—only mega-deaths. Even a limited nuclear exchange will kill millions of civilians in both countries. The economic and environmental damage will set us back by decades. A single Hiroshima/Nagasaki-type bomb will kill 8 to 20 lakh people in a big city. India and Pakistan both have scores of such bombs, indeed even more powerful ones. In every conceivable war-gaming scenario—and many credible ones exist —, an India-Pakistan conflict has one inevitable outcome: full-scale war, in which Pakistan won't hesitate to use nuclear weapons if it fears loss of territory. This will invite nuclear retaliation from India, with consequences too horrifying even to contemplate. And Note that even small threats pose great risk IFPA 06 – Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship and the Twenty-First Century, 2007 report, Washington D.C., August 28, 2006 Twenty-first century threats to the United States, its de- ployed forces, and its friends and allies differ fundamental- ly from those of the Cold War. An unprecedented number of international actors have now acquired – or are seeking to acquire – missiles. These include not only states, but also non-state groups interested in obtaining missiles with nucle- ar or other payloads. The spectrum encompasses the missile arsenals already in the hands of Russia and China, as well as the emerging arsenals of a number of hostile states. The character of this threat has also changed. Unlike the Soviet Union, these newer missile possessors do not attempt to match U.S. systems, either in quality or in quantity. In- stead, their missiles are designed to inflict major devastation without necessarily possessing the accuracy associated with the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals of the Cold War. The warning time that the United States might have before the deployment of such capabilities by a hostile state, or even a terrorist actor, is eroding as a result of several factors, including the continued proliferation and widespread availability of technologies to build missiles and the resulting possibility that an entire system might be purchased out- right. Would-be possessors do not have to engage in the pro- tracted process of designing and building a missile. They could purchase and assemble components, reverse-engineer a missile after having purchased a prototype, or immediately acquire a number of assembled missiles. Even missiles that are primitive by U.S. standards might suffice for a rogue state or terrorist organization seeking to inflict extensive damage upon the United States. As the Rumsfeld Commission point- ed out in its 1998 report: Under some plausible scenarios – including re-bas- ing or transfer of operational missiles, sea- and air- launch options, and shortened development pro- grams that might include testing in a third country – or some combination of these – the United States might well have little or no warning before operational deployment. Contention 3 is Solvency: Brilliant Pebbles is ready now Pfaltzgraf and Van Cleave, 07 (Dr. Robert L. Pfaltzgraf, Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Security Studies The Fletcher School, Tufts University and President Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and Dr. William R. Van Cleave, Professor Emeritus Department of Defense and Strategic Studies Missouri State University. Independent Working Group, "Missile Defense, The Space Relationship, and the 21st Century", 2007, http://www.ifpa.org..., Manchester) A space-based KEI is designed to hit a ballistic missile in its boost phase, when the warhead(s) has not yet separated from the missile and is most vulnerable, as well as in the midcourse and high-terminal phases. Kinetic kill vehicles would be placed in low-earth orbit, where they would remain until a hostile missile launch was detected. For intercepts in the boost or terminal phases, a kinetic kill vehicle would accelerate out of orbit toward the missile which would be destroyed by direct impact. Midcourse intercepts would occur in space. Over a decade ago, the United States had developed technology for light-weight propulsion units, sensors, computers, and other components of an advanced kill vehicle. This concept, Brilliant Pebbles, consisted of a constellation of about 1000 satellites that combined its own early-warning and tracking capability with high maneuverability to engage attacking ballistic missiles in all phases of their flight trajectory. Each pebble was designed to identify the nature of the attack, which might include up to 200 ballistic missiles; and since it knew its own location and that of all other pebbles, each could calculate an optimum attack strategy from its own perspective and execute an intercept maneuver, while simultaneously informing the other pebbles of its action. This operational concept enabled a robustly viable, testable, operational capability that survived numerous scientific and engineering peer reviews in the 1989-90 time period, including by some groups that were hostile to the idea of missile defense in general, and space-based defenses But the technology was clearly established, supporting the Pentagon's approved acquisition plan that each of the pebbles would operate autonomously because each carried the equivalent of a Cray-1 computer and could do its own calculations for trajectory and targeting analysis. Each also had its own navigation sensors, allowing it to determine its location and the location of its