A2 K

Perm do both - The alternatives shift in epistemology cant create political

change they obscure the important role that institutions play in
determining the value of ideas.
Kitchen 10 [Nicholas Kitchen, Deputy Director of the LSE IDEAS US International Affairs Program,
Systemic pressures and domestic ideas: a neoclassical realist model of grand strategy formation, Review
of International Studies 36(1): pg. 117-143]//JIH
**edited for ableist language

Fundamentally the
state is made up of individuals. Individuals construct systems, institutions and
bureaucracies; individuals lead and follow; individuals make decisions. On what basis do individuals decide
which ideas to hold? The first is the quality of the idea itself its internal coherence, its congruence with known realities. The second
key to success resides in the speaker himself his intellectual status, his eloquence of advocacy. Thus the
power of an idea to
persuade others at any one moment in history resides both in itself, and in the power of those who
hold it. The causal effect of ideas on policies has tended to be displaced onto the political effects
of individuals in IR theory, so that the persuasiveness of ideas is assumed rather than examined,
and treated as constant.77 It is however, important to recognise that some ideas are better than
others, and are more likely to progress into the policymaking arena, where institutional factors
may then come into play. This is not to deny the crucial role of forces exogenous to them that push certain ideas to heart of
policymaking. Whilst the degree to which ideas generate popular support may provide them with power
mediated through public opinion, ideas can take a shortcut to policy success if they have the
backing of individuals and institutions that themselves have power. The character of these couriers of ideas
that may be as important, if not more so, than anything intrinsic to the idea itself.78 At the individual level then,
neoclassical realism understands that the ideas held by powerful actors within the state matter.
Whilst the intrinsic power of a particular idea makes its progress into such positions more likely,
the ideas that will impact most upon foreign policy are those held by those in decision-making
positions in the state and those who directly advise them. Thus as Mead notes, It matters who the President is. If
Theodore Roosevelt and not Woodrow Wilson had been President when World War I broke out, American and world history might
have taken a very different turn.79 The second location at which ideas may impact at the unit level occurs
when individuals with shared ideas coalesce into groups, organisations, and common practices
within the state to form institutions that operate in both formal and informal sectors of the
policymaking process. The formation of institutions reflects the fact that ideas that are somehow
embedded in particular structures are possessed of greater power. Institutions can act as couriers
for ideas in three ways .80 Epistemic communities of experts have the policy-relevant knowledge
to exert influence on the positions adopted by a wide range of actors. The extent of the influence of such
groups is dependent on their ability to occupy influential positions within bureaucracies from where they may consolidate
their power, thereby institutionalising the influence of the community.81 However, their ability to
infiltrate bureaucratic posts will depend at least in part on the receptiveness of the existing
bureaucratic order to their ideas.82 A second means by which institutions act as couriers is by the
encasing of ideas in formal rules and procedures at the creation of the institution itself. Once they
have become embedded in this way, those ideas with which the institution was founded can continue to
influence policy even though the interests or ideas of their creators may have changed. Thus, when
institutions intervene, the impact of ideas can be prolonged for decades or even generations. 83 In
both of these ways, ideas acquire force when they find organizational means of expression. 84
The third way in which ideas can impact is through the structural arrangements institutions create.
These structures set up road-blocks and throughroutes which determine the ease with which ideas
can gain access to the policy process. Indeed, the structure of the institutional framework may
determine the political and administrative viability of particular ideas , that is, their ability to appeal to
current conditions. Institutional structure therefore ensures that policymakers only have access to a
limited set of ideas, whether those are percolated up to them or searched for by them. 85 In this way,
the ideas that form what some refer to as strategic culture may provide a reliable guide to a
states likely reaction to shifts in the structure of the international system. 86 Underlying both
individuals and institutions are the ideas contained in the broader cultural context within which
the state is located. Ideas that are embedded in social norms, patterns of discourse and collective
identities become accepted, instinctual parts of the social world and are experienced as part of a
natural objective reality.87 In this way cultural variables subconsciously set the limits and terms of
debate for both individuals and institutions, and so have a profound effect on the strategic
behaviour of states.88 Mediated through institutions and individuals who are [ignore] blinded to
potential alternatives, ideas embedded in national culture therefore have the potential to explain
why some states act contrary to the structural imperatives of the international system .89 The
power of ideas therefore rests on the ability of believers in ideas to alter the costs and benefits
facing those who are in a position to promote or hinder the policies that the ideas demand. 90 In
the process of foreign policy engineering, organisations and the ideas they espouse or represent
vie with one another for dominance and autonomy.91 Decisions taken reflect the process of
formulating the choices to be presented.92 Throughout the process of making foreign policy
powerful ideas whether that power resides in their couriers or is internal to the ideas themselves
are prevailing over weaker ideas.93
Ext and cross apply the Relations advantage to the K flow
as reason to do the plan regardless of the Kritik, the
Gasana 15 card from the 1AC says that US Soft
Power is low and needs help our 1AC solves for Soft
Power.

US hegemony is on balance positiveother countries are

comparatively worse
Keck 14 (Zachary, Deputy Editor of e-International Relations and has interned at the Center for a New American Security and in the U.S.
Congress, where he worked on defense issues, 1-24-14, Americas Relative Decline: Should We Panic?, The Diplomat,
http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/americas-relative-decline-should-we-panic/, amp)
Still, on balance, the U.S. has been a positive force in the world, especially for a
unipolar power. Certainly, its hard to imagine many other countries acting as
benignly if they possessed the amount of relative power America had at the end
of the Cold War. Indeed, the British were not nearly as powerful as the U.S. in the
19th Century and they incorporated most of the globe in their colonial empire .
Even when it had to contend with another superpower, Russia occupied half a
continent by brutally suppressing its populace. Had the U.S. collapsed and the
Soviet Union emerged as the Cold War victor, Western Europe would likely be
speaking Russian by now. Its difficult to imagine China defending a rule-based,
open international order if it were a unipolar power, much less making an effort
to uphold a minimum level of human rights in the world.

Cross apply this argument to all of their Heg Bad impacts

even though the US Heg causes negative impacts on
balance it is better than Russia or China period if
they are going to do Heg bad as reason not to do a
plan they should have to defend Russia or China
because that is what the world will turn into if we
don't do the plan it will be either one of those
powers rising.

US heg is comparatively the most ethicalmilitary

deployment is key to preventing genocide and
ensuring global libertyemperics of history are on
our side
Talbot 02 [Salon Founder & historian, David, experienced journalist; Salon is one of the internets leading news sites, 1/3/2, Salon, The
making of a hawk, http://www.salon.com/2002/01/03/hawk/, accessed 7/8/14, AC]
From the Gulf War on, the hawks have been on the right side in all the
major debates about U.S. intervention in the worlds troubles. The
application of American military power to drive back Saddam Husseins
invasion of Kuwait, stop Slobodan Milosevics genocidal campaigns in the
Balkans, and destroy the terrorist occupation of Afghanistan has not just
protected U.S. interests, it has demonstrably made the world safer and more
civilized. Because of the U.S.-led allied victory in the Persian Gulf, Saddam
the most blood-stained and dangerous dictator in power today was blocked from
completing a nuclear bomb, taking control of 60 percent of the worlds oil
resources and using his fearsome arsenal (including biological and chemical
weapons) to consolidate Iraqs position as the Middle Easts reigning force.
Because of the U.S.-led air war against Milosevic, the most ruthless ethnic
cleansing program since the Holocaust was finally thwarted first in Bosnia
and then in Kosovo and the repulsive tyrant is now behind bars in the Hague.
And in Afghanistan, the apocalyptic master plan of the al-Qaida terror
network was shattered by Americas devastatingly accurate bombing
campaign, along with the medieval theocracy that had thrown a cloak of
darkness over the country. These demonstrations of Americas awesome
firepower were clearly on the right side of history. In fact, the countrys
greatest foreign policy disasters during this period occurred because the
U.S. government failed to assert its power : when President George H. W. Bush aborted
Operation Desert Storm before it could reach Baghdad and finish off Saddam (whose army had only two
weeks of bullets left) and when he failed to draw a line against Milosevics bloody
plans for a greater Serbia; and when President Bill Clinton looked the other
way while a genocidal rampage took the lives of a million people in Rwanda
and when he failed to fully mobilize the country against terrorism after the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing and the later attacks on American targets abroad a failure that extended through the first eight
months of Bush II.