neighbors – as well as to detect and track the target ballistic missiles and calculate a good approximation of what its neighbors saw.12 These pebbles would act as sensor platforms until all or part of the constellation was authorized to intercept hostile missiles. In fact, their infrared sensors provided the warning and tracking capability needed to alert the Brilliant Pebbles constellation enabling it to intercept ballistic missiles in the boost and subsequent phases of flight. The constellation would provide a redundant, and for some applications, superior capability than the geosynchronous Defense Support Program satellites used since the early 1970s as a key element of the U.S. Early Warning and Tactical Assessment system. Their small size, meanwhile, made them difficult to target, while their relatively low cost made them easy to replace. The autonomy of Brilliant Pebbles in detecting launch and undertaking interception complicated the use of countermeasures against their command and control. And because of the number of Brilliant Pebbles deployed in space, these defenses would have multiple opportunities for interception, thus increasing their chances of a successful intercept in either the boost or midcourse phases, or even high in the earth's atmosphere during reentry in the terminal phase. These characteristics stand in contrast to the current GMD interceptors which, in the limited numbers presently planned, may not provide more than one independent intercept opportunity. Although there has been no formal program to develop the key technologies further, advances in the commercial, civil and other defense sectors over the past decade will now permit even lighter mass, lower cost, and higher performance than would have been achieved by the 1990-era Brilliant Pebbles technology base. Thus, lighter weight and smarter components can now empower a Brilliant Pebbles interceptor with greater acceleration/velocity making possible boost-phase intercept of even short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. If the necessary investments are made to upgrade Brilliant Pebbles- type technology for the twenty-first century, boost-phase intercept from space will also be feasible against high acceleration ICBMs that would have exceeded the capabilities of the 1990 Brilliant Pebbles.13 And as noted above, the same sensor and kill-vehicle technology can be used for ground- and sea-based interceptors – notably on the VLS-compatible, high-velocity Navy SM-3 interceptor. Reviving and building on the Brilliant Pebbles concept and related technologies is essential for the deployment of effective SBIs, as well as improved interceptors for use in other basing modes, especially at sea. To move forward the United States must identify and exploit programs that were under development more than a decade ago. In other words, we should "go back to the future" as the point of departure for the increasingly robust missile defense that will be needed beyond what was initially planned for deployment in 2004-2005. Our engineers did it before, and can do it again to defeat the growing ballistic missile threat. One feasible option for testing and initial deployment of a revived space-based interceptor system based on Brilliant Pebbles would be to deploy, say, 40 to 120 interceptors for a space-system test bed analogous to the ground- and sea-based test beds. After demonstrating feasibility by testing against missiles of all ranges in all possible phases of their flight, this test bed would have a limited capability and could be expanded to become a fully capable defensive constellation. Based on the fully approved Defense Acquisition Board plan from 1991, an SBI system with as many as 1000 Brilliant Pebbles could be developed, tested, deployed and operated for twenty years with a low-to-moderate risk, event-driven acquisition program for $11 billion in 1990 dollars, or $16 billion when inflated to 2005 dollars. Brilliant Pebbles solves for all missile war – even scuds Cooper '02 Henry F Cooper, Director, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization July 10, 1990 - January 20, 1993 (http://www.missilethreat.com...) Smart Rocks was upgraded in 1988 and renamed "Brilliant Pebbles." In addition to eliminating incoming nuclear warheads, each component of the 4,000-satellite constellation was designed to protect U.S. space-based assets, attack its Soviet counterparts, or sacrifice itself in a one-time spy mission. The interceptor satellites would be controlled from the ground, but would also have the ability to communicate among themselves and attack their targets autonomously. At a projected cost of $11 billion for the first 1,000 interceptors, Brilliant Pebbles presented a cost-efficient means of countering the Soviet menace. In 1991, following several years of inner turmoil, the Soviet Union imploded. Despite the end of the Cold War, Brilliant Pebbles remained an essential part of the U.S. missile defense architecture. That same year, computer simulations demonstrated that, if it had been deployed during the Persian Gulf War, Brilliant Pebbles would have shot down every Scud missile launched by Saddam Hussein, including the salvo attack on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Following the Middle East crisis, Brilliant Pebbles was enhanced to give its interceptors the ability to swoop down into the atmosphere, thus improving its overall effectiveness against Scuds and cruise missiles.