Declinist rhetoric bad now decline now their arg risks

self-fulfilling prophecy
Kagan, Brookings Institute Senior Fellow, 2012
[Robert, Foreign Relations Council Member, and Foreign Policy Advisor, 1-1-12, Brookings Institute, Not Fade Away: Against the Myth of
American Decline, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/01/17-us-power-kagan, accessed: 7-6-14, JY]

But there is a danger. It is that in the meantime, while the nation continues to
struggle, Americans may convince themselves that decline is indeed
inevitable, or that the United States can take a time-out from its global
responsibilities while it gets its own house in order. To many Americans, accepting
decline may provide a welcome escape from the moral and material burdens that have
weighed on them since World War II. Many may unconsciously yearn to return to the
way things were in 1900, when the United States was rich, powerful, and not responsible
for world order. The underlying assumption of such a course is that the
present world order will more or less persist without American power , or
at least with much less of it; or that others can pick up the slack; or simply that the
benefits of the world order are permanent and require no special exertion by anyone.
Unfortunately, the present world orderwith its widespread freedoms,
its general prosperity, and its absence of great power conflictis as
fragile as it is unique. Preserving it has been a struggle in every decade ,
and will remain a struggle in the decades to come. Preserving the present world
order requires constant American leadership and constant American
commitment. In the end, the decision is in the hands of Americans.
Decline, as Charles Krauthammer has observed, is a choice. It is not an
inevitable fateat least not yet. Empires and great powers rise and fall,
and the only question is when. But the when does matter. Whether the
United States begins to decline over the next two decades or not for
another two centuries will matter a great deal, both to Americans and
to the nature of the world they live in.

Multipolarity leads to conflict

Lundestad and Jakobsen, 13Associate Professor of Philosophy at Norges Arktiske Universitet (UiT),
**Ph.D., Statistics
(Eirik and Tor, 2-5-13, A Unipolar World: Systems and Wars in Three Different Military Eras, Popular Social Science,
http://www.popularsocialscience.com/2013/02/05/a-unipolar-world-systems-and-wars-in-three-different-military-eras/, amp)
A system of multipolarity increases rivalry in world politics , the reason being that many
states of similar strength compete for power and influence. These states are
often uncertain of other states intentions, which increases the probability of
military action. Also, the power balance in this type of system is changing
constantly, as a result of changing alliances. Multipolarity denotes the fundamental
power structure in an international system dominated by several large powers, and is
characterized by antagonism between these. What we know as the classical era
of power balance came as a result of planned big power politics . The Napoleonic
Wars had led the great powers desiring to prevent similar events taking place in
the future. After the defeat of France, the Congress of Vienna determined that five
states should dominate world politics together, namely Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, France, and Austria-Hungary.
This power-sharing functioned well for 40 years, until other powers came into play and
try to dominate politics. The instability of this system became manifest during
the Crimean War (185356) when Russia invaded the Ottoman Empire and Britain and
France joined forces to counter the Russians. Yet, the hardest blow to peace came with
German power ambitions which ended in the First World War. This marked the end of Austria-Hungary. Finally, the
Second World War can be described as the coup de grce for the multipolar
system. This became the end of the European golden age. The end of multipolarity meant that a new
challenger was to enter world power politics. Together with the Soviet Union, the United States was to dominate the global arena for the next
half century
 A2 Bilateral

Engagement leads to cooperation its inseperable it

cant be defined by empirical levels or types of interaction
Lynch 2 --- a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University,
where he is also director of both the Institute for Middle East Studies and the Middle East Studies Program
(Marc, June 2002, Why Engage? China and the Logic of Communicative Engagement)//ernst
Johnston and Ross define engagement generically as the use of non- coercive means to ameliorate the
non-status quo elements of a rising major powers behavior (1999: 14).11 Engagement strategies
generally intend to induce a rising power to adopt foreign or domestic policies in line with the norms of the
dominant international order. A strategic mode of action might seem to be built in to such a definition,
since it implies the purposive use of a policy by one state to change the behavior of another state. The
The distinction rests
concept of communicative action does not rule out purposive action, however.
upon the orientation of the action and the approach to the other. Whether
strategic or communicative, engagement strategies are intentional policies
aimed at creating more cooperative relations between states, not a
condition defined by empirical levels of interaction or an unintended
byproduct of interaction. Engagement typically involves some combination of
the provision of incentives, the increase of trade and investment, diplomatic
dialogues, the building of interdependencies and the induction of the target
state into international organizations.
R2P:
1. Predictability Pandemics is a popular aff, the neg
should be able to adequately prepare case negative
arguments
2. The negs interpretation overlimits the affs ability to
engage with China. Not allowing cooperation kills aff
ground, and skews the debate to the neg.
3. Eliminating plans that involve cooperation is bad for
topic education because it severely cuts the number
of cases that the aff can run.
The neg cant claim potential abuse as a voter, make them
point out exactly where the abuse is in round.

Foreign aid towards public health systems strengthens U.S. credibility in

negotiating other issuesspills over to long term diplomatic, economic, and
security agreements
Institute of Medicine Committee 09 (Institute of Medicine (U.S.) Committee on the U.S.
Commitment to Global Health, a subpart of a branch of the National Institutes of Health, The US
Commitment to Global Health: Recommendations for the New Administration, National Center for
Biotechnology Information, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK32621/, CL)

Given the importance of health in building stable and prosperous communities , the committee
encourages the new President to make a bold public statement that global health is an
essential component of U.S. foreign policy. This could be confirmed by a major speech early
in his tenure to pledge support to the United States successful investments in this arena and propose new means for pursuing global
health objectives in a committed, cooperative, and nonpartisan manner. In a public address, the President should declare that the
dominant rationale for U.S. government investments in global health is that the
United States has both the
responsibility as a global citizen, and an opportunity as a global leader, to contribute to improved
health around the world. The U.S. government should act in the global interest, recognizing
that long-term diplomatic, economic, and security benefits for the United
States will follow. Priorities should be established on the basis of achieving sustained health gains most effectively, rather
than on short-term strategic or tactical U.S. interests. Government efforts should focus on reducing deaths and disabilities among the
most vulnerable and marginalized populations in regions with the greatest need, in countries that possess the capacity to effectively
use financial and technical resources. Equally important, health resources should not be withheld from people in countries where the
United States takes an unfavorable view of the governing regime. The
U.S. offer of cyclone assistance to Myanmar
in February 2008 was a good example of placing priority on humanitarian needs over politics . In
developing sanctions at the UN and elsewhere, food, medicine, and other health necessities should not be included among the areas of
denied trade or assistance.

U.S.-China cooperation creates dialogue and new areas of multilateralism in

global health security
Huang 16 (Yanzhong Huang, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations, and
professor of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, Chinas Healthcare Sector
and U.S.-China Health Cooperation, April 16, Council on Foreign Relations, CL)

U.S-China cooperation in addressing other health challenges

U.S.-China cooperation, of course, is not confined in R&D for new drugs, vaccines and therapies .
They have cooperated in other areas of global health security. The U.S. and China were two of the
first countries to respond to the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa . Unlike the United States, China has not
publically framed the Ebola outbreak as an international security threat or deployed a large number of military personnel to the
affected countries. Its dispatch of elite PLA units to the affected countries nevertheless suggests that it did view the outbreak as an
willingness to
existential security threat that required a response out of the normal political boundaries. Beijings
implicitly securitize trans-border disease outbreaks has opened a
new area for future collaboration between China and other countries (e.g., the U.S.) under
the Global Health Security Agenda. Indeed, during the crisis Chinese military personnel trained a Liberian
engineering company so that the latter could play an instrumental role in helping the U. S. Army to
construct its treatment center in the country. Similarly, the U.S. Air Force provided large forklifts to help unload the
supplies that China brought to Liberia. On June 24th, 2015, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia
Mathews Burwell, Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong and Minister Li Bin of Chinas National Health and Family Planning
Commission, met to recommit to that partnership in addressing public health emergencies by renewing a
Memorandum of Understanding for the next five years on cooperation to address
emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.
In addition, both governments have established partnerships over basic medical research . In 2008,
National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched a research partnership with China and established NCI Office of China
Cancer Programs. This is followed by the launch of US-China Program for Biomedical Research
Cooperation in 2011, by NIH and National Science Foundation of China. Non-governmental organizations are also involved in
establishing partnership with China. In August 2014, Massachusetts General Hospital was reported to be in early discussions with two
partners to build a full-service hospital with 500 to 1,000 beds in China. Mass. General also signed a framework agreement with a
Chinese hospital specializing in traditional medicine and a Chinese investment firm, allowing the three parties to exchange financial
information and work on developing a definitive agreement to open a facility in an island city close to Hong Kong. In late November
2015, the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) was held in Guangzhou, China. Secretary of Commerce
Penny Pritzker and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman co-led a high-level U.S. government delegation to the high-level
dialogue. The Chinese delegation was led by Vice Premier Wang Yang. For the first time in JCCTs 26 years of history, t he
dialogue featured a one-day healthcare event attended by senior government officials and business
leaders from the healthcare industry in both countries .